The Lonely Queen/Art Magic
ART MAGIC.
THE KING was displeased. As he rode through London from a stag hunt in Hainault Forest the people had stood sullen in his way, and never a hat was raised nor a cheer. This was portentous villainy to a prince bred in the obsequious reverence of Spain. He had even heard a murmur about “English hounds for a Spanish fox” which his intelligence judged to be murderous treason. He invoked a whole service of pious curses upon the surly wickedness of the English. There was no pleasing them. At Stratford he had passed the red, smoking ashes of thirteen heretics: the corpses of traitors dangled in rows across Mile End Waste: Temple Bar was jewelled by a score of heads: before the gates of St. James's Palace the laden gibbets creaked. What better evidence could a nation ask of wise and righteous government? Yet they grumbled and snarled and threatened as though it were no honour that he had come from Spain to do all this for them.
In the palace, a shapeless woman, her wan face seamed with disease, sat huddled together and rocked herself and muttered prayers to a dreary, level rhythm. The Queen was without the impulse of life. Hope was dead in her. All that she had desired, all that she had won, had turned to sorrow in the hour of possession. The husband for whom she had humbled herself to beg spared her not so much as a gentleman's courtesy. The crown to which thousands had welcomed her now commanded neither honour nor love. As soon as she was in her grave—and death hovered near—her people would turn again from Spain and the faith of Spain and her reign would be as nought. She had no child to maintain her work; no child, though she had entreated heaven with burnt offerings of many heretics. Surely the powers of evil were granted power to prevail against her. She was cursed to be of none effect.
So she tortured herself when King Philip strode in. He saw her all dishevelled and gave a contemptuous laugh: “You do not deck out your beauty, madam.” She started up and stood before him, quivering, silent, her worn face all pain and fear. “Your very look is a whine,” he cried impatiently.
She pressed her hand to her side. “What have I done to you that you must always hurt me so?” she said.
“You married me, madam!” He was so pleased with that that he repeated it and laughed.
“You teach me my folly,” she muttered, and then looked up with a gleam in her eyes. “I brought you a dowry worth honour, if I am not.”
“Dowry! Dowry!” he spluttered, his big loose lip flapping. “Your England—an ant-heap of vile, impudent, naughty heretics! Madam, I rode through your London to-day and I swear not one head was bowed before me.”
She sighed drearily. “They mean nothing. But you hate them so.”
“Nothing, madam, nothing?” He always echoed her words so that sometimes her tortured nerves shuddered before he spoke. “If you please, they call after me 'Spanish fox.' Is that nothing, madam?”
“Oh, be man enough to laugh at ribaldry.”
He was a moment speechless for amazement. “Man?” he spluttered. “I am not a man. I am the King of Spain. I protest I will have you remember it at least. And here in your own palace, madam, I find a filthy paper by my very bedside.” He read out with anguish in his voice:
Goodman fox, away to your earth
Or English hounds shall try your worth.
And he stared at her, tapping the paper, his horror too great for words.
“What can I do?” she said listlessly.
He swore with shrill vehemence, and then muttered something to the saints for pardon “You can ask me what to do?” he cried. “Is it to be borne that I should be thus outraged? Madam, your paltering weakness will have me murdered. We must take sterner order with these villains. We must have mercy on none who dares breathe against me. We”
She laughed. “When has there been mercy in England since you came?”
“Why should there be mercy while traitorous heretics dare breathe? I protest I fear the vengeance of God upon our weakness. We must purge the whole land with fire.”
She trembled and sank down in her chair. “Oh, God!” she muttered, “more fire!” and writhed and wrung her hands.
Philip stared at her as though she were mad. Before his loose lip could frame words, the door opened softly and softly the Cardinal Legate entered. He smiled the lifeless ecclesiastical smile and lifted his hand. “Blessed and still to be blessed,” he murmured and stood over Mary. His handsome face was tense with the mindless zeal of the devotee.
“In good time, my lord,” she said. “The King chides me because I show mercy to any.”
“Mercy to traitorous heretics!” Philip spluttered.
The Legate made mouths, and with a queer soft vehemence began oratory. “Madam, be you assured, there is no kind of men so pernicious to the commonwealth as they be. Therefore there cannot be a work of greater cruelty than to nourish or favour any such. So it is plain that true mercy is to destroy them that the realm may be saved so as by fire.”
“Fire!” she cried out and started up, her face livid and distorted. Her wild eyes stared a moment at the Legate's bland surprise. She rushed stumbling from the room.
The Legate with placid sympathy said something of her weak health. Philip cut him short brutally and poured out anew the tale of wrongs. Together they took order for a sterner persecution of the wicked heretics who would not believe in the divine majesty of Spain.
Away at Woodstock Mary's sister grasped eagerly at each shred of news about the persecution as though she could never hear enough of hangings and burnings. Chrysostom Bagpuize, a gentleman of no illusions, declared that the more there were the merrier was she, because she calculated that such murderous rule would make the people long for her in her sister's place. But her warden, Bedingfield, who was not wise enough to be certain of everything, professed that he could make nothing of the wench; for, if she was always asking for horrors, when she heard of them she seemed to take them neither well nor ill. We have no right to suspect Elizabeth of tenderness that suffered because other folks were burnt: doubtless she saw that their agonies would serve her well; and yet it is possible that she was ill at ease. For all her life she counted England something that was hers and that it should be harried for the pleasure of Spain must needs annoy her economical mind.
