Chapter III: Divers Uses of a Hardy Man

In all her late perplexities of disordered mind, unsteady hand, chagrin, disenchantment, and what not, it is strange to observe with what tenacity the Queen kept a daily glance of her eyes for one private affair. It was an affair of the heart, however.

Those who know her best explain that she suffered from a malady of the affections. ‘The Queen my mistress,’ says Des-Essars in _Le Secret des Secrets_, ‘when she had once seen—even for a few moments only—man, woman, or child in whom lay, somewhere, some little attractive quality or action, could never rest until she had him subject utterly to her will. Subject, do I say? The word is weak. The devotion which she must have was so absolute that she never got it, could hardly ever deceive herself that she had got it; and would have spurned it at once if she had, as a grovelling thing not worth a thought. But, just because she never could get it, she never tired of the pursuit of it. To get it she would humble herself, lower herself, make herself ridiculous, cheapen herself; to hold what she had (or thought she had) she would play any part, tell most fibs, do much injustice to herself and the unfortunate capture; to lose after all was to suffer torments of baffled hope and endeavour; and then—to begin again upon some similar panting quest. Sometimes she sickened, but of possession, never of pursuit; and if she did, it was an infallible sign that the thing she had had been too easily caught. Thus she sickened of “Adonis,” not because he had been restive at first, but because he had not been restive until after he was won. She had longed for him, wooed him, wed him in secret. All was going well. If ever her cup of joy had brimmed over, it had been on that night of sudden consummation at Wemyss. That golden, beaded cup! there had seemed a well-spring in it, a feast to be enjoyed for ever in secret, by delicious, hasty snatches. But when they ordered the affair in public, it was stale after the event; and when he—the fool—cried over her the mort o’ the deer (as I know he did, for Sir Adam Gordon heard him), it had been his own death, not hers, that he proclaimed. Sated too soon, she had time to see herself and to shudder at the wry image she made.

‘I know very well,’ he adds, in an afterthought, ‘that, in saying this, I may be taken as an example to point my own thesis; but even if I were, the reflections are just. And the fact is that, although she knew that I loved her, and might, indeed, have loved me, she learned of my manhood too late. I can add also, with a hand on my heart, that she would never have had to pursue me. For I was always at her feet.’

But to return to my matter—this affair of the heart. It most curiously bears out Des-Essars’ analysis to remember that when she released George Gordon from his bonds, and had him once more spilling love at her feet, she was by no means touched. The sanguine young man loved her, she knew it well; but she always felt a little leap of scorn for a man who could own to loving her. It made him seem womanish in her eyes, like Châtelard. And in the very act—when he was below her footstool, ready to kiss her foot—she remembered that there was one Gordon whom she had not yet won. She remembered Jean Gordon, who, on that day of Gordon’s Bane, had looked at her fixedly, with grave dislike—had had the nerve to survey her Queen and judge and pick out what parts to despise. She had rarely seen her since, but had never forgotten her. Deep in her burning heart she had cherished the hope of winning that frozen heart; and here—with George Gordon kissing her foot—sat she, curiously pondering how far she could use the brother to lure the sister into the net.

There was nothing unholy about this desire of hers to subdue a girl’s heart. It was coloured by impulses which were warm and rich and chivalrous. Had it been that of a youth there would not be a word to say; there was much of the quality of a youth about Queen Mary. She certainly had his chivalry—for chivalry is really pity, with a relish—a noble emotion which reacts by exalting the percipient. She saw herself protector of this friendless girl, felt kindly the very kindly kiss which she would bestow: it should fall like dew upon the upturned, stony face. At its fall the cold and dread would thaw, tears would well in those judging eyes, the hardened lips would quiver, the congealed bosom would surge; sobbing, grieving, murmuring her thankful love, Jeannie Gordon would hasten into forgiving arms. O mercy of the forgiven! O grace of the forgiving! The picture was pure, the desire (I repeat) honest—but there was glory to be gained too, a vision to be made good of the Queen playing the lover’s part, worth every shift of the quick head, and all the cajolery of the sidelong eyes. Ah me! Here was a chase-royal.

