LOVE AND ABHORRENCE.
"Ah! who can e'er forget so fair a being?
Who can forget her half retiring sweets?
God! she is like a milk-white lamb that bleats
For man's protection."
When Jane thought for a moment of how long this great political
inquisitor and public prosecutor had been the feudal foe and legal
oppressor of her mother's kinsman and her father's house, and that he
had but recently (as she had gathered from her brother) meditated or
attempted the assassination of her lover,--as he had previously done
the chief of the Maclellans,--she felt her whole heart recoil from
him as from a serpent, with terror and abhorrence. Nevertheless,
finding that Sybil and her cavalier had disappeared among the groups
of revellers who dotted the moonlit lawn, she had sufficient tact to
veil her inward repugnance and suspicions under an outward
politeness, and to incline her head slightly when he bowed and
assumed a position for conversing by leaning his handsome and stately
figure against the stone arm of the sofa, which was formed of a
wyvern with its wings outspread.
He was dazzled by the splendour of her beauty, which the unwonted
magnificence of her attire had so much enhanced; and remained silent
and embarrassed, till Jane said--
"I did not imagine that so grave a man as Sir Adam Otterburn would
have much to amuse him among these gay frivolities."
"Nor have I, madam, for my mind is usually filled with thoughts of
deeper and more vital import than the comely fashion of a ruff or
mantle, or the curling of a pretty ringlet. I came but to steal a
few moments from my unhappy destiny; and I swear by my faith, that to
see you dancing with the king was the only tranquil joy I have had
for many a day. Ah! madame, you excelled yourself; you outshone them
all, as yonder moon outshines the stars around it!"
Lady Jane bowed again, and glanced uneasily at the staircase; there
was no appearance of Roland, and knowing intuitively the dangerous
topic to which the speaker was inclining, she trembled for what he
might say next, for Redhall was not a man to dally much when he had
any end in view.
He had seen her dancing with Roland Vipont; he had heard those
whispers by which the whole court linked their names together as
lovers, yet an incontrollable folly or fatality led him blindly on.
"Notwithstanding that we were such good friends when last we met,"
said he, in his soft and flute-like voice, while bending his fine
dark eyes on the green sward, "you have shunned me so much of late,
Lady Jane, that I have had no opportunity of begging your permission
to renew that conversation in which I presumed first to
say--that--that----"
"What?----"
"That I loved you"--his voice sank to a whisper at the abruptness of
the declaration.
"Oh! Sir Adam; thou followest a phantom."
Redhall sighed sadly and bitterly.
"There was a time, dearest madam, when I did not think so," he
continued slowly and earnestly--"a time when I almost flattered
myself that you loved me in return."
"I!" said Jane, faintly.
"_Thou_," he replied, impressively, fixing upon her his piercing eyes
with an expression which fascinated her. "It was in the garden of my
lord the abbot of Holyrood, at his mansion near yonder craigs, some
nine or ten months ago, about the vesper time; it was a glorious
evening, and a broad yellow harvest-moon was shining in the blue
heavens, among golden-coloured clouds; the air was pure, and laden
with perfume and with the fragrance of yonder orchards, and these
fields covered with the grain of a ripe harvest. Abbot Robert had
given a supper to Henrico Godscallo, the ambassador who came to offer
as a bride Mary of Austria or Mary of Portugal to King James. Oh!
thou canst not have forgotten it. We walked together in the garden,
and you did me the honour to lean upon my arm. I bent my head
towards you, and your beautiful hair touched my forehead. My heart
beat like lightning--every vein trembled! Oh! I have never
forgotten that night--that hour--the place--the time! You seemed
good and kind, merry and gentle with me. I was on the point of
declaring myself then--of saying how I loved you--how I worshipped
you; and your charming embarrassment seemed to expect the avowal;
when the countess's page--yonder black devil with the rings in his
ears--approached, and the spell was broken. My God! the same moment,
the same soft influences and adorable opportunity have never come
again!"
"My lord advocate, you can plead ably for yourself," replied Jane,
coldly.
"My soul is in the cause at issue," said he, looking at her
anxiously; "'tis very true, I am very miserable. I am as one in a
dream. I love the air she breathes--the ground she treads on." He
was speaking to himself. In the very depth of his thoughts he forgot
that she was beside him.
