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Title: The King's Messenger
Author: F. Marion Crawford
Illustrator: Frank Snapp
Release date: April 21, 2025 [eBook #75905]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: International Magazine Company, 1907
Credits: Roger Frank
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KING'S MESSENGER ***
THE KING’S MESSENGER
By F. Marion Crawford
Illustrated By Frank Snapp
It was a rather dim daylight dinner. I remember that quite distinctly,
for I could see the glow of the sunset over the trees in the park,
through the high window at the west end of the dining-room. I had
expected to find a larger party, I believe, for I recollect being a
little surprised at seeing only a dozen people assembled at table. It
seemed to me that in old times, ever so long ago, when I had last stayed
in that house, there had been as many as thirty or forty guests. I
recognized some of them among a number of beautiful portraits that hung
on the walls. There was room for a great many because there was only one
huge window, at one end, and one large door at the other. I was very
much surprised, too, to see a portrait of myself, evidently painted
about twenty years ago by Lenbach. It seemed very strange that I should
have so completely forgotten the picture, and that I should not be able
to remember having sat for it. We were good friends, it is true, and he
might have painted it from memory, without my knowledge, but it was
certainly strange that he should never have told me about it. The
portraits that hung in the dining-room were all very good indeed and
all, I should say, by the best painters of that time.
My left-hand neighbor was a lovely young girl whose name I had
forgotten, though I had known her long, and I fancied that she looked a
little disappointed when she saw that I was beside her. On my right
there was a vacant seat, and beyond it sat an elderly woman with
features as hard as the overwhelmingly splendid diamonds she wore. Her
eyes made me think of gray glass marbles cemented into a stone mask. It
was odd that her name should have escaped me, too, for I had often met
her.
The table looked irregular, and I counted the guests mechanically while
I ate my soup. We were only twelve, but the empty chair beside me was
the thirteenth place.
I suppose it was not very tactful of me to mention this, but I wanted to
say something to the beautiful girl on my left, and no other subject for
a general remark suggested itself. Just as I was going to speak I
remembered who she was.
“Miss Lorna,” I said, to attract her attention, for she was looking away
from me toward the door, “I hope you are not superstitious about there
being thirteen at table, are you?”
“We are only twelve,” she said, in the sweetest voice in the world.
“Yes; but some one else is coming. There’s an empty chair here beside
me.”
“Oh, he doesn’t count,” said Miss Lorna quietly. “At least, not for
everybody. When did you get here? Just in time for dinner, I suppose.”
“Yes,” I answered. “I’m in luck to be beside you. It seems an age since
we were last here together.”
“It does indeed!” Miss Lorna sighed and looked at the pictures on the
opposite wall. “I’ve lived a lifetime since I saw you last.”
I smiled at the exaggeration. “When you are thirty, you won’t talk of
having your life behind you,” I said.
“I shall never be thirty,” Miss Lorna answered, with such an odd little
air of conviction that I did not think of anything to say. “Besides,
life isn’t made up of years or months or hours, or of anything that has
to do with time,” she continued. “You ought to know that. Our bodies are
something better than mere clocks, wound up to show just how old we are
at every moment, by our hair turning gray and our teeth falling out and
our faces getting wrinkled and yellow, or puffy and red! Look at your
own portrait over there. I don’t mind saying that you must have been
twenty years younger when that was painted, but I’m sure you are just
the same man to-day--improved by age, perhaps.”
I heard a sweet little echoing laugh that seemed very far away; and
indeed I could not have sworn that it rippled from Miss Lorna’s
beautiful lips, for though they were parted and smiling my impression is
that they did not move, even as little as most women’s lips are moved by
laughter.
“Thank you for thinking me improved,” I said. “I find you a little
changed, too. I was just going to say that you seem sadder, but you
laughed just then.”
“Did I? I suppose that’s the right thing to do when the play is over,
isn’t it?”
“If it has been an amusing play,” I answered, humoring her.
The wonderful violet eyes turned to me, full of light. “It’s not been a
bad play. I don’t complain.”
“Why do you speak of it as over?”
