Peveril of the Peak

Another idea sometimes occurred to Julian, though he rejected the question, as being equally wild with those doubts which referred Fenella to a race different from that of mortals – “Was she really afflicted with those organical imperfections which had always seemed to sever her from humanity? – If not, what could be the motives of so young a creature practising so dreadful a penance for such an unremitted term of years? And how formidable must be the strength of mind which could condemn itself to so terrific a sacrifice – How deep and strong the purpose for which it was undertaken!”

But a brief recollection of past events enabled him to dismiss this conjecture as altogether wild and visionary. He had but to call to memory the various stratagems practised by his light-hearted companion, the young Earl of Derby, upon this forlorn girl – the conversations held in her presence, in which the character of a creature so irritable and sensitive upon all occasions, was freely, and sometimes satirically discussed, without her expressing the least acquaintance with what was going forward, to convince him that so deep a deception could never have been practised for so many years, by a being of a turn of mind so peculiarly jealous and irascible.

He renounced, therefore, the idea, and turned his thoughts to his own affairs, and his approaching interview with his Sovereign; in which meditation we propose to leave him, until we briefly review the changes which had taken place in the situation of Alice Bridgenorth.

CHAPTER XXXI

            I fear the devil worst when gown and cassock,            Or, in the lack of them, old Calvin’s cloak,            Conceals his cloven hoof.– ANONYMOUS.

Julian Peveril had scarce set sail for Whitehaven, when Alice Bridgenorth and her governante, at the hasty command of her father, were embarked with equal speed and secrecy on board of a bark bound for Liverpool. Christian accompanied them on their voyage, as the friend to whose guardianship Alice was to be consigned during any future separation from her father, and whose amusing conversation, joined to his pleasing though cold manners, as well as his near relationship, induced Alice, in her forlorn situation, to consider her fate as fortunate in having such a guardian.

At Liverpool, as the reader already knows, Christian took the first overt step in the villainy which he had contrived against the innocent girl, by exposing her at a meeting-house to the unhallowed gaze of Chiffinch, in order to convince him she was possessed of such uncommon beauty as might well deserve the infamous promotion to which they meditated to raise her.

Highly satisfied with her personal appearance, Chiffinch was no less so with the sense and delicacy of her conversation, when he met her in company with her uncle afterwards in London. The simplicity, and at the same time the spirit of her remarks, made him regard her as his scientific attendant the cook might have done a newly invented sauce, sufficiently piquante in its qualities to awaken the jaded appetite of a cloyed and gorged epicure. She was, he said and swore, the very corner-stone on which, with proper management, and with his instruction, a few honest fellows might build a Court fortune.

That the necessary introduction might take place, the confederates judged fit she should be put under the charge of an experienced lady, whom some called Mistress Chiffinch, and others Chiffinch’s mistress – one of those obliging creatures who are willing to discharge all the duties of a wife, without the inconvenient and indissoluble ceremony.

It was one, and not perhaps the least prejudicial consequence of the license of that ill-governed time, that the bounds betwixt virtue and vice were so far smoothed down and levelled, that the frail wife, or the tender friend who was no wife, did not necessarily lose their place in society; but, on the contrary, if they moved in the higher circles, were permitted and encouraged to mingle with women whose rank was certain, and whose reputation was untainted.

A regular liaison, like that of Chiffinch and his fair one, inferred little scandal; and such was his influence, as prime minister of his master’s pleasures, that, as Charles himself expressed it, the lady whom we introduced to our readers in the last chapter, had obtained a brevet commission to rank as a married woman. And to do the gentle dame justice, no wife could have been more attentive to forward his plans, or more liberal in disposing of his income.

She inhabited a set of apartments called Chiffinch’s – the scene of many an intrigue, both of love and politics; and where Charles often held his private parties for the evening, when, as frequently happened, the ill-humour of the Duchess of Portsmouth, his reigning Sultana, prevented his supping with her. The hold which such an arrangement gave a man like Chiffinch, used as he well knew how to use it, made him of too much consequence to be slighted even by the first persons in the state, unless they stood aloof from all manner of politics and Court intrigue.

