Part 7 (2/2)
For a moment they confronted each other. The beautiful cold woman's eyes drooped under the somewhat sad and searching gaze of the man.
”But--your life!--” she murmured.
”My life!” He laughed and dropped her hands. ”Would you care, Madam, if I were dead? Would you shed any tears? Not you! Why should you? At this late hour of time, when after twenty-one years pa.s.sed in each other's close company we are no nearer to each other in heart and soul than if the sea murmuring yonder at the foot of these walls were stretching its whole width between us! Besides--we are both past our youth! And, according to certain highly instructed scientists and philosophers, the senses and affections grow numb with age. I do not believe this theory myself--for the jejune love of youth is as a taper's flame to the great and pa.s.sionate tenderness of maturity, when the soul, and not the body, claims its due; when love is not dragged down to the vulgar level of mere cohabitation, after the fas.h.i.+on of the animals in a farmyard, but rises to the best height of human sympathy and intelligent comprehension. Who knows!--I may experience such a love as that yet,--and so may you!”
She was silent.
”Talking of love,”--he went on--”May I ask whether our son,--or rather the nation's son, Humphry,--ever makes you his confidante?”
”Never!” she replied.
”I thought not! We do not seem to be the kind of parents admired in moral story-books, Madam! We are not the revered darlings of our children. In fact, our children have the happy disposition of animal cubs,--once out of the nursing stage, they forget they ever had parents.
It is quite the natural and proper thing, born as they were born,--it would never do for them to have any over-filial regard for us. Imagine Humphry weeping for my death, or yours! What a grotesque idea! And as for Rupert and Cyprian,--it is devoutly to be hoped that when we die, our funerals may be well over before the great cricket matches of the year come on, as otherwise they will curse us for having left the world at an inconvenient season!” He laughed. ”How sentiment has gone out nowadays, or how it seems to have gone out! Yet it slumbers in the heart of the nation,--and if it should ever awaken,--well!--it will be dangerous! I asked you about Humphry, because I imagine he is entangled in some love-affair. If it should be agreeable to your humour to go with me across to The Islands one day this week, we may perhaps by chance discover the reason of his pa.s.sion for that particular kind of scenery!”
The Queen's eyes opened wonderingly.
”The Islands!” she repeated,--”The Islands? Why, only the coral-fishers live there,--they have a community of their own, and are jealous of all strangers. What should Humphry do there?”
”That is more than I can tell you,” answered the King,--”And it is more than he will himself explain. Nevertheless, he is there nearly every day,--some attraction draws him, but what, I cannot discover. If Humphry were of the soul of me, as he is of the body of me, I should not even try to fathom his secret,--but he is the nation's child--heir to its throne--and as such, it is necessary that we, for the nation's sake, should guard him in the nation's interests. If you chance to learn anything of the object of his constant sea-wanderings, I trust you will find it coincident with your pleasure to inform me?”
”I shall most certainly obey you in this, Sir, as in all other things!”
she replied.
He moved a step or two towards her.
”Good-night!” he said very gently, and detaching one of the lilies from her corsage, took it in his own hand. ”Good-night! This flower will remind me of you;--white and beautiful, with all the central gold deep hidden!”
He looked at her intently, with a lingering look, half of tenderness, half of regret, and bowing in the courtliest fas.h.i.+on of homage, left her presence.
She remained alone, the velvet folds of her train flowing about her feet, and the jewels on her breast flas.h.i.+ng like faint sparks of flame in the subdued glow of the shaded lamplight. She was touched for the first time in her life by the consciousness of something infinitely n.o.ble, and altogether above her in her husband's nature. Slowly she drew out the paper he had given her from her bosom and read it through again--and yet once again. Almost unconsciously to herself a mist gathered in her eyes and softened into two bright tears, which dropped down her fair cheeks, and lost themselves among her diamonds.
