The King's Men Part 33

All through the rest of the meal Mrs. Carey and the King whispered together. "I have taken a great liberty," said she at last.

"And what is that? The only liberty that I should object to your taking would be taking yourself away."

"I have invited a party of friends to your drawing-room to-night. I had promised a sweet girl, who seems to have taken an interest in me, to chaperone a theatre party, and she is going to bring her guests here instead. Does this inconvenience your Majesty?"

"Nothing that you could do would inconvenience me," and he gurgled as he drank his champagne.

"She plays her cards well, _n'est-ce pas_," said Lady Muriel to her new neighbor, Lord Gladstone Churchill.

King George caught her saturnine expression. He turned to the master of the household at his elbow. "Did I not order that Lady Muriel Howard should have only one gla.s.s of wine?"

"She insisted on more, your Majesty," groaned the major-domo.

"Am I not King?" said the monarch, and he pounded on the table so that the gla.s.ses rang.

This incident attracted every one's attention. Conversation flagged, and presently the Princess gave the signal for rising from the table. The ladies went out in advance, each turning as she left her seat and making a low courtesy to the King. Mrs. Carey was the last in the procession.

As she pa.s.sed through the door, her glance fell full on a man standing a little to one side, and gazing at her intently. She faltered, but only for an instant.

"Why, Mr. Jawkins, when did you arrive? Welcome to court," she cried in a cordial, conciliatory tone, holding out her hand.

Jawkins bowed stiffly, not seeming to see Mrs. Carey's hand. "Yes, I am come," he answered, "but small thanks to you, madam."

Dissimulation was not one of Jawkins's accomplishments.

"This is no place for a scene," she said, in a low tone. "If you wish an interview with me there will be an opportunity later. The drawing-room begins at ten. You will see me there." She smiled and showed her teeth ravishingly, despite the serious purport of her words.

"It is the King I wish to see, Mrs. Carey, not you," Jawkins replied significantly.

"Ah, indeed?" said the beauty, and she followed the Princess up the staircase.

The rest of the royal party remained only a few minutes in the dining-room. The King enjoyed a stroll through the corridor after dinner. He liked to chat with the habitues of the hotel and watch the billiard-players. To-night the Duke of Wellington and young Paget were in special attendance.

The King stepped up to the cigar counter. "Something mild and not too expensive," said he.

The attendant indicated several brands for his selection.

"Three for a quarter?" asked the ex-ruler, as he picked up three ten-cent cigars.

The man nodded, and the King, having presented a cigar to each of his companions, lit his own. His eye presently fell upon a pile of trunks, all of the latest and most improved manufacture, and marked with the letters "J. J." "A new arrival, I see," he said to a denizen of the hotel who knew everybody, and who derived pleasure from the prestige of conversing with royalty.

"Yes, your Majesty. A--a--a subject of yours, if I mistake not. He signs himself 'Jarley Jawkins, London.' Will your Majesty honor me with a light?"

"Jarley Jawkins!" cried the King. "It must be the individual caterer of whose wealth we have heard so much. His attentions to my friends during the interregnum deserve recognition. Several of them have been saved from absolute want by his generosity."

"That is the gentleman," whispered the other, indicating Jawkins, who was smoking in apparent unconsciousness and watching a game of pool. "I saw him just now talking with the famous beauty, Mrs. Oswald Carey."

"With Mrs. Carey?" exclaimed the King. "I have never heard her speak of him." The incident disturbed him little. He was too much absorbed by the idea of Jawkins's wealth. He hoped to be able to borrow some money from him. He turned to Paget and charged him to see that Jawkins was invited to the drawing-room that evening.

Meanwhile Mrs. Carey had retired to her own chamber, which she was pacing in some perturbation of spirit. The presence of Jawkins was a veritable spectre at the feast. The expression of his face haunted her.

She felt certain that he meant mischief. What was it he purposed to do?

He had asked to see the King. Probably he had discovered that it was she who betrayed the conspiracy to the government, and was determined to revenge himself by exposing her. She smiled at the thought, and the picture rose before her of the monarch pouring out protestations of love at her feet on the night when that band of gallant gentlemen were laying down their lives at Aldershot to restore his throne. If this was all that Jawkins had wherewith to prejudice her with the King, she need not fear the astute manager. But she could not feel wholly free from dread.

She was aware that Jarley Jawkins was not a man to be trifled with.

She went down to the parlor where the royal reception was to be held, so as to be in time to receive her own guests. It was early, and no one had yet arrived. The windows were open in order to cool the atmosphere. The floor had been covered with white linen drugget. At one end of the room, on a dais, stood a throne. A grand piano was in a corner. A colored waiter put his head inside the door, and, announcing that the musicians had arrived, inquired if they were to tune up at once.

