The First of the English: A Novel
Hermoine would seize upon her knight’s hand to lead him to her bower.
But Chester suddenly hesitates and mutters: “The Countess de
Pariza—what will your duenna say!”
“She will say nothing,” remarks Miss de Alva in airy ensouciance. “The
Countess de Pariza will not be here this evening.”
“No? I thought she had the State barge with her.”
“Yes. She’ll keep that in Antwerp over night. She lodges with the
Countess Mansfeld. Since that night—you remember it, the one I
bless—that night you rescued me from the Gueux—the Countess de Pariza
fears the Beggars of the Sea worse than the fiends of the other world,
and though nominally she lives here, she is absent every evening that
she can be. She’ll not return before to-morrow morning.”
“That’s glorious,” laughs Guy, blessing in heart Dirk Duyvel and his
cut-throats, “it’ll save so much trouble; I’ll visit you in the
evenings. The Countess de Pariza has a woman’s tongue.”
“If she has,” cries the girl, “I’ll find a curb for it!” and for one
instant she looks like Alva’s daughter. “But come into the house.
You’re hungry, and with your wounds you must have strengthening food.
Come to supper.”
To this meal Guy, who has a sailor’s if not a ghost’s appetite, suffers
himself to be led; Doña Hermoine taking his arm as if she feared to
lose him.
Within the spacious hall of the beautiful country residence its fair
mistress claps her hands, and the two Moorish girls Guy had seen before
come running to her.
“Alida, have a room prepared for this gentleman, who sups with me,”
orders Hermoine. At which one of the maids, making obeisance before her
mistress, whispers in her ear:
Then Doña de Alva bursts out laughing, but says: “Certainly. He is my
friend, Colonel Guido Amati, whom you must honor as you do me. Señor,
when you return you will find the giant meal you asked for.”
Thereupon Guy, following the Moorish girl, who had brought him the
packet that evening at the Citadel, and who appears to be his
sweetheart’s confidential servant, soon finds himself in the most
luxurious chamber he has ever seen, though curiously masculine in its
fittings, furniture and contents. There are arms upon the wall, men’s
boots are in the dressing-room adjoining, and on the toilet table a
missal beautifully bound with the castle with the three towers, a raven
on each—the arms of Alva; in this is a book-mark curiously worked, and
signed “Thy Hermoine.”
“What masculine creature,” thinks Chester to himself, half jealously,
“makes himself thus at home here?” Turning to the girl who has shown
him hither, and who looks on him with curious and astonished eyes, he
says: “These seem a gentleman’s quarters?”
“Yes! It is the chamber of my lord his Highness of Alva, when he honors
us with his presence,” answers the maid, with a low courtesy, and
leaves Guy gazing about this sanctum of his enemy.
“Egad!” he thinks, “Truly I’m in the Lion’s nest now.” Then looking at
the luxury of the draperies and canopy of the bed he mutters: “A week
ago I slept in Hasselaer’s inn, in Haarlem!” and all the horror of the
famine and death of the leaguered city coming to him—his present luxury
seems almost a dream.
But devoting himself to business, for he is anxious for sight for his
sweetheart once more as well as dinner, the young man brushes from
himself all evidences of his journey, making his ablutions with softer
towels than his stalwart hands have ever clutched before.
Then striding down the great oak staircase into the hall below, he is
ushered by the other Moorish maid into an apartment that will never
leave his memory—perchance not for the impression it first made upon
him, but for what afterwards took place in it.
It is a lofty arched room in the right wing of the mansion, one great
oriel window at its end opening right over the waters of the Schelde,
through which the splash of its soft waves can be heard, for the sashes
are up and awnings extend above to keep out the setting sun. On one
side the wall is broken by three large arches. Heavily curtained with
thickest Flemish tapestry adorned with bullion tassels, they separate
this apartment from another one behind it. Opposite this, facing the
garden, are pretty windows opening on a balcony, which has brilliant
colored awnings over it and seats upon it.
Upon a cushioned lounge within the oriel window, the sun’s setting rays
tinting her dark hair, sits Hermoine. But even as he enters she is up
to meet him, saying: “I’ve made no change in my toilet; I couldn’t bear
to keep you waiting, you—you are so hungry!” then cries out, clapping
hands: “Supper instantly.”
At once the heavy tapestries in two of the arches, drawn up by bullion
cords drape themselves in graceful festoons, showing the dining-room,
in which stands a table covered with snowy linen, decorated by silver
and gold plate, sparkling with Venetian glass, and made pretty by
flowers.
“Colonel Amati, thy arm!” murmurs Hermoine, and putting a white hand
within his, the two go in together to a meal served in a luxury Guy has
never seen before, even at the court of Elizabeth; for there are
strangely curious implements to eat with called forks, of which he does
not know the use, preferring as a polished English gentleman his
fingers and a napkin.
But his hostess insists on showing him how to use these Italian
inventions, and teaches him how to get the instrument into his mouth
without skewering his tongue, over which Guy laughs rather ruefully,
crying: “I pray you, lady Hermoine, don’t make me lose more blood!”
At this she grows a little pale, and looking at him mutters: “Your
wounds, oh yes!—your awful wounds. Eat and grow strong for my sake.”
Then her loving hands compel Guy to make a giant meal, to which he is
nothing loath, as the cuisine is of the finest and the wine of the
rarest Spanish vintages—the Rhine wine cooled with snow and ice—a new
wrinkle in luxury to which the English sailor does the fullest justice.
