‘Monseigneur St. Eustache, ten wax candles everyday to your shrine at Bellaise, so he recovers; ten more if he listen favourably and loves me. Nay, all—all the Selinville jewels to make you a shrine. All—all, so he will only let me love him;’ and then, while taking up the beads, and pronouncing the repeated devotions attached to each, her mind darted back to the day when, as young children, she had played unfairly, defrauded Landry Osbert, and denied it; how Berenger, though himself uninjured, had refused to speak to her all that day—how she had hated him then—how she had thought she had hated him throughout their brief intercourse in the previous year; how she had played into her brother’s hands; and when she thought to triumph over the man who had scorned her, found her soul all blank desolation, and light gone out from the earth! Reckless and weary, she had let herself be united to M. de Selinville, and in her bridal honours and amusements had tried to crowd out the sense of dreariness and lose herself in excitement. Then came the illness and death of her husband, and almost at the same time the knowledge of Berenger’s existence. She sought excitement again that feverish form of devotion then in vogue at Paris, and which resulted in the League. She had hitherto stunned herself as it were with penances, processions, and sermons, for which the host of religious orders then at Paris had given ample scope; and she was constantly devising new extravagances. Even at this moment she wore sackcloth beneath her brocade, and her rosary was of death’s heads. She was living on the outward husk of the Roman Church not penetrating into its living power, and the phase of religion which fostered Henry III. and the League offered her no more.
All, all had melted away beneath the sad but steadfast glance of those two eyes, the only feature still unchanged in the marred, wrecked countenance. That honest, quiet refusal, that look which came from a higher atmosphere, had filled her heart with passionate beatings and aspirations once more, and more consciously than ever. Womanly feeling for suffering, and a deep longing to compensate to him, and earn his love, nay wrest it from him by the benefits she would heap upon him, were all at work; but the primary sense was the longing to rest on the only perfect truth she had ever known in man, and thus with passionate ardour she poured forth her entreaties to St. Eustache, a married saint, who had known love, and could feel for her, and could surely not object to the affection to which she completely gave way for one whose hand was now as free as her own.
But St. Eustache was not Diane’s only hope. That evening she sent Veronique to Rene of Milan, the court-perfumer, but also called by the malicious, l’empoisonneur de le Reine, to obtain from him the most infallible charm and love potion in his whole repertory.
CHAPTER XXVI. THE CHEVALIER’S EXPIATION
Next, Sirs, did he marry?
And whom, Sirs, did he marry? One like himself, Though doubtless graced with many virtues, young, And erring, and in nothing more astray Than in this marriage.—TAYLOR, EDWIN THE FAIR.
Nothing could be kinder than the Ambassador’s family, and Philip found himself at once at home there, at least in his brother’s room, which was all the world to him. fortunately, Ambroise Pare, the most skillful surgeon of his day, had stolen a day from his attendance of King Charles, at St. Germain, to visit his Paris patients, and, though unwilling to add to the list of cases, when he heard from Walsingham’s secretary who the suffer was, and when injured, he came at once to afford his aid.
He found, however, that there was little scope for present treatment, he could only set his chief assistant to watch the patient and to inform him when the crisis should be nearer; but remarking the uneasy, anxious expression in Berenger’s eyes, he desired to know whether any care on his mind might be interfering with his recovery. A Huguenot, and perfectly trustworthy, he was one who Walsingham knew might safely hear the whole, and after hearing all, he at once returned to his patient, and leaning over him, said, ‘Vex not yourself, sir; your illness is probably serving you better than health could do.’
Sir Francis thought this quite probable, since Charles was so unwell and so beset with his mother’s creatures that no open audience could be obtained from him, and Pare, who always had access to him, might act when no one else could reach him. Meantime the Ambassador rejoiced to hear of the instinctive caution that had made Berenger silence Philip on the object of the journey to Paris, since if the hostile family guessed at the residence of the poor infant, they would have full opportunity for obliterating all the scanty traces of her. Poor persecuted little thing! the uncertain hope of her existence seemed really the only thread that still bound Berenger to life. He had spent eighteen months in hope deferred, and constant bodily pain; and when the frightful disappointment met him at La Sablerie, it was not wonder that his heart and hope seemed buried in the black scorched ruins where all he cared for had perished. He was scarcely nineteen, but the life before him seemed full of nothing but one ghastly recollection, and, as he said in the short sad little letter which he wrote to his grandfather from his bed, he only desired to live long enough to save Eustacie’s child from being a nameless orphan maintained for charity in a convent, and to see her safe in Aunt Cecily’s care; and then he should be content to have done with this world for ever.
