CHAPTER VI
A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
I
A week later was the marriage solemnised between donna Lenora de Vargas and Mark van Rycke, son of the High-Bailiff of Ghent.
The religious ceremony took place in the abbey church of St. Bavon in the presence of several members of the Grand Council and of all the high functionaries of the city. Nothing had been spared to make the occasion a magnificent and imposing one. The union between the two young people was known to have the warm approval of the King himself: His Holiness the Pope had sent a special blessing to the bride and bridegroom, whilst the Captain-General had granted the use of a number of picked troops to render the display more gorgeous. Seven hundred and fifty arquebusiers, spearmen and halberdiers lined the route of the bridal procession between the town-house and the church: they were dressed in the heraldic colours of the city of Ghent, one leg blue and the other yellow, and wore enormous hats with huge feathers dyed in the two colours.
The Regent too had graciously lent his court musicians for the occasion and they headed the procession with full orchestra playing the newest motets. The church itself had been magnificently decorated with tapestries, and a huge concourse of people lined the streets in order to view all this pomp and magnificence.
After the religious ceremony a grand banquet was held in the great hall of the Town House at which eighty-four privileged guests were bidden. It was served at separate tables each laid for a dozen guests, and consisted of twenty-five courses--which were both varied and succulent. There were fowls stewed in milk and dressed with sweetmeats and spices, there were pickled partridges and pastries, sausages and omelettes of every kind, whilst huge flagons of iced beer and Rhenish wines added to the conviviality of the entertainment.
Señor de Vargas presided at the chief table, and he had the bride on his right and the bridegroom on his left. The High-Bailiff also sat at this table as did Madame his wife and Messire Laurence van Rycke, and every one remarked that señor de Vargas was in high good-humour and that he bestowed marked evidences of his favour both upon the High-Bailiff and upon the bridegroom.
During the banquet the court musicians discoursed sweet music; in fact everything was done not only with decorum but with liberality: this was the first union between a noted and highly placed Spanish family and an equally distinguished patrician house of Flanders, and in a brief toast, tankard in hand, señor de Vargas expressed the hope that it might prove the precursor of a great many more.
Those present at the feast remarked moreover that the bride was beautiful beyond powers of description, that the bridegroom looked as usual, as if he had been spending half his nights in the taverns, and that Messire Laurence van Rycke looked pale and sick.
But nothing of any grave moment occurred during the length of this exciting and strenuous day. After the banquet the tables were cleared and many more guests arrived to take part in a grand reunion and ball which lasted well into the night. But neither the bride or bridegroom nor any of the grand Spanish seigniors stayed for that: a small procession was formed soon after the conclusion of the banquet, consisting of the parents of bride and bridegroom flanked by a guard of honour, which conducted the young couple from the Town House to the residence of the High-Bailiff, which was to remain their home until such time as a more fitting permanent abode could be provided for them.
II
And now the escort had taken leave of the young people: don Juan de Vargas and the High-Bailiff had to return to their guests at the Town House and Clémence van Rycke had gone to rest. The arquebusiers had gone and the serving men and women--with the exception of Pierre and Jeanne--had gone to watch the illuminations and to listen to the strains of the orchestra which could be heard quite plainly through the open windows of the Town House.
Clémence van Rycke had conducted the bride upstairs to the nuptial-chamber. With her own hands she had drawn a high-backed chair close to the fire and made the young girl sit down. Mark then placed a footstool to her feet and a down cushion to her back.
Lenora accepted all these little attentions without a word, but with a grateful smile. She was far too tired to speak, and when Clémence finally kissed her on the forehead and whispered a motherly: "God bless you, my child!" she could hardly murmur a feeble "Good-night!" in reply.
Then Madame van Rycke went away, and the house seemed suddenly to become very still. Lenora was still in her bridal gown, which was of stiff white brocade, with very high starched collar and hard stomacher that cramped her movements and made her sides ache. Her hair had been combed away from her forehead and only a few unruly curls lay moist against her brow: her delicate skin rebelled against the conventional white and pink unguents which the careful fingers of a highly-trained waiting woman had laid upon her cheeks and lips, and the dark lines of a black pencil round her lashes could not add lustre to her luminous dark eyes which, despite fatigue, shone with marvellous brilliancy.
She sat with hands folded before her, staring into the fire, and the flames in wanton frolic threw a golden glow upon her face and her gown and deep blue shadows all around her. Mark van Rycke--unseen by her--stood at the other end of the monumental hearth, one arm resting against the ledge, his head against his hand, so that his face was completely in shadow and she could not know that he was watching her.
