Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall by Charles Major

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"Perhaps he has not," said Dorothy, musingly.

It was not a pleasant task for me to praise Sir John, but my sense of
justice impelled me to do so. I tried to make myself feel injured and
chagrined because of Dorothy's manner toward him; for you must remember I
had arranged with myself to marry this girl, but I could not work my
feelings into a state of indignation against the heir to Rutland. The
truth is, my hope of winning Dorothy had evaporated upon the first sight
of her, like the volatile essence it really was. I cannot tell you why,
but I at once seemed to realize that all the thought and labor which I had
devoted to the arduous task of arranging with myself this marriage was
labor lost. So I frankly told her my kindly feelings for Sir John, and
gave her my high estimate of his character.

I continued: "You see, Dorothy, I could not so easily explain to your
father my association with Sir John, and I hope you will not speak of it
to any one, lest the news should reach Sir George's ears."

"I will not speak of it," she returned, sighing faintly. "After all, it is
not his fault that his father is such a villain. He doesn't look like his
father, does he?"

"I cannot say. I never saw Lord Rutland," I replied.

"He is the most villanous-looking--" but she broke off the sentence and
stood for a moment in revery. We were in the darkened passage, and Dorothy
had taken my hand. That little act in another woman of course would have
led to a demonstration on my part, but in this girl it seemed so entirely
natural and candid that it was a complete bar to undue familiarity. In
truth, I had no such tendency, for the childish act spoke of an innocence
and faith that were very sweet to me who all my life had lived among men
and women who laughed at those simple virtues. The simple conditions of
life are all that are worth striving for. They come to us fresh from
Nature and from Nature's God. The complex are but concoctions of man after
recipes in the devil's alchemy. So much gold, so much ambition, so much
lust. Mix well. Product: so much vexation.

"He must resemble his mother," said Dorothy, after a long pause. "Poor
fellow! His mother is dead. He is like me in that respect. I wonder if his
father's villanies trouble him?"

"I think they must trouble him. He seems to be sad," said I, intending to
be ironical.

My reply was taken seriously.

"I am sorry for him," she said, "it is not right to hate even our enemies.
The Book tells us that."

"Yet you hate Lord Rutland," said I, amused and provoked.

Unexpected and dangerous symptoms were rapidly developing in the perverse
girl, and trouble was brewing "in Derbyshire."

The adjective perverse, by the way, usually is superfluous when used to
modify the noun girl.

"Yet you hate Lord Rutland," I repeated.

"Why, y-e-s," she responded. "I cannot help that, but you know it would be
very wrong to--to hate all his family. To hate him is bad enough."

I soon began to fear that I had praised Sir John overmuch.

"I think Sir John is all there is of Lord Rutland's family," I said,
alarmed yet amused at Dorothy's search for an excuse not to hate my
new-found friend.

"Well," she continued after a pause, throwing her head to one side, "I am
sorry there are no more of that family not to hate."

"Dorothy! Dorothy!" I exclaimed. "What has come over you? You surprise
me."

"Yes," she answered, with a little sigh, "I certainly have surprised
myself by--by my willingness to forgive those who have injured my house. I
did not know there was so much--so much good in me."

"Mistress Pharisee," thought I, "you are a hypocrite."

Again intending to be ironical, I said, "Shall I fetch him from the
tap-room and present him to you?"

Once more my irony was lost upon the girl. Evidently that sort of humor
was not my strong point.

"No, no," she responded indignantly, "I would not speak to him for--"
Again she broke her sentence abruptly, and after a little pause, short in
itself but amply long for a girl like Dorothy to change her mind two score
times, she continued: "It would not be for the best. What think you,
Cousin Malcolm?"

"Surely the girl has gone mad," thought I. Her voice was soft and
conciliating as if to say, "I trust entirely to your mature, superior
judgment."

My judgment coincided emphatically with her words, and I said: "I spoke
only in jest. It certainly would not be right. It would be all wrong if
you were to meet him."

"That is true," the girl responded with firmness, "but--but no real harm
could come of it," she continued, laughing nervously. "He could not strike
me nor bite me. Of course it would be unpleasant for me to meet him, and
as there is no need--I am curious to know what one of his race is like.
It's the only reason that would induce me to consent. Of course you know
there could be no other reason for me to wish--that is, you know--to be
willing to meet him. Of course you know."

