Barbarossa and Other Tales Part 20

She rested in his arms so sweetly, and the good horse trod so securely, that they hardly realised their circ.u.mstances--a hasty flight by night--a dark future before them--but enjoyed their bliss as though no shadow of care and danger hung over their love.

But when they got out of the wood and reached the hill from whence Garcinde a few days ago had first beheld again her father's castle, she suddenly pulled the rein and turned the horse round.

"What ails thee, sweet wife? And why dost thou halt here?" asked Geoffroy.

She did not reply, but gazed over the wide plain towards the dark pile with its leaden-roofed turrets that shone in the moonlight.

"What is it that you see, dearest?" asked the youth, who felt her tremble on his breast, as though a frosty chill had overtaken her on the warm summer night. "Let us look forwards, not back. Our happiness lies before us." But she only shook her head sorrowfully, turned away when he wished to kiss her, and said not a word. All of a sudden she had seemed to see in the deserted castle her father with a taper in his hand wandering from room to room, and crying, "Where is my daughter Garcinde? I have pledged my honour, she must redeem my pledge. Where is my child, and where is my honour? I was a beggar. I had nothing but my unstained name, and now that is lost. The last of the Malaspina has destroyed the good fame of the house, for she knows that I can no longer pursue her as in former years I should have done. I am old and sick, and a sinful man. Now, therefore, I must go down disgraced to the grave, for mine enemy will say I have connived at this, and that to avoid paying my debt, I have preferred even to give my last jewel to a beggar, than to the creditor I hated!" Then again this image vanished, and she now saw herself and her lover pursued on strange roads by an angry band, Pierre de Gaillac at their head, resolved to claim his bride from her ravisher. She saw her Jaufret fight with the energy of a despairing man, and yet at length conquered by numbers, shed his life's blood on the green gra.s.s, and she heard the mocking conqueror laugh, "So thou enviest me my gains at play, thou player's son; the creditor reclaims the debt the debtor would have withheld from him!" Then a deadly shudder pa.s.sed over her; she thought for a moment that her heart had ceased to beat. All the joys of her young love seemed crushed by an icy hand. She knew now that what had appeared to her in her trouble a way of escape and an immeasurable bliss was a false dream; that she should but bring death and ruin to both the beings whom she supremely loved!

"For the love of the Saints!" cried Geoffroy, who felt her cherished form grow heavy as a lifeless body in his embrace, "come to thyself again. What fearful thoughts hast thou in thy mind that thus thy lips move silently as though speaking with the departed? Give me the bridle and let us turn to life, to liberty. The spirits that hover over those towers will have no power over thee when once thou art the other side of this hill. Wilt thou make us both wretched? Wilt thou even--"

He stopped when he saw the stony eyes of his young wife from which every beam of hope and joy had utterly vanished. But this did not last long, the convulsion was now over. She gave a deep sigh, turned on him eyes of yearning love, and said, while endeavouring to smile:

"I have scared thee; forgive me, my beloved. What have we two to fear from any spirits that may hover over that house and envy us our bliss.

Thou, my husband, and I, thy wife, eternally one, body and soul! But I have been thinking about our flight, that it is not the will of Heaven; and if we persisted, Jaufret, against my conscience, we should be punished, and should end as miserably as did thy father and my dear aunt. Trust to me, I have another idea which thou shalt know tomorrow early. Thou wilt praise thy wife when thou seest how she has contrived both to pay the debt to the creditor, and yet to be the wife of no man except her dearest cousin, to whom she has given herself in the presence of G.o.d. Lift me down from the saddle, I do not wish to ride any longer. If it pleases you, my husband, let us walk back through the wood, there are still many hours before day, and a fairer wedding-night no count's daughter could ever wish for. And now kiss me, so that I may again see a smile on thy lips; for truly this poor life is too short for us to spoil even one moment of it by care and gloom." He reluctantly did what she required of him; but when he took her into his arms and their lips met, he could not refrain from asking, "Oh Garcinde! What art thou thinking of? Hast thou not too much confidence in thyself, and wilt thou not if thy plan fails make us both eternally wretched?" But she smiled at him with bright eyes, laid her finger on his mouth, and said, "You are the happiest married man on earth, Sir Geoffrey; you have a wife who knows how to keep a secret. But now do not press me any further. What have we to do with the morrow? To-day are we already such old married people that we can find more important subjects to speak of than our love? Say, Jaufret, do I really please thee better than Agnes of Sardinia, and was her hand when she stroked thy hair not softer than mine? Nay, but thou must not embrace me so ardently here, the moon looks too boldly down, and after all she does not know that thou art my dear husband. Come into the wood, I am weary with our ride and would fain rest awhile. I know a bank where a brook runs through the moss, numbers of flowers bloom there, and I will weave them into fresh garlands, for those Aigleta made are quite crushed.

Poor Aigleta! Dost thou know that she loved thee too well? But that cannot be helped now: no one can be the husband of two women; that is against G.o.d's law. And I, though I be not indeed better than she, I am the more unhappy of the two, or at least I should have been if thy heart, my beautiful love, had not been mine."

