unconsciously. Many thoughts were in his mind, as strangely conflicting
as the forces in his nature. His keen knowledge of women and their ways
told him that no woman who loved a man would have let her fingers lie so
listlessly in his grasp. “My poor lad—she has no heart for him,” cried
the father in him. But the man in him, as yet unsubdued by years or
sorrow, rejoiced. Here was one who, nameless to him, had yet shone like
a star in his troubled sky this many a month, for the sake of one hour,
snatched, sweet, pure, sacred, out of an unworthily spent life. With all
that was best in him, he had wished to keep her unknown, unattainable;
and here she was, brought back by fate into his path!
No one could have guessed at the storm seething within him after his
moment of self-betrayal. His usual polished composure governed face,
voice, and gesture.
“My son has told me much about you, madam, truly,” he was saying; “and
yet I see how little he has been able to tell me.”
’Twas the merest idle compliment. The words were as artificial as the
tone. Diana courtesied in silence. Not thus did she remember her grave,
chivalrous protector in an hour of doubt and peril. Nay, then, that
memory had best be effaced from her mind, since it was his pleasure
to deny it. Perchance (and the thought was more galling to her pride!)
though she had so fondly kept his image in the deep recesses of her soul,
hers had already faded from his thoughts.
“Indeed, my lord,” she began, rallying her spirits, “I too—” but she
paused, for her brother and Lionel Ratcliffe were approaching, the latter
with his cool air of indifference, the other all agape with curiosity.
Harry instantly took the younger man by the arm to present him to his
father.
“One moment,” rebuked Rockhurst; “the lady is speaking. Pray, madam?”
“Oh, my lord,” said she, with formal grace, “the poor sentence was,
certes, never worth such courteous attention. I was but about to say that
I, too, have heard of your lordship often.”
“Aye? From what source?” he asked, and a shadow fell on his face.
But she was smiling.
“From this source,” she answered him, waving her roses toward Harry.
“Ah,” cried Rockhurst, laughing upon a sigh, “no doubt the rogue has full
wearied you with the subject.”
“Alas,” she responded quickly, “must I not take this reproach to myself?”
Lionel Ratcliffe pulled young Rockhurst by the sleeve.
“What, all agaze and bewildered, Harry? Never fear, these are but Court
wits in a friendly bout. Clink, clink, the sparks fly. But, hark to you,
beware an unfoiled weapon.”
The boy withdrew from his touch with disfavour, and Rockhurst turned upon
the whisperer a haughty look of enquiry.
“Well met again, my lord,” cried Ratcliffe, swaggering a step forward and
saluting with a cavalier sweep of his hat.
Rockhurst returned the courtesy with a ceremonious inclination.
“Have we met before, sir?” he enquired.
No whit abashed, Ratcliffe replaced his felt with the very latest twist
of the wrist.
“Does your lordship make it a practice, then, of not taking your memory
out of town? To be sure, memory is a mighty inconvenient chattel at
times. Natheless, ’tis a fact your lordship and my humble self have met
at the same board. Did I not share with your lordship, last winter, the
privilege of being the guest of the pretty Mantes?”
“Enough—I remember you, sir,” said his lordship.
“Egad,” laughed Ratcliffe, with elaborate geniality, “I, sure, did take
special note of your lordship, that night, seeing you with the nymph, our
hostess, whom, I mind me, you had but just whisked from under the very
nose of Jove. Nay, not the first time (if report spoke truly) that Old
Rowley has been cut out by the Rake—”
The words were arrested on his lips by a look as sharp as a sword:—
“You have too long a memory, sir. Shorten it.—My son,” added the speaker,
turning his shoulder upon Ratcliffe, “you were about to introduce the
young gentleman to me.”
“My brother, Sir Edward Hare, my lord,” said Diana, forestalling her
lover.
