Читать книгу Simon Dale - Anthony Hope - Страница 7

Let not you and I inquire

What has been our past desire,

On what shepherds you have smiled,

Or what nymphs I have beguiled;

Leave it to the planets too

What we shall hereafter do;

For the joys we now may prove,

Take advice of present love.

Nay, I will not set my name to that in its fulness; Mr. Waller is a little too free for one who has been nicknamed a Puritan to follow him to the end. Yet there is a truth in it. Deny it, if you will. You are smiling, madame, while you deny.

It was a golden summer's evening when I, to whom the golden world was all a hell, came by tryst to the park of Quinton Manor, there to bid Cydaria farewell. Mother and sisters had looked askance at me, the village gossiped, even the Vicar shook a kindly head. What cared I? By Heaven, why was one man a nobleman and rich, while another had no money in his purse and but one change to his back? Was not love all in all, and why did Cydaria laugh at a truth so manifest? There she was under the beech tree, with her sweet face screwed up to a burlesque of grief, her little hand lying on her hard heart as though it beat for me, and her eyes the playground of a thousand quick expressions. I strode up to her, and caught her by the hand, saying no more than just her name, "Cydaria." It seemed that there was no more to say; yet she cried, laughing and reproachful, "Have you no vows for me? Must I go without my tribute?"

I loosed her hand and stood away from her. On my soul, I could not speak. I was tongue-tied, dumb as a dog.

"When you come courting in London," she said, "you must not come so empty of lover's baggage. There ladies ask vows, and protestations, and despair, ay, and poetry, and rhapsodies, and I know not what."

"Of all these I have nothing but despair," said I.

"Then you make a sad lover," she pouted. "And I am glad to be going where lovers are less woebegone."

"You look for lovers in London?" I cried, I that had cried to Barbara—well, I have said my say on that.

"If Heaven send them," answered Cydaria.

"And you will forget me?"

"In truth, yes, unless you come yourself to remind me. I have no head for absent lovers."

"But if I come——" I began in a sudden flush of hope.

She did not (though it was her custom) answer in raillery; she plucked a leaf from the tree, and tore it with her fingers as she answered with a curious glance.

"Why, if you come, I think you'll wish that you had not come, unless, indeed, you've forgotten me before you come."

"Forget you! Never while I live! May I come, Cydaria?"

"Most certainly, sir, so soon as your wardrobe and your purse allow. Nay, don't be huffed. Come, Simon, sweet Simon, are we not friends, and may not friends rally one another? No, and if I choose, I will put my hand through your arm. Indeed, sir, you're the first gentleman that ever thrust it away. See, it is there now! Doesn't it look well there, Simon—and feel well there, Simon?" She looked up into my face in coaxing apology for the hurt she had given me, and yet still with mockery of my tragic airs. "Yes, you must by all means come to London," she went on, patting my arm. "Is not Mistress Barbara in London? And I think—am I wrong, Simon?—that there is something for which you will want to ask her pardon."

"If I come to London, it is for you and you only that I shall come," I cried.

"No, no. You will come to love where the King loves, to know what he hides, and to drink of his cup. I, sir, cannot interfere with your great destiny"; she drew away from me, curtseyed low, and stood opposite to me, smiling.

"For you and for you only," I repeated.

"Then will the King love me?" she asked.

"God forbid," said I fervently.

"Oh, and why, pray, your 'God forbid'? You're very ready with your 'God forbids.' Am I then to take your love sooner than the King's, Master Simon?"

"Mine is an honest love," said I soberly.

"Oh, I should doat on the country, if everybody didn't talk of his honesty there! I have seen the King in London and he is a fine gentleman."

"And you have seen the Queen also, may be?"

"In truth, yes. Ah, I have shocked you, Simon? Well, I was wrong. Come, we're in the country; we'll be good. But when we've made a townsman of you, we'll—we will be what they are in town. Moreover, in ten minutes I am going home, and it would be hard if I also left you in anger. You shall have a pleasanter memory of my going than Mistress Barbara's gave you."

"How shall I find you when I come to town?"

"Why, if you will ask any gentleman you meet whether he chances to remember Cydaria, you will find me as soon as it is well you should."

I prayed her to tell me more; but she was resolved to tell no more.

"See, it is late. I go," said she. Then suddenly she came near to me. "Poor Simon," she said softly. "Yet it is good for you, Simon. Some day you will be amused at this, Simon"; she spoke as though she were fifty years older than I. My answer lay not in words or arguments. I caught her in my arms and kissed her. She struggled, yet she laughed. It shot through my mind then that Barbara would neither have struggled nor laughed. But Cydaria laughed.

Presently I let her go, and kneeling on my knee kissed her hand very humbly, as though she had been what Barbara was. If she were not—and I knew not what she was—yet should my love exalt her and make a throne whereon she might sit a Queen. My new posture brought a sudden gravity to her face, and she bent over me with a smile that seemed now tender and almost sorrowful.

"Poor Simon, poor Simon," she whispered. "Kiss my hand now; kiss it as though I were fit for worship. It will do you no harm, and—and perhaps—perhaps I shall like to remember it." She bent down and kissed my forehead as I knelt before her. "Poor Simon," she whispered, as her hair brushed mine. Then her hand was gradually and gently withdrawn. I looked up to see her face; her lips were smiling but there seemed a dew on her lashes. She laughed, and the laugh ended in a little gasp, as though a sob had fought with it. And she cried out loud, her voice ringing clear among the trees in the still evening air.

"That ever I should be so sore a fool!"

Then she turned and left me, running swiftly over the grass, with never a look behind her. I watched till she was out of sight, and then sat down on the ground; with twitching lips and wide-open dreary eyes.

Ah, for youth's happiness! Alas for its dismal woe! Thus she came into my life.