G. P. R. James

Never did human being, in a world of woe, strive with more patient perseverance for contentment with his lot than did poor Arabella Seymour. She called to her aid all the resources of a humble and a faithful spirit. She trusted in God, she resigned herself to his will, she tried to bear the chastening hand with cheerfulness; but it was in vain she did so. Hours, days, weeks passed,--the heavy hours, days, weeks of imprisonment, without one hope coming to lighten the burden or assuage the pangs.

At first, she consoled herself with the knowledge that Seymour was safe beyond the power of the vain tyrant who kept her within those walls; but she soon found that even that consolation, when she indulged in it, produced an evil effect upon her mind. The thought that he was secure and free, brought with it the eager yearnings of a warm and affectionate heart to be with him, to rest upon the bosom of him she loved, to hear the music of his voice, to see his eyes beaming upon her with tenderness and devotion.

She dared not trust herself with such meditations, for they were dangerous to her tranquillity, and were sure to end in long and bitter weeping. Then she strove to extract hope from some fruitless effort to soften the cold and obdurate heart of the King,--as the alchymists of the day attempted to draw gold from lead or iron. But yet, even in the act, she knew it to be idle. She would gaze upon the letter she had written, beseeching this person or that, who was supposed to have influence over James, to intercede for her; and with a sad smile, shake her head and sigh, exclaiming, "Vain, vain! it is all in vain!"

Then she would wander round the walls of the Tower, gaze on the busy multitudes swarming freely without, picture to herself their thoughts, feelings, and occupations; trace them, in her imagination, through their daily labour, and follow them back again to the home of domestic love; and the tears would rise in her eyes, as she thought that no such home was ever to be hers.

Or, at other times, she would turn towards the river with its shipping, and mark the light boats gliding over the waters, and long--oh, with what a thirsty longing!--to pursue the course of that stream once more, and over the wide sea, to find the free happiness denied her there; and when she looked around on bars, and gates, and guards, her heart would feel chilled and crushed; and again her tears would rise, and drop upon the stones of the wall.

Often, when such was the case, some words which had been used by Ida Mara came back to her mind; and she would ponder on them, and turn them in her imagination a thousand ways; for sadness ever will sport with fancy, and misery often dances in her chains.

One day, as she was sitting in her chamber, with the fair Italian beside her singing to her, she wrote from time to time a word or two on some paper which lay upon the table; and when the girl's song was done, she said, "Give me your instrument, Ida; I will sing you a song now;" and placing the paper upright before her, she proceeded to pour forth, to a simple air of the time, the lines she had just written.

"Ye gloomy walls, that circling round,

Oppress this form of clay,

When shall my spirit spurn the bound

Harsh men around it lay?

Oh! were there power in tears,

Shed through unnumbered years,

To soften the hard stone,

Long ere this weary day,

Melting like snow away,

Ye to the dust had gone.

"Lo! wreathing round your hoary towers,

Those who lie cold beneath,

Entwine a coronal of flowers

And honour you in death.

Though were there power in tears,

Dropp'd through unnumbered years,

To soften the hard stone,

The torrents that the dead

Within these walls have shed,

Had of those towers left none!

"But all in vain, my heart would fly,

Wide o'er the land and wave,

To scenes of life and liberty

From this, its prison grave.

No! there's no power in tears,

Shed through unnumbered years,

To soften the hard stone.

Else would I weep all day,

And cease only to pray,

Till ye to dust were gone.

"But colder than these iron walls,

Hardest of earthly things,

Is that which dwells in courtly halls

Within the breast of kings.

Though there were power in tears,

Shed through unnumbered years,

To soften the hard stone,

There, fruitless would they prove!

Grief has no power to move

The heart of man alone."

"Now run away, Ida, and fetch me a book," said Arabella; "I must not let such thoughts stir within me any more; they render me discontented, dear girl; and, they say, a contented heart makes a garden of a wilderness."

"Ay, dear lady," answered Ida Mara, with a sigh; "but it is hard work first plucking up the thorns. You have no books but those you have read often;--which shall I bring you?"

"Run to Sir Gervase Elways," said Arabella, "and ask him to lend me something new. He is a learned man, and very complaisant, and I know amuses the tediousness of his charge with much reading. A blessing on those who write for us! How many a heavy heart is lightened by reading the tales of other men's endurance; how many a sick bed is smoothed by the light hand of gentle poetry! Good faith, Ida--as it must be for one or the other--I would rather weep for the gone-by sorrows of other people than for my own, too truly present."

