The Line of Love; Dizain des Mariages

by James Branch Cabell

  CHAPTER VIII

  _The Episode Called In Ursula's Garden_

  1. Love, and Love's Mimic

  Her three lovers had praised her with many canzonets and sonnets on thatMay morning as they sat in the rose-garden at Longaville, and thesun-steeped leaves made a tempered aromatic shade about them. Afterwardthey had drawn grass-blades to decide who should accompany the LadyUrsula to the summer pavilion, that she might fetch her viol and singthem a song of love, and in the sylvan lottery chance had favored theEarl of Pevensey.

  Left to themselves, the Marquis of Falmouth and Master Richard Mervaleregarded each the other, irresolutely, like strange curs uncertainwhether to fraternize or to fly at one another's throat. Then MasterMervale lay down in the young grass, stretched himself, twirled his thinblack mustachios, and chuckled in luxurious content.

  "Decidedly," said he, "your lordship is past master in the art ofwooing; no university in the world would refuse you a degree."

  The marquis frowned. He was a great bluff man, with wheat-colored hair,and was somewhat slow-witted. After a little he found the quizzical,boyish face that mocked him irresistible, and he laughed, and unbent fromthe dignified reserve which he had for a while maintained portentously.

  "Master Mervale," said the marquis, "I will be frank with you, for youappear a lad of good intelligence, as lads run, and barring a trifle ofaffectation and a certain squeamishness in speech. When I would goexploring into a woman's heart, I must pay my way in the land's currentcoinage of compliments and high-pitched protestations. Yes, yes, suchsixpenny phrases suffice the seasoned traveler, who does notostentatiously display his gems while traveling. Now, in courtship,Master Mervale, one traverses ground more dubious than the Indies, andthe truth, Master Mervale, is a jewel of great price."

  Master Mervale raised his eyebrows. "The truth?" he queried, gently. "Nowhow, I wonder, did your lordship happen to think of that remoteabstraction." For beyond doubt, Lord Falmouth's wooing had been thatmorning of a rather florid sort.

  However, "It would surely be indelicate," the marquis suggested, "toallow even truth to appear quite unclothed in the presence of a lady?" Hesmiled and took a short turn on the grass. "Look you, Master Mervale,"said he, narrowing his pale-blue eyes to slits, "I have, somehow, adisposition to confidence come upon me. Frankly, my passion for the LadyUrsula burns more mildly than that which Antony bore the Egyptian; it isless a fire to consume kingdoms than a candle wherewith to light acontented home; and quite frankly, I mean to have her. The estates lieconvenient, the families are of equal rank, her father is agreed, and shehas a sufficiency of beauty; there are, in short, no obstacles to ourunion save you and my lord of Pevensey, and these, I confess, I do notfear. I can wait, Master Mervale. Oh, I am patient, Master Mervale, but,I own, I cannot brook denial. It is I, or no one. By Saint Gregory! Iwear steel at my side, Master Mervale, that will serve for other purposessave that of opening oysters!" So he blustered in the spring sunlight,and frowned darkly when Master Mervale appeared the more amused thanimpressed.

  "Your patience shames Job the Patriarch," said Master Mervale, "yet, itseems to me, my lord, you do not consider one thing. I grant you thatPevensey and I are your equals neither in estate nor reputation; still,setting modesty aside, is it not possible the Lady Ursula may come, intime, to love one of us?"

  "Setting common sense aside," said the marquis, stiffly, "it is possibleshe may be smitten with the smallpox. Let us hope, however, that she mayescape both of these misfortunes."

  The younger man refrained from speech for a while. Presently, "You likenlove to a plague," he said, "yet I have heard there was once a cousin ofthe Lady Ursula's--a Mistress Katherine Beaufort--"

  "Swounds!" Lord Falmouth had wheeled about, scowled, and then tappedsharply upon the palm of one hand with the nail-bitten fingers of theother. "Ay," said he, more slowly, "there was such a person."

  "She loved you?" Master Mervale suggested.

