The Line of Love; Dizain des Mariages by James Branch Cabell (sneezy the snowman read aloud txt) 📗

"And I, too, look for warm work," the marquis conceded to Mistress Adelais Vernon, at parting. "But, God willing, my sweet, we shall be wed at Christmas for all that. The Channel is not very wide. At a pinch I might swim it, I think, to come to you."

He kissed her and rode away with his men. Adelais stared after them, striving to picture her betrothed rivalling Leander in this fashion, and subsequently laughed. The marquis was a great lord and a brave captain, but long past his first youth; his actions went somewhat too deliberately ever to be roused to the high lunacies of the Sestian amorist. So Adelais laughed, but a moment later, recollecting the man's cold desire of her, his iron fervors, Adelais shuddered.

This was in the court-yard at Winstead. Roger Darke of Yaxham, the girl's cousin, standing beside her, noted the gesture, and snarled.

"Think twice of it, Adelais," said he.

Whereupon Mistress Vernon flushed like a peony. "I honor him," she said, with some irrelevance, "and he loves me."

Roger scoffed. "Love, love! O you piece of ice! You gray-stone saint! What do you know of love?" Master Darke caught both her hands in his. "Now, by Almighty God, our Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus Christ!" he said, between his teeth, his eyes flaming; "I, Roger Darke, have offered you undefiled love and you have mocked at it. Ha, Tears of Mary! how I love you! And you mean to marry this man for his title! Do you not believe that I love you, Adelais?" he whimpered.

Gently she disengaged herself. This was of a pattern with Roger's behavior any time during the past two years. "I suppose you do," Adelais conceded, with the tiniest possible shrug. "Perhaps that is why I find you so insufferable."

Afterward Mistress Vernon turned on her heel and left Master Darke. In his fluent invocation of Mahound and Termagaunt and other overseers of the damned he presently touched upon eloquence.

2. Comes One with Moly

Adelais came into the walled garden of Winstead, aflame now with autumnal scarlet and gold. She seated herself upon a semicircular marble bench, and laughed for no apparent reason, and contentedly waited what Dame Luck might send.

She was a comely maid, past argument or (as her lovers habitually complained) any adequate description. Circe, Colchian Medea, Viviane du Lac, were their favorite analogues; and what old romancers had fabled concerning these ladies they took to be the shadow of which Adelais Vernon was the substance. At times these rhapsodists might have supported their contention with a certain speciousness, such as was apparent to-day, for example, when against the garden's hurly-burly of color, the prodigal blazes of scarlet and saffron and wine-yellow, the girl's green gown glowed like an emerald, and her eyes, too, seemed emeralds, vivid, inscrutable, of a clear verdancy that was quite untinged with either blue or gray. Very black lashes shaded them. The long oval of her face (you might have objected), was of an absolute pallor, rarely quickening to a flush; but her petulant lips burned crimson, and her hair mimicked the dwindling radiance of the autumn sunlight and shamed it. All in all, the aspect of Adelais Vernon was, beyond any questioning, spiced with a sorcerous tang; say, the look of a young witch shrewd at love-potions, but ignorant of their flavor; yet before this the girl's comeliness had stirred men's hearts to madness, and the county boasted of it.

Presently Adelais lifted her small imperious head, and then again she smiled, for out of the depths of the garden, with an embellishment of divers trills and roulades, came a man's voice that carolled blithely.

Sang the voice:

  _"Had you lived when earth was new
  What had bards of old to do
  Save to sing in praise of you?

  "Had you lived in ancient days,
  Adelais, sweet Adelais,
  You had all the ancients' praise,—
  You whose beauty would have won
  Canticles of Solomon,
  Had the sage Judean king
  Gazed upon this goodliest thing
  Earth of Heaven's grace hath got.

  "Had you gladdened Greece, were not
  All the nymphs of Greece forgot?

  "Had you trod Sicilian ways,
  Adelais, sweet Adelais_,

  "You had pilfered all their praise:
  Bion and Theocritus
  Had transmitted unto us
  Honeyed harmonies to tell
  Of your beauty's miracle,
  Delicate, desirable,
  And their singing skill were bent
  You-ward tenderly,—content,
  While the world slipped by, to gaze
  On the grace of you, and praise
  Sweet Adelais_."

Here the song ended, and a man, wheeling about the hedge, paused to regard her with adoring eyes. Adelais looked up at him, incredibly surprised by his coming.

This was the young Sieur d'Arnaye, Hugh Vernon's prisoner, taken at Agincourt seven years earlier and held since then, by the King's command, without ransom; for it was Henry's policy to release none of the important French prisoners. Even on his death-bed he found time to admonish his brother, John of Bedford, that four of these,—Charles d'Orleans and Jehan de Bourbon and Arthur de Rougemont and Fulke d'Arnaye,—should never be set at liberty. "Lest," as the King said, with a savor of prophecy, "more fire be kindled in one day than all your endeavors can quench in three."

Presently the Sieur d'Arnaye sighed, rather ostentatiously; and Adelais laughed, and demanded the cause of his grief.

"Mademoiselle," he said,—his English had but a trace of accent,—"I am afflicted with a very grave malady."

"What is the name of this malady?" said she.

"They call it love, mademoiselle."

Adelais laughed yet again and doubted if the disease were incurable. But Fulke d'Arnaye seated himself beside her and demonstrated that, in his case, it might not ever be healed.

