“Here lies our sovereign lord, the King,Whose word no man relies on;Who never said a foolish thing,And never did a wise one!”
“Here lies our sovereign lord, the King,Whose word no man relies on;Who never said a foolish thing,And never did a wise one!”
The post-mortem verse was sufficiently subtle and clever to revive the King’s drooping spirits; and he joined heartily in the applause.
“The matter,” he said, approvingly, “is easily accounted for–my discourse is my own, my actions are my Ministry’s.”
There was afrou-frouof petticoats. The hostess entered gaily.
“The King! The courtiers! Unmasked!” she exclaimed, in coy reproof.“Fy, fy, your Majesty! For shame! Gallants! Are you children that I must pair you off?”
“We are seeking consolation,” suggested Charles, dryly; “for modest souls have small chance to-night, Louise.”
He nodded significantly in the direction of the great ball-room, where the chatter of women’s voices betokened the unrivalled popularity of Nell.
“When did you turn modest, Sire?” slyly inquired Portsmouth, with a look of love.
“When I was out-stripped in audacity by yon Hibernian youth,” replied the King, seriously. “Who is this peacock you are introducing?”
A peal of laughter from without punctuated the King’s speech. It was the reward of a wit-thrust from Nell.
“The Piper the maids would now unmask?” queried Portsmouth, rapturously. “Marry, ’tis the fascinating Beau Adair of Cork, entertaining the ladies. Oh, he is a love, Sire; he does not sulk in corners. See! See!”
She pointed toward the archway, through which Nell was plainly visible. She was strutting jauntily back and forth upon the promenade. It is unnecessary to say that she was escorted by the assembled fair ones.
As Nell caught the eye of the hostess in the distance, she gaily tossed a kiss to her.
“’Sdeath, that I were a woman to hope for one of his languishing smiles,” observed Buckingham.
“Even the old hens run at his call,” sneered the pious James, in discontent; for he too had been deserted by his ladylove and even before the others.
The King looked at his brother with an air of bantering seriousness, to the delight of all assembled.
“Brother James is jealous of the old ones only,” he observed. “You know his favourites are given him by his priests for penance.”
A merry ripple ran through the group.
The hostess took advantage of the King’s speech to make a point.
“And you are jealous of the young ones only,” she said, slyly, quickly adding as a bid for jealousy: “Pooh, pooh!Le Beauhad letters to me, Sire. Nay, we do not love him very much. We have not as yet had time.”
“Alas, alas,” sighed Charles, with drooping countenance, “that it should come to this.”
“My liege, I protest–” cried Portsmouth, hastily, fearful lest she might have gone too far. “To-night is the first I ever saw the youth. I adore you, Sire.”
“Not a word!” commanded Charles, with mock-heroic mien. He waved his hand imperatively to his followers. “Friends,” he continued, “we will mix masks and dominoes and to’t again to drown our sorrow.”
“In the Thames?” inquired James, facetiously for him.
“Tush! In the punch-bowl, pious brother!” protested the Merry Monarch, with great dignity. “You know, a very little water will drown even a king.”
The gallants mixed masks and dominoesin obedience to the royal wish. The King, sighing deeply, cast a hopeless glance at Portsmouth, not without its tinge of humour. He then sauntered slowly toward the windows of the great ball-room, followed subserviently by all the courtiers, save Buckingham, who was lost in converse with player Hart.
“Hark ye,” suddenly broke off Buckingham, observing the approach of Adair and his adorers, “here come again the merry maskers. By Bacchus, the little bantam still reigns supreme. The King and his gallants in tears. Let us join the mourners, Master Hart.”
As the Duke and the player, the former assuming a fraternal air for an end of his own, joined the royal group, Nell re-entered gaily, every inch the man. She was still surrounded by the ladies, who, fluttering, flattering and chattering, hung upon her every word. With one hand she toyed with her mask, which she had good-naturedly dropped as none were about who knew her. She clapped it, however, quickly to her eyes at sight of the King.
“You overwhelm me, my fair ones,” she said, with spirit, as she held court in the centre of the room. “I assure you, I am not used to such attention–from the ladies.”
“Our hospitality is beggarly to your deserts,” sighed Portsmouth, who had joined the bevy, but loud enough for the King to hear.
“You quite o’erpower me, Duchess,” answered Nell, modestly, adding for the satisfaction of her own sense of humour: “No wonder we men are fools, if you women talk like this.”
While she was speaking, Lady Hamilton whispered facetiously in Portsmouth’s ear.
“Beau Adair married!” exclaimed the Duchess, in response. “It cannot be. He looks too gay for a married man.”
“No confidences, my pretty ones,” observed Nell, reprovingly.
The hostess hesitated; then she out with it in a merry strain.
“Lady Hamilton asks after the wife you left at home.”
