The Goose Girl and Other Stories (37 page)

‘So!' said Jehane, ‘you call me fat now. Well, that is a change from your compliments.'

Patiently de Mercadet explained that he had said nothing of the sort. He had never mentioned fatness. ‘Is Juno fat because her beauty is more amply drawn than Diana's?' he asked. ‘Has not a flowing curve, an arc, more beauty than a poor straight line? What is there to see or commend in a green stick of girlhood? But every contour of your perfect womanhood is Cupid's bow bent to kill.'

‘Is there any point to all this?' asked Jehane.

De Mercadet hesitated. ‘It might be possible,' he said, ‘to reduce the fullness of your beauty without impairing its essential quality. And if by chance you grew more slim—if Love's bow were here and there unbent. . . .'

‘The chain would fall off as from a green stick of girlhood?' De Mercadet bowed. ‘Will you not spare a penny or two of your beauty's opulence to buy love itself?'

‘And how am I to do that?' asked Jehane.

‘There are various ways. Some strenuous exercise, for example . . .'

‘What,' said Jehane, ‘shall I kick and prance, turn flesh to dew, and wipe it off? You must think of some easier way than that, good Gilles.'

Again the troubadour spoke with a diffidence unusual in him. ‘Hermits and other ascetic people grow thin by living on a meagre diet of roots and herbs.'

‘So you would have me starve for love's sake?' said Jehane. ‘But such a plan appeals to me no more than jumping does, and I shall neither run to make me lean as a hunting dog, nor starve to grow thin as an anchorite, since the sole benefit from either would be yours in possessing me.'

Because the Lady Jehane was in so difficult a mood de Mercadet made no attempt to expose the fallacy in her last statement, nor indeed to recommend further the courses he had already suggested. But with an air of melancholy arrogance he begged leave to go, and left her. Nor did he leave her for the moment only, but for a space of several days. Servants saw him in the early morning, when the river mist accentuated his pallor, as he walked solitary in the gardens; and in the evening twilight one might observe him by the edge of a wood,
dark against its darkness, and staring into the sky as though impatient for the coming obscurity of night. But except for these crepuscular glimpses he was rarely visible, and he spoke to no one. The reason for his strange conduct was widely canvassed and gave ground for much conversation. The friends and servants of Lady Jehane were inclined to be proud of their supposition that she had broken his heart, for they would in a sense share in her prestige if this were so.

But Jehane herself was scarcely so happy. In de Mercadet's absence she felt more drawn to him than had been usual while he sat beside her, and she thought about love, even illicit love, with a broader mind when its exponent was no longer at hand to put her tolerance to the test. Since there was now no one to speak to her of love—for all others had retired before de Mercadet's wooing—she thought she would like to be loved. She remembered the troubadour's suggestion that she might grow slimmer, and so rid herself of the belt, by attention to her diet. She considered her image in several mirrors and discovered with some reluctance that her beauty might even be enhanced by judicious decrement of its superfluity. And so for an unhappy meal or two she pushed the cream-jug away from her, tortured her appetite with lettuce and a biscuit, and when her friends proffered sweetmeats turned with a shudder in the opposite direction.

This asceticism was of brief duration, however. Jehane's loss of appetite was reported in the kitchens, and her cook, a loyal and loving servant, set his mind to the confection of a pie that would restore her to health by its irresistible awakening of hunger. In this he most happily succeeded.

As ambergris will proclaim its virtue from afar, so did the pie. An odour of richness came out of it, not in a great vulgar gust, but in subtle streams and airs that took the nose with sweetness and brought moisture to the tongue. When Lady Jehane smelt this enchanting smell her thought was, ‘How poor and frail a thing is love compared with table joys!' The idea of starving herself for such a trifling pleasure as de Mercadet's embraces appeared, in view of this magnificent pie, so wild an absurdity that she laughed aloud, and covered the amazement that her laughter produced by calling to her sewer, ‘Cut quickly, man! Must our hunger wait for your convenience?'

Thereupon he sewer invaded the pie with a great knife, and cutting a thick wedge of crumbling pastry discovered beneath it a store of larks, leverets, quails, pigeons and other small fowl. ‘Love!' thought Lady Jehane scornfully as she filled her mouth with this succulent variety, ‘what man's love is worth a lark and leveret pie?' And as she pushed her manchet of bread into the hot dark gravy she was vastly amused
to think of anyone forsaking the joy of eating to take a lover or find beauty in slimness. ‘Green sticks of girlhood!' she muttered. ‘Boy,' she said to her page, ‘bring me more pie!' And patted her plumpness with a sigh of content.

