St. George and St. Michael Part 54

'Since you will tell me nothing, madam, I must take comfort that of myself I know one thing.'

'Prithee, what knowest thou?' asked the countess, but as if careless of being answered, so listless was her tone, so nearly inarticulate her words.

'That is but what bringeth him fresh honour, my lady,' answered Dorothy.

The countess started up, threw her arms about her, drew her down on the bed, kissed her, and held her fast, sobbing worse than ever.

'Madam! madam!' murmured Dorothy from her bosom.

'I thank thee, Dorothy,' she sighed out at length: 'for thy words and thy thoughts have ever been of a piece.'

'Sure, my lady, no one did ever yet dare think otherwise of my lord,'

returned Dorothy, amazed.

'But many will now, Dorothy. My G.o.d! they will have it that he is a traitor. Wouldst thou believe it, child--he is a prisoner in the castle of Dublin!'

'But is not Dublin in the hands of the king, my lady?'

'Ay! there lies the sting of it! What treacherous friends are these heretics! But how should they be anything else? Having denied their Saviour they may well malign their better brother! My lord marquis of Ormond says frightful things of him.'

'One thing more I know, my lady,' said Dorothy, '--that as long as his wife believes him the true man he is, he will laugh to scorn all that false lips may utter against him.'

'Thou art a good girl, Dorothy, but thou knowest little of an evil world. It is one thing to know thyself innocent, and another to carry thy head high.'

'But, madam, even the guilty do that; wherefore not the innocent then?'

'Because, my child, they ARE innocent, and innocence so hateth the very shadow of guilt that it cannot brook the wearing it. My lord is grievously abused, Dorothy--I say not by whom.'

'By whom should it be but his enemies, madam?'

'Not certainly by those who are to him friends, but yet, alas! by those to whom he is the truest of friends.'

'Is my lord of Ormond then false? Is he jealous of my lord Glamorgan?

Hath he falsely accused him? I would I understood all, madam.'

'I would I understood all myself, child. Certain papers have been found bearing upon my lord's business in Ireland, all ears are filled with rumours of forgery and treason, coupled with the name of my lord, and he is a prisoner in Dublin castle.'

She forced the sentence from her, as if repeating a hated lesson, then gave a cry, almost a scream of agony.

'Weep not, madam,' said Dorothy, in the very foolishness of sympathetic expostulation.

'What better cause could I have out of h.e.l.l!' returned the countess, angrily.

'That it were no lie, madam.'

'It is true, I tell thee.'

'That my lord is a traitor, madam?'

Lady Glamorgan dashed her from her, and glared at her like a tigress. An evil word was on her lips, but her better angel spoke, and ere Dorothy could recover herself, she had listened and understood.

'G.o.d forbid!' she said, struggling to be calm. 'But it is true that he is in prison.'

'Then give G.o.d thanks, madam, who hath forbidden the one and allowed the other, said Dorothy; and finding her own composure on the point of yielding, she courtesied and left the room. It was a breach of etiquette without leave asked and given, but the face of the countess was again on her pillow, and she did not heed.

For some time things went on as in an evil dream. The marquis was in angry mood, with no gout to lay it upon. The gloom spread over the castle, and awoke all manner of conjecture and report. Soon, after a fashion, the facts were known to everybody, and the gloom deepened. No further enlightenment reached Dorothy. At length one evening, her mistress having sent for her, she found her much excited, with a letter in her hand.

'Come here, Dorothy: see what I have!' she cried, holding out the letter with a gesture of triumph, and weeping and laughing alternately.

'Madam, it must be something precious indeed,' said Dorothy, 'for I have not heard your ladyship laugh for a weary while. May I not rejoice with you, madam?'

'You shall, my good girl: hearken: I will read:--'My dear Heart,'--Who is it from, think'st thou, Dorothy? Canst guess?--'My dear Heart, I hope these will prevent any news shall come unto you of me since my commitment to the Castle of Dublin, to which I a.s.sure thee I went as cheerfully and as willingly as they could wish, whosoever they were by whose means it was procured; and should as unwillingly go forth, were the gates both of the Castle and Town open unto me, until I were cleared: as they are willing to make me unserviceable to the king, and lay me aside, who have procured for me this restraint; when I consider thee a Woman, as I think I know you are, I fear lest you should be apprehensive. But when I reflect that you are of the House of Th.o.m.ond, and that you were once pleased to say these words unto me, That I should never, in tenderness of you, desist from doing what in honour I was obliged to do, I grow confident, that in this you will now show your magnanimity, and by it the greatest testimony of affection that you can possibly afford me; and am also confident, that you know me so well, that I need not tell you how clear I am, and void of fear, the only effect of a good conscience; and that I am guilty of nothing that may testify one thought of disloyalty to his Majesty, or of what may stain the honour of the family I come of, or set a brand upon my future posterity.'

