“Tell me but where,” he answered, out of breath.
“At Hammersmith, at the house of a safe friend of mine, who will not talk. Her name is Turner.”
“At noon to-morrow I shall be there,” was all that he had time to answer before Northampton joined them.
That evening Sir Thomas heard of it from his friend.
“So, so,” said he, “the pace quickens. But keep your head, Robin. It becomes doubly necessary when a man has lost his heart.”
For only answer Rochester laughed on a note of high exultation.
“And now that other matter. There is this trouble with the Commons on the score of supplies, set on by this pestilent Sir Roger Owen. Hard-pressed for money as he is, the king is fretted and vexed by this opposition. What view d’ye take of it, Tom? Have you considered?”
Overbury’s fine, long face grew overcast with thought. He lay back in his deep chair and brought his slender finger-tips together.
“I have considered,” he answered slowly, musingly. “But the matter is all knots and tangles. If the king resists, and arbitrarily exercises his prerogative to dissolve Parliament, he will have trouble. If he yields, he will have set up a precedent destructive of future power, displayed a weakness that will hereafter be most certainly abused. It comes to a choice of evils. And when that is forced upon us, sighs and vexations avail us nothing. It only remains to decide which is the less.”
“The former, surely.”
“So I should say. But it is the king who must decide — so that he may blame no one else for the consequences, if they are evil. Which is not to say that he should not be guided in his decision — provided always he believes in the end the decision to be his own.”
“Then what do you counsel?”
“In your place, I should confine myself straitly to presenting the position much as I have just presented it.”
My lord advanced his tablets.
“Ay, ay. Set it down for me.”
Overbury wrote swiftly as he was desired.
“And now this question of the Spanish marriage. Have you thought of that?”
“I have. But — let me sleep on it before I finally pronounce.”
“These French proposals make some decision urgent.”
“We can always temporise at need. We may have to do so even when we have decided. Temporisation is the first principle of statecraft. But I hope to have resolved it by to-morrow.”
“I’ll trust to that, Tom,” said his lordship; and went off to see the king.
Alone, Overbury settled more deeply into his chair, a frown of thought between eyes that looked out through the latticed window at the blue summer sky and the gently stirring tops of the trees in the Privy Gardens.
Northampton’s attitude — for that matter the attitude of all the Howards — regarding my Lady Essex and my Lord Rochester was a riddle no longer. To obtain a dominant hold upon the favourite, who was all-powerful with the king, they would make use of Frances Howard, Lady Essex, and they welcomed the opportunity offered them by the passion that had sprung up between the twain.
Overbury held them all in supreme contempt; Northampton; Privy Seal, the secret bigot in the pay of Spain; Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, her ladyship’s father, who unscrupulously and simoniacally used to his own profit his position as Lord Chamberlain, urged on in this by his coarse, unmoral, shamelessly acquisitive wife. Their corruption, for which he had always despised them, now filled him with disgust.
A man does not write, even as a proxy, such love-letters to a woman as Overbury had been writing to Lady Essex without finding himself caught, however slightly, in the spell of sentiment he weaves. A gentle compassion for her whose honour was being made so unscrupulously to serve as a pawn in this game of statecraft and ambition welled up from his soul to increase his loathing of those corrupt ones who so used her almost against the very dictates of nature. He was moved, out of that loathing, to thwart their ambitions, dash their schemes to pieces. He had the power. Rochester would not move in this path, which was so full of pitfalls, without Overbury’s counsel and pledged support.
The resolve grew swiftly. But it grew as a bubble that is blown, and, like a bubble, burst as suddenly. It burst the moment Sir Thomas realised that he was inflating it with sentiment.
In such matters sentiment could have no part. Interest must be his only guide — though it was interest of a vastly different sort from the interest of those others which had moved his scorn, for, in the matter of simony, and of profiting by patronage, Rochester’s hands were clean, nor would Overbury have them otherwise.
Cynically he set himself to consider where they stood. The State was divided into two main parties, and so far, by following that first principle of temporising which he vaunted, he had kept Rochester free from espousing either. Towards the party of the queen it was impossible to lean. The hostility of her Majesty and of Prince Henry to the favourite would always have made that difficult.
Since the outrivalling of Prince Henry in the affections of Lady Essex it was become impossible. The party of the Howards was, as a party, no less powerful. But it was too corrupt and unscrupulous to be quite safe. Northampton in particular was too sly and slippery, and also far too dominant. If Overbury were to open the door to Northampton, he might presently find himself thrust out, and Rochester a mere tool in the earl’s hands.
So the temporising must continue. But he would yield to the extent of an alliance with the Howards — an alliance, however, in which Rochester must remain an independent power. He would open a wicket to the Howards, but he would keep the door itself tight locked against them still. And to keep them in play the matter of the Spanish marriage might be considered, but considered only. There must be no deciding just yet awhile.
The result of all this was that presently we have the comic spectacle of Rochester discussing with the king the matter of the marriage of Prince Henry, who detested him, and even writing — through the pen of Overbury — letters to the prince on the same subject, letters which, out of respect for the king his father, the prince was forced to treat at least with outward deference, whilst inwardly writhing and raging to have the bestowal of his hand in marriage so calmly treated by this detested upstart who had robbed him of his mistress.