With such words as these, which intoxicated the youth like strong wine, they went down the hill and entered the wood. Their gentle horse followed them of his own accord, and peacefully grazed near them in the flowery glade where they laid them down. Through the whole of the night the brook rippled and the nightingales sang, and the moon shone so brightly that no one could have thought of sleep, not at least two who had so much to confide to each other, and knew not whether there would be time for it on the following day. When the morning drew near, and the dew began to fall, and a cooler air swept through the wood, Garcinde arose and said, while a shudder pa.s.sed over her, "It is growing cold, my husband. I think we ought to go home." "Where?" asked he, looking at her in amazement, but she smiled.

"Only come," said she, "I will show you. Can I have any other home than thine?" With that she took his arm and led him out of the wood, and over the bridge back into his tower.

"Here let me rest," said she, as she seated herself on his mother's bed. "Here I would fain sleep for an hour until the sun rises. But leave me alone, my beloved, otherwise we shall go on talking, and I shall not be able to close an eye. And give me your song-book too, I should like to read a verse or two before I fall asleep. And now, one good-night kiss, and then go! Oh, Jaufret, I love thee more than my life! Are we not two happy beings to have enjoyed such bliss that nothing can trouble us. And if we lived a hundred years, could time make us richer in joys when we have drunk from the cup of eternal blessedness?" Once more he embraced the lovely one, and kissed her long and fervently on her mouth. Then he left her alone.

An hour later the c.o.c.k crew. But it did not wake the youth who lay in the rose-garden, his cloak thrown over him, smiling in his dream as though he were inwardly happy, and murmuring the name of his young wife. Neither did it wake the sleeper in the turret-room, whose lips were half-open as though they, too, would p.r.o.nounce a name, but all was still as death in the dim chamber.

It was only when the sun had already risen over the tops of the trees, that Aigleta came by with weary eyes and pale face, listless and absorbed in her own thoughts. When she saw Geoffroy lying in the garden, she was horror-stricken as though she had seen a ghost, and it was only when she ascertained that he was breathing that she bent down to wake him. "You still here?" she whispered. "And where is--your wife?"

He sprang up in haste, and without answering a word, rushed to his turret. When he opened the door, he gave a cry like a man mortally wounded, and fell upon the bed. There lay his young bride, one hand pressed to her heart, from which a little stream of blood still flowed, her other hand rested on the song-book, which was open at its last page, and the white fingers pointed to a newly written line that ran thus in the language of Provence:

Lo deuteire paqua al crezedor tot lo deute.

The debtor pays to the creditor all the debt.

It was noon before the servants ventured carefully to apprise Count Hugo of the heart-rending truth. He listened to the tidings as though he did not rightly understand their purport; even when they led him down to where his child, like a proud and beautiful statue of whitest marble, lay outstretched on the bed he knew so well, he gave no token of what he felt, spoke not a word, shed not a tear. All night he shut himself up with the dead. The next morning he ordered a bier to be prepared. He would redeem his word, he said, and carry the bride to her bridegroom. The servants silently obeyed. Geoffroy--who might else have put in his claim--lay in a raging fever, tended by Aigleta; his wound on the forehead had burst open afresh, and no salve availed to close it.

When the procession came to Gaillac, Count Hugo at its head, the dead bride on a high bier borne by his servants, a great crowd of peasants and retainers behind, the bride's father sent a herald in advance to blow his trumpet three times, and cry with a loud voice, "The debtor pays to the creditor all that he owes him!" At this cry, Count Pierre de Gaillac appeared on the balcony of his castle; but when he saw the lamentable spectacle he turned away horrified, and violently signed to them to go back, that he would have no such wedding. Then he flung himself on his horse and rode far away, and only returned after many days a broken-down man who had forgotten how to laugh.

Count Hugo, however, without giving one sign of grief, next ordered the bearers to carry the bier to a chapel that stood in the open country, and was dedicated to the blessed Lady of Mont Salvair. There on the land and property belonging to the Count de Gaillac, to whom he had to pay his debt, he buried the beautiful body of his child. And no one dared to touch a spade, for he determined with his own hands to prepare her last resting-place. When this ceremony had been performed amidst the tears of the crowd, all went away and left him. He remained alone in the chapel; no one knew whether he was praying or speaking with the dead. But when they went to look after him the next day, and to offer him food and drink, he was no longer living, and they buried him beside his child.

Of Geoffroy the chronicle tells nothing further, except that in the autumn of the same year he joined the crusaders, and travelled towards Jerusalem, from whence he never came back. But any one turning over the old records of the Convent of Mont Salvair would there find that towards the end of the century, there was an abbess of the name of Aigleta von Malaspina--in religion named Sor Sofrenza (in modern French S[oe]ur Souffrance,)--who only at an advanced age entered into eternal rest.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Sack that's torn will not hold grain.

To poor men good advice is vain.]

THE END.