The King's Men Part 13

They had crossed the highest hill by this time, and were upon a lower ridge; before them a long green band of velvety turf stretched away over the billowy downs, the chalk s.h.i.+ning through the bare places where the gra.s.s was worn away, like flecks of foam. Geoffrey had a sudden thought, and, leaving the road, he cannoned the four n.o.ble horses over the close, hard turf.

"Poor fellow!" said Mrs. Carey after a moment. "And are all your estates really gone? Can you get none of them back? But where is this--where are you going?"

"I say," said Sydney, "do you know where you are, Brompton? This used to be Goodwood Race-course." Goodwood Race-course; so it was. There was the track, stretching like a band of broad green ribbon over hill and dale; there was the glorious oak wood to the west, above the smooth bit of gra.s.s which used to be the lawn, where the ladies of the reign of Victoria had their picnics and showed their dresses, and book-makers used to jostle ministers in the betting-ring. "Ah," said Sydney, "my father has told me of great doings here--when King George's grandfather was the Prince of Wales."

The break rolled silently over the soft greensward, and Geoffrey feared Miss Windsor could overhear their every word, as Mrs. Carey spoke again.

"This is a glorious day--a glorious country," she said. "Do you know, I have not felt so happy since those old days?" She looked up again, and Geoffrey met the magic of her eyes, and lost himself in them. Suddenly she turned them from him. "You should be saying all this--not I," she said.

"When were you married to Mr. Oswald Carey?" asked Geoffrey, abruptly.

He felt that he was slipping from his moral moorings and wished to lash himself to them again.

"I have been married four years," she said, coldly. "But you really must be careful of your driving, Lord Brompton. I distract you by talking."

"Not at all," said Geoffrey, half troubled that his parrying question had answered his purpose so well. Mrs. Carey turned round with an indifferent air.

"My dear d.u.c.h.ess, is not the view charming?"

The d.u.c.h.ess made so slight an inclination of her head that it was hardly an affirmative. She did not approve of Mrs. Oswald Carey. Not that her approval mattered anything nowadays. But she thought it bad enough to be a professional beauty and sell one's photograph; and worse still to rent one's face out to enliven dining-parties, and one's neck and shoulders to adorn dinners. True, she herself rented their great name, their ducal t.i.tle; but then she never could get used to it in others.

If Mrs. Carey noticed the snub, she showed no sign in her face, but turned to Mr. Sydney. He also had found the d.u.c.h.ess rather th.o.r.n.y; and was ready as ever to pay the homage that one who is only a wit owes to beauty. And we know that beauty is more queen than ever in this material age. It is long since our grandfathers first found the folly of dreams and banished art and poetry from England--with opium and other idle drugs.

"Mr. Sydney, you look as fresh as a daisy. I am so glad the _vol-au-vent_ agreed with you."

"My dear madam, you know not of what you speak. My night was terrible, and no such aurora as yourself was in my troubled dream at dawn." Sydney looked over at the d.u.c.h.ess, fancying this speech was rather nicely turned; but her Grace was quite impa.s.sive, and evidently maintaining a sort of conversational armed neutrality.

"Oh, Mr. Sydney, you should have more care of yourself, or I fear the day will come when you will dine no longer, but merely sit up and take nourishment. Now, we expect you to be so funny at luncheon."

Sydney began to be offended thinking this too flippant treatment of a man of his position. Meantime Maggie Windsor had been asking Dacre about the beauty. "She told me last night she was a very old friend of Lord Brompton's?"

"Yes, I believe she was. I fancy even there may have been some childish love affair between them." Dacre spoke bluntly, as usual. Love affairs had found no place in Dacre's mind; his only thought was his country and his King; and he spoke with little consciousness of the individual human life his words might wound.

"Look there!" cried Sydney, "there is Goodwood House." Geoffrey looked across the park (they had gone down the hill, through the wood, and were now in the open again) and saw a great, rambling house, the central part of white stone, with two semicircular bays. This part was evidently old, but long brick wings were added of more modern construction. "The county has bought it for a lunatic asylum, I hear from Jawkins," said the wit grimly.

"Where is the Duke of Richmond?" asked Geoffrey. "Still in Russia?"

"Giving boxing lessons," said Dacre.

The rest of the ride was made in silence. They went down through a valley naturally fertile. None of the large older houses seemed to be occupied, but were falling into waste. Early in the afternoon they drew up at Chichester Cathedral, among the ruins of which they were to lunch.

The grooms took the horses off to an inn in the little village near by, and Jawkins's man proceeded to unpack the hampers.

For some reason, Miss Windsor avoided Geoffrey. The d.u.c.h.ess and Sir John sat silently beside one another; Ripon was left to Mrs. Carey. It was a pretty picnic; but the party did not seem to enjoy it very much. From the Chichester ruin the roof has quite disappeared, but the pointed arches of the nave still stand; and these and the flying b.u.t.tresses of the choir make a half inclosure of the place, into which the sunlight breaks and slants like broken bars of music through the soft greensward.

Here you may lose yourself among the arches and pillars, the broken altars, the overturned fonts, and the old tombs and marble tablets speaking of dead worthies long forgotten. And if you lose yourself with the right person, your loss may be (as these same epitaphs read) her eternal gain.

Geoffrey wandered in here with Mrs. Carey. He had been trying to find Miss Windsor; but he met the other first. He could not treat her rudely, perhaps he did not wish to; but to his speech she answered but in monosyllables or not at all. Finally they sat down on the gra.s.s, leaning on an old stone pillar overthrown in a corner, half sheltered by what had been an altar in the old days, before the church was disestablished.

