Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall Part 45

"It is my intention to tell John about your conduct with Leicester, and I shall learn for what purpose he thinks eyes and heads are created."

"Tell John?" cried Dorothy. "Of course you may tell John. He well knows the purposes of heads and eyes, and their proper uses. He has told me many times his opinion on the subject." She laughed for a moment, and then continued: "I, too, shall tell John all that happened or shall happen between Lord Leicester and me. I wish I could tell him now. How I wish I could tell him now." A soft light came to her eyes, and she repeated huskily: "If I might tell him now; if I might tell him now. Why, Malcolm, I despise Leicester. He is a poor, weak fool. He has no more force nor strength than I have. He is not a man. He is no more attractive than a woman. He wanted to kiss me. He begged me to give him but one. It is but a poor kiss which a man gets by begging. Think you I would give him one? Had he but touched my lips, think you I would ever allow John to soil himself again by kissing them? Fear not, Malcolm. Fear not for John nor for me.

No man will ever receive from me a favor, the granting of which would make me unfit to be John's--John's wife. I have paid too dearly for him to throw him away for a penny whistle that I do not want." Then she grew earnest, with a touch of anger: "Leicester! What reason, suppose you, Malcolm, have I for treating him as I do? Think you I act from sheer wantonness? If there were one little spot of that fault upon my soul, I would tear myself from John, though I should die for it."

Her laughing mood had pa.s.sed away, and I feared to say that I could see no reason other than coquetry for her conduct, I feared the red-haired tigress would scratch my eyes out.

"I have wanted to see you," she continued, "that I might tell you of my plans and of the way they are working out, but now since you have spoken to me in this manner, Sir Malcolm Francois de Lorraine Vernon, I shall tell you nothing. You suspect me. Therefore, you shall wait with the rest of the world to learn my purposes. You may tell John all you have seen and heard. I care not how quickly you do it." Then with a sigh: "I pray G.o.d it may be very soon. He will wish for no explanation, and he shall one day have in me a rich reward for his faith."

"Do you trust him as he trusts you?" I asked, "and would you demand an explanation were he to act toward Mary Stuart as you have acted toward Leicester?"

"He could not act toward her as I did toward Lord Leicester," she said thoughtfully. Then after a moment she laughingly continued: "John can't--he can't hang his head and--droop his eyes and look."

"But if--" I began.

"I want no more of your h.e.l.lish 'ifs,'" cried the girl in sudden fury. "If John were to--to look at that Scottish mongrel as I looked at Leicester, I would--I would kill the royal wanton. I would kill her if it cost my life. Now, for G.o.d's sake, leave me. You see the state into which you have wrought me." I left Madge with Dorothy and walked out upon Bowling Green to ponder on the events that were pa.s.sing before me.

From the time we learned that John had gone to fetch the Scottish queen I had fears lest Dorothy's inflammable jealousy might cause trouble, and now those fears were rapidly transforming themselves into a feeling of certainty. There is nothing in life so sweet and so dangerous as the love of a hot-blooded woman.

I soon saw Dorothy again. "Tell me," said I, in conciliation, "tell me, please, what is your reason for acting as you do toward Leicester, and why should you look differently upon similar conduct on John's part?"

"I will not tell you my plans," she responded,--"not now, at least.

Perhaps I shall do so when I have recovered from my ill-temper. It is hard for me to give my reasons for feeling differently about like conduct on John's part. Perhaps I feel as I do because--because--It is this way: While I might do little things--mere nothings--such as I have done--it would be impossible for me to do any act of unfaithfulness to John. Oh, it could not be. But with him, he--he--well, he is a man and--and--oh, don't talk to me! Don't talk to me! You are driving me mad. Out of my sight! Out of my room! Holy Virgin! I shall die before I have him; I know I shall."

There it was again. The thought of Mary Stuart drove her wild. Dorothy threw herself on her face upon the bed, and Madge went over and sat by her side to soothe her. I, with a feeling of guilt, so adroit had been Dorothy's defence, left the girls and went to my room in the tower to unravel, by the help of my pipe, the tangled web of woman's incomprehensibility. I failed, as many another man had failed before me, and as men will continue to fail to the end of time.

CHAPTER XIV

MARY STUART

And now I come to an event in this history which I find difficult to place before you in its true light. For Dorothy's sake I wish I might omit it altogether. But in true justice to her and for the purpose of making you see clearly the enormity of her fault and the palliating excuses therefor, if any there were, I shall pause briefly to show the condition of affairs at the time of which I am about to write--a time when Dorothy's madness brought us to the most terrible straits and plunged us into deepest tribulations.

