Sir John Constantine Part 49

I watched them till their forms disappeared in the undergrowth, and turned to my bride.

"And now, Princess, I believe you have something to say to me.

Shall it be here? I will not suggest the cottage, which is overfull maybe of unpleasant reminders; but here is a tree-trunk, if you will be seated."

"That shall be as my lord chooses."

I laughed. "Your lord chooses, then, that you take a seat. It seems (I take your word for it) that there must be hard thoughts between us. Well, a straight quarrel is soonest ended, they say: let us have them out and get them over."

"Ah, you hurt! Is it necessary that you hurt so?" Her eyes no less than her voice sobered me at once, shuddering together as though my laugh had driven home a sword and it grated on the bone.

I remembered that she always winced at laughter, but this evident anguish puzzled me.

"G.o.d knows," said I, "how I am hurting you. But pardon me.

Speak what you have to speak; and I will be patient while I learn."

"'A lifetime of dishonour,' you said, and yet you laugh . . .

A lifetime of dishonour, and you were blithe to be shot and escape it; yet now you laugh. Ah, I cannot understand!"

"Princess!" I protested, although not even now did I grasp what meaning she had misread into my words.

"But you said rightly. It is a lifetime of dishonour you have suffered them to put on you: and I--I have taken more than life from you, cavalier--yet I cannot grieve for you while you laugh.

O sir, do not take from me my last help, which is to honour you!"

"Listen to me, Princess," said I, stepping close and standing over her. "What do you suppose that I meant by using those words?

They were your own words, remember."

"That is better. It will help us both if we are frank--only do not treat me as a child. You heard what my brother said. Yes, and doubtless you have heard other things to my shame? Answer me."

"If your brother chose to utter slanders--"

"Yes, yes; it was easy to catch him by the throat. That is how one man treats another who calls a woman vile in her presence. It does not mean that he disbelieves, and therefore it is worthless; but a gallant man will act so, almost without a second thought, and because it is _dans les formes_." She paused. "I learned that phrase in Brussels, cavalier."

I made no answer.

"In Brussels, cavalier," she repeated, "where it was often in the mouths of very vile persons. You have heard, perhaps, that we--that my brother and I--lived our childhood in Brussels?"

I bent my head, without answering; but still she persisted.

"I was brought to Corsica from Brussels, cavalier. Marc'antonio and Stephanu fetched us thence, being guided by that priest who is now my brother's confessor."

"I have been told so, Princess. Marc'antonio told me."

"Did he also tell you where he found me?"

"No, Princess."

"Did he tell you that, being fetched hither, I was offered by my brother in marriage to a young Count Odo of the Rocca Serra, and that the poor boy slew himself with his own gun?"

I stuffed my hands deep in my pockets, and said I, standing over her--

"All this has been told me, Princess, though not the precise reason for it: and since you desire me to be frank I will tell you that I have given some thought to that dead lad--that rival of mine (if you will permit the word) whom I never knew. The mystery of his death is a mystery to me still; but in all my blind guesses this somehow remained clear to me, that he had loved you, Princess; and this (again I ask your leave to say it), because I could understand it so well, forbade me to think unkindly of him."

"He loved his honour better, sir." Her face had flushed darkly.

"I am sorry, then, if I must suffer by comparison."

"No, no," she protested. "Oh, why will you twist my words and force me to seem ungrateful? He died rather than have me to wife: you took me on the terms that within a few minutes you must die. For both of you the remedy was at hand, only _you_ chose to save me before taking it. On my knees, sir, I could thank you for that. The crueller were they that, when you stood up claiming your right to die, they broke the bargain and cheated you."

"Princess," I said, after musing a moment, "if my surviving seemed to you so pitiable, there was another way." I pointed to her musket.

"Yes, cavalier, and I will confess to you that when, having fired wide, they turned to go and the cheat was evident, twice before you pulled the bandage away I had lifted my gun. But I could not fire it, cavalier. To make me your executioner! Me, your wife--and while you thought so vilely of me!"

