Court of Foxes (35 page)

He came over the grass to meet her but slowly, reluctantly and she saw that he was dreadfully pale, stricken, sick of some inner anxiety unconcerned with considerations of their physical safety. They faced each other, apart from the rest, out of earshot. ‘Oh, David,’ she said, flinging aside the pistol to lie on the grass at their feet, going to him with outstretched hands, ‘it’s over.’

He seemed hardly to hear her, staring at her with that stricken look that made her heart turn over with pity and love for him. ‘Gilda,’ he said, ‘I don’t know you. I thought I knew you; but now — I think all this time I’ve known nothing about you after all…’

‘You don’t know this other one, David — the vixen of the Cwrt; you don’t know
her.
But she’s gone now, and indeed had no existence but when the need was there. And it was your need — your need, David, that created her. Yes, I was one of them while you lay sick and helpless, you know that — rode with them, robbed with them, fought beside them, came at last to lead them. But all for you. Only because I loved you. Because I loved you, I’ve a dozen times risked my life—’

‘As you’ve since risked your life for Gareth y Cadno; and also — and in this, Gilda, don’t deceive yourself — because you loved him.’

‘No. Because it was just. He was falsely accused. And anyway,’ she said bravely, ‘isn’t he now dead?’

‘Dead yes; but you, Gilda — is he dead to
you
?’

‘To me?’ she said, startled — and she looked down at the bare finger which for so long had worn the gold and ruby ring. ‘Yes: believe that, if nothing else — he is dead to me now.’

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Y Cadno is dead; and the new leader is dismissed, at your command. So what now? I understand you’ve been in discussion with others of this — rabble.’

She stood staring back at him, trying to make out in the fast-gathering darkness, what message she might read in that sad face, those heavy eyes; those firm lips. ‘What now? Well, simply that the whole party is to ride on. It’s over.’

‘And you?’ he said.

‘I?’

Did he, for a brief instant, shift his intent gaze from her face? — did he for a nickering moment glance over to where she still stood — that other one, so strong in her quiet courage, statuesque in beauty with her crown of gold; not wind-blown, with scuffed shoes from running across the tussocky grass, white faced, not yet recovered from tears… He said: ‘I ask only — do you ride with us?’

She began to tremble. ‘What else?’

‘You wrangled with the Black Toby, you declared yourself Vixen here as you call it, and ruler of the gang. And that while you ruled—’ Now he did turn his eyes to the Lady Blanche.

‘Oh, as to that — I did but tease her, give her a fright to pay her for what she did to me; for what she did to— But I’ve forgotten him, all that’s over now. For the rest…’ She hunched her slim shoulders. ‘Not very pretty, I grant you—’

‘Not pretty at all,’ he said.

She stood up very straight, suddenly; the half-pleading look fell away, she said almost roughly: ‘Come, David — let there at least be truth between us. Do you prefer that I do
not
come with you?’

Where was the old look, the old, loving, tender look that said that whatever her whims or her tantrums, she was his love for ever? He said, however, at once: ‘You are my wife.’

‘You don’t add “unfortunately”,’ she suggested sourly.

‘Of course not,’ he said, again at once. ‘But since you have used the word — it is perhaps unfortunate that you should have exposed yourself quite so publicly — to my relatives (think of them what you may) — to Lady Blanche and her father; to a dozen servants of their household and our own. How you would rule —
again —
over this band of filthy murdering rascals; and how, in your power, you would serve another woman, and that woman a friend and neighbour of my family, which is now your own.’

‘I lost my temper,’ she confessed. ‘I’ll apologise if you wish it; and, David, I’ll try to learn to like her — not for your sake only; one can’t but admire her.’ All the same, she could not forbear to add — when he complained of her language, he forgot that he had not heard their language towards herself, that night at Ranelagh. ‘Your mother was not particular as to her audience, nor Blanche, when they called me strumpet and slut.’

‘I complain not of your language,’ he said, ‘but of the thought behind it: the thought and what it revealed of the experience of the woman who expressed it.’

‘I can’t help my experience,’ she said sullenly. ‘I have witnessed such scenes: once again, in your service.’

He ignored it. He said: ‘Perhaps I should have said — the character of the woman who expressed it.’

She stood looking into his eyes — those beloved brown eyes that now looked back at her with a sickness of defeat. ‘David,’ she said, ‘you will never know what sacrifice I have but this moment, made — for love of you. Are you telling me now that you no longer love me?’

He said again at once: ‘You are my wife.’

