Chapter XI: Armida Doubtful in the Garden

To the Chequer House at Edinburgh belonged a pleasant garden of yew alleys, grass walks, nut-trees, and bowers cut out of box. You could pace the round of it by the limiting wall, keeping on turf all the way, and see the sky-line broken by the red gables and spires of the little clean city, being nevertheless within boskage so generous that no man’s window could spy upon you. Thus it was that orderly Mr. David Chalmers, in his decent furred robe and skull-cap, was able to tread his own plot, his hands coupled behind his back, and to meditate upon Philosophy, Gnomic Poetry, and Moral Emblems, undisturbed by the wafts of song, rustling of maids’ farthingales, flying feet of pages, or sound of kisses refused or snatched, which those neighbour green recesses witnessed and kept to themselves. In the Chequer Garden, this mellow end of September, the Court took solace while the state revenues were under review, the Queen’s custom being to work in the garden-room, a long covered loggia edging the slopes of grass, from nine to eleven in the forenoon, then to walk for an hour, and then to dine. Holyrood was wide, Holyrood was near, Holyrood stood empty: this was a whim of hers—no more.

Great days were these for Mr. Secretary Lethington: to feel the sun of royal favour genially warm upon his back once more; to seek (and surely find) assurance of good fortune in the brown eyes of the sweetest, most modest, gentlest-hearted lady in Scotland. Did he not owe everything to Mary Fleming? And was she not a sweet creditor? And next to her he stood indebted to the weather. The man was sensitive to climate, and, like all sensitive men, loved autumn best. ‘This slope sun, which will neither scorch nor refuse his clemency, dearest lady,’ he said; ‘these milky skies, which never seem to lose the freshness of dawn; the very gentle death—most merciful!—which each Day suffers; the balm of Night’s dipped fingers shed upon our brows: are not these things an augury (O my true love!) of even life for you and me? Even life, a peaceful ending of our days, with the angry solstice turned, the dry heat, the bared wrath of the sun far from us! Indeed, indeed, I do believe it.’ Mary Fleming, looking steadfastly into the pale sky, would be too sure of herself to feel abashed by his fervour. ‘And I, sir,’ she would answer, ‘pray for it daily.’

Mr. Secretary, at such times as these, felt purified, ennobled, a clean man. Working with the Queen through mornings of golden mist and veiled heat, he did his very best in her service, and laboured to respond to all her moods with that alacrity, clear sight, and good-humour which he saw very well his present state required. He was one of those men who, like beasts of chase, take colour from their surroundings. If you stroke your dormouse his coat will answer; he will burnish to a foxy brightness under the hand. And so with Mr. Secretary. His lady-love was kind, his sovereign trusted him again: he shone under such favour, dared to be in charity with all men, and was most worthy of trust. He thought little of bygone stresses, of the late months when he had lurked, gnawing his cheek, in the hills of the west; it was impossible for the like of him to believe that he had ever been otherwise than now he was. He fancied himself a book opened at a clean page, and never turned back to regard earlier chapters, blotted and ugly. Forward, rather, looked he—upon many fair folios of untouched vellum. ‘Upon these we will print in golden types, my heart, the _gestes_ of the twin-flight to the stars of William Maitland of Lethington and Mary Fleming, his spouse: _deux cors, ung coer!_’ And she, loving soul, believed the man.

The Queen, since that summer’s day when, with ritual, she had washed her hands in rose-water, had known many moods. Some were of dangerous sweetness, as of treading a brink hand in hand; some of full joy in air and weather, as when Lord Bothwell and his men steered her across the dancing sea, and the little ship, plunging in blue waters, tossed up the spray to kiss her cheeks, or sting unmannerly her happy eyes. There had been days also of high revelry at Stirling—dancings, hawkings, romping games, disguises; days of bravado, where Memory was dared to do her worst. All of these, as Mary Livingstone told her husband, with Lord Bothwell at her side and the King out of mind. Some days she had had of doubtful questioning, of heart-probing, drawing-back; a sense (to be nursed) of nothing yet lost, of all being yet well; and others—but then she had been quite alone—when, upon her knees, with bent-down head and hands crossed over the breast, she had whispered to herself the words of fate: ‘Behold one stronger than I, who, coming, shall overshadow me. Take me, lord, take me, take me, such as I am.’ After such times as these she would walk among her women with a rapt, pure face, her soul sitting in her eyes, or half-risen, quivering there, trembling in strength, sensing the air, beating, ready to fly. Then, as they looked at her wondering, she would sit with them and talk gently, in a low kind voice, about their affairs; and Mary Livingstone, who knew her at her best when she was quick and masterful, feared most for her then; and Mary Fleming, who had but one thought in her heart, took courage—and at some such time pleaded for, and won back, her banished lover.

