The King's Men Part 9

The men trailed into the hall awkwardly, bringing a fine perfume of tobacco along with them. They stood around for a moment, getting themselves into the position of the social soldier.

Herr Diddlej seated himself before the piano, ran his fingers through his long hair, and was soon weeping over a sonata of his own composition.

Dacre, who was standing apart from the others, before a picture, in a dark recess of the hall, was approached by a footman, who made a quick sign to him, a sign such as Featherstone had made to Geoffrey a few moments before.

Sir John answered, and the servant, in handing him a cup of coffee, slipped a note into his hand. The footman went on handing the coffee, calm and unmoved.

Dacre, after glancing at the letter, thrust it into his waistcoat pocket, and furtively glanced at Geoffrey. The latter excused himself to Miss Windsor.

"I wish to have a long and private conversation with you," said Dacre to him, "and when you take your leave I will walk over with you to your house, where we can talk together."

Mrs. Carey, before the party broke up, excused herself on the grounds of a severe headache and retired to her room. She sat there for some time looking out upon the ocean and the moon-glade, glistening and twisting over the waves like a great serpent. Of a sudden she threw over her shoulders a thick cloak, and, by a dark back pa.s.sage of the old house, stole out into the moonlight. She felt a desire to walk along the cliff and to soothe her nerves with the deep booming of the waves along its base. And, perhaps, she might meet Geoffrey on his way home, she thought, not forgetting the potency of moonlight and the great Love G.o.d, "Juxtaposition."

CHAPTER VI.

THE ROYALISTS.

It was a clear, cold night as the two strangely dissimilar friends, Dacre and Geoffrey, emerged from the shadow of Ripon Wood and stood for a moment on the cliff path looking down at the unquiet sea, which was still heaving and breaking from the force of the day's storm. From the horizon before them the full moon had risen about two hand-breadths, and the sky was all barred and broken with torn clouds moving rapidly, behind which the moonlight filled the sky. The white light fell on the black sea like spilled silver, and made a glittering road across the waves.

Dacre advanced to the very edge of the cliff and stood with folded arms, looking into the night as if it were a face or scroll to be read. But the eye, in truth, saw not, though the thoughtless sense perceived the s.h.i.+fting clouds and tossing sea. The vision was introspective wholly. It was turned on a wide inner field, where stood arrayed, like an order of battle, a strange array of Principles and Methods and Men.

Dacre was at work--at the work he loved and lived for. The enthusiast, like a general, was reviewing his spiritual and mental troops--proudly glancing along the lines before he removed the screen and called another eye to behold. He had drawn them up, with their banners, to fill Geoffrey, at once, with his own confidence and knowledge--for it _was_ knowledge and cert.i.tude, not opinion or fantasy, that filled him.

John Dacre was a magnificent dreamer, and he saw and lived among magnificent visions. The spirit that had evoked Royalty and Aristocracy and made them a potent reality for twenty centuries burned in him as purely as in the old poet's picture of King Arthur.

No wrong that is all wrong can live for two thousand years and bind the necks of men. Royalty was the first wave of the rising tide of humanity; Aristocracy was the second. Both were necessary--perhaps natural. But the waves fall back and are merged when the risen sea itself laps the feet of the precipice.

It is hard to describe Dacre's face at this supreme moment, except by saying that it was visibly lighted with an inner light. Standing in the moonlight, with his pale features made paler, the shadows of the face darker, and his tall form straight and moveless as a statue, from the intensity of his thought, he almost startled the more prosaic Geoffrey, who had lingered to light a cigar before coming out on the breezy cliff path.

"Hey! old fellow; what do you see?" Geoffrey asked as he came up.

But he had to speak again, laying his hand on Dacre's shoulder before he got an answer, though Dacre had noted the question, as his answer showed when it came.

"See! I see a glorious panorama," and he turned and looked at Geoffrey, still with arms folded. "I have seen the history of our country stretched out like a map upon the sea. I saw thereon all those things which have made England famous forever among the nations--the kings, the n.o.bles and the people, advancing like a host from the darkness to the light."

"Yes, to the light of other days. But you know that has faded," said Geoffrey, as he b.u.t.toned his overcoat and pulled down his hat.