The interlude with Ratcliffe had perturbed the group; and with gracious
instinct she sought to cover her cousin’s insolence and young Rockhurst’s
rising anger at insinuations incomprehensible to country dwellers, yet
the hostile intent of which was but too transparent. Sir Edward, however,
was far from assisting her purpose.
“Nay, brother, brother,” she whispered, as the bumpkin nodded sulkily.
“Doff thy hat.”
“I tell thee, Di,” murmured the injured youth, “’tis he owes me two bows
and a scrape. Ecod: ‘the lady’s speaking,’ quotha! And I with my best leg
already drawn out for him!”
“Your lordship must excuse our rustic manners,” said Diana, with a pretty
glance, half humorous, half pleading.
Rockhurst looked at her a second musingly.—Yes, grace, youth, sweetness,
all were hers! And fate had so worked that it was she who was to embody
his son’s young love dream! Dear lad … small blame to him! He gave an
unconscious sigh. To his countenance came back that air of kindness which
Harry had missed in it so singularly since the meeting with Diana.
“Of your leave, my son,” said he, then, “I will have a few minutes’
converse with Mistress Harcourt apart.”
Harry pressed his father’s hand in delighted response. He leant back
against the sunny wall and watched his mistress go in grace beside the
stately figure of the great Lord Rockhurst. Lionel took place beside
him, and from narrowed lids looked smilingly at the young man’s happy
countenance.
[Illustration: Lionel took place beside him and from narrowed lids looked
smilingly at the young man’s happy countenance.]
Mistress Rockhurst, who, solemnly seated at the end of her bench, had
been a silent yet mightily observant witness of the whole scene, now,
suddenly struck by the discontented expression of Edward Hare’s visage,
addressed the youth:—
“What ails ye, Sir Edward?”
“I’m sick at stomach,” growled the candid baronet. “I hate a peacock.”
“Yet peacock is light fare,” said the lady, with a twinkle in her shrewd
blue eye. “Sick at stomach, say you? There’s nothing better than a cup of
marjoram water.”
Sir Edward flung the suggestion from him:—
“Water? Ugh!”
“When I say water,” amended she, “’tis strong water, aqua vitæ.”
“Aye,” quoth he, then, “that’s another matter. I’m not saying but a tass
of it would warm the innards.”
She despised him heartily for a monstrous poor scion of a noble family;
yet the housewife was too strong in her to resist the pleasure of
ministering out of her store, even to an unworthy guest. She rose,
chuckling, jingling her keys:—
“Oh, surely, surely,” she exclaimed, “this small comfort shall not be
denied you here, Sir Edward. Come but with me.”
III
THE NEW FRENCH PASS
Rockhurst and Diana, at the extreme end of the terrace, stood alone in
the sunshine, with the June roses about them.—How much more apart now
than on that night in the snow between the black fir trees and the waste
heath! She flung a sudden, eager look at him; but before the smooth
courtesy with which he turned to her, drew back into herself, once more
checked and puzzled. It was to be as if they had only met in a dream? So
be it! Then the thought that he must now regard her as his son’s choice
broke upon her in a flash of revelation—and anger. Why had she dallied
with such folly? With an involuntary movement she loosened her grasp on
Harry’s roses and they fell round her feet.
“Why, madam,” said Rockhurst, with a forced smile and a perfunctory
solicitude, “your posy, madam, all in the dust! Nay, permit me to cull
another for you.”
The man of the world had superseded all else. To place his years in
rivalry with his son’s youth, the King’s Lord Constable against the
country lad? Preposterous!
Lionel Ratcliffe stood attentively watching his kinswoman from afar.
Beside him, Harry sat, dreaming, his young eyes fixed on God knows what
golden vision. All at once the elder man tapped his companion stealthily
on the arm.
“What is it?” cried Harry, starting from his muse and glancing round none
too pleasantly. “What is it now?” quoth he, frowning.
“Look, look yonder, Master Rockhurst. Your roses.”