In the charge of Mistress Chiffinch, and of him whose name she bore, Edward Christian placed the daughter of his sister, and of his confiding friend, calmly contemplating her ruin as an event certain to follow; and hoping to ground upon it his own chance of a more assured fortune, than a life spent in intrigue had hitherto been able to procure for him.

The innocent Alice, without being able to discover what was wrong either in the scenes of unusual luxury with which she was surrounded, or in the manners of her hostess, which, both from nature and policy, were kind and caressing – felt nevertheless an instinctive apprehension that all was not right – a feeling in the human mind, allied, perhaps, to that sense of danger which animals exhibit when placed in the vicinity of the natural enemies of their race, and which makes birds cower when the hawk is in the air, and beasts tremble when the tiger is abroad in the desert. There was a heaviness at her heart which she could not dispel; and the few hours which she had already spent at Chiffinch’s were like those passed in prison by one unconscious of the cause or event of his captivity. It was the third morning after her arrival in London, that the scene took place which we now recur to.

The impertinence and vulgarity of Empson, which was permitted to him as an unrivalled performer upon his instrument, were exhausting themselves at the expense of all other musical professors, and Mrs. Chiffinch was listening with careless indifference, when some one was heard speaking loudly, and with animation, in the inner apartment.

“Oh, gemini and gilliflower water!” exclaimed the damsel, startled out of her fine airs into her natural vulgarity of exclamation, and running to the door of communication – “if he has not come back again after all! – and if old Rowley – ”

A tap at the farther and opposite door here arrested her attention – she quitted the handle of that which she was about to open as speedily as if it had burnt her fingers, and, moving back towards her couch, asked, “Who is there?”

“Old Rowley himself, madam,” said the King, entering the apartment with his usual air of easy composure.

“O crimini! – your Majesty! – I thought – ”

“That I was out of hearing, doubtless,” said the King; “and spoke of me as folk speak of absent friends. Make no apology. I think I have heard ladies say of their lace, that a rent is better than a darn. – Nay, be seated. – Where is Chiffinch?”

“He is down at York House, your Majesty,” said the dame, recovering, though with no small difficulty, the calm affectation of her usual demeanour. “Shall I send your Majesty’s commands?”

“I will wait his return,” said the King. – “Permit me to taste your chocolate.”

“There is some fresh frothed in the office,” said the lady; and using a little silver call, or whistle, a black boy, superbly dressed, like an Oriental page, with gold bracelets on his naked arms, and a gold collar around his equally bare neck, attended with the favourite beverage of the morning, in an apparatus of the richest china.

While he sipped his cup of chocolate, the King looked round the apartment, and observing Fenella, Peveril, and the musician, who remained standing beside a large Indian screen, he continued, addressing Mistress Chiffinch, though with polite indifference, “I sent you the fiddles this morning – or rather the flute – Empson, and a fairy elf whom I met in the Park, who dances divinely. She has brought us the very newest saraband from the Court of Queen Mab, and I sent her here, that you may see it at leisure.”

“Your Majesty does me by far too much honour,” said Chiffinch, her eyes properly cast down, and her accents minced into becoming humility.

“Nay, little Chiffinch,” answered the King, in a tone of as contemptuous familiarity as was consistent with his good-breeding, “it was not altogether for thine own private ear, though quite deserving of all sweet sounds; but I thought Nelly had been with thee this morning.”

“I can send Bajazet for her, your Majesty,” answered the lady.

“Nay, I will not trouble your little heathen sultan to go so far. Still it strikes me that Chiffinch said you had company – some country cousin, or such a matter – Is there not such a person?”

“There is a young person from the country,” said Mistress Chiffinch, striving to conceal a considerable portion of embarrassment; “but she is unprepared for such an honour as to be admitted into your Majesty’s presence, and – ”

“And therefore the fitter to receive it, Chiffinch. There is nothing in nature so beautiful as the first blush of a little rustic between joy and fear, and wonder and curiosity. It is the down on the peach – pity it decays so soon! – the fruit remains, but the first high colouring and exquisite flavour are gone. – Never put up thy lip for the matter, Chiffinch, for it is as I tell you; so pray let us have la belle cousine.”

