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

for the sail of the French boat, moored near the ruins of the old Roman station, Garianonum, and showing white against the unresting sea, like a naked arm; to the left the lights of Filby flashed their unblinking, cordial radiance.

Here the brothers parted. Vainly Olivier wept and stormed before Fulke's unwavering smile; the Sieur d'Arnaye was adamantean: and presently the younger man kissed him on both cheeks and rode slowly away toward the sea.

D'Arnaye stared after him. "Ah, the brave lad!" said Fulke d'Arnaye. "And yet how foolish! Look you, mademoiselle, that rogue is worth ten of me, and he does not even suspect it."

His composure stung her to madness.

"Now, by the passion of our Lord and Saviour!" Adelais cried, wringing her hands in impotence; "I conjure you to hear me, Fulke! You must not do this thing. Oh, you are cruel, cruel! Listen, my lord," she went on with more restraint, when she had reined up her horse by the side of his, "yonder in France the world lies at your feet. Our great King is dead. France rises now, and France needs a brave captain. You, you! it is you that she needs. She has sent for you, my lord, that mother France whom you love. And you will go back to sleep in the sun at Winstead when France has need of you. Oh, it is foul!"

But he shook his head. "France is very dear to me," he said, "yet there are other men who can serve France. And there is no man save me who may to-night serve you, most beautiful lady."

"You shame me!" she cried, in a gust of passion. "You shame my worthlessness with this mad honor of yours that drags you jesting to your death! For you must die a prisoner now, without any hope. You and Orleans and Bourbon are England's only hold on France, and Bedford dare not let you go. Fetters, chains, dungeons, death, torture perhaps—that is what you must look for now. And you will no longer be held at Winstead, but in the strong Tower at London."

"Hélas, you speak more truly than an oracle," he gayly assented.

And hers was the ageless thought of women. "This man is rather foolish and peculiarly dear to me. What shall I do with him? and how much must I humor him in his foolishness?"

D'Arnaye stayed motionless: but still his eyes strained after Olivier.

Well, she would humor him. There was no alternative save that of perhaps never seeing Fulke again.

Adelais laid her hand upon his arm. "You love me. God knows, I am not worthy of it, but you love me. Ever since I was a child you have loved me,—always, always it was you who indulged me, shielded me, protected me with this fond constancy that I have not merited. Very well,"—she paused, for a single heartbeat,—"go! and take me with you."

The hand he raised shook as though palsied. "O most beautiful!" the Frenchman cried, in an extreme of adoration; "you would do that! You would do that in pity to save me—unworthy me! And it is I whom you call brave—me, who annoy you with my woes so petty!" Fulke d'Arnaye slipped from his horse, and presently stood beside the gray mare, holding a small, slim hand in his. "I thank you," he said, simply. "You know that it is impossible. But yes, I have loved you these long years. And now—Ah, my heart shakes, my words tumble, I cannot speak! You know that I may not—may not let you do this thing. Why, but even if, of your prodigal graciousness, mademoiselle, you were so foolish as to waste a little liking upon my so many demerits—" He gave a hopeless gesture. "Why, there is always our brave marquis to be considered, who will so soon make you a powerful, rich lady. And I?—I have nothing."

But Adelais had rested either hand upon a stalwart shoulder, bending down to him till her hair brushed his. Yes, this man was peculiarly dear to her: she could not bear to have him murdered when in equity he deserved only to have his jaws boxed for his toplofty nonsense about her; and, after all, she did not much mind humoring him in his foolishness.

"Do you not understand?" she whispered. "Ah, my paladin, do you think I speak in pity? I wished to be a great lady,—yes. Yet always, I think, I loved you, Fulke, but until to-night I had believed that love was only the man's folly, the woman's diversion. See, here is Falmouth's ring." She drew it from her finger, and flung it awkwardly, as every woman throws. Through the moonlight it fell glistening. "Yes, I hungered for Falmouth's power, but you have shown me that which is above any temporal power. Ever I must crave the highest, Fulke—Ah, fair sweet friend, do not deny me!" Adelais cried, piteously. "Take me with you, Fulke! I will ride with you to the wars, my lord, as your page; I will be your wife, your slave, your scullion. I will do anything save leave you. Lord, it is not the maid's part to plead thus!"

Fulke d'Arnaye drew her warm, yielding body toward him and stood in silence. Then he raised his eyes to heaven. "Dear Lord God," he cried, in a great voice, "I entreat of Thee that if through my fault this woman ever know regret or sorrow I be cast into the nethermost pit of Hell for all eternity!" Afterward he kissed her.

And presently Adelais lifted her head, with a mocking little laugh.
"Sorrow!" she echoed. "I think there is no sorrow in all the world.
Mount, my lord, mount! See where brother Olivier waits for us yonder."

* * * * *

JUNE 5, 1455—AUGUST 4, 1462

"Fortune fuz par clercs jadis nominée, Qui toi, François, crie et nomme meurtrière."

_So it came about that Adelais went into France with the great-grandson of Tiburce d'Arnaye: and Fulke, they say, made her a very fair husband. But he had not, of course, much time for love-making.

