HOW SOME OF THESE SUCCEEDED
I
Jacqueline was sitting in the self-same deep window-embrasure from
whence she had listened--oh, so long ago!--to that song, which would
for ever remain for her the sweetest song on earth:
'Mignonne, allons voir si la rose----'
Only a few hours had gone by since she had reached the sublimal
height of ecstatic happiness--only a few hours since she had tasted
the bitter fruit of renunciation. Since then she had had a good cry,
and felt better for it; but since then also she had encountered a
venomous reptile on her way, and had been polluted by its touch.
Even to suggest that Jacqueline's pure faith in the man she loved had
been troubled by de Landas' insidious suggestions, would be to wrong
her fine and steadfast character. She did not mistrust her knight;
for her he still stood far above the base calumnies hurled at him by
a spiteful rival; but, somehow, de Landas' venom had succeeded in
making her sorrow more acute, less endurable. Oh! if only she could
have shared with her beloved all his secrets and his difficulties, if
only he had thought her worthy of his entire trust!
Words which he had spoken ere he finally went away rang portentously
in her ear--ominous words, which she had not heeded at the moment,
for her heart was then over-full with the misery of that farewell,
but which now took on, despite herself, a menacing and awesome
significance.
With frowning brows and hands tightly clasped together, Jacqueline
sat there, motionless, the while memory called back those words which
in very truth did fill her heart with dread.
'If within the future,' Messire had said, 'aught should occur to
render me odious in your sight, will you at least remember that,
whatever else I may have done that was unworthy and base, my love for
you has been as pure and sacred as is the love of the lark for the
sun.'
He had gone after that--gone before she could ask him for an
explanation of these ununderstandable words, before she could affirm
her perfect faith and trust in him. Then the memory of them had
faded from her ken, merged as it was in her great, all-embracing
sorrow, until the wand of a devilish magician had brought them forth
from out the ashes of forgetfulness, and she was left more forlorn
than she had been before.
II
Monseigneur the governor found her in the late afternoon, still
sitting in the window embrasure, the large, lofty room in darkness,
save for the fitful glow of the fire which was burning low in the
monumental hearth. The patter of the rain against the window panes
made a weird, melancholy sound, which alone broke the silence that
hung upon the place with an eerie sense of desolation. Monseigneur
shuddered as he entered.
'B-r-r-r!' he exclaimed. 'My dear Jacqueline! I had no thought that
you were moping here all alone--and in the dark, too!--or I would
have been here sooner to cheer your spirits with my good news.'
'You and your good news are right welcome, Monseigneur,' responded
Jacqueline with a pathetic effort at gaiety. 'I was out in the
garden most of the day,' she continued composedly, 'and was resting
for awhile in the gathering dusk, as this awful weather hath made it
impossible to go out again.'
'Gathering dusk, forsooth!' he retorted. 'Send for your women,
Madame, and order them to bring in the candles. Light! We want more
light, laughter and joy at this hour! I would I could light a
bonfire, to turn the night into day!'
He was obviously nervy and excited, paced up and down the room in a
state of nerve-tension, very unlike his usual dignified self.
Jacqueline, a little puzzled, obeyed him promptly. She rang the bell
and ordered Nicolle to send in the candles, and while the women
busied themselves about the room, disposing candelabra upon the
tables and consols, she watched her guardian keenly. He certainly
appeared strangely excited, and now and then he darted quick,
inquiring glances upon her, and when she met those glances, he smiled
as if in triumph.
'Let us sit by the fire, my dear,' he said genially, after he had
dismissed Nicolle and the women with an impatient gesture. 'I came
to see you alone and without ceremony, because I wished for the
selfish pleasure of imparting my good news to you myself.'
