Chapter 31

Their Graces Keep their Wedding Day at Camylott

"She came to Court at last, my Lord Duke," said his Grace of
Marlborough. "She came at last--as I felt sure 'twas Fate she should."

'Twas at Camylott he said this, where he had come in those days which
darkened about him when, royal favour lost, the acclamations of a
fickle public stilled, its clamour of applause almost forgot and denied
by itself, his glory as statesman, commander, warrior seemed to sink
beneath the horizon like a sunset in a winter sky. His splendid frame
shattered by the stroke of illness, his heart bereaved, his great mind
dulled and saddened, there were few friends faithful to him, but my
Lord Duke of Osmonde, who had never sought his favour or required his
protection, who had often held views differing from his own and hidden
none of them, was among the few in whose company he found solace and
pleasure.

"I see you as I was," he would say. "Nay, rather as I might have been
had Nature given me a thing she gave to you and withheld from John
Churchill. You were the finer creature and less disturbed by poor
worldly dreams."

So more than once he came to be guest at Camylott, and would be moved
to pleasure by the happiness and fulness of life in the very air of the
place, by the joyousness of the tall, handsome children, by the spirit
and sweet majesty of the tall beauty their mother, by the loveliness of
the country and the cheerful air of well-being among the villagers and
tenantry. But most of all he gave thought to the look which dwelt in
the eyes of my Lord Duke and the woman who was so surely mate and
companion as well as wife to him. When, though 'twas even at the
simplest moment, each looked at the other, 'twas a heavenly thing plain
to see.

Upon one of their wedding-days he was at Camylott with them. 'Twas but
a short time before the quiet death of Mistress Anne, and was the tenth
anniversary of their Graces' union.

At Camylott they always spent their anniversary, though upon their
other domains the rejoicings which made Camylott happy were also held.
These festivities were gay and rustic, including the pealing of church
bells, the lighting of bonfires, rural games, and feastings; but they
were most noted for a feature her Grace herself had invented before she
had yet been twelve months a wife, and 'twas a pretty fancy, too, as
well as a kind thought.

She had talked of it first to her husband one summer afternoon as they
walked together in the gold glow of sunset through Camylott Woods.
'Twas one of many happy hours shared with her which he remembered to
his life's end, and could always call up in his mind the deep amber
light filtering through the