She was eating sugar plums when de Mercadet found her that afternoon. She felt a little pang of remorse when she saw how pale and handsome he was, but hardening her heart she said, ‘Well, good Gilles, have you found new arguments to persuade me into starvation?'

But de Mercadet said eagerly, ‘There will be no need of that now, I think, for I have thought of someone who may help us by simpler means.'

‘Do not suggest a smithy again,' said Jehane.

‘When I was in Perpignan I taught something of my art to young Charles de Gaucelm, in whose father's house I lived for a certain time. I taught him to make an alba, to hold his own in a tenson, and how to improve his playing on the lute. For this he was grateful, as you may well imagine, and since he was adored by all that household, all that household competed with him in gratitude and still would be willing to do much for me—It was none of their fault that I left Perpignan.—Now there is in the house an old nurse whose wisdom in leechcraft and skill in herbs are indeed remarkable. She was born in Brittany, and she learnt her secrets there. Among her most notable cures was that of a certain dowager countess whose breath grew insufficient on account of her fatness.'

‘What has this to do with me?' said Jehane. ‘I can breathe well enough.'

‘The old nurse paid no attention to the countess's breath,' said de Mercadet, ‘but she gave her a certain medicine which removed her fat.'

‘Oh,' said Jehane.

‘In three or four weeks the countess was slender as a girl, and this without inconvenience to herself.'

‘She was not forbidden to eat?'

‘Her appetite grew better and she ate more heartily every day,' said de Mercadet.

Jehane took another sugar plum. ‘You are going to see the old woman, to buy her medicine?'

‘It will be neither pleasant nor safe for me to return to Perpignan,' said de Mercadet, ‘but I count it a small adventure when your love awaits for my return. Ah, Jehane, when your belt falls, how will our sadness fall! What joy will be loosed when your chain is loosed, and rapture, not steel, may gird you!'

Jehane said little to that. She was rather thoughtful, and as usual not quite sure where her thoughts tended. But she gave de Mercadet permission to leave the castle on his errand, and before he went kissed him on the mouth. The troubadour's soul was exalted by this warm and freely-given kiss, but in truth it meant little. It simply concealed the fact that she did not know what to say to him.

It was October when de Mercadet rode with his joglar from the castle of Caraman. Christmas came, and he did not return. Winter passed, and there was no news of him. Jehane thought less about him now, though with increasing frequency she thought about his errand, and the Breton medicine appeared infinitely desirable, for the coldness of winter had sharpened her appetite and the chain, in consequence, had grown somewhat tight about her waist. She desired most fervently to be rid of it, and that without any thought of love as a sequel to freedom.

Spring was ripening into summer before de Mercadet came back to Caraman. He rode in one evening, travel-stained and weary. But though the vagaries of the weather had taken the colour out of his clothes, they had put colour in his cheeks, and he looked both strong and well-contented with what he had done. He walked with a jaunty air and spoke in a ringing tone. Jehane grew uneasy when she saw his confidence, but very soon she asked if he had the medicine with him. ‘And why have you been so long on your journey?' she said. ‘Perpignan is not so far that a man needs half a year to go there and come back.'

De Mercadet laughed. ‘I have the medicine,' he said, ‘and I've been to Brittany for it. I lived there in a fisherman's house, breathing the smell of fish and living on haddock and black bread, till winter passed and the roads were fit to ride on again. Would you do so much for me, Madame Jehane? No? Wait till you have heard the songs I made riding south in the rain and sun to see you, and when you hear the least of them you will be fast in love and ready to say yes to anything I ask.'

‘Let me see the medicine,' said Jehane.

‘Hear my songs first,' said Gilles. And he sang, till midnight came, the loveliest songs he had ever made, and all the ladies were ready to die for him, and the gentlemen would not let him stop, and at every door were servants, hoarsely breathing, thrusting in their heads to hear this wealth of verse and melody. But Jehane, feeling the belt tight round her waist, thought crossly that he might have given her the medicine first.

She got it on the following day. ‘What is it, and how is it made?' she asked.

