The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER XXV.

Sir Thomas Lake.

A grave-​look­ing man, of a melan­choly and se­vere as­pect, and at­tired in a loose robe of black vel­vet, was seat­ed alone in a cham­ber, the win­dows of which opened up­on the Foun­tain Court, which we have just quit­ted. He wore a silken skull-​cap, from be­neath which a few gray hairs es­caped; his brow was fur­rowed with in­nu­mer­able wrin­kles, oc­ca­sioned as much by thought and care as by age; his point­ed beard and mous­tach­es were al­most white, con­trast­ing strik­ing­ly with his dark, jaun­diced com­plex­ion, the re­sult of an atra­bi­lar­ious tem­per­ament; his per­son was ex­treme­ly at­ten­uat­ed, and his hands thin and bony. He had once been tall, but lat­ter­ly had lost much of his height, in con­se­quence of a cur­va­ture of the spine, which bowed down his head al­most up­on his breast, and fixed it im­move­ably in that po­si­tion. His fea­tures were good, but, as we have stat­ed, were stamped with melan­choly, and sharp­ened by sever­ity.

This per­son was Sir Thomas Lake, Sec­re­tary of State.

The ta­ble at which he sat was strewn over with of­fi­cial doc­uments and pa­pers. He was not, how­ev­er, ex­am­in­ing any of them, but had just bro­ken the seal of a pri­vate pack­et which he had re­ceived from his wife, when an ush­er en­tered, and in­ti­mat­ed that a young maid­en, who was with­out, so­licit­ed a mo­ment's au­di­ence. The re­quest would have been re­fused, if the man had not gone on to say that he be­lieved the ap­pli­cant was the daugh­ter of the crazy Pu­ri­tan, who had threat­ened the King's life on the pre­vi­ous day. On hear­ing this, Sir Thomas con­sent­ed to see her, and she was ad­mit­ted ac­cord­ing­ly.

As soon as the ush­er had re­tired, Ave­line un­muf­fled her­self, and, cold and ap­athet­ic as he was, Sir Thomas could not help be­ing struck by her sur­pass­ing beau­ty, unim­paired even by the af­flic­tion un­der which she laboured; and he con­se­quent­ly soft­ened in some de­gree the cus­tom­ary as­per­ity of his tones in ad­dress­ing her.

“Who are you, maid­en, and what seek you?” he de­mand­ed, eye­ing her with cu­rios­ity.

“I am daugh­ter to the un­for­tu­nate Hugh Calve­ley, now a pris­on­er in the palace,” she replied.

“I am sor­ry to hear it,” re­joined Sir Thomas, re­sum­ing his ha­bit­ual­ly se­vere ex­pres­sion; “for you are the daugh­ter of a very heinous of­fend­er. The enor­mi­ty of Hugh Calve­ley's crime, which is worse than par­ri­cide, de­prives him of all hu­man sym­pa­thy and com­pas­sion. In com­ing to me you do not, I pre­sume, in­tend to weary me with prayers for mer­cy; for none is de­served, and none will be shown. For my own part, I shall not ut­ter a word in mit­iga­tion of the dread­ful sen­tence cer­tain to be pro­nounced up­on him; nor shall I ad­vise the slight­est clemen­cy to be shown him on the part of his Majesty. Such an of­fend­er can­not be too severe­ly pun­ished. I do not say this,” he con­tin­ued, some­what soft­en­ing his harsh­ness, “to ag­gra­vate the dis­tress and shame you nat­ural­ly feel; but I wish to check at once any hopes you may have formed. Yet though I have no pity for him, I have much for you, since, doubt­less, you are in­no­cent of all knowl­edge of your fa­ther's atro­cious de­sign--hap­pi­ly pre­vent­ed. And I would there­fore say to you, shut out all feel­ings for him from your heart. The man who rais­es his hand against his sovereign cuts off by the act all ties of kin­dred and love. Af­fec­tion is changed to ab­hor­rence; and such de­tes­ta­tion does his hor­ri­ble of­fence in­spire, that those of his own blood are bound to shun him, lest he de­rive com­fort and con­so­la­tion from their pres­ence. Thus con­sid­ered, you are no longer his daugh­ter, for he has him­self sev­ered the links be­tween you. You no longer owe him fil­ial du­ty and re­gard, for to such he is no more en­ti­tled. Leave him to his fate; and, if pos­si­ble, for ev­er oblit­er­ate his mem­ory from your breast.”

