Chapter I: Stormy Opening

It is rather better than five years since you first met with Des-Essars in the sunny garden at Nancy, and as yet I have but dipped into the curious little furtive book which, for my own part, although its authenticity has been disputed, I attribute to him without hesitation—_Le Secret des Secrets_, as it is called. For such neglect as this may be I have the first-rate excuse that it contains nothing to what has been my purpose; all that there is of it, prior to the October 1566 where now we are, seeming to have been added by way of prologue to the Revealed Mysteries he thought himself inspired to declare. Probably, no secrets had, so far, come in his way, or none worth speaking of. ‘Boys’ secrets,’ as he says somewhere, ‘are truly but a mode of communicating news, which when it is particularly urgent to be spread, is called _a secret_. The term ensures that it will be listened to with attention and repeated instantly.’ You may gather, therefore, that _Le Secret des Secrets_ was not of this order, more especially since he tells us himself that it would never have been imparted at all but for the Queen’s, his mistress’s, danger. Plainly, then, he compiled his book in Queen Mary’s extreme hour of need, when her neck was beneath her ‘good Sister’s’ heel—and only in the hope of withdrawing it. Those were hasty times for all who loved the poor lady; the _Secret des Secrets_ bears signs of haste. Its author scamped his prologue, took his title for granted, and plunged off into the turmoil of his matter like the swimmer who goes to save life. But you and I, who know something about him by this time, have intelligence enough to determine whether he was worthy, or likely to be judged worthy, of the keeping of a Queen’s heart. So much only I have thought fit to declare concerning the origin of a curious little book: for curious it is, partly in the facts it contains, and even more in the facts it seems to search for—facts of mental process, as I may call them.

He begins in this manner:—

‘About ten of the clock on the night of the 6th-7th October’—that is, the reader sees, on the night when Bothwell kissed her in the Chequer Garden—‘the Queen’s Majesty, who had been supposed alone, meditating in the garden, came stilly into the house, passed the hall, up the stair, and through the anteroom where I, Mr. Erskine, Mistress Seton and Mistress Fleming were playing at trumps; and on to her cabinet without word said by any one of us. We stood up as she came in, but none spake, for her looks and motions forbade it. She walked evenly and quickly, in a rapt state of the soul, her head bent and hands clasped together under her chin, just as a priest will go, carrying the Sacrament to the bedridden or dying. But presently, after she was gone, Mistress Fleming went to see whether she had need of anything; and returned, saying that her Majesty had been made ready for bed and lain down in it, without word, without prayers. Shortly afterwards the ladies went to their beds, and I sat alone in the antechamber on my duty of the night; and so sitting fell asleep with my face in my arm.

‘I suppose that it was midnight or thereabout when I was awakened by a touch on my head, and starting up, saw the Queen in her bedgown, her hair all loose about her, standing above me. Being unable to sleep, she said, she desired company. I asked her, should I read, sing, or tell her a tale? But she, still smiling, being, as I thought, in a rapt condition of trance, shook her head. “If you were to read I should not listen, if you were to sing the household would wake. Stay as you are,” said she, and began to walk about the chamber and to speak of a variety of matters, but not at all connectedly. I replied as best I was able, which was heavily and without wit—for I had been sound asleep a few moments before. Something was presently said of my lord of Bothwell: I think that she led the talk towards him. I said, I marvelled he should stay so long in Liddesdale, with the Court here in town. She stopped her pacing and crossed her arms at her neck, as I had seen her do when she came in from the garden. Looking closely and strangely at me, she said, “He is not in Liddesdale. He is here. I have seen him this night.” Then, as I wondered, she sat down by the table, her face shaded from the candle by her hand, and regarded me for some time without speaking.

‘She then said that, although it might seem very extraordinary to me, she had good reason for what she was about to do; that for the present I must believe that, and be sure that she would not impart to me her greatest secret had she not proved me worthy of the trust. She then told me, without any more preface, that she should be called the happiest of women, in that, being beloved, she loved truly again. She said that she had been consecrated a lover that very night by a pledge not only sweet in itself, but sweet as the assurance of all sweetness. She touched her mouth; and “Yes,” she said, “all unworthy as I am, this great treasure hath been bestowed into my keeping. See henceforward in me, most faithful, proved friend, not your mistress so much as your sister, a servant even as you are, devoted to the greatest service a woman can take upon her—subjection, namely, to Love, that _puissant and terrible lord_.”

