by Mary Shelley
In giving a detail of this circumstance, the Mayor related that the Easterlings declared, that at the first onset their richest store-chambers must have become the prey of the rioters, but for the interposition of one man. He was a sea captain, and had arrived but the day before with his caravel, from Spain — they represented him as a person of gigantic stature and superhuman strength. Entangled by the mob in his progress through the city, he had no sooner discovered their intent, than he contrived to make his way into the stilyard; and, there combining the forces of the defenders, more by his personal prowess than any other means, he beat back the invaders, and succeeded in closing the gates. At the representation of the Mayor, Henry commanded that this man should be brought before him, partly that he might thank him for his services; and partly, for Henry was curious on such points, to learn from him the news from Spain, and if more had been heard of the wild visionary Columbus and his devoted crew, since they had deserted the stable continent, to invade the hidden chambers of the secret western ocean.
The King received the mariner in his closet. None were in attendance save Urswick. There was something grand in the contrast between these men. The courtier priest — the sovereign, whose colourless face was deep-lined with careful thought, whose eyes were skilled in reading the thoughts of men, and whose soul was perpetually alive to every thing that was passing around him — and the ocean rock, the man of tempests and hardships, whose complexion was darkened and puckered by exposure to sun and wind, whose every muscle was hardened by labour, but whose unservile mien bespoke no cringing to any power, save Nature’s own. He received Henry’s thanks with respect, and replied simply: he answered also several questions put to him concerning his voyages; it appeared that he had but lately arrived from Spain — that he came to seek a relative who resided in England. During this interview a thought flashed on Henry’s mind. In his late transactions with Clifford, the base purpose had been formed of enticing the Duke and his principal adherents to England, and of delivering them up to their enemy; there had been some discussion as to providing, at least, one vessel in Henry’s pay, to make part of the little fleet which would bring the Duke of York over. This was difficult, as suspicion might attach itself to any English vessel; but here was one, with a stranger captain, and a foreign crew, a man who knew nothing of White or Red Rose, who would merely fulfil his commission. Slow on all occasions to decide, the King appointed another interview with the stranger.
It so happened, that the news of the appearance of the Spanish Captain, had penetrated to the Queen’s apartments; and little Arthur, her gentle and darling son, was desirous to see the countrymen of Columbus, whose promised discoveries were the parent of such wonder and delight throughout the world. The Prince of Wales must not be denied this pleasure, and the Spaniard was ushered into the Queen’s presence. An enthusiast in his art, his energetic, though simple expressions enchanted the intelligent Prince, and even compelled the attention of his little sturdy brother Henry. He spoke in words, borrowed from Columbus’s own lips, of translucent seas, of an atmosphere more softly serene than ours, of shores of supernal beauty, of the happy natives, of stores of treasure, and the bright hopes entertained concerning the further quest to be made in these regions. Elizabeth forgot herself to listen, and regretted the necessity of so soon dismissing him. She asked a few questions relative to himself, his vessel; “She was a gallant thing once,” replied her commander, “when I took her from the Algerines, and new christened her the Adalid; because like her owner, being of Moorish origin she embraced the true faith. My own name, please your Grace, is Hernan De Faro, otherwise called the Captain of the Wreck, in memory of a sad tedious adventure, many years old.”
“De Faro — had he not a daughter?”
Anxiety and joy showed itself at once in the mariner’s countenance. Monina! — Where was she? How eagerly and vainly had he sought her — faltering, the Queen had only power to say, that Sir William Stanley, the Lord Chamberlain, could inform him, and, terrified, put an end to the interview.
Two days after — already had de Faro found and fondly embraced his beloved child — Urswick, at the King’s command, sent for the hero of the stilyard, and after some questioning, disclosed his commission to him; it was such, that, had De Faro been in ignorance, would have led him to suspect nothing — he was simply to sail for Ostend; where he would seek Sir Robert Clifford, and deliver a letter: he was further told that he was to remain at Sir Robert’s command, to receive on board his vessel whoever the Knight should cause to embark in her, and to bring them safely to England. To all this De Faro, aware of the dread nature of these orders, assented; and, in Stanley’s summer-house, with the Lord Chamberlain, Monina, and Frion, it was discussed how this web of treason could best be destroyed. There was little room for doubt; Monina resolved to sail with her father, to denounce Clifford to the Prince, and so save him and his friends from the frightful snare. Frion still remained in England, to try to fathom the whole extent of the mischief intended; though now, fearful of discovery, he quitted his present abode, and sought a new disguise. Stanley trembled at Clifford’s name, but he saw no suspicion in his sovereign’s eye, and was reassured.
The Adalid sailed, bearing the King’s letters to Clifford, and having Monina on board, who was to unfold to the deceived Prince and his followers the dangers that menaced them.
Already, as the appointed time drew near, most of Richard’s partizans were assembled at Ostend; a fleet of three vessels was anchored in the port to convey them to England to fated death; the Prince himself, with Clifford, so-journed in a castle at no great distance. Sir Robert insinuated himself each day more and more into his royal friend’s confidence; each day his hatred grew, and he fed himself with it to keep true to his base purpose; among the partizans of York sometimes he felt remorse; beside the bright contrast of his own dark self, never.
