The Tangled Skein

Some of the younger men followed the cavalcade on foot through the gate and thence across the Base Court, even as far as the bridge and beyond. The older ones, however, began to disperse. With a sigh, the Duke of Wessex called to his dog, who had followed the exciting proceedings with the keenest canine enthusiasm.

"Ah, Harry, old friend!" he said with a tinge of sadness. "Why did not Providence fashion my Grace into some humbler personality? You and I would have been the happier, methinks."

Harry Plantagenet yawned ostentatiously in acquiescence, then he blinked, and seemed to say, as if in echo of his master's thoughts —

"Marry! but there are compensations, you know!"

"Only since this afternoon!" commented His Grace under his breath, as he finally turned his steps in the direction of his own apartments.

CHAPTER XXI

THE BLACK KNIGHT

As the Duke of Wessex was crossing one of the large rooms of the wing which divides the old Fountain Court from the Cloister Green, he suddenly heard himself called by name.

"Luck favours me indeed," said a voice from out the gloom. "His Grace of Wessex an I mistake not."

At this hour of the evening these rooms were usually deserted, and left but dimly illumined by a few wax tapers placed in tall, many-armed candelabra, the flickering light of which failed to penetrate into the distant corners of the vast, panelled chambers. Wessex could only see the dim outline of a man coming towards him.

"At your service, fair sir, whoever you may be," he responded lightly, "but by the Mass! meseems you must claim kinship with the feline species to be able to distinguish my unworthy self in the dark."

"Nay! 'twas my wish which fathered my thoughts. I had hoped to meet Your Grace here, and was on the look out."

"The Marquis de Suarez," rejoined Wessex, as the young Spaniard now came within the circle of light projected by the candelabra. "You wished to speak with me, sir?"

"I would claim this privilege of Your Grace's courtesy."

"Indeed, I am ever at your service," replied the Duke, not a little astonished at the request.

Since his first meeting with Don Miguel at East Molesey Fair he had only exchanged a very few words with the Spaniard, and the latter seemed even to have purposely avoided him during the past few days. To this His Grace had paid no attention. The foreign envoys at present staying in the Palace were exceedingly antipathetic to him, and beyond the social amenities of Court life he had held no intercourse with any of them.

Rivals all of them, they nevertheless joined issue with one another in their hostile attitude towards the man, who was the formidable stumbling-block to all their diplomatic intrigues.

The Duke himself, in spite of his haughty aloofness from party politics, knew full well how great was the enmity which his personality aroused in the minds of all the strangers at Mary's court.

He was certainly much more amused than disturbed by this generally hostile attitude towards himself, and many a time did the various ambassadors have to suffer, with seeming good-nature, the pointed and caustic shafts aimed at them by His Grace's ready wit.

No wonder, therefore, that Wessex looked with some suspicion on this sudden change of front on the part of one of his most avowed antagonists.

"How can I have the honour of serving an envoy of the King of Spain?" he continued lightly.

But Don Miguel appeared in no hurry to speak. His manner seemed to have completely altered. As a rule he was a perfect model of self-possession and easy confidence, with just a reflection of his distinguished chief's, the Cardinal's, own suavity of manner apparent in all his ways. Now he was obviously ill at ease, shy and nervous, and with a marked desire to be frank, yet too bashful to give vent to so boyish an outburst.

There was in his dark eyes, too, a look almost of appeal towards the Duke to meet his sudden access of friendliness half-way. All this Wessex had already noticed with the one quick glance which he cast at the young Spaniard. He motioned him to a chair and himself leant lightly against the edge of the table.

Don Miguel took this to be an encouragement to proceed.

"Firstly, your Grace's pardon if I should unwillingly transgress," he began.

"My pardon?" rejoined the Duke, much amused at the Marquis' obvious embarrassment. "'Tis yours already. But how transgress?"

"By the asking of a question which Your Grace might deem indiscreet."

"Nay, my lord," quoth the Duke gaily, "no question need be indiscreet, though answers often are."

"Your Grace is pleased to laugh.. but in this case.. I.. that is.. I hardly know how to put it.. yet I would assure Your Grace."

"By Our Lady, man!" cried Wessex with a slight show of impatience, "assure me no assurances, but tell me what you wish to say."

