The Chaplet of Pearls

CHAPTER XXXIV. MADAME LA DUCHESSE

He found an ancient dame in dim brocade.–TENNYSON

Madame la Duchesse de Quinet had been a great heiress and a personal friend and favourite of Queen Jeanne d’Albret. She had been left a widow after five years’ marriage, and for forty subsequent years had reigned despotically in her own name and that of mon fils. Busied with the support of the Huguenot cause, sometimes by arms, but more usually by politics, and constantly occupied by the hereditary government of one of the lesser counties of France, the Duke was all the better son for relinquishing to her the home administration, as well as the education of his two motherless boys; and their confidence and affection were perfect, though he was almost as seldom at home as she was abroad. At times, indeed, she had visited Queen Jeanne at Nerac; but since the good Queen’s death, she only left the great chateau of Quinet to make a royal progress of inspection through the family towns, castles, and estates, sometimes to winter in her beautiful hereditary hotel at Montauban, and as at present to attend any great assembly of the Reformed.

Very seldom was her will not law. Strong sense and judgment, backed by the learning that Queen Marguerite of Navarre had introduced among the companions of her daughter, had rendered her superior to most of those with whom she came in contact: and the Huguenot ministers, who were much more dependent on their laity than the Catholic priesthood, for the most part treated her as not only a devout and honourable woman, an elect lady, but as a sort of State authority. That she had the right-mindedness to respect and esteem such men as Theodore Beza, Merlin, &c., who treated her with great regard, but never cringed, had not become known to the rest. Let her have once pronounced against poor little Esperance Gardon, and public disgrace would be a matter of certainty.

There she sat in her wainscoted walnut cabinet, a small woman by her inches, but stately enough to seem of majestic stature, and with gray eyes, of inexpressible keenness, which she fixed upon the halting, broken form of Isaac Gardon, and his grave, venerable face, as she half rose and made a slight acknowledgment of his low bow.

‘Sit, Maitre Gardon, you are lame,’ she said, with a wave of her hand. ‘I gave you the incommodity of coming to see me not openly discuss en pleine sale.’

‘Madame is considerate,’ said Isaac, civilly, but with an open-eyed look and air that at once showed her that she had not to deal with one of the ministers who never forgot their low birth in intercourse with her.

‘I understand,’ said she, coming to the point at once, ‘that you decline the proposals of Samuel Mace for your daughter-in-law. Now I wish you to know that Mace is a very good youth, whom I have known from his birth’—and she went on in his praise, Isaac bowing at each pause, until she had exhausted both Mace’s history and her own beneficent intentions for him. Then he said, ‘Madame is very good, and the young man appeared to me excellent. Nevertheless, this thing may not be. My daughter-in-law has resolved not to marry again.’

‘Nay, but this is mere folly,’ said the Duchess. ‘We hold not Catholic tenets on merit in abstaining, but rather go by St. Paul’s advice that the younger widows should marry, rather than wax wanton. And, to tell you the truth, Maitre Gardon, this daughter of yours does seem to have set tongues in motion.’

‘Not by her own fault, Madame.’

‘Stay, my good friend; I never found a man—minister or lay—who was a fair judge in these matters. 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. You are blamed for culpable indifference to alleged levities—I say not that it is true—but I see this, that unless you can bestow your daughter-in-law on a good, honest man, able to silence the whispers of malice, there will be measures taken that will do shame both to your own gray hairs and to the memory of your dead son, as well as expose the poor young woman herself. You are one who has a true tongue, Isaac Gardon; and if you can assure me that she is a faithful, good woman, as poor Mace thinks her, and will give her to him in testimony thereof, then shall not a mouth open against her. If not, in spite of all my esteem for you, the discipline of the Reformed must take its course.’

‘And for what?’ said Isaac, with a grave tone, almost of reproof. ‘What discipline can punish a woman for letting her infant wear a coloured ribbon, and shielding it from a blow?’

‘That is not all, Master Isaac,’ said the Duchess, seriously. ‘In spite of your much-respected name, evil and censorious tongues will have it that matters ought to be investigated; that there is some mystery; that the young woman does not give a satisfactory account of herself, and that the child does not resemble either her or your son—in short, that you may be deceived by an impostor, perhaps a Catholic spy. Mind, I say not that I credit all this, only I would show you what reports you must guard against.’

‘La pauvre petite!’ said Isaac, under his breath, as if appalled; then collecting himself, he said, ‘Madame, these are well-nigh threats. I had come hither nearly resolved to confined in you without them.’

‘Then there is a mystery?’

‘Yes, Madame, but the deception is solely in the name. She is, in very truth, a widow of a martyr of the St. Barthelemy, but that martyr was not my son, whose wife was happy in dying with him.’

