The Lady of Loyalty House: A Novel

XXVII

THE KING’S IMAGE

The melancholy King sat in the great room alone. His eyes were fixed on the map, but his mind was far away, over yonder in Holland where she was – she, the Queen. The thought of her beauty troubled him; her soft voice seemed to be whispering at his ear in her pretty broken English. Some lines in a play he knew came into his mind, lines uttered by a king who, like himself, had known the horror of civil war, lines which said that it were better to be a shepherd and tend sheep than to be an English king. He sighed and his handsome head drooped upon his breast, and the brown hair that was graying so fast hid his cheeks. His eyes were wet and he could not see the map; it was all a blur of meaningless criss-cross lines. This would not do; he must think, he must plan, he must decide; but his head remained bent and the map remained a criss-cross puzzle.

The image of himself, which faced him as he sat, that picture of a king, royal, joyous, unchallenged, seemed to move a little, as if the bright figure on the canvas sought to approach and reassure the dejected man who crouched over the map of a divided kingdom. It did move, the serene Van Dyck portrait; it moved a little, and a little, and a little more; moved sideway as a door moves, yawned a foot of space between frame and wall, and through that foot of space Brilliana slipped into the room.

“Your Majesty,” she said, softly.

The King gave a little start as he lifted his head and looked at her. She thought she had never seen so pitifully a weary face as the face of her King, and her heart ached for him, but it ached most for her lover.

Charles rose to his feet, flawlessly courteous, much wondering.

“How did you come here, mistress?” he asked, and she sighed at the tired sound of his voice. “I understood from Sir Rufus that you were for the time – ”

He paused, and Brilliana calmly finished the sentence.

“Confined to my apartments. Yes, that was Rufus’s plan. But though Rufus calls himself captain of this castle he does not know it so well as I do. There are ways of getting hither and thither that he does not dream of.”

“You are a determined young woman,” the King said, with a faint smile, “if you think so lightly of the privacy of your King.”

Brilliana flung herself on her knees in a moment, her hands clasped, her eyes shining with honest tears.

“Your Majesty!” she cried; “your Majesty, I would never have dared this if I were not a woman very deep in love, if my lover were not in danger, and if – ”

She paused.

“And if?” Charles echoed, his fine, irresolute face neither smiling nor frowning. “Finish your sentence, lady.”

“And if I had not heard that your Majesty was a very perfect, true lover,” Brilliana went on. “Your Majesty’s love for the gracious lady now in France is the admiration of your subjects.”

A faint color glowed on the King’s pale cheeks. He was indeed the perfect, true lover of Henrietta Maria, and the greatest sorrow of all the clustering sorrows that the civil war had brought him was her absence from his side.

“It would be strange indeed if I did not love such a lady,” he said, gently; “but that lady is my queen, my wife, my comrade, my loyal friend, while he you plead for is but an acquaintance of a few days, and, moreover, in all thoughts and deeds your enemy – and mine.”

Brilliana had now risen to her feet and she faced the king valiantly, for she knew that she would have to plead hard and well.

“Your Majesty,” she answered, “as for the acquaintanceship, one of our poets has said, ‘Whoever loves that loves not at first sight?’ and though indeed at first sight I was far from giving this gentleman my love, I saw in him at once those qualities which in a man deserve love. As for his enmity, we are told that we should love our enemies.”

A frown overspread the King’s face and Brilliana faltered.

“I cannot claim for myself that wealth of charity,” Charles said, “that would make me love those that by rebellion and contumacy have plunged poor England into war.”

“Sire, sire,” Brilliana sighed, “if you will but pardon this gentleman I will promise you that I will never love another of your Majesty’s enemies.”

Charles frowned.

“I do not like your loyalty. Why do you plead for the life of a rebel?”

“I am your servant, none loyaller,” Brilliana answered, boldly; “but I am a woman, and I plead for the man I love.”

“If you were truly loyal,” Charles commented, “you could not love a traitor.”

Brilliana pressed her hands tightly against her breast and her face flushed.

“Captain Cloud is not a traitor. He is honest before God.”

Charles admired her pertinacity. Here was a woman who would not lightly lose heart or change purpose.