“He made a bow of strange, Oriental fashion to the wondering Elizabeth.”
One autumn morning she was walking on the Oxford road with Mrs. Ashley when a shout came through the mist. Then she saw a man and woman running, though their breath came with thuds and they reeled. Through the mist behind was borne the sound of galloping horses. As the man drew near he gave a yell: “The Princess—Princess Elizabeth” He flung himself down at her feet and sobbed out: “Save us, lady, in the name of Christ!”
“Good lack, how may I save any man? And who art thou?”
“True Christians we be, and the hounds of the devil are upon us. Save us for your mother's sake.”
“What hast thou to do with my mother?” Elizabeth cried.
“Of her faith,” the woman sobbed; “we are of her faith and thine, and must die for it.”
“The bishop's officers—they have hunted us from London to Oxford, and from Oxford hither, and now they are upon us.”
Elizabeth looked down with no pity. Her secular mind was always annoyed by a person who could not keep his religion to himself, and these folks were peculiarly embarrassing. If she tried to shield them, she brought herself into danger. If she cast them off, the tale might win her the contempt of the Protestants.
“Out on it, man!” she cried angrily. “Never lie grovelling there. Into the ditch and hide!”
So into the ditch they tumbled, groaning out prayers. She walked on swiftly through the wavering mist. Soon two black horsemen broke upon her. “Stand, wench, stand!” one shouted, and they reined up in a hurry. “Hast seen any pass this way?”
“You are impudent, sirrah,” said Elizabeth.
“Go to, fool, I am the Bishop of London's officer. Hast seen”
“I am sorry for the bishop,” said Elizabeth.
“I'll have thee on the ducking stool if I have not my answer,” he shouted, and urged his horse upon her.
“Here is an ugly, heretical noise,” a new and musical voice spoke through a jingle of bells. Out of the mist came a mule, gaily caparisoned, with bells at bridle and fetlock and ear. Upon the mule was a man whose beard was dyed vermilion, and who wore, here and there, upon his black velvet, most of the colours of the rainbow.
“In the name of the Pleiades, 'tis she!” he cried, and sprang lightly from his mule and made a bow of strange, Oriental fashion to the wondering Elizabeth.
“Who is she, and who the fiend art thou?” cried the bishop's officer.
“The gentlemen are inquisitive,” the man smiled; “'tis a virtuous fault. Shall we expound, madam?”
“Expound, sir, that they are impudent knaves.”
He shook his head and made the sound of a nurse reproving a child. “Good lictors, this will not prosper”—he came up to them and patted their steaming horses—“for so you will bring upon you the anger of the stars and the planetary force.” He patted the horses again, and suddenly they started and plunged and dashed madly away. He turned with a smile to Elizabeth: “What next would you desire, madam?”
“God defend us!” she laughed. “Here is art magic.”
“Fie, madam! 'Tis impious to use that holy name for a mere trick. My slave there could do as much.” He whistled and out of the mist, on a smaller mule, came a grinning black boy. “I only drove into the creatures a pair of thorns dipped in the gum of a Syrian drug. They will gallop madly for an hour and then fall down in a shivering fit. It is my commonest device with troublesome beasts of two legs or four. But an apothecary's trick.”
“As the poor gentleman said, sir, 'Who the fiend art thou?'”
“John Dee, madam, of Merton College in Oxford, doctor of medicine—and of art magic, something more than doctor. My uses to you I pray leave to expound at your leisure.”
“Why are you pleased to serve me, sir?”
“Because the future is yours.” She was suddenly aware that the pupils of his eyes had dilated till the iris was hidden. Then they dwindled again to tiny gleaming spots. He laughed. “Yes, you were born English. Your soul will never trouble your brain. I give you joy.”
“I am wondering, sir, whether you were born a mountebank.”
“Do not be too English,” he laughed, “or you will think me mad because I am not like you. Well, madam, where have you hidden the fools those fools were hunting?”
She was surprised out of her self-command. She stared at him with something of awe. “What did you say?” she stammered.
“Nay, madam, you find miracles before I begin to work them. I saw two wretches running from those dogs. I come up and find you making a quarrel to detain the chase. It needs no art to guess that you are shielding the heretics. So what have you done with them and what will you do next?” While he spoke the two poor creatures came crawling out of the ditch and knelt before Elizabeth with incoherent mutterings of thanks in a medley of phrases half profane. She was the angel of the Lord, she was even as the lion of Judah, and much else that revolted her. Dr. Dee watched her with a quizzing smile.
“Out on it!” she cried. “Do not whine at me like a sermon. Away with you while you may.”
“Whither, madam?” the man stared up at her in helpless, plaintive worship. “The enemy compasseth us about. Back to Oxford we dare not. And we have none to give us refuge.”
“Is it my fault, sirrah? Did I make thee a fool and feckless? I'll not be burdened with thee.”
