The Seven Streams

by Warwick Deeping

  So through the gloomy galleries she came into the chapel of Holy Guard. Standing by the door with the lamp held high, she looked round under the ruined roof, as though half thinking to see her dream repeat its mysteries before her eyes. The lamplight quivered on the broken stones, the fallen rafters of the roof, and the snapped pillars that lay around. Above the altar the Cross still stood, but there was no purple mist about its limbs, no golden vapour filling the place.

  Holding her lamp above her head, Rosamunde pressed forward over the ruinous floor towards the altar shrouded deep in gloom. Bending low, she gazed at the flagstones one by one as she passed up the aisle, lifting the broken rafters aside and thrusting away the fallen tiles. Before the very altar steps she came to a stone covered with words which she could not read. Kneeling and setting the lamp on the floor, she drew a poniard out of her girdle and worked at the joints with the point thereof.

  Soon the stone lurched up, showing a streak of darkness beneath, for there was a goodly cavity under the flag. Bending low, and turning the stone back on its face, she groped in the darkness till her fingers touched the smooth lid of a metal box. Very slowly she lifted it out, laid it in her lap as she half knelt on the floor, and turned the clasp that fastened the lid. Lying within was a glass phial filled with a fluid red as blood, also some yellow silken stuff that looked to her like an eastern veil.

  Rosamunde set the phial on the floor and held up the veil before the lamp. Even as the light came streaming through, a golden halo glowed round a face calm and grand as the face of a god. Great awe came down on Rosamunde’s soul, for she seemed to gaze on the face of the Christ.

  CHAPTER XLIX

  Bearing the casket with the veil and phial therein, Rosamunde passed out of the chapel of Holy Guard, down many a gallery and winding stair, to the room where Tristan slept. The look of awe still possessed her face, filling her eyes with solemn shadows, loosening the curves of her proud mouth. The lamp’s light played upon her hair as the west wind swayed it to and fro like golden threads upon the cloak of night.

  Coming once more to the Abbess’s room, she found Tristan sleeping even as she had left him. A faint grey haze hung in the east, for the dawn was coming up over the woods and the waters of the Gloire. Rosamunde set the lamp on the sconce in the wall, and laid the casket on the great carved chair. With a rush of tenderness, she stooped and looked into Tristan’s face, hung over him with arms outstretched, as though her whole soul gave him its blessing.

  Then, with her face towards the east, she knelt down by the window, her hands folded upon her breast. Out of the night she had struggled to meet the broadening glory of the dawn. Never before had Rosamunde prayed as she prayed that hour in Holy Guard. Her soul seemed borne on wings of fire upwards, ever upwards, till the heavy world grew bright in the beams of the rising sun. Ever she seemed to strive with God, and in the strife her own weak faith caught a trebled courage from her prayers. Once more the welkin seemed to wake to the deep mysteries of life and love. The woods grew green, the waters shone, the clouds gleamed white against the blue. The voice of the dawn rang loud and clear, bidding the phantoms of the night depart.

  A new light shone on Rosamunde’s face, as though hope was reborn within her heart. She rose up from before the eastern window, took the casket in her hands, and knelt down at the side of Tristan’s bed. She smiled as she turned the coverlet aside, and began to cut the linen bands stained with the blood that still ebbed through. So deep was the man’s sleep that he slumbered on till she turned the last band from the clotted wound and saw the red stream oozing up.

  Then Tristan awoke. His hands moved restlessly to and fro, and Rosamunde, bending over his body, caught them and held them fast in hers.

  “Tristan,” she said, with her splendid hair falling around his haggard face.

  His eyes questioned hers with a strange wistfulness, and he breathed deeply, but did not speak.

  “Tristan,” she said again, with her mouth close to him, as he lay and looked at her like a child, “I have dreamed a dream, and God has given me back your life. This I believe, for my faith has returned.”

  “Rosamunde,” he said, with a great sigh.

  “Lie still,” she whispered, “while I dress your wound with the gifts God has given me in the night.”

  “God?” he asked her.

  “Even so,” she answered, “for as I slept the Christ appeared and bade me believe, and in my dream he showed me the place in the chapel above us where relics were buried. Yet, if this dream fails me at this hour, I shall never believe in Heaven more.”

  Therewith she kissed him on the lips, with tears brimming in her eyes. Tristan watched her silently as she took the phial and poured the red liquid into the wound. Mingling there with the living blood, it sent forth an odour through the room as though all the spices of the East, spikenard and myrrh and wondrous balms, had spent their perfumes on the air. Then Rosamunde took the mystic veil, and pressed it deep into the wound, where it grew red with Tristan’s blood.

  Leaning back against the chair, she half sat, half knelt beside the bed, watching the man with all her soul. The streaming sunlight flooded in, playing upon Tristan’s face with its hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. In either heart was poised the chance of life and death that summer dawn.

