The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER XXVI.

The forged Con­fes­sion.

Some lit­tle time had elapsed since Ave­line's de­par­ture on her sor­row­ful er­rand, and Sir Thomas Lake was still alone, and once more deeply en­grossed in the con­sid­er­ation of the doc­ument, which, it will be rec­ol­lect­ed, had oc­ca­sioned him so much dis­qui­etude; and the feel­ing by no means di­min­ished when the ush­er en­tered and an­nounced La­dy Lake. Se­vere and in­flex­ible as we have de­scribed him, the Sec­re­tary of State was gen­er­al­ly yield­ing enough to­wards his la­dy, of whom he stood in great awe, and whom he treat­ed with the ut­most def­er­ence; but on this oc­ca­sion, con­trary to habi­tude, he re­ceived her very cold­ly, and with­out ris­ing mo­tioned her to a seat be­side him. Dis­re­gard­ing the want of at­ten­tion, which, un­der oth­er cir­cum­stances, she would have re­sent­ed, La­dy Lake took the seat in­di­cat­ed with­out re­mark, and con­tin­ued silent till the ush­er had re­tired. Then turn­ing quick­ly to­wards her hus­band, and fix­ing an in­quir­ing look up­on him, she said in a low voice--

“What think you of this doc­ument, Sir Thomas?”

“This forgery?” he re­joined in the same tone, but with­out rais­ing his eyes to­wards her.

“Ay, this forgery, if you choose to call it so,” she re­turned. “Let me have your opin­ion up­on it? Is it as it should be? Are its ex­pres­sions such as would be used by a guilty wom­an, like the Count­ess, im­plor­ing pity, and seek­ing to shield her­self from dis­grace? Do you find fault with it? Can it be amend­ed in any par­tic­ular?”

“I find such grave fault with it,” replied the Sec­re­tary of State, still with­out look­ing up, “that I would amend it by cast­ing it in­to the flames. La­dy Lake, it is my du­ty to warn you. This is a fear­ful crime you would com­mit, and severe­ly pun­ish­able by the law. You may ex­cuse it to your­self, be­cause you have an end in view which seems to jus­ti­fy the means; but the ex­cuse will not avail you with oth­ers. You have said that in a con­flict with one so cun­ning and un­scrupu­lous as our no­ble son-​in-​law, you are com­pelled to fight him with his own weapons--to meet trick with trick, ma­noevre with ma­noeu­vre; but take my word for it, you would more eas­ily de­feat him by straight-​for­ward means. Be ruled by me in this one in­stance. Aban­don a scheme which must in­evitably lead to con­se­quences I shud­der to con­tem­plate; and let this fab­ri­cat­ed con­fes­sion be de­stroyed.”

“Give it me,” she cried, snatch­ing the pa­per from him. “You were ev­er timid, Sir Thomas; and if you had not lacked courage, this ex­pe­di­ent would not have been nec­es­sary. Odi­ous and dan­ger­ous as it is, the mea­sure is forced up­on me, and I shall not shrink from it. But you shall not be called up­on to play any part in the trans­ac­tion. I alone will do it. I alone will be re­spon­si­ble for all that may en­sue.”

“We shall all be re­spon­si­ble!” he re­joined. “You will not on­ly ru­in your­self, but all your fam­ily, if this fear­ful step be tak­en. Hith­er­to we have had right on our side, but hence­forth we shall be more cul­pa­ble than the oth­ers.”

“I am re­solved up­on the course,” cried La­dy Lake; “and all your ar­gu­ments--all your warn­ings will not dis­suade me from it, so you may spare your breath, Sir Thomas. As you see, I have omit­ted the charge of witchcraft, and have on­ly made the Count­ess con­fess her crim­inal­ity with Lord Roos, and of this we have had abun­dant proofs; nay, we should have them still, if those con­dem­na­to­ry let­ters of hers, which had come in­to our pos­ses­sion, had not been stolen. That mis­chance ne­ces­si­tates the present mea­sure. Hav­ing man­aged to de­prive us of our weapons, Lord Roos thinks him­self se­cure. But he will find his mis­take when this doc­ument is pro­duced to con­found him.”

“I trem­ble at the thought,” groaned the Sec­re­tary of State.