“There spoke the heart of royalty,” said Dr. Dee with reverence, while the poor wretches looked stupefied despair. “Hark ye, my heretical brethren, what's your offence? What brought you in the Bishop's eye?”
“Sir, I was a printer in Little Britain, and my imprint, Giles Saunders, is of good repute if your worship hath knowledge. I sold the Scriptures in English to poor hungry souls, the which ravening wolves will not endure. And also on a day when they burnt an old man and a blind man at Stratford I said to my neighbour that it were never merry England again till Madam Elizabeth were Queen. The which, being jealous of my trade, he carried to the bishop's officer and”
“And there was a heresy beyond forgiveness. Well, goodman Giles, I see no reason why you should be burnt for being a fool while so many fools are yet raw. So hie thee across the fields yonder to Witney and by New Yatt thou'lt find a great farmstead, and the farmer Peter Cogges is of thine own fool's temper. Therefore and for the sake of a word from me”—he scrawled on his tablets—“who once brought back his little soul to his great body, he'll give thee hiding till”—his bright eyes wandered to Elizabeth—“till a Queen who can love thee sits on the throne. Via! Away, away!”
But the poor creatures must needs make themselves tedious with thanks.
When they were gone at last, Dr. Dee turned to Elizabeth. “Strange that, since all religions are one, any man should care to burn or be burnt for the part he fancies.”
“You are an infidel, then?”
“No, madam, I have faith in everything. Even in you. Which, to be brief, is why I am here. Be pleased to walk forward with me, and your woman there, whose eyes are like to fall out of her head, may come behind with Abdullah.”
So they went on through the waves of mist, Dr. Dee's magnificence with his tinkling mule on one side and Elizabeth pensively on the other, while a score of yards behind Mrs. Ashley as one in a trance came beside the grinning black boy.
“I purpose, madam, to change the fortune of England,” said Dr. Dee blandly.
She burst out laughing. “You are too modest, sir.”
“It is very likely. I have always found myself able to do more than I had planned. Now, madam, I think well enough of you to believe that you care no more for these brawls of Protestant and Catholic than I, who would as soon die for a nursery rhyme as a doctrine. But the smell of the burnings must disgust you when you know that for a bad dream or a touch of colic your sweet sister may set you burning too. In fine, madam, England is now but a shambles and you no better than a sheep being fattened. A shambles is no comfortable home for me and I conceive you could make one. Therefore I offer you the power.”
She looked at him keenly. “Is that all, sir?”
“Almost; but also I have cast your horoscope and I find you fated to sovereignty. It is necessary for the success of my experiments that I should command the favour and protection of those who reign.” She was silent, her eyes searching him still. “You are suspicious, madam?”
“Many kind gentlemen have laid traps for me, sir. I do not think that I shall fall to Dr. Dee.”
He shook his head. “This is your weakness: you will never dare act. I pity, but I bear no malice.”
His tone was so contemptuous that she broke out: “God ha' mercy! Thou impudent mountebank”
“Words are breath, sweet or foul,” said Dr. Dee calmly. “Remark me, madam: if you find your fortunes change for better within two moons, I give you challenge, reward me with your favour when you are come to your kingdom.”
Her eyes grew narrow and cunning. “Why, sir, is there something new? Do you know something?”
“I know myself,” said Dr. Dee. “Farewell, madam, till we meet again.” He turned his mule, mounted leisurely, and jingled off into the mist.
Elizabeth went back to the palace, toiling with wonder and thought.
There began to be talk at court of a new astrologer. The Marquis de los Valles had been to him and seen, beautiful as on the day she was stabbed, the first silly woman who loved him. Lord Chandos had been told a tale of his wife that sent him riding home post haste and he came back with a fixed scowl, but spoke of Dr. Dee with awe. Even the Duke of Alva went to seek a horoscope and was given one of which he would tell nothing to any man. But to his master he swore that the magician must have commerce with something more than human.
King Philip, who could believe anything if it were superstitious, was eager to consult the fellow for himself. With De Feria and Egmont to guard him he went disguised, calling himself Don Julian Gonzaga.
They were kept waiting awhile in a room which had nothing in it but chairs. It was hung with blazing red velvet and their eyes were weary of the glare before Abdullah led them to his master's presence. Dr. Dee sat with a blaze of light on his broad white brow and vermilion beard and seemed to be in the midst of infinite space. For the only light was that which the lamp's curved mirror flashed upon his head, and the walls of the room, all covered by black velvet, were invisible. He was in black, too, and when he rose and turned the blaze of the lamp upon his guests, he faded out of existence save for a ghostly glimmer of white and red. They stood dazzled and blinking.
“The Count de Feria; the Count Egmont; what does Don Julian Gonzaga ask of me?” said Dr. Dee's cold, precise voice.
Philip gave a nervous laugh. “You tell the future, doctor. Tell me mine.”
“It happens often that in a man's future there is that which he would not have others know. Will you entrust all yours to your companions, señor?”
“They are not to leave me, sir!” Philip cried.
“I hope that your Majesty is wise. Nay, sir, do not start. I were no doctor, but a fool not to know a face that is known through Europe.”
“You were some time in knowing it, my friend,” quoth de Feria.
