The wisest Sovereigns err like private men,
And royal hand has sometimes laid the sword
Of chivalry upon a worthless shoulder,
Which better had been branded by the hangman.
What then?— Kings do their best; and they and we
Must answer for the intent, and not the event.
Old Play.
“It is a melancholy matter,” said the Queen, when Tressilian was withdrawn, “to see a wise and learned man’s wit thus pitifully unsettled. Yet this public display of his imperfection of brain plainly shows us that his supposed injury and accusation were fruitless; and therefore, my Lord of Leicester, we remember your suit formerly made to us in behalf of your faithful servant Varney, whose good gifts and fidelity, as they are useful to you, ought to have due reward from us, knowing well that your lordship, and all you have, are so earnestly devoted to our service. And we render Varney the honour more especially that we are a guest, and, we fear, a chargeable and troublesome one, under your lordship’s roof; and also for the satisfaction of the good old Knight of Devon, Sir Hugh Robsart, whose daughter he hath married, and we trust the especial mark of grace which we are about to confer may reconcile him to his son-inlaw.— Your sword, my Lord of Leicester.”
The Earl unbuckled his sword, and taking it by the point, presented on bended knee the hilt to Elizabeth.
She took it slowly drew it from the scabbard, and while the ladies who stood around turned away their eyes with real or affected shuddering, she noted with a curious eye the high polish and rich, damasked ornaments upon the glittering blade.
“Had I been a man,” she said, “methinks none of my ancestors would have loved a good sword better. As it is with me, I like to look on one, and could, like the Fairy of whom I have read in some Italian rhymes — were my godson Harrington here, he could tell me the passage — even trim my hair, and arrange my head-gear, in such a steel mirror as this is.— Richard Varney, come forth, and kneel down. In the name of God and Saint George, we dub thee knight! Be Faithful, Brave, and Fortunate. Arise, Sir Richard Varney.”
23
Varney arose and retired, making a deep obeisance to the Sovereign who had done him so much honour.
“The buckling of the spur, and what other rites remain,” said the Queen, “may be finished tomorrow in the chapel; for we intend Sir Richard Varney a companion in his honours. And as we must not be partial in conferring such distinction, we mean on this matter to confer with our cousin of Sussex.”
That noble Earl, who since his arrival at Kenilworth, and indeed since the commencement of this Progress, had found himself in a subordinate situation to Leicester, was now wearing a heavy cloud on his brow; a circumstance which had not escaped the Queen, who hoped to appease his discontent, and to follow out her system of balancing policy by a mark of peculiar favour, the more gratifying as it was tendered at a moment when his rival’s triumph appeared to be complete.
At the summons of Queen Elizabeth, Sussex hastily approached her person; and being asked on which of his followers, being a gentleman and of merit, he would wish the honour of knighthood to be conferred, he answered, with more sincerity than policy, that he would have ventured to speak for Tressilian, to whom he conceived he owed his own life, and who was a distinguished soldier and scholar, besides a man of unstained lineage, “only,” he said, “he feared the events of that night —” And then he stopped.
“I am glad your lordship is thus considerate,” said Elizabeth. “The events of this night would make us, in the eyes of our subjects, as mad as this poor brain-sick gentleman himself — for we ascribe his conduct to no malice — should we choose this moment to do him grace.”
“In that case,” said the Earl of Sussex, somewhat discountenanced, your Majesty will allow me to name my master of the horse, Master Nicholas Blount, a gentleman of fair estate and ancient name, who has served your Majesty both in Scotland and Ireland, and brought away bloody marks on his person, all honourably taken and requited.”
The Queen could not help shrugging her shoulders slightly even at this second suggestion; and the Duchess of Rutland, who read in the Queen’s manner that she had expected that Sussex would have named Raleigh, and thus would have enabled her to gratify her own wish while she honoured his recommendation, only waited the Queen’s assent to what he had proposed, and then said that she hoped, since these two high nobles had been each permitted to suggest a candidate for the honours of chivalry, she, in behalf of the ladies in presence, might have a similar indulgence.
“I were no woman to refuse you such a boon,” said the Queen, smiling.
“Then,” pursued the Duchess, “in the name of these fair ladies present, I request your Majesty to confer the rank of knighthood on Walter Raleigh, whose birth, deeds of arms, and promptitude to serve our sex with sword or pen, deserve such distinction from us all.”
“Gramercy, fair ladies,” said Elizabeth, smiling, “your boon is granted, and the gentle squire Lack-Cloak shall become the good knight Lack-Cloak, at your desire. Let the two aspirants for the honour of chivalry step forward.”
Blount was not as yet returned from seeing Tressilian, as he conceived, safely disposed of; but Raleigh came forth, and kneeling down, received at the hand of the Virgin Queen that title of honour, which was never conferred on a more distinguished or more illustrious object.
Shortly afterwards Nicholas Blount entered, and hastily apprised by Sussex, who met him at the door of the hall, of the Queen’s gracious purpose regarding him, he was desired to advance towards the throne. It is a sight sometimes seen, and it is both ludicrous and pitiable; when an honest man of plain common sense is surprised, by the coquetry of a pretty woman, or any other cause, into those frivolous fopperies which only sit well upon the youthful, the gay, and those to whom long practice has rendered them a second nature. Poor Blount was in this situation. His head was already giddy from a consciousness of unusual finery, and the supposed necessity of suiting his manners to the gaiety of his dress; and now this sudden view of promotion altogether completed the conquest of the newly inhaled spirit of foppery over his natural disposition, and converted a plain, honest, awkward man into a coxcomb of a new and most ridiculous kind.
The knight-expectant advanced up the hall, the whole length of which he had unfortunately to traverse, turning out his toes with so much zeal that he presented his leg at every step with its broadside foremost, so that it greatly resembled an old-fashioned table-knife with a curved point, when seen sideways. The rest of his gait was in proportion to this unhappy amble; and the implied mixture of bashful rear and self-satisfaction was so unutterably ridiculous that Leicester’s friends did not suppress a titter, in which many of Sussex’s partisans were unable to resist joining, though ready to eat their nails with mortification. Sussex himself lost all patience, and could not forbear whispering into the ear of his friend, “Curse thee! canst thou not walk like a man and a soldier?” an interjection which only made honest Blount start and stop, until a glance at his yellow roses and crimson stockings restored his self-confidence, when on he went at the same pace as before.
The Queen conferred on poor Blount the honour of knighthood with a marked sense of reluctance. That wise Princess was fully aware of the propriety of using great circumspection and economy in bestowing those titles of honour, which the Stewarts, who succeeded to her throne, distributed with an imprudent liberality which greatly diminished their value. Blount had no sooner arisen and retired than she turned to the Duchess of Rutland. “Our woman wit,” she said, “dear Rutland, is sharper than that of those proud things in doublet and hose. Seest thou, out of these three knights, thine is the only true metal to stamp chivalry’s imprint upon?”
“Sir Richard Varney, surely — the friend of my Lord of Leicester — surely he has merit,” replied the Duchess.
“Varney has a sly countenance and a smooth tongue,” replied the Queen; “I fear me he will prove a knave. But the promise was of ancient standing. My Lord of Sussex must have lost his own wits, I think, to recommend to us first a madman like Tressilian, and then a clownish fool like this other fellow. I protest, Rutland, that while he sat on his knees before me, mopping and mowing as if he had scalding porridge in his mouth, I had much ado to forbear cutting him over the pate, instead of striking his shoulder.”
“Your Majesty gave him a smart accolade,” said the Duchess; “we who stood behind heard the blade clatter on his collar-bone, and the poor man fidgeted too as if he felt it.”
“I could not help it, wench,” said the Queen, laughing. “But we will have this same Sir Nicholas sent to Ireland or Scotland, or somewhere, to rid our court of so antic a chevalier; he may be a good soldier in the field, though a preposterous ass in a banqueting-hall.”
The discourse became then more general, and soon after there was a summons to the banquet.
In order to obey this signal, the company were under the necessity of crossing the inner court of the Castle, that they might reach the new buildings containing the large banqueting-room, in which preparations for supper were made upon a scale of profuse magnificence, corresponding to the occasion.
The livery cupboards were loaded with plate of the richest description, and the most varied — some articles tasteful, some perhaps grotesque, in the invention and decoration, but all gorgeously magnificent, both from the richness of the work and value of the materials. Thus the chief table was adorned by a salt, ship-fashion, made of mother-of-pearl, garnished with silver and divers warlike ensigns and other ornaments, anchors, sails, and sixteen pieces of ordnance. It bore a figure of Fortune, placed on a globe, with a flag in her hand. Another salt was fashioned of silver, in form of a swan in full sail. That chivalry might not be omitted amid this splendour, a silver Saint George was presented, mounted and equipped in the usual fashion in which he bestrides the dragon. The figures were moulded to be in some sort useful. The horse’s tail was managed to hold a case of knives, while the breast of the dragon presented a similar accommodation for oyster knives,
In the course of the passage from the hall of reception to the banqueting-room, and especially in the courtyard, the new-made knights were assailed by the heralds, pursuivants, minstrels, etc., with the usual cry of Largesse, largesse, Chevaliers tres hardis! an ancient invocation, intended to awaken the bounty of the acolytes of chivalry towards those whose business it was to register their armorial bearings, and celebrate the deeds by which they were illustrated. The call was, of course, liberally and courteously answered by those to whom it was addressed. Varney gave his largesse with an affectation of complaisance and humility. Raleigh bestowed his with the graceful ease peculiar to one who has attained his own place, and is familiar with its dignity. Honest Blount gave what his tailor had left him of his half-year’s rent, dropping some pieces in his hurry, then stooping down to look for them, and then distributing them amongst the various claimants, with the anxious face and mien of the parish beadle dividing a dole among paupers.
The donations were accepted with the usual clamour and vivats of applause common on such occasions; but as the parties gratified were chiefly dependants of Lord Leicester, it was Varney whose name was repeated with the loudest acclamations. Lambourne, especially, distinguished himself by his vociferations of “Long life to Sir Richard Varney!— Health and honour to Sir Richard!— Never was a more worthy knight dubbed!”— then, suddenly sinking his voice, he added —“since the valiant Sir Pandarus of Troy,”— a winding-up of his clamorous applause which set all men a-laughing who were within hearing of it.
It is unnecessary to say anything further of the festivities of the evening, which were so brilliant in themselves, and received with such obvious and willing satisfaction by the Queen, that Leicester retired to his own apartment with all the giddy raptures of successful ambition. Varney, who had changed his splendid attire, and now waited on his patron in a very modest and plain undress, attended to do the honours of the Earl’s coucher.
“How! Sir Richard,” said Leicester, smiling, “your new rank scarce suits the humility of this attendance.”
“I would disown that rank, my Lord,” said Varney, “could I think it was to remove me to a distance from your lordship’s person.”
“Thou art a grateful fellow,” said Leicester; “but I must not allow you to do what would abate you in the opinion of others.”
While thus speaking, he still accepted without hesitation the offices about his person, which the new-made knight seemed to render as eagerly as if he had really felt, in discharging the task, that pleasure which his words expressed.
“I am not afraid of men’s misconstruction,” he said, in answer to Leicester’s remark, “since there is not —(permit me to undo the collar)— a man within the Castle who does not expect very soon to see persons of a rank far superior to that which, by your goodness, I now hold, rendering the duties of the bedchamber to you, and accounting it an honour.”
“It might, indeed, so have been”— said the Earl, with an involuntary sigh; and then presently added, “My gown, Varney; I will look out on the night. Is not the moon near to the full?”
“I think so, my lord, according to the calendar,” answered Varney.
There was an abutting window, which opened on a small projecting balcony of stone, battlemented as is usual in Gothic castles. The Earl undid the lattice, and stepped out into the open air. The station he had chosen commanded an extensive view of the lake and woodlands beyond, where the bright moonlight rested on the clear blue waters and the distant masses of oak and elm trees. The moon rode high in the heavens, attended by thousands and thousands of inferior luminaries. All seemed already to be hushed in the nether world, excepting occasionally the voice of the watch (for the yeomen of the guard performed that duty wherever the Queen was present in person) and the distant baying of the hounds, disturbed by the preparations amongst the grooms and prickers for a magnificent hunt, which was to be the amusement of the next day.
Leicester looked out on the blue arch of heaven, with gestures and a countenance expressive of anxious exultation, while Varney, who remained within the darkened apartment, could (himself unnoticed), with a secret satisfaction, see his patron stretch his hands with earnest gesticulation towards the heavenly bodies.
“Ye distant orbs of living fire,” so ran the muttered invocation of the ambitious Earl, “ye are silent while you wheel your mystic rounds; but Wisdom has given to you a voice. Tell me, then, to what end is my high course destined? Shall the greatness to which I have aspired be bright, pre-eminent, and stable as your own; or am I but doomed to draw a brief and glittering train along the nightly darkness, and then to sink down to earth, like the base refuse of those artificial fires with which men emulate your rays?”
He looked on the heavens in profound silence for a minute or two longer, and then again stepped into the apartment, where Varney seemed to have been engaged in putting the Earl’s jewels into a casket.
“What said Alasco of my horoscope?” demanded Leicester. “You already told me; but it has escaped me, for I think but lightly of that art.”
“Many learned and great men have thought otherwise,” said Varney; “and, not to flatter your lordship, my own opinion leans that way.”
“Ay, Saul among the prophets?” said Leicester. “I thought thou wert sceptical in all such matters as thou couldst neither see, hear, smell, taste, or touch, and that thy belief was limited by thy senses.”
“Perhaps, my lord,” said Varney, “I may be misled on the present occasion by my wish to find the predictions of astrology true. Alasco says that your favourite planet is culminating, and that the adverse influence — he would not use a plainer term — though not overcome, was evidently combust, I think he said, or retrograde.”
“It is even so,” said Leicester, looking at an abstract of astrological calculations which he had in his hand; “the stronger influence will prevail, and, as I think, the evil hour pass away. Lend me your hand, Sir Richard, to doff my gown; and remain an instant, if it is not too burdensome to your knighthood, while I compose myself to sleep. I believe the bustle of this day has fevered my blood, for it streams through my veins like a current of molten lead. Remain an instant, I pray you — I would fain feel my eyes heavy ere I closed them.”
Varney officiously assisted his lord to bed, and placed a massive silver night-lamp, with a short sword, on a marble table which stood close by the head of the couch. Either in order to avoid the light of the lamp, or to hide his countenance from Varney, Leicester drew the curtain, heavy with entwined silk and gold, so as completely to shade his face. Varney took a seat near the bed, but with his back towards his master, as if to intimate that he was not watching him, and quietly waited till Leicester himself led the way to the topic by which his mind was engrossed.
“And so, Varney,” said the Earl, after waiting in vain till his dependant should commence the conversation, “men talk of the Queen’s favour towards me?”
“Ay, my good lord,” said Varney; “of what can they else, since it is so strongly manifested?”
“She is indeed my good and gracious mistress,” said Leicester, after another pause; “but it is written, ‘Put not thy trust in princes.’”
“A good sentence and a true,” said Varney, “unless you can unite their interest with yours so absolutely that they must needs sit on your wrist like hooded hawks.”
“I know what thou meanest,” said Leicester impatiently, “though thou art to-night so prudentially careful of what thou sayest to me. Thou wouldst intimate I might marry the Queen if I would?”
“It is your speech, my lord, not mine,” answered Varney; “but whosesoever be the speech, it is the thought of ninety-nine out of an hundred men throughout broad England.”
“Ay, but,” said Leicester, turning himself in his bed, “the hundredth man knows better. Thou, for example, knowest the obstacle that cannot be overleaped.”
“It must, my lord, if the stars speak true,” said Varney composedly.
“What, talkest thou of them,” said Leicester, “that believest not in them or in aught else?”
“You mistake, my lord, under your gracious pardon,” said Varney; “I believe in many things that predict the future. I believe, if showers fall in April, that we shall have flowers in May; that if the sun shines, grain will ripen; and I believe in much natural philosophy to the same effect, which, if the stars swear to me, I will say the stars speak the truth. And in like manner, I will not disbelieve that which I see wished for and expected on earth, solely because the astrologers have read it in the heavens.”
“Thou art right,” said Leicester, again tossing himself on his couch “Earth does wish for it. I have had advices from the reformed churches of Germany — from the Low Countries — from Switzerland — urging this as a point on which Europe’s safety depends. France will not oppose it. The ruling party in Scotland look to it as their best security. Spain fears it, but cannot prevent it. And yet thou knowest it is impossible.”
“I know not that, my lord,” said Varney; “the Countess is indisposed.”
“Villain!” said Leicester, starting up on his couch, and seizing the sword which lay on the table beside him, “go thy thoughts that way?— thou wouldst not do murder?”
“For whom, or what, do you hold me, my lord?” said Varney, assuming the superiority of an innocent man subjected to unjust suspicion. “I said nothing to deserve such a horrid imputation as your violence infers. I said but that the Countess was ill. And Countess though she be — lovely and beloved as she is — surely your lordship must hold her to be mortal? She may die, and your lordship’s hand become once more your own.”
“Away! away!” said Leicester; “let me have no more of this.”
“Good night, my lord,” said Varney, seeming to understand this as a command to depart; but Leicester’s voice interrupted his purpose.
“Thou ‘scapest me not thus, Sir Fool,” said he; “I think thy knighthood has addled thy brains. Confess thou hast talked of impossibilities as of things which may come to pass.”
“My lord, long live your fair Countess,” said Varney; “but neither your love nor my good wishes can make her immortal. But God grant she live long to be happy herself, and to render you so! I see not but you may be King of England notwithstanding.”
“Nay, now, Varney, thou art stark mad,” said Leicester.
“I would I were myself within the same nearness to a good estate of freehold,” said Varney. “Have we not known in other countries how a left-handed marriage might subsist betwixt persons of differing degree?— ay, and be no hindrance to prevent the husband from conjoining himself afterwards with a more suitable partner?”
“I have heard of such things in Germany,” said Leicester.
“Ay, and the most learned doctors in foreign universities justify the practice from the Old Testament,” said Varney. “And after all, where is the harm? The beautiful partner whom you have chosen for true love has your secret hours of relaxation and affection. Her fame is safe her conscience may slumber securely. You have wealth to provide royally for your issue, should Heaven bless you with offspring. Meanwhile you may give to Elizabeth ten times the leisure, and ten thousand times the affection, that ever Don Philip of Spain spared to her sister Mary; yet you know how she doted on him though so cold and neglectful. It requires but a close mouth and an open brow, and you keep your Eleanor and your fair Rosamond far enough separate. Leave me to build you a bower to which no jealous Queen shall find a clew.”
Leicester was silent for a moment, then sighed, and said, “It is impossible. Good night, Sir Richard Varney — yet stay. Can you guess what meant Tressilian by showing himself in such careless guise before the Queen today?— to strike her tender heart, I should guess, with all the sympathies due to a lover abandoned by his mistress and abandoning himself.”
Varney, smothering a sneering laugh, answered, “He believed Master Tressilian had no such matter in his head.”
“How!” said Leicester; “what meanest thou? There is ever knavery in that laugh of thine, Varney.”
“I only meant, my lord,” said Varney, “that Tressilian has taken the sure way to avoid heart-breaking. He hath had a companion — a female companion — a mistress — a sort of player’s wife or sister, as I believe — with him in Mervyn’s Bower, where I quartered him for certain reasons of my own.”
“A mistress!— meanest thou a paramour?”
“Ay, my lord; what female else waits for hours in a gentleman’s chamber?”
“By my faith, time and space fitting, this were a good tale to tell,” said Leicester. “I ever distrusted those bookish, hypocritical, seeming-virtuous scholars. Well — Master Tressilian makes somewhat familiar with my house; if I look it over, he is indebted to it for certain recollections. I would not harm him more than I can help. Keep eye on him, however, Varney.”
“I lodged him for that reason,” said Varney, “in Mervyn’s Tower, where he is under the eye of my very vigilant, if he were not also my very drunken, servant, Michael Lambourne, whom I have told your Grace of.”
“Grace!” said Leicester; “what meanest thou by that epithet?”
“It came unawares, my lord; and yet it sounds so very natural that I cannot recall it.”
“It is thine own preferment that hath turned thy brain,” said Leicester, laughing; “new honours are as heady as new wine.”
“May your lordship soon have cause to say so from experience,” said Varney; and wishing his patron good night, he withdrew.”
Here stands the victim — there the proud betrayer,
E’en as the hind pull’d down by strangling dogs
Lies at the hunter’s feet — who courteous proffers
To some high dame, the Dian of the chase,
To whom he looks for guerdon, his sharp blade,
To gash the sobbing throat.
The Woodsman.
We are now to return to Mervyn’s Bower, the apartment, or rather the prison, of the unfortunate Countess of Leicester, who for some time kept within bounds her uncertainty and her impatience. She was aware that, in the tumult of the day, there might be some delay ere her letter could be safely conveyed to the hands of Leicester, and that some time more might elapse ere he could extricate himself from the necessary attendance on Elizabeth, to come and visit her in her secret bower. “I will not expect him,” she said, “till night; he cannot be absent from his royal guest, even to see me. He will, I know, come earlier if it be possible, but I will not expect him before night.” And yet all the while she did expect him; and while she tried to argue herself into a contrary belief, each hasty noise of the hundred which she heard sounded like the hurried step of Leicester on the staircase, hasting to fold her in his arms.
The fatigue of body which Amy had lately undergone, with the agitation of mind natural to so cruel a state of uncertainty, began by degrees strongly to affect her nerves, and she almost feared her total inability to maintain the necessary self-command through the scenes which might lie before her. But although spoiled by an over-indulgent system of education, Amy had naturally a mind of great power, united with a frame which her share in her father’s woodland exercises had rendered uncommonly healthy. She summoned to her aid such mental and bodily resources; and not unconscious how much the issue of her fate might depend on her own self-possession, she prayed internally for strength of body and for mental fortitude, and resolved at the same time to yield to no nervous impulse which might weaken either.
Yet when the great bell of the Castle, which was placed in Caesar’s Tower, at no great distance from that called Mervyn’s, began to send its pealing clamour abroad, in signal of the arrival of the royal procession, the din was so painfully acute to ears rendered nervously sensitive by anxiety, that she could hardly forbear shrieking with anguish, in answer to every stunning clash of the relentless peal.
Shortly afterwards, when the small apartment was at once enlightened by the shower of artificial fires with which the air was suddenly filled, and which crossed each other like fiery spirits, each bent on his own separate mission, or like salamanders executing a frolic dance in the region of the Sylphs, the Countess felt at first as if each rocket shot close by her eyes, and discharged its sparks and flashes so nigh that she could feel a sense of the heat. But she struggled against these fantastic terrors, and compelled herself to arise, stand by the window, look out, and gaze upon a sight which at another time would have appeared to her at once captivating and fearful. The magnificent towers of the Castle were enveloped in garlands of artificial fire, or shrouded with tiaras of pale smoke. The surface of the lake glowed like molten iron, while many fireworks (then thought extremely wonderful, though now common), whose flame continued to exist in the opposing element, dived and rose, hissed and roared, and spouted fire, like so many dragons of enchantment sporting upon a burning lake.
Even Amy was for a moment interested by what was to her so new a scene. “I had thought it magical art,” she said, “but poor Tressilian taught me to judge of such things as they are. Great God! and may not these idle splendours resemble my own hoped-for happiness — a single spark, which is instantly swallowed up by surrounding darkness — a precarious glow, which rises but for a brief space into the air, that its fall may be the lower? O Leicester! after all — all that thou hast said — hast sworn — that Amy was thy love, thy life, can it be that thou art the magician at whose nod these enchantments arise, and that she sees them as an outcast, if not a captive?”
The sustained, prolonged, and repeated bursts of music, from so many different quarters, and at so many varying points of distance, which sounded as if not the Castle of Kenilworth only, but the whole country around, had been at once the scene of solemnizing some high national festival, carried the same oppressive thought still closer to her heart, while some notes would melt in distant and falling tones, as if in compassion for her sorrows, and some burst close and near upon her, as if mocking her misery, with all the insolence of unlimited mirth. “These sounds,” she said, “are mine — mine, because they are his; but I cannot say, Be still, these loud strains suit me not; and the voice of the meanest peasant that mingles in the dance would have more power to modulate the music than the command of her who is mistress of all.”
By degrees the sounds of revelry died away, and the Countess withdrew from the window at which she had sat listening to them. It was night, but the moon afforded considerable light in the room, so that Amy was able to make the arrangement which she judged necessary. There was hope that Leicester might come to her apartment as soon as the revel in the Castle had subsided; but there was also risk she might be disturbed by some unauthorized intruder. She had lost confidence in the key since Tressilian had entered so easily, though the door was locked on the inside; yet all the additional security she could think of was to place the table across the door, that she might be warned by the noise should any one attempt to enter. Having taken these necessary precautions, the unfortunate lady withdrew to her couch, stretched herself down on it, mused in anxious expectation, and counted more than one hour after midnight, till exhausted nature proved too strong for love, for grief, for fear, nay, even for uncertainty, and she slept.
