at the convent till some three months since, when she had been appointed maid of honour to the recently-married Queen; and her uncle had fetched her from Anjou, and had informed her at the same time that her young husband had turned Englishman and heretic, and that after a few formalities had been complied with, she would become the wife of her cousin Narcisse. Now there was no person whom she so much dreaded as Narcisse, and when Berenger spoke of him as a feeble fop, she shuddered as though she knew him to have something of the tiger.
‘Do you remember Benoit?’ she said; ‘poor Benoit, who came to Normandy as my laquais? When I went back to Anjou he married a girl from Leurre, and went to aid his father at the farm. The poor fellow had imbibed the Baron’s doctrine—he spread it. It was reported that there was a nest of Huguenots on the estate. My cousin came to break it up with his gens d’armes O Berenger, he would hear no entreaties, he had no mercy; he let them assemble on Sunday, that they might be all together. He fired the house; shot down those who escaped; if a prisoner were made, gave him up to the Bishop’s Court. Benoit, my poor good Benoit, who used to lead my palfrey, was first wounded, then tried, and burnt—burnt in the PLACE at Lucon! I heard Narcisse laugh—laugh as he talked of the cries of the poor creatures in the conventicler. My own people, who loved me! I was but twelve years old, but even then the wretch would pay me a half-mocking courtesy, as one destined to him; and the more I disdained him and said I belonged to you, the more both he and my aunt, the Abbess, smiled, as though they had their bird in a cage; but they left me in peace till my uncle brought me to court, and then all began again: and when they said you gave me up, I had no hope, not even of a convent. But ah, it is all over now, and I am so happy! You are grown so gentle and so beautiful, Berenger, and so much taller than I ever figured you to myself, and you look as if you could take me up in your arms, and let no harm happen to me.’
‘Never, never shall it!’ said Berenger, felling all manhood, strength, and love stir within him, and growing many years in heart in that happy moment. ‘My sweet little faithful wife, never fear again now you are mine.’
Alas! poor children. They were a good way from the security they had begun to fancy for themselves. Early the next morning, Berenger went in his straightforward way to the King, thanked him, and requested his sanction for at once producing themselves to the court as Monsieur le Baron and Madame la Baronne de Ribaumont.
At this Charles swore a great oath, as one in perplexity, and bade him not go so fast.
‘See here,’ said he, with the rude expletives only too habitual with him; ‘she is a pretty little girl, and she and her lands are much better with an honest man like you than with that pendard of a cousin; but you see he is bent on having her, and he belongs to a cut-throat crew that halt at nothing. I would not answer for your life, if you tempted him so strongly to rid himself of you.’
‘My own sword, Sire, can guard my life.’
‘Plague upon your sword! What does the foolish youth think it would do against half-a-dozen poniards and pistols in a lane black as hell’s mouth?’
The foolish young WAS thinking how could a king so full of fiery words and strange oaths bear to make such an avowal respecting his own capital and his own courtiers. All he could do was to bow and reply, ‘Nevertheless, Sire, at whatever risk, I cannot relinquish my wife; I would take her at one to the Ambassador’s.’
‘How, sir!’ interrupted Charles, haughtily and angrily, ‘if you forget that you are a French nobleman still, I should remember it! The Ambassador may protect his own countrymen-none else.’
‘I entreat your Majesty’s pardon,’ said Berenger, anxious to retract his false step. ‘It was your goodness and the gracious Queen’s that made me hope for your sanction.’
‘All the sanction Charles de Valois can give is yours, and welcome,’ said the King, hastily. ‘The sanction of the King of France is another matter! To say the truth, I see no way out of the affair but an elopement.’ ‘Sire!’ exclaimed the astonished Berenger, whose strictly-disciplined education had little prepared him for such counsel.
‘Look you! if I made you known as a wedded pair, the Chevalier and his son would not only assassinate you, but down on me would come my brother, and my mother, and M. de Guise and all their crew, veritably for giving the prize out of the mouth of their satellite, but nominally for disregarding the Pope, favouring a heretical marriage, and I know not what, but, as things go here, I should assuredly get the worst of it; and if you made safely off with your prize, no one could gainsay you—I need know nothing about it—and lady and lands would be your without dispute. You might ride off from the skirts of the forest; I would lead the hunt that way, and the three days’ riding would bring you to Normady, for you had best cross to England immediately. When she is one there, owned by your kindred, Monsieur le cousin may gnash his teeth as he will, he must make the best of it for the sake of the honour of his house, and you can safely come back and raise her people and yours to follow the Oriflamme when it takes the field against Spain. What! you are still discontented? Speak out! Plain speaking is a treat not often reserved for me.’
‘Sire, I am most grateful for your kindness, but I should greatly prefer going straightforward.’
‘Peste! Well is it said that a blundering Englishman goes always right before him! There, then! As your King on the one hand, as the friend who has brought you and your wife together, sir, it is my command that you do not compromise me and embroil greater matters than you can understand by publicly claiming this girl. Privately I will aid you to the best of my ability; publicly, I command you, for my sake, if you heed not your own, to be silent!’
Berenger sought out Sidney, who smiled at his surprise.
‘Do you not see,’ he said, ‘that the King is your friend, and would be very glad to save the lady’s lands from the Guisards, but that he cannot say so; he can only befriend a Huguenot by stealth.’
‘I would not be such a king for worlds!’
However, Eustacie was enchanted. It was like a prince and princess in Mere Perinne’s fairy tales. Could they go like a shepherd and shepherdess? She had no fears-no scruples. Would she not be with her husband? It was the most charming frolic in the world. So the King seemed to think it, though he was determined to call it all the Queen’s doing—the first intrigue of her own, making her like all the rest of us—the Queen’s little comedy. He undertook to lead the chase as far as possible in the direction of Normandy, when the young pair might ride on to an inn, meet fresh horses, and proceed to Chateau Leurre, and thence to England. He would himself provide a safe-conduct, which, as Berenger suggested, would represent them as a young Englishman taking home his young wife. Eustacie wanted at least to masquerade as an Englishwoman, and played off all the fragments of the language she had caught as a child, but Berenger only laughed at her, and said they just fitted the French bride. It was very pretty to laugh at Eustacie; she made such a droll pretence at pouting with her rosebud lips, and her merry velvety eyes belied them so drolly.
Such was to be the Queen’s pastoral; but when Elisabeth found the responsibility so entirely thrown on her, she began to look grave and frightened. It was no doubt much more than she had intended when she brought about the meeting between the young people, and the King, who had planned the elopement, seemed still resolved to make all appear her affair. She looked all day more like the grave, spiritless being she was at court than like the bright young rural queen of the evening before, and she was long in her little oratory chapel in the evening. Berenger, who was waiting in the hall with the other Huguenot gentlemen, thought her devotions interminable since they delayed all her ladies. At length, however, a page came up to him, and said in a low voice, ‘The Queen desires the presence of M. le Baron de Ribaumont.’
He followed the messenger, and found himself in the little chapel, before a gaily-adorned altar, and numerous little shrines and niches round. Sidney would have dreaded a surreptitious attempt to make him conform, but Berenger had no notion of such perils,—he only saw that Eustacie was standing by the Queen’s chair, and a kindly-looking Austrian priest, the Queen’s confessor, held a book in his hand.
The Queen came to meet him. ‘For