Garcinde, who was not herself joyous, remarked it, and asked him
whether he were suffering, whether he would rest and refresh himself
with a draught of wine? Geoffroy, crimsoning to the roots of his hair,
excused himself for his absent mood, accounted for it by a sleepless
night, and did all he could to appear more cheerful. And at noon when
they halted in a wood beside a spring to recruit themselves with the
provisions with which the pious sisterhood had laden the baggage-horse,
his spirits in a measure revived, while Aigleta, who had long got over
her fit of sullenness, recovered the audacity of her mood, and
flavoured the mid-day meal with the drollest freaks of fancy. Garcinde
sat in the shadow of a tall black-thorn, and patiently endured that the
little witch who could not rest a moment, should adorn the whole party
with garlands, even to the servant and the grazing horses, singing
merry songs the while, not always of spiritual import, at which even
the servant laughed, so that the young Countess rose with a grave air,
removed the wreath from her brow, and proposed that they should ride on
again. The last to rise from the green grass was Geoffroy; to him the
spot seemed a Paradise where he would willingly have dreamed his days
away, yet when he lifted his cousin into her saddle, he did not dare to
bestow on the little foot that she placed in his hand, anything more
than the very slightest pressure. She turned her face away from him,
and he was for an instant's space veiled in the flow of soft tresses
that fell down to her girdle. Then she put her horse into a gentle
canter. Thus they all rode on for a while, men and beasts refreshed by
their hour's repose, and even Geoffroy carried his head higher, as
though the red wine that Aigleta had given him in a cup garlanded with
flowers, had put new life into his veins, and inspired him with energy
to enjoy the bliss of the present hour.
La Vaquiera, which they reached early in the afternoon, was a
dairy-farm, beautifully situated between richest pastures and wooded
grounds; until late years in the possession of the house of Malaspina,
but staked and lost at play, by the Count to a neighbouring noble,
Pierre de Gaillac, who had, however, something else to do than to look
after herds of cattle and flocks of sheep in this quiet corner. The
farmer himself and his wife, who lived here with a troop of shepherds
and milkmaids, and whom Sir Hugo greeted as usual whenever he rode
past, had not a notion that they no longer held under him, and they
received his daughter--whom they well remembered in her childhood--with
all the reverence and attention due to their young mistress. They had
only a small house, as the servants slept in the stables, but they at
once gave up their one sleeping-chamber to the two girls, and
themselves found a resting-place in the kitchen. Geoffroy had to put up
with a loft reached by a ladder, fortunately an airy one having plenty
of fresh hay. It was late, however, when he betook himself to it, for
the best part of the starry night had been spent in such earnest and
serious converse, that his impetuous feelings were somewhat subdued,
and spite of the vicinity of Garcinde, he made up for the lost sleep
of the night before. The two girls, on the contrary, although they
too--what with the long ride and the strong wine--owned to being very
tired, yet enlivened themselves during their unrobing, by much of that
seeming confidential talk common to maidens who share the same couch,
and yet would fain conceal their heart's secrets from each other. For
girls believe there is no better way of holding their tongue on one
subject than letting it run on unguardedly on every other. "Why have
you been so little glad all day long, and are you sure you are not
still angry with me for all the nonsense I have talked, out of sheer
delight at getting back into the world?" said Aigleta to her friend,
while helping her to braid and bind her hair. "Not so, dear heart,"
replied her thoughtful companion, letting her delicate arms drop into
her lap. "I envy you your light-heartedness, I do not censure it. But
my heart is heavy. Oh, Aigleta, I used to have such happy dreams of
returning to my father, of breathing free air, and seeing the world as
it lay beyond the hill of Mont Salvair. And now--"
"Does not the world seem to you fair enough, the sky blue enough, the
meadows green enough, the stream clear enough to reflect back your
beauty?" laughed Aigleta.
"How can you mock at my anxiety and gloom?" returned the Count's
daughter. "Just think--on the very day when I re-enter the world, my
dear father is absent from me. I cannot grasp his hand or hear his
voice. Oh believe me, there is something mysterious, dark, perhaps
appalling, that is kept back from me, the foreboding of which
has--spite of all the sunshine--darkened for me this much longed for
day."
