The Line of Love. Dizain des Mariages

by James Branch Cabell

  "Ah, no, I shall not ever forget, O true and faithful lover! And, indeed, indeed, Adhelmar, I would give my life right willingly that yours might be saved!"

  She had almost forgotten Hugues. Her heart was sad as she thought of Adhelmar, who must die a shameful death for her sake, and of the love which she had cast away. Beside it, the Sieur d'Arques' affection showed somewhat tawdry, and Mélite began to reflect that, after all, she had liked Adhelmar almost as well.

  "Sweet," said Adhelmar, "do I not know you to the marrow? You will forget me utterly, for your heart is very changeable. Ah, Mother of God!" Adhelmar cried, with a quick lift of speech; "I am afraid to die, for the harsh dust will shut out the glory of your face, and you will forget!"

  "No; ah, no!" Mélite whispered, and drew near to him. Adhelmar smiled, a little wistfully, for he did not believe that she spoke the truth; but it was good to feel her body close to his, even though he was dying, and he was content.

  But by this time the dawn had come completely, flooding the room with its first thin radiance, and Mélite saw the pallor of his face and so knew that he was wounded.

  "Indeed, yes," said Adhelmar, when she had questioned him, "for my breast is quite cloven through." And when she disarmed him, Mélite found a great cut in his chest which had bled so much that it was apparent he must die, whether d'Andreghen and Edward of England would or no.

  Mélite wept again, and cried, "Why had you not told me of this?"

  "To have you heal me, perchance?" said Adhelmar. "Ah, love, is hanging, then, so sweet a death that I should choose it, rather than to die very peacefully in your arms? Indeed, I would not live if I might; for I have proven traitor to my King, and it is right that traitors should die; and, chief of all, I know that life can bring me naught more desirable than I have known this night. What need, then, have I to live?"

  Mélite bent over him; for as he spoke he had lain back in a tall carven chair by the east window. She was past speech. But now, for a moment, her lips clung to his, and her warm tears fell upon his face. What better death for a lover? thought Adhelmar.

  Yet he murmured somewhat. "Pity, always pity!" he said, wearily. "I shall never win aught else of you, Mélite. For before this you have kissed me, pitying me because you could not love me. And you have kissed me now, pitying me because I may not live."

  But Mélite, clasping her arms about his neck, whispered into his ear the meaning of this last kiss, and at the honeyed sound of her whispering his strength came back for a moment, and he strove to rise. The level sunlight through the open window smote full upon his face, which was very glad. Mélite was conscious of her nobility in causing him such delight at the last.

  "God, God!" cried Adhelmar, and he spread out his arms toward the dear, familiar world that was slowly taking form beneath them,—a world now infinitely dear to him; "all, my God, have pity and let me live a little longer!"

  As Mélite, half frightened, drew back from him, he crept out of his chair and fell prone at her feet. Afterward his hands stretched forward toward her, clutching, and then trembled and were still.

  Mélite stood looking downward, wondering vaguely when she would next know either joy or sorrow again. She was now conscious of no emotion whatever. It seemed to her she ought to be more greatly moved. So the new day found them.

  * * * * *

  MARCH 2, 1414

  "Jack, how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg?"

  In the chapel at Puysange you may still see the tomb of Adhelmar; but Mélite's bones lie otherwhere. "Her heart was changeable," as old Nicolas says, justly enough; and so in due time it was comforted.

  For Hugues d'Arques—or Hugh Darke, as his name was Anglicized—presently stood high in the favor of King Edward. A fief was granted to Messire Darke, in Norfolk, where Hugues shortly built for himself a residence at Yaxham, and began to look about for a wife: it was not long before he found one.

  This befell at Brétigny when, in 1360, the Great Peace was signed between France and England, and Hugues, as one of the English embassy, came face to face with Reinault and Mélite. History does not detail the meeting; but, inasmuch as the Sieur d'Arques and Mélite de Puysange were married at Rouen the following October, doubtless it passed off pleasantly enough.