“My wife!” cried Nell, in astonishment; for this phase of her masquerading had not presented itself to her before. “Great Heavens, I have no wife–I assure you, ladies!”
“So?” observed Portsmouth, her curiosity awakened. “Modest–for a bachelor.”
“A bachelor!” exclaimed Nell, now fullyen rapportwith the spirit of the situation. “Well,–not exactly a bachelor either,–ladies.”
“Alack-a-day,” sighed Lady Hamilton, with a knowing glance at her companions, “neither a bachelor nor a married man!”
“Well, you see–” explained Nell, adroitly, “that might seem a trifle queer, but–I’m in mourning–deeply in mourning, ladies.”
She drew a kerchief from her dress and feigned bitter tears.
“A widower!” tittered Lady Hamilton, heartlessly. “Our united congratulations, sir.”
The other ladies one by one sobbedwith affected sympathy, wiping their eyes tenderly, however, lest they might remove the rich colour from their cheeks.
“Mesdames,” said Nell, reprovingly, “the memory is sacred. Believe me, very sacred.”
She fell apparently once again to weeping bitterly.
“The memory is always sacred–with men,” observed Portsmouth, for the benefit of her guests, not excepting the Irish youth. “Nay, tell us the name of the fair one who left you so young. My heart goes out to you, dear Beau.”
“Kind hostess,” replied Nell, assuming her tenderest tones, “the name of my departed self is–Nell!”
Hart caught the word. The player was standing near, reflecting on the scene and on the honeyed words of the Duke of Buckingham, who was preparing the way that he might use him.
“Nell!” he muttered. “Who spoke that name?”
The hostess too was startled.
“Nell!” she exclaimed, with contendingemotions. “Strange! Another cavalier who gracesmon bal masquéto-night has lost a loved one whose name is Nell. Ah, but she was unworthy of his noble love.”
She spoke pointedly at the masked King, who started perceptibly.
“Yes,” he thought; for his conscience smote him, “unworthy–he of her.”
“Unworthy, truly, if he dances so soon and his own Nell dead,” added Nell, reflectively, but so that all might hear, more especially Charles.
“Perchance Nell too thinks so,” thought he, as he restlessly walked away, sighing: “I wish I were with her on the terrace.”
“’Sdeath, Duchess,” continued Nell abruptly, in assumed horror at the sudden thought, “the lady’s spirit may visit the ball, to the confusion of us all. Such things have been.”
“The Nell I mean,” said Portsmouth, with a confident smile, “will not venture here, e’en in spirit.”
Nell assumed a baby-innocence of face.
“She has not been bidden, I presume?” she queried.
“The vixen would not stop for asking,” declared Portsmouth, almost fiercely.
“Come without asking?” cried Nell, as if she could not believe that there could be such people upon the earth. “How ill-bred! Thine ear, loved one. My Nell revisits the world again at midnight. The rendezvous–St. James’s Park.”
Hart brushed close enough to the group, in his biting curiosity, to catch her half-whisper to Portsmouth. He at once sought a window and fresh air, chafing with surprise and indignation at what he had overheard.
“St. James’s at midnight,” he muttered. “’Tis my Nell’s abode.”
The Duchess herself stood stunned at what appeared to her a possible revelation of great import.
“St. James’s!” she thought. “Can he mean Madame Gwyn? No, no!”
The look of suspicion which for an instant had clouded her face changed to one of merriment, under Adair’s magic glance.
“And you would desert me for such a fleshless sprite?” she asked.
“Not so,” said Nell, with a winning look; “but, when my better-half returns to life, I surely cannot refuse an interview–especially an she come from afar.”
Nell’s eyes arose with an expression of sadness, while her finger pointed down–ward in the direction of what she deemed the probable abode of her departed “Nell.” Her lips twitched in merriment, however, despite her efforts to the contrary; and the hostess fell a-laughing.
“Ladies,” she cried, as she appealed to one and all, “is notle Beaua delight–so different from ordinary men?”
“I am not an ordinary man, I assure you,” Nell hastened to declare.
This assertion was acquiesced in by a buzz of pretty compliments from the entire bevy of ladies. “Positively charming!” exclaimed one. “A perfect love!” said another.
Nell listened resignedly.
“’Sheart,” she said, at length, with an air ofennui, “I cannot help it. ’Tis allpart of being a man, you know.”
“Would that all men were like you,le Beau!” sighed the hostess, not forgetting to glance at the King, who again sat disconsolate, in the midst of his attendant courtiers, drawn up, as in line of battle, against the wall.
“Heaven help us if they were!” slyly suggested Nell.
Rochester, who had been watching the scene in his mischievous, artistic way, drew from Portsmouth’s compliment to Adair another meaning. He was a mixture ’twixt a man of arts and letters and Satan’s own–a man after the King’s own heart. Turning to the King, with no desire to appease the mischief done, he said, banteringly:
“Egad, there’s a rap at you, Sire. France would make you jealous.”
