XIV
Dame Duessa had come to Avalon, having heard certain whisperings ofGilderoy, and of a golden-haired Astarte who kept house there. DameDuessa was a proud woman and a passionate, headstrong as a reformer,jealous as a parish priest. She boasted a great ancestry and a greatname, and desires and convictions in keeping. She was a woman who lovedher robe cupboard, her jewel-case, and her bed. Moreover, she pretendedsome affection for the Lord Flavian her husband, perhaps arrogance ofownership, seeing that Dame Duessa was very determined to keep him inbonded compact with herself. She suspected that the man did notconsider her a saint, or worship her as such. Yet, termagant that shewas, Dame Duessa could suffer some trampling of empty sentiment,provided Fate did not rob her of her share in the broad demesne andrent-roll of Gambrevault.
Avalon was a castle of ten towers, linked by a strong curtain wall, andbuilt about a large central court and garden. A great moat circled thewhole, a moat broad and silvery as a lake, with water-lilies growingthick in the shallows. Beyond the moat, sleek meadows tufted with greenrushes swept to the gnarled piers of the old oaks that vanguarded theforest. The black towers slumbered in a mist of green, girded withsheeny water, tented by the azure of a southern sky.
Dame Duessa, being a lady of silks and tissues, did not love the placewith all her soul. Avalon of the Orchards was dull, and smacked ofArcady; it was far removed from that island of fair sin, Lauretia, theKing's city. Moreover, the Lord Flavian and his ungallant gentlemenheld rigorously to the northern turrets, leaving her to lodgeascetically in her rich chamber in a southern tower.
Her husband contrived to exile himself as far as Castle Avalon couldsuffer him. If the pair went to mass, they went separately, with thefrigid hauteur of an Athanasius handing an Aryus over to hell. Whenthey hunted they rode towards opposite stars. No children had chastenedthem, pledges of heaven-given life. The Lady Duessa detested ought thathinted at caudle, swaddling-clothes, and cradles. Moreover, all Avalonseemed in league with the Lord Flavian. Knights, esquires, scullions,horse-boys swore by him as though he were a Bayard. Dame Duessa couldrely solely on a prig of a page, and a lady-in-waiting who wore a wig,and perhaps on Fra Balthasar, the Dominican.
Meanwhile, the Lord of Avalon had been putting forth his penitence instone and timber, and an army of craftsmen from Geraint. The glade inCambremont wood rang to the swing of axes and the hoarse groaning of thesaw. The tower had been purged of its ashes, its rooms retimbered, itscasements filled with glass. A chapel was springing into life under thetrees; the cleverest masons of the south were at work upon its pillarsand its arches. Fra Balthasar, the Dominican, held sway over the whole,subtle in colour and the carving of stone. Flavian could have found nobetter pander to his penitence. Rose nobles had been squandered.Frescoes, jewel bright, were to blaze out upon the walls. The vaultedroof was to be constellated with glimmering gold stars, shining fromskies of purple and azure.
To turn to Fulviac's great cliff hid in the dark depths of the forest ofpines. The disloyal chaff of the kingdom was wafted thither day by day,borne on the conspiring breeze. The forest engulfed all comers anddelivered them like ghosts into Fulviac's caverns. An army might havemelted into the wilds, and the countryside have been none the wiser.Amid the pines and rocks of the cliffs there were marchings andcountermarchings, much shouldering of pikes and ordering of companies.Veterans who had fought the infidels under Wenceslaus, drilled the rawlevies, and inculcated with hoarse bellowings the rudiments of militaryreason. They were rough gentlemen, and Fulviac stroked them with agauntlet of iron. They were to attempt liberty together, and hedemonstrated to them that such freedom could be won solely by disciplineand soldierly concord. The rogues grumbled and swore behind his back,but were glad in their hearts to have a man for master.
To speak again of the girl Yeoland. That March night she had metFulviac over the wreckage of the broken gate, and had made a professionof the truth, so far, she said, as she could conjecture it. She hadbeen long in the forest, had returned to the cliff to find the guardsslain, and the Lord Flavian gone. By some device he had escaped fromhis shackles, slain the men, and fled by the northern postern. Thewoman made a goodly pretence of vexation of spirit over the escape ofthis reprobate. She even taunted Fulviac with foolhardiness, and lackof foresight in so bungling her vengeance.
The man's escape from the cliff roused Fulviac's energies to full flood.The aristocrat of Avalon was ignorant of the volcano bubbling under hisfeet, yet any retaliatory meddling on his part might prove disastrous atso critical an hour. Fulviac thrust forward the wheels of war with aheavy hand. The torrents of sedition and discontent were converging toa river of revolt, that threatened to crush tyranny as an avalanchecrushes a forest.
The Virgin with her moon-white face still inspired Yeoland with thevisionary behest given in the ruined chapel. The girl's fingers toiledat the scarlet banner; she spent half her days upon her knees, devout asany Helena. She knew Fulviac's schemes as surely as she did the beadson her rosary. The rough rangers of the forest held her to be a saint,and knelt to touch her dress as she passed by.
Yet what are dreams but snowflakes drifting from the heavens, now white,now red, as God or man carries the lamp of love? The girl's ecstasy offaith was but a potion to her, dazing her from a yet more subtle dream.A faint voice summoned her from the unknown. She would hear it often inthe silence of the night, or at full noon as she faltered in herprayers. The rosary would hang idle on her wrist, the crucifix meltfrom her vision. She would find her heart glowing like a rose at thetouch of the sun. Anon, frightened, she would shake the human half ofherself, and run back penitent to her prayers.
