Part 10

The Earl instantly drew off his perfumed gloves, and led the Queen from the chair of state. The whole of the nobles rose, the archers of the guard drew back the heavy arras, the yeomen unfolded a strong glass door that opened towards the palace garden and ancient cloisters of the Abbey church--and from thence the Earl led Mary to her favourite seat, near the venerable and elaborate dial-stone, while Darnley, her ladies, and several courtiers, followed in groups.

*CHAPTER XVII.*

*THE BOUQUET.*

How near I am to happiness That Earth exceeds not! not another like it: The treasures of the deep are not so precious As the concealed comforts of a man, Lock'd up in woman's love. _Women beware Women, 1567._

It was now, as we have said, October.

The falling leaves were brown and crisped; the air was cool and balmy; but in lieu of the whistling of birds that marks the merry summer, there was heard at times the harsh screaming of aquatic fowls, as they passed landward. The royal garden, which lies to the northward of the palace, was then (as now) overlooked on the south by the embattled tower of James V., the carved buttresses and aisle windows of the chapel royal; and on the east by the old turreted chateau of Mary of Lorraine. The walks were then sheltered by thick and lofty hedges of privet, thorn, and holly, according to the ancient fashion of landscape gardening; but the latter alone retained their dark-green hue, and were studded by scarlet berries. There were balustraded terraces, a wilderness of walks and hedges, treillages, and little canals; but the chief ornaments were the mossy old fruit-trees, which had been planted and reared by the industrious monks of Abbot Ballantyne's days.

The sun shone joyously in the wide blue sky, and the old towers of the palace, and the square campanile of the church of _SANCTAE CRUCIS_ gleamed in the warm light. The few flowers of the season, which the care and skill of the royal gardener reared under glasses in a sheltered place, expanded their little cups and scentless petals in the warmth; and inspired with joy by the bright sunshine and the fragrant perfume that a slight shower had drawn from the greensward, and the box-edged parterres, Mary's heart expanded like that of a beautiful bird; and forgetful of the cares of state, and the bearded conclave she had just left, she clapped her white hands, and with a girlish playfulness, (that would have horrified John Knox, and petrified the General Assembly into stone,) half hummed and half sang one of Ronsard's sonnets.

Then, seating herself by the beautifully-carved horologue which bears her name, and is still situated in the centre of the garden, fixed upon a pedestal that rises from three octagon steps, she continued her sonnet, while playing alternately with a bouquet presented to her by the keeper of the gardens, and with Fidele, her little Italian greyhound--the gift of the Conte di Mezezzo, the Savoyard ambassador.

"Of all the poems of Pierre, le gentilhomme Vendomois," began the Earl, as he leant against the pedestal, over which there drooped a venerable weeping ash, and commenced a conversation, because he saw that Darnley and the ladies of the court were promenading at a distance, and that none observed him save his friend the Knight of Bolton. "Yes, madam; of all Ronsard's poems, none has pleased me so much as that addressed to your majesty, in which he portrays three nations--Scotland, France, and England--contending around your cradle for which should possess you."

"And Monsieur Jupiter, to whom the three fair sisters referred their claims, was most favourable to my dear and beautiful France. Ah! Jupiter was very sensible which I should love most," said the Queen; then, after a pause, she added--"O what a glorious lover Pierre Ronsard must be!"

"Oh, yes! think how tender are these lines;" and the Earl sang with a good voice--

"Bon jour, mon coeur; bon jour, ma douce vie; Bon jour, mon oeil; bon jour, ma chere amie; He! bon jour, ma touts belle. Ma mignardise, bon jour, Mes delices, mon coeur. Mon doux printempe, ma douce fleur nouvelle."

"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed Mary, with sudden animation; "I last heard those lines"--

"At the Palace de la Tournelles."

"One night"----

"Under your window?"

"Then, Mother Mary! thou knowest the singer!"

"'Twas I!" said the Earl, with a low voice.

Mary coloured deeply.

"'Twas I!" he added; "on the night before your marriage with the Dauphin, and my departure to Italy."

"Lord Earl, thou hast really a voice," said Mary, unwilling to perceive the implication of his words.

"Love will achieve any thing, when it desires to please."