The Duke of Buckingham too, though he appeared asleep, had seen it all.
“And succeeds, methinks,” he reflected, glancing approvingly in the direction of the Irish youth. “A good ally, i’faith.”
Nell, indeed, was using all her arts of fascination to ingratiate herself with the Duchess, and making progress, too.
“Your eyes are glorious, fair hostess,” she said, in her most gallant love-tones, “did I not see my rival in them.”
She could not, however, look at Portsmouth for laughter, as she thought: “I believe lying goes with the breeches; I never was so proficient before.”
The compliment aroused the King’s sluggish nature.
“I can endure no more, gallants,” cried he, with some pretence of anger, rising abruptly, followed, of course, in each move and grimace by his courtier-apes, in their desire to please. “Are we to be out-done in our own realm by this usurper with a brogue? Ha! The fiddlers! Madame, I claim the honour of this fair hand for the dance.”
At the sound of the music, he had stepped gallantly forward, taking the hostess’s hand.
“My thanks, gallant masker,” replied the Duchess, pretending not to knowhim for flattery’s sake, “but I am–”
To her surprise, she had no opportunity to complete the sentence.
“Engaged! Engaged!” interposed Nell, coming unceremoniously between them, with swaggering assumption and an eye-shot at the King through the portal of her mask. “Forsooth, some other time, strange sir.”
The hostess stood horrified.
“Pardon, Sir Masker,” she hastened to explain; “but the dance was pledged–”
“No apologies, Duchess,” replied the King, as he turned away, carelessly, with the reflection: “All’s one to me at this assemblage.”
He crossed the room, turning an instant to look, with a humorous, quizzical glance, at Portsmouth. Nell mistook the glance for a jealous one and, perking up quickly, caught the royal eye with a challenging eye, tapping her sword-hilt meaningly. Had the masks been off, the situation would have differed. As it was, the King smiled indifferently. The episode did not affect him further than to touch his senseof humour. Nell turned triumphantly to her partner.
“Odsbud,” she exclaimed, with a delicious, youthful swagger, “we may have to measure swords in your behalf, dear hostess. I trow the fellow loves you.”
“Have a care,” whispered the Duchess, nervously. “It is the King.”
“What care I for a king?” saucily replied Nell, with a finger-snap. She had taken good care, however, to speak very low. “My arm, my arm, Duchess!” she continued, with a gallant step. “Places, places; or the music will outstrip us.”
“Strut on, my pretty bantam,” thought Buckingham, whose eyes lost little that might be turned to his own advantage; “I like you well.”
There was no mending things at this stage by an apology. The Duchess, therefore, tactfully turned the affair into one of mirth, in which she was quickly joined by her guests. With a merry laugh, she took the Irish gallant’s proffered arm, and together they led the dance. TheKing picked a lady indifferently from among the maskers.
It was a graceful old English measure. Nell’s roguish wits, as well as her feet, kept pace with the music. She assured her partner that she had never loved a woman in all her life before and followed this with a hundred merry jests and sallies, keyed to the merry fiddles, so full of blarney that all were set a-laughing. Anon, the gallants drew their swords and crossed them in the air, while the ladies tiptoed in and out. Nell’s blade touched the King’s blade. When all was ended the swords saluted with a knightly flourish, then tapped the floor.
There was an exultant laugh from one and all, and the dance was done.
Nell hastened to her partner’s side. She caught the Duchess’s hand and kissed it.
“You dance divinely, your grace,” she said. “A goddess on tiptoe.”
“Oh, Beau Adair!” replied the Duchess, courtseying low; and her eyes showed that she was not wholly displeased at the warmth of his youthful adoration.
“Oh, Duchess!” said Nell, fondly, acknowledging the salute.
The Duchess hastened to join his Majesty and together they threaded their way through many groups.
Nell tossed her head.
“How I love her!” she muttered, veiling the sarcasm under her breath.
She crossed the great room, her head erect. Her confidence was quite restored. This had been the most difficult bit of acting she had ever done; and how well it had been done!
The other dancers in twos and threes passed from the room in search of quiet corners, in which to whisper nothings.
Nell’s eyes fell upon Strings, who had had a slight turn for the better in the world and who now, in a dress of somewhat substantial green, was one of the fiddlers at the Duchess’s ball.
“How now, sirrah!” she said, sharply, as she planted herself firmly before him to his complete surprise. “I knew you were here.”
She placed one of her feet in a devil-may-carefashion upon a convenient chair in manly contempt of its upholstery and peeped amusedly through her mask at her old friend. He looked at her in blank amazement.
“Gads-bobbs,” he exclaimed, in confusion, “the Irish gentleman knows me!”
“There’s nothing like your old fiddle, Strings,” continued Nell, still playing with delight upon his consternation. “It fills me with forty dancing devils. If you were to play at my wake, I would pick up my shroud, and dance my way into Paradise.”