Giving George Gordon kind words, and hope of kinder, she had his mother and sister to Court, and to them was sincerity, princely magnanimity itself. The old Countess was soon won over: there came a day when she would not hear a word against her Majesty, and would judge her dead husband’s actions sooner than allow her patroness to be condemned in their defence. Her two sons stood by her—both lovers of this divine huntress; so that the house of Huntly was in ascension, and Des-Essars, feeling that his nose was (as they say) out of joint, showed that he felt it by patronising his comrade Adam.

But Adam disarmed him. ‘My brother is to be Earl again, Baptist, and therefore I am Sir Adam. You do wrong to refuse me the salute. But let be. To you I shall always be plain Adam Gordon, because we share the same adventure. Now let me tell you. She kissed me yestere’en—here.’ He touched his forehead. ‘I owe you nothing for civility, yet I’ll not go back upon my bond. You shall take your joy of the place: it is your right.’ Then they made it up; Adam pursued his family up the hill of fame. ‘It is all in a fair way; look now, I’ll tell you a secret. The Bastard is out in arms; but if we win he will lose his head, and then Moray shall be ours again! Who knows what may come of that? Be sure, however, that I shall not forget you, Baptist. No, no. What I win of _you know what_ shall be yours to the full half.’ He owned that he was vexed with his sister. ‘What! she sulks in the presence—she holds back—like a child fighting a blown fire! ’Tis unmaidenly of Jeannie; I doubt her a true Gordon. And talks of the Béguines of Bruges, doth she? Let her go, say I.’ All this judgment of Jeannie’s case, as the reader perceives, was before the chasing of the Earl of Moray, and before the Earl of Bothwell came home with French Paris, his candid valet. A word now of him.

He arrived in Scotland, you will remember, when her war with rebels was as good as over. She was keen; flushed with one triumph, and sanguine of another. Scotland at her feet, and all the Gordons hers but one: how was stubborn Jeannie to hold out against her? She was wedded, she was safe, she was victorious, she was happy: everything combined to make the redoubtable Bothwell welcome to her. It was possible, she found, to meet him without quickening of the breath; it was possible to look coolly at him, and (O marvel!) to ask herself what under heaven she had once dreaded in him. His eyes? Had they seemed audacious? They were small and twinkling. His throat, jaw, and snarling mouth—had they seemed purposeful and cruel? The one was forward and the other curved, just ready to laugh. Well, is a laughing man dangerous to women? When she considered that, less than a year ago, she had written secretly to the man, sent him a glove, and with that a fib, she could contemplate herself in the act, as one may a pale old picture of oneself (in curls and a pinafore) at some childish game—with humorous self-pity, and with some anxious regrets too. The thing was well done with—over and done with; but heigho! the world had been more ventureful then. He gave her back her faded tokens; they came from his bosom and went into hers—no thrills! They were quite cold when she laid them by.

He joined the field with her, or what was left of it, and brought with him the Border clans—Elliots, Armstrongs, Turnbulls, and his own Hepburns—ragged and shoeless, less breeched than the Highlanders, if that were possible; but men of dignity and worth, as she saw them, square-bearded, broad-headed men, tawny as foxes, blunt, unmannerly, inspecting her and her two women without awe or curiosity. They were like their chief, she thought, and, with him to lead them, never lagged in the chase. Huntly had his Gordons; and there were Forbeses, Grants, Ogilvies. Breechless were they—some at least—but of great manners; they had poets among them, and her beauty was the theme of harp-strings as well as eye-strings. The pipes swelled and screamed in her daily praise; fine music, great air! But those glum, ruminating Borderers, to whom she was just a ‘long bit lassock’! She turned to them again directly the piping was stopped—to them and their chief, who was of them, blood and bone. Twice she traversed Scotland in their midst, watching them by day, dreaming of them by night. Just as little could she do without this bracing, railing Bothwell as without proud Jeannie Gordon, whom she loved in vain.

And thus the combination came, as in a flash, the old beloved scheme of unity—north and south to awe the middle parts of Scotland. Old Huntly had proposed it and failed—it had been the death of him; but now she would try it and succeed. Into the north she would put a new Huntly; out of the south she would call a new Bothwell. A match, a match! The thought came to her with a ringing sound of hopeful music, ‘Now I have thee mine, proud Jeannie Gordon!’ Strange, ardent, wilful creature—half perverse, half unsexed! Because a man did not love her she would trust him, because a girl would have nothing to say to her she could never let her alone! But Master Des-Essars was right. She was a born huntress.

