Charlotte M. Yonge

“ I was on the turn of the stairs, and saw all. The traitor—the Chevalier Narcisse—came on him, cloaked like you—and—shot him dead—with, oh, such cruel words of mockery! Oh! woe the day! Stay, stay, dear lady, the place is all blood—they are slaying them all—all the Huguenots! Will no one stop her?—Mademoiselle—ma’m’selle!—’
For Eustacie no sooner gathered the sense of Veronique’s words than she darted suddenly forwards, and was in a few seconds more at the foot of the stairs. There, indeed, lay a pool of dark gore, and almost in it Berenger’s black velvet cap, with the heron plume. ”

“ I should like to go into a convent so strict—so strict, cried Eustacie, with renewed vigour. ‘Bellaise is nothing like strict enough. Does your Majesty indeed think that my prayers will aid him?’
‘Alas! what hope could we have but in praying?’ said Elisabeth, with tears in her eyes. ‘Little one, we will be joined at least in our prayers and intercessions: thou wilt not forget in thine one who yet lives, unhappier than all!’
‘And, oh, my good, my holy Queen, will you indeed pray for him—my husband? He was so good, his faith can surely not long be reckoned against him. ”

“ Mericour retreated from him; but the high-spirited young man crossed his arms on his breast, and gazing at the group with indignant scorn, made answer, ‘My message is from her who deems herself a widow, to the mother of the husband whom she little imagines to be not only alive, but consoled.’
‘Faithful! Faithful!’ burst out Berenger, with a wild, exultant, strangely-ringing shout. ‘Woe, woe to those who would have had me doubt her! Philip—Lucy—hear! Her truth is clear to all the world!’ Then changing back again to French, ‘Ten thousand blessings on you, Mericour! You have seen her! ”

“ Berenger, I knew the sorcerer spake sooth when that little moonbeam child of yours brought me the flowers from the rampart. I had speech with her last night. She has all the fair loveliness that belongs of right to your mother’s grandchild, but her eye, blue as it is, has the Ribaumont spirit; the turn of the head and the smile are what I loved long ago in yonder lady, and, above all, she is her own sweet self. Berenger, give me your daughter Berangere, and I ask no portion with her but the silver bullet. Keep the pearls for your son’s heirloom ”

“ Among the many who played unconscious on the surface of that gulf of destruction, were the young creatures whose chief thought in the pageant was the glance and smile from the gallery of the Queen’s ladies to the long procession of the English ambassador’s train, as they tried to remember their own marriage there; Berenger with clear recollection of his father’s grave, anxious face, and Eustacie chiefly remembering her own white satin and turquoise dress, which indeed she had seen on every great festival-day as the best raiment of the image of Notre Dame de Bellaise. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Therewith Sir Marmaduke came forward, shook Mericour with all his might by the hand, shouted to him his hearty thanks for the good he had done his poor lad and assured him of a welcome from the very bottom of his heart. The good knight would fain have kept both Berenger and his friend at the Manor, but Berenger was far too impatient to carry home his joy, and only begged the loan of a horse for Mericour. For himself, he felt as if fatigue or dejection would never touch him again, and he kissed his mother and his sisters, including Lucy, all round, with an effusion of delight. ”

“ Berenger could only kiss her hand in token of earnest thanks before the repast was announced, and the King came to lead her to the table spread beneath the trees. The whole party supped together, but Berenger could have only a distant view of his little wife, looking very demure and grave by the side of the Admiral.
But when the meal was ended, there was a loitering in the woodland paths, amid healthy openings or glades trimmed into discreet wildness fit for royal rusticity; the sun set in parting glory on one horizon, the moon rising in crimson majesty on the other. ”

