"And he is believed, both by himself and others, to choose his men—perhaps you will allow me to say his instruments, Mr Dale—better than any Prince in Christendom. So you would wed Mistress Quinton? Well, sir, she is above your station."
"I was to have been made her husband, Sir."
"Nay, but she's above your station," he repeated, smiling at my retort, but conceiving that it needed no answer.
"She's not above your Majesty's persuasion, or, rather, her father is not. She needs none."
"You do not err in modesty, Mr Dale."
"How should I, Sir, I who have drunk of the King's cup?"
"So that we should be friends."
"And known what the King hid?"
"So that we must stand or fall together?"
"And loved where the King loved?"
He made no answer to that, but sat silent for a great while. I was conscious that many eyes were on us, in wonder that I was so long with him, in speculation on what our business might be and whence came the favour that gained me such distinction. I paid little heed, for I was seeking to follow the thoughts of the King and hoping that I had won him to my side. I asked only leave to lead a quiet life with her whom I loved, setting bounds at once to my ambition and to the plans which he had made concerning her. Nay, I believe that Imight have claimed some hold over him, but I would not. A gentleman may not levy hush-money however fair the coins seem in his eyes. Yet I feared that he might suspect me, and I said:
"To-day, I leave the town, Sir, whether I have what I ask of you or not; and whether I have what I ask of you or not I am silent. If your Majesty will not grant it me, yet, in all things that I may be, I am your loyal subject."
To all this—perhaps it rang too solemn, as the words of a young man are apt to at the moments when his heart is moved—he answered nothing, but looking up with a whimsical smile said,
"Tell me now; how do you love this Mistress Quinton?"
At this I fell suddenly into a fit of shame and bashful embarrassment. The assurance that I had gained at Court forsook me, and I was tongue-tied as any calf-lover.
"I—I don't know," I stammered.
"Nay, but I grow old. Pray tell me, Mr Dale," he urged, beginning to laugh at my perturbation.
For my life I could not; it seems to me that the more a man feels a thing the harder it is for him to utter; sacred things are secret, and the hymn must not be heard save by the deity.
The King suddenly bent forward and beckoned. Rochester was passing by, with him now was the Duke of Monmouth. They approached; I bowed low to the Duke, who returned my salute mostcavalierly. He had small reason to be pleased with me, and his brow was puckered. The King seemed to find fresh amusement in his son's bearing, but he made no remark on it, and, addressing himself to Rochester, said:
"Here, my lord, is a young gentleman much enamoured of a lovely and most chaste maiden. I ask him what this love of his is—for my memory fails—and behold he cannot tell me! In case he doesn't know what it is that he feels, I pray you tell him."
Rochester looked at me with an ironical smile.
"Am I to tell what love is?" he asked.
"Ay, with your utmost eloquence," answered the King, laughing still and pinching his dog's ears.
Rochester twisted his face in a grimace, and looked appealingly at the King.
"There's no escape; to-day I am a tyrant," said the King.
"Hear then, youths," said Rochester, and his face was smoothed into a pensive and gentle expression. "Love is madness and the only sanity, delirium and the only truth; blindness and the only vision, folly and the only wisdom. It is——" He broke off and cried impatiently, "I have forgotten what it is."
"Why, my lord, you never knew what it is," said the King. "Alone of us here, Mr Dale knows, and since he cannot tell us the knowledge is lost tothe world. James, have you any news of my friend M. de Fontelles?"
"Such news as your Majesty has," answered Monmouth. "And I hear that my Lord Carford will not die."
"Let us be as thankful as is fitting for that," said the King. "M. de Fontelles sent me a very uncivil message; he is leaving England, and goes, he tells me, to seek a King whom a gentleman may serve."
"Is the gentleman about to kill himself, Sir?" asked Rochester with an affected air of grave concern.
"He's an insolent rascal," cried Monmouth angrily. "Will he go back to France?"
"Why, yes, in the end, when he has tried the rest of my brethren in Europe. A man's King is like his nose; the nose may not be handsome, James, but it's small profit to cut it off. That was done once, you remember——"
"And here is your Majesty on the throne," interposed Rochester with a most loyal bow.
"James," said the King, "our friend Mr Dale desires to wed Mistress Barbara Quinton."
Monmouth started violently and turned red.
"His admiration for that lady," continued the King, "has been shared by such high and honourable persons that I cannot doubt it to be well founded. Shall he not then be her husband?"
Monmouth's eyes were fixed on me; I met hisglance with an easy smile. Again I felt that I, who had worsted M. de Perrencourt, need not fear the Duke of Monmouth.