“I will not wrangle with you,” he said. “I think the gentleman deserves death. But because I know very well what it is to love truly, why, I will let you save him if you can.”

Brilliana’s voice was charged with gratitude. “Oh, your Majesty is always noble. But how?”

Charles looked at her fixedly, touching his chin with the feather of his quill. “Thuswise – only thuswise. You will persuade Captain Cloud to return to his allegiance.”

Brilliana’s gratitude ebbed and her voice hardened. “I know he will never change sides.”

An enigmatic smile passed over the fretful face of the King. “I think so, too,” he agreed, and turned again to his papers. But Brilliana was not to be so rebuffed. Coming a little nearer to Charles, she fell on her knees and extended her hands in supplication. “Sire, my lover’s life!”

Charles, who had lost nothing of her actions, though he affected to be wholly absorbed in his business, looked round and down at her with much assumption of surprise.

“You are still there? You are a pertinacious maykin.”

“Sire, in the Queen’s name!” Brilliana pleaded. The King sighed.

“Well, one more concession, this is the last – the very last.” Charles prided himself on his firmness, and he struck the table as he spoke to emphasize his unalterable resolve. “If you win me his word of honor to take no more part in this war, to remain neutral till King humble Commons or Commons murder King, why, it is enough; he lives.”

Brilliana shivered at the King’s alternative. “Your Majesty cannot believe that the worst of your subjects would aim at your sacred life?”

The King’s fine eyes were more than usual melancholy, and he opened and clasped his long fingers nervously.

“I cannot choose but believe it. Their words are wild – that is trifling. But long ago, when I was young, there was a man, one Arthur Dee, a wizard and the son of a wizard, he had a magic crystal – ah, Father in heaven!”

Charles gave a groan and hid his face in his hands, Brilliana thrilled with compassion. “Your Majesty!” she cried; “your Majesty!”

Charles drew his hands away from his face. He rose, and, as he spoke, he stared fixedly before him as if he saw the sight he was describing.

“In that sphere I saw a platform hung with black. On it I seemed to see myself staring at a sea of hateful faces. One with a mask stood by my side who carried an axe. I have never forgotten it.”

He stood rigid, with clasped hands. Brilliana shuddered at his words.

“Sire! sire! this was some lying vision.”

With an effort the King controlled himself; his features softened to their habitual melancholy, his hands relaxed their clasp, and he seated himself again by the table.

“Belike, belike; I am unwise to think upon it,” he said, in a low voice. Leaning across the table, he struck a bell sharply. The door opened and the soldier in immediate attendance upon the King entered.

“Tell Sir Rufus to attend us,” the King said. The soldier bowed and withdrew. Charles looked up at Brilliana. “Sir Rufus will be loath to lose his prey,” he said. “He is a fierce hawk that clings to his quarry.”

“He was once my friend,” Brilliana said, sadly. The King smiled his melancholy smile.

“If I were in his place,” he said, gravely, “I think I might be tempted to play his part. You are a very fair maiden.”

Brilliana shook her head. “The love that makes a man base is no good love. He will never be my friend again.”

“Here, as I think, he comes,” Charles said. The door opened and Sir Rufus entered the room. He was so amazed at facing Brilliana that for a moment he forgot to render salutation to the King. Charles’s eyes brightened as they used to brighten at the playhouse. Here was a living play being played before him, tragical, comical – man and woman fighting for a man’s life.

“Sir Rufus,” he ordered, “send to our presence the prisoner, the Parliament officer.”

Rufus glanced at Brilliana’s stern, averted face; he read something like mockery on the thin, royal lips. For an instant he ventured to protest.

“But, your Majesty – ” he began, but he got no further. The King checked him with a frown and a raised hand. It was easy to make him obstinate in crossing a follower.

“You have heard my commands,” he said, sternly.

Sir Rufus bowed his head and retreated. There was nothing else for him to do. He just glanced at Brilliana as he went out. If Brilliana had seen the glance she would have read his rage and hate in it. But she did not see it, for her head was still averted. The King saw it, however, and he felt that the situation was alive. He turned to Brilliana.

