Not many days afterwards, an event happened, of some consequence to our friends at the White Bear. Their one powerful friend, Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, died in June, 1604.
A strange study for a student of human nature is this Earl of Oxford—a curious compound, like his late royal lady, of greatness and littleness. He began life as a youthful exquisite. His costumes were more extravagant, his perfumes more choice, his Italian more pure and fluent, than those of the other dilettante nobles of his time. He was a minor poet of some note in his day, and was esteemed to be the first writer of comedy then living—though Shakespeare was living too. In middle life he blossomed out into a military patriot. He ended his days as a hard, cold, morose old man. His life-lamp was used up: it had been made so to flare in early youth, that there was no oil left to light him at the end, when light and warmth were most needed. Having quarrelled with his father-in-law, the great Earl of Burleigh, he registered a savage and senseless vow to “ruin his daughter,” which he could do only by ruining himself. In pursuance of this insane resolution, he spent right and left, until his estate was wrecked, and the innocent Countess Anne was hunted into her grave.
The son who succeeded to his father’s title, and to the few acres which this mad folly had not flung away, was a mere boy of twelve years old. It became a serious question in Lady Louvaine’s mind whether Aubrey should remain in the household after the decease of the old Earl. She found, however, that the widowed Countess Elizabeth kept a very orderly house, and a strict hand over her son and his youthful companions, so that Lady Louvaine, who saw no other door open, thought it best to leave Aubrey where he was. The Countess, who had been Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth, had been well drilled by that redoubtable lady into proper and submissive behaviour; and she now required similar good conduct from her dependants, with excellent reasons for absence or dereliction from duty. That she was never deceived would be too much to say.
Meanwhile, matters progressed busily in the house by the river-side. The conspirators took in a sixth accomplice—Christopher Wright, the younger brother of John—and the six began their mine, about the eleventh of December, 1604.
The wall of the House of Lords was three yards in thickness; the cellar of Percy’s house was extremely damp, being close to the river, and the water continually oozed through into the mine. Finding their task more difficult than they had anticipated, a seventh was now taken into the number—a pervert, Robert Keyes, the son of a Protestant clergyman in Derbyshire. A second house was hired at Lambeth, of which Keyes was placed in charge, while to Fawkes was committed the chief business of laying in the combustibles, first in the Lambeth house, and afterwards of removing them to that at Westminster. Fawkes went cautiously about his business, purchasing his materials in various parts of the City, so as not to excite suspicion. He provided in all, three thousand billets of wood, five hundred faggots, thirty-six barrels of gunpowder, with stones and bars of iron, in order that the explosion might be more destructive. From the Bankside, or south bank of the Thames, where it lay in hampers, twenty barrels of the powder was first brought in boats, by night, to the house at Westminster, where it was stored in the cellar to await the finishing of the mine. By Christmas they had penetrated the wall of Percy’s house, and had reached that of the House of Lords. They thought it desirable now to rest for the Christmas holidays; Keyes was left in charge of the house at Lambeth, and the others departed in various directions.
“Well, upon my word! Prithee, good my master, who’s your tailor?”
The speaker was Temperance Murthwaite, who was clad in the plainest of brownish drab serges, without an unnecessary tag or scrap of fringe, and carried on her arm an unmistakable market-basket, from which protruded the legs of a couple of chickens and sundry fish-tails, notwithstanding the clean cloth which should have hidden such ignoble articles from public view. The person addressed was Mr Aubrey Louvaine, and his costume was a marvel of art and a feast of colour.
“My tailor is Adrian Sewell, Aunt, in Thieving Lane—”
“Like enough!” was the response. “Well, Gentleman?”
“Shall I—” The words died on Aubrey’s lips. His aunt, who read his thoughts exactly, stood wickedly enjoying the situation.