a letter. My good mynheer sent me a note, in which he after his own
fashion, and with divers humorous marginal illustrations, announced his
journey to Italy. He enclosed a small pen-and-ink drawing as a
keepsake; which was very highly finished and in all respects a genuine
Van Kuylen. Before a hut in a primeval forest sat a young pair under
the shade of palms, bananas, and bread-fruit trees, a couple of fine
children playing about their feet, the wife occupied with needle-work,
the husband reading to her. Above them on the branch of a majestic tree
squatted a small thin ape who was just about to throw a date into the
beautiful young woman's lap. Whom the faces of the wedded pair
resembled, and who had sat to the artist for the odd, pinched, resigned
countenance of the ape it were needless to particularise."
END OF THE FAIR KATE.
GEOFFROY AND GARCINDE.
GEOFFROY AND GARCINDE.
About the time of the second crusade, there lived near Carcassonne in
Provence, a nobleman, Count Hugo of Malaspina, who after the death of
his fair and virtuous wife, sent his only daughter Garcinde, then ten
years old, accompanied by her foster-sister Aigleta, to be educated at
the convent of Mont Salvair, and recommenced himself, spite of
grizzling hair, a wandering bachelor life. He was a stately knight, and
popular both with men and women, so he had no lack of invitations to
merry-making tournaments, and banquets at the castles of the wealthy
nobles, far and near. But, however, his delight in military exercises
and minstrelsy grew cool with years, so that he left the palm in both
to be carried off by younger aspirants, developing, at the same time,
an increasing love for wine and dice, and falling from his former
character of a wise manager of himself and of his substance, to that of
a degraded night-reveller, who even occupied the castle of his fathers
as tenant to his creditors, and had nothing left to call his own but
his unstained knightly courage, and the heart of his child. In order
not to grieve that child, Count Hugo took the greatest care to prevent
the rumour of the low state of his finances reaching the convent. He
was in the habit of twice a year visiting his daughter, and the young
girl, who up to this time had devoted all the power of loving she as
yet had to her father, and admired him as the ideal of every human and
knightly virtue and perfection,--did not fail to notice that the eyes
of the fast aging man, had for some time back lost their open and
joyous expression, that his cheeks were sunk, and his lips habitually
compressed. But as she knew the way to cheer him, and for the time to
make him forget the world outside the cloister-walls, she naturally
attributed his depression to his solitude, and lovingly urged him to
take her back, and keep her near him. At which the Count would sigh,
gloomily shake his head and declare that it would not be consistent
with her fair fame to live in a castle inhabited by men only, without
better protection than he could offer. He could not, therefore, remove
her from the cloister until she should exchange the companionship of
the pious sisters for that of some worthy husband. This was not
pleasant hearing to the intelligent girl, for although her life had not
been otherwise than happy with the nuns, who were cheerful and busy,
and though she had had, moreover, the companionship of the bright-eyed
Aigleta--a lively girl and full of whatever fun was possible in a
convent--yet Garcinde yearned to know and enjoy something of the world
without, and above all to devote her loving heart entirely to her
father. But he persisted that the honour of his house allowed of no
other arrangement than the present, and after every conversation on the
subject--as though stung by some secret vexation--he would abruptly
take leave of his lovely child, who on such occasions sat in the turret
of the convent-garden wall, lost in thought, and gazing on the road her
father had taken.
Thus year after year passed by: the Count's daughter had long out-grown
childhood, and the good nuns, reluctant as they might have been to part
with their charge, yet began to wonder that nothing was said about
marrying her. For they had no idea that Count Hugo, shrinking from
confessing to a son-in-law that he was a beggar, spoke as little about
his daughter as though she had been changed in her cradle, and a fairy
bantling placed there in her stead.
