University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

Chartley.
Mary Stuart and Mary Beaton.
Mary Stuart.
We shall not need keep house for fear to-day;
The skies are fair and hot; the wind sits well
For hound and horn to chime with. I will go.

Mary Beaton.
How far from this to Tixall?

Mary Stuart.
Nine or ten
Or what miles more I care not; we shall find
Fair field and goodly quarry, or he lies,
The gospeller that bade us to the sport,
Protesting yesternight the shire had none
To shame Sir Walter Aston's. God be praised,
I take such pleasure yet to back my steed
And bear my crossbow for a deer's death well,
I am almost half content—and yet I lie—
To ride no harder nor more dangerous heat
And hunt no beast of game less gallant.

Mary Beaton.
Nay,
You grew long since more patient.

Mary Stuart.
Ah, God help!
What should I do but learn the word of him
These years and years, the last word learnt but one,
That ever I loved least of all sad words?
The last is death for any soul to learn,
The last save death is patience.

Mary Beaton.
Time enough
We have had ere death of life to learn it in
Since you rode last on wilder ways than theirs
That drive the dun deer to his death.

Mary Stuart.
Eighteen—
How many more years yet shall God mete out
For thee and me to wait upon their will
And hope or hope not, watch or sleep, and dream
Awake or sleeping? surely fewer, I think,
Than half these years that all have less of life
Than one of those more fleet that flew before.
I am yet some ten years younger than this queen,
Some nine or ten; but if I die this year
And she some score years longer than I think
Be royal-titled, in one year of mine
I shall have lived the longer life, and die
The fuller-fortuned woman. Dost thou mind
The letter that I writ nigh two years gone
To let her wit what privacies of hers
Our trusty dame of Shrewsbury's tongue made mine
Ere it took fire to sting her lord and me?
How thick soe'er o'erscurfed with poisonous lies,
Of her I am sure it lied not; and perchance
I did the wiselier, having writ my fill,
Yet to withhold the letter when she sought
Of me to know what villainies had it poured
In ears of mine against her innocent name:
And yet thou knowest what mirthful heart was mine
To write her word of these, that had she read
Had surely, being but woman, made her mad,
Or haply, being not woman, had not. 'Faith,
How say'st thou? did I well?

Mary Beaton.
Ay, surely well
To keep that back you did not ill to write.

Mary Stuart.
I think so, and again I think not; yet
The best I did was bid thee burn it. She,
That other Bess I mean of Hardwick, hath
Mixed with her gall the fire at heart of hell,
And all the mortal medicines of the world
To drug her speech with poison; and God wot
Her daughter's child here that I bred and loved,
Bess Pierpoint, my sweet bedfellow that was,
Keeps too much savour of her grandam's stock
For me to match with Nau; my secretary
Shall with no slip of hers engraft his own,
Begetting shame or peril to us all
From her false blood and fiery tongue; except
I find a mate as meet to match with him
For truth to me as Gilbert Curle hath found,
I will play Tudor once and break the banns,
Put on the feature of Elizabeth
To frown their hands in sunder.

Mary Beaton.
Were it not
Some tyranny to take her likeness on
And bitter-hearted grudge of matrimony
For one and not his brother secretary,
Forbid your Frenchman's banns for jealousy
And grace your English with such liberal love
As Barbara fails not yet to find of you
Since she writ Curle for Mowbray? and herein
There shows no touch of Tudor in your mood
More than its wont is; which indeed is nought;
The world, they say, for her should waste, ere man
Should get her virginal goodwill to wed.

