Part 20

Once more it was day: they saddled their horses, took leave of the bailiff, and rode to the gate of Mont Salvair, there to await the youthful Countess. They were not there long before the door opened, the abbess came out, her train of nuns behind her, and in their midst the young Garcinde and her foster-sister, who were about to enter upon life and liberty, while the sisters returned to their pious bondage. There were so many tears and sighs, embraces and benedictions, that Geoffroy had still to wait some time before he could see the face of his cousin, now lost to him under one veil after another. But one glance of her black eyes, and the sheen of her fair hair, had wrought such an effect upon him, that he stood by his horse in utter confusion of mind, and hardly heard the abbess, who enquired in evident wonder whether he were really the messenger who yesterday brought Count Malaspina's letter, and to whom his daughter was to be confided. The servant, who was standing by with folded hands and open mouth, staring at the holy women, had to nudge the youth with his elbow before he came to himself, and reverentially bowed assent to what he had only imperfectly heard. "Sir Hugo himself," he said, his eyes still fixed on his cousin's fair hair, "had been prevented coming. He had charged him to ride slowly, and to spend the night at La Vaquiera." By mentioning this prudent plan, he hoped to remove any scruple the abbess might have in confiding the maiden to so young an escort. He seemed however, to have produced a quite contrary effect, for after one perturbed heavenward look, the noble lady turned away to some of the older nuns, and began in a low voice to take counsel with them. Then when the bailiff had led out the horses for the young women, and while some of the lay-sisters helped the servant to load the baggage horse with clothes and provisions, a lively face emerged from the living hedge of black and white veils. It belonged to Aigleta, the child of Garcinde's nurse, who had grown up to be a blooming maiden, and who now approached the mute messenger, holding out a small but vigorous hand, and exclaiming, "In God's name be welcome, Sir Geoffroy! Is it you?" After which she went up to the abbess and whispered a word or two in her ear which seemed to dispel all anxiety. The pious lady depended too fully on the lessons of wisdom and virtue, which her charge had imbibed with conventual milk, to hold it possible that she should give her heart to a nameless illegitimate cousin, especially at a time when, in all probability, a distinguished alliance awaited her. Accordingly she clasped Garcinde--who burst into tears--in her motherly embrace, herself helped her to mount the old convent grey, while Aigleta was lifted by Geoffroy on to a spirited pony, and with much sobbing and waving of hands and handkerchiefs, the small cavalcade was at last sent off from the old arched gate of Mont Salvair, through which the band of the Brides of Heaven slowly and mournfully returned.

But the young travelling-companions, too, proceeded on their way more silently and thoughtfully than might be expected, when a knightly youth, on the fairest of summer days, guides two fair maidens mounted on fresh horses upon their first expedition into a smiling world. After a hasty question as to how her father was, Garcinde had not again addressed Geoffroy, influenced, perhaps, by the curt although reverential manner in which he had seemed to avoid entering into further details. But Aigleta, who for her part had not allowed the departure from Mont Salvair to weigh the least upon her spirits, took up a livelier tone, and after a sigh of gratitude for being at last delivered from the pious monotony of cloistered life, began to give Geoffroy an amusing account of its course from day to day. She was an excellent mimic, and counterfeited the voices of the different sisters, their mild whispers, and downcast eyes, their unrestrained laughing and screaming as soon as they were unobserved, their petty spiteful quarrels, their cloying affectionateness to each other, ready at a moment's notice to turn into deadly enmity. In the midst of all this she introduced the solemn bass voice of the abbess, exhorting to peace, and painting the dangers of the world; and finally she concluded with a wild medley of pious and godless speeches, in which the nuns were supposed to express their feelings on the departure of the young Countess, their envy, their fear that Satan with all his crew might be waiting for them outside the gates; lastly the prayer of the abbess for their deliverance from all dangers, especially from the temptations of bold knights, and suspicious young cousins.

Garcinde who had been riding a yard or two in advance, now cut short this burst of spirits, and with her gentle voice--without, however, turning towards Aigleta--rebuked her frivolous tone. It was sinful, she said, after all the love and kindness they had enjoyed, to expose to view the weaknesses of the poor and sadly limited life, and she at least should never forget that when orphaned, she had found there a second home. Whereupon the pert girl, who in Geoffroy's presence did not at all approve of having this well-merited sermon addressed to her, only replied with a couple of proverbs, "Each bird sings according as it is fed," and--

"To tell the simple truth I ween, May be unwise, but 'tis not sin."

