Read Ebook: Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall by Major Charles

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Ebook has 2514 lines and 117306 words, and 51 pages

"My pleasure is now," I retorted eagerly.

I threw off my doublet and pushed the table and chairs against the wall to make room for the fight; but the stranger, who had not drawn his sword, said:--

"I have eaten nothing since morning, and I am as hungry as a wolf. I would prefer to fight after supper; but if you insist--"

"I do insist," I replied. "Perhaps you will not care for supper when I have--"

"That may be true," he interrupted; "but before we begin I think it right to tell you, without at all meaning to boast of my skill, that I can kill you if I wish to do so. Therefore you must see that the result of our fight will be disagreeable to you in any case. You will die, or you will owe me your life."

His cool impertinence angered me beyond endurance. He to speak of killing me, one of the best swordsmen in France, where the art of sword-play is really an art! The English are but bunglers with a gentleman's blade, and should restrict themselves to pike and quarterstaff.

"Results be damned!" I answered. "I can kill you if I wish." Then it occurred to me that I really did not wish to kill the handsome young fellow toward whom I felt an irresistible attraction.

I continued: "But I prefer that you should owe me your life. I do not wish to kill you. Guard!"

My opponent did not lift his sword, but smilingly said:--

"Then why do you insist upon fighting? I certainly do not wish to kill you. In truth, I would be inclined to like you if you were not a Vernon."

"Damn your insolence! Guard! or I will run you through where you stand," I answered angrily.

"But why do we fight?" insisted the stubborn fellow, with a coolness that showed he was not one whit in fear of me.

"You should know," I replied, dropping my sword-point to the floor, and forgetting for the moment the cause of our quarrel. "I--I do not."

"Then let us not fight," he answered, "until we have discovered the matter of our disagreement."

At this remark neither of us could resist smiling. I had not fought since months before, save for a moment at the gates of Dundee, and I was loath to miss the opportunity, so I remained in thought during the space of half a minute and remembered our cause of war.

"Oh! I recall the reason for our fighting," I replied, "and a good one it was. You offered affront to the name of Sir George Vernon, and insultingly refused me the courtesy of your name after I had done you the honor to tell you mine."

"I did not tell you my name," replied the stranger, "because I believed you would not care to hear it; and I said I was glad not to know Sir George Vernon because--because he is my father's enemy. I am Sir John Manners. My father is Lord Rutland."

Then it was my turn to recede. "You certainly are right. I do not care to hear your name."

I put my sword in its scabbard and drew the table back to its former place. Sir John stood in hesitation for a moment or two, and then said:--

"Sir Malcolm, may we not declare a truce for to-night? There is nothing personal in the enmity between us."

"Nothing," I answered, staring at the fire, half regretful that we bore each other enmity at all.

"You hate me, or believe you do," said Manners, "because your father's cousin hates my father; and I try to make myself believe that I hate you because my father hates your father's cousin. Are we not both mistaken?"

I was quick to anger and to fight, but no man's heart was more sensitive than mine to the fair touch of a kind word.

"I am not mistaken, Sir John, when I say that I do not hate you," I answered.

"Nor do I hate you, Sir Malcolm. Will you give me your hand?"

"Gladly," I responded, and I offered my hand to the enemy of my house.

"Landlord," I cried, "bring us two bottles of your best sack. The best in the house, mind you."

After our amicable understanding, Sir John and myself were very comfortable together, and when the sack and roast beef, for which the Royal Arms was justly famous, were brought in, we sat down to an enjoyable meal.

After supper Sir John lighted a small roll or stick made from the leaves of tobacco. The stick was called a cigarro, and I, proud not to be behind him in new-fashioned, gentlemanly accomplishments, called to the landlord for a pipe. Manners interrupted me when I gave the order and offered me a cigarro which I gladly accepted.

Despite my effort to reassure myself, I could not quite throw off a feeling of uneasiness whenever I thought of the manner in which I had betrayed to Sir John the fact that I was a friend to Mary Stuart. I knew that treachery was not native to English blood, and my knowledge of mankind had told me that the vice could not live in Sir John Manners's heart. But he had told me of his residence at the court of Elizabeth, and I feared trouble might come to me from the possession of so dangerous a piece of knowledge by an enemy of my house.