Mary Stuart.
I would not be so tempered of my blood,
So much mismade as she in spirit and flesh,
To be more fair of fortune. She should hate
Not me, albeit she hate me deadly, more
Than thee or any woman. By my faith,
Fain would I know, what knowing not of her now
I muse upon and marvel, if she have
Desire or pulse or passion of true heart
Fed full from natural veins, or be indeed
All bare and barren all as dead men's bones
Of all sweet nature and sharp seed of love,
And those salt springs of life, through fire and tears
That bring forth pain and pleasure in their kind
To make good days and evil, all in her
Lie sere and sapless as the dust of death.
I have found no great good hap in all my days
Nor much good cause to make me glad of God,
Yet have I had and lacked not of my life
My good things and mine evil: being not yet
Barred from life's natural ends of evil and good
Foredoomed for man and woman through the world
Till all their works be nothing: and of mine
I know but this—though I should die to-day,
I would not take for mine her fortune.

Mary Beaton.
No?
Myself perchance I would not.

Mary Stuart.
Dost thou think
That fire-tongued witch of Shrewsbury spake once truth
Who told me all those quaint foul merry tales
Of our dear sister that at her desire
I writ to give her word of, and at thine
Withheld and put the letter in thine hand
To burn as was thy counsel? for my part,
How loud she lied soever in the charge
That for adultery taxed me with her lord
And being disproved before the council here
Brought on their knees to give themselves the lie
Her and her sons by that first lord of four
That took in turn this hell-mouthed hag to wife
And got her kind upon her, yet in this
I do believe she lied not more than I
Reporting her by record, how she said
What infinite times had Leicester and his queen
Plucked all the fruitless fruit of baffled love
That being contracted privily they might,
With what large gust of fierce and foiled desire
This votaress crowned, whose vow could no man break,
Since God whose hand shuts up the unkindly womb
Had sealed it on her body, man by man
Would course her kindless lovers, and in quest
Pursue them hungering as a hound in heat,
Full on the fiery scent and slot of lust,
That men took shame and laughed and marvelled; one,
Her chamberlain, so hotly would she trace
And turn perforce from cover, that himself
Being tracked at sight thus in the general eye
Was even constrained to play the piteous hare
And wind and double till her amorous chase
Were blind with speed and breathless; but the worst
Was this, that for this country's sake and shame's
Our huntress Dian could not be content
With Hatton and another born her man
And subject of this kingdom, but to heap
The heavier scandal on her countrymen
Had cast the wild growth of her lust away
On one base-born, a stranger, whom of nights
Within her woman's chamber would she seek
To kiss and play for shame with secretly;
And with the duke her bridegroom that should be,
That should and could not, seeing forsooth no man
Might make her wife or woman, had she dealt
As with this knave his follower; for by night
She met him coming at her chamber door
In her bare smock and night-rail, and thereon
Bade him come in; who there abode three hours:
But fools were they that thought to bind her will
And stay with one man or allay the mood
That ranging still gave tongue on several heats
To hunt fresh trails of lusty love; all this,
Thou knowest, on record truly was set down,
With much more villainous else: she prayed me write
That she might know the natural spirit and mind
Toward her of this fell witch whose rancorous mouth
Then bayed my name, as now being great with child
By her fourth husband, in whose charge I lay
As here in Paulet's; so being moved I wrote,
And yet I would she had read it, though not now
Would I re-write each word again, albeit
I might, or thou, were I so minded, or
Thyself so moved to bear such witness; but
'Tis well we know not how she had borne to read
All this and more, what counsel gave the dame,
With loud excess of laughter urging me
To enter on those lists of love-making
My son for suitor to her, who thereby
Might greatly serve and stead me in her sight;
And I replying that such a thing could be
But held a very mockery, she returns,
The queen was so infatuate and distraught
With high conceit of her fair fretted face
As of a heavenly goddess, that herself
Would take it on her head with no great pains
To bring her to believe it easily;
Being so past reason fain of flattering tongues
She thought they mocked her not nor lied who said
They might not sometimes look her full in face
For the light glittering from it as the sun;
And so perforce must all her women say
And she herself that spake, who durst not look
For fear to laugh out each in other's face
Even while they fooled and fed her vein with words,
Nor let their eyes cross when they spake to her
And set their feature fast as in a frame
To keep grave countenance with gross mockery lined;
And how she prayed me chide her daughter, whom
She might by no means move to take this way,
And for her daughter Talbot was assured
She could not ever choose but laugh outright
Even in the good queen's flattered face. God wot,
Had she read all, and in my hand set down,
I could not blame her though she had sought to take
My head for payment; no less poise on earth
Had served, and hardly, for the writer's fee;
I could not much have blamed her; all the less,
That I did take this, though from slanderous lips,
For gospel and not slander, and that now
I yet do well believe it.