But she was all the more vexed and put out because the handsome youth by her side treated her as so perfect a stranger, while she for her part remembered him so well, and how glad she used to be when their childish games were so arranged that "Jaufret"--so they called him then--should be on her side to deliver her from a dragon, or to wake her by a kiss out of magic sleep. And while she now engaged the servant in commonplace talk, she could not help stealing frequent glances at her other companion, noticing how handsome and manly he had become; how with a slight turn of the wrist he could rein in a fiery horse, and yet had such a sad and earnest beauty in his eyes as would have become the very saints in the church of Mont Salvair. What could make him so silent, she kept wondering; and if she were below the attention of so noble a gentleman, how was it that he abstained from all attempt to find favour in the eyes of his lady-cousin? All this perplexed her so much that she gradually left off talking, and entirely forgot the slight anger she had felt at the admonition received. Meanwhile the youth on his side, who had so impatiently watched for this day, wished, as the sun rose higher, that it had never dawned upon him at all, instead of looking down on his joy and sorrow with so heartless a splendour. It is true that from his boyish years he had preserved the image of his cousin as his ideal of all beauty and loveliness, but the spark had smouldered on as a quiet memory in a well-guarded portion of his heart; but now at the first greeting from her lips, at the perfume that floated over to him from her hair, this spark burst out into a mighty flame, and he suffered tortures such as he had never known before. And then her apparent estrangement from him increased his anguish, for although he did not know whether it were disinclination to him personally, or the calm contempt of the Count's daughter for her father's poor retainer which closed her lips and kept her eyes averted, he had leisure enough in these silent hours to estimate with miserable accuracy the social gulf between them, and the duty of crushing every foolish hope. Then, again, his thoughts turned to conjectures as to what possessor he would have to make over the jewel entrusted to him, whether her hand would be given away without her heart, or whether her father in the gloom of sickness had so yearned for his only child, as suddenly to recall her to his deserted home. Even were it so, would his case be less hopeless if he had longer time to learn the full preciousness of the treasure which must at length be surrendered to another?

Thus he sank more and more into a profound melancholy, so that even Garcinde, who was not herself joyous, remarked it, and asked him whether he were suffering, whether he would rest and refresh himself with a draught of wine? Geoffroy, crimsoning to the roots of his hair, excused himself for his absent mood, accounted for it by a sleepless night, and did all he could to appear more cheerful. And at noon when they halted in a wood beside a spring to recruit themselves with the provisions with which the pious sisterhood had laden the baggage-horse, his spirits in a measure revived, while Aigleta, who had long got over her fit of sullenness, recovered the audacity of her mood, and flavoured the mid-day meal with the drollest freaks of fancy. Garcinde sat in the shadow of a tall black-thorn, and patiently endured that the little witch who could not rest a moment, should adorn the whole party with garlands, even to the servant and the grazing horses, singing merry songs the while, not always of spiritual import, at which even the servant laughed, so that the young Countess rose with a grave air, removed the wreath from her brow, and proposed that they should ride on again. The last to rise from the green grass was Geoffroy; to him the spot seemed a Paradise where he would willingly have dreamed his days away, yet when he lifted his cousin into her saddle, he did not dare to bestow on the little foot that she placed in his hand, anything more than the very slightest pressure. She turned her face away from him, and he was for an instant's space veiled in the flow of soft tresses that fell down to her girdle. Then she put her horse into a gentle canter. Thus they all rode on for a while, men and beasts refreshed by their hour's repose, and even Geoffroy carried his head higher, as though the red wine that Aigleta had given him in a cup garlanded with flowers, had put new life into his veins, and inspired him with energy to enjoy the bliss of the present hour.

La Vaquiera, which they reached early in the afternoon, was a dairy-farm, beautifully situated between richest pastures and wooded grounds; until late years in the possession of the house of Malaspina, but staked and lost at play, by the Count to a neighbouring noble, Pierre de Gaillac, who had, however, something else to do than to look after herds of cattle and flocks of sheep in this quiet corner. The farmer himself and his wife, who lived here with a troop of shepherds and milkmaids, and whom Sir Hugo greeted as usual whenever he rode past, had not a notion that they no longer held under him, and they received his daughter--whom they well remembered in her childhood--with all the reverence and attention due to their young mistress. They had only a small house, as the servants slept in the stables, but they at once gave up their one sleeping-chamber to the two girls, and themselves found a resting-place in the kitchen. Geoffroy had to put up with a loft reached by a ladder, fortunately an airy one having plenty of fresh hay. It was late, however, when he betook himself to it, for the best part of the starry night had been spent in such earnest and serious converse, that his impetuous feelings were somewhat subdued, and spite of the vicinity of Garcinde, he made up for the lost sleep of the night before. The two girls, on the contrary, although they too--what with the long ride and the strong wine--owned to being very tired, yet enlivened themselves during their unrobing, by much of that seeming confidential talk common to maidens who share the same couch, and yet would fain conceal their heart's secrets from each other. For girls believe there is no better way of holding their tongue on one subject than letting it run on unguardedly on every other. "Why have you been so little glad all day long, and are you sure you are not still angry with me for all the nonsense I have talked, out of sheer delight at getting back into the world?" said Aigleta to her friend, while helping her to braid and bind her hair. "Not so, dear heart," replied her thoughtful companion, letting her delicate arms drop into her lap. "I envy you your light-heartedness, I do not censure it. But my heart is heavy. Oh, Aigleta, I used to have such happy dreams of returning to my father, of breathing free air, and seeing the world as it lay beyond the hill of Mont Salvair. And now--"

"Does not the world seem to you fair enough, the sky blue enough, the meadows green enough, the stream clear enough to reflect back your beauty?" laughed Aigleta.

