Oddsfish! by Robert Hugh Benson (i am malala young readers edition TXT) 📕

us, will you not? You will help us, surely?"

All her anguish had passed into an extraordinary pleading: she was as a child begging for life.

"Madame--" began the ambassador.

"Ah! listen, Monsieur, the king desires a priest. He is a Catholic at heart, you know. He hath been a Catholic at heart a long time, ever since--" she broke off. "You will help us, will you not, Monsieur?"

He threw out his hands: but she paid no attention.

"Monsieur, I swear to you that it is so. Yet what can I do? I cannot go to him, with decency. The Queen is there continually, I hear. The Duke is taken up with a thousand affairs and does not think of it. Go to the Duke, I entreat you, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur; go to the Duke and tell him what I say. Mr. Mallock shall go with you. He is a friend of the Duke. He will bear me out. Monsieur, for the love of God lose no time. Come and see me again; but go now, or it may be too late. Monsieur, I entreat you."

She had seized him by the arm as she spoke. Even his rigid face twitched a little at the violence of her pleading. I knew well what was in his mind, and how he wondered whether he dared do as she asked him. God knew what complications might follow!

"Monsieur--"

He nodded suddenly and sharply.

"Madame," said he, "I will go. Mr. Mallock--"

He bowed to me.

"Ah! God bless you, sir--"

He stooped suddenly to her hand, lifted it and kissed it. I think in that moment something of the compassion of the Saviour Himself fell on him for this poor woman who yet might be forgiven much, for indeed, under all her foolishness and sin, she loved very ardently. Then he wheeled and went out of the room again; and I followed. No sound came from the Duchess as we left her there in the half lit twilight. She was standing with her hands clasped, staring after us as we went out.

* * * * *


He said nothing as we passed again through the anterooms and down the stairs. Then, as we went on through the next gallery he spoke to me. His men were a good way behind us, and another in front.

"Mr. Mallock," said he--(for he had known me well enough in France)--"His Majesty told you this himself?"

"Yes, sir," said I, "not a quarter of an hour ago."

"Then the Duke is our only chance," he said.

He said no more till we came to the great antechamber by the King's bedroom. It was half full of people; but the Duke was nowhere to be seen. I waited by the door as M. Barillon went forward and spoke to someone. Then he came back to me.

"The Duke is with the Queen," he said. "We must go to him there."

It was enough to send a man mad so to seek person after person in such a simple matter as this. Why in God's name, I wondered, might not even a King die in what religion he liked, without all this plotting and conspiring? Was I never to be free from these things?

At the door to the Queen's apartments M. Barillon turned to me.

"You had best wait here, sir," he said. "I will speak with the Duke privately first."

He was admitted instantly so soon as he knocked; and went through leaving me in a little gallery.

* * * * *


Of all that went through my mind as I walked up and down, with a page watching me from the door, I can give no account at all. Again one half of my attention was fixed, though with out any coherency, on the business I was at; the other half observed the carpet under my feet, the cabinets along the wall, and the pictures. It was not near as splendid as were the rooms I had left so short a while ago.

I had not to wait long. There was a sudden talking of voices beyond the door that the Ambassador had just passed through; and I heard the Duke's tones very plain. Then the page stiffened to attention, the door was flung open suddenly, and the Duke came out alone at a great pace, leaving the door open behind him. He never saw me at all. The page darted after him, and the two disappeared together round the corner in the direction of the King's rooms. As soon as they were gone, M. Barillon came out and beckoned to me; and together we went up and down the gallery.

"You are perfectly right, sir," he said. "His Royal Highness shewed great sorrow for not leaving thought of it. He is gone instantly to His Majesty."

"He will fetch a priest?"

"He will speak to His Majesty first. He will find out, at least, what he thinks."

"But, good God!" said I. "His Majesty hath told me himself what he wishes."

"You must let His Royal Highness do it in his own way," he said. "He must not be pushed. But I think you have done the trick, Mr. Mallock."

"How is Her Majesty?" I asked abruptly.

"The physicians have been at her too," he said dryly. "She had a fainting-fit just now in His Majesty's presence; and they have been blooding her."

