The Chaplet of Pearls by Charlotte M. Yonge (i am reading a book .txt) 📕

The morrow was Sunday, and in the old refectory, in the late afternoon, a few Huguenots, warned by messages from the farm, met to profit by one of their scanty secret opportunities for public worship. The hum of the prayer, and discourse of the pastor, rose up through the broken vaulting to Eustacie, still lying on her bed; for she had been much shaken by the fatigues of the day and alarm of the night, and bitterly grieved, too, by a message which Nanon conveyed to her, that poor Martin was in no state to come for her in the next day; but he and his wife having been seized upon by Narcisse and his men, and so savagely beaten in order to force from them a confession of her hiding-place, that both were lying helpless on their bed; and could only send an entreaty by the trustworthy fool, that Rotrou would find means of conveying Madame into Chollet in some cart of hay or corn, in which she could be taken past the barriers.

But this was not to be. Good Nanon had sacrificed the sermon to creep up to Eustacie, and when the congregation were dispersing in the dusk, she stole down the stairs to her husband; and a few seconds after he was hurrying as fast as detours would allow him to Blaise’s farm. An hour and a half later, Dame Perrine, closely blindfolded for the last mile, was dragged up the spiral staircase, and ere the bandage was removed heard Eustacie’s voice, with a certain cheeriness, say, ‘Oh! nurse; my son will soon come!’

The full moon gave her light, and the woman durst not have any other, save from the wood-fire that Nanon had cautiously lighted and screened. The moonshine was still supreme, when some time later a certain ominous silence and half-whisper between the two women at the hearth made Eustacie, with a low cry of terror, exclaim, ‘Nurse, nurse, what means this? Oh! He lives! I know he lives! Perrine, I command you tell me!’

‘Living! Oh, yes, my love, my Lady,’ answered Perrine, returning towards her; ‘fair and perfect as the day. Be not disquieted for a moment.’

‘I will—I will disquiet myself,’ panted Eustacie, ‘unless you tell me what is amiss.’

‘Nothing amiss,’ said Nanon, gruffly. ‘Madame will give thanks for this fair gift of a daughter.’

It must be owned the words felt chill. She had never thought of this! It was as if the being for whom she had dared and suffered so much, in the trust that he would be Berenger’s representative and avenger, had failed her and disappointed her. No defender, no paladin, no so to be proud of! Her heart and courage sank down in her weakness as they had never done before; and, without speaking, she turned her head away towards the darkness, feeling as if had been for nothing, and she might as well sink away in her exhaustion. Mere Perrine was more angry with Nanon than conscious of her Lady’s weakness. ‘Woman, you speak as if you knew not the blow to this family, and to all who hoped for better days. What, that my Lady, the heiress, who ought to be in a bed of state, with velvet curtains, lace pillows, gold caudle-cups, should be here in a vile ruin, among owls and bats, like any beggar, and all for the sake, not of a young Lord to raise up the family, but of a miserable little girl! Had I known how it would turn out, I had never meddled in this mad scheme.’

Before Nanon could express her indignation, Eustacie had turned her head opened her eyes, and called out, ‘Miserable! Oh! what do you mean? Oh, it is true, Nanon? is it well with her?

‘As well as heart could wish,’ answered Nanon, cheerily. ‘Small, but a perfect little piece of sugar. There, Lady, she shall speak for herself.’

And as Nanon laid the babe on the young mother’s bosom, the thrilling touch at once put an end to all the repinings of the heiress, and awoke far other instincts.

‘My child! my little one, my poor little orphan—all cruel to her! Oh, no welcome even from thy mother! Babe, babe, pardon me, I will make it up to thee; indeed I will! Oh! let me see her! Do not take her away, dear good woman, only hold her in the moonlight!’

The full rays of the moon, shining through the gable window, streamed down very near where Eustacie lay, and by a slight movement Dame Rotrou was able to render the little face as distinctly visible to her as if it had been daylight, save that the blanching light was somewhat embellishing to the new-born complexion, and increased that curious resemblance so often borne for the first few hours of life to the future self. Eustacie’s cry at once was, ‘Himself, himself—his very face! Let me have her, my own moonbeam—his child—my joy!’

The tears, so long denied, rushed down like summer rain as she clasped the child in her arms. Dame Perrine wandered to and fro, like one beside herself, not only at her Lady’s wretched accommodations, but at the ill omens of the moonlight illumination, of the owls who snapped and hissed incessantly over the hay, and above all the tears over the babe’s face. She tried to remonstrate with Eustacie, but was answered only, ‘Let me weep! Oh, let me weep! It eases my heart! It cannot hurt my little one! She cannot weep for her father herself, so I must weep for her.’

The weeping was gentle, not violent; and Dame Rotrou thought it did good rather than harm. She was chiefly anxious to be quit of Perrine, who, however faithful to the Lady of Ribaumont, must not be trusted to learn the way to this Huguenot asylum, and must be escorted back by Rotrou ere peep of dawn. The old woman knew that her own absence from home would be suspicious, and with many grumblings submitted; but first she took the child from Eustacie’s reluctant arms, promising to restore her in a few moments, after finishing dressing her in the lace-edged swaddling bands so carefully preserved ever since Eustacie’s own baby hood. In these moments she had taken them all by surprise by, without asking any questions, sprinkling the babe with water, and baptizing her by the hereditary name of Berangere, the feminine of the only name Eustacie had always declared her son should bear. Such baptisms were not unfrequently performed by French nurses, but Eustacie exclaimed with a sound half dismay, half indignation.

‘Eh quoi!’ said Perrine, ‘it is only ondoyee. You can have all the ceremonies if ever time shall fit; but do you think I could leave my Lady’s child—mere girl though it be—alone with owls, and follets, and REVENANTS, and heretics, and she unbaptized? She would be a changeling long ere morning, I trow.’

‘Come, good woman,’ said Rotrou, from between the trusses of hay at the entrance; ‘you and I must begin our Colin-Mail-lard again, or it may be