The Tragic Mary By Michael Field [i.e. K. H. Bradley and E. E. Cooper] |
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 | The Tragic Mary |  |
Scene IV
—Jedburgh; a room in the Queen's lodging: Mary Seton, Mary Livingstone, and Mary Fleming at work.Mary Seton
Is it not happy that our queen is restored to us? Since the Lord Darnley hath denied her his company, she is as fond and familiar as in her teens.
Mary Fleming
Or when, a widow of twenty, she took us in turn to be bed-fellows. And we watched her waking in the early light; it was more regal than a sunrise.
Mary Livingstone
As you repeated to the Lord Châtelar in your foolishness. But they were merry days, and our queen the queen of frolic. Then came the pretty stripling of Lennox—her Maries were clean out of credit; she required no service, but remained shut up in her chamber with her winsome cousin for warden.
Mary Fleming
She is terrible in love: no compromise betwixt ecstasy and death. She lay rigid on her bed for a day after the king, in presence of her nobles, first cleared her of fault, and then bade her contemptuously adieu.
Mary Seton
She has rallied quickly, though a fit of passion broke over her when she heard she must hold the justice-courts alone. Oh, that we could hear of the embarkation of this Sit-in-the-Sulks at Glasgow! No one regards him further than he is agreeable to the queen.
But she, poor lady, still loves him. She will look out from the window at the birds, wheeling about the heavens, and fear they will have stormy passage.
Exit Mary Seton
Mary Fleming
Why will you torment poor Seton with your tattling? When a woman sets her heart upon a woman she is inexorable in jealousy.
Mary Livingstone
Too true! Shall I suffer and be silent?
Mary Fleming
I am glad I have a lover of my own.
Mary Livingstone
You forget, I have a husband; but that mars not my constancy—a man needs so little of one's nature. It suffices him if one's complexion be fair. But there is not a balmy nook in one's soul undiscovered of her; she desists not from divining till she hath access to the honey-cells. I have had brave thoughts since she questioned me, and I will love her to my life's end.
Re-enter Mary Seton; she resumes her embroidery
Mary Fleming
Well, I grant her incomparable in her blue Highland mantle.
Mary Seton
You mistake; in her red camlat, rayed with the broken pearl broidery.
Enter the Queen
Mary Fleming
Fie, fie! and her crown somewhat rusted! But hither she comes in her passamented cramoisie.
With her silks and chenille.
(They rise to greet the Queen, and lead her to a canopied chair.)Mary Seton
Dear Madam, you are wondrous patient in your stitchery.
Queen
I can take my sewing, Marie, into the council chamber, scarcely into the assize court. To-day there is a brief respite from official cares. . . . I must close the bud of this tulip with my silks. The work, you remember, is for the king.
Mary Seton
I marvel you have even this leisure.
Queen
A languor has crept over our courts. The aggrieved make no charges, and it is rumoured we must to-morrow to Hermitage, to my Lord Bothwell, for further material on which to execute justice.
Mary Seton
Methinks, Madam, you take your Lord Justicier's grievous sickness too light-heartedly.
Queen
My good warden! But it vexes me to think how he has blundered. I ordered him to Liddesdale to make a strong jail of his fortress, and lodge in its dungeons the offenders for whom my justice-course had been prepared. He left the castle slenderly attended, was cruelly assailed by strapping Elliot, and, when Robert of the Shaw brought him home senseless on a litter, was not permitted to pass the gates till he had promised life and liberty to the masterful garrison of miscreants.
Mary Seton
Think! He was wounded.
Queen
Yes, but was it not
The lairds of Whitehaugh and of Mangerton,
With sundry of the Armstrongs? I am here
To break the strength of such, and find my powers
And office ineffectual through his fault.
Mary Fleming
My sweet queen, you are growing rigorous
As the Lord James. ’Tis these six busy days
That have so hardened you.
Queen
Ay, every morning
I have ta'en counsel with my tapestry—
This brave, blue arras! Have you noted it?
The judgment of King Solomon. How finely
He extricated truth, beneath the clamour
Of clinging, wild affections: sentence these,
And guilt will blab you out the truth as free
As fluent honesty.
Mary Fleming
The Border courts
Had been a fair state-progress if the king
Had not so waywardly forsaken you.
At the mere hint of this my Lethington
Comments with bitter tongue; the people marvel
To see so wondrous, solitary, white
A justice. Why, at Stirling you would sit,
Peruse, and sort your jewels by the hour,
Making such pretty presents and bequests
As set us weeping. ’Tis the deep affront
Of being thus abandoned . . . .
