The Lady of Loyalty House Part 25

XXIII

A DAY Pa.s.sES

A day is twenty-four hours if you take it by the card, but the spirit of joy or the spirit of sorrow has the power to multiply its potentialities amazingly. Both these spirits walked by Evander's side during his second day at Harby. The one that went in sable reminded him that his horizon was dwindling almost to his feet; the other, in rose and gold, hinted that it is better to be emperor for a day than beggar for a century. And truly through all that day Evander esteemed himself happier than an emperor. For he had discovered that Brilliana was the most adorable woman in the world, and, knowing how his span of life was shrinking, he allowed himself to adore without let or hinderance of hostile faiths and warring causes. He did not, as another in his desperate case might have done, make the most of his time by using it for very straightforward love-making. There was a fine austerity in him that denied such a course. Were he an undoomed man his creed and his cause would forbid him to philander; being a doomed man, it could not consort with his honor to act differently.

But he was radiantly happy in her constant companionship, and the hours fled from him iris-tinted as he relived the age of gold.

But if Evander trod the air, there was another who pressed the earth with leaden feet and carried a heart of lead. Halfman read Evander's happiness with hostile eyes; he read, too, very clearly, Brilliana's content in Evander's company, and he raged at it. He had grown so used to himself as Brilliana's ally that he had come to dream mad dreams which were none the less sweet because of their madness. He had rehea.r.s.ed himself if not as Romeo at least as Oth.e.l.lo, and if Brilliana was not in the least like Desdemona that knowledge did not dash him, for he thought her much more delectable than the Venetian, and he thanked his stars that he was not a blackamoor. He had not pushed his thoughts to a precise formula; he had been content to delight during the hours of siege in the companionship of a matchless maid, and now the maid had found another companion, and he knew that he was fiercely in love and as foolishly jealous as a moon-calf.

Brilliana was as kind to him as ever, but she gave her time to the new man, and Halfman, inwardly bleeding and outwardly the magnificent stoic, left the pair to themselves and absented himself at meal-times on pretext of pressing business with the volunteer troop. But his temper grew as a gale grows and would soon prove a whirlwind.

The garden-room at Harby was one of its many glories. Its panelled walls, its portraits of old-time Harbys, its painted ceiling, were exquisite parts of its exquisite harmony. On the side towards the park the wall was little more than a colonnade--to which doors could be fitted in winter-time, and here, as from a loggia, the indweller could feast on one of the fairest prospects in Oxfordshire. Across the moat the gardens stretched, in summer-time a riot of color, flowers glowing like jewels set in green enamel. In the waning autumn the scene was still fair, even though the day was overcast as this day was, from which the weather-wise and even the weather-unwise could freely and confidently prophesy rain. Brilliana dearly loved her garden-room for many things, most, perhaps, because of its full-length portrait of her King, an honest copy from an adorable Vand.y.k.e, to which, as to a shrined image, Brilliana paid honest adoration. She knew more about the picture than anyone else in Harby, and used sometimes to wonder if the knowledge would ever avail her. In the mean time, ever since the troubles began, she always bent a knee whenever she pa.s.sed the portrait. She had never seen her King, yet she felt as if she saw him daily, visible in the living flesh, so keenly did her loyalty seem to quicken color and canvas. Brilliana was not the only soul in England whose loyalty gave the King a kind of G.o.dhead, but if she had many peers she had none, nor could have, who overpa.s.sed her.

On the morning of the third day of Evander's stay at Harby, Halfman sat on the edge of the table in the garden-room and stared through the open doorway into the green beyond. He was alone, and he had flung off the stoic robe and was very frankly an angry man and very frankly a dangerous man. What he saw in the garden maddened him; his eyes glittered like a cat's that stalks its prey. He had no room in his thoughts for the cottage of his earlier dreams, with its pleasant garden and its lazy hours over ale and tobacco. He thought only of a woman quite beyond his reach, and his heart l.u.s.ted for the lawless days when your lucky buccaneer might take his pick of a score of women by right of fire and sword and tame his choice as he pleased.

To this mood fortune sent interruption in the person of Sir Blaise Mickleton. Sir Blaise had opened the door expecting to find in the room Brilliana, whom he had come with a purpose to visit, and instead of Brilliana he found this queer soldier swinging his legs from the table and scowling truculently. From what Sir Blaise had already seen of Halfman he found him very little to his mind, but he reflected that he had come on a mission, that Brilliana was nowhere in sight, and that Halfman, who had served her during the siege, might very well direct him where he should find her.

As Halfman took no notice whatever of him, Sir Blaise deemed it advisable, in the interests of his mission, to attract his attention.