"Well then! since I have Your Grace's leave… My object is this… Court gossip has it that you are affianced to the Lady Ursula Glynde."

The Duke did not reply. Don Miguel looked up and saw a quaint smile hovering round His Grace's lips. The young Spaniard, though an earnest and even proficient reader of other men's thoughts, did not quite understand the meaning of that smile: it seemed wistful yet triumphant, full of gaiety and yet with a suspicion of that strange and delicious melancholy, which is never quite inseparable from a great happiness.

But as he seemingly was meeting with no rebuff, the Marquis continued more boldly —

"And.. but Your Grace must really pardon me… I hardly know how to put it so as not to appear impertinent.. but 'tis also said that you do not wish to claim the lady's hand."

"Marry!." rejoined the Duke with a laugh. Then he paused, as if in the act of recalling his somewhat roving thoughts, and said more coldly —

"You must pardon me, my lord, if I do not quite perceive in what manner this may concern you."

"I pray Your Grace to have patience with me yet a while longer. I will explain my purpose directly. For the moment I will entreat you, an you will, to answer my question. It is a matter of serious moment to me, and you would render me eternally your debtor."

None knew better in these days than did the high-born Spaniards, all the many little tricks of voice and gesture which go to make up the abstruse and difficult art of diplomacy. Don Miguel at this juncture looked so frank, so boyish, and withal so earnest, that the Duke of Wessex – himself the soul of truth and candour – never even suspected that the young man was but playing a part and enacting a scene, which he had rehearsed under the skilful management of His Eminence the Spanish Cardinal.

Wessex, ever ready to see the merry side of life, ever ready for gaiety and brightness, felt completely disarmed, glad enough to lay aside the cold reserve which the foreign envoys themselves had called forth in him. He liked the Marquis under this new semblance of boyish guilelessness, and returned his tone of deferential frankness with one of easy familiarity.

"The question, my lord, is somewhat difficult to answer," he said with mock seriousness, the while a gay laugh was dancing in his eyes. "You see, there are certain difficulties in the way. The Lady Ursula is a Glynde.. and all the Glyndes have brown eyes… Now at this moment I feel as if I could never love a brown eye again."

"The Lady Ursula is very beautiful," rejoined the Spaniard.

"Possibly – but you surprise me."

"Your Grace has never seen her?"

"Never, since she was out of her cradle."

"I have the advantage of Your Grace, then."

"You know her, my lord?."

"Intimately!" said Don Miguel, with what seemed an irresistible impulse.

Then he checked his enthusiasm with a visible effort, and stammered with a return of his previous nervousness —

"That is.. I."

"Yes?" queried the Duke.

"That is the purport of my importunity, my lord," said the young man, springing to his feet and speaking once more in tones of noble candour. "I would have asked Your Grace that, since you do not know the Lady Ursula, since you have no wish to claim her hand, if some one else."

"If the Lady Ursula honoured some one else than my unworthy self… Is that your meaning, my lord?" queried Wessex, as Don Miguel had made a slight pause in his impetuous speech.

"If I."

"You, my lord?"

"I would wish to know if I should be offending Your Grace?"

"Offending me?" cried Wessex joyfully. "Nay, my lord, why were you so long in telling me this gladsome news?.. Offending me?.. you have succeeded in taking a load from my conscience, my dear Marquis. So you love the Lady Ursula Glynde?.. Ye heavens! what a number of circumlocutions to arrive at this simple little fact! You love her.. she is very beautiful.. and she loves you. Where did you first see her, my lord?"

"At East Molesey Fair… Your Grace intervened.. you must remember!"

"Most inopportunely, meseems. I must indeed crave your pardon. And since then?"

"The acquaintanceship, perhaps somewhat unpleasantly begun, has ripened into.. friendship."

"And thence into love! Nay, you have my heartiest congratulations, my lord. The Glyndes are famous for their virtue, and since the Lady Ursula is beautiful, why! your Court will indeed be graced by such a pattern of English womanhood."

"Oh!" said the Spaniard, with a quick gesture of deprecation.

