If Brand knew that his formal attainder was pending in the Commons,
he did not know that the Chancellor had ordered his summary arrest.
The horse carried him to the Opera House, and from the portico he
found his way up the main stairway into the foyer. There, at the
ante-room of the royal box, an equerry was in attendance who conveyed
his word to her Majesty.
"A Queen's messenger desires audience, and sends this white glove as
a token."
Police officers had entered the box office below; Brand heard them on
the stairs; and orders were shouted in the very foyer before the
equerry returned.
"For the Queen's sake," he begged, "be quick!"
"Her Majesty will grant you audience."
Brand dashed past him into the ante-room. "Now," he said, "guard
that door."
He found himself alone in a small, dark chamber, the very walls
trembling with the crash of triumphal music, and loud voices from the
corridor behind were already demanding admission. Then curtains were
drawn asunder, and Margaret herself stood in the opening, against the
glare of the auditorium, a glory of light shining as a halo about
her, kindling the diamonds of her tiara. Her face was in shadow, her
eyes big and dark as they searched the gloom of the place, until they
fastened upon him.
"Mr. Brand? How dare you! You a Queen's messenger?"
With a gesture of rage, Brand flung the Russian papers upon the table
between them.
"By right of blood!" he answered. "In the attempt to bring those
papers to you, Colonel Anderson gave his life, Lord Sydney and
Trooper Browne their liberty--and I am Queen's messenger in their
place."
Margaret, with trembling hands, turned on the lights, and, moved by
an impulse of horror, shrank back from the blood-stained papers;
then, startled by a noise in the corridors--
"What's that?" she cried.
"Don't be frightened," he answered quietly. "It's only the police."
"What do they want?"
"Only me, don't trouble yourself. Here,"--he took the Russian
papers, and wrenched off the blood-stained cover--"read," he said
sternly.
Wonderstruck at his daring, confused by the glitter of his eyes,
humbled by the prescience of some great calamity, Margaret sank down
into a chair, while Brand spread the papers before her. She was
dazed at first, understanding nothing of what she read. Presently
she became absorbed, scanning page after page in feverish eagerness.
Then, in deadly rage thrusting the papers aside, she rose confronting
Brand.
"You accused our Chancellor, you slandered him, you insulted your
sovereign with falsehoods about our administration, you were expelled
from our palace in disgrace." She clutched her throat, hardly able
to speak. "And you come back--with these--infamous slanders!"
"I have come back, woman, with the proofs for which Colonel Anderson
gave his life-blood and two gallant gentlemen their liberty."
"But you have accused our Chancellor!"
"Not I." Brand pointed downwards at the papers. "These in his own
hand accuse the man who has sold your honour."
"My honour? You mention my honour? Understand this, and tell all
who care to hear, that it has pleased us to take for our Consort His
Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke Alexander of Russia, whose sword
will deal with questions concerning our honour. Now go!"
Brand bent forward across the table and stared into the Queen's eyes.
"I go," he said, "to Sydney and Browne in prison, and on to Colonel
Anderson in Hades, bearing the Queen's message that by her orders,
Ulster betrayed the Formula of the Fleets."
"The Formula of the Fleets? What do you mean?"
"I mean that if you are moved neither by absolute proof of Ulster's
treason, nor by the blood of your servants, then you are partner with
him, you share his guilt, for you betray your people."
Then Margaret quailed before his eyes, shrank back from him and
turned away her face.
"Oh, I can't, I can't!" She looked up at him, convulsed with terror,
her arms thrust out in protest. "I can't believe. He couldn't
betray me like that! Betrayed! Betrayed!"
"Yes," answered Brand; "betrayed."
"But the Formula of the Fleets? Prove your words. On your peril
prove everything you say--who charges our Chancellor with divulging
the Formula of the Fleets?"
"His own son brings the charge. I have Lord Sydney's word."
"Lord Sydney's word! And that is more than proof. But how shall I
know that you come from Sydney?"
"That glove!" said Brand. "How else should I have that glove?"
"And yet!" Margaret wrenched a letter from within her dress. "Since
yesterday I have kept this with me to read, to study." There was
hope in her voice, a flash in her eyes again. "You wrote this to the
Chancellor. How can you speak of treason; you, who wrote this?" She
flung the letter across the table. "Read!"
"My letter to the Chancellor? Why, this. My letter was
short--that's not my signature!" He held the paper against the
light. "The paper--how does it come to bear this water-mark, the
Imperial cypher, 'M.R.I.'? The water-mark in mine is 'Lyonesse.' Is
Lord Ulster insane? Does he suppose that I--a business man, would
send such a letter as that, and keep no certified copy?" He opened
his pocket-book, and produced a copy sworn before witnesses. "Let
these be compared!"
Intently Margaret studied both the water-marks, and the texts of
these two documents. Then, without a word, crossed to an armchair
over against the curtains, and there lay back with closed eyes,
thinking.
"Mr. Brand," she said at last, wearily, "you and my Chancellor charge
one another with treason. You spoke of Sydney--what part has he in
it?"
"He came to me," Brand answered, "a month ago, gave me these papers,
begged me to save the Queen, and delivered his own father into my
hands for punishment."
"Go on."
"Without any proofs against him, I had to attack the Chancellor at
once. There was no time to lose. Without any proofs, I attempted
yesterday to warn the Queen of her peril, and was driven out from her
presence. Without any proofs, I was compelled to-night to face the
House of Commons. A Bill is being passed attainting me of High
Treason."
"How did you get back these papers?"
"Yesterday Lord Sydney begged the Queen to sign an order commanding
Colonel Anderson to obey him."
