Shrewsbury Part 44

The Earl spoke in his airiest manner, took snuff _in medio_, and with a carelessness that none could so well affect, avoided looking at his hearer. Nevertheless, the shaft went home. My lord, smitten between the joints of his harness, suffered all that a proud and sensitive man, apprised on a sudden that his dearest secrets were the property of the market-place, could suffer; and rage dissipating the composure which self-respect would fain have maintained, "My lord, this is going too far!" he gasped. "Who gave your lordship leave to--to touch on a matter which concerns only myself?"

"Simply this later matter," the Earl answered in a plain, matter-of-fact tone that at once sobered the Duke, and seemed to justify his own interference. "If there is anything at all in this rumour--if Sir John has really said anything, I take it that the old gossip is at the bottom of it."

The Duke stared before him with a troubled face; and did not answer.

To some it might have seemed the most natural course to carry the war into the informant's country, and by a dry question or a pregnant word suggest that at least as good grounds existed for the imputation cast on _him_. But such a line of argument was beneath the dignity, which was never long wanting, to my lord; and he made no attempt to disturb the other's equanimity or question his triumph. After a time, however, "I beg your pardon," he said. "I forgot myself and spoke hastily. But he is a most impudent fellow!"

"A d----d impudent fellow," the Earl cried, with more fervour than he had yet exhibited.

"And he is playing an impudent game," my lord continued, thoughtfully.

"But a dangerous one."

"As he will find to his cost, before he has done!" Lord Marlborough answered. "It is cunningly thought of. If he will save his head he must give up some one. So, as he will not give up his friends he will ruin his enemies; if the King is a fool, and can spare us."

"The King is no fool!" said the Duke, rather coldly. It was no secret that between William and Lord Marlborough love was not lost.

"Well, that may be a good thing for us!" the Earl answered lightly. He had not the reputation even with his friends of setting his feelings before his interest; nor probably in all England was there a man who looked out on the world with a keener eye to benefit by the weaknesses of men and make profit of their strength.

I know that it ill-becomes one in my station to carp at the great Duke, as men now style him; though of all his greatness, genius, and courage, there remains but a poor drivelling childishness, calling every minute for a woman's tendance. And far am I from giving voice or encouragement to the hints of those, who, hating him, maintain that in future times things incredibly base will be traced to his door. But truth is truth; that he knew more of the matter now threatening and stood to lose more by it than my lord, I have little doubt; nor that this being so, the real object of his visit was to ensure the solidity of the a.s.sailed phalanx, and particularly to make it certain that the Secretary, whose weight with the King was exceeded only by his popularity with the party, should not stand aloof from the common hazard.

Having attained this object, so far as it could be obtained in a single interview, and finding that the Duke, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, continued moody and distraught, he presently took his leave. But to my lord's astonishment, he was announced again ten minutes later. He re-entered with profuse apologies.

"I went from your Grace's to the Venetian Amba.s.sador's on the farther side of the Square," he said. "There I heard it confidently stated that Goodman, one of the two witnesses against Sir John, had absconded. Have you heard it, Duke?"

"No," my lord answered with some dryness. "And I am sure that it is not true."

"You would have heard it?"

"Necessarily."

"Nevertheless, and craving your pardon," the Earl answered slowly, "I think that there is something in it. If he has not been induced to go, I fancy from what I hear that he is hesitating."

"Then he must be looked to."

"Yet! were he to go, you see--it would make all the difference--to Sir John," the Earl said. "There would be only Porter; and the Act requires two witnesses."

My lord lifted his eyebrows; that two witnesses were required in a case of treason was too trite a statement to call for comment. Then seeing the other's drift, he smiled. "That were to lick the platter, my lord, in order to keep the fingers clean," he said.

Lord Marlborough laughed airily. "Well put," he said, not a whit abashed. "So it would. You are right, Duke, as you always are. But I have detained you too long." With which, and another word of apology, he took his leave a second time.

That he left an unhappy man behind him, none can doubt, who knew the Duke's sensitive nature, and respect for his high position and dignity. To find that the weakness, venial and casual, of which he had been guilty years before in stooping to listen to Lord Middleton's solicitations--a fault which he had fancied known only to the King and by him forgiven--to find that this was the property of the public, was burden enough; but to learn that on this was to be founded a fresh charge, for the proper refutation of which the past must be raked up, was torture intolerable. In a fine sense of the ridiculous, my lord excelled any man of his time; he could feather therefore out of his own breast the shafts of evil that would be aimed at the man, who, one of the seven to bring over William in '88, had stooped in '89 to listen to the Exile! He could see more clearly than any all the inconsistency, all the folly, all the weakness of the course, to which he had, not so much committed himself, as been tempted to commit himself. The Minister unfaithful, the patriot importuned, were parts in which he saw himself exposed to the town, to the sallies of Tom Brown, and the impertinences of Ned Ward; nay, in proportion as he appreciated the grandeur of honest rebellion, of treason, open and declared, he felt shame for the pettiness of the part he had himself played, a waverer when trusted, and a palterer when in power.