"Love!" laughed the joyous Queen, in her tone of raillery. "I do not think thou very well knowest what love ought to be."

"Ah! say not so. When once kindled in a true heart," said the Earl, laying his hand upon his breast, "it can only be extinguished by death."

"_Ma foi!_ but when a heart is so flexible that a sudden flame expands within it to-day for one, and to-morrow for another," replied Mary, (thinking of her gay husband, whose white feather was visible at times above the holly hedges), "and can never love as--as one would wish to be loved. 'Tis oddly said, that few are wedded to those they first loved."

"True, madam," said the Earl, with a lower voice; "my own poor heart hath known that too bitterly."

"Indeed!" laughed the Queen, "since when?"

"Since I first beheld thee, adorable Mary! a young and smiling maiden of seventeen, standing by the side of the puny Dauphin at the Tournelles, as his affianced bride," replied the Earl, as half kneeling he lightly kissed her hand, while all the warm passion he had first cherished for her, in the days of his heedless youth, swelled up in his bosom.

"This is too much, presumptuous lord!" said the Queen, suddenly becoming grave, as she rose from her seat, and moved slowly away. "I did but begin in jest, and thou dost end in earnest."

"So it is ever with love, adorable madam!" replied the Earl, clasping his hands.

"Silence!" said the Queen trembling; "thy words are full of sin. One whisper of this to Darnley, and thou art a lost man;" and she glided away like a haughty Juno, with her long train and veil floating behind her. At this threat Bothwell's heart glowed alike with love and anger; but he remained irresolute, and confounded by her sudden transition from gaiety to gravity, and watched her approach the postern of James V.'s tower. As she was about to enter, two aged, lean, and shrivelled hands, were extended from the narrow-grated loophole of a strong and vaulted chamber in the basement story, and these immediately arrested Mary's attention. Folding her arms meekly upon her bosom, she bowed her head, and on her pure and snowy brow the forbidden sign of the cross was traced, and the hands were immediately withdrawn within the grating.

There, in that damp vault, lay Sir James Tarbet, a poor old priest, who had been discovered saying mass at midnight in the ruined chapel of St. Anthony on the Craig; and for this heinous crime had been consigned to a dungeon by those champions of toleration, who enforced the iron laws of the new _regime_.

Softened by the old man's blessing, and the sentiments it called up within her, Mary, as she entered the tower, bowed to the Earl in token of forgiveness, and dropped (but whether by chance or design, the usually acute Magister Absalom sayeth not) her bouquet, of which the enamoured lord immediately possessed himself, and placed in his bosom, bowing almost to the earth as she disappeared. His heart beat like lightning; a new and triumphant glow expanded like a flame within it, and he seemed to tread on air.

"_Parbleu!_" said the Marquis d'Elboeuff, who had observed this scene, and came pirouetting along the walk, looking like a great grasshopper, with his long rapier and short mantle; "ha! ha! art thou still for the Salique law?"

"Blockhead!" muttered the Earl impatiently.

"Remember that clause of it which saith, 'He who squeezes the hand of a free woman shall pay a fine of fifteen golden sols.'"

"Ah! but callest thou the queen a free woman, when she is a slave to the ten thousand caprices of yonder great baboon, her husband?" said the Earl, as, with a bitterness he could not conceal, he abruptly left the Marquis, and retired from the garden.

*CHAPTER XVIII.*

*JEALOUSY WITHOUT LOVE.*

_Eud._--No! we must part. 'Twill ask whole years of sorrow To purge away this guilt. Then do not think Thy loss in me, is worth one dropping tear; But if thou wouldst be reconciled to Heaven, First sacrifice to Heaven that fatal passion Which caused thy fall.--Farewell, forget the lost! _Siege of Damascus._

In the Earl's bosom every spark of affection for Anna had long since died away, and his anger at her sudden appearance, in such a presence, and with such a charge against him, now robbed her almost of his pity. After a day and night spent in revelling, in the city, next evening he returned to his own apartments that overlooked the southern court of the palace, rejoicing alike at his narrow escape from disgrace, which was entirely owing to Morton's mismanagement, in consigning Anna to the guardianship of Alison Craig, and at his sudden fortune in finding himself so favoured by Mary; and, with a rapture almost childish, he kissed the flower she had dropped so opportunely at the postern door, and which, like a treasure, he still preserved.