It was springtide and the year's youth, when memories are garlanded withgreen, and romance scatters wind-flowers over the world. Many voicesawoke, like the chanting of birds, in Yeoland's heart. She desired,even as a swallow, to see the old haunts again, to go a pilgrim to theplace where the dear dead slept. Was it yearning grief, or a joy moresubtle, the cry of the wild and the voice of desire? Mayhap whiteflowers shone on the tree of life, prophetic of fruit in the mellowyear. Jaspar the harper heard her plea; 'twas wilful and eager, butwhat of that! Fulviac, good man, had ridden to Gilderoy. The girl hadliberty enough and to spare. She took it and Jaspar, and rode out fromthe cliff.
Threading the sables of the woods, they came one noon to the open moor.It was golden with the western sun, solitary as the sea. The shadowswere long upon the sward when Cambremont wood billowed out in itsvalley. There was no hope of their reaching the tower before dusk, sothey piled dead bracken under a cedar, where the shelving eaves swept tothe ground.
They were astir early upon the morrow, a sun-chastened wind inspiringthe woodlands, and sculpturing grand friezes from the marbles of thesky. The forest was full of the glory of Spring, starred with anemonesand dusted with the azure campaniles of the hyacinth horde. Primroseslurked on the lush green slopes. In the glades, the forest peristyles,green gorse blazed with its constellations of gold.
To the dolt and the hag the world is nothing but a fat larder; only theunregenerate are blind of soul. Beauty, Diana-like, shows not her nakedloveliness to all. The girl Yeoland's eyes were full of a strangelustre that May morning. Many familiar landmarks did she pass upon theway, notched deep on the cross of memory. There stood the great beechtree where Bertrand had carved his name, and the smooth bark still borethe scars where the knife had wantoned. She forded the stream whereRoland's pony had once pitched him into the mire. Her eyes grew dim asshe rode through the sun-steeped woods.
The day had drawn towards noon when they neared the glade in the midstof Cambremont wood. Heavy wain wheels had scarred the smooth green ofthe ride, and the newly-sawn pedestals of fallen oaks showed wherewoodmen had been felling timber. To Jaspar the harper these signs weremore eloquent of peril than of peace. He began to snuff the air like anold hound, and to jerk restless glances at the girl at his side.
"See
where wheels have been," he began.
"And axes, my friend."
"What means it?"
"Some one rebuilds the tower."
The harper wagged his head and half turned his horse from the grassride.
"Have a care," he said.
"Hide in the woods if you will."
She rode on with a triumphant wilfulness and he followed her.
As they neared the glade, the noise of axe and hammer floated on thewind, and they saw the scene flicker towards them betwixt the greatboles of the trees. The tower stood with battlements of fresh whitestone; its windows had been reset, the blasting touch of fire effacedfrom the walls. The glade was strewn with blocks of stone and lengthsof timber; the walls of a chapel were rising from the grass. Men weredigging trenches for the foundations of the priest's cell. Soldiersidled about gossiping with the masons.
There was a smile in the girl's eyes and a deeper tint upon her cheeksas she stared betwixt the trees at the regarnished tower. Those greyeyes had promised the truth in Fulviac's cavern. She was glad in herheart of the man's honour, glad with a magic that made her colour. Asfor the harper, he stroked his grey beard and was mute. He lackedimagination, and was no longer young.
On a stump of an oak tree at the edge of the wood sat a man in a blackmantle and a habit of white cloth. He had a panel upon his knee, and asmall wooden chest beside him on the grass. His eyes were turned oftento the rolling woods, as his plump hand flourished a brush with nervousand graceful gestures.
Seeing the man's tonsure, and his dress that marked him a Dominican,Yeoland rode out from the trees, casting her horse's shadow athwart hiswork. The man looked up with puckered brow, his keen eye framing thegirl's figure at a glance. It was his destiny to see the romantic andthe beautiful in all things.
The priest and the girl on the horse eyed each other a moment insilence. Each was instinctively examining the other. The churchman,with an approving glint of the eye, was the first to break the woodlandsilence.
"Peace be with you, madame."
His tone hinted at a question, and the girl adopted therewith aningenuous duplicity.
"My man and I were of a hunting party," she said; "we went astray in thewood. You, Father, will guide us?"
"Madame has not discovered to me her desire."
"We wish for Gilderoy."
Balthasar rose and pointed with his brush towards the ride by which theyhad come. He mapped the road for them with sundry jaunty flourishes,and much showing of his white teeth. Yeoland thanked him, but was stillcurious.
"Ah, Father, whither have we wandered?"
"Men call it Cambremont wood, madame."
"And these buildings? A retreat, doubtless, for holy men."
Balthasar corrected her with much unction.
"The Lord Flavian of Avalon builds here," he said, "but not for monks.I, madame, am his architect, his pedagogue in painting."
Yeoland pretended interest. She craned forward over her horse's neckand looked at the priest's panel. The act decided him. Since she wasyoung and comely, Balthasar seized the chance of a chivalrous service.The girl had fine eyes, and a neck worthy of a Venus.
"Madame has taste. She would see our work?"
Madame appeared very ready to grant the favour. Balthasar put hisbrushes aside, held the girl's stirrup, and, unconscious of the irony ofthe act, expatiated to Yeoland on the beauties of her own home. At theend of their pilgrimage, being not a little bewitched by such eyes andsuch a face, he begged of her the liberty of painting her there andthen. 'Twas for the enriching of religious art, as he very properly putit.
Dead Rual's grave was not ten paces distant, and Jaspar was standing byit as in prayer. Thus, Yeoland sat to Fra Balthasar, oblivious of himindeed as his fingers brought her fair face into being, her shapelythroat and raven hair. His picture perfected, he blessed her with theunction of a bishop, and stood watching her as she vanished down thesouthern ride, graceful and immaculate as a young Dian.
Love Among the Ruins Page 14