The First of the English: A Novel by Archibald Clavering Gunter - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXIII.
“IT IS AN AFFAIR OF STATE!”

Then pandemonium breaks forth in the girl, and she laughs in awful jeer: “My father offers me gewgaws for my lover’s life. Perhaps he’ll toss the gold for my affianced’s head in my lap and think I’ll spend it in buying sweetmeats and dainties for the mouth,” next sobs to Guy, who, the entrances of the room being all guarded, has now no chance of escape save by almost superhuman means: “Oh, Mother of Mercy! why did you not trust me? Did you suppose I loved only a name?” then screams out hoarsely: “Father, spare him! You promised! Spare at least his life. Father, mercy for ME!”

For there is a bustle outside, the noise of men coming into the house; but it is only the lieutenant of the guard who enters, a fiddle dripping with blood in his hand and announces: “We have killed every man in the boat, musicians and all.”

At this there is a spasm of hope, the first that has come to Chester. In his military mind has sprung this idea: “The butchery of the musicians was warning to my boats that their captain is beset.”

But this is effaced by the agony of her he loves, for Hermoine is now pleading with her father as if for her own life, calling him loving names as if she adored him in her agony, and sobbing, though she has no tears: “Father, don’t you hear me, don’t you feel me?” As her arms are round the grim old Viceroy’s neck. “Don’t you know—that I—love this man!—See it, believe it by the agony of my breaking heart. If you kill him you kill me. I had mourned for him as dead before; must I be widowed AGAIN?”

Thus supplicating, Hermoine de Alva looks lovelier in her despair than in her joy, for there is now about her a kind of nervous intensity and ethereal electricity that makes her not wholly of this earth; she is as Eve pleading for Adam, not to God, but—to Satan.

But Satan is not merciful, and thinking her father does not really understand how it is her very life he is cutting short, she cries out: “You shall believe my love by this!”

Then this being whom modesty now covers with blushes, in the presence of grim old arquebusiers and all the lackeys and attendants the noise has drawn to the doors of the room, walks up to Guy Chester and her arms go round him and she is kissing him and sobbing over him, and begging him not to think she would have betrayed him for all the world, she loves him so.

Even as she does this Hermoine de Alva seems suddenly to change. For, as she flutters over him, Guy, having golden opportunity, whispers in her ear: “Get me time—warn my boats—get me time!”

At this work she goes with every artifice of mind and body.

She looks about, then seems to grow faint, and mutters: “Water—water—my head!”

At this her father cries: “Good heavens, you are swooning!”

To him she jeers: “That would make it easy for you. When I came to I would be bereft. No, I’ll not faint while he lives—water!”

This Alva would bring her, but starting, she motions him away and shudders: “Not from your hands; my maid, Alida—quick!”

On this the Moorish girl, who is looking on, a strange pathetic interest in her face, comes to her bringing a goblet.

As Hermoine drinks she whispers: “To the landing, call them on—boats—the English boats!”

A quick look of intelligence flies over the subtle Moorish face, and Alida, bearing the goblet with her, steps out of the apartment.

This the Duke sees not. After his daughter has shuddered from him he has turned away and pressed his hand upon his heart, his face working strangely.

From this on he does not seem to wish to look upon his child, who now comes with all her soul to delay, if she cannot change, her father’s purpose.

In this she is strangely aided by an enemy; the Countess de Pariza comes laughing in and giggles, viciously: “You are going to burn him by the slow fire, he is a heretic.”

“Heretic in your teeth, hag,” cries Chester, “I am as good a Catholic as my lord of Alva himself.” And memory of his God coming over him with coming doom, he begins to tell his beads.

“A Catholic,” laughs Alva harshly, “as good as I? And raise thy hand against the King of Spain!”

“Yes,” answers Guy, “I am a Catholic, but I am also an Englishman.”

“There’ll soon be one less of them to fight against the flag of Spain,” sneers the Viceroy.

To this is joined a low wail of despair from Alva’s daughter.

