CHAPTER XIII.
On an evening at the end of summer, while leaves were yet green and skies yet fall of sunshine, though the long daylight of the year's prime had diminished somewhat more than an hour, and darkness and winter were stealing slowly forward in the distance, a small but handsome room, richly furnished with everything that the taste of that day could display, with exquisite carvings of old oak, with fine pictures, with velvet hangings, ay, and with green shrubs and flowers both rare and beautiful, showed preparations for a supper party, at which two persons only were expected. The table was arranged with great taste: rich fruits in a silver vase formed a pyramid in the midst, and two or three dishes of the most beautiful workmanship presented various tempting pieces of confectionery strewed over, in quaint devices and in a regular pattern, with minute flowers. On the right of the principal table, at some little distance, was a carved oak buffet covered with crimson velvet, just seen from beneath the edges of a damask napkin, on which were arranged some large silver tankards of beautiful forms, two golden goblets, and several tall glasses gilded on the stem. The windows of the room were open, but shaded with trees and flowering shrubs, and a green soft light spread through the interior, as the rays of the setting sun poured through the veil of leaves. That light began to assume a purple hue, showing that the orb of day had touched the verge of the horizon, when a lady entered by a door from the gardens, magnificently habited in an evening dress, with somewhat more display of her fair person than the general habits of the English people rendered decorous. We see the same mode of dress in the pictures of Rubens, especially those in which he represents the court of France at that period; but the costume had not yet become general in Great Britain, and, to English minds, the dress might have been higher, the wing-like collar more close.
The lady closed the door and locked it; looked eagerly round, advanced to the other door, and did the same. Then, taking a small vial from that fair bosom, and a plate from the table, she poured out of the little bottle a white powder into the centre of the plate. There was a little vase of silver standing near, filled with powdered sugar, and from it she took a portion with a small silver ladle, then mingled the sugar and the white powder in the plate intimately together, and sprinkled the confectionery thickly with the mixture. This done, she again gazed round, looked out through both the windows, replaced the little vial in her bosom, and, unlocking either door, went forth again.
The room remained vacant for half an hour; twilight succeeded to broad day, and night to twilight, but soft and fair; no heavy darkness, but a gentle transparent shade, with the starlight and the coming moon, felt though not seen within the chamber. The windows remained open; the soft air sighed in through the branches, and a solitary note of the long-singing merle was heard every now and then from beneath the leaves.
Suddenly the quick hoofs of a number of horses sounded on the road near, then stopped, and voices talking gaily in the house succeeded. Two servants entered that carefully decked room, and lighted the candles in the lustres. A moment after, a man in a white cap and apron followed, looked over the whole table, and moved some of the flowers upon the dishes; but the cook did not seem to remark that aught had been done to his confectionery.
"'Ods life, there are more of them coming," he cried, addressing the other two servants, as the tramp of horses was again heard, "I wish they would keep their hungry throats away. Run out, Lloyd, and see who are these new ones."
The room was left vacant again for a few minutes, and then the door was thrown open by one of the attendants. The lady entered, leaning somewhat languishingly on the arm of a tall, handsome young man, splendidly dressed, but yet without that air of high birth and courtly habits which were eminently conspicuous in his fair companion.
A slight degree of paleness spread over the lady's face as she passed the threshold, and the deep fringed eyelids dropped over the large black eyes. The gentleman's look was upon her at the moment, and his brow somewhat contracted; his countenance assumed an expression of shrewd and bitter meaning. He said nought, however; and the lady, recovering herself in a moment, turned her head, saying to the servant behind, "Let the men wait--tell the boy I will see him, and receive his lord's letter after supper."
"Who are these men?" asked the gentleman, advancing with her towards the table.
"The page of the Earl of Hillingdon, my good lord," she replied, with a sarcastic smile, seating herself in the nearest chair; "his page and a servant, bearing a letter from that noble gentleman to poor deserted me."
"Nay, not much deserted," cried the other, in a gallant tone, "when my heart and so many others are at your feet."
"Hush!" she said sharply, though in a low voice, "nothing of this before the servants."
As she spoke a dish was brought in, and handed first to her guest; but he would be extremely courteous that night, and ordered it to be carried to her. She took some at once, and ate, without noticing his attention, but saying aloud as he helped himself, "I am but a poor housekeeper, my good lord, and am sorry my noble uncle is not here to treat you better; but I told the cook to do his best, and show his skill."