Although I have been unable to show you as much of John as I have wished you to see, you nevertheless must know that he, whose nature was not like the shallow brook but was rather of the quality of a deep, slow-moving river, had caught from Dorothy an infection of love from which he would never recover. His soul was steeped in the delicious essence of the girl.

I would also call your attention to the conditions under which his pa.s.sion for Dorothy had arisen. It is true he received the shaft when first he saw her at the Royal Arms in Derby-town, but the shaft had come from Dorothy's eyes. Afterward she certainly had done her full part in the wooing. It was for her sake, after she had drawn him on to love her, that he became a servant in Haddon Hall. For her sake he faced death at the hands of her father. And it was through her mad fault that the evil came upon him of which I shall now tell you. That she paid for her fault in suffering does not excuse her, since pain is but the latter half of evil.

During the term of Elizabeth's residence in Haddon Hall John returned to Rutland with Queen Mary Stuart, whose escape from Lochleven had excited all England. The country was full of rumors that Mary was coming to England not so much for sanctuary as to be on the ground ready to accept the English crown when her opportunity to do so should occur. The Catholics, a large and powerful party, flushed with their triumphs under the "b.l.o.o.d.y Queen," were believed to sympathize with Mary's cause.

Although Elizabeth said little on the subject, she felt deeply, and she feared trouble should the Scottish queen enter her dominion. Another cause of annoyance to Elizabeth was the memory that Leicester had once been deeply impressed with Mary's charms, and had sought her hand in marriage.

Elizabeth's prohibition alone had prevented the match. That thought rankled in Elizabeth's heart, and she hated Mary, although her hatred, as in all other cases, was tempered with justice and mercy. This great queen had the brain of a man with its motives, and the heart of a woman with its emotions.

When news of Mary's escape reached London, Cecil came in great haste to Haddon. During a consultation with Elizabeth he advised her to seize Mary, should she enter England, and to check the plots made in Mary's behalf by executing the princ.i.p.al friends of the Scottish queen. He insistently demanded that Elizabeth should keep Mary under lock and key, should she be so fortunate as to obtain possession of her person, and that the men who were instrumental in bringing her into England should be arraigned for high treason.

John certainly had been instrumental in bringing her into England, and if Cecil's advice were taken by the queen, John's head would pay the forfeit for his chivalric help to Mary.

Elizabeth was loath to act on this advice, but Cecil worked upon her fears and jealousies until her mind and her heart were in accord, and she gave secret orders that his advice should be carried out. Troops were sent to the Scottish border to watch for the coming of the fugitive queen. But Mary was already ensconced, safely, as she thought, in Rutland Castle under the a.s.sumed name of Lady Blanche. Her presence at Rutland was, of course, guarded as a great secret.

Dorothy's mind dwelt frequently upon the fact that John and the beautiful young Scottish queen lived under the same roof, for John had written to Dorothy immediately after his return. Nothing so propagates itself as jealousy. There were in Haddon Hall two hearts in which this self-propagating process was rapidly progressing--Elizabeth's and Dorothy's. Each had for the cause of her jealousy the same woman.

One night, soon after Cecil had obtained from Elizabeth the order for Mary's arrest, Dorothy, on retiring to her room at a late hour found Jennie Faxton waiting for her with a precious letter from John. Dorothy drank in the tenderness of John's letter as the thirsty earth absorbs the rain; but her joy was neutralized by frequent references to the woman who she feared might become her rival. One-half of what she feared, she was sure had been accomplished: that is, Mary's half. She knew in her heart that the young queen would certainly grow fond of John. That was a foregone conclusion. No woman could be with him and escape that fate, thought Dorothy. Her hope as to the other half-John's part-rested solely upon her faith in John, which was really great, and her confidence in her own charms and in her own power to hold him, which in truth, and with good reason, was not small, Dorothy went to bed, and Jennie, following her usual custom, when at Haddon, lay upon the floor in the same room. John's letter, with all its tenderness, had thrown Dorothy into an inquisitive frame of mind. After an hour or two of restless tossing upon the bed she fell asleep, but soon after midnight she awakened, and in her drowsy condition the devil himself played upon the strings of her dream-charged imagination. After a time she sprang from the bed, lighted a candle at the rush light, and read John's letter in a tremor of dream-wrought fear. Then she aroused Jennie Faxton and asked:--

"When were you at Rutland?"

