Browning's Heroines Part 23

"The lady's face stopped its play, As if her first hair had grown grey; For such things must begin some one day."

But the brave spirit survived. In a day or two she was well again, as if she could not believe that G.o.d did not mean her to be content and glad in His sight. "So, smiling as at first went she." She was filled to the brim with energy; there never was such a wife as she would have made for a shepherd, a miner, a huntsman--and this huntsman, who has _had_ a beloved wife, knows what he is saying.

"She was active, stirring, all fire-- Could not rest, could not tire-- To a stone she might have given life! . . .

And here was plenty to be done, And she that could do it, great or small, She was to do nothing at all."

For the castle was crammed with retainers, and the Duke's plan permitted a wife, at most, to meet his eye with the other trophies in the hall and out of it:

"To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen At the proper place, in the proper minute, And die away the life between."

The little d.u.c.h.ess, with her warm heart and her smile like the Italian girl's that "went everywhere," broke every rule at first. It was amusing enough (the old huntsman remembers)--but for the grief that followed after. For she did not submit easily. Having broken the rules, she would find fault with them! She would advise and criticise, and "being a fool," instruct the wise, and deal out praise or blame like a child. But "the wise" only smiled. It was as if a little mechanical toy should be contrived to make the motion of striking, and brilliantly _make_ it.

Thus, as a mechanical toy, was the only way to treat this minute critic, for like the Duke at Ferrara, this Duke (and his mother) did not choose to stoop. _He_ would merely wear his "cursed smirk" as he nodded applause, but he had some trouble in keeping off the "old mother-cat's claws."

"So the little lady grew silent and thin, Paling and ever paling."

_Then all smiles stopped together_ . . . And the Duke, perceiving, said to himself that it was done to spite him, but that he would find the way to deal with it.

Like the envoy, our huntsman's friend is beginning to find the tale a little more than he can stand--but, unlike the envoy, he can express himself. The old man soothes him down: "Don't swear, friend!" and goes on to solace him by telling how the "old one" has been in h.e.l.l for many a year,

"And the Duke's self . . . you shall hear."

"Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning, When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning, A drinking-hole out of the fresh, tender ice,"

it chanced that the Duke, asking himself what pleasures were in season (he would never have known, unless "the calendar bade him be hearty"), found that a hunting party was indicated:

"Always provided, old books showed the way of it!"

Poetry, painting, tapestries, woodcraft, all were consulted: how it was properest to encourage your dog, how best to pray to St. Hubert, patron saint of hunters. The serfs and thralls were duly dressed up,

"And oh, the Duke's tailor, he had a hot time on't!"

But when all "the first dizziness of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots" had subsided, the Duke turned his attention to the d.u.c.h.ess's part in the business, and, after much cogitation, somebody triumphantly announced that he had discovered her function. An old book stated it:

"When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege, Let the dame of the castle p.r.i.c.k forth on her jennet, And with water to wash the hands of her liege In a clean ewer with a fair toweling, Let her preside at the disemboweling."

All was accordingly got ready: the towel, the most antique ewer, even the jennet, piebald, black-barred, cream-coated, pink-eyed--and only then, on the day before the party, was the Duke's pleasure signified to his lady.

And the little d.u.c.h.ess--paler and paler every day--said she would not go! Her eyes, that used to leap wide in flashes, now just lifted their long lashes, as if too weary even for _him_ to light them; and she duly acknowledged his forethought for her,

"But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught, Of the weight by day and the watch by night, And much wrong now that used to be right;"

and, in short, utterly declined the "disemboweling."

But everything was arranged! The Duke was nettled. Still she persisted: it was hardly the time . . .

The huntsman knew what took place that day in the d.u.c.h.ess's room, because Jacynth, who was her tire-woman, was waiting within call outside on the balcony, and since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, the cas.e.m.e.nt that Jacynth could peep through, an adorer of roses could peep through also.

Well, the Duke "stood for a while in a sultry smother," and then "with a smile that partook of the awful," turned the d.u.c.h.ess over to his mother to learn her duty, and hear the truth. She learned it all, she heard it all; but somehow or other it ended at last; the old woman, "licking her whiskers," pa.s.sed out, and the Duke, who had waited to hear the lecture, pa.s.sed out after her, making (he hoped) a face like Nero or Saladin--at any rate, he showed a very stiff back.

However, next day the company mustered. The weather was execrable--fog that you might cut with an axe; and the Duke rode out "in a perfect sulkiness." But suddenly, as he looked round, the sun ploughed up the woolly ma.s.s, and drove it in all directions, and looking through the courtyard arch, he saw a troop of Gipsies on their march, coming with the annual gifts to the castle. For every year, in this North land, the Gipsies come to give "presents" to the Dukes--presents for which an equivalent is always understood to be forthcoming.