“Good sir”—Dr. Dee's tone was contempt—“if his Majesty had desired to be private with me I should not have confided in you that I knew him. Pray do not occupy me with childish expositions. Does your Majesty wish me to draw a horoscope which shall set out the influences that command your fortunes, the hours dangerous and propitious, and the broad course of your life to the season of death, or will you look in the mirror and see what matters particular the power of the universe may deign to reveal?”
“I will have all that you can show,” cried Philip. “Blessed Virgin! I prophesy it will be little,” he laughed, but he shifted uneasily.
“If you fear, sir, you are like to see what will make you fear,” said Dr. Dee quietly. “Your horoscope will ask time. It shall be spent. For the mirror all time is one.” He put his hand to the lamp and the room was instantly dark.
The King gave a cry. “Wait, wait! What is this mirror?”
“'God knows, sir!' cried Renard. 'I beg leave to go.'”
“If you speak you shall see nothing,” Dee's voice spoke from far away. Then a deep booming sound filled the room. They felt chairs thrust upon them and hands pressing them down. The sound became a moaning music. A subtle scent stole upon their nostrils: they felt a faint tingling and a drowsiness. Nothing was to be seen but the dim white of their own faces. Then in the blackness light gathered together and in the midst of it the King saw himself. While he gazed at the apparition tongues of flame broke out around it and leapt up and it vanished in molten fire.
He started up with a cry to St. Laurence. “What does it mean?” But at his voice the fire died and all was dark.
“If you speak you shall see nothing,” came Dee's voice, and he spoke like a man struggling hard.
For a while the darkness was unbroken and the music moaned on. Then the plane of light gathered again and again the King saw himself, but now by his side stood Mary, a wretched, drooping woman beside his tall magnificence. Her form faded and faded into the dark, leaving him alone. Then suddenly he vanished and again came a blaze of fire. Out of it was formed another shape, and as the flames died down he saw Elizabeth vivid and strong. She seemed to turn as she smiled, and at her side rose dimly another form coming closer to her and closer till they stood almost mingled. He saw himself again. They blazed together splendidly, and on a sudden were gone into the dark.
Light began to tremble and dance, and he saw as from afar ships at sea, galleons with oars and the banner of Spain, and then moving in among them little low sailing ships. Over them the light quivered, and he saw his face and Elizabeth's, and she was smiling. All faded out.
The moaning music died in the dark. A cooler, cleaner air stole in. They felt the strange lassitude that had possessed them yield. Dr. Dee's voice came faint and weary. “The power denies—denies. The veil is drawn.”
Philip started up. “What does it mean, good fellow?” he cried nervously.
“If I knew that I should know more than God,” the faint voice sobbed. There was a cry “Abdullah! Abdullah!” and the sound of a body falling.
Two candles broke the gloom, and between them they saw the face of the grinning black boy. The light showed the room empty of all but themselves and their chairs and a little table and the body of Dr. Dee, which lay lifeless.
Egmont was going to raise him when the black boy gave a cry and shook his head violently, and waved them to the door. “Sick. Always sick so after,” he said in a queer accent. “Please to go.”
The King shrugged his shoulders and looked round the room and shivered and hurried out.
Three nights afterwards he sat in his cabinet and broke half a dozen quaint seals and unfolded his horoscope. For a while he puzzled over a maze of triangles and squares and figures and signs of the zodiac, then turned to the next sheet with its jargon of “house of life” and “house of dignities” and the rest. He read on through a vast deal of windy phrases that promised him much, yet promised nothing plainly, His powers and state—this at least emerged—were to be greater and still greater. Because one whom he, had accounted his enemy should prove his dearest friend. And of his son should be borne to him great joy.
“Of his son!” The poor gentleman gaped at the paper. It was certain, if anything was certain, that Mary would give him no children, He counted it one of her chief offences, With pains his slow mind conceived the idea that he might have a child by another wife. There was more mental agony as he struggled to think what woman could be a useful wife. Then he remembered the pictures in the mirror and saw again Elizabeth at his side. What a buxom, hearty wench she was! What an enticing contrast to the faded, wasted creature to whose arms he was doomed! He suffered under the shock of a new suggestion. He spent a sleepless night.
You may think that the hints of Dr. Dee had been something broad. But, in fact, he had rightly gauged the dulness of Philip's mind. The wise King just understood the idea, and was able to believe that he had made it for himself. Fidgetty with expectation, he summoned the ambassador, Renard, to his presence, and then could find nothing to say.
Renard helped him for a while with talk of things indifferent, and then growing weary: “I suppose, sir, it was not to hear my opinion of the English weather that you bade me come?”
Philip stared at him a moment, and looked away and said: “What do you hear of Madam Elizabeth's health? A strong woman? A hearty woman?”
“I regret, sir, that she seems to ail nothing.”
“Sirrah, you speak impiously!” Philip cried.
Renard opened his eyes. “Since a while ago your Majesty was pleased to take counsel for killing her” he said with a contemptuous shrug.
“Sirrah, sirrah, that was your blundering folly which hath done me much hurt.” Renard shrugged again. “If I had taken Madam Elizabeth to wife,” Philip whined, “I might now have had an heir.”
“It is possible, sir. It is also certain that you would not have been King of England.”
