St. George and St. Michael

G >> George MacDonald >> St. George and St. Michael

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36

'The king himself hath not, my lord, but others did, in the king's
hearing.'

'Might I but speak unto him--,' said the marquis. 'But I was never
thought worthy to be consulted with, though in matters merely
concerning the affairs of my own country!--I would supply his wants,
were they never so great, or whatsoever they were.'

'If the king knew as much, my lord, you might quickly speak with
him,' remarked the doctor.

'The way to have him know so much is to have somebody to tell him of
it,' said the marquis testily.

'Will your lordship give me leave to be the informer?' asked the
doctor.

'Truly I spake it to the purpose,' answered the marquis.

Away ran the little doctor, ambling through the picture-gallery,
'half going and half running,' like some short-winged bird--his
heart trembling lest the marquis should change his mind and call him
back, and so his pride in his successful mediation be mortified--to
the king's chamber, where he told his majesty with diplomatic
reserve, and something of diplomatic cunning, enhancing the
difficulties, that he had perceived his lordship desired some
conference with him, and that he believed, if the king granted such
conference, he would find a more generous response to his
necessities than perhaps he expected. The king readily consenting,
the doctor went on to say that his lordship much wished the
interview that very night. The king asked how it could be managed,
and the doctor told him the marquis had contrived it before his
majesty came to the castle, having for that reason appointed the
place where they were for his bed-chamber, and not that in the great
tower, which the marquis himself liked the best in the castle.

'I know my lord's drift well enough,' said the king, smiling:
'either he means to chide me, or else to convert me to his
religion.'

'I doubt not, sire,' returned the doctor, 'but your majesty is
temptation-proof as well as correction-free, and will return the
same man you go, having made a profitable exchange of gold and
silver for words and sleep.'

Upon Dr. Bayly's report of his success, the marquis sent him back to
tell the king that at eleven o'clock he would be waiting his majesty
in a certain room to which the doctor would conduct him.

This was the room the marquis's father had occupied and in which he
died, called therefore 'my lord Privy-seal's chamber.' Since then
the marquis had never allowed any one to sleep in it, hardly any one
to go into it; whence it came that although all the rest of the
castle was crowded, this one room remained empty and fit for their
purpose.

To understand the precautions taken to keep their interview a
secret, we must remember that, although he had not a better friend
in all England, such reason had the king to fear losing his
protestant friends from their jealousy of catholic influence, that
he had never invited the marquis of Worcester to sit with him in
council; and that the marquis on his part was afraid both of
injuring the cause of the king, and of being himself impeached for
treason. Should any of the king's attendant lords discover that they
were closeted together, he dreaded the suspicion and accusation of
another Gowry conspiracy even. His lordship therefore instructed Dr.
Bayly to go, as the time drew nigh, to the drawing-room, which was
next the marquis's chamber, and the dining parlour, through both of
which he must pass to reach the appointed place, and clear them of
the company which might be in them. The chaplain desiring to know
how he was to manage it, so that it should not look strange and
arouse suspicion, and what he should do if any were unwilling to
go,--

'I will tell you what you shall do,' said the marquis hastily, 'so
that you shall not need to fear any such thing. Go unto the yeoman
of the wine-cellar, and bid him leave the keys of the wine-cellar
with you, and all that you find in your way, invite them down into
the cellar, and show them the keys, and I warrant you, you shall
sweep the room of them, if there were a hundred. And when you have
done, leave them there.'

But having thus arranged, the marquis grew anxious again. He
remembered that it was not unusual to pass to the hall from the
northern side of the fountain court, where were most of the rooms of
the ladies' gentlewomen, through the picture-gallery, entering it by
a passage and stair which connected the bell-tower with one of its
deep window recesses, and leaving it by a door in the middle of the
opposite side, admitting to a stair in the thickness of the
wall--which led downwards, opening to the minstrels' gallery on the
left hand, and a little further below, to the organ loft in the
chapel on the right hand. It was not the least likely that any of
the ladies or their attendants would be passing that way so late at
night, but there was a possibility, and that was enough, the marquis
being anxious and nervous, to render him more so.

