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.
Yet at this he stayed his hand and came to Bordeaux, carried in a
litter, his vengeance satisfied but his chivalry stained by the
innocent blood of churls, an unhappy knight, ill at ease in mind and
body, without money for his men-at-arms, with Acquitaine slipping from
him. East and south and north the French were advancing, and he had no
means to stay them.
This was great bitterness for one who had been the pattern of
knighthood in Europe, who was a King’s son and the hero of the English.
So he came to Bordeaux, where his family waited him in a castle above
which the Leopards floated, and saw the ships in the harbour waiting to
carry him back to England. At Cognac he had delegated his powers and
his offices to his brother, and Johan of Gaunt had taken up the almost
hopeless task; but he was ambitious, a famous knight, eager to play a
great part among the Princes of Europe, also in his full health and
lusty; but Edward wasted from day to day. After the feverish fury of
the attack on Limoges and the ferocity of his vengeance, he fell deeper
into his sickness and brooded bitterly in his mind.
When he had halted at Lormont a messenger had ridden up to meet him
with word from the Princess, Jehanne of Kent. She had her two children
with her, and one, the elder, was sick.
Edward said no word to this message, and so they carried him, a silent
knight, into the castle.
All gaiety, all joy, all splendour of chivalry and deeds of arms, all
the brightness of glory and bliss of youth seemed overclouded now.
Edward the King was old, Edward the Prince was sick and defeated,
Philippa the Queen was dead, and English chivalry was smirched by the
massacre of Limoges.
And the ships waited to take ingloriously home the proudest knight
in Europe to rest his limbs in the Savoy and presently his bones in
St. Peter’s Church at the Abbey near Westminster. When he came to the
castle he asked after his little son Edward.
They carried him to a room overlooking the Bay of Biscay that lay
placid beneath a pale October sky, and laid him on a couch by the
window; and he asked again for his son.
Immediately the Princess Jehanne, his wife, entered the room and came
to his side, and in silence went on her knees beside him.
“Ah, _joli coeur_!” he said, and raised his weary eyes and took her
long face between his hands and gazed down into it.
“What happened at Limoges?” she asked, without a word of greeting or
duty.
His hands fell to his sides and his worn countenance overclouded.
“I kept my word,” he muttered.
Tears came into the eyes of Jehanne of Kent.
“I would you had been foresworn, seigneur,” she answered, “for the hand
of God is against us.”
“In what way?” asked Edward.
“In your sickness,” she said, “for, certes, I perceive you very
weak–and in the illness of the child.”
“Help me up,” answered the Prince, “that I may go to him.”
He raised himself to a sitting posture and put his feet to the ground;
his simple dull red robe flowed round him unbroken by a jewel, his dark
thin face had the look of a man weary of himself.
With her arm round his shoulder Jehanne supported him; she was very
grave, like one who had no comfort to give.
“That I should lean on you, _joli coeur_!” he said, and rose
unsteadily, holding to her arm. “Look well to this child, Jehanne,” he
added in a sterner tone, “for meseems he will wear the crown sooner
than I—”
“_Hèlas!_” she answered tenderly.“ This is not Edward who speaks so
sadly—”
“Jehanne,” he said, “I shall never wear mail again.”
She shook her head, looking up at him, and tried to smile.
“I shall no more set lance in rest nor draw sword,” he continued. “I
have been useless sick so long, and now I feel death in my bones.”
“Never,” said the gentle Jehanne, “have you come back to me in this ill
humour–the air of England will restore you, seigneur.”
“The air of England will be no balm to my hurts,” he answered. “Take me
to the child.”
She led him gently to the next chamber, her own, where Prince Edward
had lain two days in an increasing fever.
It was a tall and glooming room, hung with cloths covered with
stitching in bright wools.
The two arched windows opened on to the courtyard and the distant
prospect of the sea, and were crossed by the boughs of a poplar tree
that shook golden and amber leaves against the mullions.
An Eastern rug spread the floor, and there was an open hearth on which
some logs smouldered.
The bed stood out from the wall opposite the windows, and was hung with
curtains of clean blue and white check linen; at the foot of it were
two chairs, on one of which a white dog slept.
Beside the bed was a _prie dieu_, with an illuminated book on the
rest, beneath which hung a long strip of embroidered silk, beyond that
several coffers and chests, still unpacked, and a couch piled with
skins and garments.