"If there be any man," observed Rochester, "who would love a lady who is not a wife, and yet is fit to be his wife, let him take her, in Heaven's name! For he might voyage as far in search of another like her as M. de Fontelles must in his search for a Perfect King."
"Shall he not have her, James?" asked the King of his son.
Monmouth understood that the game was lost.
"Ay, Sir, let him have her," he answered, mustering a smile. "And I hope soon to see your Court graced by her presence."
Well, at that, I, most inadvertently and by an error in demeanour which I now deplore sincerely, burst into a short sharp laugh. The King turned to me with raised eye-brows.
"Pray let us hear the jest, Mr Dale," said he.
"Why, Sir," I answered, "there is no jest. I don't know why I laughed, and I pray your pardon humbly."
"Yet there was something in your mind," the King insisted.
"Then, Sir, if I must say it, it was no more than this; if I would not be married in Calais, neither will I be married in Whitehall."
There was a moment's silence. It was broken by Rochester.
"I am dull," said he. "I don't understand that observation of Mr Dale's."
"That may well be, my lord," said Charles, and he turned to Monmouth, smiling maliciously as he asked, "Are you as dull as my lord here, James, or do you understand what Mr Dale would say?"
Monmouth's mood hung in the balance between anger and amusement. I had crossed and thwarted his fancy, but it was no more than a fancy. And I had crossed and thwarted M. de Perrencourt's also; that was balm to his wounds. I do not know that he could have done me harm, and it was as much from a pure liking for him as from any fear of his disfavour that I rejoiced when I saw his kindly thoughts triumph and a smile come on his lips.
"Plague take the fellow," said he, "I understand him. On my life he's wise!"
I bowed low to him, saying, "I thank your Grace for your understanding."
Rochester sighed heavily.
"This is wearisome," said he. "Shall we walk?"
"You and James shall walk," said the King. "I have yet a word for Mr Dale." As they went he turned to me and said, "But will you leave us? I could find work for you here."
I did not know what to answer him. He saw my hesitation.
"The basket will not be emptied," said he in a low and cautious voice. "It will be emptied neither for M. de Perrencourt nor for the Kingof France. You look very hard at me, Mr Dale, but you needn't search my face so closely. I will tell you what you desire to know. I have had my price, but I do not empty my basket." Having said this, he sat leaning his head on his hands with his eyes cast up at me from under his swarthy bushy brows.
There was a long silence then between us. For myself I do not deny that youthful ambition again cried to me to take his offer, while pride told me that even at Whitehall I could guard my honour and all that was mine. I could serve him; since he told me his secrets, he must and would serve me. And he had in the end dealt fairly and kindly with me.
The King struck his right hand on the arm of his chair suddenly and forcibly.
"I sit here," said he; "it is my work to sit here. My brother has a conscience, how long would he sit here? James is a fool, how long would he sit here? They laugh at me or snarl at me, but here I sit, and here I will sit till my life's end, by God's grace or the Devil's help. My gospel is to sit here."
I had never before seen him so moved, and never had so plain a glimpse of his heart, nor of the resolve which lay beneath his lightness and frivolity. Whence came that one unswerving resolution I know not; yet I do not think that it stood on nothing better than his indolence and a hatredof going again on his travels. There was more than that in it; perhaps he seemed to himself to hold a fort and considered all stratagems and devices well justified against the enemy. I made him no answer but continued to look at him. His passion passed as quickly as it had come, and he was smiling again with his ironical smile as he said to me:
"But my gospel need not be yours. Our paths have crossed, they need not run side by side. Come, man, I have spoken to you plainly, speak plainly to me." He paused, and then, leaning forward, said,
"Perhaps you are of M. de Fontelles' mind? Will you join him in his search? Abandon it. You had best go to your home and wait. Heaven may one day send you what you desire. Answer me, sir. Are you of the Frenchman's mind?"
His voice now had the ring of command in it and I could not but answer. And when I came to answer there was but one thing to say. He had told me the terms of my service. What was it to me that he sat there, if honour and the Kingdom's greatness and all that makes a crown worth the wearing must go, in order to his sitting there? There rose in me at once an inclination towards him and a loathing for the gospel that he preached; the last was stronger and, with a bow, I said:
"Yes, Sir, I am of M. de Fontelles' mind."
He heard me, lying back in his chair. He saidnothing, but sighed lightly, puckered his brow an instant, and smiled. Then he held out his hand to me, and I bent and kissed it.
