The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Tress of Hair.

How to ex­tri­cate him­self from the dilem­ma in which he was placed, Lord Roos scarce­ly knew. But he had a good deal of self-​pos­ses­sion, and it did not desert him on the present try­ing oc­ca­sion. Af­ter such con­sid­er­ation as cir­cum­stances per­mit­ted, he could dis­cern on­ly one chance of es­cape, and though well-​nigh hope­less, he re­solved to adopt it. If con­sum­mate au­dac­ity could car­ry him through--and it was re­quired in the present emer­gen­cy--he had no lack of it.

Hith­er­to, not a word had passed be­tween him and the in­trud­ers on his pri­va­cy. La­dy Lake seemed to en­joy his con­fu­sion too much to do any­thing to re­lieve it, and his wife was obliged to reg­ulate her move­ments by those of her moth­er. With­out break­ing the si­lence, which by this time had be­come painful­ly op­pres­sive, he pro­ceed­ed to de­posit the still inan­imate per­son of the Count­ess of Ex­eter up­on a couch, and, cast­ing a hand­ker­chief, as if un­de­signed­ly, over her face, he marched quick­ly up to the spot where Diego was stand­ing, and said to him, in a deep, de­ter­mined tone, but so low as not to be over­heard by the oth­ers:

“You have be­trayed me, vil­lain; and un­less you obey me un­hesi­tat­ing­ly, and cor­rob­orate all my as­ser­tions, how­ev­er startling they may ap­pear, you shall pay for your treach­ery with your life.”

This done, he turned to­wards the two ladies, and with more calm­ness than might have been ex­pect­ed, ad­dressed him­self to La­dy Lake:

“You imag­ine you have made an im­por­tant dis­cov­ery, Madam,” he said; “a dis­cov­ery which will place me and a no­ble la­dy, whose rep­uta­tion you and your daugh­ter seek to in­jure, in great per­plex­ity. And you con­clude that, be­ing com­plete­ly (as you fan­cy) in your pow­er, I shall con­sent to any terms you and La­dy Roos may pro­pose, rather than suf­fer you to go forth from this cham­ber and re­veal what you have seen in it. Is it not so, Madam?”

“Ay, my lord,” La­dy Lake replied, bit­ter­ly. “You have stat­ed the mat­ter cor­rect­ly enough, ex­cept in one par­tic­ular. We do not _imag­ine_ we have made a dis­cov­ery; be­cause we are quite sure of it. We do not _fan­cy_ you will agree to our terms; be­cause we are cer­tain you will on­ly too glad­ly screen your­self and the part­ner of your guilt from ex­po­sure and dis­grace, at any sac­ri­fice. And al­low me to ob­serve, that the tone adopt­ed by your lord­ship is nei­ther be­fit­ting the cir­cum­stances in which you are placed, nor the pres­ence in which you stand. Some sense of shame must at least be left you--some show of re­spect (if noth­ing more) ought to be ob­served to­wards your in­jured wife. Were I act­ing alone in this mat­ter, I would show you and my la­dy of Ex­eter no con­sid­er­ation what­ev­er; but I can­not re­sist the plead­ings of my daugh­ter; and for her sake--and _hers_ alone--I am con­tent to sus­pend the blow, un­less forced to strike; in which case, noth­ing shall stay my hands.”

“I thank your la­dy­ship for your clemen­cy,” said Lord Roos, with mock hu­mil­ity.

“O, my dear lord! do not for ev­er close the door be­tween us!” cried La­dy Roos. “Re­turn to me, and all shall be for­giv­en.”

“Peace, Eliz­abeth!” ex­claimed La­dy Lake, im­pa­tient­ly. “Know you not, from sad ex­pe­ri­ence, that your hus­band is in­ac­ces­si­ble to all gen­tle en­treaty? His heart is steeled to pity. So­lic­it not that which is your right, and which must be con­ced­ed, whether he like or not. Let him bend the knee to you. Let him promise amend­ment, and im­plore par­don, and it will then be for you to con­sid­er whether you will ex­tend for­give­ness to him.”

La­dy Roos looked as if she would fain in­ter­rupt her moth­er, but she was too much un­der her sub­jec­tion to of­fer a re­mark.

“It is time to un­de­ceive you, Madam,” said Lord Roos, whol­ly un­moved by what was said. “I am not in the strait you sup­pose; and have not the slight­est in­ten­tion of so­lic­it­ing La­dy Roos's par­don, or mak­ing any promise to her.”

“O moth­er! you see that even _you_ fail to move him,” said La­dy Roos, tear­ful­ly. “What is to hap­pen to me?”