Mistress Chiffinch, more embarrassed than ever, again advanced towards the door of communication, which she had been in the act of opening when his Majesty entered. But just as she coughed pretty loudly, perhaps as a signal to some one within, voices were again heard in a raised tone of altercation – the door was flung open, and Alice rushed out of the inner apartment, followed to the door of it by the enterprising Duke of Buckingham, who stood fixed with astonishment on finding his pursuit of the flying fair one had hurried him into the presence of the King.

Alice Bridgenorth appeared too much transported with anger to permit her to pay attention to the rank or character of the company into which she had thus suddenly entered. “I remain no longer here, madam,” she said to Mrs. Chiffinch, in a tone of uncontrollable resolution; “I leave instantly a house where I am exposed to company which I detest, and to solicitations which I despise.”

The dismayed Mrs. Chiffinch could only implore her, in broken whispers, to be silent; adding, while she pointed to Charles, who stood with his eyes fixed rather on his audacious courtier than on the game which he pursued, “The King – the King!”

“If I am in the King’s presence,” said Alice aloud, and in the same torrent of passionate feeling, while her eye sparkled through tears of resentment and insulted modesty, “it is the better – it is his Majesty’s duty to protect me; and on his protection I throw myself.”

These words, which were spoken aloud, and boldly, at once recalled Julian to himself, who had hitherto stood, as it were, bewildered. He approached Alice, and, whispering in her ear that she had beside her one who would defend her with his life, implored her to trust to his guardianship in this emergency.

Clinging to his arm in all the ecstasy of gratitude and joy, the spirit which had so lately invigorated Alice in her own defence, gave way in a flood of tears, when she saw herself supported by him whom perhaps she most wished to recognise as her protector. She permitted Peveril gently to draw her back towards the screen before which he had been standing; where, holding by his arm, but at the same time endeavouring to conceal herself behind him, they waited the conclusion of a scene so singular.

The King seemed at first so much surprised at the unexpected apparition of the Duke of Buckingham, as to pay little or no attention to Alice, who had been the means of thus unceremoniously introducing his Grace into the presence at a most unsuitable moment. In that intriguing Court, it had not been the first time that the Duke had ventured to enter the lists of gallantry in rivalry of his Sovereign, which made the present insult the more intolerable. His purpose of lying concealed in those private apartments was explained by the exclamations of Alice; and Charles, notwithstanding the placidity of his disposition, and his habitual guard over his passions, resented the attempt to seduce his destined mistress, as an Eastern Sultan would have done the insolence of a vizier, who anticipated his intended purchases of captive beauty in the slave-market. The swarthy features of Charles reddened, and the strong lines on his dark visage seemed to become inflated, as he said, in a voice which faltered with passion, “Buckingham, you dared not have thus insulted your equal! To your master you may securely offer any affront, since his rank glues his sword to the scabbard.”

The haughty Duke did not brook this taunt unanswered. “My sword,” he said, with emphasis, “was never in the scabbard, when your Majesty’s service required it should be unsheathed.”

“Your Grace means, when its service was required for its master’s interest,” said the King; “for you could only gain the coronet of a Duke by fighting for the royal crown. But it is over – I have treated you as a friend – a companion – almost an equal – you have repaid me with insolence and ingratitude.”

“Sire,” answered the Duke firmly, but respectfully, “I am unhappy in your displeasure; yet thus far fortunate, that while your words can confer honour, they cannot impair or take it away. – It is hard,” he added, lowering his voice, so as only to be heard by the King, – “It is hard that the squall of a peevish wench should cancel the services of so many years!”

“It is harder,” said the King, in the same subdued tone, which both preserved through the rest of the conversation, “that a wench’s bright eyes can make a nobleman forget the decencies due to his Sovereign’s privacy.”

“May I presume to ask your Majesty what decencies are those?” said the Duke.

Charles bit his lip to keep himself from smiling. “Buckingham,” he said, “this is a foolish business; and we must not forget (as we have nearly done), that we have an audience to witness this scene, and should walk the stage with dignity. I will show you your fault in private.”

