Bog-Myrtle and Peat Part 16

"Pardon me," I replied, letting the love in my heart woo her through my eyes, and say what I dared not--at least, not here upon the open bridge over which we slowly walked. "Pardon me, it is true that I parted at eleven of the clock last night with Madame the Countess of Castel del Monte. But, on the contrary, this morning I have met Lucia--my little Saint Lucy of the Eyes."

"Who in Galloway taught you to make such speeches?" she said. "It is all too pretty to have been said thus trippingly for the first time."

"Love," I made answer. "Love, the Master, taught me; for never before have I known either a Countess or a Lucia!"

"'Douglas, Douglas, tender and true,' does not your song say?" said she.

"Will you ever be true, Douglas?"

"Lucy, will you ever be cruel? I dare you to say these things to-night when I come to see you. 'Tis easy to dare to say them in the face of the streets."

"Ah, Douglas, you will not see me to-night! I have come to bid you farewell--farewell!" said she, as tragically as she dared, yet so that I alone would hear her. Her eyes darted here and there, noting who came near; and a smile flickered about her mouth as she calculated precisely the breaking strain of my patience, and teased me up to that point. I can easily enough see her elvish intent now, but I did not then.

"I go this afternoon," she said. "I have come to bid you farewell--'Farewell! The anchor's weighed! Remember me!'"

"Is that why you are so happy to-day, because you are going away?" I asked, putting a freezing dignity into my tones.

She nodded girlishly, and I admit, as a critic, adorably.

"Yes," she said, "that is just the reason."

We were now in the Public Gardens, and walking along a more quiet path.

"Good-bye, then," I said, holding out my hand.

"No, indeed!" she said; "I shall not allow you to kiss my hand in public!"

And she put her hands behind her with a small, petulant gesture. "Now, then!" she said defiantly.

With the utmost dignity I replied--"Indeed, I had no intention of kissing your hand, Madame; but I have the honour of wishing you a very good day."

So lifting my hat, I was walking off, when, turning with me, Lucia tripped along by my side. I quickened my pace.

"Stephen," she said, "will you not forgive me for the sake of the old time? It is true I am going away, and that you will not see me again--unless, unless--you will come and visit me at my country house.

Stephen, if you do not walk more slowly, I declare I shall run after you down the public promenade!"

I turned and looked at her. With all my heart I tried to be grave and severe, but the mock-demure look on her face caused me weakly to laugh.

And then it was good-bye to all my dignity.

"Lucy, I wish you would not tease me," I said, still more weakly.

"Poor Toto! give it bon-bons! It shall not be teased, then," she said.

Before we parted, I had promised to come and see her at her country house within ten days. And so, with a new brightness in her face, Saint Lucy of the Eyes came back to my heart, and came to stay.

It was mid-April when I started for Castel del Monte. It was spring, and I was going to see my love. The land about on either side, as I went, was faintly flushed with peach-blossom shining among the h.o.a.ry stones.

By the cliff edge the spiny cactus threw out strange withered arms. A whitethorn without spike or spine gracefully wept floods of blonde tears.

At a little port by the sea-edge I left the main route, and fared onward up into the mountains. A mule carried my baggage; and the muleteer who guided it looked like a mountebank in a garb rusty like withered leaves.

Like withered leaf, too, he danced up the hillside, scaling the long array of steps which led through the olives toward Castel del Monte.

Some of his antics amused me, until I saw that none of them amused himself, and that through all the contortions of his face his eyes remained fixed, joyless, tragic.

Castel del Monte sat on the hill-top, eminent, far-beholding.

Vine-stakes ran up hill and down dale, all about it. White houses were sprinkled here and there. As we ascended, the sea sank beneath, and the shining dashes of the wave-crests diminished to sparkling pin-points.

Then with oriental suddenness the sun went down. Still upward fared the joyless _farceur_, and still upon the soles of my feet, and with my pilgrim staff in my hand, I followed.

Sometimes the sprays of fragrant blossom swept across our faces.