There was, however, another and more threatening possibility of
encounter. He remembered that Mr. Delaware, the master of his horse,
had lately removed to that part of the house: and the fear came upon
him lest his blind son, who frequently turned night into day in his
love for the organ, and was uncertain in his movements between
chapel and chamber, the direct way being that just described, should
by evil chance appear at the very moment of the king's passing, and
alarm him--for through the gallery Dr. Bayly must lead his majesty
to reach my lord Privy-seal's chamber. The marquis, therefore,
although reluctant to introduce another even to the externals of the
plot, felt that the assistance of a second confidant was more than
desirable, and turning the matter over, could think of no one whom
he could trust so well, and who at the same time would, if seen, be
so little liable to the sort of suspicion he dreaded, as Dorothy. He
therefore sent for her, told her as much as he thought proper, gave
her the key of his private passage to the gallery, leading across
the top of the hall-door, the only direct communication from the
southern side of the castle, and generally kept closed, and directed
her to be in the gallery ten minutes before eleven, to lock the door
at the top of the stair leading down into the hall, and take her
stand in the window at the foot of the stair from the bell-tower,
where the door was without a lock, and see that no one entered by
order of the marquis for the king's repose, enjoining upon her that,
whatever she saw or heard from any other quarter, she must keep
perfectly still, nor let any one discover that she was there. With
these instructions, his lordship, considerably relieved, dismissed
her, and went to lie down upon his bed, and have a nap if he could.
He had already given the chaplain the key of his chamber, the door
of which he always locked, that he might enter and wake him when the
appointed hour was at hand.

As soon as he began to feel that eleven o'clock was drawing near,
Dr. Bayly proceeded to reconnoitre. The marquis's plan, although he
could think of none better, was not altogether satisfactory, and it
was to his relief that he found nobody in the dining-room. When he
entered the drawing-room, however, there, to his equal annoyance, he
saw in the light of one expiring candle the dim figure of a lady; he
could not offer HER the keys of the wine-cellar! What was he to do?
What could she be there for? He drew nearer, and, with a positive
pang of relief, discovered that it was Dorothy. A word was enough
between them. But the good doctor was just a little annoyed that a
second should share in the secret of the great ones.

The next room was the antechamber to the marquis's bedroom:
timorously on tiptoe he stepped through it, fearful of waking the
two young gentlemen--for Scudamore's place had been easily
supplied--who waited upon his lordship. Opening the inner door as
softly as he could, he crept in, and found the marquis fast asleep.
So slowly, so gently did he wake him, that his lordship insisted he
had not slept at all; but when he told him that the time was come--

'What time?' he asked.

'For meeting the king,' replied the doctor.

'What king?' rejoined the marquis, in a kind of bewildered horror.

The more he came to himself, the more distressed he seemed, and the
more unwilling to keep the appointment he had been so eager to make,
so that at length even Dr. Bayly was tempted to doubt something evil
in the 'design that carried with it such a conflict within the bosom
of the actor.' It soon became evident, however, that it was but the
dread of such possible consequences as I have already indicated that
thus moved him.

'Fie, fie!' he said; 'I would to God I had let it alone.'

'My lord,' said the doctor, 'you know your own heart best. If there
be nothing in your intentions but what is good and justifiable, you
need not fear; if otherwise, it is never too late to repent.'

'Ah, doctor!' returned the marquis with troubled look, 'I thought I
had been sure of one friend, and that you would never have harboured
the least suspicion of me. God knows my heart: I have no other
intention towards his majesty than to make him a glorious man here,
and a glorified saint hereafter.'

'Then, my lord,' said Dr. Bayly, 'shake off these fears together
with the drowsiness that begat them. Honi soit qui mal y pense.'

'Oh, but I am not of that order!' said the marquis; 'but I thank God
I wear that motto about my heart, to as much purpose as they who
wear it about their arms.'

'He then,' reports the doctor, 'began to be a little pleasant, and
took a pipe of tobacco, and a little glass full of aqua mirabilis,
and said, "Come now, let us go in the name of God," crossing
himself.'

My love for the marquis has led me to recount this curious story
with greater minuteness than is necessary to the understanding of
Dorothy's part in what follows, but the worthy doctor's account is
so graphic that even for its own sake, had it been fitting, I would
gladly have copied it word for word from the Certamen Religiosum.

It is indeed a strange story--king and marquis, attended by a doctor
of divinity, of the faith of the one, but the trusted friend of the
other, meeting--at midnight, although in the house of the
marquis--to discuss points of theology--both king and marquis in
mortal terror of discovery.

