The Queen's Caprice Read online

  The Queen’s Caprice

  Marjorie Bowen

  © Marjorie Bowen 1933

  Marjorie Bowen has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1933 by Cassell & Co. Ltd.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Part 1

  THE CRIMSON WEDDING RING

  1: The Crimson Wedding Ring

  Part 2

  THE VIOLET-BROWN BED

  2: The Violet-Brown Bed

  Part 3

  THE ROSE TREE AT LOCH LEVEN

  3: The Rose Tree at Loch Leven

  “Bloody Bothwell hath brought our King to death

  From flattering Fraud with double Dallilay.”

  Lampoon, 1567

  “You live in a rank pasture, here i’ the Court

  There is a kind of honeydew that’s deadly.

  ‘Twill poison your fame; look to’t, be not cunning

  For they whose faces do belie their hearts

  Are witches ere they arrive at twenty years

  Ay, and give the devil suck.”

  John Webster

  Part 1

  THE CRIMSON WEDDING RING

  “Love’s limits are ample and great; and a spatious walk it hath, beset with Thorns.”

  Democritus Junior.

  1: The Crimson Wedding Ring

  THE tall man stood alone under the tattered, wintry tree. A mist wrapped the high-seated city between the palace in the east and the castle in the west. When he moistened his lips he could taste the salted vapours which came from the sea. On his frieze coat were drops of moisture, the linen round his neck was limp. His thoughts tormented him, like malignant fingers plucking at his heart. He had come to this desolate place to be away from the thriftless chatter of the Abbey.

  But his perplexities crowded about him in the barren solitude. He stood so still that a hare limped through the circle of dim light which bounded him, and the creature’s bulging eyes fixed him for a second. He was startled, and forgetting how long it was since he had been a priest, raised his hand to make the Holy Sign. As his fingers dropped to his side the hare limped away. There seemed a sigh in the thick vapours that began to be shot with darkness. Behind the castle, the unseen sun was declining, leaving him in gloom.

  The thoughtful man moved slowly from under the tree. He was afraid of devilry, and his strong mind chafed at his fears. He longed to be free of all superstitions, yet he moved always warily, in terror of spells and the diabolical enchantments of the unknown world that pressed so close about the senses. As he went sullenly towards the Abbey, squares of coloured light showed the windows. He was irritated with himself because his problems were unsolved even by his intense meditation. He had endeavoured to understand himself, his ambition, his faith, his desires, his hopes, but he had failed, because unacknowledged lusts and treacheries stirred and, like devils, put themselves between him and his earnest thoughts.

  One fact, splendid and hideous, stained the fabric of his fortunes. He was a King’s bastard, and one of noble birth, even by the unwed mother’s side. This irony was underlined because he knew himself possessed of royal qualities, and very capable of government.

  As he entered the gardens, the outline of the Abbey appeared vaguely dark against the blurred light. The well-kept gardens with wattled beds, trellis work, summer-houses and gravel paths were neat and barren as a set-geometric design; the bare trees made a brittle tracery against the vanishing fleeces of the mist, that curdled as the upper wind from Leith drew them away.

  The man paused; he was vexed by his own indecision. He wanted all that a violently changed world had to offer, but, so rapid was progress, so eager was his desire to be in the forefront of all that was new, that he scarcely knew what this was. He took off his hat impatiently and, twisted it in his hand, allowing the transient light to fall over his strong face, with the eyes slightly swollen from overwork, the pale, healthy complexion, the sullen lines round heavy jowl and mouth.

  “To save her or to destroy her?”

  He was startled by this thought, so powerful that it almost forced itself into words. But he faced it grimly with the courage that he always turned to an enemy.

