The Justice of the King Part 33

CHAPTER x.x.x

"LOVE IS MY LIFE"

"Blessed be the man who first invented sleep," said the wise Spaniard.

And yet there are times when even a sleepless night can leave a light heart behind it. For the first time since coming to Amboise Stephen La Mothe felt at peace with himself and with all the world, though the latter is a secondary consideration. As between the two disturbers of his comfort a man's most triumphant foe is his conscience. And he had good cause for comfort. When at their very worst, things had gone well with him, and as he reckoned up his mercies the morning Paul Beaufoy rode post from Valmy, he found his pouch of life full to the rim with white stones.

First: Ursula! There was a little tremulous contraction of the heart, a little sudden sense of warm sunlight as he said the name over.

Ursula--Ursula! What a kindly cunning mother is Fate: she always gives the one sweet woman in the world the sweetest of names. For where was there a sweeter name than Ursula? So soft, so--so--well, just Ursula.

Ursula was safe and had forgiven him. Which of these two mercies was the greater he hardly knew; the second, perhaps, since it was undeserved. He was a very humble lover, as all true lovers should be who realize, with a wondering incomprehension, that in creating woman last of all the Lord G.o.d had concentrated all the wisdom of His six days' experience, and even then only consummated the perfection after a seventh day of thoughtful rest. He did not know that the miracle of a loving woman's forgiveness is as common and natural as the sunshine, and, let it be said sorrowfully, as necessary to life.

And Ursula was safe. For that they had to thank Villon. It was he who had grasped the flaw of Saxe's over-proof, and so tumbled the whole fabric of lies into a ruin never to be built up again. For both these mercies he humbly thanked G.o.d. It is to be noted by the student of the ways of men that he never gave the Dauphin's safety a thought. He had risked his life for the boy, and would risk it again if necessary, risk it cheerfully, but as an abstract proposition he cared little whether the Dauphin lived or died. Next after Ursula came Commines. There had been a bitter moment when Commines had tottered on his pedestal, but Ursula's hand had steadied him just when the touch was needed. Ursula again! It was marvellous how the whole of Amboise had its...o...b..t round Ursula. In the end Commines had justified himself, and in that belief the loyal heart of Stephen La Mothe found the early May sunshine yet more pleasant and the air sweeter.

Nor was there now any fear but that he would leave Amboise with clean hands. The white horse and the piebald were ambling side by side under his feet, and all danger of a sprawling tumble between them in the mud was at an end. And because he would leave Amboise with clean hands he could without shame say to Ursula de Vesc such things as are the sacred treasures of the heart's Holy of Holies. At least it would not be an unworthy love he had to offer, unworthy of her acceptance, since no man's love could be fully worthy of Ursula de Vesc, but not unworthy in itself. But first he had the King's commission to fulfil, and if Louis really lay dead at Valmy surely he might violate the letter of his orders and say, "These are the message of a father's love." Or, rather, Ursula came first, always first, even before the King's commission, and with the thought came Ursula de Vesc herself.

"Good morning, Monsieur La Mothe."

"Mademoiselle! you so early?"

"I do not think many slept in Amboise last night. Did you hear that Tristan's letter was one of your King's merry jests?"

"But are you certain?"

"Absolutely. He was seen on the walls just before the closing of the gates last night. You know at Valmy they do not wait for the sun to set. Shall I let you into a secret I would not have told you a fortnight ago?" The white night, its long hours haunted by anxious thoughts, had left a wan reflection on her face, but now the pallor warmed; into the tired eyes a little light of laughter flickered, part humorous, part tender, and the Cupid's bow trembled on its string. "In Amboise we are not so forlorn as you think. The innkeeper at Chateau-Renaud is our very good friend, or how could we have known that a certain Monsieur Stephen La Mothe, a wandering minstrel with lute and knapsack on his back, was coming our way?"

"You knew that?"

"From the first," she answered, still smiling, but with so kindly a raillery that not even a lover could take offence. "Did you think you played the part so well that you deceived us? Or that the Dauphin had sunk so low as to make a friend of the first hedge-singer who came his way? We were warned from Chateau-Renaud that you who arrived with Monsieur d'Argenton on horseback departed alone on foot."

"That raw-boned roan which pa.s.sed me on the road?"

"Yes. And can you wonder if we were suspicious and just a little frightened? You were from Valmy and Valmy is our Galilee: nothing good comes out of it."

"I wonder at nothing but your goodness in bearing with me."

"You owe us nothing for that. That," the colour mounted to her forehead; she, too, had grown ashamed of the first night, ashamed and astonished that she had not understood Stephen La Mothe's transparent good faith from the very first, "that was precaution. In the Chateau we could watch the watcher. Then you began that fairy tale and your face told me you believed it every word. That puzzled me. How could anything good come out of Valmy? Yet next day you saved the Dauphin's life and again yesterday. But I am forgetting the King and how we know the letter was a lie. Cartier, the innkeeper at Chateau-Renaud, has a son in Valmy and had been to visit him: the King was on the walls when he left before sunset last night. The hangman's letter was a trap to catch us all, and the Great King consented to it. What a worthy King!

