God's Playthings 3

God's Playthings 3

“It is my life,” said the Duke in a piteous agitation. “Five thousand

pounds on my head … to die as Russell did.…”

 

“You are a King’s son,” repeated Lord Grey.

 

In a desperate passion his Grace answered him.

 

“Why did you induce me to this folly? It was you, that villain Ferguson

and Argyll—”

 

“He has paid,” said the other quickly.

 

“As I must pay.… My God, was I not happy in Brabant? You but wanted my

name to gild your desperation—”

 

“We would have made you King,” said Lord Grey, and he smiled a little.

 

There fell a silence, and it seemed that the Duke would speak, but he

said no words.

 

“Come, gentlemen,” spoke out my lord Grey. “The Council is over–you

will have your orders before morning–all expedients are ineffectual;

now each, in his own way, must go forward to the end.” He took up the

candle to light them from the room, and they, being men of a little

station, were overawed by his quality and went; two of them deserted

that night, and one betrayed us by firing a pistol to warn Lord

Feversham of our approach and so got the King’s pardon. God be merciful

to the others; I think they died unknown and brave.

 

I, being trusted because there was a price on my head and I had borne

the torture in Scotland, was asked by Lord Grey to stay and help

hearten his Grace.

 

We endeavoured to reason him into going into Castle Field, where

Ferguson preached to the miners and ploughmen; he would not, but in a

weak agony abused Wildman and Argyll as the engines of his torture, and

he had the look on him we call “fey”; I believed he was near his death.…

 

So the night fell very misty and warm, and my lord would not lie down,

but sat in that little room struggling with anguish.

 

He had his George of diamonds on and often looked at it and spoke

incoherently of how King Charles had given it him … surely my pity was

more provoked than my scorn, for he was soft and gentle in his ways

and so had gained much love.

 

That morning one had complained to him Lord Grey should be dishonoured

for his behaviour without Bridport–and he had answered: “I will not

affront my lord by any mention of his misfortune–” yet here was he sunk

in utter misery while Lord Grey strove to rouse in him a manly and

decent courage with which to be worthy of these poor brave souls who

loved and followed him; presently he came round to his old and first

appeal.

 

“Remember you are a King’s son.”

 

It was near one in the morning by the little brass clock, and I sat

wearily by the door that led to the bedchamber; the Duke was at the

table, and as my lord Grey spoke he looked up and began laughing. He

laughed so long and recklessly that we were both dumb in a kind of

horror, and when at last he came to a pause in his laughter there was

silence.

 

Now the Duke discovered some fortitude: he rose and helped himself to

wine, which brought the fugitive blood back into his cheeks and he held

himself with more dignity, though there was that wild look of unsettled

wits in his wide-opened eyes.

 

“My lord,” he said, “and you, sir–bring the candles nearer and I will

show you something—” He put back the admired locks that screened his

brow and took from the pocket of his inner coat a leather book that he

laid on the table before us.

 

“What is this?” asked my lord Grey.

 

The Duke untied the covers in quiet and let fall on the polished wood

all manner of odd and foolish papers, letters, complexion wash recipes,

charms and notes of his journeyings in Holland.

 

These he put aside and drew from a secret lining a silver case such as

is used for a painting in little.

 

It was my thought that it contained the picture of Lady Harriet, which

we were to return to her if either lived to do it, and I was sorry for

this lady who had been so faithful in her love.

 

From one to the other of us the Duke looked strangely; his face was

flushed now and beautiful as in former days when he was the loved one

of that great brilliance at Whitehall, yet still he had the seal of

death on him, and, worse than that, the horrible fear of it writ in

every line of his comely countenance.

 

“Please you, look here,” he said; he opened the locket and held it out

in his palm.

 

“What is this?” he asked in a husk and torn voice.

 

It was the likeness of a man, very fairly done, who wore a uniform and

cravat of the time of the death of King Charles I.

 

Lord Grey looked at it quickly.

 

“It is your Grace,” he said; then, seeing the dress–“No,” he added, and

glanced swiftly at Monmouth–“who is it?”