  "God help me!" replied the marquis; "we loved each other! I know not howyou came by your information, nor do I ask. Yet, it is ill to open an oldwound. I loved her; let that suffice." With a set face, he turned awayfor a moment and gazed toward the high parapets of Longaville,half-hidden by pale foliage and very white against the rain-washed sky;then groaned, and glared angrily into the lad's upturned countenance."You talk of love," said the marquis; "a love compounded equally ofyouthful imagination, a liking for fantastic phrases and a dispositionfor caterwauling i' the moonlight. Ah, lad, lad!--if you but knew! Thatis not love; to love is to go mad like a star-struck moth, and afterwardto strive in vain to forget, and to eat one's heart out in theloneliness, and to hunger--hunger--" The marquis spread his big handshelplessly, and then, with a quick, impatient gesture, swept back themass of wheat-colored hair that fell about his face. "Ah, MasterMervale," he sighed, "I was right after all,--it is the cruelest plaguein the world, and that same smallpox leaves less troubling scars."

  "Yet," Master Mervale said, with courteous interest, "you did not marry?"

  "Marry!" His lordship snarled toward the sun and laughed. "Look you,Master Mervale, I know not how far y'are acquainted with the business. Itwas in Cornwall yonder years since; I was but a lad, and she awench,--Oh, such a wench, with tender blue eyes, and a faint, sweet voicethat could deny me nothing! God does not fashion her like everyday,--_Dieu qui la fist de ses deux mains_, saith the Frenchman." Themarquis paced the grass, gnawing his lip and debating with himself."Marry? Her family was good, but their deserts outranked their fortunes;their crest was not the topmost feather in Fortune's cap, you understand;somewhat sunken i' the world, Master Mervale, somewhat sunken. And I? Myfather--God rest his bones!--was a cold, hard man, and my two elderbrothers--Holy Virgin, pray for them!--loved me none too well. I was thecadet then: Heaven helps them that help themselves, says my father, and Iha'n't a penny for you. My way was yet to make in the world; to saddlemyself with a dowerless wench--even a wench whose least 'Good-morning'set a man's heart hammering at his ribs--would have been folly, MasterMervale. Utter, improvident, shiftless, bedlamite folly, lad!"

  "H'm!" Master Mervale cleared his throat, twirled his mustachios, andsmiled at some unspoken thought. "We pay for our follies in thisworld, my lord, but I sometimes think that we pay even more dearly forour wisdom."

  "Ah, lad, lad!" the marquis cried, in a gust of anger; "I dare say, asyour smirking hints, it was a coward's act not to snap fingers at fateand fathers and dare all! Well! I did not dare. We parted--in whatlamentable fashion is now of little import--and I set forth to seek myfortune. Ho, it was a brave world then, Master Mervale, for all the tearsthat were scarce dried on my cheeks! A world wherein the heavens were asblue as a certain woman's eyes,--a world wherein a likely lad might seefar countries, waggle a good sword in Babylon and Tripolis and otherultimate kingdoms, beard the Mussulman in his mosque, and at last fetchhome--though he might never love her, you understand--a soldan's daughterfor his wife,--

  _With more gay gold about her middle Than would buy half Northumberlee."_

  His voice died away. He sighed and shrugged. "Eh, well!" said themarquis; "I fought in Flanders somewhat--in Spain--what matter where?Then, at last, sickened in Amsterdam, three years ago, where a messengercomes to haul me out of bed as future Marquis of Falmouth. One brotherslain in a duel, Master Mervale; one killed in Wyatt's Rebellion; myfather dying, and--Heaven rest his soul!--not over-eager to meet hisMaker. There you have it, Master Mervale,--a right pleasant jest ofFortune's perpetration,--I a marquis, my own master, fit mate for anywoman in the kingdom, and Kate--my Kate who was past humanpraising!--vanished."

  "Vanished?" The lad echoed the word, with wide eyes.

  "Vanished in the night, and no sign nor rumor of her since! Gone to seekme abroad, no doubt, poor wench! Dead, dead, beyond question, MasterMervale!" The marquis swallowed, and rubbed his lips with the back of hishand. "Ah, well!" said he; "it is an old sorrow!"

