Peveril of the Peak

“Because they allow us that time for escape.”

“Why, then, do you not avail yourself of it? Wherefore are you here?” said Christian.

“Nay, rather, why do you not fly?” said Bridgenorth. “Of a surety, you are as deeply engaged as I.”

“Brother Bridgenorth, I am the fox, who knows a hundred modes of deceiving the hounds; you are the deer, whose sole resource is in hasty flight. Therefore lose no time – begone to the country – or rather, Zedekiah Fish’s vessel, the Good Hope, lies in the river, bound for Massachusetts – take the wings of the morning, and begone – she can fall down to Gravesend with the tide.”

“And leave to thee, brother Christian,” said Bridgenorth, “the charge of my fortune and my daughter? No, brother; my opinion of your good faith must be re-established ere I again trust thee.”

“Go thy ways, then, for a suspicious fool,” said Christian, suppressing his strong desire to use language more offensive; “or rather stay where thou art, and take thy chance of the gallows!”

“It is appointed to all men to die once,” said Bridgenorth; “my life hath been a living death. My fairest boughs have been stripped by the axe of the forester – that which survives must, if it shall blossom, be grafted elsewhere, and at a distance from my aged trunk. The sooner, then, the root feels the axe, the stroke is more welcome. I had been pleased, indeed, had I been called to bringing yonder licentious Court to a purer character, and relieving the yoke of the suffering people of God. That youth too – son to that precious woman, to whom I owe the last tie that feebly links my wearied spirit to humanity – could I have travailed with him in the good cause! – But that, with all my other hopes is broken for ever; and since I am not worthy to be an instrument in so great a work, I have little desire to abide longer in this vale of sorrow.”

“Farewell, then, desponding fool!” said Christian, unable, with all his calmness, any longer to suppress his contempt for the resigned and hopeless predestinarian. “That fate should have clogged me with such confederates!” he muttered, as he left the apartment – “this bigoted fool is now nearly irreclaimable – I must to Zarah; for she, or no one, must carry us through these straits. If I can but soothe her sullen temper, and excite her vanity to action, – betwixt her address, the King’s partiality for the Duke, Buckingham’s matchless effrontery, and my own hand upon the helm, we may yet weather the tempest that darkens around us. But what we do must be hastily done.”

In another apartment he found the person he sought – the same who visited the Duke of Buckingham’s harem, and, having relieved Alice Bridgenorth from her confinement there, had occupied her place as has been already narrated, or rather intimated. She was now much more plainly attired than when she had tantalised the Duke with her presence; but her dress had still something of the Oriental character, which corresponded with the dark complexion and quick eye of the wearer. She had the kerchief at her eyes as Christian entered the apartment, but suddenly withdrew it, and, flashing on him a glance of scorn and indignation, asked him what he meant by intruding where his company was alike unsought for and undesired.

“A proper question,” said Christian, “from a slave to her master!”

“Rather, say, a proper question, and of all questions the most proper, from a mistress to her slave! Know you not, that from the hour in which you discovered your ineffable baseness, you have made me mistress of your lot? While you seemed but a demon of vengeance, you commanded terror, and to good purpose; but such a foul fiend as thou hast of late shown thyself – such a very worthless, base trickster of the devil – such a sordid grovelling imp of perdition, can gain nothing but scorn from a soul like mine.”

“Gallantly mouthed,” said Christian, “and with good emphasis.”

“Yes,” answered Zarah, “I can speak – sometimes – I can also be mute; and that no one knows better than thou.”

“Thou art a spoiled child, Zarah, and dost but abuse the indulgence I entertain for your freakish humour,” replied Christian; “thy wits have been disturbed since ever you landed in England, and all for the sake of one who cares for thee no more than for the most worthless object who walks the streets, amongst whom he left you to engage in a brawl for one he loved better.”

“It is no matter,” said Zarah, obviously repressing very bitter emotion; “it signifies not that he loves another better; there is none – no, none – that ever did, or can, love him so well.”

“I pity you, Zarah!” said Christian, with some scorn.

