The Line of Love; Dizain des Mariages Part 12

"Holy Virgin!" said the Rue Saint Jacques; "the girl is a fool. Why has she not taken Noel d'Arnaye,--Noel the Handsome? I grant you Noel is an a.s.s, but, then, look you, he is of the n.o.bility. He has the Dauphin's favor. Noel will be a great man when our exiled Dauphin comes back from Geneppe to be King of France. Then, too, she might have had Philippe Sermaise. Sermaise is a priest, of course, and one may not marry a priest, but Sermaise has money, and Sermaise is mad for love of her. She might have done worse. But Francois! Ho, death of my life, what is Francois? Perhaps--he, he!--perhaps Ysabeau de Montigny might inform us, you say? Doubtless Ysabeau knows more of him than she would care to confess, but I measure the lad by other standards. Francois is inoffensive enough, I dare a.s.sert, but what does Catherine see in him? He is a scholar?--well, the College of Navarre has furnished food for the gallows before this. A poet?--rhyming will not fill the pot. Rhymes are a thin diet for two l.u.s.ty young folk like these. And who knows if Guillaume de Villon, his foster-father, has one sou to rub against another? He is canon at Saint Benoit-le-Betourne yonder, but canons are not Midases. The girl will have a hard life of it, neighbor, a hard life, I tell you, if--but, yes!--if Ysabeau de Montigny does not knife her some day. Oh, beyond doubt, Catherine has played the fool."

Thus far the Rue Saint Jacques.

This was on the day of the Fete-Dieu. It was on this day that Noel d'Arnaye blasphemed for a matter of a half-hour and then went to the Crowned Ox, where he drank himself into a contented insensibility; that Ysabeau de Montigny, having wept a little, sent for Gilles Raguyer, a priest and aforetime a rival of Francois de Montcorbier for her favors; and that Philippe Sermaise grinned and said nothing. But afterward Sermaise gnawed at his under lip like a madman as he went about seeking for Francois de Montcorbier.

2. "_Deux estions, et n'avions qu'ung Cueur_"

It verged upon nine in the evening--a late hour in those days--when Francois climbed the wall of Jehan de Vaucelles' garden.

A wall!--and what is a wall to your true lover? What bones, pray, did the Sieur Pyramus, that ill-starred Babylonish knight, make of a wall? did not his protestations slip through a c.h.i.n.k, mocking at implacable granite and more implacable fathers? Most a.s.suredly they did; and Pyramus was a pattern to all lovers. Thus ran the meditations of Master Francois as he leapt down into the garden.

He had not, you must understand, seen Catherine for three hours. Three hours! three eternities rather, and each one of them spent in Malebolge.

Coming to a patch of moonlight, Francois paused there and cut an agile caper, as he thought of that approaching time when he might see Catherine every day.

"Madame Francois de Montcorbier," he said, tasting each syllable with gusto. "Catherine de Montcorbier. Was there ever a sweeter juxtaposition of sounds? It is a name for an angel. And an angel shall bear it,--eh, yes, an angel, no less. O saints in Paradise, envy me! Envy me," he cried, with a heroical gesture toward the stars, "for Francois would change places with none of you."

He crept through ordered rows of chestnuts and acacias to a window wherein burned a dim light. He unslung a lute from his shoulder and began to sing, secure in the knowledge that deaf old Jehan de Vaucelles was not likely to be disturbed by sound of any nature till that time when it should please high G.o.d that the last trump be noised about the tumbling heavens.

It was good to breathe the mingled odor of roses and mignonette that was thick about him. It was good to sing to her a wailing song of unrequited love and know that she loved him. Francois dallied with his bliss, parodied his bliss, and--as he complacently reflected,--lamented in the moonlight with as tuneful a dolor as Messire Orpheus may have evinced when he carolled in Hades.

Sang Francois:

_"O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone!

O Grace of her, that hath no grace for me!

O Love of her, the bit that guides me on To sorrow and to grievous misery!

O felon Charms, my poor heart's enemy!

O furtive murderous Pride! O pitiless, great Cold Eyes of her! have done with cruelty!

Have pity upon me ere it be too late!

"Happier for me if elsewhere I had gone For pity--ah, far happier for me, Since never of her may any grace be won, And lest dishonor slay me, I must flee.

'Haro!' I cry, (and cry how uselessly!) 'Haro!' I cry to folk of all estate,

"For I must die unless it chance that she Have pity upon me ere it be too late.