‘While I wondered still more greatly, she grew largely eloquent. Her soul, she said, was in two certain hands “like a caught bird”; but such bondage was true freedom to the generous heart, being liberty to give. She owned that she was telling me things known to no others but herself and her beloved. “I am your sister and fellow-servant,” said she, “whispering secrets in the dark. Marvel not at it; for women are so made that if they cannot confide in one or another they must die of the burning knowledge they have; and I, alas, am so placed that, with women all about me, and loving women, there is none, no, not one, in whom I can trust.”

‘I knew already who her lover was, and could not but agree with her in what she had to admit of her women. One and all they were against my lord of Bothwell. Mistress Livingstone hated him so vehemently she could not trust herself near him; Mistress Fleming was at the discretion of Mr. Secretary Lethington, a declared enemy of his lordship’s; Mistress Beaton was wife to a man who did not deny that he was still the servant of Lady Bothwell; in Mistress Seton my mistress never had confided. So she had some reasons for what she was pleased to do—another being that I, of all her servants, had been most familiar with his lordship—and I was certain that she had others, not yet declared. Indeed, she hinted as much when she said that she had proved me upon a late occasion, that she loved me, and knew of my love for her. “In time to come,” said she—“I cannot tell how soon or in what sort, such matters being out of my hands—I may have to ask you other service than this of listening to my confidence; I may require of you to dare great deeds, and to do them. If you will be my sworn brother, I shall see in you my champion-at-need, and be the happier for the knowledge. What say you, then, Baptist?” she asked me.

‘Kneeling before her, I promised that I would keep her secret and do all her pleasure. I watched her throughout. She was quite composed, entirely serious, did not seem to imagine that she was playing a love-sick game—and was not, altogether. I am sure of that, watching her as I did. She made me lift my right hand up, and stooped forward and kissed the open palm before she went away. Here is the beginning of Mysteries, which I, unworthy servant, was privileged to share.’

I am not, myself, prepared to say that there is more mystery in this than the young man put into the telling of it. She trusted the youth, required an outlet, and made, in the circumstances, the wisest choice.

* * * * *

Two days after the performance, at any rate, she set out for Jedburgh, as you know, in a fine bold humour and with a fine company. She went in state and wore her state manners; rode for the most part between her brother Moray and the Earl of Huntly, seemed to avoid her women, and had little to say to them when of necessity they were with her. She did her bravest to be discreet, and there is no reason to suppose that anybody about her had more than an inkling of the true state of her heart. Lord Bothwell’s leave-taking had been done in public the day before, and gallantly done. He had been at the pains to tell her that he was going to his wife, she to smile as she commended him for his honest errand. She had given him her hand and wished him well, and had not even followed him with her looks to the door. The Earl of Moray, not an observant man by nature, suspected nothing; what Lord Huntly may have guessed he kept to himself. This poor speechless, enamoured nobleman! his trouble was that he kept everything to himself and congested his heart as well as his head-piece. So much so that the Queen once confessed to Adam Gordon, his brother, that she had ‘forgotten he was a lover of hers’! She spent the first night out at Borthwick, and next morning rode on to Jedburgh in madcap spirits—which were destined to be rudely checked by what she met there. A slap in the face, sharp enough to stop the breath, it was: news with which the town was humming. It seemed that the Earl of Bothwell had fought in the hills with Elliot of Park, had slain his man, and been slain of him.

My Lord Moray was the first to bear her this tale; and when he told it—just as nakedly as I have put it up there—she turned upon him a tense, malignant face, and said that he lied. ‘Madam, I grieve,’ says he—‘my lord of Bothwell lies dead in Liddesdale.’ ‘O liar, you lie!’ she said, ‘or God lives not and reigns.’ Many persons heard her, and saw the proud man flinch; and then Des-Essars, young Gordon, and Lethington all broke into the room together, each with his version gathered out of gossip. My lord was not killed, as had been feared at first, but sorely wounded, lying at Hermitage, three doctors about him, and despaired of. ‘One doctor! one doctor!’ cried Adam, correcting Lethington.

