Chapter XII: Addolorata

She sat on the floor, and had his head at rest on her lap. Her hands were upon him, and so he rested. The great tears fell fast and wetted his hair.

Her grief was silent and altogether gentle. Still as she sat there, looking before her with wide unwinking eyes and lips a little parted, she was unconscious of what she was suffering or had suffered: all about her was the blankness of dark, and without her knowledge the night fell; the dusk like a vast cloak gathered round about her, fold over fold; and still she sat and looked at nothing with her wide unwinking eyes. Slowly they filled and brimmed, and slowly the great tears, as they ripened, fell. There were no other forms of grief, none of grief’s high acts: only their bitter symbol—lamentation embodied in tears, and nakedly there.

‘Nay, move not your hands—nay, touch my brows: my head aches—I am blind.’ The lad supine in her lap pleaded in whispers.

Gentle-voiced she answered him. ‘There is no work left for my hands to do but to tend thee, my dear.’

He lay dumb for a while; then said he: ‘You shall not blame me. It is not here—not in the house. I know not where it is. They are seeking it now. He came here with two archers. He snarled like a fox to find me.’

‘Who was this, Baptist? Was it Lethington?’

‘Lethington. He believed it was here. He forced that knowledge from his wife——’

She said, ‘Fleming too?’

‘——I fought. They tried to make me tell them where I had hid it. They lifted and threw me. I am hurt—cannot move. Oh, they will have it now.’

‘Rest, my dear, rest. Think no more of it. They have all but me.’ Out of the heart of this poor nameless youth she was to learn good love; but to learn it only to know its impossibility. Not for her now, not for her! Not so could she ever have loved; no! but she could be kind. She stooped her head over him and breathed softly through the dark—‘and I, Baptist, am yours if you will.’

He sighed. ‘Oh, that it were possible! That night when you looked back—that night——you let me take——remember you of that?’

She knew his thought and all his heart. Her own were at leagues of distance: but she could not now refuse him kindness. She stooped her head lower towards his, and whispered, ‘Baptist, can you hear me?’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘My last gift—all I have left: yours by right. Do you hear me? Listen—understand. I am yours now—I am forsaken by all but you.’

He moved uneasily, sighed again. ‘Too late, too late: I lie dying here.’

She leaned down yet nearer; he felt her warm breath beat upon him—quick and short and eager. ‘If I die this night, and if thou die, I will love thee first.’

‘Ah!’ said he, ‘I know very well that you desire to love me now.’

‘How knowest thou, my love?’

‘By the way you lean to me, and by other things.’

She said, ‘You are well schooled in love.’

‘Not so well,’ he answered; ‘but I am well schooled in you, my Queen.’

‘Prove me, then—desire of me—ask—take. I shall never deny thee anything.’

Again he said, ‘Too late, too late. You cannot—and I lie dying. Yet, since the dead can do you no wrong, let me lie here at rest, that I may die loving you.’

She stooped to kiss him. She anointed him with her hot tears. ‘Rest, rest, my only true lover!’

‘Peace,’ said he: ‘let me sleep. I am tired to death.’

She kissed his eyelids. He slept.

* * * * *

Men came about the door—more than one. She sprang from her mate and kneeled to face that way, screening him where he lay short-breathing. They knocked, then opened. The torchlight beat upon her, and showed her dishevelled and undone. She covered her bosom with her crossed arms. ‘What is it? Who comes?’

‘Madam’—this was Lord Lindsay—‘it is I. I have horses beyond the wall. It is time to be going. You and I must take the road.’

‘Whither, sir? Whither will you take me so late?’

‘To Lochleven, ma’am.’

‘You order me? By whose warrant?’

‘By the Council’s. In the name of the Prince.’

‘It is infamy that you do. I cannot go. I am alone here.’

‘Women, clothing, all, shall follow with good speed, madam. But we must be speedier.’

‘If I refuse you—if I command——?’

‘I cannot consider with your Majesty the effect of that.’

‘Do you take me, Lindsay—you alone? No, but I will die here sooner.’

Lord Sempill spoke. ‘I offer myself to your Majesty, with the consent of the Lords.’

She rose up then. ‘I thank you, Lord Sempill: I will go with you.’

She gave him her hand, which, having kissed, he held. He would have taken her away then and there, but that she pulled against him. ‘I leave my servant dead here. He loved me well, and I him. Let me pray a while; then I will go.’

Des-Essars turned and rose to his arm’s length from the ground. He could not move his legs. ‘I am a prisoner also—take me.’

‘You, my man?’ says Lindsay: ‘unlikely.’

She withdrew her hand from Sempill’s by leave, stooped over the fading lad and kissed his eyes. ‘Adieu, my truest love and last friend—adieu, adieu! I have been death to all who have had to do with me.’ She kissed him once more.

‘Sweet death,’ said Des-Essars.

‘Come,’ she said to Lord Sempill, and gave him her hand again. He led her away.

Des-Essars fell his length upon the floor. She would have turned back to him; they hurried her forward between them.

The door shut upon Queen Mary.