XI

When she first heard of the projected ball to be given in honour of Don Diego’s birthday Dominica pleaded her mourning state, and said that she could not be present. She had a suspicion that this ball, surely unsuitable for a man’s anniversary, was planned to lure her from her fastness. Maybe it was to serve as a prologue to her betrothal. She would not be present.

This decision drew a sigh from Doña Beatrice. “My dear, you are very teasing,” she complained. “In Spain girls do not say I will, and I will not to those set in authority over them. Do me the favour to give way with a good grace.”

“You cannot think it seemly, señora, for me to be dancing so soon after my father’s death.”

“I do not think it at all seemly for you to stay moping in your chamber,” replied Doña Beatrice. “We will set all in train to have a new gown made for you. There is naught so enlivening to the spirits as a new gown, believe me. But I do not think you should wear colours yet. A cut velvet might do very well.”

“I do not mean to be present,” repeated Dominica.

“Or a pure white taffeta,” mused Doña Beatrice. “We must consider it.”

“Aunt!”

“Well, child? Oh, are you still tilting your chin at me? I take it very unkindly in you then. Oblige me by being present on this one occasion, and let us say no more about it.”

“I am sorry that you think me unreasonable, señora,” Dominica said stiffly. “But if I obey you in this, you will expect me to obey you in⁠—other things.”

“Marriage,” nodded her aunt. “It makes no odds, my dear. Whether you come to the ball or not I am still desirous to see you wed. You cannot suppose that the care of a niece is at all pleasing to one of my indolence.”

“Show me, then, another suitor!” flashed Dominica.

Doña Beatrice picked up her fan. “Now I had thought you cleverer than that,” she said. “How should we benefit by another suitor for you?”

The brown eyes looked sternly. “In a word, aunt, you covet my possessions. And so we have the truth at last!”

“Naturally, child. What did you suppose?” said Doña Beatrice, unruffled. “We find ourselves in deplorably straitened circumstances, and you come as a gift from heaven, one would say.”

Dominica looked round at the opulence of the room. “One does not immediately perceive your poverty, señora.”

“Certainly not,” said Doña Beatrice. “We all maintain a good appearance. But show me the man who is not impoverished today for all his outward pomp!”

“I think,” said Dominica forcibly, “that Spain is a hateful country, and the people⁠—corrupt!”

“Very corrupt,” agreed Doña Beatrice. “An age of loose-living. I remember when I was a girl a Spanish lady was the model of decorum. It is all very different now, and much more amusing. I believe that we become a byword.”

“I wonder, señora, that you are content to be so!”

“To be a byword? What odds? As for our corruption, what would you, when the King keeps his grandees away from the affairs of state, and encourages them to waste their substance?” She shrugged. “I observe, and I am content to smile.”

“So it seems,” said Dominica. “Yet you can leave smiling to lend yourself to an odious scheme to marry me to my cousin. Well, I will not wed him. Never! You will see, señora, that I mean what I say.”

“I don’t doubt it, my dear. You are a very charming girl, and you have wit⁠—a little. But when you put your wit against mine you must lose.”

“When you find, señora, that my wits have won the day⁠—”

Her aunt rose. “I shall have a lively respect for you, my dear. Cut velvet and your pearls. I will see to it.”

Well, in the end Dominica gave way, and not quite from a sense of duty. Her aunt’s attitude had given her pause; that placid, smiling dame frightened her: there was no gainsaying it. She guessed that she was required to appear in public to give the lie to a world that might possibly be saying that the Carvalhos kept her cooped up against her will. There was her uncle on the mother’s side, one Miguel de Tobar, who had two likely sons of his own, and might conceivably have designs upon her himself. One suitor was as distasteful as the other, but it might serve to play off Tobar against the Carvalhos, Dominica thought. She began to scheme and ponder, weaving her toils. She was afraid of Doña Beatrice, ay, but she would fight her for all that, and find joy in it. She put a finger to her lips, bit the rosy tip, and looked this way and that, frowning at fate. Policy dictated an end to her seclusion. She must go out into the world, and nose about for a deliverer. Tobar would serve to alarm the Carvalhos; she had very little intention of carrying it further than that. She had had letters from him, guarded enough, to be sure, but sufficiently plain in their purport to tell her that she might call on him and find a ready answer.