"Certainly," I replied, still clinging to my unsuccessful irony. "I will
tell you all I know about him, so that you may understand what he is
like. As for his personal appearance, you saw him, did you not?"

I thought surely that piece of irony would not fail, but it did, and I
have seldom since attempted to use that form of humor.

"Yes--oh, yes, I saw him for a moment."

"But I will not present him to you, Dorothy, however much you may wish to
meet him," I said positively.

"It is almost an insult, Cousin Malcolm, for you to say that I wish to
meet him," she answered in well-feigned indignation.

The French blood in my veins moved me to shrug my shoulders. I could do
nothing else. With all my knowledge of womankind this girl had sent me to
sea.

But what shall we say of Dorothy's conduct? I fancy I can hear you mutter,
"This Dorothy Vernon must have been a bold, immodest, brazen girl."
Nothing of the sort. Dare you of the cold blood--if perchance there be any
with that curse in their veins who read these lines--dare you, I say, lift
your voice against the blessed heat in others which is but a greater,
stronger, warmer spark of God's own soul than you possess or than you can
comprehend? "Evil often comes of it," I hear you say. That I freely admit;
and evil comes from eating too much bread, and from hearing too much
preaching. But the universe, from the humblest blade of grass to the
infinite essence of God, exists because of that warmth which the mawkish
world contemns. Is the iron immodest when it creeps to the lodestone and
clings to its side? Is the hen bird brazen when she flutters to her mate
responsive to his compelling woo-song? Is the seed immodest when it sinks
into the ground and swells with budding life? Is the cloud bold when it
softens into rain and falls to earth because it has no other choice? or is
it brazen when it nestles for a time on the bosom of heaven's arched dome
and sinking into the fathomless depths of a blue black infinity ceases to
be itself? Is the human soul immodest when, drawn by a force it cannot
resist, it seeks a stronger soul which absorbs its ego as the blue sky
absorbs the floating cloud, as the warm earth swells the seed, as the
magnet draws the iron? All these are of one quality. The iron, the seed,
the cloud, and the soul of man are _what_ they are, do _what_ they do,
love as they love, live as they live, and die as they die because they
must--because they have no other choice. We think we are free because at
times we act as we please, forgetting that God gives us the "please," and
that every act of our being is but the result of a dictated motive.
Dorothy was not immodest. This was her case. She was the iron, the seed,
the cloud, and the rain. You, too, are the iron, the seed, the cloud, and
the rain. It is only human vanity which prompts you to believe that you
are yourself and that you are free. Do you find any freedom in this world
save that which you fondly believe to exist within yourself? Self! There
is but one self, God. I have been told that the people of the East call
Him Brahma. The word, it is said, means "Breath," "Inspiration," "All." I
have felt that the beautiful pagan thought has truth in it; but my
conscience and my priest tell me rather to cling to truths I have than to
fly to others that I know not of. As a result, I shall probably die
orthodox and mistaken.

CHAPTER III

THE PITCHER GOES TO THE WELL.

Dorothy and I went to the inn parlors, where I received a cordial welcome
from my cousin, Lady Crawford. After our greeting, Dorothy came toward me
leading the fair, pale girl whom I had seen in the courtyard.

"Madge, this is my cousin, Malcolm Vernon," said Dorothy. "He was a dear
friend of my childhood and is much beloved by my father. Lady Magdalene
Stanley, cousin," and she placed the girl's soft white hand in mine. There
was a peculiar hesitancy in the girl's manner which puzzled me. She did
not look at me when Dorothy placed her hand in mine, but kept her eyes
cast down, the long, black lashes resting upon the fair curves of her
cheek like a shadow on the snow. She murmured a salutation, and when I
made a remark that called for a response, she lifted her eyes but seemed
not to look at me. Unconsciously I turned my face toward Dorothy, who
closed her eyes and formed with her lips the word "blind."

I retained the girl's hand, and she did not withdraw it. When I caught
Dorothy's unspoken word I led Lady Madge to a chair and asked if I might
sit beside her.