“You coun­sel what I can nev­er per­form, hon­ourable Sir,” replied Ave­line; “and were he even brand­ed like Cain, I could not shut my heart to­wards him. Noth­ing can make me for­get that I am his daugh­ter. That his of­fence will be dread­ful­ly ex­pi­at­ed, I do not doubt; but if I can al­le­vi­ate his suf­fer­ings in any way, I will do so; and I will nev­er cease to plead for mer­cy for him. And O, hon­ourable Sir! you re­gard his of­fence in a dark­er light than it de­serves. You treat him as if he had ac­tu­al­ly ac­com­plished the dire­ful pur­pose at­tribut­ed to him; where­as, noth­ing has been proven against him be­yond the pos­ses­sion of a weapon, which he might keep about his per­son for self-​de­fence.”

“The plea you urge is fu­tile, maid­en,” re­joined Sir Thomas; “he is judged out of his own mouth, for his own lips have avowed his crim­inal in­ten­tion.”

“Still, it was but the in­ten­tion, hon­ourable Sir!”

“In such cas­es, the in­ten­tion is equal to the crime--at least in the eyes of law and jus­tice. No plea will save Hugh Calve­ley. Of that rest as­sured.”

“One plea may be urged for him, which, whether it avail or not, is the truth, and shall be made. It is painful to speak of my fa­ther as I must now do; but there is no help for it. Of late years he has been sub­ject to strange men­tal hal­lu­ci­na­tions, which have bor­dered close up­on mad­ness, if they have not reached that ter­ri­ble point. Noc­tur­nal vig­ils, fast­ings, and prayers have af­fect­ed his health. He has de­nied him­self suf­fi­cient rest, and has on­ly par­tak­en of food bare­ly suf­fi­cient to sus­tain na­ture, and no more. The con­se­quence has been that strange fan­cies have trou­bled his brain; that at dead of night, when alone in his cham­ber, he has imag­ined that vi­sions have ap­peared to him; that voic­es have spo­ken--aw­ful voic­es--talk­ing of prophe­cies, lamen­ta­tions, and judg­ments, and charg­ing him with a mighty and ter­ri­ble mis­sion. All these things I have heard from his own lips, and I have heard and seen much more, which has sat­is­fied me that his in­tel­lects are dis­or­dered, and that he can­not be held ac­count­able for his ac­tions.”

“If such be the case, he should have been kept un­der re­straint, and not suf­fered to go abroad,” said Sir Thomas. “Such mad­men are high­ly mis­chievous and dan­ger­ous. Much blame rests with you, maid­en.”

“The whole blame is mine!” she ex­claimed. “I con­fess my er­ror--my crime--and will atone for it will­ing­ly with my life, pro­vid­ed he be spared. If a sac­ri­fice must be made, let me be the vic­tim.”

“There is no sac­ri­fice, and no vic­tim,” re­turned Sir Thomas grave­ly, though he was not un­moved by her fil­ial de­vo­tion. “There is an of­fend­er, and there will be jus­tice; and jus­tice must be sat­is­fied. In­ex­orable as fate, her dread sen­tences can­not be avert­ed.”

“O, hon­ourable Sir! you may one day re­call those words; for which of us can hold him­self free from of­fence? My fa­ther is not guilty in the eyes of Heav­en; or if he be, I am equal­ly cul­pa­ble, since I ought to have pre­vent­ed the com­mis­sion of the crime. O, I shall nev­er for­give my­self that I did not fol­low him when he part­ed from me yes­ter­day!”

“Let me hear how that oc­curred, maid­en?” asked Sir Thomas.

