LADY'S LOVE
For, notwithstanding all that Isoult could urge (which was very little
indeed), Prosper started next morning with a dozen men to scour the
district for Maulfry. He refused point blank to take the girl with him,
and after her rebuke and abasement of the night before, still more
after the reconciliation on knees, she dared not plead overmuch. He was
a man and a great lord; she could not suppose that she knew all his
designs--any of them, if it came to that. He must go his way--which was
man's way--and she must stop at High March nursing her heart--which was
woman's way--even if High March proved a second Gracedieu and Isabel a
more inexorable Maulfry. No act of her own, she resolved, should
henceforward lead her to disobey him. Ah! she remembered with a hot
flush of pain--ah! her disobedience at Gracedieu had brought all the
mischief, Vincent's death all the anguish. Of course it had not; of
course Maulfry had tricked her; but she was not the girl to spare
herself reproaches. Her loyalty to Prosper took her easily the length
of stultification.
So Prosper went; and it may be some consolation to reflect that his
going pleased fourteen people at least. First it pleased the men he
took with him; for Prosper, that born fighter, was never so humorous as
when at long odds with death. Fighting seemed a frolic with him for
captain; a frolic, at that, where the only danger was that in being
killed outright you would lose a taste of the certain win for your
side. For among the High March men there was already a tradition--God
knows how these things grow--that Prosper le Gai and the hooded hawk
could not be beaten. He was so cheerful, victory so light a thing. Then
his cry--_Bide the time_--could anything be more heartening? Rung out
in his shrill tones over the open field, during a night attack, say, or
called down the darkening alleys of the forest, when the skirmishers
were out of each other's sight and every man faced a dim circle of
possible hidden foes? Pest! it tied man to man, front to rear. It tied
the whole troop to the brain of a young demon, who was never so cool as
when the swords were flying, and most wary when seeming mad. Blood was
a drink, death your toast, at such a banquet. And that accounts for
twelve out of fourteen.
The thirteenth was Countess of Hauterive, Châtelaine of High March,
Lady of Morgraunt, etc. A very few days inhabitancy where Master Roy
was of the party, had assured this lady that the page must be ridded.
She wished him no ill: you do not wish ill to the earwig which you
brush out of the window. Certainly if a boy had needs be stabbed by an
Egyptian (who incontinent disappears and must be hunted) it were
simpler Roy had fallen than the other. But she had no thought of
amending the mistakes of Providence. Great ladies who are really great
do not go to work to have inconvenient lacqueys stabbed. This at least
was not the Countess of Hauterive's way. If Fulk de Bréauté had not
been her lover as well as her husband, if he had been (for instance)
only her husband, she would have despised Earl Roger fully as much for
the affair on Spurnt Heath. No. But she meant Roy to go, and here was
her chance.
The fourteenth was Melot, a maid of the kitchen. This young woman,
whose love affairs were at least as important in her own eyes as could
possibly be those of the Countess her mistress (whom she had hardly
ever seen), or of Prosper (whom she conceived as a sexless abstraction,
built for the purposes of eating and wearing steel), or of Roy (who,
she assumed, had none)--this young woman, I say, was best pleased of
them all. She was perhaps pretty; she had a certain exuberant charm, I
suppose--round red cheeks, round black eyes, even teeth, and a
figure--and was probably apt to give it the fullest credit. Roy's
indifference, or reticence, or timidity (whichever it was) provoked
her. There was either innocence, or backwardness, or _ennui_ to
overcome: in any case, victory would be a triumph over a kitchenful of
adepts, and here was a chance of victory. So far she owned to failure
in all the essays she had made. She had tried comradeship, a bite of
her apple--declined. She had put her head on his shoulder more than
once--endured once, checked effectively by sudden removal of the
shoulder and upsetting of the lady a final time. She leaned over him to
see what he was reading--he ceased reading. Comradeship was a mockery;
let her next try mischief. For happy mischief the passionist must fume:
he had looked at her till she felt a fool. She had tried innuendo--he
did not understand it; languishing--he gladly left her to languish;
coquetry elsewhere--he asked nothing better. She thought she must be
more direct; and she was.
Isoult was in the pantry alone the second day of Prosper's quest. She
stood at gaze out of the window, seeing nothing but dun-colour and drab
where the sunlight made all the trees golden-green. Melot came in with
a great stir over nothing at all, hemmed, coughed, sighed, heighoed.
The block of a fellow stood fast, rooted at his window--gaping. Melot
was stung. She came to close quarters.
"Oh, Roy," she sighed, "never was such a laggard lad with me before.
Where hast thou been to school?"
Thereupon she puts hands upon the dunce, kisses him close, grows sudden
red, stammers, holds off, has the wit to make sure--and bundles out,
blazing with her news.
In twenty minutes it was all over the castle; Prosper's flag was
higher, and Isoult's in the mire. In thirty it had come to my lady's
dresser. Isoult, in the meantime, purely unconscious of anything but a
sick heart, had wandered up into the ante-chamber, and was poring over
a Book of Hours of the Blessed Virgin, leaning on her elbows at a table.