Mary Beaton.
And herself
Had well believed so much, and surely seen,
For all your protest of discredit made
With God to witness that you could not take
Such tales for truth of her nor would not, yet
You meant not she should take your word for this,
As well I think she would not.

Mary Stuart.
Haply, no.
We do protest not thus to be believed.
And yet the witch in one thing seven years since
Belied her, saying she then must needs die soon
For timeless fault of nature. Now belike
The soothsaying that speaks short her span to be
May prove more true of presage.

Mary Beaton.
Have you hope
The chase to-day may serve our further ends
Than to renew your spirit and bid time speed?

Mary Stuart.
I see not but I may; the hour is full
Which I was bidden expect of them to bear
More fruit than grows of promise; Babington
Should tarry now not long; from France our friends
Lift up their heads to usward, and await
What comfort may confirm them from our part
Who sent us comfort; Ballard's secret tongue
Has kindled England, striking from men's hearts
As from a flint the fire that slept, and made
Their dark dumb thoughts and dim disfigured hopes
Take form from his and feature, aim and strength,
Speech and desire toward action; all the shires
Wherein the force lies hidden of our faith
Are stirred and set on edge of present deed
And hope more imminent now of help to come
And work to do than ever; not this time
We hang on trust in succour that comes short
By Philip's fault from Austrian John, whose death
Put widow's weeds on mine unwedded hope,
Late trothplight to his enterprise in vain
That was to set me free, but might not seal
The faith it pledged nor on the hand of hope
Make fast the ring that weds desire with deed
And promise with performance; Parma stands
More fast now for us in his uncle's stead,
Albeit the lesser warrior, yet in place
More like to avail us, and in happier time
To do like service; for my cousin of Guise,
His hand and league hold fast our kinsman king,
If not to bend and shape him for our use,
Yet so to govern as he may not thwart
Our forward undertaking till its force
Discharge itself on England: from no side
I see the shade of any fear to fail
As those before so baffled; heart and hand
Our hope is armed with trust more strong than steel
And spirit to strike more helpful than a sword
In hands that lack the spirit; and here to-day
It may be I shall look this hope in the eyes
And see her face transfigured. God is good;
He will not fail his faith for ever. O,
That I were now in saddle! Yet an hour,
And I shall be as young again as May
Whose life was come to August; like this year,
I had grown past midway of my life, and sat
Heartsick of summer; but new-mounted now
I shall ride right through shine and shade of spring
With heart and habit of a bride, and bear
A brow more bright than fortune. Truth it is,
Those words of bride and May should on my tongue
Sound now not merry, ring no joy-bells out
In ears of hope or memory; not for me
Have they been joyous words; but this fair day
All sounds that ring delight in fortunate ears
And words that make men thankful, even to me
Seem thankworthy for joy they have given me not
And hope which now they should not.

Mary Beaton.
Nay, who knows?
The less they have given of joy, the more they may;
And they who have had their happiness before
Have hope not in the future; time o'erpast
And time to be have several ends, nor wear
One forward face and backward.

Mary Stuart.
God, I pray,
Turn thy good words to gospel, and make truth
Of their kind presage! but our Scotswomen
Would say, to be so joyous as I am,
Though I had cause, as surely cause I have,
Were no good warrant of good hope for me.
I never took such comfort of my trust
In Norfolk or Northumberland, nor looked
For such good end as now of all my fears
From all devices past of policy
To join my name with my misnatured son's
In handfast pledge with England's, ere my foes
His counsellors had flawed his craven faith
And moved my natural blood to cast me off
Who bore him in my body, to come forth
Less childlike than a changeling. But not long
Shall they find means by him to work their will,
Nor he bear head against me; hope was his
To reign forsooth without my fellowship,
And he that with me would not shall not now
Without or with me wield not or divide
Or part or all of empire.