“King?” Philip spluttered. “And am I King now, when all the knaves hate me? And what shall I be when my wife dies (she will die soon—she will die soon)? I shall be nought, sirrah, and have endured her for nought.”
“I allow that your Majesty hath not been able to commend yourself to the English,” said Renard coldly.
“They are all impudent, masterless rogues,” the King cried. He muttered to himself and played with his fingers, and looking away said in a low, mumbling voice: “If I had Madam Elizabeth to wife, the English who favour her must favour me. And I should have an heir to ensure England to me for ever.”
Renard moved in his chair. “When is Queen Mary to die, sir?” he spoke hoarsely.
“You are a fool!” the King spluttered. “You are a fool. But is it not so? Is it not as I say?”
Renard flung out his hand. “God knows, sir!” he cried. “I beg leave to go,” and he broke out of the room.
Philip stared after him and swore petulantly. The man must be growing imbecile; it was time to make an end of him. He was something surprised when he received a letter in which Renard asked leave to resign, as he found the air of England destroying his health. But it was welcome. It was well to be rid of a man who could not honour the subtlety of his master's plans.
If he was to marry Elizabeth it was plain that he must make sure of her before Mary died. The girl had no cause to love him yet, and if he waited to show affection till her sister was dead and she was crowned and in power, she might have the bad taste to refuse him. He must win her at once. That there was anything nauseous in the plan he did not perceive.
And if he was to win her, he must have her back to court. A man of more intelligence might have felt an awkwardness in suddenly asking favour for one for whose death he had been always passionate. But Philip's stupidity did not think of Mary finding anything strange in it. When he told her that she had gone too far with Elizabeth, that the girl's confinement was making him ill friends among the people, that they had best have her back to court, he expected her to think as he bade her think, and obey. Such was a wife's business.
She did not disappoint him. She was startled indeed. To hear Philip counsel mercy was a miracle. But the wretched woman was sick to death of the cruelties she had been forced to order in the name of religion and love. She grasped eagerly at a chance to be kind. She gushed out thanks for his graciousness, she would do her lord's will instantly. In truth she had no other pleasure. She ran to kiss him, which he bore with an ill grace. She was now so desperate plain.
Elizabeth sat staring at an incredible letter. Mary had never been amiable in all her life. Mary had never been human to any but her mother. And here were stumbling phrases to blurt out anxious kindness, and withal most surpassing marvellous—something of a sad humility that seemed to be craving help or love. For a moment Elizabeth had a wild fancy that the thing must be forged. But that was plainly impossible—if the letter were not so impossible. Surely the woman was bewitched. She had changed her soul.
If anything had happened in London But there was no new news. The fires and the hangman were busy still. Philip and the legate still reigned. Yet something had happened to turn her sister's stone to living flesh.
She could not guess the truth. She had written down Philip a venomous fool, but always conceived that her sister's cold, stubborn temper would yield to him only as it chose, and break him if he rebelled. It never occurred to her that her sister was a woman.
Bedingfield strode in, and she looked up as if she did not see him. “Why, madam, so you are to leave us?” he chuckled. “Back to court and favour again, eh?”
“Why, if it is so, so it is,” she said slowly.
“What, doubts? But you have a letter from the Queen's own hand. Your fortunes change, madam, methinks. I protest I give you joy.”
She stared at him, her face growing paler. “Your fortunes change!” The promise of that conjuring mountebank. “If your fortunes change for better within two moons,” he had said, and it was not more than six weeks since. She stared down at the Queen's letter, her face white as its paper. Here was evidence of change impossible, incredible. What did the knave know, or, more marvellous, what had he done?
She heard Bedingfield's jolly laugh. “Why, madam, you blanch at it as if it were art magic!”
She started and drew her breath noisily. “I thank you, sir, I thank you heartily,” she said in a hurry. “The Queen's gracious kindness affects me.”
Bedingfield made his bow and withdrew. His square honest face was puzzled. He did not conceive Madam Elizabeth melted by kindness.
To London she went the next day, on fire to find out the causes of the miracle. She hoped, partly for her own protection—in such mysteries there might well be danger—partly for sheer vanity and partly for honest desire to be dear in the heart of England, that the good citizens would give her a loud welcome. They surpassed all her imaginations. The streets were a roaring army. Gable and window flaunted the gayest colours. The steeples pealed and guns thundered for her. It was intoxicating: but as she rode in to Whitehall she could pause to think that these tumults might ill commend her to her sister.
From behind a curtained window of the courtyard Mary watched her dismount. She marked with the keenness of envious eyes the rich graceful strength of the woman's youth, and then in the ache of envy felt something of kindness for her, of pride in her. She was surprised at herself. She had always hated the girl, and always the insult and wrong that she had to bear had sharpened her hate. But now with all hope gone, now that she knew her lave and herself given in vain, now that she must die barren of all but an ugly fame, she felt her nature yearn to the girl whose fortune loomed like her own. She turned away sorrowful.
Philip's affected step broke upon her thoughts. “How, madam, do you not choose to welcome your sister?” he said peevishly.
“I will welcome her, my lord.”
“You left her welcome to me,” he grumbled. “It was not seemly. People will talk”—he looked at her under his eyelids—“people will talk and say that you are ill friends still. That you are jealous, for example. I mean that you envy her.”