"Nay! you must have no fear, my lord. Since you have honoured me by consulting my feelings in the matter, it shall be my pride and my delight to further your cause, and that of the Lady Ursula.. if indeed she will deign to express her wishes to me… I hereby give you a gentleman's word of honour that I consider the promise, which she made to her father in her childhood, in no way binding upon her now… As for the future, I swear that I will obtain Her Majesty's consent to your immediate marriage."

"Nay! I pray you, not so fast!" laughed Don Miguel lightly. "Neither the Lady Ursula nor I have need of Her Majesty's consent.."

"But methought – "

"'Twas not I who spoke of marriage, remember!"

"Then you have completely bewildered me, my lord," rejoined Wessex with a sudden frown. "I understood – "

"That I am the proudest of men, certainly," quoth Don Miguel with a sarcastic curl of his sensual lip, "but 'twas Your Grace who spoke of the lady's virtue. I merely wished to know if I should be offending Your Grace if."

He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. The laugh grated unpleasantly on Wessex' ear, and the gesture savoured of impertinence. The Marquis' manner had suddenly undergone a change, which caused the Duke's every nerve to tingle.

"If what?" he queried curtly. "The devil! sir, cannot you say what you do mean?"

"Why should I," replied the Spaniard, "since your Grace has already guessed? You will own that I have acted en galant homme, by thinking of your wishes. You will not surely desire to champion that much-vaunted virtue of the Glyndes."

"Then what you mean, sir, is that."

"I cannot speak more plainly, my lord, for that among gentlemen is quite impossible. But rumours fly about quickly at Court, and I feared that Your Grace might have caught one, ere I had the chance of assuring you that I recognize the priority of your claim. But now you tell me that you have no further interest in the lady, so I am reassured… We foreigners, you know, take passing pleasures more lightly than you serious-minded English.. and if the lady be unattached.. and more than willing.. why should we play the part of Joseph?.. a ridiculous rôle at best, eh, my lord?.. and one, I think, which Your Grace would ever disdain to play… As for me, I am quite reassured.. Au revoir to Your Grace.."

And before Wessex had time to utter another word, Don Miguel, still laughing, went out of the room.

The Duke felt a little bewildered. The conversation had gone through such a sudden transition, that at the time, he had hardly realized whether it touched him deeply or not.

Owing to Ursula's girlish little ruse, he was totally unaware of her identity with the lady who had been the subject of this very distasteful discussion. To him Lady Ursula Glynde was both unknown and uninteresting. His meeting with beautiful, exquisite "Fanny" had driven all thoughts of other women from his mind.

But with all his volatile disposition, where women were concerned, the Duke of Wessex was nevertheless imbued with a strong and romantic feeling of chivalry towards the entire sex, and Don Miguel's disdainful allusions to the lady who might have been Duchess of Wessex had left his finger-tips itching with the desire to throw his glove in the impudent rascal's face.

Harry Plantagenet, who throughout the interview had openly expressed his disapproval of his master's interlocutor, gave an impatient little whine. He longed for the privacy of his own apartments, the warmth of the rugs laid out specially for him.

"Harry, old friend!" said Wessex thoughtfully, "what the devil, think you, that young reprobate meant?"

He took the dog's beautiful head between his hands and looked straight into the honest, faithful eyes of his dear and constant companion.

"Marry!" he continued more lightly, "you may well look doubtful, you wise philosopher, for you know the Glyndes as well as I do. You remember old Lady Annabel, whose very look would stop your tail from wagging, and Charles, stodgy, silent, serious Charles, who never drank, never laughed, had probably never seen a woman's ankle in his life. And then the Lady Ursula.. a Glynde.. do you mind me, old Harry?.. therefore as ugly, as a combination of virtue and Scotch descent can make any woman… Yet, if I caught the rascal's meaning, neither Scotch descent nor ill looks have proved a shield for the lady's virtue!.. Well, 'tis no business of ours, is it, old Harry? Let us live and let live… Perhaps Lady Ursula is not ugly.. perchance that unpleasant-looking Spaniard doth truly love her.. and who are we, Harry, you and I, that we should prove censorious? Let us to our apartments, friend, and meditate on woman's frailty and on our own.. especially on our own.. we are mere male creatures, and women are so adorable! even when they bristle with virtues like a hedgehog.. but like him too, are cushioned beneath those bristles with a hundred charming, fascinating sins… Come along, friend, and let us meditate why sin.. sin of a certain type, remember, should be so enchantingly tempting."

