Читать книгу The Queen's Maries - G. J. Whyte-Melville - Страница 4

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‘Farewell! Farewell! How soon ’tis said!

The wind is off the bay,

The sweeps are out, the sail is spread,

The galley gathers way.

‘Farewell! Farewell! The words, how light!

Yet what can words say more?

Sad hearts are on the sea to-night,

And sadder on the shore.’

Twenty-four hours had elapsed since Chastelâr sang his farewell song in the little auberge at Calais.

He now stood on the deck of a large galley, manned by a sturdy crew of rowers, whose efforts, however, were but little assisted by the light airs that blew off the shore. The ample sail would fill at intervals, and then flap idly against the mast. The measured stroke of the oars seemed on that wide expanse of water to have but little effect in propelling the labouring craft, and the companionship of a corresponding vessel at some quarter of a mile distance proceeding at the same rate, and in the same direction, neutralised all appearance of locomotion. A bright moon shone down upon the Channel; and the coast of France, still at no great distance, was distinctly visible in her light. Comparatively little way had been made since the galley’s departure, nor did her course bear her in a direct line from the shore. The rowers also had flagged somewhat in their usual efforts. Rank upon rank, these brawny ruffians chained to their heavy oars were accustomed to labour doggedly, yet effectually, under the stimulus of the whip. To-night, however, a gentle voice had interceded even for the rude galley-slaves, and while they enjoyed this rare respite from over-exertion, many a foul lip, that had long forgotten to form anything but curses, writhed itself into an unaccustomed blessing for the fair widowed Queen of France. Yes, what a strange companionship in that dark hull, having indeed nothing in common but the thin plank that was equally the hope of all! Down below, forcing her through the water, men who had almost lost the outward semblance of humanity, whose hearts were as black with crime as their bodies were disfigured with the hardships of their lot; men whom their fellows had been forced to hunt like wild beasts out of the society of their kind, and to keep chained and guarded at an enforced labour worse than death; and seated on deck within ten paces of these convicts, a bevy of the fairest and gentlest of the human race, a knot of lovely maidens chosen for their birth, and beauty, and womanly accomplishments, to surround a mistress who was herself the most fascinating of them all, the very pearl of her sex, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.

Chastelâr, leaning against the mast, gazed aft upon the deck, and listened to the talk of Mary and her maidens as they chatted together in the freedom of that unrestrained intercourse which the Stuarts have ever encouraged with their household. It was pleasant to hear the women’s soft tones mingling with the plash of the water, and the flap of the empty sail; but there was one voice of which every note thrilled, even painfully, to the poet’s heart.

Mary was reclining on a couch that had been prepared for her against the taffrail of the vessel. Though the tears were still wet upon her cheek, and a fresh burst was imminent every time she looked upon the coast, she could yet force herself to speak gaily, and strove to keep up the spirits of her maidens with that charm of manner which never failed her at the very worst.

‘And where is our Duenna?’ said the Queen, archly; ‘I have scarce seen her since the hour we embarked, when she walked the deck with her head up and the port of an admiral. D’Amville yonder, studying his charts as if he were in unknown seas, instead of the ditch that divides France from Britain, could scarce have looked more seaman-like.’

The young lady she addressed, a provoking specimen of the saucy style of beauty, with mischievous eyes, the whitest of teeth, and an exquisite little foot that was always conspicuous, laughed most unfeelingly in reply.

‘Your Majesty should see her now,’ she said. ‘I shall never call her proud Mary Beton again. She is below, in the darkest corner of the cabin. She has buried her head in the cushions. She is ill. She is frightened, and her velvet dress is creased and tumbled, and stained all over with sea-water!’

‘You cruel child,’ said the Queen, good-humouredly. ‘Mary Seton, you are incorrigible. But we must send down to succour her, poor thing! Ah! it is only a heart-ache like mine that makes one insensible to all other sufferings. Mary Hamilton is too susceptible—she will be ill also; but you, Mary Carmichael, you have a kind disposition and a ready hand. You will not laugh in her face like this saucy girl here; go down and succour poor Beton. Give her our love—tell her she will yet be well enough to come and look her last with us on the dear land of France.’