The dresser, having assimilated the news, was only too happy to impart
to the Countess. This she did, and with more detail than the truth
would warrant. Half hints became whole, backstairs whispers shouted in
the corridors; and all went to swell the feast of sound in the lady's
chamber. It would be idle to say that the Countess was furious, and
moreover untrue, for that implies a scarlet face; the Countess grew as
grey as a dead fire. She was, in truth, more shocked than angry,
shocked at such a flagrant insult to her mere hospitality. But
gradually, as the whole truth seemed to shape itself--the figure she
made, standing bare as her love had left her before this satyr of a
man; the figure of Prosper, tongue in the cheek, leering at her; the
figure of Isoult, a loose-limbed wanton sleepy with vice--before this
hideous trinity, when she had shuddered and cringed, she rose up
trembling, possessed with a really imperial rage. And if ever a
grievously flouted lady had excuse for rage, it was this lady.
Her rages were never storms, always frosts. These are the more deadly,
because they give the enraged more time. So she said very little to her
dresser. It came to this--"Ah! And where is the woman now?"
The dresser replied that when she had passed by the woman was in the
ante-chamber.
"Very well," said the Countess, "you may leave her there. Go." She
pointed to a door which led another way. The dresser felt baulked of
her just reward. But that was to come.
The Countess, still trembling from head to foot, took two or three
swift turns across the room. The few gentle lines about her face were
more like furrows; the skin was very tight over the lips and
cheek-bones. She opened the door softly. Isoult was still in the
ante-chamber, leaning over the Book of Hours, wherein she had found
treated of the 'Seven Sorrowful Mysteries.' Her short hair fell curling
over her cheeks; but she was boyish enough, to sight. The Countess went
quickly behind her, and before the girl could turn about was satisfied
of the amazing truth.
Isoult, blushing to the roots of her hair, stood up. Her troubled eyes
tried at first to meet her accuser's stony pair. They failed miserably;
almost any plight but this a girl can face. She hung her head, waiting
for the storm.
"Why are you here, woman?" came sharp as sleet.
"I came to warn my lord, madam."
"What are you to him?"
Now for it;--no, never! "I am his servant, madam."
"His servant? You would say his--" The Countess spared nothing. Isoult
began to rock. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed dry.
"Answer me, if you please," continued the Countess. "What are you to
this man?"
Isoult had no voice.
"If you do not answer me I shall treat you for what I know you are. You
know the penalty. I give you three minutes."
There was no more then from the Countess for three minutes by the
glass. The great lady stood erect, cold and white, seemingly frozen by
the frost which burns you. The only sound in the room was the sobbing
of the cowed girl, who also stood with hidden face and drooping knees,
broken with sobs, but tearless. Ah, what under heaven could she do but
as she did? Married to Prosper? How, when he had not declared it; had
received her as his servant, and treated her as a servant? How, when
she knew that the marriage of such as he to such as she was a
disablement far more serious than the relationship thrown at her by the
Countess? How, above all, when he had married her for charity, without
love and without worship, could she bring scorn upon him who had
dragged her out of scorn? Never, never! She must set her teeth hard,
bow her head, and endure. The time was up.
"Your answer, woman," said the Countess. There was none--could be none.
Only the victim raised a white twitching face to a white stony face,
and with desperate eyes searched it for a ray of pity. Again there was
none--could be none.
The Countess went quickly up and struck her on the mouth with her open
hand. The victim shivered, but stood.
"Go, strumpet!" said the lady. She threw open the door, and thrust
Isoult into the crowd of men and maids waiting in the corridor.
Master Jasper Porges, the seneschal, was the man of all the world who
loved to have things orderly done. The hall was at his disposition; he
arranged his tribunal, the victim in the midst, accuser and witnesses
in a body about his stool, spectators to form a handsome ring--to set
off, as it were, his jewel.
"Her ladyship gives me a free hand in this affair," he said in a short
speech. "You could not have a better man; leave it to me therefore.
There must be a judge. By office, by years, by weariness, by experience
of all (or most) ways of evil-doing, I am the judge for you. Good; I
sit in the seat of judgment. There must be next a jury of matrons,
since this is a free and great country where no man or woman (whichever
this prisoner may be) can be so much as suspected of sex without a
judgment. And since we have not matrons enough, we will make a shift
with the maids. A dozen of you to the benches on the table, I beg. So
far, good. We need next an accused person. He, or she, is there. Put
the person well forward, if you please. Good. Now we are ready for our
advocates; we need an _Advocatus Dei_, or accuser, and an _Advocatus
Diaboli_, or common enemy, to be defender. Melot, my chicken, you are
advocate for God Almighty, and the office is high enough for you, I
hope. _Diaboli Advocatus_ we have naturally none, since this is a
Christian land. Believe me, we are better without such cattle. I
proceed, therefore, by the rules of logic which are well known to be
irresistible, so much so that had there been a devil's advocate present
I must have declined to admit him lest our Christian profession be made
a mock. Hence it follows that there is no defence. One might almost
foretell the event; but that would be prejudice. We proceed then to
interpolate the accused, saying--'Person, you (being a man) are
strangely accused of being a woman. The court invites you to declare
yourself, adding this plain rider and doom, that if you declare
yourself a man, you are condemned in the person of your familiar, the
devil, who deceiveth those that say you are a woman; and that if you
prove to be a woman, you are condemned by those who dealt with you as a
man. Therefore, declare.'"
