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

boy, who stood at the table, had been fantastically arrayed in a sort of semi-Albanian garb, a red cap with a long tassel, a dark, gold-embroidered velvet jacket sitting close to his body, and a white kilt over his legs, bare except for buskins stiff with gold. The poor little fellow looked pale in spite of his tawny hue, his enormous black eyes were heavy and weary, and he seemed to be trying to keep aloof from the small brazen vessel formed by the coils of two serpents that held the inky liquid of which Philip had spoken.

No doubt of the veritable nature of the charm crossed Diane; her doubt was of its lawfulness, her dread of the supernatural region she was invading. She hesitated before she ventured on her first question, and started as the Italian first spoke,—‘What would the Eccelentissima? Ladies often hesitate to speak the question nearest their hearts. Yet is it ever the same. But the lady must be pleased to form it herself in words, or the lad will not see her vision.’

‘Where, then, is my brother?’ said Diane, still reluctant to come direct to the point.

The boy gazed intently into the black pool, his great eyes dilating till they seemed like black wells, and after a long time, that Diane could have counted by the throbs of her heart, he began to close his fingers, perform the action over the other arm of one playing on the lute, throw his head back, close his eyes, and appear to be singing a lullaby. Then he spoke a few words to his master quickly.

‘He see,’ said Ercole, ‘a gentleman touching the lute, seated in a bedroom, where lies, on a rich pillow, another gentleman,’—and as the boy stroked his face, and pointed to his hands—‘wearing a mask and gloves. It is, he says, in my own land, in Italy,’ and as the boy made the action of rowing, ‘in the territory of Venice.’

‘It is well,’ said Madame de Selinville, who knew that nothing was more probable than that her brother should be playing the King to his sleep in the medicated mask and gloves that cherished the royal complexion, and, moreover, that Henry was lingering to take his pastime in Italy to the great inconvenience of his kingdom.

Her next question came nearer her heat—‘You saw the gentleman with a scar. Will he leave this castle?’

The boy gazed, then made gestures of throwing his arms wide, and of passing out; and as he added his few words, the master explained: ‘He sees the gentleman leaving the castle, through open gate, in full day, on horseback; and—and it is Madame who is with them,’ he added, as the lad pointed decidedly to her, ‘it is Madame who opens their prison.’

Diane’s face lighted with gladness for a moment; then she said, faltering (most women of her day would not have been even thus reserved), ‘Then I shall marry again?’

The boy gazed and knitted his brow; then, without any pantomime, looked up and spoke. ‘The Eccellentissima shall be a bride once more, he says,’ explained the man, ‘but after a sort he cannot understand. It is exhausting, lady, thus to gaze into the invisible future; the boy becomes confused and exhausted ere long.’

‘Once more—I will only ask of the past. My cousin, is he married or a widower?’

The boy clasped his hands and looked imploringly, shaking his head at the dark pool, as he murmured an entreating word to his master. ‘Ah! Madame,’ said the Italian, ‘that question hath already been demanded by the young Inglese. The poor child has been so terrified by the scene it called up, that he implored he may not see it again. A sacked and burning town, a lady in a flaming house—-’

‘Enough, enough,’ said de; ‘I could as little bear to hear as he to see. It is what we have ever known and feared. And now’—she blushed as she spoke—‘sir, you will leave me one of those potions that Signor Renato is wont to compound.’

‘Capisco!’ said Ercole; ‘but the Eccellentissima shall be obeyed if she will supply the means, for the expense will be heavy.’

The bargain was agreed upon, and a considerable sum advanced for a philter, compounded of strange Eastern plants and mystic jewels; and then Diane, with a shudder of relief, passed into the full light of the hall, bade her father good night, and was handed by him into the litter that had long been awaiting her at the door.

The Chevalier, then, with care on his brow, bent his steps towards the apartment where the Italian still remained counting the money he had received.

‘So!’ he said as he entered, ‘so, fellow, I have not hindered your gains, and you have been true to your agreement?’

‘Illustrissimo, yes. The pool of vision mirrored the flames, but nothing beyond—nothing—nothing.’

‘They asked you then no more of those words you threw out of Esperance?’

‘Only the English youth, sir; and there were plenty of other hopes to dance before the eyes of such a lad! With M. le Baron it will be needful to be more guarded.’

‘M. le Baron shall not have the opportunity,’ said the Chevalier. ‘He may abide by his decision, and what the younger one may tell him. Fear not, good man, it shall be made good to you, if you obey my commands. I have other work for you. But first repeat to me more fully what you told me before. Where was it that you saw this unhappy girl under the name of Esperance?’

‘At a hostel, sir, at Charente, where she was attending on an old heretic teacher of the name of Gardon, who had fallen sick there, being pinched by the fiend with rheumatic pains after his deserts. She bore the name of Esperance Gardon, and passed for his son’s widow.’

‘And by what means did you know her not to be the mean creature she pretended?’ said the Chevalier, with a gesture of scornful horror.

‘Illustrissimo, I never forget a face. I had seen this lady with M. le Baron when they made purchases of various trinkets at Montpipeau; and I saw her full again. I had the honour to purchase from her certain jewels, that the Eccellenza will probably redeem; and even—pardon, sir—I cut off and bought of her, her hair.’

‘Her hair!’ exclaimed the Chevalier, in horror. ‘The miserable girl to have fallen so low! Is it with you, fellow?’

‘Surely, Illustrissimo. Such tresses—so shining, so silky, so well kept,—I reserved to adorn the heads of Signor Renato’s most princely customers’, said the man, unpacking from the inmost recesses of one of his most ingeniously arranged packages, a parcel which contained the rich mass of beautiful black tresses. ‘Ah! her head looked so noble,’ he added, ‘that I felt it profane to let my scissors touch those locks; but she said that she could never wear them openly more, and that they did but take up her time, and were useless to her child and her father—as she called him; and she much needed the medicaments for the old man that I gave her in exchange.’

‘Heavens! A daughter of Ribaumont!’ sighed the Chevalier, clenching his hand. ‘And now, man, let me see the jewels with