The First of the English: A Novel
scant locks. They have intruded into the apartment of romantic old age,
and the Countess without false hair and other artifices for effacing
the traces of decay makes an ugly picture that now becomes an awful
one; for on her face is now added to the ravages of time—demoniac hate.
As Guy leads his sweetheart away he whispers: “Did you note her
countenance? She is now your enemy for life.”
“Pish! What care I?” laughs Doña de Alva haughtily. Then she murmurs:
“I’m glad you stopped me from degrading myself to her level. Had I
touched her I should have been ashamed of it. When I’m thine by the
rights of Mother Church, bring a man’s forbearance to bear upon my
woman’s weakness.”
This kind of adulation makes Guy feel ashamed of himself, for he is in
his brawls with equals very headstrong and sometimes cruel and
bloodthirsty, and among his sailors he is not light of hand with
marling-spike and rope’s end when it is necessary for discipline of
ship.
Hermoine’s very glorification of him makes Chester hesitate to tell her
that he has been, in all his wooing of her, another being than the
Guido Amati she thinks she loves. But all the same he would not lose
her for the world, and will take the chance even of her reproach and
anger to make her his by right of church in face of man and God.
To do this he has many preparations still to make. And getting from her
arms once more he bids her adieu, saying: “To-morrow evening at nine
o’clock precisely. Remember, I shall have for you a little water fête.
The moon will not be up, but it will rise before we return. Will you go
for a sail on the water with me to-morrow night, my love?”
“Yes, and to-night if you would ask me,” laughs the girl. Then she says
wistfully: “If papa were only here, we could take him with us.”
“I—I pray heaven no,” answers her lover with a start.
“Oh, don’t fear, I am omnipotent over my Lord of Alva!”
Kissing her hand to Guy and filled with this idea, Doña Hermoine runs
back to the house.
This confidence in her power over Philip’s Viceroy brings sudden
changes over love’s young dream.
The very next afternoon, with clanking spurs and covered with the dust
of travel, escorted by some thirty dashing horsemen, my lord of Alva
comes galloping up to Hermoine’s country house, there to receive a
daughter’s welcome and a daughter’s love.
And oh! the happiness of that meeting!
The girl runs out to him, crying: “I didn’t think you would be here so
soon; your letter said four days, My Lord of Alva!” And courtesies to
him; but he springs off war horse, his serpent’s eyes aflame with the
one love of his declining years, and taking to his heart his piquant
child, whispers: “Then you, my Hermoine, are sorry?”
“Sorry that you have come?—delighted!”
“You must know,” remarks the Duke as he passes into the house with her,
“after I had written to you I received courier from Antwerp that
brought me such news from D’Avila, in command, that made it necessary
for me to return to the Citadel for a day or two.”
This is true; for beneath a long account of military advices as to
reinforcements, arms and munitions of war, and the various details of
the garrisons of Brabant and Flanders, Sancho D’Avila had chanced to
write almost as a postscript to the letter: “By the by, Your Highness
will be concerned to learn your old pensioner, the venerable Roderigo,
died four days ago.”
It is this careless line that has brought My Lord of Alva so suddenly
from Nijmegen, where he has been forwarding munitions to the besieging
army round Haarlem. Within an hour of receipt of this Alva, with some
muttered execrations, has taken horse and journeyed from the town on
the Waal with his body guard, getting relays of horses at
Hertogenbosch, Breda and Bergen, and by quickest route coming up the
Schelde from that place to Antwerp. The road passing through Sandvliet,
and it being but five minutes’ ride to this thing he loves best upon
the earth, my lord has turned his bridle and is now in his daughter’s
arms.
“I cannot stay long,” he remarks hurriedly; “I must be in Antwerp
to-night.”
“To-morrow morning will do much better. Your chamber is always prepared
for you. It is never occupied by anyone else.” Here the girl blushes
suddenly, remembering that her Guido had usurped it for some fifteen
minutes of his time. “Sup with me you shall!”
“Impossible, I must go on.”
“You shan’t, papa, YOU SHAN’T! You’ve been away so long from orders
you’re becoming mutinous and undisciplined.”
With this she treats him in a way that Alva loves from her, but would
permit from no one else upon this earth, man nor woman. While she is
speaking to him, despite his protestations, Doña Hermoine has got his
helmet off and is patting his gray locks and pulling the two long
tresses of his silver beard with her white hands and crying: “Now I
have you a prisoner! Ten kisses for your ransom!”
“Santos y demonios! you’re the worst rebel in the Netherlands,” laughs
the Duke.
“Yes, the most defiant and the only one who will conquer YOU!”
This pleases my lord of Alva, who is in what is for him a jovial humor,
and he says: “You’re right; I have Haarlem now as surely in my grasp as
if I had my troops in that dogged town. De Bossu has defeated Marinus
Brandt upon the lake, the town is now cut off from provisions—it must
be mine. Then when I have trampled out these rebels and can hand over
this land unstained by sedition to my lord, Philip the King, we’ll go
back to Spain together, and away from the fogs of this northern
country, among the pomegranates, the vines, the cork trees and the
olives, we’ll forget there ever has been war.”
“Yes,” cries the girl, “and we’ll take him with us.”
“Him? Who?”
“My coming husband.”
“Thy coming husband! Of whom are you talking, child?” says Alva in
astounded voice. “Never saw I woman that was so free from earthly
loves!” Then he laughs: “This is a rare change. Last time you were
drooping. You had psalm-book in your hand and ritual, and talked of
being the bride of Mother Church.”
