CHAPTER VIII
SILKEN BONDS
Wessex and Everingham had readjusted their masks and wrapped theircloaks around them, ere they once more mingled with the crowd whichstill thronged around the gaily decked booths.
The evening now was rapidly drawing in. Hampton Court, in thefast-gathering haze beyond, looked grey and ghostlike, with brightlyillumined windows beginning to gleam here and there.
With an impatient frown, Wessex deliberately turned his back on thegorgeous pile: it represented boredom to him, politics and dullness, andhe loved gaiety, sunshine, and laughter, these merry-makers here, thepretty country wenches with their bare arms and neat ankles showingbeneath their brightly coloured robes.
Everingham was silent as he followed his friend through the crowd. ButWessex' laugh was always infectious, and he seemed in a merry moodto-night. Harry Plantagenet alone seemed morose; he disapproved of allthese country louts, who were over free with their caresses. He keptclose to his master's heel, and only gave an occasional growl, when someimpudent 'prentice dared to come too nigh.
"Well, Harry, old friend," said the Duke after a while, "shall we go andconsult the witch, or wait until the stars are out? Friend Everinghamhere is none too good company to-night, eh? In thine ear, proudPlantagenet, he hath designs on our freedom. But the soothsayer shallcast our horoscope, and look into our future, see if you are to becomechief lapdog to the Queen of England, or if we are both of us to fall inbondage to the mistress plighted to us by an uncomfortable oldgentleman, who had not consulted us in the matter. 'Sdeath man," headded, suddenly looking straight into Everingham's serious face, "why doyou look so grave? Tell me, pending that witch's starlit lies, what'syour best news?"
"By my faith!" responded Everingham simply, "the best news is YourGrace's return. 'Twas an ill wind that wafted you away from Court."
"Aye! 'twas the wind of infinite boredom wafted my Grace away," repliedthe Duke with a smile. "Confess, friend, that the Court cannot bealluring with the Queen telling her beads, the foreign ambassadorsruling England, the Privy Council at loggerheads, the people grumbling,and the ladies yawning. Brrr!"
He gave a mock shiver, and seemed not to notice the quick look ofreproach cast at him by his friend.
"And out of sheer boredom," quoth Everingham with a sigh of deepdisappointment, "you piqued the Queen of England."
Wessex did not reply at once. At Everingham's tone of rebuke a slightfrown had contracted his forehead, and that certain look of hauteur,never wholly absent from his face, at once became more apparent.
There was more than mere camaraderie between these two men: unity ofthought, similarity of tastes and education, a great and overwhelminglove for their own country, together with mutual understanding andappreciation, had long ago knit the ties of friendship closely betweenthem. It was generally admitted by every one that Lord Everingham mightventure on a ground of familiarity with His Grace which no one elsequite dared to tread.
This time too, after that instant's hesitation, the reserve which everynow and then seemed entirely to detach the Duke of Wessex from hissurroundings, quickly disappeared again. The pleasant smile returned tothe proud lips, he shrugged his shoulders and said simply--
"Is the Queen of England piqued?"
"Can you ask?" rejoined the other with increased vehemence.
Then he checked himself abruptly, feeling no doubt how useless it was todiscuss such matters seriously just now.
"The only woman," he added, falling in once more with his friend'slighter mood, "the only woman whose blandishments His Grace of Wessexhas ever been known to resist."
"And that with difficulty," concluded the Duke gaily. "But you see,friend," he added with mock gravity, "with a Tudor you never can tell;you might lose your heart one day and your head the next."
"Mary Tudor loves you too well . . ." protested Lord Everingham.
"She is the daughter of King Harry VIII, remember, and would threaten mewith the block or the rack at every indiscretion."
He paused, then added quaintly--
"And I would commit so many."
"A woman who loves always forgives," urged his friend.
"A woman, my good Everingham, will forgive a grave infidelity--perhaps!but not a number of little indiscretions. Mine," he added with a lightsigh, "would be the little indiscretions."
"And while you fled from Court the Queen of England has almost promisedto wed the Spanish king," said Everingham bitterly.
He watched his friend keenly as he spoke and paused a moment before headded pointedly--
"'Twill be a proud day for the peers of England when they bow the kneeto their Liege Lord, a foreign king."
Wessex shrugged his broad shoulders and turned to where a pretty wench,dispensing ale to a scarlet-cloaked burgher, formed a picture pleasingto his artistic eye.
Everingham, somewhat proud of his own diplomatic skill, had noted,however, a certain stiffening of His Grace's figure at the vision whichhad been conjured before him.
That of a Wessex bending the knee before a Spaniard.