The preliminaries of the hopeful match were easily made: Huntly was grateful, the dowager profuse; Bothwell chuckled when he was sounded about it, but declined to discuss so simple a matter.

‘You’ll never find me backward, my friend,’ he told Huntly (as George Gordon now was called); ‘many indeed have complained that I am not backward enough. I’m a bull in a pasture—I’m an invading host—I devastate, I come burning. But there! have it as you will.’

Nobody else was consulted, for nobody else was worth it in the Queen’s eyes. When time had been given for all to sink in, she sent for Jean Gordon; who was brought by her mother to the door of the cabinet, put through it, and left there face to face with her careful Majesty. The time of year was mid-January.

* * * * *

The Queen sat upon a heap of cushions by the fire, leaning back a little to ease herself. Her chin was in her hand—a sign that she was considering. She wore a rich gown of murrey-coloured satin, showed her red stockings and long, narrow slippers. Her condition was not hid, and her face would have told it in any case—pinched, peaked, and pettish. Her eyes were like a cat’s, shifty and ranging, now golden-red, now a mask of green, now all black, according as she glanced them to the light; her thin, amorous lips looked like a scarlet wound in her pale face. By her side stood Mary Fleming, a gentle creature in pale rose, as if set there that by her very humanity she might enhance the elfin spell of the other. This Queen was like a young witch, rather new to the dangerous delight, but much in earnest.

She looked up sideways at the girl by the door—a girl to the full as tall as she, and much more sumptuous: deep-breasted, beautiful, composed, a figure of a nun in her black and ivory. For her hair was perfect black and her face without a tinge; and all her gown was black, with a crucifix of silver hung from her waist. She clasped her hands over it as she stood waiting.

‘Come, my girl,’ said the Queen.

Jean took a few steps forward and knelt down. It seems that she might have pleased if she had done it sooner.

‘Very well: it’s very well,’ the Queen began; and then, ‘No! it is not at all well! You seek my hand to kiss it. You shall not have it!’

She put one hand below the other, and watched for the effect. There was none. Provoking!

‘Why should I give my hand to a little rebel,’ she went on again, ‘who says in her heart, “My mother is beguiled, my brothers are beguiled, but I will never be”? who says again, “If she gives me her hand, and I kiss it, ’twill be because I dare not bite it”? Why then should I give my hand to you?’

‘You should not, madam,’ says Jean.

The Queen bit her lip.

‘Oh, the guarded, darkened heart of you, Jean! Why, if I bore a grudge as hardly as you, whom should I not drive out of Scotland?’

As Jean made no answer, Fleming was brought into play.

‘Answer for her, Fleming. Tell her I should drive them all out. Should my brother have stayed? He is too happy in England, I think. Shall I keep your Lethington at home?’

Poor Fleming coloured with pain.

‘Nay, child, nay—I am teasing thee. I know that if he will not kiss my hand ’tis because he hopes for thine. And belike he can have it for the asking! Alack, this Lethington with his two wicked hands! One he will hold out to England, and my false brother Moray will take it; one to Scotland, and pretty Fleming hath it. A chain, a chain! to pen the naughty Queen, who will not let traitors kiss her hands, and must be taught better respect for liars, lick-spittles, and time-servers!’

She was working herself to be dangerous. Good Fleming’s whisper in her ear, ‘Dear, sweet madam, deal not too harshly!’ might have been heard, had not Jean Gordon been kneeling there, stinging her to worse.

‘Harshly, harshly, my girl?’ the Queen snapped at Fleming. ‘I am water heaving against that rock—torn ragged by its fret, and scattered to the wind—to drop down as tears—as salt tears, Mary Fleming! Ah, the sea will drink up my tears, and the sea have me at last, and lap me to soft sleep, and soothe me that I forget!’ She changed her mood, looked proudly at the kneeling girl. ‘You, that will not kiss my hand—nor shall not—you are to forget what you choose and remember what you choose; but of me you expect—what, O heaven! My memory is to lie in your lap and obey you. Oh, it is very well! I am to forget that your father was a traitor——’

The girl’s eyes met hers directly.

‘He was none, madam.’

‘I say I am to forget that, and remember that I dealt sternly with an old man.’

