Love Among the Ruins Read online

  II

  Dawn came vaguely in a veil of mist. A heavy dew lay scintillant uponthe grass; a great silence covered the woods. The trees stood grim andgigantic with dripping boughs in a vapoury atmosphere, and there seemedno augury of sunlight in the blind grey sky.

  A rough hovel under a fir, used for the storing of wood, had givenYeoland and the harper shelter for the night. The sole refuge left tothem by fire, the hut had served its purpose well enough, for grief isnot given to grumbling over externals in the extremity of its distress.

  The girl Yeoland was astir early with the first twitter of the birds inthe boughs overhead. Jaspar had made her a couch of straw, and she hadlain there tossing to and fro with no thought of sleep. The moon hadsunk early over the edge of the world, and heavy darkness had wrappedher anguish close about her soul, mocking her with the staring of a deadface. The burning tower had ceased to torch her vigil towards dawn; yetthere had been no fleeing from the pale candour of the night.

  A slim, white-faced woman she stood shivering in the doorway of thehovel. Her eyes were black and lustrous--swift, darting eyes full ofdusky fire and vivid unrest. Her mouth ran a red streak, firm above herwhite chin. Her hair gleamed like sable steel. The world was cold abouther for the moment, dead and inert as her own heart. As she stood there,fine and fragile as gossamer, the very trees seemed to weep for her withthe dawning day.

  Some hundred paces from the hut, a cloud of smoke mingled with the mistthat hung about the blackened walls of the forest tower. Its windowswere blind and frameless to the sky; a zone of charred wood and reekingashes circled its base. The mist hung above it like a ghostly memory.The place looked desolate and pitiful enough in the meagre light.

  The girl Yeoland watched the incense of smoke wreathing grey spiralsoverhead, melting symbolic--into nothingness. The pungent scent of theruin floated down to her, and became a recollection for all time. Thisblackened shell had been a home to her, a bulwark, nay, a cradle.Sanguine life had run ruddy through its heart. How often had she seenits grey brow crowned with gold by the mystic hierarchy of heaven. Shehad found much joy there and little sorrow. A wrinkled face had taughther these many years to cherish the innocence of childhood. All thiswas past; the present found her bankrupt of such things. The place hadbecome but a coffin, a charnel-house for the rotting bones of love.

  As she brooded in the doorway, the smite of a spade came ringing to heron the misty air. Terse and rhythmic, it was like the sound of Timeplucking the hours from the Tree of Life. She looked out over theglade, and saw Jaspar the harper digging a shallow grave under an oak.

  She went and watched him, calmly, silently, with the utter quiet of ameasureless grief. There was reason in this labour. It emphasisedreality; helped her to grip the present. As the brown earth tumbled ather feet, she remembered how much she would bury in that narrow forestgrave.

  The man Jaspar was a ruddy soul, like a red apple in autumn. His strongpoint was his loyalty, a virtue that had stiffened with the fibres ofhis heart. He could boast neither of vast intelligence, nor ofphenomenal courage, but he had a conscience that had made gold of hiswhole rough, stunted body. Your clever servant is often a rogue; in therespect of apt villainy, the harper was a fool.

  He ceased now and again from his digging, hung his hooked chin over hisspade, and snuffed the savour of the clean brown earth. He thrust curt,furtive glances up into the girl's face as she watched him, as thoughdesirous of reading her humour or her health.

  "You are weary," she said to him anon, looking blankly into the trench.

  The man wagged his head.

  "Have ye broken fast? There is bread and dried fruit in the hut, and apitcher of water."

  "I cannot eat--yet," she answered him.

  He sighed and continued his digging. The pile of russet earth increasedon the green grass at her feet; the trench deepened. Jaspar moistenedhis palms, and toiled on, grunting as he hove his libations of soil overhis shoulder. Presently he stood up again to rest.

  "What will you do, madame?" he asked her, squinting at the clouds.

  "Ride out."

  "And whither?"

  "Towards Gilderoy--as yet."

  "Ah, ah, a fair town and strong. John of Brissac is madame's friend.Good. Have we money?"

  "Some gold nobles."

  They waxed silent again, and in a while the grave lay finished. 'Twasshallow, but what of that! It gave sanctuary enough for the dead.