Mary Beaton.
Dear my queen,
Vex not your mood with sudden change of thoughts;
Your mind but now was merrier than the sun
Half rid by this through morning: we by noon
Should blithely mount and meet him.

Mary Stuart.
[Sings.

Mary Beaton.
This was one
That I would sing after my nurse, I think,
And weep upon in France at six years old
To think of Scotland.

Mary Stuart.
Would I weep for that,
Woman or child, I have had now years enough
To weep in; thou wast never French in heart,
Serving the queen of France. Poor queen that was,
Poor boy that played her bridegroom! now they seem
In these mine eyes that were her eyes as far
Beyond the reach and range of oldworld time
As their first fathers' graves.

Enter Sir Amyas Paulet.
Paulet.
Madam, if now
It please you to set forth, the hour is full,
And there your horses ready.

Mary Stuart.
Sir, my thanks.
We are bounden to you and this goodly day
For no small comfort. Is it your will we ride
Accompanied with any for the nonce
Of our own household?

Paulet.
If you will, to-day
Your secretaries have leave to ride with you.

Mary Stuart.
We keep some state then yet. I pray you, sir,
Doth he wait on you that came here last month,
A low-built lank-cheeked Judas-bearded man,
Lean, supple, grave, pock-pitten, yellow-polled,
A smiling fellow with a downcast eye?

Paulet.
Madam, I know the man for none of mine.

Mary Stuart.
I give you joy as you should give God thanks,
Sir, if I err not; but meseemed this man
Found gracious entertainment here, and took
Such counsel with you as I surely thought
Spake him your friend, and honourable; but now
If I misread not an ambiguous word
It seems you know no more of him or less
Than Peter did, being questioned, of his Lord.

Paulet.
I know not where the cause were to be sought
That might for likeness or unlikeness found
Make seemly way for such comparison
As turns such names to jest and bitterness;
Howbeit, as I denied not nor disclaimed
To know the man you speak of, yet I may
With very purity of truth profess
The man to be not of my following.

Mary Stuart.
See
How lightly may the tongue that thinks no ill
Or trip or slip, discoursing that or this
With grave good men in purity and truth,
And come to shame even with a word! God wot,
We had need put bit and bridle in our lips
Ere they take on them of their foolishness
To change wise words with wisdom. Come, sweet friend,
Let us go seek our kind with horse and hound
To keep us witless company; belike,
There shall we find our fellows.

[Exeunt Mary Stuart and Mary Beaton.
Paulet.
Would to God
This day had done its office! mine till then
Holds me the verier prisoner.

Enter Phillipps.
Phillipps.
She will go?

Paulet.
Gladly, poor sinful fool; more gladly, sir,
Than I go with her.

Phillipps.
Yet you go not far;
She is come too near her end of wayfaring
To tire much more men's feet that follow.

Paulet.
Ay.
She walks but half blind yet to the end; even now
She spake of you, and questioned doubtfully
What here you came to do, or held what place
Or commerce with me: when you caught her eye,
It seems your courtesy by some graceless chance
Found but scant grace with her.

Phillipps.
'Tis mine own blame,
Or fault of mine own feature; yet forsooth
I greatly covet not their gracious hap
Who have found or find most grace with her. I pray,
Doth Wade go with you?

Paulet.
Nay,—what, know you not?—
But with Sir Thomas Gorges, from the court,
To drive this deer at Tixall.

Phillipps.
Two years since,
He went, I think, commissioned from the queen
To treat with her at Sheffield?

Paulet.
Ay, and since
She hath not seen him; who being known of here
Had haply given her swift suspicion edge
Or cause at least of wonder.