  The couple had sufficient in common to have qualified them for several decades of mutual toleration. But by ill luck, Mélite died in child-birth three years after her marriage. She had borne, in 1361, twin daughters, of whom Adelais died a spinster; the other daughter, Sylvia, circa 1378, figured in an unfortunate love-affair with one of Sir Thomas Mowbray's attendants, but subsequently married Robert Vernon of Winstead. Mélite left also a son, Hugh, born in 1363, who succeeded to his father's estate of Yaxham in 1387, in which year Hugues fell at the battle of Radcot Bridge, fighting in behalf of the ill-fated Richard of Bordeaux.

  Now we turn to certain happenings in Eastcheap, at the Boar's Head

  Tavern.

  CHAPTER III

  The Episode Called Love-Letters of Falstaff

  I. "That Gray Iniquity"

  There was a sound of scuffling within as Sir John Falstaff—much broken since his loss of the King's favor, and now equally decayed in wit and health and reputation—stood fumbling at the door of the Angel room. He was particularly shaky this morning after a night of particularly hard drinking.

  But he came into the apartment singing, and, whatever the scuffling had meant, found Bardolph in one corner employed in sorting garments from a clothes-chest, while at the extreme end of the room Mistress Quickly demurely stirred the fire; which winked at the old knight rather knowingly.

  "Then came the bold Sir Caradoc," carolled Sir John. "Ah, mistress, what news?—And eke Sir Pellinore.—Did I rage last night, Bardolph? Was I a Bedlamite?"

  "As mine own bruises can testify," Bardolph assented. "Had each one of them a tongue, they would raise a clamor beside which Babel were as an heir weeping for his rich uncle's death; their testimony would qualify you for any mad-house in England. And if their evidence go against the doctor's stomach, the watchman at the corner hath three teeth—or, rather, hath them no longer, since you knocked them out last night—that will, right willingly, aid him to digest it."

  "Three, say you?" asked the knight, rather stiffly lowering his great body into his great chair set ready for him beside the fire. "I would have my valor in all men's mouths, but not in this fashion, for it is too biting a jest. Three, say you? Well, I am glad it was no worse; I have a tender conscience, and that mad fellow of the north, Hotspur, sits heavily upon it, so that thus this Percy, being slain by my valor, is per se avenged, a plague on him! Three, say you? I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is; I would I had 'bated my natural inclination somewhat, and had slain less tall fellows by some threescore. I doubt Agamemnon slept not well o' nights. Three, say you? Give the fellow a crown apiece for his mouldy teeth, if thou hast them; if thou hast them not, bid him eschew this vice of drunkenness, whereby his misfortune hath befallen him, and thus win him heavenly crowns."

  "Indeed, sir," began Bardolph, "I doubt—"

  "Doubt not, sirrah!" cried Sir John, testily; and continued, in a virtuous manner: "Was not the apostle reproved for that same sin? Thou art a Didymus, Bardolph;—an incredulous paynim, a most unspeculative rogue! Have I carracks trading in the Indies? Have I robbed the exchequer of late? Have I the Golden Fleece for a cloak? Nay, it is paltry gimlet, and that augurs badly. Why, does this knavish watchman take me for a raven to feed him in the wilderness? Tell him there are no such ravens hereabout; else had I ravenously limed the house-tops and set springes in the gutters. Inform him that my purse is no better lined than his own broken skull: it is void as a beggar's protestations, or a butcher's stall in Lent; light as a famished gnat, or the sighing of a new-made widower; more empty than a last year's bird-nest, than a madman's eye, or, in fine, than the friendship of a king."

  "But you
have wealthy friends, Sir John," suggested the hostess of the Boar's Head Tavern, whose impatience had but very hardly waited for this opportunity to join in the talk. "Yes, I warrant you, Sir John. Sir John, you have a many wealthy friends; you cannot deny that, Sir John."

  "Friends, dame?" asked the knight, and cowered closer to the fire, as though he were a little cold. "I have no friends since Hal is King. I had, I grant you, a few score of acquaintances whom I taught to play at dice; paltry young blades of the City, very unfledged juvenals! Setting my knighthood and my valor aside, if I did swear friendship with these, I did swear to a lie. But this is a censorious and muddy-minded world, so that, look you, even these sprouting aldermen, these foul bacon-fed rogues, have fled my friendship of late, and my reputation hath grown somewhat more murky than Erebus. No matter! I walk alone, as one that hath the pestilence. No matter! But I grow old; I am not in the vaward of my youth, mistress."

