Читать книгу: «The Lady of Loyalty House: A Novel», страница 11
XXVI
RESURRECTION
Some hours later Rufus Quaryll sat alone in the garden-room, writing. It was coming on dusk; candles had been lit, the fire was ruddy on the hearth. Rufus, as he wrote, was well content with the turn of things. He raged at Brilliana, but she should marry him all the same when the Puritan dog was dead. He had, as he believed, convinced the King at meat that the plea Evander raised was valueless, that Evander’s life was rightly forfeit. Evander was under close guard; so, indeed, was Brilliana, for he had stationed a sentry at the door of her apartments: he was determined that she should not see the King again. Now the King lay in the inner room, sleeping; when he rose it would be easy to get the order for Evander’s death. Furious in his hate, furious in his love, he would neither spare Evander nor surrender Brilliana. She should be his wife, if he had to drag her before an altar.
As he thought and wrote, the door opened and Halfman entered the room. Rufus, lifting his head, faced him with a finger on his lips while with the other he pointed to the door of the inner chamber.
“Hush!” he whispered; “the King sleeps. But all is well. He has as good as promised the Puritan shall die.”
“All is not so well as you think,” said Halfman, sardonically. “Here comes one more pleased to see you than you to see him.”
He went to the door again and ushered in a man who had waited outside, a man muffled in a cloak, and his face hidden by the way his hat was pulled over it. The man advanced slowly towards the surprised Rufus, and suddenly dropping his cloak and throwing back his hat uncovered a youthful, jovial face. Rufus gaped at him in despair and gasped a name:
“Randolph!”
Randolph Harby dropped into a chair and chuckled.
“No wonder you stare as if you faced a spectre. But I’m flesh and blood, lad.”
Rufus, trying to collect himself against this staggering blow, again raised a warning hand.
“For Heaven’s sake speak lower! The King is asleep yonder. How do you come here?”
Randolph leaned over and whispered, giggling, into Sir Rufus’s ear. Halfman watched with grim amusement. If he loved Evander little, come to think of it he loved Rufus less, all said and done; so he grinned at his discomfiture.
“A wonder,” Randolph said. “When they had the time to try me, their fools’ court-martial, thanks to that damned Cromwell, settled me for a spy and sentenced me to be shot. But the jailer where I lay had a daughter. Need I say more? We Harbys are invincible. Any way, there was no prisoner when the shooting-party came to claim me, and here I am, in time, I hope, to save the life of that poor Puritan devil.”
Sir Rufus’s wits were busy hatching mischief. He looked with aversion at the smiling, self-complacent ass whose resurrection tangled his plan. But his voice was very amiable as he asked:
“Do any in the household know of your return?”
“Devil a one,” the youth answered, cheerily, and Sir Rufus would have liked to drive a knife into him for his mirth, though his spirits rose at his answer. “I thought to take my cousin by surprise, scare her with my ghost, maybe. So I came skulking through the park and ran on this good sir, who nabbed me.” He indicated Halfman with a wave of the hand. “I explained to him, so that my joke should not spoil, and he smuggled me in here to surprise you. Where is Brilliana?”
Rufus looked at him thoughtfully.
“Are you fresh enough to ride?” he asked.
“If need be,” Randolph replied, astonished.
Rufus talked rapidly, writing a letter as he spoke.
“Then you may save your Puritan yet. We sent your hostage to Oxford for safe-keeping. News came of your death, and but now the King sent an order to have the fellow shot. But you can overtake the order, outstrip it. Here is a reprieve for the prisoner.”
Rufus folded the paper, sealed it, and handed it to the bewildered Randolph.
“Pick what horse you please, and ride for the honor of our cause.”
Randolph gasped.
“May I not see the King?”
Rufus refused him firmly.
“Impossible. His Majesty sleeps.”
“My cousin Brilliana?” Randolph asked. “What of my joke?”
Rufus spoke very solemnly.
“The one thing now is to save a man’s life. Ride hard, and God speed you.” Randolph yielded cheerfully.
“Well, well, I should be sorry the rebel dog should die wrongfully. You will justify me to the King for not attending him?”
Rufus nodded.
“I will justify you to his Majesty.”
“And not a word to Brilliana,” Randolph iterated. “I will have my joke on my return. Farewell.”
He muffled himself again and went out quickly. Rufus sat biting the end of his quill. Halfman stepped forward and made him a series of extravagant salutations, which parodied the most elaborate congees of a dancing-master. Rufus glared at him.
