Enchanting Cold Blood

by Petya Lehmann

  Chapter I. - The Ring

  Young Mistress Sabia lay on her nurse's neck. From the window high up in the grey walls of Ardhoroe Castle, the nurse could see the spring woods descending, pouring down the castle slopes in waves of purple, snow white, and faint green. But young Mistress Sabia turned her face from the delight of the window and buried it, sighing, in her nurse's bosom. Above the brown head, the old face was wrinkled and lined as if with the handwriting of a hundred years, but the hollow eyes beamed with love.

  “I think,” said Sabia, sighing once more, “there is something the matter with me, Nurse Phaire.”

  “Pulse of my heart,” answered the nurse, “is it sickening you are, or what?”

  Sabia lifted her up head, then turned again and gazed upon the floor. Her brown cheek was flushed red, and her hands were pressed together. She shook back the mass of curls that fell from under her ribbon, half turned towards her nurse and spoke, using a most pitiful voice.

  “I have a pain somewhere,” she said.

  “And where, my jewel?” asked the nurse, anxiously.

  “It is in my heart, nurse,” cried Mistress Sabia, suddenly flinging her arms about the old woman's neck and sobbing aloud. “I never meant to tell, but when I am without a mother, and father is full of trouble and weighty affairs, whom have I to find comfort with but you?”

  “What's this you're telling me now?” said the nurse, doubtfully; then all at once reading the secret half discovered by the flushed cheek and the sighing mouth, she cried, “Ah, my lamb and my heart's treasure, you're not after giving your heart away, and you so young?”

  “Indeed, and I have not given it away,” answered the young girl. “It has gone from me by no will of my own and left an empty place behind. Night and day, I am in trouble from it, and by no wish of my own at all. Last year, I remember, I was happy, and now that seems so long ago.”

  “And who in the world, child, is it that your heart has gone seeking after?”

  The young girl hesitated a moment, then turned and whispered in the nurse's ear: “It is my cousin Estercel. It is a great pity, but he is not caring for me at all.”

  “Well, well, well; “and, “well, well, well, to be sure,” said the old woman, softly, as she patted her charge; “and it not so long since you were children together!”

  “He is twenty-one years old, and a man, nurse,” said Sabia.

  “That is a great age, indeed,” said the old woman, smiling.

  But Sabia only sighed and pressed her hands together upon her bosom.

  “It is a dreadful sorrow,” she said. “I could not have imagined that I should suffer like this. Perhaps I shall die.”

  The nurse looked anxiously upon her; the flushed cheek was thinner than it had used to be; the small fingers had surely grown finer. The old woman turned the delicate face round between her two hands and examined it; there at the base of the forehead's arch, each brow's edge was sharper, and her eyes burned with a painful look.

  “My darling love,” said the old woman, as she gazed; “and there was I thinking it was nothing but the spring weather — sure that was why I was giving you a little morning dose.”

  “I never took it, nurse,” said Sabia. “I always poured it out of the window. I have been most unhappy. If I cannot have some love to call my own, I would rather die.”

  “It will come, my child; have patience, and it will come. A face like my darling's will surely gather love.”

  “I cannot find patience any more,” said Sabia, sadly. “All day and all night, I am tormented. And here is a strange thing, Nurse Phaire: all day and all night I am longing for my cousin Estercel to come, and when I do see him riding to the door, I am forced to go away to hide. I cannot bear that he should look at me. Nurse, you know when the sun shines in the middle of the blue sky, you cannot look up without being blinded. That is how my cousin Estercel's eyes appear to me; like the sun in a shining blue sky. And, oh, nurse, the curls of his hair! They are like the colour of the sun itself; and I am so ugly, and dark, and brown. It is no wonder he will not look at me.”

  “What!” said the old woman, in indignation. “He not look at my girl, and she an O'Neill and the heiress of Ardhoroe, and he only an O'Neill on his grandmother's side, and that three times removed?”

  “You are forgetting now that my father will marry again, nurse,” said Sabia, seriously. “And my cousin Estercel has no covetous mind. He is not the man to go hunting castles. It is only that he doesn't care for me. And he never will; of that I am sure; and I shall be lonely till I die,” and down fell her tears.

