Kenilworth

“Oh, what! you are a grave professor of the precise sisterhood, pretty Mistress Janet,” said the Earl, “and I think your father is of the same congregation in sincerity? I like you both the better for it; for I have been prayed for, and wished well to, in your congregations. And you may the better afford the lack of ornament, Mistress Janet, because your fingers are slender, and your neck white. But here is what neither Papist nor Puritan, latitudinarian nor precisian, ever boggles or makes mouths at. E’en take it, my girl, and employ it as you list.”

So saying, he put into her hand five broad gold pieces of Philip and Mary.

“I would not accept this gold either,” said Janet, “but that I hope to find a use for it which will bring a blessing on us all.”

“Even please thyself, pretty Janet,” said the Earl, “and I shall be well satisfied. And I prithee let them hasten the evening collation.”

“I have bidden Master Varney and Master Foster to sup with us, my lord,” said the Countess, as Janet retired to obey the Earl’s commands; “has it your approbation?”

“What you do ever must have so, my sweet Amy,” replied her husband; “and I am the better pleased thou hast done them this grace, because Richard Varney is my sworn man, and a close brother of my secret council; and for the present, I must needs repose much trust in this Anthony Foster.”

“I had a boon to beg of thee, and a secret to tell thee, my dear lord,” said the Countess, with a faltering accent.

“Let both be for to-morrow, my love,” replied the Earl. “I see they open the folding-doors into the banqueting-parlour, and as I have ridden far and fast, a cup of wine will not be unacceptable.”

So saying he led his lovely wife into the next apartment, where Varney and Foster received them with the deepest reverences, which the first paid after the fashion of the court, and the second after that of the congregation. The Earl returned their salutation with the negligent courtesy of one long used to such homage; while the Countess repaid it with a punctilious solicitude, which showed it was not quite so familiar to her.

The banquet at which the company seated themselves corresponded in magnificence with the splendour of the apartment in which it was served up, but no domestic gave his attendance. Janet alone stood ready to wait upon the company; and, indeed, the board was so well supplied with all that could be desired, that little or no assistance was necessary. The Earl and his lady occupied the upper end of the table, and Varney and Foster sat beneath the salt, as was the custom with inferiors. The latter, overawed perhaps by society to which he was altogether unused, did not utter a single syllable during the repast; while Varney, with great tact and discernment, sustained just so much of the conversation as, without the appearance of intrusion on his part, prevented it from languishing, and maintained the good-humour of the Earl at the highest pitch. This man was indeed highly qualified by nature to discharge the part in which he found himself placed, being discreet and cautious on the one hand, and, on the other, quick, keen-witted, and imaginative; so that even the Countess, prejudiced as she was against him on many accounts, felt and enjoyed his powers of conversation, and was more disposed than she had ever hitherto found herself to join in the praises which the Earl lavished on his favourite. The hour of rest at length arrived, the Earl and Countess retired to their apartment, and all was silent in the castle for the rest of the night.

Early on the ensuing morning, Varney acted as the Earl’s chamberlain as well as his master of horse, though the latter was his proper office in that magnificent household, where knights and gentlemen of good descent were well contented to hold such menial situations, as nobles themselves held in that of the sovereign. The duties of each of these charges were familiar to Varney, who, sprung from an ancient but somewhat decayed family, was the Earl’s page during his earlier and more obscure fortunes, and, faithful to him in adversity, had afterwards contrived to render himself no less useful to him in his rapid and splendid advance to fortune; thus establishing in him an interest resting both on present and past services, which rendered him an almost indispensable sharer of his confidence.

“Help me to do on a plainer riding-suit, Varney,” said the Earl, as he laid aside his morning-gown, flowered with silk and lined with sables, “and put these chains and fetters there” (pointing to the collars of the various Orders which lay on the table) “into their place of security – my neck last night was well-nigh broke with the weight of them. I am half of the mind that they shall gall me no more. They are bonds which knaves have invented to fetter fools. How thinkest thou, Varney?”

“Faith, my good lord,” said his attendant, “I think fetters of gold are like no other fetters – they are ever the weightier the welcomer.”