“What is the matter with you?” he asked, savagely. Halfman leered apishly at him.
“You are a splendid scoundrel,” he vowed. “Do not frown. I have lived with such and I speak in praise.”
Rufus struck his hands upon the table.
“I will have this Puritan devil,” he swore, “if the King do not play the granny.”
Halfman winked at him, diverted by his heat and hate.
“Say that more softly, for I think I hear him stirring.”
The two listened in silence. The curtains of the inner room were parted and Charles entered the room. He still looked haggard, ill at ease.
“Was any one here?” he asked, as the two men rose respectfully. Rufus answered, glibly:
“No, your Majesty. We spoke in whispers to respect your rest. Did your Majesty sleep well?”
“Ill, very ill,” Charles answered, drearily. “I had bad dreams and could not wake from them. Leave me, sirs.”
Rufus solicited his eyes.
“And the prisoner?”
Charles looked at him vaguely.
“The prisoner?”
“The rebel hostage for murdered Randolph Harby,” Rufus reminded him.
Charles looked vexed.
“Oh yes, I suppose he must die. Surely he must die. His plea is specious, but Randolph Harby is dead.”
“Brave, murdered Randolph.” Rufus’s regret was pathetic. “Shall I give order for the firing party?” He made as if to write. Charles frowned.
“You are over-zealous, sir; I have not made up my mind.”
Rufus read obstinacy in the royal face and knew that it were useless to argue further then.
“As your Majesty please,” he submitted.
The King seated himself heavily at the table and fixed his eyes upon an open map. Behind his back Rufus shrugged his shoulders and left the room. Halfman followed, a very Jaques of meditations, touched by the pathos of the tired King, grimly diverted by the ruffianism of Rufus. A mad world!
XXVII
THE KING’S IMAGE
The melancholy King sat in the great room alone. His eyes were fixed on the map, but his mind was far away, over yonder in Holland where she was – she, the Queen. The thought of her beauty troubled him; her soft voice seemed to be whispering at his ear in her pretty broken English. Some lines in a play he knew came into his mind, lines uttered by a king who, like himself, had known the horror of civil war, lines which said that it were better to be a shepherd and tend sheep than to be an English king. He sighed and his handsome head drooped upon his breast, and the brown hair that was graying so fast hid his cheeks. His eyes were wet and he could not see the map; it was all a blur of meaningless criss-cross lines. This would not do; he must think, he must plan, he must decide; but his head remained bent and the map remained a criss-cross puzzle.
The image of himself, which faced him as he sat, that picture of a king, royal, joyous, unchallenged, seemed to move a little, as if the bright figure on the canvas sought to approach and reassure the dejected man who crouched over the map of a divided kingdom. It did move, the serene Van Dyck portrait; it moved a little, and a little, and a little more; moved sideway as a door moves, yawned a foot of space between frame and wall, and through that foot of space Brilliana slipped into the room.
“Your Majesty,” she said, softly.
The King gave a little start as he lifted his head and looked at her. She thought she had never seen so pitifully a weary face as the face of her King, and her heart ached for him, but it ached most for her lover.
Charles rose to his feet, flawlessly courteous, much wondering.
“How did you come here, mistress?” he asked, and she sighed at the tired sound of his voice. “I understood from Sir Rufus that you were for the time – ”
He paused, and Brilliana calmly finished the sentence.
“Confined to my apartments. Yes, that was Rufus’s plan. But though Rufus calls himself captain of this castle he does not know it so well as I do. There are ways of getting hither and thither that he does not dream of.”
“You are a determined young woman,” the King said, with a faint smile, “if you think so lightly of the privacy of your King.”
Brilliana flung herself on her knees in a moment, her hands clasped, her eyes shining with honest tears.
“Your Majesty!” she cried; “your Majesty, I would never have dared this if I were not a woman very deep in love, if my lover were not in danger, and if – ”
She paused.
“And if?” Charles echoed, his fine, irresolute face neither smiling nor frowning. “Finish your sentence, lady.”
“And if I had not heard that your Majesty was a very perfect, true lover,” Brilliana went on. “Your Majesty’s love for the gracious lady now in France is the admiration of your subjects.”
A faint color glowed on the King’s pale cheeks. He was indeed the perfect, true lover of Henrietta Maria, and the greatest sorrow of all the clustering sorrows that the civil war had brought him was her absence from his side.
