CHAPTER V
HERE ARE FLIES AT THE HONEYPOT
‘The Comic Mask now appears,’ says Le Secret des Secrets in a reflective mood, ‘the Comic Mask, with a deprecatory grin, to show how it was the misfortune of Scotland at this time that, being a poor country, every funded man in it was forced to fatten his glebe at the cost of his neighbour’s. So house was set against house, friendship made a vain thing, and loyalty a marketable thing. More than that, every standard of value set up to be a beacon or channel-post or point of rally (whichever you chose to make it), became ipso facto a tower of vantage, from which, if you were to draw your dues, it was necessary to scare everybody else. When Mr. Knox sourly called Queen Mary a Honeypot, he intended to hold her out to scorn; but actually he decried his countrymen who saw her so; and not saw her only, but every high estate beside. For them the Church was a honeypot, the council, the command of the shore, the wardenry of the marches. “Come,” they said, “let us eat and drink of this store, but for God’s sake keep off the rest, or it will never hold out.” Round about, round about, came the buzzing flies, at once eager and querulous; and while they sipped they looked from the corners of their eyes lest some other should get more than his share; and the murmurs of the feasters were as often “Give him less” as “Give me more.” Yet it would be wrong, I conceive, to call the Scots lords all greedy; safer to remember that most of them must certainly have been hungry.’ So Monsieur Des-Essars obtrudes his chorus—after the event.
Young Queen Mary, hard-up against the event, had no chorus but trusty Livingstone of the red cheeks and warm heart; nor until her first Christmas was kept and gone was she conscious of needing one. She had maintained a high spirit through all the dark and windy autumn days, finding Bothwell’s effrontery as easy to explain as the Duke’s poltroonery, or the hasty veering of old Huntly. Bothwell, she would extenuate, held her cheap because women were his pastime, the Duke sought her protection because he was a coward, Huntly shied off because his vanity was offended. If men indeed had ever been so simple to be explained, this world were as easy to manage as a pasteboard theatre. The simplicity was her own; but she shared the quality with another when she sent for Mr. Knox because she thought him her rival, and when he came prepared to play the part.
The time was November, with the floods out and rain that never ceased. It was dark all day outside the palace; raw cold and showers of sleet mastered the town; but within, great fires made the chambers snug where the Queen sat with her maids and young men. The French lords had taken their leave, the pageants and dancings were stayed for a time. In a diminished Court, which held neither the superb Princes of Guise nor the hardy-tongued Lord of Bothwell—in a domesticated, needleworking, chattering, hearth-haunting Court—there was a great adventure for the coy excellences of Monsieur de Châtelard. Discussing his prospects freely with Des-Essars, he told him that he had two serious rivals only. ‘Monsieur de Boduel,’ he said, ‘forces my Princess to think of him by insulting her. He appears to succeed; but so would the man who should twist your arm, my little Jean-Marie, and make cuts with the hand at the fleshy part. He would compel you to think of him, but with fear. Now, fear, look you, is not the lady’s part in love, but the man’s, the perfect lover’s part. For it may be doubted whether a woman can ever be a perfect lover—if only for this reason, that she is designed for the love of a man. The Lord Gordon, eldest son and heir of that savage greybeard, Monsieur de Huntly, is my other adversary in the sweet warfare. She looks at him as you must needs observe a church tower in your Brabant. It is the tallest thing there; you cannot avoid it. But what fine long legs can prevail against the silken tongue? Not his, at least. Therefore I sing my best, I dance, I stand prayerful at corners of the corridor. And one day, when I see her pensive, or hear her sigh as she goes past me, do you know what I shall do? I shall run forward and clasp her knees, and cry aloud, “We bleed, we bleed, Princess, we bleed! Come, my divine balm, let us stanch mutually these wounds of ours. For I too have balsam for thee!” Do you not think the plan admirable?’
‘It is very poetical,’ said Des-Essars, ‘and has this merit, usually denied to poetry, that it is uncommonly explicit. I think I know better than you what are the designs of Monsieur de Boduel, since he was once my master. He does not seek to insult or to terrify my mistress, as you seem to suppose—but to induce her to trust him. He would wish to appear to her in the character of the one man in Scotland who does not seek some advantage from her. My Lord Gordon’s designs—to use the word for convenience, though, in fact, he has no designs—are as simple as yours. He is infatuated; the Queen has turned his head; and it is no wonder, seeing that she troubled herself to do it.’
‘If he has no designs, boy,’ cried Monsieur de Châtelard, ‘how can you compare him with me, who have many?’
Des-Essars clasped his hands behind his head. ‘I suppose you are the same in this, at least,’ he said, ‘that both of you seek to get pleasure out of my mistress. Let me tell you that your most serious rival of all is one of whom you know nothing—one who seeks neither pleasure nor profit from her; to whom, therefore, she will almost certainly offer the utmost of her store.’
‘Who is this remarkable man, pray?’