God's Playthings 7

God's Playthings 7

He could not have turned a step aside to seek out the poor or

miserable, but when they crossed his path he was lavish.

 

And no bird or beast had ever suffered through him; he had never lent

the brilliance of his presence to any baiting or cock-fighting or

bull-fight.

 

This, too, might be set to my lord’s account, but there was little else.

 

Yet he was lovable; he had always been lovable.

 

People who knew him and scorned him still cared for him; he had been

caressed by Charles Edward in genuine affection and liked by King

George. Perhaps because he was so utterly soulless and made no pretence

of being other than he was, because he was so entirely frank in his

passionate capacity for happiness, in his beautiful gaiety he attracted

those who were themselves divided in their aims and too timid to crown

their own vices as he crowned his, for his fascination was more than

merely physical and the attraction of exquisite manners.

 

He was lovable now; even after his long exile from the splendours

of St. James, even in his worn clothes, even marred by illness and

weariness, he carried with him something that was wholly pleasing, not

in the least suggestive of the shameful, unlovely things with which his

name was branded.

 

He was reviewing the final adventure of his life with no changed sense

of values, no blurred outlook.

 

The near presence of death did not alter his opinion in one jot on any

particular nor confuse his estimate nor awaken new feeling; he must

have satisfied, in some way, the purposes for which he had been born,

to be so serene, so content on the eve of the complete end.

 

All his senses were absolutely clear, even more exquisite than usual;

even more perhaps than ever did he appreciate the beauties of light and

colour and scent, the delicacies of sound, of touch, yet his mean and

unbeautiful surroundings did not trouble him; compared to what they

might have been they were well enough. It was better to die in a poor

Spanish lodging than in the Fleet, or a garret in Whitefriars, or some

kinsman’s back room; nay, better this than the Tower and the panoply of

death some chill morning on the scaffold.

 

He would perhaps have preferred an active death in some duel, but he

made no complaint that this had not been the end ordained for him.

 

He was grateful that he was going to die in the sun.

 

Leaning back easily in the old willow-wand chair, he began to compose

some verses–some of those witty cynical lines for which he had been

famous in London and which amused him to fashion.

 

Presently his sensitive ears detected a light sound, a sweet and

familiar sound, the play of a woman’s skirt against her ankles and the

floor.

 

He broke off his mental composition and turned his head towards the

shadowy depths of the room that lay between him and the window at which

he had been gazing.

 

From out these darknesses a figure emerged from a mysterious door

that opened and shut on farther recesses of blackness, moved into the

clearer shadows and finally into the full light.

 

It was a woman, young and notable, who appeared not to notice that

there was any one in the room, for she stood in a watchful, motionless

pose, gazing up the dark staircase from which the Duke had descended.

 

Her dress was fantastic and charming, a tight blue satin bodice gleamed

round her slender waist, and beneath it panniers of pink gauze

billowed over her hips and were looped away from a white petticoat

trimmed with blue jet that glimmered even when she stood still.

 

Round the bottom of this petticoat was a garland of pink roses, her

stockings, that showed well above her ankles, were blue, her shoes

white, heelless and fastened in with embroidered pink ribbons.

 

On one arm she carried a pale yellow cloak and a black velvet mask;

over her wide shoulders was flung, carelessly, but gracefully, a white

silk scarf with a deep fringe border.

 

Her dusky brown hair was slightly powdered and gathered on the top of

her small head by a huge tortoiseshell comb set with red coral, long

blue jet earrings quivered in her ears, and she wore a necklace of fine

pearls.

 

The Duke noticed these things and the delicacy and grace of the woman

herself, the poise of her head, the straight lines of her profile, the

fineness of her hands and ankles, the richness of her locks, the dark

sweep of her eyebrows and the dusky bloom on her round cheek.

 

He also knew her dress to be that of a dancer or ballerina, despite the

blue brocade train that dragged a couple of yards behind her.

 

What or who she was he did not care, nor how she came to be in this

poor inn dressed in this festal fashion.

 

He was pleased to see again one of the pretty creatures who had always

been to him the most entrancing and beautiful objects in an entrancing

and beautiful world.

 

He watched the gentle vision with interest and tenderness, making no

movement or sound.

 

Suddenly she turned full on him her dark face that, although it was too

broad for perfect beauty, was piquant and glowing with fine colour.

 

The Duke rose and bowed.

 

“I am Philip Wharton, Señora,” he said in Spanish.

 

She advanced towards him.

 

“I thought you were upstairs,” she said gravely.

 

Her voice was delicate, but her speech had the peasant accent of

Andalusia.

 

“Were you watching for me?” he asked curiously.

 

“Yes,” she said. “For who else? Why should I come back after this long

time save to see you? Yesterday I was here,” she added, “but you would

not see me.”

 

“Pardon me, I was ill yesterday and did not come downstairs.”

 

She gazed at him with soft, luminous and unfathomable eyes.

 

“Have I seen you before?” asked the Duke, endeavouring to place her

among the many women who had flitted across his life.

 

“I used to dance,” she answered, “at the opera in Venice.”

 

He did not remember her. How could he recall one face from out the

whirl of joy and gaiety he had known in Venice?

 

“You are Spanish?” he asked.

 

“From Andalusia. And you are English?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And dying?”

 

“Ah, you know as much as that, do you?” he smiled.

 

“I know many things now.”

 

“Ah, wisdom!” he mocked. “I could wager your knowledge begins and ends

with the list of your victims and triumphs. How did you come here?” he

asked abruptly.

 

“I ran away.”

 

“To this place?”

 

“It was but a stage on the road.”

 

“You know me?” he asked.

 

“Yes; I have met you at Paris, at Vienna, at Rome and Naples.”

 

“By gad,” he said, “you flatter me by your memory.”

 

He began to notice that she never smiled, and it displeased him; he

disliked a grave woman.

 

“What is your name?” he asked in the tone of a master, and sank back

into the chair, for indeed he felt very weak.

 

She shook her head.

 

“I have so many.”

 

“Give me one.”

 

She bent her eyes on him earnestly.

 

“What was the name of your first love?” she asked.

 

He started.

 

“I have forgotten.”

 

“What was the name of the woman you loved the most?”

 

Fair faces rose before him, tearful faces, pleading faces, angry

faces–he could not choose between them.

 

“I do not know,” he said faintly.

 

She glanced round the room as if she, too, saw the faces that had risen

so clearly before his mental eyes.

 

“You were not kind or loyal to one of them,” she said.

 

Philip Wharton laughed.

 

“Tell me your name,” he insisted.

 

“You have forgotten it, and you do not know it,” she returned quickly.

“Once I was called Helen, but that was a long time ago.” He looked at her curiously.