 | The Tragic Mary |  |
Scene II
—Holyrood; the King's audience-chamberEnter Darnley, Morton, Ruthven and others
Darnley
She braves me to my face; oh, worse! she lets
Her breath come like a poniard through her lips
10
Full of the levin and the thunder-rain.
She said she would not lie with me, nor come
And prattle in my chamber any more;
She broke from all obedience—ay, and promised
'Twould be dear blood for some of us: her face
Flushed briefly as she said it. Let her threaten
And do her worst.
Morton
You do not care?
Darnley
Not I.
Care for a woman's anger!
Morton
Did she rage?
Darnley
Yes, silently; indeed, I never heard
Her voice so still: folk at a funeral
Have scarce a lower cadence. When she poured
The wine for Ruthven I could see she thought
Of blood, she moved so sudden to his side,
And held it 'gainst the flame.
Morton
You do not care?
Darnley
Why should you pester with your repetition?
Care, do you ask?—And yet she looked away,
Tears in the van of sight, and such a smile
Upon her lips, I tingled: while I stood
Fronting her heedless face, years came and went,
Before the moments forced me to retreat,
As she was turning toward me once again
With new-illumined wrath.
11
You do not care,
And that is well, for we must make clean breast
Of all our thoughts touching the queen, yourself,
And us, your sworn confederates. To the door
You shall not go. We executed murder
With you, and you must give us from henceforth
Protection and fidelity.
Darnley
My lords,
As I began . . .
Morton
Nay, that is not enough;
As you began you must continue. Now
There can be no retracing of the way;
You cannot climb again to the far verge
Of your attempt, and if you once look back
You are as good as dead.
Darnley
God's sake! You gather
Most rudely all about me. Of a truth
You are not courteous and you are not faithful;
You call me an assassin, when your swords
Slew Riccio. Sirs, I will not thus be baited.
Stand further off! Now what is your complaint
That you should stifle me with shoulders thus
Set round me, and intolerable speech?
Where have I failed to please you?
Morton
Nay, not failed;
We would instruct you, bid you recognise
Your destiny is welded into ours
By doom, by justice, by this written bond.
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Our warning and entreaties. We exact
From you but courage; you must make yourself
Our leader, and our captain in affairs
From which you will not budge.
Darnley
I am your king.
What further do you want?
Ruthven
Good Lord! You wanted
The matrimonial crown.
Darnley
And have it now.
Morton
What is a crown derived, a crown that clips
The short curls of a man because he weds,
That owns the woman's rule!
Darnley
It irks my heart
To be her paltry follower, her mere shadow.
Morton
Then from our hands receive the crown itself;
Be more than leader, sovereign: then we march
Wherever you shall list, as you command
Will do . . . But play the coward!—
Darnley
My senses whirl:
You seem to threaten and you seem to offer
Kingship and service. Do not press around
With good and evil meanings. To your wishes
I give a strained attention.
Morton
I will use
The plainest words: if once you waver, once
Forsake our company, you will not find
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You will be met by earnest, silent men,
Who handle an irrefragable bond,
And care not how they punish the offence
Of breaking its least claim.
Darnley
You do me wrong,
And your distrust is harsh and insolent.
Admit my father to this colloquy;
I am alone 'mong many counsellors,
And need more judgment than my youth possesses.
You dazzle me and trouble, for you talk
With fervid, strange unkindness.
Morton
We admit
Lennox; he joined in our conspiracy.
Summon the earl.
Exit one of the Conspirators
Ruthven
My head, my head!
Morton
You suffer!
Ruthven.
Regard me not,—as yet my wits are mine
To listen to your motions.
Morton
Look at him!
Ruthven
Check-mated.
Morton
Ay.
Darnley
(Apart)
My heart is in my mouth;
They are obscure and deathly in their manner,
And in their speech constraining. Oh, alone!
My mind is diverse as a sapling-tree
To and fro i' the wind. I have no help;
She is upstairs. I know not what to do.
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Although she is so prompt and politic.
