The Forest Lovers Part 13

"It will not be so bad as all that," she said. "Come then, we will find the horses."

Isoult looked down confusedly at her grey frock.

"You little jay bird, who's to see you here among the trees? Come with me, I'll set you strutting like a peac.o.c.k before I've done with you,"

said Maulfry, in her mocking, good-humoured way.

They went together. Maulfry had hold of Isoult by the hand. Presently they came to an open glade where there were two horses held by a mounted groom. As soon as he saw them coming the groom got off, helped Isoult first, then his mistress. They rode away at a quick trot down the slope; the horses seemed to know the way.

Maulfry was in high spirits. She played a thousand tricks, and enveigled from the brooding girl her most darling thoughts. Before they had made their day's journey she had learnt all that she wanted to know, or rather what she knew already. It confirmed what Galors had told her: she believed his story. For her part Isoult, having once made the plunge, gave her heart its way, bathed it openly in love, and was not ashamed. To talk of Prosper more freely than she had ever dared even to herself, to talk of loving him, of her hopes of winning him! She seemed a winged creature as she flew through the hours of a forest day. It pleased her, too, to think that she was being discreet in saying nothing of her marriage. If Prosper had not thought fit to reveal it to his accomplished friend she must keep the secret by all means--his and hers. Instead of clouding her hopeful visions this gave them an evening touch of mystery. It elevated her by making her an accomplice. He and she were banded together against this all-wise lady. No doubt she would learn it in time--in his time; and then Isoult dreamed (and blushed as she dreamed) of another part, wherein she would snuggle herself into his arm and whisper, "Have I not been wise?" Then she would be kissed, and the lady would laugh to learn how she had been outwitted by a young girl. Ah, what dreams! Isoult's wings took her a far flight when once she had spread them to the sun.

Journeying thus they reached a road by nightfall, and a little House of Access. To go direct to Tortsentier they should have pa.s.sed this house on the left-hand, for the tower was south-east from Gracedieu.

But there was a reason for the circuit, as for every other twist of Maulfry's; the true path would have brought them too nearly upon that by which Prosper and Isoult had come seeking sanctuary. Instead they struck due east, and hit the main road which runs from High March to Market Basing; then by going south for another day they would win Tortsentier. Isoult, of course, as a born woodlander would know the whereabouts of Maulfry's dwelling from any side but the north. She was of South Morgraunt, and therefore knew nothing of the north or middle forest. All this Maulfry had calculated. At the House of Access the girl was actually a day's journey nearer Prosper than she had been at the convent, but she knew nothing of it. Consequently her night's rest refreshed her, waking dreams stayed the night, and left traces of their rosy flames in her cheeks next morning. Maulfry, waking first, looked at her as she lay pillowing her cheek on her arm, with her wild hair spread behind her like a dark cloud. Maulfry, I say, looked at her.

"You are a little beauty, my dear," she thought to herself. "Countess or b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you are a little beauty. And there is countess in your blood somewhere, I'll take an oath. Hands and feet, neck and head, tell the story. There was love and a young countess and a hot-brained troubadour went to the making of you, my little lady. A ditch-full of witches could not bring such tokens to a villein. Galors, my dear friend, if I owed nothing to Master le Gai, I doubt if I should help you to this. 'Tis too much, my friend, with an earldom. She needs no crown, pardieu!"

She knew her own crown had toppled, and grew a little bleak as she thought of it. There was no earldom for her to fall back upon. She looked older when off her guard. But she had determined to be loyal to the one friend she had ever had. The worst woman in the world can do that much. Therefore, when Isoult woke up she found herself made much of. The sun of her day-dreaming rose again and shone full upon her. By the end of the day they had reached Tortsentier. Isoult was fast in a prison that had no look of a prison, where Galors was mending his throat in an upper chamber.

Maulfry came and sat on the foot of his bed. Galors, strapped and bandaged till he looked like a mewed owl in a bush, turned his chalk face to her with inquiry shooting out of his eyes. He had grown a spiky black beard, from which he plucked hairs all day, thinking and scheming.

"Well," was all he said.

Maulfry nodded. "The story is true. She has the feet and hands. She is a little beauty. You have only to shut the hole in your neck."

Galors swore. "Let G.o.d judge whether that d.a.m.ned acrobat shall pay for his writhing! But the other shall be my first business. So she is here--you have seen her? What do you think of her?"

"I have told you."

The man's appet.i.te grew as it fed upon Maulfry's praise of his taste.

"Ah--ah! Dame, I'm a man of taste--eh?"

Maulfry said nothing. Galors changed the note.

"How shall I thank you, my dear one?" he asked her.

"Ah," said she, "I shall need what you can spare before long."

Then she left him.

