The Queen from Provence Read Online Free PDF

natural. The poem is set in Cornwall. The Earl of Cornwall is close at hand. I am sure he was delighted. He will be able to tell you, my lady, whether your descriptions of his country were good.’
    Eleanor was looking from the minister to her father. The Count looked vaguely uneasy. Of course she was thinking Richard was not Henry, but he was his brother and soon he would be returning to England. It was a way in. It appealed to her nature to do something – however wild – rather than to do nothing at all.
    The Count said: ‘The Countess must be told without delay. It will be necessary to make preparations for the brother of the King of England.’

    She was a beautiful child, thought Richard, for child she was in spite of the fact that she was so self-possessed. Eleanor la Belle indeed! And when he considered her poem which he had at first thought he must skim through and then had become excited about, he was astonished. She was not only beautiful but clever.
    She made him feel more and more dissatisfied with his marriage. By God’s eyes, he thought, were I not already married I would ask for her myself.
    There was a banquet in the great hall given especially for him and he expressed himself so enchanted by the Count’s daughter that he asked that he might be presented to the others.
    Sanchia and Beatrice, with Eleanor, were a charming trio; and if perhaps Eleanor surpassed her sisters in beauty and poise the others were not far behind.
    He made himself very agreeable and talked to them of Eleanor’s poem about Cornwall which he said amazed him by the manner in which it expressed the atmosphere of the place.
    Then he told them about Corfe Castle where he had spent much of his early life and how he had been most strictly brought up under the care of stern tutors. He spoke of Cornwall – that most westerly part of England which tapered into a bony ridge of land pushing its way far out into the ocean. He told of the moors and the rugged coast so treacherous to ships and the queer brooding mystery of the land where in the past so many strange deeds had taken place. He believed that King Arthur and his knights had roamed those moors.
    He turned to Eleanor. ‘With your imagination, dear lady, you would find much to write of in my land of Cornwall. You would find many such as the brave knight Blandin. I would I could show it to you.’
    ‘How I long to see it,’ cried Eleanor.
    ‘Mayhap you will one day,’ replied Richard; and he looked at her so intently that the colour came into her cheeks and she cast down her eyes lest he should read her thoughts.
    ‘I should like to come too,’ said Sanchia, who was too young to hide her admiration for their guest.
    ‘Let us hope that in some way this will come to pass,’ said Richard. ‘Why should I not invite you all?’
    ‘It is so far,’ said Sanchia. ‘Over the sea.’
    ‘I should like to go on a boat,’ put in Beatrice. ‘You came on one, my lord.’
    ‘’Tis true I did and the sea was so unkind to us that more than one of my men wished himself dead.’
    ‘But you did not,’ said Sanchia.
    ‘I am a tolerable sailor,’ he answered, ‘which is a mercy for in my family we used to spend our lives crossing the sea. It may well be that we shall return to the habit.’
    Eleanor was the only one who knew that he was referring to the regaining of the lost possessions. She was silent because her whole attention was centred on what he had to tell. She wanted to hear more and more of England, and hearing of England meant hearing of its King.
    ‘My brother, as you know, has been a King for a long time. He is only slightly older than I. Just think. Had I been born fifteen months sooner and he fifteen later it would be the King of England who sat talking to you now.’
    ‘You would not be here then,’ Eleanor pointed out.
    ‘Why should I not be? I tell you this. If my brother knew of the talents and beauty of the daughters of the Count of Provence he would be unable to