The Little Huguenot/Chapter 13

news that Gabrielle de Vernet had presented herself at the palace was brought to the king when he was with Buffon in the orangery. He heard it with a laugh that was half a sneer; and yet with no little satisfaction.

"Ha!" said he, "so we shall not have to carry the little witch through the forest. That booby of a lieutenant has been lying to me. I shall know how to settle his affair."

The reflection was pleasing to him. Of all hurts, Louis resented most any hurt to his dignity, and he could but regard this sudden face about as a direct act of homage from a pretty woman.

"You have conducted madame to her apartment?" he asked.

"She is lodged above the Porte Dorée, sire."

"That is well done, we shall sup there—let the orders for to-morrow be cancelled. We shall rest here some days."

The man withdrew, and the "Well-Beloved" returned to his apartments in the Salle des Chasses. The coming of the little Huguenot had altered all his plans, and blotted from his mind that resentment he felt towards her. She would amuse him, at any rate, he said, and it would be a new thing to make love to a woman who had professed piety and a certain vague but polite republicanism. He could find in the fact of her arrival nothing but the surrender of herself to his wish, the abnegation of that creed which had made the Château aux Loups so fine a theme of mockery at the palace. And being beyond all things a vain man, his vanity was fed by this conquest of scruples, as it had never been fed by all the debaucheries of an infamous life.

It was full dusk when Gabrielle found herself at last in her chamber above the Porte Dorée. She had been lodged in the suite of rooms which adjoined the apartments at one time occupied by Madame de Maintenon; and to these she came when the last shimmer of the sun had vanished from the lake, and the first breath of night stirred the great oaks in the park. Though she bore herself bravely, wearing that happy smile which was the fairest emblem of her girlhood, none the less did her courage often fail her as she realised her environment and the unspeakable dangers into which she had plunged. There were moments when she reproached herself in that she had listened to the Jesuit, and had staked all upon this throw; other moments when she asked if such a love as she felt for de Guyon was not in itself an unholy thing, a concession to the humanity in her, and a negation to those high spiritual ideals she had served. She feared in some vague way that her presence at Fontainebleau would make her unworthy of the man for whom she had dared so much; she shuddered when she remembered that she must meet the king presently, and that she was alone. She had seen nothing of the Jesuit since he had left her at the gates of her own home. She had come to Fontainebleau with her old servant, Dominique, and four lusty yeomen for escort. But these were now lodged in another court of the palace; the rooms she occupied were full of gaudy splendours, yet of suggestions of isolation and of loneliness. Her quick imagination peopled them with spectres of the past—with the shapes of the men and women who had enjoyed here their brief hours of indulgence and of pleasure. She heard in fancy the laughter of the dead; the cries of those who had suffered haunted her; turn where she would the air seemed full of warnings.

With such fancies was her brain busy; but to Dominique, observing her closely and troubled by many apprehensions, she betrayed none of her fears. Watch her as he would, he was confronted only by the Gabrielle of the château, by the Gabrielle of the masks and fêtes, of the hard rides and the merry picnics in the woods. It may have been that he would have seen her rather as the Gabrielle of the chapel and the devout retreat; but it was something to know that she had lost nothing of her courage, that the mistress of the Château aux Loups would carry herself well, even before the king. With which thought, the old man lit the candles in the great gilt scones, and began to draw the curtains over the long windows. He felt that he alone was there to protect her, and he would do his duty.

"My lady will wish to rest until supper is served?" he asked.

"Indeed, no, Dominique, my lady would very much like to know where she is first."

"Is she not in the Château de Fontainebleau?"

"Assuredly, she is in the Château de Fontainebleau, though when that is said, she is still very ignorant Look you, Dominique, was there ever a passage with so many doors, or a room so dark? I am sure this must be the place where Monaldeschi died. There are ghosts in the air."

She shuddered visibly. The old man crossed himself, and drew the curtains.

"We are on a strange errand," said he; "God send us home again without hurt."

Gabrielle said nothing. She was thinking how full of gloom the room was, now that it was lit by the flickering light of tapers.

"Dominique," cried she, after a pause, "you gave them my message, that I would be served here only by you?"

"Certainly, my lady."

"And they said—"

"That your wish was the king's while you were in the château."

She laughed a little ironically; and standing by one of the curtains he had drawn, she began to play with the tassel of it. The next question that she set the old man was put in hesitation

"Dominique," she asked, "have you heard of my friend Monsieur de Guyon?"

"Truly, I have; he is the king's guest in an apartment not a hundred paces from here."

"And they do not speak of the king's intention to send him away?"

"The talk is that he leaves at daybreak for a lodging in For-l'Evêque."

"We have come in time. Think you, Dominique, that it would be strange if the king changed his mind?"

He raised his eyes quickly to hers.

"He will change it if madame wills."

"And I am going to do so."

Dominique shook his head.

"She is blind, and she is a child," he said to himself; "may God help us this night."

"You have learnt nothing of Père Cavaignac since you have been here?" continued the girl after another pause in which the old man kept his eyes steadily upon her.

"Ma foi! of Père Cavaignac. Do you not know that it would be death to him to show his face?"

"Yet he will come."

"He will come! Dieu! you believe that?"

"As I believe that you are talking to me."

"And you are relying on his help?"

"Entirely—he is my only friend."

