|Mr. Plantagenet had missed his son by walking through the archway of
the Fellows' Quad, instead of through the Brew House. He emerged from
the college by the big front gate. The High Street was lighted and
crowded; so he preferred to turn down the dark lanes and alleys at the
back of Christ Church, till he came out upon St. Aldate's and the
road to the river. Somewhat sobered as he still was by the unwonted
excitement of that curious episode, he found the sherry once more
beginning to gain the upper hand; it was hard for him to walk erect and
straight along the pavement of St. Aldate's, where a few small shops
still stood open--for it was Saturday night--and a few people still
loitered about in little knots at the corners. With an effort, however,
he managed to maintain the perpendicular till he reached Folly Bridge;
then he turned in at the wicket that leads down from the main road to
the little tow-path along the dark and silent bank of the swollen Isis.
But if Edmund Plantagenet's legs were a trifle unsteady, his heart was
all afire with wrath and remorse at this dramatic interlude. For the
first time in so many years he began to think bitterly to himself of
his wasted opportunities and ruined talents. Such as they were, he had
really and truly wasted them; and though perhaps, after all, they were
never much to boast of, time had been when Edmund Plantagenet thought
highly indeed of them. Nay, in his heart of hearts the broken old
dancing-master thought highly of them still, in spite of everything
during all those long years. There were nights when he lay awake
sobering, on his hard bed at home, and repeated lovingly to himself the
'Stanzas to Evelina' which he had contributed ages ago to the 'Book of
Beauty,' or the 'Lines on the Death of Wordsworth' which he printed at
the time in the _Yorkshire Magazine_, with a profound conviction that
they contained, after all, some of the really most beautiful and least
appreciated poetry in the English language. As a rule, Mr. Plantagenet
was fairly contented with himself and his relics of character; it was
society--harsh, unfeeling, stupid society--that he blamed most of all
for his misfortunes and failures. Still, to every one of us there come
now and then moments of genuine self-revelation, when the clouds of
egotism and perverse misrepresentation, through which we usually behold
our own personality in a glorified halo, fade away before the piercing
light of truer introspective analysis, forced suddenly upon us by some
disillusioning incident or accident of the moment; and then, for one
brief flash, we have the misery and agony of really seeing ourselves
as others see us. Such days may Heaven keep kindly away from all of us!
Such a day Edmund Plantagenet had now drearily fallen upon. He wandered
wildly down the dark bank toward Iflley lasher, his whole soul within
him stirred and upheaved with volcanic energy by the shame and disgrace
of that evening's degradation. The less often a man suffers from these
bruts of self-humiliation, the more terrible is their outburst when they
finally do arrive to him. Edmund Plantagenet, loathing and despising his
present self, by contrast with that younger and idealized image which
had perhaps never really existed at all, stumbled in darkness and
despair along that narrow path, between the flooded river on one side
and the fence that enclosed the damp water-meadows on the other, still
more than half drunk, and utterly careless where he went or what on
earth might happen to him.
The river in parts had overflowed its banks, and the towing-path for
some yards together was often under water. But Mr. Plantagenet, never
pausing, walked, slipped, and staggered through the slush and mud, very
treacherous under foot, knowing nothing, heeding nothing, save that the
coolness about his ankles seemed to revive him a little and to sober his
head as he went floundering through it. By-and-by he reached the Long
Bridges--a range of frail planks with wooden side-rails, that lead the
tow-path across two or three broad stretches of back-water from the
Isis. He straggled across somehow, looking down every now and then
into the swirling water, where the stars were just reflected in quick
flashing eddies, while all the rest about looked black as night, but,
oh! so cool and inviting to his fevered forehead. So he wandered on,
fiercely remorseful within, burning hot without, till he came abreast
of a row of old pollard-willows, close beside the edge of the little
offshoot at Iffley lasher. The bank was damp, but he sat down upon it
all the same, and grew half drowsy as he sat with the mingled effects of
wine and indignation.
After awhile he rose, and stumbled on across a bend of the meadows
till he reached the river. Just there the bank was very slippery and
treacherous. Even a sober man could hardly have kept his footing on
it in so dark a night. 'One false step,' Edmund Plantagenet thought
to himself with wild despair, 'and there would be an end of all this
fooling. One false step--and splash! A man may slip any day. No suicide
in tumbling into a swollen river of a moonless night when the bank's all
flooded.'
Still, on and on he walked, having staggered now far, far below Iffley,
and away towards the neighbourhood of Sandford lasher. Slippery bank all
the distance, and head growing dizzier and dizzier each moment with cold
and wet, as well as wine and anger.
At last, of a sudden, a dull splash in the river! Bargemen, come up
late in the evening from Abingdon, and laid by now for the night under
shelter of the willows on the opposite side two hundred yards down,
heard the noise distinctly. Smoking their pipes on deck very late, it
being a fine evening, one says to the other:
'Sounds precious like a man, Bill!'
Bill, philosophically taking a long pull, answers calmly at the end:
'More liker a cow, Tom. None of _our_ business, anyhow. Get five bob,
mayhap, for bringin' in the body. Hook it up easy enough to-morrow
mornin?
Next morning, sure enough, a body might be seen entangled among the
reeds under the steep mud-bank on the Berkshire shore. Bill, taking it
in tow and bringing it up to Oxford, got five shillings from the county
for his lucky discovery. At the inquest, thought it wise, however, to
omit mentioning the splash heard on deck overnight, or that queer little
episode of philosophical conversation.
The coroner's jury, for that end empanelled, attentively considering the
circumstances which surrounded the last end of Edmund Plantagenet,
late of Chiddingwick, Surrey, had more especially to inquire into the
question whether or not deceased at the time he met with his sudden
death was perfectly sober. Deceased, it seemed, was father of Mr.
Richard Plantagenet, of Durham College, who identified the body. On the
night of the accident the unfortunate gentleman had dined at his own
lodgings in Grove Street, and afterwards went round to take a glass of
wine at Mr. T. M. Faussett's rooms in Durham. Mr. Faussett testified
that deceased when he left loose rooms was perfectly sober. Mr. Trevor
Gillingham, with, the other undergraduates and the college porter,
unanimously bore witness to the same effect. Persons in St. Aldate's who
had seen deceased on his way to Folly Bridge corroborated this evidence
as to sobriety of demeanour. Deceased, though apparently preoccupied,
walked as straight as an arrow. On the whole, the coroner considered,
all the circumstances seemed to show that Mr. Edmund Plantagenet, who
was not a man given to early hours, had strolled off for an evening
walk by the river bank to cool himself after dinner, and had slipped and
fallen--being a heavy man--owing to the flooded and dangerous state
of the tow-path. Jury returned a verdict in accordance with the
evidence--accidental death--with a rider suggesting that the
Conservators should widen and extend the tow-path.
But Trevor Gillingham, meeting Faussett in quad after Hall that evening,
observed to him confidentially in a very low voice:
'By Jove, old man, we've had a precious narrow squeak of it! I only hope
the others will be discreetly silent. We might all have got sent down in
a lump together for our parts in this curious little family drama. But
all's well that end's well, as the Immortal One has it. Might make a
capital scene, don't you know, some day--in one of my future tragedies.'