"Certainly," she answered smilingly; "you know I am blind, but I can hear
and speak, and I enjoy having persons I like sit near me that I may touch
them now and then while we talk. If I could only see!" she exclaimed.
Still, there was no tone of complaint in her voice and very little even of
regret. The girl's eyes were of a deep blue and were entirely without scar
or other evidence of blindness, except that they did not seem to see. I
afterward learned that her affliction had come upon her as the result of
illness when she was a child. She was niece to the Earl of Derby, and
Dorothy's mother had been her aunt. She owned a small estate and had lived
at Haddon Hall five or six years because of the love that existed between
her and Dorothy. A strong man instinctively longs to cherish that which
needs his strength, and perhaps it was the girl's helplessness that first
appealed to me. Perhaps it was her rare, peculiar beauty, speaking
eloquently of virtue such as I had never known, that touched me. I cannot
say what the impelling cause was, but this I know: my heart went out in
pity to her, and all that was good within me--good, which I had never
before suspected--stirred in my soul, and my past life seemed black and
barren beyond endurance. Even Dorothy's marvellous beauty lacked the
subtle quality which this simple blind girl possessed. The first step in
regeneration is to see one's faults; the second is to regret them; the
third is to quit them. The first and second steps constitute repentance;
the second and third regeneration. One hour within the radius of Madge
Stanley's influence brought me to repentance. But repentance is an
everyday virtue. Should I ever achieve regeneration? That is one of the
questions this history will answer. To me, Madge Stanley's passive force
was the strongest influence for good that had ever impinged on my life.
With respect to her, morally, I was the iron, the seed, the cloud, and the
rain, for she, acting unconsciously, moved me with neither knowledge nor
volition on my part.

Soon after my arrival at the ladies' parlor dinner was served, and after
dinner a Persian merchant was ushered in, closely followed by his
servants bearing bales of rare Eastern fabrics. A visit and a dinner at
the inn were little events that made a break in the monotony of life at
the Hall, and the ladies preferred to visit the merchant, who was stopping
at The Peacock for a time, rather than to have him take his wares to
Haddon.

While Lady Crawford and Dorothy were revelling in Persian silks, satins,
and gold cloths, I sat by Lady Madge and was more than content that we
were left to ourselves. My mind, however, was as far from thoughts of
gallantry as if she had been a black-veiled nun. I believe I have not told
you that I was of the Holy Catholic Faith. My religion, I may say, has
always been more nominal and political than spiritual, although there ran
through it a strong vein of inherited tendencies and superstitions which
were highly colored by contempt for heresy and heretics. I was Catholic by
habit. But if I analyzed my supposed religious belief, I found that I had
none save a hatred for heresy. Heretics, as a rule, were low-born persons,
vulgarly moral, and as I had always thought, despisedly hypocritical.
Madge Stanley, however, was a Protestant, and that fact shook the
structure of my old mistakes to its foundation, and left me religionless.

After the Persian merchant had packed his bales and departed, Dorothy and
Lady Crawford joined Madge and me near the fireplace. Soon Dorothy went
over to the window and stood there gazing into the courtyard. After a few
minutes Lady Crawford said, "Dorothy, had we not better order Dawson to
bring out the horses and coach?" Will Dawson was Sir George's forester.
Lady Crawford repeated her question, but Dorothy was too intently watching
the scene in the courtyard to hear. I went over to her, and looking out at
the window discovered the object of Dorothy's rapt attention. There is no
need for me to tell you who it was. Irony, as you know, and as I had
learned, was harmless against this thick-skinned nymph. Of course I had no
authority to scold her, so I laughed. The object of Dorothy's attention
was about to mount his horse. He was drawing on his gauntleted gloves and
held between his teeth a cigarro. He certainly presented a handsome figure
for the eyes of an ardent girl to rest upon while he stood beneath the
window, clothed in a fashionable Paris-made suit of brown, doublet,
trunks, and hose. His high-topped boots were polished till they shone, and
his broad-rimmed hat, of soft beaver, was surmounted by a flowing plume.
Even I, who had no especial taste nor love for masculine beauty, felt my
sense of the beautiful strongly moved by the attractive picture my
new-found friend presented. His dress, manner, and bearing, polished by
the friction of life at a luxurious court, must have appeared god-like to
Dorothy. She had never travelled farther from home than Buxton and
Derby-town, and had met only the half-rustic men belonging to the
surrounding gentry and nobility of Derbyshire, Nottingham, and Stafford.
She had met but few even of them, and their lives had been spent chiefly
in drinking, hunting, and gambling--accomplishments that do not fine down
the texture of a man's nature or fit him for a lady's bower. Sir John
Manners was a revelation to Dorothy; and she, poor girl, was bewildered
and bewitched by him.