Harry Plantagenet was a philosopher. He had seen his master in this kind of mood before. He wagged his tail as if to express his approval of the broad principles thus submitted for his consideration, but at the same time he showed a distinct desire that his master should talk less and come more speedily to bed.

CHAPTER XXII

THE WHITE QUEEN

Wessex after a while was ready enough to dismiss the unpleasant subject. Perhaps he had no right to be censorious or to resent the Spaniard's somewhat unusual attitude. In England, undoubtedly, a gentleman would never – except under very special circumstances – allude to any passing liaison he might have with a lady of his own rank. That was a strict code of honour which had existed from time immemorial, even in the days of King Harry's youth, when the virtue of high-born women had been but little thought of.

Abroad, perhaps, it was different. Spaniards, just then, were noted for the light way in which they regarded the favours of the fair sex, and Don Miguel's code of honour had evidently prompted him to consult Wessex' wishes in the matter of his own intrigue. Loyalty to their own sex is perhaps, on the whole, more general in men than is their chivalry towards women, and perhaps the Marquis' feelings would have revolted at the thought of seeing a lady of such light virtue in the position of Duchess of Wessex.

Be that as it may, His Grace had no wish to probe the matter further; with a shrug of the shoulders he dismissed it from his thoughts, whilst registering a vow to chastise the young blackguard if his impertinence showed signs of recurrence.

He was on the point of yielding to his faithful Harry's canine appeals by allowing him to lead the way towards his own distant lodgings, when his ear suddenly caught the sound of a silk dress rustling somewhere, not far from where he stood.

At the end of the room closest to him, a few steps led up to a gallery, which ran along the wall, finally abutting at a door, which gave access to the Duchess of Lincoln's and other ladies' lodgings. The rustle of a silk skirt seemed to come from there.

Perhaps Wessex would not have taken notice of it, except that his every thought was filled with a strange excitement since the rencontre of the afternoon. At times now he felt as if his very senses ached with the longing to see once more that entrancing, girlish figure, dressed all in white and crowned with the halo of her exquisite golden hair, to hear once more the sound of that fresh young voice, that merry, childlike laugh, through which there vibrated the thrill of a newly awakened passion.

Since he had met her he was conscious of a wonderful change in himself. He did not even analyse his feelings: he knew that he loved her now: that, in a sense, he had always loved her, for his poetic and romantic temperament had ever been in search of that perfect type of womanhood, which she seemed so completely to embody in herself.

He had only spoken to her for about half an hour, then had sat opposite to her in a boat among the reeds, in the cool of the afternoon, with the lazy river gently rocking the light skiff, and the water birds for sole witnesses of his happiness. They had hardly exchanged a word then, for he had enjoyed the delight – dear to every man who loves – of watching the blushes come and go upon her cheek in response to his ardent gaze. What did words matter? the music in their souls supplied all that they wished to say.

And he – who had been deemed so fickle, who had made of love a pastime, taking what joys women would give him with a grateful yet transient smile, His Grace of Wessex, in fact, who had loved so often yet so inconstantly – knew now that the stern little god, who will not for long brook defiance of his laws, had wounded him for life or death at last.

And even now, when he heard the rustle of a kirtle, he paused instinctively, vaguely, madly hoping that chance, and the great wild longing which was in him, had indeed drawn her footsteps hither.

The door above, at the end of the gallery, was tentatively opened. Wessex could see nothing, for those distant corners of the room were in complete darkness, but he heard a voice, low and sweet, humming the little ditty which she, his queen, had sung this afternoon.

"Disdaine me not that am your own,Refuse me not that am so true,Mistrust me not till all be knowen,Forsake me not now for no new."

She walked slowly along the gallery, and paused not far from the top of the short flight of oak steps. She seemed to be hesitating a little, as if afraid to venture farther into the large, dimly lighted hall.

The flicker of the tall wax tapers now caught her dainty figure, casting golden lights and deep, ruddy shadows on her fair young face and on the whiteness of her gown. In her arms she held an enormous sheaf of pale pink monthly roses, the spoils of the garden, lavish in its autumnal glory.

Never had Wessex – fastidious, fickle, insouciant Wessex – seen anything more radiant, more exquisite, more poetic than this apparition which came towards him like the realization of all his maddest dreams.