Such reflections weighed on him so heavily that though one of the proudest and therefore to those below him one of the most courteous and considerate of men, he could scarcely bring himself to face his subordinates, when the hour came for him to attend the office. Sir John Trumball still deferred to him, Mr. Vernon still bowed until the curls of his wig hid his stout red cheeks, the clerks where he came still rose, pale, smug, and submissive, in his honour. But he fancied--quite falsely--something ironical in this respect; he pictured nods and heard words behind his back; and suspecting the talk, which hushed at his entrance rose high on his departure, to be at his expense, he underwent a score of martyrdoms before he returned to St. James's Square.

Meanwhile the absence of the King aggravated his position; firstly, by depriving him of the only confidant his pride permitted him; secondly, by adding to his troubles the jealousies which invariably attend government by a Council. Popularly considered, he was first Minister of the Crown, and deepest in the King's confidence. But the knowledge that one of his colleagues withheld a matter from him, and was in private communication with William in respect to it, was not rendered less irksome by the suspicion, amounting almost to a certainty, that his own concern in the business was that of a culprit. This it was which first and most intimately touched his dignity; and this it was which at the end of a fortnight of suspense drove him to a desperate resolution. He would broach the matter to the Duke of Devonshire; and learn the best and the worst of it.

Desiring to do this in a manner the least formal he took occasion to dismiss his coach at the next Council meeting, and telling the Duke that he wished to mention a matter to him, he begged a seat in his equipage. But whether the Lord Steward foresaw what was coming and parried the subject discreetly, or my lord's heart failed him, they reached the Square, and nothing said, except on general topics. There, my lord's people coming out to receive them, it seemed natural to ask the Duke of Devonshire to enter; but my lord, instead, begged the Duke to drive him round and round a while; and when they were again started, "I have not been well lately," he said--which was true, more than one having commented on it at the Council Table--"and I wished to tell you, that I fear I shall find it necessary to go into the country for a time."

"To Roehampton?" said his companion, after a word or two of regret.

"No, to Eyford."

For a moment his Grace of Devonshire was silent; and my lord without looking at him had the idea that he was startled. At length as the coach went by London House, "I would not do that--just at this time,"

he said, quietly.

"Why not?" asked my lord.

"Because--well, for one thing, the King's service may suffer."

"That is not your reason!" quoth my lord, stubbornly. "You are thinking of the Fenwick matter."

Again the other Duke delayed his answer: but when he spoke his voice was both kind and earnest. "Frankly, I am," he said. "If you know so much, Duke, you know that it would have an ill-appearance."

"How?" said my lord. "Let me tell you that all Sir John knows or can know, the King knows--and has known for some time."

This time there was no doubt that the Lord Steward was startled. "You cannot mean it, Duke," he said, in a constrained voice, and with a gesture of reproach. "You cannot mean that it was with his Majesty's knowledge you had a meeting with Sir John, he being outlawed at the time and under ban? That were to make His Majesty at best an abettor of treason; and at worst a viler thing! For to incite to treason and then to persecute the traitor--but it is impossible!"

"I have not the least notion what your Grace means," my lord said, in a freezing tone. "What is this folly about a meeting with Sir John?"

The Duke of Devonshire was as proud as my patron; and nothing in the great mansion which he was then building in the wilds of the Derbyshire Peak was likely to cause the gaping peasants more astonishment than he felt at this setback. "I don't understand your Grace," he said, at last, in a tone of marked offence.

"Nor I you," my lord answered, thoroughly roused.

"I am afraid--I have said too much," said the other, stiffly.

"Or too little," my lord retorted. "You must go on now."

"Must? Must?" quoth the Duke, whose high spirit had ten years before led him to strike a blow that came near to costing him his estate.

"Ay, must--in justice," said my lord. "In justice to me as well as to others."

After a brief pause, "That is another thing," answered the Lord Steward civilly. "But--is it possible, Duke, that you know so much, and do not know that Sir John a.s.serts that you met him at Ashford two days only before his capture, and entrusted him with a ring and a message--both for St. Germain's?"

"At Ashford?"

"Yes."

"This is sheer madness," my lord cried, holding his hand to his head.

"Are you mad, Devonshire, or am I?"

Whether the Duke, having heard Sir John's story and marked his manner of telling it, had prejudged the cause, or thought that my lord over-acted surprise, he did not immediately answer; and when he did speak, his tone was dry, though courteous. "Well, of course--it may be Sir John who is mad," he said.

"D----n Sir John," my lord answered, sitting up in the coach and fairly facing his companion. "You do not mean to tell me that you believe this story of a c.o.c.k and a bull, and a--a----"

"A ring," said the Duke of Devonshire, quietly.

"Well?"

"Well, Duke, it is this way," the Lord Steward replied. "Sir John has something to say about three others. Lord Marlborough, Ned Russell, and G.o.dolphin. And what he says about them I know in the main to be true. Therefore----"