Harry’s glance followed the direction of the pointing finger. He saw
Diana stand, a radiant vision in the amber light, with empty hands
outstretched toward the flower that Rockhurst was in the act of
gathering, a deep crimson rose that glowed like a ruby in the sun-rays.
And about her feet the pale, sweet blossoms chosen for her with such
love, but an hour ago! The red rose was carried to Diana’s cheek; and
then she fastened it in her bosom. His flowers had not been so honoured.
He could not think or reason; he could only look and suffer.
Again Lionel tapped him on the shoulder. He was smiling. Harry came back
to his senses at sight of that odious smile.
“Well, sir, and what of it?” he cried, measuring Ratcliffe with a defiant
look.
“What of it? More than you think.—What were you about, young man,” his
voice sunk to a whisper, “when you invited Rakehell Rockhurst to come and
view your lady?”
“Rakehell Rockhurst…!” echoed Harry in utter amazement. Then, fury
leaping to his voice and eye, he wheeled fiercely upon Ratcliffe: “Of
whom, sir, are you speaking?”
The latter proceeded, unmoved save for a trifle more of emphasis in his
silky tone:—
“Did you not know that a single breath of his lips is enough to tarnish
the virtue of the purest woman in England?”
The younger man fell back a step, and measured the speaker:—
“Of whom are you talking, I have asked you.”
There was more self-control in his demeanour, but more danger. It was
tense with menace, like a bent bow. A second Ratcliffe paused. He had
not given the lad credit for so much real manliness. The more reason for
him to precipitate the crisis for which he was working; the crisis which
might rid him of two rivals at once—for the courtly Rockhurst was indeed
a rival to be reckoned with. And there was no affectation in the passion
with which he now broke out:—
“Of whom, good lad? Of whom?——”
* * * * *
(Edward Hare, strolling out of the dim coolness of the buttery into the
sunshine again, heard the sound of loud voices rising from the terrace
below. Grinning, he advanced on tiptoe and bent over the parapet to
listen. Cousin Ratcliffe and young Harry were at it at last! Even to
his dull wits it had been evident that the quarrel that had long been
smouldering between them was bound to break into open flame. Better than
a wench or a bottle, better even than cockpit or bear-bait, Sir Edward
loved the sight of a fight between his fellow-men. He chuckled as he
hearkened.)
* * * * *
“Of whom, good lad, of whom—but the most noble Viscount, in town the
incomparable libertine, his Majesty’s merry friend, known by Whitehall as
Rakehell Rockhurst—in the country, thy sainted father! Aye, but, town or
country, let Rockhurst get to windward of a pretty woman, and the devil
will soon show his—”
Harry had stood a moment petrified, but before the last words were out he
had struck Lionel on the lips:—
“Liar!”
Lionel staggered back; a narrow streak of blood was running down his
chin. In a second he had whipped out the light riding sword that hung by
his hip, and without a word made a deadly rush. Harry, however, strong
country lad, trained by all the sudden accidents of sport and chase, had
his wits about him. He stepped aside from the onslaught, caught up the
cloak which lay on the balustrade, and flung it across the blade.
“Now, if you please,” said he, shaking his father’s sword free of the
scabbard, whilst Ratcliffe, almost foaming at the mouth, struggled with
the encumbering folds as if it had been his enemy himself, “let us
continue the argument.”
* * * * *
It was a prettier fight than ever it had been Edward Hare’s luck to
behold at feast or fair. In an ecstasy he hung over the parapet, jumping
from one foot to the other.
“Sh! Sh!” he shouted, “at it, good dogs! Ecod, I would not have missed
this for forty crowns! Ha, well pushed, cousin!”
Young Harry staggered, waved his sword aimlessly, then dropped it,
pivoted on himself, and fell. He lay, face downward, and after a moment a
coil of blood, like a slender serpent, began to move sinuously into the
grey of the gravel.
The peacock, from his perch, peered down on the scene with stupid eyes,
cocking its tufted head inanely from side to side.
