The Line of Love. Dizain des Mariages

by James Branch Cabell

  A sudden rush of night swept toward her, big with the secrecy of dawn. The sky, washed clean of stars, sprawled above,—a leaden, monotonous blank. Many trees whispered thickly over the chaos of earth; to the left, in an increasing dove-colored luminousness, a field of growing maize bristled like the chin of an unshaven Titan.

  Matthiette entered an expectant world. Once in the tree-chequered gardens, it was as though she crept through the aisles of an unlit cathedral already garnished for its sacred pageant. Matthiette heard the querulous birds call sleepily above; the margin of night was thick with their petulant complaints; behind her was the monstrous shadow of the Chateau d'Arnaye, and past that was a sullen red, the red of contused flesh, to herald dawn. Infinity waited a-tiptoe, tense for the coming miracle, and against this vast repression, her grief dwindled into irrelevancy: the leaves whispered comfort; each tree-bole hid chuckling fauns. Matthiette laughed. Content had flooded the universe all through and through now that yonder, unseen as yet, the scarlet-faced sun was toiling up the rim of the world, and matters, it somehow seemed, could not turn out so very ill, in the end.

  Matthiette came to a hut, from whose open window a faded golden glow spread out into obscurity like a tawdry fan. From without she peered into the hut and saw Raoul. A lamp flickered upon the table. His shadow twitched and wavered about the plastered walls,—a portentous mass of head upon a hemisphere of shoulders,—as Raoul bent over a chest, sorting the contents, singing softly to himself, while Matthiette leaned upon the sill without, and the gardens of Arnaye took form and stirred in the heart of a chill, steady, sapphire-like radiance.

  Sang Raoul:

  "Lord, I have worshipped thee ever,—

  Through all these years

  I have served thee, forsaking never

  Light Love that veers

  As a child between laughter and tears.

  Hast thou no more to afford,—

  Naught save laughter and tears,—

  Love, my lord?

  "I have borne thy heaviest burden,

  Nor served thee amiss:

  Now thou hast given a guerdon;

  Lo, it was this—

  A sigh, a shudder, a kiss.

  Hast thou no more to accord!

  I would have more than this,

  Love, my lord.

  "I am wearied of love that is pastime

  And gifts that it brings;

  I entreat of thee, lord, at this last time

  "Inèffable things.

  Nay, have proud long-dead kings

  Stricken no subtler chord,

  Whereof the memory clings,

  Love, my lord?

  "But for a little we live;

  Show me thine innermost hoard!

  Hast thou no more to give,

  Love, my lord?"

  4. Raymond Psychopompos

  Matthiette went to the hut's door: her hands fell irresolutely upon the rough surface of it and lay still for a moment. Then with the noise of a hoarse groan the door swung inward, and the light guttered in a swirl of keen morning air, casting convulsive shadows upon her lifted countenance, and was extinguished. She held out her arms in a gesture that was half maternal. "Raoul!" she murmured.

  He turned. A sudden bird plunged through the twilight without, with a glad cry that pierced like a knife through the stillness which had fallen in the little room. Raoul de Frison faced her, with clenched hands, silent. For that instant she saw him transfigured.

  But his silence frightened her. There came a piteous catch in her voice.

  "Fair friend, have you not bidden me—be happy?"

  He sighed. "Mademoiselle," he said, dully, "I may not avail myself of your tenderness of heart; that you have come to comfort me in my sorrow is a deed at which, I think, God's holy Angels must rejoice: but I cannot avail myself of it."

  "Raoul, Raoul," she said, "do you think that I have come in—pity!"

  "Matthiette," he returned, "your uncle spoke the truth. I have dreamed dreams concerning you,—dreams of a foolish, golden-hearted girl, who would yield—yield gladly—all that the world may give, to be one flesh and soul with me. But I have wakened, dear, to the braver reality,—that valorous woman, strong enough to conquer even her own heart that her people may be freed from their peril."

  "Blind! blind!" she cried.

  Raoul smiled down upon her. "Mademoiselle," said he, "I do not doubt that you love me."

  She went wearily toward the window. "I am not very wise," Matthiette said, looking out upon the gardens, "and it appears that God has given me an exceedingly tangled matter to unravel. Yet if I decide it wrongly I think the Eternal Father will understand it is because I am not very wise."

