The King's Men Part 14

Pitiful a menace as this may seem to well-to-do people, it affected Mrs.

Carey disagreeably. She was dependent upon her engagement with Mr.

Jawkins for her means of support. These wages and the royalty she derived from the sale of her photographs were her sole income. She could not afford to offend him, and she well knew he would keep his word. But her desire for revenge would not brook considerations of policy. Rather than abandon her plan she was resolved to break with him.

Such was the outcome of her reflections during the moment that she stood smiling at his threat before she made a reply. She looked at him in a fas.h.i.+on that would have melted the iron mood of any man but Jawkins. He had seen beauty world-wide in its most entrancing forms, and believed himself proof against feminine wiles.

"Is there no alternative?" she asked, beseechingly.

"Mrs. Carey, I will be frank with you. I suspect you of an intention of going to America for the purpose of carrying on an intrigue with the late King, one of whose cipher letters to you has chanced to come into my possession. To have you arrested would be very disagreeable to me, and I trust you will not force me to take that step."

Mrs. Carey's surprise was so great that she almost betrayed herself.

This suspicion of his would be an admirable cloak for her real design could she only succeed in representing it to Mr. Jawkins in such a light that he would suffer her to go to London. Some months previous she had projected a journey to America, and letters had pa.s.sed between her and the King, but the scheme had been laid aside as impracticable, as she had discovered that the royal family were in reduced circ.u.mstances. It was now well known in London that the King's banker kept him very short.

"Well," she said, with simulated distress, "you have pried into my secret, Mr. Jawkins. I have never injured you. What motive have you in standing between me and fortune? Why should you begrudge me the _eclat_ of wearing the coronet of England's Queen?"

"I will be frank with you again, Mrs. Carey. I have rivals in America who would snap you up in the twinkling of an eye. A royal crown upon the brow of a professional beauty has not its equal on the globe as a great moral exhibition."

"But I would give you the contract," she said.

The manager shrugged his shoulders.

"Is my word of honor of no avail?" she asked.

"I once lost 100,000 on a similar insecurity, Mrs. Carey."

"You wish to ruin my prospects in life, Mr. Jawkins."

"I am obliged to consider my own."

"You are rich and prosperous already. I have nothing but my personal attractions, as you well know, and you seek to rob me of the prize when just within my grasp."

"You are unjust, madam." He shuffled his feet uneasily. It was against his grain as a man to see this peerless beauty in trouble and refuse her pet.i.tion. Her arms apparent in all their white perfection of roundness, her exquisitely poised head and lovely face expressed the poignancy of dismay.

"Is there no security that you will accept, Mr. Jawkins?"

Jarley Jawkins looked at her, and felt the blood surge in his veins.

Mrs. Carey had always exercised a powerful charm over him. He regarded her as the most beautiful woman of his acquaintance. Ordinarily the thought of suggesting anything compromising would not have occurred to him, but her marvellous beauty presenting itself in the same scale with her necessity, blinded him to prudence and every other consideration but pa.s.sion. It was a contest between the cunning of a luscious beauty striving for a secret end and the self-interest of a mercenary man. The victory was hers, though scarcely by the means she had expected.

"Yes, Mrs. Carey, there is one." He leered at her a little.

"And that?"

"Yourself." He spoke distinctly and resolutely, for he was a man who faltered at nothing when his mind was made up, but she could see him tremble.

His speech was so astounding that she could scarcely believe that she heard him aright. She felt the blood rush to her cheeks in testimony to the audacity of the insult. Coming from this man such an avowal inspired her with rage and disgust. He, the society costermonger, sighing at her feet! Bah! It seemed too degrading to be true. It could not be true. And yet there he was and a response was necessary. A politic response, too, or all was lost. If she rejected him he would have her arrested. Her mind was made up.

"I know," he continued, as she did not speak, "that my proposition seems at first distasteful, but there is much to be said in its favor."

"Yes?" she queried, looking at the ground.

"I love you. If we fly to America, what is there to prevent our success?

We are both clever. I am rich, and you are the most beautiful woman in the world."

"Your offer is so abrupt that I do not know what to answer. Give me time, Mr. Jawkins."

"No, no; now, at once. The steamer sails day after to-morrow," he uttered hoa.r.s.ely, and he seized her hand and kissed it with pa.s.sion.

"A guinea," she cried banteringly, and she looked into his face with her beautiful violet eyes, as she had into many another whose love, though n.o.bly born, had been no less scorned in the days gone by.

"Guineas for such as you! You shall have millions. And you will go?"

"Yes," she whispered, "I will go."

He sought to embrace her, but she eluded his grasp. "Not yet--not yet.

You must wait." So great was her disgust that she feared lest she should break out in rage and denounce him. Following after her scene with Geoffrey the very intensity of his pa.s.sion wrought disagreeably upon her nerves. She felt the irony of fate. Yet the reflection steeled her purpose and gave her strength to smile and seem to accept his advances.

She placed her hand, glistening with rings, upon his sleeve. "I will meet you in town to-morrow, anywhere you select."

"No, you must not leave me now."

"It is absolutely necessary. I have my things to get ready."

"My servants will supply all that you need."

"Ah, you do not understand women's needs," she murmured, coquettishly, and she turned to get into the phaeton, which just then had driven up to the door. It had been ordered for Jawkins's morning airing, but it suited her convenience admirably.