  The male animal shaken by strong emotion is to his brothers anembarrassin
g rather than a pathetic sight. Master Mervale, lowering hiseyes discreetly, rooted up several tufts of grass before he spoke. Then,"My lord, you have known of love," said he, very slowly; "does theresurvive no kindliness for aspiring lovers in you who have been one of us?My lord of Pevensey, I think, loves the Lady Ursula, at least, as much asyou ever loved this Mistress Katherine; of my own adoration I do notspeak, save to say that I have sworn never to marry any other woman. Herfather favors you, for you are a match in a thousand; but you do not loveher. It matters little to you, my lord, whom she may wed; to us itsignifies a life's happiness. Will not the memory of that Cornishlass--the memory of moonlit nights, and of those sweet, vain aspirationsand foiled day-dreams that in boyhood waked your blood even to suchbrave folly as now possesses us,--will not the memory of these thingssoften you, my lord?"

  But Falmouth by this time appeared half regretful of his recent outburst,and somewhat inclined to regard his companion as a dangerously plausibleyoung fellow who had very unwarrantably wormed himself into LordFalmouth's confidence. Falmouth's heavy jaw shut like a trap.

  "By Saint Gregory!" said he; "if ever such notions soften me at all, Ipray to be in hell entirely melted! What I have told you of is past,Master Mervale; and a wise man does not meditate unthriftily uponspilt milk."

  "You are adamant?" sighed the boy.

  "The nether millstone," said the marquis, smiling grimly, "is incomparison a pillow of down."

  "Yet--yet the milk was sweet, my lord?" the boy suggested, with a faintanswering smile.

  "Sweet!" The marquis' voice had a deep tremor.

  "And if the choice lay between Ursula and Katherine?"

  "Oh, fool!--Oh, pink-cheeked, utter ignorant fool!" the marquis groaned."Did I not say you knew nothing of love?"

  "Heigho!" Master Mervale put aside all glum-faced discussion, with alittle yawn, and sprang to his feet. "Then we can but hope thatsomewhere, somehow, Mistress Katherine yet lives and in her own good timemay reappear. And while we speak of reappearances--surely the Lady Ursulais strangely tardy in making hers?"

  The marquis' jealousy when it slumbered slept with an open ear. "Let usjoin them," he said, shortly, and he started through the gardens withquick, stiff strides.

  2. _Song-guerdon_

  They went westward toward the summer pavilion. Presently the marquisblundered into the green gloom of the maze, laid out in the Italianfashion, and was extricated only by the superior knowledge of MasterMervale, who guided Falmouth skilfully and surely through manifoldintricacies, to open daylight.

  Afterward they came to a close-shaven lawn, where the summer pavilionstood beside the brook that widened here into an artificial pond, spreadwith lily-pads and fringed with rushes. The Lady Ursula sat with the Earlof Pevensey beneath a burgeoning maple-tree. Such rays as sifted throughinto their cool retreat lay like splotches of wine upon the ground, andthere the taller grass-blades turned to needles of thin silver; onepalpitating beam, more daring than the rest, slanted straight toward thelittle head of the Lady Ursula, converting her hair into a halo of mistygold, that appeared out of place in this particular position. She seemeda Bassarid who had somehow fallen heir to an aureole; for otherwise, tophrase it sedately, there was about her no clamant suggestion ofsaintship. At least, there is no record of any saint in the calendar whoever looked with laughing gray-green eyes upon her lover and mocked atthe fervor and trepidation of his speech. This the Lady Ursula now did;and, manifestly, enjoyed the doing of it.

  Within the moment the Earl of Pevensey took up the viol that lay besidethem, and sang to her in the clear morning. He was sunbrowned and verycomely, and his big, black eyes were tender as he sang to her sittingthere in the shade. He himself sat at her feet in the sunlight.

  Sang the Earl of Pevensey:

  _"Ursula, spring wakes about us-- Wakes to mock at us and flout us That so coldly do delay: When the very birds are mating, Pray you, why should we be waiting-- We that might be wed to-day!