So it was with her during all that summer and early autumn, while the Master of Sempill (healthy-faced man) was filling his _Diurnall_, and doing his best to fill his pocket, by emptying his wife of confidences and betraying her afterwards. But when she came back from Stirling, enriched in divers ways, she had to find that the graceless King had not lost his power of the spur. By degrees and degrees dark rumours gathered about her, of which he was the nucleus. She heard of his quarrelling at Dunfermline, of a night-fray at Cameron Brig in which he was suspected of a share; of his man Standen with a wounded head, and the King swearing he would burn the doer of it out of house and jacket. Now, who had wounded Standen’s head? Nobody could tell her.

Then there were threats sent about town and country by craped messengers: ‘The Earl of Moray should beware how he rides abroad’; or ‘Let the Lord of Bothwell look to the inmates of his house’—and so forth. Worse than these were the hints thrown out to Du Croc, the French Ambassador—hints which pointed at the safety of the prince her son, and at the King as the author of them. Flying words had been caught in galleries and corridors; somebody saw the white face of Forrest, his chamber-child, frozen by terror into silence. They had him in among them, and twisted his arm: he would not deny, he would not affirm, but wept copiously and moaned for his mother in Winchester. Mysteries and mischiefs were all about her; and everything she could gather insisted on one fact—that the King intended action of his own oversea or in England—she could not tell which.

Loathing the task as much as the taskmaster, she looked her affairs in the face. For one thing, they gave her back a distorted image of her own face. She had washed her hands, she had been happy, thought herself free,—why, why, what a purblind fool! She had been playing the May Day queen, like any chimney-sweeper’s wench, in a torn petticoat. A rent panoply to cover her, a mantle-royal full of old clouts! The discovery threw her into despair: ‘Here am I, Mary of France and Scotland, a crowned woman—bankrupt, at the mercy of a sot to whom I lent my honour twice!’ Under the bite and rankle of this thought, grown fearfully eager, she looked about all ways for escape. Divorce! No, no, that would bastardise her son. The strong hand, then! Let her lay hands upon the traitor to her throne and bed. There was ample proof against him; the Riccio plot had been enough by itself—but what stayed her was the question, whose hands should she set at him? Why, who was there in all Scotland at this hour who would show him any mercy, once he had him? She could not answer that; there was nobody. No. She stood—she was sure of it—between the King and his murder. ‘But for me,’ she said bitterly, ‘but for me, whom he has dipped in shame, he is a dead man.’ For a long time she stood pondering this, a bleak smile on her lips, and one finger touching her breast.

So might she remain standing; but she could not have him slain. Not though he had sought to betray her, spurned her worth, made her a mock; not though he would steal her child, tamper with her enemies, sell her for a price. All this was true, and more. She grew scarlet to admit to herself that more was true. She was his wedded wife, at his beck and call: and now she loved a Man; and love (as always) made her pure virgin. The shame of the truth flooded her with colour.—But no! She stood between the King and his murderers. If he persisted in his misdeeds, she had but to stand aside and they would kill him. Well, _she could not stand aside_; therefore she must coax him back to decency—by the arts of women.

