I was the more deceived.--HAMLET
The unhappy Charles IX. had a disposition that in good hands might have
achieved great nobleness; and though cruelly bound and trained to evil,
was no sooner allowed to follow its natural bent than it reached out
eagerly towards excellence. At this moment, it was his mother’s policy
to appear to leave the ascendancy to the Huguenot party, and he was
therefore allowed to contract friendships which deceived the intended
victims the more completely, because his admiration and attachment were
spontaneous and sincere. Philip Sidney’s varied accomplishment and pure
lofty character greatly attracted the young King, who had leant on his
arm conversing during great part of the ball, and the next morning
sent a royal messenger to invite the two young gentlemen to a part at
pall-mall in the Tuileries gardens.
Pall-mall was either croquet or its nearest relative, and was so
much the fashion that games were given in order to keep up political
influence, perhaps, because the freedom of a garden pastime among groves
and bowers afforded opportunities for those seductive arts on which
Queen Catherine placed so much dependence. The formal gardens, with
their squares of level turf and clipped alleys, afforded excellent scope
both for players and spectators, and numerous games had been set on
foot, from all of which, however, Berenger contrived to exclude himself,
in his restless determination to find out the little Demoiselle de
Nid-de-Merle, or, at least, to discover whether any intercourse in early
youth accounted for his undefined sense of remembrance.
He interrogated the first disengaged person he could find, but it was
only the young Abbe de Mericour, who had been newly brought up from
Dauphine by his elder brother to solicit a benefice, and who knew
nobody. To him ladies were only bright phantoms such as his books had
taught him to regard like the temptations of St. Anthony, but whom he
actually saw treated with as free admiration by the ecclesiastic as by
the layman.
Suddenly a clamour of voices arose on the other side of the
closely-clipped wall of limes by which the two youths were walking.
There were the clear tones of a young maiden expostulating in indignant
distress, and the bantering, indolent determination of a male annoyer.
‘Hark!’ exclaimed Berenger; ‘this must be seen to.’
‘Have a care,’ returned Mericour; ‘I have heard that a man needs look
twice are meddling.’
Scarcely hearing, Berenger strode on as he had done at the last village
wake, when he had rescued Cis of the Down from the impertinence of a
Dorchester scrivener. It was a like case, he saw, when breaking
through the arch of clipped limed he beheld the little Demoiselle de
Nid-de-Merle, driven into a corner and standing at bay, with glowing
cheeks, flashing eyes, and hands clasped over her breast, while a young
man, dressed in the extreme of foppery, was assuring her that she was
the only lady who had not granted him a token--that he could not allow
such _pensionnaire_ airs, and that now he had caught her he would have
his revenge, and win her rose-coloured break-knot. Another gentleman
stood by, laughing, and keeping guard in the walk that led to the more
frequented part of the gardens.
‘Hold!’ thundered Berenger.
The assailant had just mastered the poor girl’s hand, but she took
advantage of his surprise to wrench it away and gather herself up as
for a spring, but the Abbe in dismay, the attendant in anger, cried out,
‘Stay--it is Monsieur.’
‘Monsieur; be he who he may,’ exclaimed Berenger, ‘no honest man can see
a lady insulted.’
‘Are you mad? It is Monsieur the Duke of Anjou,’ said Mericour, pouncing
on his arm.
‘Shall we have him to the guardhouse?’ added the attendant, coming up on
the other side; but Henri de Valois waved them both back, and burst
into a derisive laugh. ‘No, no; do you not see who it is? Monsieur the
English Baron still holds the end of the halter. His sale is not yet
made. Come away, D’O, he will soon have enough on his hands without
us. Farewell, fair lady, another time you will be free of your jealous
giant.’
So saying, the Duke of Anjou strolled off, feigning indifference and
contempt, and scarcely heeding that he had been traversed in one of the
malicious adventures which he delighted to recount in public before the
discomfited victim herself, often with shameful exaggeration.
The girl clasped her hands over her brow with a gesture of dismay, and
cried, ‘Oh! if you have only not touched your sword.’