“It would be strange indeed if I did not love such a lady,” he said, gently; “but that lady is my queen, my wife, my comrade, my loyal friend, while he you plead for is but an acquaintance of a few days, and, moreover, in all thoughts and deeds your enemy – and mine.”
Brilliana had now risen to her feet and she faced the king valiantly, for she knew that she would have to plead hard and well.
“Your Majesty,” she answered, “as for the acquaintanceship, one of our poets has said, ‘Whoever loves that loves not at first sight?’ and though indeed at first sight I was far from giving this gentleman my love, I saw in him at once those qualities which in a man deserve love. As for his enmity, we are told that we should love our enemies.”
A frown overspread the King’s face and Brilliana faltered.
“I cannot claim for myself that wealth of charity,” Charles said, “that would make me love those that by rebellion and contumacy have plunged poor England into war.”
“Sire, sire,” Brilliana sighed, “if you will but pardon this gentleman I will promise you that I will never love another of your Majesty’s enemies.”
Charles frowned.
“I do not like your loyalty. Why do you plead for the life of a rebel?”
“I am your servant, none loyaller,” Brilliana answered, boldly; “but I am a woman, and I plead for the man I love.”
“If you were truly loyal,” Charles commented, “you could not love a traitor.”
Brilliana pressed her hands tightly against her breast and her face flushed.
“Captain Cloud is not a traitor. He is honest before God.”
Charles admired her pertinacity. Here was a woman who would not lightly lose heart or change purpose.
“I will not wrangle with you,” he said. “I think the gentleman deserves death. But because I know very well what it is to love truly, why, I will let you save him if you can.”
Brilliana’s voice was charged with gratitude. “Oh, your Majesty is always noble. But how?”
Charles looked at her fixedly, touching his chin with the feather of his quill. “Thuswise – only thuswise. You will persuade Captain Cloud to return to his allegiance.”
Brilliana’s gratitude ebbed and her voice hardened. “I know he will never change sides.”
An enigmatic smile passed over the fretful face of the King. “I think so, too,” he agreed, and turned again to his papers. But Brilliana was not to be so rebuffed. Coming a little nearer to Charles, she fell on her knees and extended her hands in supplication. “Sire, my lover’s life!”
Charles, who had lost nothing of her actions, though he affected to be wholly absorbed in his business, looked round and down at her with much assumption of surprise.
“You are still there? You are a pertinacious maykin.”
“Sire, in the Queen’s name!” Brilliana pleaded. The King sighed.
“Well, one more concession, this is the last – the very last.” Charles prided himself on his firmness, and he struck the table as he spoke to emphasize his unalterable resolve. “If you win me his word of honor to take no more part in this war, to remain neutral till King humble Commons or Commons murder King, why, it is enough; he lives.”
Brilliana shivered at the King’s alternative. “Your Majesty cannot believe that the worst of your subjects would aim at your sacred life?”
The King’s fine eyes were more than usual melancholy, and he opened and clasped his long fingers nervously.
“I cannot choose but believe it. Their words are wild – that is trifling. But long ago, when I was young, there was a man, one Arthur Dee, a wizard and the son of a wizard, he had a magic crystal – ah, Father in heaven!”
Charles gave a groan and hid his face in his hands, Brilliana thrilled with compassion. “Your Majesty!” she cried; “your Majesty!”
Charles drew his hands away from his face. He rose, and, as he spoke, he stared fixedly before him as if he saw the sight he was describing.
“In that sphere I saw a platform hung with black. On it I seemed to see myself staring at a sea of hateful faces. One with a mask stood by my side who carried an axe. I have never forgotten it.”
He stood rigid, with clasped hands. Brilliana shuddered at his words.
“Sire! sire! this was some lying vision.”
With an effort the King controlled himself; his features softened to their habitual melancholy, his hands relaxed their clasp, and he seated himself again by the table.
“Belike, belike; I am unwise to think upon it,” he said, in a low voice. Leaning across the table, he struck a bell sharply. The door opened and the soldier in immediate attendance upon the King entered.
“Tell Sir Rufus to attend us,” the King said. The soldier bowed and withdrew. Charles looked up at Brilliana. “Sir Rufus will be loath to lose his prey,” he said. “He is a fierce hawk that clings to his quarry.”
“He was once my friend,” Brilliana said, sadly. The King smiled his melancholy smile.
“If I were in his place,” he said, gravely, “I think I might be tempted to play his part. You are a very fair maiden.”
Brilliana shook her head. “The love that makes a man base is no good love. He will never be my friend again.”
