The King's Highway Part 47

"My dear lord," he said, "I really have to apologize for not having waited upon you before, but it has been quite impossible. Since the King's return I have been called upon daily to attend his majesty, besides having all the usual routine of my office to go through; otherwise I can a.s.sure your grace that I should have been with you long ago, as both duty and inclination would have prompted me to wait upon you. I am happy to see you so comfortably lodged here. I was afraid that, considering the circ.u.mstances, they might have judged it right to debar you of some indulgences; but my lord the governor is a good-hearted, kindly man.--Lady Laura, how are you? I hope you are quite well. I grieve, indeed, to see you and your father in this place; but alas! I had no power to prevent it, and indeed, I fear, I have very little power to serve you now."

"From your lords.h.i.+p's words," said the Duke, after having habitually performed the civilities of the apartment--"from your lords.h.i.+p's words, I fear that you take a bad view of the case, and do not antic.i.p.ate my speedy deliverance."

"Oh, you know," answered the Earl, "that the trial must take place before we can at all judge what the King's mercy may incline him to do; but I fear, my lord, I fear that a strong prejudice prevails against your grace. The King, as well may be, is terribly indignant at all persons concerned with this plot."

"He may well be, indeed," said the Duke; "for nothing ever made me more indignant than when I first heard of the purposed a.s.sa.s.sination and invasion myself. With that I had nothing on earth to do. I should have hoped that his majesty's indignation on other points would have subsided by this time, and that clemency would have resumed her sway towards those who may have acted imprudently but not criminally."

"Not yet, not yet, I fear, my lord," replied the Earl; "six months, or a year longer, indeed, would have made all the difference. If your grace had but taken the advice and warning given you by my wise and virtuous young friend, Wilton, and made your escape at once to Flanders, or any neutral ground. I am sure I gave you opportunity enough."

"But, my lord," replied the Duke, "Wilton never gave me any warning till the very morning that I was arrested. It is true, indeed," he added, recollecting the circ.u.mstances, "poor Wilton and I unfortunately had a little quarrel on the preceding night, and he left me very much offended, I believe, and hurt, as I dare say he told you, my lord."

"Oh, he told me nothing, your grace," replied Lord Byerdale.

"Wilton, knowing my feeling on the subject, very wisely acted as he knew I should like, or, at least, INTENDED TO ACT as he knew I should like, without saying anything to me upon the subject. I might very well remain somewhat wilfully ignorant of what was going on, but I must not openly connive, you know.--Then it was not really," he continued, "that your grace refused to go?"

"Oh, not in the least, not in the least!" replied the Duke. "I received his note early on the next morning, after he left me, and was consulting with my dear child here as to the necessary arrangements for going, when the Messengers arrived."

"Most unfortunate, indeed," said the Earl. "I had concluded, judging from your letter to me on the preceding day, that your grace that afternoon, notwithstanding all I had said regarding the young gentleman's family, refused him the honour to which he aspired, and would not follow the advice he gave."

Lady Laura rose, and moved towards one of the windows; and her father, with his colour a little heightened, and his manner somewhat agitated, replied, but in a low tone, "I did indeed refuse him Laura's hand, and, I am afraid, somewhat harshly and angrily; but I never refused to take his advice or warning."

"Ay, but the two subjects are so mingled up together," said the Earl, "that the one may be considered to imply the other."

"I see not how, my lord, I see not how they are so mingled," said the Duke.

"Ay, it may be difficult to explain," answered the Earl, "and I cannot do it myself; but so it is. It might not indeed be too late now, if it were not for this unfortunate prejudice of yourself or Lady Laura against my young friend, who, I must say, has served you both well."

"How not too late, my lord?" demanded the Duke, eagerly: "all prejudices may be removed, you know; and if there were any prejudice, it was mine."

"Still it would be an obstacle," answered the Earl; "and the whole matter would of course be rendered much more difficult now. There might be still more prejudices to be overcome at present.--May I ask," he added, abruptly, "if you have still got the note which Wilton sent you?"

"No," answered the Duke, "no. I destroyed it immediately, out of regard for his safety."