Mary laughed sadly. “God knows there is no envy in me now.”
“I am glad of it,” Philip cried. “I say I am glad of it! Come, madam, you need not for ever wear the face of a martyr.”
“I am sorry if I displease you, my lord,” she said wearily.
“Then take care to please me,” he grumbled. “Madam, did you hear how your citizens acclaimed the girl? There was never such shouting for you. I doubt you have won yourself ill will with your executions and your burnings.”
“I?” The grotesque impudence of him amazed her. “My executions? In God's name, who asked them of me? Is it not you who have ever ordered me to kill? You who always asked blood—you—you—you!” She wrung her hands
“Madam, I think you are raising your voice to me,” he said haughtily. “And you grow wanton. I never asked you what was not your own desire.”
“My own desire!” she echoed, and gave a terrible laugh. “Oh, my God!” She stared at him, her face horribly distorted. “I am torn by their pains to do your pleasure.”
“You have the vapours, madam,” he said coldly and turned on his heel.
He left her sitting still as the dead with the agony of a hard death in her eyes.
In her chamber on the other side the courtyard Elizabeth sat looking at a letter in an ornate hand.
“From Dr. John Dee these—
“To record a challenge. To prophesy the toils of love. To commend a coy delay.
“And more at need to be heard in Godliman Street.”
That was the whole of it. It did not, you will concede, abolish her perplexities. But that night she was too much elated by the welcome of London to wonder for long together at Dr. Dee. She had learnt her father's secret, that if the common people were of her side she could afford to defy prelate or peer or emperor or Pope. And the people were coming to her side at last with sturdy passion. The hours of waiting drew near their end
In the morning Mary sent for her. It was a strange and awkward meeting. Elizabeth was startled by the Queen's wasted, aged face, but she had no sympathy and saw no profit in feigning any. She knelt and spoke proper respectful loyalty and was cautious to say nothing too grateful, nothing which confessed that Mary had pardoned her or forgiven.
Mary, who would have melted at a word of human feeling, had nothing but formality to give for these correct formalities. She looked down at the girl with hungry eyes, but she had never known how to open her heart, and this splendid, vivid creature, correct and cold, frightened her into haughtiness. She was very glad to be alone again, and when she was alone she cried; and Elizabeth sneered at her for a monument of stupid pride. Yet in the midst of contempt Elizabeth had the wit to be aware that there was indeed a change in her sister beyond her understanding. It is not likely that even in the end of her life she understood how a woman could grow pitiful out of sorrow. For her own sorrows served to temper her to a keen strength.
All Whitehall was at her service. She could receive whom she would and be entertained by whosoever chose. For the first time her greedy appetite for magnificence fed well. She enjoyed her life. She was cold, but she was always quick to feel a man's eyes and enjoy them. Moreover, there was nothing subtle in King Philip's method of wooing. To his mind all women were as coarse in grain as himself, or coarser, and he expected them to be pleased with his rudest attentions. He put himself in Elizabeth's way and grinned and ogled without restraint. Her tastes were not delicate. She liked admiration from anything in man's shape. But rarely it had power to dull her wits. If she flirted a fan at Philip and looked at him sideways, it was only that the cool, crafty brain bade her use him. She could amuse herself with any man, but Philip was not man, but mere incarnate enemy. He sought to ruin her England. She set herself to an amour with him as though it were a game of cards. She was ready to play with everything she had, her young beauty, her loyalty, her sister's right, if she could beat him. She had no prejudice against dirtying her hands. You may think the worse of her for it, or the better.
It was in his creed that every woman could be bought. As he sat with her in the twilight of a winter's afternoon, playing with one of her hands that she chose to forget in his, “I have some toys here that will please you, sweet Bess,” he said with a grin. “Faith, how they would shine on that white neck.” He spanned it with his long fingers.
“Fie, oh fie!” She tapped them with her fan. “This is no kingdom of yours, sir.”
He giggled and thought a minute. He was not quick. “But I'll invade,” he said, and tightened his grip.
She screamed coquettishly and wriggled herself away. “I fear you are a cruel conqueror, sir,” she simpered. “Nay, now, nay. I will not suffer it. You are too rough, sir. I say I will not!”
Philip flung back in his chair. He found no amusement in a woman who made herself difficult. “I am too rough, am I?” he grumbled. “I know what that means.”
“Ah, I always fear you are too clever for me, my lord,” she sighed meekly.
“You are quite clever enough for a woman,” he was complacent again. “You know you ought to have some toys for your pretty self, do you not, eh? Well, I can please you. See now”—he plucked out a casket from his trunk hose—“there is not the like out of Spain. What will you give me to open it, pretty one?”
She held out her hand. “You may kiss that, my lord.”
He frowned. “The King of Spain kisses no hands, madam.”
She drew back her dress. “My foot also is thought comely, my lord,” she said demurely.
“I see that you have no will to what I can give, madam.”