Marie, Marie,
Your tongue runs to disorder, and must suffer
A moment's durance. Rim this slip with gold,
And work in silence. (Rises and walks apart)
I am strangely sick
To-night, and with that wanton loneliness
And dizzy solitude that lengthen out
The vacancy at bottom of my heart
It may be even now that boy of mine,
Cruel as Cupid's self, and capable
As he of smiting inward, has ta'en flight
For ever from my shores. He said to me
It should be long, so long before I saw
His face again; and all my humbleness
But strengthened his resolve. My love, my love!
(Returning to Mary Fleming)
Ah, you have done your task, and gentle eyes
Pardon my admonition.
Mary Fleming
Dearest queen,
You tremble.
Queen
Haply I have caught disease
From the close air and crowding of the courts;
Or it may be the rancour that one leaves
In human hearts, howe'er one govern them,
Sets me in this despondency.
Mary Fleming
The ride
To Hermitage will freshen you. I trust
You will set forth to-morrow.
That must be
As the Lord James determines; he directs
Our every step.
Mary Seton
(Looking at the Queen's work)
It is a pretty sleeve.
Queen
If it might give contentment! Every stitch
Is a caress. Well, we must drop no tears
Across the burnished broidery. Take your lute!
Nay, give it me! If music is played soft
At amorous, dusky hour,—why, poets say,
It draws reluctant lovers to its course,
As a lone, female dove with luring note,
Draws her mate homeward on firm, open wings.
(Sings)
Who loved a shepherd lad;
To bring the smile into his face
Was all the care she had.
To shew her of their deed;
She eyed it with a queenly eye,
And leapt into the mead.
And felt their woolly fleece;
It was their cry among the hills
That brought her to her peace.
Outside the wattle-fold,
She took her lute and sang to them
To keep them from the cold.
Whom men had sought to spite.
Alack, no sovereign lady lives
A life of such delight.
Or sought to bend her will;
She watched the ewes at lambing-time,
And in the winter chill.
One day beside the brook,
They came and found that she bad died,
Her arms about her crook.
Nor any sins to weep;
O God, that I might be like her,
And live among the sheep!
Almost wearied
Who would in my executive be mate,
I came, my gentle princess, to your door
For such refreshing as your happy wit,
Clouded with mildness, ofttimes doth bestow
On your taxed servant! But, alack! the matter
Of this rare song, the tears that break it off,
Forbid me to find comfort in the voice,
Or in the picture (Bending low to the Queen)
though ’tis ravishing
As museful Clio should forget her scrolls
With Euterpe to passion on the flute.
Why do you sicken thus of sovereignty,
Who, capable and sole, can bind in one
The jarred and restless factions of your realm?
Queen
Du Croc has been with me.
Lethington
And he reports
The king still obdurate. To sulk at Glasgow—
Believe me, he will find it sorry sport.
Have but a little patience, like the man
Your swerveless equity confesses you,
And all will be amended.
Queen
You are gay,
You soon will be a bridegroom.
Lethington
From a rose
Though one may pluck a cluster-bud, one bows
Before the air-impregning majesty
Of the mid-fragrance with a lingering joy.
’Tis simple exultation in your clear
Supremacy, and excellent discretion.
Be mirthful, dearest princess.
Queen
If amendment . . . .
Lethington
Verily, madam, if we look closely, the policy of God is ever directed toward amendment; one can discover in it nothing of a destructive cast. The eating of the apple was in all likelihood but partial, as Proserpina, for devouring a few seeds of the pomegranate, abode in hell, yet in consideration of the undevoured mesh of vermilion had leave to open half her nature to the light. All is not lost, though Lord Darnley devote himself to folly. Consider, fair governor, what is the office of justice with regard to folly. Does she water it with her tears?
Queen
I will not write to him; I will keep silence.
Lethington
For a love-ditty would but swell his presumption. Have confidence!
Queen
I will immediately to rest. Yes girls, you may carry me bedward. Do we travel to-morrow?
Lethington
Almost with the first sunbeam. (She gives him her hand.)
Sheltering sleep
Soothe these storm-swollen eyelids!
Exeunt Queen and Mary Seton
A simple, pious action to remove
Of this incomparable flower. My hand
Is delicate in surgery. (To Mary Fleming as she passes out)
Dear, good night.
| The Tragic Mary | |