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-in-law,
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 an 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.