A PERILOUS STEP
Diane de Castro in her apartments in the royal palace was meanwhile
leading a miserable existence of grief and mortal terror.
Yet every tie was not broken that bound her to him who had loved her so
dearly. Almost every week André the page was sent to the Rue des
Jardins St. Paul, to make inquiries of Aloyse concerning Gabriel's
welfare.
The information which he brought back to Diane was far from reassuring.
The young Comte de Montgommery was always the same,--moody and anxious
and gloomy. The good nurse could not speak of him that her eyes did not
fill with tears, and her cheeks lose their color.
Diane hesitated fora long while. Finally, one morning during this same
month of June she took a decided step in order to put an end to her
dread.
She wrapped herself in a very modest cloak, hid her face under a veil,
and left the Louvre at an hour when people were scarcely stirring there,
accompanied by André alone, with the purpose of visiting Gabriel at his
house.
Since he avoided her and made no sign, she would go to him.
Surely a sister might visit her brother! Indeed, was it not her duty to
warn him or console him?
Unfortunately, all the courage which it had cost Diane to resolve upon
that step was to be in vain.
Gabriel also selected the lonely hours of the early morning for his
wanderings, which he had by no means abandoned; and when Diane knocked
with trembling hand at the door of his house, he had already been gone
more than half an hour.
Should she await his return? It was always uncertain, and a too long
absence from the Louvre might expose Diane to slander.
But no matter; she determined to wait at least until the expiration of
the time she had set aside for the visit.
She inquired for Aloyse, for she also desired to see her, and question
her with her own lips.
André escorted his mistress into an unoccupied room, and went to inform
the nurse.
Not for many years, not since the happy days of Montgommery and
Vimoutiers, had Aloyse and Diane met,--the woman of the people and the
daughter of the king.
Yet both their lives had been engrossed by the same thought, and anxiety
upon the same subject still filled their days with dread, and robbed
their nights of sleep.
So when Aloyse, coming hurriedly into the room, would have bowed low
before Madame de Castro, Diane threw herself into the good woman's arms,
and warmly embraced her, saying as she used to say in the old days,--
"Dear nurse!"
"What, Madame!" exclaimed Aloyse, moved to tears, "do you really
remember me? Do you recognize me?"
"Do I remember you! do I recognize you!" returned Diane; "you might as
well ask me if I remember Enguerrand's house, or if I would recognize
the Château de Montgommery!"
Meanwhile Aloyse with clasped hands was looking at Diane more
attentively.
"How beautiful you are!" she cried, sighing and smiling at once.
She smiled, for she had dearly loved the young girl who had developed
into the beautiful lady before her. She sighed, for as she dwelt upon
her lovely features she could better estimate Gabriel's wretchedness.
Diane understood this look, which was both melancholy and enraptured,
and hastened to say, with a slight blush,--
"I have not come to talk of myself, nurse."
"Is it of him, then?" said Aloyse.
"Of whom else, pray? for to you I can lay bare my heart. How unfortunate
that I did not find him! I came to console him and myself at the same
time. How is he? Always dejected and despairing, is he not? Why has he
not been once to the Louvre to see me? What does he say? What is he
doing? Tell me, oh, pray tell me, nurse!"
"Alas! Madame," replied Aloyse, "you are quite right in thinking that he
is dejected and despairing. Imagine--"
Diane interrupted her.
"Wait a moment, good Aloyse," said she; "before you begin I have a word
to say. I could stay here till to-morrow listening to you, you know,
without growing weary, or without noticing the flight of time. But I
must return to the Louvre before my absence is noticed. So promise me
one thing: when I have been here an hour, whether he has returned or
not, tell me so, and send me away."
"But, Madame," said Aloyse, "I am quite capable of forgetting the hour
myself, and I should not grow weary of talking to you any sooner than
you would of listening to me, you see."
"What can we do, then?" asked Diane. "I dread the effect of our combined
weakness."
"Let us intrust the difficult duty to some third person," said Aloyse.
"The very thing! André."
The page, who had remained in an adjoining room, undertook to rap at the
door when an hour had passed.
"And now," said Diane, taking her seat by the nurse's side, "we can talk
at our ease, and tranquilly, if not joyfully."
But this interview, though of the deepest interest to these two
afflicted creatures, was nevertheless full of difficulty and bitterness.
In the first place, neither of them knew how far the other was cognizant
of the terrible secrets of the Montgommery family.
Then, too, in what Aloyse did know of her young master's later life
there were many troublesome matters which she was afraid to mention. In
what way could she explain his long absences, his sudden returns, his
preoccupation, and his silence?
At last, however, the good nurse did tell Diane all that she knew,--that
is to say, all that she had seen; and Diane while listening to her
doubtless experienced a delicious pleasure in hearing Gabriel spoken of,
mingled though it was with deep grief at learning such sad news of him.
In truth, Aloyse's revelations were not of a nature calculated to calm
Madame de Castro's apprehensions, but rather to rekindle them; for this
earnest and impassioned witness of the young count's anguish and
suffering brought vividly before Diane's mind all the torments by which
his life was harassed.