"No; not the light of other days, but the light of to-morrow, which never fades."

"Well, then, I don't understand you, old man; that is all," said Geoffrey, contentedly, as he paced along, casting a satisfied, thoughtless glance at the s.h.i.+mmering waves below, in some such natural way as a sea-bird flying overhead might have done.

Geoffrey was of a placid and easy, perhaps lazy, disposition; but his placidity rested like the ice of a mountain lake on deep and dangerous water. It was hard to ruffle him or even to move him; but when moved he was apt not to return to the position he had left, nor to be quite natural to the new position.

"How far away is your house?" asked Dacre.

"Not far; there, you see the light over there. Old Reynolds is sitting up for me and keeping the kettle going. He sticks by me through thick and thin. I have tried to make him take a better place, but he will not go."

Dacre was silent, and they walked on, descending from the cliffs and following a path across the wide lawn-like fields, darkened by enormous heaps of shadow from scattered chestnut trees.

An hour before the young men crossed these fields another figure, a woman's, had travelled the same path. She was wrapped in a dark cloak, and though she had lingered and loitered on the cliff-walk, she hurried on the lower ground till she arrived near Geoffrey's lodge.

The speed with which she had walked proved that the woman was young, and when the strong wind tightened the light cloak on the outline of her tall figure, it could be seen, even in the moonlight, that she was lissome and beautiful.

She had, on leaving the cliff path, steered straight for the light in Geoffrey's house; but when she approached it she walked slowly, and at last stopped in the deep shade of a tree within fifty feet of the lodge.

From this position she could look into Geoffrey's sitting-room, where a fire burned brightly and a light stood in the window facing the cliff.

"I shall wait here," she said, speaking to herself, as if to give herself courage by the whisper; "no one has seen me--no one but he shall ever know."

But the next moment she almost screamed with terror at a sound behind her. A bramble cracked, and she saw a man within a few yards of her. She was terribly frightened, and could not speak or move.

It was old Reynolds, Geoffrey's servant, who had seen her on the cliff walk, and had taken a night gla.s.s, with which his master often watched the s.h.i.+ps, to see if this were not he returning from the house. Seeing a woman, Reynolds was surprised, for the cliff walk was lonely and not too safe. He was still more surprised to see her turn into the path to the lodge, and he had not lost sight of her for a moment till she stopped under the tree.

When she turned, even in her terror, she a.s.sumed a defiant att.i.tude, and she held it still, facing the man.

Reynolds instinctively knew she was a lady, and with a touch of his hat, but a doubting sternness in his voice, he said:

"Who are you, please, and what do you want here at this hour of the night--or morning?"

She was rea.s.sured, knowing the voice to be that of a common man, and as quickly judging him to be Geoffrey's servant.

"I am an old friend of Lord Brompton's family," she said, steadily enough; "and as I return to London to-morrow, I have walked here to-night just to see where the head of a grand old line is forced to reside."

Reynolds was touched on his tender spot. The sternness left his voice, and with bare head he said sadly:

"Ay, ma'am, in truth it is a sad sight to see the Lord of Ripon living in the cottage that was once the home of his groom--for my father kept the gate here for forty years."

"Lord Brompton has not yet come home?" asked Mrs. Carey, for it was she, though she knew he had not.

"No, ma'am; he hasn't yet come out on the cliff walk. I can see him with this gla.s.s--as I saw you," he added, explaining his presence.

Mrs. Carey gave a grim little smile in the dark.

"You would like to see the lodge, perhaps, ma'am, inside as well as out?"

"Yes; I should like it very much; but I ought not to venture now. Lord Brompton might return, and I should not wish him to know I had been here for the world. I am overjoyed to know that he has at least one friend who is faithful to him," and she held out her white hand to the old man.

She said this so graciously that old Reynolds was carried off his feet.

This fine patronage sent him back to his young manhood, when he was whipper-in to the old Earl's foxhounds, and heard such voices and saw such upright ladies in the hunting-field.

"Come in, my lady," he said, glancing at the cliff path; "he cannot reach here under half an hour. You can see all there is to be seen of the poor place in a few minutes."

The old man led, and she followed toward the lodge.

"Have a care of the steps, my lady; they are the worse for wear."