The Line of Love; Dizain des Mariages, James Branch Cabell [most important books of all time txt] 📗

the newly-crescent moon,
  White as apple-trees in June;
  He had made some amorous tune
  Of the laughing light Eros
  Snared as Psyche-ward he goes
  By your beauty,—by your slim,
  White, perfect beauty.

  "After him
  Horace, finding in your eyes
  Horace limned in lustrous wise,
  Would have made you melodies
  Fittingly to hymn your praise,
  Sweet Adelais."

3. Roger is Explicit

Into the midst of the Michaelmas festivities at Halvergate that night, burst a mud-splattered fellow in search of Sir Hugh Vernon. Roger Darke brought him to the knight. The fellow then related that he came from Simeon de Beck, the master of Castle Rising, with tidings that a strange boat, French-rigged, was hovering about the north coast. Let Sir Hugh have a care of his prisoner.

Vernon swore roundly. "I must look into this," he said. "But what shall I do with Adelais?"

"Will you not trust her to me?" Roger asked. "If so, cousin, I will very gladly be her escort to Winstead. Let the girl dance her fill while she may, Hugh. She will have little heart for dancing after a month or so of Falmouth's company."

"That is true," Vernon assented; "but the match is a good one, and she is bent upon it."

So presently he rode with his men to the north coast. An hour later Roger
Darke and Adelais set out for Winstead, in spite of all Lady Brudenel's
protestations that Mistress Vernon had best lie with her that night at
Halvergate.

It was a clear night of restless winds, neither warm nor chill, but fine September weather. About them the air was heavy with the damp odors of decaying leaves, for the road they followed was shut in by the autumn woods, that now arched the way with sere foliage, rustling and whirring and thinly complaining overhead, and now left it open to broad splashes of moonlight, where fallen leaves scuttled about in the wind vortices. Adelais, elate with dancing, chattered of this and that as her gray mare ambled homeward, but Roger was moody.

Past Upton the road branched in three directions; here Master Darke caught the gray mare's bridle and turned both horses to the left.

"Why, of whatever are you thinking!" the girl derided him. "Roger, this is not the road to Winstead!"

He grinned evilly over his shoulder. "It is the road to Yaxham, Adelais, where my chaplain expects us."

In a flash she saw it all as her eyes swept these desolate woods. "You will not dare!"

"Will I not?" said Roger. "Faith, for my part, I think you have mocked me for the last time, Adelais, since it is the wife's duty, as Paul very justly says, to obey."

Swiftly she slipped from the mare. But he followed her. "Oh, infamy!" the girl cried. "You have planned this, you coward!"

"Yes, I planned it," said Roger Darke. "Yet I take no great credit therefor, for it was simple enough. I had but to send a feigned message to your block-head brother. Ha, yes, I planned it, Adelais, and I planned it well. But I deal honorably. To-morrow you will be Mistress Darke, never fear."

He grasped at her cloak as she shrank from him. The garment fell, leaving the girl momentarily free, her festival jewels shimmering in the moonlight, her bared shoulders glistening like silver. Darke, staring at her, giggled horribly. An instant later Adelais fell upon her knees.

"Sweet Christ, have pity upon Thy handmaiden! Do not forsake me, sweet Christ, in my extremity! Save me from this man!" she prayed, with entire faith.

"My lady wife," said Darke, and his hot, wet hand sank heavily upon her shoulder, "you had best finish your prayer before my chaplain, I think, since by ordinary Holy Church is skilled to comfort the sorrowing."

"A miracle, dear lord Christ!" the girl wailed. "O sweet Christ, a miracle!"

"Faith of God!" said Roger, in a flattish tone; "what was that?"

For faintly there came the sound of one singing.

Sang the distant voice:

  _"Had your father's household been
  Guelfic-born or Ghibelline,
  Beatrice were unknown
  On her star-encompassed throne.