Sometimes a man stepped out from the roadside and challenged; but, on receiving a word of salutation from my knave, he returned to his place with a sharp clank of accoutrement.

White blocks of building moved up to us in the equal dusk of the evening, took shape for a moment, and vanished behind us. The summit of the mountain ceased to frown. The strain of climbing was taken from the mechanic movement of the feet. The mule sent a greeting to his kind; and some other white mountain, larger, more broken as to its sky-line, moved in front of us and stayed.

"Castel del Monte!" said the muleteer, wrinkling all the queer puckered leather of his visage in the strong light which streamed out as the great door opened. A most dignified Venetian senator, in the black and radiant linen of the time, came forth to meet me, and with the utmost respect ushered me within. In my campaigning dress and broad-brimmed hat, I felt that my appearance was unworthy of the grandeur of the entrance-hall, of the suits of armour, the vast pictures, and the ma.s.sive last-century furniture in crimson and gold.

CHAPTER XIV

AN ERROR IN JUDGMENT

I had expected that Lucia would have come to greet me, and that some of the other guests would be moving about the halls. But though the rooms were brightly lit, and servants moving here and there, there abode a hush upon the place strangely out of keeping with my expectation.

In my own room I arrayed me in clothes more fitted to the palace in which I found myself, though, after all was done, their plainness made a poor contrast to the mailed warriors on the pedestals and the scarlet senators in the frames.

There was a rose, fresh as the white briar-blossom in my mother's garden, upon my table. I took it as Lucia's gage, and set it in my coat.

"My lady waits," said the major-domo at the door.

I went down-stairs, conscious by the hearing of the ear that a heart was beating somewhere loudly, mine or another's I could not tell.

A door opened. A rush of warm and gracious air, a benediction of subdued light, and I found myself bending over the hand of the Countess. I had been talking some time before I came to the knowledge that I was saying anything.

Then we went to dinner through the long lit pa.s.sages, the walls giving back the merry sound of our voices. Still, strangely enough, no other guests appeared. But my wonder was hushed by the gladness on the face of the Countess. We dined in an alcove, screened from the vast dining-room.

The table was set for three. As we came in, the Countess murmured a name. An old lady bowed to me, and moved stiffly to a seat without a word. Lucia continued her conversation without a pause, and paid no further heed to the ancient dame, who took her meal with a single-eyed absorption upon her plate.

My wonder increased. Could it be that Lucia and I were alone in this great castle! I cannot tell whether the thought brought me more happiness or discontent. Clearly, I was the only guest. Was I to remain so, or would others join us after dinner? My heart beat faint and tumultuously. At random I answered to Lucia's questionings about my journey. My slow-moving Northern intelligence began to form questions which I must ask. Through the laughing charm of my lady's face and the burning radiance of her eyes, there grew into plainness against the tapestry the sad, pale face of my mother and her clear, consistent eyes.

I talked--I answered--I listened--all through a humming chaos. For the teaching of the moorland farm, the ethic of the Sabbath nights lit by a single candle and sanctified by the chanted psalm and the open Book, possessed me. It was the domination of the Puritan base, and most bitterly I resented, while I could not prevent, its hold upon me.

Dinner was over. We took our way into a drawing-room, divided into two parts by a screen which was drawn half-way. In the other half of the great room stood an ancient piano, and to this our ancient lady betook herself.

The Countess sat down in a luxurious chair, and motioned me to sit close by her in another, but one smaller and lower. We talked of many things, circling ever about ourselves. Yet I could not keep the old farm out of my mind--its simple manners, its severe code of morals, its labour and its pain. Also there came another thought, the sense that all this had happened before--the devil's fear that I was not the first who had so sat alone beside the Countess and seen the obsequious movement of these well-trained servants.

"Tell me, Douglas," at last the Countess said, glancing down kindly at me, "why you are so silent and _distrait_. This is our first evening here, and yet you are sad and forgetful, even of me."

What a blind fool I was not to see the innocence and love in her eyes!

"Countess--" I began, and paused uncertain.