"I spent yesterday and to-day there, mistress," answered Jennie.

"Did you see a strange lady?" asked Dorothy.

"Oh, yes, mistress, I did see her three or four times," answered Jennie.

"Lady Blanche is her name, and she be a cousin of Sir John's. She do come, they say, from France, and do speak only in the tongue of that country."

"I--I suppose that this--this Lady Blanche and--and Sir John are very good friends? Did you--did you--often see them together?" asked Dorothy. She felt guilty in questioning Jennie for the purpose of spying upon her lover. She knew that John would not pry into her conduct.

"Indeed, yes, mistress," returned Jennie, who admired John greatly from her lowly sphere, and who for her own sake as well as Dorothy's was jealous of Queen Mary. "They do walk together a great deal on the ramparts, and the white snaky lady do look up into Sir John's face like this"--here Jennie a.s.sumed a lovelorn expression. "And--and once, mistress, I thought--I thought--"

"Yes, yes, Jesu!" hissed Dorothy, clutching Jennie by the arm, "you thought, you thought. Tell me! Tell me! What in h.e.l.l's name did you think?

Speak quickly, wench."

"I be not sure, mistress, but I thought I saw his arm about her waist one evening on the ramparts. It was dark, and for sure I could not tell, but--"

"G.o.d's curse upon the white huzzy!" screamed Dorothy. "G.o.d's curse upon her! She is stealing him from me, and I am helpless."

She clasped her hands over the top of her head and ran to and fro across the room uttering inarticulate cries of agony. Then she sat upon the bedside and threw herself into Madge's arms, crying under her breath: "My G.o.d! My G.o.d! Think of it, Madge. I have given him my heart, my soul, O merciful G.o.d, my love--all that I have worth giving, and now comes this white wretch, and because she is a queen and was sired in h.e.l.l she tries to steal him from me and coaxes him to put his arm around her waist."

"Don't feel that way about it, Dorothy," said Madge, soothingly. "I know Sir John can explain it all to you when you see him. He is true to you, I am sure."

"True to me, Madge! How can he be true to me if she coaxes him to woo her and if he puts his arm--I am losing him; I know it. I--I--O G.o.d, Madge, I am smothering; I am strangling! Holy Virgin! I believe I am about to die."

She threw herself upon the bed by Madge's side, clutching her throat and breast, and her grand woman's form tossed and struggled as if she were in convulsions.

"Holy mother!" she cried, "take this frightful agony from my breast.

s.n.a.t.c.h this terrible love from my heart. G.o.d! If you have pity, give it now. Help me! Help me! Ah, how deeply I love. I never loved him so much as I do at this awful moment. Save me from doing that which is in my heart.

If I could have him for only one little portion of a minute. But that is denied me whose right it is, and is given to her who has no right. Ah, G.o.d is not just. If he were he would strike her dead. I hate her and I hate--hate him."

She arose to a sitting posture on the edge of the bed and held out her arms toward Madge.

"Madge," she continued, frenzied by the thought, "his arm was around her waist. That was early in the evening. Holy Virgin! What may be happening now?"

Dorothy sprang from the bed and staggered about the room with her hands upon her throbbing temples.

"I cannot bear this agony. G.o.d give me strength." Soon she began to gasp for breath. "I can--see--them now--together, together. I hate her; I hate him. My love has turned bitter. What can I do? What can I do? I will do it. I will. I will disturb their sweet rest. If I cannot have him, she shall not. I'll tell the queen, I'll tell the queen."

Dorothy acted on her resolution the moment it was taken, and at once began to unbolt the door.

"Stay, Dorothy, stay!" cried Madge. "Think on what you are about to do. It will cost John his life. Come to me for one moment, Dorothy, I pray you."

Madge arose from the bed and began groping her way toward Dorothy, who was unbolting the door.

Madge could have calmed the tempest-tossed sea as easily as she could have induced Dorothy to pause in her mad frenzy. Jennie Faxton, almost paralyzed by fear of the storm she had raised, stood in the corner of the room trembling and speechless. Dorothy was out of the room before poor blind Madge could reach her. The frenzied girl was dressed only in her night robes and her glorious hair hung dishevelled down to her waist. She ran through the rooms of Lady Crawford and those occupied by her father and the retainers. Then she sped down the long gallery and up the steps to Elizabeth's apartment.