The Goose Girl and Other Stories (36 page)

Then—'Why,' thought Lady Jehane, ‘now I am getting like poor Bertran, who always thinks the worst has happened or is going to happen. Were it not for this wretched chain I should never have suspected anything, but under its influence I am ready to believe in all manner of impropriety. People really do seem wickeder than I used to think them, but then formerly I was so innocent that I could rarely imagine how evil occurred, and had to take the world's lewdness on trust. Which was, perhaps, a little dull on the whole. But now I have no difficulty whatever in picturing the vicious state into which society has fallen.'

And a little later she exclaimed, ‘It is Bertran's fault, and he has only himself to blame! It is due solely to his action that henceforth I shall not only take pleasure in believing the worst about people, but also in behaving myself with all the impropriety of which I am capable. It is true that I am not capable of much, owing to this miserable chain, but I shall do what I can to justify Bertran's belief that it was necessary!'

Lady Jehane was now happier than she had been since her lord first announced his intention of girdling her to compulsory chastity. From that morning when she heard Vidal singing, her demeanour changed, and the castle of Caraman, that had shared her gloom, now participated in her gaiety. Under the quickening influence of spring, troubadours were rivalling the mating birds in the profusion of their melodies—while far excelling the simple lark and the untutored willow-wren in fertility of invention—and some of the most accomplished paid visits to the castle of Caraman when they heard that not only the Lady Maulfry but also the Lady Jehane was in a mood to welcome their art and themselves.

Vidal, hopelessly enslaved by the beauty and gaiety of Maulfry, had become rather one of the household than a passing guest. Under the soporific influence of a permanent interest and a settled
domicile his songs had acquired a certain monotony—though that which awakened Jehane had been brilliantly individual—but now, when other minstrels sang in his hearing their delight in Jehane's fair beauty, his wit was stirred afresh and his jealous pride in Maulfry found expression in ever new and more daring felicities. This championship of dark Maulfry, vaunting her eyes in a brave conceit and her lips in the most exquisite of tunes, inspired in its turn the visiting troubadours to novelties in compliment and rare device in melody when their opportunity came to hymn the golden loveliness of Jehane. For if Maulfry was starlight on the velvet breast of night, Jehane—as one of them remarked—was dawn lifting its small clouds of white and rose from a pale gold field of barley. Maulfry, to put it shortly, was dark and slender, while Jehane was very fair and somewhat inclined to plumpness.

So timing his arrival that he could bear with him the first spray of almond-blossom, Gilles de Mercadet came one morning to the castle. When his name was announced a flutter of anticipation passed over the ladies of the castle like a breeze that comes roughly into a flower-garden, and those of the gentlemen present who were interested in poetry turned with the liveliest expectancy to see him whose fame as a troubadour outstripped even his reputation as a lover.

Gilles de Mercadet was tall and excessively handsome. His legs were long, his brow was broad and white, his hair had the sombre brilliance of a raven's wing. His chin was determined, his nose severe, and his eyes were dark and lustrous under melancholy lids. His hands were shapely and a nervous passion animated his fingers. He came into the hall with his joglar behind him—a little man, ugly and red-faced—and fell on his knees before Lady Jehane. She welcomed him gladly, and took the almond-blossom from him, and put it to her lips.

After the interchange of some courtesies Jehane said, ‘You have travelled far, sir, I think, for had you been living in this neighbourhood, I would have heard of it.'

‘I have come from Perpignan,' said Gilles.

‘That is far enough,' said Jehane, ‘and I am glad you have had so long a journey, since now you will be tired of travel and content to stay here.'

‘Does any man who has once seen you ever go farther or fare home again?'

‘My husband has gone to the Holy Land,' said Jehane.

‘Marriage, that gives a man rights, ever robs him of reason,' said Gilles.

After a little while Maulfry asked, ‘Did you not find the air of Perpignan to your liking, sir?'

‘The air was good enough,' said Gilles, ‘but those who used it were less to my fancy.'

‘I have heard the ladies there are most beautiful,' said Jehane.