  “Destroy her?” He believed that he could do it; he had never found his own equal in craft, daring, coolness, mastery of men. “Destroy her while she is unwed, a flower without root or fruit—”

  A sudden tenderness overwhelmed him at the touch of his own wistful simile. A tall, pale flower with fair petals spread — she was like that; he had always had an instinct to guard her, warring with an instinct to put her out of his way. Sometimes he was ashamed of this affection, which seemed too warm for a brother towards a sister. There had been moments when he had dwelt on old stories of times when kings had married their sisters. Then he had become alarmed and believed himself bewitched, outcast from salvation.

  Was not this voluptuous, secret tenderness a reason for destroying her? For his soul’s sake it would be better that this sweet, precious creature should be plucked, cast down, and left to wither.

  Yet, to serve her was not so ill a task. She had allowed him a free hand, she had never tried to check his passionate avarice, his grim ambition, she had given him honours lavishly. And sometimes she had looked at him as if she too felt a warm, hidden tenderness for him that was different from sisterly trust or respect. With his problems unsolved and lying wearily on his mind, the man entered the dark building, where taper lights were fluttering in many heated, noisy chambers.

  *

  In the room where he did his business, the King’s bastard son stood before the fire, deep in thought, but his inability to concentrate caused him to raise his hand and let it fall with vexation. As the door opened he turned, ready with a sharp rebuke for the intruder, but did not speak when he saw William Maitland enter. This was the only man in Scotland whom he considered his intellectual peer, but Moray was confident that he could best even Maitland if he wished.

  Maitland smiled and came to the fire; he was very elegant and had the air of belonging exactly to his own time; all he did and said seemed fresh, tolerant, easy, free of the shackles of tradition, convention, or prejudice. His clothes were always in some whim of fashion that set them apart from the routine attire of other men, but never ostentatious nor fantastic. There was about him a fine essence of breeding, courtesy, accomplishment and exquisite mockery which the other man envied. Yet there was also a fickleness, a lightness and an inconstancy that the other man, anchored to stable ambitions and rigid principles, despised.

  “A cold, wet night,” said Maitland softly. “It is good to see even a small fire. Where have you been, Lord Moray? Wandering away from my corrupt counsel?”

  “I have been taking my own. You know there is nothing but that, to see clearly for oneself and to act thereon.”

  “Do you see clearly?”

  “No.”

  “I do. I could tell you your thoughts.”

  “I have never tried to conceal them from you,” replied Moray dryly; yet he flattered himself that his closest secrets were hidden deep, even from this acute observer. A little smile of satisfaction touched his pale sensual mouth. “Come, what is it that you see so clearly?”

  “That while we can serve the lady, we can never serve the lady’s husband.”

  “You bring us, then, to a dead end. For the lady must be wed.” Moray liked this plain, dangerous speaking; his slanting brown eyes turned eagerly to the smooth, inscrutable face of his companion who was leaning against the mantelpiece and gazing with a gentle expression into the flames.

  “Must be wed,” repeated Moray. “C
ome, we have no concealments, you and I, Maitland. Could we, by any subtlety, device or intricacy of argument, keep her without a husband? Come, you excel in such difficulties.”

  “Keep her without a husband, yes,” smiled Maitland. “Keep her chaste, no. And will the godly, sir, endure a wanton, wilful Queen?”

  “I would keep within the terms of honour.” Moray could not resist the useless rebuke.

  “Sometimes you speak like a boy. Was her father cold-blooded?” Maitland smiled. “If he had been you would never have seen the light. She is a warm, sweet creature. She is also set in authority. Can your policies keep her from lovers?”

  Moray did not answer; he was angered at this turn of the clear, mocking talk.

  “You are not nimble enough, I think, to defeat her always. I believe twice already it has been rumoured — John Gordon and Pierre de Chastelard, eh?”

  “It was, through my care, hushed up, glossed over.”

  “The third time it may not be so easy.”

  “This is grievous, jarring talk. Upon my soul, I know not what to do. If we could find some careful fool whom I could manage—”

  “You have had some proposed — Arran, who is an imbecile; Don Carlos, who is a lunatic; the Englishman, Dudley, whom I take to be a blockhead; this Lennox boy, a silly child.”