Yes, she slept. The Indian sleeps at the stake in the intervals between his tortures; and mental torments, in like manner, exhaust by long continuance the sensibility of the sufferer, so that an interval of lethargic repose must necessarily ensue, ere the pangs which they inflict can again be renewed.
The Countess slept, then, for several hours, and dreamed that she was in the ancient house at Cumnor Place, listening for the low whistle with which Leicester often used to announce his presence in the courtyard when arriving suddenly on one of his stolen visits. But on this occasion, instead of a whistle, she heard the peculiar blast of a bugle-horn, such as her father used to wind on the fall of the stag, and which huntsmen then called a mort. She ran, as she thought, to a window that looked into the courtyard, which she saw filled with men in mourning garments. The old Curate seemed about to read the funeral service. Mumblazen, tricked out in an antique dress, like an ancient herald, held aloft a scutcheon, with its usual decorations of skulls, cross-bones, and hour-glasses, surrounding a coat-of-arms, of which she could only distinguish that it was surmounted with an Earl’s coronet. The old man looked at her with a ghastly smile, and said, “Amy, are they not rightly quartered?” Just as he spoke, the horns again poured on her ear the melancholy yet wild strain of the mort, or death-note, and she awoke.
The Countess awoke to hear a real bugle-note, or rather the combined breath of many bugles, sounding not the mort. but the jolly reveille, to remind the inmates of the Castle of Kenilworth that the pleasures of the day were to commence with a magnificent stag-hunting in the neighbouring Chase. Amy started up from her couch, listened to the sound, saw the first beams of the summer morning already twinkle through the lattice of her window, and recollected, with feelings of giddy agony, where she was, and how circumstanced.
“He thinks not of me,” she said; “he will not come nigh me! A Queen is his guest, and what cares he in what corner of his huge Castle a wretch like me pines in doubt, which is fast fading into despair?” At once a sound at the door, as of some one attempting to open it softly, filled her with an ineffable mixture of joy and fear; and hastening to remove the obstacle she had placed against the door, and to unlock it, she had the precaution to ask! “Is it thou, my love?”
“Yes, my Countess,” murmured a whisper in reply.
She threw open the door, and exclaiming, “Leicester!” flung her arms around the neck of the man who stood without, muffled in his cloak.
“No — not quite Leicester,” answered Michael Lambourne, for he it was, returning the caress with vehemence —“not quite Leicester, my lovely and most loving duchess, but as good a man.”
With an exertion of force, of which she would at another time have thought herself incapable, the Countess freed herself from the profane and profaning grasp of the drunken debauchee, and retreated into the midst of her apartment. where despair gave her courage to make a stand.
As Lambourne, on entering, dropped the lap of his cloak from his face, she knew Varney’s profligate servant, the very last person, excepting his detested master, by whom she would have wished to be discovered. But she was still closely muffled in her travelling dress, and as Lambourne had scarce ever been admitted to her presence at Cumnor Place, her person, she hoped, might not be so well known to him as his was to her, owing to Janet’s pointing him frequently out as he crossed the court, and telling stories of his wickedness. She might have had still greater confidence in her disguise had her experience enabled her to discover that he was much intoxicated; but this could scarce have consoled her for the risk which she might incur from such a character in such a time, place, and circumstances.
Lambourne flung the door behind him as he entered, and folding his arms, as if in mockery of the attitude of distraction into which Amy had thrown herself, he proceeded thus: “Hark ye, most fair Calipolis — or most lovely Countess of clouts, and divine Duchess of dark corners — if thou takest all that trouble of skewering thyself together, like a trussed fowl, that there may be more pleasure in the carving, even save thyself the labour. I love thy first frank manner the best —-like thy present as little”—(he made a step towards her, and staggered)—“as little as — such a damned uneven floor as this, where a gentleman may break his neck if he does not walk as upright as a posture-master on the tight-rope.”
“Stand back!” said the Countess; “do not approach nearer to me on thy peril!”
“My peril!— and stand back! Why, how now, madam? Must you have a better mate than honest Mike Lambourne? I have been in America, girl, where the gold grows, and have brought off such a load on’t —”
“Good friend,” said the Countess, in great terror at the ruffian’s determined and audacious manner, “I prithee begone, and leave me.”
“And so I will, pretty one, when we are tired of each other’s company — not a jot sooner.” He seized her by the arm, while, incapable of further defence, she uttered shriek upon shriek. “Nay, scream away if you like it,” said he, still holding her fast; “I have heard the sea at the loudest, and I mind a squalling woman no more than a miauling kitten. Damn me! I have heard fifty or a hundred screaming at once, when there was a town stormed.”
The cries of the Countess, however, brought unexpected aid in the person of Lawrence Staples, who had heard her exclamations from his apartment below, and entered in good time to save her from being discovered, if not from more atrocious violence. Lawrence was drunk also from the debauch of the preceding night, but fortunately his intoxication had taken a different turn from that of Lambourne.
“What the devil’s noise is this in the ward?” he said. “What! man and woman together in the same cell?— that is against rule. I will have decency under my rule, by Saint Peter of the Fetters!”
“Get thee downstairs, thou drunken beast,” said Lambourne; “seest thou not the lady and I would be private?”
“Good sir, worthy sir!” said the Countess, addressing the jailer, “do but save me from him, for the sake of mercy!”
“She speaks fairly,” said the jailer, “and I will take her part. I love my prisoners; and I have had as good prisoners under my key as they have had in Newgate or the Compter. And so, being one of my lambkins, as I say, no one shall disturb her in her pen-fold. So let go the woman: or I’ll knock your brains out with my keys.”
“I’ll make a blood-pudding of thy midriff first,” answered Lambourne, laying his left hand on his dagger, but still detaining the Countess by the arm with his right. “So have at thee, thou old ostrich, whose only living is upon a bunch of iron keys.”
Lawrence raised the arm of Michael, and prevented him from drawing his dagger; and as Lambourne struggled and strove to shake him off; the Countess made a sudden exertion on her side, and slipping her hand out of the glove on which the ruffian still kept hold, she gained her liberty, and escaping from the apartment, ran downstairs; while at the same moment she heard the two combatants fall on the floor with a noise which increased her terror. The outer wicket offered no impediment to her flight, having been opened for Lambourne’s admittance; so that she succeeded in escaping down the stair, and fled into the Pleasance, which seemed to her hasty glance the direction in which she was most likely to avoid pursuit.
Meanwhile, Lawrence and Lambourne rolled on the floor of the apartment, closely grappled together. Neither had, happily, opportunity to draw their daggers; but Lawrence found space enough to clash his heavy keys across Michael’s face, and Michael in return grasped the turnkey so felly by the throat that the blood gushed from nose and mouth, so that they were both gory and filthy spectacles when one of the other officers of the household, attracted by the noise of the fray, entered the room, and with some difficulty effected the separation of the combatants.
“A murrain on you both,” said the charitable mediator, “and especially on you, Master Lambourne! What the fiend lie you here for, fighting on the floor like two butchers’ curs in the kennel of the shambles?”
Lambourne arose, and somewhat sobered by the interposition of a third party, looked with something less than his usual brazen impudence of visage. “We fought for a wench, an thou must know,” was his reply.
“A wench! Where is she?” said the officer.
“Why, vanished, I think,” said Lambourne, looking around him, “unless Lawrence hath swallowed her, That filthy paunch of his devours as many distressed damsels and oppressed orphans as e’er a giant in King Arthur’s history. They are his prime food; he worries them body, soul, and substance.”
“Ay, ay! It’s no matter,” said Lawrence, gathering up his huge, ungainly form from the floor; “but I have had your betters, Master Michael Lambourne, under the little turn of my forefinger and thumb, and I shall have thee, before all’s done, under my hatches. The impudence of thy brow will not always save thy shin-bones from iron, and thy foul, thirsty gullet from a hempen cord.” The words were no sooner out of his mouth, when Lambourne again made at him.
“Nay, go not to it again,” said the sewer, “or I will call for him shall tame you both, and that is Master Varney — Sir Richard, I mean. He is stirring, I promise you; I saw him cross the court just now.”
“Didst thou, by G—!” said Lambourne, seizing on the basin and ewer which stood in the apartment. “Nay, then, element, do thy work. I thought I had enough of thee last night, when I floated about for Orion, like a cork on a fermenting cask of ale.”
So saying, he fell to work to cleanse from his face and hands the signs of the fray, and get his apparel into some order.
“What hast thou done to him?” said the sewer, speaking aside to the jailer; “his face is fearfully swelled.”
“It is but the imprint of the key of my cabinet — too good a mark for his gallows-face. No man shall abuse or insult my prisoners; they are my jewels, and I lock them in safe casket accordingly. — And so, mistress, leave off your wailing.— Why! why, surely, there was a woman here!”
“I think you are all mad this morning,” said the sewer. “I saw no woman here, nor no man neither in a proper sense, but only two beasts rolling on the floor.”
“Nay, then I am undone,” said the jailer; “the prison’s broken, that is all. Kenilworth prison is broken,” he continued, in a tone of maudlin lamentation, “which was the strongest jail betwixt this and the Welsh Marches — ay, and a house that has had knights, and earls, and kings sleeping in it, as secure as if they had been in the Tower of London. It is broken, the prisoners fled, and the jailer in much danger of being hanged!”
So saying, he retreated down to his own den to conclude his lamentations, or to sleep himself sober. Lambourne and the sewer followed him close; and it was well for them, since the jailer, out of mere habit, was about to lock the wicket after him, and had they not been within the reach of interfering, they would have had the pleasure of being shut up in the turret-chamber, from which the Countess had been just delivered.
That unhappy lady, as soon as she found herself at liberty, fled, as we have already mentioned, into the Pleasance. She had seen this richly-ornamented space of ground from the window of Mervyn’s Tower; and it occurred to her, at the moment of her escape, that among its numerous arbours, bowers, fountains, statues, and grottoes, she might find some recess in which she could lie concealed until she had an opportunity of addressing herself to a protector, to whom she might communicate as much as she dared of her forlorn situation, and through whose means she might supplicate an interview with her husband.
“If I could see my guide,” she thought, “I would learn if he had delivered my letter. Even did I but see Tressilian, it were better to risk Dudley’s anger, by confiding my whole situation to one who is the very soul of honour, than to run the hazard of further insult among the insolent menials of this ill-ruled place. I will not again venture into an enclosed apartment. I will wait, I will watch; amidst so many human beings there must be some kind heart which can judge and compassionate what mine endures.”
In truth, more than one party entered and traversed the Pleasance. But they were in joyous groups of four or five persons together, laughing and jesting in their own fullness of mirth and lightness of heart.
The retreat which she had chosen gave her the easy alternative of avoiding observation. It was but stepping back to the farthest recess of a grotto, ornamented with rustic work and moss-seats, and terminated by a fountain, and she might easily remain concealed, or at her pleasure discover herself to any solitary wanderer whose curiosity might lead him to that romantic retirement. Anticipating such an opportunity, she looked into the clear basin which the silent fountain held up to her like a mirror, and felt shocked at her own appearance, and doubtful at; the same time, muffled and disfigured as her disguise made her seem to herself, whether any female (and it was from the compassion of her own sex that she chiefly expected sympathy) would engage in conference with so suspicious an object. Reasoning thus like a woman, to whom external appearance is scarcely in any circumstances a matter of unimportance, and like a beauty, who had some confidence in the power of her own charms, she laid aside her travelling cloak and capotaine hat, and placed them beside her, so that she could assume them in an instant, ere one could penetrate from the entrance of the grotto to its extremity, in case the intrusion of Varney or of Lambourne should render such disguise necessary. The dress which she wore under these vestments was somewhat of a theatrical cast, so as to suit the assumed personage of one of the females who was to act in the pageant, Wayland had found the means of arranging it thus upon the second day of their journey, having experienced the service arising from the assumption of such a character on the preceding day. The fountain, acting both as a mirror and ewer, afforded Amy the means of a brief toilette, of which she availed herself as hastily as possible; then took in her hand her small casket of jewels, in case she might find them useful intercessors, and retiring to the darkest and most sequestered nook, sat down on a seat of moss, and awaited till fate should give her some chance of rescue, or of propitiating an intercessor.
Have you not seen the partridge quake,
Viewing the hawk approaching nigh?
She cuddles close beneath the brake,
Afraid to sit, afraid to fly,
Prior.
It chanced, upon that memorable morning, that one of the earliest of the huntress train, who appeared from her chamber in full array for the chase, was the Princess for whom all these pleasures were instituted, England’s Maiden Queen. I know not if it were by chance, or out of the befitting courtesy due to a mistress by whom he was so much honoured, that she had scarcely made one step beyond the threshold of her chamber ere Leicester was by her side, and proposed to her, until the preparations for the chase had been completed, to view the Pleasance, and the gardens which it connected with the Castle yard.
To this new scene of pleasures they walked, the Earl’s arm affording his Sovereign the occasional support which she required, where flights of steps, then a favourite ornament in a garden, conducted them from terrace to terrace, and from parterre to parterre. The ladies in attendance, gifted with prudence, or endowed perhaps with the amiable desire of acting as they would be done by, did not conceive their duty to the Queen’s person required them, though they lost not sight of her, to approach so near as to share, or perhaps disturb, the conversation betwixt the Queen and the Earl, who was not only her host, but also her most trusted, esteemed, and favoured servant. They contented themselves with admiring the grace of this illustrious couple, whose robes of state were now exchanged for hunting suits, almost equally magnificent.
Elizabeth’s silvan dress, which was of a pale blue silk, with silver lace and aiguillettes, approached in form to that of the ancient Amazons, and was therefore well suited at once to her height and to the dignity of her mien, which her conscious rank and long habits of authority had rendered in some degree too masculine to be seen to the best advantage in ordinary female weeds. Leicester’s hunting suit of Lincoln green, richly embroidered with gold, and crossed by the gay baldric which sustained a bugle-horn, and a wood-knife instead of a sword, became its master, as did his other vestments of court or of war. For such were the perfections of his form and mien, that Leicester was always supposed to be seen to the greatest advantage in the character and dress which for the time he represented or wore.
The conversation of Elizabeth and the favourite Earl has not reached us in detail. But those who watched at some distance (and the eyes of courtiers and court ladies are right sharp) were of opinion that on no occasion did the dignity of Elizabeth, in gesture and motion, seem so decidedly to soften away into a mien expressive of indecision and tenderness. Her step was not only slow, but even unequal, a thing most unwonted in her carriage; her looks seemed bent on the ground; and there was a timid disposition to withdraw from her companion, which external gesture in females often indicates exactly the opposite tendency in the secret mind. The Duchess of Rutland, who ventured nearest, was even heard to aver that she discerned a tear in Elizabeth’s eye and a blush on her cheek; and still further, “She bent her looks on the ground to avoid mine,” said the Duchess, “she who, in her ordinary mood, could look down a lion.” To what conclusion these symptoms led is sufficiently evident; nor were they probably entirely groundless. The progress of a private conversation betwixt two persons of different sexes is often decisive of their fate, and gives it a turn very different perhaps from what they themselves anticipated. Gallantry becomes mingled with conversation, and affection and passion come gradually to mix with gallantry. Nobles, as well as shepherd swains, will, in such a trying moment, say more than they intended; and Queens, like village maidens, will listen longer than they should.
Horses in the meanwhile neighed and champed the bits with impatience in the base-court; hounds yelled in their couples; and yeomen, rangers, and prickers lamented the exhaling of the dew, which would prevent the scent from lying. But Leicester had another chase in view — or, to speak more justly towards him, had become engaged in it without premeditation, as the high-spirited hunter which follows the cry of the hounds that have crossed his path by accident. The Queen, an accomplished and handsome woman, the pride of England, the hope of France and Holland, and the dread of Spain, had probably listened with more than usual favour to that mixture of romantic gallantry with which she always loved to be addressed; and the Earl had, in vanity, in ambition, or in both, thrown in more and more of that delicious ingredient, until his importunity became the language of love itself.
“No, Dudley,” said Elizabeth, yet it was with broken accents — “no, I must be the mother of my people. Other ties, that make the lowly maiden happy, are denied to her Sovereign. No, Leicester, urge it no more. Were I as others, free to seek my own happiness, then, indeed — but it cannot — cannot be. Delay the chase — delay it for half an hour — and leave me, my lord.”
“How! leave you, madam?” said Leicester,—“has my madness offended you?”
“No, Leicester, not so!” answered the Queen hastily; “but it is madness, and must not be repeated. Go — but go not far from hence; and meantime let no one intrude on my privacy.”
While she spoke thus, Dudley bowed deeply, and retired with a slow and melancholy air. The Queen stood gazing after him, and murmured to herself, “Were it possible — were it but possible!— but no — no; Elizabeth must be the wife and mother of England alone.”
As she spoke thus, and in order to avoid some one whose step she heard approaching, the Queen turned into the grotto in which her hapless, and yet but too successful, rival lay concealed.
The mind of England’s Elizabeth, if somewhat shaken by the agitating interview to which she had just put a period, was of that firm and decided character which soon recovers its natural tone. It was like one of those ancient Druidical monuments called Rocking-stones. The finger of Cupid, boy as he is painted, could put her feelings in motion; but the power of Hercules could not have destroyed their equilibrium. As she advanced with a slow pace towards the inmost extremity of the grotto, her countenance, ere she had proceeded half the length, had recovered its dignity of look, and her mien its air of command.
It was then the Queen became aware that a female figure was placed beside, or rather partly behind, an alabaster column, at the foot of which arose the pellucid fountain which occupied the inmost recess of the twilight grotto. The classical mind of Elizabeth suggested the story of Numa and Egeria, and she doubted not that some Italian sculptor had here represented the Naiad whose inspirations gave laws to Rome. As she advanced, she became doubtful whether she beheld a statue, or a form of flesh and blood. The unfortunate Amy, indeed, remained motionless, betwixt the desire which she had to make her condition known to one of her own sex, and her awe for the stately form which approached her, and which, though her eyes had never before beheld, her fears instantly suspected to be the personage she really was. Amy had arisen from her seat with the purpose of addressing the lady who entered the grotto alone, and, as she at first thought, so opportunely. But when she recollected the alarm which Leicester had expressed at the Queen’s knowing aught of their union, and became more and more satisfied that the person whom she now beheld was Elizabeth herself, she stood with one foot advanced and one withdrawn, her arms, head, and hands perfectly motionless, and her cheek as pallid as the alabaster pedestal against which she leaned. Her dress was of pale sea-green silk, little distinguished in that imperfect light, and somewhat resembled the drapery of a Grecian Nymph, such an antique disguise having been thought the most secure, where so many maskers and revellers were assembled; so that the Queen’s doubt of her being a living form was well justified by all contingent circumstances, as well as by the bloodless cheek and the fixed eye.
Elizabeth remained in doubt, even after she had approached within a few paces, whether she did not gaze on a statue so cunningly fashioned that by the doubtful light it could not be distinguished from reality. She stopped, therefore, and fixed upon this interesting object her princely look with so much keenness that the astonishment which had kept Amy immovable gave way to awe, and she gradually cast down her eyes, and drooped her head under the commanding gaze of the Sovereign. Still, however, she remained in all respects, saving this slow and profound inclination of the head, motionless and silent.
From her dress, and the casket which she instinctively held in her hand, Elizabeth naturally conjectured that the beautiful but mute figure which she beheld was a performer in one of the various theatrical pageants which had been placed in different situations to surprise her with their homage; and that the poor player, overcome with awe at her presence, had either forgot the part assigned her, or lacked courage to go through it. It was natural and courteous to give her some encouragement; and Elizabeth accordingly said, in a, tone of condescending kindness, “How now, fair Nymph of this lovely grotto, art thou spell-bound and struck with dumbness by the charms of the wicked enchanter whom men term Fear? We are his sworn enemy, maiden, and can reverse his charm. Speak, we command thee.”
Instead of answering her by speech, the unfortunate Countess dropped on her knee before the Queen, let her casket fall from her hand, and clasping her palms together, looked up in the Queen’s face with such a mixed agony of fear and supplication, that Elizabeth was considerably affected.
“What may this mean?” she said; “this is a stronger passion than befits the occasion. Stand up, damsel — what wouldst thou have with us?”
“Your protection, madam,” faltered forth the unhappy petitioner.
“Each daughter of England has it while she is worthy of it,” replied the Queen; “but your distress seems to have a deeper root than a forgotten task. Why, and in what, do you crave our protection?”
Amy hastily endeavoured to recall what she were best to say, which might secure herself from the imminent dangers that surrounded her, without endangering her husband; and plunging from one thought to another, amidst the chaos which filled her mind, she could at length, in answer to the Queen’s repeated inquiries in what she sought protection, only falter out, “Alas! I know not.”
“This is folly, maiden,” said Elizabeth impatiently; for there was something in the extreme confusion of the suppliant which irritated her curiosity, as well as interested her feelings. “The sick man must tell his malady to the physician; nor are we accustomed to ask questions so oft without receiving an answer.”
“I request — I implore,” stammered forth the unfortunate Countess —“I beseech your gracious protection — against — against one Varney.” She choked well-nigh as she uttered the fatal word, which was instantly caught up by the Queen.
“What, Varney — Sir Richard Varney — the servant of Lord Leicester! what, damsel, are you to him, or he to you?”
“I— I— was his prisoner — and he practised on my life — and I broke forth to — to —”
“To throw thyself on my protection, doubtless,” said Elizabeth. “Thou shalt have it — that is, if thou art worthy; for we will sift this matter to the uttermost. Thou art,” she said, bending on the Countess an eye which seemed designed to pierce her very inmost soul —“thou art Amy, daughter of Sir Hugh Robsart of Lidcote Hall?”
“Forgive me — forgive me, most gracious Princess!” said Amy, dropping once more on her knee, from which she had arisen.
“For what should I forgive thee, silly wench?” said Elizabeth; “for being the daughter of thine own father? Thou art brain-sick, surely. Well I see I must wring the story from thee by inches. Thou didst deceive thine old and honoured father — thy look confesses it — cheated Master Tressilian — thy blush avouches it — and married this same Varney.”
Amy sprung on her feet, and interrupted the Queen eagerly with, “No, madam, no! as there is a God above us, I am not the sordid wretch you would make me! I am not the wife of that contemptible slave — of that most deliberate villain! I am not the wife of Varney! I would rather be the bride of Destruction!”
The Queen, overwhelmed in her turn by Amy’s vehemence, stood silent for an instant, and then replied, “Why, God ha’ mercy, woman! I see thou canst talk fast enough when the theme likes thee. Nay, tell me, woman,” she continued, for to the impulse of curiosity was now added that of an undefined jealousy that some deception had been practised on her —“tell me, woman — for, by God’s day, I will know — whose wife, or whose paramour, art thou! Speak out, and be speedy. Thou wert better daily with a lioness than with Elizabeth.”
Urged to this extremity, dragged as it were by irresistible force to the verge of the precipice which she saw, but could not avoid — permitted not a moment’s respite by the eager words and menacing gestures of the offended Queen, Amy at length uttered in despair, “The Earl of Leicester knows it all.”
“The Earl of Leicester!” said Elizabeth, in utter astonishment. “The Earl of Leicester!” she repeated with kindling anger. “Woman, thou art set on to this — thou dost belie him — he takes no keep of such things as thou art. Thou art suborned to slander the noblest lord and the truest-hearted gentleman in England! But were he the right hand of our trust, or something yet dearer to us, thou shalt have thy hearing, and that in his presence. Come with me — come with me instantly!”
As Amy shrunk back with terror, which the incensed Queen interpreted as that of conscious guilt, Elizabeth rapidly advanced, seized on her arm, and hastened with swift and long steps out of the grotto, and along the principal alley of the Pleasance, dragging with her the terrified Countess, whom she still held by the arm, and whose utmost exertions could but just keep pace with those of the indignant Queen.
Leicester was at this moment the centre of a splendid group of lords and ladies, assembled together under an arcade, or portico, which closed the alley. The company had drawn together in that place, to attend the commands of her Majesty when the hunting-party should go forward, and their astonishment may be imagined when, instead of seeing Elizabeth advance towards them with her usual measured dignity of motion, they beheld her walking so rapidly that she was in the midst of them ere they were aware; and then observed, with fear and surprise, that her features were flushed betwixt anger and agitation, that her hair was loosened by her haste of motion, and that her eyes sparkled as they were wont when the spirit of Henry VIII. mounted highest in his daughter. Nor were they less astonished at the appearance of the pale, attenuated, half-dead, yet still lovely female, whom the Queen upheld by main strength with one hand, while with the other she waved aside the ladies and nobles who pressed towards her, under the idea that she was taken suddenly ill. “Where is my Lord of Leicester?” she said, in a tone that thrilled with astonishment all the courtiers who stood around. “Stand forth, my Lord of Leicester!”
