Читать книгу The Queen's Maries - G. J. Whyte-Melville - Страница 9

Table of Contents

‘She could whisper, and smile, and sigh,

Pleading, flattering, … so can the rest;

But oh! the light in her roving eye

Would have wiled the babe from its mother’s breast.’

The Queen of Scotland was fairly settled in her own palace of Holyrood. We must now shift the scene to the royal presence-chamber in that picturesque old building. It is a lofty and well-proportioned apartment, of which, however, the small windows and thick walls denote that it was originally constructed with a view to purposes of defence. It is hung round with a quaint and elaborate tapestry, more curious, perhaps, than tasteful, representing various incidents in the heathenish history of Diana; whereon the goddess bares her knee and draws her bow, to the discomfiture of her rival’s children, with mythological effrontery. Beautiful oak carvings adorn its massive chimney-piece, and its panelled roof is richly emblazoned with the armorial bearings of a line of kings. The floor, instead of being strewed with rushes, is carefully waxed and polished, a foreign innovation which has already excited some displeasure amongst the graver courtiers. Such furniture as the room contains is heavily gilt and decorated. The sovereign’s chair of state seems to blaze with embroidery and cloth of gold. It is a right royal apartment, not unworthy of the company by which it is occupied.

To-night the Queen holds one of her state-receptions, and around her person are gathered the flower of the Scottish aristocracy. Many a bold baron who spends half his life sheathed in armour, walks none the less stately to-night that he has donned satin doublet and silken hose, that his brow is bare of its steel head-piece, and he carries his plumed bonnet in his hand. Many a dame of clear blue eye and dazzling fairness scans with critical glance every fold of the royal drapery, and watches if she cannot catch and appropriate another grace from her Queen. They are thronging round her now, for the dissensions which shall mar her unhappy reign are as yet only in the bud. Each may expect some fresh boon from a new sovereign, and the baron’s ambition to become an earl is just as eager, and probably twice as unprincipled, as the varlet’s to become a page, or the page’s to become a squire. Even thoughtful Lord James, the Queen’s half-brother, the lay-churchman, the soldier-statesman—the staff on which she leans, little dreaming it can ever break in her hand and pierce her to the quick—has forgotten his sister in his sovereign, and wears on his calm sad face an unusual expression of deference to-night, because of prospective advancement and his promised earldom of Mar, and the broad lands and additional title of Moray, to which he hopes it may lead. He has taken his stand on the right of the Queen’s chair, and Mary whispers to him ever and anon as she requires information concerning her new subjects; although, with the tact of her family and her own kindly acuteness, she has already mastered the names of most of them, and has even gained the good-will of more than one rugged baron by a happy question regarding his old gray tower or his favourite horse.

But amongst many eager countenances, of which, with all their different expressions, each wears a family likeness of curiosity and expectation, it is touching to observe the chivalrous face and the lofty bearing of the Maréchal d’Amville, who has come to bid farewell to his Queen and his ladye-love. With all the polish of a courtier, with all the pride of a soldier, and with that dignity of manner which noble natures, and these alone, acquire from a hopeless sorrow bravely borne, d’Amville kneels before her who was Queen of France in the sunny days that seem to have shone so long ago. Many a weary year has he knelt in spirit before that magic beauty which he now feels he looks on for the last time. He never expected for a moment that his wild hopeless love could win him anything but sorrow, yet he grudged it not, nor strove to conquer the idolatry for which he was prepared to pay its cruel penalty—he is paying it even now. Kneeling there to kiss the white hand that reaches him a letter for her kinsfolk in France so gently and so gracefully, looking up once more at the face that will haunt him to his grave, and feeling that none but himself will ever know his folly or its punishment; and that she, its object, smiling so frankly upon him, little guesses how gladly he would give her his blighted life, then and there, at her feet.

But, gentleman and soldier as he is, none can guess his heart by the unmoved brow, the unshaken voice, and the scrupulous deference with which he pays his homage. Gracefully he insists on the reception he will meet with in France, as bearing the latest news from her who was the pleasure and the pride of the whole kingdom, and his own good fortune in having been permitted to accompany her and see her safely bestowed on her Scottish throne. Mary can scarcely keep back her tears at the allusion; but, with so many jealous eyes around her, well she knows she must play her part at any cost, and she gulps them down with an effort.