"You were away," continued Everingham, eager to goad his friend intospeech, "and my Lord Cardinal and Don Miguel know how to blow upon theflames of Mary's jealousy. Your influence can still save England, mylord," he added with great earnestness, "let not your enemies say thatfear of a woman keeps you from exerting it."
"H'm! do they say that?" mused Wessex quaintly, whilst a smile, whichalmost might be called boyish, altered the whole expression of hisserious face. "By my faith! but they are right. One's enemies usuallyare."
He drew his friend away from the immediate vicinity of a jabberingcrowd, into a dark corner formed by one of the booths. Everingham,thinking that at last he had led Wessex into a graver train of thought,failed to notice the humorous twinkle of the eyes which had so palpablystruggled to the surface.
"It is the fear of a woman has kept me away from Court," he whisperedsolemnly, "but that woman is not the Queen of England."
"Who is it then?"
"In your ear, friend . . . 'tis the Lady Ursula Glynde."
Everingham could scarce suppress a movement of intense satisfaction.Lady Ursula! beautiful, exquisite Lady Ursula was the onestumbling-block on which the schemes of his faction might becomehopelessly shattered.
Wessex was nominally plighted to the lady. True, 'twas an engagementundertaken by the lady's own father, without the consent of the partieschiefly concerned. But in Tudor England there was a curious adherence tosuch solemnly plighted troths, which might have proved a bar to theDuke's sense of absolute freedom.
If, however, he looked upon this unnatural and monstrous pledge with thelightness which it fully deserved, if he considered himself at libertyto break the imaginary bonds which held him to Lady Ursula, then thework of his partisans would become comparatively easy.
They had always hoped and fully intended to overcome His Grace'sscruples in the matter, and fondly thought that they would succeed. Butsince the Duke himself looked indifferently upon this so-called troth,why, Everingham himself was the first to feel the keenest satisfactionat the thought.
"You dislike the lady then?" he asked with unfeigned delight.
"I have never seen her," retorted Wessex placidly. "At any rate, notsince she was in her cradle. I certainly didn't like her then."
"She is very beautiful," remarked Everingham, with a somewhat shamefacedrecollection of his previous adventure, "but----"
"She might be a veritable angel, yet she would frighten me."
A mock shudder passed through his tall, athletic frame, and taking hisfriend's arm in his, he whispered confidentially, "Think of it, my lord!A woman whom duty _compels_ one to love--Brrr!--Her own father plightedour troth; I am left comparatively free, yet if I do not wed LadyUrsula, she is doomed to end her days in a convent. . . . A matter ofhonour--what? . . . Yet I--I, who could love any woman," he addedemphatically, "be she queen or peasant--that is--h'm!--if I were reallyput to it--find the very thought of my promi
sed bride abhorrent. She isthe one woman in all the world whom I could never love--never! . . . Iknow it! So I ran away from Court, not because I feared one woman lovedme too much, but because I knew I should love one woman too little."
He had spoken so light-heartedly, so gaily, that in spite of the graveissues at stake Everingham could not help but laugh.
"Nay! perhaps you exaggerate the danger," he said. "The Lady Ursulamight prefer the convent to being a duchess. She has never seen YourGrace, she is rich and high-born, she may be pious----"
"Or perverse," responded Wessex. "I've never met a woman yet who didn'twant--badly--the thing she mightn't get."
"Is England then a woman," queried Everingham with renewed earnestness,"since she wants Wessex?"
But the Duke was not prepared to follow his friend to-night intosentimental, ultra-patriotic bypaths. He was not altogether inclined tosacrifice his liberty for the sake of ousting the Spanish king from hisproposed English throne.
Nevertheless he rejoined more gravely than was his wont.
"Does England really want me?" he said with gentle irony. "Nay!" headded, restraining with one hand Everingham's exuberant protests, "Iknow! I know! you all think so, and that I am an unhallowed idler,letting my country drift into the arms of the foreigner. Do not deny it,friend. . . . Perhaps I am. . . . Nay! we'll say, indeed I am. . . .There! there! calm your fears. Have I not told you that Her Majesty hathcommanded my presence at Court? We'll set our poor wits to oust Spanishdiplomacy, and I must trust my luckiest star to inspire in the LadyUrsula a wholesome desire for the convent; for I tell thee, friend, thatif she holds me to my silken bonds, I will at once repair to theoutermost corner of the earth and thence drop into vacancy, or takeflight to the blue dome of heaven above."
"God protect Your Grace," rejoined Everingham with grave solemnity. "Ah!I fear no Spanish influence now," he added enthusiastically. "You'llsave England, my lord, and the gratitude of the nation will be at yourfeet."
Wessex smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and without further allusion tomore serious subjects the two men mingled once more among the crowd.
The Tangled Skein Page 9