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The King's Men; A Tale of To-morrow, a novel by Robert Grant |
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Chapter 21. Nulla Vestigia Retrorsum |
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_ CHAPTER XXI. NULLA VESTIGIA RETRORSUM So they were married, and the alliance between simple hearts and Norman blood was complete. It came to pass before many months that the millionaire, pleased, it may be, to find his homely patronymic transmitted to his grand-child, bought back Ripon House from the mortgagees and gave it to his son-in-law. Mr. Windsor knew it was the secret desire of his daughter that Geoffrey should return to England and devote himself to aiding his countrymen in their struggle for liberty. But Geoffrey was too content with his own happiness and too appalled by the confusion which still overspread his native land to evince much enthusiasm in this regard. "Wait a little, Maggie," he said, and Maggie was shrewd enough to understand that this was the better way to attain her purpose. She remembered how her husband had broken his sword and renounced fealty to the perjured King. Give Geoffrey time, and he would work out his own salvation. But while individuals wedded and were happy and begat children, and while patient women tarried for God's word to awaken in their lovers' hearts, the great world, which is never happy and which never waits, rolled on remorselessly. England still knew perilous days, but the hope of better things to come glimmered through the mists of evil rule. The bulwark of the nation's safety in that hazardous time, as history well knows, was Richard Lincoln; and though we who have faith that God is ever working for man's good, know that human nature must in the end evolve into higher grades of truth and power, and that even the sublimest soul is but a cipher in the eternal scale; yet England had need of a rare spirit in that time of her sore distress to save her from the rocks of revolution and anarchy. She found this in Richard Lincoln, whose name will be ever famous in the gratitude of his countrymen. In strange contrast to the career of which we have just been speaking stands out the final pageant of the once splendid court of Britain. George the Fifth died, leaving no son to inherit his foibles and his title. The House of Hanover was shorn of male heirs in the nick of time, for it is doubtful if the populace would have permitted exiled royalty to indulge in the mimicry of another dynasty. But for the purposes of our story the King is still alive, since his death took place, as many of us know, in his eightieth year. There were but few of those whose vicissitudes we have followed able to tell the tale when the last Hanoverian, tenacious of vital breath as he had been of everything else, descended to his fathers. _Le roi est mort_, but the old world cry, "Long live the king," is silent forever. Perhaps one of the keenest strokes at the self-esteem of the unfortunate monarch was the matrimonial apostasy of his daughter. The Princess Henrietta, contrary to the long-cherished traditions of her race, wedded in her thirteenth year a commoner, as it was described at court. She became the wife of L. Pierson Dana, a prominent dealer in hides and leather, and a man of culture and standing in the community. King George, with a senile confusing of terms, always insisted on speaking of the marriage as morganatic. Concerning those who composed his court little remains to be said. The Duke of Bayswater was joined by his wife shortly after his escape to America. They never returned to their native country, but lived very exclusively in apartments near to the royal suite. Colonel Featherstone, lured by hopes of fortune, organized a successful corner in lard, and invested the proceeds in a vineyard in California. The famous blue seal dry Hanover, which is even to-day regarded by connoisseurs as a grand _vin_, is a monument to his reverence for royalty as well as to his talent as a vine-dresser. One day in late November, when little Abraham was about five years old, signs of great activity were noticeable about Ripon House. For a week past the environs had been rife with rumors concerning the return of Geoffrey to the house of his ancestors and the wealth which had accrued to him through his marriage with the daughter of the rich American who had once rented the manor-house. London mechanics had been repairing and furnishing the old-fashioned pile, striving withal to retain the flavor of antiquity which hung about its towers. There had been employment, too, for the artisans of the neighborhood, and even to-day, when the guests were to arrive before sunset, a bevy of the people were running hither and thither at the bidding of an old man with white hair and bent figure. He was evidently merely an upper servant, but the expression of his face betokened one whose joy and sorrow are an echo of his master's fortune. A few hours later a carriage drew up before the threshold. A young man leaped to the ground and grasped with both of his the hand of the aged servitor. "How are you, Reynolds?" "God bless you, Mr. Ripon; God bless you." "And here is my wife, Reynolds. You remember her." The old man doffed his hat with a respectful formality. It was still a little against his grain to see an American his master's bride. "Welcome to Ripon House." Maggie shook him by the hand, and her father's bantering voice now startled his dignified mood. "So this is where you have been hiding all these years, Reynolds? You look like the wandering Arab, with your gray beard!" Mr. Windsor doubtless referred to the Wandering Jew, but he was no scholar, as he would himself have been the first to acknowledge. All laughed at the mistake, and none louder than the fourth member of the party, a tall, middle-aged man, with a noble but genial countenance. It was Richard Lincoln, to whom time had been generous during the six years which had flown since he was last at Ripon House. Despite the cares which had weighed upon his spirit, his brow was scarcely furrowed. He had come to be Geoffrey's guest for a few days and enjoy the tranquillity of the country. There were business matters also to be talked over with his friend, for Geoffrey had promised to take an active part in the public service of the country. The friends sat long that evening around the dinner-table. There was much pleasant talk, but every face wore a thoughtful look. The intervening time since last they had gathered here was too full of incident to be passed over lightly. Recollection stood beside the hearth, and yet with a finger on the lips, as though loath to jar the atmosphere of revery with a word. And yet there were references made to the past. Lincoln asked what had become of that strange man Jawkins. But no one knew further than that he had fled with the splendid beauty. "Is that woman's husband still living?" inquired Maggie. All shook their heads in doubt. "And dear old Sydney, do you know anything of him, Richard?" said Ripon. "Yes. Only a few weeks since he married an attractive little widow with a snug property. I had him pardoned, you may remember, among my first acts as Prime Minister. Prison life seemed to have agreed with him. He had lost his dyspeptic air." "That old scoundrel Bugbee had a curious end," observed Mr. Windsor. "To think of being bitten to death by a tarantula. Ugh! It seems he used to keep spiders under glass in his apartments, and this was one that escaped. And what an enormous fortune he left!" So the conversation proceeded, and by and by they all adjourned to the library, where a wood-fire lighted up the huge fireplace. Richard Lincoln seated himself in a deep arm-chair beside the hearth, and rather avoiding talk gazed at the sizzling logs. His own thoughts sufficed him. Maggie, whose seat was next to his, watched his expression, where a shade of sadness lingered when his attention was not engrossed by others. At a moment that Geoffrey and her father were out of the room she leaned forward and said: "Where is she buried?" "They sleep side by side," was the quiet response. "Their love to-day laughs alike at peasant and at noble. I try to think of it as a symbol of what is to be," he continued. "Theirs is the first alliance in that reconciliation between the few and the many on which the hopes of posterity depend." [THE END] _ |
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