An end to this moping, then. She got up briskly, with a little toss of the head, as though she would be free of a curbing rein. She would go to this ball, but dance she would not. She would wear what was put out for her to wear, and show herself a martyr to tyranny.

But velvets and love-knots, pearl-sewn lace, and the fashioning of a corsage must necessarily interest a young lady, and when tailors were busy she abandoned the attitude of martyr and asserted herself. She would have the neck cut so, and the kirtle of such a silk, and there should be crystals sewn on her ruff. She harried the tailors, and sent her maid⁠—not Maria, now, who had left her to marry a hopeful young groom, but an older woman, sour-faced and silent⁠—bustling to find a certain point-lace that was laid by.

When the day came she was secretly glad that she was to be at the ball. A maid cannot weep forever, and to say truth, she was heartily sick of her seclusion. The new gown pleased her; her pearls looked remarkably well about her slim neck, and her hair under its silver net was dressed to her satisfaction. It was a pity her cheeks were so pale, but she would have none of her aunt’s rouge-paste. Let the whispering world see her pale and wan, and draw what conclusions it liked. Nor would she by any means carry a very pretty fan of pink feathers, sent to her with her cousin’s compliments.

“This trifle,” says my lady, mighty haughty, “this fan, which pleases me not at all, you may have, if you like, Carmelita. I do not want it.”

“Señorita, it is the fan Don Diego gave you,” old Carmelita reminded her.

“Is it so?” Dominica held it up and turned it this way and that. “I do not like it. Take it if you will, or give it to your niece.” She tossed it aside, and would have no more to do with it.

She went downstairs presently, a snow-maiden, trying to look sadly martyred. She found her aunt in the great hall, with Don Rodriguez at her side.

He was ready to take Dominica’s hand and fondle it. He could never be at ease in her presence. Her large eyes looked too straightly, nor would she ever give him any help. She thought him a poor creature, and despised him accordingly. If he were to play the villain, then a’ God’s name let him play it boldly, and put a brave face on to it! A villain who was yet a man would not infuriate her near so much as this man who was a villain against his kinder nature.

He complimented her now, and said that he was glad indeed to see her amongst them, and looking so beautiful.

Doña Beatrice, almost overpowering in apple-green silk, with pink embroideries, and an ornate headdress, looked her over critically. “Yes, you are very well,” she said. “We shall have serenades beneath your window, I suppose.”

One could not be proof against such flattery. Dominica dropped a demure curtsy, and said she was glad she pleased her good aunt.

There came an interruption to drive the dawning smile out of her eyes. Don Diego came into the hall from the ballroom, and bowed with great flourish.

Dominica looked at him with warm indignation in her face. Whether of intent or not, and she was very sure that it was of intent, he had chosen to array himself in white to match her. He wore pearl-coloured Venetian hose, embroidered cunningly with pale pink and a paned doublet to go with them. His points had silver aiglets; his ruff was stitched with silver, and was so large that it looked like a dish through which he had stuck his head. He had a rapier with a jewelled hilt at his side, a single ruby drop in one ear, and he carried a pure white rose in his hand.

Dominica looked him up and down, and gave the tiniest of sniffs. Her aunt’s soft laugh sounded behind her. “What a pretty caballero!” said Doña Beatrice. “Where, oh where could one find a prettier?”

Don Diego chose to ignore this tribute. He came up to Dominica with the smile she so much disliked, and kissed her hand. “Fairest cousin! I salute you! In my honour, this ball? Nay, rather in yours, the loveliest lady in Spain.” He released her hand, and held out his rose. “A white rose to match you, sweet cousin.”

“I should be loth to deprive you of it, cousin.”

He came closer. “Only give it me again when the ball is ended. I shall wear it next my heart then. Let me pin it on your bosom. Roses should bloom together.”

She drew her skirts away. “Keep your rose, cousin. You tease me to no purpose.”

He lowered his voice. “Still so cruel? Still so cold? You who set hearts flaming!”

“God send a shower to quench them,” she said, and moved away to her aunt’s side.

She stayed there for a long hour while guests arrived and were announced. All were strangers to her; she had to be presented again and again. To her annoyance Don Diego stood upon her other side. It must look as though they were betrothed already, she thought, and was careful never to turn in his direction.

The hall became crowded; already they were dancing in the ballroom beyond. Dominica’s foot tapped the floor involuntarily. Diego saw it, and came possessively close. “Dare I hope for the honour of leading you out, sweet cousin?” he murmured.

