The First of the English: A Novel
Italian vessels bearing a loan from the bankers of Genoa to Alva, and
loaded with eight hundred thousand crowns in silver, on their way to
Antwerp—”
“Yes,” interjects the other with a chuckle, “I know—the money with
which the Duke intended to pay his troops—”
“Had been driven into the harbor of Southampton by privateers
commissioned by the Prince de Condé, who had been on the lookout to
seize this treasure. The Spanish ambassador had appealed to the Queen
for naval protection. Being at peace this must be accorded him, but
Elizabeth’s exchequer was empty, and harassed by milliner’s bills and
other feminine expenses, she had determined to have this silver for her
own. Cecil had sent for me, as he knew I spoke Spanish, and thought I
was the man for the business. They had already notified the Spanish
ambassador to make arrangements for the transport of the treasure from
Southampton to Dover by land, so that the Queen’s vessels could meet it
there. But while he was making his preparations I received the
following curious commission: I was to go down and offer ten thousand
crowns to the French privateers not to leave their position outside of
Southampton water, so the Genoese vessels dared not sail. Meanwhile the
Queen investigated and found the money was loaned by Italian merchants.
‘If they can loan to Alva, they can loan to me,’ she thought. Under the
private directions of the Queen of England I seized the eight hundred
thousand crowns of silver.”
“And that nearly drove Alva crazy! I can see him now,” laughs the
painter, “the morning he received the news twisting both his long
pendants of beard in impotent rage. Since then he has hated your Queen
and you who forced him to put this tenth penny tax on the Netherlands
to pay his troops. But what has the theft of Elizabeth of England to do
with your miniature, my marauder?”
“Only this,” answers Guy. “On board the Genoese vessel, when I made the
seizure, the only spoil I took for myself was this likeness. Judging
from the direction on the packet that contained it, that the lady whom
it represented must be living in the Netherlands, I was very happy to
accept Queen Elizabeth’s private commission to come over here and turn
sea rover in her cause, knowing that I took my life in my hand, but
also knowing it was my one chance of meeting in the flesh the face that
I have loved from that day to this. If that’s romance, make the best of
it! Who is she?”
“Ah!” says the painter, “In reply may I show you another picture?”
“Of whom? What do I care for pictures except this one? You artists are
always thinking of art—I think of flesh and blood, which beats art.”
“Does it beat THIS?” laughs Oliver, and drawing away the curtain from
the rear of the room he discloses an enormous altar piece, unfinished
except the central figure, the Madonna, at which Guy looks and gasps,
for it is the picture of the woman whose lips he had kissed the night
before, whose miniature he now holds in his hand, gazing alternately
from it to the magnificent altar piece figure, the Mother of God, on
the canvas. It has apparently been a work of love. The Englishman grows
red in the face, then deathly pale, and mutters: “You love her also!”
scowling at his supposed artistic rival.
“No,” answers Antony, “I do not love the lady; though I love my
picture. You need not be jealous my dear Englishman, the woman I love
is a much more flesh-and-blood being—Juffer Wilhelmina, daughter of the
ex-burgomaster Bodé Volcker. Her blonde picture is on that easel. I
don’t hesitate to tell you my secret, as I have yours. But this,” he
looks affectionately at the canvas, “is a work of love, love for my
art. It is my one hope to leave a name in the world. If I can finish my
altar piece before the time comes when the hand that is forever over me
crushes me in its iron grasp, I hope to be remembered—not as the
patriot, but as the artist!”
“And, by heaven! you will be,” cries Guy, who would certainly give this
picture of the woman he loves the post of honor and the wreath of fame,
“for you have painted not only a Madonna, but a goddess, fit to be the
mother of God.” Here he crosses himself devoutly and looks lovingly at
the picture again, which well merits his admiration, not only for the
loveliness of its model, but for the originality of its effects and
richness of its coloring.
Unlike the picture on the easel, this altar piece is sketched upon a
pearl gray background, the only completed figure in it being the
central Madonna, the likeness of Guy’s love.
The girl stands posed in virgin beauty; her white, blue-veined feet
rest light as a fairy’s on a rainbow of softest sunlight; her form,
outlined with all the beauty curves of woman, but full of maiden grace
and lightness, draped by robe of softest clinging white, and decked
with floating azure mantle. Above the ivory throat is the face of
exquisite brunette beauty, those soft though shining eyes, those lips
of coral red, those cheeks of changing lilies and roses that made Guy’s
heart beat so madly before, and make it beat so madly now.
The whole, deified by the grand soul that shines out from the lovely
face, backgrounded by and floating upon sun rays, and full of those
wondrous effects of golden light and deep warm shadow peculiar to the
school of the Venetian Tintoretto, makes Guy very eager; for it is the
breathing, speaking portrait of the woman he loves, yet still is not
equal to her.
For this is but one view of her mobile loveliness, and the night before
she had given him a different effect, a varied expression, a new
rapture, each time he had gazed upon her changing, vivacious, yet
always noble beauty.
He cries impatiently to the painter: “You don’t answer my question. You
only show me what makes me more hungry for her name. Tell me who she
is?”
The answer that comes startles him, dismays him. “She is,” says Oliver,
sighing his words, “the only thing upon this earth that Alva loves!”
