Darrell responded, "I am content, and ask but leave to speak, and
briefly, with Dame Rosamund before I die."
Then the woman came more near to him. "I am not used to beg, but
within this hour you die, and I have loved no man in all my life saving
only you, Sir Gregory Darrell. Nor have you loved any person as you
loved me once in France. Nay, to-day, I may speak freely, for with you
the doings of that boy and girl are matters overpast. Yet were it
otherwise--eh, weigh the matter carefully! for absolute mistress of
England am I now, and entire England would I give you, and such love as
that slim, white innocence has never dreamed of would I give you,
Gregory Darrell--No, no! ah, Mother of God, not you!" The Queen
clapped one hand upon his lips.
"Listen," she quickly said, as a person in the crisis of panic; "I
spoke to tempt you. But you saw, and clearly, that it was the sickly
whim of a wanton, and you never dreamed of yielding, for you love this
Rosamund Eastney, and you know me to be vile. Then have a care of me!
The strange woman am I of whom we read that her house is the way to
hell, going down to the chambers of death. Yea, many strong men have
been slain by me, and futurely will many others be slain, it may be;
but never you among them, my Gregory, who are more wary, and more
merciful, and know that I have need to lay aside at least one
comfortable thought against eternity."
"I concede you to have been unwise--" he hoarsely said.
About them fell the dying leaves, of many glorious colors, but the air
of this new day seemed raw and chill.
Then Rosamund came through the opening in the hedge. "Nay, choose,"
she wearily said; "the woman offers life and empery and wealth, and it
may be, even a greater love than I am capable of giving you. I offer a
dishonorable death within the moment."
And again, with that peculiar and imperious gesture, the man flung back
his head, and he laughed. "I am I! and I will so to live that I may
face without shame not only God, but even my own scrutiny." He wheeled
upon the Queen and spoke henceforward very leisurely. "I love you; all
my life long I have loved you, Ysabeau, and even now I love you: and
you, too, dear Rosamund, I love, though with a difference. And every
fibre of my being lusts for the power that you would give me, Ysabeau,
and for the good which I would do with it in the England I or Roger
Mortimer must rule; as every fibre of my being lusts for the man that I
would be could I choose death without debate, and for the man which you
would make of me, my Rosamund.
"The man! And what is this man, this Gregory Darrell, that his welfare
be considered?--an ape who chatters to himself of kinship with the
archangels while filthily he digs for groundnuts! This much I know, at
bottom, durst I but be honest.
"Yet more clearly do I perceive that this same man, like all his
fellows, is a maimed god who walks the world dependent upon many wise
and evil counsellors. He must measure, and to a hair's-breadth, every
content of the world by means of a bloodied sponge, tucked somewhere in
his skull, which is ungeared by the first cup of wine and ruined by the
touch of his own finger. He must appraise all that he judges with no
better instruments than two bits of colored jelly, with a bungling
makeshift so maladroit that the nearest horologer's apprentice could
have devised a more accurate device. In fine, he is under penalty
condemned to compute eternity with false weights and to estimate
infinity with a yardstick: and he very often does it. For though, 'If
then I do that which I would not I consent unto the law,' saith even
the Apostle; yet the braver Pagan answers him, 'Perceive at last that
thou hast in thee something better and more divine than the things
which cause the various effects and, as it were, pull thee by the
strings.'
"There lies the choice which every man must make--or rationally, as his
reason goes, to accept his own limitations and make the best of his
allotted prison-yard? or stupendously to play the fool and swear even
to himself (while his own judgment shrieks and proves a flat denial),
that he is at will omnipotent? You have chosen long ago, my poor proud
Ysabeau; and I choose now, and differently: for poltroon that I am!
being now in a cold drench of terror, I steadfastly protest I am not
much afraid, and I choose death, madame."
It was toward Rosamund that the Queen looked, and smiled a little
pitifully. "Should Queen Ysabeau be angry or vexed or very cruel now,
my Rosamund? for at bottom she is glad."
More lately the Queen said: "I give you back your plighted word. I
ride homeward to my husks, but you remain. Or rather, the Countess of
Farrington departs for the convent of Ambresbury, disconsolate in her
widowhood and desirous to have done with worldly affairs. It is most
natural she should relinquish to her beloved and only brother all her
dower-lands--or so at least Messire de Berners acknowledges. Here,
then, is the grant, my Gregory, that conveys to you those lands of
Ralph de Belomys which last year I confiscated. And this tedious
Messire de Berners is willing now--nay, desirous--to have you for a
son-in-law."
About them fell the dying leaves, of many glorious colors, but the air
of this new day seemed raw and chill, what while, very calmly, Dame
Ysabeau took Sir Gregory's hand and laid it upon the hand of Rosamund
Eastney. "Our paladin is, in the outcome, a mortal man, and therefore
I do not altogether envy you. Yet he has his moments, and you are
capable. Serve, then, not only his desires but mine also, dear
Rosamund."
There was a silence. The girl spoke as though it was a sacrament. "I
will, madame and Queen."
Thus did the Queen end her holiday.
A little later the Countess of Farrington rode from Ordish with all her
train save one; and riding from that place, where love was, she sang
very softly, and as to herself.
Sang Ysabeau:
"_As with her dupes dealt Circe
Life deals with hers, pardie!
Reshaping without mercy,
And shaping swinishly,
To wallow swinishly,
And for eternity--_
"_Though, harder than the witch was,
Life, changing ne'er the whole,
Transmutes the body, which was
Proud garment of the soul,
And briefly drugs the soul,
Whose ruin is her goal--_
"_And means by this thereafter
A subtler mirth to get,
And mock with bitterer laughter
Her helpless dupes' regret,
Their swinish dull regret
For what they half forget._"
And within the hour came Hubert Frayne to Ordish, on a foam-specked
horse, as he rode to announce to the King's men the King's barbaric
murder overnight, at Berkeley Castle, by Queen Ysabeau's order.
"Ride southward," said Lord Berners, and panted as they buckled on his
disused armor; "but harkee, Frayne! if you pass the Countess of
Farrington's company, speak no syllable of your news, since it is not
convenient that a lady so thoroughly and so praiseworthily--Lord, Lord,
how I have fattened!--so intent on holy things, in fine, should have
her meditations disturbed by any such unsettling tidings. Hey,
son-in-law?"
Sir Gregory Darrell laughed, and very bitterly. "He that is without
blemish among you--" he said. Then they armed completely.