IX

Weeks passed. Ever slower the time dragged on amid the aching stillness

of Montalme. Blanche's trembling hope, which resolved itself at first

into hot, feverish unrest, changed by degrees to stony despair.

She grew paler and paler--her languid steps ever more feeble--her talk

abstracted and disconnected. With head slightly bent forward, her lips

half-open, and her eyes fixed on vacancy, she watched and listened--in

vain! He came not, and nobody came who could give her any knowledge of

him. Once when Gottfried, who did not allow her to be out of his sight

in this sad, sad time, sought for her in vain in castle and garden, led

by a jealous suspicion, he climbed up into the tower chamber which De

Lancy had occupied. Through the half-open door he espied Blanche. She

was sitting at the foot of the bed upon which De Lancy had been laid

when wounded. She smiled, and on her innocent lips trembled the words

of his daring love-song:

"Si tu veux m'apaiser

Redonne--moi la vie

Par l'esprit d'un baiser."

She was dreaming!

Whole nights she sat up sleepless in her bed and murmured or sang

softly to herself. And now many times through the stillness of night

she heard the beat of a horse's hoof at full speed passing her window.

Who could the rider be who thus hurried by Montalme at the dead of

night?

There was one person in the castle whose faith was firm as a rock in De

Lancy's truth. This was Dame Isabella. Daily she invented fresh excuses

for his remaining away--daily arrayed herself in expectation of his

return. For hours together she would grin and curtsey before the

mirror, preparing for her advent at court.

* * * * *

One day when Blanche, with her hands in her lap, sat brooding, Dame

Isabella rushed to her, exclaiming, "Blanche! Blanche! quick, the royal

hunting party is coming by the castle!"

Blanche trembled, for she knew that he must be among the king's

retinue. She stepped to the window.

Like a gold embroidered thundercloud, the hunting-party whirled out of

the distance and drew nearer. Horns sounded and rapid hoof-beats

vibrated on the air. As they approached, a good chance was afforded to

see the costly apparel of the ladies, and also of the gentlemen, of

whom an old chronicler of the times avers, not without point, that some

among them wore their lands and castles on their shoulders.

They fluttered by like a glittering swarm of birds of paradise. Blanche

stretched her little head forward--there he was--one of the first!

He did not even look up--but rushed by like a storm-wind, his face

turned to a blonde, regal lady, and looking proud and imposing indeed.

Blanche staggered back. What could there have been in that brilliant

throng of further interest to her? Dame Isabella, however, lingered at

the window, and grinned and bowed with might and main, while her huge

head-gear rocked comically back and forth.

And now the king approached on a milk-white steed with scarlet velvet,

gold-embroidered housings. He looked up, and was reminded of an amusing

picture which De Lancy, on his return to court, when questioned by the

ladies as to the adventure which had detained him so long away, had

drawn of a worthy old scarecrow who tended his wounds in Montalme. The

existence of the lovely maiden Blanche he had deemed it wisest to

conceal. Stifling a laugh, Francis returned Dame Isabella's greeting

with roguish exaggeration, then turning, whispered to those nearest

him, whereupon they also looked up, and being greeted by her, the

entire retinue stopped a minute to inspect the self-satisfied old

monstrosity. But they did not all possess the amiable courtesy which

distinguished the king even in his unrestrained naughtiness. One of the

ladies smiled, another laughed, and, like a spark in a ton of powder,

this laugh was enough to set off the kindling stuff of repressed

hilarity which at once exploded.

So pointed were the looks--so hearty the laughter of the party--that

even the self-admiring Isabella could not in the slightest degree be

deceived as to the cause of their merriment. Mortified, she drew back

out of sight, and the hunting party passed on. Yet at a distance the

sound of the continued laughter was audible. Dame Isabella was furious.

"They laughed at me, they pointed at me with their fingers!" she

repeated, over and over again, her corpulent figure, and especially her

double chin, trembling in a remarkable way; and utterly forgetting her

former admiration of the court, she added, "The disorderly mob! the

base women!"

Blanche, who, with her elbows in her hands, was staring straight before

her like one stunned, thought, "Perhaps he is laughing at me too!" and

thought these words aloud; since she had been so absorbed in sorrow and

longing she had often uttered whole sentences like one in a feverish

dream.

"That you may be sure of!" said Dame Isabella, in a huff, and rustled

out of the room to lay aside once and for all the ugly headgear which

she had had a chance to observe was in appalling contradiction to the

prevailing style. She distinctly recalled Henri de Lancy's expressed

admiration for this same head ornament. Now she knew that he had been

making fun of her, and anger and resentment gnawed at her heart.