Now it happened that early one morning, when no one was expecting
him at his own castle, the Count returned quite alone on his roan mare,
and gave a faint knock as a man mortally sick might give at a
hospital-gate. The porter, growling over the untimely guest who roused
him from his morning sleep, looked through the grating in the iron
court-door, and was so startled by what he saw, that his trembling
hands could scarcely draw the heavy bolt in order to admit of his
master's entrance. For the face of the Count was pale as that of the
dead, and his eyes hollow, fixed, and expressionless, as if, instead of
having returned from a merry-making at the castle of his rich
neighbour, the Count Pierre of Gaillac, he might have been emerging
from the cave of St. Patrick, or from a still more terrible place where
he had spent the night with spectres. He threw the bridle of his horse
(the animal was covered with foam, and greedily drank the rain-water on
the ground,) to the alarmed domestic, and uttered one word only,
"Geoffroy." Then he ascended the winding-stair to his lonely room,
shaking his head when the servant enquired whether the Count would have
any refreshments, and whether he should wake up the other retainers.
The porter, who had never seen his master in such a plight, would have
been slow to recover from the shock he had received, had not the horse,
with a shrill neigh of distress, sunk on the ground. With some
difficulty he got it to its feet again, and led the utterly exhausted
animal to the stable, where he rendered it every care; then still
talking to himself, and calling upon all saints and angels, he ran to
the Geoffroy whom the Count had demanded.
The youth who bore this name dwelt in a lonely ivy-grown turret close
to the moat, and as the dawn had hardly broken, he still lay in the
sound sleep beseeming his health and early years. He was only twenty, a
nephew of the Count's, the offspring of the unfortunate love between
the high-born Countess Beatrix and a wandering minstrel, who knowing
the proud spirit and the customs of the house of Malaspina, had no way
of winning, except persuading her to elope with him. Count Rambaut her
father, when he discovered the disgrace that had befallen his family,
took no one into his counsels but his son Hugo; and father and brother
rode forth by night to follow the track of the offenders. In seven days
time they returned, walking their horses, a closed litter between them,
in which the young Countess lay with snow-white face, more like a waxen
form than a living woman. Her brother had killed her lover, her father
had cursed the dying man. From that time she never spoke another word
to either of them, but lived a widow in a detached turret, where she
brought her boy into the world. She made no complaint, but resisted all
attempts at reconciliation, though on their father's death, her
brother, who had always been deeply attached to her, endeavoured by all
the means in his power, to conciliate her. He himself bore her son to
the font, and when he married, he imposed upon his wife the duty of
daily visiting the lonely one, who never of her own accord left her
self-elected prison. Both ladies had now departed this life; the young
man Geoffroy--he was named after his father--was brought up almost as
the Count's own son, and truly the proudest might have gloried in such
a son. He was a beautiful youth, broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned,
with great earnest eyes, and a sweet sad mouth almost feminine in form,
which seldom smiled. For although he had in abundance all that a young
heart could desire, gay garments, finely-tempered weapons, horse,
falcon, and leisure enough for every knightly practice, and though,
too, from his earliest infancy no one had ever spoken an unkind word to
him, or reproached him with his birth, yet for all that a shadow hung
over him. Unless he were wandering in the forest--which bordered on the
moat, and was reached by a narrow bridge in ten paces or so--he would
keep himself apart from all joyous company, in the same room where his
mother had brought him into the world, as though there were no other
place on earth where he had a right to be. In his mother's lifetime he
had planted the little tower about with roses, and he still kept her
chamber, bed, and wardrobe, just as she had liked them to be. He for
his part had but few wants, and always held himself prepared to leave
even this corner where he was tolerated, at the first insulting word.
However, no one thought of such an event less than did Count Hugo,
whose heart the boy had entirely won, for he had transferred his love
for his sister, to her fatherless child. But as spite of all the
kindness and care shown him, the son could never force himself to
return the friendly grasp of the hand that had slain his father, all
that the Count could do was to leave his nephew in perfect freedom. He
never required any service from him, thanked him as for a favour
conferred if Geoffroy tamed a falcon, or broke a horse for him, and
when his means began to fail, he would rather himself dispense with a
necessary than that Geoffroy should be disappointed of a wish. However,
he never took him with him on a visit, not that he wished to deny this
illegitimate sprout of the family tree--especially since his
unfortunate mother was no longer there to blush for him--but rather
that he did not wish the youth to witness his own reckless mode of
life, or to be corrupted by the loose manners and dissolute society of
the neighbouring nobles.
