The Little Huguenot/Chapter 8

the venerable Abbé was writing his sermon upon love, de Guyon was walking in the park of the château waiting for the coming of Gabrielle de Vernet. It was a feast day, and a procession of white-robed children, bearing flowers and banners and lighted candles, had just passed by the glistening lake, and so had entered a wood in the heart of which the chapel of the Virgin had been built. De Guyon listened to the notes of their hymn, dying away in the groves and thickets, and then walked slowly to the open lawns before the southern gate of the house—for tables were set here, and the villagers from many a mile round were coming in to share the hospitality of the woman they adored, and to hold carnival in her park. It was good to see the honest faces of the woodlanders in their liveries of green; the red cheeks and dark eyes of the country girls, all ready for any play they might hap upon; eager to anticipate, perhaps, that moment when the evening would come and some of those great fellows about them would have burdens in their arms. And it was no less good to behold the well-covered tables, the great casks of sound wine, the piles of fruit, the sweet-meats, the fantastic cakes, the fat capons.

Everywhere, indeed, the usually silent forest echoed the music of the horns, the lighter note of laughter, the merry voices of the girls, the neighing of horses. Here and there, beneath some great elm or oak, you might come upon a wandering musician drawn to the château by rumour of the feast, and now scraping his fiddle or blowing his flute for the delectation of the country wenches, all eager for the merry dance. Horsemen rode in from many an outlying station; priests were to be seen among the people, and were welcomed by them. And when the angry clouds, which at one time had promised thunder, rolled away to the east, and the sun shone upon the sparkling lakes, and the breeze blew fresh and sweet, it was a morning to call even the dreamer to life.

De Guyon, standing beneath the shade of a great oak tree, looked upon the scene and found it powerless to lift the gloom off his mind. He could not but contrast the simplicity, the freshness, the innocence of it with the extravagance, the weariness and the guilt of those feverish masks he was so well accustomed to at Versailles. The light laughter of these country girls, the manly speech of the men, the naivete of their pleasures would have been a jest to him a week ago. But that was before he knew Gabrielle de Vernet.

"Dieu!" said he, "she will make a monk of me;" and he laughed aloud at the thought. Yet there was something very sweet in the contemplation of that seclusion which would keep him always at her side. For some days now, he, the wit and fine gentleman, had lived like a priest, and fared little better than a religieux; had gone to Mass at dawn, had been content to sit out vespers and compline, had thought nothing of clothes for his back or epigram for his tongue. The silence, the sweetness, the exhilaration of the forest had entered into his life; awakening his mind to the knowledge of a con- tent he had not hitherto known. He was lifted up out of himself; carried to that high place of the spirit wherefrom man may look down upon the warfare of the passions, may hear the crying of those in darkness. And lie said to himself that surely it was a vision come to cheat him, since the morrow must bring the mists again.

Of the morrow, for a truth, he could have little hope. He was to leave at dawn for the château of Francis and of Henry Quatre, bearing a message which could bring him no favour nor hope of reward. He had set out to Fontainebleau, happy in that he had come to play the humble part of a trusted intriguer; he would return to those that sent him, pleading his own failure, despising the intrigue. What the aftermath might be he did not care, if only he might return to the forest to the feet of the little Huguenot who had opened his eyes to such visions.

The crying of many voices in the park, a new and louder note of mu- sic, the galloping of horses called him from dreamland to the scene be- fore him. Gabrielle de Vernet had now come down from the chapel, and surrounded by a lusty body of green-coated foresters, she made her way to the high table. He said that it was good thus to see her worshipped by those to whom she had given her life; good to see her as a thing of flesh and blood and warm human sympathies, enlarged and not confined by the discipline to which she submitted. At no time could it have been urged that the ascetic side of her nature overweighed the womanly instinct. She was born for love and marriage—not for the recluse's cell.

De Guyon took his seat at the high table; the Abbé waddled out of the château and raised three fingers in benediction of the multitude; the musicians scraped as they had not scraped before; the feast opened with a flourish of trumpets and a lively babble of tongues. The girl who presided over it had a word and a look for everyone; the lieutenant had a word and a look only for her; the Abbé only for his plate. When the eating and drinking at length were done with (and the foresters had appetites which were to be measured only by hours), the masqueraders began their play in the park, some making believe to be fauns, some sylphs, some spirits of the woods. Warmed with the invigorating wine, the village girls set themselves with trembling heels to the dance; the fiddlers thrashed their fiddles in melodious ecstasies; the jesters raised their shrill voices; the woodmen puckered up their lips in hope of kisses; the lovers broke away to the woods to whisper vows in shady glens. It was passing late in the afternoon when at last de Guyon found himself alone with Gabrielle, and able to speak of the shadow which the morrow would cast upon his life, and, as he hoped, upon hers.

They had walked slowly from the park and come into a little glen, in the heart of which a brook was bubbling. There was the shadow of aspens here, the perfume of violets and of wild roses; the fitful song of the reed-warbler and the wagtail. A grassy bank, grown over with primroses, served them well for seat; and here they rested, while from the distant park the hum of voices and the light music of the dance came to them on the waves of the wind. But the spirit of the glen was one of silence; and minutes passed before either of them spoke.

"Well, Monsieur de Guyon," said she at last, "I don't find you very witty to-day."

"Indeed," said he, seeking to look straight into her eyes, "but I have waited long for the opportunity."

She did not answer him at once, but began to twist a posy of the primroses. A glow of crimson suffused her face. There was so much tenderness in his voice that she no longer looked into his eyes—and she had ceased to smile.

"You must know," said she, breaking the embarrassing silence with an effort, "that this is one of the great days of my year"

"Henceforth it will be the greatest day of mine," said he, feeling that whatever might come of it, he would not leave her with the word unspoken.