"My lord, my lord, 'tis the rhapsody, this, of Sir David Lindesay, or
some such balladier."
"Nay, nay; oh! do not mock me. It seemeth as if my love for you is
not the common love of this cold and utilitarian world; for if ten
ages rolled over our heads, I feel sure that my love would be the
same; nor time, nor circumstance, not even despair, can overcome it.
Oh! lady, believe me, there is no other man loves thee as I do."
Jane thought of Roland, but either the fury or the profundity of the
speaker's passion awed her into silence, for she made no reply; and
thereby encouraged, he continued--
"Pride and ambition are strong within me; but, believe me, my breast
never had a passion so deep, so pure, as my love for thee. There is
a silent strength in it that grows out of its very hopelessness.
Canst thou conceive this? Every glance, and smile, and word of thine
I have treasured up for years, and in solitude I gloat over them,
even as a miser would over his gold and silver."
Covered with confusion, and trembling excessively, Jane made an
effort to withdraw.
"Beautiful tyrant!" said he, haughtily and firmly, as he stepped
before her, "thou knowest thy power, and findest a cruel pleasure in
its exercise; thy lips are full of pride as thine eyes are full of
light, and with the very smile of a goddess thou repayest the homage
of all but me. Yet with all these charms I can conceive that no
passion can dwell within thee, for thou art cold and impassible as
the marble of that fountain which sparkles in the moonlight--vain as
vanity herself, and selfish as Circe. While weaving thy spells thou
thinkest not of me, or the fatal power of thy beauty, which is
destroying me."
"Holy Mary!" said Jane, in terror at his growing excitement; "did I
tell thee to love me? Am I to blame for this unruly frenzy?"
"Oh! my passion is very deep," he continued, clasping his hands, and
fixing his dark eyes on the stars. "My God! my God! It besets
me--it transfixes and transforms me into the object I love--our
existence seems the same."
"What!" cried Jane, laughing, "hast thou transformed thyself into me?"
Redhall did not anticipate having his high-sounding sophistry so
acutely criticized; he started as if a viper was beside him, and
fixing upon her his eyes, which were fired with a strange mixture of
sternness and ardour, he said in his slow calm voice--
"Strong and serene in thy boasted purity and pride, thou laughest at
me; and by that laugh," he continued, in a hoarse and bitter voice,
"I know that all is over with me; but beware thee, proud woman--for
love and illusion may die fast together."
"Sir Adam Otterburn," replied Jane, haughtily, attempting again to
retire, "for the last time I tell thee, that death were a thousand
times preferable to thy love! Art thou not the sworn foe of my
brother?"
"But not _thine_," replied the advocate, with a lowering brow; "make
me not _that_, I pray thee." His heart glowed alternately with love
and fury at her unmoved aspect. His self-importance was wounded by
her apathy; and his galled pride was fast kindling a sentiment of
hatred in his heart--a hate that grew side by side with his love--if
such a state of heart can be conceived. "Thy brother's enemy?" he
repeated, with a bitter laugh; "if I were indeed so much his enemy, I
might astonish the Lord Arran and his Hamiltons to-night."
"My God!" thought Jane, as her heart sank within her; "he has
overheard us, and learned our terrible secret!"
Alarmed by the ghastly expression of his face, which was white as
marble, all save the jetty moustaches and the eyebrows that met over
his finely-formed nose, Jane glanced anxiously towards the stair
which ascended to the hall, and Sir Adam observed it. A smile curled
his pale lips, but the fire of the most ferocious jealousy kindled in
his dark and deep-set eyes.
"I know for whom thou art looking," said he, grasping her by the arm;
"for yonder brainless fop, who thinks of nothing but his ruff and his
plume and the glory of being master of the king's ordnance--a
wretched worm, whom the heat of our Scottish wars hath nourished into
a gilded butterfly, and who dares to cock his bonnet in our faces
with the bearing of a landed baron."
"Gramercy!" said Jane, waggishly; "I knew not that a butterfly wore a
bonnet."
"Hah!" he muttered, fiercely, "the lover who is once laughed at _is
lost_!"
