Simon Dale Part 29

"I don't doubt, for sin," he answered uncompromisingly.

"Yet you can lead me to her house?" said I with a smile.

"I can," said he, in sour disregard of my hinted banter.

"I won't go," I declared.

"The matter concerns you, she said, and might concern another."

It was early, the Court would not be moving for two hours yet. I could go and come, and thereby lose no opportunity. Curiosity led me on, and with it the attraction which still draws us to those we have loved, though the love be gone and more pain than pleasure wait on our visiting. In ten minutes I was following Jonah down the cliff, and plunged thence into a narrow street that ran curling and curving towards the sea. Jonah held on quickly, and without hesitation, until we reached a confined alley, and came to a halt before a mean house.

"She's here," said Jonah, pointing to the door and twisting his face as though he was swallowing something nauseous.

I could not doubt of her presence, for I heard her voice singing gaily from within. My heart beat quick, and I had above half a mind not to enter. But she had seen us, and herself flung the door open wide. She lodged on the ground floor; and, in obedience to her beckoning finger, I entered a small room. Lodging was hard to be had in Dover now, and the apartment served her (as the bed, carelessly covered with a curtain, showed) for sleeping and living. I did not notice what became of Jonah, but sat down, puzzled and awkward, in a crazy chair.

"What brings you here?" I blurted out, fixing my eyes on her, as she stood opposite to me, smiling and swaying to and fro a little, with her hands on her hips.

"Even what brings you. My business," she answered. "If you ask more, the King's invitation. Does that grieve you, Simon?"

"No, madame," said I.

"A little, still a little, Simon? Be consoled! The King invited me, but he hasn't come to see me. There lies my business. Why hasn't he come to see me? I hear certain things, but my eyes, though they are counted good if not large, can't pierce the walls of the Castle yonder, and my poor feet aren't fit to pa.s.s its threshold."

"You needn't grieve for that," said I sullenly.

"Yet some things I know. As that a French lady is there. Of what appearance is she, Simon?"

"She is very pretty, so far as I've looked at her."

"Ah, and you've a discriminating glance, haven't you? Will she stay long?"

"They say Madame will be here for ten or fourteen days yet."

"And the French lady goes when Madame goes?"

"I don't know as to that."

"Why, nor I neither." She paused an instant. "You don't love Lord Carford?" Her question came abruptly and unlooked for.

"I don't know your meaning." What concern had Carford with the French lady?

"I think you are in the way to learn it. Love makes men quick, doesn't it? Yes, since you ask (your eyes asked), why, I'll confess that I'm a little sorry that you fall in love again. But that by the way. Simon, neither do I love this French lady."

Had it not been for that morning's mood of mine, she would have won on me again, and all my resolutions gone for naught. But she, not knowing the working of my mind, took no pains to hide or to soften what repelled me in her. I had seen it before, and yet loved; to her it would seem strange that because a man saw, he should not love. I found myself sorry for her, with a new and pitiful grief, but pa.s.sion did not rise in me.

And concerning my pity I held my tongue; she would have only wonder and mockery for it. But I think she was vexed to see me so unmoved; it irks a woman to lose a man, however little she may have prized him when he was her own. Nor do I mean to say that we are different from their s.e.x in that; it is, I take it, nature in woman and man alike.

"At least we're friends, Simon," she said with a laugh. "And at least we're Protestants." She laughed again. I looked up with a questioning glance. "And at least we both hate the French," she continued.

"It's true; I have no love for them. What then? What can we do?"

She looked round cautiously, and, coming a little nearer to me, whispered:

"Late last night I had a visitor, one who doesn't love me greatly. What does that matter? We row now in the same boat. I speak of the Duke of Buckingham."

"He is reconciled to my Lord Arlington by Madame's good offices," said I. For so the story ran in the Castle.

"Why, yes, he's reconciled to Arlington as the dog to the cat when their master is by. Now there's a thing that the Duke suspects; and there's another thing that he knows. He suspects that this treaty touches more than war with the Dutch; though that I hate, for war swallows the King's money like a well."

"Some pa.s.ses the mouth of the well, if report speaks true," I observed.

"Peace, peace! Simon, the treaty touches more."

"A man need not be Duke nor Minister to suspect that," said I.

"Ah, you suspect? The King's religion?" she whispered.

I nodded; the secret was no surprise to me, though I had not known whether Buckingham were in it.

"And what does the Duke of Buckingham know?" I asked.

"Why, that the King sometimes listens to a woman's counsel," said she, nodding her head and smiling very wisely.

"Prodigious sagacity!" I cried. "You told him that, may be?"

"Indeed, he had learnt it before my day, Master Simon. Therefore, should the King turn Catholic, he will be a better Catholic for the society of a Catholic lady. Now this Madame--how do you name her?"

"Mlle. de Querouaille?"

"Aye. She is a most devout Catholic. Indeed, her devotion to her religion knows no bounds. It's like mine to the King. Don't frown, Simon. Loyalty is a virtue."

"And piety also, by the same rule, and in the same unstinted measure?" I asked bitterly.

"Beyond doubt, sir. But the French King has sent word from Calais----"

"Oh, from Calais! The Duke revealed that to you?" I asked with a smile I could not smother. There was a limit then to the Duke's confidence in his ally; for the Duke had been at Paris and could be no stranger to M.

de Perrencourt.

"Yes, he told me all. The King of France has sent word from Calais, where he awaits the signing of the treaty, that the loss of this Madame Querouaille would rob his Court of beauty, and he cannot be so bereft.

And Madame, the Duke says, swears she can't be robbed of her fairest Maid of Honour ('tis a good name that, on my life) and left desolate.

But Madame has seen one who might make up the loss, and the King of France, having studied the lady's picture, thinks the same. In fine, Simon, our King feels that he can't be a good Catholic without the counsels of Madame Querouaille, and the French King feels that he must by all means convert and save so fair a lady as--is the name on your tongue, nay, is it in your heart, Simon?"

"I know whom you mean," I answered, for her revelation came to no more than what I had scented out for myself. "But what says Buckingham to this?"

"Why, that the King mustn't have his way lest he should thereby be confirmed in his Popish inclinations. The Duke is Protestant, as you are--and as I am, so please you."

"Can he hinder it?"

"Aye, if he can hinder the French King from having his way. And for this purpose his Grace has need of certain things."