‘Never!’ she exclaimed, strenuously. ‘I am surprised, my dear, at your thinking for an instant of such an absurdity. I never saw one yet, to my fancy, that I could like better than another.’
‘Nor I neither,’ echoed Mary Seton, eagerly; adding, in a voice of unusual gravity, and with a wistful expression on her countenance rarely seen there, ‘I think if I did, it would be an unlucky day both for him and for me!’
Even while she spoke an unusual stir in the ante-room heralded the approach of some distinguished stranger who was to be received with more than ordinary ceremony. In such cases the Queen’s ladies gathered round their mistress as in duty bound, although at other times it was Mary’s practice to retain but one of them in the immediate vicinity of her person, and to permit the rest to mingle in the general circle, amusing themselves in their own way.
The duties devolving on ‘the Maries’ were, indeed, much to their liking, and might well be called a ‘labour of love.’ They vied with each other in passionate adoration of their mistress, whose sweet temper and generous disposition never failed to gain the hearts of all those who came about her person. If there was a charm in all the Stuarts which won blind devotion from their associates, what must have been the fascination that surrounded the gentlest and loveliest scion of that illustrious race!
The Queen of Scots was a thorough gentlewoman, in the noblest and fullest acceptation of the term. That she lacked firmness where her affections were involved, and promptitude of action where her safety was threatened, what is this but to say that she was a woman and not a hero? Courage, both the masculine spirit that braves mortal peril, and the feminine fortitude that can sustain suffering and sorrow, she proved that she possessed on more than one stricken field, in more than one dreary house of humiliation and bondage. On both these chivalrous qualities the last scene of her life drew largely, and Bayard himself, the bravest of the brave, could not have faced death more nobly than did Mary, the fairest of the fair. Yet with all this she was exquisitely sensitive of the feelings of others; she could not bear to give pain; she hesitated to remonstrate, and could scarcely bring herself to chide. The regulations of her household, to the carrying out of which the Queen herself attended with housewifely care, prove the regard she entertained for the personal comfort of her domestics.
The allowance for the table of her ladies and maids-of-honour was the same as that of their sovereign. If the reader is curious to see the bill of fare for a royal dinner in the sixteenth century, the following are its contents:—
‘Four soups, four entrées, a piece of “beef-royal” boiled, a loin of mutton, and a capon; of roast meat, one neck of mutton, one capon, three pigeons, three hares, and two pieces of fat meat. For the dessert, seven dishes of fruit, and one of chicory-paste, one gallon of wine, one quart of white wine, and one of claret; eight rolls of bread.’ The latter item appears as if this plentiful supply were a dinner for but eight people. Probably, however, the remains of the feast furnished forth the inferior tables. A characteristic memorandum appears at the same time directing that the Queen’s ladies, including the Maries, shall have the same diet as their mistress.
Mary Carmichael was in attendance on Her Majesty, and holding the royal train during the conversation we have detailed. It was broken off abruptly by the stir in the ante-room.
‘This must be the English Ambassador!’ exclaimed Mary Beton, drawing herself up to her full height, and assuming her most frigid air of étiquette.
‘He has come back sooner than he was expected, and I wish he had stayed away altogether,’ observed Mistress Seton, on whom Randolph had made no favourable impression during their previous acquaintance, for the latter had held Elizabeth’s credentials at the court of Holyrood from the Queen of Scotland’s first arrival, and had been absent to receive personal instructions from his own sovereign but for a few weeks.