“I deserve your pity,” she replied, “were your pity worth my accepting. Whom have I to thank for my wretchedness but you? – You bred me up in thirst of vengeance, ere I knew that good and evil were anything better than names; – to gain your applause, and to gratify the vanity you had excited, I have for years undergone a penance, from which a thousand would have shrunk.”

“A thousand, Zarah!” answered Christian; “ay, a hundred thousand, and a million to boot; the creature is not on earth, being mere mortal woman, that would have undergone the thirtieth part of thy self-denial.”

“I believe it,” said Zarah, drawing up her slight but elegant figure; “I believe it – I have gone through a trial that few indeed could have sustained. I have renounced the dear intercourse of my kind; compelled my tongue only to utter, like that of a spy, the knowledge which my ear had only collected as a base eavesdropper. This I have done for years – for years – and all for the sake of your private applause – and the hope of vengeance on a woman, who, if she did ill in murdering my father, has been bitterly repaid by nourishing a serpent in her bosom, that had the tooth, but not the deafened ear, of the adder.”

“Well – well – well,” reiterated Christian; “and had you not your reward in my approbation – in the consequences of your own unequalled dexterity – by which, superior to anything of thy sex that history has ever known, you endured what woman never before endured, insolence without notice, admiration without answer, and sarcasm without reply?”

“Not without reply!” said Zarah fiercely. “Gave not Nature to my feelings a course of expression more impressive than words? and did not those tremble at my shrieks, who would have little minded my entreaties or my complaints? And my proud lady, who sauced her charities with the taunts she thought I heard not – she was justly paid by the passing her dearest and most secret concerns into the hands of her mortal enemy; and the vain Earl – yet he was a thing as insignificant as the plume that nodded in his cap; – and the maidens and ladies who taunted me – I had, or can easily have, my revenge upon them. But there is one,” she added, looking upward, “who never taunted me; one whose generous feelings could treat the poor dumb girl even as his sister; who never spoke word of her but was to excuse or defend – and you tell me I must not love him, and that it is madness to love him! – I will be mad then, for I will love till the latest breath of my life!”

“Think but an instant, silly girl – silly but in one respect, since in all others thou mayest brave the world of women. Think what I have proposed to thee, for the loss of this hopeless affection, a career so brilliant! – Think only that it rests with thyself to be the wife – the wedded wife – of the princely Buckingham! With my talents – with thy wit and beauty – with his passionate love of these attributes – a short space might rank you among England’s princesses. – Be but guided by me – he is now at deadly pass – needs every assistance to retrieve his fortunes – above all, that which we alone can render him. Put yourself under my conduct, and not fate itself shall prevent your wearing a Duchess’s coronet.”

“A coronet of thistle-down, entwined with thistle-leaves,” said Zarah. – “I know not a slighter thing than your Buckingham! I saw him at your request – saw him when, as a man, he should have shown himself generous and noble – I stood the proof at your desire, for I laugh at those dangers from which the poor blushing wailers of my sex shrink and withdraw themselves. What did I find him? – a poor wavering voluptuary – his nearest attempt to passion like the fire on a wretched stubble-field, that may singe, indeed, or smoke, but can neither warm nor devour. Christian! were his coronet at my feet this moment, I would sooner take up a crown of gilded gingerbread, than extend my hand to raise it.”

“You are mad, Zarah – with all your taste and talent, you are utterly mad! But let Buckingham pass – Do you owe me nothing on this emergency? – Nothing to one who rescued you from the cruelty of your owner, the posture-master, to place you in ease and affluence?”

“Christian,” she replied, “I owe you much. Had I not felt I did so, I would, as I have been often tempted to do, have denounced thee to the fierce Countess, who would have gibbeted you on her feudal walls of Castle Rushin, and bid your family seek redress from the eagles, that would long since have thatched their nest with your hair, and fed their young ospreys with your flesh.”

“I am truly glad you have had so much forbearance for me,” answered Christian.

“I have it, in truth and in sincerity,” replied Zarah – “Not for your benefits to me – such as they were, they were every one interested, and conferred from the most selfish considerations. I have overpaid them a thousand times by the devotion to your will, which I have displayed at the greatest personal risk. But till of late I respected your powers of mind – your inimitable command of passion – the force of intellect which I have ever seen you exercise over all others, from the bigot Bridgenorth to the debauched Buckingham – in that, indeed, I have recognised my master.”