And marvellous the "presents" are! These Gipsies can do anything with the earth, the ore, the sand. Snaffles, whose side-bars no brute can baffle, locks that would puzzle a locksmith, horseshoes that turn on a swivel, bells for the sheep . . . all these are good, but what they can do with sand!

"Gla.s.ses they'll blow you, crystal-clear, Where just a faint cloud of rose shall appear, As if in pure water you dropped and let die A bruised black-blooded mulberry."

And then that other sort, "their crowning pride, with long white threads distinct inside."

These are the things they bring, when you see them trooping to the castle from the valley. So they trooped this morning; and when they reached the fosse, all stopped but one:

"The oldest Gipsy then above ground."

This witch had been coming to the castle for years; the huntsman knew her well. Every autumn she would swear must prove her last visit--yet here she was again, with "her worn-out eyes, or rather eye-holes, of no use now but to gather brine."

She sidled up to the Duke and touched his bridle, so that the horse reared; then produced her presents, and awaited the annual acknowledgment. But the Duke, still sulky, would scarcely speak to her; in vain she fingered her fur-pouch. At last she said in her "level whine," that as well as to bring the presents, she had come to pay her duty to "the new d.u.c.h.ess, the youthful beauty." As she said that, an idea came to the Duke, and the smirk returned to his sulky face.

Supposing he set _this_ old woman to teach her, as the other had failed?

What could show forth better the flower-like and delicate life his fortunate d.u.c.h.ess led, than the loathsome squalor of this sordid crone?

He turned and beckoned the huntsman out of the throng, and, as he was approaching, bent and spoke mysteriously into the Gipsy's ear. The huntsman divined that he was telling of the frowardness and ingrat.i.tude of the "new d.u.c.h.ess." And the Gipsy listened submissively. Her mouth tightened, her brow brightened--it was as if she were promising to give the lady a thorough frightening. The Duke just showed her a purse--and then bade the huntsman take her to the "lady left alone in her bower,"

that she might wile away an hour for her:

"Whose mind and body craved exertion, And yet shrank from all better diversion."

And then the Duke rode off.

Now begins "the tenebrific pa.s.sage of the tale." Or rather, now begins what we can make into such a pa.s.sage if we will, but need not. We can read a thousand transcendental meanings into what now happens, or we can simply accept and understand it--leaving the rest to the "Browningites," of whom Browning declared that _he_ was not.

The huntsman, turning round sharply to bid the old woman follow him--a little distrustful of her since that interview with the Duke--saw something that not only restored his trust, but afterwards made him sure that she had planned beforehand the wonders that now happened. She looked a head taller, to begin with, and she kept pace with him easily, no stooping nor hobbling--above all, no cringing! She was wholly changed, in short, and the change, "whatever the change meant," had extended to her very clothes. The shabby wolf-skin cloak she wore seemed edged with gold coins. Under its shrouding disguise, she was wearing (we may conjecture), for this foreseen occasion, her dress of tribal Queen.

But most wonderful of all was the change in her "eye-holes." When first he saw her that morning, they had been, as it were, empty of all but brine; now, two unmistakable eye-points, live and aware, looked out from their places--as a snail's horns come out after rain. . . . He accepted all this, "quick and surprising" as it was, without spoken comment; and took the Gipsy to Jacynth, standing duty at the lady's chamber-door.

"And Jacynth rejoiced, she said, to admit any one, For since last night, by the same token, Not a single word had the lady spoken."

The two women went in, and our friend, on the balcony, "watched the weather."

Jacynth never could tell him afterwards _how_ she came to fall soundly asleep all of a sudden. But she did so fall asleep, and so remained the whole time through. He, on the balcony, was following the hunt across the open country--for in those days he had a falcon eye--when, all in a moment, his ear was arrested by

"Was it singing, or was it saying, Or a strange musical instrument playing?"

It came from the lady's room; and, p.r.i.c.ked by curiosity, he pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain, and--first--saw Jacynth "in a rosy sleep along the floor with her head against the door." And in the middle of the room, on the seat of state,

"Was a queen--the Gipsy woman late!"

She was bending down over the lady, who, coiled up like a child, sat between her knees, clasping her hands over them, and with her chin set on those hands, was gazing up into the face of the old woman. That old woman now showed large and radiant eyes, which were bent full on the lady's, and seemed with every instant to grow wider and more shining.

She was slowly fanning with her hands, in an odd measured motion--and the huntsman, puzzled and alarmed, was just about to spring to the rescue, when he was stopped by perceiving the expression on the lady's face.

"For it was life her eyes were drinking . . .

Life's pure fire, received without shrinking, Into the heart and breast whose heaving Told you no single drop they were leaving."