The Chaplet of Pearls

‘Perfumes? Yes, lady, I have store of perfumes: ambergris and violet dew, and the Turkish essence distilled from roses; yea, and the finest spirit of the Venus myrtle-tree, the secret known to the Roman dames of old, whereby they secured perpetual beauty and love—though truly Madame should need no such essence. That which nature has bestowed on her secures to her all hearts—and one valued more than all.’

‘Enough,’ said Diane, blushing somewhat, though with an effort at laughing off his words; ‘these are the tricks of your trade.’

‘Madame is incredulous; yet, lady, I have been in the East. Yonder boy comes from the land where there are spells that make known the secrets of lives.’

The old Chevalier, who had hitherto been taken up with the abstruse calculation—derived from his past days of economy—how much ribbon would be needed to retrim his murrey just-au-corps, here began to lend an ear, though saying nothing. Philip looked on in open-eyed wonder, and nudged his brother, who muttered in return, ‘Jugglery!’

‘Ah, the fair company are all slow to believe,’ said the pedlar. ‘Hola, Alessio!’ and taking a glove that Philip had left on the table, he held it to the boy. A few unintelligible words passed between them; then the boy pointed direct to Philip, and waved his hand northwards. ‘He says the gentleman who owns this glove comes from the North, from far away,’ interpreted the Italian; then as the boy made the gesture of walking in chains, ‘that he is a captive.’

‘Ay,’ cried Philip, ‘right, lad; and can he tell how long I shall be so?’

‘Things yet to come,’ said the mountebank, ‘are only revealed after long preparation. For them must he gaze into the dark poor of the future. The present and the past he can divine by the mere touch of what has belonged to the person.’

‘It is passing strange,’ said Philip to Madame de Selinville. ‘You credit it, Madame?’

‘Ah, have we not seen the wonders come to pass that a like diviner fortold to the Queen-mother?’ said Diane: ‘her sons should be all kings—that was told her when the eldest was yet Dauphin.’

‘And there is only one yet to come,’ said Philip, awe-struck. ‘But see, what has he now?’

‘Veronique’s kerchief,’ returned Madame de Selinville, as the Italian began to interpret the boy’s gesture.

‘Pretty maidens, he says, serve fair ladies—bear tokens for them. This damsel has once been the bearer of a bouquet of heather of the pink and white, whose bells were to ring hope.’

‘Eh, eh, Madame, it is true?’ cried Veronique, crimson with surprise and alarm. ‘M. le Baron knows it is true.’

Berenger had started at this revelation, and uttered an inarticulate exclamation; but at that moment the boy, in whose hand his master had placed a crown from the money newly paid, began to make vehement gestures, which the main interpreted. ‘Le Balafre, he says, pardon me, gentlemen, le Balafre could reveal even a deeper scar of the heart than of the visage’—and the boy’s brown hand was pressed on his heart—‘yet truly there is yet hope (esperance) to be found. Yes’—as the boy put his hand to his neck—‘he bears a pearl, parted from its sister pearls. Where they are, there is hope. Who can miss Hope, who has sought it at a royal death-bed?’

‘Ah, where is it?’ Berenger could not help exclaiming.

‘Sir,’ said the pedlar, ‘as I told Messieurs and Mesdames before, the spirits that cast the lights of the future on the dark pool need invocation. Ere he can answer M. le Baron’s demands, he and I must have time and seclusion. If Monsieur le Chevalier will grant us an empty room, there will we answer all queries on which the spirits will throw light.’

‘And how am I to know that you will not bring the devil to shatter the castle, my friend?’ demanded the Chevalier. ‘Or more likely still, that you are not laughing all the time at these credulous boys and ladies?’

‘Of that, sir, you may here convince yourself,’ said the mountebank, putting into his hand a sort of credential in Italian, signed by Renato di Milano, the Queen’s perfumer, testifying to the skill of his compatriot Ercole Stizzito both in perfumery, cosmetics, and in the secrets of occult sciences.

The Chevalier was no Italian scholar, and his daughter interpreted the scroll to him, in a rapid low voice, adding, ‘I have had many dealings with Rene of Milan, father. I know he speaks sooth. There can be no harm in letting the poor man play out his play—all the castle servants will be frantic to have their fortunes told.’

‘I must speak with the fellow first, daughter,’ said the Chevalier. ‘He must satisfy me that he has no unlawful dealings that could bring the Church down on us.’ And he looked meaningly at the mountebank, who replied by a whole muster-roll of ecclesiastics, male and female, who had heard and approved his predictions.