The thought that no one except himself could save the child, seemed to give him the resolution to battle for life that often bears the patient through illness, though now he as suffering more severely and consciously than ever he had done before; and Lady Walsingham often gave up hopes of him. He was tenderly cared for by her and her women; but Philip was the most constant nurse, and his unfailing assiduity and readiness amazed the household, who had begun by thinking him ungainly, loutish, and fit for nothing but country sports.
The Chevalier de Ribaumont came daily to inquire; and the first time he was admitted actually burst into tears at the sight of the swollen disfigured face, and the long mark on the arm which lay half-uncovered. Presents of delicacies, ointments, and cooling drinks were frequently sent from him and from the Countess de Selinville; but Lady Walsingham distrusted these, and kept her guest strictly to the regimen appointed by Pare. Now and then, billets would likewise come. The first brought a vivid crimson into Berenger’s face, and both it and all its successors he instantly tore into the smallest fragments, without letting any one see them.
On the day of the Carnival, the young men of the household had asked Master Thistlewood to come out with them and see the procession of the Boeuf Gras; but before it could take place, reports were flying about that put the city in commotion, caused the Ambassador to forbid all going out, and made Philip expect another Huguenot massacre. The Duke of Alencon and the King of Navarre had been detected, it was said, in a conspiracy for overthrowing the power of the Queen-mother, bringing in the Huguenots, and securing the crown to Alencon on the King’s death. Down-stairs, the Ambassador and his secretaries sat anxiously striving to sift the various contradictory reports; up-stairs, Philip and Lady Walsingham were anxiously watching Berenger in what seemed the long-expected crisis, and Philip was feeling as if all the French court were welcome to murder one another so that they would only let Ambroise Pare come to his brother’s relief. And it was impossible even to send!
At last, however, when Ash-Wednesday was half over, there was a quiet movement, and a small pale man in black was at the bedside, without Philip’s having ever seen his entrance. He looked at his exhausted patient, and said, ‘It is well; I could not have done you any good before.’
And when he had set Berenger more at ease, he told how great had been the confusion at St. Germain when the plot had become known to the Queen-mother. The poor King had been wakened at two o’clock in the morning, and carried to his litter, when Pare and his old nurse had tended him. He only said, ‘Can they not let me die in peace?’ and his weakness had been so great on arriving, that the surgeon could hardly have left him for M. de Ribaumont, save by his own desire. ‘Yes, sir,’ added Pare, seeing Berenger attending to him, ‘we must have you well quickly; his Majesty knows all about you, and is anxious to see you.’
In spite of these good wishes, the recovery was very slow; for, as the surgeon had suspected, the want of skill in those who had had the charge of Berenger at the first had been the cause of much of his protracted suffering. Pare, the inventor of trephining, was, perhaps, the only man in Europe who could have dealt with the fracture in the back of the head, and he likewise extracted the remaining splinters of the jaw, though at the cost of much severe handling and almost intolerable pain: but by Easter, Berenger found the good surgeon’s encouragement verified, and himself on the way to a far more effectual cure than he had hitherto thought possible. Sleep had come back to him, he experienced the luxury of being free from all pain, he could eat without difficulty; and Pare, always an enemy to wine, assured him that half the severe headaches for which he had been almost bled to death, were the consequence of his living on bread soaked in sack instead of solid food; and he was forbidden henceforth to inflame his brain with anything stronger than sherbet. His speech, too, was much improved; he still could not utter all the consonants perfectly, and could not speak distinctly without articulating very slowly, but all the discomfort and pain were gone; and though still very weak, he told Philip that now all his course seemed clear towards his child, instead of being like a dull, distraught dream. His plan was to write to have a vessel sent from Weymouth, to lie off the coast till his signal should be seen from la Motte-Achard, and then to take in the whole party and the little yearling daughter, whom he declared he should trust to no one but himself. Lady Walsingham remonstrated a little at the wonderful plans hatched by the two lads together, and yet she was too glad to see a beginning of brightening on his face to make many objections. It was only too sand to think how likely he was again to be disappointed.
He was dressed, but had not left his room, and was lying on cushions in the ample window overlooking the garden, while Frances and Elizabeth Walsingham in charge of their mother tried to amuse him by their childish airs and sports, when a message was brought that M. le Chevalier de Ribaumont prayed to be admitted to see him privily.
‘What bodes that?’ he languidly said.