‘And who, then, is she?’

‘Madame la Duchesse had heard of the family of Ribaumont.’

‘Ha! M. de Ribaumont! A gay comrade of King Henry II., but who had his eyes opened to the truth by M. l’Amiral, though he lacked courage for an open profession. Yes, the very last pageant I beheld at court, was the wedding of his little son to the Count de Ribaumont’s daughter. It was said that the youth was one of our victims at Paris.’

‘Even so, Madame; and this poor child is the little one whom you saw wedded to him.’ And then, in answer to the Duchess’s astonished inquiry, he proceeded to relate how Eustacie had been forced to fly from her kindred, and how he had first encountered her at his own lurking-placed, and had accepted her as a charge imposed on him by Providence; then explained how, at La Sablerie, she had been recognized by a young gentleman whom she had known at Paris, but who professed to be fleeing to England, there to study the Protestant controversy; and how she had confided to him a letter to her husband’s mother, who was married in England, begging her to send for her and her daughter, the latter being heiress to certain English estates, as well as French.

‘Madame,’ added Gardon, ‘Heaven forgive me, if I do the Youth injustice by suspecting him, but no answer ever arrived to that letter; and while we still expected one, a good and kindly citizen, who I trust has long been received into glory, sent me notice that a detachment of Monsieur’s army was on its way from La Rochelle, under command of M. de Nid de Merle, to search out this poor lady in La Sablerie. He, good man, deemed that, were we gone, he could make terms for the place, and we therefore quitted it. Alas! Madame knows how it fared with the pious friend we left. Little deeming how they would be dealt with, we took our way along the Sables d’Olonne, where alone we could be safe, since, as Madame knows, they are for miles impracticable for troops. But we had another enemy there—the tide; and there was a time when we truly deemed that the mercy granted us had been that we had fallen into the hand of the Lord instead of the hand of cruel man. Yes, Madame, and even for that did she give thanks, as she stood, never even trembling, on the low sandbank, with her babe in her bosom, and the sea creeping up on all sides. She only turned to me with a smile, saying, ‘She is asleep, she will not feel it, or know anything till she wakes up in Paradise, and sees her father.’ Never saw I a woman, either through nature or grace, so devoid of fear. We were rescued at last, by the mercy of Heaven, which sent a fisherman, who bore us to his boat when benumbed with cold, and scarce able to move. He took us to a good priest’s, Colombeau of Nissard, a man who, as Madame may know, is one of those veritable saints who still are sustained by the truth within their Church, and is full of charity and mercy. He asked me no questions, but fed, warmed, sheltered us, and sped us on our way. Perhaps, however, I was over-confident in myself, as the guardian of the poor child, for it was Heaven’s will that the cold and wet of our night on the sands—though those tender young frames did not suffer therefrom—should bring on an illness which has made an old man of me. I struggled on as long as I could, hoping to attain to a safe resting-place for her, but the winter cold completed the work; and then, Madame—oh that I could tell you the blessing she was to me!—her patience, her watchfulness, her tenderness, through all the long weeks that I lay helpless alike in mind and body at Charente. Ah! Madame, had my own daughter lived, she could not have been more to me than that noble lady; and her cheerful love did even more for me than her tender care.’

‘I must see her,’ ejaculated the Duchesse; then added, ‘But was it this illness that hindered you from placing her in safety in England?’

‘In part, Madame; nay, I may say, wholly. We learnt that the assembly was to take place here, and I had my poor testimony to deliver, and to give notice of my intention to my brethren before going to a foreign land, whence perhaps I may never return.’

‘She ought to be in England,’ said Madame de Quinet; ‘she will never be safe from these kinsmen in this country.’

‘M. de Nid de Merle has been all the spring in Poland with the King,’ said the minister, ‘and the poor lady is thought to have perished at La Sablerie. Thus the danger has been less pressing, but I would have taken her to England at once, if I could have made sure of her reception, and besides–’ he faltered.

‘The means?’ demanded the Duchess, guessing at the meaning.

‘Madame is right. She had brought away some money and jewels with her, but alas, Madame, during my illness, without my knowledge, the dear child absolutely sold them to procure comforts for me. Nay’—his eyes filled with tears—‘she whom they blame for vanities sold the very hair from her head to purchase unguents to ease the old man’s pains; nor did I know it for many a day after. From day to day we can live, for our own people willingly support a pastor and his family; and in every house my daughter has been loved,—everywhere but in this harsh-judging town. But for the expense of a voyage, even were we at Bordeaux or La Rochelle, we have nothing, save by parting with the only jewels that remain to her, and those—those, she says, are heirlooms; and, poor child, she guards them almost as jealously as her infant, around whom she has fastened them beneath her clothes. She will not even as yet hear of leaving them in pledge, to be redeemed by the family. She says they would hardly know her without them. And truly, Madame, I scarce venture to take her to England, ere I know what reception would await her. Should her husband’s family disown or cast her off, I could take better care of her here than in a strange land.’