‘I waited by him,’ says Des-Essars, ‘and then, while she looked wildly from one face to another, I said that it was true there was but one doctor, and that the case was none so desperate. She flew at me. “How do you know this? How do you know it?” I replied that I had just got the tale from French Paris. I think she would have fallen if I had not put my hands out, which made her draw back in time. “French Paris!” cried she; “why, then, my lord has sent word. Fly, fly, fly, Baptist: bring him to me.” This I did, to the great discomfiture of one, at least, in her company.’

Thus Des-Essars turns his honours to account.

She saw the valet alone, and sent him away with his pockets lined: afterwards her spirits rose so high that had Moray noticed nothing he must have been the most careless of men. She made inordinately much of Des-Essars, fondling him in all men’s sight; she gave him a gold chain to hang round his neck, and said, in her brother’s presence, that she would belt him an earl when he was older; ‘for thus should the prince reward faithful service and the spoken truth.’ He affected not to have heard her—but it was idle to talk of secrets after that. Here was a rent in the bag big enough for the cat’s head.

And it would appear that she herself was aware of it, for after a couple of days, just enough time for the necessary ceremonial business of her coming, she gave out publicly her intention to ride into Liddesdale, and her pleasure that Moray, Huntly, and the Secretary should accompany her. Others would she none, save grooms and a few archers. My Lord Moray bowed his head in sign of obedience, but spoke his thoughts to no man. He kept himself aloof from the Court as much as he could, in a house of his own, received his suitors and friends there at all hours, maintained considerable state—more grooms at his doors than at the Queen’s. Some thought he was entrenching himself against the day when his place might be required of him; some thought that day not far off. All were baffled by the Queen’s choice of him and his acquiescence.

Betimes in a morning which broke with gales and wild fits of weeping from the sky, she set out, going by Bedrule, Hobkirk, and the shoulder of Windburgh Hill. Nothing recked she, singing her snatches of French songs, whether it blew or rained; and the weather had so little mercy on her that she was wetted through before she had won to Stitchell—the most southerly spur of a great clump of land from which, on a fair day, you can look down upon all Liddesdale and the Vale of Hermitage. There, on that windy edge, in a driving rain which blew her hair to cling about and sheathe her face like jagged bronze, she stayed, and peered down through the mist to see her trysting-place. But a dense shower blotted out the valleys; and the castle of the Hermitage lies low, scowling in shade be the sun never so high. Undaunted still, although she saw nothing but the storm drowning the lowlands, it added to her zest that what she sought so ardently lay down there in mystery. Singing, shaking her head—all her colours up for this day of hide-and-seek—fine carmine, gleaming nut-brown eyes, scarlet lips parted to show her white teeth—she looked a bacchante drunk upon fierce draughts of weather, a creature of the secret places of the earth, stung by some sly god. The bit in her teeth, fretting, shaking her head—who now should rein her up? Two out of the three men with her watched her closely as she stood on Stitchell, resolving this doubt; the third, who was Huntly, would not look at her. Primly pried my lord of Moray out of the corners of his eyes, and pursed his lips and ruled his back more than common stiff. But gloomily looked Mr. Secretary, as he chewed a sour root: he felt himself too old for such a headlong service as hers must be, and too weary of schemes to work with Moray against her. Yet he must choose—he knew it well. Finely he could read within the chill outlines of that Master of his destiny all the sombre exhilaration which he was so careful to hide. ‘He hath set his lures, this dark fowler; he hath his hand upon the cords. The silly partridge wantons in the furrow: nearly he hath his great desire. But what to me are he and his desires, O my God, what are they to me?’ He thought of Mary Fleming now at her prayers, thanking her Saviour for the glory of his love. His love—Lethington’s love! Lord, Lord, if he dared to mingle in so fragrant a pasture as hers, what should he do raking in the midden with an Earl of Moray? Overdriven, fragile, self-wounding wretch—pity this Lethington.