She sat down in the tall chair beside the fire, and Monseigneur sat
opposite to her. She had on a dress of dark-coloured satin, upon the
shiny surface of which the flickering firelight drew quaint and
glowing arabesques. She rested her elbow on the arm of her chair and
leaned her head against her hand, thus keeping her delicate face in
shadow, lest Monseigneur should note the pallor of her cheeks and the
tear-stains around her eyes. But otherwise she was quite composed,
was able to smile too at his eagerness and obvious embarrassment.
It was his turn to study her keenly now, and he did so with evident
pleasure. Not so very many years ago he, too, had been a young
gallant, favoured by fortune and not flint-hearted either where women
were concerned. He had buried two wives, and felt none the worse for
that, and still ready to turn a compliment to a pretty woman, and to
give her the full measure of his admiration. He would have been less
than a man now, if he had withstood the charm of the pretty picture
which his ward presented, in the harmonious setting of her
high-backed chair, and with the crimson glow of the fire-light
turning her fair hair to living gold.
'Put down your hand, Jacqueline,' he said, 'so that I may see your
pretty face.'
'My head aches sadly, Monseigneur,' she rejoined with a pathetic
little sigh, 'and mine eyes are heavy. 'Tis but vanity that causes
me to hold my hand before my face.'
'Neither headaches nor heavy eyes could mar the beauty of the fairest
lily of Flanders,' he went on with elaborate gallantry. 'So I pray
you humour me, and let me see you eye to eye.'
She did as he asked, and dropped her hand. Monseigneur made no
remark on her pallor, was obviously too deeply absorbed in his joyful
news to notice her swollen eyes. She tried to smile, and said
lightly:
'And why should Monseigneur desire to see a face, every line of which
he knows by heart?'
He leaned forward in his chair and said slowly, keeping his eyes
fixed upon her:
'Because I wish to behold the future Duchesse d'Anjou and d'Alençon,
the future sister of the King of France!'
She made no reply, but sat quite still, her face turned toward the
fire, presenting the outline of her dainty profile to the admiring
gaze of her guardian. Monseigneur was silent for a moment or two,
was leaning back in his chair once more, and regarding her with an
air of complacency, which he took no pains to disguise.
'It means the salvation of the Netherlands!' he said with a deep sigh
of satisfaction. 'We can now count on the whole might of France to
rid us of our enemies, and after that to a long era of prosperity and
of religious liberty, when Madame Jacqueline de Broyart shares with
her lord the Sovereignty of the Netherlands.'
Jacqueline remained silent, her aching eyes fixed in the hot embers
of the fire. So the blow had fallen sooner than she thought. When,
in the arbour, she had made her profession of faith before her
knight, and told him that she belonged not to herself but to her
country, she did not think that her country would claim her quite so
soon. Vaguely she knew that some day her guardian would dispose of
her hand and fortune, and that she would have to ratify a bargain
made for her person, for the sake of that fair land of Flanders which
was so dear to her. But awhile ago, all that had seemed so remote;
limitless time seemed to stretch out before her, wherein she could
pursue her dreams of the might-have-been.
Monseigneur's announcement--for it was that--came as a hammer-blow
upon her hopes of peace. She had only just wakened from her dream,
and already the bitter-sweet boon of memory would be denied to her.
Stunned under the blow, she made no attempt at defiance. With her
heart dead within her, what cared she in the future what became of
her body? Since love was denied her, there was always the altruistic
sentiment of patriotism to comfort her in her loneliness; and the
thought of self-sacrifice on the altar of her stricken country would,
perhaps, compensate her for that life-long sorrow which was destined
to mar her life.
'No wonder you are silent, Jacqueline,' Monseigneur was saying, and
she heard him speaking as if through a thick veil which smothered the
sound of his voice; 'for to you this happy news comes as a surprise.
Confess that you never thought your old guardian was capable of
negotiating so brilliant an alliance for you!'
'I knew,' she rejoined quietly, 'that my guardian would do everything
in his power to further the good of our country.'
'And incidentally to promote your happiness, my dear.'
'Oh!' she said, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders, 'my
happiness is not in question, is it? Else you would not propose that
I should wed a Prince of the House of Valois.'