Master Porges waited, but waited in vain. He was pained. "What,
silence?" he whispered awfully. "What, contumacy? Stubborn refusal?
Sinking in sin? Can I believe my ears? Very good, prisoner, very good.
Melot, my bird of paradise, give your evidence."
This had effect. "I confess," said the accused (speaking for the first
time), "I am not a man."
"There now, there now," cried Master Porges in an ecstasy, "the sleeper
awakened! The conscience astir! Oh, infallible fount of justice! Oh,
crown of the generation of Adam too weighty for the generation of Eve!
Observe now, my loving friends, how beautiful the rills of logic
flowing from this stricken wretch. Let me deduce them for you. As thus.
A woman seeketh naturally a man: but this is a woman; therefore she
sought naturally a man. My friends, that is just what she did. For she
sought Messire Prosper le Gai, a lord, the friend of ladies. Again. A
man should cleave unto his wife: but Messire le Gai is a man, therefore
Messire should cleave unto his wife. 'La, la!' one will say, 'but he
hath no wife, owl!' and think to lay me flat. Oh, wise fool, I reply,
take another syllogism conceived in this manner and double-tongued. It
is not good for man to live alone; neither is it good for a lady to
live alone, who hath a great estate and the cares of it: but Messire
Prosper is that man, and her ladyship is that lady; therefore they
should marry; therefore Messire Prosper should cleave unto her
ladyship, and what the devil hath this woman to do between a man and
his wife now? Aha, I have you clean in a fork. I have purposely omitted
a few steps in my ladder of inference to bring it home. Then, look,
cometh crawling this accurséd. _O tempora, O Mores! O Pudor! O Saecula
Saeculorum!_ What incontinency, you will say; and I say, What, indeed!
Then cometh fairly your turn. Seneschal, you go on threatening me, this
is a Christian castle under a Christian lady, the laws whereof are
fixed and stable so that no man may blink them. I say, Aye. You go on
to plead, noble seneschal (say you), give us our laws lest we perish. I
see the tears; I say, Aye. The penalty of incontinency is well known to
you; I say, Aye. It is just. I bow my head. I say, Take your
incontinent incontinently, and deal!"
Master Porges got off the table, and, ceasing to be a justice, became a
creature of his day. Now, his day was a wild one as his dwelling a
barbarous, where the remedy for most offences was a drubbing.
Isoult bowed her head, set her teeth hard, and bent to the storm. The
storm burst over her, shrilled, whistled, and swept her down. In her
unformulate creed Love was, sure enough, a lord of terrible aspect,
gluttonous of blood, in whose service nevertheless the blood-letter
should take delight. No flagellant scored his back more deeply nor with
braver heart than she her smitten side. It would appear that she was a
better Christian than she suspected, since she laid down her life for
her friend, and found therein her reward. And her reward was this, that
Prosper le Gai, the gallant fighter, remained for Melot and her kind a
demi-god in steel, while she, his wife, was adjudged to the black ram.
To the black ram she was strapped, face to the tail, and so ran the
gauntlet of the yelling host in the courtyard, and of the Countess of
Hauterive's chill gaze from the parvise. By this time she had become a
mere doll, poor wretch; and as there is no pleasure in a love of
justice which is not quickened by a sense of judgment, the pursuers
tired after the first mad bout. Some, indeed, found that they had hurt
themselves severely by excess of zeal. This was looked upon as clear
evidence of the devil's possession of a tail, in spite of the Realists.
For if he had not a tail, how could he injure those who drove him out?
This is unanswerable.
The end of it all was that no more than three great hearts pursued the
black ram with its wagging burden into the forest. Of whom one, feeling
the fatuity of slaying the slain, or having, it may be, some lurking
seed of nominalism fomenting within, beat off the others and unstrapped
the victim's arms and legs.
"Though you are a wanton, God knows," he said, "you are flesh and
blood, or were so an hour ago. Be off with you now, and learn honest
living."
This was irony of fact, though not of intention. It was prompted by
that need which we all have of fortifying ourselves. But it probably
saved the girl's life. The men withdrew, and she lay there quiet
enough, with a bloody foam on her mouth, for two nights and a day.
It is said, I know not how truly, that the ram stayed by her, was found
standing there when she was found. It is like enough; there was a good
deal of the animal, beyond the wild-beast savour, about Isoult. She was
certainly no formularist; nor had she the reward of those who do well
to be angry, which lies, I suppose, in being able to drub with a whole
heart.