But the Earl knew not that in avoiding Scylla he had fallen into Charybdis; for on ascending to his apartments, up the stair to which he was formally preceded by French Paris and little Calder, he found himself confronted by one, of whom he now thought very little, but whose dark eyes--so soft, so pleading, and so imploring--he was confounded and abashed to meet;--the Countess!

She looked paler and thinner than when they had last met, and a pang of remorse wrung the Earl's heart as he surveyed her beautiful and slender form, so evidently wasted by sorrow and suffering; but the momentary sentiment passed away; ambition resumed its wonted power in his heart; and, though he kissed his wife's brow, it was done with an air so cold and conventional that she withdrew from his embrace, and at that time he cordially wished her ten thousand leagues away.

A moment the peer gazed upon her fair and sinless brow, and the steady gaze of her full dark eye, and he felt himself immensely her inferior in nobility of spirit, in truth, and love, and honour; and to his overweening pride that momentary sense of humiliation was bitter in the extreme.

"Welcome to Holyrood, Jane!" said he, assuming his usual gaiety of manner. "I warrant thou art come to upbraid me for playing the truant so long from thee and the bonny banks of Bothwell."

"Nay, my lord, I am on the way to my father's castle of Strathbolgie in the Garioch, and I seek but one night's shelter in these apartments. To-morrow I will continue my journey."

"Heaven be praised!" thought the Earl, who found it necessary to affect that proper regard which his cold expression showed plainly to have evaporated. "Seat thyself beside me, bonnibel--thou lookest sickly and ill. How comes this?"

"Canst thou ask?" she replied, with a mournful glance, and quietly withdrawing from the arm with which he had endeavoured to encircle her. "Thou hast been absent from me very long."

"And thou art tremendously angry with me, ladybird--is it not so?"

"Oh, no!" she replied gently; "but sorrowful--exceeding sorrowful."

"And so thou lovest me still, Jane?"

"More than thou dost me," she replied, with her eyes full of tears; and Bothwell felt one small ray of his old love kindle in his heart.

"I would a thousand times rather that thou didst reproach me bitterly than weep thus, Jane," said the Earl. "Thy scorn I might repel; thine anger I might meet; but thy tears--now, now, for Heaven's sake and thine own, be pacified; for I do love thee fondly still."

"Love me!" reiterated the Countess, half suffocated by tears.

"Do not doubt me, dear one," replied the Earl, in whose bosom at that moment there was indeed something of a struggle; "be pacified, bonnibel! See--here is a charming bouquet for thee; its perfume is alike reviving and delicious. I had it from the queen."

The Countess made no reply, but her tears fell faster.

"And she, having heard of thy arrival, desired me to give it to thee," said the lying Earl, glad to say any thing that would please her.

"Hah!" exclaimed the Countess, sharply, setting her teeth and growing deadly pale; "is it so? To me? thou shalt see me inhale its perfume, _poisoned though it be_--for, oh, my husband! even death at thy hands is welcome." And tremblingly she pressed her beautiful face into the bouquet, and then turned pale and placidly to the Earl.

"Poisoned!" he exclaimed, with astonishment. "Thou art mad, Jane! Pshaw! dost thou think that Mary of Scotland, (that being, pure as the new fallen snow,) is like her fiendish gudemother, Catherine of Medici, a vendor of poisoned flowers, and gloves, and ribbons? _Benedicite_! Jane of Huntly, shame on thy vile suspicions!"

"Well, I thank Heaven it is all as thou sayest!" replied the Countess, mildly; "but after all I have heard of the love passages between Mary and thee at Hermitage, I expected somewhat worse."

"Love passages? Woman, what hast thou dared to say?" asked the Earl, gravely.

"Only a hint of what I have heard."

"From whom?"

"The Earl of Sutherland."

"Babbler that he is!" exclaimed Bothwell, with a dark frown. "He hath foully lied, and so become guilty of lese-majesty."