  “Hush, now, hush; and never fear, my precious jewel,” said the nurse, taking her to her bosom. “He shall turn to love you as sure as the sun shines this day. We will find a good plan. I will be thinking now that my child may have her wish.”

  She rocked the young girl to and fro upon her knee while she gazed out upon the rolling woods, and every wrinkle in her old face seemed as wise as a hundred years.

  Presently, she spoke. “There is a drink we could be giving him,” she said, musing, “if I could mind what to put in it. This was how my grandmother used to be saying it …” — she still rocked her nursling, while she bent her ear sideways, as if listening far down the past: “'Take the blood of a black hen, seven spiders' stones, the ashes of a ram's thigh-bone …'”

  “No, no, nurse,” cried Sabia, leaving the old woman's knee and moving to the casement. “I do not like that at all. You need not tell me any more of it.”

  “Just as you please, my lamb, just as you please. And, indeed, that drink is troublesome to make; and since you are not liking it, maybe I can find some other way.”

  Still keeping her place on the low oak chair, she rested her elbows upon her knees and her white-capped head upon her hands. Sabia stood by the window, gazing, a small, slight figure, too sensitive, one would have said, for solitary battling in such stormy days.

  “There is a charm that I mind now,” said the nurse at last, “and I never heard tell of it failing. You must take a ring and put it in a bird's nest for the whole season of the spring; and when it is well warmed through with bird-love, and the young are ready to fly, you must give it to the person upon whom you have placed your love, and in a while it is sure that he will love you back again.”

  Sabia turned her face eagerly upon her nurse, and then her look again faded. “Ah, but,” she said, “my cousin Estercel has great hands and fingers. Where will I find a man's ring to put in the nest?”

  “Mistress Sabia,” said the nurse, “the brooches and the chains and the rings that were my lady your mamma's, that's now in glory, are all put by for you till you come to be eighteen years of age. The case they are in is in the old press in the blue chamber, and the key of the press is upon my bunch. Shall we go now and search and see if there is a man's ring amongst them?”

  Sabia sprang forward and seized her nurse's hand to pull her from the chair. “We will go down at once,” she cried.

  Then together they descended to the long room below. It was lit by three narrow windows, and at one end was a great bed of state in faded blue, holding the secret of many a birth and death of that dwindled house. Against the wall, facing the blue bed, was a tall cupboard of black oak carved with curious figures strangely spreading their feet and hands. Having closed the door, the nurse chose a key from her dangling bunch; opening an inner drawer, she drew out a velvet case, once purple, now faded to a score of different hues.

  The old woman carried the case to the bed, while Sabia eagerly followed her; together they opened it and gazed upon its contents. The box was very old; within, the jewels lay heaped together, emitting faint rays of light. Sabia put out a half reluctant hand, lifted them one by one and laid them on the bed. Two gold chains she laid out, then a necklace of brilliants, set in solid silver, chased and tarnished; large, heavy bracelets encrusted with various coloured stones; two worked brooches of the old Celtic fashion, both of gold; a waist-chain, and a gem for the forehead. />
  Then the nurse picked up something that lay at the bottom of the box. “See here, rose of my heart,” she cried, holding it up. “This is a man's ring, sure enough.”

  Sabia seized upon it; but as she looked, blank disappointment spread over her face. It was a huge old ring of silver, of a great weight, with a narrow band, and a tower raised upon it, on the top of which was a rough but ingenious carving of a city, cut out of a bloodstone. Sabia looked despairingly upon it.

  “Oh, nurse,” she said, “you know very well Estercel would never wear so stupid a ring! And then think of the poor little birds!”—she smiled up in her nurse's face; — “a thing so large and heavy, it would be worse than a cuckoo in the nest.”

  “Give it here to me, child,” said the nurse, taking it and weighing it in her hand. “No, this would never do; and now it is in my mind that one Sunday morning my blessed lady, your mamma, showed me this ring in this very room and told me it was the ring of the Lord Bishop Decies, who was her own grand-uncle. And more by token, look, here is the likeness of the city of Jerusalem on the top. That would be the terrible blasphemy for us to be putting the Holy City for a nest of little birds to sit upon.”

