Love Among the Ruins Part 20

It was springtide and the year's youth, when memories are garlanded with green, and romance scatters wind-flowers over the world. Many voices awoke, like the chanting of birds, in Yeoland's heart. She desired, even as a swallow, to see the old haunts again, to go a pilgrim to the place where the dear dead slept. Was it yearning grief, or a joy more subtle, the cry of the wild and the voice of desire? Mayhap white flowers shone on the tree of life, prophetic of fruit in the mellow year. Jaspar the harper heard her plea; 'twas wilful and eager, but what of that! Fulviac, good man, had ridden to Gilderoy. The girl had liberty enough and to spare. She took it and Jaspar, and rode out from the cliff.

Threading the sables of the woods, they came one noon to the open moor.

It was golden with the western sun, solitary as the sea. The shadows were long upon the sward when Cambremont wood billowed out in its valley. There was no hope of their reaching the tower before dusk, so they piled dead bracken under a cedar, where the shelving eaves swept to the ground.

They were astir early upon the morrow, a sun-chastened wind inspiring the woodlands, and sculpturing grand friezes from the marbles of the sky. The forest was full of the glory of Spring, starred with anemones and dusted with the azure campaniles of the hyacinth horde. Primroses lurked on the lush green slopes. In the glades, the forest peristyles, green gorse blazed with its constellations of gold.

To the dolt and the hag the world is nothing but a fat larder; only the unregenerate are blind of soul. Beauty, Diana-like, shows not her naked loveliness to all. The girl Yeoland's eyes were full of a strange l.u.s.tre that May morning. Many familiar landmarks did she pa.s.s upon the way, notched deep on the cross of memory. There stood the great beech tree where Bertrand had carved his name, and the smooth bark still bore the scars where the knife had wantoned. She forded the stream where Roland's pony had once pitched him into the mire. Her eyes grew dim as she rode through the sun-steeped woods.

The day had drawn towards noon when they neared the glade in the midst of Cambremont wood. Heavy wain wheels had scarred the smooth green of the ride, and the newly-sawn pedestals of fallen oaks showed where woodmen had been felling timber. To Jaspar the harper these signs were more eloquent of peril than of peace. He began to snuff the air like an old hound, and to jerk restless glances at the girl at his side.

"See where wheels have been," he began.

"And axes, my friend."

"What means it?"

"Some one rebuilds the tower."

The harper wagged his head and half turned his horse from the gra.s.s ride.

"Have a care," he said.

"Hide in the woods if you will."

She rode on with a triumphant wilfulness and he followed her.

As they neared the glade, the noise of axe and hammer floated on the wind, and they saw the scene flicker towards them betwixt the great boles of the trees. The tower stood with battlements of fresh white stone; its windows had been reset, the blasting touch of fire effaced from the walls. The glade was strewn with blocks of stone and lengths of timber; the walls of a chapel were rising from the gra.s.s. Men were digging trenches for the foundations of the priest's cell. Soldiers idled about gossiping with the masons.

There was a smile in the girl's eyes and a deeper tint upon her cheeks as she stared betwixt the trees at the regarnished tower. Those grey eyes had promised the truth in Fulviac's cavern. She was glad in her heart of the man's honour, glad with a magic that made her colour. As for the harper, he stroked his grey beard and was mute. He lacked imagination, and was no longer young.

On a stump of an oak tree at the edge of the wood sat a man in a black mantle and a habit of white cloth. He had a panel upon his knee, and a small wooden chest beside him on the gra.s.s. His eyes were turned often to the rolling woods, as his plump hand flourished a brush with nervous and graceful gestures.

Seeing the man's tonsure, and his dress that marked him a Dominican, Yeoland rode out from the trees, casting her horse's shadow athwart his work. The man looked up with puckered brow, his keen eye framing the girl's figure at a glance. It was his destiny to see the romantic and the beautiful in all things.

The priest and the girl on the horse eyed each other a moment in silence. Each was instinctively examining the other. The churchman, with an approving glint of the eye, was the first to break the woodland silence.

"Peace be with you, madame."

His tone hinted at a question, and the girl adopted therewith an ingenuous duplicity.

"My man and I were of a hunting party," she said; "we went astray in the wood. You, Father, will guide us?"

"Madame has not discovered to me her desire."

"We wish for Gilderoy."

Balthasar rose and pointed with his brush towards the ride by which they had come. He mapped the road for them with sundry jaunty flourishes, and much showing of his white teeth. Yeoland thanked him, but was still curious.

"Ah, Father, whither have we wandered?"

"Men call it Cambremont wood, madame."

"And these buildings? A retreat, doubtless, for holy men."

Balthasar corrected her with much unction.

"The Lord Flavian of Avalon builds here," he said, "but not for monks.

I, madame, am his architect, his pedagogue in painting."

Yeoland pretended interest. She craned forward over her horse's neck and looked at the priest's panel. The act decided him. Since she was young and comely, Balthasar seized the chance of a chivalrous service.

The girl had fine eyes, and a neck worthy of a Venus.

"Madame has taste. She would see our work?"

Madame appeared very ready to grant the favour. Balthasar put his brushes aside, held the girl's stirrup, and, unconscious of the irony of the act, expatiated to Yeoland on the beauties of her own home. At the end of their pilgrimage, being not a little bewitched by such eyes and such a face, he begged of her the liberty of painting her there and then. 'Twas for the enriching of religious art, as he very properly put it.

Dead Rual's grave was not ten paces distant, and Jaspar was standing by it as in prayer. Thus, Yeoland sat to Fra Balthasar, oblivious of him indeed as his fingers brought her fair face into being, her shapely throat and raven hair. His picture perfected, he blessed her with the unction of a bishop, and stood watching her as she vanished down the southern ride, graceful and immaculate as a young Dian.

XV

Hardly had an hour pa.s.sed, and Fra Balthasar was still touching the study he had made of Yeoland's face, when a company of spears flashed out by the northern ride into the clearing. At their head rode a knight in harness of burnished steel, a splendid figure flashing chivalry in the eyes of the sun. On his shield he bore "a castle, argent, with ports voided of the field, on a field vert," the arms of the house of Gambrevault. His surcoat was diapered azure and green with three gold suns blazoned thereon. His baldric, a splendid streak of scarlet silk, slashed his surcoat as with blood. His troop, men in half armour, rode under the Pavon Vert of the demesne of Avalon.

They thundered into the open stretch of gra.s.s with a clangorous rattle of steel. Flavian, bare-headed, for his salade hung at his saddle-bow and he wore no camail, scanned the glade with a keen stare. Seeing Fra Balthasar seated under a tree, he turned his horse towards him, and smiled as the churchman put his tools aside and gave him a benediction.

The man made a fine figure; judged by the flesh, Balthasar might have stood for an Ambrose or a Leo.

"Herald of heaven, how goes the work?"

"Sire, we emulate Pericles."

"What have you there, a woman's head, some rare Madonna?"

Balthasar showed his white teeth.

"A pretty pastoral, messire. The study of a lady who had lost her way hunting, and craved my guidance this morning. A woman with the face and figure of a Dian."

"Ha, rogue of the brush, let us see it."

Balthasar pa.s.sed the parchment into the other's hand. Flavian stared at it, flushed to the temples, rapped out an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n in ecclesiastic Latin. His eyes devoured the sketch with the insatiable enthusiasm of a lover; words came hot off his tongue.

"Quick, man, quick, is this true to life?"

"As ruby to ruby."

"None of your idealisations?"