THE GOLDEN LARK IN ORLEANS TOWN
"Now," said Jean-aux-Choux, "unless I go down and help at the
turning-spit myself, we are further off dinner than ever. I will also
pump the lady dry of information in a quarter of an hour, which, in such
a Leaguer town, is always a useful thing. But stay where you are, my
lady Claire, and keep the door open. You will smell burnt fat, but the
Fool of the Three Henries will be with you in as many jumps of a
grasshopper whenever you want him. You have only to call, and lo, you
have me!"
When Jean had disappeared to do double duty as spy and kitchen-drudge
beneath, Claire went to the window which looked out upon the
market-place. From beneath in the kitchen she could hear shouts of
laughter climb up and die away. She knew that Jean-aux-Choux was at his
tricks, and that, with five minutes' grace, he could get to windward of
any landlady that ever lived, let alone such a merry plump one as Madame
Celeste.
That dame indeed disliked all pretty women on principle. But she was
never quite sure whether she preferred an ugly witty man who made her
laugh, or a handsome dull man who only treated her as a gentleman ought.
But women--young women and pretty women--pah, she could not abide them!
And by this we can guess her age, for not so long ago she had been young
and even pretty herself.
The tide that comes in the affairs of men is not nearly so marked as the
ebb which comes in the affairs of women.
Claire stood a long while meditating, her eyes following the movement of
the market-place vaguely, but without any real care for what was
happening. She truly mourned her father, but she possessed much of that
almost exclusively masculine temperament which says after any
catastrophe, "Well, what is the next thing to be done?"
"I care nothing about my mother's people," she meditated to herself,
"but I would see her home, her land, her country."
She had never seen her father's. But when he had spoken to her of the
fresh winds, lashing rains, and driving snows, with nevertheless the
rose blooming in the sheltered corners about the old house on Christmas
Day, she had somehow known it all. But Collioure and its sand-dunes, the
deep sapphire of the southern sea, cut across by the paler blue line of
the sky--she could not imagine that, even when the Professor and the
Abbe John, with tears glittering in their eyes, spoke together in the
strange pathetic speech of _la petite patrie_.
But she would like to see it--the strand where the little Colette had
played, the dunes down which she had slidden, and the gold and rose of
the towers of Chateau Collioure, within which her mother was born.
A noise without attracted her attention. A procession was entering the
square. In the midst was a huge coach with six mules, imported, equipage
and all, from Spain. An outrider in the episcopal livery was mounted on
each mule, while running footmen scattered the market-stalls and
salad-barrows like the passage of a sudden strong wind.
There was also great excitement down below in the Golden Lark. The
kitchen emptied itself, and Madame Celeste stopped hastily to pin a bow
of ribbons to her cap, unconscious that a long smear of sooty grease
decorated one side of her nose. The Bishop's carriage was coming in
state to the Golden Lark! There could not be the least doubt of it. And
the Bishop himself was within, that holy man who so much more willingly
handled the sword-hilt than the crozier--Bishop Pierrefonds of Orleans,
certain archbishop and possible cardinal, a stoop of the League in all
the centre of France.
Yes, he was conveying home his guests in state. He stepped out and stood
on the pavement in front of the house, a right proper prelate, giving
them in turn his hand as they stooped to kiss his amethyst ring. Then,
seeing over the Abbe John's bowed head the lady of the house, he called
out heartily to her (for he was too great to be haughty with any),
"Mistress Celeste, mind you treat these gentlemen well. It is not every
day that our good town of Orleans holds at once the light of the
Sorbonne, its mirror of eloquence, and also the nephew of my Lord
Cardinal of the Holy League, John d'Albret, claimant at only twenty
removes to the crown of France."
"Pshaw," muttered the Abbe John wearily, "I wish the old fool would go
away and let us get to dinner!"
For, indeed, at the Palace he had listened to much of this.
The hostess of the Golden Lark conducted her two guests upstairs as if
to the sound of trumpets. She gathered her skirts and rustled like the
poplar leaves of an entire winter whisking about the little Place
Royale of Orleans. The Professor of the Sorbonne had suddenly sunk into
the background. Even the almighty Duke of Guise was no better than a
bird in the bush. While here--well in hand, and hungry for an honest
Golden Lark dinner--was a real, hall-marked, royal personage, vouched
for by a bishop, and still more by the bishop's carriage and outriders!
It was enough to turn the head of a wiser woman than Madame Celeste
Gillifleur.
"And is it really true?" demanded Claire Agnew.
"Is what true, my dear lady?" said the Abbe John, very ungraciously for
him. For he thought he would have to explain it all over again.
"That you are a near heir to the throne of France?"
The Abbe John clapped his hands together with a gesture of despair.