I doubt if any of those concerned, with the sole exception of Overbury, apprehended and appreciated the bitter comedy as it deserved. It is certain that Rochester did not, for Rochester was sinking deeper and deeper into his amorous morass, caring less and less for affairs, leaving the conduct of them more and more to Overbury, and depending daily more absolutely upon his secretary’s brain, his own being all bemused and drugged with love.
And then, quite suddenly, out of that fair summer sky dropped a thunderbolt upon that bower of love, that fair garden by the river in the pleasant village of Hammersmith.
Mention has been made of my lady’s husband. He was Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, son of that brilliant courtier whom Elizabeth had loved, ennobled, enriched, and then beheaded. The great estate which Elizabeth’s bounty had bestowed upon her favourite had been confiscated with his head. But they had been restored to his son, the present earl, by King James.
The wealth of this lad had been the lure to the insatiable greedy Suffolk pair, and had led them to arrange a marriage between their daughter, the Lady Frances Howard, and young Devereux. The boy, though not more than fourteen at the time, but of a grave, thoughtful mind considerably in advance of his years, was not only made sensible of the advantages to himself that must accrue from his marriage with the daughter of the most powerful house in England, but was also stricken by the ravishing white beauty of the child of thirteen who was offered to him for a bride.
As for poor Frances, her will was never consulted. The chronicler Wilson is less than just to her when he terms her “too young to consider, but old enough to consent.” The trinkets and gewgaws, the apparel, the pageantry of a Court wedding, and the chief rôle assigned to her, giving her the cen
tre of the stage, were the sum of that to which her child’s mind consented. Of the responsibilities and duties that marriage imposes she had no real apprehension, for the staid, grave-faced young bridegroom scarce a thought; he was no more than one of the stage properties necessary, it seemed, to her in this pretty play.
Thus lightly had that grave step been taken some eight years ago.
The children parted at the altar, Frances to go back to the care of her parents, Robert Devereux to make the grand tour, to complete abroad his education, and there learn the trade of soldiering.
For two years Frances remained quietly in the country. Then, matured in beauty, and with an air of confidence derived from the consciousness that as a countess by marriage she was a great lady, she came to take her place at Court, and receive the homage commanded as much by her personal charm as by the circumstance that she was the daughter of that fount of patronage, the Earl of Suffolk.
Thus Wilson sums it up: “The Court was her nest, her father being Lord Chamberlain; and she was hatched up by her mother, whom the sour breath of that age had already tainted, from whom the young lady might take such tincture that ease and greatness and Court glories would more distain and impress on her than any may wear out and diminish. And growing to be a beauty of the greatest magnitude in that horizon was an object fit for admirers, and every tongue grew an orator at that shrine.”
In that luxurious, evil atmosphere, with no other guardians than a corrupt father and a spendthrift, wanton mother, she quickly became prodigal of expense, covetous of homage, and, in her excessive femininity, light of behaviour, utterly indifferent to the honour in her custody of that husband whom she scarcely knew. Such faint impression as he had made upon her young mind at the two or three fleeting meetings, that had been a prelude to the more fateful meeting at the altar, the years had by now effaced, and other sharper, deeper impressions entirely overlaid. He was not a reality to her. She was no more than vaguely conscious that he existed somewhere, and utterly incapable of conceiving a life in which this stranger should have any part.
Thus, like a butterfly in the sun, taking no thought for the morrow, had she lived in youth’s sweet irresponsibility. And now of a sudden, out of nowhere as it seemed, this crushing blow had fallen. He was coming home to claim her.
In that Hammersmith garden by the river her eager lover came upon his lady pale and tearful. Distraught, grief-stricken eyes, that hitherto he had never known other than laughingly alluring, gave him to-day a piteous, unsmiling greeting.
He sprang to her with all a lover’s quick solicitude.
“Why, Frances child, what has happened to you?”
For answer she proffered him a written sheet, on which he read:
“Sweet Wife, — I come at last to ease a heart that has been sick with absence through all these years of our separation. It is a heart that has been ever true to the gracious loveliness it did discern in thee, and beats at last the quicker as the hour of its reward draws near. Within some few days I sail from France, impatient to set foot on English soil, the dearer to me because trodden by thy lovely feet. I shall come to thee as fast as horse can bear me, so that soon after this my herald shall have reached you you will behold me craving the welcome of your arms. In all these years one image only—”
His lordship read no further. He had no patience with maudlin outpourings of unbidden love from this ridiculous boy-husband grown now to manhood, and no desire to nauseate himself by reading further. The news was all that mattered, and this he now possessed.
He looked at her with eyes well-nigh as grave as her own. His face had lost some of its colour, his air a deal of its usual magnificent assurance.
“Oh, ‘sdeath!” he broke out. “What needs the fool come home to trouble us? He was well enough abroad. What brings him?”
Her lips twisted into a crooked little smile.
“He tells us plainly enough,” she answered, and then a sudden gust of passion shook her. “To write to me so! To dare!” she panted.
