Sir Thomas looked up from his work — he was writing briskly — to bestow a greeting and ask a question. One and the other Rochester answered abstractedly, then stood hesitating. Finally, he crossed the room, and flung himself into a high-backed chair in the window embrasure. There he sat long, gnawing his golden beard, and ever and anon casting an eye upon the sheet of paper that he held. At last he rose, and spoke:
“Tom, here is a letter I have just received. It is anonymous. Look at it.”
Sir Thomas looked. The writer, professing to address his lordship out of interest in himself and a certain lady who pined for love of him, who had suffered deeply in her separation from him, informed him that this lady, under the compulsion of the detestable man to whom she had been married, but was not, nor ever should be, her husband, would soon be going to share his home. That was affliction enough for this poor lady, but a greater affliction lay in her fear that his lordship should suppose her to go willingly, or even resigned, to martyrdom. It would immeasurably comfort her distress to know his lordship sure of her mind and constancy. Finally, would his lordship, out of his charity, give her a sign that he knew and understood, and that she still held in his thoughts the high regard she coveted above all other worldly possessions; and this without betraying the writer of the present letter by any allusion to it, such as in itself must mar the act of grace for which the writer pleaded entirely without the lady’s consent, or even knowledge.
Sir Thomas read that curious letter twice. Thereafter he sat bemused awhile, then read it yet again, and again considered. Suddenly his sneering laugh rang out. His acute mind had pierced the heart of the riddle.
“Bah! A fortune teller!”
“A what?” said Rochester.
“Why, don’t you see? My lady has sought knowledge of the future at some wizard’s hands. To loosen her purse-strings he has foretold her that which she desired. To encompass the fulfilment of his predictions, and so bring her to his toils again, he sends you that touching letter, which he begs you not to mention. It is very simple.”
“Simple?” said Rochester, and fetched a groan, then went away to the window again, and stood there, his back to the room, tapping the pane, what time the sunshine struck a nimbus of light from his flaxen head. Long he stood there, lost in dreams. Then he turned and quitted the room without another word, leaving Sir Thomas very thoughtful, doubting the wisdom of having resolved that riddle for his lordship.
Anon, when, some hours later, word was brought him — for he employed by now a tribe of spies — that my lord had gone to visit the Earl of Suffolk at his house — the house in which my Lady Essex had her temporary dwelling — Sir Thomas knew that he had been ill-advised. He feared the worst, and his mood was one of exasperation. But nothing followed, save that soon thereafter my lady accompanied her husband down to Chartley, and with her going Rochester lost his gaiety, and grew moody again and full of sighs.
The coming of the Elector Frederic in the autumn to marry the Princess Elizabeth, and the banquets, masques, and plays and tilting-matches that made up the festivities with which the occasion was celebrated, provided the handsome favourite with occupation and excitement enough to lift him once more out of the slough into which he had been sinking.
And then, quite suddenly — although for months he had been ailing — occurred the death of Henry, Prince of Wales. He succumbed to a mysterious, wasting sickness, and inevitably the rumour went about that he had been poisoned.
That matter kept the gossips busy until the following spring, when a fresh scandal was sprung upon the Court. Lady Essex had left her husband, and was back at her father’s house, and it was said that she would presently divorce the earl.
Essex had dragged his lady down to Chartley, and my lady had seen that Chartley should be made into the likeness of hell for him until such time as he thought fit to desist from his course of stupid obstinacy, and learnt that a woman’s love is not to be compelled by hectoring. Weary of the struggle, at last he had consented to let her go; and, his love for her now turned to hatred, he was eager to get rid of her and to regain his freedom; so eager that he consented to the divorce upon any grounds on which she might think fit to sue.
And now my lady wrote to Rochester, and told him how things stood, begging, for the sake of what lay between them, his influence with the king to obtain the Royal consent to the divorce that should set her free at last. Rochester went off to visit her at once, and was thereafter in daily attendance.
When Overbury learnt what was afoot, and that the thing he had most feared a year ago was come to pass, a panic seized him. He learnt it from Rochester himself, and was so wrought upon that he never hesitated bluntly to question Rochester as to his intentions.
“Why,” said Rochester simply, “I intend to marry her as soon as her present marriage shall have been declared null.”
“Null?” said Overbury dully. “Upon what grounds, pray?”
Rochester explained.
“Does Essex consent to this?” quoth Sir Thomas.
“He does. Her ladyship has brought him to it.”
“But the courts will never pronounce in favour of such a divorce. Too much is known—”
“I think they will,” Rochester cut in. “I have won the king’s consent. It is just such a tangle of spiritual and temporal law as his mind loves. He is given the opportunity to expound learnedly and at length. Already he advances argument and precedent, biblical and legal. The archbishop may prove reluctant, I hear; but with the king for our advocate the end is foregone.”
Overbury was very white. When he spoke — after a long moment’s pause — his voice shook.
“Yet there are certain facts concerned with your relations with my lady which, if known, would prick this bubble for all time, so that not even the king would dare to insist that the courts should pronounce such a divorce.”
