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Based on a painting by Eduard Burne Jones, 1883
Roy Glashan's Library
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Based on a painting by Eduard Burne Jones, 1883
King Cophetua is a legendary figure from a 16th-century English ballad known as The King and the Beggar-maid. He's famously remembered as an African king who had no interest in women—until he saw a beggar named Penelophon and fell instantly in love. The original ballad has been appended to this story.
"YOU have been so agreeable all through dinner, that I feel it is my duty to warn you that I am the governess."
Lawton Evans went on eating preserved ginger. His calm was proof against surprises.
"Thanks for the warning," he said imperturbably. "As I'm by way of being rather low myself—a journalist—I cannot afford to run risks. Although I suspected you from the first. You're too decorative for this galère."
Miss Chloris Ireland shrugged her shoulders expressively, as her greeny-grey eyes roved round the dinner-table.
"Prehistoric, aren't they?" she commented.
"Worse. These wear clothes."
There was some truth in Lawton Evans's criticism, for with one exception, the women at the table did not understand the subtle art of dress. The exception, however, did much to make amends. She was the eldest daughter of the host—a fair girl, in a gown of couleur-de-rose.
Evans pointed it out to his companion.
"Pretty dress Miss Wells is wearing! Pretty girl, too!"
"Excuse me! It is a lovely gown, and Miss Wells is certainly not wearing it."
The acid quality in Miss Ireland's voice caused Evans to study her anew, furtively through his monocle. Not much escaped his three eyes.
The young woman certainly did not look the traditional down-trodden instructor of youth. Her red hair was a triumph of coiffure, and her dress was something black and French, with a hint in its cut of having started life as a "création."
With an effort, she drew her eyes away from the radiant face of Eleanor Wells.
"I can't realise it," she said. "This is my very last night among the fleshpots of Egypt. They do feed you well, don't they? I have received a Decoration—the Order of the Sack. To-morrow I leave the house of bondage!"
"Really! What hard lines!"
"Don't pity me! Perhaps—when I go —I may spoil the Egyptians."
Again Evans followed the direction of her involuntary glance, and a smile played round his mouth.
Seated by the pink-robed girl was a lean man, with haggard cheeks and dark, hollow eyes. Even at that moment, although he was apparently listening to the chatter of the daughter of the house of Wells, he stared intensely at the Wells's governess.
Again Evans chuckled.
"Fancy meeting old Pemberton here! Odd chap that. Used to know him pretty well at one time. His name at college was King Cophetua. After Jones's picture, you know. One in the Tate. I always call him Jones on principle, because I'm touchy on the score of my own name."
Miss Ireland's interest was plainly aroused.
"Why Cophetua?"
"Because he's the sort that marries beggar-maids. He was always giving up his seat to shabby women—carrying their parcels and so on. No matter how pretty or charming a girl was, if she wasn't downtrodden or tattered, she was doomed as far as he was concerned. It used to worry his people no end—he had the complaint so badly."
Chloris Ireland laughed rather bitterly.
"Well, you can reassure them on that point. Mr. Pemberton is plainly on the road to recovery. Even now he can sit up and take nourishment. Haven't you noticed his whole-hearted devotion to Miss Wells? The gilded Miss Wells! If I lived in the days of Jane Eyre I should describe her as 'my master's daughter.'"
Then, obedient to the glare of Mrs. Wells's small, fierce eye, her graceful figure glided out of the room meekly at the tail of opulent dames.
On the threshold, she dropped her handkerchief, and Evans noticed that Pemberton made a leap worthy of a Japanese athlete, in his eagerness to restore it.
The journalist leaned back and chuckled again.
"Spoil the Egyptians? The minx! It's dangerous to trample on red-haired girls. O mighty House of Wells, beware!"
His opportunities for enjoying the comedy were curtailed, however, for, upon his reappearance in the drawing-room, later on, he was at once pounced on by his hostess—a portly lady with a wealth of chins that spoke of more than her fair share of dinners.
"Oh, Mr. Evans, will you make a fourth at bridge? I've had to put in Miss Ireland, and, naturally, people object to playing with the governess."