“For all that, Varney,” replied his master, “I am well-nigh resolved they shall bind me to the court no longer. What can further service and higher favour give me, beyond the high rank and large estate which I have already secured? What brought my father to the block, but that he could not bound his wishes within right and reason? I have, you know, had mine own ventures and mine own escapes. I am well-nigh resolved to tempt the sea no further, but sit me down in quiet on the shore.”

“And gather cockle-shells, with Dan Cupid to aid you,” said Varney.

“How mean you by that, Varney?” said the Earl somewhat hastily.

“Nay, my lord,” said Varney, “be not angry with me. If your lordship is happy in a lady so rarely lovely that, in order to enjoy her company with somewhat more freedom, you are willing to part with all you have hitherto lived for, some of your poor servants may be sufferers; but your bounty hath placed me so high, that I shall ever have enough to maintain a poor gentleman in the rank befitting the high office he has held in your lordship’s family.”

“Yet you seem discontented when I propose throwing up a dangerous game, which may end in the ruin of both of us.”

“I, my lord?” said Varney; “surely I have no cause to regret your lordship’s retreat! It will not be Richard Varney who will incur the displeasure of majesty, and the ridicule of the court, when the stateliest fabric that ever was founded upon a prince’s favour melts away like a morning frost-work. I would only have you yourself to be assured, my lord, ere you take a step which cannot be retracted, that you consult your fame and happiness in the course you propose.”

“Speak on, then, Varney,” said the Earl; “I tell thee I have determined nothing, and will weigh all considerations on either side.”

“Well, then, my lord,” replied Varney, “we will suppose the step taken, the frown frowned, the laugh laughed, and the moan moaned. You have retired, we will say, to some one of your most distant castles, so far from court that you hear neither the sorrow of your friends nor the glee of your enemies, We will suppose, too, that your successful rival will be satisfied (a thing greatly to be doubted) with abridging and cutting away the branches of the great tree which so long kept the sun from him, and that he does not insist upon tearing you up by the roots. Well; the late prime favourite of England, who wielded her general’s staff and controlled her parliaments, is now a rural baron, hunting, hawking, drinking fat ale with country esquires, and mustering his men at the command of the high sheriff – ”

“Varney, forbear!” said the Earl.

“Nay, my lord, you must give me leave to conclude my picture. – Sussex governs England – the Queen’s health fails – the succession is to be settled – a road is opened to ambition more splendid than ambition ever dreamed of. You hear all this as you sit by the hob, under the shade of your hall-chimney. You then begin to think what hopes you have fallen from, and what insignificance you have embraced; and all that you might look babies in the eyes of your fair wife oftener than once a fortnight.”

“I say, Varney,” said the Earl, “no more of this. I said not that the step, which my own ease and comfort would urge me to, was to be taken hastily, or without due consideration to the public safety. Bear witness to me, Varney; I subdue my wishes of retirement, not because I am moved by the call of private ambition, but that I may preserve the position in which I may best serve my country at the hour of need. – Order our horses presently; I will wear, as formerly, one of the livery cloaks, and ride before the portmantle. Thou shalt be master for the day, Varney – neglect nothing that can blind suspicion. We will to horse ere men are stirring. I will but take leave of my lady, and be ready. I impose a restraint on my own poor heart, and wound one yet more dear to me; but the patriot must subdue the husband.”

Having said this in a melancholy but firm accent, he left the dressing apartment.

“I am glad thou art gone,” thought Varney, “or, practised as I am in the follies of mankind, I had laughed in the very face of thee! Thou mayest tire as thou wilt of thy new bauble, thy pretty piece of painted Eve’s flesh there, I will not be thy hindrance. But of thine old bauble, ambition, thou shalt not tire; for as you climb the hill, my lord, you must drag Richard Varney up with you, and if he can urge you to the ascent he means to profit by, believe me he will spare neither whip nor spur, and for you, my pretty lady, that would be Countess outright, you were best not thwart my courses, lest you are called to an old reckoning on a new score. ‘Thou shalt be master,’ did he say? By my faith, he may find that he spoke truer than he is aware of; and thus he who, in the estimation of so many wise-judging men, can match Burleigh and Walsingham in policy, and Sussex in war, becomes pupil to his own menial – and all for a hazel eye and a little cunning red and white, and so falls ambition. And yet if the charms of mortal woman could excuse a man’s politic pate for becoming bewildered, my lord had the excuse at his right hand on this blessed evening that has last passed over us. Well – let things roll as they may, he shall make me great, or I will make myself happy; and for that softer piece of creation, if she speak not out her interview with Tressilian, as well I think she dare not, she also must traffic with me for concealment and mutual support, in spite of all this scorn. I must to the stables. Well, my lord, I order your retinue now; the time may soon come that my master of the horse shall order mine own. What was Thomas Cromwell but a smith’s son? and he died my lord – on a scaffold, doubtless, but that, too, was in character. And what was Ralph Sadler but the clerk of Cromwell? and he has gazed eighteen fair lordships – VIA! I know my steerage as well as they.”