CHAPTER XIII

HIGH MARCH, AND A GREAT LADY

In the weeping grey of an autumn morning, but in great spirits of his own, Prosper left Gracedieu for High March. The satisfaction of having braved the worst of an adventure was fairly his; to have made good disposition of what threatened to fetter him by shutting off any possible road from his advance; and to have done this (so far as he could see) without in any sense withdrawing from Isoult the advantages she could expect--this was tunable matter, which set him singing before the larks were off the ground. He felt like a man who has earned his pleasure; and pleasure, as he understood it, he meant to have. The zest for it sparkled in his quick eyes as he rode briskly through the devious forest ways. Had Galors or any other dark-entry man met him now and chanced a combat, he would have bad it with a will, but he would have got off with a rough tumble and sting or two from the flat of the sword. The youth was too pleased with himself for killing or slicing.

However, there was n.o.body to fight. North Morgraunt was pretty constantly patrolled by the Countess's riders at this time. A few grimy colliers; some chair-turners amid their huts and white chips on the edge of a hidden hamlet; drovers with forest ponies going for Waisford or Market Basing; the hospitality and interminable devotions of a hermit by a mossy crucifix on Two Manors Waste; one night alone in a ruined chapel on the top of a down:--of such were the encounters and events of his journey. He was no Don Quixote to make desperadoes or feats of endurance out of such gear; on the contrary, he persistently enjoyed himself. Sour beer wetted his lips dry with talking; leaves made a capital bed; the hermit, in the intervals of his prayers, remembered his own fighting days in the Markstake, and knew what was done to make Maximilian the Second safely king.

Everything was as it should be.

On the third day he fell in with a troop of horse, whose spears carried the red saltire of the house of Forz on their banneroles.

Since they were bound as he was for the Castle, he rode in their company, and in due course saw before him on a height among dark pines the towers of High March, with the flag of the Lady Paramount afloat on the breeze. It was on a dusty afternoon of October and in a whirl of flying leaves, that he rode up to the great gate of the outer bailey, and blew a blast on the horn which hung there, that they might let down the bridge.

When the Countess Isabel heard who and of what condition her visitor was she made him very welcome. The Forz and the Gais were of the same country and of nearly the same degree in it. She had been a Forz before she married, and she counted herself so still, for the earldom of Hauterive was hers in her own right; and though she was Earl Roger's widow (and thus a double Countess Dowager) she could not but remember it. So she did Prosper every honour of hospitality: she sent some of her ladies to disarm him and lead him to the bath; she sent him soft clothing to do on when he was ready for it; in a word, put him at his ease. When he came into the hall it was the same thing she got up from her chair of estate and walked down to meet him, while all the company made a lane for the pair of them. Prosper would have knelt to kiss her hand had she let him, but instead she gave it frankly into his own.

"You are the son of my father's friend, Sir Prosper," she said, "and shall never kneel to me."

"My lady," said he, "I shall try to deserve your gracious welcome. My father, rest his soul, is dead, as you may have heard."

"Alas, yes," the Countess replied, "I know it, and grieve for you and your brothers. Of my Lord Malise I have also heard something."

"Nothing good, I'll swear," interjected Prosper to himself.

The Countess went on--

"Well, Sir Prosper, you stand as I stand, alone in the world. It would seem we had need of each other."

Prosper bowed, feeling the need of n.o.body for his part. Remember he was three-and-twenty to the Countess's thirty-five; and she ten years a widow. She did not notice his silence, but went on, glowing with her thoughts.

"We should be brother and sister for the sake of our two fathers," she said with a gentle blush.

"I never felt to want a sister till now," cried Master Prosper, making another bow. So it was understood between them that theirs was to be a nearer relationship than host and guest.

The Countess Isabel--or to give her her due, Isabel, Countess of Hauterive, Countess Dowager of March and Bellesme, Lady of Morgraunt-- was still a beautiful woman, tall, rather slim, pale, and of a thoughtful cast of the face. She had a very n.o.ble forehead, level, broad, and white; her eyes beneath arched brows were grey--cold grey, not so full nor so dark as Isoult's, nor so blue in the whites, but keener. They were apt to take a chill tinge when she was rather Countess of Hauterive than that Isabel de Forz who had loved and lost Fulk de Breaute. She never forgot him, and for his sake wore nothing but silk of black and white; but she did not forget herself either; within walls you never saw her without a thin gold circlet on her head. Even at Ma.s.s she, would have no other covering. She said it was enough for the Countess of Hauterive, whom Saint Paul probably had not in his mind when he wrote his epistle. Her hair was a glory, shining and very abundant, but brown not black. Isoult, you will perceive, was a warmer, tenderer copy of her mother, owing something to Fulk.