“Your lordship has danced to my fiddling before?” he gasped, in utter amazement.
“Danced!” gleefully cried Nell. “I have followed your bow through a thousand jigs. To the devil with these court-steps. I’m for a jig, jig, jig, jig, jig! Oh, I’m for a jig! Tune up, tune up, comrade; and we’ll have a touch of the old days at the King’s House.”
“The King’s House! Jigs!” exclaimed the fiddler, now beside himself.
“Jigs!” chuckled Nell. “Jigs are my line of business.”
Oranges, will you have my oranges?Sweet as love-lips, dearest mine,Picked by Spanish maids divine,–
Oranges, will you have my oranges?Sweet as love-lips, dearest mine,Picked by Spanish maids divine,–
The room had now quite cleared; and, protected by a friendly alcove, Nell punctuated the old song with a few happily turned jig-steps. Strings looked at her a moment in bewilderment: then his face grew warm with smiles; the mystery was explained.
“Mistress Nell, as I live,” he cried, joyously, “turned boy!”
“The devil fly away with you, you old idiot! Boy, indeed!” replied Nell, indignantly. “I’m a full-grown widower!”
She had removed her mask and was dancing about Strings gleefully.
There was the sound of returning voices.
“Oons, you will be discovered,” exclaimed Strings, cautiously.
“Marry, I forgot,” whispered Nell, glancing over her shoulder. “You mayhave to help me out o’ this scrape, Strings, before the night is done.”
“You can count on me, Mistress Nell, with life,” he replied, earnestly.
“I believe you!” said Nell, in her sympathetic, hearty way. Her mind reverted to the old days when Strings and she were at the King’s. “Oh, for just one jig with no petticoats to hinder.”
Nell, despite herself, had fallen into an old-time jig, with much gusto, for her heart was for a frolic always, when Strings, seized her arm in consternation, pointing through the archway.
“The King!” she exclaimed.
She clapped her mask to her eyes and near tumbled through the nearest arras out of the room in her eagerness to escape, dragging her ever-faithful comrade with her.
For the glory of England?
For the glory of England?
The King entered the room with his historic stride. His brow was clouded; but it was all humorous pretence, for trifles were not wont to weigh heavily upon his Majesty. With him came Portsmouth.
“Can you forgive me, Sire?” she asked. “I had promised the dance to Beau Adair. I did not know you, Sire; you masked so cleverly.”
“’Sdeath, fair flatterer!” replied the King. “I have lived too long to worry o’er the freaks of women.”
“The youth knew not to whom he spoke,” still pleaded Portsmouth. “His introduction here bespeaks his pardon, Sire.”
The King looked sardonic, but his laugh had a human ring.
“He is too pretty to kill,” he declared, dramatically. “We’ll forgive himfor your sake. And now good night.”
“So soon?” asked Portsmouth, anxiously.
“It is late,” he replied.
“Not while the King is here,” she sighed. “Night comes only when he departs.”
“Your words are sweet,” said Charles, thoughtfully observing her.
She sighed again.
“My thoughts stumble in your speech,” she said. “I regret I have not English blood within my veins.”
“And why?”
“The King would trust and love me then. He does not now. I am French and powerless to do him good.”
There was a touch of honest sadness in her speech which awakened the King’s sympathy.
“Nay,” he said hastily, to comfort her; “’tis thy fancy. Thy entertainment hath made me grateful–to Louis and Louise.”
“Think not of Louis and Louise,” she said, sadly and reproachfully, “but of thy dear self and England’s glory. For shame!Ah, Sire, my childhood-dreams were of sunny France, where I was born; at Versailles–at Fontainebleau among the monarch trees–my early womanhood sighed for love. France gave me all but that. It came not till I saw the English King!”
The siren of the Nile never looked more bewitchingly beautiful than this siren of France as she half reclined upon the couch, playing upon the King’s heart with a bit of memory. His great nature realized her sorrow and encompassed it.
“And am I not good to thee, child?” he asked. He took her hand and responded to her eyes, though not with the tenderness of love–the tenderness for which she sought.
“You are good to none,” she replied, bitterly; “for you are not good to Charles.”
“You speak enigmas,” he said, curious.
“Have you forgotten your promise?” she asked, naïvely.
“Nay; the passport, pretty one?” he answered, amused at the woman’s wiles. “All this subterfuge of words for that!There; rest in peace. Thy friend hath a path to France at will.”
He smiled kindly as he took the passport from his girdle, handed it to her and turned to take his leave.
“My thanks are yours. Stay, Sire,” she said, hastily; for her mission was not yet complete and the night was now well gone. “Passports are trifles. Will you not leave the Dutch to Louis and his army? Think!”
She placed her arms about his neck and looked enticingly into his eyes.
