As he said this, he turned to de Vargas and stretched out his hand to him. De Vargas took the hand respectfully and bent over it in dutiful obedience.
"Now, seigniors," resumed the Duke more gaily, and once more addressing the full council-board, "you know the full reason of my projected journey to Ghent. I go ostensibly in order to inaugurate the statue of our Sovereign King erected by my orders in the market place, but also in order to ascertain how our loyal worker will have progressed in the time. Donna Lenora de Vargas will have been the wife of Messire van Rycke for over a sennight by then: she will--and I mistake not--have much to tell us. In the meanwhile senor de Vargas will take up his residence in the city as _vicarius criminalis_: he will begin his functions to-morrow by presiding over the engagement of his daughter to the son of the High-Bailiff: there will be much public rejoicing and many entertainments during the week and on the day of the wedding ceremony: to these, seigniors, ye are graciously bidden. I pray you go and mingle as far as you can with that crowd of uncouth and vulgar burghers whose treachery seems to pierce even through their ill-fitting doublets. I pray you also to keep your eyes and ears open ... an my conjectures are correct, much goes on in Ghent of which the Holy Inquisition should have cognisance. We are out on a special campaign against cunning traitors, and Ghent is our first objective. When we turn our soldiery loose into the city, yours, seigniors, will be the first spoils.... Ghent is rich in treasure and money ... those first spoils will be worth the winning. Until that happy day, I bid you _au revoir_, gentle Sirs, and let your toast be at every banquet: "To the destruction of Ghent, and to the death of Orange!""
After which long peroration the Lieutenant-Governor intimated with a casual wave of his be-ringed hand that the sitting of the Grand Council was at an end. The ill.u.s.trious councillors rose with alacrity: they were now in rare good humour. The parting speech of His Highness tickled their cupidity. The first spoils at the sacking of Ghent should mean a fortune for every member of the board. General de Noircarmes had made a huge one at the sacking of Mons, and even younger officers like don Ramon de Linea had vastly enriched themselves when Mechlin was given over to the soldiers.
One by one now the grave seigniors withdrew, having taken respectful leave of His Highness. To the salute of the Netherlanders--of Viglius and Hessels, of Berlaymont and the others, the Duke responded with a curt bow--to de Vargas and del Rio, and also to don Ramon, he nodded with easy familiarity. However obsequious the Netherlanders might be--however proven their zeal, their Spanish masters never allowed them to forget that there was a world of social distinction between a grandee of Spain and the uncouth burghers and even patricians of this semi-civilised land.
VII
Having made his last obeisance before the Duke of Alva and taken leave of the grave seigniors of the Grand Council, don Ramon de Linea bowed himself out of the room with all the ceremony which Spanish etiquette prescribed. As he did so he noticed that at a significant sign from Alva, de Vargas and Alberic del Rio remained behind in the council-chamber, even while all the Netherlanders were being dismissed.
He watched these latter gentlemen as one by one they filed quickly out of the house--loath even to exchange a few friendly words with one another on the doorstep in this place where every wall had ears and every nook and cranny concealed a spy. He watched them with an air of supercilious contempt, oblivious of the fact that he himself had been not a little scared by the black looks cast on him by the all-powerful tyrant and merciless autocrat.
The scare had been unpleasant, but it was all over now: Fate--that ever fickle jade--seemed inclined to smile on him. The penniless scion of a n.o.ble race, he seemed at last on the high road to fortune--the command of the troops in Ghent was an unexpected gift of the G.o.ddess, whilst the sacking and looting of Mechlin had amply filled his pockets.
But it was a pity about donna Lenora!
Don Ramon paused in the vast panelled hall and instinctively his eyes wandered to the mirror, framed in rich Flemish carved wood, which hung upon the wall. By our Lady! he had well-nigh lost his self-control just now under de Vargas" mocking gaze, and also that air of high-breeding and sang-froid which became him so well: the thought of donna Lenora even in connection with her approaching marriage caused him to readjust the set of his doublet and the stiff folds of his ruffle, and his well-shaped hand wandered lovingly up to his silky moustache.
A sound immediately behind him caused him to start and to turn. An elderly woman wrapped in a dark shawl and wearing a black veil right over her face and head was standing close to his elbow.
"Inez?" he exclaimed, "what is it?"
"Hist! I beg of you, senor," whispered the woman, "I am well-nigh dead with terror at thought that I might be seen. The senorita knew that you would be here to-day: she saw you from the gallery above, and sent me down to ask you to come to her at once."
"The senorita?" broke in don Ramon impatiently, and with a puzzled frown, "is she here?"
"Senor de Vargas won"t let her out of his sight now. When he hath audience of the Lieutenant-Governor or business with the council he makes the senorita come with him. The Duke of Alva hath given her a room in this house, where she can sit while her father is at the Council."
"But Heavens above, why all this mystery?"
"The senorita will tell your Graciousness," said the woman, "I beg of you to come at once. If I stay longer down here I shall die of fright."
