The Queen's Quair; or, The Six Years' Tragedy

A quair is a ~cahier~, a quire, a little book. In one such a certain king wrote fairly the tale of his love-business; and here, in this other, I pretend to show you all the tragic error, all the pain, known only to her that moved in it, of that child of his children’s children, Mary of Scotland. What others have guessed at, building surmise upon surmise, she knew; for what they did, she suffered. Some who were closest about her—women, boys—may have known some: Claude Nau got some from her; my Master Des-Essars got much. But the whole of it lay in her heart, and to know her is to hold the key of that. Suppose her hand had been at this pen; suppose mine had turned that key: there might have resulted ‘The Queen’s Quair.’ Well! Suppose one or the other until the book is done—and then judge me.

Questions for King Œdipus, Riddle of the Sphinx, Mystery of Queen Mary! She herself is the Mystery; the rest is simple enough. There had been men in Scotland from old time, and Stuarts for six generations to break themselves upon them. Great in thought, frail in deed, adventurous, chivalrous, hardy, short of hold, doomed to fail at the touch—so ventured, so failed the Stuarts from the first James to the fifth. There had been men in Scotland, but no women. Forth from the Lady of Lorraine came the lass, born in an unhappy hour, tossing high her young head, saying, ‘Let me alone to rule wild Scotland.’ They had but to give her house-room: no mystery there. The mystery is that any mystery has been found. Maids’ Adventure—with that we begin. A bevy of maids to rule wild Scotland! What mystery is there in that? Or—since Mystery is double-edged, engaging what we dare not, as well as what we cannot, tell—what mystery but that?

A hundred books have been written, a hundred songs sung; men enough of these latter days have broken their hearts for Queen Mary’s. What is more to the matter is that no heart but hers was broken in time. All the world can love her now; but who loved her then? Not a man among them. A few girls went weeping; a few boys laid down their necks that she might walk free of the mire. Alas! the mire swallowed them up, and she must soil her pretty feet. This is the nut of the tragedy; pity is involved rather than terror. But no song ever pierced the fold of her secret, no book ever found out the truth, because none ever sought her heart. Here, then, is a book which has sought nothing else, and a song which springs from that only: called, on that same account, ‘The Queen’s Quair.’

Here You Are in the Antechamber

It is quite true that when they had buried the little wasted King Francis, and while the days of Black Dule still held, the Cardinal of Lorraine tried three times to see his niece, and was three times refused. Not being man enough to break a way in, he retired; but as he knew very well that the Queen-Mother, the King, the King of Navarre, and Madame Marguerite went in and out all day long, he had a suspicion that they, or the seasons, were more at fault than the hidden mourner. ‘A time, times, and half a time,’ he said, ‘have good scriptural warrant. I will try once more—at this hour of high mass.’ So he did, and saw Mary Livingstone, that strapping girl, who came into the antechamber, rather flushed, and devoutly kissed his ring.

‘How is it with the Queen my niece?’

‘Sadly, Eminence.’

‘I must know how sadly, my girl. I must see her. It is of great concern.’

The young woman looked scared. ‘Eminence, she sees only the Queen-Mother.’

‘The more reason,’ says he, ‘why she should see somebody else. She may be praying one of these fine days that she never see the Queen-Mother again.’

Livingstone coloured up to the eyes. ‘Oh, sir! Oh, Lord Cardinal, and so she doth, and so do we all! They are dealing wickedly with our mistress. It is true, what I told you, that she sees the Queen-Mother: that is because her Majesty will not be denied. She forces the doors—she hath had a door taken down. She comes and goes as she will; rails at our lady before us all. She, poor lamb, what can she do? Oh, sir, if you could stop this traffic I would let you in of my own venture.’

‘Take me in, then,’ said the cardinal: ‘I will stop it.’

