The Queen's Caprice

by Marjorie Bowen

  *

  The King instructed his valet and his page to dress him as decently as they could for the coming of the Queen. He was profoundly upset at the curse which afflicted him, making him awful to look at, which no bathings nor lotions could disguise.

  He was glad that it was winter, a grey, windy day when candles would be lit early.

  The English servants did what they could, washing and anointing his disfigured face, dressing him in embroidered linen and a purple bedgown lined with sable. Yet when he looked at himself in the mirror that they brought him, he was repulsed by his image.

  Much of his arrogance had gone with his looks. He felt abashed and weak, purged by physical humiliation of many vanities. He told John Taylor to bring him a mask of yellow silk taffeta he had worn once in a masked tilting at the ring when he and Huntly and Argyll on the sands at Leith had taken part against Moray and Lord Robert Stewart, and had been dressed as women with these masks and skirts and periwigs, and even after that handicap had won.

  The long mask of fine wood covered with taffeta, with whiskers of pink floss, was placed over his face, and he felt some return of confidence. At least he would not be repugnant to her; he felt a faint return of hope. She had at least, ventured alone into his stronghold; he was safe in Glasgow, but she was not. He recalled some of the old raptures, the violet-brown bed, the crimson enamel ring.

  He asked whom she had brought with her and was told there was a lot of servants, including two foreign youths, and some others including Lord Livingstone and Lady Reres. At this last name the King winced, and asked who were the foreign servants; but John Taylor affected not to know. He did not want to tell his sick master that one of them was Giuseppe, David’s brother, who was now employed in writing the Queen’s foreign letters, and the other was Nicolas Hubert, nicknamed Paris, who was Lord Bothwell’s lackey lately lent to the Queen.

  He was ready long before she came, and lay propped up on his pillows, waiting. He had fled from Stirling when he had heard that due to Bothwell and Moray’s persuasion she was going to pardon his one-time accomplices for the murder of David: and Morton and that other Douglas, Archibald, were returning to Scotland. The King had remembered that a Douglas had murdered a Stewart in Stirling Castle and he had fled from there to the only place in the island where he felt safe, believing his wife and his honour lost, his status mocked, the child not his …

  But she had followed him, to take him back to his capital, her message said, to heal all differences between them, to effect a sincere reconciliation. If only it was true! Old dreams and hopes stirred in the sick man, who was simple and childlike under the vices which had stuck to him like burrs as he had passed through the thicket of the Court.

  She came so quietly that at first he did not notice her presence. She affected no surprise at seeing his mask, but approached the bed and seated herself in a great chair and smiled at him, looking weary and compassionate, even, he thought, humble.

  He stared at her greedily through the eyeholes in the silk mask. She was dressed in a colour that reminded him oddly of bulrushes that he had seen in England. Her face was as smooth as the mask that disguised him, her hair was crimped stiffly either side her brow. The curious eyes, dark beneath the white lids and faint gold lashes, gave him a gentle look.

  Without waiting for him to speak she began in a low tone to reproach him for the cruelty of the letters that she had received at Jedburgh and Edinburgh.

  “I had good reason to write them,” he replied, trying to resist the joy that her submission gave him.

  “What is the cause of your sickness?” she asked delicately.

  He shrugged his wide shoulders on the fringed pillows.

  “Some say the plague and some say poison; some say the pox, of which there is enough in Glasgow, and I say — you who sit there.”

  “Ah,” she replied softly, “so it would seem that we destroy one another. All say that you were the cause that I nearly died at Jedburgh.”

  “If I have wronged you, I have made offers of repentance. I have failed in much towards you, but others have given you greater offence and you have pardoned them many times.”

  “So, too, have I pardoned you,” she whispered, looking at him steadily. “Many times.”

  “I am young,” he replied sullenly. “I am destitute of good advice. I came into a strange country and into the midst of difficult happenings. Have I not a chance to repent?”