Phillipps.
And I doubt
His last year's entertainment oversea
As our queen's envoy to demand of France
Her traitor Morgan's body, whence he brought
Nought save dry blows back from the duke d'Aumale
And for that prisoner's quarters here to hang
His own not whole but beaten, should not much
Incline him to more good regard of her
For whose love's sake her friends have dealt with him
So honourably, nor she that knows of this
Be the less like to take his presence here
For no good presage to her: you have both done well
To keep his hand as close herein as mine.

Paulet.
Sir, by my faith I know not, for myself,
What part is for mine honour, or wherein
Of all this action laid upon mine hand
The name and witness of a gentleman
May gain desert or credit, and increase
In seed and harvest of good men's esteem
For heritage to his heirs, that men unborn
Whose fame is as their name derived from his
May reap in reputation; and indeed
I look for none advancement in the world
Further than this that yet for no man's sake
Would I forego, to keep the name I have
And honour, which no son of mine shall say
I have left him not for any deed of mine
As perfect as my sire bequeathed it me:
I say, for any word or work yet past
No tongue can thus far tax me of decline
From that fair forthright way of gentleman,
Nor shall for any that I think to do
Or aught I think to say alive: howbeit,
I were much bounden to the man would say
But so much for me in our mistress' ear,
The treasurer's, or your master Walsingham's,
Whose office here I have undergone thus long
And had I leave more gladly would put off
Than ever I put on me; being not one
That out of love toward England even or God
At mightiest men's desire would lightly be
For loyalty disloyal, or approved
In trustless works a trusty traitor; this
He that should tell them of me, to procure
The speedier end here of this work imposed,
Should bind me to him more heartily than thanks
Might answer.

Phillipps.
Good Sir Amyas, you and I
Hold no such office in this dangerous time
As men make love to for their own name's sake
Or personal lust of honour; but herein
I pray you yet take note, and pardon me
If I for the instance mix your name with mine,
That no man's private honour lies at gage,
Nor is the stake set here to play for less
Than what is more than all men's names alive,
The great life's gage of England; in whose name
Lie all our own impledged, as all our lives
For her redemption forfeit, if the cause
Call once upon us; not this gift or this,
Or what best likes us or were gladliest given
Or might most honourably be parted with
For our more credit on her best behalf,
Doth she we serve, this land that made us men,
Require of all her children; but demands
Of our great duty toward her full deserts
Even all we have of honour or of life,
Of breath or fame to give her. What were I
Or what were you, being mean or nobly born,
Yet moulded both of one land's natural womb
And fashioned out of England, to deny
What gift she crave soever, choose and grudge
What grace we list to give or what withhold,
Refuse and reckon with her when she bids
Yield up forsooth not life but fame to come,
A good man's praise or gentleman's repute,
Or lineal pride of children, and the light
Of loyalty remembered? which of these
Were worth our mother's death, or shame that might
Fall for one hour on England? She must live
And keep in all men's sight her honour fast
Though all we die dishonoured; and myself
Know not nor seek of men's report to know
If what I do to serve her till I die
Be honourable or shameful, and its end
Good in men's eyes or evil; but for God,
I find not why the name or fear of him
Herein should make me swerve or start aside
Through faint heart's falsehood as a broken bow
Snapped in his hand that bent it, ere the shaft
Find out his enemies' heart, and I that end
Whereto I am sped for service even of him
Who put this office on us.

Paulet.
Truly, sir,
I lack the wordy wit to match with yours,
Who speak no more than soldier; this I know,
I am sick in spirit and heart to have in hand
Such work or such device of yours as yet
For fear and conscience of what worst may come
I dare not well bear through.

