第31章 THE MAID(5)

The promise was kept.Once again Catherine saw and had speech of Jeanne.It was nearly two years later, when she sat in a May gloaming in the house of Beaumanoir, already three months a bride.Much had happened since she had ridden north from the inn at the forest cross-roads.She had summoned de Laval to her side, and the lovers had been reconciled.Her father had died in the winter and the great fortune and wide manors of the family were now her own.Her lover had fought with Jeanne in the futile battles of the spring, but he had been far away when in the fatal sortie at Compiegne the Maid was taken by her enemies.All the summer of that year he had made desperate efforts at rescue, but Jeanne was tight in English hands, and presently was in prison at Rouen awaiting judgment, while her own king and his false councillors stirred not hand or foot to save her.Sir Guy had hurled himself on Burgundy, and with a picked band made havoc of the eastern roads, but he could not break the iron cordon of Normandy.In February they had been wed, but after that Beaumanoir saw him little, for he was reading Burgundy a lesson in the Santerre.

Catherine sat at home, anxious, tremulous, but happy.A new-made wife lives in a new world, and though at times she grieved for the shame of her land, her mind was too full of housewifely cares, and her heart of her husband, for long repining.But often the thought of Jeanne drove a sword into her contentment....So when she lifted her eyes from her embroidery and saw the Maid before her, relief and gladness sent her running to greet her.

Long afterwards till she was very old Catherine would tell of that hour.

She saw the figure outlined against a window full of the amethyst sky of evening.The white armour and the gay surcoat were gone.

Jeanne was still clad like a boy in a coarse grey tunic and black breeches, but her boots did not show any dust of the summer roads.Her face was very pale, as if from long immurement, and her eyes were no more merry.They shone instead with a grave ardour of happiness, which checked Catherine's embrace and set her heart beating.

She walked with light steps and kissed the young wife's cheek--a kiss like thistledown.

"You are free?" Catherine stammered.Her voice seemed to break unwillingly in a holy quiet.

"I am free," the Maid answered."I have come again to you as I promised.

But I cannot bide long.I am on a journey.""You go to the King?" said Catherine.

"I go to my King."

The Maid's hand took Catherine's, and her touch was like the fall of gossamer.She fingered the girl's broad ring which had come from distant ancestors, the ring which Sir Aimery of Beaumanoir had worn in the Crusades.She raised it and pressed it to her Catherine's limbs would not do her bidding.She would fain have risen in a hospitable bustle, but she seemed to be held motionless.Not by fear, but by an exquisite and happy awe.She remembered afterwards that from the Maid's rough clothes had come a faint savour of wood-smoke, as from one who has been tending a bonfire in the autumn stubble "God be with you, lady, and with the good knight, your husband.Remember my word to you, that every wife is like Mary the Blessed and may bear a saviour of mankind.The road is long, but the ways of Heaven are sure."Catherine stretched out her arms, for a longing so fierce had awoke in her that it gave her power to move again.Never in her life had she felt such a hunger of wistfulness.But Jeanne evaded her embrace.She stood poised as if listening.

"They are calling me.I go.Adieu, sweet sister."A light shone in her face which did not come from the westering sun.To Catherine there was no sound of voices, but the Maid seemed to hear and answer.She raised her hand as if in blessing and passed out.

Catherine sat long in an entranced silence.Waves of utter longing flowed over her, till she fell on her knees and prayer passionately to her saints, among whom not the least was that grey-tunicked Maid whose eyes seemed doorways into heaven.Her tirewoman found her asleep on her faldstool.

.....................

Early next morning there came posts to Beaumanoir, men on weary horses with a tragic message.On the day before, in the market-place of Rouen, the chief among the daughters of God had journeyed through the fire to Paradise.