The Greatest Occult & Supernatural Tales of Marjorie Bowen. Bowen Marjorie
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shiver of excitement; the candles had mostly burnt out; the hall seemed monstrous in the gusty, straggling light. He crept to the window; the rain had ceased, and he looked out on a hot starless darkness, disturbed by no sound.
He shivered again, closed the window and flung himself along the cushions in the niched seat. Lying there, where Jacobea had sat, he thought of her; she was more present to his mind than all the crowded incidents of the past day; his afternoon passed in the sunny library, his evening before the beautiful witch fire, the wild escape into the night, the flight through the wet forest, the sombre arrival at the castle, were but flitting backgrounds to the slim figure of the chatelaine.
Certainly she had a potent personality; she was exquisite, a thing shut away in sweet fragrancy. He thought of her as an ivory pyx filled with red flowers; there were her trembling passionate emotions, her modest secrets, that she guarded delicately.
It was his intention to tear open this tabernacle to wrench from her her treasures and scatter them among blood and ruin; he meant to bring her to utter destruction; not her body, perhaps, but her soul.
And this because she had interfered with the one being on earth he cared about — Theirry; not because he hated her for herself.
“How beautiful she is!” he said aloud, almost tenderly.
The last candle fluttered up and sank out; Dirk, lying luxuriously among the cushions, looked into the complete blackness with half-closed eyes.
“How beautiful!” he repeated; he felt he could have loved her himself; he thought of her now, lying in her white bed, her hair unbound; he wished himself kneeling beside her, caressing those yellow locks; a desire possessed him to touch her curls, her soft cheek, to have her hand in his and hear her laugh surely she was a sweet thing, made to be loved.
Yet the power that had brought him here to-night had made plain that if he did not take the chance of her destruction set in his way, she would win Theirry from him for ever.
He had made the first move; in the dark face of Sebastian the steward he had seen the beginning of —— the end.
But thinking of her he felt the tears come to his eyes; suddenly he fell into weary weeping, thinking of her, and sobbed sadly, face downwards, on the cushion.
Her yellow hair, mostly he thought of that, her long, fine, soft, yellow hair, and how, before the end, it would be trailing in the dust of despair and humiliation.
Presently he laughed at himself for his tears, and drying them, fell asleep; and awoke from blank dreamlessness to hear his name ringing in his ears. He sat up in the window-seat.
His eyes were hot with his late tears; the misty blue light of dawn that he found about him hurt them; he shrank from this light that came in a clear shaft through the arched window, and, crouching away from it, saw Theirry standing close to him, Theirry, fully dressed and pale, looking at him earnestly.
“Dirk, we must go now. I cannot stay any longer in this place.”
Dirk, leaning his head against the cushions, said nothing, impressed anew with his friend’s beauty. How fine and fair a thing Theirry’s face was in the colourless early light; in hue and line splendid, in expression wild and pained.
“I could not sleep much,” continued Theirry. “I do not want to see them — her — again — not like this — get up, Dirk — why did you not come to bed? I wanted your company — things were haunting me.”
“Mostly her face?” breathed Dirk.
“Ay,” said Theirry sombrely. “Mostly her face.”
Dirk was silent again; was not her loveliness the counterpart of his friend’s? — he imagined them together — close — touching hands, lips — and as he pictured this he grew paler.
“The castle is open, there are varlets abroad,” cried Theirry. “Let us go — supposing — oh, my heart! supposing one came from the college to look for us!”
Dirk considered; he reflected that he had no desire to meet Sebastian again; he had said all he wished to.
“Let us go,” he assented; his one regret was that he should not see again the delicate face crowned with the yellow hair.
He rose from the seat and shook out his borrowed flame-coloured mantle, then he closed his tired eyes as he stood, for a very exquisite sensation rushed over him; nothing had come between him and his friend; Theirry of his own choice had roused him — wanting him — they were to go forth together alone.
Chapter 10
The Saint
They were wandering through the forest in an endeavour to find the high road; the sun, nearly at its full strength, dazzled through the pines and traced figures of gold on the path they followed.
Theirry was silent; they were hungry, without money or any hope of procuring any, fatigued with the rough walking through the heat, and also, it seemed, lost; these facts were ever present to his mind; also, every step was taking him further away from Jacobea of Martzburg, and he longed to see her again, to make her notice him, speak to him; yet of his own desire he had left her castle ungraciously; these things held him bitterly silent.
But Dirk, though he was pale and weary, kept a light joyous heart; he had trust in the master he was serving.
“We shall be helped yet,” he said. “Were we not hopeless last night when one came and gave us shelter?”
Theirry did not answer.
The forest grew up the base of the mountain chain, and after a while, walking steadily, they came out upon a gorge some landslip had torn, uprooting trees and hurling aside rocks; over this bare space harshly cleared, water rippled and dripped, finding its way through fern-grown rocks and boulders until it fell into a little stream that ran across the open space of grass and was lost in the shadow of the trees.
By the side of it, on the pleasant stretch of grass, a small white horse was browsing, and a man sat near, on one of the uprooted pines.
The two students paused and contemplated him; he was a monk in a blue-grey habit; his face was infinitely sweet; with his hands clasped in his lap and his head a little raised he gazed with large, peaceful eyes through the shifting fir boughs to the blue sky beyond them.
“Of what use he!” said Theirry bitterly; since the Church had hurled him out the Devil was gaining such sure possession of his soul that he loathed all things holy.
“Nay,” said Dirk, with a little smile. “We will speak to him.”
The monk, hearing their voices, looked round and fixed on them a calm smiling gaze. “Dominus det nobis suam pacem,” he said.
Dirk replied instantly.
“Et vitam aeternam. Amen.”
“We have missed our way,” said Theirry curtly.
The monk rose and stood in a courteous, humble position.
“Can you put us on the high road, my father?” asked Dirk.
“Surely!” The monk glanced at the weary face of his questioner. “I am myself travelling from town to town, my son. And know this country well. Will you not rest a while?”
“Ay.” Dirk came down the slope and flung himself along the grass; Theirry, half sullen, followed.
“Ye are both weary and in lack of food,” said the monk gently. “Praise be to the angels that I have wherewithal to aid ye.”
He opened one of the leather bags resting against the fallen tree, took out a loaf, a knife and a cup, cut the bread and gave them a portion each, then filled the cup from the clear dripping water.
They disdained thanks for such