Jean grew fiercely white. ‘Barbarously, madam!’ she said; ‘when you dragged a dead old man from the grave and spat upon his winding-sheet.’

‘Hush, hush!’ said Mary Fleming; and Jean looked at her, but said no more. The Queen was very pale, lying on her side, crouched among the cushions.

‘He defied me,’ she said, ‘but I forgave him that. He tampered with my enemies, he boasted and lied and cheated. He died in arms against his prince, and I shed tears in pity of myself. For then I was new in Scotland, and thought that the love of a man was something worth, and shivered when I lost it, as one left bare to the gales. Now I know wiselier concerning mannish love; and I know how to draw it since I hold it cheap. I would as soon draw that of dogs and apes, I think.’ She looked over her shoulder, then quickly pillowed her cheek again, but held up her hand. Mary Fleming took it. ‘Dogs, and apes, and tigers are men, Mary Fleming!’ the complaining voice resumed; ‘and I Dame Circe at her spells! And here before me, look you, poor faithful, chaste Penelope, that will not touch my hand!’

She gave a little moan, and sat up, shaking her head. ‘No, no, no, my girl, you have the wrong of me. I weave no spells, I want no dogs and apes—no man’s desire. Love!’ she clasped her hands at the stretch of her arms, ‘Love! I want love—and have it from all women but you. I am the queen of women’s hearts, and you are my only rebel. Love me, Jean! Forgiveness, _ma mie_!’

There was no answer. The Queen started forward, almost frenzied, and threw herself upon the girl—encircled her, clung, and began to kiss her. She kissed her lips, cheeks, eyes, and hair; she stroked her face, she begged and prayed. ‘Love me, Jeannie: I have done you no wrong. I had no hand in it—I could not move alone. I cried, but could not move. They would have it so. Oh, love me, my dear, for the sake of what I have bought and paid for!’

A flint-stone would have thawed under such a lava-stream. Jean Gordon took a softer tinge, but tried to free herself.

‘I thank your Majesty—I would not seem too hard. Maybe I have been stiff, maybe I have brooded. There has been too much thinking time, sitting at work for ever in our dark house. I thank your Majesty—I thank your Grace.’

The Queen lay back again, smiling through her tears. Mary Fleming, deeply moved, took her hand and lifted it, holding it out—by look and gesture commanding the other to do it reverence. So it was done at last.

The Queen said softly: ‘I thank you, child; I thank you, Jeannie. You make me happier. Trust me now, and sit beside me. I have a matter for your ears, and for your heart too, as I hope.’

So Jean sat staidly by her on the cushions and heard the marriage-plan. All she could find to say was that she hoped it would give satisfaction to her Majesty.

* * * * *

The Earl of Bothwell, then, was married upon the Lady Jean Gordon on 24th February, at Holyrood, by the Protestant rite. The Queen and Court were there, she very scornful and full of mockery of what was done. She said, and loudly, ‘If the bride is content with this munchance, why should I be discontent?’ meaning, of course, that there was every reason in the world why she should be. But the truth was that the bride, who professed the old religion, had no choice; for the Earl had insisted upon the minister and his sermon at the price of marriage whatsoever, and the lady’s brother Huntly shared his opinion. Whereupon the bride had shrugged her shoulders.

‘I am bought and sold already,’ she said; ‘therefore what matter to me whether the market is out of the statute?’

The Queen laughed. ‘Tu as rayson, ma belle,’ she said. ‘Le vray mariage s’est faict ailleurs.’

And Lady Jeannie replied in a low voice, ‘Nous verrons, madame.’

All things accomplished, and the Queen gone out by her private door, the Earl handed his Countess through the press to the great entry. Many people came surging about them; the courtyard seemed chockablock, with vexed cries tossed here and there, both ‘God bless the Queen!’ and ‘God damn the Paip!’ In the midst of all the Countess makes as if to falter, cries out, ‘Oh, my foot hurts me!’ gets free her hand and stoops. What was she about?

The Earl, who was quickly put out when he was playing a part (as he surely was just now), stood by for a little, twitching his cheek-bones. Anything would have vexed him at such a time, and at any time he scorned a mob. So he pushed forward to clear more space, crying roughly, with his arms abroad, ‘Out, out, ye tups!’ He made himself an open way to the doors, and stood on the threshold of the chapel, very fierce, plucking at his beard, his hat over his brows. There was room behind and before him: in front were the grooms and servants with their masters’ swords. ‘I dare ye to move, ye babbling thieves,’ he seemed to be threatening them, and kept them mute by the power of the eye.