  “You offended deeply,” said the Queen, but gently and smiling.

  “Howsoever that may be,” he replied, “I ask your pardon.”

  “What do you hope for now?” she asked curiously. “What do you want?”

  He moved towards her on the bed and she shrank back slightly, noticing his bandaged hands, and the smell of ill-health that came from his body, even through the perfume of the ointments.

  “I ask nothing else but that we may be together as husband and wife,” came the unnatural sounding voice behind his mask. “What else is there for me but that? If you say no, I desire that I may never rise from this bed again. Ay, though I am not yet one-and-twenty years old, I have no desire to go on living. Give me an answer.”

  “I had not thought you had been so fond.”

  “Fond! God knows how I am punished for making you my idol, having no other thought but you. So it was from the first, Mary. I did not think so much of being King, although they pushed me on to snatch at that — it was you, those days at Stirling.”

  She did not answer and he hurried on, losing his reserve, his embarrassment, because of the mask and the half-shadows and the fact that they were alone together after so long a time. All the events that troubled him since their last meeting seemed vague, almost effaced.

  “You were the cause why I offended you,” he said strangely. “Never, save for a short while at first, did you treat me as your husband. If, for my refuge, I, who have been much alone in Scotland, could have opened my mind to you — but,” he raised his hand and let it fall, “we were not as husband and wife ought to be, and I had to keep everything to myself, and so I am come to this desolation and jealousy. Perhaps I was mistaken in my jealousy, you are so much cleverer than I.”

  The Queen, still looking at him curiously and drawn back in her chair, said: “I am sorry for your sickness and I will try to find a remedy for it. I have good physicians if you will use them.” Leaning forward, she added suddenly: “Why would you have gone away from Scotland in the English ship? Was not that to shame me and leave me abandoned and ridiculous?”

  “Surely,” he replied vehemently, “it is I who have been abandoned and ridiculous. How often have I come to you, and you have denied me, because there has been another within?”

  He saw that she braced herself in fear of the name of David Rizzio. He did not say it, but muttered instead: “Moray, or Bothwell, or Huntly, some enemy of mine. Then, in other ways what has been my use? Not only have you taken all dignities from me and even the shadow of the Crown, but you know as well as I, I have had nothing to keep myself or my servants.”

  The Queen lifted her shoulder a little and he asked: “Why did you come here?”

  When she did not answer he stared through the mask-holes and said:

  “I ought to be warned and armed against you, but you are my own proper flesh and I do not think that you would do me harm. And if any other should try it,” he added, “they shall buy it dear, unless they take me sleeping.” Then as she sat motionless he added: “But I suspect nothing.”

  “Whom should you suspect?” she replied. “All is mended with those who were your enemies, no one desires anything but peace and reconciliation, and the good government of Scotland.”

  “No one?” he asked. “Not Moray nor Morton? Mary, why did you recall those men who offended you so grievously?”

  “To prove that I have forgotten as I have long since forgiven. What other reason could I have?”

  “I thought it might be that you set them on the trail of another victim knowing the
m to be well skilled at murder. You forced me to betray them. For you I denied them.”

  “Your sickness,” she replied, “has given you evil dreams.”

  She rose as if to leave, and even the threat of her withdrawal upset him.

  “Keep me company,” he implored. “Stay with me to-night. Have you only come here for this little talk?”

  “I have nothing more to say now,” she said gently. “I must abide in my own lodgings. You have mistaken much — but I did not come for reproaches.”

  She stood pensive by the chair and he asked why she was so sad.

  “Truly,” she replied, “I have not much cause for happiness. I have brought a litter with me to carry you more comfortably than you could go on horseback. I thought that I could lodge you at Craigmillar so that I might stay with you and not be far from our little son.”

  “Our son!” he muttered, then added: “A sick man should not travel in a litter and in so cold weather.”