Therefore it was that the nephew, who had never received an order from
his uncle, was surprised to be thus suddenly disturbed at so unusual an
hour by the porter, who breathlessly told him what had happened, and
summoned him to the castle. He did not, however, delay to dress and
obey the call. When he entered the chamber, dimly lighted by the
dawning day, he saw the Count sitting at a table with a taper before
him, by the aid of which he had evidently been writing a letter. He now
sat motionless, his head resting on his hands, which were buried deep
in his grey hair. Geoffroy had to call him three times before he could
rouse him from his trance, then when he saw the haggard face and
lifeless eyes he, too, was shocked, although he did not love his uncle.
But he made an effort, enquired whether he was ill, and whether he
should ride to Carcassonne to fetch a leech.
"Saddle a horse, Geoffroy," returned Count Hugo, slowly rising, folding
the letter he had written, and sealing it with his signet-ring. "You
must take this letter to-day to the Lady Abbess of the Convent of Mont
Salvair, and to-morrow she must send me off my daughter Garcinde, for I
have something to say to her. And as I myself cannot reach her--my ride
this night has done me harm, and my gout admonishes me to get into bed
rather than into the saddle--I could wish that you should escort your
cousin, and see to her safe journey hither. Take a servant with you who
will bring back, on a baggage-horse, whatever may be personally needed,
till the abbess can send the rest. The convent will lend Garcinde a
horse. I have requested this to be done in my letter. You will rest for
a night half-way, at the farm of La Vaquiera, my daughter being
unaccustomed to riding, and the summer heat great. On the evening of
the third day I shall expect to see you here."
The youth received the letter, lingered for a moment on the threshold
as though some question were burning on his lips, then merely said, "It
shall be done, my lord," and with a slight inclination, took his
departure. When he got outside the door, he fancied that he heard
himself recalled, and stood still a moment to see whether it really
were so, but hearing nothing further he ran down the winding-stair, got
his horse out of the stable, gave the requisite orders to one of the
few servants that remained about the fallen house, and as the man was
sleepy and slow in his movements, ordered him to follow after, while he
himself sprang through the gate past the wondering porter, to whose
questions as to what the Count wanted, and whether it really were all
over with him, he merely replied by a shrug of the shoulders.
The reason of his haste in fulfilling his mission, was a fear that the
Count might change his mind and call him back, for during the eight
years that his cousin had been away from her father's house, whenever a
message had to be sent to her, he was never the one appointed to carry
it, and there seemed to be a deliberate purpose to prevent their
meeting. It is true that when they were both children there had been
no one of whom the little Countess was so fond as of her silent,
proud-spirited playfellow, the wandering minstrel's son, who at that
time already led a strange and solitary life in the small tower where
his mother had died. The servants had concluded that it was on account
of young Geoffrey that Sir Hugo had sent his daughter to a convent,
instead of taking a duenna into his house as many a widower had done,
so as not to be separated from his child; and now here was the cousin
sent to bring back the young lady, who had meanwhile, according to
common report, grown up into unparalleled beauty. Had some suitor made
his appearance on the previous evening, so that it was no longer
necessary to guard the girl against an unsuitable attachment? Or had
Death on his spectral horse accompanied the Count on his last night's
ride, so that all earthly considerations having now fallen off from
him, he merely thought of making his peace with God, and leaving his
child free to be happy or unhappy in her own way? There was no solving
the mystery.
As soon, however, as the turrets of the Castle of Malaspina were out of
sight, Geoffroy threw away all care and sadness, and only suffered
pleasant thoughts--rare guests in his mind--to go forth to meet the
playfellow of his childhood, whose delicate face with its laughing
white teeth and large dark eyes, shone out as plainly before him as
though he had seen them but yesterday. The day was cloudless, the woods
resounded with the song of birds, the beautiful fields of Provence
spread before him golden with the ripening corn, and for the first time
life appeared to him to be indeed a heavenly boon. He took to singing
the song with which his father had won his mother's heart; he had found
it in a music-book with the words written in the margin by her own
hand.