Isoult, moreover, had not been born a countess. Both were inaccessible, the daughter from the timidity of a wild thing, the mother from the rarity of her air. Being what she was, twice a widow, bereft of her only child, and burdened with cares which she was much too proud to give over, she never had fair judgment she was considered hard where she was merely lonely. Her greatness made her remote, and her only comforter the worst in the world--herself. Her lips drooped a little at the corners; this gave her a wistful look at times. At other times she looked almost cruel, because of a trick she had of going with them pressed together. As a matter of fact she was shy as well as proud, and fed on her own sorrows from lack of the power to declare them abroad. It was very seldom she took a liking for any stranger; doubtful if Prosper's lineage had won her to open to him as she had done. His face was more answerable; that blunt candour of his, the inquiring blue eyes, the eager throw-back of the head as he walked, above all the friendly smile he had for a world where everything and everybody seemed new and delightful and specially designed for his entertainment--this was what unlocked the Countess's darkened treasury of thought.

Once loosed she never drew back. Brother and sister they were to be.

She made him hand her in to supper; he must sit at her right hand; her own cup-bearer should fill his wine-cup, her own Sewer taste all his meats. At the end of supper she sent for a great cup filled with wine; it needed both her hands. She held it up before she drank to him, saying, "Let there be love and amity between me and thee." The terms of this aspiration astonished him; he accepted honours easily, for he was used to observances at Starning; but to be thee'd and thou'd by this lady! As he stood there laughing and blushing like a boy she made him drink from the cup to the same wish and in the same terms. When once your frozen soul opens to the thaw all the sluices are away, truly. Prosper went to bed that night very well content with his reception. He saw his schemes ripening fast on such a sunny wall as this. His head was rather full, and of more than the fumes of wine; consequently in saying his prayers he did not remember Isoult at all.

Yet hers had been sped out of Gracedieu Minster long before, and to the same G.o.ds. Only she had had Saint Isidore in addition; and she had had Prosper. Hers probably went nearer the mark. Until you have made a beloved of your saint or a saint of your beloved--it matters not greatly which--you will get little comfort out of your prayers.

It was, however, heedlessness rather than design which brought it about, that as the days at High March succeeded each other Prosper did not tell the Countess either of his adventure or of his summary method of achieving it. Design was there: he did not see his way to involving the Abbot, who was, he knew, a dependant of his hostess, and yet could not begin the story elsewhere than at the beginning. Something, too, kept the misfortunes of his wife from his tongue--an honourable something, not his own pride of race. But he, in fact, forgot her. The days were very pleasant. He hunted the hare, the deer, the wolf, the bear. He hunted what he liked best of all to hunt, the man; and he got the honour which only comes from successful hunting in that sort-the devout admiration of those he led. So soon as it was found out where his tastes and capacities lay he had as much of this work as he chose.

High March was on the northern borders of the Countess's country; not far off was the Markstake, stormy, debatable land, plashy with blood.

There were raids, there were hornings and burnings, lifting of cattle and ravishment of women, to be prevented or paid for. Prosper saw service. The High March men had never had a leader quite like him-so young, so light and fierce, so merry in fight. Isoult might eat her heart out with love; Prosper had the love of his riders, for by this they were his to a man.

There were other influences at work, more subtle and every bit as rapacious. There were the long hours in the hall by the leaping light of the fire and the torches, feasts to be eaten, songs to sing, dances, revels, and such like. Prosper was a cheerful, very sociable youth. He had the manners of his father and the light-hearted impertinence of a hundred ancestors, all rulers of men and women. He made love to no one, and laughed at what he got of it for nothing-- which was plenty. There were shaded hours in the Countess's chamber, where the songs were softer and the pauses of the songs softer still; morning hours in the gra.s.sy alleys between the yew hedges; hours in the south walk in an air thick with the languors of warm earth and garden flowers; intimate rides in the pine wood; the wild freedom of hawking in the open downs; the gra.s.s paths; Yule; the music, the hopes of youth, the sweet familiarity, the shared books, the timid encroachments and gentle restraints, half-entreaties, half-denials:-- no young man can resist these things unless he thinks of them suspectingly (as Prosper never did), and no woman wishes to resist them. If Prosper found a sister, Isabel began to find more than a brother. She grew younger as he grew older. They were more than likely to meet half way.

CHAPTER XIV

A RECORDER

In these delicate times of crisis Isoult found an advocate, a recorder, if you will be ruled by me. It was none too soon, for the brother and sister of High March had reached that pretty stage of intimacy when long silences are an embarra.s.sment, and embarra.s.sments compact equally of pleasure and pain. As far as the lady was concerned the pleasure predominated; the pain was reduced to sweet confusion, the air made tremulous with promise. I do not say that for Prosper the relationship did more than put him at his ease--but that is a good deal. Say the Countess was a fire and High March an armchair. Prosper had settled himself to stretch his legs and drowse. Poor Isoult was the wailing wind in the chimney--a sound which could but add to his comfortable well-being. It needs more than a whimper to tempt a man to be cold in your company. The recorder was timely.