“I hope you dare not,” she answered smartly. “I do not dance tonight.” She made a movement as though to bid him stand further off. “Pray go and lead out some other lady,” she said.

Above the sound of the rebecks, above the subdued chatter of guests gathered in the hall, sounded the steward’s voice. There was a stir at the door. “M. le Chevalier de Guise!” called the steward, and bowed in this late arrival.

Dominica looked towards the door, wondering who the Frenchman might be. A knot of gentlemen gathered there parted to let the newcomer pass. There was a quick, decided step; no Frenchman came in, but Sir Nicholas Beauvallet, as though upon his own quarterdeck.

Dominica almost let fall her fan; the breath caught in her throat; she stood staring, first pale, and then red, and through the mad riot in her brain ran only the one clear thought: He has come! He has come! He has come!

Across the hall he came, with that graceful, careless step she knew so well. He was brave in silk and velvet, with a neat, small ruff such as he had always worn clipping his throat about. He had a hand laid lightly on his sword-hilt, and his eyes looked straight at Dominica. She saw them fearless, with a kind of mocking challenge in their blue depths, as though they would signify “Well, did I not say that I would come?” Everything in her responded to the daring of him. Ah, what a man! Ah, what a lover for a girl! what a brave, laughing lover!

He was close now, bowing to her aunt.

“Ah, so you have come, Chevalier,” said Doña Beatrice, giving him her hand. “We shall talk a little, but later on. Let me present you to my niece, Doña Dominica de Rada y Sylva. This gentleman, my dear, is a Frenchman strayed by some good chance into Spain. The Chevalier de Guise.”

Dominica, still hardly daring to trust her eyes, saw his hand held out, and knew his gaze to be upon her. She put out her own little hand, and his long fingers closed over it. She looked down at his black head as he bent to kiss her hand; she thought if she spoke her voice must betray her agitation.

It was a real kiss pressed on her hand, no formal brush of the lips. He stood straight again, and released her slight fingers. “Señorita, I am enchanted,” he said. “But Doña Beatrice is wrong: I did not come by chance into Spain. I had a set resolve to journey here.”

Her long lashes fluttered downwards. She knew herself to be blushing. “Indeed, señor?” she said faintly.

“Such an odd resolve!” commented Doña Beatrice. “What can you hope to find here to amuse you?”

Dominica looked up to see his eyes crinkle at the corners. He addressed himself to Doña Beatrice, laughingly. “Oh, I come on a quest, dear señora,” he said. Then he seemed to become aware of Don Diego, upon Dominica’s other hand. “Well-met, señor! I give you joy of your anniversary.” The mockery in his eyes deepened. “But you are bridal, señor! bridal!”

Don Diego stiffened, but a moment after shrugged slightly at this deplorable lack of formality. “My attire does not like you, Chevalier?” he said disdainfully.

“On the contrary,” said Sir Nicholas gaily, “it reminds me of my own nuptials, which draw close.”

Dominica’s hand, slowly waving her fan to and fro, faltered a little. What a game to play with fire! Oh, he was mad indeed, divinely mad!

“I felicitate you,” said Don Diego. “Permit me to find you a partner for the coranto.”

Sir Nicholas turned. “I shall crave the hand of Doña Dominica,” he said.

Don Diego spoke before she could reply. “My cousin does not dance, señor.”

“How foolish!” said Doña Beatrice, turning her head. “Let the Chevalier lead you out, my dear. There are no men to rival Frenchmen at dancing.”

“If you will dance, cousin, let mine be the honour of leading you out,” said Don Diego.

Sir Nicholas had taken her hand; the pressure of his fingers was insistent. “Ah, but I was before you, Don Diego,” he said.

Don Diego looked angrily, and took a quick step forward, as though he would snatch Dominica’s hand from its resting-place. His rose dropped unheeded to the ground. “Cousin, I understood you would not dance!”

“You have let fall your pretty flower,” Sir Nicholas pointed out gently.

Don Diego turned with an ugly look in his face, forgetting his duty to a guest. His angry stare met an amused glance from cool blue eyes that did not waver. Sir Nicholas still held Dominica’s hand, but one eyebrow was quizzically raised, as though to say: “Do you wish to quarrel? Say but the word!”

Doña Beatrice interposed to put an end to an awkward moment. Her fan brushed Dominica’s shoulder. “Be advised by me, my dear, and go with the Chevalier. Resolutions are made to be broken only.”

