The Forest Lovers

  CHAPTER XIII

  HIGH MARCH, AND A GREAT LADY

  In the weeping grey of an autumn morning, but in great spirits of hisown, Prosper left Gracedieu for High March. The satisfaction of havingbraved the worst of an adventure was fairly his; to have made gooddisposition of what threatened to fetter him by shutting off anypossible road from his advance; and to have done this (so far as hecould see) without in any sense withdrawing from Isoult the advantagesshe could expect--this was tunable matter, which set him singing beforethe larks were off the ground. He felt like a man who has earned hispleasure; and pleasure, as he understood it, he meant to have. The zestfor it sparkled in his quick eyes as he rode briskly through thedevious forest ways. Had Galors or any other dark-entry man met him nowand chanced a combat, he would have bad it with a will, but he wouldhave got off with a rough tumble and sting or two from the flat of thesword. The youth was too pleased with himself for killing or slicing.

  However, there was nobody to fight. North Morgraunt was prettyconstantly patrolled by the Countess's riders at this time. A few grimycolliers; some chair-turners amid their huts and white chips on theedge of a hidden hamlet; drovers with forest ponies going for Waisfordor Market Basing; the hospitality and interminable devotions of ahermit by a mossy crucifix on Two Manors Waste; one night alone in aruined chapel on the top of a down:--of such were the encounters andevents of his journey. He was no Don Quixote to make desperadoes orfeats of endurance out of such gear; on the contrary, he persistentlyenjoyed himself. Sour beer wetted his lips dry with talking; leavesmade a capital bed; the hermit, in the intervals of his prayers,remembered his own fighting days in the Markstake, and knew what wasdone to make Maximilian the Second safely king. Everything was as itshould be.

  On the third day he fell in with a troop of horse, whose spears carriedthe red saltire of the house of Forz on their banneroles. Since theywere bound as he was for the Castle, he rode in their company, and indue course saw before him on a height among dark pines the towers ofHigh March, with the flag of the Lady Paramount afloat on the breeze.It was on a dusty afternoon of October and in a whirl of flying leaves,that he rode up to the great gate of the outer bailey, and blew a blaston the horn which hung there, that they might let down the bridge.

  When the Countess Isabel heard who and of what condition her visitorwas she made him very welcome. The Forz and the Gais were of the samecountry and of nearly the same degree in it. She had been a Forz beforeshe married, and she counted herself so still, for the earldom ofHauterive was hers in her own right; and though she was Earl Roger'swidow (and thus a double Countess Dowager) she could not but rememberit. So she did Prosper every honour of hospitality: she sent some ofher ladies to disarm him and lead him to the bath; she sent him softclothing to do on when he was ready for it; in a word, put him at hisease. When he came into the hall it was the same thing she got up fromher chair of estate and walked down to meet him, while all the companymade a lane for the pair of them. Prosper would have knelt to kiss herhand had she let him, but instead she gave it frankly into his own.

  "You are the son of my father's friend, Sir Prosper," she said, "andshall never kneel to me."

  "My lady," said he, "I shall try to deserve your gracious welcome. Myfather, rest his soul, is dead, as you may have heard."

  "Alas, yes," the Countess replied, "I know it, and grieve for you andyour brothers. Of my Lord Malise I have also heard something."

  "Nothing good, I'll swear," interjected Prosper to himself.

  The Countess went on--

  "Well, Sir Prosper, you stand as I stand, alone in the world. It wouldseem we had need of each other."

  Prosper bowed, feeling the need of nobody for his part. Remember he wasthree-and-twenty to the Countess's thirty-five; and she ten years awidow. She did not notice his silence, but went on, glowing with herthoughts.

  "We should be brother and sister for the sake of our two fathers," shesaid with a gentle blush.

  "I never felt to want a sister till now," cried Master Prosper, makinganother bow. So it was understood between them that theirs was to be anearer relationship than host and guest.