If, in the midst of the most serene day of summer, when all is light and laughing around, a thunderbolt were to fall from the clear blue vault of heaven, and rend the earth at the very feet of some careless traveller, he could not gaze upon the smouldering chasm, which so unexpectedly yawned before him, with half the astonishment and fear which Leicester felt at the sight that so suddenly presented itself. He had that instant been receiving, with a political affectation of disavowing and misunderstanding their meaning, the half-uttered, half-intimated congratulations of the courtiers upon the favour of the Queen, carried apparently to its highest pitch during the interview of that morning, from which most of them seemed to augur that he might soon arise from their equal in rank to become their master. And now, while the subdued yet proud smile with which he disclaimed those inferences was yet curling his cheek, the Queen shot into the circle, her passions excited to the uttermost; and supporting with one hand, and apparently without an effort, the pale and sinking form of his almost expiring wife, and pointing with the finger of the other to her half-dead features, demanded in a voice that sounded to the ears of the astounded statesman like the last dread trumpet-call that is to summon body and spirit to the judgment-seat, “Knowest thou this woman?”
As, at the blast of that last trumpet, the guilty shall call upon the mountains to cover them, Leicester’s inward thoughts invoked the stately arch which he had built in his pride to burst its strong conjunction, and overwhelm them in its ruins. But the cemented stones, architrave and battlement, stood fast; and it was the proud master himself who, as if some actual pressure had bent him to the earth, kneeled down before Elizabeth, and prostrated his brow to the marble flag-stones on which she stood.
“Leicester,” said Elizabeth, in a voice which trembled with passion, “could I think thou hast practised on me — on me thy Sovereign — on me thy confiding, thy too partial mistress, the base and ungrateful deception which thy present confusion surmises — by all that is holy, false lord, that head of thine were in as great peril as ever was thy father’s!”
Leicester had not conscious innocence, but he had pride to support him. He raised slowly his brow and features, which were black and swoln with contending emotions, and only replied, “My head cannot fall but by the sentence of my peers. To them I will plead, and not to a princess who thus requites my faithful service.”
“What! my lords,” said Elizabeth, looking around, “we are defied, I think — defied in the Castle we have ourselves bestowed on this proud man!— My Lord Shrewsbury, you are Marshal of England, attach him of high treason.”
“Whom does your Grace mean?” said Shrewsbury, much surprised, for he had that instant joined the astonished circle.
“Whom should I mean, but that traitor Dudley, Earl of Leicester! — Cousin of Hunsdon, order out your band of gentlemen pensioners, and take him into instant custody. I say, villain, make haste!”
Hunsdon, a rough old noble, who, from his relationship to the Boleyns, was accustomed to use more freedom with the Queen than almost any other dared to do, replied bluntly, “And it is like your Grace might order me to the Tower tomorrow for making too much haste. I do beseech you to be patient.”
“Patient — God’s life!” exclaimed the Queen —“name not the word to me; thou knowest not of what he is guilty!”
Amy, who had by this time in some degree recovered herself, and who saw her husband, as she conceived, in the utmost danger from the rage of an offended Sovereign, instantly (and alas! how many women have done the same) forgot her own wrongs and her own danger in her apprehensions for him, and throwing herself before the Queen, embraced her knees, while she exclaimed, “He is guiltless, madam — he is guiltless; no one can lay aught to the charge of the noble Leicester!”
“Why, minion,” answered the Queen, “didst not thou thyself say that the Earl of Leicester was privy to thy whole history?”
“Did I say so?” repeated the unhappy Amy, laying aside every consideration of consistency and of self-interest. “Oh, if I did, I foully belied him. May God so judge me, as I believe he was never privy to a thought that would harm me!”
“Woman!” said Elizabeth, “I will know who has moved thee to this; or my wrath — and the wrath of kings is a flaming fire — shall wither and consume thee like a weed in the furnace!”
As the Queen uttered this threat, Leicester’s better angel called his pride to his aid, and reproached him with the utter extremity of meanness which would overwhelm him for ever if he stooped to take shelter under the generous interposition of his wife, and abandoned her, in return for her kindness, to the resentment of the Queen. He had already raised his head with the dignity of a man of honour to avow his marriage, and proclaim himself the protector of his Countess, when Varney, born, as it appeared, to be his master’s evil genius, rushed into the presence with every mark of disorder on his face and apparel.
“What means this saucy intrusion?” said Elizabeth.
Varney, with the air of a man altogether overwhelmed with grief and confusion, prostrated himself before her feet, exclaiming, “Pardon, my Liege, pardon!— or at least let your justice avenge itself on me, where it is due; but spare my noble, my generous, my innocent patron and master!”
Amy, who was yet kneeling, started up as she saw the man whom she deemed most odious place himself so near her, and was about to fly towards Leicester, when, checked at once by the uncertainty and even timidity which his looks had reassumed as soon as the appearance of his confidant seemed to open a new scene, she hung back, and uttering a faint scream, besought of her Majesty to cause her to be imprisoned in the lowest dungeon of the Castle — to deal with her as the worst of criminals —“but spare,” she exclaimed, “my sight and hearing what will destroy the little judgment I have left — the sight of that unutterable and most shameless villain!”
“And why, sweetheart?” said the Queen, moved by a new impulse; “what hath he, this false knight, since such thou accountest him, done to thee?”
“Oh, worse than sorrow, madam, and worse than injury — he has sown dissension where most there should be peace. I shall go mad if I look longer on him!”
“Beshrew me, but I think thou art distraught already,” answered the Queen.—“My Lord Hunsdon, look to this poor distressed young woman, and let her be safely bestowed, and in honest keeping, till we require her to be forthcoming.”
Two or three of the ladies in attendance, either moved by compassion for a creature so interesting, or by some other motive, offered their services to look after her; but the Queen briefly answered, “Ladies, under favour, no. You have all (give God thanks) sharp ears and nimble tongues; our kinsman Hunsdon has ears of the dullest, and a tongue somewhat rough, but yet of the slowest.— Hunsdon, look to it that none have speech of her.”
“By Our Lady,” said Hunsdon, taking in his strong, sinewy arms the fading and almost swooning form of Amy, “she is a lovely child! and though a rough nurse, your Grace hath given her a kind one. She is safe with me as one of my own ladybirds of daughters.”
So saying, he carried her off; unresistingly and almost unconsciously, his war-worn locks and long, grey beard mingling with her light-brown tresses, as her head reclined on his strong, square shoulder. The Queen followed him with her eye. She had already, with that self-command which forms so necessary a part of a Sovereign’s accomplishments, suppressed every appearance of agitation, and seemed as if she desired to banish all traces of her burst of passion from the recollection of those who had witnessed it. “My Lord of Hunsdon says well,” she observed, “he is indeed but a rough nurse for so tender a babe.”
“My Lord of Hunsdon,” said the Dean of St. Asaph —“I speak it not in defamation of his more noble qualities — hath a broad license in speech, and garnishes his discourse somewhat too freely with the cruel and superstitious oaths which savour both of profaneness and of old Papistrie.”
“It is the fault of his blood, Mr. Dean,” said the Queen, turning sharply round upon the reverend dignitary as she spoke; “and you may blame mine for the same distemperature. The Boleyns were ever a hot and plain-spoken race, more hasty to speak their mind than careful to choose their expressions. And by my word — I hope there is no sin in that affirmation — I question if it were much cooled by mixing with that of Tudor.”
As she made this last observation she smiled graciously, and stole her eyes almost insensibly round to seek those of the Earl of Leicester, to whom she now began to think she had spoken with hasty harshness upon the unfounded suspicion of a moment.
The Queen’s eye found the Earl in no mood to accept the implied offer of conciliation. His own looks had followed, with late and rueful repentance, the faded form which Hunsdon had just borne from the presence. They now reposed gloomily on the ground, but more — so at least it seemed to Elizabeth — with the expression of one who has received an unjust affront, than of him who is conscious of guilt. She turned her face angrily from him, and said to Varney, “Speak, Sir Richard, and explain these riddles — thou hast sense and the use of speech, at least, which elsewhere we look for in vain.”
As she said this, she darted another resentful glance towards Leicester, while the wily Varney hastened to tell his own story.
“Your Majesty’s piercing eye,” he said, “has already detected the cruel malady of my beloved lady, which, unhappy that I am, I would not suffer to be expressed in the certificate of her physician, seeking to conceal what has now broken out with so much the more scandal.”
“She is then distraught?” said the Queen. “Indeed we doubted not of it; her whole demeanour bears it out. I found her moping in a corner of yonder grotto; and every word she spoke — which indeed I dragged from her as by the rack — she instantly recalled and forswore. But how came she hither? Why had you her not in safe-keeping?”
“My gracious Liege,” said Varney, “the worthy gentleman under whose charge I left her, Master Anthony Foster, has come hither but now, as fast as man and horse can travel, to show me of her escape, which she managed with the art peculiar to many who are afflicted with this malady. He is at hand for examination.”
“Let it be for another time,” said the Queen. “But, Sir Richard, we envy you not your domestic felicity; your lady railed on you bitterly, and seemed ready to swoon at beholding you.”
“It is the nature of persons in her disorder, so please your Grace,” answered Varney, “to be ever most inveterate in their spleen against those whom, in their better moments, they hold nearest and dearest.”
“We have heard so, indeed,” said Elizabeth, “and give faith to the saying.”
“May your Grace then be pleased,” said Varney, “ to command my unfortunate wife to be delivered into the custody of her friends?”
Leicester partly started; but making a strong effort, he subdued his emotion, while Elizabeth answered sharply, “You are something too hasty, Master Varney. We will have first a report of the lady’s health and state of mind from Masters, our own physician, and then determine what shall be thought just. You shall have license, however, to see her, that if there be any matrimonial quarrel betwixt you — such things we have heard do occur, even betwixt a loving couple — you may make it up, without further scandal to our court or trouble to ourselves.”
Varney bowed low, and made no other answer.
Elizabeth again looked towards Leicester, and said, with a degree of condescension which could only arise out of the most heartfelt interest, “Discord, as the Italian poet says, will find her way into peaceful convents, as well as into the privacy of families; and we fear our own guards and ushers will hardly exclude her from courts. My Lord of Leicester, you are offended with us, and we have right to be offended with you. We will take the lion’s part upon us, and be the first to forgive.”
Leicester smoothed his brow, as by an effort; but the trouble was too deep-seated that its placidity should at once return. He said, however, that which fitted the occasion, “That he could not have the happiness of forgiving, because she who commanded him to do so could commit no injury towards him.”
Elizabeth seemed content with this reply, and intimated her pleasure that the sports of the morning should proceed. The bugles sounded, the hounds bayed, the horses pranced — but the courtiers and ladies sought the amusement to which they were summoned with hearts very different from those which had leaped to the morning’s revielle. There was doubt, and fear, and expectation on every brow, and surmise and intrigue in every whisper.
Blount took an opportunity to whisper into Raleigh’s ear, “This storm came like a levanter in the Mediterranean.”
“Varium et mutabile,” answered Raleigh, in a similar tone.
“Nay, I know nought of your Latin,” said Blount; “but I thank God Tressilian took not the sea during that hurricane. He could scarce have missed shipwreck, knowing as he does so little how to trim his sails to a court gale.”
“Thou wouldst have instructed him!” said Raleigh.
“Why, I have profited by my time as well as thou, Sir Walter,” replied honest Blount. “I am knight as well as thou, and of the earlier creation.”
“Now, God further thy wit,” said Raleigh. “But for Tressilian, I would I knew what were the matter with him. He told me this morning he would not leave his chamber for the space of twelve hours or thereby, being bound by a promise. This lady’s madness, when he shall learn it, will not, I fear, cure his infirmity. The moon is at the fullest, and men’s brains are working like yeast. But hark! they sound to mount. Let us to horse, Blount; we young knights must deserve our spurs.”
Sincerity,
Thou first of virtues! let no mortal leave
Thy onward path, although the earth should gape,
And from the gulf of hell destruction cry,
To take dissimulation’s winding way.
Douglas.
It was not till after a long and successful morning’s sport, and a prolonged repast which followed the return of the Queen to the Castle, that Leicester at length found himself alone with Varney, from whom he now learned the whole particulars of the Countess’s escape, as they had been brought to Kenilworth by Foster, who, in his terror for the consequences, had himself posted thither with the tidings. As Varney, in his narrative, took especial care to be silent concerning those practices on the Countess’s health which had driven her to so desperate a resolution, Leicester, who could only suppose that she had adopted it out of jealous impatience to attain the avowed state and appearance belonging to her rank, was not a little offended at the levity with which his wife had broken his strict commands, and exposed him to the resentment of Elizabeth.
“I have given,” he said, “to this daughter of an obscure Devonshire gentleman the proudest name in England. I have made her sharer of my bed and of my fortunes. I ask but of her a little patience, ere she launches forth upon the full current of her grandeur; and the infatuated woman will rather hazard her own shipwreck and mine — will rather involve me in a thousand whirlpools, shoals, and quicksands, and compel me to a thousand devices which shame me in mine own eyes — than tarry for a little space longer in the obscurity to which she was born. So lovely, so delicate, so fond, so faithful, yet to lack in so grave a matter the prudence which one might hope from the veriest fool — it puts me beyond my patience.”
“We may post it over yet well enough,” said Varney, “if my lady will be but ruled, and take on her the character which the time commands.”
“It is but too true, Sir Richard,” said Leicester; “there is indeed no other remedy. I have heard her termed thy wife in my presence, without contradiction. She must bear the title until she is far from Kenilworth.”
“And long afterwards, I trust,” said Varney; then instantly added, “For I cannot but hope it will be long after ere she bear the title of Lady Leicester — I fear me it may scarce be with safety during the life of this Queen. But your lordship is best judge, you alone knowing what passages have taken place betwixt Elizabeth and you.”
“You are right, Varney,” said Leicester. “I have this morning been both fool and villain; and when Elizabeth hears of my unhappy marriage, she cannot but think herself treated with that premeditated slight which women never forgive. We have once this day stood upon terms little short of defiance; and to those, I fear, we must again return.”
“Is her resentment, then, so implacable?” said Varney.
“Far from it,” replied the Earl; “for, being what she is in spirit and in station, she has even this day been but too condescending, in giving me opportunities to repair what she thinks my faulty heat of temper.”
“Ay,” answered Varney; “the Italians say right — in lovers’ quarrels, the party that loves most is always most willing to acknowledge the greater fault. So then, my lord, if this union with the lady could be concealed, you stand with Elizabeth as you did?”
Leicester sighed, and was silent for a moment, ere he replied.
“Varney, I think thou art true to me, and I will tell thee all. I do not stand where I did. I have spoken to Elizabeth — under what mad impulse I know not — on a theme which cannot be abandoned without touching every female feeling to the quick, and which yet I dare not and cannot prosecute. She can never, never forgive me for having caused and witnessed those yieldings to human passion.”
“We must do something, my lord,” said Varney, “and that speedily.”
“There is nought to be done,” answered Leicester, despondingly. “I am like one that has long toiled up a dangerous precipice, and when he is within one perilous stride of the top, finds his progress arrested when retreat has become impossible. I see above me the pinnacle which I cannot reach — beneath me the abyss into which I must fall, as soon as my relaxing grasp and dizzy brain join to hurl me from my present precarious stance.”
“Think better of your situation, my lord,” said Varney; “let us try the experiment in which you have but now acquiesced. Keep we your marriage from Elizabeth’s knowledge, and all may yet be well. I will instantly go to the lady myself. She hates me, because I have been earnest with your lordship, as she truly suspects, in opposition to what she terms her rights. I care not for her prejudices — she shall listen to me; and I will show her such reasons for yielding to the pressure of the times that I doubt not to bring back her consent to whatever measures these exigencies may require.”
“No, Varney,” said Leicester; “I have thought upon what is to be done, and I will myself speak with Amy.”
It was now Varney’s turn to feel upon his own account the terrors which he affected to participate solely on account of his patron. “Your lordship will not yourself speak with the lady?”
“It is my fixed purpose,” said Leicester. “Fetch me one of the livery-cloaks; I will pass the sentinel as thy servant. Thou art to have free access to her.”
“But, my lord —”
“I will have no buts,” replied Leicester; “it shall be even thus, and not otherwise. Hunsdon sleeps, I think, in Saintlowe’s Tower. We can go thither from these apartments by the private passage, without risk of meeting any one. Or what if I do meet Hunsdon? he is more my friend than enemy, and thick-witted enough to adopt any belief that is thrust on him. Fetch me the cloak instantly.”
Varney had no alternative save obedience. In a few minutes Leicester was muffled in the mantle, pulled his bonnet over his brows, and followed Varney along the secret passage of the Castle which communicated with Hunsdon’s apartments, in which there was scarce a chance of meeting any inquisitive person, and hardly light enough for any such to have satisfied their curiosity. They emerged at a door where Lord Hunsdon had, with military precaution, placed a sentinel, one of his own northern retainers as it fortuned, who readily admitted Sir Richard Varney and his attendant, saying only, in his northern dialect, “I would, man, thou couldst make the mad lady be still yonder; for her moans do sae dirl through my head that I would rather keep watch on a snowdrift, in the wastes of Catlowdie.”
They hastily entered, and shut the door behind them.
“Now, good devil, if there be one,” said Varney, within himself, “for once help a votary at a dead pinch, for my boat is amongst the breakers!”
The Countess Amy, with her hair and her garments dishevelled, was seated upon a sort of couch, in an attitude of the deepest affliction, out of which she was startled by the opening of the door. Size turned hastily round, and fixing her eye on Varney, exclaimed, “Wretch! art thou come to frame some new plan of villainy?”
Leicester cut short her reproaches by stepping forward and dropping his cloak, while he said, in a voice rather of authority than of affection, “It is with me, madam, you have to commune, not with Sir Richard Varney.”
The change effected on the Countess’s look and manner was like magic. “Dudley!” she exclaimed, “Dudley! and art thou come at last?” And with the speed of lightning she flew to her husband, clung round his neck, and unheeding the presence of Varney, overwhelmed him with caresses, while she bathed his face in a flood of tears, muttering, at the same time, but in broken and disjointed monosyllables, the fondest expressions which Love teaches his votaries.
Leicester, as it seemed to him, had reason to be angry with his lady for transgressing his commands, and thus placing him in the perilous situation in which he had that morning stood. But what displeasure could keep its ground before these testimonies of affection from a being so lovely, that even the negligence of dress, and the withering effects of fear, grief, and fatigue, which would have impaired the beauty of others, rendered hers but the more interesting. He received and repaid her caresses with fondness mingled with melancholy, the last of which she seemed scarcely to observe, until the first transport of her own joy was over, when, looking anxiously in his face, she asked if he was ill.
“Not in my body, Amy,” was his answer.
“Then I will be well too. O Dudley! I have been ill!— very ill, since we last met!— for I call not this morning’s horrible vision a meeting. I have been in sickness, in grief, and in danger. But thou art come, and all is joy, and health, and safety!”
“Alas, Amy,” said Leicester, “thou hast undone me!”
“I, my lord?” said Amy, her cheek at once losing its transient flush of joy —“how could I injure that which I love better than myself?”
“I would not upbraid you, Amy,” replied the Earl; “but are you not here contrary to my express commands — and does not your presence here endanger both yourself and me?”
“Does it, does it indeed?” she exclaimed eagerly; “then why am I here a moment longer? Oh, if you knew by what fears I was urged to quit Cumnor Place! But I will say nothing of myself — only that if it might be otherwise, I would not willingly return thither; yet if it concern your safety —”
“We will think, Amy, of some other retreat,” said Leicester; “and you shall go to one of my northern castles, under the personage — it will be but needful, I trust, for a very few days — of Varney’s wife.”
“How, my Lord of Leicester!” said the lady, disengaging herself from his embraces; “is it to your wife you give the dishonourable counsel to acknowledge herself the bride of another — and of all men, the bride of that Varney?”
“Madam, I speak it in earnest — Varney is my true and faithful servant, trusted in my deepest secrets. I had better lose my right hand than his service at this moment. You have no cause to scorn him as you do.”
“I could assign one, my lord,” replied the Countess; “and I see he shakes even under that assured look of his. But he that is necessary as your right hand to your safety is free from any accusation of mine. May he be true to you; and that he may be true, trust him not too much or too far. But it is enough to say that I will not go with him unless by violence, nor would I acknowledge him as my husband were all —”
“It is a temporary deception, madam,” said Leicester, irritated by her opposition, “necessary for both our safeties, endangered by you through female caprice, or the premature desire to seize on a rank to which I gave you title only under condition that our marriage, for a time, should continue secret. If my proposal disgust you, it is yourself has brought it on both of us. There is no other remedy — you must do what your own impatient folly hath rendered necessary — I command you.”
“I cannot put your commands, my lord,” said Amy, “in balance with those of honour and conscience. I will not, in this instance, obey you. You may achieve your own dishonour, to which these crooked policies naturally tend, but I will do nought that can blemish mine. How could you again, my lord, acknowledge me as a pure and chaste matron, worthy to share your fortunes, when, holding that high character, I had strolled the country the acknowledged wife of such a profligate fellow as your servant Varney?”
“My lord,” said Varney interposing, “my lady is too much prejudiced against me, unhappily, to listen to what I can offer, yet it may please her better than what she proposes. She has good interest with Master Edmund Tressilian, and could doubtless prevail on him to consent to be her companion to Lidcote Hall, and there she might remain in safety until time permitted the development of this mystery.”
Leicester was silent, but stood looking eagerly on Amy, with eyes which seemed suddenly to glow as much with suspicion as displeasure.
The Countess only said, “Would to God I were in my father’s house! When I left it, I little thought I was leaving peace of mind and honour behind me.”
Varney proceeded with a tone of deliberation. “Doubtless this will make it necessary to take strangers into my lord’s counsels; but surely the Countess will be warrant for the honour of Master Tressilian, and such of her father’s family —”
“Peace, Varney,” said Leicester; “by Heaven I will strike my dagger into thee if again thou namest Tressilian as a partner of my counsels!”
“And wherefore not!” said the Countess; “unless they be counsels fitter for such as Varney, than for a man of stainless honour and integrity. My lord, my lord, bend no angry brows on me; it is the truth, and it is I who speak it. I once did Tressilian wrong for your sake; I will not do him the further injustice of being silent when his honour is brought in question. I can forbear,” she said, looking at Varney, “to pull the mask off hypocrisy, but I will not permit virtue to be slandered in my hearing.”
There was a dead pause. Leicester stood displeased, yet undetermined, and too conscious of the weakness of his cause; while Varney, with a deep and hypocritical affectation of sorrow, mingled with humility, bent his eyes on the ground.
It was then that the Countess Amy displayed, in the midst of distress and difficulty, the natural energy of character which would have rendered her, had fate allowed, a distinguished ornament of the rank which she held. She walked up to Leicester with a composed step, a dignified air, and looks in which strong affection essayed in vain to shake the firmness of conscious, truth and rectitude of principle. “You have spoken your mind, my lord,” she said, “in these difficulties, with which, unhappily, I have found myself unable to comply. This gentleman — this person I would say — has hinted at another scheme, to which I object not but as it displeases you. Will your lordship be pleased to hear what a young and timid woman, but your most affectionate wife, can suggest in the present extremity?”
Leicester was silent, but bent his head towards the Countess, as an intimation that she was at liberty to proceed.
“There hath been but one cause for all these evils, my lord,” she proceeded, “and it resolves itself into the mysterious duplicity with which you, have been induced to surround yourself. Extricate yourself at once, my lord, from the tyranny of these disgraceful trammels. Be like a true English gentleman, knight, and earl, who holds that truth is the foundation of honour, and that honour is dear to him as the breath of his nostrils. Take your ill-fated wife by the hand, lead her to the footstool of Elizabeth’s throne — say that in a moment of infatuation, moved by supposed beauty, of which none perhaps can now trace even the remains, I gave my hand to this Amy Robsart. You will then have done justice to me, my lord, and to your own honour and should law or power require you to part from me, I will oppose no objection, since I may then with honour hide a grieved and broken heart in those shades from which your love withdrew me. Then — have but a little patience, and Amy’s life will not long darken your brighter prospects.”
There was so much of dignity, so much of tenderness, in the Countess’s remonstrance, that it moved all that was noble and generous in the soul of her husband. The scales seemed to fall from his eyes, and the duplicity and tergiversation of which he had been guilty stung him at once with remorse and shame.
“I am not worthy of you, Amy,” he said, “that could weigh aught which ambition has to give against such a heart as thine. I have a bitter penance to perform, in disentangling, before sneering foes and astounded friends, all the meshes of my own deceitful policy. And the Queen — but let her take my head, as she has threatened.”
“Take your head, my lord!” said the Countess, “because you used the freedom and liberty of an English subject in choosing a wife? For shame! it is this distrust of the Queen’s justice, this apprehension of danger, which cannot but be imaginary, that, like scarecrows, have induced you to forsake the straightforward path, which, as it is the best, is also the safest.”
“Ah, Amy, thou little knowest!” said Dudley but instantly checking himself, he added, “Yet she shall not find in me a safe or easy victim of arbitrary vengeance. I have friends — I have allies — I will not, like Norfolk, be dragged to the block as a victim to sacrifice. Fear not, Amy; thou shalt see Dudley bear himself worthy of his name. I must instantly communicate with some of those friends on whom I can best rely; for, as things stand, I may be made prisoner in my own Castle.”
“Oh, my good lord,” said Amy, “make no faction in a peaceful state! There is no friend can help us so well as our own candid truth and honour. Bring but these to our assistance, and you are safe amidst a whole army of the envious and malignant. Leave these behind you, and all other defence will be fruitless. Truth, my noble lord, is well painted unarmed.”