  But Sabia seemed to care nothing for Jerusalem, nor for the Lord Bishop's ring with that city on the top; without heeding her nurse, she still continued her search in the bottom of the box, nor did she pay more heed to the jewels laid out upon the bed.

  At length, Sabia raised her head. “See this one, nurse!” she cried. “Would not this one do?” and she held out a ring of gold, wide and thin.

  The nurse took it from her and carried it to the window; they stood together and examined it under the light; it was worn and slender, a hoop of seven wires of twisted gold, ending in a bird's head.

  “Ah, Mistress Sabia,” said the nurse, “this is the very ring for the charm; for look now, it has been carried for long years on some man's finger. By the feel of it upon my hand, I can tell that it was worn in love. Take it now in your hand and see; there is trouble in the ring and much love; it is hardly cold yet after God knows how many years.”

  She placed the ring in the palm of Sabia's hand and, tightly folding her fingers over it, bade her close her eyes. The young girl turned pale as she stood, her face still raised to the light of the window; the ring seemed to burn in her hand. For a moment she waited, then opened her eyes. “Oh, it is true, Nurse Phaire!” she said. “It is alive. I can believe it.”

  “Hold it, Mistress Sabia,” said the nurse. “It must not be left cold again. It must be warmed now with another love, that it may bring happiness to you. Look, I will put it in your bosom to keep until you find a nest,” and she tucked the ring safely within the folds of the girl's dress, over against her heart.

  “I will go now, nurse, to the woods. I will go this very moment,” said Sabia, eagerly. “The afternoon is early yet, and the bushes are full of nests. Oh, I am so glad I told you! My heart is lighter already.”

  “Take the greyhound with you, child, if you will go; he is watchful and obedient. Ah me! that these old bones can no longer go wandering through the blessed green bushes; but the Holy Power be thanked, I have still the sight of my eyes and can look down from the window and see you go. Now I will call Mary to bring your hood; she shall go with you too, and Dermot shall follow behind. The times are rough, and my brown darling must go safe.”

  “And at the back of Dermot, a troop of horsemen to ride the bushes while I go staring into a sparrow's nest?” said Sabia, laughing now. “No, indeed, nurse, alone and in secret I will go. I will not have the charm spoiled by the eyes and gossip of a man and a maid. But I will take Lawdir, because he is a discreet dog and will neither look nor tell again,” and with a cheerful face she sped away.

  “Mistress Sabia! Mistress Sabia!” cried the old woman, hobbling along the passage. “Come back and listen to me. You shall change that green gown for a worse. I will not have that fine embroidery torn in the bushes. Put on the old gown, child of my heart; it will not matter for that one.”

  But Sabia would not listen. Presently, she came hastening wilfully by, her white hood in her hand. The nurse was so full of joy to see the brighter face and bearing, that she only smiled.

  Chapter II. - The Nest

  Sabia went down to the moat-side where a broad plank had been laid across. By the side of it, she paused and whistled three times. While the last note was on her lips, a greyhound came bounding round the castle wall and, coursing towards her, fawned at her feet. She stooped and stroked him, and spoke kindly to him, till the hound grew wild with joy. He sprang up, with his forefeet upon her shoulders, and then she chided him till his head drooped, and he fell soberly behind as she turned. Very lightly she crossed the plank that rose and fell under her step and, running down the farther slope, was soon safe among the bushes.

  Joy was in her feet as they sped along; like tiny wayward children, they danced in their hurrying to and fro. She had nursed her loneliness and sorrow so long in secret, that unburdening and the entering hope made a new day for her. Everything about her was sharing in her joy. Green buds in showers gemmed the boughs. A rustle of life that stirred filled the air, and over and through it cried the ecstatic songs of the birds; everything living was rejoicing because of its mate. Sabia rejoiced also; for hope and an innocent imagination painted the image of Estercel before her in livelier, yet more delicate, colours than the seen love brings to any created eye. The ring that was to charm him was clasped to her heart with one hand, while with the other she parted the boughs to gaze into the secret hiding-places of the spring.