The young lady whom she addressed rose at once from her occupation, which, like that of her mistress, seemed to consist in gazing steadfastly at the French coast, and with a graceful reverence to the Queen, departed on her errand of consolation.

As she passed Mary Seton, the latter’s quick eye detected a few drops, it might be of spray, upon her cheek. The Maries could sympathise with their Queen’s regret in leaving a country that had been to them a pleasant home; and a woman’s sorrow, as we all know, while it is more easily cured, is also more easily excited, than that of the sterner sex. Mary Carmichael’s was not a disposition to give way to unavailing grief; above all, was one in which the instinct to conceal strong emotion predominated. With much kindliness of heart and real good-nature, she was yet somewhat intolerant of weakness in herself and others. Brave and self-reliant, she could make small allowance for timidity or vacillation even in her own sex; and had either mental or bodily pain been able to extort one exclamation of suffering from her lips, she would have been bitterly ashamed of it a moment afterwards. To look on her clear blue eyes, her finely-cut and regular features, her smooth brow, and determined mouth and chin, determined and uncompromising, despite of red lips, white teeth, and dimples, you would have decided that the one drawback to her attractions was the want of that yielding softness which is a woman’s greatest charm. ‘On aime ce qu’on protège;’ and the haughty beauty who humbles while she conquers, little guesses how a man’s rude heart warms to the gentler suppliant, who clings to him, and trusts in him, and seems to say she has but ‘him in the world.’ Masses of soft brown hair, and a rounded outline of form, feminine and symmetrical, somewhat redeemed Mary Carmichael’s appearance from the charge of hardness. Altogether she gave the gallants of the French court the impression of a woman whom it would be difficult to like a little, and hazardous to like much. So what with the danger of her charms, and her own dignified and reserved demeanour, she had received less admiration than was due to the undoubted beauty of her face and figure.

While she goes below to succour her friend, who is suffering from sea-sickness, we will give some account of the four ladies of honour, commonly called the Maries, who waited on the Queen of Scots.

Mary Stuart herself, with all her predilections in favour of France, a country in which she spent the few tranquil years of her disturbed and sorrowful life, never suffered her connexion with Scotland to be weakened or neglected. She kept up an active correspondence with her mother, Mary of Guise, who held the reins of government with no inefficient hand in that country, till her death. Many of her household were Scotch. She showed especial favour to the archer-guard, all of whom were of Scotch extraction—favour which, over-estimated and misunderstood by their captain, the heir of the house of Hamilton, was, perhaps, the original cause that ‘turned weak Arran’s brain.’ She gave such appointments in her household, as were nearest her person, to the Scotch nobility; and she chose for her own immediate attendants, four young ladies of ancient Scottish families, whose qualifications were birth, beauty, and the possession of her own Christian name. ‘The Maries,’ as they were called, accordingly occupy a prominent position in the court-history of the time; and as their number was always kept up to four, several of the oldest families in Scotland, such as the Setons, the Flemings, the Livingstones, &c., had the honour of furnishing recruits to the lovely body-guard. At the time of her embarkation for Leith, the Queen was accompanied by a very devoted quartette, as conspicuous for their personal attractions as for their loyalty to their sovereign. It was even rumoured that the faithful maidens had bound themselves by a vow not to marry till their Queen did. Be this, however, as it may, not one of them but might have chosen from the flower of the French Court, had she been so disposed. Nay, gossips were found to affirm that many a warlike count and stately marquis would have been happy to take any one of the four; only too blest in the possession of a Mary, be she Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael, or Mary Hamilton.

A short sketch of each, at the commencement of our narrative, may serve, perhaps, to prevent confusion, and to elucidate the actions of some of the humbler characters in our drama. We are of honest Bottom’s opinion that it is best ‘to call forth the actors generally according to the scrip. First say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.’