“It is enough that your Majesty has been displeased, and that I have unhappily been the occasion,” said the Duke, kneeling; “although quite ignorant of any purpose beyond a few words of gallantry; and I sue thus low for your Majesty’s pardon.”

So saying, he kneeled gracefully down. “Thou hast it, George,” said the placable Prince. “I believe thou wilt be sooner tired of offending than I of forgiving.”

“Long may your Majesty live to give the offence, with which it is your royal pleasure at present to charge my innocence,” said the Duke.

“What mean you by that, my lord?” said Charles, the angry shade returning to his brow for a moment.

“My Liege,” replied the Duke, “you are too honourable to deny your custom of shooting with Cupid’s bird-bolts in other men’s warrens. You have ta’en the royal right of free-forestry over every man’s park. It is hard that you should be so much displeased at hearing a chance arrow whizz near your own pales.”

“No more on’t,” said the King; “but let us see where the dove has harboured.”

“The Helen has found a Paris while we were quarrelling,” replied the Duke.

“Rather an Orpheus,” said the King; “and what is worse, one that is already provided with a Eurydice – She is clinging to the fiddler.”

“It is mere fright,” said Buckingham, “like Rochester’s, when he crept into the bass-viol to hide himself from Sir Dermot O’Cleaver.”

“We must make the people show their talents,” said the King, “and stop their mouths with money and civility, or we shall have this foolish encounter over half the town.”

The King then approached Julian, and desired him to take his instrument, and cause his female companion to perform a saraband.

“I had already the honour to inform your Majesty,” said Julian, “that I cannot contribute to your pleasure in the way you command me; and that this young person is – ”

“A retainer of the Lady Powis,” said the King, upon whose mind things not connected with his pleasures made a very slight impression. “Poor lady, she is in trouble about the lords in the Tower.”

“Pardon me, sir,” said Julian, “she is a dependant of the Countess of Derby.”

“True, true,” answered Charles; “it is indeed of Lady Derby, who hath also her own distresses in these times. Do you know who taught the young person to dance? Some of her steps mightily resemble Le Jeune’s of Paris.”

“I presume she was taught abroad, sir,” said Julian; “for myself, I am charged with some weighty business by the Countess, which I would willingly communicate to your Majesty.”

“We will send you to our Secretary of State,” said the King. “But this dancing envoy will oblige us once more, will she not? – Empson, now that I remember, it was to your pipe that she danced – Strike up, man, and put mettle into her feet.”

Empson began to play a well-known measure; and, as he had threatened, made more than one false note, until the King, whose ear was very accurate, rebuked him with, “Sirrah, art thou drunk at this early hour, or must thou too be playing thy slippery tricks with me? Thou thinkest thou art born to beat time, but I will have time beat into thee.”

The hint was sufficient, and Empson took good care so to perform his air as to merit his high and deserved reputation. But on Fenella it made not the slightest impression. She rather leant than stood against the wall of the apartment; her countenance as pale as death, her arms and hands hanging down as if stiffened, and her existence only testified by the sobs which agitated her bosom, and the tears which flowed from her half-closed eyes.

“A plague on it,” said the King, “some evil spirit is abroad this morning; and the wenches are all bewitched, I think. Cheer up, my girl. What, in the devil’s name, has changed thee at once from a Nymph to a Niobe? If thou standest there longer thou wilt grow to the very marble wall – Or – oddsfish, George, have you been bird-bolting in this quarter also?”

Ere Buckingham could answer to this charge, Julian again kneeled down to the King, and prayed to be heard, were it only for five minutes. “The young woman,” he said, “had been long in attendance of the Countess of Derby. She was bereaved of the faculties of speech and hearing.”

“Oddsfish, man, and dances so well?” said the King. “Nay, all Gresham College shall never make me believe that.”

“I would have thought it equally impossible, but for what I to-day witnessed,” said Julian; “but only permit me, sir, to deliver the petition of my lady the Countess.”

“And who art thou thyself, man?” said the Sovereign; “for though everything which wears bodice and breast-knot has a right to speak to a King, and be answered, I know not that they have a title to audience through an envoy extraordinary.”

