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

very unkind in his brother not even to make experiment of the balsam of simples, but to declare that he had much rather keep his scars for Eustacie’s sake than wear a smooth face to please Diane.

Still Berenger’s natural courtesy stood in his way. He could not help being respectful and attentive to the old Chevalier, when their terms were, apparently at least, those of host and guest; and to a lady he COULD not be rude and repellant, though he could be reserved. So, when the kinsfolk met, no stranger would have discovered that one was a prisoner and the others his captors.

One August day, when Madame de Selinville and her lady attendants were supping at the castle at the early hour of six, a servant brought in word that an Italian pedlar craved leave to display his wares. He was welcome, both for need’s sake and for amusement, and was readily admitted. He was a handsome olive-faced Italian, and was followed by a little boy with a skin of almost Moorish dye—and great was the display at once made on the tables, of

‘Lawn as white as driven snow, Cyprus, black as e’er was crow; Gloves as sweet as fragrant posies, Masks for faces and for noses;’

and there was a good deal of the eager, desultory bargaining that naturally took place where purchasing was an unusual excitement and novelty, and was to form a whole evening’s amusement. Berenger, while supplying the defects of his scanty traveling wardrobe, was trying to make out whether he had seen the man before, wondering if he were the same whom he had met in the forest of Montipipeau, though a few differences in dress, hair, and beard made him somewhat doubtful.

‘Perfumes? Yes, lady, I have store of perfumes: ambergris and violet dew, and the Turkish essence distilled from roses; yea, and the finest spirit of the Venus myrtle-tree, the secret known to the Roman dames of old, whereby they secured perpetual beauty and love—though truly Madame should need no such essence. That which nature has bestowed on her secures to her all hearts—and one valued more than all.’

‘Enough,’ said Diane, blushing somewhat, though with an effort at laughing off his words; ‘these are the tricks of your trade.’

‘Madame is incredulous; yet, lady, I have been in the East. Yonder boy comes from the land where there are spells that make known the secrets of lives.’

The old Chevalier, who had hitherto been taken up with the abstruse calculation—derived from his past days of economy—how much ribbon would be needed to retrim his murrey just-au-corps, here began to lend an ear, though saying nothing. Philip looked on in open-eyed wonder, and nudged his brother, who muttered in return, ‘Jugglery!’

‘Ah, the fair company are all slow to believe,’ said the pedlar. ‘Hola, Alessio!’ and taking a glove that Philip had left on the table, he held it to the boy. A few unintelligible words passed between them; then the boy pointed direct to Philip, and waved his hand northwards. ‘He says the gentleman who owns this glove comes from the North, from far away,’ interpreted the Italian; then as the boy made the gesture of walking in chains, ‘that he is a captive.’

‘Ay,’ cried Philip, ‘right, lad; and can he tell how long I shall be so?’

‘Things yet to come,’ said the mountebank, ‘are only revealed after long preparation. For them must he gaze into the dark poor of the future. The present and the past he can divine by the mere touch of what has belonged to the person.’

‘It is passing strange,’ said Philip to Madame de Selinville. ‘You credit it, Madame?’

‘Ah, have we not seen the wonders come to pass that a like diviner fortold to the Queen-mother?’ said Diane: ‘her sons should be all kings—that was told her when the eldest was yet Dauphin.’

‘And there is only one yet to come,’ said Philip, awe-struck. ‘But see, what has he now?’

‘Veronique’s kerchief,’ returned Madame de Selinville, as the Italian began to interpret the boy’s gesture.

‘Pretty maidens, he says, serve fair ladies—bear tokens for them. This damsel has once been the bearer of a bouquet of heather of the pink and white, whose bells were to ring hope.’

‘Eh, eh, Madame, it is true?’ cried Veronique, crimson with surprise and alarm. ‘M. le Baron knows it is true.’

Berenger had started at this revelation, and uttered an inarticulate exclamation; but at that moment the boy, in whose hand his master had placed a crown from the money newly paid, began to make vehement gestures, which the main interpreted. ‘Le Balafre, he says, pardon me, gentlemen, le Balafre could reveal even a deeper scar of the heart than of the visage’—and the boy’s brown hand was pressed on his heart—‘yet truly there is yet hope (esperance) to be found. Yes’—as the boy put his hand to his neck—‘he bears a pearl, parted from its sister pearls. Where they are, there is hope. Who can miss Hope, who has sought it at a royal death-bed?’

‘Ah, where is it?’ Berenger could not help exclaiming.

‘Sir,’ said the pedlar, ‘as I told Messieurs and Mesdames before, the spirits that cast the lights of the future on the dark pool need invocation. Ere he can answer M. le Baron’s demands, he and I must have time and seclusion. If Monsieur le Chevalier will grant us an empty room, there will we answer all queries on which the spirits will throw light.’

‘And how am I to know that you will not bring the devil to shatter the castle, my friend?’ demanded the Chevalier. ‘Or more likely still, that you are not laughing all the time at these credulous boys and ladies?’

‘Of that, sir, you may here convince yourself,’ said the mountebank, putting into his hand a sort of credential in Italian, signed by Renato di Milano, the Queen’s perfumer, testifying to the skill of his compatriot Ercole Stizzito both in perfumery, cosmetics, and in the secrets of occult sciences.

The Chevalier was no Italian scholar, and his daughter interpreted the scroll to him, in a rapid low voice, adding, ‘I have had many dealings with Rene of Milan, father. I know he speaks sooth. There can be no harm in letting the poor man play out his play—all the castle servants will be frantic to have their fortunes told.’

‘I must speak with the fellow first, daughter,’ said the Chevalier. ‘He must satisfy me that he has no unlawful dealings that could bring the Church down on us.’ And he looked meaningly at the mountebank, who replied by a whole muster-roll of ecclesiastics, male and female, who had heard and approved his predictions.

‘A few more words with thee, fellow,’ said the Chevalier, pointing the way to one of the rooms opening out of the hall. ‘As master of the house I must be convinced of his honesty,’ he added. ‘If I am satisfied, then who will may seek to hear their fortune.’

Chevalier, man and boy disappeared, and Philip was the first to exclaim, ‘A strange fellow! What will he tell us? Madame, shall you hear him?’

‘That depends on my father’s report,’ she said. ‘And yet,’ sadly and pensively, ‘my future is dark and void