We will begin, then, with the eldest of the four—the lady who, with her head buried in cushions, was groaning afresh at every lurch of the creaking galley, and who suffered despondently, refusing to be comforted.

To-day it is scarcely fair to bring her before the public. Yesterday she might have been seen to the greatest advantage, for Mary Beton was one of those people who seem to have been placed in the world for the express purpose of wearing full dress. The most romantic imagination could not have associated her with homely duties, déshabille, or dishevelled hair; and the Queen used to observe, laughingly, that he must be a bold man who could venture to ask her hand for a galliard, and contemplate the possibility of disarranging a fold of her robe, even in that stateliest of measures.

And yet she was handsome, too, in a cold, unfeeling, haughty style. She had large handsome eyes, and a large handsome figure, and large handsome hands, which she loved to display. She was perfect in all matters of court étiquette, in which it was impossible to find her tripping, and would have died rather than ’bate one of the accustomed ceremonies with which she delighted to glorify her mistress and herself. When she stood behind the throne with the Queen’s gloves in her hand, she was the admiration of all chamberlains, grand carvers, seneschals, and such court officials, so unmoved and dignified was her bearing, so scrupulously rigid her demeanour, so completely did she sink the woman in the maid-of-honour. And her disposition corresponded with her lofty manners, and her fine, well-dressed form. Less unfeeling than careless of all matters that did not appertain directly or indirectly to the court, she neither seemed to seek nor to afford sympathy for the petty vexations and annoyances which a little coterie of women is pretty sure to find or create for itself. None of the Maries ever went to her for advice and assistance, only for instructions and commands. Though but little their senior, she was always considered and treated as a kind of lady-superior by the other three, and even the Queen used to call her jestingly ‘The Duenna,’ and vowed that she never felt so unlike a Stuart as, when after some trifling breach of court étiquette, she encountered the tacit rebuke of Mary Beton’s grave, cold eye.

If she had a weakness, it was ambition. If there was any one road that led to her heart, it must have been through the portals of a palace, along tapestried passages, between lines of bowing lackeys, with a gentleman-usher at each turning to point out the way. She wrapped herself in the folds of a majestic decorum, and paced along the journey of life gravely and disposedly, as if it were a minuet.

What a contrast to laughing, roguish, Mary Seton, that Will-o’-the-wisp in petticoats, who flitted hither and thither amongst the courtiers, and pervaded every apartment of the palace with the air of a spoiled child whom nobody ventured to thwart or to chide. White-headed statesmen, grave ambassadors, ponderous in the double weight of their sovereign’s dignity and their personal appearance, iron-handed warriors, and haughty cardinals, all acknowledged the influence of the bewitching little maid-of-honour; and it seemed that the most devoted of her slaves were those whose years and station afforded the strongest contrast to her own.

The constable himself, the famous Montmorency, from whom the faintest gesture of approval could have lured every brave man in France willingly to death, would follow her about like a tame dog, and Cardinal Lorraine, churchmen though he were, would have entrusted her with state secrets that he scarcely ventured to whisper to his own pillow. She might have done a deal of mischief if she had chosen, that lively, laughing, little maiden. Fortunately she was thoroughly good-natured—so heedless that she forgot in the afternoon everything that was told her in the morning, and had, moreover, not the slightest taste for mystery or political intrigue. It would be difficult to say what was the especial charm people found in Mary Seton. Her features were irregular, and her figure, though exquisitely shaped, of the smallest. Dark eyes and eyelashes, with a profusion of light hair, gave a singular expression to the upper part of her face, whilst a mischievous smile, disclosing the pearliest of teeth, completed all the personal attractions of which she could boast. It was, indeed, one of those haunting faces, which, once seen, make an unaccountable impression, and which, if ever permitted to engrave themselves on the heart, do so in lines that are not to be obliterated without considerable pain. There was something piquante, too, in her continual restlessness. Even here, on shipboard, she could not be still for five minutes together. She had already pervaded the whole vessel from stem to stern, above and below, nor was her curiosity satisfied till she had personally inspected the poor galley-slaves, returning to the Queen, brimful of the private history of the two or three greatest criminals amongst them, with which, according to custom, she had made herself familiar, ere she had been an hour on board. Her mistress, though in no merry mood, could not forbear being amused.

