Kitabı oku: «Shrewsbury: A Romance», sayfa 24
CHAPTER XLII
I have commonly reckoned it among my lord's greatest misfortunes that in a crisis of his affairs which demanded all the assistance that friendship, the closest and most intimate could afford, he had neither wife nor child to whom he could turn, and from whom, without loss of dignity, he might receive comfort and support. He was a solitary man; separated from such near relations as he had, by differences as well religious as political, and from the world at large by the grandeur of a position which imposed burdens as onerous as the privileges it conferred were rare.
To a melancholy habit, which some attributed to the sad circumstances attendant on his father's death, and others to the change of faith, which he had been induced to make on reaching manhood, he added a natural shyness and reserve, qualities which, ordinarily veiled from observation by manners and an address the most charming and easy in the world, were none the less obstacles, where friendship was in question. Not that of friendship there was much among the political men of that day, the perils and uncertainties of the time inculcated a distrust, which was only overcome where blood or marriage cemented the tie-as in the case of Lords Sunderland, Godolphin, and Marlborough, and again of the Russells and Cavendishes. But, be that as it may, my lord stood outside these bonds, and enjoyed and rued a splendid isolation. As if already selected by fortune for that strange combination of great posts with personal loneliness, which was to be more strikingly exhibited in the death-chamber of her late Majesty Queen Anne, he lived, whether in his grand house in St. James's Square, or at Eyford among the Gloucestershire Wolds, as much apart as any man in London or in England.
Withal, I know, men called him the King of Hearts. But the popularity, of which that title seemed the sign and seal, was factitious and unreal; born, while they talked with him, of his spontaneous kindness and boundless address; doomed to perish an hour later, of spite and envy, or of sheer inanition. Since the Duke was sensitive, over-proud for intimacy, flattered no man, and gave no man confidences.
Such an one bade fair, when in trouble, to eat out his heart. Prone to fancy all men's hands against him, he doubled the shame and outdid the most scandalous. So far, indeed, was he from deriving comfort from things that would have restored such men as my Lord Marlborough to perfect self-respect and composure, that I believe, and in fine had it from himself, that the letter which the King wrote to him from Loo (and which came to his hands through Lord Portland's, three days after the interview with his Grace of Devonshire) pained him more sensibly than all that had gone before.
"You may judge of my astonishment," His Majesty wrote, "at his effrontery in accusing you. You are, I trust, too fully convinced of the entire confidence which I place in you to think that such stories can make any impression on me. You will observe this honest man's sincerity, who only accuses those in my service, and not one of his own party."
It will be understood that that in His Majesty's letter which touched my lord home was less the magnanimity displayed in it than the remembrance that once before the Sovereign had dealt with the subject in the same spirit, and that now the world must know this. Of the immediate accusation, with all its details of time and circumstance, he thought little, believing, not only that the truth must quickly sweep it away, but that in the meantime few would be found so credulous as to put faith in it. But he saw with painful clearness that the charge would rub the old sore and gall the old raw; and he winced, seated alone in his library in the silence of the house, as if the iron already seared the living flesh. With throes of shame he foresaw what staunch Whigs, such as Somers and Wharton, would say of him; what the Postboy and the Courant would print of him; what the rank and file of the party-exposed to no danger in the event of a Restoration, and consequently to few temptations to make their peace abroad-would think of their trusted leader, when they learned the truth.
On Marlborough and Russell, Godolphin and Sunderland, the breath of suspicion had blown: on him never, and he had held his head high. How could he meet them now? How could he face them? Nay, if that were all, how, he asked himself, could he face the honest Nonjuror? Or the honest Jacobite? Or the honest Tory? He, who had taken the oaths to the new government and broken them, who had set up the new government and deceived it, who had dubbed himself patriot-cui bono? Presently brooding over it, he came to think that there was but one man in England, turpissimus; that it would be better in the day of reckoning for the meanest carted pickpocket, whose sentence came before him for revision, than for the King's Secretary in his garter and robes!
Nor, if he had known all that was passing, and all that was being said, among those with whom his fancy painfully busied itself, would he have been the happier. For Sir John's statement got abroad with marvellous quickness. Before Lord Portland arrived from Holland the details were whispered in every tavern and coffee-house within the Bills. The Tories and Jacobites, aiming above everything at finding a counterblast to the Assassination Plot, the discovery of which had so completely sapped their credit with the nation, pounced on the scandal with ghoulish avidity, and repeated and exaggerated it on every occasion. Every Jacobite house of call, from the notorious Dog in Drury Lane, the haunt of mumpers and foot-pads, to the Chocolate House in St. James's rang with it. For Sir John, all (they said among themselves) that they had expected of him was surpassed by this. He was extolled to the skies alike for what he had done and for what he had not done; and as much for the wit that had confounded his enemies as for the courage that had protected his friends. For what Jacobite, seeing the enemy hoist with his own petard could avoid a snigger? Or hear the word Informer without swearing that Sir John was the most honest man who ever signed his name to a deposition.