So saying, he left the apartment.

In the meanwhile the Earl had re-entered the bedchamber, bent on taking a hasty farewell of the lovely Countess, and scarce daring to trust himself in private with her, to hear requests again urged which he found it difficult to parry, yet which his recent conversation with his master of horse had determined him not to grant.

He found her in a white cymar of silk lined with furs, her little feet unstockinged and hastily thrust into slippers; her unbraided hair escaping from under her midnight coif, with little array but her own loveliness, rather augmented than diminished by the grief which she felt at the approaching moment of separation.

“Now, God be with thee, my dearest and loveliest!” said the Earl, scarce tearing himself from her embrace, yet again returning to fold her again and again in his arms, and again bidding farewell, and again returning to kiss and bid adieu once more. “The sun is on the verge of the blue horizon – I dare not stay. Ere this I should have been ten miles from hence.”

Such were the words with which at length he strove to cut short their parting interview. “You will not grant my request, then?” said the Countess. “Ah, false knight! did ever lady, with bare foot in slipper, seek boon of a brave knight, yet return with denial?”

“Anything, Amy, anything thou canst ask I will grant,” answered the Earl – “always excepting,” he said, “that which might ruin us both.”

“Nay,” said the Countess, “I urge not my wish to be acknowledged in the character which would make me the envy of England – as the wife, that is, of my brave and noble lord, the first as the most fondly beloved of English nobles. Let me but share the secret with my dear father! Let me but end his misery on my unworthy account – they say he is ill, the good old kind-hearted man!”

“They say?” asked the Earl hastily; “who says? Did not Varney convey to Sir Hugh all we dare at present tell him concerning your happiness and welfare? and has he not told you that the good old knight was following, with good heart and health, his favourite and wonted exercise. Who has dared put other thoughts into your head?”

“Oh, no one, my lord, no one,” said the Countess, something alarmed at the tone, in which the question was put; “but yet, my lord, I would fain be assured by mine own eyesight that my father is well.”

“Be contented, Amy; thou canst not now have communication with thy father or his house. Were it not a deep course of policy to commit no secret unnecessarily to the custody of more than must needs be, it were sufficient reason for secrecy that yonder Cornish man, yonder Trevanion, or Tressilian, or whatever his name is, haunts the old knight’s house, and must necessarily know whatever is communicated there.”

“My lord,” answered the Countess, “I do not think it so. My father has been long noted a worthy and honourable man; and for Tressilian, if we can pardon ourselves the ill we have wrought him, I will wager the coronet I am to share with you one day that he is incapable of returning injury for injury.”

“I will not trust him, however, Amy,” said her husband – “by my honour, I will not trust him, I would rather the foul fiend intermingle in our secret than this Tressilian!”

“And why, my lord?” said the Countess, though she shuddered slightly at the tone of determination in which he spoke; “let me but know why you think thus hardly of Tressilian?”

“Madam,” replied the Earl, “my will ought to be a sufficient reason. If you desire more, consider how this Tressilian is leagued, and with whom. He stands high in the opinion of this Radcliffe, this Sussex, against whom I am barely able to maintain my ground in the opinion of our suspicious mistress; and if he had me at such advantage, Amy, as to become acquainted with the tale of our marriage, before Elizabeth were fitly prepared, I were an outcast from her grace for ever – a bankrupt at once in favour and in fortune, perhaps, for she hath in her a touch of her father Henry – a victim, and it may be a bloody one, to her offended and jealous resentment.”