“But Wisdom, Amy,” answered Leicester, is arrayed in panoply of proof. Argue not with me on the means I shall use to render my confession — since it must be called so — as safe as may be; it will be fraught with enough of danger, do what we will.— Varney, we must hence.— Farewell, Amy, whom I am to vindicate as mine own, at an expense and risk of which thou alone couldst be worthy. You shall soon hear further from me.”
He embraced her fervently, muffled himself as before, and accompanied Varney from the apartment. The latter, as he left the room, bowed low, and as he raised his body, regarded Amy with a peculiar expression, as if he desired to know how far his own pardon was included in the reconciliation which had taken place betwixt her and her lord. The Countess looked upon him with a fixed eye, but seemed no more conscious of his presence than if there had been nothing but vacant air on the spot where he stood.
“She has brought me to the crisis,” he muttered —“she or I am lost. There was something — I wot not if it was fear or pity — that prompted me to avoid this fatal crisis. It is now decided — she or I must perish.”
While he thus spoke, he observed, with surprise, that a boy, repulsed by the sentinel, made up to Leicester, and spoke with him. Varney was one of those politicians whom not the slightest appearances escape without inquiry. He asked the sentinel what the lad wanted with him, and received for answer that the boy had wished him to transmit a parcel to the mad lady; but that he cared not to take charge of it, such communication being beyond his commission, His curiosity satisfied in that particular, he approached his patron, and heard him say, “Well, boy, the packet shall be delivered.”
“Thanks, good Master Serving-man,” said the boy, and was out of sight in an instant.
Leicester and Varney returned with hasty steps to the Earl’s private apartment, by the same passage which had conducted them to Saintlowe’s Tower.
I have said
This is an adulteress — I have said with whom:
More, she’s a traitor, and Camillo is
A federary with her, and one that knows
What she should shame to know herself.
Winter’s Tale.
They were no sooner in the Earl’s cabinet than, taking his tablets from his pocket, he began to write, speaking partly to Varney, and partly to himself —“There are many of them close bounden to me, and especially those in good estate and high office — many who, if they look back towards my benefits, or forward towards the perils which may befall themselves, will not, I think, be disposed to see me stagger unsupported. Let me see — Knollis is sure, and through his means Guernsey and Jersey. Horsey commands in the Isle of Wight. My brother-inlaw, Huntingdon, and Pembroke, have authority in Wales. Through Bedford I lead the Puritans, with their interest, so powerful in all the boroughs. My brother of Warwick is equal, well-nigh, to myself, in wealth, followers, and dependencies. Sir Owen Hopton is at my devotion; he commands the Tower of London, and the national treasure deposited there. My father and grand-father needed never to have stooped their heads to the block had they thus forecast their enterprises.— Why look you so sad, Varney? I tell thee, a tree so deep-rooted is not so easily to be torn up by the tempest.”
“Alas! my lord,” said Varney, with well-acted passion, and then resumed the same look of despondency which Leicester had before noted.
“Alas!” repeated Leicester; “and wherefore alas, Sir Richard? Doth your new spirit of chivalry supply no more vigorous ejaculation when a noble struggle is impending? Or, if alas means thou wilt flinch from the conflict, thou mayest leave the Castle, or go join mine enemies, whichever thou thinkest best.”
“Not so, my lord,” answered his confidant; “Varney will be found fighting or dying by your side. Forgive me, if, in love to you, I see more fully than your noble heart permits you to do, the inextricable difficulties with which you are surrounded. You are strong, my lord, and powerful; yet, let me say it without offence, you are so only by the reflected light of the Queen’s favour. While you are Elizabeth’s favourite, you are all, save in name, like an actual sovereign. But let her call back the honours she has bestowed, and the prophet’s gourd did not wither more suddenly. Declare against the Queen, and I do not say that in the wide nation, or in this province alone, you would find yourself instantly deserted and outnumbered; but I will say, that even in this very Castle, and in the midst of your vassals, kinsmen, and dependants, you would be a captive, nay, a sentenced captive, should she please to say the word. Think upon Norfolk, my lord — upon the powerful Northumberland — the splendid Westmoreland;— think on all who have made head against this sage Princess. They are dead, captive, or fugitive. This is not like other thrones, which can be overturned by a combination of powerful nobles; the broad foundations which support it are in the extended love and affections of the people. You might share it with Elizabeth if you would; but neither yours, nor any other power, foreign or domestic, will avail to overthrow, or even to shake it.”
He paused, and Leicester threw his tablets from him with an air of reckless despite. “It may be as thou sayest,” he said? “and, in sooth, I care not whether truth or cowardice dictate thy forebodings. But it shall not be said I fell without a struggle.
Give orders that those of my retainers who served under me in Ireland be gradually drawn into the main Keep, and let our gentlemen and friends stand on their guard, and go armed, as if they expected arm onset from the followers of Sussex. Possess the townspeople with some apprehension; let them take arms, and be ready, at a given signal, to overpower the Pensioners and Yeomen of the Guard.”
“Let me remind you, my lord,” said Varney, with the same appearance of deep and melancholy interest, “that you have given me orders to prepare for disarming the Queen’s guard. It is an act of high treason, but you shall nevertheless be obeyed.”
“I care not,” said Leicester desperately —“I care not. Shame is behind me, ruin before me; I must on.”
Here there was another pause, which Varney at length broke with the following words: “It is come to the point I have long dreaded. I must either witness, like an ungrateful beast, the downfall of the best and kindest of masters, or I must speak what I would have buried in the deepest oblivion, or told by any other mouth than mine.”
“What is that thou sayest, or wouldst say?” replied the Earl; “we have no time to waste on words when the times call us to action.”
“My speech is soon made, my lord-would to God it were as soon answered! Your marriage is the sole cause of the threatened breach with your Sovereign, my lord, is it not?”
“Thou knowest it is!” replied Leicester. “What needs so fruitless a question?”
“Pardon me, my lord,” said Varney; “the use lies here. Men will wager their lands and lives in defence of a rich diamond, my lord; but were it not first prudent to look if there is no flaw in it?”
“What means this?” said Leicester, with eyes sternly fixed on his dependant; “of whom dost thou dare to speak?”
“It is — of the Countess Amy, my lord, of whom I am unhappily bound to speak; and of whom I will speak, were your lordship to kill me for my zeal.”
“Thou mayest happen to deserve it at my hand,” said the Earl; “but speak on, I will hear thee.”
“Nay, then, my lord, I will be bold. I speak for my own life as well as for your lordship’s. I like not this lady’s tampering and trickstering with this same Edmund Tressilian. You know him, my lord. You know he had formerly an interest in her, which it cost your lordship some pains to supersede. You know the eagerness with which he has pressed on the suit against me in behalf of this lady, the open object of which is to drive your lordship to an avowal of what I must ever call your most unhappy marriage, the point to which my lady also is willing, at any risk, to urge you.”
Leicester smiled constrainedly. “Thou meanest well, good Sir Richard, and wouldst, I think, sacrifice thine own honour, as well as that of any other person, to save me from what thou thinkest a step so terrible. But remember”— he spoke these words with the most stern decision —“you speak of the Countess of Leicester.”
“I do, my lord,” said Varney; “but it is for the welfare of the Earl of Leicester. My tale is but begun. I do most strongly believe that this Tressilian has, from the beginning of his moving in her cause, been in connivance with her ladyship the Countess.”
“Thou speakest wild madness, Varney, with the sober face of a preacher. Where, or how, could they communicate together?”
“My lord,” said Varney, “unfortunately I can show that but too well. It was just before the supplication was presented to the Queen, in Tressilian’s name, that I met him, to my utter astonishment, at the postern gate which leads from the demesne at Cumnor Place.”
“Thou met’st him, villain! and why didst thou not strike him dead?” exclaimed Leicester.
“I drew on him, my lord, and he on me; and had not my foot slipped, he would not, perhaps, have been again a stumbling-block in your lordship’s path.”
Leicester seemed struck dumb with surprise. At length he answered, “What other evidence hast thou of this, Varney, save thine own assertion?— for, as I will punish deeply, I will examine coolly and warily. Sacred Heaven!— but no — I will examine coldly and warily-coldly and warily.” He repeated these words more than once to himself, as if in the very sound there was a sedative quality; and again compressing his lips, as if he feared some violent expression might escape from them, he asked again, “What further proof?”
“Enough, my lord,” said Varney, “and to spare. I would it rested with me alone, for with me it might have been silenced for ever. But my servant, Michael Lambourne, witnessed the whole, and was, indeed, the means of first introducing Tressilian into Cumnor Place; and therefore I took him into my service, and retained him in it, though something of a debauched fellow, that I might have his tongue always under my own command.” He then acquainted Lord Leicester how easy it was to prove the circumstance of their interview true, by evidence of Anthony Foster, with the corroborative testimonies of the various persons at Cumnor, who had heard the wager laid, and had seen Lambourne and Tressilian set off together. In the whole narrative, Varney hazarded nothing fabulous, excepting that, not indeed by direct assertion, but by inference, he led his patron to suppose that the interview betwixt Amy and Tressilian at Cumnor Place had been longer than the few minutes to which it was in reality limited.
“And wherefore was I not told of all this?” said Leicester sternly. “Why did all of ye — and in particular thou, Varney — keep back from me such material information?”
“Because, my lord,” replied Varney, “the Countess pretended to Foster and to me that Tressilian had intruded himself upon her; and I concluded their interview had been in all honour, and that she would at her own time tell it to your lordship. Your lordship knows with what unwilling ears we listen to evil surmises against those whom we love; and I thank Heaven I am no makebate or informer, to be the first to sow them.”
“You are but too ready to receive them, however, Sir Richard,” replied his patron. “How knowest thou that this interview was not in all honour, as thou hast said? Methinks the wife of the Earl of Leicester might speak for a short time with such a person as Tressilian without injury to me or suspicion to herself.”
“Questionless, my lord,” answered Varney, “Had I thought otherwise, I had been no keeper of the secret. But here lies the rub — Tressilian leaves not the place without establishing a correspondence with a poor man, the landlord of an inn in Cumnor, for the purpose of carrying off the lady. He sent down an emissary of his, whom I trust soon to have in right sure keeping under Mervyn’s Tower — Killigrew and Lambsbey are scouring the country in quest of him. The host is rewarded with a ring for keeping counsel — your lordship may have noted it on Tressilian’s hand — here it is. This fellow, this agent, makes his way to the place as a pedlar; holds conferences with the lady, and they make their escape together by night; rob a poor fellow of a horse by the way, such was their guilty haste, and at length reach this Castle, where the Countess of Leicester finds refuge — I dare not say in what place.”
“Speak, I command thee,” said Leicester —“speak, while I retain sense enough to hear thee.”
“Since it must be so,” answered Varney, “the lady resorted immediately to the apartment of Tressilian, where she remained many hours, partly in company with him, and partly alone. I told you Tressilian had a paramour in his chamber; I little dreamed that paramour was —”
“Amy, thou wouldst say,” answered Leicester; “but it is false, false as the smoke of hell! Ambitious she may be — fickle and impatient —’tis a woman’s fault; but false to me!— never, never. The proof — the proof of this!” he exclaimed hastily.
“Carrol, the Deputy Marshal, ushered her thither by her own desire, on yesterday afternoon; Lambourne and the Warder both found her there at an early hour this morning,”
“Was Tressilian there with her?” said Leicester, in the same hurried tone.
“No, my lord. You may remember,” answered Varney, “that he was that night placed with Sir Nicholas Blount, under a species of arrest.”
“Did Carrol, or the other fellows, know who she was?” demanded Leicester.
“No, my lord,” replied Varney; “Carrol and the Warder had never seen the Countess, and Lambourne knew her not in her disguise. But in seeking to prevent her leaving the cell, he obtained possession of one of her gloves, which, I think, your lordship may know.”
He gave the glove, which had the Bear and Ragged Staff, the Earl’s impress, embroidered upon it in seed-pearls.
“I do — I do recognize it,” said Leicester. “They were my own gift. The fellow of it was on the arm which she threw this very day around my neck!” He spoke this with violent agitation.
“Your lordship,” said Varney, “might yet further inquire of the lady herself respecting the truth of these passages.”
“It needs not — it needs not,” said the tortured Earl; “it is written in characters of burning light, as if they were branded on my very eyeballs! I see her infamy-I can see nought else; and — gracious Heaven!— for this vile woman was I about to commit to danger the lives of so many noble friends, shake the foundation of a lawful throne, carry the sword and torch through the bosom of a peaceful land, wrong the kind mistress who made me what I am, and would, but for that hell-framed marriage, have made me all that man can be! All this I was ready to do for a woman who trinkets and traffics with my worst foes!— And thou, villain, why didst thou not speak sooner?”
“My lord,” said Varney, “a tear from my lady would have blotted out all I could have said. Besides, I had not these proofs until this very morning, when Anthony Foster’s sudden arrival with the examinations and declarations, which he had extorted from the innkeeper Gosling and others, explained the manner of her flight from Cumnor Place, and my own researches discovered the steps which she had taken here.”
“Now, may God be praised for the light He has given! so full, so satisfactory, that there breathes not a man in England who shall call my proceeding rash, or my revenge unjust.— And yet, Varney, so young, so fair, so fawning, and so false! Hence, then, her hatred to thee, my trusty, my well-beloved servant, because you withstood her plots, and endangered her paramour’s life!”
“I never gave her any other cause of dislike, my lord,” replied Varney. “But she knew that my counsels went directly to diminish her influence with your lordship; and that I was, and have been, ever ready to peril my life against your enemies.”
“It is too, too apparent,” replied Leicester “yet with what an air of magnanimity she exhorted me to commit my head to the Queen’s mercy, rather than wear the veil of falsehood a moment longer! Methinks the angel of truth himself can have no such tones of high-souled impulse. Can it be so, Varney?— can falsehood use thus boldly the language of truth?— can infamy thus assume the guise of purity? Varney, thou hast been my servant from a child. I have raised thee high — can raise thee higher. Think, think for me!— thy brain was ever shrewd and piercing — may she not be innocent? Prove her so, and all I have yet done for thee shall be as nothing — nothing, in comparison of thy recompense!”
The agony with which his master spoke had some effect even on the hardened Varney, who, in the midst of his own wicked and ambitious designs, really loved his patron as well as such a wretch was capable of loving anything. But he comforted himself, and subdued his self-reproaches, with the reflection that if he inflicted upon the Earl some immediate and transitory pain, it was in order to pave his way to the throne, which, were this marriage dissolved by death or otherwise, he deemed Elizabeth would willingly share with his benefactor. He therefore persevered in his diabolical policy; and after a moment’s consideration, answered the anxious queries of the Earl with a melancholy look, as if he had in vain sought some exculpation for the Countess; then suddenly raising his head, he said, with an expression of hope, which instantly communicated itself to the countenance of his patron —“Yet wherefore, if guilty, should she have perilled herself by coming hither? Why not rather have fled to her father’s, or elsewhere?— though that, indeed, might have interfered with her desire to be acknowledged as Countess of Leicester.”
“True, true, true!” exclaimed Leicester, his transient gleam of hope giving way to the utmost bitterness of feeling and expression; “thou art not fit to fathom a woman’s depth of wit, Varney. I see it all. She would not quit the estate and title of the wittol who had wedded her. Ay, and if in my madness I had started into rebellion, or if the angry Queen had taken my head, as she this morning threatened, the wealthy dower which law would have assigned to the Countess Dowager of Leicester had been no bad windfall to the beggarly Tressilian. Well might she goad me on to danger, which could not end otherwise than profitably to her,— Speak not for her, Varney! I will have her blood!”
“My lord,” replied Varney, “the wildness of your distress breaks forth in the wildness of your language,”
“I say, speak not for her!” replied Leicester; “she has dishonoured me — she would have murdered me — all ties are burst between us. She shall die the death of a traitress and adulteress, well merited both by the laws of God and man! And — what is this casket,” he said, “which was even now thrust into my hand by a boy, with the desire I would convey it to Tressilian, as he could not give it to the Countess? By Heaven! the words surprised me as he spoke them, though other matters chased them from my brain; but now they return with double force. It is her casket of jewels!— Force it open, Varney — force the hinges open with thy poniard!”
“She refused the aid of my dagger once,” thought Varney, as he unsheathed the weapon, “to cut the string which bound a letter, but now it shall work a mightier ministry in her fortunes.”
With this reflection, by using the three-cornered stiletto-blade as a wedge, he forced open the slender silver hinges of the casket. The Earl no sooner saw them give way than he snatched the casket from Sir Richard’s hand, wrenched off the cover, and tearing out the splendid contents, flung them on the floor in a transport of rage, while he eagerly searched for some letter or billet which should make the fancied guilt of his innocent Countess yet more apparent. Then stamping furiously on the gems, he exclaimed, “Thus I annihilate the miserable toys for which thou hast sold thyself, body and soul — consigned thyself to an early and timeless death, and me to misery and remorse for ever! — Tell me not of forgiveness, Varney — she is doomed!”
So saying, he left the room, and rushed into an adjacent closet, the door of which he locked and bolted.
Varney looked after him, while something of a more human feeling seemed to contend with his habitual sneer. “I am sorry for his weakness,” he said, “but love has made him a child. He throws down and treads on these costly toys-with the same vehemence would he dash to pieces this frailest toy of all, of which he used to rave so fondly. But that taste also will be forgotten when its object is no more. Well, he has no eye to value things as they deserve, and that nature has given to Varney. When Leicester shall be a sovereign, he will think as little of the gales of passion through which he gained that royal port, as ever did sailor in harbour of the perils of a voyage. But these tell-tale articles must not remain here — they are rather too rich vails for the drudges who dress the chamber.”
While Varney was employed in gathering together and putting them into a secret drawer of a cabinet that chanced to be open, he saw the door of Leicester’s closet open, the tapestry pushed aside, and the Earl’s face thrust out, but with eyes so dead, and lips and cheeks so bloodless and pale, that he started at the sudden change. No sooner did his eyes encounter the Earl’s, than the latter withdrew his head and shut the door of the closet. This manoeuvre Leicester repeated twice, without speaking a word, so that Varney began to doubt whether his brain was not actually affected by his mental agony. The third time, however, he beckoned, and Varney obeyed the signal. When he entered, he soon found his patron’s perturbation was not caused by insanity, but by the fullness of purpose which he entertained contending with various contrary passions. They passed a full hour in close consultation; after which the Earl of Leicester, with an incredible exertion, dressed himself, and went to attend his royal guest.
You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting
With most admired disorder.
Macbeth.
It was afterwards remembered that during the banquets and revels which occupied the remainder of this eventful day the bearing of Leicester and of Varney were totally different from their usual demeanour. Sir Richard Varney had been held rather a man of counsel and of action than a votary of pleasure. Business, whether civil or military, seemed always to be his proper sphere; and while in festivals and revels, although he well understood how to trick them up and present them, his own part was that of a mere spectator; or if he exercised his wit, it was in a rough, caustic, and severe manner, rather as if he scoffed at the exhibition and the guests than shared the common pleasure.
But upon the present day his character seemed changed. He mixed among the younger courtiers and ladies, and appeared for the moment to be actuated by a spirit of light-hearted gaiety, which rendered him a match for the liveliest. Those who had looked upon him as a man given up to graver and more ambitious pursuits, a bitter sneerer and passer of sarcasms at the expense of those who, taking life as they find it, were disposed to snatch at each pastime it presents, now perceived with astonishment that his wit could carry as smooth an edge as their own, his laugh be as lively, and his brow as unclouded. By what art of damnable hypocrisy he could draw this veil of gaiety over the black thoughts of one of the worst of human bosoms must remain unintelligible to all but his compeers, if any such ever existed; but he was a man of extraordinary powers, and those powers were unhappily dedicated in all their energy to the very worst of purposes.
It was entirely different with Leicester. However habituated his mind usually was to play the part of a good courtier, and appear gay, assiduous, and free from all care but that of enhancing the pleasure of the moment, while his bosom internally throbbed with the pangs of unsatisfied ambition, jealousy, or resentment, his heart had now a yet more dreadful guest, whose workings could not be overshadowed or suppressed; and you might read in his vacant eye and troubled brow that his thoughts were far absent from the scenes in which he was compelling himself to play a part. He looked, moved, and spoke as if by a succession of continued efforts; and it seemed as if his will had in some degree lost the promptitude of command over the acute mind and goodly form of which it was the regent. His actions and gestures, instead of appearing the consequence of simple volition, seemed, like those of an automaton, to wait the revolution of some internal machinery ere they could be performed; and his words fell from him piecemeal, interrupted, as if he had first to think what he was to say, then how it was to be said, and as if, after all, it was only by an effort of continued attention that he completed a sentence without forgetting both the one and the other.
The singular effects which these distractions of mind produced upon the behaviour and conversation of the most accomplished courtier of England, as they were visible to the lowest and dullest menial who approached his person, could not escape the notice of the most intelligent Princess of the age. Nor is there the least doubt that the alternate negligence and irregularity of his manner would have called down Elizabeth’s severe displeasure on the Earl of Leicester, had it not occurred to her to account for it by supposing that the apprehension of that displeasure which she had expressed towards him with such vivacity that very morning was dwelling upon the spirits of her favourite, and, spite of his efforts to the contrary, distracted the usual graceful tenor of his mien and the charms of his conversation. When this idea, so flattering to female vanity, had once obtained possession of her mind, it proved a full and satisfactory apology for the numerous errors and mistakes of the Earl of Leicester; and the watchful circle around observed with astonishment, that, instead of resenting his repeated negligence, and want of even ordinary attention (although these were points on which she was usually extremely punctilious), the Queen sought, on the contrary, to afford him time and means to recollect himself, and deigned to assist him in doing so, with an indulgence which seemed altogether inconsistent with her usual character. It was clear, however, that this could not last much longer, and that Elizabeth must finally put another and more severe construction on Leicester’s uncourteous conduct, when the Earl was summoned by Varney to speak with him in a different apartment.
After having had the message twice delivered to him, he rose, and was about to withdraw, as it were, by instinct; then stopped, and turning round, entreated permission of the Queen to absent himself for a brief space upon matters of pressing importance.
“Go, my lord,” said the Queen. “We are aware our presence must occasion sudden and unexpected occurrences, which require to be provided for on the instant. Yet, my lord, as you would have us believe ourself your welcome and honoured guest, we entreat you to think less of our good cheer, and favour us with more of your good countenance than we have this day enjoyed; for whether prince or peasant be the guest, the welcome of the host will always be the better part of the entertainment. Go, my lord; and we trust to see you return with an unwrinkled brow, and those free thoughts which you are wont to have at the disposal of your friends.”
Leicester only bowed low in answer to this rebuke, and retired. At the door of the apartment he was met by Varney, who eagerly drew him apart, and whispered in his ear, “All is well!”
“Has Masters seen her?” said the Earl.
“He has, my lord; and as she would neither answer his queries, nor allege any reason for her refusal, he will give full testimony that she labours under a mental disorder, and may be best committed to the charge of her friends. The opportunity is therefore free to remove her as we proposed.”
“But Tressilian?” said Leicester.
“He will not know of her departure for some time,” replied Varney; “it shall take place this very evening, and tomorrow he shall be cared for.”
“No, by my soul,” answered Leicester; “I will take vengeance on him with mine own hand!”
“You, my lord, and on so inconsiderable a man as Tressilian! No, my lord, he hath long wished to visit foreign parts. Trust him to me — I will take care he returns not hither to tell tales.”
“Not so, by Heaven, Varney!” exclaimed Leicester. “Inconsiderable do you call an enemy that hath had power to wound me so deeply that my whole after-life must be one scene of remorse and misery?— No; rather than forego the right of doing myself justice with my own hand on that accursed villain, I will unfold the whole truth at Elizabeth’s footstool, and let her vengeance descend at once on them and on myself.”
Varney saw with great alarm that his lord was wrought up to such a pitch of agitation, that if he gave not way to him he was perfectly capable of adopting the desperate resolution which he had announced, and which was instant ruin to all the schemes of ambition which Varney had formed for his patron and for himself. But the Earl’s rage seemed at once uncontrollable and deeply concentrated, and while he spoke his eyes shot fire, his voice trembled with excess of passion, and the light foam stood on his lip.
His confidant made a bold and successful effort to obtain the mastery of him even in this hour of emotion. “My lord,” he said, leading him to a mirror, “behold your reflection in that glass, and think if these agitated features belong to one who, in a condition so extreme, is capable of forming a resolution for himself”
“What, then, wouldst thou make me?” said Leicester, struck at the change in his own physiognomy, though offended at the freedom with which Varney made the appeal. “Am I to be thy ward, thy vassal,— the property and subject of my servant?”
“No, my lord,” said Varney firmly, “but be master of yourself, and of your own passion. My lord, I, your born servant, am ashamed to see how poorly you bear yourself in the storm of fury. Go to Elizabeth’s feet, confess your marriage — impeach your wife and her paramour of adultery — and avow yourself, amongst all your peers, the wittol who married a country girl, and was cozened by her and her book-learned gallant. Go, my lord — but first take farewell of Richard Varney, with all the benefits you ever conferred on him. He served the noble, the lofty, the high-minded Leicester, and was more proud of depending on him than he would be of commanding thousands. But the abject lord who stoops to every adverse circumstance, whose judicious resolves are scattered like chaff before every wind of passion, him Richard Varney serves not. He is as much above him in constancy of mind as beneath him in rank and fortune.”