  "For, had Dante viewed your grace,
  Adelais, sweet Adelais,
  You had reigned in Bice's place,—
  Had for candles, Hyades,
  Rastaben, and Betelguese,—
  And had heard Zachariel
  Chaunt of you, and, chaunting, tell
  All the grace of you, and praise
  Sweet Adelais."_

4. Honor Brings a Padlock

Adelais sprang to her feet. "A miracle!" she cried, her voice shaking.
"Fulke, Fulke! to me, Fulke!"

Master Darke hurried her struggling toward his horse. Darke was muttering curses, for there was now a beat of hoofs in the road yonder that led to Winstead. "Fulke, Fulke!" the girl shrieked.

Then presently, as Roger put foot to stirrup, two horsemen wheeled about the bend in the road, and one of them leapt to the ground.

"Mademoiselle," said Fulke d'Arnaye, "am I, indeed, so fortunate as to be of any service to you?"

"Ho!" cried Roger, with a gulp of relief, "it is only the French dancing-master taking French leave of poor cousin Hugh! Man, but you startled me!"

Now Adelais ran to the Frenchman, clinging to him the while that she told of Roger's tricks. And d'Arnaye's face set mask-like.

"Monsieur," he said, when she had ended, "you have wronged a sweet and innocent lady. As God lives, you shall answer to me for this."

"Look you," Roger pointed out, "this is none of your affair, Monsieur Jackanapes. You are bound for the coast, I take it. Very well,—ka me, and I ka thee. Do you go your way in peace, and let us do the same."

Fulke d'Arnaye put the girl aside and spoke rapidly in French to his companion. Then with mincing agility he stepped toward Master Darke.

Roger blustered. "You hop-toad! you jumping-jack!" said he, "what do you mean?"

"Chastisement!" said the Frenchman, and struck him in the face.

"Very well!" said Master Darke, strangely quiet. And with that they both drew.

The Frenchman laughed, high and shrill, as they closed, and afterward he began to pour forth a voluble flow of discourse. Battle was wine to the man.

"Not since Agincourt, Master Coward—he, no!—have I held sword in hand. It is a good sword, this,—a sharp sword, is it not? Ah, the poor arm—but see, your blood is quite black-looking in this moonlight, and I had thought cowards yielded a paler blood than brave men possess. We live and learn, is it not? Observe, I play with you like a child,—as I played with your tall King at Agincourt when I cut away the coronet from his helmet. I did not kill him—no!—but I wounded him, you conceive? Presently, I shall wound you, too. My compliments—you have grazed my hand. But I shall not kill you, because you are the kinsman of the fairest lady earth may boast, and I would not willingly shed the least drop of any blood that is partly hers. Ohé, no! Yet since I needs must do this ungallant thing—why, see, monsieur, how easy it is!"

Thereupon he cut Roger down at a blow and composedly set to wiping his sword on the grass. The Englishman lay like a log where he had fallen.

"Lord," Adelais quavered, "lord, have you killed him?"

Fulke d'Arnaye sighed. "Hélas, no!" said he, "since I knew that you did not wish it. See, mademoiselle,—I have but made a healthful and blood-letting small hole in him here. He will return himself to survive to it long time—Fie, but my English fails me, after these so many years—"

D'Arnaye stood for a moment as if in thought, concluding his meditations with a grimace. After that he began again to speak in French to his companion. The debate seemed vital. The stranger gesticulated, pleaded, swore, implored, summoned all inventions between the starry spheres and the mud of Cocytus to judge of the affair; but Fulke d'Arnaye was resolute.