“And those powers,” said Christian, “are unlimited as ever; and with thy assistance, thou shalt see the strongest meshes that the laws of civil society ever wove to limit the natural dignity of man, broke asunder like a spider’s web.”

She paused and answered, “While a noble motive fired thee – ay, a noble motive, though irregular – for I was born to gaze on the sun which the pale daughters of Europe shrink from – I could serve thee – I could have followed, while revenge or ambition had guided thee – but love of wealth, and by what means acquired! – What sympathy can I hold with that? – Wouldst thou not have pandered to the lust of the King, though the object was thine own orphan niece? – You smile? – Smile again when I ask you whether you meant not my own prostitution, when you charged me to remain in the house of that wretched Buckingham? – Smile at that question, and by Heaven, I stab you to the heart!” And she thrust her hand into her bosom, and partly showed the hilt of a small poniard.

“And if I smile,” said Christian, “it is but in scorn of so odious an accusation. Girl, I will not tell thee the reason, but there exists not on earth the living thing over whose safety and honour I would keep watch as over thine. Buckingham’s wife, indeed, I wished thee; and through thy own beauty and thy wit, I doubted not to bring the match to pass.”

“Vain flatterer,” said Zarah, yet seeming soothed even by the flattery which she scoffed at, “you would persuade me that it was honourable love which you expected the Duke was to have offered me. How durst you urge a gross a deception, to which time, place, and circumstance gave the lie? – How dare you now again mention it, when you well know, that at the time you mention, the Duchess was still in life?”

“In life, but on her deathbed,” said Christian; “and for time, place, and circumstance, had your virtue, my Zarah, depended on these, how couldst thou have been the creature thou art? I knew thee all-sufficient to bid him defiance – else – for thou art dearer to me than thou thinkest – I had not risked thee to win the Duke of Buckingham; ay, and the kingdom of England to boot. So now, wilt thou be ruled and go on with me?”

Zarah, or Fenella, for our readers must have been long aware of the identity of these two personages, cast down her eyes, and was silent for a long time. “Christian,” she said at last, in a solemn voice, “if my ideas of right and of wrong be wild and incoherent, I owe it, first, to the wild fever which my native sun communicated to my veins; next, to my childhood, trained amidst the shifts, tricks, and feats of jugglers and mountebanks; and then, to a youth of fraud and deception, through the course thou didst prescribe me, in which I might, indeed, hear everything, but communicate with no one. The last cause of my wild errors, if such they are, originates, O Christian, with you alone; by whose intrigues I was placed with yonder lady, and who taught me, that to revenge my father’s death, was my first great duty on earth, and that I was bound by nature to hate and injure her by whom I was fed and fostered, though as she would have fed and caressed a dog, or any other mute animal. I also think – for I will deal fairly with you – that you had not so easily detected your niece, in the child whose surprising agility was making yonder brutal mountebank’s fortune; nor so readily induced him to part with his bond-slave, had you not, for your own purposes, placed me under his charge, and reserved the privilege of claiming me when you pleased. I could not, under any other tuition, have identified myself with the personage of a mute, which it has been your desire that I should perform through life.”

“You do me injustice, Zarah,” said Christian – “I found you capable of the avenging of your father’s death – I consecrated you to it, as I consecrated my own life and hopes; and you held the duty sacred, till these mad feeling towards a youth who loves your cousin – ”

“Who – loves – my – cousin,” repeated Zarah (for we will continue to call her by her real name) slowly, and as if the words dropped unconsciously from her lips. “Well – be it so! – Man of many wiles, I will follow thy course for a little, a very little farther; but take heed – tease me not with remonstrances against the treasure of my secret thoughts – I mean my most hopeless affection to Julian Peveril – and bring me not as an assistant to any snare which you may design to cast around him. You and your Duke shall rue the hour most bitterly, in which you provoke me. You may suppose you have me in your power; but remember, the snakes of my burning climate are never so fatal as when you grasp them.”