‘Farewell,’ she says, ‘my brave protector and pilot; be assured Mary Stuart never forgets a friend. You will advise the Guises of my welfare and happiness. You will tell the French court and the French people,’ she added, drawing herself up and speaking in a louder tone, so as to be heard by all, ‘that you left me on a royal throne, surrounded by the bravest and the most loyal nobility in Europe.’

A murmur of applause went the round of the circle at this spirited declaration, and Lord James gave the Queen a glance of mingled surprise and approval.

As d’Amville rose from his knee and retired, Chastelâr, who followed in the train of the Maréchal, passed before the Queen to make his farewell obeisance. The poet’s face wore an expression of determination foreign to its usual character; but it was observed by one who watched its every turn, that he never lifted his eyes above the hem of Mary’s robe. She inclined her head graciously to him, nevertheless, and he passed into the outer circle, and was soon conversing lightly with the maids-of-honour and other of the courtiers.

It chanced, however, that the Queen had forgotten some additional message for her kinsfolk, with which she intended to charge d’Amville, and ere he had reached the door, she wished to call him back. The first person whose eye she caught happened to be the Earl of Arran, who had taken up a position opposite Her Majesty, and seemed to observe her narrowly.

Not unwilling to pay the house of Hamilton every compliment in her power, Mary beckoned the Earl to her side and charged him with her commission. Arran’s wild eye flashed fire at the proposal!

‘I will obey your commands, madam,’ said he, rudely, ‘though there be pages enough in the gallery to send after a French adventurer. It seems that France had better come to Holyrood and abide with your Majesty once for all.’

His tone was so loud, and his bearing so excited, that the bystanders gazed in astonishment on one another and on the Queen.

Mary looked surprised, almost scared for a moment, and then flushed with displeasure; but her sweet temper soon prevailed, and she answered gently—

‘Nay, cousin, you shall do my bidding yourself as you have always done. Have not you and I reason to look back upon the days we spent in France as the happiest of our lives? Youth comes but once, my lord, and we shall neither of us ever be so light-hearted again.’

The unfortunate nobleman trembled from head to foot, and turned deadly pale. He seemed about to indulge in some frantic outbreak, which he repressed with an effort; then with writhing lip and dilated nostril, he strode towards the doorway, the courtiers making way for him as he passed with looks of astonishment and alarm.

Lord James, glancing at Morton, put his finger to his brow and shook his head gravely. The grim Douglas laughed his ghastly laugh, and with his hand on the haft of his dudgeon-dagger, muttered something about ‘blood-letting’ and ‘melancholy,’ that, had he been the physician, would have boded no good to the patient; and Arran, rushing tumultuously through the gallery to cool his brow in the night air, reappeared in the Presence no more that night.

It seems to us there is a strange, sad moral in the history of this beautiful Queen. Probably the gift that women most desire, beyond riches, wisdom, even virtue itself, is a power of fascination over the other sex; and this dangerous charm must have been possessed by Mary to a degree that in the days of Greece and Rome would have been attributed to supernatural influence. With all her advantages of rank, talent, and education, this very quality, so far from adding to her happiness, seems to have been the one engine which worked her own destruction, and that of every kindly heart that came within her sphere. Few of the other sex could look upon Mary without an inclination, at least, to love her; and how many, like high-minded d’Amville and poor half-crazed Arran, had cause to curse the day when first they felt the spell of that sweet face, apparently so unconscious of its power! Of all the eminently beautiful women the world has seen, Mary Stuart wrought the most of wreck and utter ruin with the kindliest disposition and the best intentions. Dalilah, we have never doubted, was a heartless sensualist, covetous only of pleasure and gold. The Phrynes and Aspasias were, probably, finished courtesans, with whom the affections were but instruments necessary to a profession of which they were thorough mistresses. Cleopatra, like a royal voluptuary, grudged no price for her desire; and in her love of conquest, blazoned forth and made the most of her rich southern charms. Marguérite de Valois knew and cultivated her resplendent beauty with the diligence of a devotee and the scientific aptitude of a Frenchwoman. But the Queen of Scotland alone seems to have been half ignorant and wholly careless of those advantages which women most prize and cherish; seems to have regarded her loveliness as little as the flower its fragrance, and to have gone about frankly and freely dispensing her dangerous notice with the innocence of an involuntary and unconscious coquette.