‘Even were they as beautiful as they esteem themselves, that would not excuse their demand for admiration,' said Gilles.

‘We are modest people here,' said Jehane.

‘Then your virtue must exceed your judgment,' answered the troubadour.

On the following morning de Mercadet looked white and weary. His eyes were more profoundly dark, hooded more deeply by their melancholy lids, and his cheeks were pale with the transparent pallor of suffering.

With the anxiety of a hostess and a woman's pity for the pain of a young man so handsome, Lady Jehane asked if he had not slept well.

‘I was visited by something more importunate than sleep,' he said. ‘An inspiration, a thought, a vision,' he explained, seeing Jehane looked questioningly from one to another of her ladies.

‘Perhaps your room was not comfortable,' she suggested.

‘It has a window,' said Gilles. Then he took his lute from the joglar, and after striking two or three preliminary chords to arrest the general attention—which he did very easily—he sang the following lines to a tune of surpassing merit:

I looked through my window and caught my heart with a cry

To see the late moon and the dawn sharing the sky.

I saw the slim gold crescent of the old moon lean

Over the hill in a vapour of gull's-egg-green;

While a span to the north another day began

As the sun's bright fingers opened an apricot fan—

Faced with the loveliness of those lovely two,

Lady Jehane, how could I help thinking of you?

To all but one of the many compliments evoked by this charming song de Mercadet seemed indifferent. Even to Jehane, who thanked him in words as pretty as the song, he seemed more concerned with some secret thought of his own than with the expression of hers, though that might have gratified any poet on earth with its politeness. But when Simon Vidal, his fellow troubadour, said with all the enthusiasm of his generous nature how greatly he admired
the contrast between the level pacing of the verse rhythm and the urgent fire of the accompaniment, why then de Mercadet was roused, grew talkative, excited even, and played again to show how the heavy words reined back the sweet impatience of the melody. Talking still, of sirventes and tenson, of alba, serena, and planh, the two poets went off together, leaving their audience somewhat astonished and rather at a loss for further amusement.

But Jehane, sitting alone, was well pleased with de Mercadet's strange behaviour, for she thought it meant—despite his reputation for gallantry—that he was a poet enthusiastic only for his art, and so not likely to embarrass her with the attentions of a lover. For though she had resolved to fling propriety to the winds she found this to be more difficult than she had expected, and much less pleasant. Adventures even upon the outermost fringes of love's play made her strangely uncomfortable. Her daughter, a child some two or three years old, was a plain little girl with a strong resemblance to her father in her small blunt nose and square chin; and whenever a courtier became gallant Jehane would unfortunately remember the little Aélis and foolishly experience a sensation of guilt. Her belief that de Mercadet would be content to sing of love, without endeavouring to practise it, was therefore most comforting.

For some days his behaviour was all she could desire. His demeanour was that of a man ravaged by passion, his pale cheeks were apparently the emblem of a lover's pain, and his black hair suggested the ensign of a dying heart. But he appeared satisfied with the composition of several charming songs, ardent indeed, but with a kind of impersonal poetic ardour rather than a lover's heat; and in a tenson with Simon Vidal he raked the visible universe for symbols and similes with which to praise his mistress, but so contrived his flattery that it had an air of detached criticism wholly devoid of any insinuation that the flatterer might be entitled to a reward for his discernment.

So completely lulled were Jehane's suspicions that one evening, some weeks after de Mercadet's arrival at the castle, she walked with him alone in a garden by the river and watched with him the moon's image in the wrinkled water, and saw it run in silver slippers to the still obscurity of the farther bank. The air was full of summer perfumes. A nightingale sang, its voice choking with sweetness, and stopped on a broken note. Then de Mercadet turned to Jehane, and with a passion in his voice that he no longer troubled to conceal, sang softly:

Silent sits the nightingale

To hear the passion of my cry;

Paler grows the moon so pale

To see how pale am I—

Pity me, Lady Jehane,

Pity me, else I die!

