The White Gauntlet

“Certainly, Sir Marmaduke. Alas! alas! that I am compelled to be the witness of such a sad spectacle.”

Scarthe truly characterised the scene that followed, by calling it a sad spectacle. Such it was – too sad to be described: the cuirassier captain appearing as much affected as any of those who assisted at it!

In an hour after, Sir Marmaduke Wade – in the custody of a cuirassier guard – might have been seen passing out of Bulstrode Park, on his way to that famous, or rather infamous, receptacle of political prisoners – the Tower of London.

Volume Three – Chapter Sixteen

In less than a week from this time, Sir Marmaduke Wade stood in the presence of the Star Chamber – that Court which for long years had been the dread – less of criminals, than of innocent men.

When accuser and judge are one and the same person, condemnation is sure to follow. In Sir Marmaduke’s case the accuser was the king himself. The Star Chamber was a mere mask – a means of carrying out his arbitrary acts, while screening him from their responsibility.

The trial was as much a farce, as if it had been held before a conclave of the Holy Inquisition. Indeed, both Star Chamber and High Commission Court bore a close resemblance to that terrible tribunal; and, like the latter, however farcical might be the form of their trials, they had too often a tragical ending.

Sir Marmaduke’s trial, like many others of the time, was a mockery of justice – a mere formality to satisfy the slight remnants of liberty that still lingered in the Constitution. The Court had already doomed him. It needed only for the Star Chamber to endorse the foregone decree; which was done by its truculent judges without any delay, and with as little noise or ceremony.

The knight was accused of treason towards the crown – of conspiring against the king.

The charge was proven; and the criminal was condemned to death, by the mode in use against political offenders of the time. His sentence was: —to be beheaded upon the block.

He was not even confronted with his accusers; and knew not who they were who bore witness against him. But the most specific charge brought up – that of his presence and speech at the night meeting at Stone Dean – left him no reason to doubt that Richard Scarthe was one of their number – if not the prime instigator of the prosecution.

During the investigation, the accused was kept in complete ignorance, both of the witnesses and the testimony preferred against him. None was allowed in his favour – no advocate was permitted to plead for him; and indeed, long before his trial came to a termination, he had made up his mind as to the result.

It was scarce a shock to him, when the president of that iniquitous conclave, pronounced in mock solemnity the sentence of death.

But it was a terrible shock to two tender hearts, when his son, Walter, hurrying home after the trial, carried the melancholy tidings – to the mansion of Bulstrode, soon to be deprived of its master.

Never was the hypocrisy of Richard Scarthe more successfully exerted than in that sad hour.

The children of his victim were almost deceived into a belief in his friendship. So sincere did his expressions of sympathy appear, and so often were they repeated, that Walter and Lora became almost disarmed as to his treason; and even Marion wavered in her suspicions of the honesty of this accomplished impostor.

Could Sir Marmaduke have communicated with them, there would have been no danger of such a deception. But this he was not allowed to do. From the hour of his arrest, his enemy had adopted every precaution to prevent it. The parting with his children had taken place in Scarthe’s presence – where no word could be spoken unheard. Afterwards, from his prison in the Tower, he had not been allowed to hold the slightest intercourse with the outside world – neither before his trial, nor after it. Only a few minutes had his son Walter been permitted to stay in his company; and then only with spies and jailers standing near, and listening to every speech that passed between them.

Sir Marmaduke had not even found opportunity to communicate to his son the suspicions he entertained: that the man who was making such loud protestations of sympathy and friendship, was not only his enemy, but the very individual who had denounced him.

To Walter, and Lora, and Marion, all this remained unknown. It had never occurred to them to speculate on the cause of Scarthe’s absence from the mansion – during the two days of the trial. Little did they suspect that the double-tongued villain – so profuse in expressions of sympathy and condolence – during that interval, had been himself in the presence of the Star Chamber – secretly testifying against the accused – freely supplying the testimony that had sealed his condemnation.

On the morning after the sad intelligence had been conveyed to the inmates of Bulstrode mansion, Marion was in her chamber, the victim of a double sorrow.

The Spaniards have a proverb, “One nail drives out another,” (un clavo saca otro clavo), intending to convey, by this homely figure, that the heart cannot contain two sorrows at the same time, but that one must give place to the other.

To some extent is this proverb true; but, like most others, yielding to certain conditions. For a while recent sorrow, overweighing that of anterior date, may tend to its alleviation. If it be greater, it may conduct to its cure; but, if less, the old grief will in time return, and again resume dominion over the throne of the heart.

