That he should prefer a little brown thing, whose beauty

was so inferior to her own, had never crossed her mind; she did not

even know that he was invited to the pall-mall party, and was

greatly taken by surprise when her father sought an interview with

her, accused her of betraying their interests, and told her that

this foolish young fellow declared that he had been mistaken, and

having now discovered his veritable wife, protested against

resigning her.

By that time the whole party were gone to Montpipeau, but that the

Baron was among them was not known at the Louvre until Queen

Catherine, who had always treated Diane as rather a favoured,

quick-witted protegee, commanded her attendance, and on her way

let her know that Madame de Sauve had reported that, among all the

follies that were being perpetrated at the hunting-seat, the young

Queen was absolutely throwing the little Nid-de-Merle into the arms

of her Huguenot husband, and that if measures were not promptly

taken all the great estates in the Bocage would be lost to the

young Chevalier, and be carried over to the Huguenot interest.

Still Diane could not believe that it was so much a matter of love

as that the young had begun to relish court favour and to value the

inheritance, and she could quite believe her little cousin had been

flattered by a few attentions that had no meaning in them. She was

not prepared to find that Eustacie shrank from her, and tried to

avoid a private interview. In truth, the poor child had received

such injunctions from the Queen, and so stern a warning look from

the King, that she durst not utter a syllable of the evening that

had sealed her lot, and was so happy with her secret, so used to

tell everything to Diane, so longing to talk of her husband, that

she was afraid of betraying herself if once they were alone

together. Yet Diane, knowing that her father trusted to her to

learn how far things had gone, and piqued at seeing the transparent

little creature, now glowing and smiling with inward bliss, now

pale, pensive, sighing, and anxious, and scorning her as too

childish for the love that she seemed to affect, was resolved on

obtaining confidence from her.

And when the whole female court had sat down to the silk embroidery

in which Catherine de Medicis excelled, Diane seated herself in the

recess of a window and beckoned her cousin to her side, so that it

was not possible to disobey.

'Little one,' she said, 'why have you cast off your poor cousin?

There, sit down'--for Eustacie stood, with her silk in her hand, as

if meaning instantly to return to her former place; and now, her

cheeks in a flame, she answered in an indignant whisper, 'You know,

Diane! How could you try to keep him from me?'

'Because it was better for thee, my child, than to be pestered with

an adventurer,' she said, smiling, though bitterly.

'My husband!' returned Eustacie proudly.

'Bah! You know better than that!' Then, as Eustacie was about to

speak, but checked herself, Diane added, 'Yes, my poor friend, he

has a something engaging about him, and we all would have hindered

you from the pain and embarrassment of a meeting with him.'

Eustacie smiled a little saucy smile, as though infinitely superior

to them all.

'Pauvre petite,' said Diane, nettled; 'she actually believes in

his love.'

'I will not hear a word against my husband!' said Eustacie,

stepping back, as if to return to her place, but Diane rose and

laid her hand on hers. 'My dear,' she said, 'we must no part thus.

I only wish to know what touches my darling so nearly. I thought

she loved and clung to us; why should she have turned from me for

the sake of one who forgot her for half his life? What can he have

done to master this silly little heart?'

'I cannot tell you, Diane,' said Eustacie, simply; and though she

looked down, the colour on her face was more of a happy glow than a

conscious blush. 'I love him too much; only we understand each

other now, and it is of no use to try to separate us.'

'Ah, poor little thing, so she thinks,' said Diane; and as Eustacie

again smiled as one incapable of being shaken in her conviction,

she added, 'And how do you know that he loves you?'

Diane was startled by the bright eyes that flashed on her and the

bright colour that made Eustacie perfectly beautiful, as she

answered, 'Because I am his wife! That is enough!' Then, before

her cousin could speak again, 'But, Diane, I promised not to speak

of it. I know he would despise me if I broke my word, so I will

not talk to you till I have leave to tell you all, and I am going

back to help Gabrielle de Limeuil with her shepherdess.'