  Matthiette for a moment was silent. Then with averted face she spoke again. "My uncle commands me, with many astute saws and pithy sayings, to wed Monsieur de Puysange. I have not skill to combat him. Many times he has proven it my duty, but he is quick in argument and proves what he will; and I do not think it is my duty. It appears to me a matter wherein man's wisdom is at variance with God's will as manifested to us through the holy Evangelists. Assuredly, if I do not wed Monsieur de Puysange there may be war here in our Arnaye, and God has forbidden war; but I may not insure peace in Arnaye without prostituting my body to a man I do not love, and that, too, God has forbidden. I speak somewhat grossly for a maid, but you love me, I think, and will understand. And I, also, love you, Monsieur de Frison. Yet—ah, I am pitiably weak! Love tugs at my heart-strings, bidding me cling to you, and forget these other matters; but I cannot do that, either. I desire very heartily the comfort and splendor and adulation which you cannot give me. I am pitiably weak, Raoul! I cannot come to you with an undivided heart,—but my heart, such as it is, I have given you, and to-day I deliver my honor into your hands and my life's happiness, to preserve or to destroy. Mother of Christ, grant that I have chosen rightly, for I have chosen now, past retreat! I have chosen you, Raoul, and that love which you elect to give me, and of which I must endeavor to be worthy."

  Matthiette turned from the window. Now, her bright audacity gone, her ardors chilled, you saw how like a grave, straightforward boy she was, how illimitably tender, how inefficient. "It may be that I have decided wrongly in this tangled matter," she said now. "And yet I think that God, Who loves us infinitely, cannot be greatly vexed at anything His children do for love of one another."

  He came toward her. "I bid you go," he said. "Matthiette, it is my duty to bid you go, and it is your duty to obey."

  She smiled wistfully through unshed tears. "Man's wisdom!" said Matthiette. "I think that it is not my duty. And so I disobey you, dear,—this once, and no more hereafter."

  "And yet last night—" Raoul began.

  "Last night," said she, "I thought that I was strong. I know now it was my vanity that was strong,—vanity and pride and fear, Raoul, that for a little mastered me. But in the dawn all things seem very trivial, saving love alone."

  They looked out into the dew-washed gardens. The daylight was fullgrown, and already the clear-cut forms of men were passing beneath the swaying branches. In the distance a trumpet snarled.

  "Dear love," said Raoul, "do you not understand that you have brought about my death? For Monsieur de Puysange is at the gates of Arnaye; and either he or Sieur Raymond will have me hanged ere noon."

  "I do not know," she said, in a tired voice. "I think that Monsieur de Puysange has some cause to thank me; and my uncle loves me, and his heart, for all his gruffness, is very tender. And—see, Raoul!" She drew the dagger from her bosom. "I shall not survive you a long while, O man of all the world!"

  Perplexed joy flushed through his countenance. "You will do this—for me?" he cried, with a sort of sob. "Matthiette, Matthiette, you shame me!"

  "But I love you," said Matthiette. "How could it be possible, then, for me to live after you were dead?"

  He bent to her. They kissed.

  Hand in hand they went forth into the daylight. The kindly, familiar place
seemed in Matthiette's eyes oppressed and transformed by the austerity of dawn. It was a clear Sunday morning, at the hightide of summer, and she found the world unutterably Sabbatical; only by a vigorous effort could memory connect it with the normal life of yesterday. The cool edges of the woods, vibrant now with multitudinous shrill pipings, the purple shadows shrinking eastward on the dimpling lawns, the intricate and broken traceries of the dial (where they had met so often), the blurred windings of their path, above which brooded the peaked roofs and gables and slender clerestories of Arnaye, the broad river yonder lapsing through deserted sunlit fields,—these things lay before them scarce heeded, stript of all perspective, flat as an open scroll. To them all this was alien. She and Raoul were quite apart from these matters, quite alone, despite the men of Arnaye, hurrying toward the courtyard, who stared at them curiously, but said nothing. A brisk wind was abroad in the tree-tops, scattering stray leaves, already dead, over the lush grass. Tenderly Raoul brushed a little golden sycamore leaf from the lovelier gold of Matthiette's hair.