‘Mischief, no doubt,’ said Philip Walsingham. ‘Send him word that you are seriously employed.’
‘Nay, that could scarce be, when he must have heard the children’s voices,’ said Lady Walsingham. ‘Come away, little ones.’
The ladies took the hint and vanished, but Philip remained till the Chevalier had entered, more resplendent than ever, in a brown velvet suit slashed with green satin, and sparkling with gold lace-a contrast to the deep mourning habit in which Berenger was dressed. After inquiries for his health, the Chevalier looked at Philip, and expressed his desire of speaking with his cousin alone.
‘If it be of business,’ said Berenger, much on his guard, ‘my head is still weak, and I would wish to have the presence of the Ambassador or one of his secretaries.’
‘This is not so much a matte of business as of family,’ said the Chevalier, still looking so uneasily at Philip that Berenger felt constrained to advise him to join the young ladies in the garden; but instead of doing this, the boy paced the corridors like a restless dog waiting for his master, and no sooner heard the old gentleman bow himself out than he hurried back again, to find Berenger heated, panting, agitated as by a sharp encounter.
‘Brother, what is it—what has the old rogue done to you?’
‘Nothing,’ said Berenger, tardily and wearily; and for some minutes he did not attempt to speak, while Philip devoured his curiosity as best he might. At last he said, ‘He was always beyond me. What think you? Now he wants me to turn French courtier and marry his daughter.’
‘His daughter!’ exclaimed Philip, ‘that beautiful lady I saw in the coach?’
A nod of assent.
‘I only wish it were I.’
‘Philip,’ half angrily, ‘how can you be such a fool?’
‘Of course, I know it can’t be,’ said Philip sheepishly, but a little offended. ‘But she’s the fairest woman my eyes ever beheld.’
‘And the falsest.’
‘My father says all women are false; only they can’t help it, and don’t mean it.’
‘Only some do mean it,’ said Berenger, dryly.
‘Brother!’ cried Philip, fiercely, as if ready to break a lance, ‘what right have you to accuse that kindly, lovely dame of falsehood?’
‘It skills not going through all,’ said Berenger, wearily. ‘I know her of old. She began by passing herself off on me as my wife.’
‘And you were not transported?’
‘I am not such a gull as you.’
‘How very beautiful your wife must have been!’ said Philip, with gruff amazement overpowering his consideration.
‘Much you know about it,’ returned Berenger, turning his face away.
There was a long silence, first broken by Philip, asking more cautiously, ‘And what did you say to him?’
‘I said whatever could show it was most impossible. Even I said the brother’s handwriting was too plain on my face for me to offer myself to the sister. But it seems all that is to be passed over as an unlucky mistake. I wish I could guess what the old fellow is aiming at.’
‘I am sure the lady looked at you as if she loved you.’
‘Simpleton! She looked to see how she could beguile me. Love! They do nothing for love here, you foolish boy, save par amour. If she loved me, her father was the last person she would have sent me. No, no; ‘tis a new stratagem, if I could only seen my way into it. Perhaps Sir Francis will when he can spend an hour on me.’
Though full of occupation, Sir Francis never failed daily to look in upon his convalescent guest, and when he heard of the Chevalier’s interview, he took care that Berenger should have full time to consult him; and, of course, he inquired a good deal more into the particulars of the proposal than Philip had done. When he learnt that the Chevalier had offered all the very considerable riches and lands that Diane enjoyed in right of her late husband as an equivalent for Berenger’s resignation of all claims upon the Nid-de-Merle property, he noted it on his tables, and desired to know what these claims might be. ‘I cannot tell,’ said Berenger. ‘You may remember, sir, the parchments with our contract of marriage had been taken away from Chateau Leurre, and I have never seen them.’
‘Then,’ said the Ambassador, ‘you may hold it as certain that those parchments give you some advantage which he hears, since he is willing to purchase it at so heavy a price. Otherwise he himself would be the natural heir of those lands.’
‘After my child,’ said Berenger, hastily.
‘Were you on your guard against mentioning your trust in your child’s life?’ said Sir Francis.
The long scar turned deeper purple than ever. ‘Only so far as that I said there still be rights I had no power to resign,’ said Berenger. ‘And then he began to prove to me–what I had no mind to hear’ (and his voice trembled) ‘–all that I know but too well.’
‘Hum! you must not be left alone again to cope with him,’ said Walsingham. ‘Did he make any question of the validity of your marriage?’
‘No, sir, it was never touched on. I would not let him take her name into his lips.’
