EYES OF JADE
Claire Agnew was left alone among a world of men. But as she had known
few women all her life, that made the less matter. Her dark, densely
ringleted hair, something between raven-black and the colour of bog-oak,
was crisped about a fine forehead, which in his hours of ease her father
had been wont to call "Ailsa Craig."
"Oh, cover up Ailsa!" he would say often to tease her, "no girl can have
brains enough for a brow such as that!" And so, to please him, she had
trained her hair to lie low on her forehead, and then to ripple and
twist away gracefully to the nape of her neck, looking, as she turned
her head, like a charming young Medusa with deep green eyes of mystic
jade.
Such was Claire Agnew in the year of grace 1588, when she found herself
fatherless in that famous town of Blois, soon to be the terror, the joy,
and the hope of the world. Not that any description can do much to make
the personality of a fair woman leap from the printed page. Slowly and
only in part, it must disengage itself in word and thought and deed.
Like almost all lonely girls, Claire Agnew kept, in her father's tongue,
often in his very dialect, a journal of events and feelings and
imaginings--her "I-book," as she used to name it to herself.
That night as she curled herself up to sleep--it was almost morning--she
arranged in her mind how she would begin the very next day to write down
"all that happened, as well as" (because she was a girl) "all that she
hoped would happen."
The closely-packed script has come down to us, the writing fine, like
Greek cursive. The paper has been preserved marvellously, but the ink is
browned with time, and the letters so small and serried that they can
only be made out with a magnifying-glass.
"This is my I-Book, and I mean to be more faithful with myself
in writing it out; from this time forward--I shall write it
every night, no matter how tired I may be. Or--at least, the
next day, without the least failure. This shall have the force
of a vow!"
(Poor Claire--even thus have all diaries opened, since the first
Cave-man began to scratch the details of his Twelfth of August "bag" on
a mammoth-tusk! What a feeble proportion of these diaries have survived
even one fortnight!)
"Yes, I like him," Claire wrote, without prelude or the
formality of naming the him--"I like him, but I am glad he is
gone. Somehow, till I have thought and rested a while, I shall
feel safer with just our excellent Doctor Long, who preaches at
me much as Pastor Gras used to do at Geneva. Indeed, I see
little difference, except that the pastor was older, and did
not hold my hand as he talked. But no doubt he does that
because I have lost my father."
Doubtless it was so; nevertheless it needs some little explanation to
make it clear why, after having been committed by D'Epernon to the care
of the King of Navarre, Claire and the Professor should still be in the
little town of Blois, with the young girl busily writing her journal,
and lifting her eyes at the end of every sentence to look across the
broad blue river at the squares and oblongs of ripening vintages which
went clambering irregularly over the low hills opposite.
"The Loire here in this place" (so she wrote) "is broad and
calm, not swift and treacherous like the Rhone, or sleepy like
the Seine, nor yet fierce like the Rhine as I saw it long ago,
lashing green as sea-water about the old bridge at Basel. I
love the Loire--a wide river, still and unrippled, not a
leaping fish, not a stooping bird, a water of silver flowing on
and on in a dream. And though my father is dead and I greatly
alone (save for old Madame Granier in her widow's crape) I
cannot feel that I am very unhappy. Perhaps it is wicked to say
so. I reproach myself that I lack feeling--that if I had loved
my father more, surely I would now have been more unhappy. I do
not know. One is as one is made.
"Yet I did love him--God knows I did! But here--it is so
peaceful. Sadness falls away."
And peaceful it certainly was. The Bearnais had gone back to his camp,
taking the Abbe John with him, where, in the incessant advance and
retreat of the Huguenot army, there was little room for fair maids.
Before he went away, the King had had a talk with Jean-aux-Choux and
with his host, Anthony Arpajon. They reminded him that for some months
at least, no one would be more welcome in Blois than this learned
Professor of the Sorbonne. Was not the Parliament of the King--the loyal
States-General--to be gathered there in a few weeks? And, meantime, the
provident Blesois were employed in making their rooms fit and proper for
the reception of the rich and noble out of all France, excepting only
the Leaguer provinces of the north and the Huguenot south-east from the
Loire to the Pyrenees.
"I would willingly keep the maid and the Professor," said Anthony, "but
it is of the nature of my business that there should be at times a
bustle and a noise of rough lads coming and going. And though none of
them would harm the daughter of Francis the Scot--having me to deal
with, as well as wearing, for the most part, the silver cow-bell at
their girdles--yet a hostelry is no place for a well-favoured Calvinist
maid, and the daughter of Master Francis Agnew!"
"What, then, would you do with her?"
The brow of the King was frowning a little. After all, he thought, had
the girl not followed her father, and been accustomed to the rough side
of the blanket? He had not found women so nice about their accommodation
when a king catered for them.
But a well-timed jest of Jean-aux-Choux concerning the young blades
which the mere sight of Claire would set bickering, caused the Bearnais
to smile, and with a sigh he gave way.
