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

daughter. Ah, Lady, did you but know my heart's hunger for her!

The Prioress, better read in the lives of the saints than in the sects of heretics, did not know whether this meant that he was of her own faith or not; and her woman's heart being much moved by his pleadings, she said, 'I will heartily give your daughter to you, sir, as indeed I must, if she be here; but you have never seen her?

'No; only her empty cradle in the burnt house. But I MUST know her. She is a year old.

'We have two babes of that age; but I fear me you will scarce see much likeness in either of them to any one you knew,' said the Prioress, thoughtfully. 'However, there are two girls old enough to remember the parentage of their companions, though we forbade them to mention it. Would you see them, sir?

'And the infants, so please you, reverend Mother,' exclaimed Berenger.

She desired him to wait, and after an interval of suspense there was a pattering of little _sabots_ behind the partition, and through the grating he beheld six little girls in blue serge frocks and tight white caps. Of the two infants, one with a puny, wizen, pinched face was in the arms of the Prioress; the other, a big, stout, coarse child, with hard brown cheeks and staring black-eyes, was on its own feet, but with a great basket-work frame round its head to save it from falls. There were two much more prepossessing children of three or four, and two intelligent-looking girls of perhaps eight and ten, to the elder of whom the Prioress turned, saying, 'Agathe, I release you from my command not to speak of your former life, and desire you to tell this gentleman if you know who were the parents of these two little ones.

'Yes, reverend Mother,' said Agathe, readily; 'the old name of Claire' (touching the larger baby) 'was Salome Potier: her mother was the washerwoman; and Nannonciade, I don't know what her name was, but her father worked for Maitre Brassier who made the kettles.

Philip felt relieved to be free from all doubt about these very uninviting little ones, but Berenger, though sighing heavily, asked quickly, 'Permit me, Madame, a few questions.--Little maid, did you ever hear of Isaac Gardon?

'Maitre Isaac! Oh yes, sir. We used to hear him preach at the church, and sometimes he catechized us,' she said, and her lip quivered.

'He was a heretic, and I abjure him,' added the other girl, perking up her head.

'Was he in the town? What became of him?' exclaimed Berenger.

'He would not be in the town,' said the elder girl. 'My poor father had sent him word to go away.

'_Eh quoi_?

'Our father was Bailli la Grasse,' interposed the younger girl, consequentially. 'Our names were Marthe and Lucie la Grasse, but Agathe and Eulalie are much prettier.

'But Maitre Gardon?' still asked Berenger.

'He ought to be take and burnt,' said the new Eulalie; 'he brought it all on us.

'How was it? Was my wife with him--Madame de Ribaumont? Speak, my child.

'That was the name,' said one girl.

'But Maitre Gardon had no great lady with him,' said the other, 'only his son's widow and her baby, and they lodged with Noemi Laurent, who made the _patisserie_.

'Ah!' cried Berenger, lighting up with the new ray of hope. 'Tell me, my dear, that they fled with him, and where.

'I do not know of their going,' said Agathe, confused and overborne by his eagerness.

'Curb yourself, sir,' said the Prioress, 'they will recollect themselves and tell you what they can.

'It was the little cakes with lemoned sugar,' suggested the younger girl. 'Maitre Tressan always said there would be a judgment on us for our daintiness. Ah! he was very cross about them, and after all it was the Maitre of Lucon who ate fifteen of them all at once; but then he is not a heretic.

Happily for Berenger, Agathe unraveled this speech.

'Mademoiselle Gardon made the sugar-lemoned cakes, and the Mayor of Lucon, one day when he supped with us, was so delighted with them that he carried one away to show his wife, and afterwards he sent over to order some more. Then, after a time, he sent secretly to my father to ask him if Maitre Gardon was there; for there was a great outcry about the lemon cakes, and the Duke of Alencon's army were coming to demand his daughter-in-law; because it seems she was a great lady, and the only person who could make the cakes.

'Agathe!' exclaimed the Prioress.

'I understand,' said Berenger. 'The Cure of Nissard told me that she was traced through cakes, the secret of which was only known at Bellaise.

'That might be,' said Mere Monique. 'I remember there was something of pride in the cakes of Bellaise, though I always tried to know nothing of them.

'Well, little one, continue,' entreated Berenger. 'You are giving me life and hope.

'I heard my father and mother talk about it,' said Agathe, gaining courage. 'He said he knew nothing of great people, and would give nobody up to the Catholics, but as to Maitre Isaac, he should let him know that the Catholic army were coming, and that it would be the better for us if we had no pastor within our walls; and that there was a cry that his daughter's lemon cakes were made by the lady that was lost.

'And they escaped! Ah! would that I could thank the good man!