“I’ll tell you, because I’m sure you will keep my secret. You will,
won’t you? We were always such good friends, you and I, even two years
ago when I was young and silly. Will you promise not to tell anyone till
I’m gone?”
“Gone?”
“Yes. Will you promise?”
“Of course I will. But----” I did not finish the sentence, because Miss
Lorna bent nearer to me, so as to speak in a much lower tone. While I
listened, I felt her sweet young breath on my cheek.
“I’m going away to-night with the man who is to sit at your other side,”
she said. “He’s a little late--he often is, for he is tremendously busy;
but he’ll come presently, and after dinner we shall just stroll out into
the garden and never come back. That’s my secret. You won’t betray me,
will you?”
Again, as she looked at me, I heard that far-off silver laugh, sweet and
low. I was almost too much surprised by what she had told me to notice
how still her parted lips were, but that comes back to me now, with many
other details.
“My dear Miss Lorna,” I said, “do think of your parents before taking
such a step!”
“I have thought of them,” she answered. “Of course they would never
consent, and I am very sorry to leave them, but it can’t be helped.”
At this moment, as often happens when two people are talking in low
tones at a large dinner-table, there was a momentary lull in the general
conversation, and I was spared the trouble of making any further answer
to what Miss Lorna had told me so unexpectedly, and with such profound
confidence in my discretion.
To tell the truth, she would very probably not have listened, whether my
words expressed sympathy or protest, for she had turned suddenly pale,
and her eyes were wide and dark. The lull in the talk at table was due
to the appearance of the man who was to occupy the vacant place beside
me.
He had entered the room very quietly, and he made no elaborate apology
for being late, as he sat down, bending his head courteously to our
hostess and her husband, and smiling in a gentle sort of way as he
nodded to the others.
“Please forgive me,” he said quietly. “I was detained by a funeral and
missed the train.”
It was not until he had taken his place that he looked across me at Miss
Lorna and exchanged a glance of recognition with her. I noticed that the
lady with the hard face and the splendid diamonds, who was at his other
side, drew away from him a little, as if not wishing even to let his
sleeve brush against her bare arm. It occurred to me at the same time
that Miss Lorna must be wishing me anywhere else than between her and
the man with whom she was just about to run away, and I wished for their
sake and mine that I could change places with him.
He was certainly not like other men, and though few people would have
called him handsome there was something about him that instantly fixed
the attention; rarely beautiful though Miss Lorna was, almost everyone
would have noticed him first on entering the room, and most people, I
think, would have been more interested by his face than by hers. I could
well imagine that some women might love him, even to distraction, though
it was just as easy to understand that others might be strongly repelled
by him, and might even fear him.
For my part, I shall not try to describe him as one describes an
ordinary man, with a dozen or so adjectives that leave nothing to the
imagination but yet offer it no picture that it can grasp. My instinct
was to fear him rather than think of him as a possible friend, but I
could not help feeling instant admiration for him, as one does at first
sight for anything that is very complete, harmonious, and strong. He was
dark, and pale with a shadowy pallor I never saw in any other face; the
features of thrice-great Hermes were not modeled in more perfect
symmetry; his luminous eyes were not unkind, but there was something
fateful in them, and they were set very deep under the grand white brow.
His age I could not guess, but I should have called him young; standing,
I had seen that he was tall and sinewy, and now that he was seated, he
had the unmistakable look of a man accustomed to be in authority, to be
heard and to be obeyed. His hands were white, his fingers straight,
lean, and very strong.
Everyone at the table seemed to know him, but as often happens among
civilized people, no one called him by name in speaking to him.
“We were beginning to be afraid that you might not get here,” said our
host.
“Really?” The Thirteenth Guest smiled quietly, but shook his head. “Did
you ever know me to break an engagement, under any circumstances?”
The master of the house laughed, though not very cordially, I thought.
“No,” he answered. “Your reputation for keeping your appointments is
proverbial. Even your enemies must admit that.”
The Guest nodded and smiled again. Miss Lorna bent toward me.
“What do you think of him?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
“Very striking sort of man,” I answered, in a low tone. “But I’m
inclined to be a little afraid of him.”
