The Chaplet of Pearls. Yonge Charlotte Mary
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СКАЧАТЬ of false play. Could his kinsman be bent on keeping him from court? Could Narcisse be jealous of him? Mademoiselle de Ribaumont was evidently inclined to seek him, and her cousin might easily think her lands safer in his absence. He would have been willing to hold aloof as much as his uncle and cousin could wish, save for an angry dislike to being duped and cajoled; and, moreover, a strong curiosity to hear and see more of that little passionate bird, fresh from the convent cage. Her gesture and her eyes irresistibly carried him back to old times, though whether to an angry blackbird in the yew-tree alleys at Leurre, or to the eager face that had warned him to save his father, he could not remember with any distinctness. At any rate, he was surprised to find himself thinking so little in comparison about the splendid beauty and winning manners of his discarded spouse, though he quite believed that, now her captive was beyond her grasp, she was disposed to catch at him again, and try to retain him, or, as his titillated vanity might whisper, his personal graces might make her regret the family resolution which she had obeyed.

      CHAPTER VI. FOULLY COZENED

            I was the more deceived.—HAMLET

      The unhappy Charles IX. had a disposition that in good hands might have achieved great nobleness; and though cruelly bound and trained to evil, was no sooner allowed to follow its natural bent than it reached out eagerly towards excellence. At this moment, it was his mother’s policy to appear to leave the ascendancy to the Huguenot party, and he was therefore allowed to contract friendships which deceived the intended victims the more completely, because his admiration and attachment were spontaneous and sincere. Philip Sidney’s varied accomplishment and pure lofty character greatly attracted the young King, who had leant on his arm conversing during great part of the ball, and the next morning sent a royal messenger to invite the two young gentlemen to a part at pall-mall in the Tuileries gardens.

      Pall-mall was either croquet or its nearest relative, and was so much the fashion that games were given in order to keep up political influence, perhaps, because the freedom of a garden pastime among groves and bowers afforded opportunities for those seductive arts on which Queen Catherine placed so much dependence. The formal gardens, with their squares of level turf and clipped alleys, afforded excellent scope both for players and spectators, and numerous games had been set on foot, from all of which, however, Berenger contrived to exclude himself, in his restless determination to find out the little Demoiselle de Nid-de-Merle, or, at least, to discover whether any intercourse in early youth accounted for his undefined sense of remembrance.

      He interrogated the first disengaged person he could find, but it was only the young Abbe de Mericour, who had been newly brought up from Dauphine by his elder brother to solicit a benefice, and who knew nobody. To him ladies were only bright phantoms such as his books had taught him to regard like the temptations of St. Anthony, but whom he actually saw treated with as free admiration by the ecclesiastic as by the layman.

      Suddenly a clamour of voices arose on the other side of the closely-clipped wall of limes by which the two youths were walking. There were the clear tones of a young maiden expostulating in indignant distress, and the bantering, indolent determination of a male annoyer.

      ‘Hark!’ exclaimed Berenger; ‘this must be seen to.’

      ‘Have a care,’ returned Mericour; ‘I have heard that a man needs look twice are meddling.’

      Scarcely hearing, Berenger strode on as he had done at the last village wake, when he had rescued Cis of the Down from the impertinence of a Dorchester scrivener. It was a like case, he saw, when breaking through the arch of clipped limed he beheld the little Demoiselle de Nid-de-Merle, driven into a corner and standing at bay, with glowing cheeks, flashing eyes, and hands clasped over her breast, while a young man, dressed in the extreme of foppery, was assuring her that she was the only lady who had not granted him a token—that he could not allow such pensionnaire airs, and that now he had caught her he would have his revenge, and win her rose-coloured break-knot. Another gentleman stood by, laughing, and keeping guard in the walk that led to the more frequented part of the gardens.

      ‘Hold!’ thundered Berenger.

      The assailant had just mastered the poor girl’s hand, but she took advantage of his surprise to wrench it away and gather herself up as for a spring, but the Abbe in dismay, the attendant in anger, cried out, ‘Stay—it is Monsieur.’

      ‘Monsieur; be he who he may,’ exclaimed Berenger, ‘no honest man can see a lady insulted.’

      ‘Are you mad? It is Monsieur the Duke of Anjou,’ said Mericour, pouncing on his arm.

      ‘Shall we have him to the guardhouse?’ added the attendant, coming up on the other side; but Henri de Valois waved them both back, and burst into a derisive laugh. ‘No, no; do you not see who it is? Monsieur the English Baron still holds the end of the halter. His sale is not yet made. Come away, D’O, he will soon have enough on his hands without us. Farewell, fair lady, another time you will be free of your jealous giant.’

      So saying, the Duke of Anjou strolled off, feigning indifference and contempt, and scarcely heeding that he had been traversed in one of the malicious adventures which he delighted to recount in public before the discomfited victim herself, often with shameful exaggeration.

      The girl clasped her hands over her brow with a gesture of dismay, and cried, ‘Oh! if you have only not touched your sword.’

      ‘Let me have the honour of reconducting you, Mademoiselle,’ said Berenger, offering his hand; but after the first sigh of relief, a tempestuous access seized her. She seemed about to dash away his hand, her bosom swelled with resentment, and with a voice striving for dignity, though choked with strangled tears, she exclaimed, ‘No, indeed! Had not M. le Baron forsaken me, I had never been thus treated!’ and her eyes flashed through their moisture.

      ‘Eustacie! You are Eutacie!’

      ‘Whom would you have me to be otherwise? I have the honour to wish M. le Baron a good morning.’

      ‘Eustacie! Stay! Hear me! It concerns my honour. I see it is you—but whom have I seen? Who was she?’ he cried, half wild with dismay and confusion. ‘Was it Diane?’

      ‘You have seen and danced with Diane de Ribaumont,’ answered Eustacie, still coldly; ‘but what of that? Let me go, Monsieur; you have cast me off already.’

      ‘I! when all this has been of your own seeking?’

      ‘Mine?’ cried Eustacie, panting with the struggle between her dignity and her passionate tears. ‘I meddled not. I heard that M. le Baron was gone to a strange land, and had written to break off old ties.’ Her face was in a flame, and her efforts for composure absolute pain.

      ‘I!’ again exclaimed Berenger. ‘The first letter came from your uncle, declaring that it was your wish!’ And as her face changed rapidly, ‘Then it was not true! He has not had your consent?’

      ‘What! would I hold to one who despised me—who came here and never even asked to see this hated spouse!’

      I did! I entreated to see you. I would not sign the application till—Oh, there has been treachery! And have they made you too sign it!’

      When they showed me your name they were welcome to mine.’

      Berenger struck his forehead with wrath and perplexity, then cried, joyfully, ‘It will not stand for moment. So foul a cheat can be at once exposed. Eutacie, you know—you understand, that it was not you but Diane whom I saw and detested; and no wonder, when she was acting such a cruel treason!’

      ‘Oh no, Diane would never so treat me,’ cried СКАЧАТЬ