“You will make me chide you, daugh­ter, if you ex­hib­it this weak­ness,” cried La­dy Lake, an­gri­ly. “Let me deal with him. In spite of your af­fect­ed con­fi­dence, my lord, you can­not be blind to the po­si­tion in which you stand. And though you your­self per­son­al­ly may be care­less of the con­se­quences of a re­fusal of our de­mands, you can­not, I con­ceive, be equal­ly in­dif­fer­ent to the fate of the Count­ess of Ex­eter, which that re­fusal will de­cide.”

“I am so lit­tle in­dif­fer­ent to the safe­ty of the Count­ess, Madam, that I can­not suf­fi­cient­ly re­joice that she is out of the reach of your mal­ice.”

“How, my lord!” ex­claimed La­dy Lake, as­tound­ed at his as­sur­ance. “Out of reach, when she is here! You can­not mean,” she added, with an un­de­fin­able ex­pres­sion of sat­is­fac­tion, “that she is dead?”

“Dead!” ejac­ulat­ed La­dy Roos; “the Count­ess dead! I thought she was on­ly in a swoon.”

“What rid­dle is it you would have us read, my lord?” de­mand­ed La­dy Lake.

“No rid­dle what­ev­er, Madam,” replied Lord Roos. “I on­ly mean to as­sert that the per­son you be­hold up­on that couch is not the Count­ess of Ex­eter.”

“Not the Count­ess!” ex­claimed La­dy Roos. “Oh, if this were pos­si­ble! But no, no! I can­not be de­ceived.”

“I now see the rea­son why her face has been cov­ered with a 'ker­chief,” cried La­dy Lake. “But it shall not save her from our scruti­ny.”

So say­ing, she ad­vanced to­wards the couch, with the in­ten­tion of re­mov­ing the cov­er­ing, when Lord Roos barred her ap­proach.

“Not a step near­er, Madam,” he cried, in a peremp­to­ry tone. “I will not al­low you to grat­ify your cu­rios­ity fur­ther. You and La­dy Roos may make the most of what you have seen; and pro­claim abroad any tale your imag­ina­tions may de­vise forth. You will on­ly ren­der your­selves ridicu­lous, and en­counter de­ri­sion in lieu of sym­pa­thy. No one will cred­it your as­ser­tions, be­cause I shall be able to prove that, at this mo­ment, La­dy Ex­eter is in a dif­fer­ent part of the palace.”

“This bold false­hood will not serve your turn, my lord. Who­ev­er she may be, the per­son on that couch shall be seized, and we shall then as­cer­tain the truth.”

And she would have moved to­wards the door, if Lord Roos had not caught hold of her arm, while at the same time he drew his sword. Think­ing from his fierce looks and men­ac­ing ges­tures that her moth­er might be sac­ri­ficed to his fury, La­dy Roos fell on her knees be­fore him, im­plor­ing pity; and she con­tin­ued in this sup­pli­cat­ing pos­ture till La­dy Lake an­gri­ly bade her rise.

“You have come here with­out my per­mis­sion, Madam,” Lord Roos cried fu­ri­ous­ly to his moth­er-​in-​law, “and you shall not de­part un­til I choose. Se­cure the door, Diego, and bring me the key. It is well,” he con­tin­ued, as the in­junc­tion was obeyed.

La­dy Lake sub­mit­ted with­out re­sis­tance to the con­straint im­posed up­on her. She could not well do oth­er­wise; for though her screams would have brought aid, it might have ar­rived too late. And, af­ter all, she did not in­tend to set­tle mat­ters in this way. But she be­trayed no symp­toms of fear, and, as we have stat­ed, or­dered her daugh­ter to dis­con­tin­ue her sup­pli­ca­tions.

“And now, Madam,” said Lord Roos, re­leas­ing La­dy Lake, as he took the key from Diego, “I will tell you who that per­son is,” point­ing to the couch.

“Add not to the num­ber of false­hoods you have al­ready told, my lord,” re­joined La­dy Lake, con­temp­tu­ous­ly. “I am per­fect­ly aware who she is.”

“But I would fain hear his ex­pla­na­tion, moth­er,” said La­dy Roos.

“What ex­pla­na­tion can be of­fered?” cried La­dy Lake. “Do you doubt the ev­idence of your sens­es?”

“I know not what I doubt, or what I be­lieve,” ex­claimed La­dy Roos dis­tract­ed­ly.

“Then be­lieve what I tell you, Bess,” said her hus­band. “This is the count­ess's hand­maid­en, Gillian Green­ford.”

“An im­pu­dent lie!” cried La­dy Lake.