“But they are known only to a friend of her ladyship’s, who is safe, and to yourself, Tom, who are incapable of betraying my trust in you.”
“And you intend to marry her?” said Overbury slowly. “You intend to make this wanton your wife and the mother of your children?”
“By Heaven, Tom—”
“Hear me out, man. I am your friend, I have been these years the keeper of your very soul and conscience, until I know more of you than you know yourself.”
“Even so I will not suffer you to utter defamatory lies—”
“It is the truth — the truth.” And Overbury struck the table with his fist. “Think man; look back. Before you there was Prince Henry, and, before Prince Henry how many were there? After she is your wife, and the thrill of running you into harness shall have passed, how many will there be again? There’s wantonness in her blood, inherited from that bawd, her mother.”
Rochester got up, his face livid, his blue eyes afire.
“Another word on this, Sir Thomas, and we quarrel. Already you have said more than I should endure from any other living man.”
And he flung out of the room before Overbury could answer him.
Thereafter for weeks there was a coolness between them, and the name of her ladyship never once was mentioned, which rendered Sir Thomas the more anxious. Under the calm mask into which he schooled his countenance rage was seething in his soul, a rage that was being fanned by the reports he received from his spies — or, rather, from his man Davis, the only spy he could trust in such a matter.
He learnt now that there were frequent secret meetings between Rochester and Lady Essex at a house in Paternoster Row that belonged to Mrs. Turner. This was an indiscretion which, with those divorce proceedings pending, might yet ruin all were it discovered. But that afforded Sir Thomas little consolation and little ground for hope. Where all the parties were willing and consenting, there was no one who had an interest in discovering the truth.
Then, too, he observed between Northampton and Rochester a growing intimacy, and into Northampton’s manner with Sir Thomas there crept a subtle change, a gradual
increase of haughtiness, a display at times of positive hostility, which he had not earlier dared reveal. From this Sir Thomas read the confirmation of his worst fears. Northampton was gradually obtaining a surer hold upon Rochester, Rochester was daily now at Northumberland House with the earl, and — what made the matter infinitely worse — he sought to keep those visits secret from his secretary.
If before it had given Overbury anxiety to see Lady Essex become the mistress of Lord Rochester, with what feelings could he contemplate the measures that were to make her his patron’s wife? The very manner in which Northampton and her parents lent their support was in itself eloquent of what must follow. Rochester would pass entirely into the power of the Howards. He would become their puppet; was, indeed, already fast becoming so. Once he was allied with them by marriage, the Howards — through him — would hold the reins of power.
Thus there would be an end to all Overbury’s dreams, the frustration of his ambitions, the shattering of his confident hopes, the cruel waste of all his labour through these years that were gone since he set himself to make Rochester nominally, and himself actually, the greatest man in England.
When he learnt that a commission, headed by Dr. Abbott, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been appointed by the king to hold a preliminary inquiry into the lady’s plea, Overbury exerted himself to make a last effort. He spoke to Rochester on the subject for the first time since that incipient quarrel some weeks ago.
“You are determined, Robin, to go through with this divorce and marriage?”
His lordship frowned.
“I am determined,” was all he answered, coldly.
“Quis Deus vult perdere prius dementat,” quoted Sir Thomas bitterly.
“What’s that?”
“You are mad — stark mad. And you go to your ruin, wasting all that has been done. By Heaven, Robin, how shall I hope to make you see reason, that you may come to—”
“If you please, we will not talk of this any more — or ever,” Rochester interrupted him. “You presume with me in giving counsel that is not sought.”
“It would not be the first time,” Overbury retorted bitterly, stung by that new accent of superiority, which seemed to mark a difference in their stations that had never yet been defined by either. “And never in all your life have you stood more sorely in need of counsel — sane counsel.”
“Have done, I say.” Rochester’s cheeks empurpled. “You transcend the functions of your office. My marriage affairs are mine alone.”
“You’ll have forgotten that I wrote your love-letters,” sneered Sir Thomas— “letters which won you this woman, revealing as they did beauties of mind which she took to be your own and for which she came to love you.”
“I see that you want to quarrel with me.”
“Heaven forbid, Robin. I want to stand your friend, as I have always stood. Have I ever in all these nine years that we have been together ceased to study your fortune, reputation, and understanding? Should I now want to study aught else? Will you not listen, Robin?”
“I will not. I have heard too much from you already.”
It was the end. One card only remained with Sir Thomas. It was a powerful one, yet dangerous to play. If it failed, his own utter ruin would follow. But there was a slender chance that it might prevail; and no chance can be too desperate in a situation otherwise hopeless. If he did nothing he was surely ruined. The Howards would see to that once the power to accomplish it were safely in their hands and Rochester allied to them by marriage. Therefore, he resolved to play that final card.
He remained working very late that night, awaiting my lord’s return. Towards midnight, at last he heard his steps in the gallery. He rose, went to the door, opened it, and stepped out to confront the viscount.
Rochester fell back at sight of him standing there tense and purposeful in the square shaft of light that fell from the door upon the half-gloom of the gallery.
“How now?” says my lord. “Are you up yet?”
