hands had twitched so that the astonished palfrey reared. "I design torture," the Queen said; "ah, I perfect exquisite torture, for you have proven recreant, you have forgotten the maid Ysabeau,--Le Desir du Cuer, was it not, my Gregory, that you were wont to call her, as nowadays this Rosamund is the desire of your heart. You lack inventiveness."
His palms clutched at heaven. "That Ysabeau is dead! and all true joy is destroyed, and the world lies under a blight from which God has averted an unfriendly face in displeasure! yet of all wretched persons existent I am he who endures the most grievous anguish, for daily I partake of life without any relish, and I would in truth deem him austerely kind who slew me now that the maiden Ysabeau is dead."
She shrugged wearily. "I scent the raw stuff of a Planh," the Queen observed; "_benedicite!_ it was ever your way, my friend, to love a woman chiefly for the verses she inspired." And she began to sing, as they rode through Baverstock Thicket.
Sang Ysabeau:
"Man's love hath many prompters, But a woman's love hath none; And he may woo a nimble wit Or hair that shames the sun, Whilst she must pick of all one man And ever brood thereon-- And for no reason, And not rightly,--
"Save that the plan was foreordained (More old than Chalcedon, Or any tower of Tarshish Or of gleaming Babylon), That she must love unwillingly And love till life be done,--. He for a season, And more lightly."
So to Ordish in that twilight came the Countess of Farrington, with a retinue of twenty men-at-arms, and her brother Sir Gregory Darrell. Lord Berners received the party with boisterous hospitality.
"Age has not blinded Father to the fact that your sister is a very handsome woman," was Rosamund Eastney's comment. The period appears to have been after supper, and the girl sat with Gregory Darrell in not the most brilliant corner of the main hall.
The wretched man leaned forward, bit his nether-lip, and then with a tumbling rush of speech told of the sorry masquerade. "The she-devil designs some horrible and obscure mischief, she plans I know not what."
"Yet I--" said Rosamund. The girl had risen, and she continued with an odd inconsequence: "You have told me you were Pembroke's squire when long ago he sailed for France to fetch this woman into England--"
"--Which you never heard!" Lord Berners shouted at this point. "Jasper, a lute!" And then he halloaed, "Gregory, Madame de Farrington demands that racy song you made against Queen Ysabeau during your last visit." Thus did the Queen begin her holiday.
It was a handsome couple which came forward, with hand quitting hand tardily, and with blinking eyes yet rapt: these two were not overpleased at being disturbed, and the man was troubled, as in reason he well might be, by the task assigned him.
"Is it, indeed, your will, my sister," he said, "that I should sing--this song?"
"It is my will," the Countess said.
And the knight flung back his comely head and laughed. "A truth, once spoken, may not be disowned in any company. It is not, look you, of my own choice that I sing, my sister. Yet if Queen Ysabeau herself were to bid me sing this song, I could not refuse, for, Christ aid me! the song is true."
Sang Sir Gregory:
"Dame Ysabeau, la prophcie Que li sage dit ne ment mie, Que la royne sut ceus grever Qui tantost laquais sot aymer--"[4]
and so on. It was a lengthy ditty, and in its wording not oversqueamish; the Queen's career in England was detailed without any stuttering, and you would have found the catalogue unhandsome. Yet Sir Gregory delivered it with an incisive gusto, desperately countersigning his own death warrant. Her treacheries, her adulteries and her assassinations were rendered in glowing terms whose vigor seemed, even now, to please their contriver. Yet the minstrel added a new peroration.
Sang Sir Gregory:
"Ma voix mocque, mon cuer gmit-- Peu pense ce que la voix dit, Car me membre du temps jadis Et d'ung garson, d'amour surpris, Et d'une fille--et la vois si-- Et grandement suis esbahi."
And when Darrell had ended, the Countess of Farrington, without speaking, swept her left hand toward her cheek and by pure chance caught between thumb and forefinger the autumn-numbed fly that had annoyed her. She drew the little dagger from her girdle and meditatively cut the buzzing thing in two. She cast the fragments from her, and resting the dagger's point upon the arm of her chair, one forefinger upon the summit of the hilt, considerately twirled the brilliant weapon.
"This song does not err upon the side of clemency," she said at last, "nor by ordinary does Queen Ysabeau."
"That she-wolf!" said Lord Berners, comfortably. "Hoo, Madame Gertrude! since the Prophet Moses wrung healing waters from a rock there has been no such miracle recorded."
"We read, Messire de Berners, that when the she-wolf once acknowledges a master she will follow him as faithfully as any dog. My brother, I do not question your sincerity, yet everybody knows you sing with the voice of an unhonored courtier. Suppose Queen Ysabeau had heard your song all through as I have heard it, and then had said--for she is not as the run of women--'Messire, I had thought until this that there was no thorough man in England save tall Roger Mortimer. I find him tawdry now, and--I remember. Come you, then, and rule the England that you love as you may love no woman, and rule me, messire, since I find even in your cruelty--For we are no pygmies, you and I! Yonder is squabbling Europe and all the ancient gold of Africa, ready for our taking! and past that lies Asia, too, and its painted houses hung with bells, and cloud-wrapt Tartary, where we two may yet erect our equal thrones, upon which to receive the tributary emperors! For we are no pygmies, you and I." She paused. She shrugged. "Suppose Queen Ysabeau, who is not as the run of women, had said this much, my brother?"
Darrell was more pallid (as the phrase is) than a sheet, and the lute had dropped unheeded, and his hands were clenched.
"I would answer, my sister, that as she has found in England but one man, I have found in England but one woman--the rose of all the world." His eyes were turned at this toward Rosamund Eastney. "And yet," the man stammered, "because I, too, remember--"
"Hah, in God's name! I am answered," the Countess said. She rose, in dignity almost a queen. "We have ridden far to-day, and to-morrow we must travel a deal farther--eh, my brother? I am going to bed, Messire de Berners."
So the men and women parted. Madame de Farrington kissed her brother at leaving him, as was natural; and under her caress his stalwart person shuddered, but not in repugnance; and the Queen went away singing hushedly.
Sang Ysabeau:
"Were the All-Mother wise, life (shaped anotherwise) Would be all high and true; Could I be otherwise I had been otherwise Simply because of you, ... With whom I have naught to do, And who are no longer you!
"Life with its pay to be bade us essay to be What we became,--I believe Were there a way to be what it was play to be I would not greatly grieve ... Hearts are not worn on the sleeve. Let us neither laugh nor grieve!"
Ysabeau would have slept that