"You must see the Lord Chamberlain," answered Mrs. Carey. She felt sad this evening, and the tawdry character of this entertainment was contrasted in her mind with the traditions of drawing-rooms at Buckingham Palace.

A cornet-player, a fiddler, and a female pianist entered, and the squeak of their instruments in process of reconstruction soon jarred upon her nerves. She started to leave the room, but encountered the Princess Henrietta and her maids of honor at the door, who each regarded her with a haughty look. One or two peers were loitering in the corridor putting on their gloves. At its further end a group of chambermaids were ensconced to view the arrivals. The musicians struck up "Rule Britannia," and Mrs. Carey, looking back, saw that the ladies had seated themselves. The reception was about to begin. She joined the others, and the n.o.bility speedily arrived. Before many minutes the King appeared, attended by the Lord Chamberlain, a fuzzy little man in red stockings and pumps, and mounted the throne.

"G.o.d save George the Fifth, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India, Sultan of Egypt, and Defender of the Faith," cried the Lord Chamberlain, and the drawing-room began. It was the Chamberlain's duty to present to the sovereign each person who had never been at court before. Invitations had been sent to all Englishmen in the city and to certain carefully selected Americans. The guests began to arrive rapidly, and in half an hour the apartment was filled. All the English people wore regular court costume, but the strangers were permitted, as a special favor, to appear in ordinary evening dress. The duty of introducing the Americans devolved upon the proprietor of the hotel.

Mrs. Carey kept on the lookout for her friends. About 10.30 and an instant, among the names announced, she heard "Mr. Abraham Windsor, Miss Windsor." It was as if she had received an electric shock. She had neglected to inquire who were to compose the party. For an instant she was too surprised to think, then she looked and saw the King talking with evident admiration to her pretty rival. Her hate returned, and with it the wound of her despised love bled afresh. Stepping forward, she said in her most congratulatory tones, "How charming! we meet again, Miss Windsor, but under different circ.u.mstances." There was a suppressed triumph in her tone. The young girl had to take the proffered hand, but it was plain enough to Mrs. Carey that if Maggie had known whom she was to encounter at court the meeting would never have taken place. Their eyes met, and in those of the American there was scorn and pride. "How do you do, Mrs. Carey," was all she said.

Her father came to Maggie's rescue. "Why, Mrs. Carey, your most obedient! This is like old times," and he proceeded to monopolize the beauty.

"Isn't she entrancing!" whispered the aesthetic maiden, Mrs. Carey's friend, in Miss Windsor's ear.

"I have met her before," she said, quietly.

"Have you! Oh, in England, of course."

But Maggie did not heed her words. The noise of voices at the door attracted her attention. The crowd was giving way before the wand of the Lord Chamberlain, and it was evident from the commotion that something unusual was about to take place. She looked and saw two men advance with eager step and fall on bended knee at the foot of the throne amid a buzz of excitement.

"My Sovereign and my King," they cried together.

"Rise, Duke, rise," said George the Fifth, wiping with genuine emotion his watery eyes, and he stepped down to clasp the hands of an old man with a bald head, whom Maggie recognized to be the Duke of Bayswater.

"Rise, Featherstone, rise," said the King to the other.

"Most Gracious Sovereign, I kiss your hand." Featherstone it was, and he pressed his lips against the knuckles of the sometime King; but the words were spoken coldly, like words of duty. Lost in amazement at this unusual scene, Miss Windsor had failed to observe a young man follow soberly and even sadly in the footsteps of the other two and stand aloof, though expectantly. Her eyes and those of the King must have fallen upon him almost at the same moment. The heart in her bosom leapt wildly. Pale and worn as he was, she recognized Geoffrey Ripon.

"Lord Brompton!" exclaimed the King, and he grew confused, for the peer did not kneel as the others had done. "Lord Brompton, I am glad to see you," and he remounted the throne.

"Sire, I have come to bring you a legacy from John Dacre," said Ripon, and he drew from his breast as he spoke a smoke-stained and tattered piece of the royal banner and laid it at the foot of the throne. "This is from Aldershot, sir."

A murmur spread through the room, and the color mounted to the King's face. "Sirrah, I do not understand you. I am your King."

"As for myself," said Geoffrey, without regarding the monarch's frown, "I return this, which my ancestor more than a century ago first unsheathed in fealty to the House of Hanover." He took from its scabbard the sword with which Maggie had girded him that day when he courted her in the haunted chamber of Ripon House, and snapped the blade in twain.

He flung the pieces on the ground and turned to leave the room. At the first step he encountered the glance of the woman he loved bent upon him with an expression in which pride and tenderness were strangely intermingled. He bowed low to her, and was gone.

CHAPTER XVIII.

TWO CARDS PLAYED.