A HOUSE OF PEACE.
As the day went on, therefore, I looked eagerly for Mistress Anne's
return, but she appeared no more, though I maintained a close watch
on the cabin-door. All the afternoon, too, the Duchess kept away from
me, and I feared that I had seriously offended her; so that it was
with no very pleasant anticipations that, going into that part of the
deck-house which served us for a common room, to see if the evening
meal was set, I found only the Duchess and Master Bertie prepared to
sit down to it. I suppose that something of my feeling was expressed
in my face, for while I was yet half-way between door and table, my
lady gave way to a peal of merriment.
"Come, sit down, and do not be afraid!" she cried pleasantly, her gray
eyes still full of laughter. "I vow the lad thinks I shall eat him.
Nay, when all is said and done, I like you the better, Sir Knight
Errant, for your scruples. I see that you are determined to act up to
your name. But that reminds me," she added in a more serious vein. "We
have been frank with you. You must be equally frank with us. What are
we to call you, pray?"
I looked down at my plate and felt my face grow scarlet. The wound
which the discovery of my father's treachery had dealt me had begun to
heal. In the action, the movement, the adventure of the last
fortnight, I had well-nigh lost sight of the blot on my escutcheon, of
the shame which had driven me from home. But the question, "What are
we to call you?" revived the smart, and revived it with an added pang.
It had been very well, in theory, to proudly discard my old name. It
was painful, in practice, to be unable to answer the Duchess, "I am a
Cludde of Coton, nephew to Sir Anthony, formerly esquire of the body
to King Henry. I am no unworthy follower and associate even for you,"
and to have instead to reply, "I have no name. I am nobody. I have all
to make and win." Yet this was my ill-fortune.
Her woman's eye saw my trouble as I hesitated, confused and doubting
what I should reply. "Come!" she said good-naturedly, trying to
reassure me. "You are of gentle birth. Of that we feel sure."
I shook my head. "Nay, I am of no birth, madam," I answered hurriedly.
"I have no name, or at any rate no name that I can be proud of. Call
me--call me, if it please you, Francis Carey."
"It is a good name," quoth Master Bertie, pausing with his knife
suspended in the air. "A right good Protestant name!"
"But I have no claim to it," I rejoined, mere and more hurt. "I have
all to make. I am a new man. Yet do not fear!" I added quickly, as I
saw what I took to be a cloud of doubt cross my lady's face. "I will
follow you no less faithfully for that!"
"Well," said the Duchess, a smile again transforming her open
features, "I will answer for that, Master Carey. Deeds are better than
names, and as for being a new man, what with Pagets and Cavendishes
and Spencers, we have nought but new men nowadays. So, cheer up!" she
continued kindly. "And we will poke no questions at you, though I
doubt whether you do not possess more birth and breeding than you
would have us think. And if, when we return to England, as I trust we
may before we are old men and women, we can advance your cause, then
let us have your secret. No one can say that Katherine Willoughby ever
forgot her friend."
"Or forgave her enemy over quickly," quoth her husband naively.
She rapped his knuckles with the back of her knife for that; and under
cover of this small diversion I had time to regain my composure. But
the matter left me sore at heart, and more than a little homesick. And
I sought leave to retire early.
"You are right!" said the Duchess, rising graciously. "To-night, after
being out in the air, you will sleep soundly, and to-morrow you will
be a new man," with a faint smile. "Believe me, I am not ungrateful,
Master Francis, and I will diligently seek occasion to repay both your
gallant defense of the other day and your future service." She gave me
her hand to kiss, and I bent over it. "Now," she continued, "do homage
to my baby, and then I shall consider that you are really one of us,
and pledged to our cause."
I kissed the tiny fist held out to me, a soft pink thing looking like
some dainty sea-shell. Master Bertie cordially grasped my hand. And so
under the oil-lamp in the neat cabin of that old Dutch boat, somewhere
on the Waal between Gorcum and Nimuegen, we plighted our troth to one
another, and in a sense I became one of them.
