father should have thought him otherwise than "well-favoured." He was
handsome enough, she thought, to be the hero of any number of dramas.
The worthy Knight's ideas as to beauty by no means coincided with those
of his daughter. Sir Thomas thought that to look well, a man must not
be--to use his own phrase--"lass-like and finnicking." It was all very
well for a woman to have a soft voice, a pretty face, or a graceful
mien: but let a man be tall, stout, well-developed, and tolerably rough.
So that the finely arched eyebrows, the languishing liquid eyes, the
soft delicate features, and the black silky moustache, which were the
characteristics of Don Juan's face, found no favour with Sir Thomas, but
were absolute perfection in the captivated eyes of Blanche. When those
dark eyes looked admiringly at her, she could see no fault in them; and
when a voice addressed her in flattering terms, she could readily enough
overlook wrong accents and foreign idioms.
"Most beautiful lady!" said Don Juan, addressing himself to Blanche, and
translating literally into English the usual style of his native land.
The epithet gave Blanche a little thrill of delight. No one--except the
mythical inhabitants of the airy castles--had ever spoken to her in this
manner before. And undoubtedly there was a zest in the living voice of
another human being, which was unfortunately lacking in the denizens of
Fairy Land. Blanche had never sunk so low in her own opinion as she did
when she tried to frame an answer. She was utterly at a loss for words.
Instead of the exquisitely appropriate language which would have risen
to her lips at once if she had not addressed a human being, she could
only manage to stammer out, in most prosaic fashion, a hope that he was
better. But her consciousness of inferiority deepened, when Don Juan
replied promptly, with a low bow, and the application of his left hand
to the place where his heart was supposed to be, that the sight of her
face had effected a full and immediate cure of all his ills.
Oh, for knowledge what to say to him, with due grace and effect! Why
was she not born a Spanish lady? And what would he think of her, with
such plebeian work as this in her hand! "How he must despise me!"
thought silly Blanche. "Why, I have not even a fan to flutter."
Don Juan was quite at his ease. Shyness and timidity were evidently not
in the list of his failings.
"I think me fortunate, fair lady," sighed he, with another bow, "that
this the misfortune me has made acquainted with your Grace. In my
country, we say to the ladies; Grant me the soles of your foots. But
here the gentlemen humble not themselves so low. I beseech your Grace,
therefore, the favour to kiss you the hand."
Blanche wondered if all Spanish ladies were addressed as "your Grace."
[Note 1.] How delightful! She held out her hand like a queen, and Don
Juan paid his homage.
"Your Grace see me much happinessed. When I am again in my Andalusia, I
count it the gloriousest hour of my life that I see your sweet country
and the beautifullest of his ladies."
How far either Don Juan or Blanche might ultimately have gone in making
themselves ridiculous cannot be stated, because at this moment
Margaret--prosaic, literal Margaret--appeared on the terrace.
"Blanche! Aunt Rachel seeketh thee.--Your servant, Master! I trust you
are now well amended?"
Don Juan was a very quick reader of character. He instantly realised
the difference between the sisters, and replied to Margaret's inquiry in
a calm matter-of-fact style. Blanche moved slowly away. She felt as if
she were leaving the sunshine behind her.
"Well, of all the lazy jades!" was Rachel's deserved greeting. "Three
rows and an half, betwixt twelve of the clock and four! Why, 'tis not a
full row for the hour! Child, art thou 'shamed of thyself?"
"Well, just middling, Aunt Rachel," said Blanche, pouting a little.
"Blanche," returned her Aunt very gravely, "I do sorely pity thine
husband--when such a silly thing may win one--without he spend an
hundred pound by the day, and keep a pack of serving-maids a-louting at
thy heels."
"I hope he may, Aunt Rachel," said Blanche coolly.
"Eh, child, child!" And Rachel's head was ominously shaken.
From that time Don Juan joined the family circle at meals. Of course he
was a prisoner, but a prisoner on parole, very generously treated, and
with little fear for the future. He was merely a spectator, having
taken no part in the war; there were old friends of his parents among
the English nobility: no great harm was likely to come to him. So he
felt free to divert himself; and here was a toy ready to his hand.
The family circle were amused with the names which he gave them. Sir
Thomas became "Don Tomas;" Lady Enville was "the grand Senora."
Margaret and Lucrece gave him some trouble; they were not Spanish names.
He took refuge in "Dona Mariquita" (really a diminutive of Maria), and
"Dona Lucia." But there was no difficulty about "Dona Clara" and "Dona
Blanca," which dropped from his lips (thought Blanche) like music.
