Kenilworth

'I pray God you may be a welcome one!' said Janet hastily.

'You abuse my situation, Janet,' said the Countess, angrily, 'and you forget your own.'

'I do neither, dearest madam,' said the sorrowful maiden; 'but have you forgotten that the noble Earl has given such strict charges to keep your marriage secret, that he may preserve his court-favour? and can you think that your sudden appearance at his castle, at such a juncture, and in such a presence, will be acceptable to him?'

'Thou thinkest I would disgrace him,' said the Countess; 'nay, let go my arm, I can walk without aid and work without counsel.'

'Be not angry with me, lady,' said Janet meekly, 'and let me still support you; the road is rough, and you are little accustomed to walk in darkness.'

'If you deem me not so mean as may disgrace my husband,' said the Countess, in the same resentful tone, 'you suppose my Lord of Leicester capable of abetting, perhaps of giving aim and authority to, the base proceedings of your father and Varney, whose errand I will do to the good Earl.'

'For God's sake, madam, spare my father in your report,' said Janet; 'let my services, however poor, be some atonement for his errors!'

'I were most unjust, dearest Janet, were it otherwise,' said the Countess, resuming at once the fondness and confidence of her manner towards her faithful attendant, 'No, Janet, not a word of mine shall do your father prejudice. But thou seest, my love, I have no desire but to throw my self on my husband's protection. I have left the abode he assigned for me, because of the villainy of the persons by whom I was surrounded; but I will disobey his commands in no other particular. I will appeal to him alone—I will be protected by him alone; to no other, than at his pleasure, have I or will I communicate the secret union which combines our hearts and our destinies. I will see him, and receive from his own lips the directions for my future conduct. Do not argue against my resolution, Janet; you will only confirm me in it. And to own the truth, I am resolved to know my fate at once, and from my husband's own mouth; and to seek him at Kenilworth is the surest way to attain my purpose.'

While Janet hastily revolved in her mind the difficulties and uncertainties attendant on the unfortunate lady's situation, she was inclined to alter her first opinion, and to think, upon the whole, that since the Countess had withdrawn herself from the retreat in which she had been placed by her husband, it was her first duty to repair to his presence, and possess him with the reasons for such conduct. She knew what importance the Earl attached to the concealment of their marriage, and could not but own, that by taking any step to make it public without his permission, the Countess would incur, in a high degree, the indignation of her husband. If she retired to her father's house without an explicit avowal of her rank, her situation was likely greatly to prejudice her character; and if she made such an avowal, it might occasion an irreconcilable breach with her husband. At Kenilworth, again, she might plead her cause with her husband himself, whom Janet, though distrusting him more than the Countess did, believed incapable of being accessory to the base and desperate means which his dependants, from whose power the lady was now escaping, might resort to, in order to stifle her complaints of the treatment she had received at their hands. But at the worst, and were the Earl himself to deny her justice and protection, still at Kenilworth, if she chose to make her wrongs public, the Countess might have Tressilian for her advocate, and the Queen for her judge; for so much Janet had learned in her short conference with Wayland. She was, therefore, on the whole, reconciled to her lady's proposal of going towards Kenilworth, and so expressed herself; recommending, however, to the Countess the utmost caution in making her arrival known to her husband.

'Hast thou thyself been cautious, Janet?' said the Countess; 'this guide, in whom I must put my confidence, hast thou not entrusted to him the secret of my condition?'

'From me he has learned nothing,' said Janet; 'nor do I think that he knows more than what the public in general believe of your situation.'

'And what is that?' said the lady.

'That you left your father's house—but I shall offend you again if I go on,' said Janet, interrupting herself.

'Nay, go on,' said the Countess; 'I must learn to endure the evil report which my folly has brought upon me. They think, I suppose, that I have left my father's house to follow lawless pleasure. It is an error which will soon be removed—indeed it shall, for I will live with spotless fame, or I shall cease to live.—I am accounted, then, the paramour of my Leicester?'