“Here, as I think, he comes,” Charles said. The door opened and Sir Rufus entered the room. He was so amazed at facing Brilliana that for a moment he forgot to render salutation to the King. Charles’s eyes brightened as they used to brighten at the playhouse. Here was a living play being played before him, tragical, comical – man and woman fighting for a man’s life.
“Sir Rufus,” he ordered, “send to our presence the prisoner, the Parliament officer.”
Rufus glanced at Brilliana’s stern, averted face; he read something like mockery on the thin, royal lips. For an instant he ventured to protest.
“But, your Majesty – ” he began, but he got no further. The King checked him with a frown and a raised hand. It was easy to make him obstinate in crossing a follower.
“You have heard my commands,” he said, sternly.
Sir Rufus bowed his head and retreated. There was nothing else for him to do. He just glanced at Brilliana as he went out. If Brilliana had seen the glance she would have read his rage and hate in it. But she did not see it, for her head was still averted. The King saw it, however, and he felt that the situation was alive. He turned to Brilliana.
“I am a complaisant monarch, as I think,” he said. “Now, lady, do your best to make your sweetheart see reason. Honestly, I do not think he is worth so many words, but you think otherwise, and for your sake I wish you a winning tongue.”
Brilliana bowed deeply. “I humbly thank your Majesty,” she said, and felt that the King had done much for her. From offering the impossible he had come to offering the possible. It seemed a little task to persuade a lover committed to a wrongful cause to lay aside his sword and wait the issue.
The King’s eyes had fallen on his papers again, and he did not lift them thence nor take heed of Brilliana again until the tread of feet was heard in the corridor. In another moment Evander, escorted by two royal troopers, entered the room. There was a sudden gladness in his eyes at the sight of Brilliana, but he at once saluted the King in a military fashion and stood quietly at attention waiting the royal word.
Charles rose from his chair, and for a moment his melancholy eyes travelled from the beautiful girl standing by the window to the gallant soldier standing by the door. The face of Evander pleased his scrutiny far more than the face of Rufus, and it came into his mind that he would gladly enroll Evander under his standard and hand over Rufus to the Crop-ears. Truly the Puritan soldier and the Lady of Loyalty House made a brave pair.
“Sir,” he said, quietly, “this lady desires speech with you, and has persuaded me to permit an interview.” He turned to the troopers.
“Wait outside the door, sirs,” he commanded. When they had obeyed he looked again towards Brilliana, and there was a smile on his tired face, a smile partly whimsical, partly pitying, as if encouraging to an adventure yet doubtful of the result. Then he gave her a gracious salutation, and, without further notice of Evander Cloud, passed into the adjoining room and left the lovers alone.
XXVIII
LOVER AND LOVER
Evander turned to Brilliana with question in his eyes; Brilliana advanced towards Evander with question on her lips.
“Are you very sure you love me?” she queried. Evander made to take her in his arms, but she stayed him with a lifted hand of warning.
“Sure,” he answered, fervently, and surety shone in his eyes.
Brilliana leaned against the table at which the King had sat and faced him gravely.
“More than life, more than all things in the wide world?”
Evander’s answer came as flash to flint.
“More than life; more than all things in this wide world – ” there was a momentary fall in his voice; then he added, “save honor.”
A little sudden fear pricked at Brilliana’s heart, but she tried to deny it with a little, teasing laugh.
“Oh, that wonderful word ‘honor,’” she mocked. “I thought we should pull that out of the sack sooner or later.”
Evander watched her with surprise. “What is coming next?” he wondered. He began to fear as he answered, simply:
“You would not have me neglect honor?”
Brilliana’s face was set steadfastly towards him; Brilliana’s eyes were very bright; Brilliana’s cheeks were as red as the late October roses.
“Here is what I would have you do,” she said, breathlessly, and then paused – paused so long that Evander, watching and waiting, prompted her with a questioning “Well?”
Brilliana still seemed to hesitate. That word “honor” had frightened her for Evander, had frightened her for herself. She now groped uncertain, who thought to tread so surely.
“Will you do as I wish if I tell you?” she asked, trying to mask anxiety with a jesting manner. And when Evander responded gravely, “If I can,” she pressed him impetuously again.
“Nay, now, make me a square promise.” She looked very fair as she pleaded.
“All that a doomed man can do – ” Evander replied, smiling somewhat wistfully.
Brilliana shook her head vehemently and her Royalist curls danced round her bright cheeks.