Meantime the Countess rises from her foot, puts her hand on a young man’s shoulder near by, and says, ‘Take you me.’ This young man, grave and personable, is Mr. Alexander Ogilvy of Boyne, whom I hope you remember to have seen last fighting with her brother, John of Findlater, in the Luckenbooths, that day when the Gordons came swelling into Edinburgh to see the new Queen. He was an old sweetheart of hers, and might have had her but for that unlucky encounter. And since he was here—was it for his sake that the Countess Jeannie had hurt her foot? It is uncertain.

However—‘Fear not, lady, but I’ll take you where you please,’ he assures her; and walks out of church, her hand upon his shoulder.

Thus they come level with the Earl, and pass him.

‘How now, wife?’ he cries: ‘so soon!’

‘Even so, my lord, since you are so tardy,’ says she, without a look his way.

This Mr. Ogilvy walks directly into the crowd, which makes a way for him, hugely tickled by his spirit, and closes in upon him after. The Earl lets fly a sounding oath, and starts after them. ‘By——and——, but I’m for you!’

They let him through; they cry, ‘Earl Bothwell is after his lady! The hunt is up—toho!’ There was much laughter, driving, flacking of hands; and the women were the worst.

* * * * *

After dinner, dancing: the Queen in wild spirits, handed about from man to man, and (not content with that) dancing with the women when men flagged. Her zest carried her far out of politics; wary in the chamber, she was like one drunk at a feast. So she saw nothing of the comedy enacting under her very eyelids: how, while she was led out by my lord, Mr. Ogilvy made play with my lady; and my lord, very much aware of it, fumed. The minute he was dismissed, down he strode through the thick of the frolic, maddening at the courtiers bowing about him, and quarrelled and talked loud, and drank and talked louder; but yet could not get near his handsome new wife. He roundly told his brother-in-law at last that if her ladyship would not come, he should go alone.

‘Whither, my lord?’ asks Huntly.

‘Why, to bed,’ says he.

‘It is yet early,’ says Huntly.

‘It is none so early for the bed I intend for,’ he was told. ‘My bed is at Hermitage. I am master there, I’d let you know, and shall be here some day, God damn me.’ He was in a high rage at the way things were going, and always impatient of the least restraint. One or two bystanders, however, shrewd men, suspected that he had met his match.

Lord Huntly did not believe him—could not believe that he would ride, and ask his young Countess to ride, fifty miles through the marriage night. Nevertheless, towards six o’clock, the Earl came into the lower hall with his great boots on and riding-cloak over his shoulder, and confronted his lady standing with Mr. Ogilvy, my Lord Livingstone, Mary Sempill, her Master, and some more.

‘My lady,’ he said with a reverence, ‘I am a bird of the bough. ’Tis after my hour—I’m for my bed.’

Lady Bothwell gave him a short look. ‘If that is your night-gear, my lord, you sleep alone.’

Harshly he laughed. ‘It seems I am to do that. But, mistress, when you want me you will find me at Hermitage, whither I now go. And the same direction I give to you, Mr. Ogilvy,’ says he with meaning. ‘If you come into my country, or any country but this cursed town, you shall find me ready for you, Mr. Ogilvy of Boyne.’

Ogilvy wagged his head. ‘La la la! We shall meet again, never fear, my Lord Bothwell,’ says he.

The Countess gave him her hand to kiss. ‘I wish you good-night, Boyne,’ she said: ‘I am going to my bed’: then, looking her Earl in the face, ‘Pray you send your page for my women, my lord. I lack my riding-gear.’

Lord Huntly, who was up with them by now, cries out: ‘What wild folly is this? Do you rave? You will never go to Liddesdale this hell-black night! Are you mad, Lord Bothwell, or a villain?’

‘I’m a bird of the bough, brother-in-law, a bird of the bough.’

The Countess turned to her brother. ‘Should I be afraid of the dark, Huntly, with this nobleman by my side?’

‘God’s death, my child,’ says Bothwell, admiring her cool blood, ‘I would be more at your side if you suffered me.’

