CHAPTER XVII
STEPHEN LA MOTHE ASKS THE WRONG QUESTION
Only the very foolish or the very weak man seeks to hide from his ownsoul the full, naked, unpalatable truth about himself. The foolfollows the principle which governs the libel upon the intelligence ofthe ostrich, and vainly tries to persuade himself that what he does notsee does not exist, while the weak man dares not open the doors of thecupboard hidden in every life for shivering terror of the secrets heknows are there. Wiser wickedness deliberately airs his skeleton nowand then, and thereby the grisly presence grows less grisly, and thehollow rattle of the bones less threatening. The articulation remainsthe same, but the tone, so to speak, is more subdued.
And Stephen La Mothe, being neither a fool nor altogether weak, was notafraid to admit to himself that Commines' angry contempt had describedthe day-by-day life at Amboise with sufficient accuracy, at least sofar as the Dauphin and Ursula de Vesc were concerned. The bitter flingat his friendship for Villon did not trouble him. It was simply thehigh light added to the picture to bring out its general truth.
Yes, he had played games of make-believe with the boy, such as Louishad spoken of half in tolerance and half with the vexation of a cleverfather who resents that his only son is not as clever as himself. Hehad--no, he had not philandered in the rose garden. The associationsof the word stirred him to revolt. Dairy-maids might philander,kitchen wenches and such-like common flesh might philander, but neverUrsula of the grey eyes, Ursula of the tender, firm mouth. Ursulaphilander? Never! never! The thought was desecration. What was itLouis had said? All women are the same under the skin. It was acynic's lie, and Louis had never known Ursula de Vesc.
Lifting a lute he touched the strings lightly. He was in one of thesmaller rooms of the Chateau, one the girl used more, almost, than anyother, and little suggestions of her were scattered about it. On abench was a piece of woman's work with the threaded needle pushedthrough the stuff as when she laid it aside, flowers she had gatheredwere on the table, the portiere masking the door was her embroidery.Perhaps all these forced an association of ideas. Picking the stringsout one by one half unconsciously, the air of the love song followedthe shift of the hand, and equally unconsciously his voice took up therhythm, first in an undertone, then louder and louder:
"Heigh-ho! Love is my sun, Love is my moon and the stars by night. Heigh-ho! hour there is none, Love of my heart, but thou art my light; Never forsaking, Noon or day-breaking, Midnights of sorrow thy comforts make bright. Heigh-ho! Love is my life, Live I in loving and love I to live: Heigh-ho!----"
"Monsieur La Mothe, Monsieur La Mothe, have you deceived us all thesedays?"
Down went the lute with a clang which jarred its every string intodiscord, and La Mothe sprang to his feet.
"Deceived you, mademoiselle! How?"
"That first night--I do not like to remember it even now, but MonsieurVillon told us you were both poet and singer, but you denied it. Andnow I hear you singing----"
"Not singing, mademoiselle."
"Singing," she persisted, with a pretty emphasis which La Mothe foundvery pleasant. "We shall have a new play to-night. A Court of HighJustice, and Monsieur La Mothe arraigned for defrauding Amboise of apleasure these ten days. I shall prosecute, Charles must be judge, andyour sentence will be to sing every song you know."
"Then I shall escape lightly; I know so few."
"There! You have confessed, and your punishment must begin at once.Villon was right: Amboise is dull; sing for me, Monsieur La Mothe."
"But," protested La Mothe, "Villon was wrong as well as right in whathe told you that night."
"What? A minstrel who wanders France with his knapsack and his luteand yet cannot sing?" If the raillery yet remained in the gay voice,it was a raillery which shifted its significance from pleasant badinageto something deeper, and the tender mouth which La Mothe was so surecould never lend itself to philandering lost its tenderness. More thanonce he had caught just such expression when the perilous ground of therelationships between father and son had been trodden upon in anattempt to justify the King. Then it had been impersonal, now he wasreminded of his first night in Amboise, when her cold suspicion hadbeen frankly unveiled. But the hardening of the face was only for amoment. "Truly, now," she went on, "have you never made verses?"
"Very bad ones, mademoiselle."
"A poet tells the truth! The skies will fall! But perhaps it is notthe truth; perhaps you are as unjust to your verses as you are to yoursinging." Seating herself in a low chair, she looked up at him with adangerous but unconscious kindness in her eyes. "Now sit there in thatwindow-seat and let me judge. With the sun behind you you will looklike Apollo with his lyre. No, not Apollo. Apollo was the sun itself.Why are men so much more difficult to duplicate in simile than women?"
"Not all women. I know one for whom there is no duplicate."
"A poet's divine imagination!"
"A man's reverent thankfulness."