Monina landed; and, the Prince being absent, first she sought Lady Brampton — she was at Brussels; then Plantagenet, — he was expected, but not arrived from Paris; then she asked for Sir George Neville, as the chief of the English exiles; to him she communicated her strange, her horrid tidings, to him she showed Henry’s still sealed letter to Clifford. What visible Providence was here, laying its finger on the headlong machinery that was bearing them to destruction! Neville was all aghast: he, who did not like, had ceased to suspect Clifford, seeing that he adhered to them at their worst. He lost no time in bringing Monina to the castle, but ten miles distant, where York then was; he introduced her privately, and, wishing that she should tell her tale herself, went about to contrive that, without Clifford’s knowledge or suspicion, the Prince should have an interview with her.
Monina did not wonder that her bosom throbbed wildly, as she remained in expectation of seeing her childhood’s playfellow, from whom she had been so long absent. Nor did she check her emotion of intense pleasure when she saw him, and heard him in her native Spanish utter expressions of glad delight at so unexpectedly beholding her. Time had changed him very little; his aspect was still boyish; and, if more thought was seated in his eye, his smile was not the less frank and sweet; she was more altered; her little but feminine form had acquired grace; the girl was verging into the woman — blooming as the one, tender and impassioned as the other; her full dark eyes, which none could behold and not feel the very inner depths of their nature stirred, were the home of sensibility and love. A few moments were given to an interchange of affectionate greeting, and then York, recurring to the mysterious mode in which Neville had expressed himself, asked if any thing, save a kind wish to visit the brother of her childhood, had brought her hither; she replied, by relating to him the circumstances of her father’s commission from Henry, and delivering to him the letter for Sir Robert. The whole wide world of misery contains no pang so great, as the discovery of treachery where we pictured truth; death is less in the comparison, for both destroy the future, and one, with Gorgon countenance, transforms the past. The world appeared to slide from beneat
h the Prince, as he became aware that Clifford’s smiles were false; his seeming honesty, his discourse of honour, the sympathy apparent between them, a lie, a painted lie, alluring him by fair colours to embrace foulest deformity. The exceeding openness and confidence of his own nature, rendered the blow doubly unnatural and frightful; and Monina, who had half disliked, and latterly had almost forgotten Clifford, was full of surprise and pain to mark the affliction her friend’s countenance expressed.
There was no time for regret. Neville interrupted them, and it became necessary to act. Richard held in his hand the sealed proof of his associate’s falsehood: Sir George urged him to open it, so to discover the whole extent of the treason. The Prince’s eyes were at once lighted up by the suggestion: no, no, because Clifford had been base, he would violate no law of honour — there was no need for the sake of others; his treachery discovered, was fangless; nor would he even undertake the dark office of openly convicting and punishing: his conscience and remorse should be judge and executioner.
Monina and Neville returned to Ostend. The Prince sent a message to Clifford with some trifling commission to execute in the same town; and Sir Robert, who had heard of the arrival of a stranger caravel from England, was glad of an opportunity, to ride over to learn its character. His feet were in the stirrups, when a page brought him a letter from the Duke, which he was bid not to open till he had departed. A sense of a mysterious meaning came over him. Was he discovered? At the first dawn of this suspicion he clapped spurs to his horse, and was already far away; then, impatient of uncertainty, as soon as half the brief space to Ostend was measured, he took out the packet, eyed it curiously, and, after many qualms and revolutions of feeling, suddenly tore it open. King Henry’s dispatch, written in Urswick’s well-known hand, first met his eye. Worse in action than in thought, a cold dew mantled on his brow; and, while his heart stood still in his labouring breast, he cast his eyes over a few lines, written in Richard’s fair clear Spanish hand: —
“This paper, joined to the mode in which it fell into my hands, accuses you of treason. If wrongfully, accord permission that the seal may be broken, and your innocence proved.
“Even if the mystery which this letter contains cannot be divulged nor exculpated, all is not lost. Perhaps you are rather weak than guilty; erring but not wicked. If so, return immediately on your steps; by a frank confession merit my confidence. I were unworthy of the mediation of the Blessed Saints, whom each night I solicit to intercede for me before our Heavenly Father, were I not ready to pardon one who has sinned, but who repents.
“If your crime be of a deeper dye, and you are allied in soul to my enemy, depart. It is enough for me that I never see you more. If I remain a fugitive for ever, you will lose nothing by deserting my ruined fortunes; if I win the day, my first exercise of the dearest prerogative of kings, will be to pardon you.
“Richard.”
CHAPTER V.
Shall I be the slave
Of — what? a word? which those of this false world
Employ against each other, not themselves.
As men wear daggers not for self offence.
But if I am mistaken, where shall I
Find the disguise to hide me from myself.
As now I skulk from every other eye.
— SHELLEY.