"Good-bye, Mr Dale," said he. "I don't know how long you'll have to wait. I'm hale and—so's my brother."
He moved his hand in dismissal, and, having withdrawn some paces, I turned and walked away. All observed or seemed to observe me; I heard whispers that asked who I was, why the King had talked so long to me, and to what service or high office I was destined. Acquaintances saluted me and stared in wonder at my careless acknowledgment and the quick decisive tread that carried me to the door. Now, having made my choice, I was on fire to be gone; yet once I turned my head and saw the King sitting still in his chair, his head resting on his hands, and a slight smile on his lips. He saw me look, and nodded his head. I bowed, turned again, and was gone.
Since then I have not seen him, for the paths that crossed diverged again. But, as all men know, he carried out his gospel. There he sat till his life's end, whether by God's grace or the Devil's help I know not. But there he sat, and never did he empty his basket lest, having given all, he should have nothing to carry to market. It is not for me to judge him now; but then, when I had the choice set before me, there in his own palace, I passed my verdict. I do not repent of it.For good or evil, in wisdom or in folly, in mere honesty or the extravagance of sentiment, I had made my choice. I was of the mind of M. de Fontelles, and I went forth to wait till there should be a King whom a gentleman could serve. Yet to this day I am sorry that he made me tell him of my choice.
I have written the foregoing for my children's sake that they may know that once their father played some part in great affairs, and, rubbing shoulder to shoulder with folk of high degree, bore himself (as I venture to hope) without disgrace, and even with that credit which a ready brain and hand bring to their possessor. Here, then, I might well come to an end, and deny myself the pleasure of a last few words indited for my own comfort and to please a greedy recollection. The children, if they read, will laugh. Have you not seen the mirthful wonder that spreads on a girl's face when she comes by chance on some relic of her father's wooing, a faded wreath that he has given her mother, or a nosegay tied with a ribbon and a poem attached thereto? She will look in her father's face, and thence to where her mother sits at her needle-work, just where she has sat at her needle-work these twenty years, with her old kind smile and comfortable eyes. The girl loves her, loves her well, but—how came father to write those words?For mother, though the dearest creature in the world, is not slim, nor dazzling, nor a Queen, nor is she Venus herself, decked in colours of the rainbow, nor a Goddess come from heaven to men, nor the desire of all the world, nor aught else that father calls her in the poem. Indeed, what father wrote is something akin to what the Squire slipped into her own hand last night; but it is a strange strain in which to write to mother, the dearest creature in the world, but no, not Venus in her glory nor the Queen of the Nymphs. But though the maiden laughs, her father is not ashamed. He still sees her to whom he wrote, and when she smiles across the room at him, and smiles again to see her daughter's wonder, all the years fade from the picture's face, and the vision stands as once it was, though my young mistress' merry eyes have not the power to see it. Let her laugh. God forbid that I should grudge it her! Soon enough shall she sit sewing and another laugh.
Carford was gone, well-nigh healed of his wound, healed also of his love, I trust, at least headed off from it. M. de Fontelles was gone also, on that quest of his which made my Lord Rochester so merry; indeed I fear that in this case the scoffer had the best of it, for he whom I have called M. de Perrencourt was certainly served again by his indignant subject, and that most brilliantly. Well, had I been a Frenchman, I could have forgiven King Louis much; and I suppose that, although anEnglishman, I do not hate him greatly, since his ring is often on my wife's finger and I see it there without pain.
It was the day before my wedding was to take place; for my lord, on being informed of all that had passed, had sworn roundly that since there was one honest man who sought his daughter, he would not refuse her, lest while he waited for better things worse should come. And he proceeded to pay me many a compliment, which I would repeat, despite of modesty, if it chanced that I remembered them. But in truth my head was so full of his daughter that there was no space for his praises, and his well-turned eulogy (for my lord had a pretty flow of words) was as sadly wasted as though he had spoken it to the statue of Apollo on his terrace.
I had been taking dinner with the Vicar, and, since it was not yet time to pay my evening visit to the Manor, I sat with him a while after our meal, telling him for his entertainment how I had talked with the King at Whitehall, what the King had said, and what I, and how my Lord Rochester had talked finely of the Devil, and tried, but failed, to talk of love. He drank in all with eager ears, weighing the wit in a balance, and striving to see, through my recollection, the life and the scene and the men that were so strange to his eyes and so familiar to his dreams.
"You don't appear very indignant, sir," I ventured to observe with a smile.