“Nay, what do you here at this time of night?” was the rejoinder. “Will you never leave the company of your base woman?”
Rochester took a step forward, an inarticulate cry of anger on his lips, his hand half-raised to strike. But Overbury, undeterred, continued:
“I give you warning that if you are set on marrying this creature and so ruining your honour and yourself, you and I must part. I will leave you free to stand on your own legs.”
Rochester controlled himself.
“Why, as to that,” said he, “my own legs are strong enough and straight enough to bear me up. But, by Heaven,” he added, with increasing passion, “I will be ever with you for this!”
“To-morrow morning you will let me have that portion that is due to me, and so we part.”
“Right gladly,” snapped his lordship, and turned to go.
But Sir Thomas stayed him.
“Even so; do not think to run counter to my advice in this matter. I shall never consent to see you married to that woman; and the power to prevent it is mine. I need but tell a little of what I know to put an end to this divorce. My Lord of Canterbury is an honest man. Give you good-night, my lord.”
And he thrust past his lordship and away.
Rochester, his anger chilled by sudden fear — for he was not slow to understand the threat — swung round to follow; then he checked. He heard a movement in the gallery behind him, and looking over his shoulder was in time to see a shadow flit and vanish. The interview had been overheard. But to that he paid little attention, with this other thing to engage his mind. And because his mind, accustomed always to lean for support upon another, was unequal to deciding it alone, you see him betimes next morning seeking my Lord of Northampton at Northumberland House, and finding there her ladyship before him.
Those three held a council together upon the news that Rochester bore of Overbury’s threat to thwart the divorce proceedings.
“He must be put away,” said Northampton promptly, advice as obvious as it was sensible.
“Ay,” breathed my lady, whose child-like eyes had grown hard and steely.
“Put away?” echoed Rochester, staring, his face grave to the point of horror.
“Put away somewhere where he can’t talk, until divorce and marriage are accomplished, and until it will be too late for him to do a mischief,” Northampton explained; but it may or may not have been what originally he had intended.
The crafty old earl was of a fluidity that could adapt itself ever to the vessel of circumstance.
Rochester’s face lightened with relief, but my lady’s grew darker with disappointment. Her wrath against the man who would rob her of the fruit of all her strivings, sufferings, and humiliations — and not until much later would these be revealed in full — was of such a quality as not to be satisfied by anything short of his head upon a charger. But she held her peace what time her uncle slowly developed a cunning scheme by which Sir Thomas might be snugly bestowed out of harm’s way until all was done.
And so my lord goes back to Whitehall, and straight to Sir Thomas, whom he discovers, very downcast and gloomy, alone in his study.
“How now, Tom, are you sober yet?” asks my lord, planting himself squarely before his secretary. “Are you still set on leaving me?”
Sir Thomas looked up. He was by now a prey to the reaction of the gamester who, in a moment of desperate exaltation, has staked all upon a throw, and lost.
“What else?” said he, a little suspicious of my lord’s half-friendly tone after what had passed last night.
“Very well, then.” His lordship sighed. “But after nine years of such friendship as ours, we must not part in anger. Nor is there any need. If you must leave me, you shall. Perhaps, in all the circumstances, it is best. But at least stay until I can find you some office worthy of your talents, to be your reward for your loyal service to me.”
A sneer passed over Overbury’s face, and was gone before my lord perceived it. He understood, he thought. They sou
ght to bribe him now to hold his tongue. He considered. After all, what could it profit him to talk? His blow had failed. Bewitched by that wanton, my lord had done with him. Whether he betrayed the things that could thwart the divorce or not, himself he was ruined. Why not, then, take the chance of this office, and use it as stepping-stone to the greatness which he believed he could then reach by his own talents. He returned cold thanks, that in themselves implied reluctant consent.
In the days that followed his relations with Rochester were, so far as the latter was concerned, as if naught had happened. And then, at the end of a week or so, my lord brought him word that he had spoken to the king, and recommended Sir Thomas’s appointment to some office of importance in the State, and that the king was entirely favourably disposed.
Two days later — on April 21, 1613 — Sir Thomas was waited upon by the Lord Chancellor, who came on behalf of his Majesty to offer him at his own choice the embassy to France, the Low Countries, or Russia.
A little dazzled by so glorious a prospect, far in excess of anything that he had dreamed, Sir Thomas spoke of the embarrassment of riches, and begged to be given until the morning to decide upon his choice. An hour later he was overwhelming Rochester with genuine thanks for the nobility of this recompense for his services, and begging his lordship to assist him in deciding which of the embassies to accept.
“Refuse all three,” said my lord shortly, leaving Overbury aghast. “Pish!” he continued. “This is the hand of Pembroke. He knows what I have in mind for you, and thinks to thwart me by dazzling you with these. Refuse the embassies, and trust to me to find you a better office here at home.”
“A better?” quoth Sir Thomas.
“The Secretaryship of State has, after all, remained vacant ever since Salisbury died,” said Rochester, narrowing his eyes. “Why should not you hold the office, who have discharged its duties? Besides, to be frank, it is an office in which I must have a sure friend. Trust to me.”
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