“ The Mother Abbess is good. She must have pity. Oh, trust to her!’
‘Trust! Did I not trust to my cousin Diane? Never! Nothing will kill me but remaining in their hands.’
Veronique argued and implored in vain. Ever since, in the height of those vehement austerities by which the bereaved and shattered sufferer strove to appease her wretchedness by the utmost endeavour to save her husband’s soul, the old foster-mother had made known to her that she might thus sacrifice another than herself. Eustacie’s elastic heart had begun to revive, with all its dauntless strength of will. ”

“ You old men are no better than the young—rather worse—because you do not distrust yourselves. Now, I say no harm of the young woman, and I know an angel would be abused at Montauban for not wearing sad-coloured wings; but she needs a man’s care—you are frail, you cannot live for ever—and how is it to be with her and her child?’
‘I hope to bestow them among her kindred ere I die, Madame,’ said Isaac.
‘No kindred can serve a woman like a sensible husband! Besides, I thought all perished at Paris. Listen, Isaac Gardon: I tell you plainly that scandal is afloat. ”

“ I know better. But, ah! to be here at night would make a stone shed tears of blood. The Queen and I know it; but we say nothing, we only pray.
The sight of a Huguenot was so great a treat to the old woman in her isolated life, that her tongue ran thus freely while Berenger sat, scarce daring to speak or breathe in the strange boding atmosphere of the palace, where the nurse and surgeon moved as tolerated, privileged persons, in virtue of the necessity of the one to the King—of the other to all the world. ”

“ Here is a brilliant offer—M. de Selinville,’
‘Le bonhomme de Selinville!’’ exclaimed Diane, feeling rather as if the compensation were like the little dog offered to Eustacie.
‘Know ye not that his two heretic nephews perished the other night. He is now the head of his name, the Marquis, the only one left of his house.’
‘He begins early,’ said Diane.
‘An old soldier, my daughter, scarce stays to count the fallen. He has no time to lose. He is sixty, with a damaged constitution. It will be but the affair of a few years, and then will my beautiful Marquise be free to choose for herself. ”

“ Poor child, had she not been ill and prostrate at first, and fastened herself on the tender side of the good woman’s heart by the sweetness of an unselfish and buoyant nature in illness, Noemi could hardly have endured such an inmate, not even half a Huguenot, full of little Catholic observances like second nature to her; listening indeed to the Bible for the short time, but always, when it was expounded, either asleep, or finding some amusement indispensable for her baby; eager for the least variety, and above all spoilt by Maitre Gardon to a degree absolutely perplexing to the grave woman. ”

“ For the innocent, then, had the shot been intended; and she running into danger out of her sweet, tender instincts of helpfulness, had been barely saved at the extreme peril of her unconscious father’s life. Philip, whose vehement affection for the little one had been growing all day, was in the act of telling Berenger to string the bullet in the place of the injured pearl, as the most precious heirloom of Ribaumont bravery, when Eustacie returned, and learning all, grew pale and shuddered as danger had never made her do before: but this strange day had almost made a coward of her. ”

“ She had been used to a hardy, out-of-door life, like the peasant women; and she was young and strong, so that she recovered as they did. If the April shower beat in at the window, or the hole in the roof, they made a screen of canvas, covered her with cloaks, and heaped them with hay, and she took no harm; and the pure open air that blew in was soft with all the southern sweetness of early spring-tide, and the little one throve in it like the puff-ball owlets in the hayloft, or the little ring-doves in the ivy, whose parent’s cooing voice was Eustacie’s favourite music. ”

“ The whole country was at the funeral. Through the frosty air there came an occasional hum or murmur from Berenger, or the tinkle of a cow-bell in the fields, but no human being was visible. It was certain, however, that the Rotrous, being Huguenots, and no vassals of Nid-de-Merle, would not be at the obsequies; and Berenger, walking with swift strides, supporting Osbert on his horse, continued to cheer him with promises of rest and relief there, and listened to no entreaties from Philip or Humfrey to take one of their horses. ”