  “Well,” said she, “you cannot sit on horseback, that I can see. It is said you have a great weakness. Why do you wear that mask, Harry?”

  He said:

  “I would not be seen until I am cured.”

  “Well,” she said, “you can have the baths at Craigmillar and be purged and clean. Will you come with me?”

  “Ay, I will come, if we may be at board and bed together as husband and wife, and you promise to leave me no more.”

  ‘‘You want that?”

  “Yes, if you promise this on your word, I will go where you please. Without it I will not go.”

  The Queen smiled again. Her expression was quite timid and humble.

  “If I had not been minded to make peace with you, Harry, would I have come so far in this winter weather, give you my hand as the pledge of my body that I would love and use you as my husband?”

  “Do you give me that?” he asked.

  He moved along the bed towards her as if he would take her hand, but she stepped lightly out of his reach and told him again that before they could come together he must be healed of his sickness. She then asked him if he trusted everybody, if he had any evil in his heart towards anyone? He replied:

  “I make little count of any of them.”

  “Are you angry that Lady Reres is in my company?”

  “I have little mind for such as she,” replied the King, “I hope to God she serves you honourably.”

  “Well,” said the Queen smiling, “I will come again after supper.”

  “Do you call this a reconciliation?” he asked from the pillow. “You will not come near me nor as much as touch my hand!”

  At that she approached him steadily and stood within the bedcurtains.

  “There have been some words gone before this, Harry, and it takes a little time for us to be as we were. Besides, your sickness—” her composure faltered. “Do not tell the Lords of any promise I have made you, it may be there are some would grudge you my favour.”

  At that he was angered and cried:

  “I know no cause why they should mislike me. Are we not husband and wife? Look to it, Mary, you do not move any against me.”

  “I swear I will stir no one against you.”

  “We must work in one mind or both of us may be ruined.”

  “You speak very coolly and wisely,” she replied. “I had not known you so prudent before.”

  “Perhaps I have been learning some hard lessons and now have them by heart. It is not so long since I was at school, and though at first I always shirked my tasks, in the end I got them perfect.”

  “Well,” said she, “I have never wronged you. The troubles you have in Scotland are of your own making.”

  “Ay,” he replied, “my faults are known, but there are those that have made worse ones which have never been published.”

  She bent over him as if to kiss him, but withdrew without touching him and put her finger on her lips, with a soothing gesture of one who would quiet an invalid, and so withdrew to where, in the ante-chamber, two of her French girls, the Italian boy, and Lady Reres were waiting and whispering together.

  *

  As soon as he was alone the King struck upon a bell and ordered John Taylor to call Thomas Crawford, his father’s gentleman, who had lately been in attendance on him and who was a shrewd and loyal man.

  Then he pulled off the mask so violently that the ribbons snapped, for it irritated his inflamed face.

  Thomas Crawford came quickly, for Lennox had told him to watch, listen and report, and he had been in a little closet, listening through a hole cut in the wall hidden behind the tapestry, so the King who was already weary, had not to repeat more than a few words of what the Queen had said, except the sentences she had spoken in a low voice.

  “What do you think, Crawford, of my journey to Edinburgh?”

  “Sir, I do not like it. Why should the Queen’s Grace take you to Craigmillar? Why not to your own house in Edinburgh rather than to a private gentleman’s mansion two miles out of town?”

  “Ay, why indeed?” said the sick man, tossing from side to side as if in pain.

  “In my opinion,” said Crawford, “she takes Your Grace more like a prisoner than like her husband.”

  The young man sat up in his bed and looked at his friend.

  “I think little less myself,” he replied with dignity. “I have nothing save my confidence in her promise.”

  “And do you, sir, trust in that?” asked Thomas Crawford, lowering his voice and looking round, as if the Queen’s presence was still somewhere in the room. Henry Stewart made the sign of the Cross.

  “Yes, I will put myself in her hands though she should cut my throat. I pray God to judge between us.”