  He nodded his head with extreme gravity; then reached for a cup of sack that Bardolph held at the knight's elbow.

  "Indeed, I know not what your worship will do," said Mistress Quickly, rather sadly.

  "Faith!" answered Sir John, finishing the sack and grinning in a somewhat ghastly fashion; "unless the Providence that watches over the fall of a sparrow hath an eye to the career of Sir John Falstaff, Knight, and so comes to my aid shortly, I must needs convert my last doublet into a mask, and turn highwayman in my shirt. I can take purses yet, ye Uzzite comforters, as gaily as I did at Gadshill, where that scurvy Poins, and he that is now King, and some twoscore other knaves did afterward assault me in the dark; yet I peppered some of them, I warrant you!"

  "You must be rid of me, then, master," Bardolph interpolated. "I for one have no need of a hempen collar."

  "Ah, well!" said the knight, stretching himself in his chair as the warmth of the liquor coursed through his inert blood; "I, too, would be loth to break the gallows' back! For fear of halters, we must alter our way of living; we must live close, Bardolph, till the wars make us Croesuses or food for crows. And if Hal but hold to his bias, there will be wars: I will eat a piece of my sword, if he have not need of it shortly. Ah, go thy ways, tall Jack; there live not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old. We must live close, Bardolph; we must forswear drinking and wenching! But there is lime in this sack, you rogue; give me another cup."

  The old knight drained this second cup, and unctuously sucked at and licked his lips. Thereafter,

  "I pray you, hostess," he continued, "remember that Doll Tearsheet sups with me to-night; have a capon of the best, and be not sparing of the wine. I will repay you, upon honor, when we young fellows return from France, all laden with rings and brooches and such trumperies like your Norfolkshire pedlars at Christmas-tide. We will sack a town for you, and bring you back the Lord Mayor's beard to stuff you a cushion; the Dauphin shall be your tapster yet; we will walk on lilies, I warrant you, to the tune of Hey, then up go we!"

  "Indeed, sir," said Mistress Quickly, in perfect earnest, "your worship is as welcome to my pantry as the mice—a pox on 'em!—think themselves; you are heartily welcome. Ah, well, old Puss is dead; I had her of Goodman Quickly these ten years since;—but I had thought you looked for the lady who was here but now;—she was a roaring lion among the mice."

  "What lady?" cried Sir John, with great animation. "Was it Flint the mercer's wife, think you? Ah, she hath a liberal disposition, and will, without the aid of Prince Houssain's carpet or the horse of Cambuscan, transfer the golden shining pieces from her husband's coffers to mine."

  "No mercer's wife, I think," Mistress Quickly answered, after consideration. "She came with two patched footmen, and smacked of gentility;—Master Dumbleton's father was a mercer; but he had red hair;—she is old;—and I could never abide red hair."

  "No matter!" cried the knight. "I can love this lady, be she a very Witch of Endor. Observe, what a thing it is to be a proper man, Bardolph! She hath marked me;—in public, perhaps; on the street, it may be;—and then, I warrant you, made such eyes! and sighed such sighs! and lain awake o' nights, thinking of a pleasing portly gentleman, whom, were I not modesty's self, I might name;—and I, all this while, not knowing! Fetch me my Book of Riddles and my Sonnets, that I may speak smoothly. Why was my beard not combed this morning? No matter, it will serve. Have I no better cloak than this?" Sir John was in a tremendous bustle, all a-beam with pleasurable anticipation.

  But Mistress Quickly, who had been looking out of the window, said, "Come, but your worship must begin with unwashed hands, for old Madam Wish-for't and her two country louts are even now at the door."

  "Avaunt, minions!" cried the knight. "Avaunt! Conduct the lady hither, hostess; Bardolph, another cup of sack. We will ruffle it, lad, and go to France all gold, like Midas! Are mine eyes too red? I must look sad, you know, and sigh very pitifully. Ah, we will ruffle it! Another cup of sack, Bardolph;—I am a rogue if I have drunk to-day. And avaunt! vanish! for the lady comes."

  He threw himself into a gallant attitude, suggestive of one suddenly palsied, and with the mien of a turkey-cock strutted toward the door to greet his unknown visitor.