“But,” he replied, kindly, “my people demand that I intervene and stay my brother Louis’s aggressive hand.”
“Are the people king?” she asked, with coy insinuation. “Do they know best for England’s good? Nay, Sire, for your good and theirs, I beseech, no more royal sympathy for Holland. I speak to avoid entanglements for King Charles and to make his reign the greater. I love you, Sire.” She fell upon her knee. “I speak for the glory of England.”
His Majesty was influenced by herbeauty and her arts,–what man would not be?–but more by the sense of what she said.
“For the glory of England?” he asked himself. “True, my people are wrong. ’Tis better we remain aloof. No wars!”
He took the seat by the table, which the Duchess offered him, and scanned casually the parchment which she handed to him.
Nell peered between the curtains. Strings was close behind her.
“Bouillon’s signature for France,” mused the King. “’Tis well! No more sympathy for the Dutch, Louise, until Holland sends a beauty to our court to outshine France’s ambassador.”
He looked at Portsmouth, smiled and signed the instrument, which had been prepared, as he thought, in accordance with his wishes and directions. He then carelessly tossed the sand over the signature to blot it.
The fair Duchess’s eyes revealed all the things which all the adjectives of all the lands ever meant.
“Holland may outshine in beauty, Sire,” she said, kneeling by the King’s side, “but not in sacrifice and love.” She kissed his hand fervently.
He sat complacently looking into her eyes, scarce mindful of her insinuating arts of love. He was fascinated with her, it is true; but it was with her beauty, flattery and sophistry, not her heart.
“I believe thou dost love England and her people’s good,” he said, finally. “Thy words art wise.”
Portsmouth leaned fondly over his shoulder.
“One more request,” she said, with modest mien, “a very little one, Sire.”
The King laughed buoyantly.
“Nay, an I stay here,” he said, “thy beauty will win my kingdom! What is thy little wish, sweet sovereign?”
“No more Parliaments in England, Sire,” she said, softly.
“What, woman!” he exclaimed, rising, half-aghast, half-humorous, at the suggestion; for he too had an opinion of Parliament.
“To cross the sway of thy great royal state-craft,” she continued, quickly following up the advantage which her woman’s wit taught her she had gained. “The people’s sufferings from taxation spring from Parliament only, Sire.”
“’Tis true,” agreed Charles, decisively.
Portsmouth half embraced him.
“For the people’s good, Sire,” she urged, “for my sweetest kiss.”
“You are mad,” said Charles, yet three-fourths convinced; “my people–”
“Will be richer for my kiss,” the Duchess interrupted, wooingly, “and their King, by divine right and heritage, will rule untrammelled by country clowns, court knaves and foolish lords, who now make up a silly Parliament. With such a King, England will be better with no Parliament to hinder. Think, Sire, think!”
“I have thought of this before,” said Charles, who had often found Parliament troublesome and, therefore, useless. “The taxes will be less and contention saved.”
“Why hesitate then?” she asked. “This hour’s as good for a good deed as any.”
BETWEEN TWO FIRES
BETWEEN TWO FIRES
“For England’s sake?” reflected Charles, inquiringly, as he took the second parchment from her hands. “Heaven direct my judgment for my people’s good. I sign.”
The treaties which Louis XIV. of France had sent the artful beauty to procure lay signed upon her desk.
Nell almost pulled the portières from their hangings in her excitement.
“I must see those papers,” she thought. “There’s no good brewing.”
Portsmouth threw her arms about the King and kissed him passionately.
“Now, indeed, has England a great King,” she said, adding to herself: “And that King Louis’s slave!”
Charles smiled and took his leave. As he passed through the portal, he wiped his lips, good-humouredly muttering: “Portsmouth’s kisses and Nell’s do not mix well.”
Portsmouth listened for a moment to his departing footsteps, then dropped into the chair by the table and hastily folded and addressed the papers.
Her mission was ended!
He loves me! He loves me!
He loves me! He loves me!
Nell, half draped in the arras, had seen the kiss in reality bestowed by Portsmouth but as she thought bestowed by the King. As his Majesty departed through the door at the opposite end of the room, the colour came and went in her cheeks. She could scarce breathe.
Portsmouth sat unconscious of all but her own grand achievement. She had accomplished what shrewd statesmen had failed to bring about; and this would be appreciated, she well knew, by Louis.
“’Sdeath!” muttered Nell to herself, hotly, as, with quite a knightly bearing, she approached the Duchess. “He kisses her before my very eyes! He kisses her! I’ll kill the minx!” She half unsheathed her blade. “Pshaw! No! No! I am too gallant to kill the sex. I’ll do the very manly act and simply break her heart.Aye, that is true bravery in breeches.”
Her manner changed.
“Your grace!” she said suavely.
“Yes,” answered Portsmouth, her eyes still gleaming triumphantly.
“It seems you are partial of your favours?”
