On an evening at the end of summer, while leaves were yet green and
skies yet fall of sunshine, though the long daylight of the year's
prime had diminished somewhat more than an hour, and darkness and
winter were stealing slowly forward in the distance, a small but
handsome room, richly furnished with everything that the taste of that
day could display, with exquisite carvings of old oak, with fine
pictures, with velvet hangings, ay, and with green shrubs and flowers
both rare and beautiful, showed preparations for a supper party, at
which two persons only were expected. The table was arranged with
great taste: rich fruits in a silver vase formed a pyramid in the
midst, and two or three dishes of the most beautiful workmanship
presented various tempting pieces of confectionery strewed over, in
quaint devices and in a regular pattern, with minute flowers. On the
right of the principal table, at some little distance, was a carved
oak buffet covered with crimson velvet, just seen from beneath the
edges of a damask napkin, on which were arranged some large silver
tankards of beautiful forms, two golden goblets, and several tall
glasses gilded on the stem. The windows of the room were open, but
shaded with trees and flowering shrubs, and a green soft light spread
through the interior, as the rays of the setting sun poured through
the veil of leaves. That light began to assume a purple hue, showing
that the orb of day had touched the verge of the horizon, when a lady
entered by a door from the gardens, magnificently habited in an
evening dress, with somewhat more display of her fair person than the
general habits of the English people rendered decorous. We see the
same mode of dress in the pictures of Rubens, especially those in
which he represents the court of France at that period; but the
costume had not yet become general in Great Britain, and, to English
minds, the dress might have been higher, the wing-like collar more
close.
The lady closed the door and locked it; looked eagerly round, advanced
to the other door, and did the same. Then, taking a small vial from
that fair bosom, and a plate from the table, she poured out of the
little bottle a white powder into the centre of the plate. There was a
little vase of silver standing near, filled with powdered sugar, and
from it she took a portion with a small silver ladle, then mingled the
sugar and the white powder in the plate intimately together, and
sprinkled the confectionery thickly with the mixture. This done, she
again gazed round, looked out through both the windows, replaced the
little vial in her bosom, and, unlocking either door, went forth
again.
The room remained vacant for half an hour; twilight succeeded to broad
day, and night to twilight, but soft and fair; no heavy darkness, but
a gentle transparent shade, with the starlight and the coming moon,
felt though not seen within the chamber. The windows remained open;
the soft air sighed in through the branches, and a solitary note of
the long-singing merle was heard every now and then from beneath the
leaves.
Suddenly the quick hoofs of a number of horses sounded on the road
near, then stopped, and voices talking gaily in the house succeeded.
Two servants entered that carefully decked room, and lighted the
candles in the lustres. A moment after, a man in a white cap and apron
followed, looked over the whole table, and moved some of the flowers
upon the dishes; but the cook did not seem to remark that aught had
been done to his confectionery.
"'Ods life, there are more of them coming," he cried, addressing the
other two servants, as the tramp of horses was again heard, "I wish
they would keep their hungry throats away. Run out, Lloyd, and see who
are these new ones."
The room was left vacant again for a few minutes, and then the door
was thrown open by one of the attendants. The lady entered, leaning
somewhat languishingly on the arm of a tall, handsome young man,
splendidly dressed, but yet without that air of high birth and courtly
habits which were eminently conspicuous in his fair companion.
A slight degree of paleness spread over the lady's face as she passed
the threshold, and the deep fringed eyelids dropped over the large
black eyes. The gentleman's look was upon her at the moment, and his
brow somewhat contracted; his countenance assumed an expression of
shrewd and bitter meaning. He said nought, however; and the lady,
recovering herself in a moment, turned her head, saying to the servant
behind, "Let the men wait--tell the boy I will see him, and receive
his lord's letter after supper."
"Who are these men?" asked the gentleman, advancing with her towards
the table.
"The page of the Earl of Hillingdon, my good lord," she replied, with
a sarcastic smile, seating herself in the nearest chair; "his page and
a servant, bearing a letter from that noble gentleman to poor deserted
me."
"Nay, not much deserted," cried the other, in a gallant tone, "when my
heart and so many others are at your feet."
"Hush!" she said sharply, though in a low voice, "nothing of this
before the servants."
As she spoke a dish was brought in, and handed first to her guest; but
he would be extremely courteous that night, and ordered it to be
carried to her. She took some at once, and ate, without noticing his
attention, but saying aloud as he helped himself, "I am but a poor
housekeeper, my good lord, and am sorry my noble uncle is not here to
treat you better; but I told the cook to do his best, and show his
skill."
