again. When it ceased he did not go back to the boundary stone. This country pleased him and he thought, “I will go on and see how Our Lady in Egypt looks from this side.”
He followed the stream a mile and more. It was slipping now beneath mighty trees. Their arching boughs made a roof; it was like walking in cloisters. Between the pillars, inland, could be seen fields and vineyards and, at last, the convent’s self, with her olive trees behind her. Garin came now to thickly planted laurels, a grove within a grove. This he threaded, pushing aside the heavy leaves. The laurels ended suddenly, standing close and trim, a high green wall. This followed a curving line and half enclosed a goodly space of turf, a shaven floor of emerald, laved by the little river and shaded by a plane, a poplar, and a cedar. The cedar stood close to the laurels and close to Garin, and beneath the cedar was placed a seat of stone carved like a great chair. The spot was all chequered with light and shade, the air was sweet and fine, and the water sang as it passed. A fairer place for dreaming, for talk or sober merry-making, might not be found. Just now it was as clean as fairyland of human occupancy.
Garin stepped from the laurel wall and sat in the stone seat. It pleased him, this place! A sense of mystery gathered; he began to dream, dream. All manner of coloured, gleaming thought-motes danced over the threshold. The minutes passed.
Voices—women’s voices! Doubly a trespasser that he was, he was not willing to be found here, reigning it from this seat over the sweep of lawn, the three trees, and the singing water. He rose, and stepped back into the wall of laurel; then, being young and not incurious, waited to see who it was that was coming. Lay sisters, perhaps, going from vineyard to vineyard, or bringing clothes for the washing to the river bank which here was rightly shelving. A gleam of grey garments between the tree-trunks on the other side of the sylvan theatre seemed to prove him right; and indeed, in a moment, there did emerge three or four of these same lay sisters—strong, tanned, peasant women, roughly dressed, fit for outdoor labour. They carried on their heads huge osier baskets, but when they set these down, what was taken out was not linen or woollen for washing, but rugs of Eastern weave and cushions of Eastern make.
Moreover, with or following the lay sisters came others—young women—who were certainly not under convent rule. These seized the rugs and cushions and scattered them here and there, to advantage, over the grass. They also set out dishes of fruit and Eastern comfits, and one placed a harp upon a square of gold silk which she spread beneath the poplar. As they worked they chattered like magpies. They were dressed well and fancifully but not richly; it was to be made out that they were waiting-women of those who did dress richly. One cocked her ear, then raised her hand in a gesture to the others, whereupon all fell into a demure silence. The lay sisters who had been stolid and still throughout, now drew off by a path which carried them to the vineyards. The waiting women cast a look around, then, with nods of satisfaction, picked up the empty baskets and found for them and for themselves some pleasant subordinate haven down by the stream, around the corner of the lawn.
The little lawn lay prepared, festive and a desert. Now was the moment when Garin might withdraw and the rustle of the laurel leaves tell no tale where were no ears to hear. Truly, he thought once and twice of departing, but then before the third thought which might have passed into action, he caught, floating out of the opposite wood, delightful voices, laughter that rippled, and a sheen and flash of colours. What he forthwith determined to do was to please a little longer eye and ear and sate curiosity. Then—and it need not be long—he would turn, and as noiselessly as an innocent green-and-brown serpent, slip away toward Castel-Noir. Given that he were discovered, plain truth-telling were not bad. Discovery might bring him rebuke not too scornful, with, perhaps, some laughter in her eye.
He laid his fishing-rod down, then knelt beside it upon the brown earth between the laurel stems. Couched so, he could look past the stone seat and the cedar trunk, and so observe what pageant might appear. Had he had a wand in his hand he could have touched with it this carven chair.
Out from the shadowy opposite grove came bright ladies, seven or eight. One was dressed in violet and one in rose, one in green and white, and one in daffodil, one in a bright medley, one in white sprigged with gold, and one in the colour of the sky. After the fashion of the time their hair hung in long braids from beneath fillet, or garland, or veil of gauze twisted turban-wise or floating loose. Their shoes were of soft-coloured leather or of silk, their dress close-fitting and sweeping the grass. The wide and long mantles that were worn by both sexes were not in evidence here—the day was warm and the convent, whence alone these fair ones could have come, at no distance. Garin wondered, and then he bethought himself that some great reigning countess—perhaps some duchess or princess of Italy or Spain or further yet afield, perhaps some queen—might be travelling through the land, going from one court to another and by the way pausing to refresh herself in the house of Our Lady in Egypt. From Roche-de-Frêne, he knew, there was no such absence. The man-at-arms at the inn had said that the princesses Alazais and Audiart were seated with their ladies to mark the jousts. … He lay and watched.
Of the bright apparitions two seemed of their full summer and prime, more stately, more authoritative than the others. The others were in their spring and early spring. Light or dark, blonde or brunette, all had beauty. Garin’s eyes darkened and softened, and the corners of his lips moved upward to see such an array, and the swimming movement with which they dispersed themselves over the lawn, and to hear their trained voices. All seemed gay and laughing, and yet there presently appeared a discontent. The dame in daffodil took up the harp and swept the strings.
“Ah!” cried the one in azure, “for a true troubadour!”
“For even a jongleur!”
“Ah, what is life without men!”
“Ah, for the tourney!”
“Ah, if there were in sight but a monastery!”
The older two, who had an air of responsibility, rebuked the others. “Life is made up of to and fro, and sounds and silences! Be content! It is but one month out of many.”
“As if months were as plentiful as cherries!”
“Ah, if I were a princess—”
“Hush!” warned the daffodil-clad, and began to play upon the harp.
Garin saw that another two were coming through the grove. One of these would be the noble lady for whom it was all planned. His imagination was active to-day with a deep, involuntary pulsing. Foix or Toulouse, or the greater domains to the north and west, or it might be Aragon, or it might be Italy? Or she might have come from Sicily, or like Prince Rudel’s far lady, from a kingdom or duchy carved from Paynim lands. Some Eastern touch in the scene made him dwell upon that. No matter whence now she came, she must have lived on a day in the long, the outspread, the curving and sunny lands of this very south. The tongue of her ladies proved that. Wedded she might have been to some great prince and borne away, and now returned for a time and a pilgrimage to the land of birth. … All this and more was of his imaging. He lay upon the dark earth and parted the laurel leaves that he might see more clearly.
The two were now plain among the trees. One was a blonde of much beauty, dressed in grey cendal and carrying a book which seemed to belong to her companion. The latter was a little in advance, and she came on without speaking, and so stepped from the wood upon the lawn. The seven already arrived beneath the plane, the poplar, and the cedar made a formal movement of courtesy, then gathered like a rainbow about the one of first importance. Plaintiveness and discontent retired from evidence, court habit came up paramount. You might have thought that these were dryads or Dian’s nymphs, and no other spot than this wood their loved home! There came to Garin’s ear a ripple of sweet voices, but it seemed that their lady for whom had been spread the feast was either silent or seldom-and low-speaking. She stood beneath the shimmering, tremulous poplar, a slender shape of fair height. She was