The Whigs on the other hand, exasperated by an attack as subtle as it was unforeseen, denied the charges with a passion and fury that of themselves betrayed apprehension. Here, they said, was another Taafe; suborned by the same gang and the same vile machinations that had brought about the Lancashire failure, and hounded Trenchard to his death. Not content with threatening Sir John with the last penalties of treason and felony, and filling the Rose Tavern with protestations, which admitted the weight while they denied the truth of the charges brought against their leaders, the party called aloud for meetings, enquiries, and prosecutions; to which the leaders soon found themselves pledged, whether they would or no.
My lord out of sensitiveness, or that over-appreciation of what was due to himself and others which in a degree unfitted him for public life, had a week before this, pleading indisposition, begun to keep the house; and to all requests proffered by his colleagues that he would take part in their deliberations, returned a steadfast negative. This notwithstanding, everything that was done was communicated to him; and announcements of the meetings, which it was now proposed to hold-one at Lord Somers' in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and the other at Admiral Russell's-would doubtless have been made to him within the hour. As it chanced, however, he received the news from another source. On the day of the decision, as he sat alone, dwelling gloomily on the past, the Square was roused at the quietest time of the forenoon by an arrival. With a huge chitter, the Countess's glass chariot, with its outriders, running footmen, and lolling waiting-women, rolled up to the door; and in a moment my lady was announced.
It is probable that there was no one whom he had less wish to see. But he could not deny himself to her; and he rose with an involuntary groan. The Countess on her side was in no better temper, as her first words indicated. "My life, my lord, what is this I hear," she cried roundly, as soon as the door closed upon her. "That you are lying down to be trodden on! And cannot do this, and will not do that, but pule and cry at home while they spin a rope for you! Sakes, man, play the one side, play the other side-which you please! But play it! play it!"
My lord, chagrined as much by the intrusion as by the reproach, answered her with more spirit than he was wont to use to her. "I thought, Madam," he answered sharply, "that the one thing you desired was my withdrawal from public life?"
"Ay, but not after this fashion!" she retorted, striking her ebony cane on the floor and staring at him, her reddled face and huge curled wig trembling. "If all I hear be true-and I hear that they are going to hold two inquests on you-and you continue to sit here, it will be a fine withdrawal! You will be doomed by James and blocked by William, and that d-d rogue John Churchill will wear your clothes! Withdrawal say you? No, if you had withdrawn six months ago when I bade you, you would have gone and been thanked. But now, the fat is in the fire, and, wanting courage, you'll frizzle, my lad."
"And whom have I to thank for that, Madam?" he asked, with bitterness.
"Why, yourself, booby!" she cried.
"No, Madam, your friends!" he replied-which was so true and hit the mark so exactly that my lady looked rather foolish for a moment. Without noticing the change, however, "Your friends. Madam," he continued, "Lord Middleton and Sir John Fenwick, and Montgomery, and the rest, whom you have never ceased pressing me to join! Who unable to win me will now ruin me. But you are right, Madam. I see, for myself now, that it is not possible to play against them with clean hands, and therefore I leave the game to them."
"Pack of rubbish!" she cried.
"It is not rubbish. Madam, as you will find," he answered coldly. "You say they will hold two inquests on me? There will be no need. Within the week my resignation of all my posts will be in the King's hands."
"And you?"
"And I, Madam, shall be on my way to Eyford."
Now there is nothing more certain than that for a year past the Countess had strained every nerve to detach the Duke from the Government, with a view to his reconciliation with King James and St. Germain's. But, having her full share of a mother's pride, she was as far from wishing to see him retire after this fashion as if she had never conceived the notion. And to this the asperity of her answer bore witness. "To Eyford?" she cried, shrilly. "More like to Tower Hill! Or the Three Trees and a thirteenha'penny fee-for that is your measure! God, my lad, you make me sick! You make me sick!" she continued, her wrinkled old face distorted by the violence of her rage, and her cane going tap-a-tap in her half-palsied hand. "That a son of mine should lack the spirit to turn on these pettifoggers!"
