The officer bowed, turned about, and departed, followed by his men.
Darrell and I stood facing one another for a moment.
"In h.e.l.l"s name, what"s the meaning of this, Darrell?" I cried. "Has Madame brought the Bastille over with her, and are you made Governor?"
He answered not a word. Keeping his sword still in readiness, he knocked with the muzzle of his pistol on the door by him. After a moment it was opened, and a head looked out. The face was Sir Thomas Clifford"s; the door was flung wide, a gesture from Darrell bade me enter. I stepped in, he followed, and the door was instantly shut close behind us.
I shall not readily forget the view disclosed to me by the flaring oil lamps hung in sconces to the ancient smoky walls. I was in a narrow room, low and not large, scantly furnished with faded richness, and hung to half its height with mouldering tapestries. The floor was bare, and uneven from time and use. In the middle of the room was a long table of polished oak wood; in the centre of it sat the King, on his left was the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans, and beyond her the Duke of York; on the King"s right at the end of the table was an empty chair; Clifford moved towards it now and took his seat; next to him was Arlington, then Colbert de Croissy, the Special Envoy of the French King. Next to our King was another empty chair, an arm-chair, like the King"s; empty it was, but M.
de Perrencourt leant easily over the back of it, with his eyes fixed on me. On the table were materials for writing, and a large sheet of paper faced the King--or M. de Perrencourt; it seemed just between them. There was nothing else on the table except a bottle of wine and two cups; one was full to the brim, while the liquor in the other fell short of the top of the gla.s.s by a quarter of an inch. All present were silent; save M. de Perrencourt, all seemed disturbed; the King"s swarthy face appeared rather pale than swarthy, and his hand rapped nervously on the table. All this I saw, while Darrell stood rigidly by me, sword in hand.
Madame was the first to speak; her delicate subtle face lit up with recognition.
"Why, I have spoken with this gentleman," she said in a low voice.
"And I also," said M. de Perrencourt under his breath.
I think he hardly knew that he spoke, for the words seemed the merest unconscious outcome of his thoughts.
The King raised his hand, as though to impose silence. Madame bowed in apologetic submission, M. de Perrencourt took no heed of the gesture, although he did not speak again. A moment later he laid his hand on Colbert"s shoulder and whispered to him. I thought I heard just a word--it was "Fontelles." Colbert looked up and nodded. M. de Perrencourt folded his arms on the back of the chair, and his face resumed its impa.s.sivity.
Another moment elapsed before the King spoke. His voice was calm, but there seemed still to echo in it a trace of some violent emotion newly pa.s.sed; a slight smile curved his lips, but there was more malice than mirth in it.
"Mr Dale," said he, "the gentleman who stands by you once beguiled an idle minute for me by telling me of a certain strange prophecy made concerning you which he had, he said, from your own lips, and in which my name--or at least some King"s name--and yours were quaintly coupled.
You know what I refer to?"
I bowed low, wondering what in Heaven"s name he would be at. It was, no doubt, high folly to love Mistress Gwyn, but scarcely high treason.
Besides, had not I repented and forsworn her? Ah, but the second member of the prophecy? I glanced eagerly at M. de Perrencourt, eagerly at the paper before the King. There were lines on the paper, but I could not read them, and M. de Perrencourt"s face was fully as baffling.
"If I remember rightly," pursued the King, after listening to a whispered sentence from his sister, "the prediction foretold that you should drink of my cup. Is it not so?"
"It was so, Sir, although what your Majesty quotes was the end, not the beginning of it."
For an instant a smile glimmered on the King"s face; it was gone and he proceeded gravely.
"I am concerned only with that part of it. I love prophecies and I love to see them fulfilled. You see that cup there, the one that is not quite full. That cup of wine was poured out for me, the other for my friend M.
de Perrencourt. I pray you, drink of my cup and let the prophecy stand fulfilled."
In honest truth I began to think that the King had drunk other cups before and left them not so full. Yet he looked sober enough, and the rest were grave and mute. What masquerade was this, to bring me under guard and threat of death to drink a cup of wine? I would have drunk a dozen of my free will, for the asking.
"Your Majesty desires me to drink that cup of wine?" I asked.
"If you please, sir; the cup that was poured out for me."
"With all my heart," I cried, and, remembering my manners, I added, "and with most dutiful thanks to Your Majesty for this signal honour."
A stir, hardly to be seen, yet certain, ran round the table. Madame stretched out a hand towards the cup as though with a sudden impulse to seize it; the King caught her hand and held it prisoner. M. de Perrencourt suddenly dragged his chair back and, pa.s.sing in front of it, stood close over the table. Colbert looked up at him, but his eyes were fixed on me, and the Envoy went unnoticed.
"Then come and take it," said the King.