The grasp of his strong hand compressed her slender arm like a vice;
there was an oath trembling on his lips, and fury flashing in his
eye, for love and hatred, as they struggled in his heart, made him
both selfish and savage.
"Oh Mother of Mercy!" murmured Jane; "away ruffian! or I will shriek
that thou art a vampire!"
At that moment the shadow of a tall figure, armed with a prodigious
sword, was thrown by the moon along the velvet sward; and Redhall was
prostrated by a blow on the ear, dealt by a ponderous and unsparing
hand. Jane turned with terror, and saw her brother, the earl, spring
back and disappear under the cloister arches of the abbey; while, at
the same moment, Roland Vipont leaped down stairs from the hall,
taking four steps at once.
"A thousand pardons, dearest Jane, and a thousand more," he
exclaimed, drawing her arm through his, and leading her away; "but
this tiresome argument concerning old Mollance Meg and the Devil of
Bois le Duc (plague take them both!) occupied more time than I had
the least idea of; and my lord the bishop of Limoges hath lost on the
matter a hundred silver livres, which the king means to give the
Franciscans to-morrow. But thou art not angry with me?"
"Angry? oh, no! I know thou art sufficiently punished, minutes being
ages when absent from me."
"Ah, thou art right, for my sojourn in Paris was a very eternity."
"Then let us join the dancers, and be merry while we may," said she,
with a gaiety which was scarcely assumed, for she was but too happy
to hurry him into the hall, without observing the lord advocate, who,
stunned by the effects of the blow, lay for a second or two unseen,
and somewhat ignominiously, upon a parterre of rose-bushes, from
whence he arose with fury in his heart, and his sword in his hand,
but to find himself alone--a fortunate circumstance, as he would
infallibly have slain the first man near him. He adjusted his ruff
and doublet, brushed a speck or two from his trunk breeches, and
shaking his clenched hand, said hoarsely, under his moustaches--
"Either Roland Vipont or the Earl of Ashkirk dishonoured me by that
blow. Be it so--I have them all in my grasp! Revenge is a joy for
gods and demons, and, by the Holy Rood, I will be avenged, and
fearfully, too!"
By this time the ball was nearly over, for the good people of those
days had not yet conceived the idea of turning day into night; and as
the king and court were to depart on a grand hawking expedition on
the morrow, and, as usual, had to be all up with the lark and the
eagle, the bell-clock of the neighbouring abbey church had barely
tolled twelve when the dancing concluded, and the guests began to
retire in rapid succession, each paying their adieux to the king and
queen as they departed, and paying them with a solemnity and parade
such as one may see nowhere now, save in Old Castile.
"Take courage, my sweet flower, Jane, for now is your most fortunate
time to prefer to Magdalene your request that Ashkirk may be
pardoned. She will never, by refusal, send away her principal guest
ungraciously," said Roland, as, hurrying through the festooned arras
from the refreshment-room, where they had been tarrying for a time,
they joined the stream of departing revellers who promenaded round
the hall, and approached their royal host and hostess somewhat like a
glittering procession. James and Magdalene were standing at the head
of the hall, just as when the entertainment began. His bonnet was in
his right hand, his left rested on his sword, and was hidden by his
short mantle; the queen leant on his arm, and he bowed low to each of
the nobles, and lower still to their brocaded ladies. The Scottish
and French ladies of honour were grouped a little behind, all
beautiful, young, nobly born, and brilliantly attired.
"If she procures me this boon," said Jane, "I will say nine prayers
for her at the altar of St. Magdalene to-morrow, when we go to St.
Giles's. Of course you go with us to hear father St. Bernard's
oration on the patron saint of the city?"
"Wherever you go I shall go; but the hour?"
"One o'clock; but you will come at noon and see me?"
"Plague on it, I have a meeting."
"A meeting?" said Jane, anxiously.
"Oh, a duty, dearest--an indispensable duty to perform," said Roland,
remembering his brief challenge to Kincavil.
"What duty is this, of which I hear now for the first time?"
"To see those fifty-six pieces of cannon which King Francis hath sent
to King James; they are to be landed from Sir Robert Barton's ships,
and conveyed to the Gun-house to-morrow. A most important duty,
Jane; they are all beautiful brass culverins, royal and demi; 'twould
do your heart good to see them!"
