"I will claim your attention for a moment," he continued; "and you shall hear the result of some consideration. You and I were married at an early age, as the custom is----"
"It is a bad one," said the Countess. "Go on."
"But if you were not capable," continued her husband, "of loving and esteeming at that age, I was; and I returned to England to claim you, full of affection, which, as you may suppose, was not diminished when I saw your beauty. I have now been here nearly two months; and I have tried, by every means within man's power, to win you to return the attachment I have felt. The effort has proved vain. I have learned to know that you are unworthy of my love; that, instead of that fair form containing a heart and mind as soft and beautiful as your looks, there is nothing within but a proud, angry spirit--selfish, and cold, and fierce;--a loathsome thing, that makes the glittering casket in which it is enshrined all poor and valueless. I therefore cast you off, madam; or, as you will term it, set you free to go whithersoever you will--to do whatsoever you please. Your uncle, of Northampton, will receive you, for my good Lord, your father, will not. From me you shall enjoy such an income as may befit the Countess of Essex. I give it in honour of my own name, and trust--but faintly--that you will never disgrace it. To-morrow, at daybreak, your equipage will be at the door to convey you back to London. You came down hither with me against your will; but, if I were to go back again with you, it would be against my own."
"Oh, joy, joy!" cried the Countess, starting up and clasping her hands. "I am a slave no longer!"
Her husband gave her one look of scorn and reprobation, and quitted the room.
[CHAPTER XXII.]
Shakespeare assured his hearers, in the age of which we are now writing, "the course of true love never did run smooth," and the assertion is certainly as true as a proverb. When Arabella Stuart retired to her chamber for the night, her heart was relieved of part of the load which her lover's apparently strange conduct had brought upon it; yet sufficient anxiety and grief remained in her mind, to give her ample subject for thought and sorrowful meditation. She was still a little angry, it must be confessed, that Seymour should even have doubted her--her, whose whole thoughts and affections had been with him during his absence. But yet, perhaps, there might be a certain sort of gratification, too, in her bosom, to see that his love for her still remained so powerful, that the least apprehension of losing her should change his whole nature, and render one, so uniformly kind, tender, and ardent,--cold, discourteous, and repulsive. It was a little triumph of its sort, which even Arabella's heart could not but be pleased with.
Hers, however, was not a character either to retain such anger, or enjoy such triumph long; and the whole was soon swallowed up in joy at his return, and grief for the uneasiness he had suffered. The more painful part of her contemplations referred to the rumours which he had heard; and she asked herself with fear,--what if the King should have given encouragement to his favourite to pursue the suit for her hand?--what would be her fate if James, won to the views of Rochester, should insist upon her accepting him as her husband? How could such rumours get abroad? she inquired likewise, unless some much more marked approbation of Rochester's ambition than any of her own acts had given, had been received from a quarter where will and authority went together?
Women, however, have generally a happy art of putting aside the consideration of painful probabilities. They have much greater faith in the influence of time and accident in removing obstacles and averting dangers than men; and Arabella consoled herself with the hope of seeing William Seymour on the following morning, and enjoying an interview, however short, during which all clouds would be swept away, and their whole hearts opened to each other as before.
Such expectations were strengthened ere she retired to rest. Ida Mara, who had not been in her chamber when she first returned, appeared not long after, while one of the maids was combing their lady's beautiful long hair, and, standing beside her, as was her wont when she was at her toilet, talked gaily of all the pageants which Lord Salisbury's mansion had presented during the day, and described the hall, through which she had just passed, as displaying a lamentable, yet ludicrous scene of drunkenness and folly.