“A truth, my la­dy,” in­ter­posed Diego. “A truth to which I am ready to swear.”

“No doubt of it, thou false knave, and dou­ble traitor! thou art wor­thy of thy lord. There is no lie, how­ev­er ab­surd and im­prob­able, which he can in­vent, that thou wilt not sup­port. Thou art ready now to per­jure thy­self for him; but let him place lit­tle re­liance on thee, for thou wilt do the same thing for us to-​mor­row.”

“I scarce­ly think it prob­able, my la­dy,” Diego replied, bow­ing.

La­dy Lake turned from him in supreme dis­gust.

“Ad­mit­ting for a mo­ment the pos­si­bil­ity of your lord­ship's as­ser­tion be­ing cor­rect,” said La­dy Roos, “how comes Gillian Green­ford (for so me­thinks you name her) in her mis­tress's at­tire?”

“'T is eas­ily ex­plained, chuck,” Lord Roos re­joined. “Anx­ious, no doubt, to set her­self off to ad­van­tage, she hath made free with the count­ess's wardrobe. Your own favourite at­ten­dant, Sarah Swarton, hath of­ten ar­ranged her­self in your finest fardingales, kirtlets, and busk-​points, as Diego will tell you. Is it not so, ras­cal?”

“'T is pre­cise­ly as my lord hath stat­ed, my la­dy,” said the Spaniard to La­dy Roos. “When Sarah Swarton hath been so habit­ed, I have more than once mis­tak­en her for your la­dy­ship.”

“Yet Sarah is very un­like me,” said La­dy Roos.

“That on­ly shows how de­cep­tive ap­pear­ances are, chuck, and how lit­tle we ought to trust to them,” ob­served Lord Roos.

“How can you suf­fer your­self to be thus duped, Eliz­abeth?” said La­dy Lake.

“Be­cause her la­dy­ship would rather be­lieve me than you, Madam,” re­joined Lord Roos. “But she is _not_ duped.”

“Heav­en for­give him!” ex­claimed Diego, aside.

“And sup­pos­ing it were Gillian, how would the case be mend­ed, as far as you are con­cerned, Eliz­abeth?” said La­dy Lake. “Are you not as much in­jured by one as by the oth­er?”

“It may be,” replied her daugh­ter, “but I am jeal­ous on­ly of the Count­ess. I would kneel to any oth­er wom­an, and thank her, who would tear my hus­band from her em­braces!”

“Weak fool! I dis­own you,” ex­claimed La­dy Lake, an­gri­ly.

“What a wife!” cried Diego, apart. “His lord­ship is quite un­wor­thy of her. Now I should ap­pre­ci­ate such de­vo­tion.”

At this junc­ture there was a slight move­ment on the part of La­dy Ex­eter, and some­thing like a sigh es­caped her.

“She re­vives!” whis­pered La­dy Lake to her daugh­ter. “We shall soon learn the truth. I will find a means to make her speak. Well, my lord,” she added aloud, and speak­ing in a sar­cas­tic tone, “if you will have it so, it is idle to dis­pute it. But what will the Count­ess say, when she dis­cov­ers your in­fi­deli­ty?”

On this a brisker move­ment took place on the couch, and a hand was raised as if to snatch away the 'ker­chief.

“We have her,” whis­pered La­dy Lake tri­umphant­ly to her daugh­ter. “Sure­ly,” she pro­ceed­ed aloud, “the Count­ess will deeply re­sent the trans­fer of your af­fec­tions to her hand­maid­en.”

Lord Roos saw the per­il in which he stood. A mo­ment more and La­dy Lake had gained her point, and the Count­ess be­trayed her­self.

“La­dy Ex­eter will place lit­tle re­liance on any rep­re­sen­ta­tions you may make, Madam,” he said, giv­ing par­tic­ular sig­nif­icance to his words, “ex­cept so far as they con­cern her­self, and then she will take care to re­fute them. As to the cir­cum­stance of Gillian Green­ford vis­it­ing me, faint­ing in my arms (from ex­cess of timid­ity, poor girl!) and be­ing dis­cov­ered by you and La­dy Roos in that po­si­tion, the Count­ess will laugh at it when it comes to her knowl­edge--as why should she do oth­er­wise? But she will feel very dif­fer­ent­ly when she finds that you and your daugh­ter in­sist that it was she her­self, and not her hand­maid­en, whom you be­held. Re­ly on it, Madam, La­dy Ex­eter will con­tra­dict that as­ser­tion, and dis­prove it.”

“Let it be dis­proved now. Let the per­son on that couch dis­close her fea­tures, and we shall then see whether she be the Count­ess or Gillian.”