“Indeed, it is very sickly stuff,” said his lordship, with unconscious humour.
“And from a man I do not know, with whom I have hardly spoke — an utter stranger to me, and one of whom I desire to have no more knowledge than I have at present. It — it is not decent. I — I felt shamed as I read. What care I that my image may have been ever in his thoughts? I dare swear it has been ever in the thoughts of many another man. But would any of them dare to claim me for his own? And what is this fellow to me more than any other stranger?”
White-faced, she stared out across the gleaming river. She sat in a cool, green arbour above the brown river-wall of that terrace-garden. My lord stood beside her, his face overcast, his arms limp at his sides.
One of those arms he flung now about her bare, white shoulder, and he set his face against her own, so that his cheek was wetted by her tears. He was shocked and grieved for her beyond all expression; but like the egotist he was, he was even more shocked and grieved for himself, on account of difficulties that he now foresaw. He was sufficiently detached even in his grief to observe in passing that tears are so unbecoming as to mar even the most flawless beauty.
“My poor child, my poor child!” he murmured soothingly. “Comfort ye, and let us consider now.”
“Consider? What is to consider? What is to consider when death approaches? And this is death.”
“Don’t, don’t!” he begged her. “You must have known that one day this would happen.”
“I did not!” she answered passionately.
“You thought him dead?”
“I never knew he lived. What was he to me?”
“Your husband, plague on it!” was the rueful answer.
“Ah, no; not that. That he shall never be.”
Rochester sighed.
“Unfortunately he is so already.”
“Ah, surely, surely not. It is not the altar and the toothless mumbling of a bishop that makes a marriage. There must be on both sides the will and consent to mate. And what will was there on mine — what consent was ever asked of me? I was bestowed on him, as you may bestow a blind puppy out of a litter. I was too young to know what it meant. I was a child, taking a child’s pleasure in a rare show, that is all, as Heaven hears me. And that he should come now to take me for his own, to bend me to his will, to make his wife and creature of me, who want nothing of him, to hold me in his loathsome arms, to kiss—” She broke off, shuddering, and covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Heaven!” she moaned. “The horror of it!”
And so fell to sobbing.
My lord stood dazed and confounded. What was he to do, what say to comfort her, to fight off the horror of this reality? That she should have lived her irresponsible life without taking thought for this thing scarcely amazed him, who knew her light, joyous nature. He said nothing, which perhaps was best; and presently she spoke again. She drew her hands from her face, which violence of emotion had rendered almost haggard, and reaching out she seized his left hand, and drew him down beside her.
“If I did not love you, Robin,” she faltered, “it might be easier. But loving you, how could I be unfaithful? That is what I should be if I suffered my Lord of Essex to claim me, and I should go in horror of myself.”
It was a point of view that bewildered and troubled him. He had no words, therefore he could but draw her closer, most eloquent expression of his deep distress and emotion.
“Love me always, Robin! Love me always!” she implored him piteously.
“Can I help myself, child?” he asked her wanly. “But this — this thing? What is to be done?”
“What counsel do you give me? I will do whatever you tell me — always, Robin, always.”
He stared before him blankly, with clouded eyes and crumpled brow.
“What counsel can I give, dear Heaven? I must think! I must think!”
That was the truth of it. He must think — which was another way of saying that he must take counsel with that brain of his — Sir
Thomas Overbury. Until he had talked this out with his secretary he could hope to find no gleam of guiding light.
To Overbury he came towards evening, all shaken still by the passionate, clinging leave-taking which had ended that day’s unhappy meeting in Mrs. Turner’s garden. Sir Thomas was not in the study, but from another adjacent room of Rochester’s apartments that opened on to the Privy Gallery came a click-click of steel on steel, and the soft, padding thuds of quickly moving, stockinged feet.
Guided by the sound, my lord thrust open the door and entered. In the middle of that considerable chamber, which was almost empty of furniture, Overbury, in shirt and trunks, long, lithely vigorous, and graceful, was at sword-play with his man Davies. Such was his daily practice. He was not only skilled with the rapier, but intended so to keep himself, and he knew that constant exercise is the only way to accomplish it. Walking precariously amid enemies as he did, he never knew the moment when one of them, not daring otherwise to hurt him out of regard for the protection he enjoyed, might force a private quarrel upon him in spite of edicts against duelling. Therefore, he practised daily for an hour with the foils, and took care to let all the world know that he did so. It kept folk civil, he found.
He checked, fully extended in the lunge, and turned his head to see who entered without so much as by-your-leave. Beholding Rochester, he came upright.
“You are early returned,” he said. Then, observing his lordship’s troubled countenance, he caught his breath. “Is anything amiss?”
Rochester came forward.
“Leave us, Davies,” he bade the servant.
With swift, silent obedience the man set down his foil, stepped into his shoes, drew on his doublet, and shuffled out.
My lord flung himself down on the embayed window seat, his back to the latticed panes. He sat hunched there, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his clenched hands. Before him stood Overbury, long, lean, and active, arms hanging full-length beside him, one hand clutching the hilt of the foil, the other the blade towards the point, and between them bending it like a whip.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 503
