Mistress of mistresses (37 page)

'What
means your highness to do this afternoon?' asked Tyarchus. 'Turn back? or on
over the hause and ride races on the flats there?'

'My
Lord Tyarchus,' said Zenianthe, 'blindfold we'd know you! Your highness were best
let him have his way. His eyas flew ill this morning, so the sport's suddenly
out of fashion.'

'Be
kind to him,' said the Queen. "Twas so God made him.' -

'And
that's why there's nought he hateth worse in the world,' said the princess,
'than dance, for instance.'

'Now
I think on't,' said the Queen: 'danced not one single measure upon my
birthday.'

'Truth
is,' said Tyarchus, ‘I am somewhat nice in matter of whom I shall dance
withal.'

Zenianthe
laughed. 'True. For you came first to me. Showed knowledge, if not judgement.'

'O
Zenianthe, and would you not dance with him?' said the Queen.

'Bade
him try Myrilla first. So as, if he trod not upon her dress, as 'pon yours,
cousin, a year ago—'

'That's
unfair,' said Tyarchus. 'Her highness had forgot and forgiven.'

Antiope
seemed to have settled with this talk to a yet sweeter companionship with the
green earth where she sat; and not now in her eyes only, but most subtly in all
her frame and pose as she rested there, was a footing it as of little mocking
faunish things, round and round, in a gaiety too smooth and too swift for eye
to follow. 'Most unfair,' she said. 'To make amends, ought I dance with you
myself to-night?'

'Madam,
I take that most kindly.'

'But
in a dress,' said she, 'without a train.' They laughed. 'But I was but
thinking. No; may be, all for all, better it were you, cousin, danced with
him.'

'That,'
said Zenianthe, 'I take most unkindly.'

'A
penance for you', replied the Queen, 'for your un-kindness to him.'

'A
penance?' Tyarchus turned to the princess. 'Shall's make friends then, as both
offended?'

'I
know the sure way to content him,' said Lessingham. 'Do him that favour as to
let him try this new jennet of his 'gainst your grace's Tessa.'

'And
to take down his pride 'pon the same motion,' said Zenianthe.

'Tessa?'
said Tyarchus; 'was not she bred in the great horse-lands beyond the Zenner, of
that race and stock your highness's father (upon whom be peace) so cherished
and increased there, stablished since generations in that good land, and
'longeth now to Duke Barganax? Well, if I win, shall I have her?'

'No,'
said the Queen, laughing at him across her fingers that played bob together.
'If you win, you shall have leave not to dance: neither me nor Zenianthe.'

'A
pretty forfeit! There you stand both to gain.'

'You
too; for do you not hate to dance? What could be fairer?'

'If
your grace must be answered,—thus then: choice to dance with neither or with
both.'

'My
Lord Lessingham,' the Queen said, rising, and all rose with her; 'have you not
your mare of that same breed? and shall she rest attemptless?'

Lessingham
laughed with his eyes. 'So your serene highness rode not in the race, though
mine be seven year old, I doubt not mounted on her to outride any that treads
on four pasterns. But let me remember that those who will eat cherries with
great princes shall have their eyes dasht out with the stones. We low
subjects—'

'No
excuses,' said the Queen. 'I'll stake a jewel upon it. Come, cousin,' to
Zenianthe: 'you and I; Lessingham, Orvald, Amaury, Tyarchus: that's six, upon
well-breathed horses.'

With
that, they took saddle again and rode on north, over the hause and so down into
woodlands of silver birch with open turfy stretches, and among the grass pallid
drifts of the autumn crocus. Where the glade ran wide before them near on a
mile without bend, those six took station. After some justling and curvetting,
Paphirrhoe with a wave of a white handkercher gave them the start. As they
galloped, now in broad sunshine, now through airs dappled with lights and
shadows, wet earth-scents flew. Rabbits that washed their faces or nibbled
among the grass fled left and right to the shelter of bramble or hazel-coppice
or birch-wood. Grey silver in the sun were the trunks and branches, and the
twigs red as it had been copper glowing against the blue. At a mile the Queen led,
outgalloping Tyarchus for all his spurring. The forest ride swung west now,
and after a while south-westwards, into the sun, and began to fall gently away
towards a bottom of green grass. Lessingham, for the sun's glory in his eyes,
scarce could see. He leaned forward, whispered Maddalena, touched her neck: in
a burst of speed she carried him past Tyarchus. As by conduct of some star he
rode now: a timeless chase, wherein he lost at length all wareness save of his
own riding that seemed now to outswift the wind; and of Antiope ahead, on her
black mare.