  "'Life is short,' the wise men tell us;-- Even those dusty, musty fellows That have done with life,--and pass Where the wraith of Aristotle Hankers, vainly, for a bottle, Youth and some frank Grecian lass._

  "Ah, I warrant you;--and Zeno Would not reason, now, could he know One more chance to live and love: For, at best, the merry May-time Is a very fleeting play-time;-- Why, then, waste an hour thereof?

  "Plato, Solon, Periander, Seneca, Anaximander, Pyrrho, and Parmenides! Were one hour alone remaining Would ye spend it in attaining Learning, or to lips like these?

  "Thus, I demonstrate by reason Now is our predestined season For the garnering of all bliss; Prudence is but long-faced folly; Cry a fig for melancholy! Seal the bargain with a kiss"_

  When he had ended, the Earl of Pevensey laughed and looked up into theLady Ursula's face with a long, hungry gaze; and the Lady Ursula laughedlikewise and spoke kindly to him, though the distance was too great forthe eavesdroppers to overhear. Then, after a little, the Lady Ursula bentforward, out of the shade of the maple into the sun, so that the sunlightfell upon her golden head and glowed in the depths of her hair, as shekissed Pevensey, tenderly and without haste, full upon the lips.

  3. _Falmouth Furens_

  The Marquis of Falmouth caught Master Mervale's arm in a grip that madethe boy wince. Lord Falmouth's look was murderous, as he turned in theshadow of a white-lilac bush and spoke carefully through sharp breathsthat shook his great body.

  "There are," said he, "certain matters I must immediately discuss with mylord of Pevensey. I desire you, Master Mervale, to fetch him to the spotwhere we parted last, so that we may talk over these matters quietly andundisturbed. For else--go, lad, and fetch him!"

  For a moment the boy faced the half-shut pale eyes that were like coalssmouldering behind a veil of gray ash. Then he shrugged his shoulders,sauntered forward, and doffed his hat to the Lady Ursula. There followedmuch laughter among the three, many explanations from Master Mervale,and yet more laughter from the lady and the earl. The marquis ground hisbig, white teeth as he listened, and he appeared to disapprove of somuch mirth.

  "Foh, the hyenas! the apes, the vile magpies!" the marquis observed. Heheaved a sigh of relief, as the Earl of Pevensey, raising his handslightly toward heaven, laughed once more, and departed into thethicket. Lord Falmouth laughed in turn, though not very pleasantly.Afterward he loosened his sword in the scabbard and wheeled back to seektheir rendezvous in the shadowed place where they had made sonnets tothe Lady Ursula.

  For some ten minutes the marquis strode proudly through the maze,pondering, by the look of him, on the more fatal tricks of fencing. In aquarter of an hour he was lost in a wilderness of trim yew-hedges whichconfronted him stiffly at every outlet and branched off into innumerablegravelled alleys that led nowhither.

  "Swounds!" said the marquis. He retraced his steps impatiently. He casthis hat upon the ground in seething desperation. He turned in a differentdirection, and in two minutes trod upon his discarded head-gear.

  "Holy Gregory!" the marquis commented. He meditated for a moment, thencaught up his sword close to his side and plunged into the nearesthedge. After a little he came out, with a scratched face and a scantbreath, into another alley. As the crow flies, he went through the mazeof Longaville, leaving in his rear desolation and snapped yew-twigs. Hecame out of the ruin behind the white-lilac bush, where he had stood andhad heard the Earl of Pevensey sing to the Lady Ursula, and had seenwhat followed.

  The marquis wiped his brow. He looked out over the lawn and breathedheavily. The Lady Ursula still sat beneath the maple, and beside her wasMaster Mervale, whose arm girdled her waist. Her arm was about his neck,and she listened as he talked eagerly with many gestures. Then they bothlaughed and kissed each other.

  "Oh, defend me!" groaned the marquis. Once more he wiped his brow, as hecrouched behind the white-lilac bush. "Why, the woman is a secondMessalina!" he said. "Oh, the trollop! the wanton! Oh, holy Gregory! YetI must be quiet--quiet as a sucking la
mb, that I may strike afterward asa roaring lion. Is this your innocence, Mistress Ursula, that cannotendure the spoken name of a spade? Oh, splendor of God!"