"Oh, this is excellent!" replied the gentleman, "and will make up for my bad fare yesterday at Hertford, where everything was so bitter methought I was poisoned. The taste is in my mouth still."
"Nay, we must drive it thence with better things," said the lady. "I would not deny myself the pleasure of receiving you, when you wrote to say you would come, though my uncle was absent; and I must try to make up for your disappointment in not finding him, by giving you good cheer--will you not take wine?"
"Let us drink from the same cup," said the gentleman, with a soft and passionate look, notwithstanding her warning, "the wine will only taste sweet to me, if your lips sip it too."
The lady's eye flashed suddenly, and her brow grew dark; but she answered, tossing her proud head, "I drink after no one, my lord. As to drinking after me, you may do as you please.--Give me some wine."
"Oh, your cup will render the wine nectar to me," said the guest, while the attendant to whom she had spoken poured out some wine for her into one of the golden goblets. She took a small portion, and then told the man to give it to her visitor, saying, with a laugh not quite natural, "What foolish things men are!"
The supper proceeded; dish after dish was brought in, but the gentleman would taste nothing of which the lady had not partaken before, till his conduct became somewhat remarkable. Her brow grew dark as night for an instant, but cleared again; and all that remained was a bright red spot upon her cheek.
There was a slight rustling sound near the open window, as the supper drew towards its conclusion, and the lady remarked, "The wind methinks is rising." Twice or thrice she looked in the direction of the window, and a sort of anxious uncertain expression came into her face. She pressed her guest to drink more wine, and he did so, always using the same cup and keeping it by him; but the wine at length seemed to have its effect. His face flushed, his eyes sparkled, his language became warm and passionate, somewhat coarse withal, and mingled with a bitterness, especially on the subject of woman's heart and mind, which was little less than insulting in a lady's presence.
Her eye fixed upon him firmly, shining clear and bright like a diamond, from under the slightly contracted brow. The red spot vanished from her cheek, and she remained deadly pale. "Why gaze you at me so sternly, lovely Kate?" asked her guest.
"Because I think you do not yet know women rightly," answered the lady at once: "you will learn better one day.--You need wait no longer," she continued, turning to the attendants; "we will be our own servants.--Now, my good lord, to end your supper, taste one of these tarts of Flemish cream. I marked well, when last you were here, that you loved them, and I had them prepared expressly for you."
One of the servants, ere he went, carried the silver dish to his lady's guest; but the gentleman kept to his rule. "Will you divide one with me, bright Kate?" he asked.
"Nay," she answered, glancing her eyes for an instant to the window, "I am not fond of them."
"Then I will not take them either," said her visitor. "What you love I will love--what you take I will take."
The lady set her teeth hard; then, as the servant set down the dish and withdrew, she suddenly stretched out her hand to another plate. saying in a low but firm voice, and with a bland smile, "Well I will divide one of these lady-grace's, as they call them, with you."
"That is kind, lovely Kate," cried the visitor, drawing his chair nearer to her; "and of all lady's grace on earth, let me have yours."
The lady smiled again quite sweetly, parted the sort of cheese-cake equally, and gave him half. He paused an instant, and she began. Then he ate, saying, "This is excellent."
"It is not bad," she answered, continuing to eat the cake, and keeping her eyes fixed upon him.
"Now that I have my lady's grace,"--he continued, drawing nearer still, and endeavouring to put his arm round her. But, instantly, she started up with a look of scorn; and, at the same moment, William Ifford sprang in at the open window.
"What is this, my lord!" he cried, "insulting my sweet cousin? Upstart and villain as you are, were there a drop of really noble blood in your veins--"
"It is vain, William! it is vain!" said the lady, in a low tone. "You have come too late. I have eaten too.--My right noble lord, you look very pale. I told you that you knew not women rightly. You know them now--as much as e'er you will know.--Heaven! how faint I feel!--But his eyes roll in his head.--Stop him from the door, William.--You are sick, my lord!--Will you try some Flemish cream, or taste more of your lady's grace?--Methinks you have had enough for once."
"I was warned! I was warned!" murmured the unhappy man, holding by the table for support.
