"Yes, I too will be your ally," cried the Duchess of Richmond; "we have all three been outraged by the same man. Let, then, our revenge be a common one. The father has insulted you; the son, me. Well, then, I will help you to strike the father, if you in return will assist me to destroy the son.""I will assist you," said Arabella, smiling; "for I also hate the haughty Earl of Surrey, who prides himself on his virtue, as if it were a golden fleece which God himself had stuck on his breast. Ihate him; for he never meets me but with proud disregard; and he alone is to blame for his father's faithlessness.""I was present when with tears he besought the duke, our father, to free himself from your fetters, and give up this shameful and disgraceful connection with you," said the young duchess.
Arabella answered nothing. But she pressed her hands firmly together, and a slight pallor overspread her cheeks.
"And why are you angry with your brother?" asked the old duchess, thoughtfully.
"Why am I angry with him, do you ask, my mother? I am not angry with him; but I execrate him, and I have sworn to myself never to rest till I have avenged myself. My happiness, my heart, and my future, lay in his hands; and he has remorselessly trodden under his haughty feet these--his sister's precious treasures. It lay with him to make me the wife of the man I love; and he has not done it, though I lay at his feet weeping and wringing my hands.""But it was a great sacrifice that you demanded," said her mother.
"He had to give his hand to a woman he did not love, so that you might be Thomas Seymour's wife.""Mother, you defend him; and yet he it is that blames you daily; and but yesterday it seemed to him perfectly right and natural that the duke had forsaken you, our mother.""Did he do that?" inquired the duchess, vehemently. "Well, now, as he has forgotten that I am his mother, so will I forget that he is my son. I am your ally! Revenge for our injured hearts! Vengeance on father and son!"She held out both hands, and the two young women laid their hands in hers.
"Vengeance on father and son!" repeated they both; and their eyes flashed, and crimson now mantled their cheeks.
"I am tired of living like a hermit in my palace, and of being banished from court by the fear that I may encounter my husband there.""You shall encounter him there no more," said her daughter, laconically.
"They shall not laugh and jeer at me," cried Arabella. "And when they learn that he has forsaken me, they shall also know how I have avenged myself for it.""Thomas Seymour can never become my husband so long as Henry Howard lives; for he has mortally offended him, as Henry has rejected the hand of his sister. Perhaps I may become his wife, if Henry Howard is no more," said the young duchess. "So let us consider. How shall we begin, so as to strike them surely and certainly?""When three women are agreed, they may well be certain of their success," said Arabella, shrugging her shoulders. "We live--God be praised for it--under a noble and high-minded king, who beholds the blood of his subjects with as much pleasure as he does the crimson of his royal mantle, and who has never yet shrunk back when a death-warrant was to be signed.""But this time he will shrink back," said the old duchess. "He will not dare to rob the noblest and most powerful family of his kingdom of its head.""That very risk will stimulate him," said the Duchess of Richmond, laughing; "and the more difficult it is to bring down these heads, so much the more impatiently will he hanker after it. The king hates them both, and he will thank us, if we change his hatred into retributive justice.""Then let us accuse both of high treason!" cried Arabella. "The duke is a traitor; for I will and can swear that he has often enough called the king a bloodthirsty tiger, a relentless tyrant, a man without truth and without faith, although he coquettishly pretends to be the fountain and rock of all faith.""If he has said that, and you have heard him, you are in duty bound to communicate it to the king, if you do not want to be a traitoress yourself," exclaimed the young duchess, solemnly.
"And have you not noticed that the duke has for some time borne the same coat-of-arms as the king?" asked the Duchess of Norfolk. "It is not enough for his haughty and ambitious spirit to be the first servant of this land; he strives to be lord and king of it.""Tell that to the king, and by to-morrow the head of the traitor falls. For the king is as jealous of his kingdom as ever a woman was of her lover. Tell him that the duke bears his coat-of-arms, and his destruction is certain.""I will tell him so, daughter.""We are sure of the father, but what have we for the son?""A sure and infallible means, that will as certainly dispatch him into eternity as the hunter's tiny bullet slays the proudest stag.
Henry loves the queen; and I will furnish the king proof of that,"said the young duchess.
"Then let us go to the king!" cried Arabella, impetuously.
"No, indeed! That would make a sensation, and might easily frustrate our whole plan," said the Duchess of Richmond. "Let us first talk with Earl Douglas, and hear his advice. Come; every minute is precious! We owe it to our womanly honor to avenge ourselves. We cannot and will not leave unpunished those who have despised our love, wounded our honor, and trodden under foot the holiest ties of nature!"