Hateful necessity! And yet if you had seen her at her window as she faced it, looking askance at the green sky, you would have thought her just a love-sick girl spying for her lover: for that was her wont, to smile, and peer, and turn her pretty head; pick with her fingers at the pleats of her gown, and be most winning when at the verge of loss. And even when she had decided upon bargaining with the man she abhorred, she did not abhor the act. It would be a delicate exercise of the wits—most delicate. For observe this well, you who desire to know her: although she stood between the man and his murder, _while she stood there_ she was absolutely at his mercy. He could do what he chose with her. Bargaining! He could drive the most terrible bargain. If she decided that he must not be killed, she must needs deal tenderly with him, and fib and cheat to save him. For she knew very well that whatever compunction she had, he would have none. In a word, she must prepare to save him alive, and pay him dearly for the hateful privilege.

Very well. These conclusions worked out, she deliberately sent word that she would see him, and he came to her (as she had foreseen) in his worst mood—the hectoring mood which knew her extremity and built upon it.

* * * * *

He had grown blotched, fatter in the face. His lower lip hung down; there were creases underneath his angry eyes. Excess of all sorts, but mostly of liquor, was responsible for the thickening of what had never been fine, and made him his own parody. He still held up his head, still straddled his legs and stuck out his elbows; he still had the arrogant way with him, and still appeared a fool when he was most in danger of becoming a man. He knew that his mere neighbourhood made her sick, and what reason she had—cheapened by him as she had been, held for a thing of nought, driven to feel herself vile. Knowing all this, and resenting in her her knowledge of his degradation, he was blusterously sulky; but knowing further that she had sent for him because she was afraid of what he might do against her, he was ready to bully her. If there is one baser than he who takes heart to do wrong from his wife’s tenderness, it is, I suppose, the man who grows rich upon her dishonour. There is mighty little to choose.

After a constrained greeting and uncomfortable pause, she began the struggle. Directly she touched upon the rumours, whose flying ends she had caught, he flamed out, wagging his finger at her as if she had been taken red-handed in some misdeed. Ah, if she considered that he could be taken up and cast aside, lifted, carried about like a girl’s plaything, it was a thing his honour could not brook. Let her reflect upon that. He knew very well what his own position was—how near he stood to the two thrones, how his child’s birth made his title stronger. He had had to think for himself what he should do—with his friends, since those who should naturally be about him chose to keep away, or could not dare be near him. He had plans, thoughts, projects; had not made up his mind: but let her take notice that he was about it. It was not to be thought that a prince of any spirit could suffer as he suffered now.

‘Ah, sir,’ she said here, putting up a hand, ‘and think you not whether I have suffered, or whether I suffer now?’

He glared at her.

‘You have friends, madam, a sufficiency—ah, a redundancy, in whose commerce I cannot see you engage without suffering. You keep them from me—perhaps wisely. There is my lord of Moray: with him I might have a reckoning. But no! You hide him in your gown.’

‘How availed my gown to David?’ She was stung into this.

He squared his shoulders. ‘The man paid dearly for what he had. He should have counted the cost. So should others count. Let my lord of Bothwell figure out his bill.’

‘No more of that, my lord,’ she cried in a rage. ‘You little know what my gown hides, if not that it shelters yourself. Do you know, sir, from what I am screening you?’

‘You screen me, madam! You! But I cannot suffer it. It is to abase me. I cannot suffer it. But it’s all of a piece—I am shortened every way. My friends are warned off me—my father a suspect—my means of living straitened—I have no money, no credit. I, the King-Consort, the father of the Prince! Oh, fie, madam, this is a scandal and crying shame. Where are my rights—where is one of them? Where is my right to be by your side? Where are my rights of a husband?’

‘They are where you put them—and as you have made them.’

He began to storm; but as she met every blast with the same words, he took another course. ‘A truce,’ he said, ‘madam, to your taunts. These may be my last words to you, or the first of many happier speeches. The past is past and over. I have admitted the excesses of my youth and temper; you have condoned them, or so professed. Now, madam, I say this: You have sent for me—here I am. If you suffer me, I stay, and use you as a loving man his wife. But if you will not, I go; and maybe you see me not again.’

She fairly cowered at the choice. She covered her ears. ‘Ah, no, no! Ah, but that is not possible!’ Why, was she to break her written promise, make foul again her washen hands? She sat astare, beaten down and dumb; and the words of her vow came up, as it were, fiery out of the floor, and smote her in the face like a hot breath.

