They walked on along the riverside path, in silence, and the cuckoos came into their own again. Marie had fallen back alongside David, to take her own horse's head.
Abruptly Patrick turned. 'A plague on you both!' he exclaimed. 'You… you have spoiled a bonny day, a bonny lightsome day!'
David moistened his lips to speak. That was not like Patrick. But the young woman forestalled him.
'I am sorry, Patrick,' she said, gravely. 'I would not have wished that.'
He looked at her searchingly, at all the slender, riding-habited, coifed grace of her, and then at his brother – for him broodingly. Then, jerking a laugh at them, he turned forward once more to his pacing.
So they continued, beneath the young green canopy of the trees, in their strange walk, thinking their own thoughts to the mocking murmur of the river. Presently the surprising Patrick was singing again, an Italian air of pathos and pride and poignancy, the notes and words dropping singly like pebbles into a deep pool, a sad thing but somehow gallant. The girl behind him nibbled at her lower lip.
Coming to a grassy bluebell-painted bank at a bend of the stream, loud with the hum of bees and the heady scent of the wild hyacinths, Patrick suddenly sat down. 'Sit here,' he invited, indeed commanded. 'These bluebells, mayhap, will warm those eyes of yours, for me. Tell me, Marie – will you come with us to France?'
In the act of sitting down, she stared at him. 'France…?' she. repeated. David still standing, had turned to look as sharply.
'Aye, France – fair and sunny France. I find that I must needs go there. Come you with us, Marie. You would bloom richly there, I vow!'
'But – I cannot do that, Patrick…'
'If it is your reputation that concerns you, my dear, bring your father with you. A sister likewise, if you wish. But Davy will be there… to look after you, never fear!'
'I think not,' David said, from the background. I have had sufficient of France. Why go you there again, Patrick? This.is sudden, is it not?'
'I go because affairs require it'
'Your affairs? The Queen's?'
'Shall we say Scotland's affairs!?'..
'You go on the King's business? As ambassador?' Marie asked.
'Not exactly. Though something of the sort may be arranged, no doubt'
'I cannot think that the Master of Gray would be a very welcome ambassador at the Court of France, of Catherine de Medici!' David mentioned. 'Not after our last hours on French soil! I'd jalouse that his errand is rather to the Duke of Guise and the Archbishop of Glasgow? Though, to be sure, I had thought that with his increased closeness to Scotland's Treasurer, my Lord Gowrie, he would have but little need of the gentry at Rheims!'
Lazily, Patrick turned to survey the brother who spoke so formally. 'Do I detect more accusation there, Davy? Man – you are so righteous, I wonder it doesna choke you! A painful affliction, it must be. Be warned, Marie – or you may grow as bad as Davy, scenting wickedness in my every move!'
'You will be spared my troubling you in France, at the least!'
'Not so, Davy. You must come. Life without you would lack all savour, I vow! Besides, Marie, I feel sure, will desire your sober guardianship…'
'Patrick, do not be foolish!' the young woman said, almost sharply. 'I cannot go to France with you – even if I would.'
'Why, my dear? What keeps you here? This Court is plaguey dull getting, you must admit Nothing but Esme posturing and duking, Arran strutting and quarrelling, and deer being chased! Even Elizabeth Tudor has decided, it seems, that we are too dull and harmless for her concern. I' faith, Scotland will be a good place to be furth of, this hunting season, I swear.'
'Even so, I cannot go with you, Patrick.'
'Ah, me – your womanly repute wins the day, eh?' He sighed, gustily. 'Then there is nothing for it – I must marry you!'
The young woman's intake of breath was sharp enough to be audible. David's shock was almost as great Together they gazed at the elegantly lounging speaker, wordless.
'Come – it is not so ill a thought as that, is it?' Patrick went on, smiling. It has been done before!'
'You… you are not serious?' Marie got out, at last
'But, yes. Why not? For Patrick Gray to propose matrimony, after his former experiences, is serious indeed. As a last resort, you will understand! Will you not be the Mistress of Gray, my dear Marie, if you will not be my mistress otherwise?'
Marie turned to look at David, as though for aid, where he stood with the horses. That young man shook his head helplessly. This was quite beyond him. With Patrick, one never knew what might be in his mind; but surely he would not have made the suggestion thus, in front of David, if he had not been in earnest?