‘You are right, Maitre Gardon,’ said the Duchess; ‘the risk might be great. I would see this lady. She must be a rare creature. Bear her my greetings, my friend, and pray her to do me the honour of a visit this afternoon. Tell her I would come myself to her, but that I understand she does not wish to attract notice.’

‘Madame,’ said Isaac, rising, and with a strange manner, between a smile and a tear of earnestness, ‘allow me to bespeak your goodness for my daughter. The poor little thing is scarcely more than a child. She is but eighteen even now, and it is not always easy to tell whether she will be an angel of noble goodness, or, pardon me, a half-petulant child.’

‘I understand:’ Madame de Quinet laughed, and she probably did understand more than reluctant, anxious Isaac Gardon thought she did, of his winning, gracious, yet haughty, head-strong little charge, so humbly helpful one moment, so self-asserting and childish the next, so dear to him, yet so unlike anything in his experience.

‘Child,’ he said, as he found her in the sunny window engaged in plaiting the deep folds of his starched ruffs, ‘you have something to forgive me.’

‘Fathers do not ask their children’s pardon,’ said Eustacie, brightly, but then, with sudden dismay, ‘Ah! you have not said I should go to the Moustier again.’

‘No, daughter; but Madame de Quinet entreats—these are her words—that you will do her the honour of calling on her. She would come to you, but that she fears to attract notice to us.’

‘You have told her!’ exclaimed Eustacie.

‘I was compelled, but I had already thought of asking your consent, and she is a true and generous lady, with whom your secret will be safe, and who can hush the idle tongues here. So, daughter,’ he added restlessly, ‘don your hood; that ruff will serve for another day.’

‘Another day, when the morrow is Sunday, and my father’s ruff is to put to shame all the other pastors’,’ said Eustacie, her quick fingers still moving. ‘No, he shall not go ill-starched for any Duchess in France. Now am I in any haste to be lectured by Madame de Quinet, as they say she lectured the Dame de Soubrera the other day.’

‘My child, you will go; much depends on it.’

‘Oh yes, I am going; only if Madame de Quinet knows who I am, she will not expect me to hurry at her beck and call the first moment. Here, Rayonette, my bird, my beauty, thou must have a clean cap; ay, and these flaxen curls combed.’

‘Would you take the child?’

‘Would I go without Mademoiselle de Rambouillet? She is all her mother is, and more. There, now she is a true rose-bud, ready to perch on my arm. No, no bon pere. So great a girl is too much for you to carry. Don’t be afraid, my darling, we are not going to a sermon, no one will beat her; oh no, and if the insolent retainers and pert lacqueys laugh at her mother, no one will hurt her.’

‘Nay, child,’ said Maitre Gardon; ‘this is a well-ordered household, where contempt and scorn are not suffered. Only, dear, dear daughter, let me pray you to be your true self with the Duchess.’

Eustacie shrugged her shoulders, and had mischief enough in her to enjoy keeping her good father in some doubt and dread as he went halting wearily by her side along the much-decorated streets that marked the grand Gasche of Tarn and Tarascon. The Hotel de Quinet stretched out its broad stone steps, covered with vaultings, absolutely across the street, affording a welcome shade, and no obstruction where wheeled carriages never came.

All was, as Maitre Isaac had said, decorum itself. A couple of armed retainers, rigid as sentinels, waited on the steps; a grave porter, maimed in the wars opened the great door; half a dozen—laquais in sober though rich liveries sat on a bench in the hall, and had somewhat the air of having been set to con a lesson. Two of them coming respectfully forward, ushered Maitre Gardon and his companion to an ante-room, where various gentlemen, or pastors, or candidates—among them Samuel Mace—were awaiting a summons to the Duchess, or merely using it as a place of assembly. A page of high birth, but well schooled in steadiness of demeanour, went at once to announce the arrival; and Gardon and his companion had not been many moments in conversation with their acquaintance among the ministers, before the grave gentleman returned, apparently from his audience and the page, coming to Eustacie, intimated that she was to follow him to Madame le Duchesse’s presence.