Lord Huntly turned on his heel.

She went to take leave of the Queen, and found her on an unworthy arm. ‘My leave, madam. I crave liberty to follow my lord.’

‘It should be the other way, child,’ said the Queen, ‘for a little while, at least. But we will come and put you to bed—and he shall come after.’

‘Your Majesty’s pardon, but this may hardly be. My lord chooses for Hermitage, and I must follow him—as my duty is.’

It made the Queen grow red; but she did not let go the arm she had. ‘As you will, mistress,’ she said stiffly, and added something in Italian to her companion, who raised his eyebrows and gave a little jerk of the head.

‘You ride a long way for your joy,’ she resumed, with a hard ring in her voice. ‘It’s to be hoped you are well accompanied. Yonder is a wild country: Turnbulls in the Lammermuirs, Elliots in Liddesdale. But you have a wild mate.’

The Countess then looked her full in the face. ‘Your Majesty forgets,’ she said. ‘It is not men that I and mine have reason to fear.’

After a short and quick recoil the Queen went straight up to her and took her face in her two hands. Speaking between clenched teeth, she said: ‘You shall not quarrel with me, Jeannie Bothwell. Or I will not quarrel with you. I wish you well wherever you go. Remember that: and now give me a kiss.’

She had to take it, for it was not offered her; and then she pushed the girl away with a little angry sob. ‘Ah, how you hate me! You are the only woman in Scotland that hates me.’ She felt the prick of tears, and shook her head to be so fretted. ‘If I were to tell you of your Earl—as I could if I cared——’ The Italian touched her arm, and brought her sharply round. ‘Well? Why should I not? Am I such a happy wife that my wedding-ring is a gag? Shall she have of me the bravest man in Scotland, and not know the price?’ Gulping down her anger, she put her hand on her bosom to keep it quiet. ‘No, no, I am not so base. Let her have what comfort she can. All wives need that. God be with you, Jeannie Bothwell.’

‘And with your Majesty, at all times.’

The Countess curtsied, kissed hands, and went away backwards. She had not taken the smallest notice of the Italian.

‘If I could hate like that, David,’ said the Mistress, ‘I should be Queen of France at this hour.’

‘Oh, oh! And so you can, madam, and so you shall,’ replied the man.

The Queen sent for more lights, and drink for the fiddlers. She did more. To please the French Ambassador and his suite, she and her maids put on men’s clothes, and flashed golden hangers from their belts before the courtly circle. The dancing grew the looser as the lights flared to their end. Many a man and many a maid slept by the wall; but there was high revelry in the midst.

Very late, the tumble and rioting at its top, in came the King, with Lord Ruthven, Archie Douglas, and some more of his friends. He stared, brushed his hot eyes. ‘What a witches’ Sabbath! Where’s my——? Where’s the Queen?’

‘Yonder, sir. Masked, and talking with my Lady Argyll—and——’

‘God help us, I see.’ He pushed squarely through the crowd, and stood before her, not steadily.

‘Good-morrow to your Majesty,’ he said. ‘The hour is late—or early, as you take it. But I am here—ready for bed.’

She held her head up, looking away from him, and spoke as if she were talking to her people.

‘I’ll not come,’ she said. ‘I am going to cards. Come, ladies. Come, sirs.’ Turning, she left him.

He looked after her owlishly, blinking as if he was about to cry. He caught Ruthven by the arm. ‘Oh, man,’ he said, ‘oh, Ruthven, do you see that? Do you see whom she has there?’

‘Hush, sir,’ says Ruthven. ‘’Tis the same as yesterday, and all the yesterdays, and as many morrows as you choose to stomach. Come you to your bed. You cannot mend it this way.’

The King still blinked and looked after his wife. He began to tremble. ‘Oh, man,’ he said, ‘when shall I do it?’

Ruthven, after a flashing look at him, ran after the Queen’s party. She was a little in front, cloaked now and walking with her ladies. Ruthven caught up the Italian and said some words. The man stopped, and looked at him guardedly. Ruthven came closer, and put his hand on his shoulder, talking copiously. As he talked, and went on talking, his hand slipped gently down the Italian’s back to his middle, opened itself wide, and stayed there open.

They parted with laughter on both sides, and a bow from David. Ruthven came back.

‘You may do it when you please, sir,’ he said to the King.