Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Eight years had passed since the king's marriage with Elfrida, and the
one child born to them was now seven, the darling of his parents,
Ethelred the angelic child, who to the end of his long life would be
praised for one thing only--his personal beauty. But Edward, his
half-brother, now in his thirteenth year, was regarded by her with an
almost equal affection, on account of his beauty and charm, his devotion
to his step-mother, the only mother he had known, and, above all, for
his love of his little half-brother. He was never happy unless he was
with him, acting the part of guide and instructor as well as playfellow.

Edgar had recently completed one of his great works, the building of
Corfe Castle, and now whenever he was in Wessex preferred it as a
residence, since he loved best that part of England with its wide moors
and hunting forests, and its neighbourhood to the sea and to Portland
and Poole water. He had been absent for many weeks on a journey to
Northumbria, and the last tidings of his movements were that he was on
his way to the south, travelling on the Welsh border, and intended
visiting the Abbot of Glastonbury before returning to Dorset. This
religious house was already very great in his day; he had conferred many
benefits on it, and contemplated still others.

It was summer time, a season of great heats, and Elfrida with the two
little princes often went to the coast to spend a whole day in the open
air by the sea. Her favourite spot was at the foot of a vast chalk down
with a slight strip of woodland between its lowest slope and the beach.
She was at this spot one day about noon where the trees were few and
large, growing wide apart, and had settled herself on a pile of cushions
placed at the roots of a big old oak tree, where from her seat she could
look out over the blue expanse of water. But the hamlet and church close
by on her left hand were hidden by the wood, though sounds issuing from
it could be heard occasionally--shouts and bursts of laughter, and at
times the music of a stringed instrument and a voice singing. These
sounds came from her armed guard and other attendants who were speeding
the idle hours of waiting in their own way, in eating and drinking and
in games and dancing. Only two women remained to attend to her wants,
and one armed man to keep watch and guard over the two boys at their
play.

They were not now far off, not above fifty yards, among the big trees;
but for hours past they had been away out of her sight, racing on their
ponies over the great down; then bathing in the sea, Edward teaching his
little brother to swim; then he had given him lessons in tree-climbing,
and now, tired of all these exertions, and for variety's sake, they were
amusing themselves by standing on their heads. Little Ethelred had tried
and failed repeatedly, then at last, with hands and head firmly planted
on the sward, he had succeeded in throwing his legs up and keeping them
in a vertical position for a few seconds, this feat being loudly
applauded by his young instructor.

Elfrida, who had witnessed this display from her seat, burst out
laughing, then said to herself: O how I love these two beautiful boys
almost with an equal love, albeit one is not mine! But Edward must be
ever dear to me because of his sweetness and his love of me and, even
more, his love and tender care of my darling. Yet am I not wholly free
from an anxious thought of the distant future. Ah, no, let me not think
of such a thing! This sweet child of a boy-father and girl-mother--the
frail mother that died in her teens--he can never grow to be a proud,
masterful, ambitious man--never aspire to wear his father's crown!
Edgar's first-born, it is true, but not mine, and he can never be king.
For Edgar and I are one; is it conceivable that he should oppose me in
this--that we that are one in mind and soul shall at the last be divided
and at enmity? Have we not said it an hundred times that we are one? One
in all things except in passion. Yet this very coldness in me in which I
differ from others is my chief strength and glory, and has made our two
lives one life. And when he is tired and satiated with the common beauty
and the common passions of other women he returns to me only to have his
first love kindled afresh, and when in love and pity I give myself to
him and am his bride afresh as when first he had my body in his arms, it
is to him as if one of the immortals had stooped to a mortal, and he
tells me I am the flower of womankind and of the world, that my white
body is a perfect white flower, my hair a shining gold flower, my mouth
a fragrant scarlet flower, and my eyes a sacred blue flower, surpassing
all others in loveliness. And when I have satisfied him, and the tempest
in his blood has abated, then for the rapture he has had I have mine,
when, ashamed at his violence, as if it had been an insult to me, he
covers his face with my hair and sheds tears of love and contrition on
my breasts. O nothing can ever disunite us! Even from the first, before
I ever saw him, when he was coming to me I knew that we were destined to
be one. And he too knew it from the moment of seeing me, and knew that I
knew it; and when he sat at meat with us and looked smilingly at the
friend of his bosom and spoke merrily to him, and resolved at the same
time to take his life, he knew that by so doing he would fulfil my
desire, and as my knowledge of the betrayal was first, so the desire to
shed that abhorred blood was in me first. Nevertheless, I cannot be free
of all anxious thoughts, and fear too of my implacable enemy and
traducer who from a distance watches all my movements, who reads Edgar's
mind even as he would a book, and what he finds there writ by me he
seeks to blot out; and thus does he ever thwart me. But though I cannot
measure my strength against his, it will not always be so, seeing that
he is old and I am young, with Time and Death on my side, who will like
good and faithful servants bring him to the dust, so that my triumph
must come. And when he is no more I shall have time to unbuild the
structure he has raised with lies for stones and my name coupled with
some evil deed cut in every stone. For I look ever to the future, even
to the end to see this Edgar, with the light of life shining so brightly
in him now, a venerable king with silver hair, his passions cool, his
strength failing, leaning more heavily on me; until at last, persuaded
by me, he will step down from the throne and resign his crown to our
son--our Ethelred. And in him and his son after him, and in his son's
sons we shall live still in their blood, and with them rule this kingdom
of Edgar the Peaceful--a realm of everlasting peace.