"How can you mock at my anxiety and gloom?" returned the Count's daughter. "Just think--on the very day when I re-enter the world, my dear father is absent from me. I cannot grasp his hand or hear his voice. Oh believe me, there is something mysterious, dark, perhaps appalling, that is kept back from me, the foreboding of which has--spite of all the sunshine--darkened for me this much longed for day."

"Nonsense!" said Aigleta. "Shall I tell you where the cloud lay that threw its dull shadow over you? On the brow and in the eyes of that simple Sir Jaufret. Deny it as you will I know what I know, and have not got eyes in my head for nothing. And have you not, indeed, every right to be offended with his uncourteous, indifferent manner? Fie! To make such a melancholy face when one has the good fortune to serve as knight to two sweet young ladies, one of whom, moreover, is a high-born countess and his own first cousin! And this evening, too, when we walked round the pastures, could he not have found something more lively to talk of than the stars above us, and whether we went to them after death, and horrid subjects of that kind? I think he might have found some stars nearer at hand, and only to talk about dying we need not have left Mont Salvair! He is certainly--as one can see--likely to die of love, but that is no excuse. Such gloom may do very well for poems when he writes you them, but while you were together and alone--for as for me, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep--"

"What art thou prating about, foolish one?" said Garcinde, trying to look angry, although a sweet emotion sent the blood tingling to her cheeks. "Dost thou not know why he is so grave and sad, and never, indeed, will be quite happy all his life long? Not though that he need take his birth thus to heart. If he would only go to the court of some foreign prince, and there gain renown, no one would reproach him with what he could not help; and he might win wealth, and land, and fame, and be a fit wooer for any count's daughter. But even though he be a dreamer, and does not understand his own advantage, he is not so foolish as to turn his thoughts towards me, for well he knows my father would never give me to him. Nay I rather think that he hates me as being my father's daughter--above him in position--though I for my part would always behave to him as in our childish days, and do everything in my power to renew the old intimacy."

"Hm," said Aigleta, as she unlaced her bodice, "it may be that you are right, and yet I wish he hated _me_ in the way he hates _thee_. I should desire nothing better, but I am a servant's daughter. Who would give himself the trouble to look and see whether I deserve love or hate? And yet I think," and so saying she shook her thick hair over her white shoulders, "it might be well worth their while too, and whether high-born or not, you shall see, _Domna Comtessa_, in the net of these black hairs. I shall catch gay-plumaged birds as well as you with your gold threads, and even if that black crow Jaufret keeps out of them--"

"Any one who heard you speak," interposed Garcinde, "would think that you came from some quite other place than a convent. But now we will go to sleep. I wish morning were come and that I had embraced my father."

They lay quiet for an hour, yet neither of them closed an eye; the bed at the farm was certainly harder than their Mont Salvair couch, but that alone would not have troubled the repose of girls of eighteen. They both held their breath, and kept motionless, till Aigleta suddenly sat up and said, "I never believed the nuns when they said the outer world would steal away our rest; and now see, we have hardly put our foot outside their gates, and already sleep flies from us. And yet we are not even in love, I at least am not. Oh, Blessed Lady of Mont Salvair, what _will_ happen when it comes to that! You of course will have some distinguished husband, and then lovers as many as you will, but I--suppose one took my fancy whom I could not have--I believe I should set a wood on fire and jump into the midst of it!"

"What are you dreaming about?" answered Garcinde, without raising her head from the pillow. "Do you suppose that I would take a husband whom I did not love, or that my father would give me to any one against whom my heart rebelled? Do you not know that he loves nothing on earth so well as me, and could have no greater sorrow than to see me suffer? Go to sleep--the wine has got into your head. I think you have been let out of the convent too soon."

"Amen," said the merry girl in the deep voice of the abbess; then she laughed out loud, but left off talking, and was asleep before her young mistress.

The next morning the horses had stood saddled and pawing the ground in the courtyard, for a good hour before the girls appeared on the threshold. They nodded familiarly to Geoffroy, and chatted a little with the good people of La Vaquiera. Then they spurred their horses in order to get over the four hour's ride to Malaspina, before the mid-day heat.