With a little startled movement, Margaret looked up.
"How did you know that?"
"I sent Lord Sydney."
"Proof upon proof," she muttered. "Please go on."
"By the Queen's command, Colonel Anderson stole these papers from the
Chancellor's office. He was shot down, Sydney was captured, Browne
surrendered. By accident the message passed to me."
"And the police are waiting outside that door for you?"
"I am an outlaw," Brand laughed, "and here in sanctuary."
For a long time her Majesty remained silent, while the ante-room
shook with the tremor of music, and the glow from the stage shone
softly between the curtains.
The performance was an oratorio based by Mr. Stevenson upon the
Divine Comedy of Dante, but in accordance with a usage still new in
1980 both vocalists and chorus stood in the wings of the proscenium,
supported by the orchestra, and a concealed cathedral organ. For the
oratorio was rendered in the music of colour upon a screen, and
Stevenson's "Inferno" is notable for the dim, awful beauty of its
opening numbers, and for passages of terrible splendour. For an hour
there was no word spoken in the ante-room, while the light changed
and glowed between the curtains, and the great chorus swelled and
rolled from the proscenium.
At last, with a little sigh, Margaret looked up. "Tell me, Mr.
Brand, what shall I do?"
"Who am I," said Brand, with reverence, "that I should dare give
counsel to the Queen?"
"At the risk of your life you came to warn me."
"That the Chancellor has committed treason; that I am a rebel in open
revolt, that war has been waged to-night, blood has been shed. This
very house is guarded by my yacht."
Margaret was silent.
"How shall I dare advise the Queen?" said Brand. "I have come to
offer my life and all the strength of Lyonesse to defend my sovereign
and my adopted country. I dare not advise, but weigh the facts,
Queen Margaret, and let me hold the scales. As head of the State you
must decide for England. There is no compromise, no middle way.
Denounce the Chancellor of Treason, or commit me a rebel to prison."
Margaret leaned forward, her hands resting upon the arms of the
chair, her eyes full of wonder.
"And you will submit?"
"Am I not the Queen's servant?"
"But they'll kill you."
"Should I care to live?"
His manner was changed, the roughness was all gone, as after a storm
the ocean is at rest, deep, quiet, fathomless. His eyes seemed to
smile, and his voice was low and reverent.
"Perhaps I am wrong, but I should not live to see this country a
vassal of Russia. My people at Lyonesse and I have always worked for
England, and we all have a certain pride in working well. Set that
aside, my life is not the weight in either scale of the Queen's
judgment. Who will serve England best, Ulster or Brand, the traitor
or--the rebel?"
"What if I refuse," said the Queen, proudly, "to treat you as a
rebel? What if I, the Queen, share the guilt of rebellion with you,
and place myself at the head of this revolt?"
"There will be civil war," Brand answered coldly, dispassionately,
"the most terrible war in all the annals of the world."
From Margaret's neck there hung a cross of diamonds, a thing of
pitiless white splendour. The Queen pressed the sharp stones of it
against her forehead.
"You," she said, "are ready to die for England, and I--and I--and I
have sold my body to this Alexander of Russia. Death would be such a
little thing compared with that. If you give yourself up, and I give
myself up, there'll be no civil war."
"There'll be no war," he answered thoughtfully. "No war if the
people accept the shame of peace."
"They will think as we do," said the Queen. "The men like you, the
women like me. The same blood runs in them--and they'd cry out for
war." Margaret laughed nervously, and dropping the cross, bent
forward, her elbows resting on her knees, her face in her hands. "To
think for the people--to live for the people, I was drilled to that,
to be married for the people with a thing that one could not touch
with the end of a glove. Ugh!" She shivered. "For the people, and
I hate them! Yes, hate them. I wouldn't mind dying for them, but to
live for them like that is horrible!
"I shall never forget that night when mother told me. Nobody will
ever know what she suffered bravely, quietly, hopelessly, wearing
what she called her crown of thorns. And then one night she took me
on her knee--a poor, little, scraggy thing I was, all arms and legs.
How she cried--and I was crying too. She told me that after her I
must be brave and wear the crown of thorns, and I nearly cried my
head off. Yes"--Margaret's voice broke with a little whimper--"and I
didn't know then all that it meant."
She brushed away a tear with her gloved hand, then looked up.
"I wonder," she said abruptly, "why I told you--you of all men.
Forget what I said, do you hear?--forget that I whined like a sick
child--forget, I say! No, don't speak to me." Then in low, awed
tones, "I've got to think for the people." The horror rushed in upon
her senses, and feeling as one does in the presence of the dead, in
overwhelming sorrow: "I am the Queen," she said, "and I must hold the
scales, must judge for the people. I can't, I daren't. Oh, what am
I that I should judge for the people? A little while ago I was
playing with dolls, on Monday rode with my Guard, on Tuesday danced,
and to-day I have to judge between you and Ulster, between life and
death, between war and peace!"
But to Brand it seemed a dispensation of heaven that the fate of
mankind was not at the mercy either of a treacherous politician, or
of a master of industry, stained with the vices of the world, blunted
and brutalized by lifelong struggle. This child, in her innocence
and her purity, could only see the great plain issue between right
and wrong.
Margaret looked up into his face. "And I must make up my mind?" she
asked.
The whole fate of the world hung in the balance, and he answered
gently--
"Yes."
A burst of triumphant music filled the theatre, and then the clatter
of applause, and, in the silence afterwards, from some far distance
of the streets, a sound, a confused murmur growing to a dull, ominous
roar.
"Hark," whispered the Queen, "what is that?"