"Le donz chans d'un auzelh,
Tue chantava en un plays,
Me desviet l'autr'ier
De mon camin--"
He knew not why this particular song should come to his mind: he had
never till now thought of it but with sorrow, but to-day he sang it
with clear voice and joyous heart.
As he approached the convent at evening, his mood became quieter, and
his brow clouded. With fast beating heart he knocked at the gate, and
delivering the letter through a grating to a lay-sister, awaited a
message from the abbess. Before long the answer came, saying the
command of the Count would be obeyed, that with the dawn of morning
both the young girls would be given over to the messenger's charge, and
that meanwhile he might spend the night at the house of the convent
bailiff, who was accustomed to receive strangers, and dwelt in the
vineyards of Mont Salvair.
The night, however, seemed long to the youth, for his trusty friend
sleep came not as usual to speed it away; he envied the servant (who
had only arrived about midnight with the baggage-horse,) the influence
of the strong convent wine, and the deep unconsciousness that followed.
In Geoffroy there was something awake which was stronger than wine or
fatigue.
Once more it was day: they saddled their horses, took leave of the
bailiff, and rode to the gate of Mont Salvair, there to await the
youthful Countess. They were not there long before the door opened, the
abbess came out, her train of nuns behind her, and in their midst the
young Garcinde and her foster-sister, who were about to enter upon life
and liberty, while the sisters returned to their pious bondage. There
were so many tears and sighs, embraces and benedictions, that Geoffroy
had still to wait some time before he could see the face of his cousin,
now lost to him under one veil after another. But one glance of her
black eyes, and the sheen of her fair hair, had wrought such an effect
upon him, that he stood by his horse in utter confusion of mind, and
hardly heard the abbess, who enquired in evident wonder whether he were
really the messenger who yesterday brought Count Malaspina's letter,
and to whom his daughter was to be confided. The servant, who was
standing by with folded hands and open mouth, staring at the holy
women, had to nudge the youth with his elbow before he came to himself,
and reverentially bowed assent to what he had only imperfectly heard.
"Sir Hugo himself," he said, his eyes still fixed on his cousin's fair
hair, "had been prevented coming. He had charged him to ride slowly,
and to spend the night at La Vaquiera." By mentioning this prudent
plan, he hoped to remove any scruple the abbess might have in confiding
the maiden to so young an escort. He seemed however, to have produced a
quite contrary effect, for after one perturbed heavenward look, the
noble lady turned away to some of the older nuns, and began in a low
voice to take counsel with them. Then when the bailiff had led out the
horses for the young women, and while some of the lay-sisters helped
the servant to load the baggage horse with clothes and provisions, a
lively face emerged from the living hedge of black and white veils. It
belonged to Aigleta, the child of Garcinde's nurse, who had grown up to
be a blooming maiden, and who now approached the mute messenger,
holding out a small but vigorous hand, and exclaiming, "In God's name
be welcome, Sir Geoffroy! Is it you?" After which she went up to the
abbess and whispered a word or two in her ear which seemed to dispel
all anxiety. The pious lady depended too fully on the lessons of wisdom
and virtue, which her charge had imbibed with conventual milk, to hold
it possible that she should give her heart to a nameless illegitimate
cousin, especially at a time when, in all probability, a distinguished
alliance awaited her. Accordingly she clasped Garcinde--who burst into
tears--in her motherly embrace, herself helped her to mount the old
convent grey, while Aigleta was lifted by Geoffroy on to a spirited
pony, and with much sobbing and waving of hands and handkerchiefs, the
small cavalcade was at last sent off from the old arched gate of Mont
Salvair, through which the band of the Brides of Heaven slowly and
mournfully returned.
