Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It was early September, and the king with some of the nobles who were
with him, after hunting the deer over against Cranbourne, returned at
evening to Salisbury, and after meat with some of his intimates they sat
late drinking wine and fell into a merry, boisterous mood. They spoke of
Athelwold, who was not with them, and indulged in some mocking remarks
about his frequent and prolonged absences from the king's company. Edgar
took it in good part and smilingly replied that it had been reported to
him that the earl was now wedded to a woman with a will. Also he knew
that her father, the great Earldoman of Devon, had been famed for his
tremendous physical strength. It was related of him that he had once
been charged by a furious bull, that he had calmly waited the onset and
had dealt the animal a staggering blow with his fist on its head and had
then taken it up in his arms and hurled it into the river Exe. If, he
concluded, the daughter had inherited something of this power it was not
to be wondered at that she was able to detain her husband at home.

Loud laughter followed this pleasantry of the king's, then one of the
company remarked that not a woman's will, though it might be like steel
of the finest temper, nor her muscular power, would serve to change
Athelwold's nature or keep him from his friend, but only a woman's
exceeding beauty.

Then Edgar, seeing that he had been put upon the defence of his absent
friend, and that all of them were eager to hear his next word, replied
that there was no possession a man was prouder of than that of a
beautiful wife; that it was more to him than his own best qualities, his
greatest actions, or than titles and lands and gold. If Athelwold had
indeed been so happy as to secure the most beautiful woman he would have
been glad to bring her to court to exhibit her to all--friends and foes
alike--for his own satisfaction and glory.

Again they greeted his speech with laughter, and one cried out: Do you
believe it?

Then another, bolder still, exclaimed: It's God's truth that she is the
fairest woman in the land--perhaps no fairer has been in any land since
Helen of Troy. This I can swear to, he added, smiting the board with his
hand, because I have it from one who saw her at her home in Devon before
her marriage. One who is a better judge in such matters than I am or
than any one at this table, not excepting the king, seeing that he is
not only gifted with the serpent's wisdom but with that creature's cold
blood as well.

Edgar heard him frowningly, then ended the discussion by rising, and
silence fell on the company, for all saw that he was offended. But he
was not offended with them, since they knew nothing of his and
Athelwold's secret, and what they thought and felt about his friend was
nothing to him. But these fatal words about Elfrida's beauty had pierced
him with a sudden suspicion of his friend's treachery. And Athelwold was
the man he greatly loved--the companion of all his years since their
boyhood together. Had he betrayed him in this monstrous way--wounding
him in his tenderest part? The very thought that such a thing might be
was like a madness in him. Then he reflected--then he remembered, and
said to himself: Yes, let me follow his teaching in this matter too, as
in the other, and exercise caution and look before I leap. I shall look
and look well and see and judge for myself.

The result was that when his boon companions next met him there was no
shadow of displeasure in him; he was in a peculiarly genial mood, and so
continued. And when his friend returned he embraced him and gently
upbraided him for having kept away for so long a time. He begged him to
remember that he was his one friend and confidant who was more than a
brother to him, and that if wholly deprived of his company he would
regard himself as the loneliest man in the kingdom. Then in a short time
he spoke once more in the same strain, and said he had not yet
sufficiently honoured his friend before the world, and that he proposed
visiting him at his own castle to make the acquaintance of his wife and
spend a day with him hunting the boar in Harewood Forest.

Athelwold, secretly alarmed, made a suitable reply, expressing his
delight at the prospect of receiving the king, and begging him to give
him a couple of days' notice before making his visit, so as to give him
time to make all preparation for his entertainment.

This the king promised, and also said that this would be an informal
visit to a friend, that he would go alone with some of his servants and
huntsmen and ride there one day, hunt the next day and return to
Salisbury on the third day. And a little later, when the day of his
visit was fixed on, Athelwold returned in haste with an anxious mind to
his castle.

Now his hard task and the most painful moment of his life had come.
Alone with Elfrida in her chamber he cast himself down before her, and
with his bowed head resting on her knees, made a clean breast of the
whole damning story of the deceit he had practised towards the king in
order to win her for himself. In anguish and shedding tears he implored
her forgiveness, begging her to think of that irresistible power of love
she had inspired in him, which would have made it worse than death to
see her the wife of another--even of Edgar himself--his friend, the
brother of his soul. Then he went on to speak of Edgar, who was of a
sweet and lovable nature, yet capable of a deadly fury against those who
offended him; and this was an offence he would take more to heart than
any other; he would be implacable if he once thought that he had been
wilfully deceived, and she only could now save them from certain
destruction. For now it seemed to him that Edgar had conceived a
suspicion that the account he had of her was not wholly true, which was
that she was a handsome woman but not surpassingly beautiful as had been
reputed, not graceful, not charming in manner and conversation. She
could save them by justifying his description of her--by using a woman's
art to lessen instead of enhancing her natural beauty, by putting away
her natural charm and power to fascinate all who approached her.