Phillipps.
Why, so last month
You writ my master word and me to boot
I had set you down a course for many things
You durst not put in execution, nor
Consign the packet to this lady's hand
That was returned from mine, seeing all was well,
And you should hold yourself most wretched man
If by your mean or order there should spring
Suspicion 'twixt the several messengers
Whose hands unwitting each of other ply
The same close trade for the same golden end,
While either holds his mate a faithful fool
And all their souls, baseborn or gently bred,
Are coined and stamped and minted for our use
And current in our service; I thereon
To assuage your doubt and fortify your fear
Was posted hither, where by craft and pains
The web is wound up of our enterprise
And in our hands we hold her very heart
As fast as all this while we held impawned
The faith of Barnes that stood for Gifford here
To take what letters for his mistress came
From southward through the ambassador of France
And bear them to the brewer, your honest man,
Who wist no further of his fellowship
Than he of Gifford's, being as simple knaves
As knavish each in his simplicity,
And either serviceable alike, to shift
Between my master's hands and yours and mine
Her letters writ and answered to and fro;
And all these faiths as weathertight and safe
As was the box that held those letters close
At bottom of the barrel, to give up
The charge there sealed and ciphered, and receive
A charge as great in peril and in price
To yield again, when they drew off the beer
That weekly served this lady's household whom
We have drained as dry of secrets drugged with death
As ever they this vessel, and return
To her own lips the dregs she brewed or we
For her to drink have tempered. What of this
Should seem so strange now to you, or distaste
So much the daintier palate of your thoughts,
That I should need reiterate you by word
The work of us o'erpast, or fill your ear
With long foregone recital, that at last
Your soul may start not or your sense recoil
To know what end we are come to, or what hope
We took in hand to cut this peril off
By what close mean soe'er and what foul hands
Unwashed of treason, which it yet mislikes
Your knightly palm to touch or close with, seeing
The grime of gold is baser than of blood
That barks their filthy fingers? yet with these
Must you cross hands and grapple, or let fall
The trust you took to treasure.

Paulet.
Sir, I will,
Even till the queen take back that gave it; yet
Will not join hands with these, nor take on mine
The taint of their contagion; knowing no cause
That should confound or couple my good name
With theirs more hateful than the reek of hell.
You had these knaveries and these knaves in charge,
Not I that knew not how to handle them
Nor whom to choose for chief of treasons, him
That in mine ignorant eye, unused to read
The shameful scripture of such faces, bare
Graved on his smooth and simple cheek and brow
No token of a traitor; yet this boy,
This milk-mouthed weanling with his maiden chin,
This soft-lipped knave, late suckled as on blood
And nursed of poisonous nipples, have you not
Found false or feared by this, whom first you found
A trustier thief and worthier of his wage
Than I, poor man, had wit to find him? I,
That trust no changelings of the church of hell,
No babes reared priestlike at the paps of Rome,
Who have left the old harlot's deadly dugs drawn dry,
I lacked the craft to rate this knave of price,
Your smock-faced Gifford, at his worth aright,
Which now comes short of promise.

Phillipps.
O, not he;
Let not your knighthood for a slippery word
So much misdoubt his knaveship; here from France,
On hint of our suspicion in his ear
Half jestingly recorded, that his hand
Were set against us in one politic track
With his old yoke-fellows in craft and creed,
Betraying not them to us but ourselves to them,
My Gilbert writes me with such heat of hand
Such piteous protestation of his faith
So stuffed and swoln with burly-bellied oaths
And God and Christ confound him if he lie
And Jesus save him as he speaks mere truth,
My gracious godly priestling, that yourself
Must sure be moved to take his truth on trust
Or stand for him approved an atheist.

Paulet.
Well,
That you find stuff of laughter in such gear
And mirth to make out of the godless mouth
Of such a twice-turned villain, for my part
I take in token of your certain trust,
And make therewith mine own assurance sure,
To see betimes an end of all such craft
As takes the faith forsworn of loud-tongued liars
And blasphemies of brothel-breathing knaves
To build its hope or break its jest upon;
And so commend you to your charge, and take
Mine own on me less gladly; for by this
She should be girt to ride, as the old saw saith,
Out of God's blessing into the warm sun
And out of the warm sun into the pit
That men have dug before her, as herself
Had dug for England else a deeper grave
To hide our hope for ever: yet I would
This day and all that hang on it were done.

[Exeunt.