CHAPTER I.
CRIMSON FAVOURS.
M. de Tavannes smiled. Mademoiselle averted her eyes, and shivered;as if the air, even of that close summer night, entering by the doorat her elbow, chilled her. And then came a welcome interruption.
"Tavannes!"
"Sire!"
Count Hannibal rose slowly. The King had called, and he had no choicebut to obey and go. Yet he hung a last moment over his companion, hishateful breath stirring her hair. "Our pleasure is cut short too soon,Mademoiselle," he said, in the tone and with the look she loathed."But for a few hours only. We shall meet to-morrow. Or, it maybe--earlier."
She did not answer, and "Tavannes!" the King repeated with violence."Tavannes! Mordieu!" his Majesty continued, looking round furiously."Will no one fetch him? Sacre nom, am I King, or a dog of a----"
"I come, sire!" Count Hannibal cried in haste. For Charles, King ofFrance, Ninth of the name, was none of the most patient; and scarceanother in the Court would have ventured to keep him waiting so long."I come, sire; I come!" Tavannes repeated, as he moved from her side.
He shouldered his way through the circle of courtiers, who barred theroad to the presence, and in part hid Mademoiselle from observation.He pushed past the table at which Charles and the Comte deRochefoucauld had been playing primero, and at which the latter stillsat, trifling idly with the cards. Three more paces, and he reachedthe King, who stood in the _ruelle_ with Rambouillet and the ItalianMarshal. It was the latter who, a moment before, had summoned hisMajesty from his game.
Mademoiselle, watching him go, saw so much; so much, and the King'sroving eyes and haggard face, and the four figures, posed apart in thefuller light of the upper half of the Chamber. Then the circle ofcourtiers came together before her, and she sat back on her stool. Afluttering, long-drawn sigh escaped her. Now, if she could slip outand make her escape! Now--she looked round. She was not far from thedoor; to withdraw seemed easy. But a staring, whispering knot ofgentlemen and pages blocked the way; and the girl, ignorant of theetiquette of the Court and with no more than a week's experience ofParis, had not the courage to rise and pass alone through the group.
She had come to the Louvre this Saturday evening under the wing ofMadame d'Yverne, her _fiance's_ cousin. By ill hap Madame had beensummoned to the Princess Dowager's closet, and perforce had left her.Still, Mademoiselle had her betrothed, and in his charge had satherself down to wait, nothing loth, in the great gallery, where allwas bustle and gaiety and entertainment. For this, the seventh day ofthe fetes, held to celebrate the marriage of the King of Navarre andCharles's sister--a marriage which was to reconcile the two factionsof the Huguenots and the Catholics, so long at war--saw the Louvre asgay, as full, and as lively as the first of the fete days had foundit; and in the humours of the throng, in the ceaseless passage ofmasks and maids of honour, guards and bishops, Swiss in the black,white and green of Anjou, and Huguenot nobles in more sombre habits,the country-bred girl had found recreation and to spare. Untilgradually the evening had worn away and she had begun to feel nervous;and M. de Tignonville, her betrothed, placing her in the embrasure ofa window, had gone to seek Madame.
She had waited for a time without much misgiving; expecting eachmoment to see him return. He would be back before she could count ahundred; he would be back before she could number the leagues thatseparated her from her beloved province, and the home by the BiscaySea, to which even in that brilliant scene her thoughts turned fondly.But the minutes had passed, and passed, and he had not returned.Worse, in his place Tavannes--not the Marshal, but his brother CountHannibal--had found her; he, whose odious court, at once a menace andan insult, had subtly enveloped her for a week past. He had sat downbeside her, he had taken possession of her, and, profiting by herinexperience, had played on her fears and smiled at her dislike.Finally, whether she would or no, he had swept her with him into theChamber. The rest had been an obsession, a nightmare, from which onlythe King's voice summoning Tavannes to his side had relieved her.
Her aim now was to escape before he returned, and before another,seeing her alone, adopted his _role_ and was rude to her. Already thecourtiers about her were beginning to stare, the pages to turn andtitter and whisper. Direct her gaze as she might, she met some eyewatching her, some couple enjoying her confusion. To make mattersworse, she presently discovered that she was the only woman in theChamber; and she conceived the notion that she had no right to bethere at that hour. At the thought her cheeks burned, her eyesdropped; the room seemed to buzz with her name, with gross words andjests, and gibes at her expense.