The approving smile was petrified on Edward Hare’s face. He clapped his
hand over his mouth like a frightened child.
“Dead, ecod!” he whispered to himself. Then, hanging further over the
wall, he hailed Ratcliffe in a quavering shout:—
“Hist, coz—hast never killed him?”
The victor, leaning on his weapon, gazing in sombre abstraction at the
prostrate form, started and looked up. He smiled hideously with his
swollen lip.
“Be it mortal?” mouthed Edward again.
Ratcliffe answered stonily:—
“Mortal? I trust so. The affront was mortal.”
Then he slowly wiped his blade upon the cloak, sheathed it with care, and
walked steadily away, along the path that led to the valley.
Hare watched him go, till the dark laurel bushes received and hid him.
Then he looked over again at the motionless figure, and in a panic, sent
loud calls ringing into the air: “Help here! Hoy—Hello! Master Rockhurst
hurt, ill,—dead! Help!”
* * * * *
Rockhurst was the first to hear the cry. In a trice he was back in the
Peacock Walk, kneeling by the bench. Hare was at his heels, gabbling his
tale. Half his words went unheeded, but some found their mark in the
father’s heart:—
“And Lionel says: ‘Rakehell Rockhurst’ (he, he!). ‘A devil with the
women!’ says he. And Harry hits him across the mouth. ‘Liar!’ says Harry.
Oh, ’twas a pretty quarrel. ’Twas a cracking slap!—”
As Rockhurst lifted his boy and supported him in his arms, light came
back to the eyes so dark in the white face, and, stretching himself,
Harry returned to consciousness and smiled up at his father like a waking
child. Rockhurst tore the stained clothing apart with fierce hands, then
drew a deep sigh of relief. His experience in such matters took stock of
the wound—an ugly tear in truth, long, laying bare the ribs, but not deep.
“’Tis not vital—thank God! Go, call for help, man!” cried he sharply,
looking up at the staring Edward. And off trotted the lout. Now came
Diana, hastening, bewildered.
Lovers have quick ears: through the dimness of his returning
consciousness Harry caught the sound of her steps. He tried to raise
himself in his father’s embrace. There was a sudden shame upon him that
he had done so womanish a thing as to swoon, this day when, of all days,
he had so much reason to play the man.
“’Tis a mere scratch, my lord,” he murmured. Then, with an anxious glance
on his father’s face, he added, stammering: “Master Lionel was showing me
a new French pass, and I—I slipped—” He broke off; never before had he
seen tears in his father’s eyes.
With a flutter like that of a settling bird, Diana sank on her knees
beside them. With a soft cry, full of ruth, she took her boy lover’s
hand. As he had passed her, running on Lord Rockhurst’s errand, her
brother had bellowed his tidings:—
“A pretty quarrel! About you, sister! Ecod—there was talk about your
virtue—and Master Harry’s slap, and Coz Lionel out with his tuck—”
As with the sting of arrows the words drove her forward. Ah, she needed
no further telling to conjure up the scene: her kinsman had spoken
lightly of her and her young lover had struck back the insult. Her boy
lover! His youth, that had been his disability in her eyes, now became
eloquent to plead for him. To see him lie there, pale and blood-stained,
a mere lad.—After the way of women, on the moment her heart melted all to
him.
“Harry, Harry! …” she cried, and the words were tender as a caress.
Harry turned his languid head.
“And now I cannot ride with you to-morrow—not even did my lord so permit!
Father…!” Faintness was creeping over him again, but he made an effort.
His voice rang out: “Father, will you escort her? My Diana!”
It was at once a supreme declaration of confidence and a solemn charge.
The father bowed his head.
“Your Diana, lad, so be it—I accept the trust.”
Over the poor wounded body the eyes of Rakehell Rockhurst met those of
Diana. There was a steady sweetness of renunciation in his, that she had
seen there once before. Hers were quickly veiled again, lest they betray
the singular, sharp pain that filled her heart.