  Very slowly the minutes passed, as though Time halted in his stride. The lamp had burnt out on the wall, and birds were awake in the thickets beneath, their shrill orisons greeting the dawn. Rosamunde, filled with unrest, watched no longer beside the bed, but rose and paced from wall to wall, gazing out through the ruined window at the Gloire gleaming amid the woods. For the moment she dared not look at Tristan, lest the last hope should prove but a dream. A cold hand seemed on her bosom, pressing heavily on her heart, while the distant clamour of the sea came like a dirge into her ears.

  Suddenly Tristan called to her, his voice strong and resonant as of old, not the half moan of a dying man.

  “Hither, Rosamunde,” he said; “come to me. What miracle is this?”

  She turned instantly and was at his side, bending over him with her eyes afire. And lo, the blood had ceased to flow, and the red veil seemed clotted fast over the place where the barb was buried. There was a faint colour on Tristan’s cheeks, and his eyes had the lustre they had lost of late. Rosamunde knelt and gazed at his face, as though half fearful of trusting the truth.

  Then with a low cry she bowed her head, and laid her hands on the man’s shoulders.

  “Tristan, you will live,” she said.

  “There is strange strength in me.”

  “The dream, the dream!”

  “No longer does the warm blood ebb.”

  She raised herself from Tristan’s body and knelt with arms stretched towards the east, a great glory lighting her face.

  CHAPTER L

  It was evening, and Holy Guard was wrapped in silence, save that the sea laughed and clamoured on the rocks beneath.

  Up the great stairway climbed Blanche the Duchess, with a purple cloak thrown over her shoulders and a small silver cross held in one hand. Solemnity dwelt on her face, as though joy and pain held converse there, while life and love were not accorded. Shadows there were beneath her eyes, and a sad smile playing about her mouth. Her hair seemed whiter than of yore, and age more manifest, as though her youth gave out at last, and bowed its head.

  Very slowly she climbed the stair, as though her heart grew tired apace. The sun came through in golden beams from the thin squints that pierced the wall, smiting the silent shadows through, shadows that seemed to suffer pain.

  Presently she came to the cloister court where seven tall windows broke the wall, giving view of the western sea, the great Gloire, and the thronging woods. About Holy Guard the world seemed to sweep like a rare tapestry, sea, forest, and stream, blending azure, silver, and green. The great abbey seemed arched with gold, an irrefragable peace begotten of heaven.

  After standing awhile to look over the sea, Blanche passed down the l
ong gallery that led towards the Abbess’s room. She walked noiselessly. The door of the Abbess’s room stood ajar, and from within came the sound of voices.

  Blanche halted on the threshold, and gazed in with a smile hovering in her eyes. Tristan was lying on the bed half propped on pillows, with Rosamunde seated at his side. The woman’s arm was about Tristan’s shoulders, his head half resting on her breast, her hair falling down on either side, bathing his face as with golden light. Their eyes were turned away from Blanche towards the window in the wall.

  They were talking together, these two who had come through storms to each other’s arms. Calm joy seemed theirs and deep content, a golden mood in which their thoughts were oblivious of all things save their love. Blanche leant her shoulder against the wall and watched them in silence, with her face in shadow.

  “Tristan,” said the woman, “how dim seem the days when I played the great lady in Joyous Vale.”

  He half turned his head upon her breast, so that he could look into her eyes.

  “I was but a great boy then,” he said.

  “And I a wise fool,” she answered him. “Ah, Tristan, when shall we women learn that cleverness suffices not the heart? The great love in a strong man’s eyes, the trustful clinging of children’s hands, these are the things that make for heaven.”

  “True,” he said to her, taking her hair and winding a bright tress round his wrist; “we are wise in small things, unwise in the great. God, love, and health—Heaven give me these, and I will not envy any man.”

  But Blanche drew back from before the door with a shadow as of pain upon her face. Such then was life for those who loved, the godly light in a husband’s eyes, the trusting smile of an honoured wife. For her there could be no magic words, no clinging lips, no straining hands. In her deep loneliness she turned away, and passed back to gaze on the restless sea.

  * * *

  By the Same Author

  THE LAME ENGLISHMAN

  THE RUST OF ROME

  THE RETURN OF THE PETTICOAT

  THE RED SAINT

  MAD BARBARA

  BERTRAND OF BRITTANY

  THE SLANDERERS

  A WOMAN’S WAR

  BESS OF THE WOODS

  LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

  UTHER AND IGRAINE

  Cassell & Co., Ltd., London, E. C.

  Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.

  * * *

  Transcriber’s Notes:

  Spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. A few obvious typesetting errors have been corrected without note.

  [The end of The Seven Streams by Warwick Deeping]