The Witch

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER I

  THE QUEEN’S CHAMBER

  IT was said that the Queen was dying. She lay at Richmond, in thepalace looking out upon the wintry, wooded, March-shaken park, butLondon, a few miles away, had daily news of how she did. There wasmuch talk about her--the old Queen—much telling of stories andharking back. She had had a long reign—“Not far from fifty years, mymasters!”—and in it many important things had happened. The crowd inthe streets, the barge and wherry folk upon the wind-ruffled river,the roisterers in the taverns drinking ale or sack, merchants andcitizens in general talking of the times in the intervals of business,old soldiers and seamen ashore, all manner of folk, indeed, agreedupon the one most important thing. The most important thing had beenthe scattering of the Armada fifteen years before. That disposed of,opinions differed as to the next most important. The old soldiers werefor all fighting wherever it had occurred. The seamen and returnedadventurers threw for the voyages of Drake and Frobisher and Gilbertand Raleigh. With these were inclined to agree the great merchantsand guild-masters who were venturing in the East India and otherjoint-stock companies. The little merchant and guild fellows agreedwith the great. A very large number of all classes claimed for theoverthrow of Popery the first place. On the other hand, a considerablenumber either a little hurriedly slurred this, or else somewhat tooanxiously and earnestly supported the assertion. One circle, allchurchmen, lauded the Act of Uniformity, and the pains and penaltiesprovided alike for Popish recusant and non-conforming Protestant.Another circle, men of a serious cast of countenance and of a growingsimplicity in dress, left the Act of Uniformity in obscurity, andafter the deliverance from the Pope, made the important happening thesupport given the Protestant principle in France and the Netherlands.A few extreme loyalists put in a claim for the number of conspiraciesunearthed and trampled into nothingness—Scottish conspiracies, Irishconspiracies, Spanish conspiracies, Westmoreland and Northumberlandconspiracies, Throgmorton conspiracies—the death of the Queen ofScots, the death, two years ago, of Essex.

  All agreed that the Queen had had a stirring reign—all but the latterend of it. The last few years—despite Irish affairs—had been dull andsettled, a kind of ditch-water stagnation, a kind of going downhill.Fifty years, almost, was a long time for one person to reign....

  On a time the Queen had been an idol and a cynosure—for yearsthe love of a people had been warm about her. It had been a peoplestruggling to become a nation, beset with foreign foes and innerdissensions, battling for a part in new worlds and realms. She had ledthe people well, ruled well, come out with them into the Promised Land.And now there was a very human dissatisfaction with the Promised Land,for the streams did not run milk and honey nor were the sands golden.As humanly, the dissatisfaction involved the old Queen. She could nothave been, after all, the Queen that they had thought her.... Aftercrying for so many years “Long live Queen Elizabeth!” there would comecreeping into mind a desire for novelty. _King James,—King James!_ Thewords sounded well, and promised, perhaps, the true Golden Age. Butthey were said, of course, under breath. The Queen was not dead yet.

  They told strange stories of her—the old Queen; usually in small,select companies where there were none but safe men. As March roaredon, there was more and more of this story-telling, straws that showedthe way the tide was setting. They were rarely now stories of heryouth, of her courage and fire, of her learning, of the danger in whichshe lived when she was only “Madam Elizabeth,” of her imprisonmentin the Tower—nor were they stories of her coronation, and of theway, through so many long years, she had queened it, of her “mereEnglishness,” her steady courage, her power of work, her councillors,her wars, and her statecraft. Leaving that plane, they were not sooften either stories of tragic errors, of wrath and jealousy, finesseand deception, of arbitrary power, of the fret and weakness of thestrong.—But to-day they told stories of her amours, real or pretended.They repeated what she had said to Leicester and Leicester had said toher, what she had said to Alençon and Alençon had answered. They dugup again with a greasy mind her girlhood relations with Seymour, theycreated lovers for her and puffed every coquetry into a full-blown_liaison_; here they made her this man’s mistress and that man’smistress, and there they said that she could be no man’s mistress. Theyhad stories to tell of her even now, old and sick as she was. They toldhow, this winter, for all she was so ill at ease, she would be dressedeach day in stiff and gorgeous raiment, would lie upon her pillows so,with rings upon her fingers and her face painted, and when a young manentered the room, how she gathered strength....

  The March wind roared down the streets and shook the tavern signs.

  In the palace at Richmond, there was a great room, and in the roomthere was a great bed. The room had rich hangings, repeated about thebed. The windows looked upon the wintry park, and under a huge, marblemantelpiece, carved with tritons and wreaths of flowers, a fire burned.About the room were standing women—maids of honour, tiring-women.Near the fire stood a group of men, silent, in attendance.