At last, when the situation had grown nearly unbearable, the groupbefore the door parted, and Tignonville appeared. The girl rose with acry of relief, and he came to her. The courtiers glanced at the twoand smiled.
He did not conceal his astonishment at finding her there. "But,Mademoiselle, how is this?" he asked in a low voice. He was asconscious of the attention they attracted as she was, and as uncertainon the point of her right to be there. "I left you in the gallery. Icame back, missed you, and----"
She stopped him by a gesture. "Not here!" she muttered, withsuppressed impatience. "I will tell you outside. Take me--take me out,if you please, Monsieur, at once!"
He was as glad to be gone as she was to go. The group by the doorwayparted; she passed through it, he followed. In a moment the two stoodin the great gallery, above the Salle des Caryatides. The crowd whichhad paraded here an hour before was gone, and the vast echoingapartment, used at that date as a guard-room, was well-nigh empty.Only at rare intervals, in the embrasure of a window or the recess ofa door, a couple talked softly. At the farther end, near the head ofthe staircase which led to the hall below, and the courtyard, a groupof armed Swiss lounged on guard. Mademoiselle shot a keen glance upand down, then she turned to her lover, her face hot with indignation.
"Why did you leave me?" she asked. "Why did you leave me, if you couldnot come back at once? Do you understand, sir," she continued, "thatit was at your instance I came to Paris, that I came to this Court,and that I look to you for protection?"
"Surely," he said. "And----"
"And do you think Carlat and his wife fit guardians for me? Should Ihave come or thought of coming to this wedding, but for your promise,and Madame your cousin's? If I had not deemed myself almost yourwife," she continued warmly, "and secure of your protection, should Ihave come within a hundred miles of this dreadful city? To which, hadI my will, none of our people should have come."
"Dreadful? Pardieu, not so dreadful," he answered, smiling, andstriving to give the dispute a playful turn. "You have seen more in aweek than you would have seen at Vrillac in a lifetime, Mademoiselle."
"And I choke!" she retorted; "I choke! Do you not see how they look atus, at us Huguenots, in the street? How they, who live here, point atus and curse us? How the very dogs scent us out and snarl at ourheels, and the babes cross themselves when we go by? Can you see thePlace des Gastines and not think what stood there? Can you pass theGreve at night and not fill the air above the river with screams andwailings and horrible cries--the cries of our people murdered on thatspot?" She paused for breath, recovered herself a little, and in alower tone, "For me," she said, "I think of Philippine de Luns by dayand by night! The eaves are a threat to me; the tiles would fall on ushad they their will; the houses nod to--to----"
"To what, Mademoiselle?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders andassuming a tone of cynicism.
"To crush us! Yes, Monsieur, to crush us!"
"And all this because I left you for a moment?"
"For an hour--or well-nigh an hour," she answered more soberly.
"But if I could not help it?"
"You should have thought of that--before you brought me to Paris,Monsieur. In these troublous times."
He coloured warmly. "You are unjust, Mademoiselle," he said. "Thereare things you forget; in a Court one is not always master ofoneself."
"I know it,"
she answered drily, thinking of that through which shehad gone.
"But you do not know what happened!" he returned with impatience. "Youdo not understand that I am not to blame. Madame d'Yverne, when Ireached the Princess Dowager's closet, had left to go to the Queen ofNavarre. I hurried after her, and found a score of gentlemen in theKing of Navarre's chamber. They were holding a council, and theybegged, nay, they compelled me to remain."
"And it was that which detained you so long?"
"To be sure, Mademoiselle."
"And not--Madame St. Lo?"
M. de Tignonville's face turned scarlet. The thrust in tierce wasunexpected. This then was the key to Mademoiselle's spirt of temper."I do not understand you," he stammered.
"How long were you in the King of Navarre's chamber, and how long withMadame St. Lo?" she asked with fine irony. "Or no, I will not temptyou," she went on quickly, seeing him hesitate. "I heard you talkingto Madame St. Lo in the gallery while I sat within. And I know howlong you were with her."
"I met Madame as I returned," he stammered, his face still hot, "and Iasked her where you were. I did not know, Mademoiselle, that I was,not to speak to ladies of my acquaintance."
"I was alone, and I was waiting."
"I could not know that--for certain," he answered, making the best ofit. "You were not where I left you. I thought, I confess--that you hadgone. That you had gone home."