"M'amye, that day in whose disastrous sun Your beauty's flower must fade and wane and be No longer beautiful, draws near,--whereon I will nor plead nor mock;--not I, for we Shall both be old and vigorless! M'amye, Drink deep of love, drink deep, nor hesitate Until the spring run dry, but speedily Have pity upon me--ere it be too late!

"Lord Love, that all love's lords.h.i.+p hast in fee, Lighten, ah, lighten thy displeasure's weight, For all true hearts should, of Christ's charity, Have pity upon me ere it be too late."_

Then from above a delicate and cool voice was audible. "You have mistaken the window, Monsieur de Montcorbier. Ysabeau de Montigny dwells in the Rue du Fouarre."

"Ah, cruel!" sighed Francois. "Will you never let that kite hang upon the wall?"

"It is all very well to groan like a bellows. Guillemette Moreau did not sup here for nothing. I know of the verses you made her,--and the gloves you gave her at Candlemas, too. Saint Anne!" observed the voice, somewhat sharply; "she needed gloves. Her hands are so much raw beef. And the head-dress at Easter,--she looks like the steeple of Saint Benoit in it.

But every man to his taste, Monsieur de Montcorbier. Good-night, Monsieur de Montcorbier." But, for all that, the window did not close.

"Catherine--!" he pleaded; and under his breath he expressed uncharitable aspirations as to the future of Guillemette Moreau.

"You have made me very unhappy," said the voice, with a little sniff.

"It was before I knew you, Catherine. The stars are beautiful, m'amye, and a man may reasonably admire them; but the stars vanish and are forgotten when the sun appears."

"Ysabeau is not a star," the voice pointed out; "she is simply a lank, good-for-nothing, slovenly trollop."

"Ah, Catherine--!"

"You are still in love with her."

"Catherine--!"

"Otherwise, you will promise me for the future to avoid her as you would the Black Death."

"Catherine, her brother is my friend--!"

"Rene de Montigny is, to the knowledge of the entire Rue Saint Jacques, a gambler and a drunkard and, in all likelihood, a thief. But you prefer, it appears, the Montignys to me. An ill cat seeks an ill rat. Very heartily do I wish you joy of them. You will not promise? Good-night, then, Monsieur de Montcorbier."

"Mother of G.o.d! I promise, Catherine."

From above Mademoiselle de Vaucelles gave a luxurious sigh. "Dear Francois!" said she.

"You are a tyrant," he complained. "Madame Penthesilea was not more cruel. Madame Herodias was less implacable, I think. And I think that neither was so beautiful."

"I love you," said Mademoiselle de Vaucelles, promptly.

"But there was never any one so many fathoms deep in love as I. Love bandies me from the postern to the frying-pan, from hot to cold. Ah, Catherine, Catherine, have pity upon my folly! Bid me fetch you Prester John's beard, and I will do it; bid me believe the sky is made of calf-skin, that morning is evening, that a fat sow is a windmill, and I will do it. Only love me a little, dear."

"My king, my king of lads!" she murmured.

"My queen, my tyrant of unreason! Ah, yes, you are all that is ruthless and abominable, but then what eyes you have! Oh, very pitiless, large, lovely eyes--huge sapphires that in the old days might have ransomed every monarch in Tamerlane's stable! Even in the night I see them, Catherine."

"Yet Ysabeau's eyes are brown."

"Then are her eyes the gutter's color. But Catherine's eyes are twin firmaments."

And about them the acacias rustled lazily, and the air was sweet with the odors of growing things, and the world, drenched in moonlight, slumbered. Without was Paris, but old Jehan's garden-wall cloistered Paradise.

"Has the world, think you, known lovers, long dead now, that were once as happy as we?"

"Love was not known till we discovered it."

"I am so happy, Francois, that I fear death."

"We have our day. Let us drink deep of love, not waiting until the spring run dry. Catherine, death comes to all, and yonder in the church-yard the poor dead lie together, huggermugger, and a man may not tell an archbishop from a rag-picker. Yet they have exulted in their youth, and have laughed in the sun with some la.s.s or another la.s.s. We have our day, Catherine."

"Our day wherein I love you!"

"And wherein I love you precisely seven times as much!"

So they prattled in the moonlight. Their discourse was no more overburdened with wisdom than has been the ordinary communing of lovers since Adam first awakened ribless. Yet they were content, who, were young in the world's recaptured youth.