Rachel's name, however, proved impracticable. He contented himself with
"_Senora mia_" when he spoke to her, and, "Your Lady Aunt" when he spoke
of her.
He was ready enough to give some account of himself. His father, Don
Gonsalvo, Marquis de Las Rojas, was a grandee of the first class, and a
Lord in Waiting to King Philip; his mother, Dona Leonor de Torrejano,
had been in attendance on Queen Mary. He had two sisters, whose names
were Antonia and Florela; and a younger brother, Don Hernando. [All
fictitious persons.]
It flattered Blanche all the more that in the presence of others he was
distantly ceremonious; but whenever they were alone, he was continually,
though very delicately, hinting his admiration of her, and pouring soft
speeches into her entranced ears. So Blanche, poor silly child I played
the part of the moth, and got her wings well singed in the candle.
Whatever Blanche was, Don Juan himself was perfectly heart-whole. Of
course no grandee of Spain could ever descend so low as really to
contemplate marriage with a mere _caballero's_ daughter, and of a
heretic country; that was out of the question. Moreover, there was a
family understanding that, a dispensation being obtained, he was to
marry his third cousin, Dona Lisarda de Villena, [A fictitious person] a
lady of moderate beauty and fabulous fortune. This arrangement had been
made while both were little children, nor had Don Juan the least
intention of rendering it void. He was merely amusing himself.
It often happens that such amusements destroy another's happiness. And
it sometimes happens that they lead to the destruction of another's
soul.
Don Juan won golden opinions from Sir Thomas and Lady Enville. He was
not wanting in sense, said the former (to whom the sensible side of him
had been shown); and, he was right well-favoured, and so courtly! said
Lady Enville--who had seen the courtly aspect.
"Well-favoured!" laughed Sir Thomas. "Calleth a woman yonder lad
well-favoured? Why, his face is the worst part of him: 'tis all satin
and simpers!"
Rachel had not the heart to speak ill of the invalid whom she had
nursed, while she admitted frankly that there were points about him
which she did not like: but these, no doubt, arose mainly from his being
a foreigner and a Papist. Margaret said little, but in her heart she
despised him. And presently Jack came home, when the volunteers were
disbanded, and, after a passage of arms, became the sworn brother of the
young prisoner. He was such a gentleman! said Master Jack. So there
was not much likelihood of Blanche's speedy disenchantment.
"Marry, what think you of the lad, Mistress Thekla?" demanded Barbara
one day, when she was at "four-hours" at the parsonage.
"He is very young," answered Mrs Tremayne, who always excused everybody
as long as it was possible. "He will amend with time, we may well
hope."
"Which is to say, I admire him not," suggested Mrs Rose, now a very old
woman, on whom time had brought few bodily infirmities, and no, mental
ones.
"Who doth admire him, Barbara, at the Court?" asked Mr Tremayne.
"Marry La'kin! every soul, as methinks, save Mistress Meg, and Sim, and
Jennet. Mistress Meg--I misdoubt if she doth; and Sim says he is a
nincompoop; [silly fellow] and Jennet saith, he is as like as two peas
to the old fox that they nailed up on the barn door when she was a
little maid. But Sir Thomas, and my Lady, and Master Jack, be mighty
taken with him; and Mistress Rachel but little less: and as to Mistress
Blanche, she hath eyes for nought else."
"Poor Blanche!" said Thekla.
"Blanche shall be a mouse in a trap, if she have not a care," said Mrs
Rose, with a wise shake of her head.
"Good lack, Mistress! she is in the trap already, but she wot it not."
"When we wot us to be in a trap, we be near the outcoming," remarked the
Rector.
"Of a truth I cannot tell," thoughtfully resumed Barbara, "whether this
young gentleman be rare deep, or rare shallow. He is well-nigh as ill
to fathom as Mistress Lucrece herself. Lo' you, o' Sunday morrow, Sir
Thomas told him that the law of the land was for every man and woman in
the Queen's dominions to attend the parish church twice of the Sunday,
under twenty pound charge by the month if they tarried at home, not
being let by sickness: and I had heard him say himself that he looked
Don John should kick thereat. But what doth Don John but to take up his
hat, and walk off to the church, handing of Mistress Rachel, as smiling
as any man; and who as devote as he when he was there?--Spake the Amen,
and sang in the Psalm, and all the rest belike. Good lack! I had
thought the Papists counted it sinful for to join in a Protestant
service."
