Читать книгу The Man on the White Horse - Warwick Deeping - Страница 18

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Cornelia did not trust her letter to the post. She tied up the tablet in its box with stout thread, sealed it, and calling in the boy who was to carry it, she told him to hide the tablet under his tunic.

"Ask my Lord Geraint for a seal from his ring, Lud, and if you come back safely with it you shall have a silver penny."

The letter was safer with the boy than it would have been with one of Cornelia's house-servants, and for other reasons than she knew, and the boy, dodging out of the west gate with a party of charcoal-burners and their asses, came to the White Valley soon after noon. The child was dusty and had covered the last two miles barefooted, having broken the latchet of one of his shoes.

He was brought to Geraint, a bright lad with a snub nose and freckles and somewhat primed with self-importance.

"The Lady Cornelia salutes you, lord."

He produced his letter-case, and before breaking the seal, Geraint looked the lad over. He was holding his shoes in his left hand.

"Fifteen miles on foot?"

"Yes, lord."

"Hungry?"

"Yes, lord. And may I have my lord's seal to take back with me?"

Geraint smiled at him.

"You are hot for the road, my lad, but enough for today. Go and eat and sleep. See that he is well looked to, Rual."

Geraint went apart to read Cornelia's letter. He took it with him to the Grove of Sylvanus. This thing had come from the house where Guinevra breathed and moved. Had she touched it? He broke the seal, opened the leaves of the box, and looked at the tablet upon which Cornelia's firm hand had stabbed her message with characteristic firmness.

"My Lord—greetings.

"I will begin with what is pleasant."

And Geraint smiled. She wrote of Guinevra. Guinevra was this, Guinevra was that. But more froward things were to follow.

"I am somewhat shut up here, my friend, like an old sorceress on an island. Alarms and excursions, new worlds and new fashions. If I am shrewd, and I am—I do not write all that might be written. A certain holy man waxeth big. At Calleva we are recruiting a Christian legion—butchers, shop-boys, and what not, with staves and hammers and old iron on their shoulders, parading on the pomerium. We have a standard; we drill. An old pot of a sergeant bellows orders. Almost we propose to march on Rome.

"If you could ride hither in safety, your proud face would be welcome—but we do not welcome patricians and pagans. I stay on. They can carry me out in the washing-basket if they choose, but I will not run.

"Guinevra salutes you. She goes with me to Aquæ Sulis—when I choose to go."

Geraint was in the shadow of the trees, and this letter of Cornelia's seemed part of the shadows. Calleva arming and drilling its mob! The fools! And yet Balthasar the Bishop was doing only what he and his friends were doing, with their eyes turned to the Cymric Marches and the sea. But this priest leading his flock to battle? Was it against the wild men that Balthasar proposed to raise a shield, or was this to be war of another spirit, the city crowd against the country?

Geraint stood thinking.

He would go to Calleva before the week was out, and see things for himself.

But things fell out otherwise. Guinevra's bedroom on the upper floor with its little private staircase and double doors was shut away from the rest of the house. She was a deep sleeper, as youth should be, and when she woke on that May morning and saw the sun shining at her window, she could suppose that the day would be like all other days. She was happy in this house, and perhaps a little proud of being in it, and growing fond of its mistress, for the old Gorgon had a warm and most understanding heart. Moreover, had not my Lord Geraint placed her here, and had not Cornelia written him a letter, and might not that letter bring him to Calleva?

The house was very quiet, but then Cornelia loved silence and order and held that idle noise was stupidity. Guinevra rose, washed, and dressed. The garden below her window was as quiet as the house. She went down the stairs, expecting to find a servant cleaning the mosaic floor of the vestibule. She saw no servant, nor did she hear any sound of life. Strange! She went quickly along the corridor, but all the rooms were empty; nothing had been touched. She was perplexed; a little frightened. Had she left her bed an hour too early? Returning to the stairs, she ascended to the corridor of the upper floor. The same silence, the same stillness, and suddenly her eyes grew big, for she could see the door of Cornelia's room standing open, a post of the bed, and bed-clothes trailing on the floor.

