The Young Lovell: A Romance

by Ford Madox Ford

Then the Countess Maud asked what was this, for she had not understood what had passed between the lady and her ancient, by reason that they spoke in the Northern tongue. Then came a knocking at the door and the dame Bellingham said that there stood the Earl Percy in his night-gown. So the Lady Margaret said that was what she feared—that the Earl should come down at night with amorous proposals; but she was jesting. The Countess did not know this and she went to the door and began to cry out upon that lord for desiring to dishonour her.

Then between the two of them came a great clamour, the Countess holding to that, and the Earl crying out that she was a fool and that this matter might lead to the deaths of them all if she would not let him come in to speak to the Lady Margaret. This the Countess did not wish to allow, for the Countess Maud had no comprehension at all of what all this trouble was about, and it seemed to her to be nonsense to say, as her lord did, that this matter might lead to the deaths of them all.

Nevertheless, when the Lady Margaret heard those words she laughed very silently but long to herself. For she knew that now, if she could come out of the Castle and get safe away, she had a power that might well drive that Earl to do all that she wished later, or some of it.

Henry, Earl Percy, had indeed said much and so much to his kinswoman in his anger. For it was indeed his intention, secret but resolute, to break the power of all the barons and great nobles in the North, so that King Henry VII should be almighty and himself the King's viceregent. When the day came there would be indeed no end to his power in those parts, for the King would be very distant and there would be no one to oppose him. So he fomented all the quarrels that he could amongst these people, and he had seen with joy the troubles that were afoot about the Castle Lovell.

But as yet he was not ready; for all these people were still very strong in armed men, wealth and lands, and, if they joined together they might well overset both himself and King Henry VII with him. Thus he wished he had bitten his tongue out before ever, in his anger, he had revealed what was his secret design to his cousin. For the Lady Margaret was a great gadabout and, if he could not come to her, either to modify what he had said or to bind her to secrecy, there would not be a Dacre or a Eure or a Widdrington that would not soon know the worst of his design.

He had sought his bed, but his pillow had seemed to be of nettles, and since he had discerned that it might be her design to ride away early, he had sought her chamber door to have speech with her. He did not in truth know what to do. He was very willing to have laid her by the heels and to keep her a prisoner in that tower. But he was afraid that that might bring about his ears a hornet's nest of his cousins, and even it might bring him reproof from the King. The King was not at all willing or ready to have the whole of Northumberland rise upon him at that time. Nay, Henry VII had bidden him to be very careful that, whilst he weakened these troublesome people as much as he could, he should rouse their anger as little as he might.

All this, laughing behind the door, the Lady Margaret knew very well, even to the fact that the Lord Percy might come to shutting her up in prison. But she knew that, whilst the silly Countess kept him crying at the door, he could not bid his men to arm against her, and whilst her men were armed and his not, he could do little or nothing at all. They could all go out at the postern gate and so into the trackless sedges of the sea and the marches. Moreover, the Percy and his Countess were such married people that, upon any occasion they quarrelled furiously and at great length and so they did now.

For the Countess was well begun upon her grievances such as, as how the Earl had dealt with his lands of her dowry, as to the little attention he paid her as his wife, as to the fact that she had no more than four damask dresses and, very particularly, as to the store he set by one of her ladies called Isabel. And at the last she pushed the door to against his resistance and set the bar across it.

The Earl thundered upon it very violently but in the end he went away. The Lady Margaret did as best she might to comfort the Countess Maud until at last John Bellingham came to tell her that people were astir in the Castle with some lights, though whether they were about arming themselves or getting ready for the day and the hay harvest, he could not well say. But indeed the Earl Percy had twice ordered his men to arm and seize the lady and twice he ordered them to desist, during that night; for he was in a very great quandary.

So the Lady Margaret went down the little stairway, after she had roused her women, and found her men by the postern gate. The keeper of the gate did not dare to withhold the keys for he knew that they, being thirty to one, could slay him very peacefully.