“It chanced in this way, Sir. I have al­ready de­scribed my fa­ther's state of mind, and the dis­tem­pered view he has been ac­cus­tomed to take of all things. Yes­ter­day, May-​day sports were held in the vil­lage of Tot­ten­ham, where we dwelt; and as such things are an abom­ina­tion in his sight, he took up­on him to re­prove the ac­tors in the pas­times. They who wit­nessed his con­duct on that oc­ca­sion would hard­ly hold him to be un­der the due con­trol of rea­son. Amongst the spec­ta­tors was the son of an old friend, whose name hav­ing ac­ci­den­tal­ly reached my fa­ther, he in­vit­ed him in­to the house, and a mis­un­der­stand­ing hav­ing arisen be­tween them, the lat­ter sud­den­ly left--dis­missed al­most with rude­ness. On his de­par­ture, my fa­ther was great­ly dis­turbed--more so than I have ev­er seen him. Af­ter awhile, he with­drew to his own cham­ber, as was his habit, to pray, and I hoped would be­come tran­quil­lized; but the very re­verse hap­pened, for when he reap­peared, I saw at once that a fear­ful change had tak­en place in him. His eye blazed with preter­nat­ural light, his ges­tures were wild and alarm­ing, and his lan­guage full of men­ace and de­nun­ci­ation. He again spoke of his mis­sion from Heav­en, and said that its ex­ecu­tion could no longer be de­layed.”

“This should have been a warn­ing to you,” ob­served Sir Thomas, knit­ting his brows.

“It should, hon­ourable Sir. But I did not prof­it by it. I knew and felt that he was no longer un­der the do­min­ion of rea­son--that he was labour­ing un­der some ter­ri­ble delu­sion that ap­proached its cri­sis; but I did not check him. I yield­ed pas­sive obe­di­ence to his in­junc­tion, that I should de­part in­stant­ly with an old ser­vant to Lon­don; and I agreed to tar­ry at a house, which he men­tioned, till I heard from him. I had sad fore­bod­ings that I should nev­er hear from him again--or if I _did_, that the tid­ings would be worse than none at all; but I obeyed. I could not, in­deed, re­sist his will. I set forth with my at­ten­dant, and my fa­ther part­ed with us at the door. He placed mon­ey in my hand, and bade me farewell! but in such a tone, and with such a look, that I felt his sens­es were gone, and I would have stayed him, but it was then too late. Break­ing from my em­brace, he sprang up­on his horse, which was ready sad­dled, and rode off, tak­ing the di­rec­tion of Ed­mon­ton; while I, with a heart full of dis­tress and mis­giv­ing, pur­sued my way to Lon­don. Ere mid­night, my sad pre­sen­ti­ments were ver­ified. A mes­sen­ger traced me out, bring­ing in­tel­li­gence of the dire­ful event that had hap­pened, and in­form­ing me that my fa­ther was a pris­on­er at Theobalds. As soon as I could pro­cure means of reach­ing the palace, I set forth, and ar­rived here about an hour ago, when, fail­ing in my ef­forts to ob­tain an in­ter­view with my fa­ther, who is close­ly con­fined, and none suf­fered to come near him save with au­thor­ity from the Sec­re­tary of State, I sought an au­di­ence of you, hon­ourable Sir, in the hope that you would grant me per­mis­sion to see him.”

“If I do grant it, the in­ter­view must take place in the pres­ence of the of­fi­cer to whom his cus­tody has been com­mit­ted,” replied Sir Thomas. “With this re­stric­tion, I am will­ing to sign an or­der for you.”

“Be it as you please, hon­ourable Sir; and take my heart­felt grat­itude for the grace.”

Sir Thomas struck a small bell up­on the ta­ble, and the ush­er ap­peared at the sum­mons.

“Bid the of­fi­cer in charge of Hugh Calve­ley at­tend me,” he said.

The man bowed, and de­part­ed.

Sir Thomas Lake then turned to the pa­per which he had just opened be­fore Ave­line's ap­pear­ance, and was soon so much en­grossed by it that he seemed quite un­con­scious of her pres­ence. His coun­te­nance be­came gloomi­er and more aus­tere as he read on, and an ex­pres­sion of pain--al­most a groan--es­caped him. He ap­peared then to feel sen­si­ble that he had com­mit­ted an in­dis­cre­tion, for he laid down the pa­per, and, as if forcibly di­vert­ing him­self from its con­tents, ad­dressed Ave­line.