  "I do not know how long I have to live," he said. "Nobody knows that. But I wish that I might live a great while to serve you worthily."

  She answered: "Neither in life nor death shall we be parted now. That only matters, my husband."

  They came into the crowded court-yard just as the drawbridge fell. A troop of horse clattered into Arnaye, and the leader, a young man of frank countenance, dismounted and looked about him inquiringly. Then he came toward them.

  "Monseigneur," said he, "you see that we ride early in honor of your nuptials."

  Behind them some one chuckled. "Love one another, young people," said Sieur Raymond; "but do you, Matthiette, make ready to depart into Normandy as a true and faithful wife to Monsieur de Puysange."

  She stared into Raoul's laughing face; there was a kind of anguish in her swift comprehension. Quickly the two men who loved her glanced at each other, half in shame.

  But the Sieur d'Arnaye was not lightly dashed. "Oh, la, la, la!" chuckled the Sieur d'Arnaye, "she would never have given you a second thought, monsieur le vicomte, had I not labelled you forbidden fruit. As it is, my last conspiracy, while a little ruthless, I grant you, turns out admirably. Jack has his Jill, and all ends merrily, like an old song. I will begin on those pig-sties the first thing to-morrow morning."

  * * * * *

  OCTOBER 6, 1519

  "Therefore, like as May month flowereth and flourisheth in many gardens, so in likewise let every man of worship flourish his heart in this world; first unto God, and next unto the joy of them that he promiseth his faith unto."

  The quondam Raoul de Prison stood high in the graces of the Lady Regent of France, Anne de Beaujeu, who was, indeed, tolerably notorious for her partiality to well-built young men. Courtiers whispered more than there is any need here to rehearse. In any event, when in 1485 the daughter of Louis XI fitted out an expedition to press the Earl of Richmond's claim to the English crown, de Puysange sailed from Havre as commander of the French fleet. He fought at Bosworth, not discreditably; and a year afterward, when England had for the most part accepted Henry VII, Matthiette rejoined her husband.

  They never subsequently quitted England. During the long civil wars, de Puysange was known as a shrewd captain and a judicious counsellor to the King, who rewarded his services as liberally as Tudorian parsimony would permit. After the death of Henry VII, however, the vicomte took little part in public affairs, spending most of his time at Tiverton Manor, in Devon, where, surrounded by their numerous progeny, he and Matthiette grew old together in peace and concord.

  Indeed, the vicomte so ordered all his cool love-affairs that, having taken a wife as a matter of expediency, he continued as a matter of expediency to make her a fair husband, as husbands go. It also seemed to him, they relate, a matter of expediency to ignore the interpretation given by scandalous persons to the paternal friendship extended to Madame de Puysange by a high prince of the Church, during the last five years of the great Cardinal Morton's life, for the connection was useful.

  The following is from a manuscript of doubtful authenticity still to be seen at Allonby Shaw. It purports to contain the autobiography of Will Sommers, the vicomte's jester, afterward court-fool to Henry VIII.

  CHAPTER VII

  The Episode Called The Castle of Content

  1. I Glimpse the Castle

  "And so, dearie," she ended, "you may seize the revenues of Allonby with unwashed hands."

  I said, "Why have you done this?" I was half-frightened by the sudden whirl of Dame Fortune's wheel.

  "Dear cousin in motley," grinned the beldame, "'twas for hatred of Tom Allonby and all his accursed race that I have kept the secret thus long. Now comes a braver revenge: and I settle my score with the black spawn of Allonby—euh, how entirely!—by setting you at their head."

  "Nay, I elect for a more flattering reason. I begin to suspect you, cousin, of some human compunction."

  "Well, Willie, well, I never hated you as much as I had reason to," she grumbled, and began to cough very lamentably. "So at the last I must make a marquis of you—ugh! Will you jest for them in counsel, Willie, and lead your henchman to battle with a bawdy song—ugh, ugh!"

  Her voice crackled like burning timber, and sputtered in groans that would have been fanged curses had breath not failed her: for my aunt Elinor possessed a nimble tongue, whetted, as rumor had it, by the attendance of divers Sabbats, and the chaunting of such songs as honest men may not hear and live, however highly the succubi and warlocks and were-cats, and Satan's courtiers generally, commend them.