'I am not so sure,' he replied, with a humorous twinkle in his old
eyes. '_Monsieur_ Duc d'Anjou, is not--or I am much mistaken--quite
the rogue that mischievous rumour hath painted.'
'Let us hope, for my sake,' she retorted dryly, 'that rumour hath
wronged him in all particulars.'
'In one, at any rate, I'll vouch for that. _Monsieur_ is more than
commonly well-favoured--a handsome figure of a man, with the air and
the voice of a soldier.'
'You know him well?'
'I have seen much of him,' said Monseigneur with an enigmatic smile,
'these past four weeks.'
'These past four weeks?' she exclaimed. 'But you have not been out
of Cambray.'
'Nor has he,' put in Monseigneur quietly.
She frowned, deeply puzzled.
'_Monsieur_ Duc d'Anjou hath been in Cambray?' she asked, 'these past
four weeks?'
He nodded.
'And I have never seen him?'
'Indeed you have, my dear Jacqueline; on more than one occasion.'
'Not to my knowledge, then.'
'No. Not to your knowledge.'
'I don't understand,' she murmured. 'Why should so exalted a prince
as the Duc d'Anjou be in Cambray all this while?'
'Because he desired to woo Madame Jacqueline de Broyart, duchesse et
princesse de Ramèse.'
'Without my knowledge?'
'Without your knowledge--outwardly.'
'What do you mean?'
'Oh! nothing very obscure, my dear; nothing very remarkable.
_Monsieur_ Duc d'Anjou is young--he hath a romantic turn of mind. He
admired you and desired you in marriage, but chose to woo you--have I
not said that he is romantic?--chose to woo you under a mask.'
She gave a gasp, and quickly put her hand to her mouth to smother a
cry. She sat bolt upright now, her two hands clutching the arms of
her chair, her eyes--wide open, glowing, scared--fixed upon her
guardian. He, obtuse and matter-of-fact, mistook the gasp and the
tense expression of her face.
'No wonder you are aghast, my dear,' he said cheerily. 'Not
unpleasantly, I hope. More than once it seemed to your old guardian
that _Monsieur's_ martial presence was not altogether distasteful to
you. He hath sharper eyes, hath the old man, than you gave him
credit for--what? Ah, well! I was young too, once, and I still like
to bask in the sunshine of romance. 'Twas a pretty conceit on
_Monsieur's_ part, methinks, to pay his court to you under a
disguise--to win your love by the charm of his personality, ere you
realized the great honour that a Prince of the Royal House of France
was doing to our poor country, by wooing her fairest maid.'
Monseigneur continued to ramble on in the same strain. Jacqueline
hardly heard what he said. She was striving with all her might to
appear composed, to understand what the old man was saying, and to
reply to him with some semblance of coherence. Above all, she was
striving to get the mastery over her voice, for presently she would
have to speak, to say something which would shake her guardian's
complacency, open his eyes to the truth, the whole hideous,
abominable truth; without ... without ... Heavens above, this must be
a hideous dream!
'It was all arranged with de Montigny, you remember?' Monseigneur
continued, still engrossed in his own rhetoric, too blind to see that
Jacqueline was on the verge of a collapse. '_Monsieur_ was so
fanciful, and we had to give in to him. We all desired the alliance
with our whole hearts, and Madame la Reyne de Navarre did approve of
our schemes. I must say that de Lalain and I were against the
masquerade at first, but _Monsieur's_ soldierlike personality soon
won our approval. And imagine our joy when we realized that our dear
Jacqueline was not wholly indifferent to him either. He came to us
this afternoon and made formal demand for your hand in marriage....