"Oh! do not look on me thus, my dear lord--I can bear any thing but your frown. Thou wilt bring war, and death, and shame on the houses of Bothwell and Aboyne; but I mean not to upbraid thee. As thou sowest, so shalt thou reap; but for thy own sake, for the sake of thine ancestors, their name and fame and honour, the honour of me, whose peace thou hast destroyed, whose love thou hast scorned, whose ties thou hast forgotten, whose prospects thou hast blighted; I implore thee, by each and all of these, to pause, lest thou art crushed by the fall of the castle thine ambition is building."

"I thank thee, Lady Bothwell," replied the Earl, rising and putting on his bonnet, the lofty plumes of which he shook with ineffable hauteur; "I thank thee for these good intentions and kind regards, though, by the mass! I know not thine aim. And so thou art bound for Strathbolgie on the morrow, my gay Gordon? Who of my people accompany thee? Is it long Cockburn of Langton, with his lances of the Merse?"

"Nay; 'tis the Earl of Sutherland."

A cloud gathered on Bothwell's brow. The Earl of Sutherland had been a lover of the Countess from her girlhood, and had only given up his faithful suit on her accepting Bothwell; so there was a very unpleasant association of ideas in the mind of the latter, who was generally apt to view incidents through an evil medium.

"I trust the Lord Sutherland is well," he said scornfully; "and that his bare-legged gillies, in brogues and breacan, will escort thee through Strathbolgie, as safely as Bothwell's knights in their Milan mail would have done."

"His sister, the Lady Elinora, accompanies us," said the Countess colouring deeply, even at the suspicions of this husband, who loved her now no more.

"Then, my bonnibel, when thou goest hence to-morrow, fail not to make my very particular commendations to the Lady Elinora Sutherland, and the noble lord her brother, and so the benison of God be with thee, and him, and her;" and making a profound bow, he swaggered from the apartment, and hurried down-stairs, glad to escape from the presence of the unhappy Countess.

His heart was moved when he saw her sink despairingly down on a cushioned window-seat; but her having mentioned the Earl of Sutherland, had armed his better spirit against her; and, not ill pleased that she had given a legitimate cause for anger and jealousy, affording him an apology to himself, he hurriedly crossed the palace yard, and without any defined purpose, entered the Artillery Park, a large common that lay to the eastward, and there he gave vent to his exciting reflections.

Mary was uppermost in his thoughts. The _flower_ had sealed his fate, and that of Darnley too! There had now opened before him a new vista of the most alluring kind--a vista which he determined to pursue. The love of the most beautiful of her sex--one occupying the summit of earthly rank, with his own indomitable pride, ambition, and obstinacy, led him on. Were Darnley, the sickly boy-king, to die of the premature disease that so evidently preyed upon him, or were he luckily to be slain in one of the innumerable brawls and feuds in which his life of debauchery and intrigue involved him, then Bothwell might hope to hold Mary, the bright, the beautiful, and the winning, in his arms. He already felt the sceptre of Scotland in his grasp; he saw the house of Hepburn seated on its throne; and Moray, Morton, Mar, and all who had ever hated; feared, and wronged, or triumphed over him, in the days of his exile and poverty, grovelling at his feet.

If Mary (as he was bold enough to believe) loved him in secret, as a man of courage and gallantry it was _his_ part to progress, as she could not make advances towards him. But Darnley must be removed; and how? for, though weak and ailing, he might live long enough; and now was the time to strike some vigorous political stroke, which might raise him (Bothwell) to the giddy summit of his hopes, or hurl him for ever to destruction and infamy.

"The die is cast!" he exclaimed. "To this will I devote my life, my soul, my existence; and my very energy will raise me even as a demigod above my compeers. Yes, she loves me! Curse on my blinded folly, that saw it not before; and thrice cursed be this lordling of the Lennox, that bars my path to rapture and to power!"

"Pho! hast thou not thy dagger?" said a voice.

The Earl turned, and beheld the lairds of Ormiston and Bolton; the latter looking pale, and fierce, and agitated.

"How now, stout Bolton," said the Earl, "what hath ruffled thy easy temper, and clouded that merry face of thine?"

"By the Rood of Broomholme! I will slay him, even as Fynart slew his ancestor at Lithgow Bridge, by one thrust of a sharp rapier--yea, in the face of men!" exclaimed Bolton.

"Whom meanest thou?"

"The Lord Darnley!"