Meantime Dorothy had done as she had been ordered, had felt her way
through the darkness to the picture-gallery, had locked the door at
the top of the one stair, and taken her stand in the recess at the
foot of the other--in pitch darkness, close to the king's
bedchamber, for the gallery was but thirteen feet in width, keeping
watch over him! The darkness felt like awe around her.

The door of the chamber opened: it gave no sound, but the glimmer of
the night-light shone out. By that she saw a figure enter the
gallery. The door closed softly and slowly, and all was darkness
again. No sound of movement across the floor followed: but she heard
a deep sigh, as from a sorely burdened heart. Then, in an agonised
whisper, as if wrung by torture from the depths of the spirit, came
the words: 'Oh Stafford, thou art avenged! I left thee to thy fate,
and God hath left me to mine. Thou didst go for me to the scaffold,
but thou wilt not out of my chamber. O God, deliver me from
blood-guiltiness.'

Dorothy stood in dismay, a mere vessel containing a tumult of
emotions. The king re-entered his chamber, and closed the door. The
same instant a light appeared at the further end of the gallery--a
long way off, and Dr. Bayly came, like a Will o' the wisp, gliding
from afar; till, softly walking up, he stopped within a yard or two
of the king's door, and there stood, with his candle in his hand.
His round face was pale that should have been red, and his small
keen eyes shone in the candle light with mingled importance and
anxiety. He saw Dorothy, but the only notice he took of her presence
was to turn from her with his face towards the king's door, so that
his shadow might shroud the recess where she stood.

A minute or so passed, and the king's door re-opened. He came out,
said a few words in a whisper to his guide, and walked with him down
the gallery, whispering as he went.

Dorothy hastened to her chamber, threw herself on the bed, and wept.
The king was cast from the throne of her conscience, but taken into
the hospital of her heart.

What followed between the king and the marquis belongs not to my
tale. When, after a long talk, the chaplain had conducted the king
to his chamber and returned to lord Worcester, he found him in the
dark upon his knees.

CHAPTER XLVI.

GIFTS OF HEALING.

Soon after the king's departure, the marquis received from him a
letter containing another addressed 'To our Attorney or
Solicitor-General for the time being,' in which he commanded the
preparation of a bill for his majesty's signature, creating the
marquis of Worcester duke of Somerset. The enclosing letter
required, however, that it should--'be kept private, until I shall
esteem the time convenient.' In the next year we have causes enough
for the fact that the king's pleasure never reached any attorney or
solicitor-general for the time being.

About a month after the battle of Naseby, and while yet the king was
going and coming as regards Raglan, the wounded Rowland, long before
he was fit to be moved from the farm-house where his servant had
found him shelter, was brought home to the castle. Shafto, faithful
as hare-brained, had come upon him almost accidentally, after long
search, and just in time to save his life. Mistress Watson received
him with tears, and had him carried to the same turret-chamber
whence Richard had escaped, in order that she might be nigh him. The
poor fellow was but a shadow of his former self, and looked more
likely to vanish than to die in the ordinary way. Hence he required
constant attention--which was so far from lacking that the danger,
both physical and spiritual, seemed rather to lie in over-service.
Hitherto, of the family, it had been the marquis chiefly that
spoiled him; but now that he was so sorely wounded for the king, and
lay at death's door, all the ladies of the castle were admiring,
pitiful, tender, ministrant, paying him such attentions as nobody
could be trusted to bear uninjured except a doll or a baby. One
might have been tempted to say that they sought his physical welfare
at the risk of his moral ruin. But there is that in sickness which
leads men back to a kind of babyhood, and while it lasts there is
comparatively little danger. It is with returning health that the
peril comes. Then self and self-fancied worth awake, and find
themselves again, and the risk is then great indeed that all the
ministrations of love be taken for homage at the altar of
importance. How often has not a mistress found that after nursing a
servant through an illness, perhaps an old servant even, she has had
to part with her for unendurable arrogance and insubordination? But
present sickness is a wonderful antidote to vanity, and nourisher of
the gentle primeval simplicities of human nature. So long as a man
feels himself a poor creature, not only physically unable, but
without the spirit to desire to act, kindness will move gratitude,
and not vanity. In Rowland's case happily it lasted until something
better was able to get up its head a little. But no one can predict
what the first result of suffering will be, not knowing what seeds
lie nearest the surface. Rowland's self-satisfaction had been a hard
pan beneath which lay thousands of germinal possibilities
invaluable; and now the result of its tearing up remained to be
seen. If in such case Truth's never-ceasing pull at the heart begins
to be felt, allowed, considered; if conscience begin, like a thing
weary with very sleep, to rouse itself in motions of pain from the
stiffness of its repose, then is there hope of the best.