  *

  The Queen sat up late that night in her lodgings in Glasgow. She was knitting a bracelet of purple silk, in which she was twisting a design of golden beads. Now and then she paused in this employment to write hastily a few lines on an odd sheet of paper which lay before her on a small table.

  The fire was out on the hearth, but she did not notice. Once she rose to draw the curtains more closely, for about two in the morning a strong wind rose and shook the very walls of the ancient house.

  No one knew she was sitting up, not even Lady Reres. She moved cautiously and sheltered her candle behind the cabinet so that no ray of light might fall underneath the door.

  She shivered a little. She was haunted by the past yet released from it; she no longer felt caged and confined by rules even if she had never obeyed them. She had always been reckless and now her spirit seemed united with one as reckless, as bold as herself — the man to whom she wrote an account of her interview with her husband, intermingled with expressions of love.

  She thought of her husband without emotion. How different he was, or else how skilful at pretending! Did he flatter her because he was afraid? Who could ever believe him? He had lied to her and to all Scotland, betraying his accomplices so lightly, and all the while she had in the casket where she had thrown the scarlet wedding-ring, the two bonds that he had signed for the murder of David.

  No doubt he had lied again yesterday when he had told her he had made his god of her.

  She held out the bracelet in the candlelight; she wished to finish it before the morning so that it could go with the letter. She must tell him to be careful where he wore it — up on his arm, yet even there carefully — he might be wounded or taken suddenly sick and several people had seen her knitting it.

  She rose and looked in the jewel casket she had brought with her for gold clasps to finish the bracelet. She might make it too large, when it would slip down to his wrist, or too small, so that he could not get it up to his arm — she shrugged and smiled. When she had found the clasps she stood still for a while listening to the tempest and found pleasure in the sound of the wind rushing past the windows and the heavy splashing of the rain against the casement.

  Would it be so easy? Surely somebody would warn him — one of those forty horsemen who,
alert and suspicious, had ridden out to meet her, or Thomas Crawford, who had dogged her every step, who was no doubt hidden in a closet listening to the interview, or his father, always crafty, sly and suspicious. Would none of these warn him? Would he, on her word only, follow her to where he would be unprotected in the hands of his enemies?

  “The fool,” she muttered with disgust. “Why must I think of him so much?”

  That she could beguile him so easily filled her with contempt for him. She shuddered with physical repugnance as she recalled the night at Stirling. How could she ever have seen a golden Adonis in that stupid youth! Now he was like a leper, bandaged, detestable behind the mask which he had worn to hide a disfigured face. The smell of his breath, the sweat from his body not disguised by strong perfume, reminded her sickeningly of the days and nights she had passed with her first husband.

  Yet she was sorry for the way it had to be done. She liked the grand, open action.

  “I have never deceived anybody,” she scribbled on the nearly filled piece of paper, then laughed thinking what a lie that was. Though she did not like this manner of intrigue, her whole life had been a lie. Yet she could not blame herself, she had acted as she had been taught, as she had been forced.

  A pity it could not have been done quickly, without this to-do. Suddenly, as David had been disposed of — or John Gordon, or Chastelard.

  Supposing he really trusted her? She turned that thought over in her mind, as she sat above the unfinished letter listening to the wind and the rain, her glance fixed before her on the half-light of the single candle. She did not feel any compassion for him, but she had a faint feeling that some other woman in her situation might have been melted by pity, might have dwelt on his helplessness, on his youth, on the bad luck he had had and her treatment of him from the first, how she had seduced him, used him, flung him aside. Perhaps another woman might have thought like that. But she had written in her letter: “My heart is as the diamond and you need not fear but I shall do it.”

  She was one with the man to whom she wrote, one purpose, one courage, one desire, and he, like herself, was married to one of a false race. She thought of her lover and smiled. What had he asked of her? Only to bring the fool to Edinburgh. There had been no word of anything else.