"Your friends, Madam," he said remorselessly.
"These perts and start-ups! But you are mad, man! You are mad," she continued. "Mad as King Jamie was when he fled the country-and who more glad than the Dutchman! And as it was with him so it will be with you. They will strip you, Charles. They will strip you bare as you were born! And the end will be, you'll lie with Ailesbury in the Tower, or bed with Tony Hamilton in a garret-là bas!"
"Which is precisely the course to which you have been pressing me," he replied with something of a sneer.
"Ay, with a full purse!" she screamed. "With a full purse, fool! With Eyford and fifty thousand guineas, my lad! But go, a beggar, as you'll go, and it is welcome you'll be-to the doorkey and the kennel, or like enough to King Louis' Bastile! Tell me, man, that this is all nonsense! That you'll show your face to your enemies, go abroad and be King again!"
My lord answered gravely that his mind was quite made up.
"To go?" she gasped. "To go to Eyford?" And raising her stick in her shaking hand, she made a gesture so menacing that, fearing she would strike him, my lord stepped back.
Nevertheless, he answered her firmly. "Yes, to Eyford. My letter to the King is already written."
"Then that for you, and your King!" she shrieked; and in an excess of uncontrolled passion, she whirled her stick round and brought it down on a stand of priceless Venice crystal which stood beside her; being the same that Seigniors Soranzo and Venier had presented to the Duke in requital of the noble entertainment which my lord had given to the Venetian Ambassadors, the April preceding. The blow shivered the vases, which fell in a score of fragments to the floor; but not content with the ruin she had accomplished, the Countess struck fiercely again and again. "There's for you, you poor speechless fool!" she continued. "That a son of mine should lie down to his enemies! There was never Brudenel did it. But your father, he too was a-"
"Madam!" he said, taking her up grimly. "I will not hear you on that!"
"Ay, but you shall hear me!" she screamed, and yet more soberly. "He, too, was a-"
"Silence!" he said; and this time, low as his voice rang, ay, and though it trembled, it stilled her. "Silence, Madam," he repeated, "or you do that, which neither the wrong you wrought so many years ago to him you miscall, nor those things common fame still tells of you, nor differences of creed, nor differences of party, have prevailed to effect. Say more of him," he continued, "and we do not meet again, my lady. For I have this at least from you-that I do not easily forgive."
She glared at him a moment, rage, alarm, and vexation, all distorting her face. Then, "The door!" she hissed. "The door, boor! You are still my son, and if you will not obey me, shall respect me. Take me out, and if ever I enter your house again-"
She did not complete the sentence, but lapsed into noddings and mowings and mutterings, her fierce black eyes flickering vengeance to come. However, my lord paid no heed to that, but glad, doubtless, to be rid of her visit even at the cost of his Venetian, offered her his arm in silence and led her into the hall and to her chariot.
She could not avenge herself on him; and it might be, she would not if she could. But there was one on whom her passion alighted, who with all her cunning little expected the impending storm. The most astute are sometimes found napping. And the smoothest pad-nag will plunge. Whether the favourite waiting-woman had overstepped her authority of late, presuming on a senility, which existed indeed, but neither absolutely blinded my lady nor was to be depended on in face of gusts of passion such as this; whether this was the case, I say, or Monterey, rendered incautious by success, was unfortunate enough to betray her triumph, by some look of spite and malice during the drive home, it is certain that at the door the storm broke. Without the least warning the Countess, after using her arm to descend, turned on her, a very Bess of Bedlam.
"And you, you grinning ape!" she cried, "you come no farther! This is no home of yours; begone, or I will have you whipped! You don't go into my house again!"
The astonished woman, taken utterly aback, and not in the least understanding, began to remonstrate. Her first thought was that the Countess was ill. "Your ladyship-is not well?" she cried, with solicitude veiling her alarm. "You cannot mean-"
"Ay, but I can! I can!" the old lady answered, mocking her. "You have done mischief enow, and do no more here! Where is that man of yours, who went, and never came back, and nought but excuses? And now this."
"Oh, my lady, what ails you?" the waiting-woman cried. "What does this mean?"
"You know!" said my lady with an oath. "So begone about your business, and don't let me see your face again or it will be the worse for you."
Disarmed of her usual address by the suddenness of the attack, the Monterey began to whimper; and again asked how she had offended her and what she had done to deserve this. "I, who have served you so long, and so faithfully?" she cried. "What have I done to earn this?"