“These fears are worse than wom­an­ish,” ex­claimed his la­dy. “Shake them off, and be your­self. Who is to prove that the con­fes­sion pro­ceeds not from the Count­ess? Not she her­self; since no one will be­lieve her. Not Lord Roos; for he will be equal­ly dis­cred­it­ed. Not Diego; for his tes­ti­mo­ny would be val­ue­less. The Count­ess's hand-​writ­ing has been so skil­ful­ly im­itat­ed, that the fal­si­fi­ca­tion can­not be de­tect­ed. Com­pare it with this note writ­ten by her­self to La­dy Roos, and which, though it proves noth­ing, has so far an­swered my pur­pose. Com­pare, I say, the writ­ing of the con­fes­sion and the sig­na­ture with this note, and de­clare if you can dis­cern any dif­fer­ence be­tween them. As to the sig­na­tures of Lord Roos and Diego af­fixed to the doc­ument, they are equal­ly well sim­ulat­ed.”

“That the forgery is skil­ful­ly ex­ecut­ed, I do not de­ny,” replied the Sec­re­tary of State; “and that cir­cum­stance, though it does not lessen the crime, may lessen the chance of de­tec­tion. Since noth­ing I can urge will turn you from your de­sign, and you are de­ter­mined to em­ploy this dan­ger­ous in­stru­ment, at least be cau­tious in its use. Ter­ri­fy Lord Roos with it, if you choose. Threat­en to lay it be­fore the Earl of Ex­eter--be­fore the King him­self--in case of our son-​in-​law's non-​com­pli­ance with your de­mands. But be­ware how you pro­ceed fur­ther. Do not part with it for a mo­ment; so that, if need be, you may de­stroy it. Do you heed me, my la­dy?”

“I do, Sir Thomas,” she replied. “Be as­sured I will act with due cau­tion.--I am glad to find you are com­ing round to my views, and are dis­posed to coun­te­nance the mea­sure.”

“I coun­te­nance it!” ex­claimed the Sec­re­tary of State, in alarm. “No such thing. I dis­ap­prove of it en­tire­ly, and can­not suf­fi­cient­ly rep­re­hend it. But, as I well know, when you have once made up your mind, the fiend him­self can­not turn you from your pur­pose, I give you the best coun­sel I can un­der the cir­cum­stances. I wash my hands of it al­to­geth­er. Would to Heav­en I had nev­er been con­sult­ed up­on it--nev­er even been made ac­quaint­ed with the project. How­ev­er, as you have gone so far with me you may go a step fur­ther, and let me know what sto­ry you mean to at­tach to this con­fes­sion? How will you feign to have ob­tained it?”

“The state­ment I shall make will be this, and it will be borne out by so many cor­rob­ora­tive cir­cum­stances that it will be im­pos­si­ble to con­tra­dict it. You ob­serve that the doc­ument is dat­ed on the 10th of April last. It is not with­out rea­son that it is so dat­ed. On that day I and our daugh­ter, La­dy Roos, at­tend­ed by her maid, Sarah Swarton, pro­ceed­ed to the Earl of Ex­eter's res­idence at Wim­ble­don, for the pur­pose of hav­ing an in­ter­view with the Count­ess, and we then saw her in the pres­ence of Lord Roos and his ser­vant Diego.”

“But you gained noth­ing by the jour­ney?” re­marked her hus­band.

“Your par­don, Sir Thomas,” she re­joined; “I gained this con­fes­sion. On the way back I re­flect­ed up­on what had oc­curred, and I thought how flushed with tri­umph I should have been if, in­stead of meet­ing with dis­com­fi­ture, I had gained my point--if I had brought the haughty Count­ess to her knees--had com­pelled her to write out and sign a full avow­al of her guilt, cou­pled with sup­pli­ca­tions for for­give­ness from my in­jured daugh­ter and my­self--and as a re­fine­ment of re­venge, had forced Lord Roos and his ser­vant to at­test by their sig­na­tures the truth of the con­fes­sion! I thought of this--and in­censed that I had not done it, re­solved it _should_ be done.”

“An ill re­solve!” mut­tered her hus­band.

“In Luke Hat­ton, our apothe­cary, I had the man for my pur­pose,” pur­sued La­dy Lake. “Aware of his mar­vel­lous tal­ent for im­itat­ing any writ­ing he pleased--aware, al­so, that I could en­tire­ly re­ly up­on him, I re­solved to call in his aid.”