“But why, my lord,” again urged his lady, “should you deem thus injuriously of a man of whom you know so little? What you do know of Tressilian is through me, and it is I who assure you that in no circumstances will he betray your secret. If I did him wrong in your behalf, my lord, I am now the more concerned you should do him justice. You are offended at my speaking of him, what would you say had I actually myself seen him?”

“If you had,” replied the Earl, “you would do well to keep that interview as secret as that which is spoken in a confessional. I seek no one’s ruin; but he who thrusts himself on my secret privacy were better look well to his future walk. The bear [The Leicester cognizance was the ancient device adopted by his father, when Earl of Warwick, the bear and ragged staff.] brooks no one to cross his awful path.”

“Awful, indeed!” said the Countess, turning very pale.

“You are ill, my love,” said the Earl, supporting her in his arms. “Stretch yourself on your couch again; it is but an early day for you to leave it. Have you aught else, involving less than my fame, my fortune, and my life, to ask of me?”

“Nothing, my lord and love,” answered the Countess faintly; “something there was that I would have told you, but your anger has driven it from my recollection.”

“Reserve it till our next meeting, my love,” said the Earl fondly, and again embracing her; “and barring only those requests which I cannot and dare not grant, thy wish must be more than England and all its dependencies can fulfil, if it is not gratified to the letter.”

Thus saying, he at length took farewell. At the bottom of the staircase he received from Varney an ample livery cloak and slouched hat, in which he wrapped himself so as to disguise his person and completely conceal his features. Horses were ready in the courtyard for himself and Varney; for one or two of his train, intrusted with the secret so far as to know or guess that the Earl intrigued with a beautiful lady at that mansion, though her name and quality were unknown to them, had already been dismissed over-night.

Anthony Foster himself had in hand the rein of the Earl’s palfrey, a stout and able nag for the road; while his old serving-man held the bridle of the more showy and gallant steed which Richard Varney was to occupy in the character of master.

As the Earl approached, however, Varney advanced to hold his master’s bridle, and to prevent Foster from paying that duty to the Earl which he probably considered as belonging to his own office. Foster scowled at an interference which seemed intended to prevent his paying his court to his patron, but gave place to Varney; and the Earl, mounting without further observation, and forgetting that his assumed character of a domestic threw him into the rear of his supposed master, rode pensively out of the quadrangle, not without waving his hand repeatedly in answer to the signals which were made by the Countess with her kerchief from the windows of her apartment.

While his stately form vanished under the dark archway which led out of the quadrangle, Varney muttered, “There goes fine policy – the servant before the master!” then as he disappeared, seized the moment to speak a word with Foster. “Thou look’st dark on me, Anthony,” he said, “as if I had deprived thee of a parting nod of my lord; but I have moved him to leave thee a better remembrance for thy faithful service. See here! a purse of as good gold as ever chinked under a miser’s thumb and fore-finger. Ay, count them, lad,” said he, as Foster received the gold with a grim smile, “and add to them the goodly remembrance he gave last night to Janet.”

“How’s this? how’s this?” said Anthony Foster hastily; “gave he gold to Janet?”

“Ay, man, wherefore not? – does not her service to his fair lady require guerdon?”

“She shall have none on’t,” said Foster; “she shall return it. I know his dotage on one face is as brief as it is deep. His affections are as fickle as the moon.”

“Why, Foster, thou art mad – thou dost not hope for such good fortune as that my lord should cast an eye on Janet? Who, in the fiend’s name, would listen to the thrush while the nightingale is singing?”

“Thrush or nightingale, all is one to the fowler; and, Master Varney, you can sound the quail-pipe most daintily to wile wantons into his nets. I desire no such devil’s preferment for Janet as you have brought many a poor maiden to. Dost thou laugh? I will keep one limb of my family, at least, from Satan’s clutches, that thou mayest rely on. She shall restore the gold.”

“Ay, or give it to thy keeping, Tony, which will serve as well,” answered Varney; “but I have that to say which is more serious. Our lord is returning to court in an evil humour for us.”

“How meanest thou?” said Foster. “Is he tired already of his pretty toy – his plaything yonder? He has purchased her at a monarch’s ransom, and I warrant me he rues his bargain.”

