Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare [57]
"He keeps asking Diana for a lock of her hair," said the widow.
Helena smiled mournfully, for her hair was as fine as Diana's and of the same color. Then an idea struck her, and she said, "Take this purse of gold for yourself. I will give Diana three thousand crowns if she will help me to carry out this plan. Let her promise to give a lock of her hair to my husband if he will give her the ring which he wears on his finger. It is an ancestral ring. Five Counts of Rousillon have worn it, yet he will yield it up for a lock of your daughter's hair. Let your daughter insist that he shall cut the lock of hair from her in a dark room, and agree in advance that she shall not speak a single word."
The widow listened attentively, with the purse of gold in her lap. She said at last, "I consent, if Diana is willing."
Diana was willing, and, strange to say, the prospect of cutting off a lock of hair from a silent girl in a dark room was so pleasing to Bertram that he handed Diana his ring, and was told when to follow her into the dark room. At the time appointed he came with a sharp knife, and felt a sweet face touch his as he cut off the lock of hair, and he left the room satisfied, like a man who is filled with renown, and on his finger was a ring which the girl in the dark room had given him.
The war was nearly over, but one of its concluding chapters taught Bertram that the soldier who had been impudent enough to call Helena his "kicky-wicky" was far less courageous than a wife. Parolles was such a boaster, and so fond of trimmmgs to his clothes, that the French officers played him a trick to discover what he was made of. He had lost his drum, and had said that he would regain it unless he was killed in the attempt. His attempt was a very poor one, and he was inventing the story of a heroic failure, when he was surrounded and disarmed.
"Portotartarossa," said a French lord.
"What horrible lingo is this?" thought Parolles, who had been blindfolded.
"He's calling for the tortures," said a French man, affecting to act as interpreter. "What will you say without 'em?"
"As much," replied Parolles, "as I could possibly say if you pinched me like a pasty." He was as good as his word. He told them how many there were in each regiment of the Florentine army, and he refreshed them with spicy anecdotes of the officers commanding it.
Bertram was present, and heard a letter read, in which Parolles told Diana that he was a fool.
"This is your devoted friend," said a French lord.
"He is a cat to me now," said Bertram, who detested our hearthrug pets.
Parolles was finally let go, but henceforth he felt like a sneak, and was not addicted to boasting.
We now return to France with Helena, who had spread a report of her death, which was conveyed to the Dowager Countess at Rousillon by Lafeu, a lord who wished to marry his daughter Magdalen to Bertram.
The King mourned for Helena, but he approved of the marriage proposed for Bertram, and paid a visit to Rousillon in order to see it accomplished.
"His great offense is dead," he said. "Let Bertram approach me."
Then Bertram, scarred in the cheek, knelt before his Sovereign, and said that if he had not loved Lafeu's daughter before he married Helena, he would have prized his wife, whom he now loved when it was too late.
"Love that is late offends the Great Sender," said the King. "Forget sweet Helena, and give a ring to Magdalen."
Bertram immediately gave a ring to Lafeu, who said indignantly, "It's Helena's!"
"It's not!" said Bertram.
Hereupon the King asked to look at the ring, and said, "This is the ring I gave to Helena, and bade her send to me if ever she needed help. So you had the cunning to get from her what could help her most."
Bertram denied again that the ring was Helena's, but even his mother said it was.
"You lie!" exclaimed the King. "Seize him, guards!" but even while they were seizing him, Bertram wondered how the ring, which he thought Diana had given him, came to be so like Helena's. A gentleman now entered,