  “Maitland, all this gets us nowhere. Advise me. I take you to be the only man of free mind in Scotland. Help me if you can.” Moray spoke with great energy, then, seeing the other’s amused glance, he added sharply: “You know that no one can reward you better.”

  “The Queen might,” smiled Maitland. “I love her myself, as much as any man might. Why should I not put her high and keep her there, as Cecil put and keeps Elizabeth?”

  “Because I am in the way!” Moray’s answering smile was sour. “And my sister is not that manner of woman.”

  “Sister!” repeated Maitland lightly. “There’s the canker. You ought to marry her yourself — the two of you together, now—”

  Moray felt a prick of loathing towards this man who understood him better than anyone else, but whom he had thought did not understand this one thing. He said, very slowly:

  “With such a woman I could have ruled Scotland very well. I cannot rule with her and a husband—”

  A light, malicious amusement ran, like light, over Maitland’s elegant face.

  “Choose her a husband who can rule without you, then. Cease to tame her, let her have her liberty — with another prince.”

  The King’s son replied with a piercing sincerity:

  “There is no such man. No one could do it like I can. You know that I should be King.”

  Maitland conceded that bitter claim.

  “Yes. But she is there. Now it is all very well. She endures your advice very prettily, she leans to you in everything, but when she takes a husband it will be quite different. You will be jealous. Not only for your lost power.”

  “Not only?” repeated Moray, irked by these words.

  In a soft tone and looking sideways, Maitland said: “You were glad to see her two lovers — her would-be lovers then! — on the scaffold. So was I. But what we try to do is impossible. Some lascivious fool will come along and snatch her from both of us — my delicious Queen, your exquisite sister.”

  Moray’s face flushed, to his own vexation, yet Maitland’s talk excited him and he would not stop it; he glanced at the window as if he feared spies.

  “But,” added Maitland, “no one, whatever his merit or his vice will keep her long. He who drinks in jewels one day, the next will use his hand.”

  “Ah!” cried Moray quickly. “There is your solution — I thought of that.”

  Maitland nodded.

  “Let her marry — since you cannot prevent it. A Queen’s husband is not to be envied. It will not be I nor you who will be troubled with his removal — his advancement will consume him.”

  Moray wiped his forehead; the fire was really very hot, the small room stuffy; he thought of the hare with staring eyes, he thought of a cursing witch burning in flames. He longed for relief from the tension; he turned his urgent face to Maitland, who remained cool and unaltered.

  “If there should be a child, you could rule through that and outbrave them all. Steward and lord in one.”

  Moray made an instinctive movement of repugnance.

  “If I took one husband from her she would find another, by reason of her graces and her faults.” Moray seemed to sink within himself, to utter these words without his own volition.

  “If she is not very careful she will not be able to save herself from scandal,” whispered Maitland, almost on a sigh.

  “Would you not be sorry?” he demanded harshly.

  “Yes, but I should not be able to help her.”

  The King’s bastard clutched the arms of his chair, his chin sank on his breast.

  “Do you think that anyone can help her?”

  “No.”

  “Not if she married — someone who, beyond sensuality, loved her?”

  “No one,” whispered Maitland, “will ever love her like that. Besides, you would always be there.”

  “Yes,” admitted Moray, as if answering an accusation.

  “You cannot give way. You ought to be King.” Maitland shrugged, spread his hands in an Italianate gesture. “No one will be able to forget that. Why do you concern yourself so about her husband? Whoever he is, you’ll be able to manage him. You’ve the people, the Church, you’ve skill, argument, God behind you. She is an alien, an idolatress. Everyone suspects her, no one likes her very much. She is not really clever, one might say that she knows nothing. Nothing but tricks.”

  Moray looked up; there was appeal in the long eyes between the swollen lids.

