SCENE SEVEN — DARNLEY AND A FEVER
( Suddenly we’re there with DARNLEY in bed , MARY by his bedside )
DARNLEY: Your majesty, is it you?
MARY: Yes, it’s me. It’s Mary.
DARNLEY: This is humiliating.
MARY: Wheesht!
DARNLEY: Measles! A childhood complaint, it’s —
MARY: I had it in France when I was a wee wee girl!
DARNLEY: You poor little thing, so far away from your mother too.
MARY: Aye. I grat full sore for her!
DARNLEY: I don’t know how she could have sent you way. You must have been such a pretty child.
MARY: I dinna ken ’boot that. But I missed her. ( Pause ) She had to dae it though to keep me safe an’ soond. There were plenty plots to steal the infant Queen and rule in her stead. ( Pause ) If I had a child though … I dinna think I could send ma ain bairn awa’.
DARNLEY: Poor Mary!
MARY: Oot on the deck, ready tae embark, an’ Ah wis sae excitit — I’m a great sailor, ye ken, I wis the only wan no seeck a’ the wey tae France — but, ma mither, she wis greetin’ an’ roarin’ and stitchin’ wee medals o’ the Blessed Virgin intae ma claes tae keep me safe, I didna ken whit was the maitter, I didna realise hoo lang it’d be e’er I’d see her again.
DARNLEY: My mother’s a Catholic too!
MARY: Is she?
DARNLEY: Oh yes. I can’t imagine my mother ever sending me away!
MARY: No’ even for your ain guid?
DARNLEY: I don’t think so! ( Laughing ) I’m glad she’s not here now, she’d be rushing around with junkets and milk jellies and broth to get my strength back up!
MARY: I brocht you some broth! I forgot! That wis why I came! It’ll be cauld noo, I’ll go get some mair.
DARNLEY: Mary, don’t — I’m not hungry!
DARNLEY: No. Just … stay with me, Mary.
( Music . DANCER holds up parasol over ELIZABETH as she enters, puffing on a day pipe )
ELIZABETH: And really it has proved remarkably simple. All we had to do was keep it nice and complicated. Well, once Philip withdrew Don Carlos — although clearly the boy was an idiot, even Mary couldn’t have married him — well, we pushed for Leicester, hinted we might be about to ratify on the succession question, if we got her married to an Englishman and a Protestant but, alack, our heart was not in it … A weakness of course, must be a bit of the old Dad in me, must cut it out … but secretly we were somewhat relieved when the old religion bit was a little too much for Mary to swallow. Well, we might have got somewhere if Master Knox could have been persuaded to be a little less confrontational — really there is no moderation in the man — but I was glad really when she would have none of my Robert. Then the measles! What a stroke of luck, poor Darnley all flushed and fevered, and Queen Mary playing nursemaid, brought out her tender feelings, most affecting … And now they are to be married. All it took was for me to expressly forbid it and he was irresistible. Which should keep her busy at home sorting out the snarls and quarrels that lad’ll cause among her nobility! Too busy to indulge in any mischief among my disenchanted Catholics … And it does let my lord Leicester off the hook. Pity really, there were no more piquant nights than those ones he were never sure if he were off to the Tower or to Scotland in the morning.