She lay back in her chair and gave herself to frank laughter. “Good lack, good lack! One would think I was wooing and you were a proud maid.” He glared at her. That he should be laughed at was a hideous outrage. He amused her the more. “Behold me, the amorous knight,” she cried, and strode across the room pretending a man's gait, and bowed low and knelt at Philip's feet, and with murmurs of “Nay, cold fair, nay,” played the lover, casting her arm about him and drawing him close and closer.
His frown relaxed; he laughed and caught her in his arms. She sprang away lithe and strong, and made him a splendid curtsey. Then laughing, she held out her hands to him. “Are you friends, my lord?”
“Come, come, shalt have thy toys,” he said graciously. “Sit by me, Bess.” She sat, and he gathered her in his arm and opened the casket and drew out a chain of great emeralds, “There's for a girl who pleases me,” he said, and laid them against her neck and watched her face as she looked.
It was not ill planned. The splendour of jewels was dearer to her than most things on earth. She looked and her eyes glistened greedily. And then she saw his smile as he watched her. Her brain gave clamorous warning. “Oh, my lord, they frighten me,” she cried. “They are rich enough for a queen.”
“Then some day you may wear them,” he said. “You may wear better if you will, sweet Bess.”
Her hand went to her neck and covered the jewels. “You frighten me,” she said in a low voice and turning looked full in his eyes. You may guess what she saw there of coarse craft and coarse desire.
He pulled her hand down and drew her to him and kissed her. “Spain is richer than all the world beside, sweet Bess,” he said.
She started up, crying again, “You frighten me!” and she ran out.
As he gathered the jewels into the casket Philip laughed and laughed again.
In an hour there was brought to her a packet. She opened it to find the casket. She drew out the chain of emeralds and her hands dandled them tenderly and her eyes glistened. There were other jewels as fine, a treasury of magnificence. She played with them, trying them in her hair and on neck and bosom, and loved herself in their splendour. Still the casket held something—a picture of Philip set in diamonds, and beneath it a scrap of paper “For my Queen Bess.”
The light died from her eyes. Her face paled and grew hard. She stripped the jewels from her and thrust them back in the casket and set on the top of all the picture and the paper.
When Philip came with the Queen from vespers—it was rarely that he missed a service—Elizabeth stood in their way. “Will it please your Majesty grant me audience?” she said, gravely.
Mary started and blinked at her through the half light and muttered: “Follow us!” Philip smiled his favour.
“'I shall pray for this poor realm,' said the Cardinal.”
When they were come to Mary's withdrawing room, he flung himself into a chair. He was curious. Mary stood beside his lounging splendour, a miserable, pathetic form. “Would you speak to me alone?” she said nervously.
“It is well that the King should hear me,” Elizabeth said, and came forward into the light. “Madam, I have to tell you that your honour and dignity is outraged and my maidenhood insulted.” Philip sat erect with a jerk and stared. “This afternoon, finding me alone, the King was pleased to play at love for me. This I took for nought but a jest, till he brought out rich jewels and put them upon me, and when I was frightened, protesting they were rich enough for a queen, he said that I might wear them soon. Then I fled from him.”
Philip stammered out an oath, and from oaths broke into foul abuse of Elizabeth.
Mary turned upon him, her eyes blazing from her haggard face. “Silence!” she cried in her deep man's voice. “Silence, for your own shame, if not for mine.”
“Shame!” he spluttered. “Madam, madam, I am defiled by this shameless wench. You shall not hear her, I say.”
“I say that I will hear her out,” Mary cried.
“There is little more to hear, madam. The rest you may see. To my chamber, a few moments since was borne this casket.” She flung back the mantle from her shoulders and held the casket out.
Philip sprang forward to snatch it, and, between them, it fell down and the jewels were poured in a glittering pool upon the floor.
Elizabeth drew back and pointed to the portrait. “There, madam, and with it that paper, written in the King's hand, with the vile insult 'For my Queen Bess.'”
“Am I to bear this foul impudence, madam?” Philip cried.
“I have to bear it,” she said, and turned upon him with tortured eyes. “Oh, my God, my God,” she moaned, “had you not hurt me enough before?”
“Hurt you, madam, hurt you? You are excited. Go to your room. Leave this knavish wench to me.”
“I would not leave the most vile knave that lives to you!” she cried, and then shuddered and drew in her breath. “Oh, my God, if you could but feel.”
“I give you warning, madam. I shall not suffer more of this. It seems you have forgotten your duty.”
“If I had done my duty to God I had not so given myself to be your prey.”
Philip gave an ugly laugh. “You grow fickle. A while ago you were ever on your knees to have me love you more.”
She trembled and all but fell. “That too,” she muttered, “yes, it needed that, too.” She came a step forward. “Philip, I gave you all that I had. You have used me to torture me. This is the end. I desire you go. I swear before God you shall give me no more pain.”
“Bid me go?” he was plainly amazed. Then he swore vehemently. “If you were not an old woman, and mad withal, I should know how to punish you. Oh, be assured I shall go, madam. You will not see my face again. And in a week you will be whining to have me in your arms again. Thou pitiful fool!” He stamped out.
Mary stood swaying, her face livid.
Then they heard Philip's roar again in the ante-room: “The Queen at leisure? Ay, and like to be at leisure for ever.”
A door banged, the door of the withdrawing room opened gently, and softly came the tall, bent form of the Cardinal Legate. He raised his hand in benediction and smiled the fanatic's smile. Then he saw Elizabeth and his brows came down.
