"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, a.s.suming 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 pa.s.s."
"My lord, long live your fair Countess," said Varney; "but neither your love nor my good wishes can make her immortal. But G.o.d 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 to-day?--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 s.p.a.ce 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. [See Note 8.
Furniture of Kenilworth.]
CHAPTER x.x.xIII.
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 fort.i.tude, 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 G.o.d! 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 s.p.a.ce 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 compa.s.sion 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 c.u.mnor 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-gla.s.ses, 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 circ.u.mstanced.
"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, m.u.f.fled 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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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 m.u.f.fled in her travelling dress, and as Lambourne had scarce ever been admitted to her presence at c.u.mnor 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 circ.u.mstances.
Lambourne flung the door behind him as he entered, and folding his arms, as if in mockery of the att.i.tude of distraction into which Amy had thrown herself, he proceeded thus: "Hark ye, most fair Calipolis--or most lovely Countess of clouts, and divine d.u.c.h.ess 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 d.a.m.ned 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."