He had lost much blood, having lain a long time, as I say, in the
fallow-field before Shafto found him. Oft-recurring fever, extreme
depression, and intermittent and doubtful progress life-wards
followed. Through all the commotion of the king's visits, the coming
and going, the clang of hoofs and clanking of armour, the heaving of
hearts and clamour of tongues, he lay lapped in ignorance and
ministration, hidden from the world and deaf to the gnarring of its
wheels, prisoned in a twilight dungeon, to which Richard's sword had
been the key. The world went grinding on and on, much the same,
without him whom it had forgotten; but the over-world remembered
him, and now and then looked in at a window: all dungeons have one
window which no gaoler and no tyrant can build up.

The marquis went often to see him, full of pity for the gay youth
thus brought low; but he would lie pale and listless, now and then
turning his eyes, worn large with the wasting of his face, upon him,
but looking as if he only half heard him. His master grew sad about
him. The next time his majesty came, he asked him if he remembered
the youth, telling him how he had lain wounded ever since the battle
at Naseby. The king remembered him well enough, but had never missed
him. The marquis then told him how anxious he was about him, for
that nothing woke him from the weary heartlessness into which he had
fallen.

'I will pay him a visit,' said the king.

'Sir, it is what I would have requested, had I not feared to pain
your majesty,' returned the marquis.

'I will go at once,' said the king.

When Rowland saw him his face flushed, the tears rose in his eyes,
he kissed the hand the king held out to him, and said feebly:--

'Pardon, sire: if I had rode better, the battle might have been
yours. I reached not the prince.'

'It is the will of God,' said the king, remembering for the first
time that he had sent him to Rupert. 'Thou didst thy best, and man
can do no more.'

'Nay, sire, but an' I had ridden honestly,' returned Rowland; '--I
mean had my mare been honestly come by, then had I done your
majesty's message.'

'How is that?' asked the king.

'Ha!' said the marquis; 'then it was Heywood met thee, and would
have his own again? Told I not thee so? Ah, that mare, Rowland! that
mare!'

But Rowland had to summon all his strength to keep from fainting,
for the blood had fled again to his heart, and could not reply.

'Thou didst thy duty like a brave knight and true, I doubt not,'
said the king, kindly wishful to comfort him; 'and that my word may
be a true one,' he added, drawing his sword and laying it across the
youth's chest, 'although I cannot tell thee to rise and walk, I tell
thee, when thou dost arise, to rise up sir Rowland Scudamore.'

The blood rushed to sir Rowland's face, but fled again as fast.

'I deserve no such honour, sire,' he murmured.

But the marquis struck his hands together with pleasure, and cried,

'There, my boy! There is a king to serve! Sir Rowland Scudamore!
There is for thee! And thy wife will be MY LADY! Think on that!'

Rowland did think on it, but bitterly. He summoned strength to thank
his majesty, but failed to find anything courtier-like to add to the
bare thanks. When his visitors left him, he sighed sorely and said
to himself,

'Honour without desert! But for the roundhead's taunts, I might have
run to Rupert and saved the day.'

The next morning the marquis went again to see him.

'How fares sir Rowland?' he said.

'My lord,' returned Scudamore, in beseeching tone, 'break not my
heart with honour unmerited.'

'How! Darest thou, boy, set thy judgment against the king's?' cried
the marquis. 'Sir Rowland thou art, and SIR ROWLAND will the
archangel cry when he calls thee from thy last sleep.'

'To my endless disgrace,' added Scudamore.

'What! hast not done thy duty?'

'I tried, but I failed, my lord.'

'The best as often fail as the worst,' rejoined his lordship.

'I mean not merely that I failed of the end. That, alas! I did. But
I mean that it was by my own fault that I failed,' said Rowland.

Then he told the marquis all the story of his encounter with
Richard, ending with the words,

'And now, my lord, I care no more for life.'

'Stuff and nonsense!' exclaimed the marquis. 'Thinkest though the
roundhead would have let thee run to Rupert? It was not to that end
he spared thy life. Thy only chance was to fight him.'

'Does your lordship think so indeed?' asked Rowland, with a glimmer
of eagerness.