It is notorious, that even the lower animals acknowledged the influence of this captivating nature. Dogs attached themselves to the Queen with their brave fidelity, from the instant they came into her presence. She loved to dress her own hawks, and was pleased to boast that she could reclaim the wild bird of the air with greater facility than the most experienced of her falconers. Horses that fretted and chafed under the boldest cavaliers, would bend at once to the gentle hand of the royal equestrian, and carry her with safety and docility. The brute yielded gladly, as though proud to contribute to her happiness; and man looked and longed and grieved, and did his best to make both himself and her miserable.

Of physical beauty there is no question that she possessed an extraordinary share—perhaps more than any woman of that or any other age. Like her mother, she was of lofty stature and peculiar dignity of bearing, whilst she inherited from her father an exact symmetry and the most graceful proportions. James V., though he made bad use of his physical advantages, was one of the comeliest and best-limbed men in his dominions. Mary’s hand was a model for a sculptor, whilst every gesture and every movement of her body was at once womanly and dignified. But it was the Queen’s face that riveted the attention, and fascinated both sexes with its entrancing loveliness. Other women might be beautiful; other women might have had the same smooth, open brow, the same chiselled features and pencilled eyebrows, the same delicate chin and white full neck and bosom—ay, even the same long, soft hazel eyes, and rich dark chestnut hair; but where was the woman in Europe whose glance, like hers, raised from under those sweeping eyelashes, found its way straight to the heart; whose smile seemed at once to entreat and to command, to extort obedience and bestow reward, like sunlight penetrating the coldest object and warming and brightening all within its sphere? Yes, there was many a beautiful woman in France and Scotland, not to mention such fair dames at the English court as did not fear to provoke the displeasure of ‘good Queen Bess’ by too engaging a deportment or too becoming an attire; but there was only one Mary Stuart, as many an aching heart in steel-clad bosom was fain to confess to its cost.

And yet on that fair face was often to be remarked an expression of melancholy, as though produced by some vague foreboding of evil, such as cast a shadow over the countenances of so many of the Stuarts.

Even James V., though he could revel with the noisiest, and sing many a merry stave of his own writing, amongst which

‘We’ll go no more a roving

By the light of the moon,’

is not the least suggestive and poetical, bore on his brow this mysterious presage of evil, although it was perhaps more apparent, as well it might be, in the pensive lineaments of his descendant, the first Charles, and the surpassing beauty of his peerless daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. Was it this that the soothsayer meant, when Mary of Guise took her beautiful child, then a mere infant, to the famous Nostradamus, and bade him cast her horoscope, and fortell her destinies? The sage looked on the blooming face, turned so artlessly towards his own, and announced in his deep grave tones, ‘There is blood on that fair young brow!’

Through her happy childhood in the peaceful islet of Inch-ma-home—through her graceful youth, spent with the daughters of France in the quiet retreats of Amboise and Fontainebleau—through her early wedded life and short supremacy, as through her widowhood, when the Blanche Reine was the darling and pride of the French court, this shadow of evil never left her. It pervaded her turbulent reign in Scotland, her many reverses, her cruel injuries, her disheartening defeats, her dreary captivity. Perhaps it never faded from her brow till the glory of death shone over it, in the hands of the headsman at Fotheringay.

Mary looked round her courtiers in dismay at Arran’s extraordinary conduct. The sad expression was more than usually apparent on her fair forehead: she whispered a few words to her brother, who seemed to be her refuge, as was natural, in her difficulties, and Lord James, darting another glance at Morton, quitted the apartment with his usual staid impassive air.

Then the Queen, rising, broke up the circle by which she was surrounded, and pacing through the room, addressed herself by turns to the different nobles present, and was observed to be more than usually condescending to the Earl of Morton, as though some instinctive prescience bade her deprecate, as early as possible, the hostility of that fierce uncompromising nature.

The Earl’s grim countenance relaxed into a smile that added to its natural ghastliness, as she passed; and Secretary Maitland whispered to Lord John Stuart that—

‘The Douglas was in a courtly mood to-night, and reminded him of the lion in George Buchanan’s elegy that was led by the lady in a silken chain;’ to which the gay prior of Coldinghame, contemplating a shapely leg he loved well to display in a galliard, replied with a light laugh—

‘I never mistrust the lion so much as when he shows his fangs,’ alluding to the prominent teeth and unshapely mouth of the redoubted Earl.

‘Nor I the Douglas so much as when he hides his claws,’ answered Secretary Maitland; and the two passed gaily on to take part in the amusements and revelry that once more enlivened the walls of old Holyrood.