“ CHAPTER XI. THE KING’S TRAGEDY. The night is come, no fears disturb The sleep of innocence They trust in kingly faith, and kingly oath. They sleep, alas! they sleep Go to the palace, wouldst thou know How hideous night can be; Eye is not closed in those accursed walls, Nor heart is quiet there! —Southey, BARTHOLOMEW’S EVE
‘Young gentlemen,’ said Sir Francis Walsingham, as he rose from dinner on the Saturday, ‘are you bound for the palace this evening?’
‘I am, so please your Excellency,’ returned Berenger. ”

“ The Chevalier shrugged his shoulders. ‘What know I?’ he said. ‘For those who have a fine nose for brimstone there may be, but he assures me it is but the white magic practiced in Egypt, and the boy is Christian!’
‘Did you try this secret, father?’ inquired Madame de Selinville.
‘I, my daughter? An old man’s fortune is in his children. What have I to ask?’
‘I—I scarcely like to be the first!’ said the lady, eager but hesitating. ‘Veronique, you would have your fortune told?’
‘I will be the first,’ said Philip, stepping forward manfully. ”

“ The transparency of their indifference in company, their meeting eyes, their trysts with the secrecy of an ostrich, were the subjects of constant amusement to the elders, more especially as the shyness, blushes, and caution were much more on the side of the young husband than on that of the lady. Fresh from her convent, simple with childishness and innocence, it was to her only the natural completion of her life to be altogether Berenger’s, and the brief concealment of their full union added a certain romantic enchantment, which added to her exultation in her victory over her cruel kindred. ”

“ CHAPTER XX. THE ABBE. By the day and night her sorrows fall Where miscreant hands and rude Have stained her pure, ethereal pall With many a martyr’s blood. And yearns not her maternal heart To hear their secret sighs, Upon whose doubting way apart Bewildering shadows rise?—KEBLE
It was in the summer twilight that Eustacie, sitting on the doorstep between the two rooms, with her baby on her knees, was dreamily humming to her a tune, without even words, but one that she loved, because she had first learnt to sing it with Berenger and his friend Sidney to the lute of the latter ”

“ Black, burnt, dreary, lay the hospitable abode. The building had fallen, but the beams of the upper floor had fallen aslant, so as to shelter a portion of the lower room, where the red-tile pavement, the hearth with the gray ashes of the harmless home-fire, some unbroken crocks, a chain, and a sabot, were still visible, making the contrast of dreariness doubly mournful.
Berenger had stepped over the threshold, with his hat in his hand, as if the ruin were a sacred place to him, and stood gazing in a transfixed, deadened way. The captain asked where the remains were. ”

“ She had heard and overheard men pour out frantic ravings of passion, but never had listened to anything like the sweet protecting tenderness of voice that seemed to embrace and shelter its object. Diane had no doubts now; he had never so spoken to her; nay, perhaps he had had no such cadences in his voice before. It was quite certain that Eustacie was everything to him, she herself nothing; she who might have had any gallant in the court at her feet, but had never seen one whom she could believe in, whose sense of esteem had been first awakened by this stranger lad who despised her. ”

“ Lady Thistlewood, whose regrets that each of her girls was not a boy had passed into a proverb, had at length, in Dolly’s seventh year, given birth to a son on Midsummer Day.
‘Well,’ said Philip, sighing, ‘we must drink his health tonight! It is well, if we are to rot here, that some one should make it up to them!’
‘And join Walwyn and Hurst!’ said Berenger; and then both faces grew much graver, as by these letters, dated three months since, they understood how many they must have missed, and likewise that nothing had been heard of themselves since they had left Paris sixteen months ago. ”

“ She can no longer play the spotless saint—get weak-minded priests on her side—be all for strict convents. No, no; her time for that is past! Shut her up with trustworthy persons from whom she will hear nothing from without, and she will understand her case. The child? It will scarce be born alive, or at any rate she need not know whether it is. Then, with no resource, no hope, what can she do but be too thankful for pardon, and as glad to conceal the past as we could wish?’
Eustacie clenched her fist. ”