But the young travelling-companions, too, proceeded on their way more
silently and thoughtfully than might be expected, when a knightly
youth, on the fairest of summer days, guides two fair maidens mounted
on fresh horses upon their first expedition into a smiling world. After
a hasty question as to how her father was, Garcinde had not again
addressed Geoffroy, influenced, perhaps, by the curt although
reverential manner in which he had seemed to avoid entering into
further details. But Aigleta, who for her part had not allowed the
departure from Mont Salvair to weigh the least upon her spirits, took
up a livelier tone, and after a sigh of gratitude for being at last
delivered from the pious monotony of cloistered life, began to give
Geoffroy an amusing account of its course from day to day. She was an
excellent mimic, and counterfeited the voices of the different sisters,
their mild whispers, and downcast eyes, their unrestrained laughing and
screaming as soon as they were unobserved, their petty spiteful
quarrels, their cloying affectionateness to each other, ready at a
moment's notice to turn into deadly enmity. In the midst of all this
she introduced the solemn bass voice of the abbess, exhorting to peace,
and painting the dangers of the world; and finally she concluded with a
wild medley of pious and godless speeches, in which the nuns were
supposed to express their feelings on the departure of the young
Countess, their envy, their fear that Satan with all his crew might be
waiting for them outside the gates; lastly the prayer of the abbess for
their deliverance from all dangers, especially from the temptations of
bold knights, and suspicious young cousins.
Garcinde who had been riding a yard or two in advance, now cut short
this burst of spirits, and with her gentle voice--without, however,
turning towards Aigleta--rebuked her frivolous tone. It was sinful, she
said, after all the love and kindness they had enjoyed, to expose to
view the weaknesses of the poor and sadly limited life, and she at
least should never forget that when orphaned, she had found there a
second home. Whereupon the pert girl, who in Geoffroy's presence did
not at all approve of having this well-merited sermon addressed to her,
only replied with a couple of proverbs, "Each bird sings according as
it is fed," and--
"To tell the simple truth I ween,
May be unwise, but 'tis not sin."
But she was all the more vexed and put out because the handsome youth
by her side treated her as so perfect a stranger, while she for her
part remembered him so well, and how glad she used to be when their
childish games were so arranged that "Jaufret"--so they called him
then--should be on her side to deliver her from a dragon, or to wake
her by a kiss out of magic sleep. And while she now engaged the servant
in commonplace talk, she could not help stealing frequent glances at
her other companion, noticing how handsome and manly he had become; how
with a slight turn of the wrist he could rein in a fiery horse, and yet
had such a sad and earnest beauty in his eyes as would have become the
very saints in the church of Mont Salvair. What could make him so
silent, she kept wondering; and if she were below the attention of so
noble a gentleman, how was it that he abstained from all attempt to
find favour in the eyes of his lady-cousin? All this perplexed her so
much that she gradually left off talking, and entirely forgot the
slight anger she had felt at the admonition received. Meanwhile the
youth on his side, who had so impatiently watched for this day, wished,
as the sun rose higher, that it had never dawned upon him at all,
instead of looking down on his joy and sorrow with so heartless a
splendour. It is true that from his boyish years he had preserved the
image of his cousin as his ideal of all beauty and loveliness, but the
spark had smouldered on as a quiet memory in a well-guarded portion of
his heart; but now at the first greeting from her lips, at the perfume
that floated over to him from her hair, this spark burst out into a
mighty flame, and he suffered tortures such as he had never known
before. And then her apparent estrangement from him increased his
anguish, for although he did not know whether it were disinclination to
him personally, or the calm contempt of the Count's daughter for her
father's poor retainer which closed her lips and kept her eyes averted,
he had leisure enough in these silent hours to estimate with miserable
accuracy the social gulf between them, and the duty of crushing every
foolish hope. Then, again, his thoughts turned to conjectures as to
what possessor he would have to make over the jewel entrusted to him,
whether her hand would be given away without her heart, or whether her
father in the gloom of sickness had so yearned for his only child, as
suddenly to recall her to his deserted home. Even were it so, would his
case be less hopeless if he had longer time to learn the full
preciousness of the treasure which must at length be surrendered to
another?