"It was a wise precaution," answered the Earl, "but unnecessary in his case. He has friends who will manage to justify whatever he does of that kind. Humble as he is in all his deportment, he can do many things that I could not venture to do. I have heard the King himself say, in presence of one half of his council, that he is under great personal obligations to Wilton Brown."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the Duke; "but may I request your lords.h.i.+p to inform me what it was you meant just now? You said it might not be yet too late."

"I fear, my lord, I must not talk to your grace on the subject," said the Earl; "there might be conditions you would not comply with. You might not like even the idea of flying from prison at all."

"I do not see why, my lord," exclaimed the Duke, "I really do not see why. But pray, may I ask what are the conditions?"

"Nay, I make neither any suggestions nor conditions," replied the Earl, who saw that the Duke was fully worked up to the pitch he wished, "I only spoke of such a thing as escape being very possible, if Wilton chose to arrange it; and then of course the conditions he might require for his services struck my mind."

"Why as yet, my lord," answered the Duke, "our n.o.ble young friend has not even named any condition as the price of his services."

"Perhaps, your grace," replied the Earl, "he may have become wiser by experience. If I have understood you both right, his hopes were disappointed, and hopes which he imagined he entertained with great reason."

"No, my lord, no!" cried the Duke. "He had no reason for entertaining such hopes. I cannot admit for a moment that I gave him any cause for such expectations."

"Nay, then, my lord duke," replied the Earl, with an offended look, "if such be your view of a case which everybody in London sees differently, the more reason why Wilton should make sure of what grounds he stands upon before he acts further in this business.

However, I have nothing to do with the affair farther than as his sincere friend, and as having the honour of being his distant relation, which of course makes me resolute in saying that I will not see his feelings sported with and his happiness destroyed. Therefore, your grace, as we shan't agree, I see, upon these matters, I will humbly take my leave of you." And he rose, as if to depart.

"Nay, nay, my lord--you are too hasty," replied the Duke. "I beseech you, do not leave me in this way. I may in former instances have given Wilton hopes without intending it; but the matter is very much altered now, when he has done so much more for me in every way. I do not scruple at all to say that those objections are removed."

"Perhaps, my lord," said the Earl, sitting down again, and speaking in a low voice, "we had better discuss the matter in private. Could I not speak to you apart for a moment or two? Suppose we go into the anteroom."

"Nay, nay," said the Duke, "Laura will leave us.--Go to your room, my love," he added, raising his voice. "I would fain have a few minutes conversation with my n.o.ble friend alone."

"Very wrong of you, Lord Byerdale," she said, with a smile, as she walked towards the door, "to turn me out of the room in this way."

Lord Byerdale smiled, and bowed, and apologized, all with an air of courtier-like mockery. The moment she was gone, however, he turned to the Duke, saying, "Now, my lord duke, we are alone, and I will beg your grace to give me your honour that no part of our present conversation transpires in any circ.u.mstances. I can then hold much more free communication with you. I can lay before you what is possible, and what is probable, and you can choose whatever path you like."

"Most solemnly I pledge my honour," replied the Duke, "and I can a.s.sure your lords.h.i.+p that I fully appreciate Mr. Brown's merits and his services to me. He has not only talents and genius, but a princely person and most distinguished manners, and I could not have the slightest objection, as soon as his birth is clearly ascertained and acknowledged--"

"My lord duke," replied the Earl, interrupting him, "I fear your lords.h.i.+p is somewhat deceiving yourself as to your own situation and his. Wilton, I tell you, can easily find the means of effecting your escape from this prison, and can insure your safe arrival in any continental port you may think fit to name. I do not mean to say that I must not shut my eyes; but for his sake and for yours I am very willing to do so, if I see his happiness made sure thereby."

The Duke's eyes sparkled with joy and hope, and the Earl went on.

