"She has never guarded her words," said Walsingham. "It is the one
constant we can count on." He stared at the letter in awe. "For
twenty-five years she has evaded her fate. Now it catches her. Deliver
it, and quickly. And, Phelippes " He started to tell him about the
Babington visit, but something stopped him.
"What, sir?"
"Nothing." He looked long and hard at the letter. "We await her very
heart at the answer."
TEENTY-FOUR
Mary had left out the miniature of James, as if by some magic the
infant in the picture could plead with the grown man in the letter,
Could they really be the same person? James had just had his twentieth
birthday. Twenty years since she had borne him that June day in
Edinburgh Castle. Darnley had been there; Bothwell; Maitland ... the
roll of names was a melancholy toll. All dead, and dead because .. .
why? Only I am left, she thought. Only I remain on the stage. I, and
Elizabeth. And James, grown now. Grown into a stranger. The presence
that I told the Riccio murderers would avenge me has deserted and
betrayed me, like all the rest.
Two days ago, on July sixth, James and Elizabeth had signed a treaty,
called the Treaty of Berwick. They were now permanent allies, bound to
assist and protect one another. James had been awarded and rewarded
with an English pension. There was no mention of Mary in the treaty.
As far as the two sovereigns were concerned, she did not exist. No
need to take her into consideration in any of their negotiations or
promises.
I am a dead woman to them, she thought. I have passed off the stage as
surely as Damley and Maitland. Once there would have been edgy
accommodations with the French, guarantees of this and that. Now,
nothing. Elizabeth can deal directly with James. James can deal
directly with Elizabeth, with no fears of reprisals.
She took the miniature of the infant and kept staring at it, almost
willing it to come to life. But the bland blue eyes looked back,
unblinking.
My child, my child, she thought. Even my own child deserts my cause
and sells himself to my enemy. He wants to reign as King; if I am
Queen of Scotland, obviously he cannot be King. Like a true Stuart, he
believes in his own absolute divine right to rule. I am an obstacle to
that.
But above and beyond that was the aching feeling that the last of her
family was gone, the very one who should have stayed when all the
others had fled, deserted, or died. A son was supposed to be a
mother's right hand to avenge her cause, her caretaker in old age, her
consolation for wrongs suffered and pains endured. He was her dearest
possession and achievement.
This makes my catalogue of losses complete, she thought. Lost father,
mother, three husbands, kingdom, health .. . now my only child.
She looked over at her priedieu, with the old crucifix hanging above
it. Paulet had allowed her to keep it, on specific orders from
Elizabeth.
I should kneel down and pray, she thought. I should just submit all
these sorrows to God and let Him console me, as He has promised to
do.
But I don't want to! she thought. God cannot know how I feel! He may
have created the universe, but He has never been a mother.
That afternoon, as she was walking stiffly toward the gardens, where
she liked to sit and soak up the July sun like an old failing cat, she
thought she caught sight of Paulet and a strange-looking companion. The
man had greasy yellow hair and walked in a sidewise manner. Mary
seated herself on a marble bench and drew out her sewing; she was
working on a panel depicting turtledoves. The men were coming closer,
and the stranger seemed to be staring at her. He refrained from
actually pointing, but she could see that he was straining his eyes.
Even from a distance, Mary could see that his complexion was horribly
disfigured by pox scars, and she felt pity for him. There was no way
to disguise such an affliction, and it was the most outstanding feature
about his looks.
He and Paulet seemed to be deep in conversation, glancing repeatedly
toward her. She hoped they would not come over; she could not bear to
engage in one of Paulet's mocking exchanges today. She kept her head
down in hopes they would go away. When she looked up again, they were
gone.
The shadows began to creep out from under the bushes, like shy animals
that had to be coaxed forth. A breeze came up, fresh and hot. The
warm weather had been beneficial to her rheumatic limbs; her physician,
Bour-going, had prescribed taking as much sunshine as possible, and was
pleased with the results. Her knees and elbows now bent easily, and
only her fingers still gave her pain.
"Soon you will be able to ride again," he had said.
"If I were permitted to," she had answered. "But as it is, it makes
little difference to me."
"That could change at any moment," he had said, raising one eyebrow.
She was touched by his enthusiasm, misguided though it was. "Ah, my
friend," she had answered, with a smile, "thank God for unfailing
hope!"
In the twilight, she opened the little window in the alcove that served
as her oratory and let the summer air in. She leaned on the windowsill
and inhaled deeply. The sounds of the night were just beginning in the
countryside spreading out all around the manor house. From the meadow
pond, frogs were singing, one old bullfrog's bass thumping insistently
underneath the chorus of higher voices. She had been told that lilies
grew in the pond, wide waxy white ones, but she had never been allowed
to walk there even had she been able to.