”He is brave!” she murmured--”Braver than I thought he could ever be--”
She roused herself sharply from her abstraction. Emotions which were beyond her own control had strangely affected her, and the humiliating idea that her moods had for a moment escaped beyond her guidance made her angry with herself for what she considered mere weakness. And pa.s.sing quickly out of the boudoir, in the vague fear that solitude might deepen the sense of impotence and failure which insinuated itself slowly upon her, like a dull blight creeping through her heart and soul, she rejoined her ladies, the same great Queen as ever, with the same look of indifference on her face, the same chill smile, the same perfection of loveliness, unwithered by any visible trace of sorrow or of pa.s.sion.
CHAPTER VI
SERGIUS THORD
The next day the heavens were clouded; and occasional volleys of heavy thunder were mingled with the gusts of wind and rain which swept over the city, and which lashed the fair southern sea into a dark semblance of such angry waves as wear away northern coasts into bleak and rocky barrenness. It was disappointing weather to mult.i.tudes, for it was the feast-day of one of the numerous saints whose names fill the calendar of the Roman Church,--and a great religious procession had been organized to march from the market-place to the Cathedral, in which two or three hundred children and girls had been chosen to take part. The fickle bursts of suns.h.i.+ne which every now and again broke through the lowering sky, decided the priests to carry out their programme in spite of the threatening storm, in the hope that it would clear off completely with the afternoon. Accordingly, groups of little maidens, in white robes and veils, began to a.s.semble with their flags and banners at the appointed hour round the old market cross, which,--grey and crumbling at the summit,--bent over the streets like a withered finger, crook'd as it were, in feeble remonstrance at the pa.s.sing of time,--while glimpses of young faces beneath the snowy veils, and chatter of young voices, made brightness and music around its frowning and iron-bound base. Shortly before three o'clock the Cathedral bells began to chime, and crowds of people made their way towards the sacred edifice in the laughing, pus.h.i.+ng, gesticulating fas.h.i.+on of southerners, to whom a special service at the Church is like a new comedy at the theatre,--women with coloured kerchiefs knotted over their hair or across their bosoms--men, more or less roughly clad, yet all paying compliment to the Saint's feast-day by some extra smart touch in their attire, if it were only a pomegranate flower or orange-blossom stuck in their hats, or behind their ears.
It was a mixed crowd, all of the working cla.s.ses, who are proverbially called 'the common,' as if those who work, are not a hundred times more n.o.ble than those who do nothing! A few carriages, containing some wealthy ladies of the n.o.bility, who, to atone for their social sins, were in the habit of contributing largely to the Church, pa.s.sed every now and again through the crowd, but taken as a spectacle it was simply a 'popular' show, in which the children of the people took part, and where the people themselves were evidently more amused than edified.
While the bells were ringing the procession gradually formed;--a dozen or more priests leading,--incense-bearers and acolytes walking next,--and then the long train of little children and girls carrying their symbolic banners, following after. The way they had to walk was a steep, winding ascent, through tortuous streets, to the Cathedral, which stood in the centre of a great square on an eminence which overlooked the whole city, and as soon as they started they began to sing,--softly at first, then more clearly and sweetly, till gradually the air grew full of melody, rising and falling on the capricious gusts of wind which tore at the gilded and emblazoned banners, and tossed the white veils of the maidens about like wreaths of drifting snow. Two men standing on the Cathedral hill, watched the procession gradually ascending--one tall and heavily-built, with a dark leonine head made more ma.s.sive-looking by its profusion of thick and unmanageable hair--the other lean and narrow-shouldered, with a peaked reddish-auburn beard, which he continually pulled and twitched at nervously as though its growth on his chin was more a matter of vexation than convenience. He was apparently not so much interested in the Church festival as he was in his companion's face, for he was perpetually glancing up at that brooding countenance, which, half hidden as it was in wild hair and further concealed by thick moustache and beard, showed no expression at all, unless an occasional glimpse of full flas.h.i.+ng eyes under the bushy brows, gave a sudden magnetic hint of something dangerous and not to be trifled with.
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