Kenilworth, Walter Scott [children's books read aloud txt] 📗

on which his court-favour seemed to depend. Meanwhile, the Queen proceeded in her examination of Varney.

“Love passages!” said she, echoing his last words; “what passages, thou knave? and why not ask the wench's hand from her father, if thou hadst any honesty in thy love for her?”

“An it please your Grace,” said Varney, still on his knees, “I dared not do so, for her father had promised her hand to a gentleman of birth and honour—I will do him justice, though I know he bears me ill-will—one Master Edmund Tressilian, whom I now see in the presence.”

“Soh!” replied the Queen. “And what was your right to make the simple fool break her worthy father's contract, through your love PASSAGES, as your conceit and assurance terms them?”

“Madam,” replied Varney, “it is in vain to plead the cause of human frailty before a judge to whom it is unknown, or that of love to one who never yields to the passion”—he paused an instant, and then added, in a very low and timid tone—“which she inflicts upon all others.”

Elizabeth tried to frown, but smiled in her own despite, as she answered, “Thou art a marvellously impudent knave. Art thou married to the girl?”

Leicester's feelings became so complicated and so painfully intense, that it seemed to him as if his life was to depend on the answer made by Varney, who, after a moment's real hesitation, answered, “Yes.”

“Thou false villain!” said Leicester, bursting forth into rage, yet unable to add another word to the sentence which he had begun with such emphatic passion.

“Nay, my lord,” said the Queen, “we will, by your leave, stand between this fellow and your anger. We have not yet done with him.—Knew your master, my Lord of Leicester, of this fair work of yours? Speak truth, I command thee, and I will be thy warrant from danger on every quarter.”

“Gracious madam,” said Varney, “to speak Heaven's truth, my lord was the cause of the whole matter.”

“Thou villain, wouldst thou betray me?” said Leicester.

“Speak on,” said the Queen hastily, her cheek colouring, and her eyes sparkling, as she addressed Varney—“speak on. Here no commands are heard but mine.”

“They are omnipotent, gracious madam,” replied Varney; “and to you there can be no secrets.—Yet I would not,” he added, looking around him, “speak of my master's concerns to other ears.”

“Fall back, my lords,” said the Queen to those who surrounded her, “and do you speak on. What hath the Earl to do with this guilty intrigue of thine? See, fellow, that thou beliest him not!”

“Far be it from me to traduce my noble patron,” replied Varney; “yet I am compelled to own that some deep, overwhelming, yet secret feeling hath of late dwelt in my lord's mind, hath abstracted him from the cares of the household which he was wont to govern with such religious strictness, and hath left us opportunities to do follies, of which the shame, as in this case, partly falls upon our patron. Without this, I had not had means or leisure to commit the folly which has drawn on me his displeasure—the heaviest to endure by me which I could by any means incur, saving always the yet more dreaded resentment of your Grace.”

“And in this sense, and no other, hath he been accessory to thy fault?” said Elizabeth.

“Surely, madam, in no other,” replied Varney; “but since somewhat hath chanced to him, he can scarce be called his own man. Look at him, madam, how pale and trembling he stands! how unlike his usual majesty of manner!—yet what has he to fear from aught I can say to your Highness? Ah! madam, since he received that fatal packet!”

“What packet, and from whence?” said the Queen eagerly.

“From whence, madam, I cannot guess; but I am so near to his person that I know he has ever since worn, suspended around his neck and next to his heart, that lock of hair which sustains a small golden jewel shaped like a heart. He speaks to it when alone—he parts not from it when he sleeps—no heathen ever worshipped an idol with such devotion.”

“Thou art a prying knave to watch thy master so closely,” said Elizabeth, blushing, but not with anger; “and a tattling knave to tell over again his fooleries.—What colour might the braid of hair be that thou pratest of?”

Varney replied, “A poet, madam, might call it a thread from the golden web wrought by Minerva; but to my thinking it was paler than even the purest gold—more like the last parting sunbeam of the softest day of spring.”

“Why, you are a poet yourself, Master Varney,” said the Queen, smiling. “But I have not genius quick enough to follow your rare metaphors. Look round these ladies—is there”—(she hesitated, and endeavoured to assume an air of great indifference)—“is there here, in this presence, any lady, the colour of whose hair reminds thee of that braid? Methinks, without prying into my Lord of Leicester's amorous secrets, I would fain know what kind of locks are like the thread of Minerva's web, or the—what was it?—the last rays of the May-day sun.”

Varney looked round the presence-chamber, his eye travelling from one lady to another, until at length it rested upon the Queen herself, but with an aspect of the deepest veneration. “I see no tresses,” he said, “in this presence, worthy of such similies, unless where I dare not look on them.”

“How, sir knave?” said the Queen; “dare you intimate—”

“Nay, madam,” replied Varney, shading his eyes with his hand, “it was the beams of the May-day sun that dazzled my weak eyes.”

“Go to—go to,” said the Queen; “thou art a foolish fellow”—and turning quickly from him she walked up to Leicester.

Intense curiosity, mingled with all the various hopes, fears, and passions which influence court faction, had occupied the presence-chamber during the Queen's conference with Varney, as if with the strength of an Eastern talisman. Men suspended every, even the slightest external motion, and would have ceased to breathe, had Nature permitted such an intermission of her functions. The atmosphere was contagious, and Leicester, who saw all around wishing or fearing his advancement or his fall forgot all that love had previously dictated, and saw nothing for the instant but the favour or disgrace which depended on the nod of Elizabeth and the fidelity of Varney. He summoned himself hastily, and prepared to play his part in the scene which was like to ensue, when, as he judged from the glances which the Queen threw towards him, Varney's communications, be they what they might, were operating in his favour. Elizabeth did not long leave him in doubt; for the more than favour with which she accosted him decided his triumph in the eyes of his rival, and of the assembled court of England. “Thou hast a prating servant of this same Varney, my lord,” she said; “it is lucky you trust him with nothing that can hurt you in our opinion, for believe me, he would keep no counsel.”

“From your Highness,” said Leicester, dropping gracefully on one knee, “it were treason he should. I would that my heart itself lay before you, barer than the tongue