‘I doubt it,’ said Jean-Marie.
[2] She had asked for Father Roche the moment she saw the celebrant come in; but was told that he was not at Wemyss. This we learn from Des-Essars.
CHAPTER XII
EPITHALAMIUM: END OF ALL MAIDS’ ADVENTURE
He fell ill of measles, the young prince, before they could leave Wemyss—measles followed by much weakness, sweating, and ague; and though all her whispering world—but the few—might wonder, nothing could keep her from the proud uses of wifehood. She took her place by his bed early—pale with care, yet composed—and kept it till past midnight. It was beautiful to see her, with rank and kingship cast aside, more dignified by her little private fortune, more a queen for her enclosed realm. For now she swayed a sick-room, and was absolute there: let seditious murmurings and alarms toss their pikes beyond the border.
And indeed they did. Her secret marriage had been so well kept, the Court fairly hummed with scandal; and the simple truth was given a dog’s death that romantic tales might thrive. It was commonly said that if she married him now it would only be because shame would drive her. The Earl of Morton went about with this clacking on his tongue; plain men like Atholl and Herries looked all ways for a pardon upon the doting Queen. In their company the Earl of Moray lifted up deprecating hands; he agreed with the Earl of Morton, advised Atholl and Herries to pray without ceasing. The winds were blowing as he required them; but this sickness was vexatious, with the delays it brought. Time is of the essence of the contract, even if that be only between a vainglorious youth and a rope. Mr. Secretary wrote from England that the Queen of that country was implacably against the marriage; it was possible even now that it might be stopped. But it must on no account be stopped.
This was, in early May, the plain view of the Earl of Moray: that the thing must be publicly done, and soon done, in order that his schemes should bear fruit. It is an odd, almost inexplicable fact that he was to change his whole mind in the course of a few weeks, and for no deeper reason than a word lightly let fall by the Queen, his half-sister. But what a word that was to the bastard of a king! It was the word King.
There came to Wemyss, in the midst of these measles and scandalous whisperings, a certain Murray of Tullibardine, a friend of Bothwell’s—him and one Pringle. They came together, and yet separately: Pringle with griefs to be healed—that he, being a servant of my Lord Bothwell’s, had been summarily dismissed with kicks on a sensitive part; Tullibardine as a friend, frankly to sue his friend’s pardon. My Lord Moray refused to help him, having neither love nor use for a Bothwell, but he got to the Queen by the back stairs and put his client’s case. However, she scarcely listened to him. Busy as she was, it was strange to see how far away from her ken the dread Hepburn had drifted.
‘From the Earl of Bothwell—you? What has he to report of himself—and by you?’