The First of the English: A Novel
Hermoine and I are now located for the summer at the country house near
Sandvliet. Be quick, young man, the State barge is waiting.”
These words knock all thought of Alva’s treasure out of Guy’s mind.
“Give me some further details,” whispers the merchant, “about the house
of the Spanish woman.”
“I’ve told you where it is. To-morrow I’ll talk with you. Which is the
quickest way to Sandvliet?”
“The quickest way is on horseback, but it is not the safest.”
“I go the quickest way.”
“Past the sentries of Lillo? You will be questioned! You must have a
passport!” Then the merchant whispers in warning tones: “Are you going
as Captain Andrea Blanco or as Colonel Guido Amati, or as—the other
man?” Bodé Volcker’s face is white as he makes this last remark.
“As—My God! I must go as Colonel Guido Amati!”
“Do you think you’ll pass the fort at Lillo with a passport for Colonel
Guido Amati, who has been marked dead upon the army rolls three or four
months?” says Bodé Volcker, bringing the common sense of the merchant
to bear upon the romance of the sailor. “A year ago you might have
passed Lillo as Captain Guido Amati, but as Colonel Guido Amati, a man
of mark, a man who rode at the head of his regiment, a man who has been
mentioned in general orders as dead—no, no, you’ll throw away your life
and not gain the girl. You’ll throw away the treasure and sacrifice my
life.”
“You’re right,” says Chester moodily, “but see her I must.”
“Then go by boat, that’s your only way,” returns Niklaas.
“Very well, I’ll take the Esperanza’s gig; it is a quick pulling boat,
and I’ll take every care of myself—for her sake most of all,” answers
Chester. “It wouldn’t do for her to again mourn for Guido Amati.
Meantime do what you can up here. I’ll meet you to-morrow morning.”
With these words Captain Andrea Blanco strides out of the counting room
of the merchant Bodé Volcker and going on board the Esperanza gives
himself the appearance of Colonel Guido Amati as much as he can; for
his wounds have made him pale, and desperate exertions and desperate
anxiety have brought lines of care upon his brow.
Notwithstanding this, as his boat, propelled by six stalwart rowers,
catching the ebb tide, goes down the Schelde, there is a gleam of
intense happiness and expectant joy, upon the face of the dashing young
man.
This happiness is softer and more enraptured as with jaunty step and
purple mantle, in satin and silk, and rigged up as cavalier to meet his
lady love, Chester steps out of his boat on the dyke about half a mile
west of Sandvliet, where there is a pretty landing-stage and ornamental
steps running down to the water for lady’s use and a charming walk
shaded by poplars leading up to the exquisite chateau built by my lord
of Alva for his daughter’s summering.
The house though reached by the walk, is situated right upon the dyke
itself, giving it a water view and summer breezes blowing up the
Schelde. One wing of it even juts over the water, a boat could sail
beneath its windows.
The mansion is extensive, consisting of a central portion and two
wings; the one over the water from its luxurious balconies and awnings
seems that portion where the Viceroy’s daughter herself resides; the
other wing, as well as Guy can judge as he approaches it, is devoted to
the uses of the servants and contains the kitchen and other offices of
the house. The main portion is probably used for general reception
purposes. Altogether it is a very handsome and extensive water villa,
built with an exquisite Moorish grace and Orientally luxurious in its
fittings. This can easily be seen from the distance, for there are
blinds on the outside to keep the sun out, and the windows themselves
in some cases are of ornamental glass.
Running along the dyke in front of the house is a beautiful little
garden, the trees, for it is well into May now, covered with early
leaflets in their first green and freshest beauty. Some flowers,
probably raised in hot-beds or green-house, have been planted in its
grass plots.
At the end furthest from the villa is a little summer house covered
with vines and fronting on the water. This catches Guy’s eye as he
looks about, inspecting carefully the house before he makes his
entrance or knocks, calls or claps his hands for servants, after the
manner of that day.
Looking closely at it, Chester discovers within the flutter of a white
gown. Is it the instinct of love that makes his heart beat wilder than
it has ever beat before—save when she was in his arms?
A poplar tree stands by the hedge. Seizing this Guy swings himself
lightly into the garden, and carefully approaches the arbor, to see
therein enrapturing sight.
Hermoine de Alva—her face turned partly from him and looking seaward
down the Schelde, is half reclining upon a low rustic bench made soft
to her by cushions of down and silk, one little hand supporting the
beautiful head, one graceful foot and delicate ankle outstretched, and
all her lovely figure in softest draping white save where upon the
neck, wrists and borders of her garments are trimmings of narrow
black—makes picture upon which his eyes, that have so long been denied
sight of her, could linger in a kind of dreamy rapture.
But Chester is not the man for dreams when his sweetheart is within hug
of him. He only pauses to think how he can avert the shock of letting
her see a dead man live before her.
“She’ll think me a ghost and uncanny,” he meditates; for ghosts,
fairies and the supernatural were very common in those days.
As he stands hesitating the girl picks up a prayer book that is near
her hand and forces herself to read, then sighing puts it down. As she
moves a gleam from her white hand comes to him. It is from the ring he
gave her, and Guy can be silent no more.
“Joy never kills, otherwise I were dead of it now myself,” he thinks;
then says lightly, almost in her ear: “Doña Hermoine, why don’t you cry
me welcome?”
“Holy Virgin! that voice,” falters the girl. “That VOICE!” Starting up
and her eye catching him, she gasps: “Madre mia! Guido! My Guido, who
is dead!” next whispers with white lips: “Your spirit has not come to
reproach me—you cannot do that, when I wed only heaven because you’re
dead!” And her lovely eyes beam with horror of the supernatural.