At her swiftest gait, important, yet showing no alarm, Mistress Rockhurst
advanced, followed by a couple of wenches, bearing varied paraphernalia.
She had lived through the wars—it were a parlous wound indeed she could
not cope with. In her own hands she carried a flask of renowned cordial.
None too soon, it seemed, for the colour on the pretty boyish head lying
between Rockhurst and Diana was fading fast again.
THE KING’S CUP
THE KING’S CUP
I
LITTLE SATAN
A swift thunder-storm had rushed down the Thames valley, passed over
sultry London with clamour and hail scourge, and was gone—as sudden and
wholesome as a good man’s passion. The town lay, a little dazed, it
seemed, gasping as one astonished, yet mightily refreshed.
In the gardens of the Temple every leaf dripped and shone the brighter;
the dry earth drank and sent up a fragrance to mingle with the scent
from the historic rose-bushes of the inner pleasance, the glory of which
now lay scattered, white and red, on the turf, each petal with the tears
in its heart glinting under that sky of incomparable blue that reveals
itself after the squall.
Down the steep slope from King’s Bench Walk, mimic mountain torrents
rushed in haste, seeking the river which rolled, heaving still, a
troubled yellow, in angry ebb toward the east, where the clouds still
lowered in their flight.
Even in Whitefriars—that strange, knavish demesne lying at the very gates
of the great legal college; that debatable land of crime, of statutory or
at least traditional immunities—every dark lane had been swept as with
besoms, if not clean, at least less foul. The stale airs of _Alsatia_ (as
the cant word went to express that sanctuary of tricksters and cheats and
huffing bullies, of skulking debtors, rejected clergymen, and disbarred
lawyers, of gaudy courtesans in enforced retreat) were driven forth
before the fresh and mighty breath of the gale. The gutters ran gurgling,
overflowing where they would. Here and there a choked conduit sent mock
waterfalls from overhanging eaves, darting and splashing even to the
opposite walls. All Alsatia, which had scuttled to its burrows, was
beginning to pop its head out again; but, as the denizens in the ’Friars
have, as a rule, rare change of garment, few ventured as yet into the
slop and drip.
Thus the two youthful gallants who now emerged from the Half Moon Tavern,
in Priory Lane, had the length of the street to themselves.
“_Quelle peste—!_” said the slighter and darker of the two.
Stepping gingerly aside to give wide berth to the dismal carcase of a
cat, he received the spray from an odorous gutter-spout full in the
neck—and again exclaimed in French against the pestilential offence of
the place.
His companion nipped him by the elbow, as he himself, less fastidiously,
strode over the carcase.
“Fie, Vidame,” he cried, “’tis well we’re not at Whitehall! Never forget
’tis a forbidden word, just now.”
The Vidame Enguerrand de Joncelles tossed his black curls with a somewhat
scornful look at the speaker.
“In verity, Sir Paul,” he retorted, in his precise, quaintly emphasized
yet fluent English, “I believe that, eating, drinking or sleeping, Court
rules and Court favour are never out of your head! As for the—” his long
dark eyes glinted mischievously—“as for the ugly distemper which begins
with a letter P. in both our tongues, what have people of quality to do
with it? Bah! it is to kill the _canaille_—useful, like rat-bane.”
“Yet … if you will come into Alsatia—” grumbled Sir Paul Farrant; and
just then, a gush of intolerable stench striking across them from an
open cellar door, he drew his laced kerchief from his breast and buried
nose and mouth in its folds.
The Frenchman went steadily on, scarce a flicker of disgust on his
narrow, pale face.—If high-born disdain was safe to keep the plague at
a distance, certes the Vidame de Joncelles—King Charles’s new favourite
page at Whitehall—was proof against it.
There was silence between the comrades, until the worn, muddy steps
of the Temple-Gate brought them up from the unwholesome precincts of
Whitefriars into the green and airy spaces of the King’s Bench Walk.