"Nonsense!" said Aigleta. "Shall I tell you where the cloud lay that
threw its dull shadow over you? On the brow and in the eyes of that
simple Sir Jaufret. Deny it as you will I know what I know, and have
not got eyes in my head for nothing. And have you not, indeed, every
right to be offended with his uncourteous, indifferent manner? Fie! To
make such a melancholy face when one has the good fortune to serve as
knight to two sweet young ladies, one of whom, moreover, is a high-born
countess and his own first cousin! And this evening, too, when we
walked round the pastures, could he not have found something more
lively to talk of than the stars above us, and whether we went to them
after death, and horrid subjects of that kind? I think he might have
found some stars nearer at hand, and only to talk about dying we need
not have left Mont Salvair! He is certainly--as one can see--likely to
die of love, but that is no excuse. Such gloom may do very well for
poems when he writes you them, but while you were together and
alone--for as for me, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep--"
"What art thou prating about, foolish one?" said Garcinde, trying to
look angry, although a sweet emotion sent the blood tingling to her
cheeks. "Dost thou not know why he is so grave and sad, and never,
indeed, will be quite happy all his life long? Not though that he need
take his birth thus to heart. If he would only go to the court of some
foreign prince, and there gain renown, no one would reproach him with
what he could not help; and he might win wealth, and land, and fame,
and be a fit wooer for any count's daughter. But even though he be a
dreamer, and does not understand his own advantage, he is not so
foolish as to turn his thoughts towards me, for well he knows my father
would never give me to him. Nay I rather think that he hates me as
being my father's daughter--above him in position--though I for my part
would always behave to him as in our childish days, and do everything
in my power to renew the old intimacy."
"Hm," said Aigleta, as she unlaced her bodice, "it may be that you are
right, and yet I wish he hated _me_ in the way he hates _thee_. I
should desire nothing better, but I am a servant's daughter. Who would
give himself the trouble to look and see whether I deserve love or
hate? And yet I think," and so saying she shook her thick hair over her
white shoulders, "it might be well worth their while too, and whether
high-born or not, you shall see, _Domna Comtessa_, in the net of these
black hairs. I shall catch gay-plumaged birds as well as you with your
gold threads, and even if that black crow Jaufret keeps out of them--"
"Any one who heard you speak," interposed Garcinde, "would think that
you came from some quite other place than a convent. But now we will go
to sleep. I wish morning were come and that I had embraced my father."
They lay quiet for an hour, yet neither of them closed an eye; the bed
at the farm was certainly harder than their Mont Salvair couch, but
that alone would not have troubled the repose of girls of eighteen.
They both held their breath, and kept motionless, till Aigleta suddenly
sat up and said, "I never believed the nuns when they said the outer
world would steal away our rest; and now see, we have hardly put our
foot outside their gates, and already sleep flies from us. And yet we
are not even in love, I at least am not. Oh, Blessed Lady of Mont
Salvair, what _will_ happen when it comes to that! You of course will
have some distinguished husband, and then lovers as many as you will,
but I--suppose one took my fancy whom I could not have--I believe I
should set a wood on fire and jump into the midst of it!"
"What are you dreaming about?" answered Garcinde, without raising her
head from the pillow. "Do you suppose that I would take a husband whom
I did not love, or that my father would give me to any one against whom
my heart rebelled? Do you not know that he loves nothing on earth so
well as me, and could have no greater sorrow than to see me suffer? Go
to sleep--the wine has got into your head. I think you have been let
out of the convent too soon."
"Amen," said the merry girl in the deep voice of the abbess; then she
laughed out loud, but left off talking, and was asleep before her young
mistress.
The next morning the horses had stood saddled and pawing the ground in
the courtyard, for a good hour before the girls appeared on the
threshold. They nodded familiarly to Geoffroy, and chatted a little
with the good people of La Vaquiera. Then they spurred their horses in
order to get over the four hour's ride to Malaspina, before the mid-day
heat.
Again but little was said on the way; the youth, spite of his sound
sleep, was still paler and sadder than on the previous day; even
Aigleta seemed lost in thought, bit her full lip, and now and then
sighed. Moreover they had difficulty to keep up with the young
Countess, who urged her horse as though the wild huntsmen were on her
track. Once she turned to Geoffroy, who kept near her for fear the
over-urged palfrey should make a false step. "Do you think my father
will ride to meet us?" she enquired, and anxiously waited for his
answer. "I should think so," replied the youth without daring to look
at her, for his mind, too, was full of gloomy forebodings.