Ida Mara left her mistress to obey; but, in a moment after, she came back pale and trembling.

"What is the matter, Ida? what is the matter?" cried the lady, starting up.

"Ah, madam!" answered the girl, "I have just seen that terrible man, Weston, tripping across to the Bell-tower, where poor Sir Thomas Overbury is confined, and I shall now live in constant dread."

"Did he see you?" asked Arabella.

"I think not--I hope not," replied Ida Mara. "I was under the arch below, and he was going the other way, dressed in black velvet, with soft steps, like a cat creeping up to a bird."

Arabella mused. "Call Jane hither," she said. And when the girl appeared, she added, "Go to the warder opposite there, and ask him the name of the gentleman dressed in black velvet, who just now crossed to the Bell-tower."

The girl retired without any answer; for she was of a somewhat sullen disposition, and discontented at being kept so long in the Tower. She returned in a few minutes, saying, "His name is Doctor Foreman, my lady; and he has gone, by the King's order, to visit Sir Thomas Overbury, who is sick."

Ida cast down her eyes thoughtfully on the ground; and Arabella, after giving the maid a sign that she might retire, murmured, "Doctor Foreman!--why, that is the man of whom there was so much talk at the Court, a sort of wizard, a conjurer, and a cheat,--suspected, too, of dealing in poisons. I heard the Queen say, his majesty would have him hanged.--Can he be sent to Sir Thomas Overbury by the King?"

"Oh, lady, lady," cried Ida Mara, "it is the same man. Whatever name he may now call himself by, that is Weston. And I will tell you," she added, kneeling on the cushion at the lady's feet, "I will tell you now what it was he wished me to do, that made me fly from him in such terror, which I have never told you before. He wished me to go to a young nobleman of the Court, who had been pleased with my music, to live with him for a time in sin," and then she paused, and sunk her voice to a whisper, adding, "and then--to put poison in his drink."

Arabella shuddered: "Good heaven!" she cried, "is it possible that such iniquity should live and prosper?--But why did you not accuse him, and bring him to punishment, Ida?"

"Because I had no proof," replied the girl: "at first I fled from him in terror and consternation, knowing that if I did not do as he required, after he had put his secret in my power, he would poison me; and then, when good Sir Harry West delivered me from him, I reflected, and saw that to bring such a charge might but call down destruction on my own head. I was but a poor Italian girl--an alien, a stranger, with no one to speak for me, nothing to corroborate what I said. He had taken care to give me no proof against him; there was but my word against his; and I knew he was supported by many great men, who were more or less in his power, from secrets that they dared not see divulged.--What could I do, lady?"

"You did right, you did right, dear Ida," answered Arabella: "but I fear much that, even now, he goes to Sir Thomas Overbury for no good. I will not believe that the King has sent him; or, if so, the King is but a tool in the hands of others. This poor Knight has many enemies, I fear. Are there no means of warning him against so dangerous a physician?"

"Perhaps there may be," answered Ida Mara; "for though there is a guard at each end of the walk on the top of the wall, to prevent his passing farther on either side than for mere air and exercise, yet they have never stopped me as I have passed that way; and one day I saw his door open."

"Did you ever meet him?" asked Arabella.

"No, never," replied Ida Mara; "but I hear he is ill now, and confined to his bed."

"Alas!" said Arabella, "who can tell how that illness has been brought about? There were suspicions abroad from the very first. Men discovered that Rochester, instead of being his friend, was his enemy; and there is not such a rancorous hatred on this earth, Ida, as that which dwells in the breast of the ungrateful. This poor man's imprisonment is a living reproach to the King's favourite; and I have many, many doubts."

"I shall not dare to turn my steps that way again," said Ida Mara, "lest I should meet that dreadful man. The very sight of him seems to curdle my whole blood, and makes my heart labour as if it would not beat."

Arabella remained in thought for a few minutes, and then said, "I will go myself, Ida; he must be warned, if possible."

"Nay, lady, nay," answered Ida Mara; "I meant not to say that; I will go. We shall soon see him pass back, and then it will be safe." As she spoke, she approached the window and looked out, keeping herself, however, behind the stonework of the wall.