  From her earliest childhood Sabia had made companions of the birds; she knew them well, their names and their song, their looks and their behaviour. Now she was pondering deeply to which of them all she should deliver the treasure of her ring. The fighting doves she would not trust, even if, with the terror of her nurse before her eyes, she dared to climb so very high in her good gown with the wide sleeves and her snow-white under-dress. The thrush she loved with her whole heart; she knew him for a kind soul with a great angelic song. But when she looked into his nest, she could not bear to trust her ring to that clay bottom. The blackbird had a better nest, and for a while, she hesitated by one, fresh built in a thorn. While she waited, up came the shining black cock with a fierce shriek, his broad rustling tail expanded, his bill like gold in the sun, and his jewelled eye upon her. She drew away, shaking her head at him; she knew him, too, and how all the birds ran before him at the winter feeding. Neither he nor any of his rearing should have her ring! By more than one nest she paused and waited. Should the robin take it? He was our Lord's own bird; she would wish that breast with its holy stain pressed against her ring. But upon every day in the year, except Good Friday only, he, too, was fighting; so neither would she think of him.

  Dreaming and searching, and pausing here and there, she came at last to a small open space that seemed like a safe green chamber in the descending wood. Below, seen through the trees' arch, glittered a small bright lake. All around, the songs of the birds still continued; for this was the time of year when they can scarcely sleep for joy. Beginning now to be tired, Sabia sat down to rest for a moment on the well-mossed ground; the greyhound, who followed all the way obediently behind her, came and lay at her feet. Across the floor of moss stood a young beech with small leaves of a piercing green. Sabia soon noticed that one hanging branch swayed and rocked continually, and as she watched, she saw a reddish breast and the flutter of a white feather in a wing. She sat still till the branch ceased its swinging for a moment; then she stole towards it. Soon she found that flat upon the fork of the bending bough two chaffinches had built their nest. It was a round, perfect house of love, so clever, coloured so softly, so feather-lined. Carefully, Sabia laid the tip of one finger within; the nest was warm and as soft as down. Without more hesitation, she took the ring from her bosom, kissed it once, slipped it in the nest. Then, afraid of her own deed, she fled up through the woods, her heart beating, her
breath panting on her lips. She had done a terrible thing — she had plucked her long-secret love out of her bosom to put it to the hazard of that rocking branch, of those beating wings, of those wild and tiny hearts. If these should fail her now, what could her own heart do but break?

  All that night, Sabia tossed upon her bed, dreaming of birds' wings and feathers, and the eyes of Estercel; wondering, when she woke, how her ring was faring away down in the dark among the wild creatures of the wood; grieving for fear the chaffinches should quarrel with the ring and desert the new-built nest.

  Although she was now a young lady, she still took her morning meal with her nurse in the upper room. While her grave father sat with his friends round the table in the hall, she was off and away to her parlour of pure green hidden in the wood. When she was come to the tree and the nest, a small egg lay right within the circle of the ring. Sabia held her breath for pleasure, so unexpected it looked, so pure in its pale colour, so delightful in its shape; it seemed to her as great a wonder as any star. Thereafter, Sabia came each day to the wood. The chaffinches were wild and shy, but as she stepped softly and seldom came quite near, they soon became used to seeing the silent creature seated over against them in her plumage of green or brown, with her grey companion sleeping at her feet.

  As there was little to do as she sat, Sabia kept her prayers to say in her new chamber in the wood. She told her rosary over as she sat among the leaves, and each day she added a prayer for Estercel. Each day, the roof of leaves grew deeper; the beeches flourished to a more amazing emerald, till the wood was lit by a quivering green light. When the sun shone and a breeze blew, Sabia watched the moving golden circles of the light that fell through the leaves and spotted all the ground. In the top branches of the beech-tree, the cock chaffinch showed his red breast and sang his quick song; his silent mate sat below, obediently accomplishing the wonder of the nest.

  Sabia sat always where she could see the smooth brown creature spread upon the nest, the bright eye that gazed so patiently abroad, the head that turned so silently, pleased with the song that sounded far above.