Mary Lennox

“ I can’t understand, Mary, how you take such delight in imputing disagreeable motives to people. Mrs. Lennox is not patronizing the girls—she has great respect for them. Neither are they relying on her in the least. They rely only on their own skill and ability to do their work to the satisfaction of their customers. Mrs. Lennox has kindly allowed them to add her name by way of reference or indorsement for those people who know nothing about them. ”

“ Lennox was no longer susceptible of emotions either of joy or sorrow. She gradually sank into a state of almost total insensibility, from which not even the arrival of her son had power to rouse her. His anguish was extreme at finding his mother in a condition so perfectly hopeless; and every other idea seemed, for the present, absorbed in his anxiety for her. As Mary witnessed his watchful cares and tender solicitude, she could almost have envied the unconscious object of such devoted attachment. ”

“ Not one of the Lennox documents is dated; all but one are endorsed in an English hand of the period. It may be conjectured that they were selected by Lennox from his papers, and lent by him to some one who was writing against Mary. Among them (Cambridge University MSS. Oo. 7. 47. fol. 17 b.) is a long indictment of Mary, in which Lennox describes a wicked letter of hers. As has been said, he closely follows Moray’s version reported by de Silva in July 1567. Lennox also gives several stories of cruel words of Mary spoken to Darnley in the hearing of her servants. ”

“ I begin to fear this discussion will frighten Miss Douglas away from us. There is an evil anticipated! Now, do you, my dear mother, help me to avert it; where that can be done, it cannot be too soon apprehended."
As Colonel Lennox's character unfolded itself, Mary saw much to admire in it; and it is more than probable the admiration would soon have been reciprocal, had it been allowed to take its course. But good Mrs. Lennox would force it into a thousand little channels prepared by herself, and love itself must have been quickly exhausted by the perpetual demands that were made upon it. ”

“ A proposal so very unconstitutional could not have been made by Lennox, unless misled by the ardour of his paternal feelings, or instigated by some personal enmity towards Bothwell. If Mary had ventured to throw into prison every one accused in an anonymous bill, there is no saying where the abuse might have ended. ”

“ Banker’s heart, and for a moment she felt jealous of the girl who she had guessed was dearer to her son than ever his mother could be again; but she was a sensible woman. She knew that it was natural for another and a stronger love to come between her and her boy. She liked Helen Lennox. She was willing to take her as a daughter, and she said so at last, and listened half amazed and half amused to the story which had in it so much of Aunt Betsy Barlow, at that very moment an occupant of their best guest-chamber, waiting for her cap from the Bowery. ”

“ She was very beautiful and very fascinating in her simplicity, but there was something in Helen's face more attractive than mere beauty, and Mark said to Morris as they walked along:
"Miss Lennox is not much like her sister."
"Not much, no; but Helen is a splendid girl—more strength of character, perhaps, than Katy, who is younger than her years even. She has always been petted from babyhood; it will take time or some great sorrow to show what she really is." ”

“ The mother of Mary Lennox (such was my heroine’s name) lived in France, her father in England, and in this divided household the care of the three younger girls had been entirely left to their eldest sister. John Herbert had made their acquaintance [192] in that extraordinary manner in which young ladies and gentlemen do manage to become acquainted, as often in real life as in novels, without any intercourse between the respective families. ”

“ Mary had been only a few days in Edinburgh, when she received a letter from the Earl of Lennox, Darnley’s father, which afflicted her not a little. Lennox, who resided principally at Glasgow, had gone to Stirling to visit his son; and Darnley had there communicated to him a design, his present discontents had suggested, which was to leave the country and proceed to the Continent. Both Lennox and Le Croc, “a wise aged gentleman,” as Holinshed calls him, had done all they could to divert him from so mad a purpose ”