"God and you know-better than I do!" was the fierce answer. And then, "Williams," the Countess cried to her major-domo, who, with the lacqueys and grooms, was standing by, enjoying the fall of the favourite-"see that that drab does not cross my threshold again; or you go, do you hear? Ay, mistress, you would poison me if you could!" the old lady went on, gibing, and pointing with her stick at the face, green with venom and spite, that betrayed the baffled woman's feelings. "Look at her! Look at her! There is Madame Voisin for you! There is Madame Turner! She would poison you all if she could. But you should have done it yesterday, you slut! You will not have the chance now. Put her rags out here-here on the road; and do you, Williams, send her packing, and see she takes naught of mine, not a pinner or a sleeve, or she goes to Paddington fair for it! Ay, you drab," my lady continued, with cruel exultation, "I'll see you beat hemp yet! and your shoulders smarting!"
"May God forgive you!" cried the waiting-woman, fighting with her rage.
"He may or He may not!" said the dreadful old lady, coolly turning to go in. "Anyway, your score won't stand for much in the sum, my girl."
And not until the Countess had gone in and Madame Monterey saw before her the grinning faces of the servants, as they stood to bar the way, did she thoroughly take in what had happened to her, or the utter ruin of all her prospects which this meant. Then, choking with passion, rage, despair, "Let me pass," she cried, advancing and trying frantically to push her way through them. "Let me pass, you boobies. Do you hear? How dare-"
"Against orders, Madame Voisin!" said the majordomo with a hoarse laugh; and he thrust her back. And when, maddened by the touch, and defeat, she flung herself on him in a frenzy, one of the lacqueys caught her round the waist lifting her off her legs, carried her out screaming and scratching, and set her down in the road amid the laughter of his companions.
"There," he said, "and next time better manners, mistress, or I'll drop you in the horse pond. You are not young enough, nor tender enough for these airs! Ten years ago you might have scratched all you pleased!"
"Strike you dead!" she cried, "my husband-my husband shall kill you all! Ay, he shall!"
"When he gets out of the Gatehouse, we will talk, mistress," the man answered. "But he's there, and you know it!"
CHAPTER XLIII
My lord persisted in his design of retiring to Eyford; nor could all the persuasions of his friends, and of some who were less his friends than their own, induce him to attend either the meeting of the party at Admiral Russell's, or that which was held in Lincoln's Inn Fields; a thing which I take to be in itself a refutation of the statement, sometimes heard in his disparagement, that he lacked strength. For it is on record that his Grace of Marlborough, in the great war, where he had in a manner to contend with Emperors and Princes, held all together by his firmness and conduct; yet he failed with my lord, though he tried hard, pleading as some thought in his own cause. To his arguments and those of Admiral Russell and Lord Godolphin, the hearty support of the party was not lacking, if it could have availed. But as a fact, it went into the other scale, since in proportion as his followers proclaimed their faith in my lord's innocence, and denounced his accusers, he felt shame for the old folly and inconsistency, that known by some, and suspected by more, must now be proclaimed to the world. It was this which for a time paralysed the vigour and intellect that at two great crises saved the Protestant Party; and this, which finally determined him to leave London.
It was not known, when he started, that horse-patrols had been ordered to the Kent and Essex roads in expectation of His Majesty's immediate crossing. Nor is it likely that the fact would have swayed him had he known it, since it was not upon His Majesty's indulgence-of which, indeed, he was assured-or disfavour, that he was depending; my lord being moved rather by considerations in his own mind. But at Maidenhead, where he lay the first night, Mr. Vernon overtook him-coming up with him as he prepared to start in the morning-and gave him news which presently altered his mind. Not only was His Majesty hourly expected at Kensington, where his apartments were being hastily prepared, but he had expressed his intention of seeing Fenwick at once, and sifting him.
"Nor is that all," Mr. Vernon continued. "I have reason to think that your Grace is under a complete misapprehension as to the character of the charges that are being made."
"What matter what the charges are?" my lord replied wearily, leaning back in his coach. For he had insisted on starting.
"It does matter very much-saving your presence, Duke," Mr. Vernon answered bluntly; a sober and downright gentleman, whose after-succession to the Seals, though thought at the time to be an excessive elevation, and of the most sudden, was fully justified by his honourable career. "Pardon me, I must speak, I have been swayed too long by your Grace's extreme dislike of the topic."
"Which continues," my lord said drily.
"I care not a jot if it does!" Mr. Vernon cried impetuously, and then met the Duke's look of surprise and anger with, "Your Grace forgets that it is treason is in question! High Treason, not in the clouds and in prœterito, but in prœsenti and in Kent! High Treason in aiding and abetting Sir John Fenwick, an outlawed traitor, and by his mouth and hand communicating with and encouraging the King's enemies."