  They went together, and gazed on the sleeping man's face. It was grey,but very peaceful, with no hint of horror thereon. The eyes wereclosed, and dew had starred the white hair with a glistening web.Yeoland knelt and kissed the forehead. She shivered and her handstrembled, but she did not weep.

  So they carried the Lord Rual between them, for he was a spare man andfrugal of frame, and laid him in the grave beneath the oak. When theyhad smoothed his hair, and crossed his hands upon his breast, they kneltand prayed to the Virgin and the saints that in God's heaven he mighthave peace. The wind in the boughs sang a forest requiem.

  When Yeoland had looked long at the white face in the trench, she rosefrom her knees, and pointed Jaspar to his spade. The harper took themeasure of her mind. When she had passed into the shadows of the trees,he mopped his face, and entered on his last duty to the dead. It wassoon sped, soon ended. A pile of clean earth covered the place. Jasparbanked the grave with turf, shouldered his spade, and returned to thehovel.

  He found the girl Yeoland seated on a fallen tree in the forest, herebon hair and apple-green gown gleaming under the sweeping boughs. Hercheeks were white as windflowers, her eyes full of a swimming gloom.She raised her chin, and questioned the man mutely with a look thatsmouldered under her arched brows.

  "Jaspar?"

  "Madame----"

  "Have you entered the tower?"

  The man's wrinkled face winced despite his years.

  "Would you have me go?" he asked her in a hoarse undertone.

  She looked into the vast mazes of the woods, shuddered in thought, andwas silent. Her mouth hardened; the desire melted from her eyes.

  "No," she said anon, turning her hood forward, and drawing a green cloakedged with sables about her, "what would it avail us? Let us sally atonce."

  A little distance away, their horses, that had been hobbled over night,stood grazing quietly on a patch of grass under the trees. One was agreat grey mare, the other a bay jennet, glossy as silk. Jaspar caughtthem. He was long over the girths and bridles, for his hands werestiff, and his eyes dim. When he returned, Yeoland was still standinglike a statue, staring at the blackened tower reeking amid the trees.

  "Truly, they have burnt the anguish of it into my heart with fire," shesaid, as Jaspar held her stirrup.

  "God comfort you, madame!"

  "Let us go, Jaspar, let us go."

  "And whither, lady?"

  "Where revenge may lead."

  The day brightened as they plunged down into the forest. A light breezerent the vapours, and a shimmer of sunlight quivered through the haze.The tree-tops began to glisten gold; and there was life in the deepeningpromise of the sky. The empty woods rolled purple on the hills; thegreensward shone with a veil of gossamer; the earth grew glad.

  The pair had scant burden of speech upon their lips that morning. Theywere still benumbed by the violence of the night, and death stillbeckoned to their souls. Fate had smitten them with such incredible andponderous brevity. On the dawn of yesterday, they had ridden out hawk onwrist into the wilds, lost the bird in a long flight, and turnedhomeward when evening was darkening the east. From a hill they had seenthe tower lifting its flame like a red and revengeful finger to heaven.They had hastened on, with the glare of the fire spasmodic and luridover the trees. In one short hour they had had speech with death, andcame point to point with the bleak sword of eternity.

  What wonder then that they rode like mutes to a burial, still of tongueand dull of heart? Lif
e and the zest thereof were at low ebb,colourless as a wintry sea. Joy's crimson wings were smirched andbroken; the lute of youth was unstrung. A granite sky had drawn lowabove their heads, and to the girl a devil ruled the heavens.

  Before noon they had threaded the wild waste of woodland that girded thetower like a black lagoon. They came out from the trees to a heath, atrack that struck green and purple into the west, and boasted noughtthat could infringe the blue monotony of the sky. It was a wild region,swept by a wind that sighed perpetually amid the gorse and heather. Bythe black rim of the forest they had dismounted and partaken of breadand water before pushing on with a listless persistence that won manymiles to their credit.