"Not alway," said Mr Tremayne. "Maybe he hath the priest's licence in
his pocket."
"I wis not what he hath," responded Barbara, sturdily, "save and except
my good will; and that he hath not, nor is not like to have,--in
especial with Mistress Blanche, poor sely young maiden! that wot not
what she doth."
"He may have it, then, in regard to Clare?" suggested Mrs Rose
mischievously.
"Marry La'kin!" retorted Barbara in her fiercest manner. "But if I
thought yon fox was in any manner of fashion of way a-making up to my
jewel,--I could find it in my heart to put rats-bane in his pottage!"
Sir Thomas transmitted to London the news of the wreck of the Dolorida,
requesting orders concerning the seven survivors: at the same time
kindly writing to two or three persons in high places, old acquaintances
of the young man's parents, to ask their intercession on behalf of Don
Juan. But the weeks passed away, and as yet no answer came. The Queen
and Council were too busy to give their attention to a small knot of
prisoners.
On the fourth of September in the Armada year, 1588, died Robert Dudley,
the famous Earl of Leicester, who had commanded the army of defence at
Tilbury. This one man--and there was only one such--Elizabeth had never
ceased to honour. He retained her favour unimpaired for thirty years,
through good report--of which there was very little; and evil report--of
which there was a great deal. He saw rival after rival rise and
flourish and fall: but to the end of his life, he stood alone as the one
whose brilliant day was unmarred by storm,--the King of England, because
the King of her Queen. What was the occult power of this man, the last
of the Dudleys of Northumberland, over the proud spirit of Elizabeth?
It was not that she had any affection for him: she showed that plainly
enough at his death, when her whole demeanour was not that of mourning,
but of release. He was a man of extremely bad character,--a fact patent
to all the world: yet Elizabeth kept him at her side, and admitted him
to her closest friendship,--though she knew well that the rumours which
blackened his name did not spare her own. He never cleared himself of
the suspected murder of his first wife; he never tried to clear himself
of the attempted murder of the second, whom he alternately asserted and
denied to be his lawful wife, until no one knew which story to believe.
But the third proved his match. There was strong cause for suspicion
that twelve years before, Robert Earl of Leicester had given a lesson in
poisoning to Lettice Countess of Essex: and now the same Lettice,
Countess of Leicester, had not forgotten her lesson. Leicester was
tired of her; perhaps, too, he was a little afraid of what she knew.
The deft and practised poisoner administered a dose to his wife. But
Lettice survived, and poisoned him in return. And so the last of the
Dudleys passed to his awful account.
His death made no difference in the public rejoicing for the defeat of
the Armada. Two days afterwards, the Spanish banners were exhibited
from Paul's Cross, and the next morning were hung on London Bridge. The
nineteenth of November was a holiday throughout the kingdom. On Sunday
the 24th, the Queen made her famous thanksgiving progress to Saint
Paul's, seated in a chariot built in the form of a throne, with four
pillars, and a crowned canopy overhead. The Privy Council and the House
of Lords attended her. Bishop Pierce of Salisbury preached the sermon,
from the very appropriate text, afterwards engraved on the memorial
medals,--"He blew with His wind, and they were scattered."
All this time no word came to decide the fate of Don Juan. It was not
expected now before spring. A winter journey from Lancashire to London
was then a very serious matter.
"So you count it not ill to attend our Protestant churches, Master?"
asked Blanche of Don Juan, as she sat in the window-seat, needlework in
hand. It was a silk purse, not a kettle-holder, this time.
"How could I think aught ill, Dona Blanca, which I see your Grace do?"
was the courtly reply of Don Juan.
"But what should your confessor say, did he hear thereof?" asked
Blanche, provokingly.
"Is a confessor a monster in your eyes, fair lady?" said Don Juan, with
that smile which Blanche held in deep though secret admiration.
"I thought they were rarely severe," she said, bending her eyes on her
work.
"Ah, Senora, our faith differs from yours much less than you think.
What is a confessor, but a priest--a minister? The Senor Tremayne is a
confessor, when one of his people shall wish his advice. Where lieth
the difference?"
Blanche was too ignorant to know where it lay.
"I accounted there to be mighty difference," she said, hesitatingly.
