The Duchess, who really was not unlike 'that great woman'

the Shunammite, in her dignified content with 'dwelling among her

own people,' and her desire to 'receive a prophet in the name of a

prophet,' generally sat presiding over the work while some one,

chaplain, grandson, or young maiden, read aloud from carefully

assorted books; religious treatises at certain hours, and at

others, history. Often, however, Madame was called away into her

cabinet, where she gave audience to intendants, notaries from her

estates, pastors from the villages, captains of little garrisons,

soldiers offering service, farmers, women, shepherds, foresters,

peasants, who came either on her business or with their own needs--

for all of which she was ready with the beneficence and decision of

an autocrat.

The chapel had been 'purified,' and made bare of all altar or

image. It was filled with benches and a desk, whence Isaac Gardon,

the chaplain, any pastor on a visit, or sometimes a candidate for

his promotion, would expound, and offer prayers, shortly in the

week, more at length on Sunday; and there, too, classes were held

for the instruction of the peasants.

There was a great garden full of medicinal plants, and decoctions

and distilleries were the chief variety enjoyed by the gentlewomen.

The Duchess had studied much in quaint Latin and French medical

books, and, having great experience and good sense, was probably as

good a doctor as any one in the kingdom except Ambroise Pare and

his pupils; and she required her ladies to practise under her upon

the numerous ailments that the peasants were continually bringing

for her treatment. 'No one could tell,' she said, 'how soon they

might be dealing with gun-shot wounds, and all ought to know how to

sew up a gash, or cure an argue.'

This department suited Eustacie much better than the stitching, and

best of all she liked to be sent with Maitre Isaac to some cottage

where solace for soul and body were needed, and the inmate was too

ill to be brought to Madame la Duchess. She was learning much and

improving too in the orderly household, but her wanderings had made

her something of a little gipsy. She now and then was intolerably

weary, and felt as if she had been entirely spoilt for her natural

post. 'What would become of her,' she said to Maitre Isaac, 'if

she were too grand to dress Rayonette?'

She was not greatly distressed that the Montauban pursuivant turned

out to have only the records of the Provencal nobility, and was

forced to communicate with his brethren at Bordeaux before he could

bring down the Ribaumont genealogy to the actual generation; and so

slow was communication, so tardy the mode of doing everything, that

the chestnut leaves were falling and autumn becoming winter before

the blazoned letter showed Ribaumont, de Picardie--'Gules, fretty

or, a canton of the last, a leopard, sable. Eustacie Berangere, m.

Annora, daughter and heiress of Villiam, Baron of Valvem, in the

county of Dorisette, England, who beareth, azure, a siren regardant

in a mirror proper.' The siren was drawn in all her propriety

impaled with the leopard, and she was so much more comprehensible

than the names, to both Madame de Quinet and Eustacie, that it was

a pity they could not direct their letters to her rather than to

'Le Baron de Valvem,' whose cruel W's perplexed them so much.

However, the address was the least of Eustacie's troubles; she

should be only too glad when she got to that, and she was sitting

in Maitre Isaac's room, trying to make him dictate her sentences

and asking him how to spell every third word, when the dinner-bell

rang, and the whole household dropped down from salon, library,

study, or chamber to the huge hall, with its pavement of black and

white marble, and its long tables, for Madame de Quinet was no

woman to discard wholesome old practices.

Then, as Eustacie, with Rayonette trotting at her side, and Maitre

Isaac leaning on her arm, slowly made her way to that high table

where dined Madame la Duchess, her grandsons, the ministers, the

gentlemen in waiting, and some three or four women besides herself,

she saw that the lower end of the great hall was full of silks,

cloths, and ribbons heaped together; and, passing by the lengthy

rank of retainers, she received a bow and look of recognition from

a dark, acute-looking visage which she remembered to belong to the

pedlar she had met at Charente.

The Duchess, at the head of her table, was not in the best of

humours. Her son had sent home letters by a courier whom he had

picked up for himself and she never liked nor trusted, and he

required an immediate reply when she particularly resented being

hurried. It was a galimafre, literally a hash, she said; for

indeed most matters where she was not consulted did become a

galimafre with her. Moreover, under favour of the courier, her

porters had admitted this pedlar, and the Duchess greatly disliked

pedlars. All her household stores were bought at shops of good

repute in Montauban, and no one ought to be so improvident as to

require dealings with these mountebank vagabonds, who dangled

vanities before the eyes of silly girls, and filled their heads

with Paris fashion, if they did not do still worse, and excite them

to the purchase of cosmetics and love-charms.

Yet the excitement caused by the approach of a pedlar was

invincible, even by Madame la Duchess. It was inevitable that the

crying need of glove, kerchief, needle, or the like, should be

discovered as soon as he came within ken, and, once in the hall,

there was no being rid of him except by a flagrant act of

inhospitality. This time it was worst of all, for M. le Marquis

himself must needs be the first to spy him, bring him in, and be in

want of a silver chain for his hawk; and his brother the Vicomte

must follow him up with all manner of wants inspired by the mere

sight of the pack.