There, shaking out his kerchief, Sir Paul resumed his interrupted
complaint:—
“If you will come to Alsatia.…”
“If your misunderstanding townsfolk will drive the best fence master
within your shores to take sanctuary in yonder pit—for the merest
peccadillo—”
“Peccadillo, Vidame!—Why, the man drew on our host of the Three Tuns in
Westminster, and slit both his ears, for refusing to serve him with a
flagon of claret on trust…!”
“_Perdi_, a wretched innkeeper! It was an insolence that deserved
worse—The hog is not dead!—Meanwhile, instead of suiting my convenience
and practising my sword-play in Westminster, I must now come seek him in
this pestilent lane!”
“Why, Master Enguerrand,” said Farrant, standing still on the wet sod to
stare, half in amazement, half in admiration, at the Vidame, “the fellow
owed him a reckoning as long as his sword.”
“And what of it? Is not such a master as Laperrière, whose lot in life it
is to deal with us nobles, one of those whom gentles daily cross sword
with and condescend to take instruction from, is not such an one to be
privileged? A reckoning, forsooth! A master of fence, with us in France,
Sir Paul, is held a gentleman. Our King has even ennobled many. And those
others there, the rabble—are they not made and born for our service? As
for the rest, as for this Plague that is about, speak no more of it. If
you are so frightened of a little smell, what brings you day by day to
the fencing room with me?—It is your own doing.”
“Aye,” said Farrant. “But think you,” he went on in hurt tones, “I would
let you alone to such dangerous grounds as Whitefriars—you a stranger and
my friend, Vidame?”
They were strolling slowly down across the gardens toward the river
stairs. The Vidame, as if tired by his exertions in the fencer’s room,
let himself drop on a stone bench in the central alley.
“Let us rest awhile, please you, Sir Paul. As you see, the tide is still
running out. The turn, which is to take us back to Whitehall, is not due
until after five o’clock. Let us wait here.”
He doffed his plumed beaver and hung it upon the cane by his side; then
turned his pale, dissipated face, with a smile of cynical amusement,
toward his companion. Sir Paul Farrant was only one of the many friends
who had gathered so assiduously about the young Frenchman—a page in the
train of Madame Henriette, sister of the King—since his Majesty had taken
so strong and sudden a fancy to him as to retain him in his personal
service after her departure for France.
“See how the world wags,” resumed the favourite then; “you, Sir Paul,
seek the dens yonder,”—he pointed to the sinister purlieus they had just
left behind,—“because of a friend—I, because of an enemy.”
Farrant pricked his ears under his silken, fair curls. It was the first
time he had been admitted even so far into the Vidame’s confidence.
This Enguerrand, a French boy who in a few months’ time had stepped, it
seemed, without the slightest effort into the inner circle of Court
favour, upon the outer rim of which the indefatigable Sir Paul had scarce
a footing, was an enigma to his associates. He had a handsome sister;
but his success depended not on her, for had she not denied the King for
the sake of the King’s friend, Lord Rockhurst? It was an open secret in
Whitehall. Enough to have damned the chances of any other man, it would
seem! Yet here was the lad, with his white, handsome, secret face; with
his silent, insolent, easy ways; with his deep moods, his sudden rages,
as close to his Majesty, as audacious and as secure of his position as
young Monmouth himself. Farrant had witnessed his first introduction—he
knew that there was no secret tie, no mystery save in the new page’s own
personality. Sir Paul, the failure, would have given all he possessed for
the talisman. Yet the talisman was no such occult thing, but an unfailing
talent to amuse that most melancholy man, whom the world liked to call
the Merry Monarch.
“An enemy, say you, my good Enguerrand?” cried the young baronet, lifting
his foolish eyebrows a trifle higher than nature had set them. He had the
curiosity of trivial natures and was all agog.
“Aye, _perdi_,” responded the other, briefly.
The wind was ruffling his dark head, blowing the heavy curls off the
forehead; making patent at once the extreme youth and the prematurely
worn countenance.