Jehane was seriously perturbed by this sudden attack. She was immediately conscious of opposing forces that tore her soul, and between the soft importunacy of her senses—stirred by music, the scented night, and the pandering moon—and the strong restraint of her moral nature—aggravated by fear of her impetuous lover—she was in a truly pitiable state. Her heart was touched by desire but her knees were trembling in their fright before a lover. The fleering moon cried ‘Yes!' but a memory of her snub-nosed daughter clutched her skirts and holloa'd ‘No!'

With a plea for gentleness and a promise for tomorrow she won respite from de Mercadet, and returned to the castle in a greater flutter than she had known since, at the age of thirteen, her sleep was spoiled by a vision of St Michael bearing an outrageously destructive sword. Not till she was alone in her room did she remember, with a sense of anti-climax, her protective girdle and the key that hung round the lord of Caraman's neck in Acre or Cyprus or some such distant place.

Now de Mercadet laid siege in earnest, and as the constant state of excitement in which she lived notably increased Jehane's beauty, so the troubadour's ardour was maintained not only by resistance but by the steady growth of her charm. She also acquired, without knowing it, the pricking art of the coquette, and so for a week she would be coldly virtuous, for a day she would be fond and warm, kissing even, once even clinging and on the point, so it seemed, of yielding utterly. De Mercadet's manner was variable as hers, for in the morning he often behaved with the insolence of a dictator, and in the evening as frequently threw himself at Jehane's feet in the attitude of a slave. He made a certain number of songs in her honour, but it was generally remarked that they were far inferior to his earlier compositions. He added new verses to that which bore the refrain:

Pity me, Lady Jehane,

Pity me, else I die!

—and those best qualified to estimate the merit of such things declared that no part of it was worthy of a troubadour of his reputation. But if de
Mercadet's creative power declined, so did Jehane's critical ability, for in time she grew to think that refrain the most exquisite and moving verse she had ever heard.

It was on a day in autumn that de Mercadet drove her to her last defence, and she had to confess that she wore a chain binding her to impenetrable chastity. On other occasions when the troubadour's wooing pressed her hard she had sometimes conveniently forgotten the belt, sometimes most opportunely remembered it—but she had never mentioned it. It was her last rampart, her ultimate winning card, and now when de Mercadet had at last stormed all other opposition, and treachery in her own breast cried her to surrender, she told him, in a mood between triumph and despair, of the proscriptive chain, the inviolable lock.

For a little while de Mercadet was nonplussed. His attitude proclaimed defeat. He stood by an open window and let the wind blow coldly on his tears. Then, turning the situation upside down, he saw suddenly both comfort and hope in the steely prohibition of the Crusader's belt.

He cried excitedly, ‘This, then, is the reason you have so long refused me! This paltry chain is the only bar to our felicity! I had thought you lacked love to meet my love, and that was why you turned from me so often and so coldly, and thinking that I came near to despair. But now I know that nothing but a few steel links have kept you from my arms . . . .'

‘No, no!' cried Jehane.

‘Now I am assured of that I grow happy indeed. For steel can be cut, links broken, or padlocks picked. I will get keys, Jehane, a sharp biting file, and loose you from these trifling shackles within the hour.'

Indignant and queenly tall, Jehane said furiously, ‘Do you expect me to strip and stand naked while you do your tinkerwork? You are mad indeed if that is what you hope.'

‘Then I will find a smith,' exclaimed the troubadour, ‘some old and shrivelled smith, and pay him well for his work, and then put out his eyes for daring to see the glory of your waist.'

But Jehane grew angrier still and cried, ‘Am I a horse that I should be taken to the smithy, or do you think me a monster that I should scratch men blind?'

De Mercadet had some difficulty in pacifying her, but presently she grew more calm, and then he left her, saying he would think of other means to get rid of the obstructive belt, and bade her be of good cheer in expectation of success.

The following day, when chance left them alone together, he said
with great eagerness, ‘Lady Jehane, the most difficult problems often have very simple answers. Now this is the truth, that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, but you are far from being the slenderest.'