‘It is prepared from a certain kind of seaweed that grows in Brittany,' said Gilles. ‘They burn it in pits on the shore, and from the ash it is possible to extract this medicine, though the secret is known to few. But the old nurse at Perpignan, whose own store had all been used, sent me to a sister who shares her cunning, and she gave me this flask.'

‘It will do me no harm?' asked Jehane.

‘None,' said Gilles.

Then Jehane took her first dose, and made a wry face after it, but filled her mouth with a sugar plum to take away the bitterness. In two weeks' time she was slimmer than she had been for months, and after another week the chain hung loosely down on her hips. She was greatly pleased by this, but less contented to observe de Mercadet's growing exultation, and to hear each evening a serena inspired by the pleasures which he anticipated with increasing confidence. She preferred his old mood of melancholy, and a year of continence had made her so used to it that she felt an extreme reluctance to bother herself with the untidiness of love, the heat and proximity of a lover.

The morning came when the diminished ambit of her hips was no more than an inch or two greater than the circumference of the confining belt. In great excitement she wriggled and twisted and thrust down the links. They were slow to overpass her hinder plumpness, but after some more squeezing, kneading, and pushing, they fell clear, with a rattle and chink, and lay loosely about her ankles. With a cry of delight Jehane leapt over them, threw out her arms, capered and bent and shook herself in the ecstasy of release. Truly light-hearted, she became almost light-headed with joy. She was sobered only by the obtrusive thought of her obligation to de Mercadet. She grew resentful then, to think that the perfection of her happiness should be so impaired. She sulked, she looked out of the window, frowning. She was, it happened, in the tower room where she had said good-bye to her husband. By leaning far out of the window—it was just broad enough to let her shoulders go through—she could almost see her image in the green moat beneath her. But she was not dressed for leaning out of windows, and hurriedly she withdrew her head.

There was a mirror in the room, and she saw that slimness truly suited her. She had not looked so lovely for years. She turned this way and that, and with shame for her meagre gratitude admitted what she owed to de Mercadet. He had restored her freedom and renewed her beauty. What a pity that he wanted a reward. And how deplorably his manner had changed from that attractive melancholy air. Ah, if only she desired to love! If love were not so rude and overwhelming!
And yet he deserved reward, and generosity would suit her best in bestowing it.

But he must give her time. He must be content with seeing her and singing to her. He must not be roughly importunate. She would talk to him and tell him so, and promise her love for some day next year, or the year after. She herself was not impatient for embraces, so why should he be in a hurry?

Having come to this decision Jehane dressed herself, called for a page, and bade him find the troubadour and request his presence in the tower room.

She awaited him calmly. But Gilles came in with exultant laughter, saw the discarded chain immediately, and bearing down her protesting hands caught her in his arms and hugged her with alarming vigour. He was in a rollicking mood and it seemed to Jehane as though he meant to claim his reward on the spot.

She was extremely irritated by his jocular manner, and repulsed him sharply. Had he wept, had he fallen to his knees, had he sought her with a melancholy hope and humble passion, it would have been easy to be kind—kind and yet firm. But that he should canvass her love with hilarity was abominable. ‘Let go, Gilles! Take your hands away! Stand back from me!' she cried.

‘Ah, little prude,' he said. ‘Have I not waited long enough? What hinders now?'

‘Don't come near me,' cried Jehane.

‘Little prude!' he cried. ‘Bed is the place for little prudes, and the place for me. Come, sweeting, to bed, to bed!'

Jehane was horrified. Hands out to ward him off, she backed away from him, round the room and round again, and Gilles followed close, laughing loudly, calling her miser's money, wild bees' honey, and little prude. Round the room they went again, but as Jehane re-passed the window she stopped suddenly with a cry different from her protesting cries. She forgot de Mercadet, she stood motionless, and stared in a white silence at what she saw. His exuberance dulled, de Mercadet came quietly behind her and looked over her shoulder. He saw two men crossing the river at the ford, a few hundred paces from the castle gates. One wore the white surcoat of the Temple, but the red cross on it was faded to a dull and lifeless hue. They drew nearer, and rode in across the lowered drawbridge. Jehane ran to the opposite window that looked into the courtyard. It filled with clamour as the horsemen rode in and were surrounded by twenty, thirty, forty people shouting and begging for news.