At
a three lanes' end she drew rein. The black mare stood with head down and with
heaving and smoking flanks. Lessingham too drew rein. Maddalena herself was
breathed and weary: she had carried the heavier load. On either hand were wide
billowing tracts of whinbushes in full flower, yellow, of a sharp, stinging
scent. On either hand upon the edges, of the wood, silver birches in their
livery of autumn swayed in the bright air.

'We
have outridden them all,' Antiope said, a little breathless yet with hard
riding, as she turned in the saddle to Lessingham who was halted now within
hand-reach. "Las, and I have ridden my hair loose. Will you hold my reins
while I see to it?'

She
dropped reins: pulled off her gloves: began gathering with her fingers the
coil of hair which, heavy, pythonlike, of the sheen of palest mountain gold,
was fallen at her neck. Lessingham made no answer, neither moved. This that he
looked on was become suddenly a thing to darken sight and shake the stability
of nature. The wind was on that sudden fallen, and no breath stirred. On the
stillness came a flutter of wings, of a wood-pigeon flapping down unseen among
tree-tops. The Queen looked round into Lessingham's face. The stillness laid
its finger upon her too, even to the holding in of breath. Like a lute-string
strained in an air too thin to carry sound, the silence trembled. The Queen
parted her lips, but no voice came.

At
a grating of hinges upon the left, Lessingham swung round in his saddle to
behold, with eyes startled as out of sleep and dreams, a wicket gate that
opened in a low red brick wall smothered all over with dark red climbing
roses. A garden close was within that gate, sweet with a hundred smells and
colours of flowers, and beyond the garden a low-built old timbered house in
measurable good reparations, straw-thatched, and with slender chimneys of
hrickwork and long low windows. A vine hung the porch with green leaves and
pendulous black clusters. The wall on either hand betwixt porch and window,
besides all the length betwixt the windows of the ground-floor and of the
bedchambers above these, was a ripening-place for apricocks and pears and
peaches trained orderly against the wall; and the slant rays of the sun turned
the hanging fruits to gold, sending long shadows of them sideways on the wall,
deep purple shadows against the warm and ruddy hues of the brickwork. The
decline of postmeridian brought coolness to the autumn air. Homing doves rested
pink feet on the roof-ridge. A smell of wood-smoke came from the house. And,
cap in hand upon the top step of three that led down from that wicket gate,
there stood to greet them, as bidding welcome to expected guests, that same
logical doctor, last seen by Lessingham in the far southlands of Zayana. Well
past all mistaking Lessingham knew him: knew besides the little cat, white as
new snow, that rubbed head against the skirt of that old man's gaberdine and
looked ever with blue eyes upon Antiope. The sun's splendour swung at
mid-evening's height above great oak-woods. These, and a high upland training
across the north behind the house, shut out all distances; not a birch was to
be seen; no whins flaunted yellow flowers; no galloping hoof drew near. Only
Tessa and Maddalena munched the wayside grass: from the roof came the turtle
dove's soft complaint: from the woodside a lowing of cattle sounded, and nearer
at hand a babble of running water. Upon the left, to the right of the sun, a
holm-oak upreared its statuesque magnificence of bough and foliage, nearly
black, but with a stir of radiance upon it like a scattering of star-dust.
Doctor Vandermast was saying to Antiope, watching her face the while with most
searching gaze, 'I hope, madam, that in these particularities I have nothing
forgot. I hope you shall find all perfect even as your ladyship gave in charge
at my depart.'