Thus she mused, until overcome by her swift, crowding thoughts and
passions, love and hate, with memories dreadful or beautiful, of her
past and strivings of her mind to pierce the future, she burst into a
violent storm of tears so that her frame was shaken, and covering her
eyes with her hands she strove to get the better of her agitation lest
her weakness should be witnessed by her attendants. But when this
tempest had left her and she lifted her eyes again, it seemed to her
that the burning tears which had relieved her heart had also washed away
some trouble that had been like a dimness on all visible nature, and
earth and sea and sky were glorified as if the sunlight flooding the
world fell direct from the heavenly throne, and she sat drinking in pure
delight from the sight of it and the soft, warm air she breathed.

Then, to complete her happiness, the silence that reigned around her was
broken by a sweet, musical sound of a little bird that sang from the
tree-top high above her head. This was the redstart, and the tree under
which she sat was its singing-tree, to which it resorted many times a
day to spend half an hour or so repeating its brief song at intervals of
a few seconds--a small song that was like the song of the redbreast,
subdued, refined and spiritualised, as of a spirit that lived within the
tree.

Listening to it in that happy, tender mood which had followed her tears,
she gazed up and tried to catch sight of it, but could see nothing but
the deep-cut, green, translucent, clustering oak leaves showing the blue
of heaven and shining like emeralds in the sunlight. O sweet, blessed
little bird, she said, are you indeed a bird? I think you are a
messenger sent to assure me that all my hopes and dreams of the distant
days to come will be fulfilled. Sing again and again and again; I could
listen for hours to that selfsame song.

But she heard it no more; the bird had flown away. Then, still
listening, she caught a different sound--the loud hoof-beats of horses
being ridden at furious speed towards the hamlet. Listening intently to
that sound she heard, on its arrival at the hamlet, a sudden, great cry
as if all the men gathered there had united their voices in one cry; and
she stood up, and her women came to her, and all together stood silently
gazing in that direction. Then the two boys who had been lying on the
turf not far off came running to them and caught her by the hands, one
on each side, and Edward, looking up at her white, still face, cried,
Mother, what is it you fear? But she answered no word. Then again the
sound of hoofs was heard and they knew the riders were now coming at a
swift gallop to them. And in a few moments they appeared among the
trees, and reining up their horses at a distance of some yards, one
sprang to the ground, and advancing to the queen, made his obeisance,
then told her he had been sent to inform her of Edgar's death. He had
been seized by a sudden violent fever in Gloucestershire, on his way to
Glastonbury, and had died after two days' illness. He had been
unconscious all the time, but more than once he had cried out, On to
Glastonbury! and now in obedience to that command his body was being
conveyed thither for interment at the abbey.

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