Presumably Marie thought along the same lines. 'And your wife?' she faltered. 'Elizabeth Lyon…!'
'There is the blessed dispensation of divorce or annulment You will have heard of it? If Arran can undo a knot but ten months old, what might not Patrick Gray achieve!'
She shook her head dumbly, Marie Stewart who was not usually dumbfounded.
'Come, you are a young woman who knows her mind,' he declared. 'You have spoken it to me times unnumbered. Now is the time for it – for, see you, it will be necessary to work fast!… we must be furth of Scotland within the month, at the latest'
The young woman took a deep breath. 'No,' she said.
'No? Think well, woman. It is not every day that Patrick Gray proposes marriage.'
'No,' she repeated. 'I thank you, Patrick – but no.'
Patrick leaned forward, his nonchalance for the moment forgotten. 'See, Marie,' he said. 'For your own sake, for your father's protection, you would do well to come with me, married or other. And your father with you.'
At his changed tone', she searched his face. 'I do not understand you, Patrick. How comes my father and his protection into this?'
The other paused, and then sat back, smiling again, half-shrugging. 'We all walk but delicately at this Court,' he told her. 'There are pitfalls a-many. Your father has his… unfriends.'
'Always he had those. But that is not what you meant, I think?'
He leaned over, to pat her hand, himself again. 'I meant that I would constrain you to marry me, anyhow! And you could do worse, you know, my dear. Look around you at Court – and admit that you could do worse!'
'I grant it, Patrick. But… you must go to France alone, nevertheless. I am sorry. You must be content with Davy for company'
'No' David declared firmly. 'I will not go to France again. I go back where I should never have left'
'A pox – would you have me go alone, the pair of you? With none to advise and chide me?'
Does not my lord Duke return with you?'
'Indeed, no. My lord Duke will be otherwise occupied!' Patrick rose to his feet 'It is not in me to plead with you – with either of you' he said. 'But perhaps you will change your minds. Women particularly are said to be good at it. And our esteemed Davy has sometimes a likeness to a scolding old dame! Heigho -I hope you do. But it will have to be soon, I warn you – it must needs be soon' He held out a hand to aid Marie rise. 'Come, I am tired of these cuckoos' mockery. Whom do they mock -your or me? Or just mankind?'
'I am sorry, Patrick' the young woman said.
Chapter Fifteen
THE hay, though late, was abundant and of good quality, thick with clover. All the Carse smelt of the sweet but vital scent of it, as everywhere men, women and children laboured with scythe and sickle, fork and rake, to cut and dry and stack the precious harvest, so much more important even than the corn and bere of autumn to this predominantly cattle-rearing country, on which the breeding stock would depend throughout the long winter months. My lord of Gray's herds were the greatest in all the Carse, and therefore his servants, and his tenants likewise, must grow and harvest a deal of hay in the reedy water-meadows and rich flood-plain of the Tay beneath and around his towering castle. Always David Gray had loved to work at the hay. This summer of 1582 he could do so again.
And, tossing tirelessly with his two-pronged hay-fork at the endless wind-rows of scythed and drying grass and clover, this was a totally different character from the somewhat morose, guarded, watchful man who walked so warily, uneasily, through the gilded life of court and palace. Here was the real David, who laughed and even sang as he worked – albeit tunelessly – joked with his fellow-harvesters and laboured prodigiously in sweating bare-armed satisfaction. None would have called him dour and humourless, now.
Nearby, Mariota worked almost as effectively under the July sun, her brown arms rhythmically flexing to the steady play of her fork, her deep rounded bosom and strong shoulders all but bursting out of the brief shift that was all she wore above the short skirt kilted to the knee. Red-cheeked, bright-eyed, Mariota clearly throve on motherhood. Her glance swung, almost as regularly as did her fork, between her husband and the coles of hay, flattened and scattered, where the baby Patrick rolled and staggered and clambered, chuckling, whilst around him young Mary danced, hurling clover-heads at him, covering him with grass, trilling her laughter, in her eighth summer of fascinating roguery.
It seemed a far cry from Falkland or Holyrood – or indeed, from the Principal's house at St Andrews.