Two women and a man were talking together over the fire; they rose
hastily at the entrance of the Prince, but he took no heed of them.
Aided by his wife, he came to the end of the bed and stood holding by
the light rail.
Under the blue and white frill of the canopy a child lay asleep, his
brown hair a tangle on the stiff white bolster, his flushed cheek
pressed against his hand.
The coverlet that was worked with the arms of England on a blue ground
was drawn up to his chin, his little body only slightly disturbed the
smoothness of the heavy fall of the silk.
“In what manner did he become sick?” demanded the Prince hoarsely. “God
wot, you might have looked to him better.”
The Princess quivered beneath his hand on her shoulder.
“Neither he nor Richard,” she answered, “has been from my sight since
you left me; but there has been much sickness in Bordeaux.” The tears
overbrimmed her eyes and ran down her pale cheeks. “I have been
watching him these two days without sleep,” she added.
Edward of Wales did not answer her; his hollow eyes were fixed upon his
heir–that third Edward who was to carry on the splendour of England and
the glory of Plantagenet.
The boy had always been next his heart; Richard, his second son, was
not of so kindly a nature. His father did not see in him promise of his
own qualities, but his eldest born was his own copy, beautiful, brave,
at six a perfect little knight.
Jehanne glanced timidly up at his bitter, stern face.
“You must not grieve,” she whispered; “he will be well in a little
while. Is he not strong, and will he not be running beside you in a few
short days?”
Still Edward the Black Prince did not answer; he disengaged himself
from her fond support and walked heavily to his son’s pillow, then sank
on his knees on the bedstep and clasped his thin hands against the
coverlet.
The little face so near to his was calm and proud, the flower of
English beauty, gold and rose in tint, blunt featured, strongly made,
yet delicate.
Save that he was deeply flushed and his hair damp beneath the tumble of
silken curls, he might have been in perfect health. The weary, sick,
disappointed, and defeated knight, with that dark day of Limoges on his
soul, stared with a piteous eagerness at the child’s gracious innocency.
The child who would be King of England soon, surely; it was mere chance
who would live the longer, the old King languishing at Westminster in
tarnished glory at Alice Perrer’s side, or his famous son who had just
resigned his commands and was coming home to die. Edward himself never
thought that he would be King; he felt the sands of life running out
too swiftly.
That day when he had been carried through the slaughter round the
church of St. Etienne at Limoges he had known that it was the last time
he would look on war.
And Edward the King could not live long now.
So soon the fair child would be Lord of England and possessor of all
the perilous honours and glories of his father. The Prince’s proud head
sank low; the hot tears welled up and blinded him, then dripped down
his cheeks as he considered his smirched chivalry.
And the Princess Jehanne saw this, but did not dare to stir from her
place, for she knew that, as a shield once dented by a heavy sword can
never be made smooth again, so a knight’s honour once stained can never
more be cleaned, even by the bitterest repentance. For her husband to
have fallen from this lofty code, which was the only code that held
among those of gentle blood, was a more awful thing than the lapse of a
poor obscure knight, for he had blazed so brightly in his chivalry and
brought such renown to England that the whole world had echoed with his
fame.
The Prince rested his cheek against the arms of England on the
coverlet; he felt the lassitude of a man who sees that life is done,
and that never more in this world will he perform feats of arms or
guide great policies or strive with men or shine before them.
The loss of his strength had had the effect of drawing a veil between
him and the world; seeing as a spectator those events in which he had
once played a leading part, he had come to estimate things differently.
And now that feeling culminated; he felt like one very old, looking
back on a long life, or as if he beheld the incidents of his career
painted in little bright pictures on a long roll of vellum.
It was an unfinished life, a broken, defeated life, perhaps men might
hereafter call it a tarnished life.
The Prince knew this, and the sense of failure was like a black cloud
on his heart.
But his little son, sleeping beneath the leopard-strewn coverlet, would
redeem his own unfulfilled promise.
“Ah, dear Lord Christ, and St. George,” he prayed, “let this be so–let
him be a very perfect knight and a great King.”
Hearing a little movement, he lifted his head.
The child was awake; the sparkling blue of his eyes was brilliant in
his flushed face.
“Seigneur!” he whispered, seeing his father; he smiled. “Shall we be
going to England soon?”
“Even now they load the boats,” answered the Prince. “You wish to
return to England?”
“_Certès_,” said the child wistfully. “Is the war over?” he added.
“What should you know of that?” asked the Prince, startled.