  “I want to save her. I feel, sorry. You understand? I would like to see her safe. Just because she is so helpless — with her tricks.”

  “You cannot do it!” Maitland’s smile was unexpectedly bitter; in the leaping light his face looked worn, puffy and yellow. “Everything is stupid, empty and filthy. We know that. What spoils or trophies can we handle that are not smirched with rottenness?”

  “There is God,” groaned Moray obstinately.

  “Yes, that is curious.” Maitland’s thin brows went up. “God. But you want power, money. You want to rule this rock with its half-million people, most of whom are low enough, and the girl is in your way. What has God to do with your uncertainties?”

  “I believe—” began Moray, as if he recited a creed.

  “Oh, yes, in John Calvin. So does she in her idols and her priests and the Bishop of Rome. What does it matter?”

  “I am doing it for the benefit of Scotland.” Moray’s tone was firmer. “I know what the people want — they may be bloody and bestial, false and lustful, but there has been a light set among them — the Holy Gospel, I think of that.”

  He stood up, and even in his plain dress, with the crumpled collar that might have been that of a humble official, he seemed to have the aspect of a prince. There was a definite quality emanating from his ancient blood that Maitland much admired, an air of tormented greatness that Moray usually kept repressed.

  “You are right — a sharp, cold rock with poor savages,” he said thickly. He saw a visionary landscape, an island, broken into rugged shapes over which the elements warred, distant hostile mountains, lakes of blackish water, the master city between the impregnable castle and the palace, with open fields about and armed towers surrounding it; in the north other cities, gloomy, melancholy, full of men eager with a restless purpose. Over this a foreign girl ruled; with indifferent grace she played with brilliant toys. He flushed when he considered her and his mind swayed to thoughts of witchcraft again, and to the wizened face of the hare peering, with lifted upper lip, through the drizzle of the mist. His vision toppled, he stared into the clear flames on the hearth. What a large fire they had built up! He winced away, thinking of the burning of sorcerers, but he stared, greedily, like a glutton, at his futur
e fortunes. He wanted Scotland, all of it; there was no one who had a right to dispute it with him, none. There was only Maitland, clever, courteous, slippery, useful, who did not quite believe in God, who did not care much for reward, but who would work very willingly for love of the game, if it were difficult enough. The others were brutes, bloody, filthy, or blockheads, dolts, unable to control themselves, shameless, violent men. But he could master all of them. God might help him to do so. He, bred a Papist priest, had turned from the abominable darkness of that Roman error and received the truth. Had ambition helped there? The absolute need to be on the winning side urged him? He would not think so. Nor would he remember that he was gorged with Church lands; he turned cunningly from any possible censure on himself. He glanced up sharply to see Maitland gazing at him, with curiosity and a gentle compassion. This gaze inflamed Moray, but his anger flared away; he smiled uneasily.

  “It is all ridiculous and trivial,” said Maitland pleasantly, “but as there is little else to do, we may as well continue — the unrest is past cure, but we may allay the itch.”

  “We have decided on nothing.”

  “It is useless for us to decide. You cannot always control her. Nor for much longer. Does she even like you?” mused Maitland softly. “I wonder.”

  “She has no power,” said Moray, as if excusing himself. “She never could have.”

  “Except to make mischief,” added the other, “except to destroy herself.” His smooth face twitched in slight nervousness. Sometimes he was afraid of the future he was making for himself. He was a man of peace, who loved comfort and ease, yet everything he meddled in turned to war and violence, blood and storm. But he could not withdraw from all the tumult and live in the country, writing verses as his father did so contentedly. He must interfere with the greatest affairs he knew of, he must fawn on the King’s bastard because there was not his peer in Scotland. He must want to serve the Queen merely because everyone wanted to be near her, to stare at her, to scheme and intrigue, to make use of her youth and silliness and amorous temper; he must a little love the Queen, content to be her drudge, because she was so high and not for him.