Mademoiselle de Ribaumont felt her attempt most unsatisfactory, but

she knew of old that Eustacie was very determined--all Bellaise

know that to oppose the tiny Baronne was to make her headstrong in

her resolution; and if she suspected that she was coaxed, she only

became more obstinate. To make any discoveries, Diane must take

the line of most cautious caresses, such as to throw her cousin off

her guard; and this she was forced to confess to her father when he

sought an interview with her on the day of her return to Paris. He

shook his head. She must be on the watch, he said, and get quickly

into the silly girl's confidence. What! had she not found out that

the young villain had been on the point of eloping with her? If

such a thing as that should succeed, the whole family was lost, and

she was the only person who could prevent it. He trusted to her.

The Chevalier had evidently come to regard his niece as his son's

lawful property, and the Baron as the troublesome meddler; and

Diane had much the same feeling, enhanced by sore jealousy at

Eustacie's triumph over her, and curiosity as to whether it could

be indeed well founded. She had an opportunity of judging the same

evening--mere habit always caused Eustacie to keep under her wing,

if she could not be near the Queen, whenever there was a reception,

and to that reception of course Berenger came, armed with his right

as gentleman of the bedchamber. Eustacie was colouring and

fluttering, as if by the instinct of his presence, even before the

tall fair head became visible, moving forward as well as the crowd

would permit, and seeking about with anxious eyes. The glances of

the blue and the black eyes met at last, and a satisfied radiance

illuminated each young face; then the young man steered his way

through the throng, but was caught midway by Coligny, and led up to

be presented to a hook-nosed, dark-haired, lively-looking young

man, in a suit of black richly laced with silver. It was the King

of Navarre, the royal bridegroom, who had entered Paris in state

that afternoon. Eustacie tried to be proud of the preferment, but

oh! she thought it mistimed, and was gratified to mark certain

wandering of the eye even while the gracious King was speaking.

Then the Admiral said something that brought the girlish rosy flush

up to the very roots of the short curls of flaxen hair, and made

the young King's white teeth flash out in a mirthful, good-natured

laugh, and thereupon the way opened, and Berenger was beside the

two ladies, kissing Eustacie's hand, but merely bowing to Diane.

She was ready to take the initiative.

'My cousins deem me unpardonable,' she said; 'yet I am going to

purchase their pardon. See this cabinet of porcelain a le Reine,

and Italian vases and gems, behind this curtain. There is all the

siege of Troy, which M. le Baron will not doubt explain to

Mademoiselle, while I shall sit on this cushion, and endure the

siege of St. Quentin from the bon Sieur de Selinville.'

Monsieur de Selinville was the court bore, who had been in every

battle from Pavia to Montcontour, and gave as full memoirs of each

as did Blaise de Monluc, only viva voce instead of in writing.

Diane was rather a favourite of his; she knew her way through all

his adventures. So soon as she had heard the description of the

King of Navarre's entry into Paris that afternoon, and the old

gentleman's lamentation that his own two nephews were among the

three hundred Huguenot gentleman who had formed the escort, she had

only to observe whether his reminiscences had gone to Italy or to

Flanders in order to be able to put in the appropriate remarks at

each pause, while she listened all the while to the murmurs behind

the curtain. Yet it was not easy, with all her court breeding, to

appear indifferent, and solely absorbed in hearing of the bad

lodgings that had fallen to the share of the royal troops at

Brescia, when such sounds were reaching her. It was not so much

the actual words she heard, though these were the phrases--'-mon

ange, my heart, my love;' those were common, and Diane had lived

in the Queen-mother's squadron long enough to despise those who

uttered them only less than those who believed them. It was the

full depth of tenderness and earnestness, in the subdued tones of

the voice, that gave her a sense of quiet force and reality beyond

all she had ever known. She had heard and overheard men pour out

frantic ravings of passion, but never had listened to anything like

the sweet protecting tenderness of voice that seemed to embrace and

shelter its object. Diane had no doubts now; he had never so

spoken to her; nay, perhaps he had had no such cadences in his

voice before. It was quite certain that Eustacie was everything to

him, she herself nothing; she who might have had any gallant in the

court at her feet, but had never seen one whom she could believe

in, whose sense of esteem had been first awakened by this stranger

lad who despised her. Surely he was loving this foolish child

simply as his duty; his belonging, as his right he might struggle

hard for her, and if he gained her, be greatly disappointed; for

how could Eustacie appreciate him, little empty-headed, silly

thing, who would be amused and satisfied by any court flatterer?