“I care not for these Peverils,” said Christian – “I care not for their fate a poor straw, unless where it bears on that of the destined woman, whose hands are red in your father’s blood. Believe me, I can divide her fate and theirs. I will explain to you how. And for the Duke, he may pass among men of the town for wit, and among soldiers for valour, among courtiers for manners and for form; and why, with his high rank and immense fortune, you should throw away an opportunity, which, as I could now improve it – ”

“Speak not of it,” said Zarah, “if thou wouldst have our truce – remember it is no peace – if, I say, thou wouldst have our truce grow to be an hour old!”

“This, then,” said Christian, with a last effort to work upon the vanity of this singular being, “is she who pretended such superiority to human passion, that she could walk indifferently and unmoved through the halls of the prosperous, and the prison cells of the captive, unknowing and unknown, sympathising neither with the pleasures of the one, nor the woes of the other, but advancing with sure, though silent steps, her own plans, in despite and regardless of either!”

“My own plans!” said Zarah – “Thy plans, Christian – thy plans of extorting from the surprised prisoners, means whereby to convict them – thine own plans, formed with those more powerful than thyself, to sound men’s secrets, and, by using them as a matter of accusation, to keep up the great delusion of the nation.”

“Such access was indeed given you as my agent,” said Christian, “and for advancing a great national change. But how did you use it? – to advance your insane passion.”

“Insane!” said Zarah – “Had he been less than insane whom I addressed, he and I had ere now been far from the toils which you have pitched for us both. I had means prepared for everything; and ere this, the shores of Britain had been lost to our sight for ever.”

“The dwarf, too,” said Christian – “Was it worthy of you to delude that poor creature with flattering visions – lull him asleep with drugs! Was that my doing?”

“He was my destined tool,” said Zarah haughtily. “I remembered your lessons too well not to use him as such. Yet scorn him not too much. I tell you, that yon very miserable dwarf, whom I made my sport in the prison – yon wretched abortion of nature, I would select for a husband, ere I would marry your Buckingham; – the vain and imbecile pigmy has yet the warm heart and noble feelings, that a man should hold his highest honour.”

“In God’s name, then, take your own way,” said Christian; “and, for my sake, let never man hereafter limit a woman in the use of her tongue, since he must make it amply up to her, in allowing her the privilege of her own will. Who would have thought it? But the colt has slipped the bridle, and I must needs follow, since I cannot guide her.”

Our narrative returns to the Court of King Charles at Whitehall.

CHAPTER XLVIII

                                   – But oh!          What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop; thou cruel,          Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!          Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,          That knew’st the very bottom of my soul,          That almost mightst have coined me into gold,          Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use?– HENRY V.

At no period of his life, not even when that life was in imminent danger, did the constitutional gaiety of Charles seem more overclouded, than when waiting for the return of Chiffinch with the Duke of Buckingham. His mind revolted at the idea, that the person to whom he had been so particularly indulgent, and whom he had selected as the friend of his lighter hours and amusements, should prove capable of having tampered with a plot apparently directed against his liberty and life. He more than once examined the dwarf anew, but could extract nothing more than his first narrative contained. The apparition of the female to him in the cell of Newgate, he described in such fanciful and romantic colours, that the King could not help thinking the poor man’s head a little turned; and, as nothing was found in the kettledrum, and other musical instruments brought for the use of the Duke’s band of foreigners, he nourished some slight hope that the whole plan might be either a mere jest, or that the idea of an actual conspiracy was founded in mistake.

The persons who had been despatched to watch the motions of Mr. Weiver’s congregation, brought back word that they had quietly dispersed. It was known, at the same time, that they had met in arms, but this augured no particular design of aggression, at a time when all true Protestants conceived themselves in danger of immediate massacre; when the fathers of the city had repeatedly called out the Train-Bands, and alarmed the citizens of London, under the idea of an instant insurrection of the Catholics; and when, to sum the whole up, in the emphatic words of an alderman of the day, there was a general belief that they would all waken some unhappy morning with their throats cut. Who was to do these dire deeds, it was more difficult to suppose; but all admitted the possibility that they might be achieved, since one Justice of the Peace was already murdered. There was, therefore, no inference of hostile intentions against the State, to be decidedly derived from a congregation of Protestants par excellence, military from old associations, bringing their arms with them to a place of worship, in the midst of a panic so universal.