"_Valgame los santos_! [The saints defend me!]--but a shade or two of
colour. Hold we not the same creeds as you? Your Book of Common
Prayer--what is it but the translation of ours? We worship the same
God; we honour the same persons, as you. Where, then, is the
difference? Our priests wed not; yours may. We receive the Holy
Eucharist in one kind; you, in both. We are absolved in private, and
make confession thus; you, in public. Be these such mighty
differences?"
If Don Juan had thrown a little less dust in her eyes, perhaps Blanche
might have had sense enough to ask him where the Church of Rome had
found her authority for her half of these differences, since it
certainly was not in Holy Scripture: and also, whether that communion
held such men as Cranmer, Latimer, Calvin, and Luther, in very high
esteem? But the dust was much too thick to allow any stronger reply
from Blanche than a feeble inquiry whether these really were all the
points of difference.
"What other matter offendeth your Grace? Doubtless I can expound the
same."
"Why, I have heard," said Blanche faintly, selecting one of the smaller
charges first, "that the Papists do hold Mary, the blessed Virgin, to
have been without sin."
"Some Catholics have that fantasy," replied Don Juan lightly. "It is
only a few. The Church binds it not on the conscience of any. You take
it--you leave it--as you will."
"Likewise you hold obedience due to the Bishop of Rome, instead of only
unto your own Prince, as with us," objected Blanche, growing a shade
bolder.
"That, again, is but in matters ecclesiastical. In secular matters, I
do assure your Grace, the Pope interfereth not."
Blanche, who had no answers to these subtle explainings away of the
facts, felt as if all her outworks were being taken, one by one.
"Yet," she said, bringing her artillery to bear on a new point, "you
have images in your churches, Don John, and do worship unto them?"
The word worship has changed its meaning since the days of Queen
Elizabeth. To do worship, and to do honour, were then interchangeable
terms.
Don Juan smiled. "Have you no pictures in your books, Dona Blanca?
These images are but as pictures for the teaching of the vulgar, that
cannot read. How else should we learn them? If some of the ignorant
make blunder, and bestow to these images better honour than the Church
did mean them, the mistake is theirs. No man really doth worship unto
these, only the vulgar."
"But do not you pray unto the saints?"
"We entreat the saints to pray for us; that is all."
"Then, in the Lord's Supper--the mass, you call it,"--said Blanche,
bringing up at last her strongest battering-ram, "you do hold, as I have
been taught, Don John, that the bread and wine be changed into the very
self body and blood of our Saviour Christ, that it is no more bread and
wine at all. Now how can you believe a matter so plainly confuted by
your very senses?"
"Ah, if I had but your learning and wisdom, Senora!" sighed Don Juan,
apparently from the bottom of his heart.
Blanche felt flattered; but she was not thrown off the scent, as her
admirer intended her to be. She still looked up for the answer; and Don
Juan saw that he must give it.
"Sweetest lady! I am no doctor of the schools, nor have I studied for
the priesthood, that I should be able to expound all matters unto one of
your Grace's marvellous judgment and learning. Yet, not to leave so
fair a questioner without answer--suffer that I ask, your gracious leave
accorded--did not our Lord say thus unto the holy Apostles,--`_Hoc est
corpus mens_,' to wit, `This is My Body?'"
Blanche assented.
"In what manner, then, was it thus?"
"Only as a memorial or representation thereof, we do hold, Don John."
"Good: as the child doth present [represent] the father, being of the
like substance, no less than appearance,--as saith the blessed Saint
Augustine, and also the blessed Jeronymo, and others of the holy Fathers
of the Church, right from the time of our Lord and His Apostles."
Don Juan had never read a line of the works of Jerome or Augustine.
Fortunately for him, neither had Blanche,--a chance on which he safely
calculated. Blanche was completely puzzled. She sat looking out of the
window, and thinking with little power, and to small purpose. She had
not an idea when Augustine lived, nor whether he read the service in his
own tongue in a surplice, or celebrated the Latin mass in full
pontificals. And if it were true that all the Fathers, down from the
Apostles, had held the Roman view--for poor ignorant Blanche had not the
least idea whether it were true or false--it was a very awkward thing.
Don Juan stood and watched her face for an instant. His diplomatic
instinct told him that the subject had better be dropped. All that was
needed to effect this end was a few well-turned compliments, which his
ingenuity readily suggested. In five minutes more the theological
discussion was forgotten, at least by Blanche, as Don Juan was assuring
her that in all Andalusia there were not eyes comparable to hers.