I did not speak my thoughts upon the matter, and we sat the evening through discussing many subjects. We warmed toward each other and became quite confidential. I feel ashamed when I admit that one of my many sins was an excessive indulgence in wine. While I was not a drunkard, I was given to my cups sometimes in a degree both dangerous and disgraceful; and during the evening of which I have just spoken I talked to Sir John with a freedom that afterward made me blush, although my indiscretion brought me no greater trouble.

My outburst of confidence was prompted by Sir John's voluntary assurance that I need fear nothing from having told him that I was a friend of Queen Mary. The Scottish queen's name had been mentioned, and Sir John had said--

"I take it, Sir Malcolm, that you are newly arrived in England, and I feel sure you will accept the advice I am about to offer in the kindly spirit in which it is meant. I deem it unsafe for you to speak of Queen Mary's friendship in the open manner you have used toward me. Her friends are not welcome visitors to England, and I fear evil will befall those who come to us as refugees. You need have no fear that I will betray you. Your secret is safe with me. I will give you hostage. I also am Queen Mary's friend. I would not, of course, favor her against the interest of our own queen. To Elizabeth I am and always shall be loyal; but the unfortunate Scottish queen has my sympathy in her troubles, and I should be glad to help her. I hear she is most beautiful and gentle in person."

Thus you see the influence of Mary's beauty reached from Edinburgh to London. A few months only were to pass till this conversation was to be recalled by each of us, and the baneful influence of Mary's beauty upon all whom it touched was to be shown more fatally than had appeared even in my own case. In truth, my reason for speaking so fully concerning the, Scottish queen and myself will be apparent to you in good time.

When we were about to part for the night, I asked Sir John, "What road do you travel to-morrow?"

"I am going to Rutland Castle by way of Rowsley," he answered.

"I, too, travel by Rowsley to Haddon Hall. Shall we not extend our truce over the morrow and ride together as far as Rowsley?" I asked.

"I shall be glad to make the truce perpetual," he replied laughingly.

"So shall I," was my response.

Thus we sealed our compact and knitted out of the warp and woof of enmity a friendship which became a great joy and a sweet grief to each of us.

That night I lay for hours thinking of the past and wondering about the future. I had tasted the sweets--all flavored with bitterness--of court life. Women, wine, gambling, and fighting had given me the best of all the evils they had to offer. Was I now to drop that valorous life, which men so ardently seek, and was I to take up a browsing, kinelike existence at Haddon Hall, there to drone away my remaining days in fat'ning, peace, and quietude? I could not answer my own question, but this I knew: that Sir George Vernon was held in high esteem by Elizabeth, and I felt that his house was, perhaps, the only spot in England where my head could safely lie. I also had other plans concerning Sir George and his household which I regret to say I imparted to Sir John in the sack-prompted outpouring of my confidence. The plans of which I shall now speak had been growing in favor with me for several months previous to my enforced departure from Scotland, and that event had almost determined me to adopt them. Almost, I say, for when I approached Haddon Hall I wavered in my resolution.

At the time when I had last visited Sir George at Haddon, his daughter Dorothy--Sir George called her Doll--was a slipshod girl of twelve. She was exceedingly plain, and gave promise of always so remaining. Sir George, who had no son, was anxious that his vast estates should remain in the Vernon name. He had upon the occasion of my last visit intimated to me that when Doll should become old enough to marry, and I, perchance, had had my fill of knocking about the world, a marriage might be brought about between us which would enable him to leave his estates to his daughter and still to retain the much-loved Vernon name for his descendants.

Owing to Doll's rusty red hair, slim shanks, and freckled face, the proposition had not struck me with favor, yet to please Sir George I had feigned acquiescence, and had said that when the time should come, we would talk it over. Before my flight from Scotland I had often thought of Sir George's proposition made six or seven years before. My love for Mary Stuart had dimmed the light of other beauties in my eyes, and I had never married. For many months before my flight, however, I had not been permitted to bask in the light of Mary's smiles to the extent of my wishes. Younger men, among them Darnley, who was but eighteen years of age, were preferred to me, and I had begun to consider the advisability of an orderly retreat from the Scottish court before my lustre should be entirely dimmed. It is said that a man is young so long as he is strong, and I was strong as in the days of my youth. My cheeks were fresh, my eyes were bright, and my hair was red as when I was twenty, and without a thread of gray. Still, my temperament was more exacting and serious, and the thought of becoming settled for life, or rather for old age and death, was growing in favor with me. With that thought came always a suggestion of slim, freckled Dorothy and Sir George's offer. She held out to me wealth and position, a peaceful home for my old age, and a grave with a pompous, pious epitaph at Bakewell church, in death.