"You are tired, Madonna?" he asked after a little while, and she replied, pathetically, like a child about to cry:
"Very tired, Messire."
"It has been a long and trying day for you," he continued lightly. "I confess to being very tired myself, and as soon as Jeanne comes to wait on you, I would beg of you that I might take my leave."
Then as she said nothing, but continued to stare into the fire in a listless manner, he added a little impatiently:
"Jeanne will not be long; she attends upon my mother every night, but will be at your service directly. Can you put up with my company, Madonna, till she come?"
"I am at your service, Messire," she rejoined stiffly, "if there is aught you wish to say to me."
"How cold you are, sweetheart," he said good-humouredly. "It would seem as if we were still in the presence of that awe-inspiring duenna of yours: what was her name?--I forget--but by the Mass! I tell you, sweet, that she froze the very marrow in my bones ... and you were so formal in her presence too--brrrr!--it makes me shiver to think of those half-hours spent during the past week in such a freezing atmosphere!"
He laughed--a quaint little laugh--half merry and half shy, and after an instant's hesitation, he drew a low chair forward and sat down in front of the fire, close to her. Even then she did not turn to look at him.
"Had it not been for your eyes, Madonna," he said softly, "I would have sworn that you were fashioned of marble."
Now he was leaning a little forward, his elbow resting on his knee, his hand shading his face from the light of the fire. He was studying her face closely, and thought that he had never seen any woman quite so beautiful. "Laurence was a fool!" he was saying to himself as he took in every detail of the perfect face, the delicate contour of the cheeks, the pearly whiteness of the skin, the exquisite line of chin and throat, and above all those dark, glowing, unfathomable eyes which betrayed all the latent fire and passion which coldness of demeanour strove vainly to conceal. "Laurence was a fool! He would have fallen madly in love with this beautiful creature, and would have made her happy and contented with her lot, whilst the bonds of matrimony would have sat more lightly on him than on me."
He sighed, feeling a little sorry for himself, but nevertheless he stretched out his hand and captured hers--an exquisitely fashioned little hand it was, delicate to the touch and pulsating with life, like a prisoned bird. Mark was a young man--and one who had already got out of life most of the joys which it holds, but just for a moment he felt a curious thrill of unaccustomed pleasure, in holding this perfect thing--donna Lenora's hand. His own hands were strong, yet slender, finely shaped and warm to the touch, but it must be supposed that as he held hers, he must--quite unconsciously--have hurt her, for suddenly he saw that she turned even whiter than she had been before, her eyes closed and quite abruptly she withdrew her hand.
"Do I anger you, Madonna?" he asked.
"Nay, Messire," she replied coldly.
"May I not then hold your hand--for a very little while in mine?"
"If you wish."
But she did not voluntarily put her hand out to him, and he made no second attempt to capture it.
"We do not seem to be getting along very fast," he said quaintly.
She smiled. "Seeing how we came to be together, Messire," she said, "we were not like to have much in common."
"Yet, we shall have to pass our lives together, Madonna."
"Alas!" she sighed.
"I own that the prospect cannot be very alluring for you--it doth not seem to suggest an interminable vista of happiness...."
"Oh!" she murmured as if involuntarily, "I was not thinking of happiness."
"How strange," he retorted gently, "now, whenever I look at you, Madonna, I invariably think of happiness."
"Happiness? With me?"
"With you, sweetheart, if you will but allow me to work for that object. After all, my dear," he added with that whimsical smile of his, "we are both young, you and I; life lies all before us. I own that we have made a sorry beginning, that the first chapter of our book of life hath been ill-writ and by clumsy hands. But suppose we turn over a few pages, do you not think that we might happen on a more romantic passage?"
He drew nearer still to her, so near that as he bent toward her his knee touched the ground and his arm instinctively stretched out behind her, so that at the least movement on her part it would close around her and hold her--as indeed he longed that it should do. She was so very beautiful, and that air of settled melancholy, of childlike helplessness and pathos in her made an irresistible appeal to him.
"Madonna," he whispered, "an you would let me, I should like to make love to you now."
But she, with a quick, impatient jerk suddenly sat bolt upright and freed herself almost roughly from that arm which was nearly encircling her shoulders.
"Love!" she said with cold sarcasm. "You?"
He bit his lip and in his turn drew back: the dour look in his face became more marked and the merry twinkle died out of his eyes: his knee no longer touched the ground, but he remained quite self-possessed and said, still quite good-humouredly:
"Yes, I--your husband as it happens, Madonna. Would love from me be so very distasteful to you then?"
"I have no love for you, Messire, as you well know," she said coldly. "I told you what my feelings were toward yon, the first time that we met--at the Town House, the night of our betrothal."