“So was I, at first,” she said, and I heard the silver laugh again. “But
that soon wears off,” she went on. “You’ll know him better some day!”
“Shall I?”
“Yes; I’m quite sure you will. Oh, I don’t pretend that I fell in love
with him at first sight! I went through a phase of feeling afraid of
him, as almost everyone does. You see, when people first meet him they
cannot possibly know how kind and gentle he can be, though he is so
tremendously strong. I’ve heard him called cruel and ruthless and cold,
but it’s not true. Indeed it’s not! He can be as gentle as a woman, and
he’s the truest friend in all the world.”
I was going to ask her to tell me his name, but just then I saw that she
was looking at him, across me, and I sat as far back in my chair as I
could, so that they might speak to each other if they wished to. Their
eyes met, and there was a longing light in both--I could not help
glancing from one to the other--and Miss Lorna’s sweet lips moved almost
imperceptibly, though no sound came from them. I have seen young lovers
make that small sign to each other even across a room, the signal of a
kiss given and returned in the heart’s thoughts.
If she had been less beautiful and young, if the man she loved had not
been so magnificently manly, it would have irritated me; but it seemed
natural that they should love and not be ashamed of it, and I only hoped
that no one else at the table had noticed the tenderly quivering little
contraction of the young girl’s exquisite mouth.
“You remembered,” said the man quietly. “I got your message this
morning. Thank you.”
“I hope it’s not going to be very hard,” murmured Miss Lorna, smiling.
“Not that it would make any great difference if it were,” she added more
thoughtfully.
“It’s the easiest thing in life,” he said, “and I promise that you shall
never regret it.”
“I trust you,” the young girl answered simply.
Then she turned away, for she no doubt felt the awkwardness of talking
to him across me of a secret which she had confided to me without
letting him know that she had done so. Instinctively I turned to him,
feeling that the moment had come for disregarding formality and making
his acquaintance, since we were neighbors at table in a friend’s house
and I had known Miss Lorna so long. Besides, it is always interesting to
talk with a man who is just going to do something very dangerous or
dramatic and who does not guess that you know what he is about.
“I suppose you motored here from town, as you said you missed the
train,” I said. “It’s a good road, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I literally flew,” replied the dark man, with his gentle smile. “I
hope you’re not superstitious about thirteen at table?”
“Not in the least,” I answered. “In the first place, I’m a fatalist
about everything that doesn’t depend on my own free will. As I have not
the slightest intention of doing anything to shorten my life, it will
certainly not come to an abrupt end by any autosuggestion arising from a
silly superstition like that about thirteen.”
“Autosuggestion? That’s rather a new light on the old belief.”
“And secondly,” I continued, “I don’t believe in death. There is no such
thing.”
“Really?” My neighbor seemed greatly surprised. “How do you mean?” he
asked. “I don’t think I understand you.”
“I’m sure _I_ don’t,” put in Miss Lorna, and the silver laugh followed.
She had overheard the conversation, and some of the others were
listening, too.
“You don’t kill a book by translating it,” I said, rather glad to
expound my views. “Death is only a translation of life into another
language. That’s what I mean.”
“That’s a most interesting point of view,” observed the Thirteenth Guest
thoughtfully. “I never thought of the matter in that way before, though
I’ve often seen the expression ‘translated’ in epitaphs. Are you sure
that you are not indulging in a little paronomasia?”
“What’s that?” inquired the hard-faced lady, with all the contempt which
a scholarly word deserves in polite society.
“It means punning,” I answered. “No, I am not making a pun. Grave
subjects do not lend themselves to low forms of humor. I assure you, I
am quite in earnest. Death, in the ordinary sense, is not a real
phenomenon at all, so long as there is any life in the universe. It’s a
name we apply to a change we only partly understand.”
“Learned discussions are an awful bore,” said the hard-faced lady very
audibly.
“I don’t advise you to argue the question too sharply with your neighbor
there,” laughed the master of the house, leaning forward and speaking to
me. “He’ll get the better of you! He’s an expert at what you call
‘translating people into another language.’”
