Читать книгу A Maid of Brittany - Mabel Winifred Knowles - Страница 5

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With the vague wonderment of returning consciousness, Henri d'Estrailles lay striving, at first feebly, then with growing clearness, to recall the events which had preceded his fall. From out of the mists of elusive shadows, which seemed to paralyse his brain, he remembered how he had set out for Rennes in the train of the Count Dunois, who went on an embassy to the young Duchess from the King of France; of how he had lost his way on the preceding day, wandering aimlessly over vast heaths and landes, through valleys and forests, till the stumbling of his good horse Rollo brought a blank to his train of thought. Then, as the mists cleared still more from his weary brain, came the further wonderment of his present situation. He was lying on no mossy sward, with Rollo nozzling his face with dumb endearments, but instead, in a bed of which the fine linen and rich hangings bespoke a seigneur's castle rather than a peasant's hut, whilst, as the pain in his side caught his laboured breath, he became aware that he had been bandaged by no unskilled hand. Too weak to rise, he lay, still vaguely conning over those last hours of consciousness, and striving in vain to fit them in to the present, till at last, outwearied, he closed his eyes and would have slept, had he not been aroused by the soft withdrawal of the heavy curtain at the foot of the bed, and his eyes, in opening, fell, he told himself, on the fairest vision they had ever beheld. It was the figure of a young maiden, slim and tall; the high, heart-shaped headdress, with its long dependent veil, framing a beautiful, childish face, for the bloom of early youth was on the soft colouring of her cheeks and rosy lips, and a look of innocent bashfulness in the great blue eyes which looked down, half smiling, into his wondering brown ones; the red gold of the curls which peeped beneath the stiff headdress contrasting with the dark green of her tight-fitting bodice and long hanging sleeves. For full a minute the sick man gazed with all the boldness of one whose brain had yet scarcely realised whether it were vision or substance that he saw, and as the blue eyes met his eager glance they drooped, the colour rose in a wave of soft crimson to the girl's cheeks, and the curtain was allowed to slip to its place.

He was alone once more, but no longer did Henri d'Estrailles desire sleep; his pulses still beat with the emotions created by the vision; more than ever he desired to know where fate had led him. 'Twas no unkindly destiny, he told himself, but verily the star of Venus herself which had so unwittingly guided him. His restless excitement boded ill for his hurts, as he tossed from side to side, and his face was already flushed with fever, when again the curtain was drawn aside, and he caught back his breath with disappointment, as this time, instead of the beautiful face of his dreams, there appeared the wrinkled, kindly face of a priest in the black robe of a Benedictine.

"Ah, my son," he murmured gently, as he drew back the curtain by the side of the patient's bed and seated himself by his side, "it is well. I see that you have already benefited by my salves and ointments, and perchance"—he paused, smiling, as he read the hundred questions in the eager face turned to him—"you are doubtless as anxious, my son," he added kindly, "to know under whose roof you are resting, as we are to inquire what brought a stranger to wander unattended in our forest of Arteze?"

There was no hiding the anxiety in the old man's eyes as he awaited the answer to his question, and the sick man smiled as he replied—

"Perchance you had e'en taken me for a spy of the King of France? No, no, father, the d'Estrailles of d'Estrailles have never yet stooped to so vile a task, and, by our Lady's help, will never so soil one of the proudest scutcheons in France; my errand here in Brittany was the Count Dunois' business, for I rode in his train to Rennes on an embassy to your Duchess from my master, but losing my way in this so dreary and perilous country, I had nearly met my fate at the hand of an unruly tree stump, had it not been, I ween, for the unknown benefactor who has played the good Samaritan."

Father Ambrose drew a sigh of relief. "'Twill be good news to my lord," he said heartily, "as also to the fair Demoiselle de Mereac, who pleaded so prettily with her father that you were no spy, that he was fain to spare you from the hanging which Monsieur de Coray deemed your fittest end."

A flush of anger deepened on the young man's cheek.

"Parbleu!" he cried softly, "Breton justice indeed, to hang an unconscious man because, forsooth! he rides unattended and cannot speak for himself! This monsieur——"

"Nay," interrupted the priest, laying a soothing hand upon the other's clenched fist. "Calm yourself, my son, or I fear you will suffer ill from fever to your hurts. Be patient, and I will tell you how it chanced, as the demoiselle herself told me," he added, smiling.

"And the demoiselle?" questioned d'Estrailles eagerly, as the priest concluded his tale of the brief episode which had been so near to terminating his career. "She is without doubt the angel who anon looked down upon me as I lay a-wondering, and who did so far entangle my thoughts that I deemed I must have reached Paradise itself?"

"She is a good maid and a beautiful," said the old priest, with a touch of asperity in his tones. "Moreover," he added, with a smiling glance askance at his interrogator, "she is betrothed to her kinsman, Monsieur Guillaume de Coray."

"De Coray?" echoed the young Frenchman with scorn. "What! the hound who would have strung me to the first tree because, parbleu! I had not the honour of his acquaintance? Nay, father, so sweet and gentle a maid would ill mate with so unknightly a spouse!"

Father Ambrose sighed. "It is the will of her father, monsieur," he said, "and therefore it is a thing that must be—though from small choice, I ween, on the part of the Lady Gwennola."

"Gwennola," murmured d'Estrailles, lingering tenderly over the syllables. "It is a name altogether suited to one so beautiful—Gwennola. Ah, my father, although I have but seen her for a moment, my heart grows bitter when I think of her betrothed to one whose knightly instincts can well be no higher than a butcher's scullion; but tell me, if you can indeed spare the time to a stranger such as I, hath this Sieur de Mereac no other child but this fair maid?"

The priest shook his head, sighing heavily. "Alas!" he replied, "none now, monsieur; although scarce three years since he rejoiced in the possession of as gallant a son as father might desire; handsome, noble-minded and brave, it seemed impossible but that Yvon de Mereac should become a great knight whose name should resound throughout Brittany; but, alas! alas! the holy saints had not so willed it—he fell, monsieur, this gallant youth, scarce twenty years of age, in the bloody battle of St. Aubin du Cormier, and the hopes which had gathered so fondly round the budding promise of his noble manhood were quenched in the darkness of the grave; not even was it possible to recover his body, though long and terrible search was made amongst the mangled slain on the battle-field, and since that day when Guillaume de Coray brought news of his death, the Sieur de Mereac has been an old and heart-broken man, ever cherishing his anger in wrath and bitterness against the French who thus worked the ruin of his hopes."

"'Tis a sad tale," said d'Estrailles. "Yet, my father, after all, 'tis the risk all soldiers must run; some are born to fight a hundred battles and come scathless through all, whilst another, like yon poor boy, perishes ere he had dyed his maiden sword in the blood of his enemies. Such is Fate, and we must fain abye it. For the rest, it appears to me that this Monsieur de Mereac might well mourn his living heir rather than his dead son, if he is to be succeeded by this poltroon knave who would hang noble knights in cold blood."

"Yes," sighed the priest, "the inheritance falls indeed to this same Guillaume de Coray, and therefore it becomes plain to you, my son, that of necessity he marries Gwennola de Mereac; so the old inheritance comes back again to the child of her father, and in their turn his grandsons may yet rule over the lands of Mereac."

But to this d'Estrailles replied not, seeing that to him it was a thing impossible to dream of, that poltroon lips should touch those rosy ones that had smiled down so short a while since into his heart. The very thought kept him tossing feverishly upon his bed long after the old priest had left him and he lay in darkness.

"Gwennola," he whispered to himself, "Gwennola," and fell to wondering when he might see the vision of her beauty once more.