Diane became more and more fully persuaded that if she wished to save
those whom she loved it was high time for her to intervene.
An hour is quickly gone, no matter how painful the subject of
conversation. Diane and Aloyse were startled and amazed when Andre's rap
was heard at the door.
"What! already?" they cried in one breath.
"Well, be it so!" said Diane. "I am going to stay just a quarter of an
hour longer."
"Be careful, Madame!" said the nurse.
"You are right, nurse; I must and will go now. But one word: in all that
you have told me of Gabriel you have omitted--I mean, does he never
speak of me?"
"Never, Madame, I must agree."
"Oh, it is better so!" sighed Diane.
"And he would do better still never even to think of you any more."
"Do you believe, nurse, that he does think of me, then?" asked Madame de
Castro, eagerly.
"I am only too sure of it, Madame," said Aloyse.
"Nevertheless, he carefully avoids me; he even shuns the Louvre."
"If he does avoid the Louvre, Madame," said Aloyse, shaking her head,
"it is not because of her whom he loves."
"I understand," thought Diane, shuddering; "it is because of him whom he
hates.
"Oh!" she said aloud, "I must see him,--absolutely I must."
"Do you wish me, Madame, to tell him from you to go to the Louvre to
seek you?"
"No, no,--not to the Louvre!" exclaimed Diane, in alarm. "Don't let him
come to the Louvre! I will see--I will be on the lookout for another
opportunity like this morning. I will come here again myself."
"But suppose that he has gone out again?" observed Aloyse. "What day
will you come, what week,--can you tell at all? He will wait for you;
have no fear of that."
"Alas!" said Diane, "poor king's child that I am, how can I say that at
such a day or such an hour I shall be free? However, if it is possible,
I will send André on before to warn him."
At this moment the page rapped a second time, fearful that he had not
been heard before.
"Madame," he cried, "the streets and squares about the Louvre are
beginning to be thronged."
"I am coming," replied Madame de Castro; "I am coming.
"Well, we must part, my good nurse," she continued. "Embrace me as you
used to do when I was a child, you know, in the old, old happy days."
While Aloyse, unable to utter a word, held Diane close to her breast,--
"Oh, watch over him! take good care of him!" she said in the nurse's
ear.
"As I did when he was a child, in the old, old happy days," said Aloyse.
"Oh, better, even better, Aloyse! In that time he was not in such sore
need."
Diane left the house without having met Gabriel, and half an hour later
she was safely in her apartments at the Louvre. But if she had no reason
to feel disturbed at the result of the hazardous step she had taken, her
anguish and dread on the subject of Gabriel's unknown designs were even
greater than before.
The forebodings of a woman's loving heart are apt to be only too
accurate forecasts of the future.
Gabriel did not return home until the day was well advanced. The heat
was intense, and he was wearied in body and mind.
But when Aloyse uttered Diane's name and told of her visit, he stood
erect with new life, his chest heaving and his heart throbbing.
"What did she want? What did she say? What did she do? Oh, why was I not
here? Come, tell me everything, Aloyse,--every word, every movement."
He took his turn at questioning the nurse, hardly giving her time to
reply.
"She wants to see me?" he cried. "She has something to say to me? And
she doesn't know when she may be able to come again? Oh, Aloyse, Aloyse,
I cannot wait in such uncertainty! surely you can see that. I shall go
to the Louvre at once."
"To the Louvre! Oh, Heaven preserve us!" ejaculated Aloyse, in terror.
"Yes, to be sure," replied Gabriel, calmly. "I am not banished from the
Louvre, so far as I know; and the man who had the honor of restoring
Madame de Castro to liberty at Calais surely has the right to pay his
respects to her in Paris."
"Of course," said Aloyse, trembling like a leaf; "but Madame de Castro
was very particular to say that you were not to come to the Louvre to
see her."
"Have I anything to fear there?" said Gabriel, proudly. "That would be
one reason more for me to go."
"No," replied the nurse; "it was probably on her own account that Madame
de Castro feared your coming."
"Her reputation would suffer much more from a secret and surreptitious
action, if discovered, than from a public visit in broad daylight, such
as I propose to pay,--such as I will pay her to-day, at this moment."
He called for a servant to bring him a change of clothes.
"But, Monseigneur," said poor Aloyse, at the end of her arguments,
"Madame de Castro herself has remarked that you have shunned the Louvre
hitherto. You have not thought best to go there once since your return."
"I have not been to see Madame de Castro because she has not summoned
me," said Gabriel. "I have avoided the Louvre because I had no reason to
go there; but to-day a feeling that I cannot resist urges me to go
(although my action may result in nothing), for Madame de Castro wishes
to see me. I have sworn, Aloyse, to allow my own will to slumber, and to
leave everything to God and my destiny, and I am going to the Louvre at
once."
Thus Diane's step bade fair to produce the opposite effect from that
contemplated by her.