"Well, Anthony the Calvinist, you are an obstinate varlet. Have it as
you will. I am an easy man. But tell me your plans. For, after all, the
girl has been committed to my charge."
The Calvinist innkeeper had his answer ready.
"There dwells," he said, "by the water-side yonder a wise and prudent
wife, whose husband was long at the wars, a sergeant in your Cevenol
levies. She will care for the maid. And if there be need, Madame Granier
knows a door in her back-yard by which, at all times, she can have such
help or shelter as the house of Anthony Arpajon can give her."
"And the Professor of Eloquence?" said Henry, with a quick glance.
"Is he not her uncle--in a way, her guardian?" said Anthony, with an
impenetrable countenance. "She could not be in safer hands. Leave us
also the fool, Jean-aux-Choux, and, by my word, you shall have the first
and the best intelligence of that the King and his wise Parliamenters
may devise. They say my Lord of Guise is soon to be here with a thousand
gentlemen, and such a tail of the commonalty as will eat up all the
decent folk in Blois like a swarm of locusts!"
"Good," said the King of Navarre. "Guise has long been tickling the
adder's tail; he will find what the head holds some fine day, when he
least expects it!"
These were quiet days in the little white house, with only the narrow
quay underneath, and the changing groups of washerwomen, bare-armed,
lilac-bloused, laving and lifting in the tremulous heat-haze of the
afternoon. But somehow they were very dear days to Claire Agnew, and she
clung to the memory of them long afterwards.
She was near enough for safety to the hostelry of the Silver Cow-bell
(presently held by Anthony Arpajon), yet far enough from it to be quite
apart from its throng and bustle. All day Madame Granier gathered up the
gossip of the quarter, and passing it through a kind of moral sieve,
retailed it at intervals to her guest.
Furthermore, Claire had time to bethink herself. She had long, long
thoughts of the Abbe John. She remembered how bright and willing he had
ever been in her service, how he had respected her grief, and never
breathed word her father might not have heard.
And her good Professor of Eloquence--Doctor Anatole Long? What of him?
He was there close under her hand, always willing to stroll with her
along the river's bank. Or in Dame Granier's little living-room, he
would explain the universe to Claire Agnew to the accompaniment of
Madame Granier's clattering platters and her rhyme of King Francis.
"Brave Francis went the devil's way,
Bold sprang the hawk, laughed maidens gay!
Yet he learned to eat from an Emperor's tray,
_Sans_ hawk, _sans_ hound, _sans_ maiden gay.
A-lack-a-day! A-lack-a-day!
From Pavia's steeple struck Doomsday!"
After all, it was best by the river-side. You saw things there, and if
the Professor were in good humour, he would talk on and on, while you
could--that is, Claire could--throw stones in the water without
disturbing the even flow of the big, fine words. Not too large stones,
but only pebbles, else he would rise and march on, with a frown at being
interrupted, but without at all perceiving the cause. For at such times
Claire always looked especially demure.
"You are indeed my dear Uncle Anatole," she said one day, when they had
been longer by the water-side than usual; "you were just made for it. If
you had not been--I declare I should have adopted you!"
There was something teasing about Claire's accent, at once girlish and
light, which fell pleasantly on the Professor's ear. But the words--he
was not so sure that he liked the words.
"I am not so old," he said, the deep furrow which dinted downwards
between his thick eyebrows smoothing itself out as he looked, or rather
peered at her with his short-sighted blue eyes; "my mother is active
still. I long for you to see her; and I have two brothers, one of whom
was thinking of marrying last year, but after all it came to nothing!"
"I should think so, indeed," said Claire suddenly.
"And pray why?" The Professor swung about and faced her. "What was there
to prevent it?"
"The girl, of course!" said Claire, smiling simply.
"Umph!" said the Professor, and for half a mile spoke no more.
Then he nodded his head sagely, and communed to himself without speech.
"She is right," he said; "she is warning me. What have I to do with
young maids?--I who might have had maids of my own, fool that I was!
Hey, what's that? Stand back there, or I will spit any two of
you--dogs!"
A laughing, dancing convoy of gold-laced pages from the Chateau, now
rapidly filling up for the momentous meeting of the States-General,
swirled out of the willow-copses by the Loire side. Claire was caught
into the turmoil of the dance, as a flight of wild pigeons might envelop
a tame dove wandering from the Basse Cour.
"Go up, bald-head!" they cried, "grey beards and young maids go not well
together!"
The Professor of Eloquence, stung by the affront, lifted his only
weapon, a stout oaken cudgel. And with such a pack of beardless loons,
the mere threat was enough. They scattered, screaming and laughing.
"I will report you to the Provost-Marshal, to the Major-domo of the
palace, and your backs shall pay for this insolence to my niece!"
"I think they meant no harm, sir," said Claire breathlessly, taking the
arm of the Professor of the Sorbonne. She was astonished at his heat.
"The whipping-bench and a good dozen spare rods are what they want!"
growled the Professor. "These are ill times. 'Train up a child in the
way he should go,' saith the Book. But in these days the young see only
evil all their days, and when they are old they depart not from that!"