“I am a complaisant monarch, as I think,” he said. “Now, lady, do your best to make your sweetheart see reason. Honestly, I do not think he is worth so many words, but you think otherwise, and for your sake I wish you a winning tongue.”

Brilliana bowed deeply. “I humbly thank your Majesty,” she said, and felt that the King had done much for her. From offering the impossible he had come to offering the possible. It seemed a little task to persuade a lover committed to a wrongful cause to lay aside his sword and wait the issue.

The King’s eyes had fallen on his papers again, and he did not lift them thence nor take heed of Brilliana again until the tread of feet was heard in the corridor. In another moment Evander, escorted by two royal troopers, entered the room. There was a sudden gladness in his eyes at the sight of Brilliana, but he at once saluted the King in a military fashion and stood quietly at attention waiting the royal word.

Charles rose from his chair, and for a moment his melancholy eyes travelled from the beautiful girl standing by the window to the gallant soldier standing by the door. The face of Evander pleased his scrutiny far more than the face of Rufus, and it came into his mind that he would gladly enroll Evander under his standard and hand over Rufus to the Crop-ears. Truly the Puritan soldier and the Lady of Loyalty House made a brave pair.

“Sir,” he said, quietly, “this lady desires speech with you, and has persuaded me to permit an interview.” He turned to the troopers.

“Wait outside the door, sirs,” he commanded. When they had obeyed he looked again towards Brilliana, and there was a smile on his tired face, a smile partly whimsical, partly pitying, as if encouraging to an adventure yet doubtful of the result. Then he gave her a gracious salutation, and, without further notice of Evander Cloud, passed into the adjoining room and left the lovers alone.

XXVIII

LOVER AND LOVER

Evander turned to Brilliana with question in his eyes; Brilliana advanced towards Evander with question on her lips.

“Are you very sure you love me?” she queried. Evander made to take her in his arms, but she stayed him with a lifted hand of warning.

“Sure,” he answered, fervently, and surety shone in his eyes.

Brilliana leaned against the table at which the King had sat and faced him gravely.

“More than life, more than all things in the wide world?”

Evander’s answer came as flash to flint.

“More than life; more than all things in this wide world – ” there was a momentary fall in his voice; then he added, “save honor.”

A little sudden fear pricked at Brilliana’s heart, but she tried to deny it with a little, teasing laugh.

“Oh, that wonderful word ‘honor,’” she mocked. “I thought we should pull that out of the sack sooner or later.”

Evander watched her with surprise. “What is coming next?” he wondered. He began to fear as he answered, simply:

“You would not have me neglect honor?”

Brilliana’s face was set steadfastly towards him; Brilliana’s eyes were very bright; Brilliana’s cheeks were as red as the late October roses.

“Here is what I would have you do,” she said, breathlessly, and then paused – paused so long that Evander, watching and waiting, prompted her with a questioning “Well?”

Brilliana still seemed to hesitate. That word “honor” had frightened her for Evander, had frightened her for herself. She now groped uncertain, who thought to tread so surely.

“Will you do as I wish if I tell you?” she asked, trying to mask anxiety with a jesting manner. And when Evander responded gravely, “If I can,” she pressed him impetuously again.

“Nay, now, make me a square promise.” She looked very fair as she pleaded.

“All that a doomed man can do – ” Evander replied, smiling somewhat wistfully.

Brilliana shook her head vehemently and her Royalist curls danced round her bright cheeks.

“You are no doomed man unless you choose,” she asserted, hotly. Evander moved a step nearer to her.

“What do you mean?” he asked. Brilliana was panting now. He knew she had somewhat to say, and newly found it hard in the saying. She spoke.

“His Majesty the King will grant you your life.” Her words and looks told him temptingly that “your life” meant also “my life” to her.

“On what condition?”

He knew there must be a condition, knew that the condition troubled Brilliana. She answered him swiftly.

“Oh, no condition at all.” There came a catch in her voice and then she ran on:

“Or almost none. All his Majesty asks is that you refrain from taking any further part in this unhappy war.”

She paused and eyed him. Evander’s face was unchanged.