'You go too hard, Davy,' Mariota protested, as he shook the sweat off his brow with a toss of the head. 'You will have no strength left for, for…' She left that unfinished; it would have been hard to say whether she blushed or no, pink-faced as she was already with exertion.
Without halting in his stroke, David turned to grin at her. Try me!' he panted. 'Now, if you care… or tonight!'
She glanced down, not to meet his eye. Defensively she threw back at him. 'You work… as though this hay, was Patrick… and you were tossing the Devil out of him!'
This time his fork did falter and pause. He did not require to be informed to which Patrick she referred. Never a day passed without his brother's name being mentioned – and usually with just the hint of criticism of himself implied somewhere. Poor gallant Patrick! A strange thing, for Mariota made a most loving, happy and uncomplicated wife, and obviously rejoiced to have her husband home with her, even though, like his father, she had held that he really ought to have gone to France with Patrick, to look after him. Patrick – always Patrick! He laid a spell upon them all.
'I would it were so simple!' he said, shortly.
They worked on in silence for a while. Soon however David was at his singing again, and tossing occasional forkfuls of hay at the children.
Again it was Mariota who next interrupted their labours. 'Two riders,' she said suddenly, nodding towards the castle on its rock half-a-mile away across the flats. 'One of them a woman.'
David raised his hand to shield eyes from the sun's glare. 'I see them,' he agreed. 'But how you may tell that one is a woman, at such distance, I do not know.'
She looked at him pityingly.
She was right. As the riders drew closer it could be seen that the better mounted of the pair was dressed in a flowing riding-habit, the hood thrown back from coifed hair. The other looked to be an ordinary man-at-arms. They pulled up beside Tom Guthrie the land-steward, obviously asking a question. Then they came directly towards David and his wife.
It was the Lady Marie Stewart, and an attendant. She rode up to them, and drew rein, to sit looking down at them, unsmiling. 'Davy Gray… being Davy Gray at last,' she said, in her grave way. 'And Mariota. And young Mary. And little Patrick, too.'
David, suddenly very much aware of his sweat-soaked shirt and old darned breeches, hastily wiped the back of a hand over dripping brow and tousled hair, thereby smearing the hay-dust the more notably. 'My lady…' he began. 'I… here is a surprise. How come you here?
'From Erroll. Where I am staying with the Constable.' She. dismounted with a lissome grace, before ever David could think of assisting her and shook out the dust from the folds of her habit. 'It is not far. A mere ten miles. But… will you not acquaint me with your wife, Davy?'
'Aye. Mariota, this is the Lady Marie Stewart, whom I have told you of Daughter to my lord of Orkney, the King's uncle.'
'Yes.' Mariota bobbed a brief and stiff courtsey, whilst retaining a firm hold of her hay-fork.
'I hope that he has told you well of me, Mistress Mariota. Even a tithe as well as he told me of you! For I esteem your Davy's regard highly.'
'Yes,m'lady.'
The other smiled then, so faint a smile, yet sweet 'Call me Marie, surely,' she said. 'Then perhaps we may be able to win Davy round to doing the same! I have been trying, these many months.'
Mariota did not answer that. She was seeking to draw together the gaping front of her shift to hide the deep cleft of her breasts from the admiring scrutiny of the mounted man-at-arms.
'You find us at something of a disadvantage,' David jerked. 'This hay…'
'Not so,' Marie corrected him, quickly for her. 'I find you making better use of your time than I have made for many a day. Would that these useless hands of mine could wield a fork as do your Mariota's! I envy her – and in more than that!' She spoke to the mounted man. 'Go back to the castle, Willie, and await me there. Take the horse, too.' Then, turning to the interested Mary, she took a couple of paces forward and sank down on one knee in the cut grass before the child. 'So this is… this your firstborn. The charmer that all the Court has heard of – even the King! I can see why, too.'
Woman and child eyed each other steadily, directly. Mary showed no hint of her elders' unease and uncertainty. She never did, of course. Great-eyed, but sparkling, assured, she considered the visitor. 'You have bonny hair,' she said, and reached out a grubby hand to touch the heavy golden tresses that escaped from the coif.
'Mary!' her mother exclaimed, shocked.