"Oh, this is excellent!" replied the gentleman, "and will make up for
my bad fare yesterday at Hertford, where everything was so bitter
methought I was poisoned. The taste is in my mouth still."
"Nay, we must drive it thence with better things," said the lady. "I
would not deny myself the pleasure of receiving you, when you wrote to
say you would come, though my uncle was absent; and I must try to make
up for your disappointment in not finding him, by giving you good
cheer--will you not take wine?"
"Let us drink from the same cup," said the gentleman, with a soft and
passionate look, notwithstanding her warning, "the wine will only
taste sweet to me, if your lips sip it too."
The lady's eye flashed suddenly, and her brow grew dark; but she
answered, tossing her proud head, "I drink after no one, my lord. As
to drinking after me, you may do as you please.--Give me some wine."
"Oh, your cup will render the wine nectar to me," said the guest,
while the attendant to whom she had spoken poured out some wine for
her into one of the golden goblets. She took a small portion, and then
told the man to give it to her visitor, saying, with a laugh not quite
natural, "What foolish things men are!"
The supper proceeded; dish after dish was brought in, but the
gentleman would taste nothing of which the lady had not partaken
before, till his conduct became somewhat remarkable. Her brow grew
dark as night for an instant, but cleared again; and all that remained
was a bright red spot upon her cheek.
There was a slight rustling sound near the open window, as the supper
drew towards its conclusion, and the lady remarked, "The wind methinks
is rising." Twice or thrice she looked in the direction of the window,
and a sort of anxious uncertain expression came into her face. She
pressed her guest to drink more wine, and he did so, always using the
same cup and keeping it by him; but the wine at length seemed to have
its effect. His face flushed, his eyes sparkled, his language became
warm and passionate, somewhat coarse withal, and mingled with a
bitterness, especially on the subject of woman's heart and mind, which
was little less than insulting in a lady's presence.
Her eye fixed upon him firmly, shining clear and bright like a
diamond, from under the slightly contracted brow. The red spot
vanished from her cheek, and she remained deadly pale. "Why gaze you
at me so sternly, lovely Kate?" asked her guest.
"Because I think you do not yet know women rightly," answered the lady
at once: "you will learn better one day.--You need wait no longer,"
she continued, turning to the attendants; "we will be our own
servants.--Now, my good lord, to end your supper, taste one of these
tarts of Flemish cream. I marked well, when last you were here, that
you loved them, and I had them prepared expressly for you."
One of the servants, ere he went, carried the silver dish to his
lady's guest; but the gentleman kept to his rule. "Will you divide one
with me, bright Kate?" he asked.
"Nay," she answered, glancing her eyes for an instant to the window,
"I am not fond of them."
"Then I will not take them either," said her visitor. "What you love I
will love--what you take I will take."
The lady set her teeth hard; then, as the servant set down the dish
and withdrew, she suddenly stretched out her hand to another plate.
saying in a low but firm voice, and with a bland smile, "Well I will
divide one of these lady-grace's, as they call them, with you."
"That is kind, lovely Kate," cried the visitor, drawing his chair
nearer to her; "and of all lady's grace on earth, let me have yours."
The lady smiled again quite sweetly, parted the sort of cheese-cake
equally, and gave him half. He paused an instant, and she began. Then
he ate, saying, "This is excellent."
"It is not bad," she answered, continuing to eat the cake, and keeping
her eyes fixed upon him.
"Now that I have my lady's grace,"--he continued, drawing nearer
still, and endeavouring to put his arm round her. But, instantly, she
started up with a look of scorn; and, at the same moment, William
Ifford sprang in at the open window.
"What is this, my lord!" he cried, "insulting my sweet cousin? Upstart
and villain as you are, were there a drop of really noble blood in
your veins--"
"It is vain, William! it is vain!" said the lady, in a low tone. "You
have come too late. I have eaten too.--My right noble lord, you look
very pale. I told you that you knew not women rightly. You know them
now--as much as e'er you will know.--Heaven! how faint I feel!--But
his eyes roll in his head.--Stop him from the door, William.--You are
sick, my lord!--Will you try some Flemish cream, or taste more of your
lady's grace?--Methinks you have had enough for once."
"I was warned! I was warned!" murmured the unhappy man, holding by the
table for support.