"Faith," said I grimly, "it was asking too much, even for a Genoese!

Yet again I think you overrate their little trick, since, after all"--I touched my own gunstock--"there remains a third way--the way chosen by young Odo of Rocca Serra."

She put out a hand. "Sir, that way you need not take--if you will be patient and hear me!"

"Lady," said I, "you may hastily despise me; but I am neither going to take that way, nor to be patient, nor to hear you. But I am, as you invited me, going to be very frank and confess to you, risking your contempt, that I am extremely thankful the Genoese did not shoot me, a while ago. Indeed, I do not remember in all my life to have felt so glad, as I feel just now, to be alive. Give me your gun, if you please."

"I do not understand."

"No, you do not understand. . . . Your gun, please . . . nay, you can lay it on the turf between us. The phial, too, that you offered your brother. . . . Thank you. And now, my wife, let us talk of your country and mine; two islands which appear to differ more than I had guessed. In Corsica it would seem that, let a vile thing be spoken against a woman, it suffices. Belief in it does not count: it suffices that a shadow has touched her, and rather than share that shadow, men will kill themselves--so tender a plant is their honour.

Now, in England, O Princess, men are perhaps even more irrational.

They, no more than your Corsicans, listen to the evidence and ask themselves, 'Is this good evidence or bad? Do I believe it or disbelieve?' They begin father back, Princess--Shall I tell you how?

They look in the face of their beloved, and they say, 'Slander this, not as you wish for belief, but only as you dare; for here my faith is fixed beforehand.'

"And therefore, O Princess," I went on, after a pause in which we eyed one another slowly, "therefore, I disbelieve any slander concerning you; not merely because your brother's confessor was its author--though that, to any rational man, should be enough--but because I have looked in your face. Therefore also I, your husband, forbid you to speak what would dishonour us both."

"But, cavalier--if--if it were true?"

"True?"--I let out a harsh laugh. "Take up that phial. Hold it in your hand, so. Now look me in the face and drink--if you dare!

Look me in the face, read how I trust you, and so, if you can say the lie to me say it--and drink!"

She lifted the phial steadily, almost to her lips, keeping her eyes on mine--but of a sudden faltered and let it fall upon the turf: where I, whose heart had all but stood still, crushed my heel upon it savagely.

"I cannot. You have conquered," she gasped.

"Conquered?" I swore a bitter oath. "O Princess, think you _this_ is the way I promised to conquer you? Take up your gun again and follow me. . . . Eh? You do not ask where I lead?"

"It is enough that I follow you, my husband," she said humbly.

"It is something, indeed; but before G.o.d it is not enough, nor half enough. I see now that 'enough' may never come: almost I doubt if I, who swore to you it should come, and since have desired it madly, desire it any longer; and until it comes you are still the winner.

'Enough' shall be said, Princess--for my price rises--not when (as I promised) you come to me without choosing to be loved or hated, only beseeching your master, but when you shall come to me having made your choice. . . . But so far, so good," said I, cheerfully, changing my tone. "You do not ask where I lead. I am leading you, if I can to Cape Corso, to my father; and by his help, if it shall serve, to your mother."

"I thank you, cavalier," she said, still in her restrained voice.

"You are a good man; and for that reason I am sorry you will not hearken to me."

"The mountains are before us," said I, shouldering my gun.

"Listen, Princess: let us be good comrades, us two. Let us forget what lies at the end of the journey--the convent for you, may be, and for me at least the parting. My life has been spared to-day, and I tell you frankly that I am glad of the respite. For you, the mountains hold no slanders, and shall hold no evil. Put your hand in mine on the compact, and we will both step it bravely. Forget that you were ever a Princess or I a promised king of this Corsica!

O beloved, travel this land, which can never be yours or mine, and let it be ours only for a while as we journey."