I persisted in having the waters led hither as I did.”
The Earl, ill as he was, smiled at this, being aware that the water lost much of its quality by the process. He would not have smiled if he had been fully aware of the impression made on strangers by his wife’s harshness in refusing to the Queen the permission to drink the water at the spring.
“Her Grace has as many wiles as a hunted bird,” the Countess observed; on which her husband remarked, in a low voice, that nothing was more natural.
“On one pretence or another,” the wife continued, “she passes through the assemblage at the baths almost every day. It chafes me to be dragged there against my will,—the very servants knowing that I would prevent it if I could. But there is more in it than that conflict of female wills which you pretend to smile at. I see faces in the assemblage which I should not see if her Grace were elsewhere—”
“That is probably the case with two-thirds of them, Bess.”
“Yes; but I mean, plainly speaking, that not only have I seen Felton here these three days—”
“And Felton’s friend?”
“That is of course: he and Stansbury are inseparable.”
“Stansbury will not wreck the world; he is harmless enough.”
“Very likely. But they hang about the Hall: and I cannot help fancying they have some way of passing letters. The gravest thing, however, is that the man who used to haunt our river at Tutbury is here also.”
“He who stayed at Tutbury after we left it?”
“Yes; the very innocent stranger, as you supposed him on that account. I have more to tell you of him. But, bless me! you change colour with a word.”
“Go on; who is he?” the Earl said, faintly. “Speak at once, Bess, I insist.”
“But I am not certain yet. In two or three days I shall know; but—if I am not mistaken, it is the man himself!”
“Norfolk!”
“The Duke himself! Unless my instinct deceives me. But you know I never saw him but once.”
“Such an adventure is too audacious.”
“Nay, but,” said the Countess, “he did not appear at Tutbury at any time or place where he was likely to be seen by you: and he has arrived here only since your illness was noised abroad.”
The sick man tried whether he could not rouse his strength to walk,—to sit up. If he could have mounted his horse for one half-hour, he might satisfy himself whether the Duke of Norfolk was haunting Mary of Scotland. But it was in vain. He could not hold up his head. Whether to send a messenger to Cecil or the Queen was the question. If the alarm was well founded, it was a sort of treason to conceal it for a single hour: and if it was a mistake, Elizabeth would never cease to taunt her servants with it. The Earl was persuaded to wait one day,—not unwillingly, as he shrank from disclosing his weak condition to his sovereign. The Countess resolved to make out in that time whether the stranger was to be feared or no.
CHAPTER VI.—GOING TO THE FAIR AT CHEE TOR.
It would be a sufficient excuse to his sovereign for one day’s delay, the Countess told her husband, that the occasion was favourable for observation of any strangers who might hang about the train of her Grace of Scotland. There was to be a wool fair held at Chee Tor, five miles off: the whole country round would be assembled,—some for business in the fair, and others for pleasure after it. Except in the track of Queen Elizabeth’s journeys, such assemblages were never seen as at these fairs; for the commercial business of the kingdom was mainly transacted there; at them there were trials of skill with the national weapons: and by means of them were the popular sports preserved as the sovereign was known to desire. If her Grace of Scotland should be disposed to visit the scene, the suspected stranger would be present; and the demeanour of other suspected strangers could be profitably watched. In meditating how to identify the Duke of Norfolk, if it should be he, the Countess bethought herself that Gadbury, the architect, had been employed by the Duke, in restoring one of his mansions. She sent a swift messenger to Hardwick, where Gadbury was: and Gadbury rode the greater part of the night to attend the Countess’s orders at her rising.
The Countess had not gone to rest, for her husband’s fever ran so high that she would not leave him. The physician himself had not prevailed with her to deliver the patient to his charge. It was as undesirable that the sick man should, in a moment of wandering, speak of Norfolk to the physician as to any page or serving man; perhaps more so. When the Earl dropped asleep after daylight, she also closed her eyes; but, before she bad slept half-an-hour, she was informed that her architect was below, awaiting her commands. She summoned him to the ante-chamber, and told him that if it was hard upon him to compel him to ride for the greater part of the day after a watchful night, she was herself under the same hardship. It was the pleasure of her Grace of Scotland to visit the fair to-day,—a spectacle indeed which a foreign princess ought to see; the Earl could not himself attend her; a friend who would take his place might not arrive in time; and she herself must play the part of both lord and lady. She explained that it might be long before she and her architect could have so good an opportunity of consulting about a market-house which had been talked of as the Earl’s gift to the good people who resorted to the fair; and she had therefore sent for him. On pretence of learning how much he had done professionally in this kind of edifice, she made out that he had personally known several noblemen who were more or less interested about Mary of Scotland; and that he had had frequent interviews with the Duke of Norfolk, not more than six years before.
Her Grace was entirely gracious about taking this long ride. She lamented the monotony of the life her ladies led, and smiled upon any project for their amusement. It was a splendid August