The First of the English: A Novel
On this Chester, not wishing further discussion as to his identity,
suddenly offers his arm to the fair one, who is still cloaked and
hooded, and who, as the lights have flashed upon her, has drawn over
her face a Spanish veil. A moment later Guy feels a little thrill as
his offer is accepted, and a tiny hand is slipped within his arm.
Another second and he has assisted her from the boat and is passing
with her across the drawbridge, followed by the two attendants
supporting the duenna, who is apparently not yet very strong upon her
feet, and is in a state of semi-hysterics.
Just as they get to the last of the drawbridge Guy hears a sudden wild
shriek behind him, and desperate as is his situation, before the very
citadel of Alva, the open gate of which is waiting to engulf him, he
cannot refrain from an hilarious chuckle as he discovers that the
Spanish duenna has slipped upon the wet drawbridge and is now being
pulled half drowned from the waters of the moat. As her attendants
somewhat unskillfully assist her, the countess, falling into a wild
rage, throws etiquette to the winds and, with chattering teeth, and
mouth full of water, stammers that the two attendant hussies shall pay
for their awkwardness.
But Chester’s laugh dies away as the sentries at the gate bar their
passage by crossed pikes, and their ensign says hoarsely: “The
countersign, señor!”
“Santa Maria de la Cruz” whispers Guy.
The pikes drop as the officer waves his sword, and they step past him
through the heavy Gothic archway. At this moment a light flashing from
a flambeau stuck into a niche in the heavy masonry falls upon the lady,
outlining her figure more strongly. Catching sight of this the Spanish
officer doffs his steel cap, and bowing to the very ground, says: “Had
I known it was you, Excelentisima, my challenge would not have been so
peremptory!”
“You but did your duty, señor,” says the unknown. A second later she
has left Guy’s arm and having taken the young officer aside, who stands
before her with uncovered bended head, is whispering something to him
in Spanish very rapidly.
A portion of the ensign’s answer comes to Guy’s ear: “No,
Excelentisima, he has not arrived from Brussels.”
“Then papa will not be anxious for me this night,” says the lady
quickly. Retaking Chester’s arm she says to the young officer: “You
will attend us to the quarters of the Countess of Mansfeld.”
A moment later, preceded by the Spanish ensign, they pass through the
gateway to the main parade ground of the Citadel, and passing between
piles of cannon balls and all the vast implements of attack and defense
of the great fortress, move towards what are apparently the officers’
quarters. From the windows of one of these, evidently much larger and
more commodious and elegant than the rest, come the lights of festival
and the music of the dance. Situated immediately in the rear of the
bastion of Paciotto, the distance to this is quite short, and Guy has
little chance of conversation with his companion, being compelled to
speed by the storm, which is still cold and biting, and causes the lady
to hug her wraps very tightly about her.
They enter at a little side door of the house, a man servant in
gorgeous livery receiving them and immediately bowing to the earth.
“The countess expected me?” remarks Guy’s charge hurriedly.
“Yes, Excelentisima, the fête of this evening is in your honor. You
have been detained? It is now near midnight,” answers the servitor,
again bowing.
Any reply the lady might make to this is stopped by the entry of her
dripping duenna, who says querulously: “What are you standing here for,
Doña Hermoine? You are keeping the Countess de Mansfeld waiting
upstairs and me dripping with water and chilled to the bone down here.”
Then she cries: “Up, hussies, and help me change my raiment!” This last
is emphasized by a fearful chatter of her teeth and a ferocious wave of
her hand to the attendants, who scurry past the young Englishman and
his immediate charge.
Under the lights of the hall Guy notes that the maid servants are young
girls of lithe figures, pale olive complexions, and Moorish features,
perhaps slaves, as was common in Spain in those days. A moment after
these proceed up a little stairway with the Countess de Pariza, all
punctilio having apparently been entirely washed out of this dragon of
etiquette by the salt water of the Schelde, for she leaves Guy standing
with her charge without further remark.
Then he turns his eyes on his companion, hoping her face will now be
visible, but the heavy lace veil still guards her countenance, and her
wraps are still drawn tightly about her, giving outline to an
apparently exquisite figure beneath. While noting this the young
Englishman also observes that the lady’s mantle is of the very finest
royal sable, and fastened by jeweled ornaments of exceeding value.
“Had Dirk Duyvel known this,” cogitates Guy, smiling, “it would have
taken more than three hundred Carolus guilders to have bought that
cloak alone!”
But introspection is cut short; the sweet voice, even more beautiful
now, mixed with the cadence of the music of lutes and stringed
instruments from the adjoining part of the mansion, says: “My duenna
has apparently forgotten hospitality, but I have not.” Then she
commands the servitor: “Show Captain Guido at once to a refreshment
room. Not the one of the fête, as he is evidently not arrayed for
festivity.”
She laughs a little, and Chester can see a roguish flash in eyes too
brilliant to be entirely shaded by the lace, as she glances at his long
cloak that is draped around him, and murmurs: “Accept my hospitality; I
have a missive to give you.”
Then with light graceful movement she sweeps up the stairs and is gone,
Guy thinking complacently: “She does not guess my brave array; I have a
surprise in store for this lady.”