“Not a whit, Tony,” answered the master of the horse; “he dotes on her, and will forsake the court for her. Then down go hopes, possessions, and safety – church-lands are resumed, Tony, and well if the holders be not called to account in Exchequer.”

“That were ruin,” said Foster, his brow darkening with apprehensions; “and all this for a woman! Had it been for his soul’s sake, it were something; and I sometimes wish I myself could fling away the world that cleaves to me, and be as one of the poorest of our church.”

“Thou art like enough to be so, Tony,” answered Varney; “but I think the devil will give thee little credit for thy compelled poverty, and so thou losest on all hands. But follow my counsel, and Cumnor Place shall be thy copyhold yet. Say nothing of this Tressilian’s visit – not a word until I give thee notice.”

“And wherefore, I pray you?” asked Foster, suspiciously.

“Dull beast!” replied Varney. “In my lord’s present humour it were the ready way to confirm him in his resolution of retirement, should he know that his lady was haunted with such a spectre in his absence. He would be for playing the dragon himself over his golden fruit, and then, Tony, thy occupation is ended. A word to the wise. Farewell! I must follow him.”

He turned his horse, struck him with the spurs, and rode off under the archway in pursuit of his lord.

“Would thy occupation were ended, or thy neck broken, damned pander!” said Anthony Foster. “But I must follow his beck, for his interest and mine are the same, and he can wind the proud Earl to his will. Janet shall give me those pieces though; they shall be laid out in some way for God’s service, and I will keep them separate in my strong chest, till I can fall upon a fitting employment for them. No contagious vapour shall breathe on Janet – she shall remain pure as a blessed spirit, were it but to pray God for her father. I need her prayers, for I am at a hard pass. Strange reports are abroad concerning my way of life. The congregation look cold on me, and when Master Holdforth spoke of hypocrites being like a whited sepulchre, which within was full of dead men’s bones, methought he looked full at me. The Romish was a comfortable faith; Lambourne spoke true in that. A man had but to follow his thrift by such ways as offered – tell his beads, hear a mass, confess, and be absolved. These Puritans tread a harder and a rougher path; but I will try – I will read my Bible for an hour ere I again open mine iron chest.”

Varney, meantime, spurred after his lord, whom he found waiting for him at the postern gate of the park.

“You waste time, Varney,” said the Earl, “and it presses. I must be at Woodstock before I can safely lay aside my disguise, and till then I journey in some peril.”

“It is but two hours’ brisk riding, my lord,” said Varney. “For me, I only stopped to enforce your commands of care and secrecy on yonder Foster, and to inquire about the abode of the gentleman whom I would promote to your lordship’s train, in the room of Trevors.”

“Is he fit for the meridian of the antechamber, think’st thou?” said the Earl.

“He promises well, my lord,” replied Varney; “but if your lordship were pleased to ride on, I could go back to Cumnor, and bring him to your lordship at Woodstock before you are out of bed.”

“Why, I am asleep there, thou knowest, at this moment,” said the Earl; “and I pray you not to spare horse-flesh, that you may be with me at my levee.”

So saying, he gave his horse the spur, and proceeded on his journey, while Varney rode back to Cumnor by the public road, avoiding the park. The latter alighted at the door of the bonny Black Bear, and desired to speak with Master Michael Lambourne, That respectable character was not long of appearing before his new patron, but it was with downcast looks.

“Thou hast lost the scent,” said Varney, “of thy comrade Tressilian. I know it by thy hang-dog visage. Is this thy alacrity, thou impudent knave?”

“Cogswounds!” said Lambourne, “there was never a trail so finely hunted. I saw him to earth at mine uncle’s here – stuck to him like bees’-wax – saw him at supper – watched him to his chamber, and, presto! he is gone next morning, the very hostler knows not where.”

“This sounds like practice upon me, sir,” replied Varney; “and if it proves so, by my soul you shall repent it!”

“Sir, the best hound will be sometimes at fault,” answered Lambourne; “how should it serve me that this fellow should have thus evanished? You may ask mine host, Giles Gosling – ask the tapster and hostler – ask Cicely, and the whole household, how I kept eyes on Tressilian while he was on foot. On my soul, I could not be expected to watch him like a sick nurse, when I had seen him fairly a-bed in his chamber. That will be allowed me, surely.”