The grey eyes kindled, and as the unconscious kindliness grew yet morekindly La Mothe told himself he had surely advanced a siege trenchtowards the defences. As to Ursula, she could not have told why theselast days had been the pleasantest of her life, and would haveindignantly denied that Stephen La Mothe was in any way the cause.Women do not admit such truths as openly as men, not even tothemselves. But Amboise was no longer dull, the rose garden no longera mere relief from the greyness of the hours spent behind the grimwalls which circled it. The sunshine was the same, the budding flowerswere the same, the glorious shift from winter to summer, but they werethe same with a difference, a difference she never paused to analyze.Spring--the spring of her life--had come upon her unawares.
But a more acknowledged element in the pleasant comfort of these dayshad been a sense of support. One of the most corroding sorrows of lifeis to be lonely, alienated from sympathy and guidance, and in AmboiseUrsula de Vesc had been very solitary. La Follette was politic,cautiously non-committal; Hugues of a class apart; Commines an avowedopponent; Charles too young for companionship; Villon a contempt, andat times a loathing. Into this solitariness had come Stephen La Mothe,and the very reaction from acute suspicion had drawn her towards him.Repentance for an unmerited blame is much nearer akin to love than anydepths of pity. Then to repentance was added gratitude, to gratitudeadmiration, and to all three propinquity. Blessed be propinquity! IfHymen ever raises an altar to his most devoted hand-maid it will be tothe dear goddess Propinquity! Yes! these days had been very pleasantdays.
But an unfailing charm in a charming woman is that one can never tellwhat she will do next. Though the grey eyes kindled and the kindlinessin them grew yet more kindly, though the soft embroideries in thedelicate lawn were ruffled by a quicker breath, the natural perversityof her sex must needs answer perversely, and Ursula de Vesc blew up hissiege trench with a bombshell.
"Monsieur La Mothe, were you ever at Valmy?"
"Yes, mademoiselle." There was no shadow of hesitation in the reply,though the abrupt change of subject was as startling as the questionitself.
"Of course. Music opens all doors. Monsieur La Mothe, I congratulateyou."
"That having been in Valmy I am now in Amboise?"
"Upon better than that. Some day I may tell you."
"But this is the best possible, and I congratulate myself. No! Goodas this is, there is a better than the best! Mademoiselle----"
"But you sing as well as make verses, do you not--you, whose musicopened the gates even of Valmy? Indeed, I heard you just now. You areanother Orpheus, and Valmy a very similar interior. You don't like meto say so? Very well, my lute is in your hand, and I am waiting. Didthey teach you in Poitou to keep ladies waiting?"
"Poitou?" repeated La Mothe; "but I never said I had been in Poitou."
"Oh! but as a minstrel you wander everywhere, or--what was it?--as apoor gentleman seeing France, and so to Poitou. Anjou, Guienne,anywhere would do as wel
l--except Flanders, where Monsieur de Comminescomes from, and where I wish Monsieur de Commines had remained," sheadded.
"You dislike Monsieur de Commines? Mademoiselle, if you knew himbetter; how I wish you did. There was once a friendless boy--"
"Is this another fairy tale?" Though she interrupted him with solittle ceremony, there was no asperity in the voice. It was as if shesaid, "Even good women have their limitations. I may forgive Philip deCommines, but you cannot expect me to praise him."
"As true a story as the other."
"And you believe in that other?"
"With all my heart."
"Then why does the father not show himself fatherly?"
"Is it not the part of the son to say, 'Father, I have sinned'?"
"I see," she said, some of the old bitterness creeping into her tone,"the prodigal of twelve years old who is rioting in Amboise--you seehow he riots--should ask forgiveness," and as she spoke Stephen LaMothe, with a sudden sense of chill, remembered that other prodigal oftwelve years old who was hung on the Valmy gallows that the roads ofFrance might be safe. If Commines was right, the parallel wascomplete--horribly complete. But she gave him no time to dwell uponthe coincidence. "You put a heavy charge upon me," she went on, thefurrows deepening on her forehead. "Would to God I could see what isbest, what is right. I must think. I must think. Play to me,Monsieur La Mothe, but not too loudly, and do not call me rude if I donot listen. I know that must sound strange, but at times music helpsme to think. Is it not so with you?"
The question was apologetic, and as such La Mothe understood it. Heunderstood, too, the straits in which she found herself. So powerfulwas her influence over Charles, the boy would certainly act on heradvice. Her knowledge of Stephen La Mothe was greater than hesupposed. If he was right, and she held her peace, this breach betweenfather and son would not only remain unhealed but would be widened byLouis' natural resentment at the rejection of his covert overtures; butif La Mothe was mistaken she knew the old King well enough to becertain that he would use the boy's unwelcome advances against him insome cunning fashion. Which way lay wisdom? Or, as she had putit--raising the question to a higher plane--which was the right?
"If you please," she said imperiously. "Yes, I mean it. Play David tothe evil spirit of my doubt," and with a laugh to cover his sense ofembarrassment La Mothe obeyed, touching the instrument very softly.