“This way, Señor Capitan,” murmurs the soft-voiced flunkey, and the
Englishman is shown into a private reception room, the regal luxury of
which astounds him, for its tapestried walls and inlaid Flemish
furniture excel those of his own Queen at Hampton Court and
Westminster. Here in a few minutes is placed before him as dainty a
repast as ever hungry sailor did justice to. The table is covered with
snowy linen, massive silver and fairy Venetian glass, and the viands
are oysters from the Schelde, cold partridge, a delicate salad of fresh
lettuce with just a suspicion of garlic, and a bottle of the royal wine
of Xeres itself.
“Egad, this costume à la Leicester will make my lady open her bright
eyes,” thinks Guy, as he throws off his long boat cloak and displays
himself in the gallant attire that he has assumed before leaving the
ship. Though his handsome morocco boots have suffered somewhat from the
sea water, the rest of his costume has been pretty well protected.
Altogether Master Guy Stanhope Chester is very well pleased with
himself, as he sits down and makes short work of the repast in front of
him, pouring down the wine of Xeres into his benumbed frame from a huge
silver drinking beaker, and finding himself silently and deftly waited
upon by the man servant. Thinking to discover more of the lady he has
rescued, Chester suggests to the lackey, “A fine fête your mistress
gives this night!”
“Yes!” answers the servitor, proud of the grandeur of his house. “We
have for the entertainment of our guests, rederykers from Ghent who
will give us declamation and farce, two gipsy girls imported from
Andalusia, our own court fool to make us merry, also the daughter of
the ex-burgomaster, who will dance for us in her father’s
highest-priced silks. I shall contrive to get into the hall to see her
prance; the Flemish wench has very pretty ankles, and the airs of a
countess,” guffaws the fellow.
But he says naught of the lady of the barge, and, the meal being
finished, the table is cleared by several flunkies in gorgeous
liveries, the resources of the house being apparently princely.
“Odds doubloons!” soliloquizes the young man, watching the last of the
lackeys disappear. “The Countess de Mansfeld’s hospitality is very
taking!”
Then a sudden coldness flies through his veins, in spite of the
generous wine, as he remembers that he is eating the salt of the
Spaniard in the Citadel of Antwerp.
But now suddenly the cold jumps from his body; he springs up with a
start, his eyes gazing for one moment in rapture and admiration, and
the next in a kind of dazed surprise, his hand seeking his breast
feeling something beneath his satin doublet as if to be sure that it is
really there.
For a girlish form of wondrous beauty and grace, with the fair skin and
deep, lustrous, languid, but vivacious eyes, peculiar to the purest
blood and highest loveliness of Castile, arrayed in evening dress, of
velvet court train and shimmering silk and lace stomacher, that shows
ivory shoulders and arms, stands before him, and the soft voice that
has charmed him all this night in a mixture of coquetry and shyness
says: “I thought you might like to see the face of her whom to-night
you saved from the Dutch pirates!” Then she laughs lightly and murmurs:
“If they had only known who I was I suppose the Flemish outlaws would
have cut my throat,” giving a little gesture across the white ivory
column that supports her lovely head, “before even you could have
recaptured me.”
“Who under heaven can she be?” gasps Guy to himself, clutching again at
his bosom. “She is the lady of the miniature, but who—WHO?”
But surprise and admiration are not all on his side.
As he rises the lady standing before him sees a gallant, well-knit
figure of six feet in height, stalwart shoulders, strong arms, active,
lithe body; above all this a face of manly determination, bronzed by
weather, giving almost the appearance of a brunette to a fair Saxon
cheek, though this is contradicted by light chestnut hair, blue, but
determined eyes, and a fair drooping mustache, which conceals a mouth
remarkable for its firmness. Altogether a manly man—one fitted to make
a woman’s heart beat a thousand to the minute; one fitted to love like
a troubadour and fight like a paladin for what he wanted in this world,
and standing a very good chance to get it; one who, at all events, for
this evening, makes the blood of the lady who faces him rush very
warmly through her veins, and brings even a greater brightness to her
eyes, though these were bright enough before.
Not that she has never seen handsome men, for most of the Spanish
chivalry of her age have bowed before her. But this new type, this
Anglo-Saxon manliness, this wealth of brawn, these great big honest
English eyes, this boy’s forehead and man’s face, make her heart beat a
little differently than ever dark-eyed Spanish grandee or soft
mustachioed Italian cavalier or knight of France or stolid Netherland
noble had made it beat before.
The same motive seems to actuate them both—involuntarily their hands
clasp.
But astonishment is too great in Chester—he forgets the Spanish
salutation, and the lady, laughing lightly, draws her hand away,
murmuring: “No kiss? You—you slight me!”
“Slight you! Is that a slight?” And in a second the lady utters a faint
cry of astonishment, perhaps even of terror, for Guy Chester,
forgetting the Spanish form of salutation, has given her a good,
whole-souled honest English kiss, such as the son of the squire was
wont to bestow on the fair lips of maids as they stood under the
mistletoe bough at Christmas tide.
“Madre de Dios!” cries the girl, blushing with almost a ruby light, “I
meant my hand. Holy Virgin! what a mistake. If the Countess had seen
it”—then, in spite of herself, she laughs, though she droops and turns
away her head.
Of this Guy takes advantage—for her beauty is of a kind to make men