It chanced that on the following day two mendicant friars sought

admission to the castle. Dame Isabella asked to have these bare-footed

martyrs conducted to her room, welcomed them hospitably and in the most

respectful manner; in the first place because she was pious, but in the

second because these wandering monks served as a kind of peripatetic

newspaper; for which their roving life afforded them sufficient variety

of material. Thus the lady obtained the most precise information about

the frivolities of the king and his rollicking companions, especially

the handsome De Lancy, who, she was told, among all these lawless

revellers was the worst. He was not only following the royal example to

the last extent (the monks exaggerated perhaps a trifle, seeing how

much it pleased their listener), but of late he had actually formed a

liaison with a married woman, the Countess de Sologne, whom, as she was

carefully guarded by her husband's jealousy, he visited secretly at

night. And they ended by saying, "It would not surprise us if the

castle lady heard the reckless knight ride by, since it was the

shortest way to Laemort, the hereditary seat of the Solognes."

We may rest assured that Dame Isabella gave the monks for this precious

communication plenty of money to spend on their way. Possessed of her

glorious bit of knowledge, she was dying to tell it, and seeing Blanche

at the chess-board, opposite her uncle, who exerted himself all the

time to try to distract her thoughts, she began immediately to relate

what she had heard. They were not prudish in those days, and if here

and there one cared to preserve the innocence of a young girl, that

blissful ignorance was by no means maintained which to-day is held

peculiarly sacred and inviolate.

Dame Isabella repeated word for word all she had heard of the shameful

proceedings which hourly went on in the Castle of Amboise, and of the

startling depravity of Henri de Lancy. In vain Gottfried attempted, by

his displeased looks, to silence her; she went on further, and advised

Blanche to rejoice that she had escaped the danger of becoming the wife

of this vicious fellow. Blanche sat stiff and straight, not uttering a

word, and continued to shove the little ivory figures slowly over the

board--that she made the castle execute the peculiar leaps of the

knight, Isabella did not notice. But when she finished by saying that

they might hear Henri de Lancy ride by nightly, since the nearest way

to his beloved duchess led by Montalme, they suddenly heard a painful

quiver like the dropping of a little bird which had been shot through

the heart. Blanche had fainted and fallen.

"Cruel woman!" exclaimed Gottfried, furiously, "must you tell? I could

be silent!"

He had long known of Henri's infidelity.

Consciousness soon returned to the poor girl, and with it the

recollection of her sorrow. Blanche longed to lose herself again, but

the blessing was denied her. Not even the repose of sleep did Heaven

grant her. She would lie awake, listening feverishly the whole night;

but no sound disturbed the deathlike stillness either the first or the

second night. During the day Blanche dragged herself from room to room,

as if her once flying feet were weighted with lead, but most of the

time she sat stiffly erect with her hands lying helplessly in her lap,

staring before her with glazed eyes.

The third day was drawing to a close. Gottfried came in, and, seating

himself beside her, inquired after her health. She replied there was

nothing the matter with her, but at the same time crept close to him

like a very sick child, and he, who had usually repulsed her innocent

caresses, now put his arm around her slender body and laid her little

head tenderly on his shoulder; he no longer thought of his own pain,

but of hers.

She begged him to tell her a story, as a sick child begs for a

cradle-song.

He had told her many a tale in bygone days, yet of all she liked best

to hear of his own adventures and what he himself had seen. Therefore

he asked now, "A true story, my jewel?" She shuddered, "Oh, no! no! a

fiction, my uncle, pray!"

He passed his hand thoughtfully over his brow. Nothing occurred to him

but a little legend which had been told him by a half-crazy monk who

was crouching on the steps of the Milan Cathedral, and with a somewhat

tremulous voice he began:

"It happens occasionally that in the midst of the blessedness of heaven

an angel looking down yearns for earth, which seems attractive in the

enchantment of distance. Then St. Peter, at the Almighty's command,

grudgingly opens the gates of heaven a little, and the angel slips

through. But however much he exerts himself and beats his wings, the

little fluttering things carry him up, and he cannot escape from the

spheres of sinless purity which float around Paradise. St. Peter

rattles his bunch of keys and again the gates of heaven open, and now

on the threshold stands Jesus Christ, well-beloved Son of the Father,

and infinitely compassionate Son of Man, who knows the earth

thoroughly. And when the lovely, unwise rebel turns his gold-encircled

little head to question him concerning it, he beckons him to come

nearer, and smiling lays a warm beating weight on his breast. Then he

says, 'Try it!'

"And lo! when now the angel attempts to lift his wings the little

weight which Jesus Christ has laid on his breast draws him down to

earth--for the weight is a human heart. Slowly, slowly he descends from

the spheres until he lands on a green meadow. There he sinks into a

deep, dreamless sleep, and when he awakes he has lost his wings,

forgotten his heavenly origin, and has become a man--only with an

intense longing in his soul for virtue and purity, which he is not

himself aware is homesickness; holiness, happiness, heaven, and home

being to him unconsciously one and the same thing. Yet but now howe'er

much his yearning may hurry him upward again, his heart chains him fast

to the earth and he cannot return to his radiant home until a great

human grief has broken the heart which was laid on his breast. Then our

Lord Jesus Christ glides downward to earth--takes the poor rebel in his

arms and carries him back to Paradise."

Gottfried paused. Blanche was silent a moment, then she sighed, "Your

story is sad, almost as sad as if it were a true one!"