The Chaplet of Pearls. Yonge Charlotte Mary

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СКАЧАТЬ If they could not go on Wednesday, they could go on Saturday; and as to her acting, half the noblest ladies in the court would be in piece, and if English husbands did not like it, they must be the tyrants she had always heard of.

      ‘To be a gazing-stock–’ began Berenger.

      ‘Hush! Monsieur, I will hear no more, or I shall take care how I put myself in your power.’

      ‘That has been done for you, sweetheart,’ he said, smiling with perhaps a shade too much superiority; ‘you are mine entirely now.’

      ‘That is not kind,’ she pouted, almost crying—for between flattery, excitement, and disappointment she was not like herself that day, and she was too proud to like to be reminded that she was in any one’s power.

      ‘I thought,’ said Berenger, with the gentleness that always made him manly in dealing with her, ‘I thought you like to own yourself mine.’

      ‘Yes, sir, when you are good, and do not try to hector me for what I cannot avoid.’

      Berenger was candid enough to recollect that royal commands did not brook disobedience, and, being thoroughly enamoured besides of his little wife, he hastened to make his peace by saying, ‘True, ma mie, this cannot be helped. I was a wretch to find fault. Think of it no more.’

      ‘You forgive me?’ she said, softened instantly.

      ‘Forgive you? What for, pretty one? For my forgetting that you are still a slave to a hateful Court?’

      ‘Ah! then, if you forgive me, let me wear the pearls.’

      ‘The poor pearls,’ said Berenger, taken aback for a moment, ‘the meed of our forefather’s valour, to form part of the pageant and mummery? But never mind, sweetheart,’ for he could not bear to vex her again: ‘you shall have them to-night: only take care of them. My mother would look back on me if she knew I had let them out of my care, but you and I are one after all.’

      Berenger could not bear to leave his wife near the Duke of Anjou and Narcisse, and he offered himself to the King as an actor in the masque, much as he detested all he heard of its subject. The King nodded comprehension, and told him it was open to him either to be a demon in a tight suit of black cloth, with cloven-hoof shoes, a long tail, and a trident; or one of the Huguenots who were to be repulsed from Paradise for the edification of the spectators. As these last were to wear suits of knightly armour, Berenger much preferred making one of them in spite of their doom.

      The masque was given at the hall of the Hotel de Bourbon, where a noble gallery accommodated the audience, and left full space beneath for the actors. Down the centre of the stage flowed a stream, broad enough to contain a boat, which was plied by the Abbe de Mericour—transformed by a gray beard and hair and dismal mask into Charon.

      But so unused to navigation was he, so crazy and ill-trimmed his craft, that his first performance would have been his submersion in the Styx had not Berenger, better accustomed to boats than any of the dramatis personoe, caught him by the arms as he was about to step in, pointed out the perils, weighted the frail vessel, and given him a lesson in paddling it to and fro, with such a masterly hand, that, had there been time for a change of dress, the part of Charon would have been unanimously transferred to him; but the delay could not be suffered, and poor Mericour, in fear of a ducking, or worse, of ridicule, balanced himself, pole in hand, in the midst of the river. To the right of the river was Elysium—a circular island revolving on a wheel which was an absolute orrery, representing in concentric circles the skies, with the sun, moon, the seven planets, twelve signs, and the fixed stars, all illuminated with small lamps. The island itself was covered with verdure, in which, among bowers woven of gay flowers, reposed twelve nymphs of Paradise, of whom Eustacie was one.

      On the other side of the stream was another wheel, whose grisly emblems were reminders of Dante’s infernal circles, and were lighted by lurid flames, while little bells were hung round so as to make a harsh jangling sound, and all of the court who had any turn for buffoonery were leaping and dancing about as demons beneath it, and uttering wild shouts.

      King Charles and his two brothers stood on the margin of the Elysian lake. King Henry, the Prince of Conde, and a selection of the younger and gayer Huguenots, were the assailants,—storming Paradise to gain possession of the nymphs. It was a very illusive armour that they wore, thin scales of gold or silver as cuirasses over their satin doublets, and the swords and lances of festive combat in that court had been of the bluntest foil ever since the father of these princes had died beneath Montgomery’s spear. And when the King and his brothers, one of them a puny crooked boy, were the champions, the battle must needs be the merest show, though there were lookers-on who thought that, judging by appearances, the assailants ought to have the best chance of victory, both literal and allegorical.

      However, these three guardian angels had choice allies in the shape of the infernal company, who, as fast as the Huguenots crossed swords or shivered lances with their royal opponents, encircled them with their long black arms, and dragged them struggling away to Tartarus. Henry of Navarre yielded himself with a good-will to the horse-play with which this was performed, resisting just enough to give his demoniacal captors a good deal of trouble, while yielding all the time, and taking them by surprise by agile efforts, that showed that if he were excluded from Paradise it was only by his own consent, and that he heartily enjoyed the merriment. Most of his comrades, in especial the young Count de Rochefoucauld, entered into the sport with the same heartiness, but the Prince of Conde submitted to his fate with a gloomy, disgusted countenance, that added much to the general mirth; and Berenger, with Eustacie before his eyes, looking pale, distressed, and ill at ease, was a great deal too much in earnest. He had so veritable an impulse to leap forward and snatch her from that giddy revolving prison, that he struck against the sword of Monsieur with a hearty good-will. His silvered lath snapped in his hand, and at that moment he was seized round the waist, and, when his furious struggle was felt to be in earnest, he was pulled over on his back, while yells and shouts of discordant laughter rang round him, as demons pinioned him hand and foot.

      He thought he heard a faint cry from Eustacie, and, with a sudden, unexpected struggle, started into a sitting posture; but a derisive voice, that well he knew, cried, ‘Ha, the deadly sin of pride! Monsieur thinks his painted face pleases the ladies. To the depths with him—’ and therewith one imp pulled him backwards again, while others danced a war-dance round him, pointing their forks at him; and the prime tormentor, whom he perfectly recognized, not only leapt over him, but spurned at his face with a cloven foot, giving a blow, not of gay French malice, but of malignity. It was too much for the boy’s forbearance. He struggled free, dashing his adversaries aside fiercely, and as they again gathered about him, with the leader shouting, ‘Rage, too, rage! To the prey, imps—’ he clenched his fist, and dealt the foremost foe such a blow in the chest as to level him at once with the ground.

      ‘Monsieur forgets,’ said a voice, friendly yet reproachful, ‘that this is but sport.

      It was Henry of Navarre himself who spoke, and bent to give a hand to the fallen imp. A flush of shame rushed over Berenger’s face, already red with passion. He felt that he had done wrong to use his strength at such a moment, and that, though there had been spite in is assailant, he had not been therefore justified. He was glad to see Narcisse rise lightly to his feet, evidently unhurt, and, with the frankness with which he had often made it up with Philip Thistlewood or his other English comrades after a sharp tussle, he held out his hand, saying, ‘Good demon, your pardon. You roused my spirit, and I forgot myself.’

      ‘Demons forget not,’ was the reply. ‘At him, imps!’ And a whole circle of hobgoblins closed upon with their tridents, forks, and other horrible implements, to drive him back within two tall barred gates, which, illuminated by red flames, were to form the ghastly prison of the vanquished. Perhaps fresh indignities would have been СКАЧАТЬ