"For it is true," he observed, "that the ancient Scythians, who lived before the moon was made, were wont to cure this distemper by blood-letting under the ears; but your brother, mademoiselle, denies me access to all knives. And the leech Aelian avers that it may be cured by the herb agnea; but your brother, mademoiselle, will not permit that I go into the fields in search of this herb. And in Greece—he, mademoiselle, I might easily be healed of my malady in Greece! For in Greece is the rock, Leucata Petra, from which a lover may leap and be cured; and the well of the Cyziceni, from which a lover may drink and be cured; and the river Selemnus, in which a lover may bathe and be cured: but your brother will not permit that I go to Greece. You have a very cruel brother, mademoiselle; seven long years, no less, he has penned me here like a starling in a cage."

And Fulke d'Arnaye shook his head at her reproachfully.

Afterward he laughed. Always this Frenchman found something at which to laugh; Adelais could not remember in all the seven years a time when she had seen him downcast. But while his lips jested of his imprisonment, his eyes stared at her mirthlessly, like a dog at his master, and her gaze fell before the candor of the passion she saw in them.

"My lord," said Adelais, "why will you not give your parole? Then you would be free to come and go as you elected." A little she bent toward him, a covert red showing in her cheeks. "To-night at Halvergate the Earl of Brudenel holds the feast of Saint Michael. Give your parole, my lord, and come with us. There will be in our company fair ladies who may perhaps heal your malady."

But the Sieur d'Arnaye only laughed. "I cannot give my parole," he said, "since I mean to escape for all your brother's care." Then he fell to pacing up and down before her. "Now, by Monseigneur Saint Médard and the Eagle that sheltered him!" he cried, in half-humorous self-mockery; "however thickly troubles rain upon me, I think that I shall never give up hoping!" After a pause, "Listen, mademoiselle," he went on, more gravely, and gave a nervous gesture toward the east, "yonder is France, sacked, pillaged, ruinous, prostrate, naked to her enemy. But at Vincennes, men say, the butcher of Agincourt is dying. With him dies the English power in France. Can his son hold that dear realm? Are those tiny hands with which this child may not yet feed himself capable to wield a sceptre? Can he who is yet beholden to nurses for milk distribute sustenance to the law and justice of a nation? He, I think not, mademoiselle! France will have need of me shortly. Therefore, I cannot give my parole."

"Then must my brother still lose his sleep, lord, for always your safe-keeping is in his mind. To-day at cock-crow he set out for the coast to examine those Frenchmen who landed yesterday."

At this he wheeled about. "Frenchmen!"

"Only Norman fishermen, lord, whom the storm drove to seek shelter in
England. But he feared they had come to rescue you."

Fulke d'Arnaye shrugged his shoulders. "That was my thought, too," he admitted, with a laugh. "Always I dream of escape, mademoiselle. Have a care of me, sweet enemy! I shall escape yet, it may be."

"But I will not have you escape," said Adelais. She tossed her glittering little head. "Winstead would not be Winstead without you. Why, I was but a child, my lord, when you came. Have you forgotten, then, the lank, awkward child who used to stare at you so gravely?"

"Mademoiselle," he returned, and now his voice trembled and still the hunger in his eyes grew more great, "I think that in all these years I have forgotten nothing—not even the most trivial happening, mademoiselle,—wherein you had a part. You were a very beautiful child. Look you, I remember as if it were yesterday that you never wept when your good lady mother—whose soul may Christ have in his keeping!—was forced to punish you for some little misdeed. No, you never wept; but your eyes would grow wistful, and you would come to me here in the garden, and sit with me for a long time in silence. 'Fulke,' you would say, quite suddenly, 'I love you better than my mother.' And I told you that it was wrong to make such observations, did I not, mademoiselle? My faith, yes! but I may confess now that I liked it," Fulke d'Arnaye ended, with a faint chuckle.

Adelais sat motionless. Certainly it was strange, she thought, how the sound of this man's voice had power to move her. Certainly, too, this man was very foolish.

"And now the child is a woman,—a woman who will presently be Marchioness of Falmouth. Look you, when I get free of my prison—and I shall get free, never fear, mademoiselle,—I shall often think of that great lady. For only God can curb a man's dreams, and God is compassionate. So I hope to dream nightly of a gracious lady whose hair is gold and whose eyes are colored like the summer sea and whose voice is clear and low and very wonderfully sweet. Nightly, I think, the vision of that dear enemy will hearten me to fight for France by day. In effect, mademoiselle, your traitor beauty will yet aid me to destroy your country."

The Sieur d'Arnaye laughed, somewhat cheerlessly, as he lifted her hand to his lips.

And certainly also (she concluded her reflections) it was absurd how this man's touch seemed an alarm to her pulses. Adelais drew away from him.

"No!" she said: "remember, lord, I, too, am not free."

"Indeed, we tread on dangerous ground," the Frenchman assented, with a sad little smile. "Pardon me, mademoiselle. Even were you free of your trothplight—even were I free of my prison, most beautiful lady, I have naught to offer you yonder in that fair land of France. They tell me that the owl and the wolf hunt undisturbed where Arnaye once stood. My château is carpeted with furze and roofed with God's Heaven. That gives me a large estate—does it not?—but I may not reasonably ask a woman to share it. So I pray you pardon me for my nonsense, mademoiselle, and I pray that the Marchioness of Falmouth may be very happy."

And with that he vanished into the autumn-fired recesses of the garden, singing, his head borne stiff. Oh, the brave man who esteemed misfortune so slightly! thought Adelais. She remembered that the Marquis of Falmouth rarely smiled; and once only—at a bull-baiting—had she heard him laugh. It needed bloodshed, then, to amuse him, Adelais deduced, with that self-certainty in logic which is proper to youth; and the girl shuddered.

But through the scarlet coppices of the garden, growing fainter and yet more faint, rang the singing of Fulke d'Arnaye.

Sang the Frenchman:

  "Had you lived in Roman times
  No Catullus in his rhymes
  Had lamented Lesbia's sparrow:
  He had praised your forehead, narrow
  As