‘A few more words with thee, fellow,’ said the Chevalier, pointing the way to one of the rooms opening out of the hall. ‘As master of the house I must be convinced of his honesty,’ he added. ‘If I am satisfied, then who will may seek to hear their fortune.’

Chevalier, man and boy disappeared, and Philip was the first to exclaim, ‘A strange fellow! What will he tell us? Madame, shall you hear him?’

‘That depends on my father’s report,’ she said. ‘And yet,’ sadly and pensively, ‘my future is dark and void enough. Why should I vex myself with hearing it?’

‘Nay, it may brighten,’ said Philip.

‘Scarcely, while hearts are hard,’ she murmured with a slight shake of the head, that Philip thought indescribably touching; but Berenger was gathering his purchases together, and did not see. ‘And you, brother,’ said Philip, ‘you mean to prove him?’

‘No,’ said Berenger. ‘Have you forgotten, Phil, the anger we met with, when we dealt with the gipsy at Hurst Fair?’

‘Pshaw, Berry, we are past flogging now.’

‘Out of reach, Phil, of the rod, but scarce of the teaching it struck into us.’

‘What?’ said Philip, sulkily.

‘That divining is either cozening manor forsaking God, Phil. Either it is falsehood, or it is a lying wonder of the devil.’

‘But, Berry, this man is not cheat.’

‘Then he is worse.’

‘Only, turn not away, brother. How should he have known things that even I know not?—the heather.’

‘No marvel in that,’ said Berenger. ‘This is the very man I bought Annora’s fan from; he was prowling round Montpipeau, and my heather was given to Veronique with little secrecy. And as to the royal deathbed, it was Rene, his master, who met me there.’

‘Then you think it mere cozeing? If so, we should find it out.’

‘I don’t reckon myself keener than an accomplished Italian mountebank,’ said Berenger, dryly.

Further conference was cut short by the return of the Chevalier, saying, in his paternal genial way, ‘Well, children, I have examined the fellow and his credentials, and for those who have enough youth and hope to care to have the future made known to them, bah! it is well.’

‘Is it sorcery, sir?’ asked Philip, anxiously.

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. ‘I will prove him for you, lady, and tell you whether he be a cozener or not, or if his magic be fit for you to deal with.’

And confident in the inherent intuition of a plain Englishman, as well as satisfied to exercise his resolution for once in opposition to Berenger’s opinion, Master Thistlewood stepped towards the closet where the Italian awaited his clients, and Berenger knew that it would be worse than useless to endeavour to withhold him. He only chafed at the smile which passed between father and daughter at this doughty self-assertion.

There was a long silence. Berenger sat with his eyes fixed on the window where the twilight horizon was still soft and bright with the pearly gold of the late sunset, thinking with an intensity of yearning what it would be could he truly become certain of Eustacie’s present doings; questioning whether he would try to satisfy that longing by the doubtful auguries of the diviner, and then recollecting how he had heard from wrecked sailors that to seek to delude their thirst with sea-water did but aggravate their misery. He knew that whatever he might hear would be unworthy of confidence. Either it merely framed to soothe and please him—or, were it a genuine oracle, he had no faith in the instinct that was to perceive it, but what he HAD faith in was the Divine protection over his lost ones. ‘No,’ he thought to himself, ‘I will not by a presumptuous sin, in my own impatience, risk incurring woes on them that deal with familiar spirits and wizards that peep and mutter. If ever I am to hear of Eustacie again, it shall be by God’s will, not the devil’s.’

Diane de Selinville had been watching his face all the time, and now said, with that almost timid air of gaiety that she wore when addressing him: ‘You too, cousin, are awaiting Monsieur Philippe’s report to decide whether to look into the pool of mystery.’

‘Not at all, Madame,’ said Berenger, gravely. ‘I do not understand white magic.’

‘Our good cousin has been too well bred among the Reformers to condescend to our little wickednesses, daughter,’ said the Chevalier; and the sneer-much like that which would await a person now who scrupled at joining in table-turning or any form of spiritualism—purpled Berenger’s scar, now his only manner of blushing; but he instantly perceived that it was the Chevalier’s desire that he should consult the conjurer, and therefore became the more resolved against running into a trap.