For one moment more he lingered, his ardent, passionate soul was loath to give up these heaven-born seconds spent in looking at her. Her eyes shone darkly in the gleam of the candle light and had wondrous reflections in them, which looked ruddy and hot; her delicately chiselled features were suffused with a strange glow, which seemed to come from within; and her lips were slightly parted, moist and red like some ripe summer fruit. From her whole person there came an exhalation of youth and womanhood, of purity and soul-stirring passion.

"Come down, sweet singer," said Wessex to her at last.

She gave a startled little cry, leant over the balustrade, and the sheaf of flowers dropped from her arms, falling in a long cascade of leaves and blossoms, rose-coloured and sweet-scented, at his feet.

"Ah, Your Grace frightened me!" she whispered, with just a touch of feminine coquetry. "I.. I.. didn't know you were here."

"I swear you did not, sweet saint.. but now.. as I am here.. come down quickly ere I perish with longing for a nearer sight of your dear eyes."

"But my flowers," she said, with a sudden access of timidity, brought forth by the thrilling ardour of his voice. "I had picked them for Her Majesty's oratory."

"Nay! let them all wither save one.. which I will take from your hand. Come down.."

One of the roses had remained fixed in the stiff fold of her panier. She took it between her fingers and sighed.

"Oh! I dare not," she said sadly. "Your Grace does not know, – cannot guess, what dire disgrace would befall me if I did."

"Perish the thought of disgrace," rejoined Wessex gaily. "Marry! the saints in Paradise must come down from heaven sometimes, else the world would be consumed by its own wickedness. Come down," he added more earnestly, seized with a mad, ungovernable desire to clasp her to his heart, "come down, or I swear that I'll bring you down in my arms."

"No.. no.. no!" she protested, alarmed at his vehemence. "I'll come down."

With a quaintly mischievous gesture she flung the rose at him; it hit him in the face, then fell; he had perforce to stoop in order to pick it up. When he once more straightened his tall figure she was standing quite close to him.

There she was, just as he had always thought of her, even as a boy when first he began to dream. She, the perfect woman whom one day he would meet, and on that day would love wholly, passionately, humbly, and proudly, his own and yet his queen; she the most perfect product of Nature, with just that tone of gold in her hair, just those eyes, so inscrutable, so full of colour, so infinite in their variety; not very tall, but graceful and slender, with her dainty head on a level with his shoulder, her fair young forehead on a level with his lips.

Now that she was so near, he was as if turned to stone. The wild longing was still in him to clasp her in his arms, to hold her closely, tenderly to his heart, yet he would not have touched her for a kingdom.

But as he looked at her he knew that she, herself, would come to him in all her purity, her innocence.. soon.. to-day perhaps.. but certainly one day.. and that she would come with every fibre in her entire being vibrating in responsive passion to him.

She looked up at him shyly, tentatively. His very soul went out to her as he returned her gaze. A great and glorious exultation thrilled every fibre of her being. She knew that she had conquered, that the love which in her girlish heart she had kept for him had borne fruit a thousandfold. Her heart seemed to stop beating at the immensity of her happiness.

But woman-like, she was more self-possessed than he was.

"I must not stay," she said gravely and with only an imperceptible quiver in her voice. "I am in disgrace, you know.. for that stroll on the river.. with you.. this afternoon."

"Why? what happened?" he asked with a smile.

She held up her little hand and counted on her fingers.

"Number one, a frown and a colder shoulder from Her Majesty! Two, a lecture from Her Grace of Lincoln! Twenty minutes! Three, four, and five, pin-pricks from the ladies and a lonely supper in my room to-night."

He loved her in this gayer mood which made her seem so young and childlike.

"Could you not have contrived to let me know?"

"Why?.. What would you have done?"

"Made it less lonely for you."

"You are doing that now. I thought I should be alone the rest of the evening. Her Grace of Lincoln and the others are at prayers with Her Majesty. I was confined to that room up there. How is it Your Grace happened to be in this hall just when I came out?"

"A moth is always to be found where the light happens to be," he replied gravely.

"But how did you know I should be here?"

"My eyes, since this afternoon, see you constantly where you are not – how could they fail to see you where you are?"