He made a movement to follow her, but she turned and spoke to him in French. "Do you not understand that caution is necessary? We must not be seen together. I will meet you at noon to-morrow in South Kensington Gardens. Adieu." She smiled upon him, and her glance had all the sweetness of that which Vivien bent on Merlin. "To the station!" she said to the coachman.

It took her some time to collect her thoughts and realize the situation.

The effrontery of Jawkins seemed so daring that she almost laughed aloud. She had escaped from his clutches for a moment, but it was only a respite, a breathing spell which would soon be over. It would be necessary to provide for the morrow. But that reflection disturbed her little. She was free to pursue the object of her journey and satisfy the desire for revenge which filled her heart. As the train whirled toward London she whetted the stiletto of vengeance upon the grindstone of her wounded feelings. That paper exhibited by Dacre would furnish the needed proof of conspiracy, and then good-by, Lord Brompton, to your cherished schemes for fortune. It made her wince to think that she had been discarded for an awkward hoyden of a girl, her equal in no particular.

So she stigmatized her rival, as she chose to consider Maggie Windsor.

"He loved me in the days of my green maidenhood," she said to herself, "but now that I am become the most beautiful woman in England he disdains me." Even Jawkins had spoken of her as the most beautiful woman in the world.

The thought of Jawkins recalled the incident of the morning, which, in the bitterness of her mood, she had forgotten. Somehow or other the idea of quitting the country in his company seemed less repulsive to her than at first. He was rich, and she would no longer be obliged to support herself by a degrading occupation. After the first buzz of scandal and excitement at her elopement the world would cease to prattle, or if it did she would be in America and safe from its strictures. The King was too poor in friends to refuse her recognition at his court. And, after all, there need be no scandal. She would go to America in the role of a professional beauty and Jawkins should be her manager. She would keep him at a respectful distance and squeeze money out of him by dint of promises. Once in America she would seek to fascinate the King. She was weary of England. She had exhausted its resources, and it would be amusing to visit the great ideal Republic, of whose magnificent prosperity she had read until her mouth watered. Yes, let this matter of a conspiracy be set at rest and Geoffrey lodged in prison, and she would go. Her glorious eyes sparkled with interest. She would have done with the plat.i.tudes and dreariness of private life. A grand career loomed up before her across the ocean, where men lavished millions at the dictate of imagination and put no limit upon enthusiasm. A fig for the dream of an absorbing love, such as for an hour yesterday had flitted through her brain. She would trample on its ashes after she had sated her vengeance.

In this mood she reached London. She took a four-wheel cab and told the man to drive her to Buckingham Palace. Shrouding her features she sank back from observation. Had she not preferred to screen her face she was free to enjoy the emotions of a celebrity. Her photograph was in the shop-window of every picture-dealer in town. Her sympathy with the Royalists had, it is true, lessened her popularity for a time, but supreme beauty is the one attribute which disarms prejudice and converts ill-will.

London at this period, like the rest of England, showed marks of the unhappy condition of its affairs. The thoroughfares, parks and public buildings looked dirty and uncared for. An atmosphere of gloom overhung Mayfair like a pall, as though the very fog had taken advantage of the situation and was clamoring for spoils. It was, in truth, a system of spoils that had been inaugurated in this former stronghold of const.i.tutional liberty. The present government gave every facility to those who advocated popular principles with the aim of feathering their own nests. Under the influence of the social craze all that tended to promote external beauty of architecture or equipment was discountenanced, and a sodden rule of ignorant craft and vulgarity was settled upon the nation. Those at the helm were clever demagogues who were prepared to humor the people, provided they had the control of the public funds wherewith to indulge their licentious tastes. President Bagshaw had converted Buckingham Palace into a barracks, where he sat day in, day out, with boon companions. Entrance was forbidden to none.

The dirtiest scavenger might there at any moment shake the hand of the people's chief representative.

Mrs. Carey alighted, and found herself exposed to the gaze of a group of rough, groggy-looking individuals who were hanging about the entrance to the once famous palace. All the way down Regent Street she had peeped out from the cab windows, hoping to catch sight of familiar faces or fascinating wares in the shopping paradise of the late n.o.bility; but, though the stores still stood, few pa.s.sers were to be seen, and the filthy, smoky aspect of the sidewalks told that anarchy was rampant even here. Revolution is silent in England. The people uprising in their might do not overturn monuments and lop the limbs from statues. They let the dust and the smoke and the fog do the work for them. Only one face was recognized by Mrs. Carey as the vehicle rumbled down to its destination. She caught sight of her husband leaning out of one of the windows of Fenton's Hotel smoking a pipe. The once famous hostelry had become a haunt for pothouse politicians. A sudden impulse of generosity seized her. "I will invite Oswald to dinner with me to-night," thought she.

As she walked into the palace the men made way for her in silence. They removed the pipes from their mouths and stared in mingled bewilderment and admiration. Despite her veil she was too striking looking not to fetter the attention of even the most listless, for the disgust with which these surroundings inspired her and the tenacity of her cruel design gave her a bearing such as Clytemnestra might have envied. She stalked through the corridor and up the stairs, disregarding the gilded hand and tin sign which read, "To the President's Room. Second Story.

Take the Elevator." The idlers in the lobby had recognized her, and a whisper spread until it swelled into a buzz outside that she was the professional beauty.

"Can I see the President?" she asked of a policeman who alone guarded the door of the chief magistrate.

"Name, please," said the functionary, who still clung to this relic of the formality of the past.