"You are beside the mark, sir," my lord answered, in a tone of freezing displeasure. "That has nothing to do with it. It is a foolish tale which will not stand a minute. No man believes it."
"May be! But by G-d! two men will prove it."
"Two men?" quoth my lord, his ear caught by that.
"Ay, two men! And two men are enough, in treason."
My lord stared hard before him. "Who is the second?" he said at last.
"A dubious fellow, yet good enough for the purpose," the Under-Secretary answered, overjoyed that he had at last got a hearing. "A man named Matthew Smith, long suspected of Jacobite practices, and arrested with the others at the time of the late conspiracy, but released, as he says-"
"Well?"
"Corruptly," quoth the Under-Secretary coolly, and laid his hand on the check-string.
My lord sprang in his seat. "What?" he cried; and uttered an oath, a thing to which he rarely condescended. Then, "It is true I know the man-"
"He is in the Countess's service."
"In her husband's. And he was brought before me. But the warrant was against one John Smith-or William Smith, I forget which-and I knew this man to be Matthew Smith; and the messenger himself avowing a mistake, I released the man."
"Of course," said Mr. Vernon, nodding impatiently. "Of course, but that, your Grace, is not the gravamen. It is a more serious matter that he alleges that he accompanied you to Ashford, that you there in his presence saw Sir John Fenwick, that you gave Sir John a ring-and, in a word, he confirms Sir John's statement in all points. And there being now two witnesses, the matter becomes grave. Shall I stop the coach?" And he made again as if he would twitch the cord.
The Duke, wearing a very sober face-yet one wherein the light of conflict began to flicker-drummed softly on the glass with his fingers. "How do you come by his evidence?" he said at last. "Has Sir John approved against him?"
"No, but Sir John sent for him the morning he saw Devonshire for the second time, and I suppose threatened him, for the fellow went to Trumball and said that he had evidence to give touching Sir John, if he could have His Majesty's word he should not suffer. It was given him, more or less; and he confirmed Sir John's tale totidem verbis. They have had him in the Gatehouse these ten days, it seems, on Trumball's warrant."
The Duke drew a deep breath. "Mr. Vernon, I am much obliged to you," he said. "You have played the friend in my teeth. I see that I have treated this matter too lightly. Sir John, unhappy as he is in some of his notions, is a gentleman, and I was wrong to think that he would accuse me out of pure malice and without grounds. There is some ill practice here."
"Devilish ill," Mr. Vernon answered, scarce able to conceal his delight.
"Some plot."
"Ay, plot within plot!" cried the Under-Secretary, chuckling. "Shall I pull the string?"
The Duke hesitated, his face plainly showing the conflict that was passing in his mind. Then, "If you please," he said.
And so there the coach came to a standstill, as I have often heard, on an old brick bridge short of Nettlebed, near the coming into the village from Maidenhead. One of the outriders, spurring to the carriage window for orders, my lord cried "Turn! Maidenhead!"
"No, London," said Mr. Vernon firmly. "And one of you," he continued, "gallop forward, and have horses ready at the first change house. And so to the next."
The Duke, his head in a whirl with what he had heard, pushed resistance no farther, but letting the reins fall from his hands, consented to be led by his companion. In deference to his wishes, however-not less than to his health, which the events of the last few weeks had seriously shaken-it was determined to conceal his return to town; the rather as the report of his absence might encourage his opponents, and lead them to show their hands more clearly. Hence, in the common histories of the day, and even in works so learned and generally well-informed as the Bishop of Salisbury's and Mr. – 's, it is said and asserted that the Duke of Shrewsbury retired to his seat in Gloucestershire before the King's return, and remained there in seclusion until his final resignation of the Seals. It is probable that by using Mr. Vernon's house in place of his own, and by his extreme avoidance of publicity while he lay in town, my lord had himself to thank for this statement; but that in making it these writers, including the learned Bishop, are wanting in accuracy, the details I am to present will clearly show.
Suffice it that entering London late that night, my lord drove to Mr. Vernon's, who, going next morning to the office, presently returned with the news that the King had ridden in from Margate after dining at Sittingbourne, and would give an audience to Sir John on the following day. But, as these tidings did no more than fulfil the expectation, and scarcely accounted for the air of briskness and satisfaction which marked the burly and honest gentleman, it is to be supposed that he did not tell the Duke all he had learned. And, indeed, I know this to be so.