Pemberton, who was standing near, overheard the words, and Evans noticed the angry frown that settled on his brow.
Regardless of the fact that Eleanor Wells was pacing the orangery alone—to advertise her wish for company—he turned impulsively to the gorgeous drudge.
"What are you going to do? I know you've always a score of things on hand. Let me help you."
Mrs. Wells looked up quickly. Pemberton had been accepted, from the first, into the bosom of Mammon.
"Eleanor tells me that you made her promise to go for a row on the lake this evening," she reminded him. "Don't keep her out after the mist rises!"
As Pemberton nodded, Chloris Ireland glanced at him, and then lowered her eyes. But not before the man had seen her eyes. To his horror, they were brimming with startled dismay.
"I won't keep you," she said abruptly. "I have to pack. I'm leaving to-morrow."
"What, going?"
The look of consternation on Pemberton's face was chased away by a glimmer of relief.
"Yes, discharged. For being inefficient and too ornamental. Mrs. Wells discovered me manicuring my nails during the French lesson. Well, she ought to know how little time I have for my toilet! Besides, she got me dirt-cheap, so she shouldn't complain if cheese-paring led to nail-paring."
"It's a scandalous shame! Why are women such slave-drivers to their own sex? Well, I should really think you will be glad to go, and leave this constant work and humiliation."
In his heat, Pemberton had basely forgotten the pink-robed girl, and her relation to the house of bondage.
"At least I've had one champion," she said. "I have received nothing but kindness and courtesy from you. You are very different to most of the men here."
Pemberton knew he was, and accepted the tribute with self-satisfied virtue.
"Well, to-morrow I shall sail away," went on the girl, "and you will be only a ship that passed in the night. That thought makes me bold enough to ask you to do me—a last favour."
"Certainly. What is it?"
Miss Ireland looked away.
"Will you"—she stammered—"will you promise me—not to take Miss Wells on the lake to-night?"
Pemberton felt suddenly chilled. He did not like the turn things had taken at all.
"It's a—a startling request, Miss Ireland. I—I fail altogether to understand it. But, of course, it's granted."
There was no more wretched man than Pemberton when the last black cobweb of Chloris Ireland's gown had foamed out of the room. He could no longer blind himself to the unpleasant truth. He had made the governess fond of him!
He bitterly blamed himself for the disaster. Early in life he had cultivated principles, because he thought principles came cheap. But when one pays nothing for them, they in turn don't pay. Pemberton had a glimmering of this truth when he concentrated his affections on the pretty, wealthy Eleanor Wells. From the first, therefore, although deeply conscious of the fascination of the dependant, he had merely treated her with unvarying courtesy.
"Poor little woman!" he muttered under his breath, as he went in the direction of the orangery.
Eleanor, standing under a cluster of the bridal-blossoms, welcomed him eagerly.
"At last! It's true the lake won't run away, but you're lucky to find me still waiting. But—how gloomy you seem!"
"Do I?" Pemberton's face grew darker as he looked at her fair, opulent beauty. "I was just thinking how rough it is that things should be so uneven. Why should some women be wrapped in cotton-wool, like peaches, while others—equally delightful—have to work like men?"
Eleanor's face grew shrewd.
"They don't. Not like men. Men are straight. Women work in a different way—and often an underground one. Take our gorgeous governess, now—she of the Fine Arts and Crafts Department! She spies on me."
"Nonsense!"
Eleanor was surprised at the lukewarm dissent. She had expected an outburst of masculine anger.
"She does!" she repeated. "I know you'll hate me for saying it. I admit I'm a bloated plutocrat, gorging on the sweated labour of the Chloris Irelands. But whenever we're together, you and I—why does she always make some excuse to interrupt us?"
Pemberton pulled at his collar in an agony. Eleanor was brutally voicing his own vague suspicions.
"When we were out in the grounds, last week, didn't she suddenly appear from nowhere, with umbrellas and Burberrys, on the pretext of a shower? When I was sitting.in the arbour with you, last night, didn't she come out with a trumped-up message, asking me to return to the mater? I'm not blind, if you are! She's simply haunted us. And I ask you—why?"