'Surely yes, sir, I never saw them again. Maitre Tressan the elder prayed with us. And when the cruel soldiers came and demanded the lady and Maitre Isaac, and all obstinate Calvinists, our mayor and my father and the rest made answer that they had no knowledge of the lady, and did not know where Maitre Gardon was; and as to Huguenots, we were all one as obstinate as the other, but that we would pay any fine within our means so they would spare our lives. Then the man in the fine coat said, it was the lady they wanted, not the fine; and a great deal he said besides, I know not what but my father said, 'It is our life's blood that they want,' and he put on his breastplate and kissed us all, and went away. Then came horrible noises and firing of cannon, and the neighbours ran in and said that the enemy were battering down the old crumbly bit of wall where the monastery was burnt; and just then our man Joseph ran back all pale, and staring, to tell us my father was lying badly hurt in the street. My mother hurried out, and locked the door to keep us from following.

The poor child broke down in tears, and her sister went on. 'Oh, we were so frightened--such frightful sounds came close, and people ran by all blood and shrieking--and there was a glare in the sky--and nobody came home--till at last it grew so dreadful that we hid in the cellar to hear and see nothing. Only it grew hotter and hotter, and the light through the little grating was red. And at last there was a noise louder than thunder, and, oh, such a shaking--for it was the house falling down. But we did not know that; we tried to open the door, and could not; then we cried and called for father and mother--and no one heard--and we sat still for fear, till we slept--and then it was all dark, and we were very hungry. I don't know how time went, but at last, when I was daylight again, there was a talking above, a little baby crying, and a kind voice too; and then we called out, 'Oh, take us out and give us bread.' Then a face looked down the grating. Oh, it was like the face of an angel to us, with all the white hair flying round. It was the holy priest of Nissard; and when one of the cruel men said we were only little heretics who ought to die like rats in a hole, he said we were but innocents who did not know the difference.

'Ah! we did,' said the elder girl. 'You are younger, sister, you forget more;' and then, holding out her hands to Berenger, she exclaimed, 'Ah! sir, take us away with you.

'My child!' exclaimed the Prioress, 'you told me you were happy to be in the good course.

'Oh yes!' cried the poor child; 'but I don't want to be happy! I am forgetting all my poor father and mother used to say. I can't help it, and they would be so grieved. Oh, take me away, sir!

'Take care, Agathe, you will be a relapsed heretic,' said her sister, solemnly. 'For me, I am a true Catholic. I love the beautiful images and the processions.

'Ah! but what would our mother have said!' cried poor Agathe, weeping more bitterly.

'Poor child, her old recollections have been renewed,' said the Prioress, with unchanged sweetness; 'but it will pass. My dear, the gentleman will tell you that it is as impossible for him to take you as it is for me to let you go.

'It is so, truly, little one,' said Berenger. 'The only little girl I cold have taken with me would have been my own;' and as her eyes looked at him wistfully, he added, 'No doubt, if your poor mother could, she would thank this good Mother-prioress for teaching you to serve God and be a good child.

'Monsieur speaks well and kindly,' said the Prioress; 'and now, Agathe, make your curtsey, and take away the little ones.

'Let me ask one question more, reverend Mother,' said Berenger. 'Ah! children, did you ever see her whom you call Isaac Gardon's daughter-in-law?

'No, sir,' said the children; 'but mother did, and she promised one day to take us to see the baby, for it was so pretty--so white, that she had never seen the like.

'So white!' repeated Berenger to himself; and the Prioress, struck, perhaps, by the almost flaxen locks that sparsely waved on his temples, and the hue of the ungloved hand that rested on the edge of the _grille_, said, smiling, 'You come of a fair family, Monsieur.

'The White Ribaumonts,' said Berenger, 'and, moreover, my mother was called the Swan of England; my little sisters have skins like snow. Ah! Madame, though I have failed, I go away far happier than if I had succeeded.

'And reveal the true faith,' began the nun; but Philip in the meantime was nudging his brother, and whispering in English, 'No Popish prayers, I say! Stay, give these poor little prisoners one feast of the sweetmeats we brought.

Of this last hint Berenger was glad, and the Prioress readily consented to a distribution of the dainties among the orphans. He wished to leave a more lasting token of his gratitude to the little maiden whose father had perhaps saved Eustacie's life, and recollecting that he had about him a great gold coin, bearing the heads of Philip and Mary, he begged leave to offer it to Agathe, and found that it was received by good Mere Monique almost in the light of a relic, as bearing the head of so pious a queen.

Then, to complete Philip's disgust he said, 'I took with me my aunt's blessing when I set out; let me take yours with me also, reverend Mother.

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