‘Let me have the honour of reconducting you, Mademoiselle,’ said
Berenger, offering his hand; but after the first sigh of relief, a
tempestuous access seized her. She seemed about to dash away his
hand, her bosom swelled with resentment, and with a voice striving for
dignity, though choked with strangled tears, she exclaimed, ‘No, indeed!
Had not M. le Baron forsaken me, I had never been thus treated!’ and her
eyes flashed through their moisture.
‘Eustacie! You are Eutacie!’
‘Whom would you have me to be otherwise? I have the honour to wish M. le
Baron a good morning.’
‘Eustacie! Stay! Hear me! It concerns my honour. I see it is you--but
whom have I seen? Who was she?’ he cried, half wild with dismay and
confusion. ‘Was it Diane?’
‘You have seen and danced with Diane de Ribaumont,’ answered Eustacie,
still coldly; ‘but what of that? Let me go, Monsieur; you have cast me
off already.’
‘I! when all this has been of your own seeking?’
‘Mine?’ cried Eustacie, panting with the struggle between her dignity
and her passionate tears. ‘I meddled not. I heard that M. le Baron was
gone to a strange land, and had written to break off old ties.’ Her face
was in a flame, and her efforts for composure absolute pain.
‘I!’ again exclaimed Berenger. ‘The first letter came from your uncle,
declaring that it was your wish!’ And as her face changed rapidly, ‘Then
it was not true! He has not had your consent?’
‘What! would I hold to one who despised me--who came here and never even
asked to see this hated spouse!’
I did! I entreated to see you. I would not sign the application
till--Oh, there has been treachery! And have they made you too sign it!’
When they showed me your name they were welcome to mine.’
Berenger struck his forehead with wrath and perplexity, then cried,
joyfully, ‘It will not stand for moment. So foul a cheat can be at once
exposed. Eutacie, you know--you understand, that it was not you but
Diane whom I saw and detested; and no wonder, when she was acting such a
cruel treason!’
‘Oh no, Diane would never so treat me,’ cried Eustacie. ‘I see how it
was! You did not know that my father was latterly called Marquis de
Nid-de-Merle, and when they brought me here, they WOULD call me after
him: they said a maid of honour must be Demoiselle, and my uncle said
there was only one way in which I could remain Madame de Ribaumont! And
the name must have deceived you. Thou wast always a great dull boy,’ she
added, with a sudden assumption of childish intimacy that annihilated
the nine years since their parting.
‘Had I seen thee, I had not mistaken for an instant. This little face
stirred my heart; hers repelled me. And she deceived me wittingly,
Eustacie, for I asked after her by name.’
‘Ah, she wished to spare my embarrassment. And then her brother must
have dealt with her.’
‘I see,’ exclaimed Berenger, ‘I am to be palmed off thus that thou
mayest be reserved for Narcisse. Tell me, Eustacie, wast thou willing?’
‘I hate Narcisse!’ she cried. ‘But oh, I am lingering too long. Monsieur
will make some hateful tale! I never fell into his way before, my Queen
and Madame la Comtesse are so careful. Only to-day, as I was attending
her alone, the King came and gave her his arm, and I had to drop behind.
I must find her; I shall be missed,’ she added, in sudden alarm. ‘Oh,
what will they say?’
‘No blame for being with thy husband,’ he answered, clasping her hand.
‘Thou art mine henceforth. I will soon cut our way out of the web thy
treacherous kindred have woven. Meantime---’
‘Hush! There are voices,’ cried Eustacie in terror, and, guided by
something he could not discern, she fled with the swiftness of a bird
down the alley. Following, with the utmost speed that might not bear
the appearance of pursuit, he found that on coming to the turn she
had moderated her pace, and was more tranquilly advancing to a bevy
of ladies, who sat perched on the stone steps like great butterflies
sunning themselves, watching the game, and receiving the attentions of
their cavaliers. He saw her absorbed into the group, and then began to
prowl round it, in the alleys, in a tumult of amazement and indignation.
He had been shamefully deceived and cheated, and justice he would have!