But his courage rose at the glimpse of so much power in his hands. Not possible, said she. Ah, but he said it was essential. He looked at her, white and extended there; he felt and exulted in his strength. And then it came surging into his mind that she must be his price to stay, and that either to get her again or to lose her he would drown Scotland in blood.

There was a wild-beating pause, in the which she sat, catching at the edge of the coffer, her face turned to the window. He could see her strained throat, her short-rising breast, and knew that he could prevail. For once in his foolish life he took the straight road to what he craved; for he shook his hair back, strode directly to her, took her up and caught her round the arms. So she was all a prisoner. ‘Aha, my wood-bird, aha! Now, now I have you in a net. Not again do you escape.’ He began to kiss her face; there was no escape indeed. Abashed, overwhelmed, half-swooning, she gave up; and so made her bargain. To save him from murder she murdered her own honour. So she would put it to herself. But let us, for our part, record it in her honour.

* * * * *

If you will reason out his nature—which is that of the fed mule—you will find his behaviour next day in the Council of a piece with all the rest. Having been made master by her nobility, he supposed himself master by the grace of God given to man. When he marched into the Council Chamber and took her proffered hand, his pride swelled up into his eyes, and made him see thickly. Ho! now for the manly part. Here, in the midst of his enemies—before this black Moray, this dark-smiling Huntly, this lean thief Lethington—here, too, he would play the man.

Knowing him pledged to her, the Queen was gentle. ‘I beseech you, my lord,’ she said, ‘if you have any grief against me—as now I think you have not—or any cause which moves you to quit this realm (which I cannot suppose), declare it before these lords. If I have denied you any right, either of access to the prince our son, or any other right, pray you rehearse it now.’

He would not speak out. He pursed his lips, frowned, raised his eyebrows, tapped his heel on the floor. He said that he must be advised. He did not see any of his friends here, with whom he must consult. There were many things to consider, many calls upon him—from here, from there, from elsewhere. He could not speak hastily, he said, or give pledges.

Blankly dismayed, she began: ‘But, my good lord, your promise to me——’ really forgetting for that moment what his promises were worth. There, however, she stopped—the words seemed to choke her.

Lethington rose and addressed him, speaking in French, and good French. This was a courtesy to the Queen, one of those trifling, terrible things which cost all Scotland dear. For the King blushed to the roots of his hair, and there was no hiding blushes upon that blond face. He tried to answer in English; but a look of comical dismay in Lethington warned him that he had blundered the sense. He broke off short—furious, hot all over, blind with mortification, and mad.

‘You speak too much French for me, Mr. Secretary. My Scots, I doubt, would not be to your liking, either of phrase or deed.’ His lip shook—he was nearly sobbing. ‘Madam,’ he cried out, ‘madam, adieu. You will not see my face for many days.’ He lifted that hot, passionate, boy’s face. ‘Gentlemen, adieu.’

Turning on his heel he walked directly from the room and pulled-to the door after him. The Queen turned faint and had to be helped. They fetched in women to see to her; and the Council broke up, with a common intelligence passed silently from man to man.

Mary Livingstone, half the night through, heard her miserable wail. ‘Thrice a traitor, who has taught treachery to me! Thrice a traitor—and myself a lying woman!’ She heard her talking to herself—pattering the words like a mad-woman. ‘I must do it—I must do it—no sleep for me until I do it. All, all, all—nothing hid. Things shall go as they must. But he will never believe in me again—and oh! he will be right.’

The very next day she sent for the Earl of Bothwell, who was at Hermitage; and, when it was time, awaited him in that shady garden of the Chequer House—she alone in the mirk of evening. Whenas she heard his quick tread upon the grass she shivered a little and drew her hood close about her face; so that all he could see—and that darkly—was her tall figure, the thin white wrist and the hand holding the hood about her chin. Prepared for any flight of her mind, grown so much the less ceremonious as he was the more familiar, he saluted her with exaggerated courtliness; the plumes of his hat brushed the grass as he swept them round him. She did not move or speak. He looked for her eyes, but could not see them.

‘Madam, I am here. Always, in all places, at the service of my Sovereign.’

