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

faith! if Love distemper thus the spectral ichor of the gods, is it remarkable that the warmer blood of man pulses rather vehemently at his bidding? It were the least of Cupid's miracles that a lusty bridegroom of some twenty-and-odd should be pricked to outstrip the dial by a scant week. For love—I might tell you such tales—"

Sieur Raymond crossed his white, dimpled hands over a well-rounded paunch and chuckled reminiscently; had he spoken doubtless he would have left Master Jehan de Troyes very little to reveal in his Scandalous Chronicle: but now, as if now recalling with whom Sieur Raymond conversed, d'Arnaye's lean face assumed an expression of placid sanctity, and the somewhat unholy flame died out of his green eyes. He was like no other thing than a plethoric cat purring over the follies of kittenhood. You would have taken oath that a cultured taste for good living was the chief of his offences, and that this benevolent gentleman had some sixty well-spent years to his credit. True, his late Majesty, King Louis XI, had sworn Pacque Dieu! that d'Arnaye loved underhanded work so heartily that he conspired with his gardener concerning the planting of cabbages, and within a week after his death would be heading some treachery against Lucifer; but kings are not always infallible, as his Majesty himself had proven at Peronne.

"—For," said the Sieur d'Arnaye, "man's flesh is frail, and the devil is very cunning to avail himself of the weaknesses of lovers."

"Love!" Matthiette cried. "Ah, do not mock me, my uncle! There can be no pretence of love between Monsieur de Puysange and me. A man that I have never seen, that is to wed me of pure policy, may look for no Alcestis in his wife."

"You speak like a very sensible girl," said Sieur Raymond, complacently. "However, so that he find her no Guinevere or Semiramis or other loose-minded trollop of history, I dare say Monsieur de Puysange will hold to his bargain with indifferent content. Look you, niece, he, also, is buying—though the saying is somewhat rustic—a pig in a poke."

Matthiette glanced quickly toward the mirror which hung in her apartment. The glass reflected features which went to make up a beauty already be-sonneted in that part of France; and if her green gown was some months behind the last Italian fashion, it undeniably clad one who needed few adventitious aids. The Demoiselle Matthiette at seventeen was very tall, and was as yet too slender for perfection of form, but her honey-colored hair hung heavily about the unblemished oval of a countenance whose nose alone left something to be desired; for this feature, though well shaped, was unduly diminutive. For the rest, her mouth curved in an irreproachable bow, her complexion was mingled milk and roses, her blue eyes brooded in a provoking calm; taking matters by and large, the smile that followed her inspection of the mirror's depths was far from unwarranted. Catherine de Vaucelles reanimate, you would have sworn; and at the abbey of Saint Maixent-en-Poitou there was a pot-belly monk, a Brother François, who would have demonstrated it to you, in an unanswerable ballad, that Catherine's daughter was in consequence all that an empress should be and so rarely is. Harembourges and Bertha Broadfoot and white Queen Blanche would have been laughed to scorn, demolished and proven, in comparison (with a catalogue of very intimate personal detail), the squalidest sluts conceivable, by Brother François.

But Sieur Raymond merely chuckled wheezily, as one discovering a fault in his companion of which he disapproves in theory, but in practice finds flattering to his vanity.

"I grant you, Monsieur de Puysange drives a good bargain," said Sieur Raymond. "Were Cleopatra thus featured, the Roman lost the world very worthily. Yet, such is the fantastic disposition of man that I do not doubt the vicomte looks forward to the joys of to-morrow no whit more cheerfully than you do: for the lad is young, and, as rumor says, has been guilty of divers verses,—ay, he has bearded common-sense in the vext periods of many a wailing rhyme. I will wager a moderate amount, however, that the vicomte, like a sensible young man, keeps these whimsies of flames and dames laid away in lavender for festivals and the like; they are somewhat too fine for everyday wear."