When they first came in sight of the Castle of Malaspina, Garcinde
suddenly drew bridle, and shading her eyes with her hand gazed for
several moments at the well-remembered ancient pile. The road wound
like a bright narrow ribbon through the short-cut grass, and they could
see every pebble on it. But of any horseman crossing the drawbridge and
hastening to meet them, nothing was to be seen; even when they came so
near that the warder blew his horn, everything remained unchanged, and
there was no sign of the festal reception of which the girl had
dreamed. The porter appeared in the open gateway, and behind him a few
shabby-looking retainers, who stood round as if confused, and for the
first time aware how high the grass and nettles grew between the flags
in the courtyard. Geoffroy had made some pretext for remaining behind,
for his heart bled at the idea of witnessing such a return home. For
although the innocent, inexperienced girl could not take in the whole
extent of the change--as she had only a childish recollection of the
place, and it was not written over the gateway that scarcely the bare
walls remained in her father's possession--yet the paucity of
domestics, and their thread-bare attire, might well startle her; and
above all, that her own parent had not the heart to welcome his beloved
child in front of the ancestral dwelling!
"Is my father ill?" she cried, as without awaiting help she leapt from
her saddle.
"It is only a sharp attack of gout, lady," replied the porter, glancing
up at an arched window that looked into the court, as if expecting that
at least his master would beckon from thence to his daughter, even
though his ailments might prevent his descending the stairs. But the
window was empty, and a blush suffused Garcinde's face as her glance,
which had taken the same direction, came back unsatisfied and
distressed. "I will go upstairs to him, Aigleta," she whispered, "wait
here till I call you."
She went, the others descended from their horses and made them over to
the servants. Geoffroy after exchanging a few rapid words with the
porter: "Anything new?" "All as it was," took his own horse to the
stable, unbridled him, and then crossed the courtyard on his way to his
little turret without taking any notice of Aigleta, who, lost and
forsaken, sat on a stone bench amongst the menials, and could have wept
heartily over so disappointing a return to the much desired home, had
there not been too many lookers on. She saw the young man take his way
to the well-known rose-embowered tower, but his head hung down so
dejectedly that she did not venture to address him, or ask him to let
her go with him to their old play-ground. As for him, he seemed to have
forgotten that he was in the world, or that he walked among men.
Although he had only had a little bread and wine in the early morning,
and it was now past noon, he had no thought of eating or drinking, but
sat in his turret-chamber on his mother's bed, motionless like one
struck by lightning, his widely-opened eyes fixed on his father's
song-book, which on his entrance he had taken down from the shelf and
opened out on his knee. Yet he did not seem to be reading, but rather
listening to some words that his own heart was setting to the music,
whether glad or sorrowful none could have guessed from his stony
aspect. All at once, however, he started back into life, and his dark
face flushed deeply; he sprang so hastily from the bed that the
song-book slipped from his knee and fell open upon the flags, then he
held his breath, and listened to some sound in the garden of roses
below. Yes, it was her step, no other human being's was like it, and
now her hand was upon the turret-door, now she crossed the dark and
narrow hall, now she opened the inner door and stepped over its
threshold into his small chamber.
As she entered, his eyes involuntarily fell, and he sought to disguise
his emotion by lifting from the floor the parchment-book that lay
between her and him, and now that he raised his eyes to her he started,
horror-stricken. For her face but lately blooming with youth and
health, had so changed in one short hour that she seemed to have
traversed years of hopeless grief.
"I disturb you, cousin," she said in a voice from which the music had
fled, "but I come to you because I think you are my friend--perhaps the
only one I have. Let me sit down, I am mortally weary. No, not on the
bed; my dear aunt died there. Oh, Jaufret, if I only knew that it would
be my death-bed too--and that my heart would grow still the moment I
lay down there--God is my witness I would throw myself upon it at
once!"
She sank down on the seat that he offered her, hiding her face in her
hands, and tears streaming between her white fingers. "For God's sake,
cousin," he cried, "you break my heart. What has happened? What has
your father said?"