Perhaps if I had been allowed to, I would have been able to, she
thought. Which came first the imprisonment or the crippling? I
believe I could walk there tonight, even now. If I had someone to walk
with me besides ghosts.
Ghost of Bothwell in the fields ... If I thought you would be there,
dearest love, she whispered, I would meet you, even as I am.
She did not know what she believed about ghosts. There were times when
she felt Bothwell's presence with her as surely as if he were there in
the flesh; there were other times when she told herself she was glad he
could not see her as she now was. They could not both be true. Either
he saw her as she was or he saw nothing.
More and more of late, she yearned for the moment when they would be
reunited; in that state, she would not be crippled, nor
broken-spirited, but quick and radiant, and bathed in joy. This vision
had grown steadily until it had a reality at least as firm as the
fields rustling now before her, stretching out all around her prison.
Lanterns were being lit and hung on the walls, and amid the great trees
Mary could see the quick darting shadows of bats stabbing the air.
Their flight was so different from any bird's, so fast and jerky. She
had heard them rustling in the fat round towers of the old castle,
where they slept away the days undisturbed, their odd odour permeating
the air.
Outside, later, the moon would rise, reflecting in the pond; the
nightingales would start singing. She promised herself to come back to
the window and watch.
Sometime, in the stillness of the absolute centre of the night, she
awakened and kept her vigil at the window. The waning half moon had
risen laggardly and was just beginning to appear above the treetops.
Even the moon grows old, she thought. Even the moon.
"My sweet mistress," whispered a voice in Mary's ear. She awakened to
see Jane Kennedy bending over her, where she had fallen asleep, one arm
trailing out the window. Where the moon had been, the burgeoning
robust sun was already peeking above the horizon, its rays hazy golden.
"You pray overmuch," she said, glancing accusingly at the little altar
with its crucifix.
"Nay, not enough," said Mary.
"After breakfast, will you walk with me through the gardens?" asked
Jane.
"Gladly," said Mary.
Attired in light gowns, the two went to the gardens by midmorning.
There was no sign of Paulet or the ugly pockmarked man this time. Jane
took her pens and inks and paper; of late she had amused herself by
sketching flowers and birds. Mary took her own bound book, where she
had continued intermittently to write her thoughts and compose verses
over the years. Sometimes she would forget about it for months at a
time, only to have a sudden need to write in it as she did today. A
bond of silence was honoured between them: Jane would never ask her
what she was writing, nor interrupt her.
The gardens at Chartley were laid out in the new fashion: long,
straight reflecting canals, pagan gods and goddesses presiding over
avenues of evergreens, marble fountains and trickling waterworks. At
one end was a two-storeyed pleasure pavilion; in the centre was an
artificial "mount" with stairs and a statue of Zeus on its summit, an
imitation Mount Olympus. The young Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex,
had designed them, and the young Earl, from all reports, was the very
mirror and incarnation of fashion.
It was odd, thought Mary, living in an unknown man's house when he was
not there; rather like Psyche dwelling in the mysterious house of her
unseen husband. Young Essex was just twenty-five; everyone whispered
about him and predicted great things for him, saying, "He is young, he
shows great promise ..."
But when I was twenty-five, my reign was over; there were to be no more
chances for me, and no one said, "She is young yet...." No, I was
judged and found wanting; having taken the throne before I was twenty,
I was pulled off it at an age younger than the "wise virgin" Elizabeth
was when she mounted it. If only I had been permitted to begin ruling
at twenty-five, instead of ending then!
She looked up and down the dusty, drowsing clipped hedges of the
garden,
wearing their borders like the trim of a uniform. Essex's costume.
Well, my lad, may you fare well, she thought. Delay your entrance into
the world of court as long as possible. But youth will never wait, or
it is not youth.
A faint breeze was blowing, bringing the sweet scent of fresh-scythed
grass in the fields. Two white-winged butterflies played round and
round each other, tumbling in the air. High above, bleached in the
sky, was the remnant of the moon, so pale it was difficult to see
now.
In a strange, whole flash of insight, Mary saw that the moon was
herself, and the sun Elizabeth. So my moonlit ghost fades out in the
blaze of Elizabeth's daylight. I vanish in the briflance of her sky.
"Shall we sit here?" Jane was saying, motioning to a bench in the
shade of a cypress.
As if in a daze, Mary nodded and followed her. The daytime moon was
blotted out by the branches of the overhanging tree.
Humming, Jane got out her pens and began earnestly sketching one of the
magpies cackling on a hedge. Mary also drew out her book and sat
staring blankly at its page. Then, slowly, she began to write.
What am I, alas, what purpose has my life?
I nothing am, a corpse without a heart,
A useless shade, a victim of sad strife,