Under the anger in her tone, Pemberton rallied his forces.
"If you mean to imply that I've been indulging in a flirtation with Miss Ireland, you're totally mistaken," he said. "I've treated her with mere ordinary politeness. But—come outside. This place is stifling!"
As he passed with his companion into the dewy night, his thoughts gave him a bad time of it. They were as inconsequent and illogical as the traditional contents of a feminine brain-pan. Two different sets of fingers were playing on his heart-strings. The plump, dimpled hands of Eleanor Wells banged out great triumphant chords, while the tapering white fingers of Chloris Ireland picked out a minor melody. And as each played her own theme, their duet was a series of terrible discords.
Pemberton turned to Eleanor as she angrily swished her satin train over the rough path. Temper had deepened her placid charms to an extent that made him correspondingly warm.
"Come and sit down here," he pleaded, pointing lo the dark recesses of a rustic arbour. "We won't go on the lake tonight. It might spoil your pretty dress."
"This old rag?" Eleanor indicated her rosy draperies disdainfully. "I've nearly finished with it."
Her careless words instantly brought up a sharply outlined vision of the governess with her hungry elegance and her countless shifts. Pemberton again had a guilty feeling of the injustice of the "Scheme of Things Entire."
As he lit a cigarette, he told himself that, by arithmetical logic, he must come to a decision. Two women and one man. And two into one won't go.
"Still angry?" he asked, as Eleanor preserved a stiff silence.
"Not at all. I merely wish you to understand, once for all, I will not enter the lists with our governess."
"Poor girl! It's hardly fair to drag her name into it."
"I repeat, you must choose between the pleasure of her society or mine."
"Have I not chosen? Am I not here?"
Pemberton's voice was low, as he spoke with the concentrated heat of passion.
Eleanor's answer was to give a cry of alarm.
Perhaps she was clad in dangerously inflammable material; or perhaps—more likely—Pemberton had thrown away a smouldering match. But certain it was that, as she screamed, the red point of a flame flickered over her shoulders.
Pemberton stared—stunned into momentary inaction. Before he could realise that the girl's chiffon scarf was on fire, a dark figure dashed from the screen of a shrub.
The flimsy thing was whipped away in the blink of a lash, and flung far off, in a flaming mass, on the dewy lawn. A few fiery red blossoms instantly shot forth in the blackness of the dress of the rescuer, but she pinched them out with the same feverish haste. Then she turned her face to Eleanor.
It was the governess.
"Tell me—are you untouched?"
Her voice was tense with anxiety.
"Thanks to you, yes. How quick you were! Awfully decent of you!"
There was a good deal of feeling underneath the commonplace words. Eleanor was plainly moved by the incident.
"As a matter of fact, I merely noticed it first," said the governess. "Mr. Pemberton must have thrown his match away alight, in his—agitation. I'm glad I happened to be passing."
With a nod, she glided off like a black ghost.
Eleanor turned to Pemberton, who had remained silent.
"Did she hear what we said? I must say, she showed spunk. If I'd waited for you, I might have got burnt—Mr. Slow-Coach. But—what on earth was she doing here?"
"What does that matter?"
Eleanor hardly recognised the broken voice.
"She saved you," continued Pemberton. "Do you realise why?"
"No."
"Because she guessed you were precious to —me!"
Then, with magnificent lack of consideration, Pemberton left the conversation at that palpitating point, and remained speechless on his journey back to the house with the agitated Eleanor.
Lawton Evans met him in the hall. His monocle was aglow with amusement, as he held up whitened fingers for inspection.
"Give you three guesses as to my late occupation! Been rendering First Aid to the G.G.—Gorgeous Governess. We've become great pals. She gave me her life-history over the operation. Pretty woman! Just my sort!"
"Your sort! Miss Ireland? Heaven forbid! Drop her name, this instant! You're not fit to mention it. Neither—more shame me—am I! "
"Why this pang of conscience, Cophetua? What a thing to possess—fatal fascination! So the poor, blameless girl played with fire and got her fingers burnt?"
Pemberton turned away in a white rage. In his exalted state of mind, the chaff appeared to him as the lowest form of insult.
