The First of the English: A Novel
And gazing round Father Anastasius starts, crosses himself, and gasps:
“A miracle! Our Mother’s face is yours, my child; the very eyes; the
very mouth—miraculous!”
“You see Holy Mary has taken my face to intercede for me,” whispers the
girl, an inspiration in her brain. “Quick; as short a ceremony as will
make us one.”
Thus adjured, the priest, thinking it the very command of the Virgin
herself, mutters over Guy Chester and Hermoine de Alva, though hastily,
the sacrament of the Catholic Church that makes this man and woman of
one flesh, one body and one name.
As he utters response a sudden exultation comes into Chester’s soul;
God will not bring despair upon this noble woman, this tender angel,
who whispers to him: “I am your wife; now let me see if my father dare
kill my husband!—holy man of God, your blessing.”
And the priest, putting hands over them, there come tears in Father
Anastasius s eyes and he murmurs: “Benedicte! The Virgin will guard the
man you love.”
Then Chester feels upon him his bride’s kiss with lips that are cold as
death itself; and she rising steps out to her father and says with
hoarse, unnatural voice: “It is done!”
For this place is like a torture chamber now, and the voices of all are
low and discordant; even Hermoine s own tones have grown harsh and
rasping.
“He is absolved?”
“No, he is married.”
“What?”
“YES, HE HAS MARRIED ME.”
“Married you! Misericordia! You will forever look upon your father as
your husband’s butcher. Bring me the accursed priest!” cries he of
Alva, rage mingling with his anguish.
“What would you of me?” answers Father Anastasius, striding from the
altar.
“How dared you marry them?”
“By command of the Virgin! See! Our Mother has taken the face of his
bride to protect him.”
“Ah—h! the juggling trick,” cries Alva, “the picture painted by the
traitor Oliver that comes in to stop my vengeance. But it shall not; it
is an affair of State!” And he signs to the hangman who is beside him,
the noose in his hands.
But Hermoine, confronting her father, answers: “No dastard death for my
husband, who is as noble as yourself. At least the mercy of the sword.”
“Take it! I give him as noble a death as I granted Egmont and Horn. Hew
me off this Englishman’s head on that table.”
“Before my eyes?” shudders his daughter.
“You wish it. It is an affair of State.”
“Father!” screams the girl. For the executioner has drawn his sword;
“Father, as you hope for mercy give it to me. Do you want every one on
this earth to call you an accursed and cruel butcher? There was only
one who did not before to-night. She was your daughter. Would you have
her say, ‘My father killed my husband?’”
But he answers hoarsely: “Quick, get this thing through.”
Four or five of the men would now drag Guy to the table, but Father
Anastasius striding to the altar, stands over the bound man and cries:
“This is sanctuary! Anathema upon him who enters sacred place with
drawn sword and naked weapon! The Madonna commands me! Stand back, or
upon you I will launch the curse of Mother Church!” For the hermit
priest has got to thinking he has the Virgin’s command to save the
bridegroom.
But Alva, brushing through the crowd of faltering soldiers, cries: “Get
you gone, you cursed priest,” and would make in to seize the bound man,
for his men hang back as the priest, raising up his voice, utters:
“Anathema!” and begins the awful sentence of excommunication.
To this Fernando laughs hoarsely. “Monks fright me not, I who have led
army against the Pope!” and will perchance play executioner himself
upon the husband of the daughter he loves.
At this moment a dark, light-footed girl flies into the window, crying:
“This way! Quick!”
Alva calls his men to turn about—but it is too late—they all have been
so concerned in the execution that they have not noticed the rush of
men who are now upon them headed by Corker, with a wild English cheer.
It’s scarce a moment ere the astonished body guard are either cut to
pieces or driven off to be pursued and butchered in the outer darkness
round the house, leaving their master all alone among his enemies,
though unwounded; for his armor has shed pistol and arquebus balls. His
head is unhelmed and in a minute he would be dead, for Chester now has
sword within his hand, and coming up he cries: “It is my turn now! My
Lord of Alva!”
Then round the iron Duke, who looks steadfastly on the doom that is
upon him, are thrown a pair of girl’s white arms, and Hermoine de Alva
from off her father’s breast beseeches: “Spare him, if you have mercy
on me! Spare him, husband, if you would have a happy bride in your arms
to-night—for in your arms I should remember that you were the murderer
of my father.”
“Spare him, young man, I charge you, as I saved you,” cries the priest.
“Yes, that you did, good Father Anastasius,” cries Hermoine, as Guy
drops his hand; and in another moment the hermit priest gets such a
kiss as never St. Anthony had, else he had succumbed; and the good
father murmurs: “For this feast of the flesh I will fast another week!”
But they are all laughing now, and joyous, save Don Fernando, as he
mutters: “What ransom?”
Then to Guy’s eyes come the picture of the blockaded town, the men
gaunt with hunger, the famishing women—the starving children—and he
answers: “The freedom of Haarlem!” and feels he has a nation in this
chance.
“Never! I have gold to pay for my life, but before one banner recedes
from Haarlem leaguer, or one soldier turns his back upon that town, hew
me down!” is Alva’s determined answer. “Butcher me if you will, but no
one shall say that Don Fernando de Toledo sold for his life his
allegiance to his sovereign.”
“Let them have a little bread.” Guy is pleading now.
“Never!”