Walsingham considered for some minutes, and then said, ‘It is clear, then, that he believes that the marriage can be sufficiently established to enable you to disturb him in his possession of some part, at least, of the Angevin inheritance, or he would not endeavour to purchase your renunciation of it by the hand of a daughter so richly endowed.’
‘I would willingly renounce it if that were all! I never sought it; only I cannot give up her child’s rights.’
‘And that you almost declared,’ proceeded Walsingham; ‘so that the Chevalier has by his negotiation gathered from you that you have not given up hope that the infant lives. Do your men know where you believe she is?’
‘My Englishmen know it, of course,’ said Berenger; ‘but there is no fear of them. The Chevalier speaks no English, and they scarcely any French; and, besides, I believe they deem him equally my butcher with his son. The other fellow I only picked up after I was on my way to Paris, and I doubt his knowing my purpose.’
‘The Chevalier must have had speech with him, though,’ said Philip; ‘for it was he who brought word that the old rogue wished to speak with you.’
‘It would be well to be quit yourself of the fellow ere leaving Paris,’ said Walsingham.
‘Then, sir,’ said Berenger, with an anxious voice, ‘do you indeed think I have betrayed aught that can peril the poor little one?’
Sir Francis smiled. ‘We do not set lads of your age to cope with old foxes,’ he answered; ‘and it seems to me that you used far discretion in the encounter. The mere belief that the child lives does not show him where she may be. In effect, it would seem likely to most that the babe would be nursed in some cottage, and thus not be in the city of La Sablerie at all. He might, mayhap, thus be put on a false scent.’
‘Oh no,’ exclaimed Berenger, startled; ‘that might bring the death of some other person’s child on my soul.’
‘That shall be guarded against,’ said Sir Francis. ‘In the meantime, my fair youth, keep your matters as silent as may be–do not admit the Chevalier again in my absence; and, as to this man Guibert, I will confer with my steward whether he knows too much, and whether it be safer to keep of dismiss him!’
‘If only I could see the King, and leave Paris,’ sighed Berenger.
And Walsingham, though unwilling to grieve the poor youth further, bethought himself that this was the most difficult and hopeless matter of all. As young Ribaumont grew better, the King grew worse; he himself only saw Charles on rare occasions, surrounded by a host of watchful eyes and ears, and every time he marked the progress of disease; and though such a hint could be given by an Ambassador, he thought that by far the best chance of recovery of the child lay in the confusion that might probably follow the death of Charles IX. in the absence of his next heir.
Berenger reckoned on the influence of Elisabeth of Austria, who had been the real worker in his union with Eutacie; but he was told that it was vain to expect assistance from her. In the first year of her marriage, she had fondly hoped to enjoy her husband’s confidence, and take her natural place in his court; but she was of no mould to struggle with Catherine de Medicis, and after a time had totally desisted. Even at the time of the St. Bartholomew, she had endeavoured to uplift her voice on the side of mercy, and had actually saved the lives of the King of Navarre and Prince of Conde; and her father, the good Maximilian II., had written in the strongest terms to Charles IX. expressing his horror of the massacre. Six weeks later, the first hour after the birth of her first and only child, she had interceded with her husband for the lives of two Huguenots who had been taken alive, and failing then either through his want of will or want of power, she had collapsed and yielded up the endeavour. She ceased to listen to petitions from those who had hoped for her assistance, as if to save both them and herself useless pain, and seemed to lapse into a sort of apathy to all public interests. She hardly spoke, mechanically fulfilled her few offices in the court, and seemed to have turned her entire hope and trust into prayer for her husband. Her German confessor had been sent home, and a Jesuit given her in his stead, but she had made no resistance; she seemed to the outer world a dull, weary stranger, obstinate in leading a conventual life; but those who knew her best—and of these few was the Huguenot surgeon Pare—knew that her heart had been broken two guilty lives, or to make her husband free himself from his bondage to bloody counsels. To pray for him was all that remained to her—and unwearied had been those prayers. Since his health had declined, she had been equally indefatigable in attending on him, and did not seem to have a single interest beyond his sick chamber.
As to the King of Navarre, for whose help Berenger had hoped, he had been all these months in the dishonouable thraldom of Catherine de Medicis, and was more powerless than ever at this juncture, having been implicated in Alencon’s plot, and imprisoned at Vincennes.
And thus, the more Berenger heard of the state of things, the less hopeful did his cause appear, till he could almost have believed his best chance lay in Philip’s plan of persuading the Huguenots to storm the convent.