"What priest can be got?" I asked next.

He made a gesture towards the chamber he had just come out of.

"There is a pack of them in there," he said, "next to Her Majesty's private closet. They have been praying all day in the oratory."

* * * * *


It was fallen dark by now; for it was long after five o'clock; and there were no candles lighted here. We went up and down a good while longer, for the most part in silence, speaking of this and that; and I will not deny that we talked a little of French affairs, though God knows I was in no heart for that, and answered very indifferently. It appeared to me extraordinary that a man could think of such little things as the affairs of kingdoms when an immortal soul was at stake.

A little before six o'clock, when at last the servants brought lights, the Ambassador left me again to go in to see the Queen, leaving me to watch for the Duke; and I had not very long to wait, for soon after I had heard a clock chime the hour, His Royal Highness came again, walking very quickly as before; and, when he saw me waiting there, beckoned me to follow him. We went through two or three rooms, all lighted up and empty--the Duke sending a page to fetch M. Barillon out of the Queen's private closet where he was talking with her--into a little chamber that looked out upon the court, where there was a fire lighted. We had hardly got there before the Ambassador came, all in haste, to hear what had been done.

"I have spoken with His Majesty," said the Duke, looking very white and drawn in the face. "He is in most excellent dispositions. He tells me that he hath put off the Bishops and has not received the sacrament from them and will not."

"And what of a priest, Sir?" asked the Ambassador sharply.

"I did not speak to him of that," answered the Duke so pompously that I raged to hear him. "He said that Dr. Ken hath read prayers over him, and told him that he need make no confession unless he willed; and that he willed not, and did not; but that Dr. Ken read an absolution over him which he values not at a straw."

"Sir," said I, very boldly, "this is very pretty talk; but it is not a priest. His Majesty wishes for a priest; he told me so himself."

The Duke turned on me very hotly.

"Eh, sir?"

I made haste to swallow down my wrath.

"Sir," I said, "I did not mean to be discourteous. But I assure Your Royal Highness that the King said so to me expressly. It is his immortal soul that is at stake."

Then I understood what was the matter. The Duke flung out his hands as if in despair.

"But what can I do?" he cried. "I am watched every instant. They will not leave me alone with him. Dr. Ken eyed me very sharply. They suspect something--I know they do--from my brother's having refused their ministrations. How can I get a priest to him?"

Then again, by God's inspiration as I truly believe, a thought came to me.

"Sir," I said, "I myself spoke with the King a while ago: and I do not think that a soul saw who I was. I came through the little door at the back of the bed. Why should not--"

The Ambassador struck his hands together.

"_Bon Dieu_!" he said. "I believe Mr. Mallock hath hit it again."

The Duke turned and eyed me very sternly.

"Well, sir, what is your plan?"

"Sir," I said, "let the chamber be cleared, or almost. Then let M. Barillon here go in as if he had a message from the French King. While he is there let a priest be brought by the back way, not through the antechamber at all--"

M. Barillon held up his hand.

"There would not be time," he said. "It does not take half an hour to deliver a message; and the priest's business would take full half an hour?"

"No! no!" cried James. "They would suspect something. Let Her Majesty come again to take her leave of the King; and then I will go in after for the same thing. While we are there, let the priest come, as Mr. Mallock has said--"

"Sir," said the Ambassador, "we must not have too many folks in this business--"

All this bargaining drove me near mad. Once more I broke in; and this time with more effect.

"Sir," I said to the Duke, "I entreat you to hear me. There is the little room at the back of His Majesty's bed, all ready, and empty too. We do not need all these devices. If you, Sir, will go to the King and prepare him for it, I will find a priest and bring him up the other way. I do not believe that even if there were folks in the bedchamber they would hear what passed."

"Which way would the priest come?" asked the Duke.

"There is a little stair in the corner of the room--"

"God! There is," cried the Duke. "I had forgotten it."

We stared on one another in silence. My mind raced like a mill. Then once more the Duke near ruined the whole design by his diplomacy.

"Gentlemen," he said, "we are too precipitate. His Majesty hath