Every one with the smallest sum of money must buy, every one

without inspect and assist in bargaining; and all dinner-time,

eyes, thoughts, and words were wandering to the gay pile in the

corner, or reckoning up needs and means. The pedlar, too, knew

what a Calvinist household was, and had been extremely discreet,

producing nothing that could reasonably be objected to; and the

Duchess, seeing that the stream was too strong for her, wisely

tried to steer her bark through it safely instead of directly

opposing it.

As soon as grace was over, she called her maitre d'hotel, and bade

him look after that galimafre, and see that none of these fools

were unreasonably cheated, and that there was no attempt at gulling

the young ones with charms or fortune-telling, as well as to

conclude the matter so as to give no excuse for the Italian fellow

lingering to sup and sleep. She then retired to her cabinet to

prepare her dispatches, which were to include a letter to Lord

Walwyn. Though a nominal friendship subsisted between Elisabeth

and the French court, the Huguenot chiefs always maintained a

correspondence with England, and there was little danger but that

the Duke de Quinet would be able to get a letter, sooner or later,

conveyed to any man of mark. In the course of her letter, Madame

de Quinet found it necessary to refer to Eustacie. She rang her

little silver handbell for the hall. There, of course, Master Page

had been engulfed in the galimafre, and not only forming one of

the swarm around the pedlar, but was actually aping courtly

grimaces as he tried a delicate lace ruffle on the hand of a silly

little smirking maiden, no older than himself! But this little

episode was, like many others, overlooked by Madame de Quinet, as

her eye fell upon the little figure of Rayonette standing on the

table, with her mother and two or three ladies besides coaxing her

to open her mouth, and show the swollen gums that had of late been

troubling her, while the pedlar was evidently expending his

blandishments upon her.

The maitre d'hotel was the first to perceive his mistress, and, as

he approached, received a sharp rebuke from her for allowing the

fellow to produce his quack medicines; and, at the same time, she

desired him to request Madame Esperance to come to her immediately

on business. Eustacie, who always had a certain self-willed sense

of opposition when the Duchess showed herself peremptory towards

her, at first began to make answer that she would come as soon as

her business was concluded; but the steward made a gesture towards

the great lady sailing up and down as she paced the dais in

stately impatience. 'Good fellow,' she said, 'I will return

quickly, and see you again, though I am now interrupted. Stay

there, little one, with good Mademoiselle Perrot; mother will soon

be back.'

Rayonette, in her tooth-fretfulnes, was far from enduring to be

forsaken so near a strange man, and her cry made it necessary for

Eustacie to take her in arms, and carry her to the dais where the

Duchess was waiting.

'So!' said the lady, 'I suspected that the fellow was a quack as

well as a cheat.'

'Madame,'said Eustacie, with spirit, 'he sold me unguents that

greatly relieved my father last spring.'

'And because rubbing relieved an old man's rheumatics, you would

let a vagabond cheat drug and sicken this poor child for what is

not ailment at all--and the teeth will relieve in a few days. Or,

if she were feverish, have not we decoctions brewed from Heaven's

own pure herbs in the garden, with no unknown ingredient?'

'Madame,' said Eustacie, ruffling into fierceness, 'you are very

good to me; but I must keep the management of my daughter to

myself.'

The Duchess looked at her from head to foot. Perhaps it was with

an impulse to treat her impertinence as she would have done that of

a dependant; but the old lady never forgot herself: she only

shrugged her shoulders and said, with studied politeness, 'When I

unfortunately interrupted your consultation with this eminent

physician, it was to ask you a question regarding this English

family. Will you do me the honour to enter my cabinet?'

And whereas no one was looking, the old lady showed her displeasure

by ushering Madame de Ribaumont into her cabinet like a true noble

stranger guest; so that Eustacie felt disconcerted.

The Duchess then began to read aloud her own letter to Lord Walwyn,

pausing at every clause, so that Eustacie felt the delay and

discussion growing interminable, and the Duchess then requested to

have Madame de Ribaumont's own letter at once, as she wished to

inclose it, make up her packet, and send it without delay. Opening

a secret door in her cabinet, she showed Eustacie stair by which

she might reach Maitre Gardon's room without crossing the hall.

Eustacie hoped to find him there and tell him how intolerable was

the Duchess; but, though she found him, it was in company with the

tutor, who was spending an afternoon on Plato with him. She could

only take up her letter and retreat to Madame's cabinet, where she

had left her child. She finished it as best she might, addressed

it after the herald's spelling of the title, bound it with some of

the Duchess's black floss silk--wondering meanwhile, but little

guessing that the pedlar knew, where was the tress that had bound

her last attempt at correspondence, guessing least of all that that

tress lay on a heart still living and throbbing for her. All this

had made her a little forget her haste to assert her liberty of

action by returning to the pedlar; but, behold, when she came back

to the hall, it had resumed its pristine soberness, and merely a

few lingering figures were to be seen, packing up their purchases.