"With whom? With whom?" she repeated pitilessly. "Was it likely? Withwhom was I to go? And yet it is true, I might have gone home had Ipleased--with M. de Tavannes! Yes," she continued, in a tone of keenreproach and with the blood mounting to her forehead, "it is to that,Monsieur, you expose me! To be pursued, molested, harassed by a manwhose look terrifies me, and whose touch I--I detest! To be addressedwherever I go by a man whose every word proves that he thinks me gamefor the hunter, and you a thing he may neglect. You are a man and youdo not know, you cannot know what I suffer! What I have suffered thisweek past whenever you have left my side!"
Tignonville looked gloomy. "What has he said to you?" he asked,between his teeth.
"Nothing I can tell you," she answered with a shudder. "It was he whotook me into the Chamber."
"Why did you go?"
"Wait until he bids you do something," she answered. "His manner, hissmile, his tone, all frighten me. And to-night, in all these there wasa something worse, a hundred times worse than when I saw him last--onThursday! He seemed to--to gloat on me," the girl stammered, with aflush of shame, "as if I were his! Oh, Monsieur, I wish we had notleft our Poitou! Shall we ever see Vrillac again, and the fishers'huts about the port, and the sea beating blue against the long browncauseway?"
He had listened darkly, almost sullenly; but at this, seeing the tearsgather in her eyes, he forced a laugh. "Why, you are as bad as M. deRosny and the Vidame!" he said. "And they are as full of fears as anegg is of meat! Since the Admiral was wounded by that scoundrel onFriday, they think all Paris is in a league against us."
"And why not!" she asked, her cheek grown pale, her eyes reading hiseyes.
"Why not? Why, because it is a monstrous thing even to think of!"Tignonville answered, with the confidence of one who did not use theargument for the first time. "Could they insult the King more deeplythan by such a suspicion? A Borgia may kill his guests, but it wasnever a practice of the Kings of France! Pardieu, I have no patiencewith them! They may lodge where they please, across the river, orwithout the walls if they choose, the Rue de l'Arbre Sec is goodenough for me, and the King's name sufficient surety!"
"I know you are not apt to be fearful," she answered, smiling; and shelooked at him with a woman's pride in her lover. "All the same, youwill not desert me again, sir, will you?"
He vowed he would not, kissed her hand, looked into her eyes; thenmelting to her, stammering, blundering, he named Madame St. Lo. Shestopped him.
"There is no need," she said, answering his look with kind eyes, andrefusing to hear his protestations. "In a fortnight will you not be myhusband? How should I distrust you? It was only that while she talked,I waited--I waited; and--and that Madame St. Lo is Count Hannibal'scousin. For a moment I was mad enough to dream that she held you onpurpose. You do not think it was so?"
"She!" he cried sharply; and he winced, as if the thought hurt him."Absurd! The truth is, Mademoiselle," he continued with a little heat,"you are like so many of our people! You think a Catholic capable ofthe worst."
"We have long thought so at Vrillac," she answered gravely.
"That's over now, if people would only understand. This wedding hasput an end to all that. But I'm harking back," he continued awkwardly;and he stopped. "Instead, let me take you home."
"If you please. Carlat and the servants should be below."
He took her left hand in his right after the wont of the day, and withhis other hand touching his sword-hilt, he led her down the staircase,that by a single turn reached the courtyard of the palace. Here a mobof armed servants, of lacqueys, and foot-boys, some bearing torches,and some carrying their masters' cloaks and _galoshes_, loitered toand fro. Had M. de Tignonville been a little more observant, or atrifle less occupied with his own importance, he might have noted morethan one face which looked darkly on him; he might have caught morethan one overt sneer at his expense. But in the business of summoningCarlat--Mademoiselle de Vrillac's steward and major-domo--he lost thecontemptuous "Christaudins!" that hissed from a footboy's lips, andthe "Southern dogs!" that died in the moustachios of a bully in thelivery of the King's brother. He was engaged in finding the steward,and in aiding him to cloak his mistress; then with a ruffling air, anew acquirement, which he had picked up since he came to Paris, hemade a way for her through the crowd. A moment, and the three,followed by half a dozen armed servants, bearing pikes and torches,detached themselves from the throng, and crossing the courtyard, withits rows of lighted windows, passed out by the gate between the TennisCourts, and so into the Rue des Fosses de St. Germain.