He was drunk with the wonder of his knowledge. This woman Chloris Ireland—loved him. She was young and beautiful, and she loved him. Loved him with a jealousy that, watched and dreaded his intimacy with another woman. Loved him with such intensity that she had broken her pride to beg for a last respite. Loved him with a strength that had stretched out to the woman who was exalted where she was abased.
No wonder his head swam. Trembling with emotion. King Cophetua went in search of his Beggar-Maid.
He met her in the corridor, just as she was passing into her room. Her face looked a white blur in the dim light.
"Good-bye, Mr. Pemberton. Can't stop. Busy packing."
Undeceived by the matter-of-fact voice, Pemberton touched her dress with shaking fingers.
"Were you hurt?" he asked. "Was your dress burnt?"
"This old rag? It's on its last legs."
Almost Eleanor's words. Pemberton was touched by the pathetic pride that urged the airy carelessness.
"Don't go!" he said brokenly. "Do you think I'm a clod? Blind? That I haven't seen all—you—your "
"Seen what? Go on!"
Pemberton hesitated, at a loss for words. In the silence the words of a song floated up from the music-room.
"Oh, 'tis folly—to be afraid of Love!"
Pemberton caught at the inspiration.
"Why should I feel a cad to say it?" he asked. "Why should you be ashamed of it? One is glorified—not cheapened. Chloris, you've made me feel small! I've seen all, I tell you! How you've watched us—waited; and I know—know—there was an object—an unworthy object of your devotion? Answer me! Am I right?"
Chloris Ireland hid her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook.
"Yes," she confessed at last, in a smothered voice.
"Then—Chloris "
Miss Ireland interrupted Pemberton with a gesture.
"No—not a word." Her voice came in uneven gusts. "You're excited, unstrung. So am I! You have forgotten our positions—that Miss Wells is an heiress and that I'm merely the governess. If, by to-morrow, you have anything to say to me, say it to me then. But I won't forget your generous impulse!"
She turned to close the door, but changed her mind.
"Good-bye—King Cophetua!"
Her voice thrilled Pemberton. Then the door slammed, and Evans, passing rounded off the situation with a chuckle.
PEMBERTON, after a restless night, awoke next morning, to the sound of a motor-hoot. The sun had succeeded in slinging a beam between the chinks of the blind, and caught him solidly in the eye. As he sat up, blinking, memory officiously coached him up in the events of yesterday.
It was a staggering programme. At the prosaic hour of 9.15 he was called on to make the great renunciation and to formally offer his hand and heart to the governess.
Scrape. He heard her box jolting down past his door. Even now she must be waiting for him. What was the shortest time in which one could make an adequate toilet?
He debated the point at length, while the clock stared him pointedly in the face. Quite out of countenance, at last, he turned away his face and studied the pattern of the wall-paper.
The hoot of the waiting taxi sounded petulant. It was evidently bolting an early breakfast of fourpences, and was getting indigestion. He told himself the governess could not afford to keep it waiting much longer. Any moment it might start.
Pemberton drew the clothes over his head.
"Hard lines!" he-said. "But I couldn't help being late. Perhaps—best so!"
It was not his fault. He lived in a democratic age, when kings grow rarer every day, while serfdom has ceased as a means of support, and tradesmen sue for payment in the County Courts. Small wonder if Pemberton found the king business too expensive!
As he lay in strained expectancy, a rap came, and the grinning face of Lawton Evans appeared for one minute round the door.
"From Miss Ireland," he panted, shooting a letter on to the bed: "P.P.C., I'm just going to see her off in style."
"Where is she going? Has she another place?" asked Pemberton with guilty anxiety.
"Not she! Going on a holiday spree to Switzerland. Tells me she's a matrimonial campaign in view and hopes to bag a naval chap who's keen on her. He's very susceptible, and she's giddy hopes, as she has a most powerful weapon in her armoury."
Evans's chuckle grew in volume, before, he vanished at the hoot of the taxi.
Pemberton's jaw dropped as he opened the note. His beggar-maid seemed singularly affected by the spirit of the age. It appeared she was going to better herself.