“Not dead, but on the sick leave! They don’t give sick leave to dead
men.” Then thinking to destroy the supernatural with the commonplace,
Guy suggests: “Are you not going to ask me to dinner?”
“A dinner for a ghost!” This is a wild shrieking gasp from Hermoine’s
pale lips, as seizing her prayer book and holding on high the gilded
cross upon its vellum cover, she begins falteringly: “Exorcizare te—”
But he cries out: “No GHOST! Don’t exorcise me as weird!”
“No ghost? Impossible! I have mourned for you—ever since—the awful
news—of the Battle-on-the-Ice—when that cruel English cut-throat and
his men killed—”
“Not ME! Though they slashed me up a little here and there—a cut upon
the head, and a bullet in the body. I’ll prove I am not dead. Are these
ghost lips? Don’t you remember them?”
As Hermoine half reels Guy gets an arm about her graceful waist and
stops her gasps and sighs as such hysteria should be always stayed in
lovely woman.
Perhaps it is the vivid life that is in his kisses that makes the
girl—though it takes many of them to convince her—suddenly gasp:
“Alive! Yes, yes! you are alive! your heart beats against mine. My
Guido lives!” and bursts out sobbing, as if grief had come to her
instead of joy.
But she has ready and effectual comforter and soon her tears become
smiles, her sighs become love notes, she beams upon the dead that is
alive, like the sun itself, brighter, for the cloud it bursts through.
As for Guy, he makes up for enforced absence and lost time in a way
that makes Miss Alva blush and beam, then blush again and murmur:
“You—you need not prove to me so often that you live. I know your lips
are not ghost lips.” Here she murmurs reproachfully: “And you let me
mourn for you so long?”
“A prisoner—” begins Chester.
“A prisoner!—they take no prisoners!”
“The First of the English does! Besides my wounds,” mutters Guy,
disconcerted.
“Oh, yes, your frightful wounds. I’ll—I’ll be your nurse.”
“Yes, under your hands I think I’ll recover in time,” he says, his face
radiant, then goes excitedly on: “I’ll not get well before—”
“Before what?”
“Before I wed you.”
“Wed me?” And blushes fly over Miss Brunette, even to her ivory neck,
her eyes droop, though there is a joyous light in them.
“Yes, this trip I wed you!” This is a whisper, made almost ferocious by
its determination.
Here Hermoine astounds him, for she answers, her brave eyes looking
into his and her voice as determined as his: “Yes, this trip you
shall!” then falters: “I—I couldn’t bear to suffer as I have done
before. When you go to the front again, I go with you. Colonel Guido
Amati de Medina shall have a wife. But you shall not think of this till
you’re well, and that will be a long time, I’m afraid,” and the girl
looks at a slight scar upon her lover’s forehead as if it were a mortal
hurt.
At this he anathematizes himself as a heartless wretch to let her mourn
for him so long, no matter his duty and his oath to friend, for he sees
in the lovely face the lingering traces of a cruel sorrow.
A minute after his sweetheart gives Guy a start. She suddenly cries:
“Why what a prophet that little De Busaco is! He—he must have second
sight!”
“De Busaco! You have seen him?” mutters the putative Guido Amati
anxiously.
“Yes, he’s in the garrison at Lillo, sent there to recover. Frost got
into the poor little lieutenant’s wounds after the battle on the ice.
Hearing he had seen the last of you, my Guido,” she catches Guy’s hand
at this, as if she feared she would lose him even now, “I sent for him
and deftly inquired—as if with the interest of a passing friend—Oh, I
controlled my feelings well!—how you had passed away. And he told me;
but before he left said, ‘I venture this is not the last you will see
of Colonel Guido Amati.’ ‘Why not?’ I gasped, a wild hope in my heart.
‘Did you not see him fall?’ ‘Yes,’ De Busaco said nonchalantly, and I
thought his manner very heartless then, ‘but my friend, Colonel Guido
Amati, has a cat’s nine lives, and at present he has only sacrificed
one of them.’ Did the lieutenant guess they would spare your life?”
“Perhaps,” answers Guy. “This English cut-throat, as you call him, not
only spared, but saved my life, guarded me, took me to Enkhuysen, and
when I lay there with the fever of my wounds, saw that I was as well
nursed out of it, as if I were his very self.”
“Then he’s not an English cut-throat.”
“No, he’s an English knight, and some day I hope you’ll say he is a
gentleman even worthy of your esteem.”
“And so he is! He saved your life from the knives of these cruel Dutch
freebooters,” says the girl suddenly; then mutters in a horrified way:
“And I induced papa to increase the reward for your savior’s head.
Heaven forgive me!—ten thousand crowns are now offered for the man who
saved your life!”
“Diablo!” replies Guy, not over pleased at what he hears. “The
Englishman is very well able to take care of himself, so we’ll let him
alone and return to Colonel Guido Amati.”
“Apropos of him,” laughs Hermoine, “the ghost asked for dinner, I
believe—Will the spectre have spiritual oysters, hobgoblin turbot and
ragout from the witches’ cauldron!” and the girl who is now a picture
of radiant joy, claps her hands.
“No,” replies Guy, “but the ghost’ll take a giant dinner with
permission of the maiden of the fairy castle, and she may put as many
spirits in the wine as she likes.”
“Then haste, for I’m going to kill the fatted calf for you!” And