Men, Women and Ghosts | Page 6

I know it would,"?Cried Eunice. "Let me do it." Swift and light
She ran towards him. "It is so long now?Since I have felt a bite,?I lost all heart for everything." She stood,?Supple and strong, beside him, and her blood
Tingled her lissom body to a glow.
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She quickly seized the fish and with a stone?Ended its flurry, then removed the hook,?Untied the fly with well-poised fingers. Done,?She asked him where he kept his fishing-book.?He pointed to a coat flung on the ground.?She searched the pockets, found a shagreen case,
Replaced the fly, noticed a golden stamp?Filling the middle space.?Two letters half rubbed out were there, and round?About them gay rococo flowers wound
And tossed a spray of roses to the clamp.
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The Lady Eunice puzzled over these.?"G. D." the young man gravely said. "My name?Is Gervase Deane. Your servant, if you please."?"Oh, Sir, indeed I know you, for your fame?For exploits in the field has reached my ears.?I did not know you wounded and returned."
"But just come back, Madam. A silly prick?To gain me such unearned?Holiday making. And you, it appears,?Must be Sir Everard's lady. And my fears
At being caught a-trespassing were quick."
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He looked so rueful that she laughed out loud.?"You are forgiven, Mr. Deane. Even more,?I offer you the fishing, and am proud?That you should find it pleasant from this shore.?Nobody fishes now, my husband used?To angle daily, and I too with him.
He loved the spotted trout, and pike, and dace.?He even had a whim?That flies my fingers tied swiftly confused?The greater fish. And he must be excused,
Love weaves odd fancies in a lonely place."
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She sighed because it seemed so long ago,?Those days with Everard; unthinking took?The path back to the orchard. Strolling so?She walked, and he beside her. In a nook?Where a stone seat withdrew beneath low boughs,?Full-blossomed, hummed with bees, they sat them down.
She questioned him about the war, the share?Her husband had, and grown?Eager by his clear answers, straight allows?Her hidden hopes and fears to speak, and rouse
Her numbed love, which had slumbered unaware.
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Under the orchard trees daffodils danced?And jostled, turning sideways to the wind.?A dropping cherry petal softly glanced?Over her hair, and slid away behind.?At the far end through twisted cherry-trees?The old house glowed, geranium-hued, with bricks
Bloomed in the sun like roses, low and long,?Gabled, and with quaint tricks?Of chimneys carved and fretted. Out of these?Grey smoke was shaken, which the faint Spring breeze
Tossed into nothing. Then a thrush's song
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Needled its way through sound of bees and river.?The notes fell, round and starred, between young leaves,?Trilled to a spiral lilt, stopped on a quiver.?The Lady Eunice listens and believes.?Gervase has many tales of her dear Lord,?His bravery, his knowledge, his charmed life.
She quite forgets who's speaking in the gladness?Of being this man's wife.?Gervase is wounded, grave indeed, the word?Is kindly said, but to a softer chord
She strings her voice to ask with wistful sadness,
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"And is Sir Everard still unscathed? I fain?Would know the truth." "Quite well, dear Lady, quite."?She smiled in her content. "So many slain,?You must forgive me for a little fright."?And he forgave her, not alone for that,?But because she was fingering his heart,
Pressing and squeezing it, and thinking so?Only to ease her smart?Of painful, apprehensive longing. At?Their feet the river swirled and chucked. They sat
An hour there. The thrush flew to and fro.
XIX
The Lady Eunice supped alone that day,?As always since Sir Everard had gone,?In the oak-panelled parlour, whose array?Of faded portraits in carved mouldings shone.?Warriors and ladies, armoured, ruffed, peruked.?Van Dykes with long, slim fingers; Holbeins, stout
And heavy-featured; and one Rubens dame,?A peony just burst out,?With flaunting, crimson flesh. Eunice rebuked?Her thoughts of gentler blood, when these had duked
It with the best, and scorned to change their name.
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A sturdy family, and old besides,?Much older than her own, the Earls of Crowe.?Since Saxon days, these men had sought their brides?Among the highest born, but always so,?Taking them to themselves, their wealth, their lands,?But never their titles. Stern perhaps, but strong,
The Framptons fed their blood from richest streams,?Scorning the common throng.?Gazing upon these men, she understands?The toughness of the web wrought from such strands
And pride of Everard colours all her dreams.
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Eunice forgets to eat, watching their faces?Flickering in the wind-blown candle's shine.?Blue-coated lackeys tiptoe to their places,?And set out plates of fruit and jugs of wine.?The table glitters black like Winter ice.?The Dartle's rushing, and the gentle clash
Of blossomed branches, drifts into her ears.?And through the casement sash?She sees each cherry stem a pointed slice?Of splintered moonlight, topped with all the spice
And shimmer of the blossoms it uprears.
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"In such a night --" she laid the book aside,?She could outnight the poet by thinking back.?In such a night she came here as a bride.?The date was graven in the almanack?Of her clasped memory. In this very room?Had Everard uncloaked her. On this seat
Had drawn her to him, bade her