‘I believe,’ said she, ‘that you would rather work, chained to an oar, like these poor wretches, than sit still.’

And Mary Seton replied, demurely—

‘Indeed, madam, idleness is the parent of evil; and, doubtless, even at the galleys, my good behaviour would soon raise me to be captain of the gang.’

A pair of dark eyes, that had hitherto been fixed on some object amidships, were raised in wonder to the laughing speaker, reproachful, as it were, of her levity at such a time; and Mary Hamilton’s beautiful face, paler and more beautiful than ever in the moonlight, seemed to take a deeper shade of sadness as she resumed the occupation in which she had been interrupted with an unconscious sigh. Sitting at the Queen’s feet, she was ready, as usual, at the shortest notice, to fulfil her mistress’s wishes; but the latter remarked, with concern, that her favourite maid-of-honour had been silent for hours, and that the novelties incidental to their situation had failed to rouse her from the abstraction in which, of late, she had been habitually plunged. It grieved the Queen’s kind heart, for, though she loved the others dearly, perhaps she loved Mary Hamilton the best of all; and it was no wonder. Beautiful as she was, with her large solemn eyes and her black hair, framing the oval of a perfect face, pale and serene like an autumn evening, with her tall graceful figure and womanly gestures, there was yet an undefinable charm about Mary Hamilton that seemed independent of all outward advantages; as though she must still have been lovable, had she been old, ugly, and deformed.

It is a melancholy, nay, a morbid sentiment which bids us feel in all exceeding beauty something akin to sorrow—and yet, who will deny the uncomfortable fact? Perhaps it arises from the longing after perfection which appertains to our immortality. Perhaps it is but the hopeless consciousness that our ideal can never be attained. At least the feeling exists; and in Mary Hamilton’s beauty, doubtless, the melancholy element predominated. It did not make her the less beloved, we may be sure; and the black-eyed maid-of-honour was worthy of the attachments she kindled wherever she was known. A kinder heart than hers never beat beneath a bodice. Wherever she heard of a sorrow, however trivial the cause, she was there to soothe. Utterly unselfish, she was ever ready to sacrifice her own will, her own amusements, her own advantage, to the lightest wish of another. And although the very sentinels at the palace-gate blessed her for her beauty, as she passed through, she seemed the only person about the Court who was insensible to her own attractions. Gentle, yielding, trusting, and enthusiastic, here was a woman ready prepared and bound, as it were, for the sacrifice. Need we say the victim could not fail to be offered up?

Meanwhile, the galley strained and laboured on. The dripping oars fell with measured cadence on the water; but the land-breeze, dying away towards midnight, refused to second the efforts of the rowers, so that the distance from the French seaboard appeared scarcely to increase. The Queen evinced no intention of going to rest. Reclining on deck, she kept her eyes fixed on the cherished land she was so loth to leave, and inwardly longed for a storm, or any other contingency, that should drive them back into port, and give her a few more days’ respite from her banishment.

Probably so unwilling a journey was never taken to claim a crown; and yet Mary was accompanied by many good friends, and true affectionate relatives, and loyal subjects, all anxious to see her securely established on the Scottish throne. Another galley of like tonnage accompanied her with a portion of her household, whilst two ships of war furnished an escort, by no means unnecessary, for Elizabeth’s friendship was little to be relied on, and England, as usual, commanded the Channel with her fleet.

