CHAPTER XXX
THOUGHTS
In the loneliness and silence of the Tower, the Duke of Wessex had hadenough leisure to think.
One fatal autumn afternoon, and what a change in the destinies of hislife! Yesterday he was the first gentleman in England, loved by many,feared by a few, reverenced by all as the perfect embodiment of nationalpride and national grandeur--almost a king.
And to-day?
But of himself, his own obvious fate, the shame and disgrace of hispresent position, he thought very little. Ever an easy-goingphilosopher, he had as yet kept the insouciance of the gamester who hasstaked and lost and is content to retire from the board. One thing more,remember! Life in those days was not the priceless treasure which latercivilization would have us believe it. There was a greater simplicity offaith, a more childlike certitude in the great truths of futurity, whichwe in our epoch are so ready to cavil at.
If nations and individuals committed excesses of unparalleled cruelty inthe name of their respective creeds, if men hated each other, torturedeach other, destroyed one another, it was because they misunderstood theteachings of religion, and not because they ignored or disbelieved them.
The cruelties themselves are unjustifiable, the mind oftwentieth-century civilization can but gaze at them in mute horror,history can but record and deplore. But the religion which promptedthem--for it was religion--was not the feeble, anaemic plaything of aneffete generation in search of new excitements; it was strong andvirile, alike in the atrocity of its crimes and the sublimity of itsvirtues.
Thus with a man like Wessex. Life had been pleasant, of course, a bed ofroses worthy even of one of our modern sybarites, but to him only theepisode, which higher thoughts and Christian belief have ever suggestedthat it should be.
Perhaps it would be too much to say that faith alone caused him to looklightly upon this sudden, tragic ending of his brilliant career, but itundoubtedly helped him to preserve that easy and unembittered frame ofmind of the philosopher, who, with life, loses that which hath butlittle value.
And now indeed, what worth would life have for him? This is wherethoughts became bitter and cruel, not over death, not over disgrace, butover the treachery of a woman and the flight of an illusion. What did itall mean?
Sometimes now, when he sat looking straight before him at the cold greywalls of his prison, he seemed to see that strange dual personalitymocking him with all the witchlike elusiveness which had mystified andtortured him from the first.
His "Fanny"! that beautiful vision of innocent girlhood; arch,coquettish, tender yet passionate, the clear depths of those blue eyes,the purity of that radiant smile!
And then she! Ursula Glynde! with bare shoulder and breast, cheeksflushed, but not with shame, eyes moist, yet not with tears, submittingwith feeble, hoarse protests to the masterful touch of an insolentSpaniard, only to take revenge later with the elemental barbarity of thestreet wench, too drunk to understand her crime.
Every fibre within him cried out that this was not the woman who hadplucked a marguerite petal by petal, and quivered with delight at soundof the nightingale's voice among the willows; not the woman on whosesoft girlish cheeks he had loved to call forth, with an ardent gaze or abold word, a tender blush of rosy red, not the woman whom in one briefsecond he had learnt to love, whom in one mad, heavenly moment he hadkissed.
Every sense in him clamoured for the belief that it had all been an uglydream, an autumn madness from which he would presently wake at her feet.
Every sense! yet his eyes had seen her! his ears had heard her respondto her name, when uttered roughly by the man who seemed to be hermaster.
The truth itself never once dawned upon him. The whole trick had beenmanaged with such devilish cunning, every piece in the intricatemechanism of that intrigue had been so carefully adjusted, that it wouldhave required superhuman insight, or the cold, calculating mind of anunemotional mathematician, to have hit upon its natural explanation.
Wessex possessed neither. He was just a man touched for the first timein his life with the strongest passion of which human creatures arecapable. He loved a woman with all the ardour, all the unreasoninginstincts, all the sublime weakness and folly of which a loyal andstrong heart is capable. That woman had proved a liar and a wanton inhis sight.
He was forced to believe that; had he not seen her? Which of us hathever really grasped the fact that one human being may be fashioned linefor line, feature for feature, exactly like another? Yet such a thingis. Nature hath every freak. Why not that one?
He thought of everything, of every solution, of every possibility.Heaven help him! of every excuse, but never of that. That Nature, in oneof those wayward moods in which no one would dare deny that she attimes indulges, had fashioned a kitchen wench as a lifelike replica ofone of the most beautiful women in England--that one simple,indisputable, easily verified fact, never once entered his torturedmind.
She was mad! yes!--irresponsible for her own actions, yes!--wilfullywanton! no! a thousand times no! Hers was a dual nature, wherein angelsand devils alternately held sway!
He, poor fool, had fallen under the spell of the angels, and the devilshad then turned him away from his shrine, shattered his illusions, shownhim his idol's feet of clay, then dared him ever to worship again, everto forget the mud which cloyed the bottom of the limpid stream.
With Harry Plantagenet for sole companion, during the brief days whichpreceded his trial, Wessex had indeed leisure for his thoughts. Thefaithful animal knew quite well that his master suffered and could notnow be comforted, but he would sit for hours with his wise head restingon Wessex' knee, his gentle eyes fixed in mute sympathy upon the graveface of the Duke.
He knew better than any one that his master was in serious trouble, forwhen they were alone together, when no one was there who could see, noone but this true and silent companion, then philosophy, pride, andbitterness would fly to the winds and a few hot tears would ease theoppression which made Wessex' heart ache almost to breaking.
And Harry Plantagenet, when he saw those tears, would curl himself upand go to sleep. With his keen, canine instinct, he felt no doubt onlythat an atmosphere of peace and rest had descended on the gloomy Towerprison.
The faithful creature could not understand that it was the visit of theangel of sorrow, who, in passing, had lulled a weary man's agonizingsoul with the gentle, soothing touch of his wing.