“Ay, let her do that, my lord,--let her speak to us,” urged La­dy Roos.

“Di­ablo! how is this re­quest to be com­plied with, I mar­vel?” said Diego apart.

But Lord Roos was too ex­pe­ri­enced a play­er to be de­feat­ed by this turn in the game.

“Gillian has al­ready been suf­fi­cient­ly an­noyed,” he cried; “and shall not sub­mit to this or­deal. Be­sides, she has re­lapsed in­to in­sen­si­bil­ity, as you see.”

“She does what your lord­ship wills her, it is clear,” said La­dy Lake, con­temp­tu­ous­ly. “We know what con­struc­tion to put up­on your re­fusal.”

“I care not what con­struc­tion you put up­on it,” cried Lord Roos, los­ing pa­tience. “You and La­dy Roos may think what you please, and act as you please. Enough for me, you can prove noth­ing.”

“Why, this is more like your­self, my lord,” re­tort­ed La­dy Lake, de­ri­sive­ly. “Hav­ing thrown aside the mask, you will be spared the ne­ces­si­ty of fur­ther sub­terfuge. The Count­ess, doubt­less, will im­itate your ex­am­ple, lay aside her feigned in­sen­si­bil­ity, and de­fy us. She need be un­der no ap­pre­hen­sion; since she has your own war­rant that we can prove noth­ing.”

“Your pur­pose, I per­ceive, is to ir­ri­tate me, Madam,” cried Lord Roos, fierce­ly; “and so far you are like­ly to suc­ceed, though you fail in all else. I have no mask to throw off; but if you will have me de­clare my­self your en­emy, I am ready to do so. Hence­forth, let there be no terms kept be­tween us--let it be open war­fare.”

“Be it so, my lord. And you will soon find who will be worsted in the strug­gle.”

“Oh, do not pro­ceed to these fear­ful ex­trem­ities, dear moth­er, and dear­est hus­band!” cried La­dy Roos, turn­ing from one to the oth­er im­plor­ing­ly. “Cease these provo­ca­tions, I pray of you. Be friends, and not en­emies.”

“As you please--peace or war; it is the same to me,” said Lord Roos. “Mean­time, I am wea­ried of this scene, and must put an end to it. Diego!” And beck­on­ing his ser­vant to him, he whis­pered some di­rec­tions in his ear.

“My lord shall be obeyed,” said Diego, as he re­ceived his com­mis­sion. “Gillian shall be con­veyed with all care to her cham­ber.”

“We must have some proof that she has been here,” thought La­dy Lake. But how to ob­tain it? I have it. “Take these,” she added in a whis­per to her daugh­ter, and giv­ing a pair of scis­sors; “and con­trive, if pos­si­ble, to sev­er a lock of her hair be­fore she be re­moved.”

By a look La­dy Roos promised com­pli­ance.

While this was pass­ing, Diego had ap­proached the couch; and fas­ten­ing the ker­chief se­cure­ly round the Count­ess's face, he raised her in his arms, and moved to­wards the se­cret stair­case, the tapestried cov­er­ing of which was held aside by Lord Roos to give him pas­sage.

Rapid­ly as the Spaniard moved, he did not out­strip La­dy Roos, whose de­sign be­ing favoured by the es­cape from its con­fine­ment of one of the Count­ess's long dark tress­es, she had no dif­fi­cul­ty of pos­sess­ing, her­self of it in the man­ner pre­scribed by her moth­er. La­dy Ex­eter was aware of the loss she had sus­tained, and ut­tered a sti­fled cry; but this was at­tribut­ed to the fright nat­ural to the oc­ca­sion by Lord Roos, who had not no­ticed what had tak­en place, and on­ly caused him to hur­ry Diego's de­par­ture. But be­fore the lat­ter had whol­ly dis­ap­peared with his bur­then, the per­fumed and silken tress of hair was de­liv­ered to La­dy Lake, who mut­tered tri­umphant­ly as she re­ceived it--“This will con­vict her. She can­not es­cape us now.”

The prize was scarce­ly con­cealed when Lord Roos, sheath­ing the sword which he had hith­er­to held drawn, ad­vanced to­wards his moth­er-​in-​law.

“Now that the ob­ject of your dis­qui­etude is re­moved, Madam, it will not be nec­es­sary to pro­long this in­ter­view,” he said.

“Have we then your lord­ship's per­mis­sion to de­part?” re­joined La­dy Lake, cold­ly. “We are not, I pre­sume, to avail our­selves of the pri­vate means of ex­it con­trived for your amorous ad­ven­tures, lest we should make oth­er dis­cov­er­ies.”