The countess paused, and looked a general illumination at Dorothy.

'I told you so, madam,' returned Dorothy, rather stupidly perhaps.

'Little fool!' rejoined the countess, half-angered: 'dost suppose the wife of a man like my Ned needs to be told such things by a green goose like thee? Thou wouldst have had me content that the man was honest--me, who had forgotten the word in his tenfold more than honesty! Bah, child!

thou knowest not the love of a woman. I could weep salt tears over a hair pulled from his n.o.ble head. And thou to talk of TELLING ME SO, hussy! Marry, forsooth!'

And taking Dorothy to her bosom, she wept like a relenting storm.

One sentence more she read ere she hurried with the letter to her father-in-law. The sentence was this:

'So I pray let not any of my friends that's there, believe anything, until ye have the perfect relation of it from myself.'

The pleasure of receiving news from his son did but little, however, to disperse the cloud that hung about the marquis. I do not know whether, or how far, he had been advised of the provision made for the king's clearness by the antic.i.p.ated self-sacrifice of Glamorgan, but I doubt if a full knowledge thereof gives any ground for disagreement with the judgment of the marquis, which seems, pretty plainly, to have been, that the king's behaviour in the matter was neither that of a Christian nor a gentleman. As in the case of Strafford, he had accepted the offered sacrifice, and, in view of possible chances, had in Glamorgan's commission pretermitted the usual authoritative formalities, thus keeping it in his power, with Glamorgan's connivance, it must be confessed, but at Glamorgan's expense, to repudiate his agency. This he had now done in a message to the parliament, and this the marquis knew.

His majesty had also written to lord Ormond as follows: 'And albeit I have too just cause, for the clearing of my honour, to prosecute Glamorgan in a legal way, yet I will have you suspend the execution,'

&c. At the same time his secretary wrote thus to Ormond and the council: 'And since the warrant is not' 'sealed with the signet,' &c., &c., 'your lordships cannot but judge it to be at least surrept.i.tiously gotten, if not worse; for his majesty saith he remembers it not;' and thus again privately to Ormond: 'The king hath commanded me to advertise your lordship that the patent for making the said lord Herbert of Raglan earl of Glamorgan is not pa.s.sed the great seal here, so as he is no peer of this kingdom; notwithstanding he styles himself, and hath treated with the rebels in Ireland, by the name of earl of Glamorgan, which is as vainly taken upon him as his pretended warrant (if any such be) was surrept.i.tiously gotten.' The t.i.tle had, meanwhile, been used by the king himself in many communications with the earl.

These letters never came, I presume, to the marquis's knowledge, but they go far to show that his feeling, even were it a little embittered by the memory of their midnight conference and his hopes therefrom, went no farther than the conduct of his majesty justified. It was no wonder that the straight-forward old man, walking erect to ruin for his king, should fret and fume, yea, yield to downright wrath and enforced contempt.

Of the king's behaviour in the matter, Dorothy, however, knew nothing yet.

One day towards the end of February, a messenger from the king arrived at Raglan, on his way to Ireland to lord Ormond. He had found the roads so beset--for things were by this time, whether from the successes of the parliament only, or from the negligence of disappointment on the part of lord Worcester as well, much altered in Wales and on its borders--that he had been compelled to leave his despatches in hiding, and had reached the castle only with great difficulty and after many adventures. His chief object in making his way thither was to beg of lord Charles a convoy to secure his despatches and protect him on his farther journey. But lord Charles received him by no means cordially, for the whole heart of Raglan was sore. He brought him, however, to his father, who, although indisposed and confined to his chamber, consented to see him. When Mr. Boteler was admitted, lady Glamorgan was in the chamber, and there remained.

Probably the respect to the king's messenger which had influenced the marquis to receive him, would have gone further and modified the expression of his feelings a little when he saw him, but that, like many more men, his lordship, although fairly master of his temper-horses when in health, was apt to let them run away with him upon occasion of even slighter illness than would serve for an excuse.

'Hast thou in thy despatches any letters from his majesty to my son Glamorgan, master Boteler?' he inquired, frowning unconsciously.

'Not that I know of, my lord,' answered Mr. Boteler, 'but there may be such with the lord marquis of Ormond's.'

He then proceeded to give a friendly message from the king concerning the earl. But at this the 'smouldering fire out-brake' from the bosom of the injured father and subject.

'It is the grief of my heart,' cried his lordship, wrath predominating over the regret which was yet plainly enough to be seen in his face and heard in his tone--'It is the grief of my heart that I am enforced to say that the king is wavering and fickle. To be the more his friend, it too plainly appeareth, is but to be the more handled as his enemy.'

'Say not so, my lord,' returned Mr. Boteler. 'His gracious majesty looketh not for such unfriendly judgment from your lips. Have I not brought your lordship a most gracious and comfortable message from him concerning my lord Glamorgan, with his royal thanks for your former loyal expressions?'