The executioner, one of whom my lord always carries with him for sudden use, comes in, in leather jerkin, and with awful cruel face, and he of Alva says to him: “How now, fellow, where is thy noose?”

“I thought, my lord,” answers the man, “from what I heard outside, it was a burning at the stake and wanted to know where it should be done? There’s faggots enough in the kitchen for roasting of my man. Shall I burn him in the great courtyard in front of the house? Shall I burn him quick or burn him slow? I can find tallow fat enough to lard him!”

Here my lord of Alva sees something in his daughter’s face, though she says no word to this, but simply strides up to her father and looks him in the eye; and he, turning his head away, mutters: “The noose; he is not a heretic, hang him up from a beam outside.”

“You are resolved on—on this?” Hermoine’s soft voice is broken now and harsh.

“Yes! It is an affair of State.”

“My tears, my prayers, my breaking heart—” she sighs this out with gasping sighs, “make no—change—in—your decree?” And there is a sweat of agony about the girl’s beautiful eyes instead of tears.

“No. It is an affair of State.” Alva’s lips tremble as he says it.

“Then I claim for this man I love, since he is not a heretic, the privilege of receiving the last rites of the church. You shall not damn his soul though you condemn his body. You are too good a Catholic to say a Catholic shall die without grace and church rites.”

To this Don Fernando answers shortly: “There’s no priest within reach.”

“You bring the executioner, but not the priest!” she jeers. “Give him and me at least time to tell our beads—for when he dies—my heart breaks also.”

But here there is a bustle at the rear among the arquebusiers guarding the doors, and a man garbed as in the priesthood of the Catholic Church, says: “Room, a father of the church!” And the soldiers permitting him to pass, Guy sees with amazement it is the Father Anastasius he had hoped this night would celebrate his wedding.

“Now,” cries Hermoine, “my Lord of Alva, you cannot refuse.”

“He shall not,” says the priest, “not to me, Father Anastasius, who have lived in Zeeland persecuted all these years for love of the Lord; he dare not refuse permission to save this man’s soul.”

“And why not?” answers Alva haughtily.

“Because I will anathematize you. Great Catholic that you are, you have no right to violate an ordinance of Rome.”

“Then have your way. Bind him securely. Then let him make his orisons to you—in yonder chapel, if you think it would be more holy—and save this man’s soul. Now, girl, get thee to thy chamber.”

“Not until I see the last and hear the last word of the man I love. You have denied all I have prayed you for, you have refused to spare the life of him I love; and I have not cursed you for it—because I am your daughter. But I will call down heaven’s anathema upon you if you send me from his side while life is in him.”

To this Alva says nothing but sinks down at the table, putting his head in his hands, muttering to the lieutenant: “On your life, beware he does not escape you; that is all.”

Then the entrance of the chapel being guarded, Chester, bound and helpless, is led in there, and sinks down before the man of God.

But even as he makes the confession of the dying sinner, there is the frou of silk about him and the white laces and orange flowers of bridal robe brush his face that has been bruised by arquebus stocks, and a beautiful being upon whose face is despair but also love divine, sinks down beside him and sighs out to the priest: “Not the sacrament for the dead, but the sacrament of marriage!—with this man I love and who loves me—and who has taken his life in his hands every time he looked upon my face. Now I know what you have risked to gain me—my Guido!—now I know—my Guy, my Englishman!”

“But my lord of Alva!” mutters the monk, aghast.

“You, didn’t fear him a minute ago. Be merciful as you are good. Look at the altar piece; see, the Madonna pleads for me!”

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 Spain? What indomitable determination, what intense assurance you English have!” The last is a slight laugh. Then her face grows serious and she falters: “What awful risks you took to win your bride, my Guy—my Englishman!”

But Chester has to tear himself from her and go on deck to forget the bridegroom in the sailor. The flag of England is run up on the Dover Lass, her sails are spread, and the vessel speeds down the Schelde estuary, and passes Flushing, for Guy will not stop there for fear of pursuing Spanish warships.

