Kenilworth by Walter Scott (libby ebook reader TXT) 📖

“No, madam, thank Heaven!” said Varney. “Compose yourself, and permit me to take breath ere I communicate my tidings.”

“No breath, sir,” replied the lady impatiently; “I know your theatrical arts. Since your breath hath sufficed to bring you hither, it may suffice to tell your tale—at least briefly, and in the gross.”

“Madam,” answered Varney, “we are not alone, and my lord's message was for your ear only.”

“Leave us, Janet, and Master Foster,” said the lady; “but remain in the next apartment, and within call.”

Foster and his daughter retired, agreeably to the Lady Leicester's commands, into the next apartment, which was the withdrawing-room. The door which led from the sleeping-chamber was then carefully shut and bolted, and the father and daughter remained both in a posture of anxious attention, the first with a stern, suspicious, anxious cast of countenance, and Janet with folded hands, and looks which seemed divided betwixt her desire to know the fortunes of her mistress, and her prayers to Heaven for her safety. Anthony Foster seemed himself to have some idea of what was passing through his daughter's mind, for he crossed the apartment and took her anxiously by the hand, saying, “That is right—pray, Janet, pray; we have all need of prayers, and some of us more than others. Pray, Janet—I would pray myself, but I must listen to what goes on within—evil has been brewing, love—evil has been brewing. God forgive our sins, but Varney's sudden and strange arrival bodes us no good.”

Janet had never before heard her father excite or even permit her attention to anything which passed in their mysterious family; and now that he did so, his voice sounded in her ear—she knew not why—like that of a screech-owl denouncing some deed of terror and of woe. She turned her eyes fearfully towards the door, almost as if she expected some sounds of horror to be heard, or some sight of fear to display itself.

All, however, was as still as death, and the voices of those who spoke in the inner chamber were, if they spoke at all, carefully subdued to a tone which could not be heard in the next. At once, however, they were heard to speak fast, thick, and hastily; and presently after the voice of the Countess was heard exclaiming, at the highest pitch to which indignation could raise it, “Undo the door, sir, I command you!—undo the door!—I will have no other reply!” she continued, drowning with her vehement accents the low and muttered sounds which Varney was heard to utter betwixt whiles. “What ho! without there!” she persisted, accompanying her words with shrieks, “Janet, alarm the house!—Foster, break open the door—I am detained here by a traitor! Use axe and lever, Master Foster—I will be your warrant!”

“It shall not need, madam,” Varney was at length distinctly heard to say. “If you please to expose my lord's important concerns and your own to the general ear, I will not be your hindrance.”

The door was unlocked and thrown open, and Janet and her father rushed in, anxious to learn the cause of these reiterated exclamations.

When they entered the apartment Varney stood by the door grinding his teeth, with an expression in which rage, and shame, and fear had each their share. The Countess stood in the midst of her apartment like a juvenile Pythoness under the influence of the prophetic fury. The veins in her beautiful forehead started into swoln blue lines through the hurried impulse of her articulation—her cheek and neck glowed like scarlet—her eyes were like those of an imprisoned eagle, flashing red lightning on the foes which it cannot reach with its talons. Were it possible for one of the Graces to have been animated by a Fury, the countenance could not have united such beauty with so much hatred, scorn, defiance, and resentment. The gesture and attitude corresponded with the voice and looks, and altogether presented a spectacle which was at once beautiful and fearful; so much of the sublime had the energy of passion united with the Countess Amy's natural loveliness. Janet, as soon as the door was open, ran to her mistress; and more slowly, yet with more haste than he was wont, Anthony Foster went to Richard Varney.

“In the Truth's name, what ails your ladyship?” said the former.

“What, in the name of Satan, have you done to her?” said Foster to his friend.

“Who, I?—nothing,” answered Varney, but with sunken head and sullen voice; “nothing but communicated to her her lord's commands, which, if the lady list not to obey, she knows better how to answer it than I may pretend to do.”

“Now, by Heaven, Janet!” said the Countess, “the false traitor lies in his throat! He must needs lie, for he speaks to the dishonour of my noble lord; he must needs lie doubly, for he speaks to gain ends of his own, equally execrable and unattainable.”

“You have misapprehended me, lady,” said Varney, with a sulky species of submission and apology; “let this matter rest till your passion be abated, and I will explain all.”

“Thou shalt never have an opportunity to do so,” said the Countess.—“Look at him, Janet. He is fairly dressed, hath the outside of a gentleman, and hither he came to persuade me it was my lord's pleasure—nay, more, my wedded lord's commands—that I should go with him to Kenilworth, and before the Queen and nobles, and in presence of my own wedded lord, that I should acknowledge him—HIM there—that very cloak-brushing, shoe-cleaning fellow—HIM there, my lord's lackey, for my liege lord and husband; furnishing against myself, Great God! whenever I was to vindicate my right and my rank, such weapons as would hew my just claim from the root, and destroy my character to be regarded as an honourable matron of the English nobility!”

“You hear her, Foster, and you, young maiden, hear this lady,” answered Varney, taking advantage of the pause which the Countess had made in her charge, more for lack of breath than for lack of matter—“you hear that her heat only objects to me the course which our good lord, for the purpose to keep certain matters secret, suggests in the very letter which she holds in her hands.”

Foster here attempted to interfere with a face of authority, which he thought became the charge entrusted to him, “Nay, lady, I must needs say you are over-hasty in this. Such deceit is not utterly to be condemned when practised for a righteous end; and thus even the patriarch Abraham feigned Sarah to be his sister when they went down to Egypt.”

“Ay, sir,” answered the Countess; “but God rebuked that deceit even in the father of His chosen people, by the mouth of the heathen Pharaoh. Out upon you, that will read Scripture only to copy those things which are held out to us as warnings, not as examples!”

“But Sarah disputed not the will of her husband, an it be your pleasure,” said Foster, in reply, “but did as Abraham commanded, calling herself his sister, that it might be well with her husband for her sake, and that his soul might live because of her beauty.”

“Now, so Heaven pardon me my useless anger,” answered the Countess, “thou art as daring a hypocrite as yonder fellow is an impudent deceiver! Never will I believe that the noble Dudley gave countenance to so dastardly, so