‘Hush!’ she said: ‘not so loud. I have to speak with you upon an urgent affair. I can hardly bring myself to do it—and yet—I must.’

‘Madam, I fear that you suffer. Why should you speak?’

‘Because I must. You called me your Sovereign.’

‘And so, madam, you are, and shall be.’

‘That is why I choose to speak.’ She took a long deep breath. ‘The King has been here,’ she said; ‘has been here and is gone.’

He replied nothing, but watched her swaying outline. There would be more to come.

‘I had reason to fear what he might contrive against my peace—against my crown, and my son. Many things I feared. He came here because I sent for him. And I saw him.’

No help came from the watcher. Still he could not see her face, hard as he might look for it. She drove herself to her work.

‘He required of me certain assurances, otherwise, he said, he would leave the kingdom. I dared not allow him to depart, for I knew that he would work against me in England or oversea. Moreover, leaving me, his life would be in instant danger. He did not know that; therefore what he proposed was dangerous to himself and to me. Do you understand? I feared that he would steal my son and take him to England.’

Bothwell said, ‘I understand your fears.’

‘Therefore,’ said she, ‘I urged him to remain. This he promised to do’—it was fine to see how her voice grew clear to the attack—‘if I would yield him that which I had purposed never to give him again. Do you understand me now?’ She almost wailed the question.

He hastened to help her. ‘Yes, yes, madam. I beg you to say no more.’

But she threw back her hood, and showed him her tense white face. ‘I shall say all. No man shall hinder me. He had once betrayed me and held me up to the scorn of all women, and I promised you it should never be again. Yet it was—the realm, my son, were in danger—and—oh, sir, he has betrayed me now beyond repair! He has had all of me, and now is gone I know not where—proud of his lies, laughing at my folly.’ A terrible shuddering beset her—terrible to hear.

‘Oh, madam,’ said Lord Bothwell, ‘let him laugh while he can. What else hath a fool but his laughter?’

She stretched out her hands wide, and he drew nearer.

‘And for me, Bothwell? What is left for me?’

‘Madam,’ he said earnestly, ‘all is left. All which that blasphemer was not fit to give, since he was not fit to receive. Worship is left you, service of true men.’

She grew very serious. He could see her eyes now; all black.

‘Not from you, Bothwell. Never more from you, since I have lied.’

He took a step forward. ‘More from me, madam (if you care to have it), than perhaps is fitting from a subject; and yet less than perhaps may be reasonable from a man.’

‘No, no,’—she shook her head,—‘I have lied. Not from you now.’

He laughed aloud. ‘Madam, beseech you see what I see. A noble lady, justly enraged, who yet can stoop to comfort her subject—who can humble herself to prove her kindness. Is that not worshipful? Is not that serviceworthy? Oh, most glorious humility! Oh, proudest pride of all! That Queen Mary should make confession to James Hepburn! Why, Heaven above us, madam, for what do you take me: a block of stone—a wooden stub? Madam, Mistress, Queen—I am beaten to your feet—I am water——’ He heard her sob, saw that she had covered her face with her hands: he ran towards her. God of Gods, what was this? ‘Have I offended your Majesty? Am I so unhappy?’

She shook her head. ‘No, no, no! I cannot talk—but I am not wretched. I am happy, I think—comforted.’

He considered her. He considered intently, every muscle at a stretch. He bit his moustache, pressing it into his teeth with his fingers—moved forward—stopped, like a hawk poised in mid-air: he nodded his head savagely, came up to her, and with gentle firmness took her by the wrists, drew her hands from her face. ‘Look now at me,’ he said.

She did not struggle to be free, but kept her face averted, strongly bent downward.

‘Look you at me.’

She shook her head. He felt her tears fall hot on his hands.

‘But now,’ he said, ‘you must do as I bid you.’

Slowly she lifted then her head and faced him, looking up. He saw the glittering tears; an honest tenderness gave honesty to his words. ‘My heart!’ he said, ‘my heart!’ and kissed her where she stood.

Then he turned and left her alone; went by her into the thicket and climbed the wall into the neighbouring garden. For a long time she stayed, with her two hands clasped at her neck, where his had put them—for a long time, wondering and trembling and blushing in the dark.