“I did hear the knights all talking of the war.”
“It is not over,” answered Edward sombrely. “Your Uncle Lancaster will
finish that business.”
“_Hèlas!_ I would I were a big knight, Seigneur,” murmured the child.
“There is time for that,” said the Prince.
His son stared at him for a moment’s silence, then said–
“When the knights showed us feats with the lance in the courtyard,
Richard was afraid.”
“Nay,” replied Edward angrily, “not _afraid_!”
The child nodded.
“Richard has a new silk cote hardie which pleases him mightily; but
when I am well I shall have a shirt of mail, shall I not?”
“Ay!” answered the Prince, “if the armourer can make one so small.”
The child closed his eyes.
“Why am I sick, Seigneur?” he muttered. “Did I do wrong?”
Edward shivered.
“You are not sorely sick?” he demanded hoarsely.
His son put out a hot hand, which the Prince clasped tightly.
“I feel so tired,” he whispered, still with his eyes closed; “but when
I sleep the dragons come and crawl over the bed—”
Jehanne had crept round to the other side of the pillow.
“Let him sleep, Edward,” she whispered anxiously.
“He can sleep while I hold his hand,” answered the Prince, never
lifting his eyes from his son’s face.
“Nay, but you should rest,” she insisted. “Have you not come a long
journey, and are you not sick?”
“I rested at Lormont,” answered Edward.
The Princess lifted her red kirtle from her feet and crossed to the
doctor, who stood between the two women on the hearth, and whispered to
him, her pretty face quivering with agitation.
A wind was rising from the sea, ruffling the waves, shaking the cordage
of the anchored ships and lifting the little pennons of England that
struggled at the main masts. This wind beat at the diamond-shaped
leaded casements and scattered the leaves from the poplar tree without
in a yellow shower like golden ducats dropped by a reluctant hand
across the prospect of sea and town.
The Princess Jehanne came back to the bed with the doctor; he was a
Spaniard, who had been in the service of Don Pedro and was renowned for
his knowledge of Eastern medicine.
He spoke in French to the Prince, with a courteous humility.
“Fair Seigneur, permit me to look to the little Prince. And for
yourself, it would be wiser that you should rest.”
Edward glanced up into his cool, composed face; then rose heavily and
seated himself in the stiff chair against the wall.
The doctor bent over the child, delicately touched his brow, then
called, in soft Spanish, one of the women, who came with a small horn
beaker in her hand.
The little Prince was moaning. When he saw the draught he tried to push
it away, and shut his lips obstinately.
“Ah, _par dè_!” cried the father, “what manner of knight will you
become?”
The child sat up, shuddering, but meek, and swallowed the noisome
liquid without a protest.
“Is he better?” whispered the Princess Jehanne, drawing the coverlet
anxiously up over him as he lay down.
The doctor shook his head.
“Not–worse?” she faltered.
“That I cannot say,” he replied. “The fever is very high.”
She glanced at her husband sitting gloomy and silent, and beckoned one
of the women and whispered to her to fetch Prince Richard, who might
charm the Prince out of his melancholy.
But when his second son was brought and led up to him, Edward showed no
manner of interest.
Yet the child was of a neat and exact beauty and very richly dressed in
brown silk and very humble in his duty.
“Were you afraid of the lance play?” asked his father.
Richard looked up in a mischievous and charming manner.
“I do prefer, Seigneur, to go in a litter to horseback,” he lisped.
“Do you not love to see the jousts?” frowned Edward.
“I like to play at the ball,” returned Richard.
“Take him away for a false knight,” said the Prince wearily.
“_Ahè_, at four years old!” cried Jehanne of Kent indignantly. She came
round the bed and caught the younger Prince to her bosom swiftly.
“He is my son,” flashed Edward, “and he loves not arms. Take him hence.”
The Princess gave Richard to the lady who had brought him, and as
he found himself being carried away he began to wail and cry, which
completed the Prince’s contempt; in truth he was angry with Richard for
being well and lusty while his brother lay sick. The Princess noticed
his exclamation of annoyance as the child broke into sobs.
“You are not fair to Richard,” she said, flushing.
“_Pardi_, you must have your favourite,” he retorted gloomily. “If you
had given the care to Edward you do to Richard he might have been on
his feet to welcome me.”
Jehanne turned abruptly away, smarting from the injustice of the rebuke.
“If you had spared Limoges,” she answered, “God’s judgment would not
have fallen on you in this matter.”