  Thus he raged behind the white-lilac bush while they laughed and kissedunder the maple-tree. After a space they parted. The Lady Ursula, stilllaughing, lifted the branches of the rearward thicket and disappearedin the path which the Earl of Pevensey had taken. Master Mervale,kissing his hand and laughing yet more loudly, lounged toward theentrance of the maze.

  The jackanapes (as anybody could see), was in a mood to be pleased withhimself. Smiles eddied about the boy's face, his heels skipped,disdaining the honest grass; and presently he broke into a glad littlesong, all trills and shakes, like that of a bird ecstasizing over theperfections of his mate.

  Sang Master Mervale:

  _"Listen, all lovers! the spring is here And the world is not amiss; As long as laughter is good to hear, And lips are good to kiss, As long as Youth and Spring endure, There is never an evil past a cure And the world is never amiss.

  "O lovers all, I bid ye declare The world is a pleasant place;-- Give thanks to God for the gift so fair, Give thanks for His singular grace! Give thanks for Youth and Love and Spring! Give thanks, as gentlefolk should, and sing, 'The world is a pleasant place!'"_

  In mid-skip Master Mervale here desisted, his voice trailing intoinarticulate vowels. After many angry throes, a white-lilac bush had beendelivered of the Marquis of Falmouth, who now confronted Master Mervale,furiously moved.

  4. _Love Rises from un-Cytherean Waters_

  "I have heard, Master Mervale," said the marquis, gently, "that loveis blind?"

  The boy stared at the white face, that had before his eyes veiled ragewith a crooked smile. So you may see the cat, tense for the fatal spring,relax and with one paw indolently flip the mouse.

  "It is an ancient fable, my lord," the boy said, smiling, and made asthough to pass.

  "Indeed," said the marquis, courteously, but without yielding an inch,"it is a very reassuring fable: for," he continued, meditatively, "werethe eyes of all lovers suddenly opened, Master Mervale, I suspect itwould prove a red hour for the world. There would be both tempers andreputations lost, Master Mervale; there would be sword-thrusts; therewould be corpses, Master Mervale."

  "Doubtless, my lord," the lad assented, striving to jest and have done;"for all flesh is frail, and as the flesh of woman is frailer than thatof man, so is it, as I remember to have read, the more easily entrappedby the gross snares of the devil, as was over-well proved by theserpent's beguiling deceit of Eve at the beginning."

  "Yet, Master Mervale," pursued the marquis, equably, but without smiling,"there be lovers in the world that have eyes?"

  "Doubtless, my lord," said the boy.

  "There also be women in the world, Master Mervale," Lord Falmouthsuggested, with a deeper gravity, "that are but the handsome sepulchresof iniquity,--ay, and for the major part of women, those miracles whichare their bodies, compact of white and gold and sprightly color thoughthey be, serve as the lovely cerements of corruption."

  "Doubtless, my lord. The devil, as they say, is homelier with that sex."

  "There also be swords in the world, Master Mervale?" purred the marquis.He touched his own sword as he spoke.

  "My lord--!" the boy cried, with a gasp.

  "Now, swords have at least three uses, Master Mervale," Falmouthcontinued. "With a sword one may pick a cork from a bottle; with a swordone may toast cheese about the Twelfth Night fire; and with a sword onemay spit a man, Master Mervale,--ay, even an ambling, pink-faced, lispinglad that cannot boo at a goose, Master Mervale. I have no inclination,Master Mervale, just now, for either wine or toasted cheese."

  "I do not understand you, my lord," said the boy, in a thin voice.

  "Indeed, I think we understand each other perfectly," said the marquis."For I have been very frank with you, and I have watched you from behindthis bush."

  The boy raised his hand as though to speak.

  "Look you, Master Mervale," the marquis argued, "you and my lord ofPevensey and I be brave fellows; we need a wide world to bustle in. Now,the thought has come to me that this small planet of ours is scarcelycommodious enough for all three. There be purgatory and Heaven, and yetanother place, Master Mervale; why, then, crowd one another?"

  "My lord," said the boy, dully, "I do not understand you."