"Behold, mademoiselle," he said, at length, "how my poor Olivier excites himself over a little matter. Olivier is my brother, most beautiful lady, but he speaks no English, so that I cannot present him to you. He came to rescue me, this poor Olivier, you conceive. Those Norman fishermen of whom you spoke to-day—but you English are blinded, I think, by the fogs of your cold island. Eight of the bravest gentlemen in France, mademoiselle, were those same fishermen, come to bribe my gaoler,—the incorruptible Tompkins, no less. Hé, yes, they came to tell me that Henry of Monmouth, by the wrath of God King of France, is dead at Vincennes yonder, mademoiselle, and that France will soon be free of you English. France rises in her might—" His nostrils dilated, he seemed taller; then he shrugged. "And poor Olivier grieves that I may not strike a blow for her,—grieves that I must go back to Winstead."

D'Arnaye laughed as he caught the bridle of the gray mare and turned her so that Adelais might mount. But the girl, with a faint, wondering cry, drew away from him.

"You will go back! You have escaped, lord, and you will go back!"

"Why, look you," said the Frenchman, "what else may I conceivably do? We are some miles from your home, most beautiful lady,—can you ride those four long miles alone? in this night so dangerous? Can I leave you here alone in this so tall forest? Hé, surely not. I am desolated, mademoiselle, but I needs must burden you with my company homeward."

Adelais drew a choking breath. He had fretted out seven years of captivity. Now he was free; and lest she be harmed or her name be smutched, however faintly, he would go back to his prison, jesting. "No, no!" she cried aloud.

But he raised a deprecating hand. "You cannot go alone. Olivier here would go with you gladly. Not one of those brave gentlemen who await me at the coast yonder but would go with you very, very gladly, for they love France, these brave gentlemen, and they think that I can serve her better than most other men. That is very flattering, is it not? But all the world conspires to flatter me, mademoiselle. Your good brother, by example, prizes my company so highly that he would infallibly hang the gentleman who rode back with you. So, you conceive, I cannot avail myself of their services. But with me it is different, hein? Ah, yes, Sir Hugh will merely lock me up again and for the future guard me more vigilantly. Will you not mount, mademoiselle?"

His voice was quiet, and his smile never failed him. It was this steady smile which set her heart to aching. Adelais knew that no natural power could dissuade him; he would go back with her; but she knew how constantly he had hoped for liberty, with what fortitude he had awaited his chance of liberty; and that he should return to captivity, smiling, thrilled her to impotent, heart-shaking rage. It maddened her that he dared love her thus infinitely.

"But, mademoiselle," Fulke d'Arnaye went on, when she had mounted, "let us proceed, if it so please you, by way of Filby. For then we may ride a little distance with this rogue Olivier. I may not hope to see Olivier again in this life, you comprehend, and Olivier is, I think, the one person who loves me in all this great wide world. Me, I am not very popular, you conceive. But you do not object, mademoiselle?"

"No!" she said, in a stifled voice.

Afterward they rode on the way to Filby, leaving Roger Darke to regain at discretion the mastership of his faculties. The two Frenchmen as they went talked vehemently; and Adelais, following them, brooded on the powerful Marquis of Falmouth and the great lady she would shortly be; but her eyes strained after Fulke d'Arnaye.

Presently he fell a-singing; and still his singing praised her in a desirous song, yearning but very sweet, as they rode through the autumn woods; and his voice quickened her pulses as always it had the power to quicken them, and in her soul an interminable battling dragged on.

Sang Fulke d'Arnaye:

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

  "They had sung of you always,
  Adelais, sweet Adelais,
  As worthiest of all men's praise;
  Nor had undying melodies,
  Wailed soft as love may sing of these
  Dream-hallowed names,—of Héloïse,
  Ysoude, Salomê, Semelê,
  Morgaine, Lucrece, Antiopê,
  Brunhilda, Helen, Mélusine,
  Penelope, and Magdalene:
  —But you alone had all men's praise,
  Sweet Adelais"_

5. "Thalatta!"

When they had crossed the Bure, they had come into the open country,—a great plain, gray in the moonlight, that descended, hillock by hillock, toward the shores of the North Sea. On the right the dimpling lustre of tumbling waters stretched to a dubious sky-line, unbroken save