"I wish I could!" answered the young man, half inaudibly.
"And can you not?"
"No. You have never loved me!"
The King drew his cigar from his mouth, and flicking off a morsel of ash, looked at its end meditatively.
"Well--no!--I cannot say honestly that I have. Love,--it is a ridiculous word, Humphry, but it has a meaning on certain occasions!--love for the children of your mother is an impossibility!"
"Sir, I am not to blame for my mother"s disposition."
"True--very true. You are not to blame. But you exist. And that you do exist is a fact of national importance. Will you not sit down?"
"At your command, Sir!" and the Prince seated himself opposite his father, who having studied his cigar sufficiently, replaced it between his lips and went on smoking for a few minutes before he spoke again.
Then he resumed:--
"Your existence, I repeat, Humphry, is a fact of national importance.
To you falls the Throne when I have done with it, and life has done with me. Therefore, your conduct,--your mode of life--your example in manners--concern, not me, so much as the nation. You say that you cannot trust me as a friend, because I have never loved you. Is not this a somewhat childish remark on your part? We live in a very practical age--love is not a necessary tie between human beings as things go nowadays;--the closest bond of friendship rests on the basis of cash accounts."
"I am perfectly aware of that!" said the Prince, fixing his fine dark eyes full on his father"s face--"And yet, after all, love is such a vital necessity, that I have only to look at you, in order to realize the failure and mistake of trying to do without it!"
The King gave him a glance of whimsical surprise.
"So!--you have begun to notice what I have known for years!" he said lightly--"Clever young man! What fine fairy finger is pointing out to you my deficiencies, while supplying your own? Do you learn to estimate the priceless value of love while contemplating the romantic groves and woodlands of The Islands? Do you read poetry there?--or write it? Or talk it?"
Prince Humphry coloured,--then grew very pale.
"When I misuse my time, Sir," he said--"Surely it will then be needful to catechise me on the manner in which I spend it,--but not till then!"
"Fairly put!" answered the King--"But I have an idea--it may be a mistaken idea,--still I have it--that you _are_ misusing your time, Humphry! And this is the cause of our present little discussion. If I knew that you occupied yourself with the pleasures befitting your age and rank, I should be more at ease."
"What do you consider to be the pleasures befitting my age and rank?"
asked the Prince with a touch of satire; "Making a fool of myself generally?"
The King smiled.
"Well!--it would be better to make a fool of yourself generally than particularly! Folly is not so harmful when spread like jam over a whole slice of bread,--but it may cause a life-long sickness, if swallowed in one secret gulp of sweetness!"
The Prince moved uneasily.
"You think I am catechising you,--and you resent it--but, my dear boy, let me again remind you that you are in a manner answerable to the nation for your actions; and especially to that particular section of the nation called Society. Society is the least and worst part of the whole community--but it has to be considered by such servants of the public as ourselves. You know what James the First of England wrote concerning the "domestic regulations" on the conduct of a prince and future king? "A king is set as one on a stage, whose smallest, actions and gestures all the people gazinglie do behold; and, however just in the discharge of his office, yet if his behaviour be light or dissolute, in indifferent actions, the people, who see but the outward part, conceive preoccupied conceits of the king"s inward intention, which although with time, the trier of all truth, will evanish by the evidence of the contrarie effect, yet, _interim pat.i.tur justus_, and prejudged conceits will, in the meantime, breed contempt, the mother of rebellion and disorder." Poor James of the "goggle eyes and large hysterical heart" as Carlyle describes him! Do you not agree with his estimate of a royal position?"
"I am not aware, Sir, that my behaviour can as yet be called light or dissolute;" replied the Prince coldly, with a touch of hauteur.
"I do not call it so, Humphry"--said the King--"To the best of my knowledge, your conduct has always been most exemplary. But with all your excessive decorum, you are mysterious. That is bad! Society will not endure being kept in the dark, or outside the door of things, like a bad child! It wants to be in the room, and know everything and everybody. And this reminds me of another point on which the good English James offers sound advice. "Remember to be plaine and sensible in your language; for besides, it is the tongue"s office to be the messenger of the mind, it may be thought a point of imbecilitie of spirit, in a king to speak obscurely, much more untrewly, as if he stood in awe of any in uttering his thoughts." That is precisely your mood at the present moment, Humphry,--you stand "in awe"--of me or of someone else,--in "uttering your thoughts.""