He had been deprived of a thing of his own, and he would assert his
right. He had been made to injure and disown the creature he was bound
to protect, and he must console her and compensate to her, were it only
to redeem his honour. He never even thought whether he loved her;
he merely felt furious at the wrong he had suffered and been made to
commit, and hotly bent on recovering what belonged to him. He might even
have plunged down among the ladies and claimed her as his wife, if the
young Abbe de Mericour, who was two years older than he, and far less
of a boy for his years, had not joined him in his agitated walk. He then
learnt that all the court knew that the daughter of the late Marquis
de Nid-de-Merle, Comte de Ribaumont, was called by his chief title, but
that her marriage to himself had been forgotten by some and unknown to
others, and thus that the first error between the cousins had not been
wonderful in a stranger, since the Chevalier’s daughter had always been
Mdlle. de Ribaumont. The error once made, Berenger’s distaste to Diane
had been so convenient that it had been carefully encouraged, and the
desire to keep him at a distance from court and throw him into the
background was accounted for. The Abbe was almost as indignant as
Berenger, and assured him both of his sympathy and his discretion.
‘I see no need for discretion,’ said Berenger. ‘I shall claim my wife in
the face of the sun.’
‘Take counsel first, I entreat,’ exclaimed Mericour. ‘The Ribaumonts
have much influence with the Guise family, and now you have offended
Monsieur.’
‘Ah! Where are those traitorous kinsmen?’ cried Berenger.
‘Fortunately all are gone on an expedition with the Queen-mother.
You will have time to think. I have heard my brother say no one ever
prospered who offended the meanest follower of the house of Lorraine.’
‘I do not want prosperity, I only want my wife. I hope I shall never see
Paris and its deceivers again.’
‘Ah! But is it true that you have applied to have the marriage annulled
at Rome?’
‘We were both shamefully deceivers. That can be nothing.’
‘A decree of his Holiness: you a Huguenot; she an heiress. All is
against you. My friend, be cautions, exclaimed the young ecclesiastic,
alarmed by his passionate gestures. ‘To break forth now and be accused
of brawling in the palace precincts would be fatal--fatal--most fatal!’
‘I am as calm as possible,’ returned Berenger. ‘I mean to act most
reasonably. I shall stand before the King and tell him openly how I have
been tamperes with, demanding my wife before the whole court.’
‘Long before you could get so far the ushers would have dragged you away
for brawling, or for maligning an honour-able gentlemen. You would have
to finish your speech in the Bastille, and it would be well if even your
English friends could get you out alive.’
‘Why, what a place is this!’ began Berenger; but again Mericour
entreated him to curb himself; and his English education had taught
him to credit the house of Guide with so much mysterious power and
wickedness, that he allowed himself to be silenced, and promised to take
no open measures till he had consulted the Ambassador.
‘He could not obtain another glimpse of Eustacie, and the hours passed
tardily till the break up of the party. Charles could scarcely release
Sidney from his side, and only let him go on condition that he should
join the next day in an expedition to the hunting chateau of Montpipeau,
to which the King seemed to look forward as a great holiday and
breathing time.
When at length the two youths did return, Sir Francis Walsingham was
completely surprised by the usually tractable, well-behaved stripling,
whose praises he had been writing to his old friend, bursting in on him
with the outcry, ‘Sir, sir, I entreat your counsel! I have been foully
cozened.’
‘Of how much?’ said Sir Francis, in a tone of reprobation.
‘Of my wife. Of mine honour. Sir, your Excellency, I crave pardon, if I
spoke too hotly,’ said Berenger, collecting himself; ‘but it is enough
to drive a man to frenzy.’
‘Sit down, my Lord de Ribaumont. Take breath, and let me know what is
this coil. What hath thus moved him, Mr. Sidney?’
‘It is as he says, sir,’ replied Sidney, who had beard all as they
returned; ‘he has been greatly wronged. The Chevalier de Ribaumont not
only writ to propose the separation without the lady’s knowledge, but
imposed his own daughter on our friend as the wife he had not seen since
infancy.’
‘There, sir,’ broke forth Berenger; ‘surely if I claim mine own in the
face of day, no man can withhold her from me!’
‘Hold!’ said Sir Francis. ‘What mean this passion, young sir? Methought
you came hither convinced that both the religion and the habits in which
the young lady had been bred up rendered your infantine contract most
unsuitable. What hath fallen out to make this change in your mind?’