So he gave a politic cough and followed it with a "Give you good-morrow" of such sufficient loudness that Halfman could not choose but hear it. He did not change his att.i.tude, however, or turn his face from the window, as he answered, in a sullen voice,

"I should need a good-morrow to mend a bad day."

Sir Blaise had not the wit to let a sleeping dog lie, but must needs prod it to see if it could bark. So he very foolishly said what were indeed obvious even to a greater fool than he.

"You seem in the sullens."

The sleeping dog could bark. Halfman turned a scowling face upon the knight as he answered, malevolently:

"Swamped, water-logged, foundering. You are a pretty parrakeet to come between me and my musings."

The tone of Halfman's speech, the way of Halfman's demeanor were so offensive that the knight's cheap dignity took fire. He swelled with displeasure, flushed very red in the gills, and cleared his throat for reproof.

"Master Majordomo, you forget yourself."

Halfman proved too indifferent or too self-absorbed to take umbrage.

He stared into the garden again with a sigh.

"No, I remember myself, and the memory vexes me. I dreamed I was a king, a kaiser, a demiG.o.d. I wake, rub my eyes, and am no more than a fool."

Sir Blaise was patronizingly forgiving. He was thirsty, also the morning was chilly.

"Let us exorcise your devil with a pottle of hot ale," he suggested.

Halfman shook his head wistfully.

"I should be happier in a sable habit, with a steeple hat, and a rank in the Parliament army."

It was plain to Sir Blaise that a man must be very deep in the dumps who was not to be tempted by hot ale.

"Lordamercy, are you for changing sides now?" he asked.

As Halfman made him no answer but continued to stare gloomily into the garden, Blaise concluded that the interest lay there which made him thus distracted. So he came down to the table and looked over Halfman's shoulder. In the distance he saw a man and woman walking among the trees. The man was patently the Puritan prisoner, the woman was the chatelaine of Harby. The pair seemed very deep in converse.

As Sir Blaise looked, they were out of sight round a turning. Halfman gave a heavy groan and spoke, more to himself, as it seemed, than to his companion.

"Look how they walk in the garden, ever in talk. Time was she would walk and talk with me, listen to my wars and wanderings, and call me a gallant captain."

"Are you jealous of the Puritan prisoner?" Blaise asked, astonished.

Halfman answered with an oath.

"Oh, G.o.d, that the siege had lasted forever, or that she had kept her word and blown us sky high."

Blaise began to sn.i.g.g.e.r.

"'Ods-life! do you dare a love for your lady?" he said. He had better not have said it. Halfman turned on him with a face like a demon's and the plump knight recoiled.

"Why the red devil should I not," Halfman asked, hoa.r.s.ely, "if a b.u.mpkin squire like you may do as much?"

Blaise tried to domineer, but the effort was feeble before the fierceness in Halfman's glare.

"Are you speaking to me, your superior?" he stammered. Halfman answered him mockingly, with a voice that swelled in menace as the taunting speech ran on.

"Will you ride against me, cross swords with me, come to grips with me any way? You dare not. I am well born, have seen things, done things 'twould make you shiver to hear of them. Come, I am in a fiend's humor; come with your sword to the orchard and see which of us is the better man."

Sir Blaise was in a fair panic at this raging fury he had conjured up and now was fain to pacify.

"Soft, soft, honest captain; why so choleric? I would not wrong you.

But surely you do not think she favors this Puritan?"

"Oh, he's a proper man, d.a.m.n him!" Halfman admitted. "He has a right to a woman's liking. And he must love her, G.o.d help him! as every man does that looks on her."

Blaise looked pathetic.

"What is there to do?" he asked, helplessly. Halfman struck his right fist into his left palm.

"I would do something, I promise you. He is no immortal. But we shall be rid of him soon. If Colonel Cromwell do not surrender Cousin Randolph we are pledged to his killing, and if he do, then our friend rejoins his army; and I pray the devil my master that I may have the joy to pistol him on some stricken field."

Sir Blaise thought it was time to change the conversation.

"Let us leave these ravings and vaporings," he entreated, wheedling, "and return to the business of life. And 'tis a very unpleasant business I come on."

Halfman drew his hand across his forehead as a man who seeks to dissipate ill dreams. Then, with a tranquil face, he gave Blaise the attention he pet.i.tioned.

"How so?" he asked. Any business were a pleasing change from his sick thoughts.

"Why, I am a justice of the peace for these parts," Sir Blaise said, "and I am importuned by two honest neighbors to process of law against your lady."

Halfman laughed unpleasantly.