"Pardon me, Sir,--I do not stand in awe of you or of anyone;" said the Prince composedly--"I simply do not choose to "utter my thoughts" just now."
The King looked at him in surprise, and with a touch of admiration. The defiant air he had unconsciously a.s.sumed became him,--his handsome face was pale, and his dark eyes coldly brilliant, like those of his beautiful mother, with the steel light of an inflexible resolve.
"You do not choose?" said the King, after a pause--"You decline to give any explanation of your long hours of absence?--your constant visits to The Islands, and your neglect of those social duties which should keep you at Court?"
"I decline to do so for the present," replied the young man decisively; "I can see no harm in my preference for quietness rather than noise,--for scenes of nature rather than those of artificial folly. The Islands are but two hours sail from this port,--little tufts of land set in the sea, where the coral-fishers dwell. They are beautiful in their natural adornment of foliage and flower;--I go there to read--to dream--to think of life as a better, purer thing than what you call "society" would make it for me; you cannot blame me for this?"
The King was silent.
"If it is your wish,"--went on the Prince--"that I should stay in the palace more, I will obey you. If you desire me to be seen oftener in the capital, I will endeavour to fulfil your command, though the streets stifle me. But, for G.o.d"s sake, do not make me a puppet on show before my time,--or marry me to a woman I hate, merely for the sake of heirs to a wretched Throne!"
The King rose from his chair, and, walking towards the garden, threw the rest of his cigar out among the foliage, where the burning morsel shone like a stray glowworm in the green. Then he turned towards his son;--his face was grave, almost stern.
"You can go, Humphry!" he said;--"I have no more to say to you at present. You talk wildly and at random, as if you were, by some means or other, voluntarily bent upon unfitting yourself for the position you are destined to occupy. You will do well, I think, to remain more in evidence at Court. You will also do well to be seen at some of the different great social functions of the day. But I shall not coerce you.
Only--consider well what I have said!--and if you have a secret"--he paused, and then repeated with emphasis--"I say, if you have a secret of any kind, be advised, and confide in me before it is too late! Otherwise you may find yourself betrayed unawares! Good-night!"
He walked away without throwing so much as a backward glance at the Prince, who stood amazed at the suddenness and decision with which he had brought the conversation to a close; and it was not till his tall figure had disappeared that the young man began to realize the doubtful awkwardness of the att.i.tude he had a.s.sumed towards one who, both as parent and king, had the most urgent claim in the world upon his respect and obedience. Impatient and angry with himself, he crossed the loggia and went out into the garden beyond. A young moon, slender as a bent willow wand, gleamed in the clear heavens among hosts of stars more brilliantly visible than itself, and the soft air, laden with the perfume of thousands of flowers, cooled his brain and calmed his nerves.
The musical low murmur of the sea, lapping against the sh.o.r.e below the palace walls, suggested a whole train of pleasing and poetical fancies, and he strolled along the dewy gra.s.s paths, under tangles of scented shrubs and arching boughs of pine, giving himself up to such idyllic dreams of life and life"s fairest possibilities, as only youthful and imaginative souls can indulge in. He was troubled and vexed by his father"s warning, but not sufficiently to pay serious heed to it. His "secret" was safe so far;--and all he had to do, so he considered, was to exercise a little extra precaution.
"There is only Von Glauben,"--he thought, "and he would never betray me.
Besides it is a mere question of another year--and then I can make all the truth known."
The lovely long-drawn warble of a nightingale broke the stillness around him with a divine persistence of pa.s.sion. He listened, standing motionless, his eyes lifted towards the dark boughs above him, from whence the golden notes dropped liquidly; and his heart beat quickly as he thought of a voice sweeter than that of any heavenly-gifted bird, a face fairer than that of the fabled G.o.ddess who on such a night as this descended from her silver moon-car to enchant Endymion;--and he murmured half aloud--
"Who would not risk a kingdom--ay! a thousand kingdoms!--for such happiness as I possess! It is a foolish, blind world nowadays, that forgets the glory of its youth,--the glow, the breath, the tenderness of love!--all for ama.s.sing gold and power! I will not be of such a world, nor with it;--I will not be like my father, the slave of pomp and circ.u.mstance;--I will live an unfettered life--yes!--even if I have to resign the throne for the sake of freedom, still I will be free!"
He strolled on, absorbed in romantic reverie, and the nightingale"s song followed him through the winding woods down to the sh.o.r.e, where the waves made other music of their own, which harmonised with the dreamy fancies of his mind.