Varney spoke thus without hypocrisy, for though the firmness of mind which he boasted was hardness and impenetrability, yet he really felt the ascendency which he vaunted; while the interest which he actually felt in the fortunes of Leicester gave unusual emotion to his voice and manner.
Leicester was overpowered by his assumed superiority it seemed to the unfortunate Earl as if his last friend was about to abandon him. He stretched his hand towards Varney as he uttered the words, “Do not leave me. What wouldst thou have me do?”
“Be thyself, my noble master,” said Varney, touching the Earl’s hand with his lips, after having respectfully grasped it in his own; “be yourself, superior to those storms of passion which wreck inferior minds. Are you the first who has been cozened in love — the first whom a vain and licentious woman has cheated into an affection, which she has afterwards scorned and misused? And will you suffer yourself to be driven frantic because you have not been wiser than the wisest men whom the world has seen? Let her be as if she had not been — let her pass from your memory, as unworthy of ever having held a place there. Let your strong resolve of this morning, which I have both courage, zeal, and means enough to execute, be like the fiat of a superior being, a passionless act of justice. She hath deserved death — let her die!”
While he was speaking, the Earl held his hand fast, compressed his lips hard, and frowned, as if he laboured to catch from Varney a portion of the cold, ruthless, and dispassionate firmness which he recommended. When he was silent, the Earl still continued to rasp his hand, until, with an effort at calm decision, he was able to articulate, “Be it so — she dies! But one tear might be permitted.”
“Not one, my lord,” interrupted Varney, who saw by the quivering eye and convulsed cheek of his patron that he was about to give way to a burst of emotion —“not a tear — the time permits it not. Tressilian must be thought of —”
“That indeed is a name,” said the Earl, “to convert tears into blood. Varney, I have thought on this, and I have determined — neither entreaty nor argument shall move me — Tressilian shall be my own victim.”
“It is madness, my lord; but you are too mighty for me to bar your way to your revenge. Yet resolve at least to choose fitting time and opportunity, and to forbear him until these shall be found.”
“Thou shalt order me in what thou wilt,” said Leicester, “only thwart me not in this.”
“Then, my lord,” said Varney, “I first request of you to lay aside the wild, suspected, and half-frenzied demeanour which hath this day drawn the eyes of all the court upon you, and which, but for the Queen’s partial indulgence, which she hath extended towards you in a degree far beyond her nature, she had never given you the opportunity to atone for.”
“Have I indeed been so negligent?” said Leicester, as one who awakes from a dream. “I thought I had coloured it well. But fear nothing, my mind is now eased — I am calm. My horoscope shall be fulfilled; and that it may be fulfilled, I will tax to the highest every faculty of my mind. Fear me not, I say. I will to the Queen instantly — not thine own looks and language shall be more impenetrable than mine. Hast thou aught else to say?”
“I must crave your signet-ring,” said Varney gravely, “in token to those of your servants whom I must employ, that I possess your full authority in commanding their aid.”
Leicester drew off the signet-ring which he commonly used, and gave it to Varney, with a haggard and stern expression of countenance, adding only, in a low, half-whispered tone, but with terrific emphasis, the words, “What thou dost, do quickly.”
Some anxiety and wonder took place, meanwhile, in the presence-hall, at the prolonged absence of the noble Lord of the Castle, and great was the delight of his friends when they saw him enter as a man from whose bosom, to all human seeming, a weight of care had been just removed. Amply did Leicester that day redeem the pledge he had given to Varney, who soon saw himself no longer under the necessity of maintaining a character so different from his own as that which he had assumed in the earlier part of the day, and gradually relapsed into the same grave, shrewd, caustic observer of conversation and incident which constituted his usual part in society.
With Elizabeth, Leicester played his game as one to whom her natural strength of talent and her weakness in one or two particular points were well known. He was too wary to exchange on a sudden the sullen personage which he had played before he retired with Varney; but on approaching her it seemed softened into a melancholy, which had a touch of tenderness in it, and which, in the course of conversing with Elizabeth, and as she dropped in compassion one mark of favour after another to console him, passed into a flow of affectionate gallantry, the most assiduous, the most delicate, the most insinuating, yet at the same time the most respectful, with which a Queen was ever addressed by a subject. Elizabeth listened as in a sort of enchantment. Her jealousy of power was lulled asleep; her resolution to forsake all social or domestic ties, and dedicate herself exclusively to the care of her people, began to be shaken; and once more the star of Dudley culminated in the court horizon.
But Leicester did not enjoy this triumph over nature, and over conscience, without its being embittered to him, not only by the internal rebellion of his feelings against the violence which he exercised over them, but by many accidental circumstances, which, in the course of the banquet, and during the subsequent amusements of the evening, jarred upon that nerve, the least vibration of which was agony.
The courtiers were, for example, in the Great Hall, after having left the banqueting-room, awaiting the appearance of a splendid masque, which was the expected entertainment of this evening, when the Queen interrupted a wild career of wit which the Earl of Leicester was running against Lord Willoughby, Raleigh, and some other courtiers, by saying, “We will impeach you of high treason, my lord, if you proceed in this attempt to slay us with laughter. And here comes a thing may make us all grave at his pleasure, our learned physician Masters, with news belike of our poor suppliant, Lady Varney;— nay, my lord, we will not have you leave us, for this being a dispute betwixt married persons, we do not hold our own experience deep enough to decide thereon without good counsel.— How now, Masters, what thinkest thou of the runaway bride?”
The smile with which Leicester had been speaking, when the Queen interrupted him, remained arrested on his lips, as if it had been carved there by the chisel of Michael Angelo or of Chantrey; and he listened to the speech of the physician with the same immovable cast of countenance.
“The Lady Varney, gracious Sovereign,” said the court physician Masters, “is sullen, and would hold little conference with me touching the state of her health, talking wildly of being soon to plead her own cause before your own presence, and of answering no meaner person’s inquiries.”
“Now the heavens forfend!” said the Queen; “we have already suffered from the misconstructions and broils which seem to follow this poor brain-sick lady wherever she comes.— Think you not so, my lord?” she added, appealing to Leicester with something in her look that indicated regret, even tenderly expressed, for their disagreement of that morning. Leicester compelled himself to bow low. The utmost force he could exert was inadequate to the further effort of expressing in words his acquiescence in the Queen’s sentiment.
“You are vindictive,” she said, “my lord; but we will find time and place to punish you. But once more to this same trouble-mirth, this Lady Varney. What of her health, Masters?”
“She is sullen, madam, as I already said,” replied Masters, “and refuses to answer interrogatories, or be amenable to the authority of the mediciner. I conceive her to be possessed with a delirium, which I incline to term rather hypochondria than phrenesis; and I think she were best cared for by her husband in his own house, and removed from all this bustle of pageants, which disturbs her weak brain with the most fantastic phantoms. She drops hints as if she were some great person in disguise — some Countess or Princess perchance. God help them, such are often the hallucinations of these infirm persons!”
“Nay, then,” said the Queen, “away with her with all speed. Let Varney care for her with fitting humanity; but let them rid the Castle of her forthwith she will think herself lady of all, I warrant you. It is pity so fair a form, however, should have an infirm understanding.— What think you, my lord?”
“It is pity indeed,” said the Earl, repeating the words like a task which was set him.
“But, perhaps,” said Elizabeth, “you do not join with us in our opinion of her beauty; and indeed we have known men prefer a statelier and more Juno-like form to that drooping fragile one that hung its head like a broken lily. Ay, men are tyrants, my lord, who esteem the animation of the strife above the triumph of an unresisting conquest, and, like sturdy champions, love best those women who can wage contest with them.— I could think with you, Rutland, that give my Lord of Leicester such a piece of painted wax for a bride, he would have wished her dead ere the end of the honeymoon.”
As she said this, she looked on Leicester so expressively that, while his heart revolted against the egregious falsehood, he did himself so much violence as to reply in a whisper that Leicester’s love was more lowly than her Majesty deemed, since it was settled where he could never command, but must ever obey.
The Queen blushed, and bid him be silent; yet looked as of she expected that he would not obey her commands. But at that moment the flourish of trumpets and kettle-drums from a high balcony which overlooked the hall announced the entrance of the maskers, and relieved Leicester from the horrible state of constraint and dissimulation in which the result of his own duplicity had placed him.
The masque which entered consisted of four separate bands, which followed each other at brief intervals, each consisting of six principal persons and as many torch-bearers, and each representing one of the various nations by which England had at different times been occupied.
The aboriginal Britons, who first entered, were ushered in by two ancient Druids, whose hoary hair was crowned with a chaplet of oak, and who bore in their hands branches of mistletoe. The maskers who followed these venerable figures were succeeded by two Bards, arrayed in white, and bearing harps, which they occasionally touched, singing at the same time certain stanzas of an ancient hymn to Belus, or the Sun. The aboriginal Britons had been selected from amongst the tallest and most robust young gentlemen in attendance on the court. Their masks were accommodated with long, shaggy beards and hair; their vestments were of the hides of wolves and bears; while their legs, arms, and the upper parts of their bodies, being sheathed in flesh-coloured silk, on which were traced in grotesque lines representations of the heavenly bodies, and of animals and other terrestrial objects, gave them the lively appearance of our painted ancestors, whose freedom was first trenched upon by the Romans.
The sons of Rome, who came to civilize as well as to conquer, were next produced before the princely assembly; and the manager of the revels had correctly imitated the high crest and military habits of that celebrated people, accommodating them with the light yet strong buckler and the short two-edged sword, the use of which had made them victors of the world. The Roman eagles were borne before them by two standard-bearers, who recited a hymn to Mars, and the classical warriors followed with the grave and haughty step of men who aspired at universal conquest.
The third quadrille represented the Saxons, clad in the bearskins which they had brought with them from the German forests, and bearing in their hands the redoubtable battle-axes which made such havoc among the natives of Britain. They were preceded by two Scalds, who chanted the praises of Odin.
Last came the knightly Normans, in their mail-shirts and hoods of steel, with all the panoply of chivalry, and marshalled by two Minstrels, who sang of war and ladies’ love.
These four bands entered the spacious hall with the utmost order, a short pause being made, that the spectators might satisfy their curiosity as to each quadrille before the appearance of the next. They then marched completely round the hall, in order the more fully to display themselves, regulating their steps to organs, shalms, hautboys, and virginals, the music of the Lord Leicester’s household. At length the four quadrilles of maskers, ranging their torch-bearers behind them, drew up in their several ranks on the two opposite sides of the hall, so that the Romans confronting the Britons, and the Saxons the Normans, seemed to look on each other with eyes of wonder, which presently appeared to kindle into anger, expressed by menacing gestures. At the burst of a strain of martial music from the gallery the maskers drew their swords on all sides, and advanced against each other in the measured steps of a sort of Pyrrhic or military dance, clashing their swords against their adversaries’ shields, and clattering them against their blades as they passed each other in the progress of the dance. It was a very pleasant spectacle to see how the various bands, preserving regularity amid motions which seemed to be totally irregular, mixed together, and then disengaging themselves, resumed each their own original rank as the music varied.
In this symbolical dance were represented the conflicts which had taken place among the various nations which had anciently inhabited Britain.
At length, after many mazy evolutions, which afforded great pleasure to the spectators, the sound of a loud-voiced trumpet was heard, as if it blew for instant battle, or for victory won. The maskers instantly ceased their mimic strife, and collecting themselves under their original leaders, or presenters, for such was the appropriate phrase, seemed to share the anxious expectation which the spectators experienced concerning what was next to appear.
The doors of the hall were thrown wide, and no less a person entered than the fiend-born Merlin, dressed in a strange and mystical attire, suited to his ambiguous birth and magical power.
About him and behind him fluttered or gambolled many extraordinary forms, intended to represent the spirits who waited to do his powerful bidding; and so much did this part of the pageant interest the menials and others of the lower class then in the Castle, that many of them forgot even the reverence due to the Queen’s presence, so far as to thrust themselves into the lower part of the hall.
The Earl of Leicester, seeing his officers had some difficulty to repel these intruders, without more disturbance than was fitting where the Queen was in presence, arose and went himself to the bottom of the hall; Elizabeth, at the same time, with her usual feeling for the common people, requesting that they might be permitted to remain undisturbed to witness the pageant. Leicester went under this pretext; but his real motive was to gain a moment to himself, and to relieve his mind, were it but for one instant, from the dreadful task of hiding, under the guise of gaiety and gallantry, the lacerating pangs of shame, anger, remorse, and thirst for vengeance. He imposed silence by his look and sign upon the vulgar crowd at the lower end of the apartment; but instead of instantly returning to wait on her Majesty, he wrapped his cloak around him, and mixing with the crowd, stood in some degree an undistinguished spectator of the progress of the masque.
Merlin having entered, and advanced into the midst of the hall, summoned the presenters of the contending bands around him by a wave of his magical rod, and announced to them, in a poetical speech, that the isle of Britain was now commanded by a Royal Maiden, to whom it was the will of fate that they should all do homage, and request of her to pronounce on the various pretensions which each set forth to be esteemed the pre-eminent stock, from which the present natives, the happy subjects of that angelical Princess, derived their lineage.
In obedience to this mandate, the bands, each moving to solemn music, passed in succession before Elizabeth, doing her, as they passed, each after the fashion of the people whom they represented, the lowest and most devotional homage, which she returned with the same gracious courtesy that had marked her whole conduct since she came to Kenilworth.
The presenters of the several masques or quadrilles then alleged, each in behalf of his own troop, the reasons which they had for claiming pre-eminence over the rest; and when they had been all heard in turn, she returned them this gracious answer: “That she was sorry she was not better qualified to decide upon the doubtful question which had been propounded to her by the direction of the famous Merlin, but that it seemed to her that no single one of these celebrated nations could claim pre-eminence over the others, as having most contributed to form the Englishman of her own time, who unquestionably derived from each of them some worthy attribute of his character. Thus,” she said, “the Englishman had from the ancient Briton his bold and tameless spirit of freedom; from the Roman his disciplined courage in war, with his love of letters and civilization in time of peace; from the Saxon his wise and equitable laws; and from the chivalrous Norman his love of honour and courtesy, with his generous desire for glory.”
Merlin answered with readiness that it did indeed require that so many choice qualities should meet in the English, as might render them in some measure the muster of the perfections of other nations, since that alone could render them in some degree deserving of the blessings they enjoyed under the reign of England’s Elizabeth.
The music then sounded, and the quadrilles, together with Merlin and his assistants, had begun to remove from the crowded hall, when Leicester, who was, as we have mentioned, stationed for the moment near the bottom of the hall, and consequently engaged in some degree in the crowd, felt himself pulled by the cloak, while a voice whispered in his ear, “My Lord, I do desire some instant conference with you.”
How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?
Macbeth.
“I desire some conference with you.” The words were simple in themselves, but Lord Leicester was in that alarmed and feverish state of mind when the most ordinary occurrences seem fraught with alarming import; and he turned hastily round to survey the person by whom they had been spoken. There was nothing remarkable in the speaker’s appearance, which consisted of a black silk doublet and short mantle, with a black vizard on his face; for it appeared he had been among the crowd of masks who had thronged into the hall in the retinue of Merlin, though he did not wear any of the extravagant disguises by which most of them were distinguished.
“Who are you, or what do you want with me?” said Leicester, not without betraying, by his accents, the hurried state of his spirits.
“No evil, my lord,” answered the mask, “but much good and honour, if you will rightly understand my purpose. But I must speak with you more privately.”
“I can speak with no nameless stranger,” answered Leicester, dreading he knew not precisely what from the request of the stranger; “and those who are known to me must seek another and a fitter time to ask an interview.”
He would have hurried away, but the mask still detained him.
“Those who talk to your lordship of what your own honour demands have a right over your time, whatever occupations you may lay aside in order to indulge them.”
“How! my honour? Who dare impeach it?” said Leicester.
“Your own conduct alone can furnish grounds for accusing it, my lord, and it is that topic on which I would speak with you.”
“You are insolent,” said Leicester, “and abuse the hospitable license of the time, which prevents me from having you punished. I demand your name!”
“Edmund Tressilian of Cornwall,” answered the mask. “My tongue has been bound by a promise for four-and-twenty hours. The space is passed,— I now speak, and do your lordship the justice to address myself first to you.”
The thrill of astonishment which had penetrated to Leicester’s very heart at hearing that name pronounced by the voice of the man he most detested, and by whom he conceived himself so deeply injured, at first rendered him immovable, but instantly gave way to such a thirst for revenge as the pilgrim in the desert feels for the water-brooks. He had but sense and self-government enough left to prevent his stabbing to the heart the audacious villain, who, after the ruin he had brought upon him, dared, with such unmoved assurance, thus to practise upon him further. Determined to suppress for the moment every symptom of agitation, in order to perceive the full scope of Tressilian’s purpose, as well as to secure his own vengeance, he answered in a tone so altered by restrained passion as scarce to be intelligible, “And what does Master Edmund Tressilian require at my hand?”
“Justice, my lord,” answered Tressilian, calmly but firmly.
“Justice,” said Leicester, “all men are entitled to. You, Master Tressilian, are peculiarly so, and be assured you shall have it.”
“I expect nothing less from your nobleness,” answered Tressilian; “but time presses, and I must speak with you to-night. May I wait on you in your chamber?”
“No,” answered Leicester sternly, “not under a roof, and that roof mine own. We will meet under the free cope of heaven.”
“You are discomposed or displeased, my lord,” replied Tressilian; “yet there is no occasion for distemperature. The place is equal to me, so you allow me one half-hour of your time uninterrupted.”
“A shorter time will, I trust, suffice,” answered Leicester. “Meet me in the Pleasance when the Queen has retired to her chamber.”
“Enough,” said Tressilian, and withdrew; while a sort of rapture seemed for the moment to occupy the mind of Leicester.
“Heaven,” he said, “is at last favourable to me, and has put within my reach the wretch who has branded me with this deep ignominy — who has inflicted on me this cruel agony. I will blame fate no more, since I am afforded the means of tracing the wiles by which he means still further to practise on me, and then of at once convicting and punishing his villainy. To my task — to my task! I will not sink under it now, since midnight, at farthest, will bring me vengeance.”
While these reflections thronged through Leicester’s mind, he again made his way amid the obsequious crowd, which divided to give him passage, and resumed his place, envied and admired, beside the person of his Sovereign. But could the bosom of him thus admired and envied have been laid open before the inhabitants of that crowded hall, with all its dark thoughts of guilty ambition, blighted affection, deep vengeance, and conscious sense of meditated cruelty, crossing each other like spectres in the circle of some foul enchantress, which of them, from the most ambitious noble in the courtly circle down to the most wretched menial who lived by shifting of trenchers, would have desired to change characters with the favourite of Elizabeth, and the Lord of Kenilworth?
New tortures awaited him as soon as he had rejoined Elizabeth.
“You come in time, my lord,” she said, “to decide a dispute between us ladies. Here has Sir Richard Varney asked our permission to depart from the Castle with his infirm lady, having, as he tells us, your lordship’s consent to his absence, so he can obtain ours. Certes, we have no will to withhold him from the affectionate charge of this poor young person; but you are to know that Sir Richard Varney hath this day shown himself so much captivated with these ladies of ours, that here is our Duchess of Rutland says he will carry his poor insane wife no farther than the lake, plunge her in to tenant the crystal palaces that the enchanted nymph told us of, and return a jolly widower, to dry his tears and to make up the loss among our train. How say you, my lord? We have seen Varney under two or three different guises — you know what are his proper attributes — think you he is capable of playing his lady such a knave’s trick?”
Leicester was confounded, but the danger was urgent, and a reply absolutely necessary. “The ladies,” he said, “think too lightly of one of their own sex, in supposing she could deserve such a fate; or too ill of ours, to think it could be inflicted upon an innocent female.”
“Hear him, my ladies,” said Elizabeth; “like all his sex, he would excuse their cruelty by imputing fickleness to us.”
“Say not us, madam,” replied the Earl. “We say that meaner women, like the lesser lights of heaven, have revolutions and phases; but who shall impute mutability to the sun, or to Elizabeth?”
The discourse presently afterwards assumed a less perilous tendency, and Leicester continued to support his part in it with spirit, at whatever expense of mental agony. So pleasing did it seem to Elizabeth, that the Castle bell had sounded midnight ere she retired from the company, a circumstance unusual in her quiet and regular habits of disposing of time. Her departure was, of course, the signal for breaking up the company, who dispersed to their several places of repose, to dream over the pastimes of the day, or to anticipate those of the morrow.
The unfortunate Lord of the Castle, and founder of the proud festival, retired to far different thoughts. His direction to the valet who attended him was to send Varney instantly to his apartment. The messenger returned after some delay, and informed him that an hour had elapsed since Sir Richard Varney had left the Castle by the postern gate with three other persons, one of whom was transported in a horse-litter.
“How came he to leave the Castle after the watch was set?” said Leicester. “I thought he went not till daybreak.”
“He gave satisfactory reasons, as I understand,” said the domestic, “to the guard, and, as I hear, showed your lordship’s signet —”
“True — true,” said the Earl; “yet he has been hasty. Do any of his attendants remain behind?”
“Michael Lambourne, my lord,” said the valet, “was not to be found when Sir Richard Varney departed, and his master was much incensed at his absence. I saw him but now saddling his horse to gallop after his master.”
“Bid him come hither instantly,” said Leicester; “I have a message to his master.”
The servant left the apartment, and Leicester traversed it for some time in deep meditation. “Varney is over-zealous,” he said, “over-pressing. He loves me, I think; but he hath his own ends to serve, and he is inexorable in pursuit of them. If I rise, he rises; and he hath shown himself already but too, eager to rid me of this obstacle which seems to stand betwixt me and sovereignty. Yet I will not stoop to bear this disgrace. She shall be punished, but it shall be more advisedly. I already feel, even in anticipation, that over-haste would light the flames of hell in my bosom. No — one victim is enough at once, and that victim already waits me.”
He seized upon writing materials, and hastily traced these words:— “Sir Richard Varney, we have resolved to defer the matter entrusted to your care, and strictly command you to proceed no further in relation to our Countess until our further order. We also command your instant return to Kenilworth as soon as you have safely bestowed that with which you are entrusted. But if the safe-placing of your present charge shall detain you longer than we think for, we command you in that case to send back our signet-ring by a trusty and speedy messenger, we having present need of the same. And requiring your strict obedience in these things, and commending you to God’s keeping, we rest your assured good friend and master,
R. Leicester.
“Given at our Castle of Kenilworth, the tenth of July, in the year of Salvation one thousand five hundred and seventy-five.”
As Leicester had finished and sealed this mandate, Michael Lambourne, booted up to mid-thigh, having his riding-cloak girthed around him with a broad belt, and a felt cap on his head, like that of a courier, entered his apartment, ushered in by the valet.
“What is thy capacity of service?” said the Earl.
“Equerry to your lordship’s master of the horse,” answered Lambourne, with his customary assurance.
“Tie up thy saucy tongue, sir,” said Leicester; “the jests that may suit Sir Richard Varney’s presence suit not mine. How soon wilt thou overtake thy master?”
“In one hour’s riding, my lord, if man and horse hold good,” said Lambourne, with an instant alteration of demeanour, from an approach to familiarity to the deepest respect. The Earl measured him with his eye from top to toe.
“I have heard of thee,” he said “men say thou art a prompt fellow in thy service, but too much given to brawling and to wassail to be trusted with things of moment.”
“My lord,” said Lambourne, “I have been soldier, sailor, traveller, and adventurer; and these are all trades in which men enjoy today, because they have no surety of tomorrow. But though I may misuse mine own leisure, I have never neglected the duty I owe my master.”
“See that it be so in this instance,” said Leicester, “and it shall do thee good. Deliver this letter speedily and carefully into Sir Richard Varney’s hands.”
“Does my commission reach no further?” said Lambourne.
“No,” answered Leicester; “but it deeply concerns me that it be carefully as well as hastily executed.”
“I will spare neither care nor horse-flesh,” answered Lambourne, and immediately took his leave.
“So, this is the end of my private audience, from which I hoped so much!” he muttered to himself, as he went through the long gallery, and down the back staircase. Cogs bones! I thought the Earl had wanted a cast of mine office in some secret intrigue, and it all ends in carrying a letter! Well, his pleasure shall be done, however; and as his lordship well says, it may do me good another time. The child must creep ere he walk, and so must your infant courtier. I will have a look into this letter, however, which he hath sealed so sloven-like.” Having accomplished this, he clapped his hands together in ecstasy, exclaiming, “The Countess the Countess! I have the secret that shall make or mar me.— But come forth, Bayard,” he added, leading his horse into the courtyard, “for your flanks and my spurs must be presently acquainted.”
Lambourne mounted, accordingly, and left the Castle by the postern gate, where his free passage was permitted, in consequence of a message to that effect left by Sir Richard Varney.