Geoffrey did not speak for some time, and when he looked at her he saw that she was crying. Great tears were in her eyes, and as he bent down they seemed tenfold even their usual depth.

"Mrs. Carey! Eleanor!" he cried in despair, "what can be so wrong with you! Pray tell me--please tell me--" She made no answer; her hand was cold and unresisting as he raised it with the soft white arm from the gra.s.s; the sleeve fell back, and the setting sunlight showed each little vein in her transparent skin. "Pray, tell me!" Geoffrey went on, and then, more softly, "You know I have never forgotten you!"

Her breast was rising and falling with her weeping; but only a single sigh escaped her lips. At his words a deep sob seemed to break from a full heart; half rising, on an elbow, she placed her hand on Geoffrey's shoulder and drew his head in the bend of her wrist down close to her as she lay. Her lips almost brushed his cheek as she poured into his ear a torrent of words. "I am so miserable! so miserable!" was all he could distinguish. Then she arose, sitting upright.

"Geoffrey Ripon, my life is a lie--a mean, unbroken lie. You know why I married Carey--he could give me position, _eclat_, fas.h.i.+on--fas.h.i.+on, which is all we moderns prize, who have killed our n.o.bles and banished honor from the dictionary. I sold myself to him and I have queened it, there in London, among the lucky gamblers and the demagogues and the foreign millionaires. All that this world--all that the world can give I have had, Geoffrey Ripon. And I tell you that there is nothing but love, love, love. It is these things that are the lie, Geoffrey--not love and truth and honesty. Oh, forgive me, Geoffrey, but I do so crave for love alone."

Ripon looked at her, speechless. As she spoke the glorious lips had a curl that was above the earth, and the eyes a glory that was beyond it; and the grand lines of her figure formed and melted and new formed again as she leaned, restless, upon the fallen stone. She threw her arm about his neck, and drew him down to her.

"Geoffrey, did you ever love me? You never could have loved me, when you left me so. See, the broken sixpence you gave me. I have still got it. I have always kept it." And she tore her collar open, and showed him the broken silver, hanging on a ribbon of her hair about her neck. "Oh, Geoffrey, you never knew that I loved you so! See--" and she drew out the coin and ribbon, and placed it, still warm from her bosom, in his hand. "Geoffrey, I care for nothing but love--this world is a wreck, a sham, a ruin--all is gone--all is gone but love--dear love--"

She drew him closer to her breast. For a moment Geoffrey looked into her marvellous eyes. Then a faint shadow pa.s.sed across them, and looking aside he thought he saw Miss Windsor, alone, pa.s.sing one of the arches.

"Hus.h.!.+" he cried; and throwing the ribbon down he rose and stepped a pace or so aside. "Forgive me, Eleanor," he said to her, as she looked at him, "I loved you once--G.o.d knows--but now--it is too late."

CHAPTER VIII.

SPRETae INJURIA FORMae.

Mrs. Oswald Carey rose the following morning before anybody was stirring. She pa.s.sed down the staircase noiselessly and opened the front door, when, much to her annoyance, she found herself face to face with Mr. Jawkins, who was smoking a matutinal pipe on the front steps.

"Whither away so early, Mrs. Carey?"

Her first impulse was to tell a falsehood, but the keen, clever countenance of her interrogator convinced her of the futility of such a plan.

"To London," she said, simply; "can I be of service to you there?"

"You know I depend upon you to sing 'My Queen' after the _dejeuner_."

"A matter of imperative importance calls me away. I shall return to-morrow."

Jawkins looked inexorable, and declared that he could not afford to have her go. "You are the lodestone of my organization, the influence by which the various celebrities I chaperone are harmonized. If it is a question of pounds, I mean dollars--this new currency is very puzzling--dictate your own terms. I have a valuable diamond here which once belonged to our sovereign. I shall be happy to make you a present of it if you will give up your plan." He held up the gem as he spoke.

"What you ask is impossible. There are moments in a woman's life when even a diamond seems l.u.s.treless as your eyes, Mr. Jawkins, if you will pardon the simile." Her sleepless night had made her wrong burn so grievously that she could not refrain from sententiousness, even in the presence of this man whom she despised.

The undertaker scratched his head thoughtfully. "Has the Archbishop of Canterbury said anything to offend your irreligious scruples?"

"No."

"I trust the prim manners of her Grace have not wounded your feelings.

She has old-fas.h.i.+oned notions regarding the sanct.i.ty of matrimonial relations. She does not approve, perhaps, of your appearing in public without your husband," said Mr. Jawkins, with an apologetic smile.

"I have no feelings. You forget I am a woman of the world. Besides I am revenged for any coldness on the part of the d.u.c.h.ess by her husband's affability. I got a guinea out of the Duke last evening."

"By what method?" asked the other, with unfeigned admiration.

"He kissed my hand. Perhaps you are now aware, Mr. Jawkins," continued Mrs. Carey, with a captivating swirl of her swan-like neck, "that I have established a personal tariff. My attractions are scheduled. To kiss a thumb or any but my little fingers costs two bob. The little fingers come at half a crown. To roam at will over my whole hand involves the outlay of a guinea. Am I not ingenious and at the same time reasonable in my terms, Mr. Jawkins? I will squeeze your hand for sixpence." She laughed charmingly. Go to London she must and would, but she hoped to accomplish her purpose by wheedling and to avoid a rupture with the manager.

"Madam," he replied, with polite coldness, "was not my att.i.tude toward you what may be called fiduciary I should hasten to take advantage of your offer. But business is business, and I have made it a rule never to enter into social relations with any of my clients during the continuance of a contract. Excuse me for saying, Mrs. Carey, that if you persist in your design I shall feel obliged to withdraw your back pay."