In the semi-dark he found his niece, throned upon the knee of Mary Beaton for comfort, in heavy black weeds, out of which the sharp oval of her face and the crescent white coif gleamed like two moons, the old within the new. Two other maids sat on the floor near by; each had a hand of her—pitiful sentinels of spoiled treasure. When the gentleman-usher at the curtain was forestalled by the great man’s quick entry, four girls rose at once, as a covey of partridges out of corn, and all but the Queen fell upon their knees. She, hugging herself as if suddenly chilled, came forward a little, not very far, and held out to the cardinal an unwilling hand. He took it, laid it on his own, kissed, and let it drop immediately. Then he stood upright, sniffed, and looked about him, being so near the blood royal himself that he could use familiarity with princes. It was clear that he disapproved.

‘Faith of a gentleman!’ he said: ‘one might see a little better, one might breathe a little better, here, my niece.’

‘The room is well enough,’ said the Queen.

It was dark and hot, heavy with some thick scent.

As she pronounced upon it the cardinal paused half-way to the shutter; but he paused too slightly. The Queen flushed all over and went quickly between him and the window—a vehement action. ‘Leave it, leave it alone! I choose my own way. You dare not touch it.’ She spoke furiously; he bowed his grey head and drew back. Then, in a minute, she herself flung back the shutters, and stood trembling in the sudden glory revealed. The broad flood of day showed him the waves of storm still surging over her; but even as he approved she commanded herself and became humble—he knew her difficult to resist in that mood.

‘I thought you would treat me as the Queen-Mother does. That put me in a rage. I beg your pardon, my lord.’ As she held out her hand again, this time he took it, and drew her by it along with him to the open window. He made her stand in the sun. Far below the grey curtain-wall were the moat, the bridges, the trim gardens and steep red roofs of Orleans, the spired bulk of the great church; beyond all that the gay green countryside. A fresh wind was blowing out there. You saw the willows bend, the river cream and curd. The keen strength of day and the weather made her blink; but he braced her to meet it by his words.

‘Madam,’ said he, ‘needs must your heart uplift to see God’s good world still shining in its place, patient until your Majesty tires of sitting in the dark.’

She smiled awry, and drummed on the ledge with her long fingers, looking wilfully down, not choosing to agree. The maids, all clustered together, watched their beloved; but the cardinal had saner eyes than any of them. As he saw her, so may you and I.

A tall, slim girl, petted and pettish, pale (yet not unwholesome), chestnut-haired, she looked like a flower of the heat, lax and delicate. Her skin—but more, the very flesh of her—seemed transparent, with colour that warmed it from within, faintly, with a glow of fine rose. They said that when she drank you could see the red wine run like a fire down her throat; and it may partly be believed. Others have reported that her heart could be discerned beating within her body, and raying out a ruddy light, now fierce, now languid, through every crystal member. The cardinal, who was no rhapsodist of the sort, admitted her clear skin, admitted her patent royalty, but denied that she was a beautiful girl—even for a queen. Her nose, he judged, was too long, her lips were too thin, her eyes too narrow. He detested her trick of the sidelong look. Her lower lids were nearly straight, her upper rather heavy: between them they gave her a sleepy appearance, sometimes a sly appearance, when, slowly lifting, they revealed the glimmering hazel of the eyes themselves. Hazel, I say, if hazel they were, which sometimes seemed to be yellow, and sometimes showed all black: the light acted upon hers as upon a cat’s eyes. Beautiful she may not have been, though Monsieur de Brantôme would never allow it; but fine, fine she was all over—sharply, exquisitely cut and modelled: her sweet smooth chin, her amorous lips, bright red where all else was pale as a tinged rose; her sensitive nose; her broad, high brows; her neck which two hands could hold, her small shoulders and bosom of a child. And then her hands, her waist no bigger than a stalk, her little feet! She had sometimes an intent, considering, wise look—the look of the Queen of Desire, who knew not where to set the bounds of her need, but revealed to no one what that was. And belying that look askance of hers—sly, or wise, or sleepy, as you choose—her voice was bold and very clear, her manners were those of a lively, graceful boy, her gestures quick, her spirit impatient and entirely without fear. Her changes of mood were dangerous: she could wheedle the soul out of a saint, and then fling it back to him as worthless because it had been so easily got. She wrote a beautiful bold hand, loved learning, and petting, and a choice phrase. She used perfumes, and dipped her body every day in a bath of wine. At this hour she was nineteen years old, and not two months a widow.