I went to my berth cheered and encouraged by their kindness. But the
interview, satisfactory as it was, had set up no little excitement in
my brain, and it was long before I slept. When I did I had a strange
dream. I dreamed that I was sitting in the hall at Coton, and that
Petronilla was standing on the dais looking fixedly at me with gentle,
sorrowful eyes. I wanted to go to her, but I could not move; every
dreamer knows the sensation. I tried to call to her, to ask her what
was the matter, and why she so looked at me. But I could utter no
sound. And still she continued to fix me with the same sad,
reproachful eyes, in which I read a warning, yet could not ask its
meaning.
I struggled so hard that at last the spell was in a degree broken.
Following the direction of her eyes I looked down at myself, and saw
fastened to the breast of my doublet the knot of blue velvet which she
had made for my sword-hilt, and which I had ever since carried in my
bosom. More, I saw, with a singular feeling of anger and sorrow, that
a hand which came over my shoulder was tugging hard at the ribbon in
the attempt to remove it.
This gave me horrible concern, yet at the moment I could not move nor
do anything to prevent it. At last, making a stupendous effort, I
awoke, my last experience, dreaming, being of the strange hand working
at my breast. My first waking idea was the same, so that I threw out
my arms, and cried aloud, and sat up. "Ugh!" I exclaimed, trembling in
the intensity of my relief, as I looked about and welcomed the now
familiar surroundings. "It was only a dream. It was----"
I stopped abruptly, my eyes falling on a form lurking in the doorway.
I could see it only dimly by the light of a hanging lamp, which smoked
and burned redly overhead. Yet I could see it. It was real,
substantial--a waking figure; nevertheless, a faint touch of
superstitious terror still clung to me. "Speak, please!" I asked. "Who
is it?"
"It is only I," answered a soft voice, well known to me--Mistress
Anne's. "I came in to see how you were," she continued, advancing a
little, "and whether you were sleeping. I am afraid I awoke you. But
you seemed," she added, "to be having such painful dreams that perhaps
it was as well I did."
I was fumbling in my breast while she spoke; and certainly, whether in
my sleep I had undone the fastenings or had loosened them
intentionally before I lay down (though I could not remember doing
so), my doublet and shirt were open at the breast. The velvet knot was
safe, however, in that tiny inner pocket beside the letter, and I
breathed again. "I am very glad you did awake me!" I replied, looking
gratefully at her. "I was having a horrible dream. But how good it was
of you to think of me--and when you are not well yourself, too."
"Oh, I am better," she murmured, her eyes, which glistened in the
light, fixed steadily on me. "Much better. Now go to sleep again, and
happier dreams to you. After to-night," she added pleasantly, "I shall
no longer consider you as an invalid, nor intrude upon you."
And she was gone before I could reiterate my thanks. The door fell to,
and I was alone, full of kindly feelings toward her, and of
thankfulness that my horrible vision had no foundation. "Thank
Heaven!" I murmured more than once, as I lay down; "it was only a
dream."
Next day we reached Nimuegen, where we stayed a short time. Leaving
that place in the afternoon, twenty-four hours' journeying, partly by
river, partly, if I remember rightly, by canal, brought us to the
neighborhood of Arnheim on the Rhine. It was the 1st of March, but the
opening month belied its reputation. There was a brightness, a
softness in the air, and a consequent feeling as of spring which would
better have befitted the middle of April. All day we remained on deck
enjoying the kindliness of nature, which was especially grateful to
me, in whom the sap of health was beginning to spring again; and we
were still there when one of those gorgeous sunsets which are peculiar
to that country began to fling its hues across our path. We turned a
jutting promontory, the boat began to fall off, and the captain came
up, his errand to tell us that our journey was done.
We went eagerly forward at the news, and saw in a kind of bay, formed
by a lake-like expansion of the river, a little island green and low,
its banks trimly set with a single row of poplars. It was perhaps a
quarter of a mile every way, and a channel one-fourth as wide
separated it from the nearer shore of the river; to which, however, a
long narrow bridge of planks laid on trestles gave access. On the
outer side of the island, facing the river's course, stood a low white
house, before which a sloping green terrace, also bordered with
poplars, led down to a tiny pier. Behind and around the house were
meadows as trim and neat as a child's toys, over which the eye roved
with pleasure until it reached the landward side of the island, and
there detected, nestling among gardens, a tiny village of half a dozen
cottages. It was a scene of enchanting peace and quietude. As we
slowly plowed our way up to the landing-place, I saw the rabbits stand
to gaze at us, and then with a flick of their heels dart off to their
holes. I marked the cattle moving homeward in a string, and heard the
wild fowl rise in creek and pool with a whir of wings. I turned with a
full heart to my neighbor. "Is it not lovely?" I cried with
enthusiasm. "Is it not a peaceful place--a very Garden of Eden?"
