Shrewsbury: A Romance

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."