Thus he pleaded, praying for mercy, even as a captive prays to his
conqueror for life, and never once daring to lift his bowed head to look
at her face; while she sat motionless and silent, not a word, not a
sigh, escaping her; and she was like a woman carved in stone, with knees
of stone on which his head rested.

Then, at length, exhausted with his passionate pleading and frightened
at her silence and deadly stillness, he raised his head and looked up at
her face to behold it radiant and smiling. Then, looking down lovingly
into his eyes, she raised her hands to her head, and loosening the great
mass of coiled tresses let them fall over him, covering his head and
shoulders and back as with a splendid mantle of shining red gold. And
he, the awful fear now gone, continued silently gazing up at her,
absorbed in her wonderful loveliness.

Bending down she put her arms round his neck and spoke: Do you not know,
O Athelwold, that I love you alone and could love no other, noble or
king; that without you life would not be life to me? All you have told
me endears you more to me, and all you wish me to do shall be done,
though it may cause your king and friend to think meanly of you for
having given your hand to one so little worthy of you.

She having thus spoken, he was ready to pour forth his gratitude in
burning words, but she would not have it. No more words, she said,
putting her hand on his mouth. Your anxious day is over--your burden
dropped. Rest here on the couch by my side, and let me think on all
there is to plan and do against to-morrow evening.

And so they were silent, and he, reclining on the cushions, watched her
face and saw her smile and wondered what was passing in her mind to
cause that smile. Doubtless it was something to do with the question of
her disguising arts.

What had caused her to smile was a happy memory of the days with
Athelwold before their marriage, when one day he came in to her with a
leather bag in his hand and said: Do you, who are so beautiful yourself,
love all beautiful things? And do you love the beauty of gems? And when
she replied that she loved gems above all beautiful things, he poured
out the contents of his bag in her lap--brilliants, sapphires, rubies,
emeralds, opals, pearls in gold setting, in bracelets, necklets,
pendants, rings and brooches. And when she gloated over this splendid
gift, taking up gem after gem, exclaiming delightedly at its size and
colour and lustre, he told her that he once knew a man who maintained
that it was a mistake for a beautiful woman to wear gems. Why? she
asked, would he have then wholly unadorned? No, he replied, he liked to
see them wearing gold, saying that gold makes the most perfect setting
for a woman's beauty, just as it does for a precious stone, and its
effect is to enhance the beauty it surrounds. But the woman's beauty has
its meeting and central point in the eyes, and the light and soul in
them illumines the whole face. And in the stone nature simulates the
eye, and although without a soul its brilliant light and colour make it
the equal of the eye, and therefore when worn as an ornament it competes
with the eye, and in effect lessens the beauty it is supposed to
enhance. He said that gems should be worn only by women who are not
beautiful, who must rely on something extraneous to attract attention,
since it would be better to a homely woman that men should look at her
to admire a diamond or sapphire than not to look at her at all. She had
laughed and asked him who the man was who had such strange ideas, and he
had replied that he had forgotten his name.

Now, recalling this incident after so long a time, it all at once
flashed into her mind that Edgar was the man he had spoken of; she knew
now because, always secretly watchful, she had noted that he never spoke
of Edgar or heard Edgar spoken of without a slight subtle change in the
expression of his face, also, if he spoke, in the tone of his voice. It
was the change that comes into the face, and into the tone, when one
remembers or speaks of the person most loved in all the world. And she
remembered now that he had that changed expression and tone of voice,
when he had spoken of the man whose name he pretended to have forgotten.

And while she sat thinking of this it grew dark in the room, the light
of the fire having died down. Then presently, in the profound stillness
of the room, she heard the sound of his deep, regular breathing and knew
that he slept, and that it was a sweet sleep after his anxious day.
Going softly to the hearth she moved the yet still glowing logs, until
they sent up a sudden flame and the light fell upon the sleeper's still
face. Turning, she gazed steadily at it--the face of the man who had won
her; but her own face in the firelight was white and still and wore a
strange expression. Now she moved noiselessly to his side and bent down
as if to whisper in his ear, but suddenly drew back again and moved
towards the door, then turning gazed once more at his face and murmured:
No, no, even a word faintly whispered would bring him a dream, and it is
better his sleep should be dreamless. For now he has had his day and it
is finished, and to-morrow is mine.

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