So de Lalain and I have taken measures that our poor people do have a
holiday to-morrow, when Madame Jacqueline de Broyart, duchesse et
princesse de Ramèse, will solemnly plight her troth to _Monsieur_ Duc
d'Anjou. So, my dear Jacqueline, I entreat you to wear your
loveliest gown. Flanders is proud of her fairest flower. Monsieur
desired to rejoin his armies to-day and leave the ceremony of
betrothal waiting for happier times; but de Lalain and I would not
hear of it. Everything is prepared for a festive holiday. Of a
truth, to-morrow's forenoon will see the happiest hour which our
sadly-afflicted province hath seen these many years.'
He paused; I think, for want of breath: he certainly had been talking
uninterruptedly for the past ten minutes, going over the whole ground
of de Montigny's mission, _Monsieur's_ romantic desire and the final
demand in marriage, till Jacqueline could have screamed to him to
cease torturing her. The hideousness of the mystery appalled her:
some dark treachery lurked here somewhere and she was caught in a net
of odious intrigues, out of which for the moment she could see no
issue. A feeling of indescribable horror came over her--a nameless,
unspeakable terror, as in the face of a yawning, bottomless abyss, on
the brink of which she stood and into which an unseen and mighty hand
would presently hurl her.
Something of that appalling state of mind must have been reflected in
her face, despite the almost superhuman effort which she made not to
allow Monseigneur to guess at what was going on in her mind; for
presently he looked at her more keenly, and then said gently:
'Jacqueline, my dear, you look so strange. What is it? Hath my news
so gravely startled you?'
She shook her head, and when he reiterated his question, and leaned
forward in order to take her hand, she contrived to say, moderately
calmly, even though every word came with an effort from her parched
throat:
'The man with the mask? ... The Prince de Froidmont? ... You are
sure?'
'Sure of what, my dear?' he riposted.
'That he is the Duc d'Anjou?'
Monseigneur laughed loudly and long, apparently much relieved.
'Oh! is that what troubles you, my child?' he said gaily. 'Well
then, let me assure you that I am as sure of that as that I am alive.
Why!' he added, evidently much surprised, 'how could you ask such a
funny thing?'
'I did not know,' she murmured vaguely. 'Sometimes an exalted prince
will woo a maid by proxy ... so I thought...'
But evidently the idea of Jacqueline's doubts greatly tickled
Monseigneur's fancy.
'What a strange conceit, my child!' he said with condescending
indulgence. 'By proxy, forsooth! His Highness came himself, not
more than three days after Messire de Montigny completed negotiations
with him at La Fère. He desired to remain incognito and chose to
lodge in a poor hostelry; but Madame la Reyne de Navarre begged us in
a letter writ by her own august hand, to make _Monsieur_ Duc d'Anjou,
her dear brother, right welcome in Cambray. By proxy!' and
Monseigneur laughed again, highly amused. 'Why, His Highness was in
my study but two hours ago, and made formal proposal for your hand in
marriage!'
Then, as the door behind him was thrown open and old Nicolle,
shuffling in, announced M. le Comte de Lalain, d'Inchy turned to his
old friend and said, highly delighted with what he regarded as a good
joke:
'Ah, my good de Lalain! You could not have come at a more opportune
moment. Here is our ward, so bewildered at the news that she asks me
whether I am sure that it is truly _Monsieur_ Duc d'Anjou who has
been masquerading as the Prince de Froidmont. Do reassure the
child's mind, I pray you; for in truth she seems quite scared.'
De Lalain, always a great stickler for etiquette, had in the
meanwhile advanced into the room, and was even now greeting
Jacqueline with all the ceremonial prescribed by Maître Calviac.
Then only did he reply soberly:
'Sure, Madame? Of course we are sure! Why, 'tis not two hours since
he was standing before us and asking for the hand of Madame
Jacqueline de Broyart in marriage. We knelt before him and kissed
his hand, and to-morrow we'll present him to the people as the future
Sovereign Lord of the Netherlands.'
'And so, my dear Jacqueline----' concluded d'Inchy. But he got no
further, gave a loud call to Nicolle and the women; for Madame had
uttered a pitiful moan, slid out of her chair, and was now lying on
the floor in a swoon.