If the man beside me was a famous surgeon, as our host perhaps meant, it
seemed to me that the remark was not in very good taste. He looked more
like a soldier.
“Does our friend mean that you are in the army, and that you are a
dangerous person?” I asked of him.
“No,” he answered quietly. “I’m only a King’s Messenger, and in my own
opinion I’m not at all dangerous.”
“It must be rather an active life,” I said, in order to say something;
“constantly coming and going, I suppose?”
“Yes, constantly.”
I felt that Miss Lorna was watching and listening, and I turned to her,
only to find that she was again looking beyond me, at my neighbor,
though he did not see her. I remember her face very distinctly as it was
just then; the recollection is, in fact, the last impression I retain of
her matchless beauty, for I never saw her after that evening.
It is something to have seen one of the most beautiful women in the
world gazing at the man who was more to her than life and all it held;
it is something I cannot forget. But he did not return her look just
then, for he had joined in the general conversation, and very soon
afterward he practically absorbed it.
He talked well; more than well, marvelously; for before long even the
lady with the hard face was listening spellbound, with the rest of us,
to his stories of nations and tales of men, brilliant descriptions,
anecdotes of heroism and tenderness that were each a perfect coin from
the mint of humanity, with dashes of daring wit, glimpses of a profound
insight into the great mystery of the beyond, and now and then a manly
comment on life that came straight from the heart: never, in all my long
experience, have I heard poet, or scholar, or soldier, or ruler of men
talk as he did that evening. And as I listened I was more and more
amazed that such a man should be but a simple King’s Messenger, as he
said he was, earning a poor gentleman’s living by carrying his majesty’s
despatches from London to the ends of the earth, and I made some sad and
sober inward reflections on the vast difference between the gift of
talking supremely well and the genius a man must have to accomplish even
one little thing that may endure in history, in literature, or in art.
“Do you wonder that I love him?” whispered Miss Lorna.
Even in the whisper I heard the glorious pride of the woman who loves
altogether and wholly believes that there is no one like her chosen man.
“No,” I answered, “for it is no wonder. I only hope----” I stopped,
feeling that it would be foolish and unkind to express the doubt I felt.
“You hope that I may not be disappointed,” said Miss Lorna, still almost
in a whisper. “That was what you were going to say, I’m sure.”
I nodded, in spite of myself, and met her eyes; they were full of a
wonderful light.
“No one was ever disappointed in him,” she murmured--“no living being,
neither man, nor woman, nor child. With him I shall have peace and love
without end.”
“Without end?”
“Yes. Forever and ever!”
After dinner we scattered through the great rooms in the soft evening
light of mid-June, and by and by I was standing at an open window, with
the mistress of the house, looking out across the garden.
In the distance, Lorna was walking slowly away down the broad avenue
with a tall man; and while they were still in sight, though far away, I
am sure that I saw his arm steal round her as if he were drawing her on,
and her head bent lovingly to his shoulder; and so they glided away into
the twilight and disappeared.
Then at last I turned to my hostess. “Do you mind telling me the name of
that man who came in late and talked so well?” I asked. “You all seemed
to know him like an old friend.”
She looked at me in profound surprise. “Do you mean to say that you do
not know who he is?” she asked.
“No. I never met him before. He is a most extraordinary man to be only a
King’s Messenger.”
“He is indeed the King’s Messenger, my dear friend. His name is Death.”
* * * * *
I dreamed this dream one afternoon last summer, dozing in my chair on
deck, under the double awning, when the _Alda_ was anchored off Goletta,
in sight of Carthage, and the cool north breeze was blowing down the
deep gulf of Tunis. I must have been wakened by some slight sound from a
boat alongside, for when I opened my eyes my man was standing a little
way off, evidently waiting till I should finish my nap. He brought me a
telegram which had just come on board, and I opened it rather drowsily,
not expecting any particular news.
It was from England, from a very dear friend.
Lorna died suddenly last night at Church Hadley.
That was all; the dream had been a message.
“With him I shall have peace and love without end.”
Thank God, I hear those words in her own voice, whenever I think of her.
[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the November 1907 issue
_Cosmopolitan Magazine_]
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