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

fair nephew,’ he added, ‘not a hand shall be laid on you, if you will give me your honourable word, as a nobleman, that you are laying before me all that you carry about you.

An instant’s thought convinced Berenger that resistance would save nothing, and merely lead to indignity to himself and danger to Philip; and therefore he gave the promise to show everything about him, without compulsion. Accordingly, he produced his purse for current expenses, poor King Charles’s safe-conduct, and other articles of no consequence, from his pockets; then reluctantly opened his doublet, and took off the belt containing his store of gold, which had been replenished at Walsingham’s. This was greedily eyed by the captain, but the Chevalier at once made it over to Philip’s keeping, graciously saying, ‘We do no more than duty requires;’ but at the same time he made a gesture towards another small purse that hung round Berenger’s neck by a black ribbon.

‘On my sacred word and honour,’ said Berenger, ‘it contains nothing important to any save myself.

‘Alas! my bounden duty,’ urged the Chevalier.

An angry reply died on Berenger’s lip. At the thought of Philip, he opened the purse, and held out the contents on his palm: a tiny gold ring, a tress of black hair, a fragment of carnation-ribbon pricked with pin-holes, a string of small worthless yellow shells, and, threaded with them, a large pear-shaped pearl of countless price. Even the Chevalier was touched at the sight of this treasury, resting on the blanched palm of the thin, trembling hand, and jealously watched by eyes glistening with sudden moisture, though the lips were firm set. ‘Alas! my poor young cousin,’ he said, ‘you loved her well.

‘Not loved, but love,’ muttered Berenger to himself, as if having recourse to the only cordial that could support him through the present suffering; and he was closing his fingers again over his precious hoard, when the Chevalier added, ‘Stay! Nephew—that pearl?

‘Is one of the chaplet; the token she sent to England,’ he answered.

‘Pauvre petite! Then, at least a fragment remains of the reward of our ancestor’s courage,’ said the Chevalier.

And Berenger did not feel it needful to yield up that still better possession, stored within his heart, that la petite and her pearls were safe together. It was less unendurable to produce the leather case from a secret pocket within his doublet, since, unwilling as he was that any eye should scan the letters it contained, there was nothing in them that could give any clue towards tracing her. Nothing had been written or received since his interview with the children at Lucon. There was, indeed, Eustacie’s letter to his mother, a few received at Paris from Lord Walwyn, reluctantly consenting to his journey in quest of his child, his English passport, the unfortunate letters to La Noue; and what evidently startled the Chevalier more than all the rest, the copy of the certificate of the ratification of the marriage; but his consternation was so arranged as to appear to be all on behalf of his young kinsman. ‘This is serious!’ he said, striking his forehead; ‘you will be accused of forging the late King’s name.

‘This is but a copy,’ said Berenger, pointing to the heading; ‘the original has been sent with our Ambassador’s dispatches to England.

‘It is a pity,’ said the Chevalier, looking thoroughly vexed, ‘that you should have brought fresh difficulties on yourself for a mere piece of waste paper to be affected by the validity of your marriage. Dear cousin,’—he glanced at the officer and lowered his voice,—‘let me tear this paper; it would only do you harm, and the Papal decree annuls it.

‘I have given my word,’ said Berenger, ‘that all that could do me harm should be delivered up! Besides,’ he added, ‘even had I the feeling for my own honour and that of my wife and child, living or dead, the harm, it seems to me, would be to those who withhold her lands from me.

‘Ah, fair nephew! you have fallen among designing persons who have filled your head with absurd claims; but I will not argue the point now, since it becomes a family, not a State matter. These papers’—and he took them into his hand—‘must be examined, and to-morrow Captain Delarue will take them to Paris, with any explanation you may desire to offer. Meantime you and your companions remain my guest, at full liberty, provided you will give me your parole to attempt no escape.

‘No, sir,’ said Berenger, hotly, ‘we will not become our own jailers, nor acquiesce in this unjust detention. I warn you that I am a naturalized Englishman, acknowledged by the Queen as my grandfather’s heir, and the English Ambassador will inform the court what Queen Elizabeth thinks of such dealings with her subjects.

‘Well said,’ exclaimed Philip, and drawing himself up, he added, ‘I refuse my parole, and warn you that it is at your peril that you imprison an Englishman.

‘Very well, gentlemen,’ said the Chevalier; ‘the difference will be that I shall unwillingly be forced to let Captain Delarue post guards at the outlets of this tower. A room beneath is prepared for your grooms, and the court is likewise free to you. I will endeavour to make your detention as little irksome as you will permit, and meantime allow me to show you your sleeping chamber. He then politely, as if he had been ushering a prince to his apartment, led the way, pointing to the door through which they had entered the keep, and saying, ‘This is the only present communication with the dwelling-house. Two gendarmes will always be on the outside.’ He conducted the young men up a stone spiral stair to another room, over that which they had already seen, and furnished as fairly as ordinary sleeping chambers were wont to be.

Here, said their compulsory host, he would leave them to prepare for supper, when they would do him the honour to join him in the eating-hall on their summons by the steward.

His departing bow was duly returned by Berenger, but no sooner did his steps die away on the stairs than the young man threw himself down on his bed, in a paroxysm of suffering both mental and bodily.

‘Berry, Berry, what is this? Speak to me. What does it all mean? cried Philip.

‘How can I tell?’ said Berenger, showing his face for a moment, covered with tears; ‘only that my only friend is dead, and some villainous trick has seized me, just—just as I might have found her. And I’ve been the death of my poor groom, and got you into the power of these vile dastards! Oh, would that I had come alone! Would that they had had the sense to aim direct!

‘Brother, brother, anything but this!’ cried Philip. ‘The rogues are not worth it. Sir Francis will have us out in no time, or know the reason why. I’d scorn to let them wring a tear from me.

‘I hope they never may, dear Phil, nor anything worse.

‘Now,’ continued Philip, ‘the way will be to go down to supper, since they will have it so, and sit and eat at one’s ease as if one cared for them no more than cat and dog. Hark! there’s the steward speaking to Guibert. Come, Berry, wash your face and come.

‘I—my head aches far too much, were there nothing else.

‘What! it is nothing but the sun,’ said Philip.