I looked to see her fall into raptures such as women are commonly more
prone to than men. But all women are not the same. Mistress Anne was
looking, indeed, when I turned and surprised her, at the scene which
had so moved me, but the expression of her face was sad and bitter and
utterly melancholy. The weariness and fatigue I had often seen lurking
in her eyes had invaded all her features. She looked five years older;
no longer a girl, but a gray-faced, hopeless woman whom the sight of
this peaceful haven rather smote to the heart than filled with
anticipations of safety and repose.
It was but for a moment I saw her so. Then she dashed her hand across
her eyes--though I saw no tears in them--and with a pettish
exclamation turned away. "Poor girl!" I thought. "She, too, is
homesick. No doubt this reminds her of some place at home, or of some
person." I thought this the more likely, as Master Bertie came from
Lincolnshire, which he said had many of the features of this strange
land. And it was conceivable enough that she should know Lincolnshire
too, being related to his wife.
I soon forgot the matter in the excitement of landing. A few minutes
of bustle and it was over. The boat put out again; and we four were
left face to face with two strangers, an elderly man and a girl, who
had come down to the pier to meet us. The former, stout, bluff, and
red-faced, with a thick gray beard and a gold chain about his neck,
had the air of a man of position. He greeted us warmly. His companion,
who hung behind him, somewhat shyly, was as pretty a girl as one could
find in a month. A second look assured me of something more--that she
formed an excellent foil to the piquant brightness and keen vivacity,
the dark hair and nervous features of Mistress Anne. For the Dutch
girl was fair and plump and of perfect complexion. Her hair was very
light, almost flaxen indeed, and her eyes were softly and limpidly
blue; grave, innocent, wondering eyes they were, I remember. I guessed
rightly that she was the elderly man's daughter. Later I learned that
she was his only child, and that her name was Dymphna.
He was a Master Lindstrom, a merchant of standing in Arnheim. He had
visited England and spoke English fairly, and being under some
obligations, it appeared, to the Duchess Katherine, was to be our
host.
We all walked up the little avenue together. Master Lindstrom talking
as he went to husband or wife, while his daughter and Mistress Anne
came next, gazing each at each in silence, as women when they first
meet will gaze, taking stock, I suppose, of a rival's weapons. I
walked last, wondering why they had nothing to say to one another.
As we entered the house the mystery was explained. "She speaks no
English," said Mistress Anne, with a touch of scorn.
"And we no Dutch," I answered, smiling. "Here in Holland I am afraid
that she will have somewhat the best of us. Try her with Spanish."
"Spanish! I know none."
"Well, I do, a little."
"What, you know Spanish?" Mistress Anne's tone of surprise amounted
almost to incredulity, and it flattered me, boy that I was. I dare say
it would have flattered many an older head than mine. "You know
Spanish? Where did you learn it?" she continued sharply.
"At home."
"At home! Where is that?" And she eyed me still more closely. "Where
is your home, Master Carey? You have never told me."
But I had said already more than I intended, and I shook my head. "I
mean," I explained awkwardly, "that I learned it in a home I once had.
Now my home is here. At any rate I have no other."
The Dutch girl, standing patiently beside us, had looked first at one
face and then at the other as we talked. We were all by this time in a
long, low parlor, warmed by a pretty closed fireplace covered with
glazed tiles. On the shelves of a great armoire, or dresser, at one
end of the room appeared a fine show of silver plate. At the other end
stood a tall linen-press of walnut-wood, handsomely carved; and even
the gratings of the windows and the handles of the doors were of
hammered iron-work. There were no rushes on the floor, which was made
of small pieces of wood delicately joined and set together and
brightly polished. But everything in sight was clean and trim to a
degree which would have shamed our great house at Coton, where the
rushes sometimes lay for a week unchanged. With each glance round I
felt a livelier satisfaction. I turned to Mistress Dymphna.