All this time the girl eats nothing, making her meal off Guy with her
eyes.
“You—you eat nothing, my Hermoine,” whispers the cavalier, becoming
anxious on his side.
“Oh, I’ve grown used to fasting,” she says, “you know I was preparing
myself for convent life. Wouldn’t it have been horrible?” and a
charming moue gives piquancy to the embrio nun.
“You would have entered a convent for my sake?”
“I thought so. There was a great house in Valladolid—that I was to be
the Lady Abbess of—I was to dower it so grandly—”
“You—a lady abbess?”
“Yes. Don’t I look austere?” prattles Miss Happiness. “Perhaps, though,
I would have changed my mind. I was getting tired of the prayer-book
already. But now I think no more of midnight vigils—oh, Guido mio—tell
me it is not a dream.”
“I’ll do more—I’ll prove it!” whispers Guy, and rises from the table.
He looks as if he would like to make love again. And perhaps being very
willing for him to have his way in this matter, the young lady gives a
signal to her two Moorish girls who have waited upon them, as Chester
and Hermoine pass from the dining-room to the other apartment, the
curtains fall behind them, and they are alone.
“Come into the window; we’ll have moonlight later,” remarks the young
lady. And somehow they find themselves side by side looking over the
soft waves of the Schelde, a gentle summer breeze coming in upon them
from the open casement. “Would you like music?” suggests the lady.
“Your voice is enough for me.”
“Oh,” cries Hermoine, “I play the mandolin; I’ve some accomplishments.
Besides I can dance the cachuca and the bolero. To-morrow evening I’ll
have entertainment for thee. My Moorish girls play the harp and guitar,
and I’ll invite De Busaco over.”
“Invite no one, please.”
“Not even little De Busaco, who would not believe you were dead?”
“No.”
“Do you know, perchance, he guesses our secret?”
“Why?”
“When he came to me he brought two letters he had found, having taken
charge of your baggage. He handed them to me, remarking: ‘I think these
may have interest for you.’ You, my Guido, didn’t keep them with you.”
There is reproach in her eyes.
“I kept your letter with me,” answers Guy, with happy inspiration.
“My letters” corrects the girl; “I sent you three.”
“Oh, yes, but I—I call this one your letter, the one that came to me
last, the one that I carried with me to stain with my blood, the one
that sent me to win promotion against the English captain,” and Chester
produces the epistle taken from the dead Guido Amati after the battle
on the ice.
“Yes, the letter for which I cursed myself,” cries Hermoine, “the one I
had supposed had brought you death for love of me; the letter that
asked you to capture that brave Englishman, I’ll not call him cruel
now.” With this the girl sheds tears upon the missive Guy has given to
her, and murmurs: “Tell me all about your adventures when away from
me.”
Thus compelled Chester gives a detailed account of the skirmish on the
ice, from the Spanish standpoint, and finally tells her that he really
thinks one more battle will make him a general; and so goes on weaving
the threads very deftly that Colonel Guido Amati de Medina, all unknown
to himself, is bringing together to cause the extraordinary catastrophe
that will shortly come upon him.
A minute after he says, looking over the Schelde: “Are you not afraid
of visits from these Beggars of the Sea?”
“No,” replies Hermoine, “Every fighter of them has gone to Holland.
Besides, I have eight armed lackeys within the house and stables, four
more as escort of the galley, there is a garrison at Lillo, and half a
company at Sandvliet, just round that point.” Her white arm makes
graceful gesture. “I am safe here from every one but you, my Guido.”
And Guy, looking over the waters of the Schelde now illuminated by the
rising moon, thinks: “Safe from all but me.” For he sees in the Krom
Vliet, just against the South Beveland shore, the masts of the Dover
Lass, and into his head has come a plan by which he will take Hermoine
de Alva at her word and make her his very own.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE DAUGHTER’S DOWER.
To make preparations for this Chester’s time is desperately short. He
must advance as rapidly as possible his action as to Alva’s treasure;
besides this he wishes to guard most tenderly the good name of this
woman who proves her love of him with every look of her eyes.
Therefore, after some half hour more of confidences in which the girl
gives him one or two beautiful glimpses of her lovely soul, the
Englishman, fighting with his very self, rises to go, reluctantly,
lingeringly, but still—to go.
“Oh, not so soon,” pleads Hermoine. “You’ve—you’ve been away so long!”
“But I’ll be back to-morrow.”
“At what hour?”
“In the evening.”
“In the evening? Ah! That is many seconds from now.”
“I can’t come before, but I’ll be here as early as possible. For that
you have my word.”
“Where are you stopping?”
“On board the vessel that brought me from the North, the Esperanza.”
“The Esperanza? The fort at Lillo is nearer to me!”
“At Lillo perhaps the commander would think me well enough for duty. I
should have a garrison routine and would not be my own master to come
to see you at my will.”
“Yes, you’re right. My wounded hero, who made that wondrous march over
the drowned lands over there deserves a lazy month or two. All Brabant,
Flanders and Spain rang with the glory of that march.” And the girl
puts her arms about him whispering compliments that would make Guy very
happy did he not know that they belong to the passed away Guido Amati.
Then seeing his determination, she adds: “If you must go I’ll have
three minutes more of you.”
“How?”
“By going to your boat to see you off.”