Again but little was said on the way; the youth, spite of his sound sleep, was still paler and sadder than on the previous day; even Aigleta seemed lost in thought, bit her full lip, and now and then sighed. Moreover they had difficulty to keep up with the young Countess, who urged her horse as though the wild huntsmen were on her track. Once she turned to Geoffroy, who kept near her for fear the over-urged palfrey should make a false step. "Do you think my father will ride to meet us?" she enquired, and anxiously waited for his answer. "I should think so," replied the youth without daring to look at her, for his mind, too, was full of gloomy forebodings.

When they first came in sight of the Castle of Malaspina, Garcinde suddenly drew bridle, and shading her eyes with her hand gazed for several moments at the well-remembered ancient pile. The road wound like a bright narrow ribbon through the short-cut grass, and they could see every pebble on it. But of any horseman crossing the drawbridge and hastening to meet them, nothing was to be seen; even when they came so near that the warder blew his horn, everything remained unchanged, and there was no sign of the festal reception of which the girl had dreamed. The porter appeared in the open gateway, and behind him a few shabby-looking retainers, who stood round as if confused, and for the first time aware how high the grass and nettles grew between the flags in the courtyard. Geoffroy had made some pretext for remaining behind, for his heart bled at the idea of witnessing such a return home. For although the innocent, inexperienced girl could not take in the whole extent of the change--as she had only a childish recollection of the place, and it was not written over the gateway that scarcely the bare walls remained in her father's possession--yet the paucity of domestics, and their thread-bare attire, might well startle her; and above all, that her own parent had not the heart to welcome his beloved child in front of the ancestral dwelling!

"Is my father ill?" she cried, as without awaiting help she leapt from her saddle.

"It is only a sharp attack of gout, lady," replied the porter, glancing up at an arched window that looked into the court, as if expecting that at least his master would beckon from thence to his daughter, even though his ailments might prevent his descending the stairs. But the window was empty, and a blush suffused Garcinde's face as her glance, which had taken the same direction, came back unsatisfied and distressed. "I will go upstairs to him, Aigleta," she whispered, "wait here till I call you."

She went, the others descended from their horses and made them over to the servants. Geoffroy after exchanging a few rapid words with the porter: "Anything new?" "All as it was," took his own horse to the stable, unbridled him, and then crossed the courtyard on his way to his little turret without taking any notice of Aigleta, who, lost and forsaken, sat on a stone bench amongst the menials, and could have wept heartily over so disappointing a return to the much desired home, had there not been too many lookers on. She saw the young man take his way to the well-known rose-embowered tower, but his head hung down so dejectedly that she did not venture to address him, or ask him to let her go with him to their old play-ground. As for him, he seemed to have forgotten that he was in the world, or that he walked among men. Although he had only had a little bread and wine in the early morning, and it was now past noon, he had no thought of eating or drinking, but sat in his turret-chamber on his mother's bed, motionless like one struck by lightning, his widely-opened eyes fixed on his father's song-book, which on his entrance he had taken down from the shelf and opened out on his knee. Yet he did not seem to be reading, but rather listening to some words that his own heart was setting to the music, whether glad or sorrowful none could have guessed from his stony aspect. All at once, however, he started back into life, and his dark face flushed deeply; he sprang so hastily from the bed that the song-book slipped from his knee and fell open upon the flags, then he held his breath, and listened to some sound in the garden of roses below. Yes, it was her step, no other human being's was like it, and now her hand was upon the turret-door, now she crossed the dark and narrow hall, now she opened the inner door and stepped over its threshold into his small chamber.

As she entered, his eyes involuntarily fell, and he sought to disguise his emotion by lifting from the floor the parchment-book that lay between her and him, and now that he raised his eyes to her he started, horror-stricken. For her face but lately blooming with youth and health, had so changed in one short hour that she seemed to have traversed years of hopeless grief.

"I disturb you, cousin," she said in a voice from which the music had fled, "but I come to you because I think you are my friend--perhaps the only one I have. Let me sit down, I am mortally weary. No, not on the bed; my dear aunt died there. Oh, Jaufret, if I only knew that it would be my death-bed too--and that my heart would grow still the moment I lay down there--God is my witness I would throw myself upon it at once!"

She sank down on the seat that he offered her, hiding her face in her hands, and tears streaming between her white fingers. "For God's sake, cousin," he cried, "you break my heart. What has happened? What has your father said?"

Then she removed her hands from her face, pressed back her tears, and looked steadfastly at him. "I will not weep," she said, "it is childish. If all is true that I have heard, tears are too weak for such sorrow. But I want to hear it from you, cousin. Is it indeed the case that the Count of Malaspina is a beggar, and that his daughter has nothing to call her own except the clothes she wears? You are silent, Jaufret. Be it so then; what should I care for that? I have long had a foreboding that there was trouble before me, and as to poverty, I have seen _that_ in the convent, and know it, and it does not affright me. But shame, Jaufret, shame--"