"Your situation, my lord, at the present moment, you see, is a very unfortunate one, or such a step would in no degree be advisable. But at this period, when the pa.s.sions of the people and the indignation of the King are both excited to the highest pitch; when there is, as I may call it, an appet.i.te for blood afloat; when the three witnesses, Sir John Fenwick, Smith, and Cook, to say nothing of the corroborative evidence of Goodman, establish beyond doubt that you were accessorily, though perhaps not actively, guilty of high treason--at this period, I say, there can be little doubt that if you were brought to trial--that is, in the course of next week, as I have heard it rumoured--the result would be fatal, such, in short, as we should all deplore."

The Duke listened, with a face as white as a sheet, but only replied, in a tremulous tone, "But the escape, my lord! the escape!"

"Is quite possible and quite sure," replied the Earl. "I must shut my eyes, as I have said, and Wilton must act energetically; but I cannot either shut my eyes or suffer him to do so, except upon the following precise condition, which is indeed absolutely necessary to success.

It is, that the Lady Laura, your daughter, be his wife before you set your foot from without these walls."

"But, good heavens, my lord!" exclaimed the Duke--"how is that possible? I believe that Laura would do anything to save her father's life; but she is not prepared for such a thing. Then the marriage must be celebrated with unbecoming haste. No, my lord, oh no! This is quite impossible. I am very willing to promise that I will give my consent to their marriage afterwards; but for their marriage to take place before we go is quite impossible--especially while I am a prisoner in the Tower of London--quite impossible!"

"I am sorry your grace thinks so," replied the Earl, drily; "for under those circ.u.mstances I fear that your escape from the Tower will be found impossible also."

A momentary spirit of resistance was raised in the Duke's breast by feelings of indignation, and he tried for an instant to persuade himself that his case might not be so desperate as the Earl depicted it; that in some points of view it might be better to remain and stand his trial, and that the King's mercy would very likely be obtained even if he were condemned. But that spirit died away in a moment, and the more rapidly, because the Earl of Byerdale employed not the slightest argument to induce him to follow the plan proposed.

"My lord, this is a very painful case," he said, "a very painful case, indeed."

"It is, Duke," replied the Earl, "it is a painful case; a choice of difficulties, which none can decide but yourself. Pray do not let anything that I can say affect you. I thought it right, as an old friend, to lay before you a means of saving yourself; and no one can judge whether that means be too painful to you to be adopted, as n.o.body can tell at what rate you value life. But you will remember, also, that forfeiture accompanies the sentence of death in matters of high treason, and that Lady Laura will therefore be left in a painful situation."

"Nay, my lord, nay," said the Duke, "if it must come to that, of course I must consent to any terms, rather than sacrifice everything.

But I did not think Wilton would have proposed such conditions to me."

"Nor does he, my lord," replied the Earl: "he is totally ignorant of the whole matter. He has never, even, that I know of, contemplated your escape as possible. One word from me, however, whispered in his ear, will open his eyes in a minute. But, my lord, it must be upon the condition that I mention. Wilton's father-in-law may go forth from this prison before twelve to-morrow night, but no other prisoner within it shall, or indeed can."

"Well, my lord, well," replied the Duke, somewhat impatiently, "I will throw no obstacle in the way. Laura and Wilton must settle it between them. But I do not see how the matter can be managed here in a prison."

"Oh, that is easily arranged," replied the Earl--"nothing can be more easy. There is a chaplain to the Tower, you know. The place has its own privileges likewise, and all the rest shall be done by me. Am I to understand your grace, that you consider yourself pledged upon this subject?"

The Duke thought for a moment, and the images of the trial by his peers, the block and the axe, came up before his sight, making the private marriage of his daughter with Wilton, and the escape to France or Flanders, appear bright in the comparison.

"Well, my lord, well," he said, "I not only pledge myself, but pledge myself willingly. I always liked Wilton, I always esteemed him highly; and I suppose he would have had Laura at last, if he did not have her now."

"I congratulate you on your approaching freedom, Duke," said the Earl, "and as to the rest, I have told you perfectly true, in saying that it is not Wilton who makes any conditions with you. He knows nothing of the matter, and is as eager to set you at liberty without any terms at all, as you could be yourself to obtain it. You had better, therefore, let me speak with him on the subject altogether.