But while I thus tell you the thoughts that came of experience, I keep you waiting at the castle-gate. They admitted us by drawbridge and portcullised arch into the center space, and there we dismounted. Then down the steps, to greet guests of such good degree, came the gallant, grizzled old Lord himself in his quilted under-armor vest. We made obeisance, and in a few words the host very courteously welcomed his guests, leading us in state (after we had given our helmets to the pages at the door) into the great hall of his castle, where we found a throng of ladies and gallants in every variety of dress filling those lofty walls with life and color.
In truth, it was a noble hall, the walls bedecked with antlers or spoils of woodcraft, with heads and horns and bows and bills, and tapestry; and the ceiling wonderfully wrought with carved beams as far down that ample corridor as one could see. The floor of oak was dark with wear, yet as smooth and reflective to many-colored petticoats and rainbow-tinted shoes as the Parian marble of some fair Roman villa. And on the other side there were fifty windows deep-set in the wall, with gay stainings on them of parable and escutcheon; while on the benches, fingering ribboned mandolins, whispering gentle murmurs under the tinseled lawn of fair ladies’ kerchiefs, or sauntering to and fro across the great chamber’s ample length, were all these good and gentle folk, bedecked and tasseled and ribboned in a way that made that changing scene a very fairy show of color.
Strange, indeed, was it for me to walk among the glittering throng, all prattling that merry medley they called their native English, and to remember all I could remember, to recall Briton, Roman, Norseman, Norman, Saxon, and to know each and all of those varied peoples were gone—gone forever—gone beyond a hope or chance of finding—and yet, again, to know that each and every one of those nations, whose strong life in turn had given color to my life, was here—here before me, consummated in this people—oh, ’twas strange, and almost past belief! And ever as I went among them in fairer silks and ermines than any, yet underneath that rustling show I laughed to know that I was nothing but the old Phœnician merchant, nothing but Electra’s petted paramour, the strong, unruly Saxon Thane!
And if I thought thus of them, in sooth, they thought no less strangely of me! Ever, as my good host led me here and there from group to group, the laughter died away on cherry lips, and minstrel fingers went all a-wandering down their music strings as one and all broke off in mid pleasure to stare in mute perplexity and wonder at me. From group to group we went, my host at each making me known to many a glittering lord and lady, and to each of those courtly presences I made in return that good Saxon bow, which subsequently I found instable fashion had made exceeding rustic.
Presently in this way we came to a gay knot of men collected round two fair women, the one of them seated in a great velvet chair, holding court as I could guess by word and action over the bright constellations that played about her, the other within the circle, yet not of it, standing a little apart and turned from us as we approached. Alianora, the first of these noble damsels, was the elder daughter of the master of the house, and the second, Isobel, was his younger child. The first of these was a queen of beauty, and from that first moment when I stood in front of her, and came under the cold, proud shine of those black eyes, I loved her! Jove! I felt the hot fire of love leap through my veins on the instant as I bowed me there at her footstool and forgot everything else for the moment, merging all the world against the inaccessible heart of that beautiful girl. Indeed, she was one who might well play the Queen among men. Her hair was black as night, and, after the fashion of the time, worked up to either side of her head into a golden filigree crown, beaded with shining pearls, extraordinary regal. Black were her eyes as any sloe, and her smooth, calm face was wonderful and goddess-like in the perfect outline and color. Never a blush of shame or fear, never a sign of inward feeling, stirred that haughty damsel’s mood. By Venus! I wonder why we loved her so. To whisper gentle things into her ear was but like dropping a stone into some deep well—the ripples on the dark, sullen water were not more cold, silent, intangible than her responsive smile. She was too proud even to frown, that disdainful English peeress, but, instead, at slight or negligence she would turn those unwavering eyes of hers upon the luckless wight and look upon him so that there was not a knight, though of twenty fights, there was not a gallant, though never so experienced in gentle tourney with ladies’ eyes, who durst meet them. To this maid I knelt—and rose in love against all my better instinct—wildly, recklessly enamored of her shining Circean queenliness—ah! so enthralled was I by the black Alianora that my host had to pluck me by the sleeve ere he whispered to me, “Another daughter, sir stranger! Divide your homage,” and he led me to the younger girl.
Now, if the elder sister had won me at first sight, my feelings were still more wonderful to the other. If the elder had the placid sovereignty of the evening star, Isobel was like the planet of the morning. From head to heel she was in white. Upon her forehead her fair brown hair was strained back under a coverchief and wimple as colorless as the hawthorn flowers. This same fair linen, in the newest fashion of demurity, came down her cheeks and under her chin, framing her face in oval, in pretty mockery of the steel coif of an armed knight. Her dress below was of the whitest, softest stuff, with long, hanging sleeves, a wondrous slender middle drawn in by a silk and silver cestus belt made like a warrior’s sword-wear, and a skirt that descended in pretty folds to her feet and lay atwining about them in comely ampleness. She was as supple as a willow wand, and tall and straight, and her face—when in a moment she turned it on me—was wondrous pleasant to look at—the very opposite of her sister’s—all pink and white, and honestly ashine with demure fun and merriment, the which constantly twinkled in her downcast eyes, and kept the pretty corners of her mouth a-twitching with covert, ill-suppressed, unruly smiles. A fair and tender young girl indeed, made for love and gentleness!
Unhappy Isobel!—luckless victim of an accursed fate! Wretched, perverse Phœnician! Ill-omened Alianora! Between us three sprang up two fatal passions. Read on, and you shall see.
CHAPTER XI
Now, when that fair young English girl, at her father’s voice, turned to acknowledge my presence—thinking it was some other new knight of the many who came there every hour, she lifted her eyes to mine—and then, all on a sudden, without rhyme or reason, she started back and blanched whiter than her own wimple, and then flushed again, equally unaccountably, and fell a-trembling and staring at me in a wondrous fashion. She came a step forward, as though she would greet some long-looked-for friend, and then withdrew—and half held out her hand, and took it back, the while the color came and went upon her cheeks in quick flushes, and, stirred by some strange emotion, her bosom rose and fell under the golden cestus and the lawn with the stress of her feelings. The sudden storm, however invoked, shook that sweet fabric most mightily. There, in that very minute, it seemed—there, in that merry, careless place in sight of me, but a gaudy gallant a little more thoughtful-looking, perhaps, than those she often saw, yet, all the same, naught but a stranger gallant, unknown and nameless to her—moved by some affinity within us, just as the alchemist’s magic touch converts between two breaths one elixir in his crucibles to another, so, before my eyes, I saw in that fair girl’s pallid face love flush through her veins and light her heart and eyes with a responding blush.
And I—I the unhappy, I the sorrow bestower, as I saw her first, what of all things in this wide world should I think of—what should leap up in my mind as I perked my gilded scabbard and bowed low to the polished floor in my glittering Plantagenet finery—what vision should come to me in that latter-day hall, among those mandolin-fingering courtiers, before that costly raimented maiden, the fair heiress of a thousand years of care and gentle living, that girl leaning frightened and shy upon the arm of her strong father like a soft white mist-cloud in the shadow of a mountain—what thought, what idea, but a swift revision, of Blodwen, my wild, ruddy, untutored British wife!