Part 35 (1/2)
”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 pa.s.sionate, 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 pa.s.sage. 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 hara.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+p-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 st.u.r.dily, 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 impa.s.sioned 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.”