"What! then you do see he is ambitious?" cried the Countess. "I wronged my Rochester's good judgment. I thought he had deceived you, and that you did not perceive the tool that he would make of you."
"Oh, I have known his ambition long," replied Rochester, "and was prepared to give it a check in due time. Perhaps as well now as hereafter."
"Better, better far," replied the Countess. "Those who defend a breach, fire on the men who begin to climb the ladder, lest when they are at the top it be too late. Away then, Rochester, away! see that thing done; and, when you can tell me that the embassy is offered him, you may come back, and shall have smiles for your reward."
After those words they parted, Rochester hurrying to take that new step in the wrong course which was to carry him forward to many others; and the Countess of Essex remaining to brood over her hatred and vengeance, till she worked herself into regret that she had not exacted more of her weak and guilty paramour.
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
In the times of our Sovereign Lord, His Sacred Majesty King James I., of happy memory, that peculiar district of the world called Lambeth was in a very different state and condition from that in which it is beheld now-a-days. It was not then a close, thronged, noisy, and somewhat turbulent parish, a borough in itself, sending members to Parliament, and having vast objections to church-rates; but it was actually almost a rural district, with an Archbishop's palace and church, a few houses gathered in the episcopal neighbourhood, and several fine old mansions, with their gardens extending down to the water, occupying the whole bank of the river opposite to Westminster and the Strand. Where now stand patent shot manufactories, and wharfs and warehouses, were then smooth, green, shaven lawns, and tall trees, and wildernesses, and terraces,--and the aspect of the whole place, as far as the different style of architecture and gardening would permit, was much more like Richmond, without its hill, than the famous borough of Lambeth.
One of these houses, at a considerable distance from the archbishop's palace, was remarkable for its beautiful gardens, and for its broad terrace, edging the river, and overhung by tall trees. A flint wall, with a lane on one side, and the grounds of another house on the other, surrounded these gardens and shut them out from the vulgar, leaving them only open to the view of those who passed upon the water, on which side it was not more than three feet high. To the river, there was a private stair for boats to land visitors; defended, however, from intrusion by an iron gate as high as the terrace-wall; and possessing a large bell, which, from time to time, gave notice of applications for admission.
About five o'clock in the evening of a day towards the end of September, a wherry, rowed by a single man, and containing no freight but himself, glided close under the embankment of the terrace, it being then high water; and there the rower paused for a moment or two on his oars, looking into the grounds above, as if very much admiring their trim propriety. After that short pause he rowed on again, and his inquisitiveness passed unnoticed by any one, as the gardens were vacant.
In about a quarter of an hour, however, the same boat and the same man re-appeared; but this time he did not pause, for there were three persons upon the terrace; a young lady of graceful and noble mien, walking a step in advance; an elderly, stately dame, talking to her at her shoulder; and a fair girl, with large bright eyes, and dark black hair, dressed in the simple, but lady-like apparel, which, in those days of splendid costume, generally denoted the waiting gentlewoman, coming a pace or two behind, with an air of sadness, and her look bent down upon the ground.
The rower, as we have said, pulled on; and about ten minutes after he was gone, the young lady whom we have mentioned turned towards the house, saying, "I shall go in, madam. Dear Ida," she continued, "you can stay if you like; for you have been kept in all the morning and want air."