"Senorita!" I said, mustering my noblest accent. "Beso los pies de
usted! Habla usted Castillano?"
Mistress Anne stared, while the effect on the girl whom I addressed
was greater than I had looked for, but certainly of a different kind.
She started and drew back, an expression of offended dignity and of
something like anger ruffling her placid face. Did she not understand?
Yes, for after a moment's hesitation, and with a heightened color, she
answered, "Si, Senor."
Her constrained manner was not promising, but I was going on to open a
conversation if I could--for it looked little grateful of us to stand
there speechless and staring--when Mistress Anne interposed. "What did
you say to her? What was it?" she asked eagerly.
"I asked her if she spoke Spanish. That was all," I replied, my eyes
on Dymphna's face, which still betrayed trouble of some kind, "except
that I paid her the usual formal compliment. But what is she saying to
her father?"
It was like the Christmas game of cross-questions. The girl and I had
spoken in Spanish. I translated what we had said into English for
Mistress Anne, and Mistress Dymphna turned it into Dutch for her
father; an anxious look on her face which needed no translation.
"What is it?" asked Master Bertie, observing that something was wrong.
"It is nothing--nothing!" replied the merchant apologetically, though,
as he spoke, his eyes dwelt on me curiously. "It is only that I did
not know that you had a Spaniard in your company."
"A Spaniard?" Master Bertie answered. "We have none. This," pointing
to me, "is our very good friend and faithful follower, Master
Carey--an Englishman."
"To whom," added the Duchess, smiling gravely, "I am greatly
indebted."
I hurriedly explained the mistake, and brought at once a smile of
relief to the Mynheer's face. "Ah! pardon me, I beseech you," he said.
"My daughter was in error." And he added something in Dutch which
caused Mistress Dymphna to blush. "You know," he continued--"I may
speak freely to you, since our enemies are in the main the same--you
know that our Spanish rulers are not very popular with us, and grow
less popular every day, especially with those who are of the reformed
faith. We have learned some of us to speak their language, but we love
them none the better for that."
"I can sympathize with you, indeed," cried the Duchess impulsively.
"God grant that our country may never be in the same plight: though it
looks as if this Spanish marriage were like to put us in it. It is
Spain! Spain! Spain! and nothing else nowadays!"
"Nevertheless, the Emperor is a great and puissant monarch," rejoined
the Arnheimer thoughtfully; "and could he rule us himself, we might do
well. But his dominions are so large, he knows little of us. And
worse, he is dying, or as good as dying. He can scarcely sit his
horse, and rumor says that before the year is out he will resign the
throne. Then we hear little good of his successor, your queen's
husband, and look to hear less. I fear that there is a dark time
before us, and God only knows the issue."
"And alone will rule it," Master Bertie rejoined piously.
This saying was in a way the keynote to the life we found our host
living on his island estate. Peace, but peace with constant fear for
an assailant, and religion for a supporter. Several times a week
Master Lindstrom would go to Arnheim to superintend his business, and
always after his return he would shake his head, and speak gravely,
and Dymphna would lose her color for an hour or two. Things were going
badly. The reformers were being more and more hardly dealt with. The
Spaniards were growing more despotic. That was his constant report.
And then I would see him, as he walked with us in orchard or garden,
or sat beside the stove, cast wistful glances at the comfort and
plenty round him. I knew that he was asking himself how long they
would last. If they escaped the clutches of a tyrannical government,
would they be safe in the times that were coming from the violence of
an ill-paid soldiery? The answer was doubtful, or rather it was too
certain.
I sometimes wondered how he could patiently foresee such
possibilities, and take no steps, whatever the risk, to prevent them.
At first I thought his patience sprang from the Dutch character. Later
I traced its deeper roots to a simplicity of faith and a deep
religious feeling, which either did not at that time exist in England,
or existed only among people with whom I had never come into contact.