'On my soul I do. Thou art weak-headed from thy sickness and
weariness.'

'You comfort me, my lord--a little. But the stolen mare, my lord?--'

'Ah! there indeed I can say nothing. That was not well done, and
evil came thereof. But comfort thyself that the evil is come and
gone; and think not that such chances are left to determine great
events. Naseby fight had been lost, spite of a hundred messages to
Rupert. Not care for life, boy! Leave that to old men like me. Thou
must care for it, for thou hast many years before thee.'

'But nothing to fill them with, my lord.'

'What meanest thou there, Rowland? The king's cause will yet
prosper, and--'

'Pardon me, my lord; I spoke not of the king's majesty or his
affairs. Hardly do I care even for them. It is a nameless weight, or
rather emptiness, that oppresseth me. Wherefore is there such a
world? I ask, and why are men born thereinto? Why should I live on
and labour on therein? Is it not all vanity and vexation of spirit?
I would the roundhead had but struck a little deeper, and reached my
heart.'

'I admire at thee, Rowland. Truly my gout causeth me so great grief
that I have much ado to keep my unruly member within bounds, but I
never yet was aweary of my life, and scarce know what I should say
to thee.'

A pause followed. The marquis did not think what a huge difference
there is between having too much blood in the feet and too little in
the brain.

'I pray, sir, can you tell me if mistress Dorothy knoweth it was
before Heywood I fell?' said Rowland at length.

'I know not; but methinks had she known, I should sooner have heard
the thing myself. Who indeed should tell her, for Shafto knew it
not? And why should she conceal it?'

'I cannot tell, my lord: she is not like other ladies.'

'She is like all good ladies in this, that she speaketh the truth:
why then not ask her?'

'I have had no opportunity, my lord. I have not seen her since I
left to join the army.'

'Tut, tut!' said his lordship, and frowned a little. 'I thought not
the damsel had been over nice. She might well have favoured a
wounded knight with a visit.'

'She is not to blame. It is my own fault,' sighed Rowland.

The marquis looked at him for a moment pitifully, but made no
answer, and presently took his leave.

He went straight to Dorothy, and expostulated with her. She answered
him no farther or otherwise than was simply duteous, but went at
once to see Scudamore.

Mistress Watson was in the room when she entered, but left it
immediately: she had never been in spirit reconciled to Dorothy:
their relation had in it too much of latent rebuke for her. So
Dorothy found herself alone with her cousin.

He was but the ghost of the gay, self-satisfied, good-natured,
jolly Rowland. Pale and thin, with drawn face and great eyes, he
held out a wasted hand to Dorothy, and looked at her, not pitifully,
but despairingly. He was one of those from whom take health and
animal spirits, and they feel to themselves as if they had nothing.
Nor have they in themselves anything. With those he could have borne
what are called hardships fairly well; those gone, his soul sat
aghast in an empty house.

'My poor cousin!' said Dorothy, touched with profound compassion at
sight of his lost look. But he only gazed at her, and said nothing.
She took the hand he did not offer, and held it kindly in hers. He
burst into tears, and she gently laid it again on the coverlid.

'I know you despise me, Dorothy,' he sobbed, 'and you are right: I
despise myself.'

'You have been a good soldier to the king, Rowland,' said Dorothy,
'and he has acknowledged it fitly.'

'I care nothing for king or kingdom, Dorothy. Nothing is worth
caring for. Do not mistake me. I am not going to talk
presumptuously. I love not thee now, Dorothy. I never did love thee,
and thou dost right to despise me, for I am unworthy. I would I were
dead. Even the king's majesty hath been no whit the better for me,
but rather the worse; for another man,--one, I mean, who was not
mounted on a stolen mare--would have performed his hest unhindered
of foregone fault.'

'Thou didst not think thou wast doing wrong when thou stolest the
mare,' said Dorothy, seeking to comfort him.

'How know'st thou that, Dorothy? There was a spot in my heart that
felt ashamed all the time.'

'He that is sorry is already pardoned, I think, cousin. Then what
thou hast done evil is gone and forgotten.'

'Nay, Dorothy. But if it were forgotten, yet would it BE. If I
forgot it myself, yet would I not cease to be the man who had done
it. And thou knowest, Dorothy, in how many things I have been false,
so false that I counted myself honourable all the time. Tell me
wherefore should I not kill myself, and rid the world of me; what
withholdeth?'

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36