 

“It is Colonel Sidney taken in his youth,” I said, for I had known the

man well in Rotterdam when he was attached to the court of the late

King Charles, then in exile there. And I gazed at the painting … it was

a marvellous fair face.

 

While I looked my lord Duke had three letters out from the same

secret corner of his book, and I saw that two were in the writing of

Colonel Sidney and the third in a hand I did not know, the hand of an

ill-educated woman.

 

“Who is this?” asked Lord Grey with an amazed look. “Surely Colonel

Sidney was never any concern of your Grace?”

 

He stood with the picture in his hand and Monmouth looked up at him

from the old worn and folded letters he was smoothing out.

 

“It is Colonel Sidney,” he said.

 

“Well?” asked Lord Grey intently.

 

“He was my father,” said Monmouth; then he began laughing again, and it

had the most doleful sound of anything I have ever heard. I could not

grasp what had been said, but my lord Grey with his quick comprehension

seemed in a moment to understand and value this truth.

 

“Your father!” he said softly, and added: “To think we never saw

it!” which was an extraordinary thing to say; yet, on looking at the

likeness in little and on the fair agonised face staring across the

candlelight one might notice that they were in almost every detail the

same, and methought I was a very fool never to have observed before

how these two men were alike, even to little manners and fashions of

speech.

 

And being that I saw the tragic pitifulness of it all, I could do no

more than laugh dismally also.

 

“See you these letters if you want proof,” said Monmouth.

 

“There is no need,” answered my lord Grey. “The likeness is enough.”

Then he repeated: “And we never saw it!”

 

“No,” said his Grace half-fiercely; “you never saw it–I was always the

King’s son to you–instead of that I am scarce a gentleman.… Now you

know why I cannot go on.… I am no Stewart, I have no royal blood.…”

 

Grey looked at him, turning over in his mind, I think, the aspects

of this bewildering turn; he gazed at Colonel Sidney’s son with a

curiosity almost cruel.

 

I was thinking of the obscurity from which he had sprung, the mystery

round his early years in Rotterdam, his sudden appearance in a blaze of

glory at Whitehall when the King had made him Duke.…

 

“Who did this?” I asked. “And who kept silence?”

 

“King Charles loved me as his son,” he answered vaguely, “and I loved

him.… I could not have told him–and I was ambitious. What would you

have done?” he cried. “I did not know until I was fourteen.” He pressed

his hand to his breast.

 

“But I will not die for it,” he muttered. “Why should I die for it?”

 

“Your death must become your life, not your birth,” said Lord Grey.

 

“My death!” shivered Monmouth.

 

Lord Grey turned to face him; thin and harsh-featured as he was, he

made the other’s beauty a thing of nothing.

 

“Why?” he said commandingly. “You know that you must die–you know what

will happen to-morrow and what you have to expect from James Stewart,

and those honours that you have won in life will you not keep to grace

your death?”

 

“I cannot die,” answered Monmouth; he rose and began walking about in a

quick passion of protesting anguish: “I will not die.”

 

“That you cannot decide; the manner only is in your power,” said Lord

Grey calmly, and I marvelled to think that he had been a coward in open

field.

 

“I am not the King’s son—” his Grace cried out at him, and fell across

a chair sick with unavailing love of life.

 

Lord Grey took up a candle and turned to the door, looking at him the

while.

 

“Will you give James Stewart this triumph?” he asked.

 

This seemed the one thing to brace Monmouth, for those two had always

hated each other strongly; James in the old days had feared my lord’s

power, been jealous that he was the elder son of the elder son, and

Monmouth seemed to remember that; yet a mean thought hurried on the

heels of the manly reflection.

 

“He would give me my life for this,” he said weakly. “My life for this

secret—”

 

“Good night,” said Lord Grey–a strange man–and left us.

 

The Duke seemed not to know that he had gone or that I remained; after

a little he went into the bedchamber, but not to sleep, and all night I

heard him weeping … such sick and bitter womanish sobs all through that

long watch I kept.…

 

Colonel Sidney’s son!

Who were they who did this–and they who kept silence?