"Ah, if James and the queen should refuse me this!--we are close to
them now."
"Refuse you? they will refuse nothing that is asked in a voice so
soft and so gentle."
As they drew near the royal group, Jane felt her heart almost failing
her; she clung to Roland's arm, and watched the expression in the
face of Magdalene. She seemed now very pale; her eyes were humid and
downcast; gentleness and languor pervaded her beautiful features; she
was overcome with lassitude and sinking with fatigue--the weakness
incident to that hereditary disease which fast and surely was preying
upon her fragile form. The proud nobles, to whom the king spoke
occasionally as he bade them adieu, received his courtly attentions
as a tribute due to their patriotic and lofty ancestry, and their
proud bearing seemed to say, plainly, "I am George Earl of Errol,
Constable of Scotland," or "I am William Earl of Montrose, and come
of that Graeme whom King David knighted when the Stuarts were but
thanes of Kyle and Strathgryfe;" for it was an age when the king was
only a great baron, and every baron or laird was a king and a kaiser
to boot.
As they approached, Roland could perceive that cold glances welcomed
Jane Seton from the ladies of honour, who were all enemies of her
house, and whose fathers and brothers enjoyed many fiefs of the
Douglas lands and fortresses, defacing the crowned heart on their
battlements and substituting the three _cinque-foils_ of Hamilton;
but, to crown all and increase the poor girl's perturbation, she
perceived Redhall standing near the king, seeming, with his dark
figure and pallid visage, like her evil genius, cold, impassible, and
dignified as if the startling episode we have just related had never
taken place.
"_Ah ma bonne!_" they heard Magdalene say to Mademoiselle de Brissac,
"how tired I am, and excessively sick of all this parade!"
"Now be of good heart, my sweet Jane," said Roland, pressing her arm,
"and prefer your request firmly; for Madame de Montreuil has
explained to the queen all that we wish."
When she drew near the beautiful young girl that leaned on James's
arm, instead of bowing and passing on, Jane sunk on one knee, and
said--
"I beseech your grace to crave my brother's pardon from our sovereign
lord."
"I know that he cannot refuse me anything," said the young queen,
with girlish simplicity, as she looked up lovingly and trustingly in
the king's face, while stretching out her hand to Jane. The latter
pressed to her beautiful lips that fair little hand which was dimpled
like that of a child, and the king was about to speak (and benignly,
too, for every feature of his fine face said so), when Magdalene,
overcome by her recent illness, by the close atmosphere of the hall,
which was perfumed to excess, and by the glitter of innumerable
wax-lights, uttered a faint cry, and fell backwards into the arms of
Mademoiselle de Brissac.
Consternation and concern were visible in every face; the queen was
borne away senseless, and James hastily followed her almost inanimate
figure; the crowd behind pressed on, and Roland and Jane were carried
before it. Redhall smiled, and said to the abbot of Kinloss, in
James's hearing--
"Did I not tell you, my lord, how rash it was to have the Lady Seton
here?"
"Agnus Dei! yea, verily, for her mother deals in salves and philtres;
and there was sorcery at work just now, Sir Adam, or my name is not
Robin Reid."
These words made a deep impression on the few who were meant to hear
them, but chiefly on the king, who darted an angry glance after Jane
Seton, and turned on his heel.
At the palace gate the discomfited pair met Marion Logan, Alison
Hume, and Sybil Douglas, who were all muffled in their hoods and
mantles, and surrounded by an escort of serving-men, armed with steel
caps and bucklers, swords, and wheel-lock dagues, and who bore
lighted links. A few cavaliers with whom they had danced (Roland
among them, of course) accompanied them, and in this order they
hurried home on foot, for wheeled vehicles were as yet unknown in the
kingdom.
Terrified by the practical jokes of the king's jester and the din of
his bladder and bells, Sabrino had long since fled the precincts of
the court, and taken refuge in his usual sleeping-place (a small
alcove near the door of the countess's apartment), which he shared in
common with a large black stag-hound.
"Come early to-morrow, dear Roland, and we will talk over the
adventures of the last few hours," whispered Jane, as she bade adieu
to her lover; "alas! father St. Bernard warned me against going
to-night; but I have gone, and what has been the result?"