“What you have said re­spect­ing your fa­ther's con­di­tion of mind,” he ob­served, “by no means con­vinces me that it is so un­sound as to ren­der him ir­re­spon­si­ble for his ac­tions. It were to put a char­ita­ble con­struc­tion up­on his con­duct to say that no one but a mad­man could be ca­pa­ble of it; but there was too much con­sis­ten­cy in what he has said and done to ad­mit of such an in­fer­ence. But for the in­ter­po­si­tion of an­oth­er per­son he owned that he would have killed the King; and the dis­ap­point­ment he ex­hib­it­ed, and the lan­guage he used, prove such to have been his fixed in­ten­tion. His mind may have been dis­turbed; but what of that? All who med­itate great crimes, it is to be hoped, are not en­tire­ly mas­ters of them­selves. Yet for that rea­son they are not to be ex­empt from pun­ish­ment. He who is sane enough to con­ceive an act of wicked­ness, to plan its ex­ecu­tion, and to at­tempt to per­pe­trate it, al­though he may be in oth­er re­spects of un­set­tled mind, is equal­ly amenable to the law, and ought equal­ly to suf­fer for his crim­inal­ity with him who has a wis­er and sounder head up­on his shoul­ders.”

Ave­line at­tempt­ed no re­ply, but the tears sprang to her eyes.

At this mo­ment the door was thrown open by the ush­er to ad­mit Sir Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey.

The emo­tion dis­played by the young cou­ple when thus brought to­geth­er passed un­no­ticed by the Sec­re­tary of State, as he was oc­cu­pied at the mo­ment in writ­ing the au­thor­ity for Ave­line, and did not raise his eyes to­wards them.

“Are you the of­fi­cer to whom my fa­ther's cus­tody has been en­trust­ed?” ex­claimed Ave­line, as soon as she could give ut­ter­ance to her sur­prise.

“Why do you ask that ques­tion, mis­tress?” de­mand­ed Sir Thomas, look­ing up. “What can it sig­ni­fy to you who hath cus­tody of your fa­ther, pro­vid­ed good care be tak­en of him? There is a Latin max­im which his Majesty cit­ed at the ban­quet last night--_Eti­am aconi­to in­est remedi­um_--and which may be freely ren­dered by our home­ly say­ing, that 'It is an ill wind that bloweth no­body good luck;' and this hath proved true with Sir Jo­ce­lyn Mounchensey--for the gust that hath wrecked your fa­ther hath driv­en him in­to port, where he now rides se­cure­ly in the sun­shine of the King's favour. Nor is this to be won­dered at, since it was by Sir Jo­ce­lyn that his Majesty's life was pre­served.”

“The King pre­served by him!” ex­claimed Ave­line, in be­wil­der­ment.

“Ay, mar­ry and in­deed, young mis­tress,” re­joined Sir Thomas. “He ar­rest­ed the fell traitor; was knight­ed on the spot for the ser­vice, by the King; was in­vit­ed af­ter­wards to the grand ban­quet in the evening, and re­ceived with more dis­tinc­tion than any oth­er guest; and he is now, as you find, en­trust­ed with the cus­tody of the pris­on­er. Thus, if your fa­ther has done lit­tle good to him­self, he hath done much to Sir Jo­ce­lyn.”

Ave­line could not re­press an ex­cla­ma­tion of an­guish.

“No more of this, I en­treat, Sir Thomas,” cried Sir Jo­ce­lyn.

“It is right she should hear the truth,” replied the Sec­re­tary of State. “Here is her au­thor­ity for ad­mit­tance to her fa­ther,” he con­tin­ued, giv­ing it to him. “It must take place in your pres­ence, Sir Jo­ce­lyn. And you will pay strict at­ten­tion to what they say,” he added in a low tone, “for you will have to re­port all that pass­es be­tween them to the coun­cil. Some­thing may arise to im­pli­cate the girl her­self, so let naught es­cape you. Be vig­ilant in your of­fice, as is need­ful. I men­tion this as you are new to it. If the pris­on­er con­tin­ues ob­sti­nate, as he hath hith­er­to shown him­self, threat­en him with the tor­ture. The rack will cer­tain­ly be ap­plied when he reach­es the Tow­er. I need not give you fur­ther in­struc­tions I think, Sir Jo­ce­lyn. Be pleased to re­turn to me when the in­ter­view is over.”

Up­on this, he bowed grave­ly, and sound­ed the bell for the ush­er. Un­able to of­fer any re­mon­strance, Sir Jo­ce­lyn ap­proached Ave­line, who could scarce­ly sup­port her­self, with the in­ten­tion of of­fer­ing her as­sis­tance; but she shrank from him, and again muf­fling her face, went forth, while he slow­ly fol­lowed her.