When John had mounted and was moving away, he looked up to the window
where Dorothy stood, and a light came to her eyes and a smile to her face
which no man who knows the sum of two and two can ever mistake if he but
once sees it.

When I saw the light in Dorothy's eyes, I knew that all the hatred that
was ever born from all the feuds that had ever lived since the quarrelling
race of man began its feuds in Eden could not make Dorothy Vernon hate the
son of her father's enemy.

"I was--was--watching him draw smoke through the--the little stick which
he holds in his mouth, and--and blow it out again," said Dorothy, in
explanation of her attitude. She blushed painfully and continued, "I hope
you do not think--"

"I do not think," I answered. "I would not think of thinking."

"Of course not," she responded, with a forced smile, as she watched Sir
John pass out of sight under the arch of the innyard gate. I did not
think. I knew. And the sequel, so full of trouble, soon proved that I was
right. After John had passed through the gate, Dorothy was willing to go
home; and when Will Dawson brought the great coach to the inn door, I
mounted my horse and rode beside the ladies to Haddon Hall, two miles
north from Rowsley.

I shall not stop to tell you of the warm welcome given me by Sir George
Vernon, nor of his delight when I briefly told him my misfortunes in
Scotland--misfortunes that had brought me to Haddon Hall. Nor shall I
describe the great boar's head supper given in my honor, at which there
were twenty men who could have put me under the table. I thought I knew
something of the art of drinking, but at that supper I soon found I was a
mere tippler compared with these country guzzlers. At that feast I learned
also that Dorothy, when she had hinted concerning Sir George's excessive
drinking, had told the truth. He, being the host, drank with all his
guests. Near midnight he grew distressingly drunk, talkative, and violent,
and when toward morning he was carried from the room by his servants, the
company broke up. Those who could do so reeled home; those who could not
walk at all were put to bed by the retainers at Haddon Hall. I had chosen
my bedroom high up in Eagle Tower. At table I had tried to remain sober.
That, however, was an impossible task, for at the upper end of the hail
there was a wrist-ring placed in the wainscoting at a height of ten or
twelve inches above the head of an ordinary man, and if he refused to
drink as much as the other guests thought he should, his wrist was
fastened above his head in the ring, and the liquor which he should have
poured down his throat was poured down his sleeve. Therefore to avoid this
species of rustic sport I drank much more than was good for me. When the
feast closed I thought I was sober enough to go to my room unassisted; so
I took a candle, and with a great show of self-confidence climbed the
spiral stone stairway to the door of my room. The threshold of my door was
two or three feet above the steps of the stairway, and after I had
contemplated the distance for a few minutes, I concluded that it would not
be safe for me to attempt to climb into my sleeping apartments without
help. Accordingly I sat down upon the step on which I had been standing,
placed my candle beside me, called loudly for a servant, received no
response, and fell asleep only to be awakened by one of Sir George's
retainers coming downstairs next morning.

After that supper, in rapid succession, followed hunting and drinking,
feasting and dancing in my honor. At the dances the pipers furnished the
music, or, I should rather say, the noise. Their miserable wailings
reminded me of Scotland. After all, thought I, is the insidious, polished
vice of France worse than the hoggish, uncouth practices of Scotland and
of English country life? I could not endure the latter, so I asked Sir
George, on the pretext of ill health, to allow me to refuse invitations to
other houses, and I insisted that he should give no more entertainments at
Haddon Hall on my account. Sir George eagerly acquiesced in all my wishes.
In truth, I was treated like an honored guest and a member of the family,
and I congratulated myself that my life had fallen in such pleasant lines.
Dorothy and Madge became my constant companions, for Sir George's time
was occupied chiefly with his estates and with his duties as magistrate. A
feeling of rest and contentment came over me, and my past life drifted
back of me like an ever receding cloud.

Thus passed the months of October and November.

In the meantime events in Scotland and in England proved my wisdom in
seeking a home at Haddon Hall, and showed me how great was my good fortune
in finding it.

Queen Mary was a prisoner at Lochleven Castle, and her brother Murray had
beheaded many of her friends. Elizabeth, hating Mary as only a plain,
envious woman can hate one who is transcendently beautiful, had, upon
different pretexts, seized many of Mary's friends who had fled to England
for sanctuary, and some of them had suffered imprisonment or death.

Elizabeth, in many instances, had good cause for her attitude toward
Mary's friends, since plots were hatching thick and fast to liberate Mary
from Lochleven; and many such plots, undoubtedly, had for their chief end
the deposition of Elizabeth, and the enthronement of Mary as Queen of
England.

