CHAPTER XXVI
THE PROVOCATION
When Ursula finally succeeded in escaping from her room, where she hadbeen forcibly confined--almost a prisoner--in the charge of twowaiting-women, she returned to the hall, vaguely hoping that Wessexwould still be there. She found no one. The closet door was open; takingone of the wax tapers in her hand she peeped into the inner room and sawthat it was empty.
On the fur rug, on the floor, was still the impress of HarryPlantagenet's body, as he had curled himself up patiently to wait andsleep.
A sudden draught extinguished the taper and left the small room in totaldarkness; to her overwrought nerves it seemed cold and lonely, like anewly opened grave. Wessex had gone because he had heard that she haddeceived him. The slanders uttered against her had found credence in hisheart. Thus she mused, guessing at the truth, perhaps not even realizinghow much he had suffered.
She would not go back to her room just yet. She knew that she could notrest. Though the room was empty there seemed something of him still init, even in its cold and deserted aspect.
She lingered here, sitting in the chair where he had sat and heard. Shecould not cry, she would not give way, for she wished to think.Therefore she lingered.
Thus fate worked its will in this strange history of that night.
Wessex did not know that she had returned. After the Cardinal had lefthim he waited awhile, but he never guessed that she would come back. Hadhe not heard that her kindest favours had been the Spaniard's, ere hisnoble Grace had come across her path? With that almost morbid humilitywhich is such a peculiar and inalienable characteristic of a great love,he thought it quite natural that she should love Don Miguel, or anyother man, rather than him, and now he was only too willing to supposethat she had gone to her favoured gallant, leaving him in the ridiculousand painful position in which she had wantonly placed him.
He had waited in a desultory fashion, not really hoping that she wouldcome. Then, as silence began to fall more and more upon the Palace, andthe clock in the great tower boomed the midnight hour, he had finallyturned his steps towards his own apartments.
To reach them he had to go along the cloisters, and traverse the greataudience chamber, which lay between his suite of rooms and that occupiedby the Cardinal de Moreno and Don Miguel de Suarez.
As he entered the vast room he was unpleasantly surprised to see theyoung Spaniard standing beside the distant window.
The lights had been put out, but the two enormous bays were open,letting in a flood of brilliant moonlight. The night was peculiarlybalmy and sweet, and through the window could be seen the exquisitepanorama of the gardens and terraces of Hampton Court, with the riverbeyond bathed in silvery light.
Wessex had paused at the door, his eyes riveted on that distant picture,which recalled so vividly to his aching senses the poetic idyll of thisafternoon.
It was strange that Don Miguel should be standing just where he was,between him and that vision so full of memories now.
Wessex turned his eyes on the Marquis, who had not moved when heentered, and seemed absorbed in thought.
"And there is the man who before me has looked in Ursula's eyes," musedthe Duke. "To think that I have a fancy for killing that youngreprobate, because he happens to be more attractive than myself . . . orbecause . . ."
He suddenly tried to check his thoughts. They were beginning to riot inhis brain. Until this very moment, when he saw the Spaniard standingbefore him, he had not realized how much he hated him. All that isprimitive, passionate, semi-savage in man rose in him at the sight ofhis rival. A wild desire seized him to grip that weakling by the throat,to make him quake and suffer, if only one thousandth part of the agonywhich had tortured him this past hour.
He deliberately crossed the room, then opened the door which led to hisown apartments.
"Harry, old friend," he called to his dog, "go, wait for me within. Ihave no need for thy company just now."
The beautiful creature, with that peculiar unerring instinct of thefaithful beast, seemed quite reluctant to obey. He stopped short, waggedhis tail, indulged in all the tricks which he knew usually appealed tohis master, begging in silent and pathetic language to be allowed toremain. But Wessex was quite inexorable, and Harry Plantagenet hadperforce to go.
The door closed upon the Duke's most devoted friend. In the meanwhileDon Miguel had evidently perceived His Grace, and now when Wessex turnedtowards him he exclaimed half in surprise, half in tones of thinlyveiled vexation--
"Ah! His Grace of Wessex? Still astir, my lord, at this hour?"
"At your service, Marquis," rejoined the Duke coldly. "Has His Eminencegone to his apartments? . . . Can I do aught for you?"