It is true that Lord Moray saw the partridge in the shadow of the net; it is true that he was elated in his decent Scots way; but you would have needed the trained eyesight of Lethington to detect the quiver of the nerves. The Queen broke in upon all reflections, coming towards them at a canter: ‘Set on, sirs, set on! The hours grow late, and we cannot see our haven. Come with me, brother; come, my Lord Huntly.’ Down into the racing mists they went, squelching through quag and moss.

Hermitage made the best show it could in the Sovereign’s honour. Every horse in the country was saddled and manned by some shag-haired Hepburn or another. Where Hermitage Water joins Liddel they met her in a troop, which broke at her advance and lined the way.

No pleasant sight, this, for my lord of Moray. ‘The Hepburns!’ cried he, when he saw them. ‘Caution, madam, caution here. What and if they compass a treachery?’

‘La-la-la,’ says the Queen. ‘Methinks, I should know a traitor when I see him. Come, my lord, come with me.’ But when he would not, she struck her horse on the flank, and Huntly spurred to follow her close. Cantering freely into the midst, she held out her hand, saying, ‘Sirs, you are well met. Am I well come?’

They closed about her, howling their loyalty, and some leaned over the saddle-peak to catch at her skirt to kiss it. She made them free of her hand, let them jostle and mumble over that; they fought each other for a touch of it, struck out at horses’ heads to fend them off while they spurred on their own; they battled, cursed, and howled—for all the world like schoolboys at a cake. To Moray’s eyes she was lost, swallowed up in this horde of cattle-thieves; for he saw the whole party now in motion, jingling and bickering into the white mist. He lifted up a protestant hand. ‘Oh, Mr. Secretar, oh, sir, what cantrips are these?’

‘She is the Scythian Diana,’ says Lethington, grinning awry, ‘and these are her true believers. We are dullards not to have known it.’

‘She is Diana of the Ephesians, I largely gather,’ his master replied. ‘Come, come, we must follow to the end.’ For his own part, he judged the end not far.

* * * * *

Her dripping skirts so clung about her—to say nothing that she was rigid with stiffness and shot all over with rheumatic pains—she had to be helped from the saddle and supported by force into the house. A bound victim of love, tied by the knees! upon Huntly’s arm and Ormiston’s she shuffled into the hall, and stood in the midst, boldly claiming hospitable entreaty. It was sorry to see her eager spirit hobbled to a body so numbed. As from the trap some bright-eyed creature of the wood looks out, so she, swaying there on two men’s arms, testified her incurable hope by colour and quick breath. But calm and cold, as the moon that rides above a winter night, stood the Countess of Bothwell with her women, and stately curtsied.

The Queen laughed as she swayed. ‘I am a mermaid, my child,’ says she, ‘sadly encumbered by my weeds. I have lost my golden comb, and my witching song is gone in a croak. You need not fear to take me in.’

The young Countess said, ‘Suffer me conduct your Majesty to the chambers. All the household stuff is at your service.’

She shook her head. ‘Witchcraft may come back with comfort! No, no, my dear, I will not plunder you. I shall do very well as I am.’ Madness! She was on pin-points till she saw her lover; but it was not that which made her refuse warmth and dry clothes. It was a word of her own, which had turned aside as she used it and given her a stab. Would she not ‘plunder’ this lady, good lack? She had a scruple, you perceive.

Tongue-tied Huntly was in great distress. ‘I would heartily urge you, madam——’ and so forth; and his sister made the cold addition that all was prepared.

The Queen was now trembling. ‘You are kind—but I have no need. I am very well, and cannot stay long. Let me fulfil my errand—see my wounded councillor—and depart. Come, take me to him now. Will you do me this kindness?’ She spoke like a child, with eagerness too simple to be indecent.

‘I will prepare my lord, madam, for the high honour you propose him,’ says the Countess, after a moment’s pause.

‘Yes, yes—go now.’

She went to the fire and held her shaking hands towards it. Do what she could, there was no staying the shivering-fits, nor the clouds of steam that came from her, nor the ring of water round her skirts.

Huntly was miserable. ‘I beseech you, I beseech you, madam, dry yourself. This is——Oh, but you run into grave peril. I would that I could make you believe that all this house is yours, and all hearts in it——’

‘All hearts—all hearts—it may be,’ she said with a break in her voice; ‘but some there are here with no hearts. Ah, what heart is in a body that would not find some pity for me?’