Here they seemed common enough and real enough. These folks' faith
sustained them. It was a part of their lives; a bulwark against the
fear that otherwise would have overwhelmed them. And to an extent,
too, which then surprised me, I found, as time went on, that the
Duchess and Master Bertie shared this enthusiasm, although with them
it took a less obtrusive form.
I was led at the time to think a good deal about this; and just a word
I may say of myself, and of those days spent on the Rhine inland--that
whereas before I had taken but a lukewarm interest in religious
questions, and, while clinging instinctively to the teaching of my
childhood, had conformed with a light heart rather than annoy my
uncle, I came to think somewhat differently now; differently and more
seriously. And so I have continued to think since, though I have never
become a bigot; a fact I owe, perhaps, to Mistress Dymphna, in whose
tender heart there was room for charity as well as faith. For she was
my teacher.
Of necessity, since no other of our party could communicate with her,
I became more or less the Dutch girl's companion. I would often, of an
evening, join her on a wooden bench which stood under an elm on a
little spit of grass looking toward the city, and at some distance
from the house. Here, when the weather was warm, she would watch for
her father's return; and here one day, while talking with her, I had
the opportunity of witnessing a sight unknown in England, but which
year by year was to become more common in the Netherlands, more
heavily fraught with menace in Netherland eyes.
We happened to be so deeply engaged in watching the upper end of the
reach at the time in question, where we expected each moment to see
Master Lindstrom's boat round the point, that we saw nothing of a boat
coming the other way, until the flapping of its sails, as it tacked,
drew our eyes toward it. Even then in the boat itself I saw nothing
strange, but in its passengers I did. They were swarthy, mustachioed
men, who in the hundred poses they assumed, as they lounged on deck or
leaned over the side, never lost a peculiar air of bravado. As they
drew nearer to us the sound of their loud voices, their oaths and
laughter reached us plainly, and seemed to jar on the evening
stillness. Their bold, fierce eyes, raking the banks unceasingly,
reached us at last. The girl by my side uttered a cry of alarm, and
rose as if to retreat. But she sat down again, for behind us was an
open stretch of turf, and to escape unseen was impossible. Already a
score of eyes had marked her beauty, and as the boat drew abreast of
us, I had to listen to the ribald jests and laughter of those on
board. My ears tingled and my cheeks burned. But I could do nothing. I
could only glare at them, and grind my teeth.
"Who are they?" I muttered. "The cowardly knaves!'
"Oh, hush! hush!" the girl pleaded. She had retreated behind me. And
indeed I need not have put my question, for though I had never seen
the Spanish soldiery, I had heard enough about them to recognize them
now. In the year 1555 their reputation was at its height. Their
fathers had overcome the Moors after a contest of centuries, and they
themselves had overrun Italy and lowered the pride of France. As a
result they had many military virtues and all the military vices.
Proud, bloodthirsty, and licentious everywhere, it may be imagined
that in the subject Netherlands, with their pay always in arrear, they
were, indeed, people to be feared. It was seldom that even their
commanders dared to check their excesses.
Yet, when the first flush of my anger had subsided, I looked after
them, odd as it may seem, with mingled feelings. With all their faults
they were few against many, a conquering race in a foreign land. They
could boast of blood and descent. They were proud to call themselves
the soldiers and gentlemen of Europe. I was against them, yet I
admired them with a boy's admiration for the strong and reckless.
Of course I said nothing of this to my companion. Indeed, when she
spoke to me I did not hear her. My thoughts had flown far from the
burgher's daughter sitting by me, and were with my grandmother's
people. I saw, in imagination, the uplands of Old Castile, as I had
often heard them described, hot in summer and bleak in winter. I
pictured the dark, frowning walls of Toledo, with its hundred Moorish
trophies, the castles that crowned the hills around, the gray olive
groves, and the box-clad slopes. I saw Palencia, where my grandmother,
Petronilla de Vargas, was born; Palencia, dry and brown and sun-baked,
lying squat and low on its plain, the eaves of its cathedral a man's
height from the ground. All this I saw. I suppose the Spanish blood in
me awoke and asserted itself at sight of those other Spaniards. And
then--then I forgot it all as I heard behind me an alien voice, and I
turned and found Dymphna had stolen from me and was talking to a
stranger.