“Im­pru­dent wom­an! You have placed your­self whol­ly in his pow­er,” groaned Sir Thomas. “Sup­pose he should be­tray the ter­ri­ble trust you have re­posed in him?”

“He will not be­tray it,” replied La­dy Lake. “He is too deeply im­pli­cat­ed in the mat­ter not to keep si­lence for his own sake. But to pro­ceed. The doc­ument, such as you see it, was drawn out by my­self and tran­scribed by Luke Hat­ton, and the writ­ing so ad­mirably coun­ter­feit­ed that La­dy Ex­eter her­self may well doubt if it be not her own. Then, as to the cir­cum­stances, they will all bear me out. We were known to have been at Wim­ble­don on the day in ques­tion. We were known to have had an in­ter­view with La­dy Ex­eter, at which Lord Roos and Diego were present. The in­ter­view was pri­vate, and there­fore no one can tell what took place at it; but the prob­abil­ities are that what I shall as­sert re­al­ly did oc­cur.”

Sir Thomas sig­ni­fied his as­sent, and she went on.

“The plot is well con­trived, and, with pru­dent man­age­ment, can­not fail of suc­cess. We have the time of the sup­posed oc­cur­rence--the ac­tors in it--and the scene--for I shall de­scribe the par­tic­ular room in which the in­ter­view re­al­ly did take place, and I shall fur­ther bring for­ward Sarah Swarton, who will de­clare that she was con­cealed be­hind the hang­ings, and heard the Count­ess read over the con­fes­sion be­fore she signed it.”

“An­oth­er par­ty to the af­fair--and a wom­an!” ejac­ulat­ed Sir Thomas. “The dan­gers of dis­cov­ery are mul­ti­plied a hun­dred­fold.”

“The dan­ger ex­ists on­ly in your imag­ina­tion,” said his La­dy. “Come, ad­mit, Sir Thomas, that the scheme is well con­trived, and that they must be cun­ning in­deed if they es­cape from the mesh­es I have wo­ven for them.”

“You have dis­played in­ge­nu­ity enough, I am free to own, if it had been di­rect­ed to a bet­ter end; but in the best con­trived scheme some flaw is ev­er found, which is sure to mar it.”

“You can de­tect no flaw in this I am per­suad­ed, Sir Thomas. If you can, let me know it?”

“Nay, it is on­ly when too late that such things are found out. The sup­posed ar­mour of proof is then found want­ing at some vi­tal point. How­ev­er, I will say no more,” he ob­served, per­ceiv­ing her im­pa­tience. “What is done can­not be un­done. Have you pre­pared our daugh­ter? Will she con­sent to aid you?”

“She will,” replied La­dy Lake. “I had some dif­fi­cul­ty with her at first, but I found means to over­rule her scru­ples, and she con­sent­ed at last to act as I de­sired, pro­vid­ed all oth­er means failed of ac­com­plish­ing the ob­ject in view. And they _have_ failed since we have lost those let­ters, for though I have one oth­er proof left which might per­haps be ad­duced, I do not at­tach much im­por­tance to it.”

“What is it?” in­quired Sir Thomas, quick­ly.

“You shall know anon,” she an­swered. “Suf­fice it, I have done all I could to avoid hav­ing re­course to the present mea­sure; and have de­layed--its ex­ecu­tion to the last mo­ment.”

“But that proof of which you were speak­ing?” cried Sir Thomas. “Let me hear it? Per­haps it may ob­vi­ate the ne­ces­si­ty of this dan­ger­ous pro­ceed­ing?”

“I do not think so. But you shall judge. Last night, our daugh­ter and my­self ob­tained se­cret ad­mit­tance to Lord Roos's cham­ber, and we found the Count­ess there, and faint­ing in his arms.”

“Why that is enough to con­vict them. You want noth­ing more.”

“Hear me to an end, and you will change your opin­ion. Plac­ing the inan­imate Count­ess on a couch, and cov­er­ing her face with a hand­ker­chief, Lord Roos had the ef­fron­tery to as­sert that we were mis­tak­en; in­sist­ing that it was not La­dy Ex­eter we be­held--but her hand-​maid­en, Gillian Green­ford; and he ap­pealed to the per­fid­ious knave, Diego, in con­fir­ma­tion of his as­ser­tion.”

“But you did not leave with­out sat­is­fy­ing your­selves of the truth?” de­mand­ed Sir Thomas.