“But that has all gone away.”
“I am glad of it, though I should not have said you nay. My Hermoine
would have made a curious nun.”
“Yes, she will make a better bride,” purrs the girl, going back to her
subject. “But I won’t tell you all about it unless you dine with me,
and only after dinner. See! Your escort are dismounting. They have had
a long ride. They are taking refreshment. Will not my lord have the
same mercy for himself he gives his soldiers? Besides, you look ill,
worried.”
“Not at all. There’s only one thing on my mind; the errand I came for,
and that, though important, is not, I pray God, immediate.”
“Then stay to dinner. I gave orders as I saw you ride up to the house.”
At this, clapping her hands, the curtains are drawn up, and the Duke,
taking his daughter’s arm, goes into the pleasures of the banquet. Here
for the first time since the night before, Hermoine sees the Countess,
and looking in her eyes knows that oath, or no oath, in some way she
will get word of what has happened unto my lord of Alva.
But to Hermoine’s delight Don Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Lord of Alva
and Duke of Huesca, spurred by curiosity, wishes tête-à-tête with his
lovely child, and to the astonishment and rage of her duenna says very
shortly: “Countess, I am glad to see you in your usual health. My
daughter and I, having weighty matters to discuss, would be alone. Good
afternoon, Doña de Pariza, I kiss your hand,” and he bows her to the
door with stately Spanish etiquette; then says: “Hermoine, your story.
Is it a jest about a lover, child?”
“No jest.”
“Tell me.”
“After dinner, papa; not until wine has made your heart a little
softer. You have hardened it in Holland.”
“Not unto thee,” says my Lord. “Tell me, pretty one.”
“Not unless you let me sit upon your august knee.”
With this she is upon his lap and with soft caresses and cooing words
of love and kisses and “Papa darlings” tells him of her lover.
At which he opens his eyes and remarks: “Your Guido Amati; he was
reported dead after the battle on the ice, I think.”
“Yes, but he has recovered from his wounds. Oh, it would take a great
deal to kill him! Remember his march across the Drowned Lands up there.
You passed the place to-day,” she points her hand.
“Yes, I recollect. That was a feat worthy of the Cid,” says Alva, who,
above all, is a military tactician.
“Ah! then give me to the Cid; the Cid would be worthy even of the
daughter of Alva. If Guido was worthy of the Cid he is worthy of me!”
And with pleadings, coaxings and caresses Hermoine wins from this man
who she thinks can refuse her naught, promise that he will grant her
hand to Colonel Guido Amati de Medina.
“Now you must not go,” she pleads. “He is coming here this evening. You
must see him. You must make him as happy as I am. Father, I never loved
you until now.”
“Oho!—If I had refused I suppose you would have hated me.”
“I never think of hate with you; but then, you never do refuse. And as
you never say me nay, you’ll stay and meet him. Give him your blessing;
father, promise me as you love me, you will give Guido Amati as my
promised husband, your blessing.”
“Then if I must do so, and you say I must,” mutters the Duke, a tremble
on his lips and a quiver in his eyelids, “I must first ride on to Lillo
and send from there a message to Sancho d’Avila.”
“You’ll come back? He will be here at nine. You will come back—promise
it, swear it!”
“I promise by this kiss.”
“Then take two to make sure,” prattles Miss Hermoine with happy eyes.
A moment after his escort being ready, pursued by kisses thrown from
fairy hands, the Duke mounts charger and canters off from the villa of
his daughter, whose eyes are streaming with happy tears and whose lips
are murmuring: “Father and future husband both together. To-night will
be a happy one for me!”
Alva rides on to Lillo, and having word with Mondragon, the commandant,
charges him to send courier at once with a note he writes to Sancho
d’Avila, commandant of the Citadel at Antwerp. Then with a father’s
natural instinct of curiosity in regard to coming son-in-law, Don
Fernando, chatting with the officer in command, one of his favorites,
says: “Mondragon, do you know a certain Guido Amati, Colonel in
Romero’s Legion?”
“Of course, your excellency, he was under me before he went to
Holland.”
“Ah! Tell me of him.”
“That’s little good, except that he was the bravest of the brave, and
as fine a swordsman as ever handled Toledo blade; but a more
undisciplined, gambling, rake and debauchee I never met, and I’m an old
campaigner.”
“A debauchee undisciplined, a roué drunkard,” gasps His Highness, his
face growing even more pallid than is usual to his sallow cheeks. “You
are sure you know what you say, Mondragon?”
“Certainly, I knew him well. But what matters it? Guido Amati is dead.”
“Impossible; though I heard the rumor.”
“It’s marked upon the muster-rolls of Romero’s command.”
“Are you sure?”
“Certainly!”
“Then if alive his name would surely be on the roster of his regiment?”
“As sure as there is paymaster in the army. Guido Amati is not a
gentleman to let his pay lapse by any negligence of his; but he is
surely dead. There are men, I think, in the garrison who saw him fall.”
“Ah! in the battle on the ice?”
“Yes. Young De Busaco, a lieutenant here on sick leave, and Sergeant
Gomez.”
“Send for them at once,” says Alva, quite astounded and shaken at these
curious words.
And De Busaco, coming into the apartment, salutes.
“Lieutenant De Busaco, I believe?” remarks Don Fernando.
“Yes, Your Highness, just promoted.”
“You were at the battle on the ice?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Who commanded there?”
“Colonel Guido Amati.”