The next evening as they drop anchor they hear the merry church bells of Harwich steeple.

“Welcome to England,” cries Guy, and takes his bride on shore. Here it is given out that Chester has captured a galleon of most wondrous riches: and he pays thereon ten per cent., as is usual, to the crown of England, by Drake, Hawkins and other rovers of the sea.

The rest of the treasure, by the law of the land is his, and he makes division with Bodé Volcker, paying him his share. With this money in hand the commercial Fleming hies him to Holland, and some years after when Amsterdam is taken by Orange, settles there, to become one of its merchant princes.

When they are paid and the rewards are given unto them, there are no happier sailormen carousing in the ports of England than those of the Dover Lass; and for weeks afterwards when a Jack tar is seen in Plymouth or Portsmouth sporting two big watches, bought from excited Jews, the cry is: “That’s one of Chester’s men, no one but a Dover Lass could flash such elegance!”

These things coming to the ears of Queen Elizabeth, Her Majesty remarks to her prime minister: “Burleigh, this Sir Guy Chester is the grandest thief of us all. He has stole that minx of Alva, and he and the girl have got together and robbed her father, the poor old Duke.

“They took Your Majesty as precedent,” murmurs Burleigh. “Dost remember the eight hundred thousand crowns?”

“Yea, in God’s truth I do! But this Knight of mine, Chester, is lost to me as a fighting man if his fortune is a fifth what they say it is, and his bride’s loveliness is a tenth what rumor gives to her. Bring the wench to me. I would lay eyes upon this Spanish beauty.”

“In truth,” answers Cecil, who has seen and wondered at Hermoine’s loveliness, “Lady Chester is the most beautiful woman on earth—saving Your Majesty.”

“Out upon your cozening courtier’s tongue—that ‘saving your majesty’ was an afterthought,” laughs Elizabeth. “But bring the wench with you, I believe you’re half in love with her yourself—you old philanderer—bring me this minx of Alva, quick!”

So Sir Guy Chester, coming with his bride to court, Hermoine, by the graces of her mind, which are enchanting, and by her beauty, which is grand and winning, sends Shene and Westminster wild with admiration.

Looking on this, Queen Bess remarks sadly: “Good fortune has made this Chester a carpet knight; he now eats with that Italian abomination called a fork. Still, he has an eye for treasure; his lady’s diamonds are finer than my own. Perchance he may make a good Lord of the Treasury, for he’ll do no more fighting—unless he is a fool.”

Elizabeth’s guess is true, Chester buying great properties round London, settles down in almost princely state with his fair bride to contented happiness; though some ten years afterwards he buckles on his sword, as every true Englishman did, and fitting out at his own expense six stout vessels, the smallest of which is the old Dover Lass, which Dalton commands now, he takes his station in the channel, under my Lord Howard of Effingham, to battle against the great Armada Philip of Spain has sent against the liberties of his country.

That glorious victory is the last sea fight of the “First of the English.” From that time he lives most of the year amid the mild climate of the Kentish coast, which pleases best his Spanish bride, who remembers the soft breezes of her native land. Here, to the end of her long and happy life, she reigns bride of her husband’s heart and mistress of his soul.

Their one sorrow is that no son comes to inherit their great estates, but they have a daughter, brunette-like as her mother, with Hermoine’s ivory skin and glorious, Madonna eyes, and she marries into a great English family, bringing to it a dower of lands that now makes it one of the grandest and richest of England’s ducal houses.

Every now and again some daughter of the house has Hermoine’s exquisite eyes, ivory skin and wondrous hair, and her loveliness is not that of the North but of the South. Then her brothers and sisters laugh and say it is the Spanish beauty broken out once more, though they have forgotten from whence it came.

It is only a legend with them now in early chronicle, of the hardy sailor, the indomitable fighter, the non-despairing lover, who stole Alva’s treasure and with greater fortune won the noble heart of Alva’s daughter to make her bride to “The First of the English!”

FINIS.