But she could not have told whether he played a drinking-song or aMiserere. With her, as with many, the quiet rhythm of the musicstimulated thought, and gradually the perplexity cleared from her mind.Stephen La Mothe was not a fool, that counted for much. He was honest,that counted for much more. The King was notoriously ailing and, beingsuperstitious, might well repent; no high motive, but a probable one.Philip de Commines' visit to Amboise was not by chance, and nothingless than his master's orders would have kept him so long from Valmy.If Stephen La Mothe was right, then these orders must surely have aconnection with the King's changed disposition towards the Dauphin.She would watch Commines, doing nothing hastily, and by his actionswould shape her course.
With the relaxation from concentrated thought the swing of the music'srise and fall caught her ear. It was a ballad air, and new to her.Shifting her chair, she looked up at La Mothe as he bent over hisinstrument. Streaming through the windows behind him the cunningsunshine lit the brown of his hair to a red-gold. She had never seenjust such a colour in a man, and the Apollo simile was not so unapt.
"Sing," she said suddenly, and again La Mothe obeyed, catching up theair almost unconsciously.
"Lilies White and Roses Red, Gracious sweetness past compare, Beauty's self to thee hath fled, Lilies White and Roses Red: Lover's service bows its head, Awed by witchery so fair, Lilies White and Roses Red, Gracious sweetness past compare."
"Are they your own verses?"
"No, I wish they were. I only think them."
Their eyes met for a moment, then she looked aside and there wassilence. Her thoughts, or that brief glance--Apollo was a god, good tolook upon--had so warmed her cheeks that the refrain of the Triolet wasalmost justified. The lines of anxious care were smoothed from theforehead, and the half-smile of the new-drawn Cupid's bow was a littletremulous. A sudden determination moved La Mothe. Never had he seenher so gracious, so womanly, so completely the one sweet woman in allthe world. Pushing the lute aside, he leaned forward.
"Mademoiselle," he began earnestly, "do you remember ten days ago Isaid there was a question I would dare to ask you when you knew mebetter?"
"I remember," she said, turning a little from him that the light mightnot fall upon her face to betray her. She said she remembered, but thetruth was that in the tumult of her thoughts the recollection wasvague. "Yes, I think I know you better."
"It is a very bold question, and one which might well offend. And yetyou know I would not willingly offend you?"
"Yes, I am sure of that." The rustling of the lawn and laces on herbreast was a little more tempestuous, but the voice was very level,very quiet. As to Stephen La Mothe, he felt that earth and sun andstars had disappeared and they two alone were left out of all the world.
"So bold, so presumptuous," he went on, "that it is hard to find wordsat all. But you forgive me in advance?"
At that she smiled a little. She did not think there would be muchneed for pardon. Was there any question Apollo--Stephen La Mothe, thatis--might not ask? She knew now why these ten days had been thehappiest of her life.
"Yes, Monsieur La Mothe, you are forgiven beforehand."
"Then--is there any plot in Amboise against the King? From you asimple 'no' is enough. I ask no proof, a simple word, nothing more."
Unconsciously he had forced a pleading into his voice, an urging, as ifit was not so much the truth he sought as a denial at all costs; but asshe turned in her chair, rising as she turned so that she looked downupon him, he broke off. It would have taken a much bolder man thanStephen La Mothe to have maintained his covert accusation--and whatelse was it?--in the face of the angry surprise which needed noexpression in words.
"Was that your question? You have spied upon us all thesedays--suspected us--accused us in your thoughts? You have pretendedfriendship, devotion--God knows what monstrous lie--and all the whileyou spied--spied. But you shall have your answer in your single word.No, Monsieur La Mothe; such women as I am do not plot against theirKing, nor teach sons to revolt against their fathers."
"Mademoiselle----" he began.
But not even the scornful indignation vouchsafed him a second glance asshe swept past him without a word. At the door she paused and, halfturning, looked back across her shoulder, a spot of scarlet on eithercheek.
"I had forgotten my message. I had already told Jean Saxe, in case Ifailed to find you. The Dauphin bids you join him at the Burnt Mill atthree o'clock; but if it were not that the Dauphin's word is a command,even to you I would say be otherwise engaged, Monsieur La Mothe, sinceI must be of the party."
"But, Mademoiselle----"
He spoke to an empty room, and if Ursula de Vesc closed the doorbetween them with a greater vigour than the politeness strictdeportment demanded she may surely be excused. It may be that even theangels lose their tempers at times over the follies of a blind humanity.
As to Stephen La Mothe, he stood staring at the closed door as if hewere not only alone in the room but in the very world itself; or,rather, as if the world had suddenly dropped from under his feet andthe shock bewildered him. She had been so gracious, so very sweet andgracious. He had been forgiven in advance; why such bitter offence? Asingle word was all he had asked--one little word. Then he flushed allover with a peculiar pricking sensation down the spine. Could it bethat she expected a very different question; one whose answer mighthave been a Yes? If that were so--but it was absurd, and he calledhimself many hard names for having such an idea a single moment. Tohave thought such a thought of Ursula de Vesc was as preposterous assaying she would p
hilander in a rose garden.
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