I advanced after a low bow. Darrell, to my fresh wonder, kept pace with me, and when I reached the table was still at my side. Before I could move his sword might be through me or the ball from his pistol in my brains. The strange scene began to intoxicate me, its stirring suggestion mounting to my head like fumes of wine. I seized the cup and held it high in my hand. I looked down in the King"s face, and thence to Madame"s; to her I bowed low and cried:
"By His Majesty"s permission I will drain this cup to the honour of the fairest and most ill.u.s.trious Princess, Madame the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans."
The d.u.c.h.ess half-rose from her seat, crying in a loud whisper, "Not to me, no, no! I can"t have him drink it to me."
The King still held her hand.
"Drink it to me, Mr Dale," said he.
I bowed to him and put the cup to my lips. I was in the act to drink, when M. de Perrencourt spoke.
"A moment, sir," he said calmly. "Have I the King"s permission to tell Mr Dale a secret concerning this wine?"
The Duke of York looked up with a frown, the King turned to M. de Perrencourt as if in doubt, the Frenchman met his glance and nodded.
"M. de Perrencourt is our guest," said the King. "He must do as he will."
M. de Perrencourt, having thus obtained permission (when was his will denied him?), leant one hand on the table and, bending across towards me, said in slow, calm, yet impressive tones:
"The King, sir, was wearied with business and parched with talking; of his goodness he detected in me the same condition. So he bade my good friend and his good subject Mr Darrell furnish him with a bottle of wine, and Mr Darrell brought a bottle, saying that the King"s cellar was shut and the cellarman in bed, but praying the King to honour him by drinking his wine, which was good French wine, such as the King loved and such as he hoped to put before His Majesty at supper presently. Then His Majesty asked whence it came, and Mr Darrell answered that he was indebted for it to his good friend Mr Simon Dale, who would be honoured by the King"s drinking it."
"Why, it"s my own wine then!" I cried, smiling now.
"He spoke the truth, did he?" pursued M. de Perrencourt composedly. "It is your wine, sent by you to Mr Darrell?"
"Even so, sir," I answered. "Mr. Darrell"s wine was out, and I sent him some bottles of wine by his servant."
"You knew for what he needed it?"
I had forgotten for the moment what Robert said, and hesitated in my answer. M. de Perrencourt looked intently at me.
"I think," said I, "that Robert told me Mr Darrell expected the King to sup with him."
"He told you that?" he asked sharply.
"Yes, I remember that," said I, now thoroughly bewildered by the history and the catechism which seemed necessary to an act so simple as drinking a gla.s.s of my own wine.
M. de Perrencourt said nothing more, but his eyes were still set on my face with a puzzled searching expression. His glance confused me, and I looked round the table. Often at such moments the merest trifles catch our attention, and now for the first time I observed that a little of the wine had been spilt on the polished oak of the table; where it had fallen the bright surface seemed rusted to dull brown. I noticed the change, and wondered for an idle second how it came that wine turned a polished table dull. The thing was driven from my head the next moment by a brief and harsh order from the King.
"Drink, sir, drink."
Strained with excitement, I started at the order, and slopped some of the wine from the cup on my hand. I felt a strange burning where it fell; but again the King cried, "Drink, sir."
I hesitated no more. Recalling my wandering wits and determining to play my part in the comedy, whatever it might mean, I bowed, cried "G.o.d save your Majesty," and raised the cup to my lips. As it touched them, I saw Madame hide her eyes with her hand and M. de Perrencourt lean farther across the table, while a short quick gasp of breath came from where Darrell stood by my side.
I knew how to take off a b.u.mper of wine. No sippings and swallowings for me! I laid my tongue well down in the bottom of my mouth that the liquor might have fair pa.s.sage to my gullet, and threw my head back as you see a hen do (in thanks to heaven, they say, though she drinks only water).
Then I tilted the cup, and my mouth was full of the wine. I was conscious of a taste in it, a strange acrid taste. Why, it was poor wine, turned sour; it should go back to-morrow; that fool Jonah was a fool in all things; and I stood disgraced for offering this acrid stuff to a friend. And he gave it to the King! It was the cruellest chance.
Why----
Suddenly, when I had gulped down but one good mouthful, I saw M. de Perrencourt lean right across the table. Yet I saw him dimly, for my eyes seemed to grow glazed and the room to spin round me, the figures at the table taking strange shapes and weird dim faces, and a singing sounding in my ears, as though the sea roared there and not on Dover beach. There was a woman"s cry, and a man"s arm shot out at me. I felt a sharp blow on my wrist, the cup was dashed from my hand on to the stone floor, breaking into ten thousand pieces, while the wine made a puddle at my feet. I stood there for an instant, struck motionless, glaring into the face that was opposite to mine. It was M. de Perrencourt"s, no longer calm, but pale and twitching. This was the last thing I saw clearly. The King and his companions were fused in a shifting ma.s.s of trunks and faces, the walls raced round, the singing of the sea roared and fretted in my ears. I caught my hand to my brow and staggered; I could not stand, I heard a clatter as though of a sword falling to the floor, arms were stretched out to receive me and I sank into them, hearing a murmur close by me, "Simon, Simon!"