He was dreadfully moved, leaned ardently towards her. ‘Madam! madam! You know my heart—I have never hid it from you. You talk of pity. Why, is not the piteous heart acquaint with pitifulness? Ah, then pity me! Let me serve you.’

Then her ague ceased, and she looked at him full, with brimming eyes. ‘Take me up to him, Huntly. I cannot bear myself.’

The fine colour flushed him. ‘Come, madam; I will take you.’

She followed him up the stair—and the Earl of Moray’s eyes followed her.

* * * * *

Here is one difference between imagination and fancy, that the first will leap full-fledged into the life of the upper air from the egg of its beginning, while the second crouches long callow in the nest, and must be fostered into plumage before it can take its pretty flights. Here, of these two who had been separate for a week, she had flown far beyond the man’s wayfaring, and stood upon a height which he could scarcely hope to see. To keep touch with her might call for all his wit. For what had actually passed between them but a couple of snatched kisses in the dark? No more, upon his honour, to his sense. For though he had built upon them a fine castle—with the bricks of Spain—he would have been the first to own himself a fool for so doing. But she! Not only had she reared a fair solid house of chambers and courts, but she had lived with him in it, a secret life. Here she had had him safe since the hour he left her in the garden. In her thought he was bound to her, she to him, by sacraments; they were, like all lovers, of eternal eld. No beginning and no end will love own up to. It is necessary to remember this.

Therefore, while he made an effort to get up from the bed on which he lay strapped, she had prevented him by running forward and kneeling lover-wise by his side. As she had hoped, she was now lower than he, nearer the floor; thence she had looked searchingly in his face, but said nothing, too full of love, too bashful to begin. The Countess stood at the bed-head, her brother Huntly drooped at the foot. The Queen had no eyes for them.

‘Speak to me of your welfare—assure me. I have been in great grief.’

To this he could only stammer some words of thanks, not perceiving yet by any means on what side to take her. But she would have none of his thanks.

‘You must speak to me, for I have dreamed deeply of this hour. Ah, how they have stricken you!’ She touched his bandages, lingering about that one upon his head as if she could not leave it alone. ‘Oh, curious knife, to search so deep! Oh, greedy Park, to take so much! But I think I should have taken more—had I been wiser.’

‘Rise, madam, rise,’ he said, ‘or I must rise. I may not see you kneeling.’

She laughed. ‘I shall tell you my wicked thought when I knew that I should see you lying here,’ she said, ‘and then you will not grudge me my knees. No, but you shall shrive me again as once before you did—if you are merciful to poor women.’

As it was evident that she disregarded and would disregard any company in the room, Huntly began to speak, with a good deal of dignity. ‘Madam, by your leave——’

She looked about, and saw him ready to quit her. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, ‘do what you will’; and turned to her absorbing service.

‘Come, sister,’ says Huntly, and beckoned out the Countess, who swiftly followed him. He shut the chamber door.

The Countess had great self-command. ‘Will you tell me what this means, Huntly?’

He looked at her, knitting his black brows. ‘I think you know very well, sister.’

As she was walking away from him to her own chamber, he called her back. She had her hand on the latch. ‘Well?’ she said, ‘what more?’

‘This much,’ said he. ‘You see how it is now with those two. What you purpose to do in the likely flow of affairs I know not; but I know my own part. I cannot forget that I stand debtor to her for my honour, my mere life, and all my hope in the world. She has suffered, been very friendless, forsaken oft, betrayed on all hands—mine among them. She may suffer yet more; but not again by me, nor I hope by any of my kin. She will be forsaken again; but I will never forsake her now. She will need friends in time to come: well, she may reckon upon one. Long ago I prayed her to trust Gordon, and at the time she had little cause to do it. Now you shall see her answer my desire—and not in vain. So much, for all that she hath forgiven in me, and for all that she hath redeemed for me—so much, I tell you, I owe her.’

The Countess returned his gaze with no less steadfastness, from under brows no less serried. ‘And I,’ she said, ‘a Gordon as much as you are, do owe her more than you choose to acknowledge for your part.’

She went into her chamber; but Huntly remained in the gallery outside the shut doors.