‘That I was cheated, sir. The lady who palmed herself off on me as my
wife was a mere impostor, the Chevalier’s own daughter!’
‘That may be; but what known you of this other lady? Has she been bred
up in faith or manners such as your parents would have your wife?’
‘She is my wife,’ reiterated Berenger. ‘My faith is plighted to her.
That is enough for me.’
Sir Francis made a gesture of despair. ‘He has seen her, I suppose,’
said he to Sidney.
‘Yes truly, sir,’ answered Berenger; ‘and found that she had been as
greatly deceived as myself.’
‘Then mutual consent is wanting,’ said the statesman, gravely musing.
‘That is even as I say,’ began Berenger, but Walsingham help up his
hand, and desired that he would make his full statement in the presence
of his tutor. Then sounding a little whistle, the Ambassador despatched
a page to request the attendance of Mr. Adderley, and recommended young
Ribaumont in the meantime to compose himself.
Used to being under authority as Berenger was, the somewhat severe tone
did much to allay his excitement, and remind him that right and reason
were so entirely on his side, that he had only to be cool and rational
to make them prevail. He was thus able to give a collected and coherent
account of his discovery that the part of his wife had been assumed by
her cousin Diane, and that the signature of both the young pair to the
application to the Pope had been obtained on false pretences. That he
had, as Sidney said, been foully cozened, in both senses of the word,
was as clear as daylight; but he was much angered and disappointed to
find that neither the Ambassador nor his tutor could see that Eustacie’s
worthiness was proved by the iniquity of her relation, or that any one
of the weighty reasons for the expediency of dissolving the marriage was
remove. The whole affair had been in such good train a little before,
that Mr. Adderley was much distressed that it should thus have been
crossed, and thought the new phase of affairs would be far from
acceptable at Combe Walwyn.
‘Whatever is just and honourable must be acceptable to my grandfather,’
said Berenger.
‘Even so,’ said Walsingham; ‘but it were well to consider whether
justice and honour require you to overthrow the purpose wherewith he
sent you hither.’
‘Surely, sir, justice and require me to fulfil a contract to which the
other party is constant,’ said Berenger, feeling very wise and prudent
for calling that wistful, indignant creature the other party.
‘That is also true,’ said the Ambassador, ‘provided she be constant; but
you own that she signed the requisition for the dissolution.’
‘She did so, but under the same deception as myself, and further
mortified and aggrieved at my seeming faithlessness.’
‘So it may easily be represented,’ muttered Walsingham.
‘How, sir?’ cried Berenger, impetuously; ‘do you doubt her truth?’
‘Heaven forefend,’ said Sir Francis, ‘that I should discuss any
fair lady’s sincerity! The question is how far you are bound. Have I
understood you that you are veritably wedded, not by a mere contract of
espousal?’
‘Berenger could produce no documents, for they had been left at Chateau
Leurre, and on his father’s death the Chevalier had claimed the custody
of them; but he remembered enough of the ceremonial to prove that the
wedding had been a veritable one, and that only the papal intervention
could annul it.
Indeed an Englishman, going by English law, would own no power in the
Pope, nor any one on earth, to sever the sacred tie of wedlock; but
French courts of law would probably ignore the mode of application, and
would certainly endeavour to separate between a Catholic and a heretic.
‘I am English, sir, in heart and faith,’ said Berenger, earnestly. ‘Look
upon me as such, and tell me, am I married or single at this moment?’
‘Married assuredly. More’s the pity,’ said Sir Francis.
‘And no law of God or man divides us without our own consent.’ There was
no denying that the mutual consent of the young pair at their present
age was all that was wanting to complete the inviolability of their
marriage contract.
Berenger was indeed only eighteen, and Eustacie more than a year
younger, but there was nothing in their present age to invalidate their
marriage, for persons of their rank were usually wedded quite as
young or younger. Walsingham was only concerned at his old friend’s
disappointment, and at the danger of the young man running headlong into
a connection probably no more suitable than that with Diane de Ribaumont
would have been. But it was not convenient to argue against the
expediency of a man’s loving his own wife; and when Berenger boldly
declared he was not talking of love but of justice, it was only possible
to insist that he should pause and see where true justice lay.