“Yes.”
“Such a gift from lips less fair,” continued Nell, all in wooing vein, “would make a beggar royal.”
The hostess was touched with the phrasing of the compliment. She smiled.
“You would be pleased to think me fair?” she coyly asked, with the air of one convinced that it could not well be otherwise.
“Fairer than yon false gallant thinks you,” cried Nell, with an angry toss of the head in the direction of the departed King. “Charles’s kiss upon her lips?” she thought. “’Tis mine, and I will have it.”
In the twinkling of an eye, she threw both arms wildly about the neck of the astonished hostess and kissed her forcefully upon the lips. Then, with a ringinglaugh, tinged with triumph, she stepped back, assuming a defiant air.
The Duchess paled with anger. She rose quickly and, turning on the pretty youth, exclaimed: “Sir, what do you mean?”
“Tilly-vally!” replied the naughty Nell, in her most winning way. “A frown upon that alabaster brow, a pout upon those rosy lips; and all for nothing!”
“Parbleu!” exclaimed the indignant Duchess. “Your impudence is outrageous, sir! We will dispense with your company. Good night!”
“Ods-pitikins!” swaggered Nell, feigning umbrage. “Angry because I kissed you! You have no right, madame, to be angry.”
“No right?” asked Portsmouth, her feelings tempered by surprise.
“No right,” repeated Nell, firmly. “It is I who should be outraged at your anger.”
“Explain, sir,” said the Duchess, haughtily.
Nell stepped toward the lady, and, assuming her most tender tone, with wistful, loving eyes, declared:
“Because your grace can have no appreciation of what my temptation was to kiss you.”
The Duchess’s countenance glowed with delight, despite herself.
“I’faith, was there a temptation?” she asked, quite mollified.
“An overwhelming passion,” cried Nell, following up her advantage.
“And you were disappointed, sir?” asked Portsmouth suggestively, her vanity falling captive to the sweet cajolery.
“I only got yon courtier’s kiss,” saucily pouted Nell, “so lately bestowed on you.”
“Do you know whose kiss that was?” inquired the Duchess.
“It seemed familiar,” answered Nell, dryly.
“The King’s,” said Portsmouth, proudly.
“The King’s!” cried Nell, opening wide her eyes. “Take back your kiss. I would not have it.”
“Indeed!” said Portsmouth, smiling.
“’Tis too volatile,” charged Nell, decisively.“’Tis here, ’tis there, ’tis everywhere bestowed. Each rosy tavern-wench with a pretty ankle commands it halt. A kiss is the gift of God, the emblem of true love. Take back the King’s kiss; I do not wish it.”
“He does not love the King,” thought Portsmouth, ever on the lookout for advantage. “A possible ally!”
She turned upon the youth, with humorous, mocking lip, and said reprovingly: “A kiss is a kiss the world over, fair sir; and the King’s kisses are sacred to Portsmouth’s lips.”
“Zounds,” replied Nell, with a wicked wink, “not two hours since, he bestowed a kiss on Eleanor Gwyn–”
“Nell Gwyn!” cried the Duchess, interrupting; and she started violently.
“With oaths, mountains high,” continued Nell, with pleasurable harshness, “that his lips were only for her.”
The Duchess stood speechless, quivering from top to toe.
Nell herself swaggered carelessly across the room, muttering mischievously, asshe watched the Duchess from the corner of her eye: “Methinks that speech went home.”
“He kissed her in your presence?” gasped Portsmouth, anxiously following her.
“I was not far off, dear Duchess,” was the quizzical reply.
“You saw the kiss?”
“No,” answered Nell, dryly, and she could scarce contain her merriment. “I–I–felt the shock.”
Before she had finished the sentence, the King appeared in the doorway. His troubled spirit had led him to return, to speak further with the Duchess regarding the purport of the treaties. He had the good of his people at heart, and he was not a little anxious in mind lest he had been over-hasty in signing such weighty articles without a more careful reading. He stopped short as he beheld, to his surprise, the Irish spark Adair in earnest converse with his hostess.
“I hate Nell Gwyn,” he overheard the Duchess say.
“Is’t possible?” interrogated Nell, with wondering eyes.
The King caught this utterance as well.
“In a passion over Nelly?” reflected he. “I’d sooner face Cromwell’s soldiers at Boscobel! All hail the oak!”
His Majesty’s eye saw with a welcome the spreading branches of the monarch of the forest, outlined on the tapestry; and, with a sigh of relief, he glided quickly behind it and, joining a group of maskers, passed into an anteroom, quite out of ear-shot.
“Most strange!” continued Nell, wonderingly. “Nell told me but yesterday that Portsmouth was charming company–but a small eater.”
“’Tis false,” cried the Duchess, and her brow clouded at the unpleasant memory of the meeting at Ye Blue Boar. “I never met the swearing orange-wench.”
