Clare Avery Part 19

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 n.o.bility: 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 cla.s.s, 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 fict.i.tious 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 fict.i.tious 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 pa.s.sage 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 mis...o...b.. if she doth; and Sim says he is a nincomp.o.o.p; [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, st.u.r.dily, "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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.serted 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 Ess.e.x: 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 pa.s.sed 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.