Dominique turned on his heel with an abruptness foreign to his usual deference. "This craze of hers has made her mad," said he; "God forgive me for setting out on such an affair."

Craze or no craze, Gabrielle continued to believe that the Jesuit would come to her help. Whence, or by what means or at what moment, she knew not; none the less did she hope. Never in her life had she appealed to him in vain; never had she heard of one whom he had refused to befriend. Almost her earliest memories were those of the glades of the forest which this strange mystic used to roam. She remembered his surpassing love for children, his gentleness, his unceasing devotion. When she was a child, she had accounted it a great day if she might spend the hours in his company; when she had come to womanhood she was uplifted by his word and his example, made strong in his strength. There had been no trouble of hers which he had not shared; no joy at which he had not rejoiced. And he had not rebuked now when this new love had come into her life, this quick conquering passion for one of whom she knew nothing but that she loved him. Nay, he had bidden her go to the palace, had told her that where she was there would he be also. She believed his word and this was well, since upon it alone was her hope built. To no other at Fontainebleau could she appeal; never was a woman more utterly alone.

This sense of loneliness was, in truth, her despair as the minutes passed and the moment for the king's coming approached. Though she had regarded Louis's intention to sup with her as an adventure which should provoke laughter rather than alarm, the presence of lackeys, who began to set the table for the repast, recalled to her the reality of it all, and perhaps, the danger. If the Jesuit was not to fail her, at any rate he had long deferred his coming. It was then half-past seven, and the king was to sup with her at eight; she began to contemplate the possibility of having to bear the whole brunt of his company; of having to defend herself in an encounter which many an older woman might have dreaded. The thought of de Guyon alone nerved her to the idea. She had come to Fontainebleau for love of him—for love of him would she combat all the shame that might be put upon her.

Soon after her arrival at the palace, she had changed her riding-dress of green for a black gown, decked out with lace at the throat and arms, but sombre when contrasted with the gaudy splendours about her. Her only ornament was a little diamond cross upon her breast; but her beauty was enhanced by the simplicity, and it stood out radiantly when she appealed to Dominique at a quarter to eight, the smile still about her lips, but her hands trembling beyond concealment.

"You have no news of Père Cavaignac yet?" she asked.

"You still believe that he will come, my lady?"

She had begun to doubt, but of her doubts she would not speak.

"Of course he will come!" she said in a low voice. "Has he not promised me?"

"Parbleu! and you think that he would show his face in the king's palace. Ma foi, what an idea!"

"I have no doubt that he will find a way. He knows this château as no other man knows it. There is not a room of which he has not the secrets. Oh, I am sure that he will find a way, Dominique."

"And if he does?"

"I shall have a friend."

"Whom the guard will seize so soon as he opens his lips to declare himself. A pretty friend, my lady."

She had not thought of this—of the weakness of the priest wearing the mantle of strength in her presence, because of that child-like belief of which she was the victim. But when the old servant spoke of it, the scales fell from her eyes, and for the first time she became conscious of her own helplessness.

"Dominique!" she exclaimed, "I have done wrong in coming here."

"As I said upon the way, madame."

If he had offered to her any sympathy, or had spoken a comforting word, perchance her courage would have stood strong to the encounter; but he remembered only that an unreasoning impulse had brought her to the palace, and that she must pay the penalty. In which mood he fell to his work again, and she was left in the great room, with her loneliness and her fears for company. Then, for the first time, there were tears in her eyes, and she fell upon her knees in the dark alcove of the window, to pray that strength might be given to her.

Though the neighbouring room was lit by the light of a hundred tapers, and the mirrors caught up and scattered the bountiful rays, her own apartment had been left almost in darkness. She heard no longer the buzz of lackeys' voices or the ringing of glasses; yet she could smell the perfume of the roses upon the table, and she knew that supper was served, and that any minute might bring her face to face with the man who was moved by no impulse but the impulse of his pleasure; who had never spoken a noble word, or done an unselfish deed. The reality fed the fears which now possessed her; she could have cried aloud for pity and for help; she thought even of flight, yet remembered her lover and prayed the more. And her anguish was at the zenith when the answer came.

Swift and sudden the apparition was, coming like a phantom out of the shadows of the room. She heard no step; no door turned upon its hinges; no footfall broke the silence; yet was she conscious that one stood beside her, that his eyes were watching her, that her faith was justified. Without a word, she turned to him; the tears she had conquered gushed forth again and fell upon his outstretched hand; she clung to him like a child that has found a father.

"I knew you would come to me," she cried at last.

"And I am here, my child."

"You will not leave me now?"

"Leave you—God forbid!"

"And you will help my lover?"

"I come to set him free."

She would have thanked him, but he raised his hand warningly, while in the court without a bell began to strike the hour.

"Hark!" said he, "that is eight o'clock. There is no time for words. Do only that which I bid you."

He stepped to the oaken wall upon the opposite side of the room, and pressing his hand upon the glass of a small mirror, he opened a panel in the wainscoting, and beckoned to her.

"Three doors from here to the right is the chapel of St. Louis. Wait there until you are summoned."

The girl saw nothing but a dark and gloomy passage, but she went readily at his words, and when the echo of her steps had died away he closed the panel. At the same moment, the door in the second chamber was shut gently.

The "Well-Beloved" had come to sup.