"Just as much as I am the Abbe John and a holy man," he cried; "it
pleases them to call me so. Thank God, I am no priest, nor ever will be.
And as for the crown of France--Henry of Valois is not dead, that ever I
heard of. And if he were, I warrant his next heir and my valiant cousin,
Henry of Navarre, would have a word to say before he were passed over!"
"But," said the Professor of Eloquence, smiling, "the Pope and our wise
Sorbonne have loosed all French subjects from paying any allegiance to a
heretic!"
"By your favour, sir," said the young man, "I think both made a mistake
for which they will be sorry. Also I heard of a certain professor who
voted boldly for the Bearnais in that Leaguer assembly, and who found it
convenient to go see his mother next day, lest he should find himself
one fine morning shortened by a head, all for the glory of God and the
Holy League!"
Doctor Anatole laughed at his pupil's boldness.
"You are out of disciplinary bounds now," he said, "and as you are too
old to birch, I must e'en let you chatter. But what is the meaning of
the Bishop's sudden cordiality?"
"Oh," said the Abbe John, with a sigh of resignation, "these Leaguers
are always getting maggots in their brains. If my mother had been my
father--if I had been a Bourbon instead of a d'Albret--if Henry the
Bearnais had been in my shoes and I in his--if--if--any number of
'ifs'--then there might be something in this heir-to-the-crown business.
But the truth is, they are at their wits' end (which is no long distance
to travel). The Demon of the South, our good, steady-going King of
Spain, drives them hard. They dare not have him to rule over them, with
his inquisitors, his blazing heretic fires, and the rest of it. Yet it
is a choice between him and the Huguenot, unless they can find a true
Catholic king. The Cardinal Bourbon is manifestly too old, though one
day even he may serve to stop a gap. The Duke of Guise may be descended
from the Merovingians or from Adam, but in either case his family-tree
is not convincing. It has too many branches--too few roots! So the
plotters--my good uncle among them--are looking about for some one--any
one--that is, not a Guise nor yet a Huguenot, who may serve their turn.
His Grace of Orleans thinks I may do as well as another. That is
all--only one Leaguer maggot the more."
"And must we, then, always say 'Your Royal Highness' or 'Your Serenity'
when we kiss your hand--which shall it be?" Claire asked the question
gravely.
"I had much rather kiss yours," said the heir to a throne, bowing with
equal gravity; "and as for a name--why, I am plain John d'Albret, at
your service!"
He doffed his cap as he spoke, and the Professor noted for the first
time, with a touch of jealousy, that he was a comely lad enough--that
is, if he had not been so ludicrously young. The Professor (who was not
a philosopher for nothing) noted the passing twinge of jealousy as a
sign that he was growing old. Twenty years ago he might have been
tempted to break his pupil's head for a presumptuous jackanapes, or
challenge him to a bout at the small swords, but jealousy--pah, Anatole
Long thought himself as good as any man--always excepting the
Bearnais--where the sex was concerned.
It was a good and substantial supper to which they sat down. The cookery
did credit to the handicraft of Madame Celeste, especially the salmon
steaks done in parsley sauce, and the roast capon stuffed with butter,
mint, and bread-crumbs. The wine, a white Cote Rotie, went admirably
with the viands. The Professor and Claire had but little appetite, but
the eyes of the landlady were now upon the Abbe John alone. His plate
was scarce empty before it was mysteriously refilled. His wine-glass
found itself regularly replenished by the fair plump hands of Madame
Celeste herself. All went merry as a marriage-bell, and Jean-aux-Choux,
seated a little way below the salt, and using his dagger as an entire
table equipment, worked his way steadily through everything within his
reach. For though the Fool of the Three Henries held nothing in heaven
or earth sacred from his bitter tongue when in the exercise of his
profession, he equally let nothing in heaven or earth (or even under the
earth) interfere with his appetite. He explained the matter thus:
"I have heard of men living from hand to mouth," he told Claire; "for
twenty years I have lived from table to mouth--always the same mouth,
seldom twice the same table. There was you, my little lady, to be
served first. And a hundred times your father and I went hungry that you
might eat your milk-sop hot-a-nights. While, if I could, I would cheat
my master as to what remained, his being the greater need."
"Good Jean!" said Claire, gently reaching out to pat his shaggy head.
The long-armed jester shook a little and went pale under her touch,
which was the stranger, seeing that with a twist of his shoulders he
could throw off the clutch of a strong man.
Such were the three with whom Claire travelled southward, in an
exceeding safety, considering the disturbed time. For any of them would
have given his life to shield her from harm, though as yet
Jean-aux-Choux was the only one of the three who knew it. And with him
it was a matter of course.