On board the Queen’s own ship, d’Amville had taken the personal command, and studiously refrained from indulgence in the society of his charge, lest her fascinating conversation should have seduced him from his seaman-like duties. D’Amville, too, had long since yielded to the charm of that beautiful face, which only to look on was to love, and worshipped the Queen of Scotland with a devotion as touching as it was chivalrous in its hopeless generosity;—d’Amville, who sat now in the small dimly-lighted cabin, with his charts before him, and pressed to his bosom the Cyprus silk handkerchief of which we have already heard—the one treasure prized by that loyal, manly heart—the guerdon for which he gave up ambition, and comfort, and even hope. Truly there are strange bargains driven in love, reminding us of our traffic in beads, and brass, and tinsel, with naked savages—a few inches of silk, a half-worn glove, a thread of soft hair, in exchange for the noblest efforts of body and mind, the best years of life, perhaps the eternity of an immortal soul! Not that the coveted prize is reserved for such adoration. Alas! that it should be so. Rude hands pluck down the fruit that fond eyes have gazed on for so many sunny hours in vain, and the Sabine maiden loves her Roman bridegroom none the less that he carried her off by sheer force of manhood, not, perhaps, entirely so reluctant as she seemed.

Chastelâr had been standing motionless for a considerable period, leaning against the mast, apparently wrapped in meditation. At a signal from the Queen, however, his whole bearing altered, his face lighted up, and in an instant he was at her side. Mary Hamilton changed her position somewhat restlessly, and Mary Seton, rejoicing in the capture of a fresh listener, immediately took upon herself to communicate the commands of her mistress.

‘Fair sir,’ said the laughing maid-of-honour, ‘although you are certainly an ornamental object, measuring your stature yonder against the mast, you will be more useful here, at Her Majesty’s feet, to give us some information as to the progress of our voyage. Doubtless you are in Monsieur d’Amville’s confidence, who seems to think himself relieved of all care of us, now he has got his unprotected charge fairly out to sea.’

‘Hush! madcap,’ said the Queen. ‘And do you, Chastelâr, go below and inquire of our courteous commander whether by to-morrow at daybreak we shall, indeed, have lost sight of our beloved France. Already the beacon off the harbour is low down on the horizon, and the weather seems thickening to windward. Ah! the next lights we see will be on the bleak shores of Scotland—a dark, sad voyage, indeed, with a dreary termination!’

The poet bowed low and retired to fulfil the royal commands, whilst the Queen, leaning her white arms upon the bulwark, gazed longingly towards the shore. Tears coursed each other down her beautiful face, as she murmured forth her unavailing sorrow in such broken sentences as these—

‘France! France! my own beloved France! I shall never see you again. Country of my adoption! country of my love! Ah! it is sad to step at once, like this, from youth to age; it is cruel to feel still young and hopeful and capable of happiness, and to know that the bright days have departed from us for evermore. Poor Dido! you too gazed, in your agony, upon the sea, as I look ever towards the land; and your fond heart ached as mine aches now, and broke at last, as mine, I feel, will break ere long. My case is worse than yours; you had at least your home and country left, though you lost your Trojan love that the sea gave you, and the sea took back again!’

Whilst she spoke, she felt Mary Hamilton’s cold lips pressed against her hand. The kind heart, alas! itself not wholly ignorant of sorrow, could not bear to witness the sufferings of its mistress. Her other maid-of-honour, however, took a livelier view of their position, and was not slow to express her dissent.

‘Nay, madam,’ said she; ‘Dido gave up a throne for a bonfire, as I have heard your Majesty relate, whereas you are but losing sight of that faint beacon over yonder for the certainty of a crown. Besides, are there not Trojans in plenty where we are bound? What say you, Mary Hamilton? we need not look long for an Æneas a-piece, without counting those we take across with us. Listen, there is one of them singing even now.’

Mary Hamilton felt her face burning in the darkness, though none could see her blush; and indeed, whilst her companion spoke, the Calais light sank beneath the black line of the horizon. As it disappeared, Chastelâr’s mellow voice was heard, rising above the rush and ripple of the water and the jerk of the massive oars.