“No, no, I’ll not believe,” gasps Chester.
“You must! She is the only thing he adores, the only being to whom the
Viceroy of Spain ever gives the loving ‘thou’.”
“I can’t believe you,” cries the Englishman, clenching his hands in
agony. “She is too pure to be the love of any one, least of all of that
fiend.”
“She is not too pure,” says the painter slowly, “to be his daughter.”
“His DAUGHTER? Saints above us!”
“Yes, Hermoine de Alva is the Duke’s natural daughter. Her mother, the
Countess di Perugia, an Italian lady, of great beauty, died four years
ago. Since then the Duke has given Doña Hermoine his own name. She is
the purest, sweetest, noblest flower that Spain has ever sent to the
Netherlands. Her mind is as bright, her intellect as strong, as her
father’s, but her heart is as tender as his is cruel. Still, she is the
daughter of Alva, and as such, my Englishman, I fear your love is
hopeless! Beware! Your brother loved a Spanish girl!”
To this Guy answers nothing. In a flash he feels the truth of the
painter’s last crushing remark. But a moment after Anglo-Saxon pluck
springs up again in him, and he mutters:
“By heaven! what a triumph to pluck the thing Alva loves most out of
his hands; to make his own daughter that he prizes the most of anything
on this earth the bride, the honored bride, of the man upon whose head
he has placed three thousand carolus guilders reward—the sea
pirate—‘The First of the English.’” and he bursts out into mocking,
triumphant, but loving laughter.
CHAPTER V.
“THE LION’S JAWS GAPE FOR ME!”
“Bravo!” cries the Fleming, “Bravo! But first she must love you.”
“I’ll make her love me,” exclaims Chester, looking at the ruby ring
upon his finger that seems to him not the red light of danger, but the
beacon of Cupid.
“Well, I’m glad you are so confident. I wish I were equally so.” the
painter sighs; then goes on energetically: “But now to business. You
cannot linger over your love-making. Queen Elizabeth must be warned of
the plots against her life, and of Ridolfi, the Italian banker in
London.”
“Oh, we’ll take good care of him,” says Guy, savagely. “I must join my
ship this evening and sail for England, and to do this I must get the
words of to-night so I can pass the gates of the town after sunset.”
“Why not leave at once?”
“Because,” answers the Englishman, “you have not yet given me the
translation of those letters. That will take you some time.”
“No, it won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I shall not make the translation; I shall simply give you the
key to the cipher, then they can be interpreted in England, and any
other letters of this correspondence that may come into your hands will
be equally readable by Queen Elizabeth and her ministers. It will save
you many dangerous visits here.” With this the artist sits down and
writes in a few minutes the explanation of the cipher.
Then saying: “Place that with the letters,” he gives it to Guy, smiles
at him, and murmurs: “Now I should think you would be in a hurry to
leave, with that price upon your head.”
“I’m not going until to-night,” answers Chester, almost surlily. “The
evening tide will serve as well for my vessel—it will not delay me
much. Besides—” here he catches sight of the painter’s face in
quizzical smile, and cries out: “Gadzooks, man! you don’t think I’m
going to leave Antwerp without seeing her again.” He waves his hand
toward the divine beauty of the face upon the canvas lighted up by the
morning sun, and shining upon him not only with heavenly, but with
earthly, love—at least so this audacious young man imagines.
“Ah! going to ask papa for the young lady?” jeers the painter.
“Not yet, though I have a letter of introduction to him,” remarks Guy,
piqued into producing the billet given to him by Doña Hermoine the
evening before, the one addressed to Alva, Viceroy of Spain.
“And you haven’t opened it?” queries Oliver, examining the missive.
“Certainly not; it is sealed.”
“Ah! my boy,” rejoins the painter, “you have too difficult a game to
play to be over scrupulous. You must know how you stand with this lady
before you attempt to see her again.” Then he horrifies Guy, for he
says: “You have powerful rivals; General Niorcarmesis looked upon not
altogether unfavorably by the lady’s father, in whose confidence that
officer stands very high.”
“A rival?” falters Guy.
“A rival? A host of rivals! Do you pay your beautiful inamorata so poor
a compliment as to think she has charmed no other man than you? Every
one is bowing down to the beauty and the wit of the Countess Hermoine
de Alva—generals and nobles.” Then he continues commandingly: “You must
open this letter. The game you are playing forces you to use every
card. It is apparently not a confidential communication, and must apply
to you, for she told you to deliver it with your own hand.”
While he is speaking, and before Guy can interpose, Oliver has rapidly
lighted a taper, passed the letter over it with the deft hand of one
accustomed to such business, and is presenting it, seal removed, open
to the inspection of the Englishman.
“Read it you must,” he says. “Your life might be the forfeit of too
strained an honor. Read it! Some day you may be compelled from the
exigencies of the case to deliver this to Alva. In your position you
should know what it contains. Read it, or I have no further
communication with you.”
“Why not?” mutters Guy, who, though desperately anxious to see the
handwriting of his sweetheart, still holds out.
“Because,” says the painter, solemnly, “this is a game in which both
you and I have put up our lives as the stake; and I play everything in
my hand. You must do the same, for my sake as well as yours. If I
communicate with you, if I am seen in your company, and you are