Mr Tremayne and Arthur came in to supper that evening. The former
quietly watched the state of affairs without appearing to notice
anything. He saw that Don Juan, who sat by Lucrece, paid her the most
courteous attention; that Lucrece received it with a thinly-veiled air
of triumph; that Blanche's eyes constantly followed, the young Spaniard:
and he came to the conclusion that the affair was more complicated than
he had originally supposed.
He waited, however, till Arthur and Lysken were both away, until he said
anything at home. When those young persons were safely despatched to
bed, Mr and Mrs Tremayne and Mrs Rose drew together before the fire,
and discussed the state of affairs at Enville Court.
"Now, what thinkest, Robin?" inquired Mrs Rose. "Is Blanche, _la
pauvrette_! as fully taken with Don Juan as Barbara did suppose?"
"I am afeared, fully."
"And Don Juan?"
"If I mistake not, is likewise taken with Blanche: but I doubt somewhat
if he be therein as wholehearted as she."
"And what say the elders?" asked Mrs Tremayne.
"Look on with _eyes_ which see nought. But, nathless, there be one pair
of eyes that see; and Blanche's path is not like to run o'er smooth."
"What, Mistress Rachel?"
"Nay, she is blind as the rest. I mean Lucrece."
"Lucrece! Thinkest she will ope the eyes of the other?"
"I think she casteth about to turn Don Juan's her way."
"Alack, poor Blanche!" said Mrs Tremayne. "Howso the matter shall go,
mefeareth she shall not 'scape suffering."
"She is no match for Lucrece," observed Mrs Rose.
"Truth: but I am in no wise assured Don Juan is not," answered Mr
Tremayne with a slightly amused look. "As for Blanche, she is like to
suffer; and I had well-nigh added, she demeriteth the same: but it will
do her good, Thekla. At the least, if the Lord bless it unto her--be
assured I meant not to leave out that."
"The furnace purifieth the gold," said Mrs Tremayne sadly: "yet the
heat is none the less fierce for that, Robin."
"Dear heart, whether wouldst thou miss the suffering rather, and the
purifying, or take both together?"
"It is soon over, Thekla," said her mother, quietly.
During the fierce heat of the Marian persecution, those words had once
been said to Marguerite Rose. She had failed to realise them then. The
lesson was learned now--thirty-five years later.
"Soon over, to look back, dear Mother," replied Mrs Tremayne. "Yet it
never seems short to them that be in the furnace."
Mrs Rose turned rather suddenly to her son-in-law.
"Robin, tell me, if thou couldst have seen thy life laid out before thee
on a map, and it had been put to thy choice to bear the Little Ease, or
to leave go,--tell me what thou hadst chosen?"
For Mr Tremayne had spent several months in that horrible funnel-shaped
prison, aptly termed Little Ease, and had but just escaped from it with
life. He paused a moment, and his face grew very thoughtful.
"I think, Mother," he said at length, "that I had chosen to go through
with it. I learned lessons in Little Ease that, if I had lacked now, I
had been sorely wanting to my people; and--speaking as a man--that
perchance I could have learned nowhere else."
"Childre," responded the aged mother, "it seemeth me, that of all matter
we have need to learn, the last and hardest is to give God leave to
choose for us. At least, thus it hath been with me; it may be I mistake
to say it is for all. Yet I am sure he is the happy man that learneth
it soon. It hath taken me well-nigh eighty years. Thou art better,
Robin, to have learned it in fifty."
"I count, Mother, we learn not all lessons in the same order," said the
Rector, smiling, "though there be many lessons we must all learn. 'Tis
not like to be my last,--without I should die to-morrow--if I have
learned it thoroughly now. And 'tis easier to leave in God's hands,
some choices than other."
Mrs Rose did not ask of what he was thinking, but she could guess
pretty well. It would be harder to lose his Thekla now, than if he had
come out of Little Ease and had found her dead: harder to lose Arthur in
his early manhood, than to have seen him coffined with his baby brother
and sisters, years ago. Mrs Tremayne drew a long sigh, as if she had
guessed it too.
"It would be easier to leave all things to God's choice," she said, "if
only we dwelt nearer God."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. "Vuesa merced," the epithet of ordinary courtesy, is literally
"Your Grace."
CHAPTER SEVEN.
A SPOKE IN THE WHEEL.
"All the foolish work
Of fancy, and the bitter close of all."
_Tennyson_.
A few weeks after that conversation, Lucrece Enville sat alone in the
bedroom which she shared with her sister Margaret. She was not shedding
tears--it was not her way to weep: but her mortification was bitter
enough for any amount of weeping.