Leatherface: A Tale of Old Flanders. Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

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СКАЧАТЬ 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, señor," she said, "the señorita 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 lustre 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 Duchess 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 Duchess 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. God 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 fortitude 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...."

      "Well? and--?" he queried.

      "You know my father, Ramon," she said with a slight shudder, "almost as well as I do. Do you believe that any tears would move him?"

      He made no reply. Indeed, what could he say? He did know Juan de Vargas, knew that such a man would sacrifice without pity or remorse everything that stood in the way of his schemes or of his ambition.

      "I was not even told that you would be in Brussels to-day--Inez only heard of it through the Duke of Alva's serving man--then she and I watched for you, because I felt that I must at least be the first to tell you the awful--awful news! Oh!" she exclaimed with sudden vehemence, "the misery of it all! ... Ramon, cannot you think of something?--cannot you think? Are we going to be parted like this? as if our love had never been, as if our love were not sweet and sacred and holy, the blessing of God which no man should have the power to take away from us!"

      She was on the point of breaking down, and don Ramon with one ear alert to every sound outside had much ado to soothe and calm her. This he tried to do, for selfish as he was, he loved this beautiful woman with that passionate if shallow ardour which is characteristic in men of his temperament.

      "Lenora," he said after awhile, "it is impossible for me to say anything for the moment. Fate and your father's cruelty have dealt me a blow which has half-stunned me. As you say, I must think--I am not going to give up hope quite as readily as your father seems to think. By our Lady! I am not just an old glove that can so lightly be cast aside. I must think ... I must devise.... But in the meanwhile...."

      He paused and something of that same look of fear came into his eyes which had been there when in the Council Chamber he had dreaded the Duke of Alva'a censure.

      "In the meanwhile, my sweet," he added hastily, "you must pretend to obey. You cannot openly defy your father! ... nor yet the Duke of Alva. You know them both! They are men who know neither pity nor mercy! Your father would punish you if you disobeyed him ... he has the means of compelling you to obey. But the Duke's wrath would fall with deathly violence upon me. You know as well as I do that he would sacrifice me ruthlessly if he felt that I was likely to interfere with any of his projects: and your marriage СКАЧАТЬ