Mary was reclining on a couch that had been prepared for her against the taffrail of the vessel. Though the tears were still wet upon her cheek, and a fresh burst was imminent every time she looked upon the coast, she could yet force herself to speak gaily, and strove to keep up the spirits of her maidens with that charm of manner which never failed her at the very worst.
‘And where is our Duenna?’ said the Queen, archly; ‘I have scarce seen her since the hour we embarked, when she walked the deck with her head up and the port of an admiral. D’Amville yonder, studying his charts as if he were in unknown seas, instead of the ditch that divides France from Britain, could scarce have looked more seaman-like.’
The young lady she addressed, a provoking specimen of the saucy style of beauty, with mischievous eyes, the whitest of teeth, and an exquisite little foot that was always conspicuous, laughed most unfeelingly in reply.
‘Your Majesty should see her now,’ she said. ‘I shall never call her proud Mary Beton again. She is below, in the darkest corner of the cabin. She has buried her head in the cushions. She is ill. She is frightened, and her velvet dress is creased and tumbled, and stained all over with sea-water!’
‘You cruel child,’ said the Queen, good-humouredly. ‘Mary Seton, you are incorrigible. But we must send down to succour her, poor thing! Ah! it is only a heart-ache like mine that makes one insensible to all other sufferings. Mary Hamilton is too susceptible—she will be ill also; but you, Mary Carmichael, you have a kind disposition and a ready hand. You will not laugh in her face like this saucy girl here; go down and succour poor Beton. Give her our love—tell her she will yet be well enough to come and look her last with us on the dear land of France.’
The young lady whom she addressed rose at once from her occupation, which, like that of her mistress, seemed to consist in gazing steadfastly at the French coast, and with a graceful reverence to the Queen, departed on her errand of consolation.
As she passed Mary Seton, the latter’s quick eye detected a few drops, it might be of spray, upon her cheek. The Maries could sympathise with their Queen’s regret in leaving a country that had been to them a pleasant home; and a woman’s sorrow, as we all know, while it is more easily cured, is also more easily excited, than that of the sterner sex. Mary Carmichael’s was not a disposition to give way to unavailing grief; above all, was one in which the instinct to conceal strong emotion predominated. With much kindliness of heart and real good-nature, she was yet somewhat intolerant of weakness in herself and others. Brave and self-reliant, she could make small allowance for timidity or vacillation even in her own sex; and had either mental or bodily pain been able to extort one exclamation of suffering from her lips, she would have been bitterly ashamed of it a moment afterwards. To look on her clear blue eyes, her finely-cut and regular features, her smooth brow, and determined mouth and chin, determined and uncompromising, despite of red lips, white teeth, and dimples, you would have decided that the one drawback to her attractions was the want of that yielding softness which is a woman’s greatest charm. ‘On aime ce qu’on protège;’ and the haughty beauty who humbles while she conquers, little guesses how a man’s rude heart warms to the gentler suppliant, who clings to him, and trusts in him, and seems to say she has but ‘him in the world.’ Masses of soft brown hair, and a rounded outline of form, feminine and symmetrical, somewhat redeemed Mary Carmichael’s appearance from the charge of hardness. Altogether she gave the gallants of the French court the impression of a woman whom it would be difficult to like a little, and hazardous to like much. So what with the danger of her charms, and her own dignified and reserved demeanour, she had received less admiration than was due to the undoubted beauty of her face and figure.
While she goes below to succour her friend, who is suffering from sea-sickness, we will give some account of the four ladies of honour, commonly called the Maries, who waited on the Queen of Scots.
Mary Stuart herself, with all her predilections in favour of France, a country in which she spent the few tranquil years of her disturbed and sorrowful life, never suffered her connexion with Scotland to be weakened or neglected. She kept up an active correspondence with her mother, Mary of Guise, who held the reins of government with no inefficient hand in that country, till her death. Many of her household were Scotch. She showed especial favour to the archer-guard, all of whom were of Scotch extraction,—favour which, over-estimated and misunderstood by their captain, the heir of the house of Hamilton, was, perhaps, the original cause that ‘turned weak Arran’s brain.’ She gave such appointments in her household, as were nearest her person, to the Scotch nobility; and she chose for her own immediate attendants, four young ladies of ancient Scottish families, whose qualifications were birth, beauty, and the possession of her own Christian name. ‘The Maries,’ as they were called, accordingly occupy a prominent position in the court-history of the time; and as their number was always kept up to four, several of the oldest families in Scotland, such as the Setons, the Flemings, the Livingstones, &c., had the honour of furnishing recruits to the lovely body-guard. At the time of her embarkation for Leith, the Queen was accompanied by a very devoted quartette, as conspicuous for their personal attractions as for their loyalty to their sovereign. It was even rumoured that the faithful maidens had bound themselves by a vow not to marry till their Queen did. Be this, however, as it may, not one of them but might have chosen from the flower of the French Court, had she been so disposed. Nay, gossips were found to affirm that many a warlike count and stately marquis would have been happy to take any one of the four; only too blest in the possession of a Mary, be she Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael, or Mary Hamilton.
A short sketch of each, at the commencement of our narrative, may serve, perhaps, to prevent confusion, and to elucidate the actions of some of the humbler characters in our drama. We are of honest Bottom’s opinion that it is best ‘to call forth the actors generally according to the scrip. First say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.’