"Nay, I thank Your Grace . . . I thought you too had retired," stammeredthe young man, now in visible embarrassment. "I must confess I did notthink to see you here."
"Whom did you expect to see, then?" queried Wessex curtly.
"Nay! methought Your Grace had said that questions could not beindiscreet."
"Well?"
"Marry! . . . your question this time, my lord . . ."
"Was indiscreet?"
"Oh!" said the Spaniard deprecatingly.
"Which means that you expect a lady."
"Has Your Grace any objection to that?" queried Don Miguel with thinlyveiled sarcasm.
"None at all," replied Wessex, who felt his patience and self-controloozing away from him bit by bit. "I am not your guardian; yet, methinks,it ill becomes a guest of your rank to indulge in low amours beneath theroof of the Queen of England."
"Why should you call them low?" rejoined the Marquis, whose mannerbecame more and more calm and bland, as Wessex seemed to wax moreviolent. "You, of all men, my lord, should know that we, at Court, seekfor pleasure where we are most like to find it."
"Aye! and in finding the pleasure oft lose our honour."
"Your Grace is severe."
"If my words offend you, sir, I am at your service."
"Is this a quarrel?"
"As you please."
"Your Grace . . ."
"Pardi, my lord Marquis," interrupted Wessex haughtily and in tones ofwithering contempt, "I did not know that there were any cowards amongthe grandees of Spain."
"By Our Lady, Your Grace is going too far," retorted the Spaniard.
And with a quick gesture he unsheathed his sword.
Wessex' eyes lighted up with the fire of satisfied desire. He knew nowthat this was what he had longed for ever since the young man's insolentlaugh had first grated unpleasantly on his ear. For the moment all thatwas tender and poetic and noble in him was relegated to the verybackground of his soul. He was only a human creature who suffered andwished to be revenged, an animal who was wounded and was seeking tokill. He would have blushed to own that what he longed for now, aboveeverything on earth, was the sight of that man's blood.
"Nay, my lord!" he said quietly, "are we children to give one another apin-prick or so?"
And having drawn his sword, he unsheathed his long Italian dagger, andholding it in his left hand he quickly wrapped his cloak around thatarm.
"You are mad," protested Don Miguel with a frown, for a sword and daggerfight meant death to one man at least, and a mortal combat with one sodesperate as Wessex had not formed part of the programme so carefullyarranged by the Cardinal de Moreno.
"By the Mass, man," was the Duke's calm answer, "art waiting to feel myglove on thy cheek?"
"As you will, then," retorted Don Miguel, reluctantly drawing his owndagger, "but I swear that this quarrel is none of my making."
"No! 'tis of mine! _en garde_!"
Don Miguel was pale to the lips. Not that he was a coward; he had foughtmore than one serious duel before now, and risked his life often enoughfor mere pastime or sport. But there was such a weird glitter in theeyes of this man, whom he and his chief had so wantonly wronged for thesake of their own political advancement, such a cold determination tokill, that, much against his will, the Spaniard fel
t an icy shiverrunning down his spine.
The room too! half in darkness, with only the strange, almost unrealbrilliancy of the moon shedding a pallid light over one portion of thefloor, that portion where one man was to die.
The Marquis de Suarez had been provoked; his was therefore the right ofselecting his own position for the combat. In the case of such apeculiar illumination this was a great initial advantage.
The Spaniard, with his back towards the great open bay, had hisantagonist before him in full light, whilst his own figure appeared onlyas a dark silhouette, elusive and intensely deceptive. Wessex, however,seemed totally unconscious of the disadvantage of his own position. Hewas still dressed in the rich white satin doublet in which he hadappeared at the banquet a few hours ago. The broad ribbon of the Garter,the delicate lace at the throat, the jewels which he wore, all wouldhelp in the brilliant light to guide his enemy's dagger towards hisbreast.
But he seemed only impatient to begin; the issue, one way or the other,mattered to him not at all. The Spaniard's death or his own was all thathe desired:--perhaps his own now--for choice. He felt less bitter, lesshumiliated since he held his sword in his hand, and only vaguelyrecollected that Spaniards made a boast these days of carrying poisoneddaggers in their belts.
The Tangled Skein Page 27