“Ods-pitikins!” acquiesced Nell, woefully. “Nell’s oaths are bad enough for men.”
“Masculine creature!” spitefully ejaculated the Duchess.
“Verily, quite masculine–of late,” said Nell, demurely, giving a significant tug at her boot-top.
“A vulgar player,” continued the indignant Duchess, “loves every lover who wears gold lace and tosses coins.”
“Nay; ’tis false!” denied Nell, sharply.
The Duchess looked up, surprised.
Nell was all obeisance in an instant.
“Pardon, dear hostess, a thousand pardons,” she prayed; “but I have some reason to know you misjudge Mistress Nell. With all her myriad faults, she never loved but one.”
“You seem solicitous for her good name, dear Beau?” suggested Portsmouth, suspiciously.
“I am solicitous for the name of all good women,” promptly explained Nell, who was rarely caught a-napping, “or I would be unworthy of their sex–I mean their friendship.”
The Duchess seemed satisfied with the explanation.
“Dear Beau, what do the cavaliers see in that horrid creature?” archly asked theDuchess, contemptuous of this liking of the stronger sex.
“Alack-a-day, we men, you know,” replied Nell, boastfully, “well–the best of us make mistakes in women.”
“Are you mistaken?” questioned Portsmouth, coyly.
“What?” laughed Nell, in high amusement. “I love Nelly? Nay, Duchess,” and her voice grew tender, “I adore but one!”
“And she?” asked the hostess, encouraging the youth’s apparently awakening passion.
“How can you ask?” said Nell, with a deep sigh, looking adoringly into Portsmouth’s eyes and almost embracing her.
“Do you not fear?” inquired Portsmouth, well pleased.
“Fear what?” questioned Nell.
“My wrath,” said Portsmouth.
“Nay, more, thy love!” sighed Nell, meaningly, assuming a true lover’s dejected visage.
“My love!” cried Portsmouth, curiously.
“Aye,” again sighed Nell, more deeply still; “for it is hopeless.”
“Try,” said the Duchess, almost resting her head upon Nell’s shoulder.
“I am doing my best,” said Nell, her eyes dancing through wistful lashes, as she embraced in earnest the Duchess’s graceful figure and held it close.
“Do you find it hopeless?” asked Portsmouth, returning the embrace.
“Until you trust me,” replied Nell, sadly. She shook her curls, then fondly pleaded: “Give me the secrets of your brain and heart, and then I’ll know you love me.”
The hostess smiled and withdrew from the embrace. Nell stood the picture of forlorn and hopeless love.
“Nay,” laughed Portsmouth, consolingly, “they would sink a ship.”
“One would not,” still pleaded Nell, determined at all odds to have the packet.
“One!” The Duchess’s eyes fell unconsciously upon the papers which she had bewitched from the King and which lay so near her heart. She started first withfear; and then her countenance assumed a thoughtful cast.
There was no time now for delay. The papers must be sent immediately. The King might return and retract. Many a battle, she knew, had been lost after it had been won.
That night, at the Rainbow Tavern, well out of reach of the town, of court spies and gossips, Louis would have a trusted one in waiting. His commission was to receive news from various points and transmit it secretly to France. It was a ride of but a few hours to him.
She had purposed to send the packet by her messenger in waiting; but he had rendered her suspicious by his speech and action in the late afternoon, and she questioned whether she would be wise in trusting him. Nor was she willing to risk her triumph in the hands of Buckingham’s courier. It was too dear to her.
Indeed, she was clever enough to know that state-secrets are often safer in the custody of a disinterested stranger than in the hands of a friend, especially if the strangerbe truly a stranger to the court.
She glanced quickly in the direction of Nell, who looked the ideal of daring youth, innocent, honest and true to the death.
“Why not?” she thought quickly, as she reflected again upon Rochet’s words, “to be trusted.” “Of Irish descent, no love for the King, young, brave, no court ties; none will suspect or stay him.”
Her woman’s intuition said “yes.” She turned upon Nell and asked, not without agitation in her voice:
“Can I trust you?”
Nell’s sword was out in an instant, glistening in the light, and so promptly that the Duchess started. Nell saluted, fell upon one knee and said, with all the exuberance of audacious, loving youth:
“My sword and life are yours.”
Portsmouth looked deeply into Nell’s honest eyes. She was convinced.
“This little packet,” said she, in subdued tones, summoning Nell to her side, “a family matter merely, must reach the Rainbow Tavern, on the CanterburyRoad, by sunrise, where one is waiting. You’ll find his description on the packet.”
Nell sheathed her sword.
“I know the place and road,” she said, earnestly, as she took the papers from the Duchess’s hand and placed them carefully in her doublet.
A rustle of the curtains indicated that some one had returned and was listening by the arras.
“Hush!” cautioned Portsmouth. “Be true, and you will win my love.”
