God's Playthings 9

God's Playthings 9

She pressed close to his side now, for she no longer wore a hoop; a

quilted hood and cloak concealed her head and figure, and he thought

that she must wear jasmine somewhere on her person, so strong was the

scent of that blossom on the air.

 

“I wonder,” she continued, “if, when you come to die, you will ever

think of these moments–the broken promises, the broken hearts?”

 

“When I come to die,” repeated the Duke musingly, “I shall no doubt

think of you and your sweetness.”

 

“Not of me and my sadness?”

 

Philip Wharton did not answer; he smiled into the darkness, which he

perceived was beginning to be lightened by the first delicate sparkle

of dawn.

 

“Have you ever done one good action?” continued the voice at his side.

 

“Oh, Madame!”

 

“Or shed one tear–one tear for another? One tear to heal all the

wickedness you have committed–all the grief you have caused?”

 

“Never!” he answered. “Never!”

 

“Is there no memory you can recall that would soften you to tears now?”

 

He answered “None.”

 

Her hand slackened on his arm and was withdrawn; in the confusion of

the lifting shadows and the spreading milky whiteness of the new day he

lost her.

 

He was alone in the garden. No, not a garden; it was soon light enough

to see, and he then noticed that he was walking in an English field in

early spring-time.

 

Before him a meadow sloped to a fence that enclosed a little wood;

bluebells, daffodils, and primroses grew under the branches of the

trees; the meadow was starred all over with buttercups and daisies.

 

To one side of the fence was a small thatched cottage behind which

the sun was rising, and where the distance merged into the early blue

vapour the sharp spire of a church rose.

 

A slight, very slight, feeling of apprehension came over Philip Wharton.

 

“I do not wish to come back here,” he said. “This has all been a dream,

and I will wake up now.”

 

Yet he walked on.

 

It was absolutely still; though the sun had now risen clear of the

mists and was glittering in a clear heaven, there was no one abroad.

 

The Duke approached the cottage, saying to himself–

 

“I know this place, and I do not wish to see it again.”

 

Before the wooden gate of the tiny garden he paused.

 

A few modest flowers were growing in neat beds–pinks, wallflowers, and

sweet williams; beside the closed door was a lavender bush.

 

The Duke’s sensation of dread deepened. He noticed that a white blind

hung behind each of the four windows. He felt that he was there

against his will. Peaceful and lovely as the scene was, it was one from

which he would willingly have fled.

 

He left the garden and wandered away into the little wood and seated

himself under a pine tree and took his head in his hands.

 

And as he sat there he heard the church bell tolling.

 

“I am not going,” he said to himself, and for a while he was resolute

and would not move; yet presently he rose and went back to the cottage.

 

The door was half open now.

 

He pushed wide the garden gate and entered; he was acutely conscious of

the scent of the simple flowers and the tolling of the bell.

 

Without knocking he entered.

 

Two men were in the narrow passage carrying before them a coffin.

 

Philip Wharton found himself face to face with it; it was held upright,

and the name-plate was near his eyes. He read, “_Aged nineteen_.”

 

He heard a woman sobbing in the room into which the coffin was being

taken, and he peered through the crack of the door.

 

On a humble bed lay the wasted form of a young girl from which the soul

had recently departed.

 

Philip Wharton passed out of the house, out of the garden, and down the

meadow.

 

“I am sorry,” he said; he had never sincerely spoken those words before.

 

He walked till he came to the church, and then he entered the

graveyard, and seated himself on an old sunken tomb and watched the

poor funeral procession that presently wound through the lych-gate.

 

When they had all left and he was again alone, he walked down the

sloping churchyard path and looked at the new-made grave.

 

A simple headstone was already in place; it bore no name, but only the

date and the words–

 

“A broken and a contrite heart, O Lord, Thou wilt not despise.”

 

Philip Wharton put his hand before his eyes; he felt sorry and afraid.

 

All the women who had ever loved him seemed to lie buried in that

humble grave. Love itself, compact of a thousand graces, a thousand

transports, which had been made manifest to him under so many different

shapes, in so many climes, seemed to have fallen and died at last and

to lie buried here with Lucy.…

 

He took his hand from his eyes and saw about him the poor Spanish

lodging, the distant window with the fig and myrtle from which the sun

had now departed. He sat up shivering.

 

“What dreams!” he muttered. “What dreams!”

 

He found his eyes wet with tears; he rose and held on to the back of

the chair. For one awful moment he believed in God. Then he shook off

the oppression.

 

“She died as I must die,” he said. “Why not?”

 

A chill had fallen with the setting of the sun. He shivered again, and

found that his limbs were stiff beneath him; he pushed the dark hair

back from his face and gazed before him, trying to conjure the figure

of the dancer in the pink gauze and blue jet out of the encroaching

shadows.

 

But he knew that it was useless, that she was dead and buried with all

those other women.

 

And death had him by the throat, was struggling with him even now, and

he must prepare himself to go down into the darkness that enveloped

them.

 

He went upstairs to the room he called his own; as he opened the door

of it he heard steps below, and leaning over the rails saw the old

woman who owned the inn enter with a basket of grapes on her grey head.

 

The young Duke blew her a kiss; she was the last woman whom he would

ever see. He entered his room; the flies still buzzed round the stale

bread and dirty glass, but the golden pool of sunlight had gone from

the floor.

 

“Not one of those women,” reflected Philip Wharton, “ever thought that

I should die–like this!”

 

So saying the young rake seated himself heavily and wearily in his

former seat by the table and stretched out his hand for his pipe which

lay next the glass.

 

But before he touched it, he felt a slight cold touch on his shoulder,

and thought he heard some one behind him.

 

As he turned to look he drew a long breath.

 

“Why, Lucy—” he said, and on that word–died.

 

 

 

 

DEFEAT

 

EDWARD PLANTAGENET

 

 

Edward Plantagenet, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Chester,

Lord of Biscay and Uridales, rested at Bordeaux with his brother Johan

of Gaunt, Duke of Acquitaine and Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Lincoln and

Leicester, Seneschal of England and the English army.

 

Edward of Wales had saved his word; he could not save Acquitaine.

 

He had redeemed the oath sworn before the high God that the treacherous

Limoges should pay for its disloyalty. The town lay now a burning ruin;

in one day three thousand men, women, and children had atoned with

their blood for the falsity of Jean le Cros, Bishop of Limoges.

 

For Edward had sworn by his father’s soul to wipe out every life in

Limoges. Chained and bare-headed the Bishop had been brought before the

Prince, and had only been spared by the intercession of Johan of Gaunt,

for Edward had vowed by God and St. George that the arch traitor should perish.