When I was compelled to leave Scotland, circumstances forced me to a decision, and my resolution was quickly taken. I would go to Derbyshire and would marry Dorothy. I did not expect ever again to feel great love for a woman. The fuse, I thought, had burned out when I loved Mary Stuart. One woman, I believed, was like another to me, and Dorothy would answer as well as any for my wife. I could and would be kind to her, and that alone in time would make me fond. It is true, my affection would be of a fashion more comfortable than exciting; but who, having passed his galloping youth, will contemn the joys that come from making others happy? I believe there is no person, past the age of forty, at all given to pondering the whys of life, who will gainsay that the joy we give to others is our chief source of happiness. Why, then, should not a wise man, through purely selfish motives, begin early to cultivate the gentle art of giving joy?

But the fates were to work out the destinies of Dorothy and myself without our assistance. Self-willed, arrogant creatures are those same fates, but they save us a deal of trouble by assuming our responsibilities.

THE IRON, THE SEED, THE CLOUD, AND THE RAIN

The morning following my meeting with Manners, he and I made an early start. An hour before noon we rode into the town of Rowsley and halted at The Peacock for dinner.

When we entered the courtyard of the inn we saw three ladies warmly wrapped in rich furs leave a ponderous coach and walk to the inn door, which they entered. One of them was an elderly lady whom I recognized as my cousin, Lady Dorothy Crawford, sister to Sir George Vernon. The second was a tall, beautiful girl, with an exquisite ivory-like complexion and a wonderful crown of fluffy red hair which encircled her head like a halo of sunlit glory. I could compare its wondrous lustre to no color save that of molten gold deeply alloyed with copper. But that comparison tells you nothing. I can find no simile with which to describe the beauties of its shades and tints. It was red, but it also was golden, as if the enamoured sun had gilded every hair with its radiance. In all my life I had never seen anything so beautiful as this tall girl's hair. Still, it was the Vernon red. My cousin, Sir George, and many Vernons had hair of the same color. Yet the girl's hair differed from all other I had ever seen. It had a light and a lustre of its own which was as distinct from the ordinary Vernon red, although that is very good and we are proud of it, as the sheen of gold is from the glitter of brass. I knew by the girl's hair that she was my cousin, Dorothy Vernon, whom I reluctantly had come to wed.

I asked myself, "Can this be the plain, freckled girl I knew seven years ago?" Compared with her beauty even Mary Stuart's was pale as the vapid moon at dawn. The girl seemed to be the incarnated spirit of universal life and light, and I had condescendingly come to marry this goddess. I felt a dash of contemptuous pity for my complacent self.

In my cogitations concerning marriage with Dorothy Vernon, I had not at all taken into consideration her personal inclination. A girl, after all, is but the chattel of her father, and must, perforce, if needs be, marry the man who is chosen for her. But leaving parental authority out of the question, a girl with brick-red hair and a multitude of freckles need not be considered when an agreeable, handsome man offers himself as a husband. She usually is willing to the point of eagerness. That is the manner in which I had thought about Dorothy Vernon, if I considered her at all. But when a man is about to offer himself to a goddess, he is apt to pause. In such a case there are always two sides to the question, and nine chances to one the goddess will coolly take possession of both. When I saw Dorothy in the courtyard of The Peacock, I instantly knew that she was a girl to be taken into account in all matters wherein she was personally concerned. Her every feature, every poise and gesture, unconsciously bore the stamp of "I will" or "I will not."

Walking by Dorothy's side, holding her hand, was a fair young woman whose hair was black, and whose skin was of the white, clear complexion such as we see in the faces of nuns. She walked with a hesitating, cautious step, and clung to Dorothy, who was gentle and attentive to her. But of this fair, pale girl I have so much to say in the pages to come that I shall not further describe her here.

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