As he read, his face was a study.
Midnight.—As I do not for a moment anticipate meeting you to-morrow, I am. writing this in readiness. This evening you took rather too much for granted, my friend, but I was loath to let you down personally, for, up till then, you had really been so sweet. But, in view of your most probable absence to-morrow, here goes!
A well-dressed woman is a successful one. Poor ones have no chance. And I mean to be successful. That is why, for the past week, I have simply shadowed a certain gown, the reversion of which was promised me, as a 'perk.' It has hardly been out of my sight since. I have brought it safely through damp, dirt, and—fire, and it now lies safely on the top of my trunk. You would know it again, for its colour is couleur-de-rose.
And I—relying on its power—view the future through rose-coloured glasses. "Good-bye—Mister Cophetua!"
I READ that once in Affrica A princely wight did raine, Who had to name Cophetua, As poets they did faine. From natures lawes he did decline, For sure he was not of my minde, He cared not for women-kind But did them all disdaine. But marke what hapned on a day; As he out of his window lay, He saw a beggar all in gray. The which did cause his paine. The blinded boy that shootes so trim From heaven downe did hie, He drew a dart and shot at him, In place where he did lye: Which soone did pierse him to the quicke, And when he felt the arrow pricke, Which in his tender heart did sticke, He looketh as he would dye. What sudden chance is this," quoth he, "That I to love must subject be, Which never thereto would agree, But still did it defie?" Then from the window he did come, And laid him on his bed; A thousand heapes of care did runne Within his troubled head. For now he meanes to crave her love, And now he seekes which way to proove How he his fancie might remoove, And not this beggar wed. But Cupid had him so in snare, That this poor begger must prepare p. 45 A salve to cure him of his care, Or els he would be dead. And as he musing thus did lye, He thought for to devise How he might have her companye, That so did 'maze his eyes. "In thee," quoth he, "doth rest my life; For surely thou shalt be my wife, Or else this hand with bloody knife, The Gods shall sure suffice." Then from his bed he soon arose, And to his pallace gate he goes; Full little then this begger knowes When she the king espies. "The gods preserve your majesty," The beggers all gan cry; "Vouchsafe to give your charity, Our childrens food to buy." The king to them his purse did cast, And they to part it made great haste; This silly woman was the last That after them did hye. The king he cal'd her back againe, And unto her he gave his chaine; And said, "With us you shal remaine Till such time as we dye. "For thou," quoth he, "shalt be my wife, And honoured for my queene; With thee I meane to lead my life, As shortly shall be seene: Our wedding shall appointed be, And every thing in its degree; "Come on," quoth he, "and follow me, Thou shalt go shift thee cleane. What is thy name, faire maid?" quoth he. "Penelophon, O King," quoth she; With that she made a lowe courtsèy; A trim one as I weene. Thus hand in hand along they walke Unto the king's pallàce: The king with courteous, comly talke This begger doth embrace. The begger blusheth scarlet red, And straight againe as pale as lead, But not a word at all she said, She was in such amaze. At last she spake with trembling voyce, And said, "O King, I doe rejoyce That you wil take me for your choyce, And my degree so base." And when the wedding day was come, The king commanded strait The noblemen, both all and some, Upon the queene to wait. And she behaved herself that day As if she had never walkt the way; She had forgot her gowne of gray, Which she did weare of late. The proverbe old is come to passe, The priest, when he begins his masse, Forgets that ever clerke he was He knowth not his estate. Here you may read Cophetua, Through long time fancie-fed, p. 48 Compelled by the blinded boy The begger for to wed: He that did lovers lookes disdaine, To do the same was glad and faine, Or else he would himselfe have slaine, In storie, as we read. Disdaine no whit, O lady deere, But pitty now thy servant heere, Least that it hap to thee this yeare, As to that king it did. And thus they led a quiet life During their princely raine, And in a tombe were buried both, As writers sheweth plaine. The lords they tooke it grievously, The ladies tooke it heavily, The commons cryed pitiously, Their death to them was paine. Their fame did sound so passingly, That it did pierce the starry sky, And throughout all the world did flye To every princes realme.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.