And thus the much-perplexed Ambassador broke up the conference with his
hot and angry young guest.
‘And Mistress Lucy---?’ sighed Mr. Adderley, in rather an _inapropos_
fashion it must be owned; but then he had been fretted beyond endurance
by his pupil striding up and down his room, reviling Diane, and
describing Eustacie, while he was trying to write these uncomfortable
tidings to Lord Walwyn.
‘Lucy! What makes you bring her up to me?’ exclaimed Berenger. ‘Little
Dolly would be as much to the purpose!’
‘Only, sir, no resident at Hurst Walwyn could fail to know that has been
planned and desired.’
‘Pshaw!’ cries Berenger; ‘have you not heard that it was a mere figment,
and that I could scarce have wedded Lucy safely, even had this matter
gone as you wish? This is the luckiest chance that could have befallen
her.’
‘That may be,’ said Mr. Adderley; ‘I wish she may think so--sweet young
lady!’
‘I tell you, Mr. Adderley, you should know better! Lucy has more sense.
My aunt, whom she follows more than any other creature, ever silenced
the very sport or semblance of love passages between us even as
children, by calling them unseemly in one wedded as I am. Brother and
sister we have ever been, and have loved as such--ay, and shall! I know
of late some schemes have crossed my mother’s mind---’
‘Yea, and that of others.’
‘But they have not ruffled Lucy’s quiet nature--trust me! And for the
rest? What doth she need me in comparison of this poor child? She--like
a bit of her own gray lavender in the shadiest nook of the walled
garden, tranquil there--sure not to be taken there, save to company
with fine linen in some trim scented coffer, whilst this fresh glowing
rosebud has grown up pure and precious in the very midst of the foulest
corruption Christendom can show, and if I snatch her not from it, I,
the innocence and sweetness, what is to be her fate? The very pity of a
Christian, the honour of a gentleman, would urge me, even if it were not
my most urgent duty!’
‘Mr. Adderley argued no more. When Berenger came to his duty in the
matter he was invincible, and moreover all the more provoking, because
he mentioned it with a sort of fiery sound of relish, and looked so very
boyish all the time. Poor Mr. Adderley!’ feeling as if his trust were
betrayed, loathing the very idea of a French court lady, saw that his
pupil had been allured into a headlong passion to his own misery,
and that of all whose hopes were set on him, yet preached to by this
stripling scholar about duties and sacred obligations! Well might he rue
the day he ever set foot in Paris.
Then, to his further annoyance, came a royal messenger to invite the
Baron de Ribaumont to join the expedition to Montpipeau. Of course he
must go, and his tutor must be left behind, and who could tell into what
mischief he might not be tempted!
Here, however, Sidney gave the poor chaplain some comfort. He believed
that no ladies were to be of the party, and that the gentlemen were
chiefly of the King’s new friends among the Huguenots, such as Coligny,
his son-in-law Teligny, Rochefoucauld, and the like, among whom the
young gentleman could not fall into any very serious harm, and might
very possibly be influenced against a Roman Catholic wife. At any rate,
he would be out of the way, and unable to take any dangerous steps.
This same consideration so annoyed Berenger that he would have declined
the invitation, if royal invitations could have been declined. And in
the morning, before setting out, he dressed himself point device, and
with Osbert behind him marched down to the Croix de Larraine, to call
upon the Chevalier de Ribaumont. He had a very fine speech at his
tongue’s end when he set out, but a good deal of it had evaporated when
he reached the hotel, and perhaps he was not very sorry not to find the
old gentleman within.
On his return, he indited a note to the Chevalier, explaining that he
had now seen his wife, Madame la Baronne de Ribaumont, and had come to
an understanding with her, by which he found that it was under a mistake
that the application to the Pope had been signed, and that they should,
therefore, follow it up with a protest, and act as if no such letter had
been sent.
Berenger showed this letter to Walsingham, who, though much concerned,
could not forbid his sending it. ‘Poor lad,’ he said to the tutor; ‘’tis
an excellently writ billet for one so young. I would it were in a wiser
cause. But he has fairly the bit between his teeth, and there is no
checking him while he has this show of right on his side.’
And poor Mr. Adderley could only beseech Mr. Sidney to take care of him.