Then she removed her hands from her face, pressed back her tears, and
looked steadfastly at him. "I will not weep," she said, "it is
childish. If all is true that I have heard, tears are too weak for such
sorrow. But I want to hear it from you, cousin. Is it indeed the case
that the Count of Malaspina is a beggar, and that his daughter has
nothing to call her own except the clothes she wears? You are silent,
Jaufret. Be it so then; what should I care for that? I have long had a
foreboding that there was trouble before me, and as to poverty, I have
seen _that_ in the convent, and know it, and it does not affright me.
But shame, Jaufret, shame--"
"By the blood of our Lord," he exclaimed. "Who dares to say that shame
threatens you so long as I can bear a sword, and lay a lance in rest?"
She did not appear to hear him. Then after a pause in which she, as if
unconsciously, drew her rosary through her hands, she shudderingly
enquired, "Do you know the Count de Gaillac?" The youth started as
though he had trodden upon a snake, he muttered a curse between his
teeth, and convulsively clutched the silken coverlet.
"You seem to know him," the maiden continued, "and I know him too.
About two years ago a hunting-party came to Mont Salvair, a great
gathering of knights and fair dames. They all sat themselves down to
feast in the wood that bordered the convent garden, and we from
our shrubbery could see what was going on; the drinking, the
banqueting; and could hear the songs that the Count's mistress--a tall,
proud-looking woman--sang to her lute. Oh cousin, what dreadful human
beings there are! Even then I felt a terror come over me, and was glad
when the abbess came to drive us out of the garden, and set us down in
the refectory to our spinning-wheels. There nothing was heard but the
whispering of the nuns, every one of whom knew something of the
wildness and godlessness of the Count de Gaillac. For they know
everything in the convent, know all about the outer world and its ways,
otherwise they would die of tedium. Then the abbess came in, told me
that the Count was standing at the grating, and desired to see me, as
he was the bearer of a message from my father. I do not know how I had
strength enough to rise, and walk across the long hall to her; then,
however, she took my hand in her mother-like clasp, and whispered,
'Remember that thou art here in a consecrated place; here the evil one
himself could have no power over thee.' So saying she led me to where
the godless man with his hawk's eyes in his wolf's face, was waiting
behind the grating, the handsome, bold-looking woman by his side. They
were laughing loud when we appeared, but suddenly grew silent. I heard
the Count say something in Italian to the lady that I perfectly
understood, but could not contradict. What his message to me was I
never knew, but it cut me to the heart to hear him name my father, and
call him his best friend. A cloud darkened my eyes,--when I came to
myself again, they were gone. The abbess never alluded to this visit,
and forbade the nuns ever to name Pierre de Gaillac before me. Thus I
never heard of him again, till to-day, when my own father has told me
that on one wretched night, after gambling away the remnant of his
possessions to this man, he had staked the hand of his daughter upon
the last throw of the dice, and lost that too."
A sound forced its way from the young man's breast, a hollow cry of
horror and of rage, but his limbs seemed paralysed, and his tongue
bound, for he did not speak a word, and there was such stillness in the
small chamber, that the grinding of the sand beneath his feet was
plainly heard.
"You hate my father," the girl at length continued with downcast eyes
but calm voice. "Oh, Jaufret, I have known this for many years, and it
has grieved me enough. But what I have now told you ought not to
increase your hatred, for if there be one miserable being on earth, who
in the burning torture of his soul already endures hell-fire, and
expiates his sins, believe me, cousin, it is the Count of Malaspina,
who would gladly change places with the dropsical cripple at his castle
gate, if only he could undo what he has done. He writhed as though
impaled at the stake, and buried his face in the pillows that I might
not see him while he told me how it all came about; how they clouded
his mind with hippocras; how at every throw they pressed the goblet
into his hand, till at length the mocking laughter of the Count seemed
to awake him from a dream, and he gazed with sheer horror at the abyss
into which he had hurled his last possession, the happiness of his
child. He did everything he could to propitiate his malicious enemy and
conqueror, nay he offered to be his serf, his bondservant, if only he
might pay the fearful debt thus. But the Count had merely laughed and
said, 'A Jew's bargain indeed you would make with me, my friend, to
offer me a plucked old cock for a plump young hen. I have more servants
to feed than I care for, but a young wife I do want, for you know that
I am getting old, and I am not so fond of my mistress as to wish to
leave her my lands and castles after my death. Moreover, I fear she
might make me a very bad return, and before my eyes were closed, drink
with some younger fellow to my approaching end. But your daughter has
been chastely and piously brought up, and will convert me--grey in sin
as I am--to an orderly life. Therefore I would not take all the
treasures on earth in exchange for her small hand, which can alone open
the door of Heaven to me; and so I charge you by your honour that
within three weeks you bring her to celebrate the marriage here in
Gaillac. I on my part, as my gift on the morning after the nuptials,
will make over to you all the woods and lands that I have won from you
of late years, in order that your child need not provide for you like a
beggar, but that you may live out your old age in state and comfort.'
