It is but just to remember the ‘indefatigable and undissuadable’ John Knox’s statement, ‘the melody lyked her weill, and she willed the same to be continewed some nightis after.’ For my part, however, I distrust John Knox’s musical feeling, and incline sympathetically to the Sieur de Brantome’s account, with its ‘vile fiddles’ and ‘discordant psalms,’ although his judgment was doubtless a good deal depressed by what he called the si grand brouillard that so dampened the spirits of Mary’s French retinue.
Ah well, I was obliged to remember, in order to be reasonably happy myself, that Mary had a gay heart, after all; that she was but nineteen; that, though already a widow, she did not mourn her young husband as one who could not be comforted; and that she must soon have been furnished with merrier music than the psalms, for another of the sour comments of the time is, ‘Our Queen weareth the dule [weeds], but she can dance daily, dule and all!’
These were my thoughts as we drove through invisible streets in the Edinburgh haar, turned into what proved next day to be a Crescent, and drew up to an invisible house with a visible number 22 gleaming over a door which gaslight transformed into a probability. We alighted, and though we could scarcely see the driver’s outstretched hand, he was quite able to discern a half-crown, and demanded three shillings.
The noise of our cab had brought Mrs. M’Collop to the door,—good (or at least pretty good) Mrs. M’Collop, to whose apartments we had been commended by English friends who had never occupied them.
Dreary as it was without, all was comfortable within-doors, and a cheery (one-and-sixpenny) fire crackled in the grate. Our private drawing-room was charmingly furnished, and so large that, notwithstanding the presence of a piano, two sofas, five small tables, cabinets, desks, and chairs,—not forgetting a dainty five-o’clock tea equipage,—we might have given a party in the remaining space.
“If this is a typical Scotch lodging, I like it; and if it is Scotch hospitality to lay the cloth and make the fire before it is asked for, then I call it simply Arabian in character!” and Salemina drew off her damp gloves, and extended her hands to the blaze.
“And isn’t it delightful that the bill doesn’t come in for a whole week?” asked Francesca. “We have only our English experiences on which to found our knowledge, and all is delicious mystery. The tea may be a present from Mrs. M’Collop, and the sugar may not be an extra; the fire may be included in the rent of the apartment, and the piano may not be taken away to-morrow to enhance the attractions of the dining-room floor.” (It was Francesca, you remember, who had ‘warstled’ with the itemised accounts at Smith’s Private Hotel in London, and she who was always obliged to turn pounds, shillings, and pence into dollars and cents before she could add or subtract.)
“Come and look at the flowers in my bedroom,” I called, “four great boxes full! Mr. Beresford must have ordered the carnations, because he always does; but where did the roses come from, I wonder?”
I rang the bell, and a neat white-aproned maid appeared.
“Who brought these flowers, please?”