"To amuse is as much the duty of those who rule as to educate," she went on, making no reference to his compliment. "Three times every year my people keep holiday in the park. I encourage them to feel that they have some interest in the maintenance of my home that they have a friend here. Friendship, after all, is a creed, Monsieur de Guyon."

De Guyon had thought so little of any religion at all, that he was quite out of his depth when he tried to re- ply to her.

"This life," said he, "this to-day which is as yesterday, this to-morrow which must be as to-day, does it never weary you, never pall, never set you longing for that other life beyond your gates?"

She smiled at him now.

"When my life shall make me love less, then will I think of yours."

"Of mine?"

"Surely, since you throw down the glove for it. But tell me, mon ami, what do they say of the Château aux Loups at the palace? Indeed, I am very curious to know."

De Guyon sat thinking while a minute passed.

"They call you 'the little Huguenot,' believing you to be in heart a Protestant, as your husband was," said he at length, and quite bluntly. "They told me that you lived on herbs and slept in a cell."

"And that was all?"

"Certainly it was not; they said also that you were—well"

"Well, what, Monsieur de Guyon? How you love to pique my curiosity."

He hesitated to use the word; but remembering that she was, above all else, a woman, he made bold at last to venture it.

"Parbleu!" said he. "I will not keep it from you. They spoke of your beauty."

She looked up at him quickly.

"It was unkind of them to deceive you."

"To deceive me? Oh, madame!"

She was now almost lying upon the grass, her head propped upon her elbows, her piquant oval face resting upon her hands. She had dressed herself in white for the mask, and the ribbons at her neck and upon her breast gave her the air of a little school-girl just come out of a convent. It seemed odd to de Guyon to call her "Madame," and when he had uttered the words, he could not help himself but must look into her great laughing eyes and fall in with her merry humour.

"Ciel!" said he, lying so close to her that their faces almost touched. "I begin to feel like a father to you madame."

"And to act like a cousin," she exclaimed, but without drawing away from him. "Indeed, I shall think that you wish to confess me."

"I could find no happier vocation; but it is I that should confess."

"I am all ears. What do you confess, monsieur?"

"The will that once would have done you an injury."

"Of which guilt?"

"I am duly penitent."

"And for penance?"

"I leave you at dawn."

She became serious in a moment, casting down her eyes and playing nervously with the flowers she had picked. But he, longing for her with an ardent passion—the first guiltless passion of his life—pursued his questioning.

"You give me absolution?" he asked in a low voice.

"I give you my friendship," she replied, looking up, and with tenderness, into his eyes.

"Your friendship!" he exclaimed. "Oh, I will treasure that! Would to God it were something more!"

The fervour of his words seemed to trouble her.

"Friendship," she said, speaking very earnestly, "is a woman's best gift. She has nothing else."

"But her love?"

"That she cannot give or hold. The power is not hers. And friendship, Monsieur de Guyon, is the gateway of love."

"If it should be so for me, Gabrielle?"

"Dear friend," she answered, while he could hear his own heart beating, "what will be is known to God alone. Let us lift up our hearts to Him."

He took her hand and held it between both of his.

"I am not worthy to touch your lips, Gabrielle. Oh, I would give half my years if the yesterday of life could be blotted out."

She knew that he wished to tell her of the pain which the remembrance of other years—loveless years and years to be forgotten—brought upon him. There, in the silence of the glen, pictures of his past went whirling before his eyes, showing him the scenes he would well have shut out, the burning lips whose kisses he had known, the dark places he had trodden. The girl at his side seemed unreal—a vision from the hills—something beyond his touch or hope. Could he have read her heart he would have known that she was helplessly following the path of her emotions, making no effort to stem the tide of her affection, saying only, "I will lift him up, and in me he shall find all else—even the divine life."

Thus always did the woman in her conquer.

The pause was a long one. He broke it in a sudden memory of the morrow.

"I shall see the king at sunset," he said.

She shuddered.

"And shall carry him your message," he went on.

"And then?"

"Ah! God knows; but in my thoughts I shall be here."

His despondency reminded her again of his danger. She began to tremble for him, telling herself that she had asked the sacrifice.

"You do not fear for yourself?" she asked.

"When I have your friendship."

"But that cannot protect you; and the king may yet carry me to the château."

It was his turn now to anticipate the shadow upon their path.

"He will never carry you there while I live," said he.

"Then you have little confidence. Indeed, mon ami, it seems to me that I shall carry myself to his Majesty to save you."

"God forbid that such a day should be!"

She was about to answer him when the leaves above them rustled, and a dark figure stood out against the foliage. Twilight had now come down into the glen, and darkness almost hid the brook at their feet. So startling was the apparition—which was gone in an instant—that the girl cried out, and instinctively clung to her companion, who encircled her in a moment with both his arms, and so held her close to him. He himself had seen nothing; he had heard only the breaking of the boughs. But to her the interruption seemed almost a warning.

"Look," said she, "how late it grows. They will be missing us."

"What matter," he cried, "since I have you in my arms."

"I was frightened," she murmured.

"But shall be frightened no more."

She resisted him no longer, and he covered her lips with burning kisses, dismantling her pretty hair so that it was spread about in gold-brown curls upon her shoulders, and holding her so close to him that he could feel the beating of her heart.

"God make me worthy of you," he said and so he sealed a vow upon her lips.

The vesper bell was ringing when they came into the park again, and the masquerade was done. But a group of wise men and chattering hags stood beneath a great gnarled oak, discussing a question of grave import.

"God defend us from all evil!" said one of the oracles, "for the spectre monk is abroad in the forest this night."