Either one of the sorrows from which Marion suffered, was enough to have occupied her heart, to the exclusion of the other; and yet, her experience confirmed the proverb only in part. Long after listening to the sad tale told by her brother, she had brooded over the misfortunes of her much-loved father, and the fearful fate that was awaiting him. But love is stronger than filial affection; and there were intervals, during which, her anguish for a parent she was about to lose, was perhaps, less intense than that for a lover she had already lost! Judge her not harshly, if in the midst of her convulsive grief, there were moments when her mind dwelt upon the other and older sorrow. Judge her not harshly; but as you would yourself be judged! She was not alone. Her affectionate cousin was by her side; and near by, her fond brother. They had passed the night together – in vain endeavours to impart mutual consolation. Their cheeks and eyes told of a night spent in sleeplessness and tears.

Spent in mutual counsel, too; which they seemed to have exhausted: as was testified by the words now spoken by Walter.

Marion had suggested an appeal to the Queen – had proposed making a journey to London for this purpose.

“I fear it will be of no use,” rejoined the ex-courtier. “I fell upon my knees before her – I protested our father’s innocence – I entreated her with tears in my eyes; but she gave me no hope. On the contrary, she was angry with me. I never saw her so before. She even insulted me with vile words: called me the cub of a conspirator; while Jermyn, and Holland, and others of the young lords in her company, made merry at my expense. The king I dared not see. Ah! sister; I fear even you would meet no favour among that Court crew. There is but one who can help us; and that because he is of their kind. You know who I mean, Marion?”

“You speak of Captain Scarthe?”

“I do.”

“Indeed! it is true,” interposed Lora. “You know he has more than once thrown out hints, as to what he could do to obtain dear uncle’s freedom. I would go upon my knees to him, if it were of any use; but you know, Marion, one word from you would be worth all the entreaties that Walter and I could make. O, cousin! let us not speak in riddles at such a time as this. You know the reason?”

“Marion!” said Walter, half divining Lora’s implied meaning; “If this man speak sincerely – if it be true that he has the influence he boasts of – and I have heard as much at Court – then there may be a hope. I know not to what Lora refers. She says that a word from you may accomplish much. Dear sister; is it a sacrifice?”

“You have styled it truly, Walter, in calling it a sacrifice. Without that, my entreaties would be vain as yours. I am sure of it.”

“Say, sister! What sacrifice?”

“My hand – my hand!”

“Dear, dear Marion! If it be not with your heart, you cannot promise it – you could not give it.”

“Without such promise, I know he would deny me.”

“The wretch! O, heavens! And yet it is our father’s life – ay, his very life!”

“Would it were mine!” exclaimed Marion, with a look of abandoned anguish; “only mine. The thought of death would be easier to endure than the sorrows I have already!”

Walter comprehended not the meaning of her wild words. Lora better understood their import.

Neither had time to reflect upon them: for, on the instant of their utterance, Marion rose to her feet, and walked with a determined air towards the door of the apartment.

“Where are you going, dear cousin?” asked Lora, slightly frayed at Marion’s resolute mien.

“To Captain Scarthe,” was the firm rejoinder. “To fling myself at his feet – prostrate, if he please it; to ask him the price of my father’s life.”

Before either cousin or brother could interfere, to oppose or strengthen her resolution, the self-appointed suppliant had passed out of the room.

Volume Three – Chapter Seventeen

The sentence passed upon Sir Marmaduke had given Scarthe a new string to his bow; and the crisis had now arrived for testing its strength.

He had easily obtained the knight’s condemnation. From the peculiar interest which he possessed at Court, he knew – or believed – that with equal facility he could procure his pardon.

In his own mind he had resolved upon doing this. On certain conditions Marion Wade might expect a prompt answer to the inquiry she was about to make. It was already determined upon: the price of Sir Marmaduke’s life would be the hand of his daughter.

Scarthe did not design addressing his reiterated proposal to the condemned knight; but to Marion herself. His former appeal to the father had been met with a refusal so firm, that from him he might readily apprehend a similar response. True, at that time the knight was only threatened with danger. Now, death stared him in the face – death inglorious, even ignominious. The prospect could not fail to cause fear and faltering; and an ordinary man should be only too fain, by any means, to save himself from such a fate.

But Sir Marmaduke Wade was not one of this stamp. On the contrary, he was just the type of those antique heroic parents, who prefer death to the sacrifice of a daughter’s happiness. Scarthe knew it; and believed it quite possible that the conditions he meant to offer might still provoke a noble and negative rejoinder. Although he had not determined to forego the chances of a last appeal to the condemned prisoner, this was only to be made in the event of Marion’s rejection of his terms. Filial affection was first to be put upon its trial. After that it would be time to test the parental.

This design had been conceived, before the trial of Sir Marmaduke – even previous to his imprisonment: for it was but a sequence of his scheme; and he who concocted it had only been waiting for the knight’s condemnation, to bring matters to a climax.

Of the sentence he had been already advised – in fact, knew it before leaving London. Twenty-four hours sooner he could have communicated the intelligence to those whom it most concerned; but, for reasons of his own, he had preferred leaving it to reach them through the natural channel – by the return of Walter from that short sad interview, the last he had been permitted to hold with his unfortunate father.