"Yes," he owned, "you spoke very plainly then."
"And since then I have had no cause to change."
"I am as distasteful to you as I ever was?" he asked with droll consternation.
"Oh!--not distasteful, Messire."
"Come! that's something."
"Enough, methinks."
"Not by a long way, but it is a beginning. To-day I am not altogether distasteful--to-morrow I might e'en be tolerated ... in a week toleration might turn to liking ... and after that, liking to..."
"Never," she broke in firmly, "I should have to forget that which is indelibly writ upon my memory."
"And what is that?"
"That you married me without love and without wooing--bought me like a bundle of goods just because my father is powerful and yours ambitious. A week ago we were betrothed, Messire. Since then how hath your time been passed?"
"In wild, ecstatic half-hours spent in the presence of your duenna and sitting opposite to the chilliest bride in Christendom," he said whimsically.
"And the rest of the time in the taverns of Ghent," she retorted hotly, "and places of ill-repute."
"Who told you that?" he asked quietly.
"Oh! your reputation is well known: how could it fail to reach mine ears."
"Evil tongues always make themselves heard, Madonna," he said, still speaking very quietly, although now he sat quite apart from her, with his long legs stretched out before him and his hands clasped between his knees. "I would you had not listened."
"I would I had not heard," she assented, "for then I should not have added one more humiliation to all those which I have had to endure."
"And I another regret," he said with a short sigh. "But even if evil tongues spoke true, Madonna," he continued more lightly, "the shame of my conduct would sit on me and not on you. They call me a ne'er-do-well in the city--and have it seems done so in your hearing! Well! let me plead guilty for the past and lay my contrition at your feet."
Once more the more gentle mood overcame him. The house was so still and there was something quite unaccountably sweet in this sentimental dalliance with this exquisitely beautiful woman who was his wife--sentimental indeed, for though she appeared cold and even cruelly sarcastic, he felt the strength of a fine nature in her. Here was no mere doll, mere puppet and slave of man content to take her lot as her family or her husband chose to shape it--content to endure or accept a husband's love without more return than passive obedience and meaningless kisses. At the back of his mind he still thought Laurence a fool, and felt how well suited two such warm natures would have been to one another, but for the moment a strange desire seized him, to win a kind look from this beautiful woman on his own account, to see her smile on him, willingly and confidingly, to win her friendship and her trust, even though no warmer feeling should ever crop up between him and her.
"Madonna," he said, and once again he dropped his knee to the ground and leaned toward her so that her warm breath touched his hand, which he placed upon hers, "there are many men in the world who ne'er do well because they have been left to the companionship of those who do equally badly. Will you deign to believe that all the evil that is in me lies very much on the surface? They call me wild and extravagant--even my mother calls me careless and shallow--but if you smiled on me, Madonna, methinks that something which lies buried deep down in my heart would stir me to an effort to become worthy of you."
His voice--habitually somewhat rough and always slightly ironical--was wonderfully gentle now. Instinctively, perhaps even against her will, Lenora turned her head slowly round and looked at him. He had never before looked so straight and closely into her eyes; and, as she bore his scrutinising glance, the warm blood slowly mounted to her cheeks. Her face was partly in shadow, only the outline of her small head was outlined by the ruddy glow of the fire, and the tiny ear shone, transparent and crimson, like a shell, with the golden tendrils of her fair hair gently stirring in the draught from the wide, open hearth.
As she was excited and perhaps a little frightened, her breath came and went rapidly, and her lips were slightly parted showing a faint glimmer of pearly teeth beyond. Mark felt a sudden rush of blood to his head; to be alone with this adorable woman so close to him, to feel her panting like a young creature full of life and passion, slightly leaning against his arm, to look into those wonderful, dark eyes and know that she was his, was indeed more than man could endure in cold blood.
The next moment he had caught her with irresistible masterfulness in both his arms and drawn her down to him as he knelt, whilst his eager lips sought hers with a mad longing for a kiss. But with an agonised cry of horror, she pushed him away with all her feeble might. For a moment she struggled in his arms like a wild creature panting for liberty and murmuring mad, incoherent words: "Let me go! Let me go! I hate you!"--the next, she was already free, and he had struggled to his feet. Now he stood at some little distance from her, looking down on her with a scared gaze and passing his hand mechanically backwards and forwards across his brow.
"Your pardon, Madonna," he murmured, "I did not understand that you could hate me so."
The fire was burning low, and the two candles in tall sconces at the further end of the room threw but a fitful light upon that hunched up young figure in the big, high-backed chair, cowering there half frightened at her own violence, tired out with emotion, her nerves quivering after the final, tense moment which had left her exhausted and almost unconscious.
