Love Among the Ruins by Warwick Deeping

  XVII

  The Lady Duessa stood in the chapel of water-girded Avalon, with FraBalthasar the Dominican beside her. She had slipped in without hisnoticing her, and had watched him awhile in silence at his work. Thejingling of her chatelaine had brought him at last to a consciousness ofher presence. Now they stood together before the high altar and lookedat the Madonna seated on her throne of gold, amid choirs of angel women.

  The Lady Duessa's intelligence had waxed critical on the subject.

  "You have altered the Virgin's face," she said.

  Balthasar stared at his handiwork and nodded.

  "The former has been erased, the latter throned in her stead."

  The words had more significance for the lady than the friar had perhapsintended. A better woman would have snubbed him for his pains. As itwas, he saw her go red, saw the tense stare of her dark eyes, thetightening of the muscles of her jaw. She had a wondrous strong jaw,had the Lady Duessa. She was no mere puppet, no bright-eyed, fineriedpiece of plasticity. Fra Balthasar guessed the hot, passionate power ofher soul; she was the very woman for the rough handling of a cause, suchas the Lord Flavian her husband had roused against her.

  "I suppose," she said, "this alteration was a matter of art, Balthasar?"

  "A matter of heart, madame."

  "So?"

  "My Lord Flavian commanded it."

  "And yonder face is taken from life?"

  "Madame, I leave the inference to your charity."

  She laughed a deep, cynical laugh, and went wandering round the chapel,looking at the frescoes, and swinging a little poniard by the chain thatlinked it to her girdle. Balthasar made a pretence of mixing colours onhis palette. Worldly rogue that he was, he knew women, especially womenof the Lady Duessa mould. He had a most shrewd notion as to what waspassing in her mind. Morally, he was her abettor, being a person whocould always take a woman's part, provided she were pretty. He believedwomen had no business with religion. To Balthasar, like fine glass,their frailty was their most enhancing characteristic. It gave suchinfinite scope to a discreet confessor.

  The Lady Duessa strolled back again, and stood by the altar rails.

  "Am I such a plain woman?" she asked.

  "Madame!"

  "You have never painted me."

  "There are people above the artist's brush."

  "But you paint the Madonna."

  "Madame, the Madonna is anybody's property."

  "Am I?"

  "God forbid that a poet should speak lightly of beauty."

  She laughed again, and touching her hair with her fingers, scannedherself in a little mirror that she carried at her girdle.

  "Tell me frankly, am I worth painting?"

  "Madame, that purple hair, those splendid eyes, the superb colour ofthose cheeks, would blaze out of a golden background as out of heaven."

  She gave a musical little titter.

  "Heaven, heaven, ha--ha."

  "I should be grateful for so transcendent a chance."

  "And you would do me justice?"

  "Where inspiration burns, there art soars."

  "You would be true?"

  "To the chiselling of a coral ear."

  "And discreet?"

  "To the curve of a lip."

  "And considerate?"

  "My hands are subtle."

  "And your heart?"

  "Is ingenuous as a little child's."

  She laughed again, and held out her hands. Balthasar kissed the whitefingers, crowded with their gems. His eyes were warm as water in thesun; the colours and the glimmering richness of the chapel burnt intohis brain.

  "You shall paint me," she said.

  "Here, madame, here?"

  "No, my own bower is pleasanter. You can reach it by my Lord Flavian'sstair in the turret. Here is the key; he never uses it now. Avalon hasnot seen him these six days."

  "Madame, I will paint you as man never painted woman before."

  Dame Duessa's bower was a broad chamber on the western walls, joiningthe south-western tower. A great oriel, jewelled with heraldic glass,looked over the mere with its dreaming lilies, over the green meadows tothe solemn silence of the woods.

  Calypso's grotto! The bower of a luxurious lady in a luxurious age!The snuff of Ind and Araby tingled in Balthasar's nostrils. The silksof China and Bagdad, the cloths of Italy, bloomed there; flowers crowdedthe window, the couches, every nook. Blood-red hangings warmed thewalls.

  The Lady Duessa sat to Balthasar in the oriel, with her lute upon herbosom. She was in azure and violet, with neck and bosom showing under amaze of gossamer gold. Her arms were bare to the shoulder, white,gleaming arms, subtle, sinuous, voluptuous. Her hair had been powderedwith gold. Her lips were wondrous red, her eyes dark as wells. Muskand lavender breathed from her samites; her girdle glowed with preciousstones.

  Fra Balthasar sat on a stool inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. Anembroidery frame served him as an easel. The man was living under themany-constellationed vault of beauty. All the scent and floweriness ofthe room played on his brain; all the wealth of it pandered to his art;all the woman's splendour made molten wax of his being.

  As he painted she sang to him, an old lay of Arthurian love, so that hemight catch the music in her eyes, and watch the deep notes gathering inher throat. He saw her bosom sway beneath her lace, saw the inimitableroundness of her arms. Often his brush lingered. He might gaze uponthe woman as he would, drink her beauty like so much violet wine, openhis soul to the opulent summer of her power. His heart was in a sunsetmood; he lived the life of a poet.

  "And the green spring grew subtle," sang the dame, "With song of birds and laughter, and the woods Were white for maying. So fair Guinivere Loosed her long hair like rivulets of gold That stream from the broad casement of the dawn. And her sweet mouth was like one lovely rose, And her white bosom like a bowl of flowers; So wandered she with Launcelot, while the wind Blew her long tresses to him, and her eyes Were as the tender azure of the night."

  Of such things sang Duessa, while the friar spread his colours.

  And then she questioned him.

  "Love you the old legends, Balthasar?"

  "Madame, as I love life."

  "Ah! they could love in those old days."

  "Madame, men can love even now."

  She put her lute aside, and knelt upon the couch before the window, withher elbows on the cushioned sill. Her silks swept close upon hershapely back, her shoulders gleamed under her purple hair. In the westthe world grew red; the crimson kisses of the sunset poured upon theecstasied green woods. The mere was flaked with a myriad amber scales.The meadows broidered their broad laps with cowslips, as with dust ofgold.

  "Balthasar."

  "Madame?"

  "Look yonder at the sunset. You must be tired of gazing on my face."

  He rose up like one dazed--intoxicated by colours, sounds, and odours.Duessa's hand beckoned him. He went and knelt on the couch at her side,and looked out over the flaming woods.

  "And the other woman?" she said.

  "The other woman?"

  "This Madonna of my lord's chapel."

  "Yes?"

  "She amuses me; I am not jealous; what is jealousy to me? Tell me abouther, Balthasar; no doubt it is a pretty tale, and you know the whole."

  "I, madame?"

  "I, Duessa."

  "But----"

  "You are my Lord Flavian's friend; he was ever a man to be garrulous: hehas been garrulous to you. Tell me the whole tale."

  "Duessa!"

  "Better, better, my friend."

  She put her hands upon his shoulders, and stared straight into his eyes.Her lips overhung his like ripe red fruit. Her arms were fragrant ofmyrrh and violet; her bosom was white as snow under the moon.

  "Can you refuse me this?"

  "God, madame, I can refuse you nothing."