And like a scared hen, old Inez trotted across the hall, without waiting to see if don Ramon followed her. The young man seemed to hesitate for a moment: the call was a peremptory one, coming as it did from a beautiful woman whom he loved: at the same time all that he had heard in the council-chamber was a warning to him to keep out of de Vargas" way; the latter--if Inez spoke the truth--was keeping his daughter almost a prisoner, and it was never good at any time to run counter to senor de Vargas.
The house was very still. The Netherlanders had all gone: two serving men appeared to be asleep in the porch, otherwise there came no sign of life from any part of the building: the heavy oak doors which gave on the anteroom of the council-chamber effectually deadened every sound which might have come from there.
Don Ramon smiled to himself and shrugged his shoulders. After all he was a fool to be so easily scared: a beautiful woman beckoned, and he had not been forbidden to see her--so--after that one brief moment of hesitation he turned to follow Inez up the stairs.
The woman led the way round the gallery, then up another flight of stairs and along a narrow corridor, till she came to a low door, beside which she stopped.
"Go in, I pray you, senor," she said, "the senorita expects you."
The young man walked unannounced into the small room beyond.
There came a little cry of happy surprise out of the recess of a wide dormer window, and the next moment don Ramon held Lenora de Vargas in his arms.
VIII
Lenora with the golden hair and the dark velvety eyes! Thus do the chroniclers of the time speak of her (notably the Sieur de Vaernewyck who knew her intimately), thus too did Velasquez paint her, a few years after these notable events--all in white, for she seldom wore coloured gowns--very stately, with the small head slightly thrown back, the fringe of dark lashes veiling the l.u.s.tre of her luminous eyes.
But just at this moment there was no stateliness about donna Lenora: she clung to don Ramon, just like a loving child that has been rather scared and knows where to find protection; and he accepted her caress with an easy, somewhat supercilious air of condescension--the child was so pretty and so very much in love! He patted her hair with gentle, soothing gesture and thanked kind Fate for this pleasing gift of a beautiful woman"s love.
"I did not know that you were in Brussels," he said after awhile, and when he had led her to a seat in the window, and sat down beside her.
"All this while I thought you still in Segovia."
His glance was searching hers and his vanity was pleasantly stirred by the fact that she was pale and thin, and that those wonderful, luminous eyes of hers looked as if they had shed many tears of late.
"Ramon," she whispered, "you know?"
"The Duke of Alva," he replied dryly, "gave me official information."
Then seeing that she remained silent and dejected he added peremptorily: "Lenora! how long is it since you have known of this proposed marriage?"
"Only three days," she replied tonelessly. "My father sent for me about a month ago. The d.u.c.h.ess of Medina Coeli was coming over to the Netherlands on a visit to her lord, and I was told that I must accompany her. We started from Laredo in the _Esperansa_ on the 10th of last month and we landed at Flushing a week ago. Oh! at first I was so happy to come ... it is nine months and more since you left Spain and my heart was aching for a sight of you."
"Then ... when did you first hear?"
"Three days since, when we arrived in Brussels. The d.u.c.h.ess herself took me to my father"s house, and then he told me ... that he had bade me come because the Lieutenant-Governor had arranged a marriage for me ... with a Netherlander."
Don Ramon muttered an angry oath.
"Did he--your father I mean--never hint at it before?" he asked.
"Never. A month ago he still spoke of you in his letters to me. Had you no suspicions, Ramon?"
"None," he replied.
"It was he of course who obtained for you that command under don Frederic, which took you out of Spain."
"It was a fine position and I accepted it gladly ... and unsuspectingly."
"It must have been the beginning: he wanted you out of my way already then, though he went on pretending all this while that he favoured your attentions to me. He thought that I would soon forget you. How little he knows me! And now he has forbidden me to think of you again. Since I am in Brussels he hardly lets me out of his sight. He only leaves the house in order to attend on the Duke, and when he does, he brings me here with him. Inez and I are sent up to this room and I am virtually a prisoner."
"It all seems like an ugly dream, Lenora," he murmured sullenly.
"Aye! an ugly dream," she sighed. "Ofttimes, since my father told me this awful thing, I have thought that it could not be true. G.o.d could not allow anything so monstrous and so wicked. I thought that I must be dreaming and must presently wake up and find myself in the dear old convent at Segovia with your farewell letter to me under my pillow."
She was gazing straight out before her--not at him, for she felt that if she looked on him, all her fort.i.tude would give way and she would cry like a child. This she would not do, for her woman"s instinct had already told her that all the courage in this terrible emergency must come from her.
He sat there, moody and taciturn, all the while that she longed for him to take her in his arms and to swear to her that never would he give her up, never would he allow reasons of State to come between him and his love.
"There are political reasons it seems," she continued, and the utter wretchedness and hopelessness with which she spoke were a pathetic contrast to his own mere sullen resentment. "My father has not condescended to say much. He sent for me and I came. As soon as I arrived in Brussels he told me that I must no longer think of you: that childish folly, he said, must now come to an end. Then he advised me that the Lieutenant-Governor had arranged a marriage for me with the son of Messire van Rycke, High-Bailiff of Ghent ... that we are to be affianced to-morrow and married within the week. I cried--I implored--I knelt to my father and begged him not to break my heart, my life.... I told him that to part me from you was to condemn me to worse than death...."