However, Diane held out and played her part, caught scraps of the

conversation, and pieced them together, yet avoided all appearance

of inattention to M. de Selinville, and finally dismissed him, and

manoeuvred first Eustacie, and after a safe interval Berenger, out

of the cabinet. The latter bowed as he bade her good night, and

said, with the most open and cordial of smiles, 'Cousin, I thank

you with all my heart.'

The bright look seemed to her another shaft. 'What happiness!'

said she to herself. 'Can I overthrow it? Bah! it will crumble of

its own accord, even if I did nothing! And my father and brother!'

Communication with her father and brother was not always easy to

Diane, for she lived among the Queen-mother's ladies. Her brother

was quartered in a sort of barrack among the gentlemen of

Monsieur's suite, and the old Chevalier was living in the room

Berenger had taken for him at the Croix de Lorraine, and it was

only on the most public days that they attended at the palace.

Such a day, however, there was on the ensuing Sunday, when Henry of

Navarre and Marguerite of France were to be wedded. Their

dispensation was come, but, to the great relief of Eustacie, there

was no answer with it to the application for the CASSATION of her

marriage. In fact, this dispensation had never emanated from the

Pope at all. Rome would not sanction the union of a daughter of

France with a Huguenot prince; and Charles had forged the document,

probably with his mother's knowledge, in the hope of spreading her

toils more completely round her prey, while he trusted that the

victims might prove too strong for her, and destroy her web, and in

breaking forth might release himself.

Strange was the pageant of that wedding on Sunday, the 17th of

August, 1572. The outward seeming was magnificent, when all that

was princely in France stood on the splendidly decked platform in

front of Notre-Dame, around the bridegroom in the bright promise of

his kingly endowments, and the bride in her peerless beauty.

Brave, noble-hearted, and devoted were the gallant following of the

one, splendid and highly gifted the attendants of the other; and

their union seemed to promise peace to a long distracted kingdom.

Yet what an abyss lay beneath those trappings! The bridegroom and

his comrades were as lions in the toils of the hunter, and the lure

that had enticed them thither was the bride, herself so unwilling a

victim that her lips refused to utter the espousal vows, and her

head as force forward by her brother into a sign of consent; while

the favoured lover of her whole lifetime agreed to the sacrifice in

order to purchase the vengeance for which he thirsted, and her

mother, the corrupter of her own children, looked complacently on

at her ready-dug pit of treachery and bloodshed.

Among the many who played unconscious on the surface of that gulf

of destruction, were the young creatures whose chief thought in the

pageant was the glance and smile from the gallery of the Queen's

ladies to the long procession of the English ambassador's train, as

they tried to remember their own marriage there; Berenger with

clear recollection of his father's grave, anxious face, and

Eustacie chiefly remembering her own white satin and turquoise

dress, which indeed she had seen on every great festival-day as the

best raiment of the image of Notre Dame de Bellaise. She remained

in the choir during mass, but Berenger accompanied the rest of the

Protestants with the bridegroom at their head into the nave, where

Coligny beguiled the time with walking about, looking at the

banners that had been taken from himself and Conde at Montcontour

and Jarnac, saying that he hoped soon to see them taken down and

replaced by Spanish banners. Berenger had followed because he felt

the need of doing as Walsingham and Sidney thought right, but he

had not been in London long enough to become hardened to the

desecration of churches by frequenting 'Paul's Walk.' He remained

bareheaded, and stood as near as he could to the choir, listening

to the notes that floated from the priests and acolytes at the high

altar, longing from the time when he and Eustacie should be one in

their prayers, and lost in a reverie, till a grave old nobleman

passing near him reproved him for dallying with the worship of

Rimmon. But his listening attitude had not passed unobserved by

others besides Huguenot observers.