Sieur Raymond sipped the sugared wine which stood beside him. "Like any sensible young man," he repeated, in a meditative fashion that was half a query.

Matthiette stirred uneasily. "Is love, then, nothing?" she murmured.

"Love!" Sieur Raymond barked like a kicked mastiff. "It is very discreetly fabled that love was brought forth at Cythera by the ocean fogs. Thus, look you, even ballad-mongers admit it comes of a short-lived family, that fade as time wears on. I may have a passion for cloud-tatters, and, doubtless, the morning mists are beautiful; but if I give rein to my admiration, breakfast is likely to grow cold. I deduce that beauty, as represented by the sunrise, is less profitably considered than utility, as personified by the frying-pan. And love! A niece of mine prating of love!" The idea of such an occurrence, combined with a fit of coughing which now came upon him, drew tears to the Sieur d'Arnaye's eyes. "Pardon me," said he, when he had recovered his breath, "if I speak somewhat brutally to maiden ears."

Matthiette sighed. "Indeed," said she, "you have spoken very brutally!" She rose from her seat, and went to the Sieur d'Arnaye. "Dear uncle," said she, with her arms about his neck, and with her soft cheek brushing his withered countenance, "are you come to my apartments to-night to tell me that love is nothing—you who have shown me that even the roughest, most grizzled bear in all the world has a heart compact of love and tender as a woman's?"

The Sieur d'Arnaye snorted. "Her mother all over again!" he complained; and then, recovering himself, shook his head with a hint of sadness.

He said: "I have sighed to every eyebrow at court, and I tell you this moonshine is—moonshine pure and simple. Matthiette, I love you too dearly to deceive you in, at all events, this matter, and I have learned by hard knocks that we of gentle quality may not lightly follow our own inclinations. Happiness is a luxury which the great can very rarely afford. Granted that you have an aversion to this marriage. Yet consider this: Arnaye and Puysange united may sit snug and let the world wag; otherwise, lying here between the Breton and the Austrian, we are so many nuts in a door-crack, at the next wind's mercy. And yonder in the South, Orléans and Dunois are raising every devil in Hell's register! Ah, no, ma mie; I put it to you fairly is it of greater import that a girl have her callow heart's desire than that a province go free of Monsieur War and Madame Rapine?"

"Yes, but—" said Matthiette.

Sieur Raymond struck his hand upon the table with considerable heat. "Everywhere Death yawps at the frontier; will you, a d'Arnaye, bid him enter and surfeit? An alliance with Puysange alone may save us. Eheu, it is, doubtless, pitiful that a maid may not wait and wed her chosen paladin, but our vassals demand these sacrifices. For example, do you think I wedded my late wife in any fervor of adoration? I had never seen her before our marriage day; yet we lived much as most couples do for some ten years afterward, thereby demonstrating—"

He smiled, evilly; Matthiette sighed.

"—Well, thereby demonstrating nothing new," said Sieur Raymond. "So do you remember that Pierre must have his bread and cheese; that the cows must calve undisturbed; that the pigs—you have not seen the sow I had to-day from Harfleur?—black as ebony and a snout like a rose-leaf!—must be stied in comfort: and that these things may not be, without an alliance with Puysange. Besides, dear niece, it is something to be the wife of a great lord."

A certain excitement awoke in Matthiette's eyes. "It must be very beautiful at Court," said she, softly. "Masques, fêtes, tourneys every day;—and they say the new King is exceedingly gallant—"

Sieur Raymond caught her by the chin, and for a moment turned her face toward his. "I warn you," said he, "you are a d'Arnaye; and King or not—"

He paused here. Through the open window came the voice of one singing to the demure accompaniment of a lute.

"Hey?" said the Sieur d'Arnaye.