Arabella followed her, standing somewhat more forward, and gazing down into the open space below. They remained thus, however, for nearly a quarter of an hour, without seeing any one but an occasional labourer, and a party of the guard, proceeding towards the outer gates.

At length Arabella cried, "Here is some one now, Ida;" and the girl, leaning her head a little forward, exclaimed, "That is he, that is he!" drawing back instantly from the window with a shudder.

Arabella watched him as he crossed towards the gate. "'Tis strange," she said, "I can discover in his appearance none of those deadly signs you speak of. To me, he would seem but that pitiful thing, a vain old coxcomb, affecting the air and step of youth, dressed in the butterfly finery of early thoughtlessness, and banishing the comely gravity of years. He trips along like some Court dancing master, fancying himself a treasury of graces, which he bestows as a bounty on less gifted men. But he is gone, Ida. Now we will set out together. Nay, I will go with you; for if you are afraid of his company, I am afraid of my solitude. Sometimes, when I am alone, I think I shall go mad."

In execution of their design, the lady and her attendant went out and walked slowly along the wall, towards the tower in which the unhappy Overbury was confined. But the orders of the guard were by this time changed; and the man at the angle nearest to the Knight's prison dropped his partizan, saying, "You cannot pass here, ladies, unless you give the countersign."

"That we are not able to do," answered Arabella, pausing; "we are not soldiers, my good sir, to take the fortress by surprise; and I think they never furnish us poor women with signs or countersigns."

"You cannot pass here, madam, without," replied the man, bluffly; "there are new orders given for the custody of the close prisoners; so you must take your walk another way."

Arabella turned sadly back towards her room. But while she did so, we must pursue, for a short time, the course of the dark and infamous villain who had just left the chamber of Sir Thomas Overbury. Although his step was as light as air, and debonair as ever, Doctor Foreman did not feel altogether well satisfied and at ease.

"The man suspects something," he said, speaking evidently of Overbury; "and I doubt this new Lieutenant does his duty well."

What the duty was which he spoke of would not be difficult to say, for the most corrupt hearts apply to their own purposes, however dark and horrible they may be, the highest and the holiest terms; and the reluctant apprehension which, it would seem, Sir Gervase always felt in yielding himself to the criminal designs of his patrons, was construed by their less scrupulous accomplice into a lack of due devotion to their cause.

"That girl, too," continued the charlatan to himself, pursuing his way; "she must be provided for. She would make a cruel witness against one, if anything were to come out. Weston's the man, however.--My boy Dick has no scruples; he can settle both affairs at once; but he must have full power, and not be always hampered by this knave of a Lieutenant. I must see my Lord of Rochester, and get his authority, otherwise we shall make no progress. To-morrow, I hear, is to be his wedding-day with our fair Countess, so he will be in good humour."

Such reveries brought him to the water side, and calling one of the wherries, which were, perhaps, more plentiful upon the Thames in those days than in our own, he made the boatman conduct him at once to Whitehall.

On his visit to Rochester, however, we will not pause, reluctant to dwell upon scenes of such depravity one moment more than is absolutely necessary to the history that we tell. It is well known that strict orders were given to the Lieutenant of the Tower to admit, without restriction, the persons selected for the execution of the designs against the unhappy prisoner. Armed with these, Foreman returned to hold a conference, in which he expected to encounter no obstacles; but on that point he was somewhat disappointed.

The door of his house was opened for him by the little page, whom we have seen on a former occasion carrying his sword; and in his ante-room above he found the man, Weston, who had been engaged in carrying off Ida Mara from Highgate. He was dressed as a servant, though in somewhat gay attire; but his face was sullen and downcast; and, when his worthy master told him to follow him into an inner chamber, he obeyed slowly, and without reply.

"Now, Weston," cried Doctor Foreman, seating himself, "I have got a great and important affair for you."

"I won't undertake it," replied the man.

"Won't undertake it?" repeated Foreman, with every mark of surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said; "that I will not undertake any great affair, unless I am to be better rewarded than I was for the last."

"But you were not successful," said the doctor; "all people are paid according to their success."

"I won't be paid so," rejoined Weston; "I run the same risk whether I am successful or not, and so I have a right to the same recompence; and I will have it before-hand too. I will trust to no man."

"There you are right," replied Weston; "and you shall have it before-hand; nor will it be a trifle, I can tell you; for what you have to do will make a great man of you. To set out with, the gentleman who employs me will give you a hundred nobles."

