Part 18 (1/2)

”Last night,” said she, ”I thought that I was strong. I know now it was my vanity that was strong,--vanity and pride and fear, Raoul, that for a little mastered me. But in the dawn all things seem very trivial, saving love alone.”

They looked out into the dew-washed gardens. The daylight was fullgrown, and already the clear-cut forms of men were pa.s.sing beneath the swaying branches. In the distance a trumpet snarled.

”Dear love,” said Raoul, ”do you not understand that you have brought about my death? For Monsieur de Puysange is at the gates of Arnaye; and either he or Sieur Raymond will have me hanged ere noon.”

”I do not know,” she said, in a tired voice. ”I think that Monsieur de Puysange has some cause to thank me; and my uncle loves me, and his heart, for all his gruffness, is very tender. And--see, Raoul!” She drew the dagger from her bosom. ”I shall not survive you a long while, O man of all the world!”

Perplexed joy flushed through his countenance. ”You will do this--for me?” he cried, with a sort of sob. ”Matthiette, Matthiette, you shame me!”

”But I love you,” said Matthiette. ”How could it be possible, then, for me to live after you were dead?”

He bent to her. They kissed.

Hand in hand they went forth into the daylight. The kindly, familiar place seemed in Matthiette's eyes oppressed and transformed by the austerity of dawn. It was a clear Sunday morning, at the hightide of summer, and she found the world unutterably Sabbatical; only by a vigorous effort could memory connect it with the normal life of yesterday. The cool edges of the woods, vibrant now with mult.i.tudinous shrill pipings, the purple shadows shrinking eastward on the dimpling lawns, the intricate and broken traceries of the dial (where they had met so often), the blurred windings of their path, above which brooded the peaked roofs and gables and slender clerestories of Arnaye, the broad river yonder lapsing through deserted sunlit fields,--these things lay before them scarce heeded, stript of all perspective, flat as an open scroll. To them all this was alien. She and Raoul were quite apart from these matters, quite alone, despite the men of Arnaye, hurrying toward the courtyard, who stared at them curiously, but said nothing. A brisk wind was abroad in the tree-tops, scattering stray leaves, already dead, over the lush gra.s.s. Tenderly Raoul brushed a little golden sycamore leaf from the lovelier gold of Matthiette's hair.

”I do not know how long I have to live,” he said. ”n.o.body knows that. But I wish that I might live a great while to serve you worthily.”

She answered: ”Neither in life nor death shall we be parted now. That only matters, my husband.”

They came into the crowded court-yard just as the drawbridge fell. A troop of horse clattered into Arnaye, and the leader, a young man of frank countenance, dismounted and looked about him inquiringly. Then he came toward them.

”Monseigneur,” said he, ”you see that we ride early in honor of your nuptials.”

Behind them some one chuckled. ”Love one another, young people,” said Sieur Raymond; ”but do you, Matthiette, make ready to depart into Normandy as a true and faithful wife to Monsieur de Puysange.”

She stared into Raoul's laughing face; there was a kind of anguish in her swift comprehension. Quickly the two men who loved her glanced at each other, half in shame.

But the Sieur d'Arnaye was not lightly dashed. ”Oh, la, la, la!” chuckled the Sieur d'Arnaye, ”she would never have given you a second thought, monsieur le vicomte, had I not labelled you forbidden fruit. As it is, my last conspiracy, while a little ruthless, I grant you, turns out admirably. Jack has his Jill, and all ends merrily, like an old song. I will begin on those pig-sties the first thing to-morrow morning.”

OCTOBER 6, 1519

_”Therefore, like as May month flowereth and flourisheth in many gardens, so in likewise let every man of wors.h.i.+p flourish his heart in this world; first unto G.o.d, and next unto the joy of them that he promiseth his faith unto.”_

_The quondam Raoul de Prison stood high in the graces of the Lady Regent of France, Anne de Beaujeu, who was, indeed, tolerably notorious for her partiality to well-built young men. Courtiers whispered more than there is any need here to rehea.r.s.e. In any event, when in 1485 the daughter of Louis XI fitted out an expedition to press the Earl of Richmond's claim to the English crown, de Puysange sailed from Havre as commander of the French fleet. He fought at Bosworth, not discreditably; and a year afterward, when England had for the most part accepted Henry VII, Matthiette rejoined her husband.

They never subsequently quitted England. During the long civil wars, de Puysange was known as a shrewd captain and a judicious counsellor to the King, who rewarded his services as liberally as Tudorian parsimony would permit. After the death of Henry VII, however, the vicomte took little part in public affairs, spending most of his time at Tiverton Manor, in Devon, where, surrounded by their numerous progeny, he and Matthiette grew old together in peace and concord.

Indeed, the vicomte so ordered all his cool love-affairs that, having taken a wife as a matter of expediency, he continued as a matter of expediency to make her a fair husband, as husbands go. It also seemed to him, they relate, a matter of expediency to ignore the interpretation given by scandalous persons to the paternal friends.h.i.+p extended to Madame de Puysange by a high prince of the Church, during the last five years of the great Cardinal Morton's life, for the connection was useful.

The following is from a ma.n.u.script of doubtful authenticity still to be seen at Allonby Shaw. It purports to contain the autobiography of Will Sommers, the vicomte's jester, afterward court-fool to Henry VIII._

CHAPTER VII

_The Episode Called The Castle of Content_

1. _I Glimpse the Castle_

”And so, dearie,” she ended, ”you may seize the revenues of Allonby with unwashed hands.”