How came I looped about by all those coils?
I breathe in giddy ignorance. O God,
My deed of vengeance was direct and simple,
What treasonous net is this they make of it?
Enter Lennox
Father!
Morton
My lord, our triumph you have heard;
The villain is despatched, the queen is weeping
Within her room, our prisoner, and the palace
Is by our men invested. This your son
In modesty is fearful to receive
From us the title which his wife has lost,
Ruler of Scotland.
Lennox
He were best contented
With what his marriage gave him.
Morton
Folly, man!
He must secure our lives and liberties
By the indemnity of that great name
That makes ill-doing loyal.
Ruthven
For he is king,
Crowned by our voices, sceptred by the dagger
He left in Riccio's flesh! And if our king—
What of the queen?
Morton
She has but one defence:
The fate of giving birth is on her now;
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No blossom that has fruited brags of life,
Or tarries for the winter. Well-a-day,
Destruction has a future.
Darnley
(Apart)
They are cruel,
My blood is warm with fear.
Ruthven
In high-set Stirling
The woman shall be happy; she can rock
Her bairnie's cradle, sing the lullaby,
Or strain her bow-string on the garden plot:
While with their sovereign-king her faithful nobles
Do the man's work and govern.
Morton
Will her chicken
Prove boy or lass?
Ruthven
A tetchy, female thing;
Its dam is weak in colour. Of myself
I wager it is feminine.
Morton
Perchance
Some will denounce us.
Ruthven
At their least attempt
To wrest the queen away, we mince her up,
And toss her from the terrace.
Morton
All is even
And straight for our advantage. Let us part;
Long counsel hinders consequence. (To Darnley)
Heigh there!
Darnley
What is it. . . . What?
Morton
A warning! Cleave to us,
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Exeunt the Lords
Darnley
Are they gone?
All is upturned and fiery in my head;
I might be dying, for the arras-trees
Tumble together toward me, and the walls
On yonder strip lean o'er me rockily
As if to crush.
Lennox
My boy, you must remember
We share a common peril.
Darnley
Hold your peace!
A murder is not cruel when the stab
Is brisk and of the moment. Riccio fancied
No coming wounds, while threat of violent chance
Heaves through my brain. I am a minor still,
And downy on the cheek; they are old men
Whom death confronts if they but look at time,
For me it is unnatural and shocking
An end should haunt my morrow.
Lennox
We were cozened,
And are undone.
Darnley
A pack of murderous wolves!
My desolation stuns me; if I lay
Within the lonesome chapel down below
I could not be more single. How I fume
With projects of escape!—but I must ponder
Less hurriedly. That stairway is my access
To her, to extrication.
Lennox
Up! she is
17
Darnley
True, and there is a pliant afterthought
In her excessive rage, a lull to catch.
She loved me once, and in her disposition
Once to have loved holds fast against all strain:
I have a bosom-link if I can reach it,
That will not let me drop.
Lennox
God's sake, ascend.
Darnley
What noises sough and scurry through the air,
And beg for victims; the whole darkness seeks
A prey. My auguries are horrible,
And I am deadly faint. These little steps
Now seem such weary stones.
Exit
Lennox
He will not triumph
Without humiliation—that the goal
A woman's anger drives at. He is knocking.
Darnley
(Within)
My Mary!
Lennox
Now he pauses.
Darnley
(Within)
Let me in!
Lennox
Silence and wind! . . . I cannot hear him, yet
He speaks—
Re-enter Darnley
Darnley
She will not open. Go away.
If we are found together they will deem
We hatch some private business. It is fearful
To be alone, but better than with you,
18
Lennox
Why so it is.
Bid me good-night for courtesy, my son.
What will you do?
Darnley
Go up again at dawn.
Lennox
Plead for your father.
Exit
Darnley
I but called to quiet
Beyond that door—no answer and no breath;
Only one secret movement as one might
Hear a live body stir within the coffin . . .
A lunge, then noiseless time.
| The Tragic Mary | |