Mark could only see her dimly; the stiff folds of her wedding gown and the high starched collar were alone visible in the gloom; she had hidden her face in the cushion of the chair. Presently a sob rose to her throat, and then another, and soon she was crying just like a tired child. Mark felt that he had been a brute and was seized with an infinite pity for her.
"Madonna," he said gently, "I think I can hear Jeanne's footstep in the corridor. May I call to her to come and attend on you?"
"I thank you, Messire," murmured Lenora, who was making a great effort to swallow her tears.
"Then I pray you dry your eyes," he pleaded, "I would be so ashamed if Jeanne saw that I had made you cry."
She looked up and even in the gloom he thought that he could see a swift smile pass across her face.
"To-morrow an you desire," he continued more lightly, "your old dragon Inez shall be here to wait on you, until then I trust that you will not feel too lonely, away from those you care for. My mother is an angel. You will love her, I think, and my brother Laurence is learned and well-read ... my father too is kind. We will all strive, Madonna, to make you somewhat more contented with your lot."
"You mistake, Messire," she stammered, "I..."
But already he had bowed before her and bidden her a formal good-night. She had meant to give him her hand and to ask his forgiveness, for indeed she had behaved like an ill-tempered child--a bad beginning for the role which she had sworn to play--but he had gone, and before she could call him back he was speeding down the corridor and anon she heard him loudly calling to Jeanne.
Lenora did not see her husband during the whole of the next day, and on the one occasion when she ventured to ask after him--with well-feigned indifference lest any one guessed that all was not well between them--Clémence van Rycke sighed, Messire the High-Bailiff gave a forced laugh and Laurence van Rycke frowned with obvious anger. And in the evening--when she retired to her room and felt strangely irritable and hurt at being left in such solitude--she questioned Inez, who had been allowed to come and wait on her and who had a marvellous faculty for gleaning all the gossip that was going about the town.
"They do say, my angel," said the old woman with that complacency which characterises your true gossip, "that Messire Mark van Rycke hath spent his whole day in the tavern opposite. It is known as the 'Three Weavers,' and many Spanish officers are quartered in there now."
"Heaven protect us!" ejaculated Lenora involuntarily, "I trust they did not quarrel."
"Quarrel, my saint?" retorted Inez with a spiteful little laugh, for she had no liking for these Netherlanders. "Nay! Messire van Rycke would not dare quarrel with a Spanish officer. No! no! it seems that the tapperij of the 'Three Weavers' was most convivial all the day. It is always frequented by Spanish officers, although the inn-keeper is said to be an abominable heretic: there was much gambling and heavy drinking there, so they say, and even now..."
And as if to confirm the old woman's say, there came from the house opposite and through the open windows loud noise of gay laughter and hilarious song. A deep flush rose to Lenora's face.
"Close that window, Inez," she said peremptorily, "the night hath turned chilly."
She went to sit by the fire, and curtly dismissed the gossiping old woman. She knew all that she had wanted to know, and the flush of shame deepened on her cheek. There had been times during the past week when a vague hope had stirred in her heart that mayhap life did hold a small measure of happiness for her. There were times when she did not altogether dislike Mark van Rycke, when that winning merriment and good-humour which always lurked in his eyes provoked a response in her own ... and others, when certain notes of gentleness in his voice caused a strange thrill in her heart and brought tears into her eyes, which were not altogether tears of sorrow. She had also felt deeply remorseful at her conduct last night at the cruel words: "I hate you!" which she had flung so roughly in his face: indeed she could scarcely sleep all night, for she was persistently haunted by the dazed look in those merry, grey eyes of his which had just for one brief moment flashed tender reproach on her.
But now she felt nothing but shame--shame that she should ever have thought tenderly of a man who could so wrong her, who had so little thought of her that he could spend his whole day in a tavern whilst his young girl-bride was left to loneliness and boredom in a house where she was a total stranger. She thought him vindictive and cruel: already she had thought so last night when he went away hurriedly without waiting for the apology which was hovering on her lips. Now she was quite sure that she hated him, and the next time she told him so, she certainly would not regret it.
But somehow she felt more forlorn than she had been before that dotard Inez had filled her ears with gossip. The house as usual was very still, but Lenora knew that the family had not yet gone to rest. Awhile ago she thought that she had heard footsteps and a murmur of voices in the hall below. A desire for company seized the young girl, and she racked her brain for an excuse to go down to her mother-in-law, who she knew was kind and who perhaps would cheer and comfort her a little and give her kind pity in her loneliness.