"Soh! a rare speech, and a bold one too, for the lieutenant of the guard!" said the Earl. "This is treason."

"But even-handed justice though," began Ormiston; "and by"----

"Now, peace with thy 'cock and pie.'"

"Bear with me a moment, my lord and friend, and I will tell thee how and whence this anger sprung."

But the cause thereof is of so much importance to this history, that it deserves a chapter to itself.

*CHAPTER XIX.*

*MARIETTE AND DARNLEY.*

Lightly from fair to fair he flew. And loved to plead, lament, and sue; Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain! For monarchs seldom sigh in vain. _Scott._

Mariette Hubert, the sister of Nicholas Hubert or French Paris, one of Mary's favourite maids of honour, was the belle-ideal of a lively Parisian girl of eighteen; her eyes were large, and dark, and laughing; her features regular, piquant, and beautiful; her teeth like a row of orient pearls. She was always like a laughing Hebe: fresh, blooming, and smiling. Her black, glossy hair, was drawn upwards, from temples whose snowy whiteness contrasted well with the sable wreaths. She was ever good humoured, and gay to a fault, with a strong dash of wilfulness and coquetry.

In drollery, her lover, Sir John Hepburn, who had admired her long, was her very counterpart; though, by the influence of circumstances and the manners of the time, he was impetuous, obstinate, and quarrelsome; but there were few gallants who were otherwise at that factious and intriguing court. Mariette, however, could smile him out of his anger, laugh him out of his obstinacies, coquette with him to please him, and with others to please herself. She could prattle, too, and caress him with a playfulness that were quite enchanting; and many a fierce feud and desperate brawl were prevented by her tact, and by the power she could exert over her lover, who, in virtue of his command in Mary's archer guard, was hourly brought in angry contact with the armed nobles and their poor but proud followers; but never was he more enchanted than when he discovered that his pretty and provoking Mariette, was a better shot with the long bow at the butts, than the best archer in the royal guard.

Though young Hepburn loved Mariette deeply and enthusiastically, he had failed in inspiring the volatile and fanciful French girl with a passion equal to his own.

She was gratified to find herself the object of attention, from one who stood so high in the favour of Mary and the great Earl of Bothwell, and who was esteemed one of the handsomest gallants at a court, which, though shorn of the splendour that had characterised it under the late King James, nevertheless retained within its circle all that was splendid in Scotland. With all her coquetry, she dreaded to trifle with the jealousy of her assiduous lover; for there was in his bosom a latent spark, that a little ruffling fanned into a flame; and in the use of his sword, he possessed that cavalier-like prompitude, which was the leading characteristic of the Scottish gentleman before he lost caste.

The love he bore Mariette had become so much a part of himself, that Hepburn was no longer like other men, or what he had formerly been. He never had an idea in his head, of which Mariette did not form a part. This passion affected his very manner, and interfered with his duties and occupations, imparting a newness and peculiarity to his bearing and manner, which drew upon him the raillery of Mary and her ladies, and the wicked waggery of the fair object herself.

Though never perfectly certain of possessing her whole and undivided heart, Hepburn received all the encouragement a lover could desire; for Mariette loved to keep him in leading-strings, and attracted or repelled him just as she was in the mood to dally or be petulant; and so between hope and fear, and love and joy, a year had stolen away; and though Hepburn fully considered Mariette as his ultimate wife, he knew not when the volatile girl, who wore his bracelets and rings, and gave him ribbons and ringlets in exchange, would yield her consent.

But a change came over the spirit of his dream, and suddenly he discovered (he knew not why) a change in Mariette.

He had frequently observed the profligate young king by her side, and then he began to experience a new and hitherto unknown agony gnawing at his heart, and from thence it seemed to spread through every nerve and fibre. When they were together, he followed with painful interest every movement and expression of Darnley, and could easily perceive that his eyes were full of ardour when he gazed on Mariette, and that her downcast face, so interesting by its waving locks and long dark lashes, wore a soft smile whenever he whispered in her ear.

The lover's impetuous heart became torn by wrath and jealousy, and terrible ideas of revenge began to float before him; for, daring and profligate as he knew Darnley to be, he was more than ever astonished at his cool presumption in addressing Mariette Hubert as a lover under his very eyes.