Kophetua the Thirteenth. Julian Stafford Corbett
Читать онлайн книгу.
your majesty would be alone," said Turbo, with a profound bow, "I pray your leave to retire."
"I would be alone with you, Chancellor," the Queen answered. "I wish to speak with you."
"And your majesty denied me the pleasure of waiting on you?" said the Chancellor, with a smile that made his snarl more hideously apparent.
"Yes," the Queen replied; "because I have that to say which I would have no one hear; and, besides, there are other reasons why none should know of our interview."
"Your majesty interests me strangely," said the Chancellor.
"I wish to speak to you about my son," said the Queen, with a slight tremor in her voice. She drew towards the founder's hearth, and sat down in a great chair that was almost a throne, and, at the same time, motioned the Chancellor to a seat opposite to her.
"Be seated," she said, with the same hesitation as before; "I want to converse with you as an old friend."
She looked at Turbo wistfully, as though to see some softening of his snarl, but he avoided her glance with another profound bow in acknowledgment of her condescension; and the Queen's heart sank as she felt her mission was almost hopeless.
CHAPTER IV. THE QUEEN-MOTHER.
"Disdaine no whit, O lady deere,
But pity now thy servant here."
For a while they sat in silence looking into the fire. Indeed it was hard for the Queen-mother to know how to begin. Let it be said at once frankly, she and Turbo had loved each other. It was long ago now, and far away—in fair Castile—when he was the brilliant and accomplished young secretary of her father. He was no mere clerk, but a youth of noble family, an aspirant to the great offices of the state, who had taken the post to learn the business of administration.
Thus there was no reason why he should not openly show his adoration for his chief's beautiful daughter, or why she should seek to hide her love for him. Daily they met, and daily his passion grew. He loved her with all the ardour of which his hot Spanish blood was capable, so that it maddened him to see how cold and calm was her northern heart, loving as it was, beside the fever that consumed him.
Yet he was happy in the knowledge of her love, and all went well till one night her father entertained an officer to whom he had taken a liking. He was a man of brilliant wit, but known as a greedy duellist. Yet Margaret was amused, and laughed and talked gaily with him till he departed. Turbo accompanied him to a tavern hard by for a parting cup. The place was full of gentlemen, many of whom the officer knew. They fell to talking, then to boasting, till in an evil hour the man vaunted his new conquest, and let fall a little light word with Margaret's name. In a moment he had the lie and a stinging blow on the mouth from Turbo's glove.
All efforts of the young secretary's friends to save him from his quixotic folly were in vain. He would listen to no explanation. He would receive no apology. The least he could do, it seemed to him, to show himself worthy of his treasured love, was to chastise the man who had breathed ever so faintly on his mistress's name.
They fought on horseback, with pistols and swords. It was all the youth's friends could do in order to equalise the chances. Yet the affair was little better than murder. The first shot hit Turbo in the knee, the second tore across his lips. Half choking with blood he fell on with his sword; but no sooner were they engaged than a fearful gash across the face blinded him. In the agony of the moment he checked his rearing horse sharply, and the frantic animal fell over on the top of him.
For months he lay in the hospital almost between life and death. Every day came flowers and a little loving note from Margaret, overflowing with pity and gratitude. It made him bear his terrible suffering with a gay heart to see how much his courage had won him. His chief came constantly to his bedside, and spoke to him as a son-in-law; but ere he was fully recovered, and clear of the pestilential air of the hospital, he was taken with the small-pox. Another terrible period of waiting and suffering ensued, and by the time he was able to leave the hospital, Margaret and her father had sailed for the Canaries.
Without a moment's delay he followed them, and at length the longed-for moment was to come, when he should hold his love in his arms once more. She burst into the room with a glad cry when they told her he was come, but no sooner did she set eyes on his mangled form than she stopped transfixed with horror, and with a terrible scream fell to the ground.
The shock threw her into a dangerous illness, and when she recovered nothing more was said of a marriage. Turbo accepted his fate, but with a bitterness that poisoned his whole nature. His love was no less than before, and it was only by the nursing of a bitter contempt for its object, and all the daughters of Eve, that he could make his life endurable.
And yet he could not tear himself from her side. The months went by, and still he remained at his old post, and when Margaret left to become Queen of Oneiria, he accepted the place which Kophetua XII.—the present king's father—offered him out of admiration for his abilities, and pity for his miserable story.
When the young prince was born, so great was the esteem in which Turbo was held, that he was appointed his governor; and as soon as the boy was old enough to be out of the nurse's hands, Turbo began to win a surprising influence over him. So great was the affection that grew up between the ill-assorted pair, that when the king died it was found that Turbo was named guardian in the will, and it was from this post that he had been elevated to the chancellorship as soon as the boy came of age.
With such a pricking memory in her mind it is not to be wondered at that the poor Queen sat looking long into the fire before she spoke; especially as all her own, and, what was more, all her son's happiness seemed to hang on the result of the interview.
"Do you mean to thwart me again, Chancellor?" she said at last abruptly.
"I trust I have never willingly thwarted your majesty in anything," he answered.
"Nay, I cry a truce on courtly fictions," said the Queen, a little impatiently. "Let us be frank for once."
"As your majesty pleases," answered the Chancellor, without the least unbending.
"To-morrow the Marquis de Tricotrin will arrive with his daughter. You know?" began the unhappy Queen.
"I have heard so unofficially."
"And you know why she is coming?"
"I have permitted myself to hazard a guess."
"Then what do you mean to do?"
"Like your majesty, my duty, modified by circumstances."
"What do you mean?"
"Merely that as heretofore I shall advise his majesty on the whole circumstances of the case, if and when I am consulted."
"Chancellor," cried the Queen impatiently, "I have urged you to be frank. To what end is all this? I have come a long way to you, will you not make one step to meet me? Well," she continued, as the Chancellor made no reply, "I at least can be open. I ask you, do you mean to make my son refuse again?"
"Really your majesty flatters me. The King will use his own discretion."
"No, he will use yours. Do you think I do not know why it is that girl after girl has come hither in vain. In every way they were fitted to be his queen, and he refused even to be kind to one. It was you that made him do it. He gives not a thought to me. It is you that are all in all to him. His whole soul is but a little bit of yours. You have absorbed him, you have taken him all from me."
"I assure your majesty," said the Chancellor imperturbably, "we do not ever discuss the subject together. It is entirely his own inclination that guides him."
"You say that," said the Queen, with increasing agitation. "You say that, and if it is true it is worse than I thought. You have