For in France there was sterner work awaiting Fulke d'Arnaye, and he set about it: through seven dreary years he and Rougemont and Dunois managed, somehow, to bolster up the cause of the fat-witted King of Bourges (as the English then called him), who afterward became King Charles VII of France. But in the February of 1429—four days before the Maid of Domremy set forth from her voice-haunted Bois Chenu to bring about a certain coronation in Rheims Church and in Rouen Square a flamy martyrdom—four days before the coming of the good Lorrainer, Fulke d'Arnaye was slain at Rouvray-en-Beausse in that encounter between the French and the English which history has commemorated as the Battle of the Herrings.

Adelais was wooed by, and betrothed to, the powerful old Comte de Vaudremont; but died just before the date set for this second marriage, in October, 1429. She left two sons: Noël, born in 1425, and Raymond, born in 1426; who were reared by their uncle, Olivier d'Arnaye. It was said of them that Noel was the handsomest man of his times, and Raymond the most shrewd; concerning that you will judge hereafter. Both of these d'Arnayes, on reaching manhood, were identified with the Dauphin's party in the unending squabbles between Charles VII and the future Louis XI.

Now you may learn how Noël d'Arnaye came to be immortalized by a legacy of two hundred and twenty blows from an osierwhip—since (as the testator piously affirms), "chastoy est une belle aulmosne."_

CHAPTER V

The Episode Called In Necessity's Mortar

1. "Bon Bec de Paris"

There went about the Rue Saint Jacques a notable shaking of heads on the day that Catherine de Vaucelles was betrothed to François de Montcorbier.

"Holy Virgin!" said the Rue Saint Jacques; "the girl is a fool. Why has she not taken Noël d'Arnaye,—Noël the Handsome? I grant you Noël is an ass, but, then, look you, he is of the nobility. He has the Dauphin's favor. Noël will be a great man when our exiled Dauphin comes back from Geneppe to be King of France. Then, too, she might have had Philippe Sermaise. Sermaise is a priest, of course, and one may not marry a priest, but Sermaise has money, and Sermaise is mad for love of her. She might have done worse. But François! Ho, death of my life, what is François? Perhaps—he, he!—perhaps Ysabeau de Montigny might inform us, you say? Doubtless Ysabeau knows more of him than she would care to confess, but I measure the lad by other standards. François is inoffensive enough, I dare assert, but what does Catherine see in him? He is a scholar?—well, the College of Navarre has furnished food for the gallows before this. A poet?—rhyming will not fill the pot. Rhymes are a thin diet for two lusty young folk like these. And who knows if Guillaume de Villon, his foster-father, has one sou to rub against another? He is canon at Saint Benôit-le-Bétourné yonder, but canons are not Midases. The girl will have a hard life of it, neighbor, a hard life, I tell you, if—but, yes!—if Ysabeau de Montigny does not knife her some day. Oh, beyond doubt, Catherine has played the fool."

Thus far the Rue Saint Jacques.

This was on the day of the Fête-Dieu. It was on this day that Noël d'Arnaye blasphemed for a matter of a half-hour and then went to the Crowned Ox, where he drank himself into a contented insensibility; that Ysabeau de Montigny, having wept a little, sent for Gilles Raguyer, a priest and aforetime a rival of François de Montcorbier for her favors; and that Philippe Sermaise grinned and said nothing. But afterward Sermaise gnawed at his under lip like a madman as he went about seeking for François de Montcorbier.

2. "Deux estions, et n'avions qu'ung Cueur"

It verged upon nine in the evening—a late hour in those days—when
François climbed the wall of Jehan de Vaucelles' garden.

A wall!—and what is a wall to your true lover? What bones, pray, did the Sieur Pyramus, that ill-starred Babylonish knight, make of a wall? did not his protestations slip through a chink, mocking at implacable granite and more implacable fathers? Most assuredly they did; and Pyramus was a pattern to all lovers. Thus ran the meditations of Master François as he leapt down into the garden.

He had not, you must understand, seen Catherine for three hours. Three hours! three eternities rather, and each one of them spent in Malebolge. Coming to a patch of moonlight, François paused there and cut an agile caper, as he thought of that approaching time when he might see Catherine every day.

"Madame François de Montcorbier," he said, tasting each syllable with gusto. "Catherine de Montcorbier. Was there ever a sweeter juxtaposition of sounds? It is a name for an angel. And an angel shall bear it,—eh, yes, an angel, no less. O saints in Paradise, envy me! Envy me," he cried, with a heroical gesture toward the stars, "for François would change places with none of you."

He crept through ordered rows of chestnuts and acacias to a window wherein burned a dim light. He unslung a lute from his shoulder and began to sing, secure in the knowledge that deaf old Jehan de Vaucelles was not likely to be disturbed by sound of any nature till that time when it should please high God that the last trump be noised about the tumbling heavens.

It was good to breathe the mingled odor of roses and mignonette that was thick about him. It was good to sing to her a wailing song of unrequited love and know that she loved him. François dallied with his bliss, parodied his bliss, and—as he complacently reflected,—lamented in the moonlight with as tuneful a dolor as Messire Orpheus may have evinced when he carolled in Hades.

Sang François:

  _"O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone!
  O Grace of her, that hath no grace for me!
  O Love of her, the bit that guides me on
  To sorrow and to grievous misery!
  O felon Charms, my poor heart's enemy!
  O furtive murderous Pride! O pitiless, great
  Cold Eyes of her! have done with cruelty!
  Have pity upon me ere it be too late!

  "Happier for me if elsewhere I had gone
  For pity—ah, far happier for me,
  Since never of her may any grace be won,
  And lest dishonor slay me, I must