As soon as Lambourne and the valet had left the apartment, Leicester proceeded to change his dress for a very plain one, threw his mantle around him, and taking a lamp in his hand, went by the private passage of communication to a small secret postern door which opened into the courtyard, near to the entrance of the Pleasance. His reflections were of a more calm and determined character than they had been at any late period, and he endeavoured to claim, even in his own eyes, the character of a man more sinned against than sinning.
“I have suffered the deepest injury,” such was the tenor of his meditations, “yet I have restricted the instant revenge which was in my power, and have limited it to that which is manly and noble. But shall the union which this false woman has this day disgraced remain an abiding fetter on me, to check me in the noble career to which my destinies invite me? No; there are other means of disengaging such ties, without unloosing the cords of life. In the sight of God, I am no longer bound by the union she has broken. Kingdoms shall divide us, oceans roll betwixt us, and their waves, whose abysses have swallowed whole navies, shall be the sole depositories of the deadly mystery.”
By such a train of argument did Leicester labour to reconcile his conscience to the prosecution of plans of vengeance, so hastily adopted, and of schemes of ambition, which had become so woven in with every purpose and action of his life that he was incapable of the effort of relinquishing them, until his revenge appeared to him to wear a face of justice, and even of generous moderation.
In this mood the vindictive and ambitious Earl entered the superb precincts of the Pleasance, then illumined by the full moon. The broad, yellow light was reflected on all sides from the white freestone, of which the pavement, balustrades, and architectural ornaments of the place were constructed; and not a single fleecy cloud was visible in the azure sky, so that the scene was nearly as light as if the sun had but just left the horizon. The numerous statues of white marble glimmered in the pale light like so many sheeted ghosts just arisen from their sepulchres, and the fountains threw their jets into the air as if they sought that their waters should be brightened by the moonbeams ere they fell down again upon their basins in showers of sparkling silver. The day had been sultry, and the gentle night-breeze which sighed along the terrace of the Pleasance raised not a deeper breath than the fan in the hand of youthful beauty. The bird of summer night had built many a nest in the bowers of the adjacent garden, and the tenants now indemnified themselves for silence during the day by a full chorus of their own unrivalled warblings, now joyous, now pathetic, now united, now responsive to each other, as if to express their delight in the placid and delicious scene to which they poured their melody.
Musing on matters far different from the fall of waters, the gleam of moonlight, or the song of the nightingale, the stately Leicester walked slowly from the one end of the terrace to the other, his cloak wrapped around him, and his sword under his arm, without seeing anything resembling the human form.
“I have been fooled by my own generosity,” he said, “if I have suffered the villain to escape me — ay, and perhaps to go to the rescue of the adulteress, who is so poorly guarded.”
These were his thoughts, which were instantly dispelled when, turning to look back towards the entrance, he saw a human form advancing slowly from the portico, and darkening the various objects with its shadow, as passing them successively, in its approach towards him.
“Shall I strike ere I again hear his detested voice?” was Leicester’s thought, as he grasped the hilt of the sword. “But no! I will see which way his vile practice tends. I will watch, disgusting as it is, the coils and mazes of the loathsome snake, ere I put forth my strength and crush him.”
His hand quitted the sword-hilt, and he advanced slowly towards Tressilian, collecting, for their meeting, all the self-possession he could command, until they came front to front with each other.
Tressilian made a profound reverence, to which the Earl replied with a haughty inclination of the head, and the words, “You sought secret conference with me, sir; I am here, and attentive.”
“My lord,” said Tressilian, “I am so earnest in that which I have to say, and so desirous to find a patient, nay, a favourable hearing, that I will stoop to exculpate myself from whatever might prejudice your lordship against me. You think me your enemy?”
“Have I not some apparent cause?” answered Leicester, perceiving that Tressilian paused for a reply.
“You do me wrong, my lord. I am a friend, but neither a dependant nor partisan, of the Earl of Sussex, whom courtiers call your rival; and it is some considerable time since I ceased to consider either courts or court intrigues as suited to my temper or genius.”
“No doubt, sir,” answered Leicester “there are other occupations more worthy a scholar, and for such the world holds Master Tressilian. Love has his intrigues as well as ambition.”
“I perceive, my lord,” replied Tressilian, “you give much weight to my early attachment for the unfortunate young person of whom I am about to speak, and perhaps think I am prosecuting her cause out of rivalry, more than a sense of justice.”
“No matter for my thoughts, sir,” said the Earl; “proceed. You have as yet spoken of yourself only — an important and worthy subject doubtless, but which, perhaps, does not altogether so deeply concern me that I should postpone my repose to hear it. Spare me further prelude, sir, and speak to the purpose if indeed you have aught to say that concerns me. When you have done, I, in my turn, have something to communicate.”
“I will speak, then, without further prelude, my lord,” answered Tressilian, “having to say that which, as it concerns your lordship’s honour, I am confident you will not think your time wasted in listening to. I have to request an account from your lordship of the unhappy Amy Robsart, whose history is too well known to you. I regret deeply that I did not at once take this course, and make yourself judge between me and the villain by whom she is injured. My lord, she extricated herself from an unlawful and most perilous state of confinement, trusting to the effects of her own remonstrance upon her unworthy husband, and extorted from me a promise that I would not interfere in her behalf until she had used her own efforts to have her rights acknowledged by him.”
“Ha,” said Leicester, “remember you to whom you speak?”
“I speak of her unworthy husband, my lord,” repeated Tressilian, “and my respect can find no softer language. The unhappy young woman is withdrawn from my knowledge, and sequestered in some secret place of this Castle — if she be not transferred to some place of seclusion better fitted for bad designs. This must be reformed, my lord — I speak it as authorized by her father — and this ill-fated marriage must be avouched and proved in the Queen’s presence, and the lady placed without restraint and at her own free disposal. And permit me to say it concerns no one’s honour that these most just demands of mine should be complied with so much as it does that of your lordship.”
The Earl stood as if he had been petrified at the extreme coolness with which the man, whom he considered as having injured him so deeply, pleaded the cause of his criminal paramour, as if she had been an innocent woman and he a disinterested advocate; nor was his wonder lessened by the warmth with which Tressilian seemed to demand for her the rank and situation which she had disgraced, and the advantages of which she was doubtless to share with the lover who advocated her cause with such effrontery. Tressilian had been silent for more than a minute ere the Earl recovered from the excess of his astonishment; and considering the prepossessions with which his mind was occupied, there is little wonder that his passion gained the mastery of every other consideration. “I have heard you, Master Tressilian,” said he, “without interruption, and I bless God that my ears were never before made to tingle by the words of so frontless a villain. The task of chastising you is fitter for the hangman’s scourge than the sword of a nobleman, but yet — Villain, draw and defend thyself!”
As he spoke the last words, he dropped his mantle on the ground, struck Tressilian smartly with his sheathed sword, and instantly drawing his rapier, put himself into a posture of assault. The vehement fury of his language at first filled Tressilian, in his turn, with surprise equal to what Leicester had felt when he addressed him. But astonishment gave place to resentment when the unmerited insults of his language were followed by a blow which immediately put to flight every thought save that of instant combat. Tressilian’s sword was instantly drawn; and though perhaps somewhat inferior to Leicester in the use of the weapon, he understood it well enough to maintain the contest with great spirit, the rather that of the two he was for the time the more cool, since he could not help imputing Leicester’s conduct either to actual frenzy or to the influence of some strong delusion.
The rencontre had continued for several minutes, without either party receiving a wound, when of a sudden voices were heard beneath the portico which formed the entrance of the terrace, mingled with the steps of men advancing hastily. “We are interrupted,” said Leicester to his antagonist; “follow me.”
At the same time a voice from the portico said, “The jackanape is right — they are tilting here.”
Leicester, meanwhile, drew off Tressilian into a sort of recess behind one of the fountains, which served to conceal them, while six of the yeomen of the Queen’s guard passed along the middle walk of the Pleasance, and they could hear one say to the rest, “We shall never find them to-night among all these squirting funnels, squirrel cages, and rabbit-holes; but if we light not on them before we reach the farther end, we will return, and mount a guard at the entrance, and so secure them till morning.”
“A proper matter,” said another, “the drawing of swords so near the Queen’s presence, ay, and in her very palace as ’twere! Hang it, they must be some poor drunken game-cocks fallen to sparring —’twere pity almost we should find them — the penalty is chopping off a hand, is it not?—’twere hard to lose hand for handling a bit of steel, that comes so natural to one’s gripe.”
“Thou art a brawler thyself, George,” said another; “but take heed, for the law stands as thou sayest.”
“Ay,” said the first, “an the act be not mildly construed; for thou knowest ’tis not the Queen’s palace, but my Lord of Leicester’s.”
“Why, for that matter, the penalty may be as severe,” said another “for an our gracious Mistress be Queen, as she is, God save her, my Lord of Leicester is as good as King.”
“Hush, thou knave!” said a third; “how knowest thou who may be within hearing?”
They passed on, making a kind of careless search, but seemingly more intent on their own conversation than bent on discovering the persons who had created the nocturnal disturbance.
They had no sooner passed forward along the terrace, than Leicester, making a sign to Tressilian to follow him, glided away in an opposite direction, and escaped through the portico undiscovered. He conducted Tressilian to Mervyn’s Tower, in which he was now again lodged; and then, ere parting with him, said these words, “If thou hast courage to continue and bring to an end what is thus broken off, be near me when the court goes forth tomorrow; we shall find a time, and I will give you a signal when it is fitting.”
“My lord,” said Tressilian, “at another time I might have inquired the meaning of this strange and furious inveteracy against me. But you have laid that on my shoulder which only blood can wash away; and were you as high as your proudest wishes ever carried you, I would have from you satisfaction for my wounded honour.”
On these terms they parted, but the adventures of the night were not yet ended with Leicester. He was compelled to pass by Saintlowe’s Tower, in order to gain the private passage which led to his own chamber; and in the entrance thereof he met Lord Hunsdon half clothed, and with a naked sword under his arm.
“Are you awakened, too, with this ‘larum, my Lord of Leicester?” said the old soldier. “’Tis well. By gog’s nails, the nights are as noisy as the day in this Castle of yours. Some two hours since I was waked by the screams of that poor brain-sick Lady Varney, whom her husband was forcing away. I promise you it required both your warrant and the Queen’s to keep me from entering into the game, and cutting that Varney of yours over the head. And now there is a brawl down in the Pleasance, or what call you the stone terrace-walk where all yonder gimcracks stand?”
The first part of the old man’s speech went through the Earl’s heart like a knife; to the last he answered that he himself had heard the clash of swords, and had come down to take order with those who had been so insolent so near the Queen’s presence.
“Nay, then,” said Hunsdon, “I will be glad of your lordship’s company.”
Leicester was thus compelled to turn back with the rough old Lord to the Pleasance, where Hunsdon heard from the yeomen of the guard, who were under his immediate command, the unsuccessful search they had made for the authors of the disturbance; and bestowed for their pains some round dozen of curses on them, as lazy knaves and blind whoresons. Leicester also thought it necessary to seem angry that no discovery had been effected; but at length suggested to Lord Hunsdon, that after all it could only be some foolish young men who had been drinking healths pottle-deep, and who should be sufficiently scared by the search which had taken place after them. Hunsdon, who was himself attached to his cup, allowed that a pint-flagon might cover many of the follies which it had caused, “But,” added he, “unless your lordship will be less liberal in your housekeeping, and restrain the overflow of ale, and wine, and wassail, I foresee it will end in my having some of these good fellows into the guard-house, and treating them to a dose of the strappado. And with this warning, good night to you.”
Joyful at being rid of his company, Leicester took leave of him at the entrance of his lodging, where they had first met, and entering the private passage, took up the lamp which he had left there, and by its expiring light found the way to his own apartment.
Room! room! for my horse will wince
If he comes within so many yards of a prince;
For to tell you true, and in rhyme,
He was foal’d in Queen Elizabeth’s time;
When the great Earl of Lester
In his castle did feast her.
Ben Jonson, Masque of Owls.
The amusement with which Elizabeth and her court were next day to be regaled was an exhibition by the true-hearted men of Coventry, who were to represent the strife between the English and the Danes, agreeably to a custom long preserved in their ancient borough, and warranted for truth by old histories and chronicles. In this pageant one party of the townsfolk presented the Saxons and the other the Danes, and set forth, both in rude rhymes and with hard blows, the contentions of these two fierce nations, and the Amazonian courage of the English women, who, according to the story, were the principal agents in the general massacre of the Danes, which took place at Hocktide, in the year of God 1012. This sport, which had been long a favourite pastime with the men of Coventry, had, it seems, been put down by the influence of some zealous clergymen of the more precise cast, who chanced to have considerable influence with the magistrates. But the generality of the inhabitants had petitioned the Queen that they might have their play again, and be honoured with permission to represent it before her Highness. And when the matter was canvassed in the little council which usually attended the Queen for dispatch of business, the proposal, although opposed by some of the stricter sort, found favour in the eyes of Elizabeth, who said that such toys occupied, without offence, the minds of many who, lacking them, might find worse subjects of pastime; and that their pastors, however commendable for learning and godliness, were somewhat too sour in preaching against the pastimes of their flocks and so the pageant was permitted to proceed.
Accordingly, after a morning repast, which Master Laneham calls an ambrosial breakfast, the principal persons of the court in attendance upon her Majesty pressed to the Gallery-tower, to witness the approach of the two contending parties of English and Danes; and after a signal had been given, the gate which opened in the circuit of the Chase was thrown wide to admit them. On they came, foot and horse; for some of the more ambitious burghers and yeomen had put themselves into fantastic dresses, imitating knights, in order to resemble the chivalry of the two different nations. However, to prevent fatal accidents, they were not permitted to appear on real horses, but had only license to accoutre themselves with those hobby-horses, as they are called, which anciently formed the chief delight of a morrice-dance, and which still are exhibited on the stage, in the grand battle fought at the conclusion of Mr. Bayes’s tragedy. The infantry followed in similar disguises. The whole exhibition was to be considered as a sort of anti-masque, or burlesque of the more stately pageants in which the nobility and gentry bore part in the show, and, to the best of their knowledge, imitated with accuracy the personages whom they represented. The Hocktide play was of a different character, the actors being persons of inferior degree, and their habits the better fitted for the occasion, the more incongruous and ridiculous that they were in themselves. Accordingly their array, which the progress of our tale allows us no time to describe, was ludicrous enough; and their weapons, though sufficiently formidable to deal sound blows, were long alder-poles instead of lances, and sound cudgels for swords; and for fence, both cavalry and infantry were well equipped with stout headpieces and targets, both made of thick leather.
Captain Coxe, that celebrated humorist of Coventry, whose library of ballads, almanacs, and penny histories, fairly wrapped up in parchment, and tied round for security with a piece of whipcord, remains still the envy of antiquaries, being himself the ingenious person under whose direction the pageant had been set forth, rode valiantly on his hobby-horse before the bands of English, high-trussed, saith Laneham, and brandishing his long sword, as became an experienced man of war, who had fought under the Queen’s father, bluff King Henry, at the siege of Boulogne. This chieftain was, as right and reason craved, the first to enter the lists, and passing the Gallery at the head of his myrmidons, kissed the hilt of his sword to the Queen, and executed at the same time a gambade, the like whereof had never been practised by two-legged hobby-horse. Then passing on with all his followers of cavaliers and infantry, he drew them up with martial skill at the opposite extremity of the bridge, or tilt-yard, until his antagonist should be fairly prepared for the onset.
This was no long interval; for the Danish cavalry and infantry, no way inferior to the English in number, valour, and equipment, instantly arrived, with the northern bagpipe blowing before them in token of their country, and headed by a cunning master of defence, only inferior to the renowned Captain Coxe, if to him, in the discipline of war. The Danes, as invaders, took their station under the Gallery-tower, and opposite to that of Mortimer; and when their arrangements were completely made, a signal was given for the encounter.
Their first charge upon each other was rather moderate, for either party had some dread of being forced into the lake. But as reinforcements came up on either side, the encounter grew from a skirmish into a blazing battle. They rushed upon one another, as Master Laneham testifies, like rams inflamed by jealousy, with such furious encounter that both parties were often overthrown, and the clubs and targets made a most horrible clatter. In many instances that happened which had been dreaded by the more experienced warriors who began the day of strife. The rails which defended the ledges of the bridge had been, perhaps on purpose, left but slightly fastened, and gave way under the pressure of those who thronged to the combat, so that the hot courage of many of the combatants received a sufficient cooling. These incidents might have occasioned more serious damage than became such an affray, for many of the champions who met with this mischance could not swim, and those who could were encumbered with their suits of leathern and of paper armour; but the case had been provided for, and there were several boats in readiness to pick up the unfortunate warriors and convey them to the dry land, where, dripping and dejected, they comforted themselves with the hot ale and strong waters which were liberally allowed to them, without showing any desire to re-enter so desperate a conflict.
Captain Coxe alone, that paragon of Black-Letter antiquaries, after twice experiencing, horse and man, the perilous leap from the bridge into the lake, equal to any extremity to which the favourite heroes of chivalry, whose exploits he studied in an abridged form, whether Amadis, Belianis, Bevis, or his own Guy of Warwick, had ever been subjected to — Captain Coxe, we repeat, did alone, after two such mischances, rush again into the heat of conflict, his bases and the footcloth of his hobby-horse dropping water, and twice reanimated by voice and example the drooping spirits of the English; so that at last their victory over the Danish invaders became, as was just and reasonable, complete and decisive. Worthy he was to be rendered immortal by the pen of Ben Jonson, who, fifty years afterwards, deemed that a masque, exhibited at Kenilworth, could be ushered in by none with so much propriety as by the ghost of Captain Coxe, mounted upon his redoubted hobby-horse.
These rough, rural gambols may not altogether agree with the reader’s preconceived idea of an entertainment presented before Elizabeth, in whose reign letters revived with such brilliancy, and whose court, governed by a female whose sense of propriety was equal to her strength of mind, was no less distinguished for delicacy and refinement than her councils for wisdom and fortitude. But whether from the political wish to seem interested in popular sports, or whether from a spark of old Henry’s rough, masculine spirit, which Elizabeth sometimes displayed, it is certain the Queen laughed heartily at the imitation, or rather burlesque, of chivalry which was presented in the Coventry play. She called near her person the Earl of Sussex and Lord Hunsdon, partly perhaps to make amends to the former for the long and private audiences with which she had indulged the Earl of Leicester, by engaging him in conversation upon a pastime which better suited his taste than those pageants that were furnished forth from the stores of antiquity. The disposition which the Queen showed to laugh and jest with her military leaders gave the Earl of Leicester the opportunity he had been watching for withdrawing from the royal presence, which to the court around, so well had he chosen his time, had the graceful appearance of leaving his rival free access to the Queen’s person, instead of availing himself of his right as her landlord to stand perpetually betwixt others and the light of her countenance.
Leicester’s thoughts, however, had a far different object from mere courtesy; for no sooner did he see the Queen fairly engaged in conversation with Sussex and Hunsdon, behind whose back stood Sir Nicholas Blount, grinning from ear to ear at each word which was spoken, than, making a sign to Tressilian, who, according to appointment, watched his motions at a little distance, he extricated himself from the press, and walking towards the Chase, made his way through the crowds of ordinary spectators, who, with open mouth, stood gazing on the battle of the English and the Danes. When he had accomplished this, which was a work of some difficulty, he shot another glance behind him to see that Tressilian had been equally successful; and as soon as he saw him also free from the crowd, he led the way to a small thicket, behind which stood a lackey, with two horses ready saddled. He flung himself on the one, and made signs to Tressilian to mount the other, who obeyed without speaking a single word.
Leicester then spurred his horse, and galloped without stopping until he reached a sequestered spot, environed by lofty oaks, about a mile’s distance from the Castle, and in an opposite direction from the scene to which curiosity was drawing every spectator. He there dismounted, bound his horse to a tree, and only pronouncing the words, “Here there is no risk of interruption,” laid his cloak across his saddle, and drew his sword.
Tressilian imitated his example punctually, yet could not forbear saying, as he drew his weapon, “My lord, as I have been known to many as one who does not fear death when placed in balance with honour, methinks I may, without derogation, ask wherefore, in the name of all that is honourable, your lordship has dared to offer me such a mark of disgrace as places us on these terms with respect to each other?”
“If you like not such marks of my scorn,” replied the Earl, “betake yourself instantly to your weapon, lest I repeat the usage you complain of.”
“It shall not need, my lord,” said Tressilian. “God judge betwixt us! and your blood, if you fall, be on your own head.”
He had scarce completed the sentence when they instantly closed in combat.
But Leicester, who was a perfect master of defence among all other exterior accomplishments of the time, had seen on the preceding night enough of Tressilian’s strength and skill to make him fight with more caution than heretofore, and prefer a secure revenge to a hasty one. For some minutes they fought with equal skill and fortune, till, in a desperate lunge which Leicester successfully put aside, Tressilian exposed himself at disadvantage; and in a subsequent attempt to close, the Earl forced his sword from his hand, and stretched him on the ground. With a grim smile he held the point of his rapier within two inches of the throat of his fallen adversary, and placing his foot at the same time upon his breast, bid him confess his villainous wrongs towards him, and prepare for death.
“I have no villainy nor wrong towards thee to confess,” answered Tressilian, “and am better prepared for death than thou. Use thine advantage as thou wilt, and may God forgive you! I have given you no cause for this.”
“No cause!” exclaimed the Earl, “no cause!— but why parley with such a slave? Die a liar, as thou hast lived!”
He had withdrawn his arm for the purpose of striking the fatal blow, when it was suddenly seized from behind.
The Earl turned in wrath to shake off the unexpected obstacle, but was surprised to find that a strange-looking boy had hold of his sword-arm, and clung to it with such tenacity of grasp that he could not shake him of without a considerable struggle, in the course of which Tressilian had opportunity to rise and possess himself once more of his weapon. Leicester again turned towards him with looks of unabated ferocity, and the combat would have recommenced with still more desperation on both sides, had not the boy clung to Lord Leicester’s knees, and in a shrill tone implored him to listen one moment ere he prosecuted this quarrel.
“Stand up, and let me go,” said Leicester, “or, by Heaven, I will pierce thee with my rapier! What hast thou to do to bar my way to revenge?”
“Much — much!” exclaimed the undaunted boy, “since my folly has been the cause of these bloody quarrels between you, and perchance of worse evils. Oh, if you would ever again enjoy the peace of an innocent mind, if you hope again to sleep in peace and unhaunted by remorse, take so much leisure as to peruse this letter, and then do as you list.”
While he spoke in this eager and earnest manner, to which his singular features and voice gave a goblin-like effect, he held up to Leicester a packet, secured with a long tress of woman’s hair of a beautiful light-brown colour. Enraged as he was, nay, almost blinded with fury to see his destined revenge so strangely frustrated, the Earl of Leicester could not resist this extraordinary supplicant. He snatched the letter from his hand — changed colour as he looked on the superscription — undid with faltering hand the knot which secured it — glanced over the contents, and staggering back, would have fallen, had he not rested against the trunk of a tree, where he stood for an instant, his eyes bent on the letter, and his sword-point turned to the ground, without seeming to be conscious of the presence of an antagonist towards whom he had shown little mercy, and who might in turn have taken him at advantage. But for such revenge Tressilian was too noble-minded. He also stood still in surprise, waiting the issue of this strange fit of passion, but holding his weapon ready to defend himself in case of need against some new and sudden attack on the part of Leicester, whom he again suspected to be under the influence of actual frenzy. The boy, indeed, he easily recognized as his old acquaintance Dickon, whose face, once seen, was scarcely to be forgotten; but how he came hither at so critical a moment, why his interference was so energetic, and, above all, how it came to produce so powerful an effect upon Leicester, were questions which he could not solve.
But the letter was of itself powerful enough to work effects yet more wonderful. It was that which the unfortunate Amy had written to her husband, in which she alleged the reasons and manner of her flight from Cumnor Place, informed him of her having made her way to Kenilworth to enjoy his protection, and mentioned the circumstances which had compelled her to take refuge in Tressilian’s apartment, earnestly requesting he would, without delay, assign her a more suitable asylum. The letter concluded with the most earnest expressions of devoted attachment and submission to his will in all things, and particularly respecting her situation and place of residence, conjuring him only that she might not be placed under the guardianship or restraint of Varney. The letter dropped from Leicester’s hand when he had perused it. “Take my sword,” he said, “Tressilian, and pierce my heart, as I would but now have pierced yours!”
“My lord,” said Tressilian, “you have done me great wrong, but something within my breast ever whispered that it was by egregious error.”
“Error, indeed!” said Leicester, and handed him the letter; “I have been made to believe a man of honour a villain, and the best and purest of creatures a false profligate.— Wretched boy, why comes this letter now, and where has the bearer lingered?”
“I dare not tell you, my lord,” said the boy, withdrawing, as if to keep beyond his reach; “but here comes one who was the messenger.”
Wayland at the same moment came up; and interrogated by Leicester, hastily detailed all the circumstances of his escape with Amy, the fatal practices which had driven her to flight, and her anxious desire to throw herself under the instant protection of her husband — pointing out the evidence of the domestics of Kenilworth, “who could not,” he observed, “but remember her eager inquiries after the Earl of Leicester on her first arrival.”