"Ay; but not warned that the hate of a heart like mine will sacrifice life itself for vengeance," answered the lady, sinking down into a seat.
"I will have vengeance, too," said the guest, starting up, and staggering with a furious effort towards the door. But William Ifford caught him by the breast, and threw him back. He staggered--fell--rolled for a moment or two in frightful convulsions, and then, with a scream like that of a sea-bird in a storm, gave up the ghost.
William Ifford was at that moment by the lady's side. "Catherine! Catherine!" he cried, "have you taken much?"
She made no answer; some quick sharp shudders passed over her frame, and a sort of choking sobbing convulsed her throat. A minute after, her head fell back upon the chair, and then, with a low but sharp sound, sunk down to the ground.
Her guilty kinsman gazed from the one corpse to the other with a wild and hesitating look. But then he thought he heard a noise. It was the sound of steps and voices coming near; and, leaping through the window, he disappeared. He could not have been gone fifty yards when the door of the room was burst open in haste, and the attendants of the house flocked in, with the page Frill and the old servant Tony in the midst.
"Poisoned, boy!--poisoned!" cried the man named Lloyd. "Heaven and earth! it is too true!"
All paused in an instant, as the sight which that terrible chamber presented lay before their eyes; and, for some moments, not a word was said, while one gazed over the shoulders of another at the two corpses. Then all burst forth at once, surrounding the Earl of Hillingdon's page, and questioning him closely with eager and vociferous tongues. But Frill was more guarded in his answers than might have been expected. He told them that, liking all fine sights, he had amused himself by watching the Lady Catherine and her guest at supper, through the window on the right, between which and the other window stood a thick tree. He then detailed minutely all that had occurred till the entrance of Sir William Ifford; declared that he had heard steps approaching over the grassy lawn, and then had seen some one suddenly appear in the room, who, he supposed, had entered by the other window. He stoutly denied having seen the intruder's face; but at the same time remarked that the poisoning could not be his doing, for that nothing more was eaten till, in the midst of high words, which first gave him a clue to the terrible truth, the one victim had fallen and then the other, and he had run away to bring assistance.
Had the poison been of such a quality that any antidote would have proved effectual, so much time was lost that none could be administered. Not a spark of vitality remained when the bodies were at length examined; and the only indication of how the fatal event had occurred which could be discovered, was a small vial in the lady's bosom, containing a very minute portion of a white powder, which, being tried upon a dog, produced almost instant death.
The wonder lasted its nine days and was then forgotten by the world at large; but the sudden disappearance of Sir William Ifford, the gay, the witty, the dissolute, continued for a few weeks longer to excite inquiry and remark. No one ever learned the conclusion of his history: some said he had entered a monastery of Barefooted Friars, and died there in the odour of sanctity; others, with greater probability on their side, declared that he had turned Turk, and was to the day of his death one of the most relentless persecutors of the Christians. We only know that, on the night when this double death took place, a horseman rode away at a terrible pace from the small village in the neighbourhood, took his way as fast as possible towards the sea-side, and thence left no traces of his course behind.
For three days the page and the old servant of the Earl of Hillingdon were detained in Huntingdonshire, to give evidence regarding the sudden death of two persons of such high rank; but coroners were as wise, and coroners' juries as enlightened, in those days as in our own, and a burlesque verdict was returned in a very tragic case. The stout old servant and his youthful companion then set out to join their lord, arrived in Germany in safety, and, thanks to many of those circumstances which might have seemed best calculated to impede them, such as their ignorance--or rather small knowledge--of the language, and their very narrow information upon geographical subjects, arrived within a few miles' distance of Heidelberg with fewer difficulties than better instructed persons would probably have encountered. The answers which they gave, in what they called German, to the questions of those who interrogated them, completely puzzled their examiners; and the round they took to arrive at the city, brought them to a point the most opposite from that at which a messenger from England might have been expected to appear. It was late at night when they reached the small village of Siegelhausen; but there they heard from the peasants a confirmation of the rumours which had previously reached them, that Heidelberg was completely invested, and, to use the expression of the boors, "that a field mouse could not creep in."
"I will try, at all events;" said Frill, "for I know my lord would give his right hand for the news we bring. If it cost me my ears, I will try;" and with this magnanimous resolution he lay down to sleep.