The Chaplet of Pearls by Charlotte M. Yonge (best classic novels .TXT) 📕

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