“The villains!” exclaimed Leicester; “but oh, that worst of villains, Varney!— and she is even now in his power!”
“But not, I trust in God,” said Tressilian, “with any commands of fatal import?”
“No, no, no!” exclaimed the Earl hastily. “I said something in madness; but it was recalled, fully recalled, by a hasty messenger, and she is now — she must now be safe.”
“Yes,” said Tressilian,” she must be safe, and I must be assured of her safety. My own quarrel with you is ended, my lord; but there is another to begin with the seducer of Amy Robsart, who has screened his guilt under the cloak of the infamous Varney.”
“The seducer of Amy!” replied Leicester, with a voice like thunder; “say her husband!— her misguided, blinded, most unworthy husband! She is as surely Countess of Leicester as I am belted Earl. Nor can you, sir, point out that manner of justice which I will not render her at my own free will. I need scarce say I fear not your compulsion.”
The generous nature of Tressilian was instantly turned from consideration of anything personal to himself, and centred at once upon Amy’s welfare. He had by no means undoubting confidence in the fluctuating resolutions of Leicester, whose mind seemed to him agitated beyond the government of calm reason; neither did he, notwithstanding the assurances he had received, think Amy safe in the hands of his dependants. “My lord,” he said calmly, “I mean you no offence, and am far from seeking a quarrel. But my duty to Sir Hugh Robsart compels me to carry this matter instantly to the Queen, that the Countess’s rank may be acknowledged in her person.”
“You shall not need, sir,” replied the Earl haughtily; “do not dare to interfere. No voice but Dudley’s shall proclaim Dudley’s infamy. To Elizabeth herself will I tell it; and then for Cumnor Place with the speed of life and death!”
So saying, he unbound his horse from the tree, threw himself into the saddle, and rode at full gallop towards the Castle.
“Take me before you, Master Tressilian,” said the boy, seeing Tressilian mount in the same haste; “my tale is not all told out, and I need your protection.”
Tressilian complied, and followed the Earl, though at a less furious rate. By the way the boy confessed, with much contrition, that in resentment at Wayland’s evading all his inquiries concerning the lady, after Dickon conceived he had in various ways merited his confidence, he had purloined from him in revenge the letter with which Amy had entrusted him for the Earl of Leicester. His purpose was to have restored it to him that evening, as he reckoned himself sure of meeting with him, in consequence of Wayland’s having to perform the part of Arion in the pageant. He was indeed something alarmed when he saw to whom the letter was addressed; but he argued that, as Leicester did not return to Kenilworth until that evening, it would be again in the possession of the proper messenger as soon as, in the nature of things, it could possibly be delivered. But Wayland came not to the pageant, having been in the interim expelled by Lambourne from the Castle; and the boy, not being able to find him, or to get speech of Tressilian, and finding himself in possession of a letter addressed to no less a person than the Earl of Leicester, became much afraid of the consequences of his frolic. The caution, and indeed the alarm, which Wayland had expressed respecting Varney and Lambourne, led him to judge that the letter must be designed for the Earl’s own hand, and that he might prejudice the lady by giving it to any of the domestics. He made an attempt or two to obtain an audience of Leicester; but the singularity of his features and the meanness of his appearance occasioned his being always repulsed by the insolent menials whom he applied to for that purpose. Once, indeed, he had nearly succeeded, when, in prowling about, he found in the grotto the casket, which he knew to belong to the unlucky Countess, having seen it on her journey; for nothing escaped his prying eye. Having striven in vain to restore it either to Tressilian or the Countess, he put it into the hands, as we have seen, of Leicester himself, but unfortunately he did not recognize him in his disguise.
At length the boy thought he was on the point of succeeding when the Earl came down to the lower part of the hall; but just as he was about to accost him, he was prevented by Tressilian. As sharp in ear as in wit, the boy heard the appointment settled betwixt them, to take place in the Pleasance, and resolved to add a third to the party, in hope that, either in coming or returning, he might find an opportunity of delivering the letter to Leicester; for strange stories began to flit among the domestics, which alarmed him for the lady’s safety. Accident, however, detained Dickon a little behind the Earl, and as he reached the arcade he saw them engaged in combat; in consequence of which he hastened to alarm the guard, having little doubt that what bloodshed took place betwixt them might arise out of his own frolic. Continuing to lurk in the portico, he heard the second appointment which Leicester at parting assigned to Tressilian; and was keeping them in view during the encounter of the Coventry men, when, to his surprise, he recognized Wayland in the crowd, much disguised, indeed, but not sufficiently so to escape the prying glance of his old comrade. They drew aside out of the crowd to explain their situation to each other. The boy confessed to Wayland what we have above told; and the artist, in return, informed him that his deep anxiety for the fate of the unfortunate lady had brought him back to the neighbourhood of the Castle, upon his learning that morning, at a village about ten miles distant, that Varney and Lambourne, whose violence he dreaded, had both left Kenilworth over-night.
While they spoke, they saw Leicester and Tressilian separate themselves from the crowd, dogged them until they mounted their horses, when the boy, whose speed of foot has been before mentioned, though he could not possibly keep up with them, yet arrived, as we have seen, soon enough to save Tressilian’s life. The boy had just finished his tale when they arrived at the Gallery-tower.
High o’er the eastern steep the sun is beaming,
And darkness flies with her deceitful shadows;—
So truth prevails o’er falsehood.
Old Play.
As Tressilian rode along the bridge, lately the scene of so much riotous sport, he could not but observe that men’s countenances had singularly changed during the space of his brief absence. The mock fight was over, but the men, still habited in their masking suits, stood together in groups, like the inhabitants of a city who have been just startled by some strange and alarming news.
When he reached the base-court, appearances were the same — domestics, retainers, and under-officers stood together and whispered, bending their eyes towards the windows of the Great Hall, with looks which seemed at once alarmed and mysterious.
Sir Nicholas Blount was the first person of his own particular acquaintance Tressilian saw, who left him no time to make inquiries, but greeted him with, “God help thy heart, Tressilian! thou art fitter for a clown than a courtier thou canst not attend, as becomes one who follows her Majesty. Here you are called for, wished for, waited for — no man but you will serve the turn; and hither you come with a misbegotten brat on thy horse’s neck, as if thou wert dry nurse to some sucking devil, and wert just returned from airing.”
“Why, what is the matter?” said Tressilian, letting go the boy, who sprung to ground like a feather, and himself dismounting at the same time.
“Why, no one knows the matter,” replied Blount; “I cannot smell it out myself, though I have a nose like other courtiers. Only, my Lord of Leicester has galloped along the bridge as if he would have rode over all in his passage, demanded an audience of the Queen, and is closeted even now with her, and Burleigh and Walsingham — and you are called for; but whether the matter be treason or worse, no one knows.”
“He speaks true, by Heaven!” said Raleigh, who that instant appeared; “you must immediately to the Queen’s presence.”
“Be not rash, Raleigh,” said Blount, “remember his boots.— For Heaven’s sake, go to my chamber, dear Tressilian, and don my new bloom-coloured silken hose; I have worn them but twice.”
“Pshaw!” answered Tressilian; “do thou take care of this boy, Blount; be kind to him, and look he escapes you not — much depends on him.”
So saying, he followed Raleigh hastily, leaving honest Blount with the bridle of his horse in one hand, and the boy in the other. Blount gave a long look after him.
“Nobody,” he said, “calls me to these mysteries — and he leaves me here to play horse-keeper and child-keeper at once. I could excuse the one, for I love a good horse naturally; but to be plagued with a bratchet whelp.— Whence come ye, my fair-favoured little gossip?”
“From the Fens,” answered the boy.
“And what didst thou learn there, forward imp?”
“To catch gulls, with their webbed feet and yellow stockings,” said the boy.
“Umph!” said Blount, looking down on his own immense roses. “Nay, then, the devil take him asks thee more questions.”
Meantime Tressilian traversed the full length of the Great Hall, in which the astonished courtiers formed various groups, and were whispering mysteriously together, while all kept their eyes fixed on the door which led from the upper end of the hall into the Queen’s withdrawing apartment. Raleigh pointed to the door. Tressilian knocked, and was instantly admitted. Many a neck was stretched to gain a view into the interior of the apartment; but the tapestry which covered the door on the inside was dropped too suddenly to admit the slightest gratification of curiosity.
Upon entrance, Tressilian found himself, not without a strong palpitation of heart, in the presence of Elizabeth, who was walking to and fro in a violent agitation, which she seemed to scorn to conceal, while two or three of her most sage and confidential counsellors exchanged anxious looks with each other, but delayed speaking till her wrath abated. Before the empty chair of state in which she had been seated, and which was half pushed aside by the violence with which she had started from it, knelt Leicester, his arms crossed, and his brows bent on the ground, still and motionless as the effigies upon a sepulchre. Beside him stood the Lord Shrewsbury, then Earl Marshal of England, holding his baton of office. The Earl’s sword was unbuckled, and lay before him on the floor.
“Ho, sir!” said the Queen, coming close up to Tressilian, and stamping on the floor with the action and manner of Henry himself; “you knew of this fair work — you are an accomplice in this deception which has been practised on us — you have been a main cause of our doing injustice?” Tressilian dropped on his knee before the Queen, his good sense showing him the risk of attempting any defence at that moment of irritation. “Art dumb, sirrah?” she continued; “thou knowest of this affair dost thou not?”
“Not, gracious madam, that this poor lady was Countess of Leicester.”
“Nor shall any one know her for such,” said Elizabeth. “Death of my life! Countess of Leicester!— I say Dame Amy Dudley; and well if she have not cause to write herself widow of the traitor Robert Dudley.”
“Madam,” said Leicester, “do with me what it may be your will to do, but work no injury on this gentleman; he hath in no way deserved it.”
“And will he be the better for thy intercession,” said the Queen, leaving Tressilian, who slowly arose, and rushing to Leicester, who continued kneeling —“the better for thy intercession, thou doubly false — thou doubly forsworn;— of thy intercession, whose villainy hath made me ridiculous to my subjects and odious to myself? I could tear out mine eyes for their blindness!”
Burleigh here ventured to interpose.
“Madam,” he said, “remember that you are a Queen — Queen of England — mother of your people. Give not way to this wild storm of passion.”
Elizabeth turned round to him, while a tear actually twinkled in her proud and angry eye. “Burleigh,” she said, “thou art a statesman — thou dost not, thou canst not, comprehend half the scorn, half the misery, that man has poured on me!”
With the utmost caution — with the deepest reverence — Burleigh took her hand at the moment he saw her heart was at the fullest, and led her aside to an oriel window, apart from the others.
“Madam,” he said, “I am a statesman, but I am also a man — a man already grown old in your councils — who have not and cannot have a wish on earth but your glory and happiness; I pray you to be composed.”
“Ah! Burleigh,” said Elizabeth, “thou little knowest —” here her tears fell over her cheeks in despite of her.
“I do — I do know, my honoured sovereign. Oh, beware that you lead not others to guess that which they know not!”
“Ha!” said Elizabeth, pausing as if a new train of thought had suddenly shot across her brain. “Burleigh, thou art right — thou art right — anything but disgrace — anything but a confession of weakness — anything rather than seem the cheated, slighted — ‘sdeath! to think on it is distraction!”
“Be but yourself, my Queen,” said Burleigh; “and soar far above a weakness which no Englishman will ever believe his Elizabeth could have entertained, unless the violence of her disappointment carries a sad conviction to his bosom.”
“What weakness, my lord?” said Elizabeth haughtily; “would you too insinuate that the favour in which I held yonder proud traitor derived its source from aught —” But here she could no longer sustain the proud tone which she had assumed, and again softened as she said, “But why should I strive to deceive even thee, my good and wise servant?”
Burleigh stooped to kiss her hand with affection, and — rare in the annals of courts — a tear of true sympathy dropped from the eye of the minister on the hand of his Sovereign.
It is probable that the consciousness of possessing this sympathy aided Elizabeth in supporting her mortification, and suppressing her extreme resentment; but she was still more moved by fear that her passion should betray to the public the affront and the disappointment, which, alike as a woman and a Queen, she was so anxious to conceal. She turned from Burleigh, and sternly paced the hall till her features had recovered their usual dignity, and her mien its wonted stateliness of regular motion.
“Our Sovereign is her noble self once more,” whispered Burleigh to Walsingham; “mark what she does, and take heed you thwart her not.”
She then approached Leicester, and said with calmness, “My Lord Shrewsbury, we discharge you of your prisoner.— My Lord of Leicester, rise and take up your sword; a quarter of an hour’s restraint under the custody of our Marshal, my lord, is, we think, no high penance for months of falsehood practised upon us. We will now hear the progress of this affair.” She then seated herself in her chair, and said, “You, Tressilian, step forward, and say what you know.”
Tressilian told his story generously, suppressing as much as he could what affected Leicester, and saying nothing of their having twice actually fought together. It is very probable that, in doing so, he did the Earl good service; for had the Queen at that instant found anything on account of which she could vent her wrath upon him, without laying open sentiments of which she was ashamed, it might have fared hard with him. She paused when Tressilian had finished his tale.
“We will take that Wayland,” she said, “into our own service, and place the boy in our Secretary office for instruction, that he may in future use discretion towards letters. For you, Tressilian, you did wrong in not communicating the whole truth to us, and your promise not to do so was both imprudent and undutiful. Yet, having given your word to this unhappy lady, it was the part of a man and a gentleman to keep it; and on the whole, we esteem you for the character you have sustained in this matter.— My Lord of Leicester, it is now your turn to tell us the truth, an exercise to which you seem of late to have been too much a stranger.”
Accordingly, she extorted, by successive questions, the whole history of his first acquaintance with Amy Robsart — their marriage — his jealousy — the causes on which it was founded, and many particulars besides. Leicester’s confession, for such it might be called, was wrenched from him piecemeal, yet was upon the whole accurate, excepting that he totally omitted to mention that he had, by implication or otherwise, assented to Varney’s designs upon the life of his Countess. Yet the consciousness of this was what at that moment lay nearest to his heart; and although he trusted in great measure to the very positive counter-orders which he had sent by Lambourne, it was his purpose to set out for Cumnor Place in person as soon as he should be dismissed from the presence of the Queen, who, he concluded, would presently leave Kenilworth.
But the Earl reckoned without his host. It is true his presence and his communications were gall and wormwood to his once partial mistress. But barred from every other and more direct mode of revenge, the Queen perceived that she gave her false suitor torture by these inquiries, and dwelt on them for that reason, no more regarding the pain which she herself experienced, than the savage cares for the searing of his own hands by grasping the hot pincers with which he tears the flesh of his captive enemy.
At length, however, the haughty lord, like a deer that turns to bay, gave intimation that his patience was failing. “Madam,” he said, “I have been much to blame — more than even your just resentment has expressed. Yet, madam, let me say that my guilt, if it be unpardonable, was not unprovoked, and that if beauty and condescending dignity could seduce the frail heart of a human being, I might plead both as the causes of my concealing this secret from your Majesty.”
The Queen was so much struck with this reply, which Leicester took care should be heard by no one but herself, that she was for the moment silenced, and the Earl had the temerity to pursue his advantage. “Your Grace, who has pardoned so much, will excuse my throwing myself on your royal mercy for those expressions which were yester-morning accounted but a light offence.”
The Queen fixed her eyes on him while she replied, “Now, by Heaven, my lord, thy effrontery passes the bounds of belief, as well as patience! But it shall avail thee nothing.— What ho! my lords, come all and hear the news-my Lord of Leicester’s stolen marriage has cost me a husband, and England a king. His lordship is patriarchal in his tastes — one wife at a time was insufficient, and he designed us the honour of his left hand. Now, is not this too insolent — that I could not grace him with a few marks of court-favour, but he must presume to think my hand and crown at his disposal? You, however, think better of me; and I can pity this ambitious man, as I could a child, whose bubble of soap has burst between his hands. We go to the presence-chamber.— My Lord of Leicester, we command your close attendance on us.”
All was eager expectation in the hall, and what was the universal astonishment when the Queen said to those next her, “The revels of Kenilworth are not yet exhausted, my lords and ladies — we are to solemnize the noble owner’s marriage.”
There was an universal expression of surprise.
“It is true, on our royal word,” said the Queen; “he hath kept this a secret even from us, that he might surprise us with it at this very place and time. I see you are dying of curiosity to know the happy bride. It is Amy Robsart, the same who, to make up the May-game yesterday, figured in the pageant as the wife of his servant Varney.”
“For God’s sake, madam,” said the Earl, approaching her with a mixture of humility, vexation, and shame in his countenance, and speaking so low as to be heard by no one else, “take my head, as you threatened in your anger, and spare me these taunts! Urge not a falling man — tread not on a crushed worm.”
“A worm, my lord?” said the Queen, in the same tone; “nay, a snake is the nobler reptile, and the more exact similitude — the frozen snake you wot of, which was warmed in a certain bosom —”
“For your own sake — for mine, madam,” said the Earl —“while there is yet some reason left in me —”
“Speak aloud, my lord,” said Elizabeth, “and at farther distance, so please you — your breath thaws our ruff. What have you to ask of us?”
“Permission,” said the unfortunate Earl humbly, “to travel to Cumnor Place.”
“To fetch home your bride belike?— Why, ay — that is but right, for, as we have heard, she is indifferently cared for there. But, my lord, you go not in person; we have counted upon passing certain days in this Castle of Kenilworth, and it were slight courtesy to leave us without a landlord during our residence here. Under your favour, we cannot think to incur such disgrace in the eyes of our subjects. Tressilian shall go to Cumnor Place instead of you, and with him some gentleman who hath been sworn of our chamber, lest my Lord of Leicester should be again jealous of his old rival.— Whom wouldst thou have to be in commission with thee, Tressilian?”
Tressilian, with humble deference, suggested the name of Raleigh.
“Why, ay,” said the Queen; “so God ha’ me, thou hast made a good choice. He is a young knight besides, and to deliver a lady from prison is an appropriate first adventure.— Cumnor Place is little better than a prison, you are to know, my lords and ladies. Besides, there are certain faitours there whom we would willingly have in safe keeping. You will furnish them, Master Secretary, with the warrant necessary to secure the bodies of Richard Varney and the foreign Alasco, dead or alive. Take a sufficient force with you, gentlemen — bring the lady here in all honour — lose no time, and God be with you!”
They bowed, and left the presence,
Who shall describe how the rest of that day was spent at Kenilworth? The Queen, who seemed to have remained there for the sole purpose of mortifying and taunting the Earl of Leicester, showed herself as skilful in that female art of vengeance, as she was in the science of wisely governing her people. The train of state soon caught the signal, and as he walked among his own splendid preparations, the Lord of Kenilworth, in his own Castle, already experienced the lot of a disgraced courtier, in the slight regard and cold manners of alienated friends, and the ill-concealed triumph of avowed and open enemies. Sussex, from his natural military frankness of disposition, Burleigh and Walsingham, from their penetrating and prospective sagacity, and some of the ladies, from the compassion of their sex, were the only persons in the crowded court who retained towards him the countenance they had borne in the morning.
So much had Leicester been accustomed to consider court favour as the principal object of his life, that all other sensations were, for the time, lost in the agony which his haughty spirit felt at the succession of petty insults and studied neglects to which he had been subjected; but when he retired to his own chamber for the night, that long, fair tress of hair which had once secured Amy’s letter fell under his observation, and, with the influence of a counter-charm, awakened his heart to nobler and more natural feelings. He kissed it a thousand times; and while he recollected that he had it always in his power to shun the mortifications which he had that day undergone, by retiring into a dignified and even prince-like seclusion with the beautiful and beloved partner of his future life, he felt that he could rise above the revenge which Elizabeth had condescended to take.
Accordingly, on the following day the whole conduct of the Earl displayed so much dignified equanimity — he seemed so solicitous about the accommodations and amusements of his guests, yet so indifferent to their personal demeanour towards him — so respectfully distant to the Queen, yet so patient of her harassing displeasure — that Elizabeth changed her manner to him, and, though cold and distant, ceased to offer him any direct affront. She intimated also with some sharpness to others around her, who thought they were consulting her pleasure in showing a neglectful conduct to the Earl, that while they remained at Kenilworth they ought to show the civility due from guests to the Lord of the Castle. In short, matters were so far changed in twenty-four hours that some of the more experienced and sagacious courtiers foresaw a strong possibility of Leicester’s restoration to favour, and regulated their demeanour towards him, as those who might one day claim merit for not having deserted him in adversity. It is time, however, to leave these intrigues, and follow Tressilian and Raleigh on their journey.
The troop consisted of six persons; for, besides Wayland, they had in company a royal pursuivant and two stout serving-men. All were well-armed, and travelled as fast as it was possible with justice to their horses, which had a long journey before them. They endeavoured to procure some tidings as they rode along of Varney and his party, but could hear none, as they had travelled in the dark. At a small village about twelve miles from Kenilworth, where they gave some refreshment to their horses, a poor clergyman, the curate of the place, came out of a small cottage, and entreated any of the company who might know aught of surgery to look in for an instant on a dying man.
The empiric Wayland undertook to do his best, and as the curate conducted him to the spot, he learned that the man had been found on the highroad, about a mile from the village, by labourers, as they were going to their work on the preceding morning, and the curate had given him shelter in his house. He had received a gun-shot wound, which seemed to be obviously mortal; but whether in a brawl or from robbers they could not learn, as he was in a fever, and spoke nothing connectedly. Wayland entered the dark and lowly apartment, and no sooner had the curate drawn aside the curtain than he knew, in the distorted features of the patient, the countenance of Michael Lambourne. Under pretence of seeking something which he wanted, Wayland hastily apprised his fellow-travellers of this extraordinary circumstance; and both Tressilian and Raleigh, full of boding apprehensions, hastened to the curate’s house to see the dying man.
The wretch was by this time in the agonies of death, from which a much better surgeon than Wayland could not have rescued him, for the bullet had passed clear through his body. He was sensible, however, at least in part, for he knew Tressilian, and made signs that he wished him to stoop over his bed. Tressilian did so, and after some inarticulate murmurs, in which the names of Varney and Lady Leicester were alone distinguishable, Lambourne bade him “make haste, or he would come too late.” It was in vain Tressilian urged the patient for further information; he seemed to become in some degree delirious, and when he again made a signal to attract Tressilian’s attention, it was only for the purpose of desiring him to inform his uncle, Giles Gosling of the Black Bear, that “he had died without his shoes after all.” A convulsion verified his words a few minutes after, and the travellers derived nothing from having met with him, saving the obscure fears concerning the fate of the Countess, which his dying words were calculated to convey, and which induced them to urge their journey with the utmost speed, pressing horses in the Queen’s name when those which they rode became unfit for service.
The death-bell thrice was heard to ring,
An aerial voice was heard to call,
And thrice the raven flapp’d its wing
Around the towers of Cumnor Hall.
Mickle.
We are now to return to that part of our story where we intimated that Varney, possessed of the authority of the Earl of Leicester, and of the Queen’s permission to the same effect, hastened to secure himself against discovery of his perfidy by removing the Countess from Kenilworth Castle. He had proposed to set forth early in the morning; but reflecting that the Earl might relent in the interim, and seek another interview with the Countess, he resolved to prevent, by immediate departure, all chance of what would probably have ended in his detection and ruin. For this purpose he called for Lambourne, and was exceedingly incensed to find that his trusty attendant was abroad on some ramble in the neighbouring village, or elsewhere. As his return was expected, Sir Richard commanded that he should prepare himself for attending him on an immediate journey, and follow him in case he returned after his departure.
In the meanwhile, Varney used the ministry of a servant called Robin Tider, one to whom the mysteries of Cumnor Place were already in some degree known, as he had been there more than once in attendance on the Earl. To this man, whose character resembled that of Lambourne, though he was neither quite so prompt nor altogether so profligate, Varney gave command to have three horses saddled, and to prepare a horse-litter, and have them in readiness at the postern gate. The natural enough excuse of his lady’s insanity, which was now universally believed, accounted for the secrecy with which she was to be removed from the Castle, and he reckoned on the same apology in case the unfortunate Amy’s resistance or screams should render such necessary. The agency of Anthony Foster was indispensable, and that Varney now went to secure.
This person, naturally of a sour, unsocial disposition, and somewhat tired, besides, with his journey from Cumnor to Warwickshire, in order to bring the news of the Countess’s escape, had early extricated himself from the crowd of wassailers, and betaken himself to his chamber, where he lay asleep, when Varney, completely equipped for travelling, and with a dark lantern in his hand, entered his apartment. He paused an instant to listen to what his associate was murmuring in his sleep, and could plainly distinguish the words, “Ave Maria — ora pro nobis. No, it runs not so — deliver us from evil — ay, so it goes.”
“Praying in his sleep,” said Varney, “and confounding his old and new devotions. He must have more need of prayer ere I am done with him.— What ho! holy man, most blessed penitent!— awake — awake! The devil has not discharged you from service yet.”
As Varney at the same time shook the sleeper by the arm, it changed the current of his ideas, and he roared out, “Thieves!— thieves! I will die in defence of my gold — my hard-won gold — that has cost me so dear. Where is Janet?— Is Janet safe?”
