Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (162 page)

She knelt for a moment before her crucifix Lady Douglas had kindly sent
it on from Lochleven and prayed.

"Dear Heavenly rather," she whispered, "please have mercy on me, your
child. You will not remain angry forever. In your holy Scriptures it
says, "He retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in
mercy." I know You sometimes require suffering ... is that what this
is, rather than punishment and anger? I remember something the
Cardinal said, long ago in France .. . about suffering as something
required for its own sake. But I did not really hear it; I was young
and happy. What was it? That suffering is to teach obedience, I think
he said. Show me what I must do, then, and I will obey!"

She stood up and realized that her knees were also tender. The
rheumatism was affecting them as well. A shiver of fear passed through
her. Does God mean to afflict me in body as well as in spirit? she
thought, with panic.

She left her room and made her way into the long chamber that served as
both hall and great chamber, with a wainscot partition dividing the
two. Each had its own fireplace, woefully inadequate for heating. Bess
was already seated on a bench near the fire, a great woollen shawl
around her shoulders. She looked up eagerly when Mary entered.

For three weeks now, Mary had been helping Bess design hangings and
embroideries for her new mansion of Chatsworth. Bess had inherited it
from her second husband, William Cavendish, the father of all her brood
of children, and was building it with no help from her current husband,
whom she always referred to, somewhat rudely, as "George." But Bess
was childishly eager to consult with Mary about matters of taste, since
Mary had lived in all the great chateaux of France, and seen firsthand
the murals at Fontainebleau, the columns of marble at
St.-Germain-en-Laye, the paintings by Primaticcio of Diane de Poitiers
at Chenonceau, the secret cupboards at Blois. To her delight, Mary had
sent for her books of embroidery patterns that were all the rage in
France or had been, in 1560. There was the Devises Heroiques by Claud
Paradin, and La Nature et Diversite des Poissons by Pierre Belon. They
contained suitable mottoes and fables, and woodcuts of animals which
could be adapted for needlework. Bess did not read French well enough
to understand the texts that went along with them, and relied on Mary
to do so.

Now Bess held up the square of canvas she was working on. "I have
begun the broken mirror!" she said gleefully.

Mary smiled. She was surprised at how fast Bess had progressed; she
worked as furiously on this as she did on everything else, driving like
a mad charioteer.

"Excellent!" said Mary. "It will be a fitting tribute to Sir
William."

"Ah! If only he could see it!" Bess sighed, running her square
fingers over it.

"But he does, Madame," said Mary. "He sees from Heaven."

"Hmmm .. . yes, that of course, but " Bess bent back over the panel
that she and Mary had designed in memory of Sir William, the bequeather
of Chatsworth. In spite of the fact that his widow had allowed herself
to be consoled by two husbands since, the panel showed mourning in full
force. Tears rained down onto quicklime, encircled by the motto Tears
Witness That the Quenched Flame Lives in Latin, of course, to lend it
dignity. Around this a border of mourning symbols encircled the
device: a glove, symbol of fidelity, cut in two; broken intertwined
cords; a cracked mirror; three (to account for Bess's three widow hoods
broken wedding rings; a snapped chain.

"He will look down from Heaven and be proud," said Mary. She opened
her basket and extracted her own work. It looked innocent enough a
ghostly hand descended from the sky with a pruning hook, lopping off
branches of a tree, with the motto Virtue Flourishes by Wounding
curling around it. Mary had told Bess that it was to reflect her own
growing belief that she was being chastened, to grow through suffering.
It had her cipher, which incorporated her initials and those of
Francois. Thus they had sighed and spoken in soft tones of their
beloved departed husbands, darting their needles in and out of the
canvas like fireflies.

But Mary was making the panel to be sewn into a pillow for Norfolk. The
symbols were meant to convey a different message to him and rouse him
to action: the unfruitful branch was Elizabeth, while the one which
would bear fruit was herself and him. How she would get it to him she
did not know. But somehow she would manage.

After an hour Bess suddenly remembered she had to speak to "George"
about the provender for the horses, and she stuffed her sewing into her
basket and left. Mary dutifully kept sewing, eyes downcast, until she
was sure Bess had indeed left. Then, as normally as possible, she
stood up her knees were aching still and sent one of her servants to
bring George Douglas to her. Her mind was made up.

George came straightway, and he looked relieved. He had had scant
opportunity to be alone with her since coming to Tutbury. She smiled
at him and mounted the step to sit in her chair under her cloth of
estate.

"So you will be Queen in state today, and I must stand at your feet?"
he said.

"I must sit under my cloth of estate, else day by day I shall forget
what I am, and think myself only a poor prisoner."

"You have as your device on the cloth, En Ma Fin Est Ma Commencement. I
have long wondered why you chose "In My End Is My Beginning." This is
not your end, surely ... or do you see it that way?"