  I squinted down at one green leg, scratched the crimson fellow to it with my bauble, and could not deny that, even so, the witch was dealing handsomely with me to-night.

  'Twas a strange tale which my Aunt Elinor had ended, speaking swiftly lest the worms grow impatient and Charon weigh anchor ere she had done: and the proofs of the tale's verity, set forth in a fair clerkly handwriting, rustled in my hand,—scratches of a long-rotted pen that transferred me to the right side of the blanket, and transformed the motley of a fool into the ermine of a peer.

  All Devon knew I was son to Tom Allonby, who had been Marquis of Falmouth at his uncle's death, had not Tom Allonby, upon the very eve of that event, broken his neck in a fox-hunt; but Dan Gabriel, come post-haste from Heaven had with difficulty convinced the village idiot that Holy Church had smiled upon Tom's union with a tanner's daughter, and that their son was lord of Allonby Shaw. I doubted it, even as I read the proof. Yet it was true,—true that I had precedence even of the great Monsieur de Puysange, who had kept me to make him mirth on a shifty diet, first coins, then curses, these ten years past,—true that my father, rogue in all else, had yet dealt equitably with my mother ere he died,—true that my aunt, less honorably used by him, had shared their secret with the priest who married them, maliciously preserving it till this, when her words fell before me as anciently Jove's shower before the Argive Danaë, coruscant and awful, pregnant with undreamed-of chances which stirred as yet blindly in Time's womb.

  A sick anger woke in me, remembering the burden of ignoble years this hag had suffered me to bear; yet my so young gentility bade me avoid reproach of the dying peasant woman, who, when all was said, had been but ill-used by our house. Death hath a strange potency: commanding as he doth, unquestioned and unchidden, the emperor to have done with slaying, the poet to rise from his unfinished rhyme, the tender and gracious lady to cease from nice denying words (mixed though they be with pitiful sighs that break their sequence like an amorous ditty heard through the strains of a martial stave), and all men, gentle or base, to follow Death's gaunt standard into unmapped realms, something of majesty enshrines the paltriest knave on whom the weight of Death's chill finger hath fallen. I doubt not that Cain's children wept about his deathbed, and that the centurions spake in whispers as they lowered Iscariot from the elder-tree: and in like manner the reproaches which stirred in my brain had no power to move my lips. The fr
ail carnal tenement, swept and cleansed of all mortality, was garnished for Death's coming; and I could not sorrow at his advent here: but I perforce must pity rather than revile the prey which Age and Poverty, those ravenous forerunning hounds of Death yet harried, at the door of the tomb.

  Running over these considerations in my mind, I said, "I forgive you."

  "You posturing lack-wit!" she returned, and her sunk jaws quivered angrily. "D'ye play the condescending gentleman already! Dearie, your master did not take the news so calmly."

  "You have told him?"

  I had risen, for the wried, and yet sly, malice of my aunt's face was rather that of Bellona, who, as clerks avow, ever bore carnage and dissension in her train, than that of a mortal, mutton-fed woman. Elinor Sommers hated me—having God knows how just a cause—for the reason that I was my father's son; and yet, for this same reason as I think, there was in all our intercourse an odd, harsh, grudging sort of tenderness.

  She laughed now,—flat and shrill, like the laughter of the damned heard in Hell between the roaring of flames. "Were it not common kindness to tell him, since this old sleek fellow's fine daughter is to wed the cuckoo that hath your nest? Yes, Willie, yes, your master hath known since morning."

  "And Adeliza?" I asked, in a voice that tricked me.

  "Heh, my Lady-High-and-Mighty hath, I think, heard nothing as yet. She will be hearing of new suitors soon enough, though, for her father, Monsieur Fine-Words, that silky, grinning thief, is very keen in a money-chase,—keen as a terrier on a rat-track, may Satan twist his neck! Pshutt, dearie! here is a smiling knave who means to have the estate of Allonby as it stands; what live-stock may go therewith, whether crack-brained or not, is all one to him. He will not balk at a drachm or two of wit in his son-in-law. You have but to whistle,—but to whistle, Willie, and she'll come!"