Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall by Charles Major

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One afternoon when the sun was graciously warm and bright, I induced Madge
to walk with me upon the terrace, that I might for a few moments feel the
touch of her hand and hear her whispered words. We took a seat by a large
holly bush, which effectually concealed us from view. We had been there
but a few moments when we heard footsteps approaching. Looking between the
branches of the holly bush I saw Dorothy and Leicester coming toward us
from the north end of the terrace. Dorothy's eyes were cast down demurely,
and her head hung in the attitude of a shy, modest girl, who listens
timidly to words that are music in her ears. Never have I seen an attitude
more indicative of the receptive mood than that which Dorothy assumed
toward Leicester.

"Ah," thought I, "poor John has given his heart and has risked his life
for the sake of Doll, and Doll is a miserable coquette."

But there was conduct still more objectionable to come from Dorothy.

Unconscious of our presence, Leicester said, "My fair beauty, my Venus,
here is a settle under this holly bush, well hidden from prying eyes. It
invites us. Will you sit here with me for one happy moment, and give me a
taste of Paradise?"

"I fear I should not sit with you, my lord, however much I--may--may wish
to do so. My father or the queen might observe us." The black lashes fell
upon the fair cheek, and the red golden head with its crown of glory hung
forward convincingly.

"You false jade," thought I.

"I ask for but one moment," pleaded Leicester. "The queen sleeps at this
time after dinner, and perhaps your father would not object if you were to
grant this little favor to the first nobleman of the realm."

"You do not know my father, my lord. He is very strict regarding my
conduct," murmured the drooping head.

"I ask for but one little moment," continued the earl, "in which to tell
you that you have filled my heart with adoration and love."

"I should not listen to you, my lord. Were I mindful of my happiness, I
should return to the Hall at once," said the drooping lashes and hanging
head.

"You lying wench," thought I. By that time I was thoroughly angered.

"Only one little moment on the settle," pleaded Leicester, "that I may
speak to you that which I wish so ardently to say."

"Can you not speak while we walk, my lord?" asked Dorothy.

I felt a bitter desire to curse the girl.

"It is difficult for me to speak while we walk," said Leicester,
cautiously taking the girl's hand; so she permitted him to lead her to the
settle under the holly bush, on the opposite side of which Madge and I
were sitting.

The earl retained the hand for a moment after he and Dorothy were seated,
but she gently drew it away and moved a little distance from his Lordship.
Still, her eyes were drooped, her head hung low, and her bosom actually
heaved as if with emotion.

"I will tell John of your shamelessness," I said to myself. "He shall feel
no more heartaches for you--you wanton huzzy."

Then Leicester poured forth his passion most eloquently. Poesy, verse, and
rhetoric all came to help him in his wooing. Now and then the girl would
respond to his ardor with "Please, my lord," or "I pray you, my lord," and
when he would try to take her hand she would say, "I beg you, my lord, do
not." But Leicester evidently thought that the "do not" meant "do," for
soon he began to steal his arm about her waist, and she was so slow in
stopping him that I thought she was going to submit. She, however, arose
gently to her feet and said:--

"My lord, I must return to the Hall. I may not longer remain here with
you."

The earl caught her hand and endeavored to kiss it, but she adroitly
prevented him, and stepping out into the path, started slowly toward the
Hall. She turned her head slightly toward Leicester in a mute but eloquent
invitation, and he quickly followed her.

I watched the pair walk up the terrace. They descended the steps to the
garden, and from thence they entered the Hall by way of the porch.

"Was it not very wicked in Dorothy to listen to such words from
Leicester?" asked Madge. "I do not at all understand her."

Madge, of course, knew only a part of what had happened, and a very small
part at that, for she had not seen Dorothy. Madge and I returned to the
Hall, and we went at once to Dorothy's room, hoping to see her, and
intending to tell her our opinion of the shameless manner in which she had
acted.

Dorothy was in her room alone when we entered. She clapped her hands, ran
to the door, bolted it, and bounded back toward us.

"I have the greatest news to tell you," she cried laughingly,--"the
greatest news and the greatest sport of which you ever heard. My lord
Leicester is in love with me."

"Indeed, that is very fine," I responded; but my irony met its usual fate.
She did not see it.

"Yes," continued Dorothy, brimming over with mirth, "you should have heard
him pleading with me a few moments since upon the terrace."

"We did hear him," said Madge.

"You heard him? Where? How?" Her eyes were wide with wonder.

"We were on the opposite side of the holly bush from you," I answered. "We
heard him and we saw you."

"Did you? Good. I am glad of it," said Dorothy.

"Yes, we saw and we heard all, and we think that your conduct was
shameless," I responded severely.

"Shameless?" demanded Dorothy. "Now pray tell me what I did or said that
was shameless.".