  The man Jaspar was a phlegmatic soul in the hot sphere of action. Hewas a circumspect being who preferred heading for the blue calm of ahaven in stormy weather, to thrusting out into the tossing spume of theunknown. The girl Yeoland, on the contrary, had an abundant spirit, andan untamed temper. Her black eyes roved restlessly over the world, andshe tilted her chin in the face of Fate. Jaspar, knowing her fibre,feared for her moods with the more level prudence of stagnant blood.Her obstinacy was a hazardous virtue, hawk-like in sentiment, not givento perching on the boughs of reason. Moreover, being cumbered with agenerous burden of pity, he was in mortal dread of wounding her paleproud grief.

  By way of being diplomatic, he began by hinting that there werenecessities in life, trivial no doubt, but inevitable, as sleep andsupper.

  "Lord John of Brissac is your friend," he meandered, "a strong lord, anda great; moreover, he hates those of Gambrevault, God chasten theirsouls! Fontenaye is no long ride from Gilderoy. Madame will lodgethere till she can come by redress?"

  Madame had no thought of being beholden to the gentleman in question.Jaspar understood as much from a very brief debate. Lord John ofBrissac was forbidden favour, being as black a pard when justly blazonedas any seigneur of Gambrevault. The harper's chin wagged on maugre hercontradiction.

  "We have bread for a day," he chirped, dropping upon banalities by wayof seeming wise. "The nights are cold, madame, damp as a marsh. As forthe water-pot----"

  "Water may be had--for the asking."

  "And bread?"

  "I have money."

  "Then we ride for Gilderoy?"

  The assumption was made with an excellent unction that betrayed theseeming sincerity of the philosopher. Yeoland stared ahead over herhorse's ears, with a clear disregard for Jaspar and his discretion.

  "We are like leaves blown about in autumn," she said to him, "wandererswith fortune. You have not grasped my temper. I warrant you, there ismethod in me."

  Jaspar looked blank.

  "Strange method, madame, to ride nowhere, to compass nothing."

  She turned on him with a sudden rapid gleam out of her passionate eyes.

  "Nothing! You call revenge nothing?"

  The harper appealed to his favourite saint.

  "St. Jude forfend that madame should follow such a marsh fire," he said.

  They had drawn towards the margin of the heath. Southwards it sloped tothe rim of a great pine forest, that seemed to clasp it with ebonianarms. The place was black, mysterious, impenetrable, fringed with apalisading of dark stiff trunks, but all else, a vast undulation ofsombre plumes. Its spires waved with the wind. There was a soundlessawe about its sable galleries, a saturnine gloom that hung like acurtain. In the vague distance, a misty height seemed to struggle abovethe ocean of trees, like the back of some great beast.

  Yeoland, keen of face, reined in her jennet, and pointed Jaspar to thislandscape of sombre hues. There was an alert lustre in her eyes; shedrew her breath more quickly, like one whose courage kindles at the cryof a trumpet.

  "The Black Wild," she said with a little hiss of eagerness, and a glancethat was almost fierce under her coal-black brows.

  Jaspar shook his head with the cumbersome wit of an ogre.

  "Ha, yes, madame, a bloody region, packed with rumours, dark as its owntrees; no stint of terror, I warrant ye. See yonder, the road toGilderoy."

  The girl in the green cloak seemed strongly stirred by her own thoughts.Her face had a wild elfin look for the moment, a beautiful and daringinsolence that deified her figure.

  "And Gilderoy?" she said abstractedly.

  "Gilderoy lies south-east; Gambrevault south-west many leagues.Southwards, one would find the sea, in due season. Eastwards, we touchGeraint, and the Roman road."

  Yeoland nodded as though her mind were already adamant in the matter.

  "We will take to the forest," ran her decretal.

  Here was crass sentiment extravagantly in the ascendant, mad wilfulnesspinioning forth like a bat into gloom. Jaspar screwed his mouth into ared knot, blinked and waxed argumentative with a vehemence that did hiscircumspection credit.

  "A mad scheme."

  "What better harbour for the night than yonder trees?"

  "Who will choose us a road? I pray you consider it."

  Yeoland answered him quietly enough. She had set her will on theventure, was in a desperate mood, and could therefore scorn reason.

  "Jaspar, my friend," she said, "I am in a wild humour, and ripe for thewild region. Peril pleases me. The unknown ever draweth the heart,making promise of greater, stranger things. What have I to lose? Ifyou play the craven, I can go alone."