She made up her mind. ‘It must be truth between us.’ And she put her white hands on his arm, restraining him, imploring a hearing. ‘Let me tell you all, David, and only pray — with all my desperate heart — that knowing all, you’ll understand; and understanding pity me and love me again.’ And she poured it all out to him. ‘If I behave not as a great lady, it’s because I am not a great lady and never have been. I’ve never seen Venice nor ever had any elderly, doting husband; there’s no wealth in Italy or anywhere else. I came to you as an adventuress; not expecting marriage, not desiring it, intended only for the life of a courtesan, which was all I ever asked of you. In all our life together, in all our dealings, one thing only has been true, David: that I’ve loved you…’ He turned away his head, he seemed not able to listen, not able to hear her out: but she pursued it, steadily. ‘Because, I
have
loved you and only you. That other one’s — death — came between us, because he loved me and would have given his life for me; but — that’s over now, David, I’ll think no more of him, never give one more thought to him in all my life, if only you’ll still ask my love of me.’ And as, to her terror, he still stood silent, she pleaded: ‘You say that for him I offered a sacrifice of my life; I tell you again that, though you won’t understand it and never will know of it — for you I’ve made a sacrifice but this moment, that is more than all my life to me — if only you’ll love me still.’ He was silent, stunned, staring back at her, stupefied in his agony, hardly hearing what she said; and, terrified, she yet crashed blindly on. ‘This is our cross-roads, the moment of all moments in our lives — apart or together. I’ll deal no more in lies; whatever it may cost me, I’ll tell you no more lies. If you refuse me, I’m not lost; I can turn back, I can go with my gang of robbers and cutthroats, my rabble as you call them…’ But her voice faltered, she remembered the taking back of the ruby ring. ‘Well, or if not I can go back, I suppose, to my mother — for she’s not my housekeeper — in her new home.’ Her face was pearly white in the gloaming, her eyes huge and dark in hollows sharpened by the intensity of her prayer. ‘David — I love you, I’ve always loved you… Speak to me!’

He only stammered hoarsely: ‘There’s nothing to be said about it. You’re still my wife.’

She might have accepted it. Time would wear away the memory of this terrible evening, of her self-revelation, of her mouth spitting ugly venom at the quiet figure, the statue of pure white marble with its halo of gold. But she had said she would deal no more in lies. She thought she would faint, flung out a hand and caught at the bough of the birch tree beside which she stood, for support. But she said, steadily: ‘Even that isn’t true. He is alive. I am married to Gareth y Cadno, and he is alive.’

‘Alive?’ he stammered.

‘It was all a fake; never mind the how and the why. But he is alive. I didn’t know it till this moment, but it is so. And so you see, David,’ she said, ‘if you wish it, you’re free.’ And she stood up straight again and took her hand from the supporting bough and held back her shoulders and lifted up her face to him, piteous but proud. ‘Here I stand, David. He… He has repudiated me; taken back from me his pledge — you see that I wear it no longer — rescinded his vows of love to me and gone free. And so also am I free, because I’m caught up for ever in my love for you. For the rest — none need ever know. He will keep silent, he’s sworn his oath on that. But this is all the truth, all that there is of the truth — and now you know me. And knowing me at last, only one question remains, David, between us: will you take me or let me go? As your pretended wife, or as your mistress, I care not — will you take me or let me go?’

So, long ago, over an armful of white roses, had they looked at one another: these two.

Now…

Now he stood and his face was sick-white and he was silent; and incredulous, unable to believe what her eyes saw, what her heart told her — yet she had her answer.

Nothing said. What words could be spoken? He asked at last: ‘And the child?’

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘The child.’ And she looked into his face, standing there white, ill, hang-dog; and at the old woman four-square beside the coach; and at Lady Blanche, cold as ice in her marble propriety — and suddenly it was as though chains fell from about her leaving her wild, exhilarated — free… ‘Ah, the child!’ And at the thought of it, of the bastard changeling, she threw back her head and burst into peals of such laughter as she had not laughed for many and many a day. ‘Keep the child, my lord, since this is all you seem to want out of what you and I have been to each other. Born in all good faith into supposed wedlock, you may soon, no doubt, legitimise it if you but pull strings enough and pay out enough gold. And so — if Lady Blanche will allow it precedence over any little icicles you may beget upon that mountain of snow — it can yet succeed to all the greatness you may wish for it; or need not, if you find you prefer a child of hers to Madam Vixen’s. Or if you weary of it, send the boy back to the Court of Foxes — there’ll always be a welcome for it there.’ And she swept him aside and strode into the centre of the circle, stooping to pick up the pistol as she went. ‘Come, it’s time to be gone! Into your coach, old besom, into your coach, Mistress Blanche, or I’ll have the petticoats off you and set you to dancing again! Oh, but before you go — I’ll collect such treasure from you all as you carry with you; and not small I know it to be, since you were to ride in safety… But you ride so no more; and take witness,’ she cried to the gang, crowding now about them, ‘that there be no more safe conduct for these two houses of Trove and Tregaron: united as they soon will be, not a doubt of it, or apart. No safe conduct!’ She swung back to the coaches. ‘Come, quick, out with your sovereigns, my lord of Trove, and don’t try to deceive me for remember it was I taught you where best to conceal them… And you too, Madam Dowager, you have a fine emerald, I know, tucked down your stocking; so up with your black skirts and let us have at it!’ She held out an insolent hand and only to poor, frightened, shocked, sobbing Anne, shook her head and showed a moment of kindness. ‘Not you, child, keep your treasures. But pass me my lord of Trove’s watch from his fob there; and my lord of Tregaron, you too, I know, carry gold…’ And she whirled round upon him, pistol at the ready and caught at his hand and roughly forced off the ring she had given him at their marriage. ‘This may yet fetch a sovereign or two I dare say; God knows it has no other value.’ And she slammed-to the doors of the coaches and cried up to the coachmen: ‘Drive on!’ and turned back to the gang, men and women, clustered about her and commanded: ‘Return to the Cwrt. Leave me a pony, but ride ahead. Go on!’