  The Countess Isabel--or to give her her due, Isabel, Countess ofHauterive, Countess Dowager of March and Bellesme, Lady ofMorgraunt--was still a beautiful woman, tall, rather slim, pale, and ofa thoughtful cast of the face. She had a very noble forehead, level,broad, and white; her eyes beneath arched brows were grey--cold grey,not so full nor so dark as Isoult's, nor so blue in the whites, butkeener. They were apt to take a chill tinge when she was ratherCountess of Hauterive than that Isabel de Forz who had loved and lostFulk de Breaute. She never forgot him, and for his sake wore nothingbut silk of black and white; but she did not forget herself either;within walls you never saw her without a thin gold circlet on her head.Even at Mass she, would have no other covering. She said it was enoughfor the Countess of Hauterive, whom Saint Paul probably had not in hismind when he wrote his epistle. Her hair was a glory, shining and veryabundant, but brown not black. Isoult, you will perceive, was a warmer,tenderer copy of her mother, owing something to Fulk. Isoult, moreover,had not been born a countess. Both were inaccessible, the daughter fromthe timidity of a wild thing, the mother from the rarity of her air.Being what she was, twice a widow, bereft of her only child, andburdened with cares which she was much too proud to give over, shenever had fair judgment she was considered hard where she was merelylonely. Her greatness made her remote, and her only comforter the worstin the world--herself. Her lips drooped a little at the corners; thisgave her a wistful look at times. At other times she looked almostcruel, because of a trick she had of going with them pressed together.As a matter of fact she was shy as well as proud, and fed on her ownsorrows from lack of the power to declare them abroad. It was veryseldom she took a liking for any stranger; doubtful if Prosper'slineage had won her to open to him as she had done. His face was moreanswerable; that blunt candour of his, the inquiring blue eyes, theeager throw-back of the head as he walked, above all the friendly smilehe had for a world where everything and everybody seemed new anddelightful and specially designed for his entertainment--this was whatunlocked the Countess's darkened treasury of thought.

  Once loosed she never drew back. Brother and sister they were to be.She made him hand her in to supper; he must sit at her right hand; herown cup-bearer should fill his wine-cup, her own Sewer taste all hismeats. At the end of supper she sent for a great cup filled with wine;it needed both her hands. She held it up before she drank to him,saying, "Let there be love and amity between me and thee." The terms ofthis aspiration astonished him; he accepted honours easily, for he wasused to observances at Starning; but to be thee'd and thou'd by thislady! As he stood there laughing and blushing like a boy she made himdrink from the cup to the same wish and in the same terms. When onceyour frozen soul opens to the thaw all the sluices are away, truly.Prosper went to bed that night very well content with his reception. Hesaw his schemes ripening fast on such a sunny wall as this. His headwas rather full, and of more than the fumes of wine; consequently insaying his prayers he did not remember Isoult at all. Yet hers had beensped out of Gracedieu Minster long before, and to the same gods. Onlyshe had had Saint Isidore in addition; and she had had Prosper. Hersprobably went nearer the mark. Until you have made a beloved of yoursaint or a saint of your beloved--it matters not greatly which--youwill get little comfort out of your prayers.

  It was, however, heedlessness rather than design which brought itabout, that as the days at High March succeeded each other Prosper didnot tell the Countess either of his adventure or of his summary methodof achieving it. Design was there: he did not see his way to involvingthe Abbot, who was, he knew, a dependant of his hostess, and yet couldnot begin the story elsewhere than at the beginning. Something, too,kept the misfortunes of his wife from his tongue--an honourablesomething, not his own pride of race. But he, in fact, forgot her. Thedays were very pleasant. He hunted the hare, the deer, the wolf, thebear. He hunted what he liked best of
all to hunt, the man; and he gotthe honour which only comes from successful hunting in that sort-thedevout admiration of those he led. So soon as it was found out wherehis tastes and capacities lay he had as much of this work as he chose.High March was on the northern borders of the Countess's country; notfar off was the Markstake, stormy, debatable land, plashy with blood.There were raids, there were hornings and burnings, lifting of cattleand ravishment of women, to be prevented or paid for. Prosper sawservice. The High March men had never had a leader quite like him-soyoung, so light and fierce, so merry in fight. Isoult might eat herheart out with love; Prosper had the love of his riders, for by thisthey were his to a man.

  There were other influences at work, more subtle and every bit asrapacious. There were the long hours in the hall by the leaping lightof the fire and the torches, feasts to be eaten, songs to sing, dances,revels, and such like. Prosper was a cheerful, very sociable youth. Hehad the manners of his father and the light-hearted impertinence of ahundred ancestors, all rulers of men and women. He made love to no one,and laughed at what he got of it for nothing--which was plenty. Therewere shaded hours in the Countess's chamber, where the songs weresofter and the pauses of the songs softer still; morning hours in thegrassy alleys between the yew hedges; hours in the south walk in an airthick with the languors of warm earth and garden flowers; intimaterides in the pine wood; the wild freedom of hawking in the open downs;the grass paths; Yule; the music, the hopes of youth, the sweetfamiliarity, the shared books, the timid encroachments and gentlerestraints, half-entreaties, half-denials:--no young man can resistthese things unless he thinks of them suspectingly (as Prosper neverdid), and no woman wishes to resist them. If Prosper found a sister,Isabel began to find more than a brother. She grew younger as he grewolder. They were more than likely to meet half way.