“His lord­ship took care we should have no means of do­ing so,” she an­swered. “He caused Diego to con­vey her away by a se­cret stair­case.”

“'Sdeath! that was un­lucky. You have no proof then that it was the Count­ess you be­held?”

“Noth­ing be­yond a lock of her hair, which was se­cured by La­dy Roos as the man was re­mov­ing her.”

“That may be enough,” cried the Sec­re­tary of State; “and pre­vent the ne­ces­si­ty of re­sort­ing to this fright­ful ex­pe­di­ent. We must see the girl, and in­ter­ro­gate her. Gillian Green­ford you say she is called. She shall be brought hith­er at once.”

“It is pos­si­ble she may be with­out,” re­turned La­dy Lake. “Be­fore I came here, I sum­moned her in your name.”

“We will see,” cried Sir Thomas, strik­ing up­on the bell. And the ush­er, ap­pear­ing to the sum­mons, in­formed him that in ef­fect the damsel in ques­tion was in at­ten­dance. “She seems much alarmed, Sir Thomas,” said the ush­er, “and has with her a young man, who ap­pears to take a ten­der in­ter­est in her, and wish­es to be present at the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

“Let him come in with her,” said the Sec­re­tary of State. And see­ing the ush­er pause, he in­quired if he had any­thing fur­ther to say.

“His Ex­cel­len­cy the Span­ish Am­bas­sador and my Lord Roos are with­out, and de­sire ad­mit­tance,” replied the man.

Sir Thomas con­sult­ed his la­dy by a look; and as she made no ob­jec­tion, he sig­ni­fied his plea­sure that they should be ad­mit­ted, and ac­cord­ing­ly the door was thrown open for the en­trance of all the per­sons men­tioned.

Gillian came first, and seemed much em­bar­rassed by the sit­ua­tion in which she found her­self. She had been well tu­tored for the part she had to play; but the in­struc­tions she had re­ceived en­tire­ly fled from her mind as she found her­self in the pres­ence of two such aw­ful per­son­ages as Sir Thomas Lake and his la­dy, both of whom fixed keen glances up­on her. Feel­ing ready to drop with fright, she looked at Dick Tav­ern­er, as if im­plor­ing his sup­port. But this Dick de­clined to af­ford. His jeal­ousy hav­ing been roused by what he had heard, he de­ter­mined to be gov­erned in his con­duct to­wards her by the re­sult of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Ac­cord­ing­ly, though it cost him an ef­fort, he held back. As the Conde de Gon­do­mar ap­peared, Sir Thomas Lake arose, and made him a pro­found salu­ta­tion, which was re­turned with equal cer­emo­ny by the Span­ish Am­bas­sador. The lat­ter, how­ev­er, did not take a seat, but re­mained stand­ing with Lord Roos, whose pres­ence was ac­knowl­edged by a cold and dis­tant bow from his fa­ther-​in-​law. The young no­ble­man did not ap­pear in the slight­est de­gree dis­con­cert­ed by the re­cep­tion he met with, or ap­pre­hen­sive of the re­sult of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. He jest­ed apart with De Gon­do­mar; and both he and the Span­ish Am­bas­sador ap­peared great­ly amused by Gillian's em­bar­rass­ment. Be­hind him stood his ser­vant Diego.

“You are hand­maid­en to the Count­ess of Ex­eter, I pre­sume?” de­mand­ed La­dy Lake of the damsel.

“I am, my la­dy,” she an­swered.

“The girl does not look as if the im­pu­ta­tions cast up­on her char­ac­ter can be true,” ob­served Sir Thomas Lake.

As this was said, poor Gillian be­came suf­fused with blush­es, and hung her head.

“Be­fore I put any fur­ther ques­tions to her,” re­marked La­dy Lake, “I will ask Lord Roos if he still per­sists in af­firm­ing that it was this damsel who vis­it­ed him last night?”

Dick Tav­ern­er looked as if his fate de­pend­ed up­on the re­sponse the young no­ble­man might make to the in­quiry.

“I must de­cline to an­swer your la­dy­ship's ques­tion,” re­turned Lord Roos.

“Why can­not he speak out?” mut­tered Dick. “This un­cer­tain­ty is worse than any­thing.”

“What says the damsel her­self,” ob­served Sir Thomas Lake. “Does she ad­mit the charge?”

“You can­not ex­pect her to do that, Sir Thomas,” in­ter­posed Lord Roos.