“Let the women and children come out to make the fewer mouths to feed!”
is Hermoine’s appealing cry.
“Never!”
Then if there were Dutchmen about him, the Duke would die; as it is,
the English seamen cast on him glances of hatred and rage and lay hands
upon their swords.
But Chester cries: “Down with your weapons! Not from the hands of any
of my men can harm come to the father of the blessing of my life. Come
with me, my Hermoine.”
And the girl goes to him.
Seeing this my lord of Alva falters: “You—you are going to take her
away?”
“Why not? You do not love her!”
“By my soul I love her. It was an affair of State. At least promise if
you will not live with me, Hermoine—you’ll come back to visit me some
time—after you have forgot.”
But the girl answers: “No. I could not come without my husband, and I
could never trust your love for me to save his life, had you the power
to slay. It would be—‘an affair of State!’ What was my life, my
happiness, everything I had on earth, as I plead with you scarce five
minutes since, to ‘an affair of State!’ Father, keep your statecraft,
it has cost you the only heart in all this world that—that loved you!”
Here the beautiful being falters in her speech, and going up to this
man who had been so much to her—till now—she murmurs: “You were always
tender and good to me—before!” and places kiss upon his brow.
On this the Duke begins to plead with her to think of his gray
hairs—she who is the comfort of his declining life—and finally bursts
out at Guy: “This is a selfish love of yours—to take this girl who has
had princess’ state to live with you, a rover of the sea.”
“But with her I have taken a mighty dower—worthy a King’s daughter; all
THY UNLUCKY TENTH PENNY TAX, my lord of Alva!” answers Chester, who
can’t withhold this parting shot.
“How so? From whence?”
“From thy treasure house under the Bastion of the Duke.”
“Good God! Impossible!”
“It was the dying Paciotto’s secret!”
“I—I can’t believe,” falters Fernando, pale, trembling, broken.
“Believe by this! The statue moved its hand!” jeers Chester.
“And Roderigo, my watcher, died six days ago! It is fate—fortune has
turned her face from me,” moans he of Alva, and bows his head upon his
breast, as if hope had left him.
From this picture of despair Guy leads his bride away; but chancing at
the door to turn back for one last glance at her father who is now
alone, Hermoine begins to shudder and sob even in her husband’s arms.
The man of iron soul is kneeling before the altar piece, from which his
daughter’s eyes look down at him, and sobbing—he who never sobbed
before.
It is the last Alva has of his child in this world from now on. After
the beautiful being who had been the joy of his declining years turns
her back on him, fortune turns her face from him also. Though he wins
Haarlem, and his executioners, five of them, working day and night,
butcher the burghers of that hapless town and kill the bravest
defenders of its walls, Ripperda, Hasselaer, and its other heroes of
heroes; Don Fernando fails at the siege of Alkmaar.
He is not the Alva of old; and when some months after he departs for
Spain he goes broken in mind and body, having lost the confidence of
his king, but gained the immortal infamy of being the most cruel man of
a most cruel age—all his unpaid creditors in Holland and Brabant shout
execrations as he leaves their shores; they do not know the true story
of his statue.
Even Requesens, the succeeding Viceroy, believing his soldiers’ rumors,
tears Alva’s great image down, and goes to digging for his treasure—to
find naught but the wondrous casket that contained it.
But the Duke takes with him to Spain one thing; that he now values most
of all on earth—the altar piece painted by the genius of Oliver, and it
is set up on high behind the grand altar in the cathedral near
Vittoria, where my lord of Alva worships. Soon peasant tales are told
that he of iron heart cries each day before the Madonna, for the myriad
lives that had been lost to the world through him in the Low Countries.
And now in after years that picture is attributed to the early brush of
Murillo, and goes to make that Master’s glory—tourists being told it is
without price.
So the dead Oliver lost even renown. His genius went to give another
fame; his body tossed into his own beloved Y; his head thrown into
Haarlem as carrion. He died that Holland might live free, that a new
age might come when men could live their own lives, think their own
thoughts, and cry out to God in their own way. He has only the glory of
the patriot—but is not that enough?
From the sight of her father’s despair and humiliation Guy carries his
bride to the landing-place. Here all his boats await him, the seamen
rapidly bringing down such of Hermoine’s belongings as they can readily
put hands upon, Alida, the Moorish girl, directing them. Finally, her
mistress’s jewel case in her hand, she takes seat by Hermoine in the
stern sheets of the gig.
Then Chester calls to his men and the seamen bending to their oars, the
gig parts the waters of the Schelde making toward the Dover Lass.
“Dost remember our last boating on this river together?” whispers Guy,
into the ear of his bride. “The unknown lady, who was to promote me to
a Colonel, eh?”
“And have I not done more for you, my husband?” returns Lady
Chester—née Hermoine de Alva—in his ear.
Looking on her beauty, Guy’s glance is answer to this; there is no need
of words.
Making the Dover Lass, Chester carries in his arms his bride, and
bearing her to the cabin, Hermoine looks round and murmurs, startled:
“Thy ship is fitted up as a State galley or sovereign’s ship of pomp,
my lord,” for Achille has, with French taste, made the cabins like a
lady’s boudoir, with fresh flowers brought from the shore.
“Yes, it was for a honeymoon cruise I decorated these cabins. It was
for thee.”
“And you felt so sure of winning me—with against you all the power of