They gathered up their possessions, quietly, sensing something very strange; mounted and rode off away across the green fields, splashed through the river and began the steep ascent of the mountain that hid the Court of Foxes from her view. Catti rode last, Dio walking at the pony’s head, carrying the child in her arms. Well, Gilda said to it in her thoughts, I might have loved you — for a moment did love you; but it seems that my loves are fated to be rejected. Not of his own volition, at least, did this one leave her; but that he was leaving her now and for ever was certain. Three loves — and they all had gone from her, leaving her alone.

She stood for a long time by the empty roadside, hearing the far-away, receding clatter of horses’ hooves on the road, the fading chuff-chuff of the ponies making their way through the grass, the voices, carrying clearly as the group toiled up the mountain whose other side was their fortress home. Darkness was falling, the heather on the mountain top was a purple haze; soon the only sound was the scutter of the dry leaves as a little breeze blew them, tumbling, along the rutted road. The pony stood beside her, its gentle head nuzzling her arm. ‘You at least are a friend,’ she said, putting her hand to the soft pink velvet of its nose with its tickling of hairs. ‘And while I have such a friend…’ A sturdy pony, a bagful of sovereigns; and a handful of jewels, to be sold readily enough though for a hundredth part of their value, when the gold was spent… ‘Many have started life all over again,’ she said to the pony, ‘with less than we have, you and I…’

And one other gift she had; one other gift. And, recollecting it, she burst out again into laughter. ‘Fool that I am!’ She began to gather together her tumbled hair, feverishly, to pin it up again into its orderly beauty; ran to the stream to dip in her handkerchief — with the cold clear water washed away all signs of tears; brushed down her skirts, pulled straight the severe green riding jacket, took a wisp of grass to bring back a polish to her shoes. ‘Take heart, little one,’ she said to the fretting pony, ‘tonight you shall lie soft, even if you lie alone. And I…’ If she lay not soft at the rough little drovers’ inn by the Towy bridge, at least she need not lie alone. ‘All else I’ll accept,’ she said to the pony, ‘and use it to my advantage. But not to be alone.’

He had had a good start of her but would have ridden leisurely, no doubt, since five or six miles only lay between himself and his supper. She set the pony at a good pace up the hill towards Cilycwm, picking its way up the twisting track, deep-rutted, the river flowing through the fields to their left below them, released by the long, sheer fall of water beyond. Ahead of them a tiny farm, ahead of that again a great boulder that thrust itself out into the middle of the road, so that it was ever difficult for the larger vehicles to pass… A fine place for a hold up! she thought and wondered why it hadn’t occurred to her before and recollected that it was a little far to be convenient to the Cwrt. It might, however, come very nicely indeed into a territory covered from — But that’s it! she thought, excitement rising in her. From Twm Shon Catti’s cave! If Y Cadno could hold out there with a price upon his head, why not another who also rides alone — or not quite alone…? Very comfortable the cave had been, dry and warm, sheltered by an overhanging ledge from the winds and weather; high up on its single peak, tucked into the bare rock, with its covering of birch and aider below and its moat of tumbling water where the river divided and met again, almost encircling it. This way the drovers went and came, riding to London… Ten miles further on, Y Cadno’s band would be lying in wait; but by the time they reach the forests, she thought, laughing to herself, the drovers won’t, from now on, be worth the picking. Or the coaches either; from this boulder, even single-handed, a coach might be held up… She began to sketch out, as she rode up the long hill towards it, how one might stand up alone on top of the rock and so command a whole cortege; not go down to them, simply command them to throw out of the windows such treasure as they carried. But they wouldn’t throw all; one would be denied the best part… And if there were outriders, that would be dangerous: one might separate from the others beyond reach of a pistol shot, come up around the rock somehow… Never mind, she thought, this is all idle planning; I shall not be alone…