'Most men say of Varney,' said Janet; 'yet some call him only the convenient cloak of his master's pleasures; for reports of the profuse expense in garnishing yonder apartments have secretly gone abroad, and such doings far surpass the means of Varney. But this latter opinion is little prevalent; for men dare hardly even hint suspicion when so high a name is concerned, lest the Star Chamber should punish them for scandal of the nobility.'

'They do well to speak low,' said the Countess, 'who would mention the illustrious Dudley as the accomplice of such a wretch as Varney.—We have reached the postern. Ah! Janet, I must bid thee farewell! Weep not, my good girl,' said she, endeavouring to cover her own reluctance to part with her faithful attendant under an attempt at playfulness; 'and against we meet again, reform me, Janet, that precise ruff of thine for an open rabatine of lace and cut work, that will let men see thou hast a fair neck; and that kirtle of Philippine chency, with that bugle lace which befits only a chambermaid, into three-piled velvet and cloth of gold—thou wilt find plenty of stuffs in my chamber, and I freely bestow them on you. Thou must be brave, Janet; for though thou art now but the attendant of a distressed and errant lady, who is both nameless and fameless, yet, when we meet again, thou must be dressed as becomes the gentlewoman nearest in love and in service to the first Countess in England.'

'Now, may God grant it, dear lady!' said Janet—'not that I may go with gayer apparel, but that we may both wear our kirtles over lighter hearts.'

By this time the lock of the postern door had, after some hard wrenching, yielded to the master-key; and the Countess, not without internal shuddering, saw herself beyond the walls which her husband's strict commands had assigned to her as the boundary of her walks. Waiting with much anxiety for their appearance, Wayland Smith stood at some distance, shrouding himself behind a hedge which bordered the high-road.

'Is all safe?' said Janet to him anxiously, as he approached them with caution.

'All,' he replied; 'but I have been unable to procure a horse for the lady. Giles Gosling, the cowardly hilding, refused me one on any terms whatever, lest, forsooth, he should suffer. But no matter; she must ride on my palfrey, and I must walk by her side until I come by another horse. There will be no pursuit, if you, pretty Mistress Janet, forget not thy lesson.'

'No more than the wise widow of Tekoa forgot the words which Joab put into her mouth,' answered Janet. 'Tomorrow, I say that my lady is unable to rise.'

'Ay; and that she hath aching and heaviness of the head a throbbing at the heart, and lists not to be disturbed. Fear not; they will take the hint, and trouble thee with few questions—they understand the disease.'

'But,' said the lady, 'My absence must be soon discovered, and they will murder her in revenge. I will rather return than expose her to such danger.'

'Be at ease on my account, madam,' said Janet; 'I would you were as sure of receiving the favour you desire from those to whom you must make appeal, as I am that my father, however angry, will suffer no harm to befall me.'

The Countess was now placed by Wayland upon his horse, around the saddle of which he had placed his cloak, so folded as to make her a commodious seat.

'Adieu, and may the blessing of God wend with you!' said Janet, again kissing her mistress's hand, who returned her benediction with a mute caress. They then tore themselves asunder, and Janet, addressing Wayland, exclaimed, 'May Heaven deal with you at your need, as you are true or false to this most injured and most helpless lady!'

'Amen! dearest Janet,' replied Wayland; 'and believe me, I will so acquit myself of my trust as may tempt even your pretty eyes, saintlike as they are, to look less scornfully on me when we next meet.'

The latter part of this adieu was whispered into Janet's ear and although she made no reply to it directly, yet her manner, influenced, no doubt, by her desire to leave every motive in force which could operate towards her mistress's safety, did not discourage the hope which Wayland's words expressed. She re-entered the postern door, and locked it behind her; while, Wayland taking the horse's bridle in his hand, and walking close by its head, they began in silence their dubious and moonlight journey.

Although Wayland Smith used the utmost dispatch which he could make, yet this mode of travelling was so