  "Holy Gregory!" scoffed the marquis; "surely my meaning is plain enough!it is to kill you first, and my lord of Pevensey afterward! Y'arephoenixes, Master Mervale, Arabian birds! Y'are too good for this world.Longaville is not fit to be trodden under your feet; and therefore it ismy intention that you leave Longaville feet first. Draw, MasterMervale!" cried the marquis, his light hair falling about his flushed,handsome face as he laughed joyously, and flashed his sword in thespring sunshine.

  The boy sprang back, with an inarticulate cry; then gulped some dignityinto himself and spoke. "My lord," he said, "I admit that explanation mayseem necessary."

  "You will render it, if to anybody, Master Mervale, to my heir, who willdoubtless accord it such credence as it merits. For my part, having twoduels on my hands to-day, I have no time to listen to a romance out ofthe Hundred Merry Tales."

  Falmouth had placed himself on guard; but Master Mervale stood withchattering teeth and irresolute, groping hands, and made no effort todraw. "Oh, the block! the curd-faced cheat!" cried the marquis. "Willnothing move you?" With his left hand he struck at the boy.

  Thereupon Master Mervale gasped, and turning with a great sob, ranthrough the gardens. The marquis laughed discordantly; then he followed,taking big leaps as he ran and flourishing his sword.

  "Oh, the coward!" he shouted; "Oh, the milk-livered rogue! Oh, youpaltry rabbit!"

  So they came to the bank of the artificial pond. Master Mervale swervedas with an oath the marquis pounced at him. Master Mervale's foot caughtin the root of a great willow, and Master Mervale splashed into ten feetof still water, that glistened like quicksilver in the sunlight.

  "Oh, Saint Gregory!" the marquis cried, and clasped his sides in noisymirth; "was there no other way to cool your courage? Paddle out and beflogged, Master Hare-heels!" he called. The boy had come to the surfaceand was swimming aimlessly, parallel to the bank. "Now I have heard,"said the marquis, as he walked beside him, "that water swells a man. PrayHeaven, it may swell his heart a thousandfold or so, and thus hearten himfor wholesome exercise after his ducking--a friendly thrust or two, alittle judicious bloodletting to ward off the effects of the damp."

  The marquis started as Master Mervale grounded on a shallow and rose,dripping, knee-deep among the lily-pads. "Oh, splendor of God!" criedthe marquis.

  Master Mervale had risen from his bath almost clean-shaven; only onesodden half of his mustachios clung to his upper lip, and as he rubbedthe water from his eyes, this remaining half also fell away from theboy's face.

  "Oh, splendor of God!" groaned the marquis. He splashed noisily intothe water. "O Kate, Kate!" he cried, his arms about Master Mervale."Oh, blind, blind, blind! O heart's dearest! Oh, my dear, my dear!"he observed.

  Master Mervale slipped from his embrace and waded to dry land. "Mylord,--" he began, demurely.

  "My lady wife,--" said his lordship of Falmouth, with a tremulous smile.He paused, and passed his hand over his brow. "And yet I do notunderstand," he said. "Y'are dead; y'are buried. It was a frightened boyI struck." He spread out his strong arms. "O world! O sun! O stars!" hecried; "she is come back to me from the grave. O little world! smallshining planet! I think that I could crush you in my hands!"

  "Meanwhile," Master Mervale suggested, after an interval, "it is I thatyou are crushing." He sighed,--though not very deeply,--and continued,with a hiatus: "They would have wedded me to Lucius Rossmore, and I couldnot--I could not--"

  "That skinflint! that palsied goat!" the marquis growled.

  "He was wealthy," said Master Mervale. Then he sighed once more. "Thereseemed only you,--only you in
all the world. A man might come to you inthose far-off countries: a woman might not. I fled by night, my lord, bythe aid of a waiting-woman; became a man by the aid of a tailor; and setout to find you by the aid of such impudence as I might muster. But luckdid not travel with me. I followed you through Flanders, Italy,Spain,--always just too late; always finding the bird flown, the nest yetwarm. Presently I heard you were become Marquis of Falmouth; then I gaveup the quest."