As a strict matter of law, Mary was rightful heir to the English throne,
and Elizabeth was an usurper. Parliament, at Henry's request, had declared
that Elizabeth, his issue by Anne Boleyn, was illegitimate, and that being
true, Mary was next in line of descent. The Catholics of England took that
stand, and Mary's beauty and powers of fascination had won for her friends
even in the personal household of the Virgin Queen. Small cause for wonder
was it that Elizabeth, knowing all these facts, looked with suspicion and
fear upon Mary's refugee friends.

The English queen well knew that Sir George Vernon was her friend,
therefore his house and his friendship were my sanctuary, without which
my days certainly would have been numbered in the land of Elizabeth, and
their number would have been small. I was dependent on Sir George not only
for a roof to shelter me, but for my very life. I speak of these things
that you may know some of the many imperative reasons why I desired to
please and conciliate my cousin. In addition to those reasons, I soon grew
to love Sir George, not only because of his kindness to me, but because he
was a lovable man. He was generous, just, and frank, and although at times
he was violent almost to the point of temporary madness, his heart was
usually gentle, and was as easily touched by kindness as it was quickly
moved to cruelty by injury, fancied or actual. I have never known a more
cruel, tender man than he. You will see him in each of his natures before
you have finished this history. But you must judge him only after you have
considered his times, which were forty years ago, his surroundings, and
his blood.

During those two months remarkable changes occurred within the walls of
Haddon, chief of which were in myself, and, alas! in Dorothy.

My pilgrimage to Haddon, as you already know, had been made for the
purpose of marrying my fair cousin; for I did not, at the time I left
Scotland, suppose I should need Sir George's protection against Elizabeth.
When I met Dorothy at Rowsley, my desire to marry her became personal, in
addition to the mercenary motives with which I had originally started. But
I quickly recognized the fact that the girl was beyond my reach. I knew I
could not win her love, even though I had a thousand years to try for it;
and I would not accept her hand in marriage solely at her father's
command. I also soon learned that Dorothy was the child of her father,
gentle, loving, and tender beyond the naming, but also wilful, violent,
and fierce to the extent that no command could influence her.

First I shall speak of the change within myself. I will soon be done with
so much "I" and "me," and you shall have Dorothy to your heart's content,
or trouble, I know not which.

Soon after my arrival at Haddon Hall the sun ushered in one of those
wonderful days known only to the English autumn, when the hush of Nature's
drowsiness, just before her long winter's sleep, imparts its soft
restfulness to man, as if it were a lotus feast. Dorothy was
ostentatiously busy with her household matters, and was consulting with
butler, cook, and steward. Sir George had ridden out to superintend his
men at work, and I, wandering aimlessly about the hail, came upon Madge
Stanley sitting in the chaplain's room with folded hands.

"Lady Madge, will you go with me for a walk this beautiful morning?" I
asked.

"Gladly would I go, Sir Malcolm," she responded, a smile brightening her
face and quickly fading away, "but I--I cannot walk in unfamiliar places.
I should fail. You would have to lead me by the hand, and that, I fear,
would mar the pleasure of your walk."

"Indeed, it would not, Lady Madge. I should enjoy my walk all the more."

"If you really wish me to go, I shall be delighted," she responded, as the
brightness came again to her face. "I sometimes grow weary, and, I
confess, a little sad sitting alone when Dorothy cannot be with me. Aunt
Dorothy, now that she has her magnifying glasses,--spectacles, I think
they are called,--devotes all her time to reading, and dislikes to be
interrupted."

"I wish it very much," I said, surprised by the real eagerness of my
desire, and unconsciously endeavoring to keep out of the tones of my voice
a part of that eagerness.

"I shall take you at your word," she said. "I will go to my room to get my
hat and cloak."

She rose and began to grope her way toward the door, holding out her
white, expressive hands in front of her. It was pitiful and beautiful to
see her, and my emotions welled up in my throat till I could hardly speak.

"Permit me to give you my hand," I said huskily. How I longed to carry
her! Every man with the right sort of a heart in his breast has a touch of
the mother instinct in him; but, alas I only a touch. Ah, wondrous and
glorious womanhood! If you had naught but the mother instinct to lift you
above your masters by the hand of man-made laws, those masters were still
unworthy to tie the strings of your shoes.

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