Meanwhile, the King had sought his consort in her own apartments.
Walking down the great corridor which led to these, the most beautiful rooms in the palace, he became aware of the silvery sound of stringed instruments mingling with harmonious voices,--though he scarcely heeded the soft rush of melody which came thus wafted to his ears. He was full of thoughts and schemes,--his son"s refusal to confide in him had not seriously troubled him, because he knew he should, with patience, find out in good time all that the young Prince had declined to explain,--and his immediate interest was centred in his own immediate plans.
On reaching the ante-room leading to the Queen"s presence-chamber, he was informed that her Majesty was listening to a concert in the rosery.
Thither he went unattended,--and pa.s.sing through a long suite of splendid rooms, each one more sumptuously adorned than the last, he presently stepped out on the velvet greensward of one of the most perfect rose gardens in the world--a garden walled entirely round with tall hedges of the clambering flowers which gave it its name, and which were trailed up on all sides, so as to form a ceiling or hanging canopy above. In the centre of this floral hall, now in full blossom, a fountain tossed up one tall column of silver spray; and at its upper end, against a background of the dainty white roses called "Felicite perpetuelle" sat the Queen, in a high chair of carved ivory, surrounded by her ladies. Delicious music, performed by players and singers who were hidden behind the trees, floated in voluptuous strains upon the air, and the King, looking at the exquisite grouping of fair women and flowers, lit by the coloured lamps which gleamed here and there among the thick foliage, wondered to himself how it chanced, that amid surroundings which were calculated to move the senses to the most refined and delicate rapture, he himself could feel no quickening pulse, no touch of admiration. These open-air renderings of music and song were the Queen"s favourite form of recreation;--at such times alone would her proud face soften and her eyes grow languid with an unrevealed weight of dreams. But should her husband, or any one of his s.e.x break in upon the charmed circle, her pleasure was at once clouded,--and the cold hauteur of her beautiful features became again inflexibly frozen. Such was the case now, when perceiving the King, she waved her hand as a sign for the music to cease; and with a glance of something like wonderment at his intrusion, saluted him profoundly as he entered the precincts of her garden Court. But for once he did not pause as usual, on his way to where she sat,--but lightly acknowledging the deep curtseys of the ladies in attendance, he advanced towards her and raising her hand in courtly homage to his lips, seated himself carelessly in a low chair at her feet.
"Let the music go on!" he said; "I am here to listen."
The Queen looked at him,--he met her eyes with an expression that she had never seen on his face before.
"Suffer me to have my way!" he said to her in a low tone--"Let your singers finish their programme; afterwards do me the favour to dismiss your women, for I must speak with you alone."
She bent her head in acquiescence; and re-seated herself on her ivory throne. The sign was given for the continuance of the music, and the King, leaning back in his chair, half closed his eyes as he listened dreamily to the harmonious throbbing of harps and violins around him, in the stillness of the languid southern night. His hand almost brushed against his wife"s jewelled robes--the scent of the great lilies on her breast was wafted to him with every breath of air, and he thought--"All this would be Paradise,--with any other woman!" And while he so thought, the clear tenor voice of one of the unseen singers rang out in half gay, half tender tones:
If I loved you, and you loved me, How happy this little world would be-- The light of the day, the dancing hours, The skies, the trees, the birds and flowers, Would all be part of our perfect gladness;-- And never a note of pain or sadness Would jar life"s beautiful melody If I loved you, and you loved me!
"If I loved you!" Why, I scarcely know How if I did, the time would go!-- I should forget my dreary cares, My sordid toil, my long despairs, I should watch your smile, and kneel at your feet, And live my life in the love of you, Sweet!-- So mad, so glad, so proud I should be, If I loved you, and you loved me!
"If you loved me!" Ah, nothing so strange As that could chance in this world of change!-- As well expect a planet to fall, Or a Queen to dwell in a beggar"s hall-- But if you did,--romance and glory Might spring from our lives" united story, And angels might be less happy than we-- If I loved you and you loved me!
"If I loved you and you loved me!"
Alas, "t is a joy we shall never see!
You are too fair--I am too cold;-- We shall drift along till we both grow old, Till we reach the grave, and gasping, die, Looking back on the days that have pa.s.sed us by, When "what might have been," can no longer be,-- When I lost you, and you lost me!