Don Diego seemed to recollect himself. He recovered his sosiego and bowed. “I am less fortunate than the Chevalier, cousin. I shall ask for your hand later in the evening.”

“As you please, cousin.” Dominica sent a fleeting glance upwards to Beauvallet’s face, and dropped her eyes again. Obedient to the pull on her hand she went with him across the hall to the ballroom.

“God pity me, I have borne a fool!” sighed Doña Beatrice. “You do not go well to work, my poor son.”

“She did it to flout me!” he said hotly.

“If she did it promises very well,” she replied. “But when a man like the Chevalier craves a boon there are few women will not grant it. For where he craves he might take, look you.”

“He is insufferable!” Diego said. “My sword itches to taste his blood.”

Doña Beatrice smiled more broadly. “I dare say the Chevalier has some skill with swords,” she said. “I do not think⁠—no, I do not think that you would be well advised to send him a challenge.”

Don Diego stayed glooming a moment. “One would think you wanted her to go with him,” he complained.

“I did,” said his mother imperturbably. “The girl saw a very personable man, with more charm in his lightest smile, my poor son, than any other here tonight. She was tempted to be forsworn, and I bade her go. Had I intervened for you she would not have danced at all. Now you are sure of her, for she cannot refuse, having danced once.”

In the ballroom Dominica had little opportunity to speak to Sir Nicholas. She dreaded lest some overheard phrase might betray him; for the first few steps of the dance she could only look up eloquently into his face. They drew together a moment, and she whispered:⁠—“You have come! How could you dare?”

“Had you not my word, little doubter?”

They drew apart again; another couple was too close to allow them to say more. The music stopped; Sir Nicholas was bowing, and Don Diego was possessively at Dominica’s elbow.

She lived through another hour in a fret. Don Diego stayed close at her side; she could only watch Beauvallet across the room, and long to be alone with him. It seemed she would never find the opportunity, but presently her cousin’s attention was claimed, and he had to lead another lady out to dance. Dominica cast a quick look round, saw her aunt at the other end of the room, and drew back behind the ample form of a portly dowager. She slipped along the wall then to where heavy curtains hung, shutting off a small antechamber. Knowing Beauvallet’s eyes to be upon her she went through, and stood breathlessly waiting.

The curtains moved; he was before her. She went to him in a little run, with both her hands held out, and her eyes full of happy tears. “Oh, to see you again!” she whispered. “I never thought it possible!”

He gathered her hands in his, and held them clasped against his breast. “Softly, my heart! This is dangerous work.” His voice was quick and decisive for all he spoke so low. “I must have speech with you alone. Which way looks your chamber?”

“To the garden. Ah, Nicholas, I have wanted you!”

“My fondling!” His hands pressed hers closer. “Does your woman sleep with you?”

“Nay, I am alone.” She looked wonderingly up at him.

“Set a lamp in your window when you judge all to be asleep, to give me a sign. Can you trust me?”

“Ah, you know! You know I can trust only you. What will you do?”

“Climb up to you, sweetheart,” he answered, and smiled at her face of amazement. “What windows look out that way?”

“My woman’s⁠—my cousin’s closet⁠—some servants.”

“Good.” He kissed her hands. “Expect me then when you show a light. Patience, my bird!”

He released her, and stepped back. The curtains parted for a moment, and he was gone.

The rest of the evening passed in a bewildered haze for her. She was conscious only of Beauvallet’s presence, but he did not come near her again. Her cousin besought her to dance with him again, and when she would not, stayed by her, teasing her ear with his soft speech.

“Who was the Frenchman?” she asked. “The Chevalier. Is he of the Ambassador’s court?”

“De Guise! No, my dear cousin, the Ambassador owns him not. Some idle traveller swaggering abroad. I trust he will soon be gone from us. It was no wish of mine that he should be invited here tonight. A trifler, no more.”

“You do not like him, cousin?” she said, looking sideways.

He raised those expressive shoulders. “An arrogant Frenchman who bears himself as though he would snap his fingers in one’s face! No, I do not like him, cousin.”

A gleam of mischief shot into her eyes. “It is to be hoped he will not snap his fingers in your face, cousin,” she said demurely.

“I should have but one answer, Dominica.” He touched his sword-hilt. “I do not think the gay Chevalier would return to France.”