Sang the voice:

  "When you are very old, and I am gone,
  Not to return, it may be you will say—
  Hearing my name and holding me as one
  Long dead to you,—in some half-jesting way
  Of speech, sweet as vague heraldings of May
  Rumored in woods when first the throstles sing—
  'He loved me once.' And straightway murmuring
  My half-forgotten rhymes, you will regret
  Evanished times when I was wont to sing
  So very lightly, 'Love runs into debt.'"

"Now, may I never sit among the saints," said the Sieur d'Arnaye, "if that is not the voice of Raoul de Prison, my new page."

"Hush," Matthiette whispered. "He woos my maid, Alys. He often sings under the window, and I wink at it."

Sang the voice:

  _"I shall not heed you then. My course being run
  For good or ill, I shall have gone my way,
  And know you, love, no longer,—nor the sun,
  Perchance, nor any light of earthly day,
  Nor any joy nor sorrow,—while at play
  The world speeds merrily, nor reckoning
  Our coming or our going. Lips will cling,
  Forswear, and be forsaken, and men forget
  Where once our tombs were, and our children sing—
  So very lightly!—'Love runs into debt.'

  "If in the grave love have dominion
  Will that wild cry not quicken the wise clay,
  And taunt with memories of fond deeds undone,—
  Some joy untasted, some lost holiday,—
  All death's large wisdom? Will that wisdom lay
  The ghost of any sweet familiar thing
  Come haggard from the Past, or ever bring
  Forgetfulness of those two lovers met
  When all was April?—nor too wise to sing
  So very lightly, 'Love runs into debt.'

  "Yet, Matthiette, though vain remembering
  Draw nigh, and age be drear, yet in the spring
  We meet and kiss, whatever hour beset
  Wherein all hours attain to harvesting,—
  So very lightly love runs into debt."_

"Dear, dear!" said the Sieur d'Arnaye. "You mentioned your maid's name, I think?"

"Alys," said Matthiette, with unwonted humbleness.

Sieur Raymond spread out his hands in a gesture of commiseration. "This is very remarkable," he said. "Beyond doubt, the gallant beneath has made some unfortunate error. Captain Gotiard," he called, loudly, "will you ascertain who it is that warbles in the garden such queer aliases for our good Alys?"

2. Age Glosses the Text of Youth

Gotiard was not long in returning; he was followed by two men-at-arms, who held between them the discomfited minstrel. Envy alone could have described the lutanist as ill-favored; his close-fitting garb, wherein the brave reds of autumn were judiciously mingled, at once set off a well-knit form and enhanced the dark comeliness of features less French than Italian in cast. The young man now stood silent, his eyes mutely questioning the Sieur d'Arnaye.

"Oh, la, la, la!" chirped Sieur Raymond. "Captain, I think you are at liberty to retire." He sipped his wine meditatively, as the men filed out. "Monsieur de Frison," d'Arnaye resumed, when the arras had fallen, "believe me, I grieve to interrupt your very moving and most excellently phrased ballad in this fashion. But the hour is somewhat late for melody, and the curiosity of old age is privileged. May one inquire, therefore, why you outsing my larks and linnets and other musical poultry that are now all abed? and warble them to rest with this pleasing but—if I may venture a suggestion—rather ill-timed madrigal?"

The young man hesitated for an instant before replying. "Sir," said he, at length, "I confess that had I known of your whereabouts, the birds had gone without their lullaby. But you so rarely come to this wing of the chateau, that your presence here to-night is naturally unforeseen. As it is, since chance has betrayed my secret to you, I must make bold to acknowledge it; and to confess that I love your niece."

"Hey, no doubt you do," Sieur Raymond assented, pleasantly. "Indeed, I think half the young men hereabout are in much the same predicament. But, my question, if I mistake not, related to your reason for chaunting canzonets beneath her window."

Raoul de Frison stared at him in amazement. "I love her," he said.

"You mentioned that before," Sieur Raymond suggested. "And I agreed, as I remember, that it was more than probable; for my niece here—though it be I that speak it—is by no means uncomely, has a commendable voice, the walk