He was so devoted, so single minded "No, indeed I do not. The phoenix
rising from the ashes is pictured upon the cloth now do you
understand?"

"Yes."

George had remained with her all these months, and was obviously intent
on remaining with her until "the end." She knew that he desired her,
yet at the same time worshipped her. And there had been times when she
was tempted by him, tempted by his male beauty and her own enforced
celibacy, and she had thought, What else do I have to reward him with?
and What harm would it do for me to take some little pleasure in this
prison to which I am consigned? It would be an act of charity and
mercy. But regard for him had stopped her. If he had been less noble,
less pure if he had been more like the opportunistic Ruthven, or even
the practical Maitland .. . But then she would have had no desire for
him at all. His very decency and purity was his attraction.

"George, I need your help," she said. "God knows I have waited and
hoped to be released, but my imprisonment shows no end. I must send
someone to France, to speak to my relatives the Guises, and to see
about my estates. I am entitled to my income as dowager queen, but
since my flight from Scotland, nothing has been forthcoming. I need
someone I can trust. Will you go?"

"I do not wish to leave you!" he said.

This was going to be difficult. "You have served me so well. Now you
see that I need further help. This is no different from procuring the
horses and men to secure my escape from Kinross. It is just farther,
that is all. You can help raise troops in France. Your work for me is
not yet done."

"If the sea is between us, I cannot help fight for you myself. There
are no men at arms in your retinue here."

Oh, he was so handsome; no wonder they called him "Pretty Geordie." She
had seen Shrewsbury's servants of both sexes eyeing him. She motioned
to him to come up beside her.

"Dear George," she said, "then I see I must command you. It is good
that I am seated under my cloth of estate." She reached up and, taking
his face in her hands, drew his face toward hers. She kissed him once,
linger-ingly, on the lips.

He trembled and drew back.

"That is my command," she whispered. "That you go on my mission. And
if, while there, you find a Frenchwoman who suits your fancy, then I
beg you, conclude an honourable marriage with her. You have lost your
fortunes in following mine; now I send you to France to repair them as
best as possible."

"I want no one else!" he blurted out. "There can never be anyone
else!"

"Then you lay a burden of guilt on me that is unfair. You know I am
married, and for you deliberately to forgo any chance for happiness and
a family because of a married woman is cruel to me. To me, whom you
say you love!"

"So if I love you, I must marry someone else?" he said. "Strange
love!"

"As you grow older, you will discover stranger still. France will be
good for you; you will become educated in love there." She wanted to
say, I do not mean any of this; let us just find joy in one another's
arms. It may be all either of us will ever have.

"Perverted love!" he snorted. "Love in which a king wears his
mistress's colours and publicly shames his queen!"

She laughed gently. "Most like, then, you prefer the burning, pure
love of a king like Henry VIII? A love that would brook no other!"

George's icy blue eyes were riveted on her. "Indeed. At least he was
honest!"

"Is honesty, then, the trait you prize above all others?"

He was nodding earnestly.

Ah, then go, she thought. Oh, George. I shall miss you you take my
youth with you. My knight of honesty.

After he was gone, she sat disconsolately. Her intrigues and ciphers
and embroideries seemed, suddenly, to have lost their appeal. It was
all so much work.

It would be so much easier to be completely honest, she thought. They
say the wages of sin is death. But the wages of honesty will be a
lifetime of imprisonment. Because other people are not honest. Fight
fire with fire. Or die. All my attempts to act with mercy and justice
were betrayed in Scotland and have brought me to this place.

May 15, 1569 This ominous anniversary: two years since Both-well and I
became husband and wife, one year since the battle of Langside.
Tomorrow I will have been in England a year and yet to see Elizabeth!

George has been active on my behalf in France, and I have hopes of
receiving an income once again. Without money I can do nothing, not
even pay my servants, but exist on an allowance from Elizabeth.

In Scotland oh, the sorrow of it, the perfidy! Borthwick and Rothes
have gone over to Lord James. There remains to me only Dumbarton
Castle and scattered nobles who refuse to bow the knee to my brother.

Philip of Spain has retaliated against Elizabeth's hostile policy by
seizing all the English ships and goods in the Netherlands, and so
Elizabeth in turn has arrested all the Spaniards in England. This
means that the Spanish ambassador is under house arrest in London, and,
from my point of view, makes it all the more difficult to get and
receive messages. A certain Florentine banker, Roberto Ridolfi, has
served to deliver letters between the ambassador and Leslie, for me.

The French have proved less helpful than I had hoped, because Elizabeth
has been negotiating with them to marry Charles IX who is seventeen
years younger than she! Is there no limit to her posturing? Next she
will go after little Henri, or even the baby, who is twenty-two years
younger!