“You, too!” Mary muttered. “Well, and what of you, my lord?”
He was pained at her lack of reverence. “If I take an ill occasion, madam” he began haughtily.
“Ill or well, what is it, my lord?” she cried.
After all, he was not ill-pleased to speak, to show his power before Elizabeth, to show her what her friends had to fear. “Madam, I have to acquaint you that Dr. Bonner grows negligent and faint of heart. In his court, he sets before the heretics ways of escape. The which” he broke off and stared at her with horror. She had laughed.
There was, indeed, something ghastly, something inhuman in her laughter, so that Elizabeth drew close to her and looked anxiously at her face. “Dr. Bonner is too merciful!” she cried shrill, and laughed again. Then she grew calm, her face shrunken and drawn with pain. She came unsteadily forward peering at the legate, but he only exhibited his horrified surprise. She turned and hid her face in her hands. “Oh, God, oh, God, have mercy upon me,” she said in a low, clear voice, and slowly made her way to the inner chamber.
Elizabeth opened the door and closed it upon her and stood before it facing the Cardinal, her vivid, handsome face set like a mask over all feeling and thought. “Is there any more to say, my lord?” she said gravely.
A moment they stood against each other, then the Cardinal bent his head. “I shall pray for this poor realm,” he said, and turned away from the steel of her eyes.
Elizabeth stood still, cold and bound with thought, in the hour of triumph. All the world was upside down. The Queen had broken with Spain—the Queen was turning from Rome. The tyranny was over—past. The flames that had tortured England would die down. There would be safety and free life again. But what of the wrath to come? Nor Spain, nor Rome would take such defeat lightly.
In a while she remembered that propriety called her to her sister's sorrows. She went in and was dutifully kind. Mary lay upon her bed, body and limbs drawn together, and sometimes she sobbed. Hour after hour Elizabeth sat at the bedside.... When Mary had fallen to the dead sleep of exhaustion, she came away slowly, her head bowed. In the withdrawing room the sparkling pool of jewels arrested her. She stooped and swept them into the casket again and bore them away. She had won that, too.
She was in her own room by the fire, the emeralds rippling through her hands and in the flame glow touched to every brightest colour. She smiled at them, and let them all fall into her palm and gripped them, and then with her other hand she took the diamond-girt portrait of Philip. As she looked the smile marked her face more and more deeply. While that head commanded her enemies she could hold her own though they marshalled all the power of the world. She dandled the portrait tenderly.
So Mrs. Ashley found her, but Mrs. Ashley was much too flurried to see. “Madam, madam,” she broke out, “that strange man—the magician—he who met us at Woodstock—he asks for you.”
Elizabeth laughed. “The gentleman is opportune,” she said, and waved her hand. She shut the jewels away, but held the portrait still as she went out to receive Dr. Dee.
Dr. Dee was veiled in black velvet from head to heel. He flung back the cloak as he bowed and revealed rainbow decorations, vermilion beard and a smile. “Within two moons, madam,” he said.
“What have you done?” she came close.
He made a gesture round the room. “You live my miracles. What have you done?”
“Ah!” she smiled. “Cannot art magic tell?”
He came a step nearer and put his hand on her wrist. “King Philip has spoken love to you.”
Their eyes contended. “Well, sir, and what was my answer?”
“You despise him,” said Dr. Dee slowly, and shrugged his shoulders. “A woman is apt to be in a hurry.”
“What would your wisdom have had me do?”
“I never make a man hate me for nothing. You might have played him till you were Queen and kept him here in your power.”
“Played him? With my sister dying beside me? I think they say well who say that art magic is of the devil.”
Dr. Dee put up his eyebrows. “Holy morality! Prithee, what is that in your hand?”
She opened it and showed the portrait of Philip and smiled at him. He was plainly puzzled. “How now? Is art magic dumb?”
“You take that and you laugh at him! Oh, you disappoint me. If it were his head you might be safe. Who else has seen that but me?”
“Only my sister,” Elizabeth smiled.
Dr. Dee came closer. “Did you hate her so much?” he said in a low voice.
“Sirrah, you are impudent!” she flushed.
Dr. Dee shrugged. “Oh, moralities, moralities! Well, he is gone out of England, then, he and his flames and his hangmen. The mind ranges free. Thanks to the art magic which, as some say, is of the devil.”
She laughed. “Thanks to art magic, quotha! And no thanks to me?”
“Prithee, what is art magic? The cold reason which knows bigotry and folly only to use them. What are you but art magic—the best of you and the worst—with something of the woman to make best and worst more vehement? Kinsman after the spirit, I challenge your favour when you are come to your kingdom.”
“Kinsman!” she laughed.
“Forasmuch as we believe nothing, fear nothing, and hope all things, Madam, good-night.” He flung his cloak about him, he was again a black mysterious shape, he was gone.
Elizabeth went slowly back to her room and sat a long while gazing into the fire. When Mrs. Ashley came she found over her mistress's bed the portrait of King Philip. She could not keep in her curiosity. “A gift, madam?” she fluttered.
“No, woman. A warning,” Elizabeth said.