“ Mary already, according to Randolph, had been heard to say that she wished Lennox had never entered Scotland ‘in her days.’ Lennox, the father-in-law of the Queen, was really a competitor for the crown. If Mary had no issue, he and Darnley desired the crown to be entailed on them, passing over the rightful heirs, the House of Hamilton. A father and son, with such preoccupations, could not safely be allowed to exercise power. ”

“ To the delicate mind the unfortunate are always objects of respect. As the ancients held sacred those places which had been blasted by lightning, so the feeling heart considers the afflicted as having been touched by the hand of God Himself. Such were the sensations with which Mary found herself in the presence of the venerable Mrs. Lennox—venerable rather through affliction than age ”

“ She does not appear to have been much at Court. Gilbert Talbot alludes to her in a letter already quoted, and written in this summer of 1574: “My Lady of Lennox hath not been at the Court since I came.” Up to the present her attitude towards Mary 128was unchanged. When Lord and Lady Burghley visited Chatsworth in 1570, Margaret Lennox thought it necessary to flog a dead horse and add by letter her exhortations to the warnings of Elizabeth that Mr. Secretary should be on his guard against the wiles of Mary. Even Margaret—a woman—knew the force of the personal equation in this case. ”

“ At last there was a step in the hall; somebody was coming, but it was not Roger, nor Frank, nor yet Celine. She had finally been sent away, though she had stood her ground bravely for a time in spite of Mrs. Walter Scott’s lofty ways and cool hints that Miss Lennox would do quite as well with a stranger, inasmuch as she did not know one person from another. She called her Miss Lennox now altogether. Magdalen would have been too familiar and savored too much of relationship, real or prospective, and this the lady was determined to prevent. ”

“ She had heard herself recommended to the love of a man who was indifferent to her. Could there be such a humiliation—such a degradation? Colonel Lennox's embarrassment was scarcely less; but his mother saw not the mischief she had done, and she continued to speak without his having the power to interrupt her. But her words fell unheeded on Mary's ear—she could hear nothing but what she had already heard. Colonel Lennox rose and respectfully placed a chair for her, but the action was unnoticed—she saw only herself a suppliant for his love ”

“ Lennox and Moray, again, of all people, did not need to be told, by an annotator, what Mary’s possessions and pretensions were. Finally, the lines about poisoning or divorcing Lady Bothwell are not a note explanatory of anything that occurs in Letter II., nor even an annotator’s added piece of information; for Lennox cites them, perhaps, from the Letter before him, ‘She wrote also in her letter, that the said Bothwell should in no wise fail to give his wife the drink as they had devised’—The Mixture as Before! ”

“ Lennox had addressed to her in a low voice, "do you remember the promise
I made Colonel Lennox, and which it rests with you to perform?"
"I never consider myself bound to perform the promises of others," replied Mary gravely.
"In some cases that may be a prudent resolution, but in the present it is surely an unfriendly one," said Colonel Lennox.
"A most inhuman one!" cried Lady Emily, "since you and I, it seems, cannot commence our friendship without something sentimental to set us agoing. It rests with you, Mary, to be the founder of our friendship ”

“ If I am wretched, it would be no comfort to me to make everybody else wretched; and were I in Mrs. Lennox's place, I would have more spirit than to speak about my misfortunes."
"But Mrs. Lennox does not appear to be what you call a spirited creature. She seems all sweetness, and—"
"Oh, sweet enough, certainly!—But hers is a sort of Eolian harp, that lulls me to sleep. I tire to death of people who have only two or three notes in their character. By-the-bye, Mary, you have a tolerable compass yourself, when you choose, though I don't think you have science enough for a bravura ”

“ Mary was induced to favour the family, her near relatives. She corresponded with the Countess of Lennox, and invited Lennox to return to Scotland, and reversed his attainder. He did not recover the patrimony of Angus, his father, for that was in possession of the powerful Earl of Morton, Chancellor of the kingdom, but Mary promised to make that up to him by other means. Once restored to favour and rank in Scotland, Lennox pushed on the scheme of marrying his son Darnley to the queen. ”