‘I am sure,’ said Madame de Selinville, earnestly, though with an affectation of lightness, ‘a little wickedness is fair when there is a great deal at stake. For my part, I would not hesitate long, to find out how soon the King will relent towards my fair cousin here!’

‘That, Madame,’ said Berenger, with the same grave dryness, ‘is likely to be better known to other persons than this wandering Greek boy.’

Here Philip’s step was heard returning hastily. He was pale, and looked a good deal excited, so that Madame de Selinville uttered a little cry, and exclaimed, ‘Ah! is it so dreadful then?’

‘No, no, Madame,’ said Philip, turning round, with a fervour and confidence he had never before shown. ‘On my word, there is nothing formidable. You see nothing—nothing but the Italia and the boy. The boy gazes into a vessel of some black liquid, and sees—sees there all you would have revealed. Ah!’

‘Then you believe?’ asked Madame de Selinville.

‘It cannot be false,’ answered Philip; ‘he told me everything. Things he could not have known. My very home, my father’s house, passed in review before that strange little blackamoor’s eyes; where I—though I would have given worlds to see it—beheld only the lamp mirrored in the dark pool.’

‘How do you know it was your father’s house?’ said Berenger.

‘I could not doubt. Just to test the fellow, I bade him ask for my native place. The little boy gazed, smiled, babbled his gibberish, pointed. The man said he spoke of a fair mansion among green fields and hills, “a grand cavalier embonpoint,”—those were his very words,—at the door, with a tankard in one hand. Ah! my dear father, why could not I see him too? But who could mistake him or the Manor?’

‘And did he speak of future as well as past?’ said Diane.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Philip, with more agitation. ‘Lady, that will you know for yourself.’

‘It was not dreadful?’ she said, rising.

‘Oh no!’ and Philip had become crimson, and hesitated; ‘certes, not dreadful. But–I must not say more.’

‘Save good night,’ said Berenger, rising; ‘See, our gendarmes are again looking as if we had long exceeded their patience. It is an hour later than we are wont to retire.’

‘If it be your desire to consult this mysterious fellow now you have heard your brother’s report, my dear Baron,’ said the Chevalier, ‘the gendarmes may devour their impatience a little longer.’

‘Thanks, sir,’ said Berenger; ‘but I am not tempted,’ and he gave the usual signal to the gendarmes, who, during meals, used to stand as sentries at the great door of the hall.

‘It might settle your mind,’ muttered Philip, hesitating. ‘And yet—yet–’

But he used no persuasions, and permitted himself to be escorted with his brother along the passages to their own chamber, where he threw himself into a chair with a long sigh, and did not speak. Berenger meantime opened the Bible, glanced over the few verses he meant to read, found the place in the Prayer-book, and was going to the stairs to call Humfrey, when Philip broke forth: ‘Wait, Berry; don’t be in such haste.’

‘What, you want time to lose the taste of your dealings with the devil?’ said Berenger, smiling.

‘Pshaw! No devil in the matter,’ testily said Philip. ‘No, I was only wishing you had not had a Puritan fit, and seen and heard for yourself. Then I should not have had to tell you,’ and he sighed.

‘I have no desire to be told,’ said Berenger, who had become more fixed in the conviction that it was an imposture.

‘No desire! Ah! I have none when I knew what it was. But you ought to know.’

‘Well,’ said Berenger, ‘you will burst anon if I open not my ears.’

‘Dear Berry, speak not thus. It will be the worse for you when you do hear. Alack, Berenger, all ours have been vain hopes. I asked for HER—and the boy fell well-nigh into convulsions of terror as he gazed; spoke of flames and falling houses. That was wherefore I pressed you not again—it would have wrung your heart too much. The boy fairly wept and writhed himself, crying out in his tongue for pity on the fair lady and the little babe in the burning house. Alack! brother,’ said Philip, a little hurt that his brother had not changed countenance.

‘This is the lying tale of the man-at-arms which our own eyes contradicted,’ said Berenger; ‘and no doubt was likewise inspired by the Chevalier.’

‘See the boy, brother! How should he have heard the Chevalier? Nay, you might hug your own belief, but it is hard that we should both be in durance for your mere dream that she lives.’

‘Come, Phil, it will be the devil indeed that sows dissension between us,’ said Berenger. ‘You know well enough that were it indeed with my poor Eustacie as they would fain have us believe, rather than give up her fair name I would not in prison for life. Or would you have me renounce my faith, or wed Madame de Selinville upon the witness of a pool of ink that I am a widower?’ he added, almost laughing.