Nell did not reply, save to the glance that accompanied the words. Snatching her hat from a chair on which she had tossed it, she started eagerly in the direction of the great stairs that led to the hallway below, where, an hour since, she had been at first refused admission to the palace. Could she but pass again the guards, all would be well; and surely there was now no cause for her detention. Yet her heart beat tumultuously–faster even than when she presented herself with Rochet’s letter written by herself.
As she was hastening by the arras,her quick eye, however, recognized the King’s long plume behind it; and she halted in her course. She was alert with a thousand maddening thoughts crowding her brain, all in an instant.
“The King returned–an eavesdropper!” she reflected. “Jealous of Portsmouth; his eyes follow her. Where are his vows to Nell? I’ll defame Nell’s name, drag her fair honour in the mire; so, Charles, we’ll test your manliness and love.”
She recrossed the room quickly to Portsmouth.
“Madame,” she exclaimed, in crisp, nervous tones, loud enough for the King’s ear, “I have been deceiving, lying to you. I stood here, praising, honouring Eleanor Gwyn–an apple rotten to the core!”
“How now?” ejaculated Charles, in an undertone.
His carelessness vanished upon the instant. Where he had waited for the single ear of Portsmouth, he became at once an earnest listener.
Nell paused not.
“I had a friend who told me he loved Nell. I loved that friend. God knows I loved him.”
“Yes, yes!” urged Portsmouth, with eagerness.
“A man of noble name and princely mien,” continued Nell, so standing that the words went, like arrows, straight to the King’s ear and heart, “a man of honour, who would have died fighting for Nell’s honour–”
“Misled youth,” muttered Portsmouth.
Nell seemed not to hear the words.
“Who, had he heard a murmur of disapproval, a shadow cast upon her name, would have sealed in death the presumptuous lips which uttered it.”
“She betrayed his confidence?” asked Portsmouth, breathlessly.
“Betrayed–and worse!” gesticulated Nell, with the visage of a madman. “A woman base, without a spark of kindliness–an adventuress! This is the picture of that Eleanor Gwyn! Where is a champion to take up the gauntlet for such a Nell?”
As quick as light, the King threw back the arras and came between them. The Duchess saw him and cried out in surprise. Nell did not turn–only caught a chair-top to save herself from falling.
“Here, thou defamer!” he called, his voice husky with passion. “Thou base purveyor of lies, answer me–me, for those words! I am Nell’s champion! I’ll force you to own your slander a lie.”
The King was terribly in earnest.
“The guard! The guard!” called Portsmouth, faintly, almost overcome by the scene. In her passion that the King so revealed his love for Nell, she quite forgot that Adair was the bearer of her packet.
“I want no guard,” commanded the King. “An insult to Nell Gwyn is my cause alone.”
Nell was in an elysium of ecstasy. She realized nothing, saw nothing.
“He loves me! He loves me!” her trembling lips breathed only. “He’ll fight for Nell.”
“Come; draw and defend yourself,” angrily cried the King.
Portsmouth screamed and fell upon his arm.
It is doubtful what the result would otherwise have been. True, Nell ofttimes had fenced with the King and knew his wrist, but she was no swordswoman now. Though she took up in her delirium the King’s challenge with a wild cry, “Aye, draw and defend yourself!” she realized nothing but his confession of love for Nell.
The scene was like a great blur before her eyes.
She rushed upon the King and by him, she scarce knew how. Their swords harmlessly clashed; that was all.
The cries had been taken up without.
“The guard! The guard!” “Treason!” “Treason!”
The air was alive with voices.
Nell ran up the steps leading to a French window, which opened upon a tiny railed balcony. Below, one story only, lay a soft carpet of greensward, shimmering in the moonlight. With her sword, she struck the frail sash, which instantly yielded.
Meantime, the room had filled with courtiers, guards and gallants, who had rushed in, sword and spear in hand, to guard the King.
As the glass shivered and flew wide, under the point of Nell’s blade, all eyes turned toward her and all blades quivered threateningly in the air.
Buckingham was first to ascend the steps in pursuit. He was disarmed–more through the superiority of Nell’s position than through the dexterity of her wrist.
Then for the first time, she realized her danger. Her eyes staring from their sockets, she drew back from her murderous pursuers, and, in startled accents, she knew not why, screamed in supplication, with hands uplifted:
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!”
The storm was stayed. All paused to hear what the stranger-youth would say. Would he apologize or would he surrender?
The suspense was for but a second, though it seemed an eternity to Nell.
The open window was behind.
With a parting glance at the trembling blades, she turned quickly and with reckless daring leaped the balcony.
“T’ hell with ye!” was wafted back in a rich brogue defiantly by the night.
Astonishment and consternation filled the room; but the bird had flown. Some said that the wicked farewell-speech had been Adair’s, and some said not.
How it all happened, no one could tell, unless it was a miracle.