“ It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and old Ben Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor man.
“Tha’ an’ me are a good bit alike,” he said. “We was wove out of th’ same cloth. We’re neither of us good lookin’ an’ we’re both of us as sour as we look. We’ve got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I’ll warrant.”
This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had never heard the truth about herself in her life. Native servants always salaamed and submitted to you, whatever you did. ”

“ When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. ”

“ Bell said, her gray eyes flashing indignantly upon her sister, who, wisely forbore further remarks upon Helen's hands and contented herself with wondering if people generally would take up Mrs. Ray and honor her as they once did Katy.
"Of course they will," she said. "It's like heaps of them to do it," and in this conclusion she was not wrong, for those who had liked Helen Lennox did not find her less desirable now that she was Helen Ray, and numberless were the attentions bestowed upon her and the invitations she received. ”

“ On the whole he did not doubt it, for everything he could recall of Morris had a tendency to strengthen the belief. Nothing could be more probable, thrown together as they had been, without other congenial society, and nothing could be more suitable.
“They are well matched,” Mark thought, as he walked listlessly through Mrs. Reynolds’s parlors, seeing only one face, and that the face of Helen Lennox, with the lily in her hair, just as it looked when she tied the apron about his neck and laughed at his appearance. ”

“ Mary would have been deeply mortified had she suspected the cause of her friend's solicitude to show her off; but she was a stranger to match-making in all its bearings, had scarcely ever read a novel in her life, and was consequently not at all aware of the necessity there was for her falling in love with all convenient speed. She was therefore sometimes amused, though oftener ashamed, at Mrs. Lennox's panegyrics, and could not but smile as she thought how Aunt Jacky's wrath would have been kindled had she heard the extravagant praises that were bestowed on her most trifling accomplishments. ”

“ But not so with his mother;—the child should not be called Genevra if she could prevent it; and she opposed it with all her powers, offering at last, as a great concession on her part, to let it bear the name of either of Katy’s family—Hannah and Betsy excepted, of course Lucy Lennox, Helen Lennox, Katy Lennox, anything but Genevra. As usual, Wilford, when he learned her mind, joined with her, notwithstanding his secret preference, and the discussion became quite warm, especially as Katy evinced a willfulness for which Helen had never given her credit. ”

“ When you open your eyes in the morning, it is to see the light of day and the faces you love, and all is brightness around you. But when I wake it is still to darkness. My night knows no end. 'Tis only when I listen to your dear voice that I forget I am blind."
"I should not have stayed so long from you," said Mary, "but I knew you had Colonel Lennox with you, and I could not flatter myself you would have even a thought to bestow upon me." ”

“ All these things considered, one is at a loss to conceive how, even in these restless times, any set of men dared to enter into rebellion against Mary. But the selfish and insidious policy of Elizabeth—the jealousy of the Duke of Chatelherault, in whose family rested the succession to the Scottish crown, and who had hoped that his son Arran might have obtained Mary’s hand—the envy and rage of the Earl of Argyle, who had been obliged to surrender to Lennox some of his forfeited estates—and, above all, the artful and grasping spirit of Murray, solve the enigma. ”

“ In the Lennox Papers the writer, Lennox, breaks off in his account of Darnley’s murder to say, ‘And before we proceed any further, I cannot omit to declare and call to remembrance her Letter written to Bothwell from Glasgow before her departure thence, together with such cruel and strange words “unto” him, which he her husband should have better considered and marked, but that “the” hope “he” had to win her “love” now did blind him; together that it lieth not in the power of man to prevent that which the suffering will of God determineth. ”

“ Mary added, “in any way of that crime and odious fact, named in the placards, and whereof you suspect them, we shall even, according to our former letter, see the condign punishment as vigorously and extremely executed as the weight of that fact deserves; for, indeed, as you write, we esteem ourself a party if we were resolute of the authors.” She further entreated Lennox to come to Edinburgh, that he might be present at the trial, and lend his assistance to it. ”