Oh! I am very human and my bitterness must speak out when I remember last night. Saxe, Tristan, the King, Monsieur d'Argenton, and against them one weak coward of a girl. They would have lied my life away last night; and not mine only, the Dauphin's."

"Mademoiselle, am I forgiven for my folly of yesterday?" He knew he was, but for a cunning reason of his own he wished to hear her say so.

"Can I blame you?" she answered, making no pretence at misunderstanding him. "You, too, are from Valmy. No, no. I do not mean that. That was a cruel thing to say; it is you who must forgive me, for you are not of Valmy, you who stood by me and believed in me even when I seemed the vile thing they called me."

"The sweetest and truest woman on G.o.d's earth," he said. "I believed in you even before I loved you--no, that is not true, for I think now I loved you that very first night when you had nothing for me but the contempt I deserved. Every day since then you have grown sweeter, dearer, more reverenced: so strong for others, so full of courage for others, so full of thought for others and without a thought for yourself: never one thought for yourself, never one and never a fear.

And every day I have hungered for you; I don't know any other word for it but just hungered, hungered, hungered that a little of the dear womanly graciousness might be mine. Though that would not be enough, not that only: love must have love or go starved."

Except for a shake of the head in depreciation or denial she had heard him without interruption. Why should she interrupt what was so sweet to hear? But though it was the very comfort her heart longed for, there was no smile on her face, a fresher glow on the cheeks, perhaps, a fuller light in the eyes, but beyond these a pathetic wistful gravity rather, as if in the presence of a solemn sacrament. And surely the revelation of that which is nearest in us to the divine is a true sacrament of the spirit. But when he ended she put out a hand and touched him gently, her fingers lingering on his arm in a caress.

"And I? Oh, my dear, my more than dear, have I not hungered? I think a woman starves for love as a man never can." From his arm the hand stole up and caught him round the neck, the other joining it, and his face was drawn down to her own. "Am I shameless, beloved? No! for there is no shame in love, and Stephen, my heart, my hero, my man of men, I love you, I love you, I love you."

But presently, as she lay in his arms, her head drawn into the hollow of that which held her near, the grey eyes smiled up at him in a return to the tender mockery he knew and loved so well, nor was it less sweet for the moisture behind the lashes.

"Yesterday----"

"Hush, beloved, do not talk of yesterday," nor, for the moment, could she. But she was wilful, and being a woman, had her way.

"Yesterday you sang; will you ever sing again?"

"Yes, listen!

'Heigh-ho, love is my life, Live I in loving, and love I to live.'

Until to-day I never knew how true that is. Ursula, my sweet, you must teach me the ending, for I have never yet found one to please me."

"You talk of endings when life has just begun. Tell me, was Homer blind?"

"So they say," he answered, marvelling much what new shift of thought was coming next.

"I thought so," and the smile deepened until the grey eyes shone through their thin veil of unshed tears. "And Homer was blind yesterday or he would have seen I expected a very different question."

"Yes, laugh at my foolishness; I love to see you laugh, you who have laughed so little all these days. But I think the time of laughter has come for us both."

"Until you go back to Valmy."

"And that must be soon."

On the instant she belied his optimism, for the laughter faded from her eyes leaving her once more the woman of many sorrows, and with a sigh she released herself from his clasp.

"I hate Valmy; I have a horror of it and of your terrible King. He always seems to me like some dry-hearted, cold-hearted beast rather than a man. Is there nothing human in him?"

"He is more human than you think. Ursula, I know it, so you need not shake that dear, wise head of yours."

"You say so because you are so human yourself. Dear, I love you for your charity."

"Love me for what you will so long as you do love me," answered he.

"And do not be afraid. I am quite sure I am not making any mistake.

The King trusts me as he never trusted Monsieur de Commines."

"And how well he trusts him we saw last night," she said, with a little bitter irony which surely might be pardoned. "But how can I help being afraid? Are you not all I have in the world?"

"Charles?"

"Do you think Charles counts for anything now? And yet he is a dear boy who has the good taste to approve warmly of Monsieur Stephen La Mothe. Did I not tell you, that day you were playing with the dogs, that you would win all our hearts?"

"And Monsieur Stephen La Mothe," said Stephen jestingly, "approves so warmly of the dear boy's approval, that if it would not be presumptuous he would ask his leave to beg his acceptance of a little remembrance of these last days."

"Ask his leave! Poor boy, he would be delighted. Dauphin of France though he is, he gets so few presents. What is it? Let me guess.

Your lute! and you would sing----"

"No, not my lute, wicked that you are. And if I sang at all it would be Blaise's song adapted to this most blessed of blessed days.