“I am Julian Peveril of Derbyshire,” answered the supplicant, “the son of Sir Geoffrey Peveril of Martindale Castle, who – ”

“Body of me – the old Worcester man?” said the King. “Oddsfish, I remember him well – some harm has happened to him, I think – Is he not dead, or very sick at least?”

“Ill at ease, and it please your Majesty, but not ill in health. He has been imprisoned on account of an alleged accession to this Plot.”

“Look you there,” said the King; “I knew he was in trouble; and yet how to help the stout old Knight, I can hardly tell. I can scarce escape suspicion of the Plot myself, though the principal object of it is to take away my own life. Were I to stir to save a plotter, I should certainly be brought in as an accessory. – Buckingham, thou hast some interest with those who built this fine state engine, or at least who have driven it on – be good-natured for once, though it is scarcely thy wont, and interfere to shelter our old Worcester friend, Sir Godfrey. You have not forgot him?”

“No, sir,” answered the Duke; “for I never heard the name.”

“It is Sir Geoffrey his Majesty would say,” said Julian.

“And if his Majesty did say Sir Geoffrey, Master Peveril, I cannot see of what use I can be to your father,” replied the Duke coldly. “He is accused of a heavy crime; and a British subject so accused, can have no shelter either from prince or peer, but must stand to the award and deliverance of God and his country.”

“Now, Heaven forgive thee thy hypocrisy, George,” said the King hastily. “I would rather hear the devil preach religion than thee teach patriotism. Thou knowest as well as I, that the nation is in a scarlet fever for fear of the poor Catholics, who are not two men to five hundred; and that the public mind is so harassed with new narrations of conspiracy, and fresh horrors every day, that people have as little real sense of what is just or unjust as men who talk in their sleep of what is sense or nonsense. I have borne, and borne with it – I have seen blood flow on the scaffold, fearing to thwart the nation in its fury – and I pray to God that I or mine be not called on to answer for it. I will no longer swim with the torrent, which honour and conscience call upon me to stem – I will act the part of a Sovereign, and save my people from doing injustice, even in their own despite.”

Charles walked hastily up and down the room as he expressed these unwonted sentiments, with energy equally unwonted. After a momentary pause, the Duke answered him gravely, “Spoken like a Royal King, sir, but – pardon me – not like a King of England.”

Charles paused, as the Duke spoke, beside a window which looked full on Whitehall, and his eye was involuntarily attracted by the fatal window of the Banqueting House out of which his unhappy father was conducted to execution. Charles was naturally, or, more purposely, constitutionally brave; but a life of pleasure, together with the habit of governing his course rather by what was expedient than by what was right, rendered him unapt to dare the same scene of danger or of martyrdom, which had closed his father’s life and reign; and the thought came over his half-formed resolution, like the rain upon a kindling beacon. In another man, his perplexity would have seemed almost ludicrous; but Charles would not lose, even under these circumstances, the dignity and grace, which were as natural to him as his indifference and good humour. “Our Council must decide in this matter,” he said, looking to the Duke; “and be assured, young man,” he added, addressing Julian, “your father shall not want an intercessor in his King, so far as the laws will permit my interference in his behalf.”

Julian was about to retire, when Fenella, with a marked look, put into his hand a slip of paper, on which she had hastily written, “The packet – give him the packet.”

After a moment’s hesitation, during which he reflected that Fenella was the organ of the Countess’s pleasure, Julian resolved to obey. “Permit me, then, Sire,” he said, “to place in your royal hands this packet, entrusted to me by the Countess of Derby. The letters have already been once taken from me; and I have little hope that I can now deliver them as they are addressed. I place them, therefore, in your royal hands, certain that they will evince the innocence of the writer.”

The King shook his head as he took the packet reluctantly. “It is no safe office you have undertaken, young man. A messenger has sometimes his throat cut for the sake of his despatches – But give them to me; and, Chiffinch, give me wax and a taper.” He employed himself in folding the Countess’s packet in another envelope. “Buckingham,” he said, “you are evidence that I do not read them till the Council shall see them.”

Buckingham approached, and offered his services in folding the parcel, but Charles rejected his assistance; and having finished his task, he sealed the packet with his own signet-ring. The Duke bit his lip and retired.