While she was still looking round in dismay, Mademoiselle Perrot

came up to her and said, 'Ah! Madame, you may well wonder! I

never saw Maitre Benoit there so cross; the poor man did but offer

to sell little Fanchon the elizir that secures a good husband, and

old Benoit descended on him like a griffin enraged, would scarce

give him time to compute his charges or pack his wares, but hustled

him forth like a mere thief! And I missed my bargain for that

muffler that had so taken my fancy. But, Madame, he spoke to me

apart, and said you were an old customer of his, and that rather

than the little angel should suffer with her teeth, which surely

threaten convulsions, he would leave with you this sovereign remedy

of sweet syrup--a spoonful to be given each night.'

Eustacie took the little flask. She was much inclined to give the

syrup by way of precaution, as well as to assure herself that she

was not under the Duchess's dominion; but some strong instinct of

the truth of the lady's words that the child was safer and

healthier undoctored, made her resolve at least to defer it until

the little one showed any perilous symptom. And as happily

Rayonette only showed two little white teeth, and much greater

good-humour, the syrup was nearly forgotten, when, a fortnight

after, the Duchess received a dispatch from her son which filled

her with the utmost indignation. The courier had indeed arrived,

but the packet had proved to be filled with hay and waste-paper.

And upon close examination, under the lash, the courier had been

forced to confess to having allowed himself to be overtaken by the

pedlar, and treated by him to a supper at a cabaret. No doubt,

while he was afterwards asleep, the contents of his packet had been

abstracted. There had been important documents for the Duke

besides Eustacie's letters, and the affair greatly annoyed the

Duchess, though she had the compensation of having been proved

perfectly right in her prejudice against pedlars, and her dislike

of her son's courier. She sent for Eustacie to tell her privately

of the loss, and of course the young mother at once turned pale and

exclaimed, 'The wicked one! Ah! what a blessing that I gave my

little darling none of his dose!'

'Hein? You had some from him then!' demanded the Duchess with

displeasure.

'No, Madame, thanks, thanks to you. Oh! I never will be self-

willed and naughty again. Forgive me, Madame.' And down she

dropped on her knee, with clasped hands and glistening eyes.

'Forgive you, silly child, for what?' said Madame de Quinet, nearly

laughing.

'Ah! for the angry, passionate thoughts I had! Ah! Madame, I was

all but giving the stuff to my little angel in very spite--and

then---' Eutacie's voice was drowned in passion of tears, and she

devoured the old lady's hand with her kisses.

'Come, come,' said the Duchess, 'let us be reasonable. A man may be

a thief, but it does not follow that he is a poisoner.'

'Nay, that will we see,' cried Eutacie. 'He was resolved that the

little lamb should not escape, and he left a flask for her with

Mademoiselle Perrot. I will fetch it, if Madame will give me

leave. Oh, the great mercy of Heaven that made her so well that I

gave her none!'

Madame de Quinet's analytic powers did not go very far; and would

probably have decided against the syrup if it had been nothing but

virgin honey. She was one who fully believed that her dear Queen

Jeanne had been poisoned with a pair of gloves, and she had

unlimited faith in the powers of evil possessed by Rene of Milan.

Of course, she detected the presence of a slow poison, whose

effects would have been attributed to the ailment it was meant to

cure; and though her evidence was insufficient, she probably did

Ercole no injustice. She declined testing the compound on any

unfortunate dog or cat, but sealed it up in the presence of Gardon,

Eutacie, and Mademoiselle Perrot, to be produced against the pedlar

if ever he should be caught.

Then she asked Eutacie if there was any reason to suspect that he

recognized her. Eutacie related the former dealings with him, when

she had sold him her jewels and her hair, but she had no notion of

his being the same person whom she had seen when at Montpipeau.

Indeed, he had altered his appearance so much that he had been only

discovered at Nid-de-Merle by eyes sharpened by distrust of his

pretensions to magic arts.

Madame de Quinet, however, concluded that Eutacie had been known,

or else that her jewels had betrayed her, and that the man must

have been employed by her enemies. If it had not been the depth of

winter, she would have provided for the persecuted lady's immediate

transmission to England; but he storms of the Bay of Biscay would

have made this impossible in the state of French navigation, even

if Isaac Gardon had been in a condition to move; for the first

return of cold had brought back severe rheumatic pains, and with

them came a shortness of breath which even the Duchess did not know

to be the token of heart complaint. He was confined to his room,

and it was kneeling by his bedside that Eutacie poured out her

thankfulness for her child's preservation, and her own repentance

for the passing fit of self-will and petulance. The thought of

Rayonette's safety seemed absolutely to extinguish the fresh

anxiety that had arisen since it had become evident that her

enemies no longer supposed her dead, but were probably upon her

traces. Somehow, danger had become almost a natural element to

her, and having once expressed her firm resolution that nothing

should separate her from her adopted father, to whom indeed her

care became constantly more necessary, she seemed to occupy herself

very little with the matter; she nursed him as merrily as ever, and

left to him and Madame de Quinet the grave consultations as to what

was to be done for her security. There was a sort of natural

buoyancy about her that never realized a danger till it came, and

then her spirit was roused to meet it.




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