But the Lady Marie remained kneeling, and nodded agreement. 'It is the best of me,' she said, seriously. 'We cannot all have… what you have got, Mary. See,' she drew a necklace of tiny pink shells from a pocket 'I have brought you these. Once they were the only gauds I had. And a comfit for your little brother.'
"Thank you,' the child said, and bending down she plucked one of the little hearts-ease flowers which grew everywhere low in the grass, and presented it to the other with the most natural dignity. 'For you.' A royal gesture of bestowal could not have been more gracious.
Marie leaned forward to kiss a sticky cheek, and stood up. 'You are better blessed than I knew, Davy,' she declared, looking from daughter to mother. 'I do not wonder that the Court could not hold you.'
'It has not held you either, it seems, Lady Marie!'
'Me -I have only escaped for a little while. Seeking a breath of fresh air. Patrick was right – it is plaguey dull, and a good place to be furth of Lennox and Arran and Gowrie all bickering round the King… and Arran's wife lying with all three, they say!'
'So – do you wish that you had gone to France, after all?' She raised her grey eyes to look at him levelly, calmly. 'Do you?' she said.
David frowned. 'By God, I do not!' he asserted, with more vehemence than seemed necessary.
Gravely she nodded. 'Perhaps you speak for me, also. Who knows? We think alike on many things, I would say, Davy.'
Mariota looked from one to the other, and bit her red lip.
The visitor examined her little wild pansy. 'Have you any tidings… from Patrick?'
'A letter, a week ago. From Seville, in Spain. What he does there, he did not say – save that the climate and the women were hotter even than in France, and the statecraft colder!'
'Spain…!' she said. 'What deep game is he playing, Davy? Is it the old religion? Statecraft cold, he said? That could mean – what?'
'I do not know – save only that he is Patrick. And since he is, his going there, will not be out of any whim… or mean what may appear on the face of it'
'No. No -I fear that is true…'
'Why must you always be so hard against Patrick?' Mariota exclaimed abruptly. 'Why must he ever be judged so sorely?
Davy is ever at it.
My lord, too. And now, you! You are unkind – all of you! I… I…' She stopped, undoubtedly flushing this time.
The other young woman considered her thoughtfully. 'Perhaps you are right,' she said. 'It is too easy to judge, may be.'
David opened his mouth to speak, and then thought better of it.
'He… Patrick is well, at least? Marie asked, after a moment 'He did not say… anything else? 'He did not say that he missed my company.' 'Nor mine? 'Nor yours, no.'
'I see. Why should he?' Without change of expression, Marie turned to the other young woman. 'A new light is beginning to burn brightly at Court,' she mentioned. 'A supporting luminary of my lord Duke's… that burns with the sweet odour of sanctified oil! A notable and godly influence, I am sure.'
Mariota, hurriedly stooping to tend the baby, looked both surprised and mystified.
'The new Lord Bishop of St Boswells. Better known as the learned Principal of St Andrews, Master Davidson. A cause for congratulation?
'Bishop…? Mariota faltered.
'Did you not know? Ah, yes, Lennox has had the old lapsed bishopric of St Boswells, in the Borders, revived for him… with its revenues of Kelso, Dryburgh and the rest He has become the Duke's spiritual adviser, in place of the mournful Master Lindsay. A worthy bridge between Kirk and State, don't you think?
David barked a single mirthless laugh. 'So – he has achieved more through the new religion than the old, after all! Morton made him Principal… and Lennox a bishop! A man of parts, 'fore God!'
'Indeed, yes. A man not only with the cure of souls innumerable and a sure seat in Heaven, but with a seat in the Estates of Parliament likewise, the income of three abbeys, and through Lennox the ear of the King! And you are his only child, are you not, Mariota? We soon will all be curtseying to you, my dear!'
Mariota's comely features were working strangely, her bosom heaving. 'No!' she cried. 'I am no child of his! He told me so, the last time that we spoke together. He said that I was none of his hereafter, that he hoped that God would spare him the sight of me! And I… I wish never to hear his name again! I am Mariota Gray-that, and that only!' She gulped, and bobbed the sketchiest of bows. 'With your permission, m'lady…!' Bending, she snatched up the baby, grabbed Mary's hand, and turning, went hurrying at half-a-run across the hay towards the distant castle, without a backward glance.
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