‘For that matter,’ muttered Philip, a good deal ashamed and half affronted, ‘you know I value the Protestant faith so that I never heard a word from the will old priest. Nevertheless, the boy, when I asked of our release, saw the gates set open by Love.’

‘What did Love look like in the pool? Had he wings like the Cupids in the ballets at the Louvre?’ asked Berenger provokingly.

‘I tell you I saw nothing,’ said Philip, tartly: ‘this was the Italian’s interpretation of the boy’s gesture. It was to be by means of love, he said, and of a lady who–he made it plain enough who she was,’ added the boy, colouring.

‘No doubt, as the Chevalier have instructed him to say that I—I—’ he hesitated, ‘that my—my love—I mean that he saw my shield per pale with the field fretty and the sable leopard.’

‘Oh! it is to be my daughter, is it?’ said Berenger, laughing; ‘I am very happy to entertain your proposals for her.’

‘Berenger, what mocking fiend has possessed you?’ cried Philip, half angrily, half pitifully. ‘How can you so speak of that poor child?’

‘Because the more they try to force on me the story of her fate, the plainer it is to me that they do not believe it. I shall find her yet, and then, Phil, you shall have the first chance.’

Philip growled.

‘Well, Phil,’ said his brother, good-humouredly, ‘any way, till this Love comes that is to let us out, don’t let Moor or fiend come between us. Let me keep my credence for the honest Bailli’s daughters at Lucon; and remember I would give my life to free you, but I cannot give away my faith.’ Philip bent his head. He was of too stubborn a mould to express contrition or affection, but he mused for five minutes, then called Humfrey, and at the last moment, as the heavy tread came up-stairs, he turned round and said, ‘You’re in the right on’t there, Berry. Hap what hap, the foul fiend may carry off the conjurer before I murmur at you again! Still I wish you had seen him. You would know ‘tis sooth.’

While Berenger, in his prison chamber, with the lamplight beaming on his high white brow and clear eye, stood before his two comrades in captivity, their true-hearted faces composed to reverence, and as he read, ‘I have hated them that hold of superstitious vanities, and my trust hath been in the Lord. I will be glad and rejoice in Thy mercy, for Thou hast considered my trouble and hast known my soul in adversities,’ feeling that here was the oracle by which he was willing to abide—Diane de Selinville was entering the cabinet where the secrets of the future were to be unveiled.

There she stood—the beautiful court lady—her lace coif (of the Mary of Scotland type) well framed the beautiful oval of her face, and set of the clear olive of her complexion, softened by short jetty curls at the temples, and lighted splendid dark eyes, and by the smiles of a perfect pair of lips. A transparent veil hung back over the ruff like frostwork-formed fairy wings, and over the white silk bodice and sleeves laced with violet, and the violet skirt that fell in ample folds on the ground; only, however, in the dim light revealing by an occasional gleam that it was not black. It was a stately presence, yet withal there was a tremor, a quiver of the downcast eyelids, and a trembling of the fair hand, as though she were ill at ease; even though it was by no means the first time she had trafficked with the dealers in mysterious arts who swarmed around Catherine de Medicis. There were words lately uttered that weighed with her in their simplicity, and she could not forget them in that gloomy light, as she gazed on the brown face of the Italian, Ercole, faultless in outline as a classical mask, but the black depths of the eyes sparkling with intensity of observation, as if they were everywhere at once and gazed through and through. He wore his national dress, with the short cloak over one shoulder; but the little boy, who stood at the table, had been fantastically arrayed in a sort of semi-Albanian garb, a red cap with a long tassel, a dark, gold-embroidered velvet jacket sitting close to his body, and a white kilt over his legs, bare except for buskins stiff with gold. The poor little fellow looked pale in spite of his tawny hue, his enormous black eyes were heavy and weary, and he seemed to be trying to keep aloof from the small brazen vessel formed by the coils of two serpents that held the inky liquid of which Philip had spoken.

No doubt of the veritable nature of the charm crossed Diane; her doubt was of its lawfulness, her dread of the supernatural region she was invading. She hesitated before she ventured on her first question, and started as the Italian first spoke,—‘What would the Eccelentissima? Ladies often hesitate to speak the question nearest their hearts. Yet is it ever the same. But the lady must be pleased to form it herself in words, or the lad will not see her vision.’