The wedding was followed by a ball at the Louvre, from which,

however, all the stricter Huguenots absented themselves out of

respect to Sunday, and among them the family and guests of the

English Ambassador, who were in the meantime attending the divine

service that had been postponed on account of the morning's

ceremony. Neither was the Duke of Guise present at the

entertainment; for though he had some months previously been piqued

and entrapped into a marriage with Catherine of Cleves, yet his

passion for Marguerite was still so strong that he could not bear

to join in the festivities of her wedding with another. The

absence of so many distinguished persons caused the admission of

many less constantly privileged, and thus it was that Diane there

met both her father and brother, who eagerly drew her into a

window, and demanded what she had to tell them, laughing too at the

simplicity of the youth, who had left for the Chevalier a formal

announcement that he had dispatched his protest to Rome, and

considered himself as free to obtain his wife by any means in his

power.

'Where is la petite?' Narcisse demanded. Behind her Queen, as

usual?'

'The young Queen keeps her room to-night,' returned Diane. 'Nor do

I advise you, brother, to thrust yourself in the way of la petite

entetee just at present.'

'What, is she so besotted with the peach face? He shall pay for

it!'

'Brother, no duel. Father, remind him that she would never forgive

him.'

'Fear not, daughter,' said the Chevalier; 'this folly can be ended

by much quieter modes, only you must first give us information.'

'She tells me nothing,' said Diane; 'she is in one of her own

humours--high and mighty.'

'Peste! where is your vaunt of winding the little one round your

finger?'

'With time, I said,' replied Diane. Curiously enough, she had no

compunction in worming secrets from Eustacie and betraying them,

but she could not bear to think of the trap she had set for the

unsuspecting youth, and how ingenuously he had thanked her, little

knowing how she had listened to his inmost secrets.

'Time is everything,' said her father; 'delay will be our ruin.

Your inheritance will slip through your fingers, my son. The youth

will soon win favour by abjuring his heresy; he will play the same

game with the King as his father did with King Henri. You will

have nothing but your sword, and for you, my poor girl, there is

nothing but to throw yourself on the kindness of your aunt at

Bellaise, if she can receive the vows of a dowerless maiden.'

'It will never be,' said Narcisse. 'My rapier will soon dispose of

a big rustic like that, who knows just enough of fencing to make

him an easy prey. What! I verily believe the great of entreaty.

'And yet the fine fellow was willing enough to break the marriage

when he took her for the bride.'

'Nay, my son,' argued the Chevalier, will apparently to spare his

daughter from the sting of mortification, 'as I said, all can be

done without danger of bloodshed on either side, were we but aware

of any renewed project of elopement. The pretty pair would be

easily waylaid, the girl safely lodged at Bellaise, the boy sent

off to digest his pride in England.'

'Unhurt?' murmured Diane.

Her father checked Narcisse's mockery at her solicitude, as he

added, 'Unhurt? Yes. He is a liberal-hearted, gracious, fine young

man, whom I should much grieve to harm; but if you know of any plan

of elopement and conceal it, my daughter, then upon you will lie

either the ruin and disgrace of your family, or the death of one or

both of the youths.'

Diane saw that her question had betrayed her knowledge. She spoke

faintly. 'Something I did overhear, but I know not how to utter a

treason.'

'There is no treason where there is no trust, daughter,' said the

Chevalier, in the tone of a moral sage. 'Speak!'

Diane never disobeyed her father, and faltered, 'Wednesday; it is

for Wednesday. They mean to leave the palace in the midst of the

masque; there is a market-boat from Leurre to meet them on the

river; his servants will be in it.'

'On Wednesday!' Father and son looked at each other.

'That shall be remedied,' said Narcisse.

'Child,' added her father, turning kindly to Diane, 'you have saved

our fortunes. There is put one thing more that you must do. Make

her obtain the pearls from him.'

'Ah!' sighed Diane, half shocked, half revengeful, as she thought

how he had withheld them from her.

'It is necessary,' said the Chevalier. 'The heirloom of our house

must not be risked. Secure the pearls, child, and you will have

done good service, and earned the marriage that shall reward you.'

When he was gone, Diane pressed her hands together with a strange

sense of misery. He, who had shrunk from the memory of little

Diane's untruthfulness, what would he think of the present Diane's

treachery? Yet it was to save his life and that of her brother--

and for the assertion of her victory over the little robber,

Eustacie.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024