“Your la­dy­ship will leave by the way you en­tered,” re­joined Lord Roos. “I will at­tend you to the door--and un­fas­ten it for you.”

“Be­fore we go, I would have a word with my hus­band--it may be my last,” said La­dy Roos to her moth­er. “I pray you with­draw a lit­tle, that we may be alone.”

“Bet­ter not,” re­joined La­dy Lake. But un­able to re­sist her daugh­ter's im­plor­ing looks, she added, “Well, as you will. But it is use­less.”

With this she pro­ceed­ed to the lit­tle pas­sage, and re­mained there.

As La­dy Roos turned to her hus­band, she saw, from the stern and in­flex­ible look he had as­sumed, that any ap­peal made to him would be un­avail­ing, and she at­tempt­ed none. A mo­ment elapsed be­fore she could ut­ter a word, and then it was on­ly a mur­mur to heav­en for guid­ance and sup­port.

“What say you, Eliz­abeth?” de­mand­ed Lord Roos, think­ing she had ad­dressed him.

“I asked for sup­port from on High, William, and it has been ac­cord­ed to me,” she replied in a low sweet voice. “I can now speak to you. It is not to weary you with sup­pli­ca­tions or re­proach­es that I thus de­tain you. I have some­thing to im­part to you, and I am sure you will ea­ger­ly lis­ten to it. Come near­er, that we may not be over­heard.”

Lord Roos, whose cu­rios­ity was aroused by her man­ner, obeyed her.

“I am all at­ten­tion,” he said.

“I feel I am in your way, William,” she re­joined, in a deep whis­per; “and that you de­sire my death. Nay, in­ter­rupt me not; I am sure you de­sire it; and I am equal­ly sure that the de­sire will be grat­ified, and that you will kill me.”

“Kill you, Bess!” cried Lord Roos, star­tled. “How can you imag­ine aught so fright­ful?”

“There is a pow­er grant­ed to those who love deeply as I do, of see­ing in­to the hearts of those they love, and read­ing their se­crets. I have read yours, William. Nay, be not alarmed. I have kept it to my­self hith­er­to, and will keep it to the end. You wish me dead, I say; and you shall have your wish--but not in the way you pro­pose. Hav­ing lost your love, I am be­come in­dif­fer­ent to life--or, rather, life is grown in­tol­er­able to me. But though death may be a re­lease, it must not come from your hand.”

“You can­not mean to de­stroy your­self, Eliz­abeth?” cried Lord Roos, ap­palled.

“I mean to trou­ble you no longer. I mean to make the last and great­est sac­ri­fice I can for you; and to save you from a crime--or, if you must share the crime, at least to screen you from pun­ish­ment. Look, here!” she added, pro­duc­ing a small phial. “Bid me drink of this, and ere to-​mor­row you are free, and I am at rest. Shall I do it?”

“No--no,” re­joined Lord Roos, snatch­ing the phial from her. “Live, Bess, live!”

“Am I to live for you, William?” she cried, with in­ex­press­ible joy.

He made no an­swer, but avert­ed his head.

“In mer­cy give me back the phial,” she ex­claimed, again plunged in­to the depths of de­spair.

“I must refuse your re­quest,” he replied.

“Have you done, Eliz­abeth?” de­mand­ed La­dy Lake, com­ing forth from the pas­sage.

“A mo­ment more, moth­er,” cried La­dy Roos. “One word--one look!” she added to her hus­band.

But he nei­ther spoke to her, nor re­gard­ed her.

“I am ready to ac­com­pa­ny you now, moth­er,” said the poor la­dy faint­ly.

“Nerve your­self, weak-​heart­ed girl,” said La­dy Lake, in a low tone. “Re­venge is ours.”

“If I could on­ly strike her with­out in­jur­ing him, I should not heed,” thought La­dy Roos. “But where he suf­fers, I must al­so suf­fer, and yet more acute­ly.”

And scarce­ly able to sup­port her­self, she fol­lowed her moth­er to the door of the ante-​cham­ber, which was un­locked, and thrown open for them by her hus­band. He did not bid her farewell!

As La­dy Lake passed forth, she paused for a mo­ment, and said--

“To-​mor­row, my Lord, we will as­cer­tain whether the tress of hair we have ob­tained from the fair vis­itant to your cham­ber, match­es with that of Gillian Green­ford or with the raven locks of the Count­ess of Ex­eter.”

And sat­is­fied with the ef­fect pro­duced by this men­ace, she de­part­ed with her daugh­ter, be­fore Lord Roos could ut­ter a re­ply.