“No more than that?” he commented, so quietly that, reassured, she rippled on, volubly:

“No more than that. We can be wed, dear love. We can go away together to France, Italy, where you please. I have always had a mind to see Italy. And when England is quiet again we can come home, come here and be happy.”

She felt as if she were flinging herself at his feet, shamelessly offering herself, to tempt him, to dazzle him, conquer him that way; to witch his promise out of him before he had time to think. Yet for all her vehemence there was a chill at her heart and a cloud seemed to hover over her sunny words. Unwillingly she looked away from him, but she held out her hands in appeal.

“Hush, Brilliana!”

The grave, sweet voice sounded on her ears as the knell of hope. But she faced him again with a useless, questioning glance.

“Why talk of what cannot be?” Evander asked, sadly.

Brilliana denied him feverishly.

“What can be – what must be!” she cried. “The King has promised.”

“I am a soldier of the Parliament,” Evander asserted. “I cannot abandon my cause.”

Brilliana almost screamed at him in her anger and despair.

“You are a prisoner under sentence of death. If you die, what gain has the Parliament of you, and I must live a widowed woman.” She was close to him now and very suddenly she flung her arms about him, clasping him to her, her eager face close to his.

“Promise,” she panted; “promise, dear love, promise. Your Parliament loses nothing, you gain your life, my love. Promise, promise!”

Evander’s flesh fought with his spirit, but his face was calm and the arms that yearned to enfold his lover lay by his side. He turned his face away lest he should kiss her on the mouth, and, kissing, surrender his soul.

“I cannot,” he said, as if from a great silence. He would not see the passionate, beautiful face; he sought to fix his mind upon the faces of those whose faithful soldier he was sworn. The girl unloosed her arms and swayed away from him, wild anger in her eyes.

“Do you call this true love,” she sneered, “that is so scrupulous?”

“The truest love in the world,” Evander answered, looking full at her. He could look at her now; he had no fear to fall. He was losing a joy beyond all thought, but at least he would die with a white soul.

“Do you think it is nothing to me to die thus losing you? But you have served soldier; you have a soldier’s spirit; you would not have me do other than I am doing. You do not understand my cause, to think it should be easy to persuade me from it. But if I were of the King’s party and in such peril so tempted, would you wish me to abandon my royal master to win life or love?”

Brilliana’s cheeks flamed a furious scarlet; then the fierce blood ebbed and left her face very pale, but her eyes were shining very bright. She steadied herself against the table and tried to speak with a steady voice.

“You are in the right. You could not do other than you are doing. But it is very hard to bear.”

She reeled a little, and he, thinking her about to faint, made to support her, but she stiffened again, and he stood where he was. She bent forward, speaking scarcely above a whisper.

“There is a way of escape from this chamber, a secret passage. You can get from it to the park, and so into the open country and safety. You are my prisoner. I release you from your parole. Fly, while there is time.”

The loyal lovers were so absorbed in their honorable contest that they did not heed how the door of the King’s apartment opened, first a little inch, then, slowly, wider and wider, allowing Charles Stuart to see and hear. A curious smile reigned over the delicate face as Brilliana made her proposal, and lingered in whimsical doubt for the response.

The response came quickly. Again Evander was saying Brilliana nay.

“I cannot that, neither, dear woman, for to do this would be to make you disloyal to your King.”

“Oh, you split straws!” she cried, wildly. “A plague upon your preciousness which drives you to deny and die rather than admit my wisdom! You are no prisoner to the King. You are my prisoner. I took you, I hold you, and as my prisoner I command you to follow me, that I may convey you to some place of surety more pleasing to my mind than this mansion.”

From behind the door ajar there came a clap of hearty laughter which made harassed maid and man jump more than if their discussion had been interrupted by volleying musketry. The door was wide open now, and the King was in the room, his face irradiated with honest mirth.

XXIX

THE KING MAKES A FRIEND

“Oh, good sir,” he gasped, dabbing with his kerchief the merry tears from his smiling eyes, “you had better do as this lady urges, for, by St. George! she employs the most irresistible logic.”