‘Where, then, is my brother?’ said Diane, still reluctant to come direct to the point.

The boy gazed intently into the black pool, his great eyes dilating till they seemed like black wells, and after a long time, that Diane could have counted by the throbs of her heart, he began to close his fingers, perform the action over the other arm of one playing on the lute, throw his head back, close his eyes, and appear to be singing a lullaby. Then he spoke a few words to his master quickly.

‘He see,’ said Ercole, ‘a gentleman touching the lute, seated in a bedroom, where lies, on a rich pillow, another gentleman,’—and as the boy stroked his face, and pointed to his hands—‘wearing a mask and gloves. It is, he says, in my own land, in Italy,’ and as the boy made the action of rowing, ‘in the territory of Venice.’

‘It is well,’ said Madame de Selinville, who knew that nothing was more probable than that her brother should be playing the King to his sleep in the medicated mask and gloves that cherished the royal complexion, and, moreover, that Henry was lingering to take his pastime in Italy to the great inconvenience of his kingdom.

Her next question came nearer her heat—‘You saw the gentleman with a scar. Will he leave this castle?’

The boy gazed, then made gestures of throwing his arms wide, and of passing out; and as he added his few words, the master explained: ‘He sees the gentleman leaving the castle, through open gate, in full day, on horseback; and—and it is Madame who is with them,’ he added, as the lad pointed decidedly to her, ‘it is Madame who opens their prison.’

Diane’s face lighted with gladness for a moment; then she said, faltering (most women of her day would not have been even thus reserved), ‘Then I shall marry again?’

The boy gazed and knitted his brow; then, without any pantomime, looked up and spoke. ‘The Eccellentissima shall be a bride once more, he says,’ explained the man, ‘but after a sort he cannot understand. It is exhausting, lady, thus to gaze into the invisible future; the boy becomes confused and exhausted ere long.’

‘Once more—I will only ask of the past. My cousin, is he married or a widower?’

The boy clasped his hands and looked imploringly, shaking his head at the dark pool, as he murmured an entreating word to his master. ‘Ah! Madame,’ said the Italian, ‘that question hath already been demanded by the young Inglese. The poor child has been so terrified by the scene it called up, that he implored he may not see it again. A sacked and burning town, a lady in a flaming house–’

‘Enough, enough,’ said de; ‘I could as little bear to hear as he to see. It is what we have ever known and feared. And now’—she blushed as she spoke—‘sir, you will leave me one of those potions that Signor Renato is wont to compound.’

‘Capisco!’ said Ercole; ‘but the Eccellentissima shall be obeyed if she will supply the means, for the expense will be heavy.’

The bargain was agreed upon, and a considerable sum advanced for a philter, compounded of strange Eastern plants and mystic jewels; and then Diane, with a shudder of relief, passed into the full light of the hall, bade her father good night, and was handed by him into the litter that had long been awaiting her at the door.

The Chevalier, then, with care on his brow, bent his steps towards the apartment where the Italian still remained counting the money he had received.

‘So!’ he said as he entered, ‘so, fellow, I have not hindered your gains, and you have been true to your agreement?’

‘Illustrissimo, yes. The pool of vision mirrored the flames, but nothing beyond—nothing—nothing.’

‘They asked you then no more of those words you threw out of Esperance?’

‘Only the English youth, sir; and there were plenty of other hopes to dance before the eyes of such a lad! With M. le Baron it will be needful to be more guarded.’

‘M. le Baron shall not have the opportunity,’ said the Chevalier. ‘He may abide by his decision, and what the younger one may tell him. Fear not, good man, it shall be made good to you, if you obey my commands. I have other work for you. But first repeat to me more fully what you told me before. Where was it that you saw this unhappy girl under the name of Esperance?’

‘At a hostel, sir, at Charente, where she was attending on an old heretic teacher of the name of Gardon, who had fallen sick there, being pinched by the fiend with rheumatic pains after his deserts. She bore the name of Esperance Gardon, and passed for his son’s widow.’

‘And by what means did you know her not to be the mean creature she pretended?’ said the Chevalier, with a gesture of scornful horror.

‘Illustrissimo, I never forget a face. I had seen this lady with M. le Baron when they made purchases of various trinkets at Montpipeau; and I saw her full again. I had the honour to purchase from her certain jewels, that the Eccellenza will probably redeem; and even—pardon, sir—I cut off and bought of her, her hair.’