  The Queen did not lie upon the bed—now she said that she could notendure it, and now she said that it was her will to lie upon thefloor. They placed rich cushions and she lay among them at their feet,her gaunt frame stretched upon cloth of gold and coloured silk. Shehad upon her a long, rich gown, as full and rigid a thing as it waspossible to wear and yet recline. Her head was dressed with a tire offalse hair, a mass of red-gold; there was false colour upon her cheekand lip. She kept a cup of gold beside her filled with wine and waterwhich at long intervals she put to her lips. Now she lay for hours verystill, with contracted brows, and now she turned from side to side,seeking ease and finding none. Now there came a moan, and now a Tudoroath. For the most part she lay still, only the fingers of one handmoving upon the rim of the cup or measuring the cloth of gold beneathher. Her sight was failing. She had not eaten, would not eat. She laystill, supported upon fringed cushions, and the fire burned with a lowsound, and the March wind shook the windows.

  From the group of men by the fire stepped softly, not her customaryphysician, but another of some note, called into association duringthese last days. He crossed the floor with a velvet step and stoodbeside the Queen. His body bent itself into a curve of deference, buthis eyes searched without reverence. She could not see him, he knew,with any clearness. He was followed from the group by a grave and ablecouncillor. The two stood without speaking, looking down. The Queen laywith closed eyes. Her fingers continued to stroke the cloth of gold;from her thin, drawn lips, coloured cherry-red, came a halting murmur:“_England—Scotland—Ireland—_”

  The two men glanced at each other, then the Queen’s councillor,stepping back to the fire, spoke to a young man standing a little apartfrom the main group. This man, too, crossed the floor with a noiselessstep and stood beside the physician. His eyes likewise searched with agrave, professional interest.

  “_Navarre_,” went the low murmur at their feet. “_Navarreand Orange.... No Pope, but I will have ritual still....England—Scotland—_”

  The Queen moaned and moved her body upon the cushions. She opened hereyes. “Who’s standing there? God’s death—!”

  The physician knelt. “Madam, it is your poor physician. Will not YourGrace take the draught now?”

  “No.—There’s some one else—”

  “Your Grace, it is a young physician—English—but who has studiedat Paris under the best scholar of Ambroise Paré. He is learned andskilful. He came commended by the Duke of —-- to Sir Robert Cecil—”

  “God’s wounds!” cried the Queen in a thin, imperious voice. “Have Inot told you and Cecil, too, that there was no medicine and no doctorwho could do me good! Paré died, did he not? and you and your fellowwill die! All die. I have seen a many men and matters die—and I willdie, too, if it be my will!”

  She stared past him at the strange physician. “If he were Hippocrateshimself I would not have him! I do not like his looks. He is a dreamerand born to be hanged.—Begone, both of you, and l
eave me at peace.”

  Her eyes closed. She turned upon the cushions. Her fingers began againto move upon the rich stuff beneath her. “_England_—”

  The rejected aid or attempt to aid stepped, velvet-footed, backwardfrom the pallet. The physicians knew, and all in the room knew, thatthe Queen could not now really envisage a new face. She might withequal knowledge have said of the man from Paris, “He is a prince indisguise and born to be crowned.” But though they knew this to betrue, the Queen had said the one thing and had not said the other, andwhat she said had still great and authoritative weight of suggestion.The younger physician, returning to his place a little apart alikefrom the women attendants and from the group of courtiers, became therecipient of glances of predetermined curiosity and misliking. Now, asit happened, he really did have something the look of a dreamer—thin,pale, and thoughtful-faced, with musing, questioning eyes. Whileaccording to accepted canons it was not handsome, while, indeed, itwas somewhat strange, mobile, and elf-like, his countenance was inreality not at all unpleasing. It showed kindliness no less than powerto think. But it was a face that was not usual.... He was fairlyyoung, tall and well-formed though exceedingly spare, well dressedafter the quiet and sober fashion of his calling. Of their own accord,passing him hastily in corridor or street, the people in the room mightnot have given him a thought. But now they saw that undoubtedly he_was_ strange, perhaps even sinister of aspect. Each wished to be asperspicacious as the Queen.

  But they did not think much about it, and as the newcomer, after areverence directed toward the Queen, presently withdrew with the olderphysician,—who came gliding back without him,—and as he was seenno more in the palace, they soon ceased to think about him at all.He had been recommended by a great French lord to the favour of SirRobert Cecil. The latter, sending for him within a day or two, toldhim bluntly that he did not seem fitted for the Court nor for Courtpromotion.

  The March wind roared through London and over Merry England and aroundRichmond park and hill. It shook the palace windows. Within, in thegreat room with the great bed, the old Queen lay upon the floor withpillows beneath her, with her brows drawn together above her hawk nose.At intervals her mortal disease and lack of all comfort wrung a moan,or she gave one of her old, impatient, round, mouth-filling oaths. Forthe most part she lay quite silent, uneating, unsleeping, her fleshlessfingers keeping time against the rich cloth beneath her. Her women didnot love her as the women of Mary Stuart had loved that Queen. Year inand year out, day in and day out, they had feared this Queen; now shewas almost past fearing. They took no care to tell her that the carmineupon her face was not right, or that she had pushed the attire of hairto one side, and that her own hair showed beneath and was grey. Theyreasoned, perhaps with truth, that she might strike the one who told.She lay in her rich garments upon the floor, and the fire burned with alow sound beneath the wreathed tritons and she smoothed the gold clothwith her fingers. “_England—Scotland—Ireland.... Mere English—...The Pope down, but I’ll have the Bishops still—_”