Evander and Brilliana, blown apart, as it were, by the breath of the King’s merriment, regarded the monarch with very different feelings. Though he stood upon the edge of peril’s precipice, at the threshold of death’s temple, Evander could not scrutinize without vivid and conflicting emotions the face of the man because of whom the solid realm of England seemed to be dissolving into anarchy. This was the King of ship-money, the heart’s-brother of Buckingham, the betrayer of Strafford, the doer to death of Eliot, the would-be baffler of free speech, the baffled hunter after the five members. To Brilliana he was simply the King, not even the whole hero and half-martyr King for whom she had held Loyalty House so sturdily, but simply the only man living graced with power to save the man she loved. She turned to him at once with a petulant expression of impatience.

“Your Majesty,” she sighed, “I wish you would speak to this proud gentleman. I cannot make him listen to reason.”

The almost infantile simplicity of her address stirring the King to renewed merriment, served her cause better, in its very inappropriateness to the situation, than the most impassioned or the most calculated appeals to pity or to justice. The audacity with which the Loyalty lady coolly enlisted the King as her advocate against the King’s interests seemed to the sovereign so exquisite, so grotesque, as to merit calling irresistible.

“Truly,” he said to her, smiling that sweet Stuart smile which made all who ever shone in it adore him, “the man must be named Felicissimus who is loved by such a lady.”

Then he turned his gaze upon Evander, and the smile grew graver, the eyes more imperious.

“So, sir,” he said, “you are so certain sure of the righteousness of your side in this quarrel that you cannot, for your life’s sake, for your love’s sake, consent to stand neuter and look on, Captain Infallibility?”

Evander faced the slightly frowning interrogation bravely. He saluted soldierly, conscious of the subtle Stuart charm, understanding it would conquer men and women, glad to find himself unconquered.

“Your Majesty,” he said, “let me answer you as I answered this dear lady. If one of those gentlemen, those Cavaliers who rallied to your flag at Nottingham and drew their swords for you at Edgehill, were made prisoner of the Parliament, and accepted his life on the condition that he stood aside and left you to fight without his aid, would you count him a loyal subject, would you call him a faithful friend, could you admit that he was an honest soldier?”

Charles looked at Evander curiously. There were some of his friends, he thought, who might not stand the trial too well. He brushed the thought aside, for he knew that most of the Cavaliers would act as gallantly as the young Puritan before him, and he could not but applaud, even while he wondered at so stiff a constancy in one whom he regarded as a rebel.

“Well, well,” he said, “if this incomparable lady could not persuade you, how could a poor King hope to succeed? We must not break this lady’s heart, sir, between us, for ’tis something of a rare jewel, and so you shall go back to your own people, and when I win the day I shall remember to be clement to you. Try and come out of the scuffle alive, for the sake of your sweetheart.”

The King was so winning in his grace, in his dignity, in his tenderness, that Evander felt his heart in his mouth and he tried not to falter in his words.

“I humbly thank your Majesty.”

As for Brilliana, she fell on her knees with tears in her eyes, but the King would not have her kneel. In his courtliest manner he lifted her, raised her right hand to his lips and kissed it, and then signifying to her with a gesture to go to Evander, he seated himself at the table and wrote rapidly for some seconds, while the two lovers stood side by side, silent in hope and joy.

When the King had finished writing he shook the powder over the paper and let it slide back into the standish, drying the ink as it slid. Then he turned and held the paper to Evander, who advanced and took it kneeling.

“This safe-conduct,” said Charles, “will insure you from ill treatment or delay at the hands of any loyal subjects, in arms or otherwise.” He leaned forward and struck upon the bell. To the soldier on guard who entered he gave order that he wished to see Sir Rufus Quaryll immediately. When the soldier had left, he turned in his chair a little, so as to survey Evander and Brilliana standing before him in silence, and there was a light of mockery in his eyes.

“Young people,” he said, affecting mirthfully an exhortatory manner, “you have played the first act of your love-play. How it is to go with you hereafter it is for all to hope, albeit for none to guess with discretion. But in a little while this land distracted will be calm again, and it may well be, Mr. Cloud, that I shall be glad to see you at Whitehall.”