'Ladyship?
Give in charge?' she said, looking on him and on this new scene with the look
of one whose senses, fresh wakened out of sleep, stand doubtful amid things of
waking knowledge and things of dream. 'Nay, you mistake, sir. And yet—'

Vandermast
came down the steps: put into her hands that little cat. It purred and snuggled
its face into the warm between arm and bosom. 'I have been here before,' she
said, still in a slow wonder. 'That is most certain. And this learned man I
have known. But when, and where—'

The
eyes of that Vandermast, watching her gaze about her and turn in the end, with
a lovely lost abandoning of the riddle, to Lessingham, were of a lynx-like
awareness. And there stirred in them a queer, half humorous look, as of a mind
that pleasantly chews the cud of its knowledge while it beholds the sweet
comedy of others led in a maze. 'If I might humbly counsel your noble grace and
excellent highness,' said he, 'vex not your mind with un-entangling of
perplexities, nor with no back-reckonings. Please to dismount you and come now
in to your summer-house, on purpose trimmed up for you. And you, my Lord
Lessingham, to decide all doubts be ruled by me. For I say unto you, it is a
short ride hither from Rialmar but, to-night, a far ride back. So as not
to-night, no not in ten nights' riding could you come to Rialmar on your swift
mare. Wherefore, settle your heart, my lord, and be patient. Pray you come in.'

Lessingham
looked at Antiope. Her eyes said yes. He leaped from the saddle: gave her his
hand. Her hand in his was an imponderable thing: a cool flame, a delicious-ness
of mellifluous flowers; her coming down, a motion to convince the sea-swallow
of too dull a grace, outpara-goned by hers. Vandermast swung back the gate: Lessingham
looked round: 'What of the horses?'

Vandermast
smiled and answered, 'They will not stray: no horse strayeth here.'

'Lip-wisdom,'
said Lessingham, and set about taking off of saddles and bridles. 'It is my
way, on the road, to see her watered and fed ere I feed myself, not leave her
to horse-boys. And I'll the same for her grace's.'

'Here',
answered that old man, 'is water. And, for the grass of this wayside, 'tis of.
a singular virtue. Pastures of earth renew but the blood and animal spirits:
but this of mine being grazed upon turneth in the vitals not to blood but
ichor.'

As
one expressed with sleep, Lessingham stared upon him. But Vandermast, with that
close smile, turned to Antiope. 'As your ladyship hath cited to me ere this,
the Poetess's words: —Gold is pure of rust." '

Quite
lost, yet too deeply taken with the sweetness of the place to seek answers, she
shook her head. Without more words, they entered; and before them went that
learn'd philosopher between lupins, blue and yellow, and flaming lychnis, roses
and speckled lilies and lavender and rosemary and sweet thyme and pink and
white anemones, up the paven walk.

Dim
was the low-ceilinged hall that now they entered from that bright garden: to
the left a table of pale oak shining with age ran long and narrow under the
southern windows, and places laid there for supper, and chairs with cushions of
dark velvet, and at the near end an armful of white roses in a bowl of crystal.
Beams, smoked black with age, ribbed the ceiling: a "fire burned of logs
under a great open chimney over against the door with a settle before it and
deep chairs for ease. In the western end of that hall a window opened, and
another, lesser, to the left of the fire. In the corner between was some instrument
of music, a spinet or clavichord, and a stool to sit and play. There were
pictures hung on the walls, and thick brocaded curtains drawn back between the
windows. A bare oaken staircase to the right of the fire led to the upper
chambers.

'If
your ladyship would shift your riding-clothes before supper?' said the doctor.
'And you, my lord? For for you besides there is a chamber I have prepared you,
looking west, but your ladyship's south and east.' Lessingham heard, when the
Queen was gone up, little cries of wonderment from above-stairs: past all
mistaking, Zenianthe's voice laughing and joying with Antiope. He reached out a
hand towards the fire: felt its warmth; then walked to the clavichord, opened
the laburnum-wood lid and let his finger wander on the keys. The thin
blade-like sweetness of the strings sprang on the air and there lay stretched,
as if the first hueless streaks of a dawn which comes up seaward without wind
should lie listening to their own grey stillness. He turned and was face to
face with Vandermast. They looked each in the other's eye for a little without
speaking. Then Lessingham said with a tartness on his tongue, 'And you, signior,
with your so much outward submissiveness but, (or I sadly misjudge), without
that inward awfulness 'tshould in honesty proceed from: What in truth are you?'