"Come, this is speaking reason," cried Weston, rubbing his hands; "let us hear what is to be done. For a hundred nobles I will go a good way."

"The affair is very easy," answered Foreman, well pleased to bring him so easily to compliance. "I am about to place you in the service of poor Sir Thomas Overbury, who is a close prisoner in the Tower, you know. No one will be admitted to him but yourself; and, as he is very ill, you must be careful of him. Particularly, you must remark that, as I am his physician, he is to take nothing but what I send him. You must even, perhaps, cook his food for him; for there are sick people, you know, who will eat things that are hurtful to them."

"I understand, I understand," said Weston, with a nod of the head; "is there anything more?"

"Nothing," answered Foreman; "unless you like, by way of amusing yourself, to be very civil to the pretty lady you carried off from Highgate, who is there in the Tower, attending upon the Lady Arabella. You may ask her to take a glass of wine with you; and I will give you some glasses with twisted stalks, very beautiful to see, which I brought from Venice."

"Anything more?" asked the man, in a tone that Dr. Foreman did not altogether like.

"No," he replied; "no; you will have quite enough to do to effect this properly, though my Lord of Rochester will furnish you with sufficient powers, to prevent much trouble about it."

"Well," replied Weston; "I understand you, then, completely; but to be sure that I make no mistake, in consequence of delicate phrases, I had better repeat the whole in plain English."

"It may be as well," said Doctor Foreman, with a nod.

"Thus it is, then," answered Weston; "I am to go into the service of Sir Thomas Overbury in the Tower, to have him quite in my own hands, and to give him the poison that you give me for him?" (Doctor Foreman nodded.) "Then am to make friends with the girl, and poison her too?" (Doctor Foreman nodded again.) And Weston proceeded: "And for all this I am to have a hundred nobles.--Come, come, dear doctor, it's time we should understand each other. Very likely, if I were but a common servant, such pay might be considered handsome. But people tell me you are my papa."

"There may be some truth in that," said Foreman, with a grin.

"Well, then," rejoined Weston; "you would not have your dear son put his neck in jeopardy for a hundred nobles?"

"I have often put mine in jeopardy for a less sum," answered Foreman, "before I made the large fortune that I have made, and which I have left to you at my death, if you behave well, Dick. I wish you to work your way up, as I have worked mine: and as you are a shrewd youth, with all the money that you will have from me, you may go much farther than I have gone."

"I may go to the gallows, perhaps," replied Weston.

"Pooh, nonsense," answered his worthy father, "if you go to the gallows, the Lord Rochester and the Countess of Essex must go first; and the King would sooner go himself."

"Ay, that is a different affair," cried Weston. "But have you really left me all you have got? for of course that must be a consideration."

"You shall see the will yourself," replied the learned doctor; and, opening a strong box, he took out a parchment from amongst several others, and placed it in the hands of his worshipful son.

The younger man ran his eyes over it with a look of vast satisfaction. "That's enough," he said; "that's enough. I'll do anything you like. Give me the powders."

"Nay," answered Foreman, taking down a bottle from one of the shelves, and pouring a small quantity of the liquor it contained into a phial, "you must give this to Sir Thomas Overbury, by a spoonful at a time. Then, as for the girl, here is this powder. If you can ever get her to eat or drink in your presence, you have nothing to do, but to hold the contents between your finger and thumb--so--and drop it upon her food, or into her cup. It will dissolve instantly; and in half an hour she will be in Heaven.--Sudden deaths will happen; who can help it?"

"Nobody, to be sure," answered the young man, laughing; "but I don't see why you should wish her out of the way."

"Oh, I have good reasons; I have good reasons," said Foreman, nodding his head significantly.

"Ah, well; it's no business of mine," cried Weston. "I'll do the business! Give me the drugs."

Foreman delivered them into his hands; then added several directions as to his conduct, and furnished him with a letter from Lord Rochester to the Lieutenant of the Tower.

To secure all, the hundred nobles were bestowed at once; and Weston departed from the room to make ready for his expedition. But the first thought that crossed his mind was, "No, no! Overbury, if you like; but the girl is safe. This powder I'll keep for another occasion; and if you play me false, old gentleman, look to yourself."

With this hint of his very filial intentions, he secured the drugs in the heart of a bundle of clothes, and set out upon his errand with as much alacrity as if he was going to a wedding feast.