  "I would suggest," said the marquis, "that my name is Stephen;--but why,in the devil's name, should you give up a quest so laudable?"

  "Stephen Allonby, my lord," said Master Mervale, sadly, "was not Marquisof Falmouth; as Marquis of Falmouth, you might look to mate with anywoman short of the Queen."

  "To tell you a secret," the marquis whispered, "I look to mate with onebeside whom the Queen--not to speak treason--is but a lean-faced, yellowpiece of affectation. I aim higher than royalty, heart'sdearest,--aspiring to one beside whom empresses are but common hussies."

  "And Ursula?" asked Master Mervale, gently.

  "Holy Gregory!" cried the marquis, "I had forgot! Poor wench, poor wench!I must withdraw my suit warily,--firmly, of course, yet very kindlily,you understand, so as to grieve her no more than must be. Poorwench!--well, after all," he hopefully suggested, "there is yetPevensey."

  "O Stephen! Stephen!" Master Mervale murmured; "Why, there was never anyother but Pevensey! For Ursula knows all,--knows there was never anymore manhood in Master Mervale's disposition than might be gummed on witha play-actor's mustachios! Why, she is my cousin, Stephen,--my cousin andgood friend, to whom I came at once on reaching England, to find you,favored by her father, pestering her with your suit, and the poor girlwell-nigh at her wits' end because she might not have Pevensey. So," saidMaster Mervale, "we put our heads together, Stephen, as you observe."

  "Indeed," my lord of Falmouth said, "it would seem that you two wencheshave, between you, concocted a very pleasant comedy."

  "It was not all a comedy," sighed Master Mervale,--"not all a comedy,Stephen, until to-day when you told Master Mervale the story of KatherineBeaufort. For I did not know--I could not know--"

  "And now?" my lord of Falmouth queried.

  "H'm!" cried Master Mervale, and he tossed his head. "You are veryunreasonable in anger! you are a veritable Turk! you struck me!"

  The marquis rose, bowing low to his former adversary. "Master Mervale,"said the marquis, "I hereby tender you my unreserved apologies for theaffront I put upon you. I protest I was vastly mistaken in yourdisposition and hold you as valorous a gentleman as was ever made bybarbers' tricks; and you are at liberty to bestow as many kisses andcaresses upon the Lady Ursula as you may elect, reserving, however, areasonable sufficiency for one that shall be nameless. Are we friends,Master Mervale?"

  Master Mervale rested his head upon Lord Falmouth's shoulder, and sighedhappily. Master Mervale laughed,--a low and gentle laugh that was vibrantwith content. But Master Mervale said nothing, because there seemed to bebetween these two, who were young in the world's recaptured youth, nolonger any need of idle speaking.

  * * * * *

  JUNE 1, 1593

  _"She was the admirablest lady that ever lived: therefore, Master Doctor,if you will do us that favor, as to let us see that peerless dame, weshould think ourselves much beholding unto you."_

  _There was a double wedding some two weeks later in the chapel atLongaville: and each marriage appears to have been happy enough.

  The tenth Marquis of Falmouth had begotten sixteen children withinseventeen years, at the end of which period his wife unluckily died inproducing a final pledge of affection. This child, a daughter, survived,and was christened Cynthia: of her you may hear later.

  Meanwhile the Earl and the Countess of Pevensey had propagated moremoderately; and Pevensey had played a larger part in public life than wasallotted to Falmouth, who did not shine at Court. Pevensey, indeed, hashis sizable niche in history: his Irish expeditions, in 1575, were oncenotorious, as well as the circumstances of the earl's death in that yearat Triloch Lenoch. His more famous son, then a boy of eight, succeeded tothe title, and somewhat later, as the world knows, to the hazardousposition of chief favorite to Queen Elizabeth.

  "For Pevensey has the vision of a poet,"--thus Langard quotes the lonelyold Queen,--"and to balance it, such mathematics as add two and twocorrectly, where you others smirk and assure me it sums up to whateverthe Queen prefers. I have need of Pevensey: in this parched little ageall England has need of Pevensey."

  That is as it may have been: at all events, it is with this LordPevensey, at the height of his power, that we have now to do._