Before them, against a sky in which the last faint glow of eveningstill contended with the stars, the spire and pointed arches of thechurch of St. Germain rose darkly graceful. It was something afternine; the heat of the August day brooded over the crowded city, anddulled the faint distant ring of arms and armour that yet would makeitself heard above the hush; a hush which was not silence so much as asubdued hum. As Mademoiselle passed the closed house beside theCloister of St. Germain where only the day before Admiral Coligny, theleader of the Huguenots, had been wounded, she pressed her escort'shand, and involuntarily drew nearer to him. But he laughed at her.
"It was a private blow," he said, answering her unspoken thought. "Itis like enough the Guises sped it. But they know now what is theKing's will, and they have taken the hint and withdrawn themselves. Itwill not happen again, Mademoiselle. For proof, see the guards"--theywere passing the end of the Rue Bethizy, in the corner house of which,abutting on the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, Coligny had his lodgings--"whomthe King has placed for his security. Fifty pikes under Cosseins."
"Cosseins?" she repeated. "But I thought Cosseins----"
"Was not wont to love us!" Tignonville answered with a confidentchuckle. "He was not. But the dogs lick where the master wills,Mademoiselle. He was not, but he does. This marriage has altered all."
"I hope it may not prove an unlucky one!" she murmured. She feltimpelled to say it.
"Not it!" he answered confidently. "Why should it?"
They stopped, as he spoke, before the last house, at the corner of theRue St. Honore opposite the Croix du Tiroir; which rose shadowy in themiddle of the four ways. He hammered on the door.
"But," she said softly, looking in his face, "the change is sudden, isit not? The King was not wont to be so good to us!"
"The King was not King until now," he answered "That is what I amtrying to persuade our people. Believe me, Mademoiselle, you may sleepwithout fear; and early in the morning I will be with you. Carlat,have a care of your mistress until morning, and let Madame lie in herchamber
. She is nervous to-night. There, sweet, until morning! Godkeep you, and pleasant dreams!"
He uncovered, and bowing over her hand, kissed it; and the door beingopen he would have turned away. But she lingered as if unwilling toenter. "There is--do you hear it--a stir in _that_ quarter?" she said,pointing across the Rue St. Honore. "What lies there?"
"Northward? The markets," he answered. "'Tis nothing. They say, youknow, that Paris never sleeps. Good-night, sweet, and a fairawakening!"
She shivered as she had shivered under Tavannes' eye. And still shelingered, keeping him. "Are you going to your lodging at once?" sheasked--for the sake, it seemed, of saying something.
"I?" he answered a little hurriedly. "No, I was thinking of payingRochefoucauld the compliment of seeing him home. He has taken a newlodging to be near the Admiral; a horrid bare place in the RueBethizy, without furniture, but he would go into it to-day. And he hasa sort of claim on my family, you know."
"Yes," she said simply. "Of course. Then I must not detain you. Godkeep you safe," she continued, with a faint quiver in her tone; andher lip trembled. "Good-night, and fair dreams, Monsieur."
He echoed the words gallantly. "Of you, sweet!" he cried; and turningaway with a gesture of farewell, he set off on his return.
He walked briskly, nor did he look back, though she stood awhilegazing after him. She was not aware that she gave thought to this; northat it hurt her. Yet when bolt and bar had shot behind her, and shehad mounted the cold, bare staircase of that day--when she had heardthe dull echoing footsteps of her attendants as they withdrew to theirlairs and sleeping-places, and still more when she had crossed thethreshold of her chamber, and signed to Madame Carlat and her woman tolisten--it is certain she felt a lack of something.
Perhaps the chill that possessed her came of that lack, which sheneither defined nor acknowledged. Or possibly it came of the nightair, August though it was; or of sheer nervousness, or of theremembrance of Count Hannibal's smile. Whatever its origin, she tookit to bed with her; and long after the house slept round her, longafter the crowded quarter of the Halles had begun to heave and theSorbonne to vomit a black-frocked band, long after the tall houses inthe gabled streets, from St. Antoine to Montmartre and from St. Denison the north to St. Jacques on the south, had burst into rows oftwinkling lights--nay, long after the Quarter of the Louvre aloneremained dark, girdled by this strange midnight brightness--she layawake. At length she too slept, and dreamed of home and the wide skiesof Poitou, and her castle of Vrillac washed day and night by theBiscay tides.