Читать книгу The Man on the White Horse - Warwick Deeping - Страница 8

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The house of Cornelia lay between the Forum and the west gate, in a street beyond the dye-works, one of a group of mansions amid gardens surrounded by high walls. Geraint had brought his horse level with the wagon. He had bad news for Guinevra. The day was a day of black pebbles.

"Child, the house of Vetorix is empty."

She looked poignant.

"Empty!"

What a May Day was this! Less than six hours ago she and the good Justus had left the mansion at Pontes in a carpentum behind two mules. It had promised to be a day of great weather; there had been rain in the night, and a dawn of washed gold. Now Justus was dead, the mules and the carriage and her travelling-trunk lost somewhere in the woods; Calleva had the face of a red-headed fish-porter, a head that was bloody from the flat of Geraint's sword.

She looked at Geraint like a child whose cup of woe is full, and behind the child glided the woman. A branch might blossom quickly in such passionate weather.

"What shall I do?"

Her voice was as poignant as her eyes; there was a blackbird note in it, and her eyes showed dark and swimming pupils.

He said: "Leave this to me."

They had turned into a quiet street where flowering apple trees showed above a high, grey wall. There was a greenness of other trees, old trees in young leaf. The windows and white walls of a house were visible among the trees. They came to a gate in the wall, a double gate between stone pillars. The gates were shut, but the chain of a bell hung down one pillar. Geraint leaned forward in the saddle and rang the janitor's bell. The wagoner had stopped his horses, and unslung a leather bucket from the wagon-pole. The beasts wanted water.

A grille opened in the gate, and a face showed behind the lattice.

"Friends, Simon."

The janitor unbarred the gate. He was a little, fat, oily man who smiled like Silenus.

"Enter, lord."

"Is your lady in, Simon?"

"She has just dined, lord."

Geraint rode in and beckoned to his men.

"Bring the wagon through. Better close the gates, Simon. A mad dog seems to have bitten Calleva."

Simon genuflected.

"Two mad dogs, lord. We live with our gates shut and the hounds loose at night."

Geraint sat his horse and watched the wagon pull into the courtyard. He met the eyes of the girl, so strangely dark under the sweep of her burning hair. She was rather white, poor child. Her hands lay clasped together in her lap. He smiled at her and dismounted. He patted the neck of the white horse and passed the bridle to Caradoc.

"Go and warn your lady, Simon, though she should have heard us."

Bran, the hound, was looking up into his face. He pointed, and the dog lay down on the courtyard stones. The girl saw all this, the way men and beasts obeyed him, and something in her consented and was glad.

Dame Cornelia met Geraint in the atrium. She was a stout and formidable old lady with a high colour, an outjutting lower lip, and eyes that were uncompromisingly blue. Her grey hair towered, piled up in front like a battlemented gate. Unregenerate Calleva spoke of the lady as the Empress or Old Gorgon, but Cornelia liked where she liked and hated where she hated. Geraint was of her world, and her fierce old eyes were friendly.

Had he dined? Geraint kissed her hand, the clean kiss of a man who was well shaved. Cornelia did not favour hair on a face, perhaps because she had too many hairs on her own chin. And what brought him to Calleva? Geraint smiled at her. Her jocund, high-coloured vigour had to be humoured. Wine and meat were excellent things, and he remembered that the girl might be hungry.

He said: "I am here for a favour. This morning on the Londinium road we fell in with footpads. The scoundrels had taken a girl and her servant. The man was dead. I have the girl here in the wagon. She was coming to Vetorix, Silver Vetorix, but they tell me Vetorix was not feeling safe in Calleva. I can understand that. We had words—a little affair with a mob near the Forum. Your Bishop, Balthasar, had been blowing on live coals."

"He is not my bishop, my friend. A slimy fellow. So—this girl—?"

She looked hard at Geraint, and Geraint smiled at her.

"I could have put her in a hostel."

Her answering smile was shrewd.

"Or presented her to Placida! But your wife, my dear—"

Geraint did not smile. He was curt.

"The child's alone—her people dead. She was to find a home here. She's a gentle thing. When I heard that Vetorix had gone—"

"Others have gone, as well as Vetorix. But, my lord, I am no Martha, but a tough old pagan."

He nodded and turned to the window.

"She is there. Look. The child has been through enough this morning. I brought her here because—"

She wagged a finger at him.

"No oil, sir, no oil. Leave the oil to the priests."

She walked to the window and, opening the lattice, stood at gaze, head up, her lower lip thrust out. Geraint stood and waited upon her mood, for Cornelia was a lady who was best left to make her own decisions. That formidable lip of hers seemed to jut out like the lip of a jug; her blue eyes stared; her sight was as sharp as ever. Guinevra, sitting on her wine-cask, was not conscious of being observed; her hair was like a cowl in which she hid herself; she drooped a little in the sunlight as though the green stalk of her had wilted. Dame Cornelia stared. She was not a woman to put herself out for a slip of a girl, especially some tax-monger's daughter, but though Cornelia might scold, she liked things to happen. The world might be going to the dogs, but Cornelia would be in at the death.

She fingered her fat chin.

"You say her uncle was a goldsmith?—It's a pretty creature, Geraint. She's like a burning bush."

She gave him a wicked look.

"I'm an inquisitive old woman."

He met her mordant eyes.

"I have known you do kind things."

She flapped a hand at him.

"Moonshine—I am going to Aquæ Sulis next month. Meanwhile—Well, bring her in."

When Cornelia gave you a yea, you took her yea at its value and did not turn it over in your palm. Geraint went out into the courtyard. The girl had been watching the doorway, and when he came down the three steps, she straightened her young back. Her eyes watched him. He came to the tail of the wagon and held out a hand.

"I've found you a friend. Come."

But for some reason she was shy of his hands. She sat down on the tail-board and let herself slip to the ground. She closed her eyes for a moment and seemed to sway back against the board. Her eyes opened again, but they were blind eyes. Geraint caught her and carried her in.

He said: "She has fainted," which should have been obvious. "The child's had no food since the early morning." He stood there in the atrium, looking at the white face and hanging hair. Cornelia had taken one of the limp hands, and to satisfy herself and without Geraint seeing what she did, she pressed a thumb-nail into a soft finger. There was no flinching, no flicker of the eyelashes. This was an honest faint, not a wench's trick.

Cornelia rang a hand-bell.—Old cynic that she was, she allowed that Geraint and the girl made a pretty picture, but not the kind of picture that Dame Placida would wish to hang in her pine-cotheca. My Lord Geraint was looking at the girl. He seemed to forget a stout old lady in gazing at that pale face in its cloud of hair. And then two women appeared between the folds of the curtain that separated the atrium from the vestibule, and Cornelia gave orders. Geraint was despoiled of his burden. One of the women, a stout Frisian, took the girl in her arms and, waddling after her mistress, disappeared behind another curtain. Geraint stood and watched its purple folds fall back. He heard the voice of Cornelia sharp and decisive.

"Lay her there. Fetch some wine and water. The child has been frightened and has had no food. No, don't stick her head up in the air like that. Pull that cushion away.—That's better. Bathe her face and hands and give her a little wine. Then food, bread soaked in wine—but not too much. You understand?"

She reappeared from behind the curtain, and her blue eyes were less hard.

"I do not believe in a crowd round a couch, my friend. Come into the diætra and break your fast. I can give you wine and cold meat."

She clapped her hands, and one of the women looked out from behind the curtain.

"Tell Pompey to serve Spanish wine, and olives.—And bring me word when the girl has her colour back."