Her impulse was to cry out.

"Cornelia—Cornelia!"

The silence held, and she went swiftly to that doorway and looked in. The room was empty, but beyond those trailing bed-clothes she could see no sign of violence. A cupboard door hung open. Cornelia's slippers lay where she had left them under a chair.

And Guinevra was afraid. What had happened here in the night while she was sleeping? She ran down the stairs and out through the open door into the courtyard. She saw that the courtyard gate was open, and a man in a white smock was at work on one of the gates.

She went down to the gate. The man, brush in one hand, an earthenware pot of paint in the other, turned and smiled at her. Dame Cornelia had been constrained to leave many things behind in Calleva, and this comely piece was one of them. But did not the girl know?

"Good morning, sister."

He was a black-chinned, broad-faced wag of a fellow. He could wink.

"Painting you a new sign, my dear. How do you like it?"

She saw that he was painting a white cross on the gate. He stood back and eyed it, head on one side.

"The mansion is a little quiet this morning. Yes, the old lady left in the night. They tell me that the property has been taken over for the benefit of our good women. Hence this sacred symbol."

She stood very still, looking at him.

"I was asleep. But tell me—"

"The lady has gone on a holiday. Her physician ordered it for the good of her health."

"Cornelia is not dead?"

The man laughed.

"Dead, my dear! No, very much alive, I should say, and kicking. Ambrosius the Deacon and the gentleman of the Fish-Porters' Guild conducted her to the west gate of the city and wished her a happy journey. But listen, the saints arrive."

He poked his head round a gate pillar and straightway became ostentatiously busy with paint-pot and brush. Guinevra heard the sound of singing, the voices of men and of women chanting as they came towards the house of Cornelia. She drew back from the gate. Her whole world had changed in a night, and what should she do with this new world? Cornelia bundled out of Calleva like a woman of ill fame! But why had they not wakened her and let her go with Cornelia? Had Calleva become a cage? She went quickly to the house; she had not broken her fast, but her hunger could wait. She would slip up to her room, gather a few things together in a basket, and escape. But whither?

The chanting came nearer. She had reached the portico, and she paused there and turned to look back. She saw the man who was painting the gate put his pot and brush down and stand in an attitude of careful reverence, hands together, head bowed. The figure of Bishop Balthasar appeared in the gateway. In his right hand he carried a basin of consecrated oil. The whole procession trailed behind him, deacons, acolytes, Pia, Fidelis, and Caritas and sundry other good women. Balthasar held up a hand, and the singing ceased.

Dipping a finger in the oil, he marked the gates. "In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti."

Guinevra stood still. The procession had moved forward again. Balthasar's eyes were fixed upon her; they seemed to hold her there on the steps of the portico. Balthasar was master here. She felt suddenly afraid of the priest, but move she could not. Balthasar was a pair of eyes in which she divined deep, dark, mysterious things.

He stopped at the first step, between the red pillars of the portico.

"My daughter, have no fear. The powers of darkness have been cast out."

"Alleluia," bleated Pia, Fidelis, and Caritas in chorus.

Balthasar dipped a finger in the oil.

"Kneel, my daughter."

Her legs surrendered. She knelt on the stones at his feet.

"Thou, who art a Christian, my daughter, shalt be signed with the sign, even as this heathen house is consecrated. That which hath dwelt in the house of darkness needeth the light."

With his oily finger he traced a cross on Guinevra's forehead. The holy women looked on with approving disapproval.

"Virgin, orphan,—we claim thee once more as a child of the Church. In thine innocence thou didst accept communion with the unbeliever. We lay upon thee seven days of penitence. Thou shalt abide here with these good women. Go to thy chamber, my child, and pray."

Pia, Fidelis, and Caritas raised their faces to heaven.

"Alleluia—alleluia."