One of the surest results of guilt is to deprive the criminal of belief in the goodness of others. Clifford was discovered. Even, if Richard continued true to his promise of pardon, his adherents and counsellors might force him to another line of conduct. A dungeon and death floated terribly before his confused vision. Flight, instant flight to England, where by a full confession of many things he had reserved, and the disclosure of an important unsuspected name, he might still receive welcome and reward from Henry, was the only course left him to pursue.
His thoughts were chaos. Shame and indignation raged in his heart. He was a convicted traitor, a dishonoured man. “Oh, my envied father!” in his wretchedness he exclaimed, “you died gloriously for Lancaster. I live, steeped in obloquy, for the same cause. Abhorred Plantagenet! what misery has been mine since first your name came to drug me with racking poison! What have I not endured while I cringed to the fair-haired boy! Thank the powers of hell, that time is past! Devil as I have stamped myself, his arch crime, lying, is no more my attribute. To the winds and men’s thirsty ears I may cry aloud — I hate Plantagenet!”
It was some relief to this miserable man to array his thoughts in their darkest garb, soothing his evil passions with words, which acted on them as a nurse’s fondling talk to a querulous child. His line of conduct was fixed; he remembered Neville’s sudden appearance and departure the night before; he had brought the letter; he was waiting for him at Ostend to seize on him, to turn to mockery the Prince’s promised pardon. Those were days of violence and sudden bloodshed: the enemy a man could not visit with legal punishment, he thought himself justified in destroying with his own hand; the passions of the Yorkists, who found they had been driven into shambles instead of a fold, must be fierce and dangerous. Without delay, he resolved to embark in one of the vessels then in the roads; he hurried to the beach; the wind seemed fair; there was a poor kind of hostelry, the common resort of sailors near, from whence a signal could be given for a boat to be sent off for him. While waiting for it, he quitted the noisy vulgarity of the inn, and walked towards a kind of ruined tower, that once perhaps had served as a light-house. In all the panic of guilt, a roof, however desolate, appeared a shelter, and he sought it: it was dilapidated and dark; there were some rude, narrow stairs leading to the upper story; these he ascended, and entered what had been a kind of guardroom, and started at the vision he beheld: leaning against the aperture that had served for a casement, looking on the wide green sea, was Monina. Her lustrous eyes turned on him — eyes before whose full softness his violence, his insolence quailed; till shame, despair, and rage, and the deep-seated arrogance of his nature conquered his better feelings. She knew his crime, witnessed his disgrace; there was no more to lose in the world. What more could he win? His presence occasioned her much emotion. She had just quitted Neville, who somewhat angrily remarked upon the Prince’s illtimed lenity, and spoke bitterly of all the ill Clifford, thus let loose, might do in England. And here he was, about to embark for that very island, where one at least, Sir William Stanley was at his mercy. Gladly Monina seized on this opportunity to dive into his projects, and to inspire by her energetic words the traitor’s bosom with some sense of right. She, alas! inspired passion only, and jealousy, that now at last his rival would see her love-lighted eyes turned affectionately on him; while all the reproach of which they were capable was his meed. What such men as Clifford feel is not love: he had no real friendship for the innocent girl; each feeling that expresses the sympathy of our intellectual nature, was never associated to him with the name of woman. As she spoke therefore of his duties to God and man, violated, but not irretrievably, and with soft persuasion entreated him to spare those whose lives hung upon his word, he recovered his obduracy, and replied in a tone whose hollow vaunting was at discord with the music that fell from her lips—”My pretty maiden, I thank thee for thy good intentions, and if thou wilt wholly undertake my instruction, will prove an apt scholar. Honesty and I are too poor to be messmates; but if thou wilt join us — by God, Monina, I mean what I say — the priest shall say grace for us, and we will partake life’s feast or fast together. I will sail with thee to thy Spain, to the Indies of the West. England shall be a forgotten name; the White or Red Rose, neither worse nor better in our eyes, than any blooms that smell as sweet: if thou refusest this, here ends the last chance for honesty; and be the victim who it may, I care not so my fortunes thrive.”
“Unworthy man!” cried Monina; “farewell! I go to England also: I to save, you to destroy. Bounteous Heaven will look on our several intentions, and shape our course accordingly. Henry will visit with poor thanks your blighted purpose, barren now of its ill fruit. Mine will be the
harvest; yours the unlamented loss.”
She would have passed him, but he seized her slender wrist. “We will run no race,” he cried; “if we go to England, it will be together: listen to the splash of oars, it is my boat among the breakers. We enter it together; it is vain for you to resist; you are my prisoner.”
Monina trembled in every joint: she felt that in very truth she was in Clifford’s power. There rode her father’s caravel; but he could not guess her pressing danger: he would behold her depart, ignorant of the violence she was suffering, ignorant that she was there. No help! — no form of words was there, that might persuade the ill-minded Knight to free her: her proud spirit disdained to bend; her cheek was flushed; she strove to withdraw her hand. “Pardon me,” said Clifford; “if my fingers press too roughly; the slight pain you endure will hardly counterbalance the fierce torture your words inflicted. Be patient, my fellows are already here. Let us not act a silly mime before them; do not oblige me to demonstrate too unkindly, that you are wholly in my power.”