I was at a loss to define the wrong in her conduct, for it had been of an
intangible quality which in itself was nothing, but notwithstanding meant
a great deal.

"You permitted him to hold your hand," I said, trying to fix on something
real with which to accuse her.

"I did nothing of the sort," said Dorothy, laughingly. "He caught my hand
several times, but I withdrew it from him"

I knew she spoke the truth regarding her hand, so I tried again.

"You--you hung your head and kept your eyes cast down, and you looked--"

"Oh, I hung my head, I cast down my eyes, and I looked?" she answered,
laughing heartily. "Pray let me ask you, Master Fault-finder, for what use
else are heads and eyes made?"

I was not prepared to say that the uses to which Dorothy had put her head
and eyes were not some of the purposes for which they were created. They
are good purposes, too, I admit, although I would not have conceded as
much to Dorothy. I knew the girl would soon wheedle me into her way of
thinking, so I took a bold stand and said:--

"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 passed 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 God 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 hellish '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 God'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 passing 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 passion
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 "Bloody 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 principal 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 assumed 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 assumed 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 hell'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--"

"God's curse upon the white huzzy!" screamed Dorothy. "God'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
God! My God! Think of it, Madge. I have given him my heart, my soul, O
merciful God, my love--all that I have worth giving, and now comes this
white wretch, and because she is a queen and was sired in hell 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 God, 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.
Snatch this terrible love from my heart. God! 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,
God 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. God 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.

She knocked violently at the queen's door.

"Who comes?" demanded one of her Majesty's ladies.

"I, Dorothy," was the response. "I wish to speak to her Majesty at once
upon a matter of great importance to her."

Elizabeth ordered her ladies to admit Dorothy, and the girl ran to the
queen, who had half arisen in her bed.

"You must have affairs of great moment, indeed," cried Elizabeth, testily,
"if they induce you to disturb me in this manner."

"Of great moment, indeed, your Majesty," replied Dorothy, endeavoring to
be calm, "of moment to you and to me. Mary Stuart is in England at this
instant trying to steal your crown and my lover. She is now sleeping
within five leagues of this place. God only knows what she is doing. Let
us waste no time, your Majesty."

The girl was growing wilder every second.

"Let us go--you and I--and seize this wanton creature. You to save your
crown; I to save my lover and--my life."

"Where is she?" demanded Elizabeth, sharply. "Cease prattling about your
lover. She would steal both my lover and my crown if she could. Where is
she?"

"She is at Rutland Castle, your Majesty," answered Dorothy.

"Ah, the Duke of Rutland and his son John," said Elizabeth. "I have been
warned of them. Send for my Lord Cecil and Sir William St. Loe."

Sir William was in command of the yeoman guards.

"Is Sir John Manners your lover?" asked Elizabeth, turning to Dorothy.

"Yes," answered the girl.

"You may soon seek another," replied the queen, significantly.

Her Majesty's words seemed to awaken Dorothy from her stupor of frenzy,
and she foresaw the result of her act. Then came upon her a reaction worse
than death.

"You may depart," said the queen to Dorothy, and the girl went back to
her room hardly conscious that she was moving.

At times we cannot help feeling that love came to the human breast through
a drop of venom shot from the serpent's tongue into the heart of Eve.
Again we believe it to be a spark from God's own soul. Who will solve me
this riddle?

Soon the hard, cold ringing of arms, and the tramp of mailed feet
resounded through Haddon Hall, and the doom-like din reached Dorothy's
room in the tones of a clanging knell. There seemed to be a frightful
rhythm in the chaos of sounds which repeated over and over again the
words: "John will die, John will die," though the full import of her act
and its results did nor for a little time entirely penetrate her
consciousness. She remembered the queen's words, "You may soon seek
another." Elizabeth plainly meant that John was a traitor, and that John
would die for his treason. The clanking words, "John will die, John will
die," bore upon the girl's ears in ever increasing volume until the agony
she suffered deadened her power to think. She wandered aimlessly about the
room, trying to collect her senses, but her mind was a blank. After a few
minutes she ran back to the queen, having an undefined purpose of doing
something to avert the consequences of her mad act. She at first thought
to tell the queen that the Information she had given concerning Mary
Stuart's presence in Rutland was false, but she well knew that a lie
seldom succeeds; and in this case, even through her clouded mentality, she
could see that a lie would surely fail. She determined to beg the queen to
spare John's life. She did not know exactly what she would do, but she
hoped by the time she should reach the queen's room to hit upon some plan
that would save him. When she knocked at Elizabeth's door it was locked
against her. Her Majesty was in consultation with Cecil, Sir William St.
Loe, and a few other gentlemen, among whom was Sir George Vernon.

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