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 nobody 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 nobody 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 noble 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 Bréauté. 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 Mass 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 gods. 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
grassy 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 grass 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.