And thus the combination came, as in a flash, the old beloved scheme of unity—north and south to awe the middle parts of Scotland. Old Huntly had proposed it and failed—it had been the death of him; but now she would try it and succeed. Into the north she would put a new Huntly; out of the south she would call a new Bothwell. A match, a match! The thought came to her with a ringing sound of hopeful music, ‘Now I have thee mine, proud Jeannie Gordon!’ Strange, ardent, wilful creature—half perverse, half unsexed! Because a man did not love her she would trust him, because a girl would have nothing to say to her she could never let her alone! But Master Des-Essars was right. She was a born huntress.
The preliminaries of the hopeful match were easily made: Huntly was grateful, the dowager profuse; Bothwell chuckled when he was sounded about it, but declined to discuss so simple a matter.
‘You’ll never find me backward, my friend,’ he told Huntly (as George Gordon now was called); ‘many indeed have complained that I am not backward enough. I’m a bull in a pasture—I’m an invading host—I devastate, I come burning. But there! have it as you will.’
Nobody else was consulted, for nobody else was worth it in the Queen’s eyes. When time had been given for all to sink in, she sent for Jean Gordon; who was brought by her mother to the door of the cabinet, put through it, and left there face to face with her careful Majesty. The time of year was mid-January.
The Queen sat upon a heap of cushions by the fire, leaning back a little to ease herself. Her chin was in her hand—a sign that she was considering. She wore a rich gown of murrey-coloured satin, showed her red stockings and long, narrow slippers. Her condition was not hid, and her face would have told it in any case—pinched, peaked, and pettish. Her eyes were like a cat’s, shifty and ranging, now golden-red, now a mask of green, now all black, according as she glanced them to the light; her thin, amorous lips looked like a scarlet wound in her pale face. By her side stood Mary Fleming, a gentle creature in pale rose, as if set there that by her very humanity she might enhance the elfin spell of the other. This Queen was like a young witch, rather new to the dangerous delight, but much in earnest.
She looked up sideways at the girl by the door—a girl to the full as tall as she, and much more sumptuous: deep-breasted, beautiful, composed, a figure of a nun in her black and ivory. For her hair was perfect black and her face without a tinge; and all her gown was black, with a crucifix of silver hung from her waist. She clasped her hands over it as she stood waiting.
‘Come, my girl,’ said the Queen.
Jean took a few steps forward and knelt down. It seems that she might have pleased if she had done it sooner.
‘Very well: it’s very well,’ the Queen began; and then, ‘No! it is not at all well! You seek my hand to kiss it. You shall not have it!’