And so saying he called for his servants to light him to bed, and left
my father alone."
At this moment Geoffrey made a gesture as though about to speak; but
she rose quickly, advanced towards him, and laid her small, cold,
trembling hand beseechingly on his clenched fist. "Cousin," said she,
"do not speak yet. I know what you would say: that it would be better
to go forth as a beggar from home and hearth, and to wander through the
wide world, than to endure disgrace, and give up body and soul to a
demon. But consider that my father has nothing on earth besides his
honour, his sacred, inviolable, knightly word, and that it would ill
become me, his daughter, to counsel him to break it. At the same time,
I feel that if there were no other means of fulfilling the pledge
given, and paying this debt than by giving my hand to this abhorred
suitor, I should prefer what is honourable in the sight of God, to what
men call honour. But let us hope, my friend, that this last alternative
may be spared me. I propose to write a letter to the man who has us in
his power, and you--if you are really my friend--you must take it this
very day to Gaillac, for until I know the answer I cannot lay me down
to sleep. But do you rest here awhile and take some food. I will go and
write the letter; they always commended my skill in writing at the
convent; God grant that it may stand me in good stead now! See, I leave
you much calmer than I was when I came, although you have not spoken
one word of comfort to me; but here in this place where we were so
happy as children, here where it seems as if no bad spirits had power
over me, here--I cannot persuade myself that the hideous dream is true,
and the father's honour pledged to the child's disgrace."
She paused for a moment, but when the youth bent before her with a deep
sigh, and pressed her hand to his lips in token that she might depend
upon him, she laid her other hand affectionately on his shoulder, and
took leave of him, saying, "Aigleta will bring you the letter.
Farewell, dear friend, and God go with you," and then on the threshold
of the door, folding her hands after kissing the image of the Virgin on
the wall, she repeated in a low voice the following prayer:
"Maires de Crist, ton filh car
Prega per nos, quens ampar
E quens gardo de cazer
A la fin en desesper."
Then she left him alone.
* * * * *
A day and night passed away, and yet another day and night. Geoffroy
did not return.
Sir Hugo never missed him; he was, indeed, accustomed to the youth
going his own way, and weeks often passed without his seeing him, and
at the present time he hated the sight of any human being. He would sit
for hours in one place in his room. The food carried in to him remained
untouched, but he drank wine greedily, as though seeking forgetfulness
from it; forgetfulness of himself, of the past, and the future.
On the evening of the first day, when Garcinde had gone to see him, he
could not even face his own child, but when she approached him, and
gently threw her arm over his shoulder, his whole frame was convulsed,
and slipping from his chair on to the stone floor, sobbing he clasped
her knees and pressed his brow against her feet, so that she had
difficulty in raising him and leading him back to his couch. Since then
she avoided his chamber, for if she had tried to comfort him by telling
him the reason of Geoffroy's absence, her own desponding heart would
have contradicted her words.
The third morning she woke early out of a painful dream, and called to
Aigleta who shared her couch: "Do you hear nothing, dear? I thought I
caught the sound of horses' hoofs beyond the drawbridge--no, I was only
dreaming. Oh, Aigleta! if I have also made _him_ unhappy--sent _him_ to
his ruin. But hark! the sound comes nearer--I hear the gate creak on
its hinges--it is he. Mother of God! What does he bring--Life or
Death!"