“Safe enough, thou bellowing fool!” said Varney; “art thou not ashamed of thy clamour?”
Foster by this time was broad awake, and sitting up in his bed, asked Varney the meaning of so untimely a visit. “It augurs nothing good,” he added.
“A false prophecy, most sainted Anthony,” returned Varney; “it augurs that the hour is come for converting thy leasehold into copyhold. What sayest thou to that?”
“Hadst thou told me this in broad day,” said Foster, “I had rejoiced; but at this dead hour, and by this dim light, and looking on thy pale face, which is a ghastly contradiction to thy light words, I cannot but rather think of the work that is to be done, than the guerdon to be gained by it.”
“Why, thou fool, it is but to escort thy charge back to Cumnor Place.”
“Is that indeed all?” said Foster; “thou lookest deadly pale, and thou art not moved by trifles — is that indeed all?”
“Ay, that — and maybe a trifle more,” said Varney.
“Ah, that trifle more!” said Foster; “still thou lookest paler and paler.”
“Heed not my countenance,” said Varney; “you see it by this wretched light. Up and be doing, man. Think of Cumnor Place — thine own proper copyhold. Why, thou mayest found a weekly lectureship, besides endowing Janet like a baron’s daughter. Seventy pounds and odd.”
“Seventy-nine pounds, five shillings and fivepence half-penny, besides the value of the wood,” said Foster; “and I am to have it all as copyhold?”
“All, man — squirrels and all. No gipsy shall cut the value of a broom — no boy so much as take a bird’s nest — without paying thee a quittance.— Ay, that is right — don thy matters as fast as possible; horses and everything are ready, all save that accursed villain Lambourne, who is out on some infernal gambol.”
“Ay, Sir Richard,” said Foster, “you would take no advice. I ever told you that drunken profligate would fail you at need. Now I could have helped you to a sober young man.”
“What, some slow-spoken, long-breathed brother of the congregation? Why, we shall have use for such also, man. Heaven be praised, we shall lack labourers of every kind.— Ay, that is right — forget not your pistols. Come now, and let us away.”
“Whither?” said Anthony.
“To my lady’s chamber; and, mind, she must along with us. Thou art not a fellow to be startled by a shriek?”
“Not if Scripture reason can be rendered for it; and it is written, ‘Wives obey your husbands.’ But will my lord’s commands bear us out if we use violence?”
“Tush, man! here is his signet,” answered Varney; and having thus silenced the objections of his associate, they went together to Lord Hunsdon’s apartments, and acquainting the sentinel with their purpose, as a matter sanctioned by the Queen and the Earl of Leicester, they entered the chamber of the unfortunate Countess.
The horror of Amy may be conceived when, starting from a broken slumber, she saw at her bedside Varney, the man on earth she most feared and hated. It was even a consolation to see that he was not alone, though she had so much reason to dread his sullen companion.
“Madam,” said Varney, “there is no time for ceremony. My Lord of Leicester, having fully considered the exigencies of the time, sends you his orders immediately to accompany us on our return to Cumnor Place. See, here is his signet, in token of his instant and pressing commands.”
“It is false!” said the Countess; “thou hast stolen the warrant — thou, who art capable of every villainy, from the blackest to the basest!”
“It is true, madam,” replied Varney; “so true, that if you do not instantly arise, and prepare to attend us, we must compel you to obey our orders.”
“Compel! Thou darest not put it to that issue, base as thou art!” exclaimed the unhappy Countess.
“That remains to be proved, madam,” said Varney, who had determined on intimidation as the only means of subduing her high spirit; “if you put me to it, you will find me a rough groom of the chambers.”
It was at this threat that Amy screamed so fearfully that, had it not been for the received opinion of her insanity, she would quickly have had Lord Hunsdon and others to her aid. Perceiving, however, that her cries were vain, she appealed to Foster in the most affecting terms, conjuring him, as his daughter Janet’s honour and purity were dear to him, not to permit her to be treated with unwomanly violence.
“Why, madam, wives must obey their husbands —-there’s Scripture warrant for it,” said Foster; “and if you will dress yourself, and come with us patiently, there’s no one shall lay finger on you while I can draw a pistol-trigger.”
Seeing no help arrive, and comforted even by the dogged language of Foster, the Countess promised to arise and dress herself, if they would agree to retire from the room. Varney at the same time assured her of all safety and honour while in their hands, and promised that he himself would not approach her, since his presence was so displeasing. Her husband, he added, would be at Cumnor Place within twenty-four hours after they had reached it.
Somewhat comforted by this assurance, upon which, however, she saw little reason to rely, the unhappy Amy made her toilette by the assistance of the lantern, which they left with her when they quitted the apartment.
Weeping, trembling, and praying, the unfortunate lady dressed herself with sensations how different from the days in which she was wont to decorate herself in all the pride of conscious beauty! She endeavoured to delay the completing her dress as long as she could, until, terrified by the impatience of Varney, she was obliged to declare herself ready to attend them.
When they were about to move, the Countess clung to Foster with such an appearance of terror at Varney’s approach that the latter protested to her, with a deep oath, that he had no intention whatever of even coming near her. “If you do but consent to execute your husband’s will in quietness, you shall,” he said, “see but little of me. I will leave you undisturbed to the care of the usher whom your good taste prefers.”
“My husband’s will!” she exclaimed. “But it is the will of God, and let that be sufficient to me. I will go with Master Foster as unresistingly as ever did a literal sacrifice. He is a father at least; and will have decency, if not humanity. For thee, Varney, were it my latest word, thou art an equal stranger to both.”
Varney replied only she was at liberty to choose, and walked some paces before them to show the way; while, half leaning on Foster, and half carried by him, the Countess was transported from Saintlowe’s Tower to the postern gate, where Tider waited with the litter and horses.
The Countess was placed in the former without resistance. She saw with some satisfaction that, while Foster and Tider rode close by the litter, which the latter conducted, the dreaded Varney lingered behind, and was soon lost in darkness. A little while she strove, as the road winded round the verge of the lake, to keep sight of those stately towers which called her husband lord, and which still, in some places, sparkled with lights, where wassailers were yet revelling. But when the direction of the road rendered this no longer possible, she drew back her head, and sinking down in the litter, recommended herself to the care of Providence.
Besides the desire of inducing the Countess to proceed quietly on her journey, Varney had it also in view to have an interview with Lambourne, by whom he every moment expected to be joined, without the presence of any witnesses. He knew the character of this man, prompt, bloody, resolute, and greedy, and judged him the most fit agent he could employ in his further designs. But ten miles of their journey had been measured ere he heard the hasty clatter of horse’s hoofs behind him, and was overtaken by Michael Lambourne.
Fretted as he was with his absence, Varney received his profligate servant with a rebuke of unusual bitterness. “Drunken villain,” he said, “thy idleness and debauched folly will stretch a halter ere it be long, and, for me, I care not how soon!”
This style of objurgation Lambourne, who was elated to an unusual degree, not only by an extraordinary cup of wine, but by the sort of confidential interview he had just had with the Earl, and the secret of which he had made himself master, did not receive with his wonted humility. “He would take no insolence of language,” he said, “from the best knight that ever wore spurs. Lord Leicester had detained him on some business of import, and that was enough for Varney, who was but a servant like himself.”
Varney was not a little surprised at his unusual tone of insolence; but ascribing it to liquor, suffered it to pass as if unnoticed, and then began to tamper with Lambourne touching his willingness to aid in removing out of the Earl of Leicester’s way an obstacle to a rise, which would put it in his power to reward his trusty followers to their utmost wish. And upon Michael Lambourne’s seeming ignorant what was meant, he plainly indicated “the litter-load, yonder,” as the impediment which he desired should be removed.
“Look you, Sir Richard, and so forth,” said Michael, “some are wiser than some, that is one thing, and some are worse than some, that’s another. I know my lord’s mind on this matter better than thou, for he hath trusted me fully in the matter. Here are his mandates, and his last words were, Michael Lambourne — for his lordship speaks to me as a gentleman of the sword, and useth not the words drunken villain, or such like phrase, of those who know not how to bear new dignities — Varney, says he, must pay the utmost respect to my Countess. I trust to you for looking to it, Lambourne, says his lordship, and you must bring back my signet from him peremptorily.”
“Ay,” replied Varney, “said he so, indeed? You know all, then?”
“All — all; and you were as wise to make a friend of me while the weather is fair betwixt us.”
“And was there no one present,” said Varney, “when my lord so spoke?”
“Not a breathing creature,” replied Lambourne. “Think you my lord would trust any one with such matters, save an approved man of action like myself?”
“Most true,” said Varney; and making a pause, he looked forward on the moonlight road. They were traversing a wide and open heath. The litter being at least a mile before them, was both out of sight and hearing. He looked behind, and there was an expanse, lighted by the moonbeams, without one human being in sight. He resumed his speech to Lambourne: “And will you turn upon your master, who has introduced you to this career of court-like favour — whose apprentice you have been, Michael — who has taught you the depths and shallows of court intrigue?”
“Michael not me!” said Lambourne; “I have a name will brook a Master before it as well as another; and as to the rest, if I have been an apprentice, my indenture is out, and I am resolute to set up for myself.”
“Take thy quittance first, thou fool!” said Varney; and with a pistol, which he had for some time held in his hand, shot Lambourne through the body.
The wretch fell from his horse without a single groan; and Varney, dismounting, rifled his pockets, turning out the lining, that it might appear he had fallen by robbers. He secured the Earl’s packet, which was his chief object; but he also took Lambourne”s purse, containing some gold pieces, the relics of what his debauchery had left him, and from a singular combination of feelings, carried it in his hand only the length of a small river, which crossed the road, into which he threw it as far as he could fling. Such are the strange remnants of conscience which remain after she seems totally subdued, that this cruel and remorseless man would have felt himself degraded had he pocketed the few pieces belonging to the wretch whom he had thus ruthlessly slain.
The murderer reloaded his pistol after cleansing the lock and barrel from the appearances of late explosion, and rode calmly after the litter, satisfying himself that he had so adroitly removed a troublesome witness to many of his intrigues, and the bearer of mandates which he had no intentions to obey, and which, therefore, he was desirous it should be thought had never reached his hand.
The remainder of the journey was made with a degree of speed which showed the little care they had for the health of the unhappy Countess. They paused only at places where all was under their command, and where the tale they were prepared to tell of the insane Lady Varney would have obtained ready credit had she made an attempt to appeal to the compassion of the few persons admitted to see her. But Amy saw no chance of obtaining a hearing from any to whom she had an opportunity of addressing herself; and besides, was too terrified for the presence of Varney to violate the implied condition under which she was to travel free from his company. The authority of Varney, often so used during the Earl’s private journeys to Cumnor, readily procured relays of horses where wanted, so that they approached Cumnor Place upon the night after they left Kenilworth.
At this period of the journey Varney came up to the rear of the litter, as he had done before repeatedly during their progress, and asked, “How does she?”
“She sleeps,” said Foster. “I would we were home — her strength is exhausted.”
“Rest will restore her,” answered Varney. “She shall soon sleep sound and long. We must consider how to lodge her in safety.”
“In her own apartments, to be sure,” said Foster. “I have sent Janet to her aunt’s with a proper rebuke, and the old women are truth itself — for they hate this lady cordially.”
“We will not trust them, however, friend Anthony,” said Varney; “We must secure her in that stronghold where you keep your gold.”
“My gold!” said Anthony, much alarmed; “why, what gold have I? God help me, I have no gold — I would I had!”
“Now, marry hang thee, thou stupid brute, who thinks of or cares for thy gold? If I did, could I not find an hundred better ways to come at it? In one word, thy bedchamber, which thou hast fenced so curiously, must be her place of seclusion; and thou, thou hind, shalt press her pillows of down. I dare to say the Earl will never ask after the rich furniture of these four rooms.”
This last consideration rendered Foster tractable; he only asked permission to ride before, to make matters ready, and spurring his horse, he posted before the litter, while Varney falling about threescore paces behind it, it remained only attended by Tider.
When they had arrived at Cumnor Place, the Countess asked eagerly for Janet, and showed much alarm when informed that she was no longer to have the attendance of that amiable girl.
“My daughter is dear to me, madam,” said Foster gruffly; “and I desire not that she should get the court-tricks of lying and ‘scaping — somewhat too much of that has she learned already, an it please your ladyship.”
The Countess, much fatigued and greatly terrified by the circumstances of her journey, made no answer to this insolence, but mildly expressed a wish to retire to her chamber,
“Ay, ay,” muttered Foster, “’tis but reasonable; but, under favour, you go not to your gew-gaw toy-house yonder — you will sleep to-night in better security.”
“I would it were in my grave,” said the Countess; “but that mortal feelings shiver at the idea of soul and body parting.”
“You, I guess, have no chance to shiver at that,” replied Foster. “My lord comes hither tomorrow, and doubtless you will make your own ways good with him.”
“But does he come hither?— does he indeed, good Foster?”
“Oh, ay, good Foster!” replied the other. “But what Foster shall I be tomorrow when you speak of me to my lord — though all I have done was to obey his own orders?”
“You shall be my protector — a rough one indeed — but still a protector,” answered the Countess. “Oh that Janet were but here!”
“She is better where she is,” answered Foster —“one of you is enough to perplex a plain head. But will you taste any refreshment?”
“Oh no, no — my chamber — my chamber! I trust,” she said apprehensively, “I may secure it on the inside?”
“With all my heart,” answered Foster, “so I may secure it on the outside;” and taking a light, he led the way to a part of the building where Amy had never been, and conducted her up a stair of great height, preceded by one of the old women with a lamp. At the head of the stair, which seemed of almost immeasurable height, they crossed a short wooden gallery, formed of black oak, and very narrow, at the farther end of which was a strong oaken door, which opened and admitted them into the miser’s apartment, homely in its accommodations in the very last degree, and, except in name, little different from a prison-room.
Foster stopped at the door, and gave the lamp to the Countess, without either offering or permitting the attendance of the old woman who had carried it. The lady stood not on ceremony, but taking it hastily, barred the door, and secured it with the ample means provided on the inside for that purpose.
Varney, meanwhile, had lurked behind on the stairs; but hearing the door barred, he now came up on tiptoe, and Foster, winking to him, pointed with self-complacence to a piece of concealed machinery in the wall, which, playing with much ease and little noise, dropped a part of the wooden gallery, after the manner of a drawbridge, so as to cut off all communication between the door of the bedroom, which he usually inhabited, and the landing-place of the high, winding stair which ascended to it. The rope by which this machinery was wrought was generally carried within the bedchamber, it being Foster’s object to provide against invasion from without; but now that it was intended to secure the prisoner within, the cord had been brought over to the landing-place, and was there made fast, when Foster with much complacency had dropped the unsuspected trap-door.
Varney looked with great attention at the machinery, and peeped more than once down the abyss which was opened by the fall of the trap-door. It was dark as pitch, and seemed profoundly deep, going, as Foster informed his confederate in a whisper, nigh to the lowest vault of the Castle. Varney cast once more a fixed and long look down into this sable gulf, and then followed Foster to the part of the manor-house most usually inhabited.
When they arrived in the parlour which we have mentioned, Varney requested Foster to get them supper, and some of the choicest wine. “I will seek Alasco,” he added; “we have work for him to do, and we must put him in good heart.”
Foster groaned at this intimation, but made no remonstrance. The old woman assured Varney that Alasco had scarce eaten or drunken since her master’s departure, living perpetually shut up in the laboratory, and talking as if the world’s continuance depended on what he was doing there.
“I will teach him that the world hath other claims on him,” said Varney, seizing a light, and going in quest of the alchemist. He returned, after a considerable absence, very pale, but yet with his habitual sneer on his cheek and nostril. “Our friend,” he said, “has exhaled.”
“How!— what mean you?” said Foster —“run away — fled with my forty pounds, that should have been multiplied a thousand-fold? I will have Hue and Cry!”
“I will tell thee a surer way,” said Varney.
“How!— which way?” exclaimed Foster; “I will have back my forty pounds — I deemed them as surely a thousand times multiplied — I will have back my input, at the least.”
“Go hang thyself, then, and sue Alasco in the Devil’s Court of Chancery, for thither he has carried the cause.”
“How!— what dost thou mean is he dead?”
“Ay, truly is he,” said Varney; “and properly swollen already in the face and body. He had been mixing some of his devil’s medicines, and the glass mask which he used constantly had fallen from his face, so that the subtle poison entered the brain, and did its work.”
“Sancta Maria!” said Foster —“I mean, God in His mercy preserve us from covetousness and deadly sin!— Had he not had projection, think you? Saw you no ingots in the crucibles?”
“Nay, I looked not but at the dead carrion,” answered Varney; “an ugly spectacle — he was swollen like a corpse three days exposed on the wheel. Pah! give me a cup of wine.”
“I will go,” said Foster, “I will examine myself —” He took the lamp, and hastened to the door, but there hesitated and paused. “Will you not go with me?” said he to Varney.
“To what purpose?” said Varney; “I have seen and smelled enough to spoil my appetite. I broke the window, however, and let in the air; it reeked of sulphur, and such like suffocating steams, as if the very devil had been there.”
“And might it not be the act of the demon himself?” said Foster, still hesitating; “I have heard he is powerful at such times, and with such people.”
“Still, if it were that Satan of thine,” answered Varney, “who thus jades thy imagination, thou art in perfect safety, unless he is a most unconscionable devil indeed. He hath had two good sops of late.”
“How two sops — what mean you?” said Foster —“what mean you?”
“You will know in time,” said Varney;—“and then this other banquet — but thou wilt esteem Her too choice a morsel for the fiend’s tooth — she must have her psalms, and harps, and seraphs.”
Anthony Foster heard, and came slowly back to the table. “God! Sir Richard, and must that then be done?”
“Ay, in very truth, Anthony, or there comes no copyhold in thy way,” replied his inflexible associate.
“I always foresaw it would land there!” said Foster. “But how, Sir Richard, how?— for not to win the world would I put hands on her.”
“I cannot blame thee,” said Varney; “I should be reluctant to do that myself. We miss Alasco and his manna sorely — ay, and the dog Lambourne.”
“Why, where tarries Lambourne?” said Anthony.
“Ask no questions,” said Varney, “thou wilt see him one day if thy creed is true. But to our graver matter. I will teach thee a spring, Tony, to catch a pewit. Yonder trap-door — yonder gimcrack of thine, will remain secure in appearance, will it not, though the supports are withdrawn beneath?”
“Ay, marry, will it,” said Foster; “so long as it is not trodden on.”
“But were the lady to attempt an escape over it,” replied Varney, “her weight would carry it down?”
“A mouse’s weight would do it,” said Foster.
“Why, then, she dies in attempting her escape, and what could you or I help it, honest Tony? Let us to bed, we will adjust our project tomorrow.”
On the next day, when evening approached, Varney summoned Foster to the execution of their plan. Tider and Foster’s old man-servant were sent on a feigned errand down to the village, and Anthony himself, as if anxious to see that the Countess suffered no want of accommodation, visited her place of confinement. He was so much staggered at the mildness and patience with which she seemed to endure her confinement, that he could not help earnestly recommending to her not to cross the threshold of her room on any account whatever, until Lord Leicester should come, “which,” he added, “I trust in God, will be very soon.” Amy patiently promised that she would resign herself to her fate. and Foster returned to his hardened companion with his conscience half-eased of the perilous load that weighed on it. “I have warned her,” he said; “surely in vain is the snare set in the sight of any bird!”
He left, therefore, the Countess’s door unsecured on the outside, and, under the eye of Varney, withdrew the supports which sustained the falling trap, which, therefore, kept its level position merely by a slight adhesion. They withdrew to wait the issue on the ground-floor adjoining; but they waited long in vain. At length Varney, after walking long to and fro, with his face muffled in his cloak, threw it suddenly back and exclaimed, “Surely never was a woman fool enough to neglect so fair an opportunity of escape!”
“Perhaps she is resolved,” said Foster, “to await her husband’s return,”
“True!— most true!” said Varney, rushing out; “I had not thought of that before.”
In less than two minutes, Foster, who remained behind, heard the tread of a horse in the courtyard, and then a whistle similar to that which was the Earl’s usual signal. The instant after the door of the Countess’s chamber opened, and in the same moment the trap-door gave way. There was a rushing sound — a heavy fall — a faint groan — and all was over.
At the same instant, Varney called in at the window, in an accent and tone which was an indescribable mixture betwixt horror and raillery, “Is the bird caught?— is the deed done?”
“O God, forgive us!” replied Anthony Foster.
“Why, thou fool,” said Varney, “thy toil is ended, and thy reward secure. Look down into the vault — what seest thou?”
“I see only a heap of white clothes, like a snowdrift,” said Foster. “O God, she moves her arm!”
“Hurl something down on her — thy gold chest, Tony — it is an heavy one.”
“Varney, thou art an incarnate fiend!” replied Foster.
“There needs nothing more — she is gone!”
“So pass our troubles,” said Varney, entering the room; “I dreamed not I could have mimicked the Earl’s call so well.”
“Oh, if there be judgment in heaven, thou hast deserved it,” said Foster, “and wilt meet it! Thou hast destroyed her by means of her best affections — it is a seething of the kid in the mother’s milk!”
“Thou art a fanatical ass,” replied Varney; “let us now think how the alarm should be given — the body is to remain where it is.”
But their wickedness was to be permitted no longer; for even while they were at this consultation, Tressilian and Raleigh broke in upon them, having obtained admittance by means of Tider and Foster’s servant, whom they had secured at the village.
Anthony Foster fled on their entrance, and knowing each corner and pass of the intricate old house, escaped all search. But Varney was taken on the spot; and instead of expressing compunction for what he had done, seemed to take a fiendish pleasure in pointing out to them the remains of the murdered Countess, while at the same time he defied them to show that he had any share in her death. The despairing grief of Tressilian, on viewing the mangled and yet warm remains of what had lately been so lovely and so beloved, was such that Raleigh was compelled to have him removed from the place by force, while he himself assumed the direction of what was to be done.
Varney, upon a second examination, made very little mystery either of the crime or of its motives —-alleging, as a reason for his frankness, that though much of what he confessed could only have attached to him by suspicion, yet such suspicion would have been sufficient to deprive him of Leicester’s confidence, and to destroy all his towering plans of ambition. “I was not born,” he said, “to drag on the remainder of life a degraded outcast; nor will I so die that my fate shall make a holiday to the vulgar herd.”
From these words it was apprehended he had some design upon himself, and he was carefully deprived of all means by which such could be carried into execution. But like some of the heroes of antiquity, he carried about his person a small quantity of strong poison, prepared probably by the celebrated Demetrius Alasco. Having swallowed this potion over-night, he was found next morning dead in his cell; nor did he appear to have suffered much agony, his countenance presenting, even in death, the habitual expression of sneering sarcasm which was predominant while he lived. “The wicked man,” saith Scripture, “hath no bands in his death.”
The fate of his colleague in wickedness was long unknown. Cumnor Place was deserted immediately after the murder; for in the vicinity of what was called the Lady Dudley’s Chamber, the domestics pretended to hear groans, and screams, and other supernatural noises. After a certain length of time, Janet, hearing no tidings of her father, became the uncontrolled mistress of his property, and conferred it with her hand upon Wayland, now a man of settled character, and holding a place in Elizabeth’s household. But it was after they had been both dead for some years that their eldest son and heir, in making some researches about Cumnor Hall, discovered a secret passage, closed by an iron door, which, opening from behind the bed in the Lady Dudley’s Chamber, descended to a sort of cell, in which they found an iron chest containing a quantity of gold, and a human skeleton stretched above it. The fate of Anthony Foster was now manifest. He had fled to this place of concealment, forgetting the key of the spring-lock; and being barred from escape by the means he had used for preservation of that gold, for which he had sold his salvation, he had there perished miserably. Unquestionably the groans and screams heard by the domestics were not entirely imaginary, but were those of this wretch, who, in his agony, was crying for relief and succour.
The news of the Countess’s dreadful fate put a sudden period to the pleasures of Kenilworth. Leicester retired from court, and for a considerable time abandoned himself to his remorse. But as Varney in his last declaration had been studious to spare the character of his patron, the Earl was the object rather of compassion than resentment. The Queen at length recalled him to court; he was once more distinguished as a statesman and favourite; and the rest of his career is well known to history. But there was something retributive in his death, if, according to an account very generally received, it took place from his swallowing a draught of poison which was designed by him for another person. 25
Sir Hugh Robsart died very soon after his daughter, having settled his estate on Tressilian. But neither the prospect of rural independence, nor the promises of favour which Elizabeth held out to induce him to follow the court, could remove his profound melancholy. Wherever he went he seemed to see before him the disfigured corpse of the early and only object of his affection. At length, having made provision for the maintenance of the old friends and old servants who formed Sir Hugh’s family at Lidcote Hall, he himself embarked with his friend Raleigh for the Virginia expedition, and, young in years but old in grief, died before his day in that foreign land.
Of inferior persons it is only necessary to say that Blount’s wit grew brighter as his yellow roses faded; that, doing his part as a brave commander in the wars, he was much more in his element than during the short period of his following the court; and that Flibbertigibbet’s acute genius raised him to favour and distinction in the employment both of Burleigh and Walsingham.
The End