We were in the porch, and, for answer to what I said, he pointed to the path in front of us. Following the direction of his finger I perceived a fly of a species with which I, who am a poor student of nature, was not familiar. It was villainously ugly, although here and there on it were patches of bright colour.
"Yet," said the Vicar, "you are not indignant with it, Simon."
"No, I am not indignant," I admitted.
"But if it were to crawl over you——"
"I should crush the brute," I cried.
"Yes. They have crawled over you and you are indignant. They have not crawled over me, and I am curious."
"But, sir, will you allow a man no disinterested moral emotion?"
"As much as he will, and he shall be cool at the end of it," smiled the Vicar. "Now if they took my benefice from me again!" Stooping down, he picked up the creature in his hand and fell to examining it very minutely.
"I wonder you can touch it," said I in disgust.
"You did not quit the Court without some regret, Simon," he reminded me.
I could make nothing of him in this mood and was about to leave him when I perceived my lord and Barbara approaching the house. Springing up, I ran to meet them; they received me with a grave air, and in the ready apprehension of evilborn of a happiness that seems too great I cried out to know if there were bad tidings.
"There's nothing that touches us nearly," said my lord. "But very pitiful news is come from France."
The Vicar had followed me and now stood by me; I looked up and saw that the ugly creature was still in his hand.
"It concerns Madame, Simon," said Barbara. "She is dead and all the town declares that she had poison given to her in a cup of chicory-water. Is it not pitiful?"
Indeed the tidings came as a shock to me, for I remembered the winning grace and wit of the unhappy lady.
"But who has done it?" I cried.
"I don't know," said my lord. "It is set down to her husband; rightly or wrongly, who knows?"
A silence ensued for a few moments. The Vicar stooped and set his captive free to crawl away on the path.
"God has crushed one of them, Simon," said he. "Are you content?"
"I try not to believe it of her," said I.
In a grave mood we began to walk, and presently, as it chanced, Barbara and I distanced the slow steps of our elders and found ourselves at the Manor gates alone.
"I am very sorry for Madame," said she, sighing heavily. Yet presently, because by the mercyof Providence our own joy outweighs others' grief and thus we can pass through the world with unbroken hearts, she looked up at me with a smile, and passing her arm, through mine, drew herself close to me.
"Ay, be merry, to-night at least be merry, my sweet," said I. "For we have come through a forest of troubles and are here safe out on the other side."
"Safe and together," said she.
"Without the second, where would be the first?"
"Yet," said Barbara, "I fear you'll make a bad husband; for here at the very beginning—nay, I mean before the beginning—you have deceived me."
"I protest——!" I cried.
"For it was from my father only that I heard of a visit you paid in London."
I bent my head and looked at her.
"I would not trouble you with it," said I. "It was no more than a debt of civility."
"Simon, I don't grudge it to her. For I am, here in the country with you, and she is there in London without you."
"And in truth," said I, "I believe that you are both best pleased."
"For her," said Barbara, "I cannot speak."
For a long while then we walked in silence, while the afternoon grew full and waned again. They mock at lovers' talk; let them, say I with all myheart, so that they leave our silence sacred. But at last Barbara turned to me and said with a little laugh:
"Art glad to have come home, Simon?"
Verily I was glad. In body I had wandered some way, in mind and heart farther, through many dark ways, turning and twisting here and there, leading I knew not whither, seeming to leave no track by which I might regain my starting point. Yet, although I felt it not, the thread was in my hand, the golden thread spun here in Hatchstead when my days were young. At length the hold of it had tightened and I, perceiving it, had turned and followed. Thus it had brought me home, no better in purse or station than I went, and poorer by the loss of certain dreams that haunted me, yet, as I hope, sound in heart and soul. I looked now in the dark eyes that were, set on me as though there were their refuge, joy, and life; she clung to me as though even still I might leave her. But the last fear fled, the last doubt faded away, and a smile came in radiant serenity on the lips I loved as, bending down, I whispered:
"Ay, I am glad to have come home."
But there was one thing more that I must say. Her head fell on my shoulder as she murmured:
"And you have utterly forgotten her?"
Her eyes were safely hidden. I smiled as I answered, "Utterly."
See how I stood! Wilt thou forgive me, Nelly?
For a man may be very happy as he is and still not forget the things which have been. "What are you thinking of, Simon?" my wife asks sometimes when I lean back in my chair and smile. "Of nothing, sweet," say I. And, in truth, I am not thinking; it is only that a low laugh echoes distantly in my ear. Faithful and loyal am I—but, should such as Nell leave nought behind her?