The Prince shrank against the wall and lifted tortured eyes.
Instantly she was on her knees before him.
“Forgive me,” she said passionately.
He did not speak a word; his thin hand lightly touched the silver caul
that bound her fair hair, but his eyes had moved to his son.
The little Prince slept again, though uneasily, with moans and
twitchings in his limbs.
“I might have spared Limoges,” muttered Edward, “but I had sworn by my
father’s soul.”
Jehanne kissed the hand that had been withdrawn from her head.
“Come away for a little while,” she pleaded, “while he sleeps.”
He rose and suffered her to lead him into the next chamber, where he
lay exhausted along the couch by the oriel window and sent for his
beloved brother, the Duke of Lancaster.
Jehanne sat silently by his side on a little stool, her brow furrowed
and her cheeks colourless; she had never seen the Prince so silent, so
weak, so troubled.
She was relieved when the magnificent Johan, still in his camail and
surtout, full of vigour and energy, entered the chamber.
“How goes the lading of the ship?” asked Edward of Wales. “We sail
with the first fair wind.”
“_Pardi_,” said the Duke in his deep voice, “I have no time to go down
to the shore yet, but I do not think they will make delays.”
“Surely,” said the Prince. “I am right weary of Acquitaine.”
And he gave a sigh as if he would burst his bosom.
“Yet I must see more of it,” returned Johan, coming to salute the
Princess, which he did with good will, being close in sincere
friendship with this lady.
The Prince lay back languidly.
“How can you keep a foothold without money?” he asked impatiently.
Johan’s deep eyes rested lovingly on his brother’s changed face.
“By St. George,” he said, “if I can keep these fiefs no other way, I
will out of my own revenues and charges support the war—”
Edward looked at him fully, and the tears washed the eyes of the
Princess.
“Seigneur,” she said, “you can with a very comfortable heart return to
England, knowing how loyally Johan will uphold you here.”
She felt warmly towards Johan, for she knew that it was he who had
turned aside the Prince’s vengeance from Jean le Cros and saved him
from the crime of taking the life of a son of the Church.
Perhaps the Prince thought of that too; perhaps he thought that the
blood of the three thousand slain in Limoges was as heavy a burden to
bear as the blood of a bishop.
“Ay, save Acquitaine, Johan,” he murmured, “for the honour of England.”
His eyes turned wistfully to the fading day that died beyond the
oriel window. Surely, he thought, I have drunk of the last drop of
bitterness. I, Edward of Wales, to return to England a useless man,
leaving defeat behind for a younger knight to redeem.
The Duke of Lancaster stood watching him, with many thoughts in his
heart, and presently Edward turned to him and spoke, in a voice earnest
and feeble.
“Johan, when the King dies I shall be in my grave.”
The Princess broke his speech by a sharp, piteous intake of breath, and
caught desperately at his slack hand.
“Oh, Jehanne,” he said, “I have flattered your fears long enough. And
now I must speak straightly.”
He paused, for his breath failed him.
“Speak,” answered Johan, “for I am ready to take any charge that you
may give me—”
“My son Edward will be King of England,” whispered the Prince; “and
he is a young child. Stand you by him and by his mother in their
difficulties.”
“I will,” said the Duke gravely.
“I entreat this of you now,” added Edward, “for it well may be that I
shall never see you again. I think,” and the bitterness of his failure
echoed in his voice, “that I shall die before we regain Acquitaine.”
“Be of better cheer, brother,” answered the Duke, “for I have great
hopes that you will recover in England.”
“Nay, I am past mending,” said the Prince; “and were it not that I have
some desire to draw my last breath in English air, I would die here and
leave my bones where I have left my knighthood and my chivalry.”
“You scarcely think of me,” said Jehanne of Kent, and her eyes reminded
him how much he had loved her once; lately he had seemed to fall away
from the close confines of her affection.
He returned her gaze sadly.
“Yea, I think of you,” he answered, “but men’s matters fill my mind.
Yet be content. You are a sweet woman, Jehanne.”
He caressed her cheek with languid fingers, and again his eyes sought
the window and the pale sky beyond, and his face was moody, as if he
saw passing in the windy spaces without all the pageants, battles,
triumphs, achievements and glories that had gone to make his life–all
the great world that was still full of feats of arms, of ambitions, of
splendour, of laughter, whirling, receding, leaving him in this quiet
chamber, useless, sick, and defeated.