Neither did the violent language of the minister, supposing that to be proved, absolutely infer meditated violence. The favourite parables of the preachers, and the metaphors and ornaments which they selected, were at all times of a military cast; and the taking the kingdom of heaven by storm, a strong and beautiful metaphor, when used generally as in Scripture, was detailed in their sermons in all the technical language of the attack and defence of a fortified place. The danger, in short, whatever might have been its actual degree, had disappeared as suddenly as a bubble upon the water, when broken by a casual touch, and had left as little trace behind it. It became, therefore, matter of much doubt, whether it had ever actually existed.

While various reports were making from without, and while their tenor was discussed by the King, and such nobles and statesmen as he thought proper to consult on the occasion, a gradual sadness and anxiety mingled with, and finally silenced, the mirth of the evening. All became sensible that something unusual was going forward; and the unwonted distance which Charles maintained from his guests, while it added greatly to the dulness that began to predominate in the presence-chamber, gave intimation that something unusual was labouring in the King’s mind.

Thus play was neglected – the music was silent, or played without being heard – gallants ceased to make compliments, and ladies to expect them; and a sort of apprehensive curiosity pervaded the circle. Each asked the others why they were grave; and no answer was returned, any more than could have been rendered by a herd of cattle instinctively disturbed by the approach of a thunderstorm.

To add to the general apprehension, it began to be whispered, that one or two of the guests, who were desirous of leaving the palace, had been informed no one could be permitted to retire until the general hour of dismissal. And these, gliding back into the hall, communicated in whispers that the sentinels at the gates were doubled, and that there was a troop of the Horse Guards drawn up in the court – circumstances so unusual, as to excite the most anxious curiosity.

Such was the state of the Court, when wheels were heard without, and the bustle which took place denoted the arrival of some person of consequence.

“Here comes Chiffinch,” said the King, “with his prey in his clutch.”

It was indeed the Duke of Buckingham; nor did he approach the royal presence without emotion. On entering the court, the flambeaux which were borne around the carriage gleamed on the scarlet coats, laced hats, and drawn broadswords of the Horse Guards – a sight unusual, and calculated to strike terror into a conscience which was none of the clearest.

The Duke alighted from the carriage, and only said to the officer, whom he saw upon duty, “You are late under arms to-night, Captain Carleton.”

“Such are our orders, sir,” answered Carleton, with military brevity; and then commanded the four dismounted sentinels at the under gate to make way for the Duke of Buckingham. His Grace had no sooner entered, than he heard behind him the command, “Move close up, sentinels – closer yet to the gate.” And he felt as if all chance of rescue were excluded by the sound.

As he advanced up the grand staircase, there were other symptoms of alarm and precaution. The Yeomen of the Guard were mustered in unusual numbers, and carried carabines instead of their halberds; and the Gentlemen-pensioners, with their partisans, appeared also in proportional force. In short, all that sort of defence which the royal household possesses within itself, seemed, for some hasty and urgent reason, to have been placed under arms, and upon duty.

Buckingham ascended the royal staircase with an eye attentive to these preparations, and a step steady and slow, as if he counted each step on which he trode. “Who,” he asked himself, “shall ensure Christian’s fidelity? Let him but stand fast, and we are secure. Otherwise – ”

As he shaped the alternative, he entered the presence-chamber.

The King stood in the midst of the apartment, surrounded by the personages with whom he had been consulting. The rest of the brilliant assembly, scattered into groups, looked on at some distance. All were silent when Buckingham entered, in hopes of receiving some explanation of the mysteries of the evening. All bent forward, though etiquette forbade them to advance, to catch, if possible, something of what was about to pass betwixt the King and his intriguing statesman. At the same time, those counsellors who stood around Charles, drew back on either side, so as to permit the Duke to pay his respects to his Majesty in the usual form. He went through the ceremonial with his accustomed grace, but was received by Charles with much unwonted gravity.