"Ay; but not warned that the hate of a heart like mine will sacrifice
life itself for vengeance," answered the lady, sinking down into a
seat.
"I will have vengeance, too," said the guest, starting up, and
staggering with a furious effort towards the door. But William
Ifford caught him by the breast, and threw him back. He
staggered--fell--rolled for a moment or two in frightful convulsions,
and then, with a scream like that of a sea-bird in a storm, gave up
the ghost.
William Ifford was at that moment by the lady's side. "Catherine!
Catherine!" he cried, "have you taken much?"
She made no answer; some quick sharp shudders passed over her frame,
and a sort of choking sobbing convulsed her throat. A minute after,
her head fell back upon the chair, and then, with a low but sharp
sound, sunk down to the ground.
Her guilty kinsman gazed from the one corpse to the other with a wild
and hesitating look. But then he thought he heard a noise. It was the
sound of steps and voices coming near; and, leaping through the
window, he disappeared. He could not have been gone fifty yards when
the door of the room was burst open in haste, and the attendants of
the house flocked in, with the page Frill and the old servant Tony in
the midst.
"Poisoned, boy!--poisoned!" cried the man named Lloyd. "Heaven and
earth! it is too true!"
All paused in an instant, as the sight which that terrible chamber
presented lay before their eyes; and, for some moments, not a word was
said, while one gazed over the shoulders of another at the two
corpses. Then all burst forth at once, surrounding the Earl of
Hillingdon's page, and questioning him closely with eager and
vociferous tongues. But Frill was more guarded in his answers than
might have been expected. He told them that, liking all fine sights,
he had amused himself by watching the Lady Catherine and her guest at
supper, through the window on the right, between which and the other
window stood a thick tree. He then detailed minutely all that had
occurred till the entrance of Sir William Ifford; declared that he had
heard steps approaching over the grassy lawn, and then had seen some
one suddenly appear in the room, who, he supposed, had entered by the
other window. He stoutly denied having seen the intruder's face; but
at the same time remarked that the poisoning could not be his doing,
for that nothing more was eaten till, in the midst of high words,
which first gave him a clue to the terrible truth, the one victim had
fallen and then the other, and he had run away to bring assistance.
Had the poison been of such a quality that any antidote would have
proved effectual, so much time was lost that none could be
administered. Not a spark of vitality remained when the bodies were at
length examined; and the only indication of how the fatal event had
occurred which could be discovered, was a small vial in the lady's
bosom, containing a very minute portion of a white powder, which,
being tried upon a dog, produced almost instant death.
The wonder lasted its nine days and was then forgotten by the world at
large; but the sudden disappearance of Sir William Ifford, the gay,
the witty, the dissolute, continued for a few weeks longer to excite
inquiry and remark. No one ever learned the conclusion of his history:
some said he had entered a monastery of Barefooted Friars, and died
there in the odour of sanctity; others, with greater probability on
their side, declared that he had turned Turk, and was to the day of
his death one of the most relentless persecutors of the Christians. We
only know that, on the night when this double death took place, a
horseman rode away at a terrible pace from the small village in the
neighbourhood, took his way as fast as possible towards the sea-side,
and thence left no traces of his course behind.
For three days the page and the old servant of the Earl of Hillingdon
were detained in Huntingdonshire, to give evidence regarding the
sudden death of two persons of such high rank; but coroners were as
wise, and coroners' juries as enlightened, in those days as in our
own, and a burlesque verdict was returned in a very tragic case. The
stout old servant and his youthful companion then set out to join
their lord, arrived in Germany in safety, and, thanks to many of those
circumstances which might have seemed best calculated to impede them,
such as their ignorance--or rather small knowledge--of the language,
and their very narrow information upon geographical subjects, arrived
within a few miles' distance of Heidelberg with fewer difficulties
than better instructed persons would probably have encountered. The
answers which they gave, in what they called German, to the questions
of those who interrogated them, completely puzzled their examiners;
and the round they took to arrive at the city, brought them to a point
the most opposite from that at which a messenger from England might
have been expected to appear. It was late at night when they reached
the small village of Siegelhausen; but there they heard from the
peasants a confirmation of the rumours which had previously reached
them, that Heidelberg was completely invested, and, to use the
expression of the boors, "that a field mouse could not creep in."
"I will try, at all events;" said Frill, "for I know my lord would
give his right hand for the news we bring. If it cost me my ears, I
will try;" and with this magnanimous resolution he lay down to sleep.