“I ex­pect her to an­swer my ques­tion,” re­joined the Sec­re­tary of State, sharply. “Were you in Lord Roos's room last night?” he added, to Gillian.

“Oh, dear! I am ready to faint,” she ex­claimed. “Catch me, Dick--catch me!”

“An­swer 'yes' or 'no,' or I won't,” he re­joined.

“Well, then, 'yes!' if I must say some­thing,” she replied.

Poor Dick fell back, as if struck by a shot.

“I don't be­lieve it,” cried Sir Thomas.

“Nor I ei­ther,” said Dick, re­cov­er­ing him­self. “I don't be­lieve she could do such a wicked thing. Be­sides, it was the for­eign am­bas­sador, there,” he added, point­ing to De Gon­do­mar, “who seemed most en­am­oured of her yes­ter­day; and I shouldn't have been so much sur­prised if she had gone to see him. Per­haps she did,” he con­tin­ued, ad­dress­ing the poor damsel, who again hung her head.

“I can take up­on me to af­firm that such was not the case,” ob­served De Gon­do­mar.

“Have you the lock of hair with you?” whis­pered Sir Thomas to his la­dy.

“I have,” she replied, tak­ing a small pack­et from her bo­som.

The move­ment did not pass un­no­ticed by Lord Roos and the Span­ish Am­bas­sador, be­tween whom an al­most im­per­cep­ti­ble smile passed.

“If you have put all the in­ter­ro­ga­tions you de­sire to make to Gillian, Madam,” said Lord Roos to his moth­er-​in-​law, “per­haps she may be per­mit­ted to de­part? The sit­ua­tion can­not be agree­able to her.”

“A mo­ment more, my lord,” cried La­dy Lake. “If I de­tain her it is to clear her char­ac­ter. I know her to be per­fect­ly in­no­cent.”

At this an­nounce­ment, Dick Tav­ern­er's coun­te­nance bright­ened, and he ex­tend­ed his arms to­wards Gillian, who glad­ly availed her­self of his sup­port.

“I am quite sure she was not the per­son I sur­prised in your cham­ber last night,” con­tin­ued La­dy Lake.

“In­deed, Madam! How do you ar­rive at that con­vic­tion?”

“Be­cause that per­son's hair was jet black, where­as Gillian's, as we see, is of the ex­act­ly op­po­site colour.”

Dick Tav­ern­er could not help press­ing his lips against the back of the pret­ty damsel's neck as this was ut­tered.

“Your proof of this, Madam?” de­mand­ed Lord Roos.

“Be­hold it!” she cried. “This look of hair was cut off be­fore your vis­itant es­caped, and has re­mained in my pos­ses­sion ev­er since. Ha! how is this?” she ex­claimed, as she un­fold­ed the pack­et, and dis­closed a tress of fair hair, ev­ident­ly match­ing Gillian's lint-​white locks. “What trans­for­ma­tion has tak­en place! Witchcraft has been prac­tised. This is the Count­ess's work.”

“The min­ion must have been there, af­ter all,” cried Dick Tav­ern­er, thrust­ing Gillian from him.

“The charge of witchcraft will not serve your turn, Madam,” said Lord Roos de­ri­sive­ly. “The ex­pla­na­tion is sim­ple. Your eyes have de­ceived you.”

“Most pal­pa­bly,” cried the Conde de Gon­do­mar, who had caught Gillian in his arms, as the jeal­ous ap­pren­tice cast her from him. “I am afraid her la­dy­ship can­not see very clear­ly.”

“I see clear­ly enough that a trick has been prac­tised up­on me,” La­dy Lake re­joined sharply. “But let Lord Roos look to him­self. I will have my re­venge, and a ter­ri­ble one it shall be.”

“Do not com­mit your­self,” said Sir Thomas in a low tone.

“Your busi­ness here is at an end, fair maid­en,” said the Conde de Gon­do­mar to Gillian; “and as your lover aban­dons you, I am ready to take charge of you.”

So say­ing he led her forth, fol­lowed by Lord Roos, whose smile of tri­umph ex­as­per­at­ed his moth­er-​in-​law al­most be­yond en­durance.

For a mo­ment Dick Tay­ern­er re­mained ir­res­olute; but his mis­tress had no soon­er dis­ap­peared, than he rushed af­ter her, vow­ing he would have her back if it cost him his life.