  2. "Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a Boy"

  The woman who entered was not the jolly City dame one looked for: and, at first sight, you estimated her age as a trifle upon the staider side of sixty. But to this woman the years had shown unwonted kindliness, as though time touched her less with intent to mar than to caress; her form was still unbent, and her countenance, bloodless and deep-furrowed, bore the traces of great beauty; and, whatever the nature of her errand, the woman who stood in the doorway was unquestionably a person of breeding.

  Sir John advanced toward her with as much elegance as he might muster; for gout when coupled with such excessive bulk does not beget an overpowering amount of grace.

  "See, from the glowing East, Aurora comes," he chirped. "Madam, permit me to welcome you to my poor apartments; they are not worthy—"

  "I would see Sir John Falstaff, sir," declared the lady, courteously, but with some reserve of manner, and looking him full in the face as she said this.

  "Indeed, madam," suggested Sir John, "if those bright eyes—whose glances have already cut my poor heart into as many pieces as the man in the front of the almanac—will but desist for a moment from such butcher's work and do their proper duty, you will have little trouble in finding the bluff soldier you seek."

  "Are you Sir John?" asked the lady, as though suspecting a jest. "The son of old Sir Edward Falstaff, of Norfolk?"

  "His wife hath frequently assured me so," Sir John protested, very gravely; "and to confirm her evidence I have about me a certain villainous thirst that did plague Sir Edward sorely in his lifetime, and came to me with his other chattels. The property I have expended long since; but no Jew will advance me a maravedi on the Falstaff thirst. It is a priceless commodity, not to be bought or sold; you might as soon quench it."

  "I would not have known you," said the lady, wonderingly; "but," she added, "I have not seen you these forty years."

  "Faith, madam," grinned the knight, "the great pilferer Time hath since then taken away a little from my hair, and added somewhat (saving your presence) to my belly; and my face hath not been improved by being the grindstone for some hundred swords. But I do not know you."

  "I am Sylvia Vernon," said the lady. "And once, a long while ago, I was Sylvia Darke."

  "I remember," said the knight. His voice was altered. Bardolph would hardly have known it; nor, perhaps, would he have recognized his master's manner as he handed Dame Sylvia to the best chair.

  "A long while ago," she repeated, sadly, after a pause during which the crackling of the fire was very audible. "Time hath dealt harshly with us both, John;—the name hath a sweet savor. I am an old woman now. And you—"

  "I would not have known you," said Sir John; then asked, almost resentfully, "What do you here?"

  "My son goes to the wars," she answered, "and I
am come to bid him farewell; yet I should not tarry in London, for my lord is feeble and hath constant need of me. But I, an old woman, am yet vain enough to steal these few moments from him who needs me, to see for the last time, mayhap, him who was once my very dear friend."

  "I was never your friend, Sylvia," said Sir John.

  "Ah, the old wrangle!" said the lady, and smiled a little wistfully. "My dear and very honored lover, then; and I am come to see him here."

  "Ay!" interrupted Sir John, rather hastily; and he proceeded, glowing with benevolence: "A quiet, orderly place, where I bestow my patronage; the woman of the house had once a husband in my company. God rest his soul! he bore a good pike. He retired in his old age and 'stablished this tavern, where he passed his declining years, till death called him gently away from this naughty world. God rest his soul, say I!"

  This was a somewhat euphemistic version of the taking-off of Goodman Quickly, who had been knocked over the head with a joint-stool while rifling the pockets of a drunken guest; but perhaps Sir John wished to speak well of the dead, even at the price of conferring upon the present home of Sir John an idyllic atmosphere denied it by the London constabulary.

  "And you for old memories' sake yet aid his widow?" the lady murmured. "That is like you, John."

  There was another silence, and the fire crackled more loudly than ever.

  "And are you sorry that I come again, in a worse body, John, strange and time-ruined?"

  "Sorry?" echoed Sir John; and, ungallant as it was, he hesitated a moment before replying: "No, faith! But there are some ghosts that will not easily bear raising, and you have raised one."

  "We have summoned up no very fearful spectre, I think," replied the lady; "at most, no worse than a pallid, gentle spirit that speaks—to me, at least—of a boy and a girl who loved each other and were very happy a great while ago."