The Jester. LM

the window.

      “Take me to her,” he said.

      Crossing the hall and mounting the stairs the boy eyed Peregrine, gave him the close scrutiny of childhood, summed up what he found there, and I fancy found it not amiss for all that it is not usual to pay a vast respect to fools. Peregrine caught the lad’s eye upon him.

      “Well, what do you make of me?” he smiled.

      The boy flushed scarlet from brow to chin. Having caught a glimpse of the man beneath the motley words halted on his tongue.

      “Your name?” asked Peregrine still smiling.

      “Antony Philip Delamore,” stuttered the lad. “They call me Pippo.”

      “Pippo,” echoed Peregrine thoughtfully. And the boy heard the name pleasantly from his lips.

      The stairs mounted they passed along a corridor, paused at an alcove curtain-hung with tapestry. Here Pippo, entering first, held aside the heavy draperies.

      “Madam, the Jester awaits your pleasure.”

      A voice smooth, flexible, yet holding, one would say, a ring of metal rather than a hint of silkiness, replied:

      “Well, let him enter.”

      Peregrine stepped across the threshold, and Pippo let the curtain fall behind him.

      In the room lighted by candles, a woman sat beside the fireplace. Her dress was of crimson silk, a splash of colour against the darkness of the oak chair, and in the shadows of the room. She was tall and very slight, yet you could not call her thin. Her skin was of ivory whiteness. Her brow, low and broad, was framed in masses of dark hair glinting with vivid red lights. You caught the gleam of pearls among its darkness. Towards the chin the face narrowed sharply. The mouth, subtle-lipped, showed a hint of snowy teeth. The eyes brown, lustrous, with the blue whites of a child’s eyes, looked from beneath level brows towards the curtain.

      Peregrine saw her eyes.

      With her were her four women—Mary Chester, the oldest, steady-eyed, smooth-haired, common sense well mingled with devoutness; Leonora Ashton, a well grown girl, built to be the mother of sons, healthy in mind and body alike; Monica Cardew, a willowy slip of a girl, dreamy, with little thought beyond her embroideries and her rosary; and last Brigid Carlisle, square-faced, merry, something boyish. Well-favoured women the first three, each after her own fashion, Brigid alone having no pretension to looks, though a pleasant face you would have found it, yet the beauty of the three maids dimmed beside that of the mistress.

      Nature as a rule gives discreetly. Giving features she deems to have done well if she withholds colouring, giving colouring she withholds features. Giving brains she often withholds form, giving form she may pay but scant attention to brains. Of virtue I make no mention seeing it is a gift of grace rather than appertaining solely to Nature. Yet now and again, at rare moments truly, Nature becomes prodigal of her gifts, bestows open-handed. Thus her gifts to Isabel de Belisle. I have given you but the outline, you may fill in the detail, and add thereto that most subtle, elusive, and unaccountable of her gifts—charm, personality, fascination—call it what you will.

      Peregrine, I have told you, saw her eyes. Then remembering her presence bowed low before her.

      Isabel scanned him, a quick glance, very comprehensive. Since we have here been dealing with Nature’s gifts we may well see those she has accorded our Jester. A lean-limbed man he was, tall, and very straight. The face, surrounded by the cap half black, half white, was bronzed with sun and open air. The hair hidden beneath it one might well guess to be dark, judging from the slight shadow on shaven lip and chin. The nose was straight, the nostrils sensitive. The eyes, black-lashed, were of an extraordinary blueness. Looking in his face you were aware of vivid colour, and saw that it lay in his eyes. The pupils were very black. The mouth, sensitive as the nostrils, was firm-lipped. The chin, square, was set at a fine angle with the jaw. Seeking for character you would have read determination in the line.

      Isabel was not the only woman who scanned him. The four maids had their glances ready—Mary Chester’s brief but sure; Leonora’s calm, somewhat indifferent; Monica’s swift, timid, eyes falling again to the frame of her embroidery; Brigid’s frank, boyish almost. But Peregrine’s eyes were still upon Isabel.

      Isabel looking found novelty. Nor was it merely the novelty in a new-comer, a novelty enhanced by dreary weather, enforced sojourn within doors. In outward form she saw a Jester, good-looking enough, but merely a Jester such as his sire and grandsires before him. Yet for a brief space, swift as the tongued lightning which shoots across the darkened sky, she saw something more than mere fool. And having seen it she perceived in the fool the cloak to a riddle, a riddle perchance worth the solving. Yet she gave no hint of having seen.

      “Your name, Sir Jester?” she demanded, her eyes now upon the fire, speaking of set purpose without looking at him, as one may speak to a servant.

      “Peregrine, Madam.”

      “Peregrine?” she dwelt on the syllables. “A bird?”

      “A species of hawk, Madam.”

      “Then a bird of prey?”

      “Maybe; yet swift of flight, a wanderer.”

      “Ah! And were you named for prey, flight, or wanderer?”

      Peregrine lifted his shoulders, the merest suspicion of a shrug. “The last, so my mother told me.”

      “Yet you have not wandered far, nor are likely to do so.”

      “True, Madam; yet you speak now of the body.”

      “The body?”

      “The spirit may soar aloft, wander in realms of fancy. No man but the owner may clip the wings of that bird.”

      “You speak seriously for a Jester.”

      “Serious words, Madam, cloak light fancies. Light words cloak serious fancies. Therefore you perceive my fancies, being light of wing, can soar.”

      “Ah!” She threw him a swift glance, read something sombre in his eyes; remembered, since a woman’s heart should surely hold some thought for others, that death’s hand had but lately touched one near to him.

      Peregrine read her glance; had no mind for pity in that direction. Death had come as a good friend to his sire, had flung the cell door open. Yet how to turn her thought? How act the part it was his to play? Fate had indeed flung the rôle upon him, garbed his body while poorly equipping his tongue. In this he perceived her irony. Seeking for words his hand touched his tabor.

      “Madam, I know a song.”

      “But one?” Her voice held a hint of mockery.

      “For the moment.”

      “A merry song? A sad song?”

      “Madam, it will accord with the mood of the listener, therefore I will term it neither a merry song, nor a sad song, but an adaptable song.”

      She leaned back in her chair. “An unusual song. Let us hear it.”

      Peregrine struck a couple of chords on the tabor, then in a voice not large, but a sweet barytone, he sang:

       Ah, what it is to dream

       Know ye, who seek to deem

       Your way a path more bright

       Than that it now doth seem;

       More grand of sight, more bathed in light.

       Ah, what it is to dream!

       If thou dost e’er desire

       To seek sweet fancy’s fire,

       To warm at her soft flame,

       Repent not of the hire,