“You are no doomed man unless you choose,” she asserted, hotly. Evander moved a step nearer to her.
“What do you mean?” he asked. Brilliana was panting now. He knew she had somewhat to say, and newly found it hard in the saying. She spoke.
“His Majesty the King will grant you your life.” Her words and looks told him temptingly that “your life” meant also “my life” to her.
“On what condition?”
He knew there must be a condition, knew that the condition troubled Brilliana. She answered him swiftly.
“Oh, no condition at all.” There came a catch in her voice and then she ran on:
“Or almost none. All his Majesty asks is that you refrain from taking any further part in this unhappy war.”
She paused and eyed him. Evander’s face was unchanged.
“No more than that?” he commented, so quietly that, reassured, she rippled on, volubly:
“No more than that. We can be wed, dear love. We can go away together to France, Italy, where you please. I have always had a mind to see Italy. And when England is quiet again we can come home, come here and be happy.”
She felt as if she were flinging herself at his feet, shamelessly offering herself, to tempt him, to dazzle him, conquer him that way; to witch his promise out of him before he had time to think. Yet for all her vehemence there was a chill at her heart and a cloud seemed to hover over her sunny words. Unwillingly she looked away from him, but she held out her hands in appeal.
“Hush, Brilliana!”
The grave, sweet voice sounded on her ears as the knell of hope. But she faced him again with a useless, questioning glance.
“Why talk of what cannot be?” Evander asked, sadly.
Brilliana denied him feverishly.
“What can be – what must be!” she cried. “The King has promised.”
“I am a soldier of the Parliament,” Evander asserted. “I cannot abandon my cause.”
Brilliana almost screamed at him in her anger and despair.
“You are a prisoner under sentence of death. If you die, what gain has the Parliament of you, and I must live a widowed woman.” She was close to him now and very suddenly she flung her arms about him, clasping him to her, her eager face close to his.
“Promise,” she panted; “promise, dear love, promise. Your Parliament loses nothing, you gain your life, my love. Promise, promise!”
Evander’s flesh fought with his spirit, but his face was calm and the arms that yearned to enfold his lover lay by his side. He turned his face away lest he should kiss her on the mouth, and, kissing, surrender his soul.
“I cannot,” he said, as if from a great silence. He would not see the passionate, beautiful face; he sought to fix his mind upon the faces of those whose faithful soldier he was sworn. The girl unloosed her arms and swayed away from him, wild anger in her eyes.
“Do you call this true love,” she sneered, “that is so scrupulous?”
“The truest love in the world,” Evander answered, looking full at her. He could look at her now; he had no fear to fall. He was losing a joy beyond all thought, but at least he would die with a white soul.
“Do you think it is nothing to me to die thus losing you? But you have served soldier; you have a soldier’s spirit; you would not have me do other than I am doing. You do not understand my cause, to think it should be easy to persuade me from it. But if I were of the King’s party and in such peril so tempted, would you wish me to abandon my royal master to win life or love?”
Brilliana’s cheeks flamed a furious scarlet; then the fierce blood ebbed and left her face very pale, but her eyes were shining very bright. She steadied herself against the table and tried to speak with a steady voice.
“You are in the right. You could not do other than you are doing. But it is very hard to bear.”
She reeled a little, and he, thinking her about to faint, made to support her, but she stiffened again, and he stood where he was. She bent forward, speaking scarcely above a whisper.
“There is a way of escape from this chamber, a secret passage. You can get from it to the park, and so into the open country and safety. You are my prisoner. I release you from your parole. Fly, while there is time.”
The loyal lovers were so absorbed in their honorable contest that they did not heed how the door of the King’s apartment opened, first a little inch, then, slowly, wider and wider, allowing Charles Stuart to see and hear. A curious smile reigned over the delicate face as Brilliana made her proposal, and lingered in whimsical doubt for the response.
The response came quickly. Again Evander was saying Brilliana nay.
“I cannot that, neither, dear woman, for to do this would be to make you disloyal to your King.”
“Oh, you split straws!” she cried, wildly. “A plague upon your preciousness which drives you to deny and die rather than admit my wisdom! You are no prisoner to the King. You are my prisoner. I took you, I hold you, and as my prisoner I command you to follow me, that I may convey you to some place of surety more pleasing to my mind than this mansion.”
From behind the door ajar there came a clap of hearty laughter which made harassed maid and man jump more than if their discussion had been interrupted by volleying musketry. The door was wide open now, and the King was in the room, his face irradiated with honest mirth.