He conducted her across a great tapestry-hung saloon, where twelve or fourteen ladies of all ages—from seventy to fifteen—sat at work: some at tapestry, some spinning, some making coarse garments for the poor. A great throne-like chair, with a canopy over it, a footstool, a desk and a small table before it, was vacant, and the work—a poor child’s knitted cap—laid down; but an elderly minister, seated at a carved desk, had not discontinued reading from a great black book, and did not even cease while the strangers crossed the room, merely making a slight inclination with his head, while the ladies half rose, rustled a slight reverence with their black, gray or russet skirts, but hardly lifted their eyes. Eustacie thought the Louvre had never been half so formidable or impressive.

The page lifted a heavy green curtain behind the canopy, knocked at a door, and, as it opened, Eustacie was conscious of a dignified presence, that, in spite of her previous petulance, caused her instinctively to bend in such a reverence as had formerly been natural to her; but, at the same moment, a low and magnificent curtsey was made to her, a hand was held out, a stately kiss was on her brow, and a voice of dignified courtesy said, ‘Pardon me, Madame la Baronne, for giving you this trouble. I feared that otherwise we could not safely meet.’

‘Madame is very good. My Rayonette, make thy reverence; kiss thy hand to the lady, my lamb.’ And the little one obeyed, gazing with her blue eyes full opened, and clinging to her mother.

‘Ah! Madame la Baronne makes herself obeyed,’ said Madame de Quinet, well pleased. ‘Is it then a girl?’

‘Yes, Madame, I could scarcely forgive her at first; but she has made herself all the dearer to me.’

‘It is a pity,’ said Madame de Quinet, ‘for yours is an ancient stem.’

‘Did Madame know my parents?’ asked Eustacie, drawn from her spirit of defiance by the equality of the manner with which she was treated.

‘Scarcely,’ replied the Duchess; but, with a smile, ‘I had the honour to see you married.’

‘Ah, then,’—Eustacie glowed, almost smiled, though a tear was in her eyes—‘you can see how like my little one is to her father,—a true White Ribaumont.’

The Duchess had not the most distinct recollection of the complexion of the little bridegroom; but Rayonette’s fairness was incontestable, and the old lady complimented it so as to draw on the young mother into confidence on the pet moonbeam appellation which she used in dread of exciting suspicion by using the true name of Berangere, with all the why and wherefore.

It was what the Duchess wanted. Imperious as some thought her, she would on no account have appeared to cross-examine any one whose essential nobleness of nature struck her as did little Eustacie’s at the first moment she saw her; and yet she had decided, before the young woman arrived, that her own good opinion and assistance should depend on the correspondence of Madame de Ribaumont’s history of herself with Maitre Gardon’s.

Eustacie had, for a year and a half, lived with peasants; and, indeed, since the trials of her life had really begun, she had never been with a woman of her own station to whom she could give confidence, or from whom she could look for sympathy. And thus a very few inquiries and tokens of interest from the old lady drew out the whole story, and more than once filled Madame de Quinet’s eyes with tears.

There was only one discrepancy; Eustacie could not believe that the Abbe de Mericour had been a faithless messenger. Oh, no! either those savage-looking sailors had played him false, or else her bele-mere would not send for her. ‘My mother-in-law never loved me,’ said Eustacie; ‘I know she never did. And now she has children by her second marriage, and no doubt would not see my little one preferred to them. I will not be HER suppliant.’

‘And what then would you do?’ said Madame de Quinet, with a more severe tone.

‘Never leave my dear father,’ said Eustacie, with a flash of eagerness; ‘Maitre Isaac I mean. He has been more to me than any—any one I ever knew—save–’

‘You have much cause for gratitude to him,’ said Madame de Quinet. ‘I honour your filial love to him. Yet, you have duties to this little one. You have no right to keep her from her position. You ought to write to England again. I am sure Maitre Isaac tells you so.’

Eustacie would have pouted, but the grave, kind authority of the manner prevented her from being childish, and she said, ‘If I wrote, it should be to my husband’s grandfather, who brought him up, designated him as his heir, and whom he loved with all his heart. But, oh, Madame, he has one of those English names! So dreadful! It sounds like Vol-au-vent, but it is not that precisely.’

Madame de Quinet smiled, but she was a woman of resources. ‘See, my friend,’ she said, ‘the pursuivant of the consuls here has the rolls of the herald’s visitations throughout the kingdom. The arms and name of the Baron de Ribaumont’s wife will there be entered; and from my house at Quinet you shall write, and I, too, will write; my son shall take care that the letters be forwarded safely, and you shall await their arrival under my protection. That will be more fitting than running the country with an old pastor, hein?’

‘Madame, nothing shall induce me to quit him!’ exclaimed Eustacie, vehemently.

‘Hear me out, child,’ said the Duchess. ‘He goes with us to assist my chaplain; he is not much fitter for wandering than you, or less so. And you, Madame, must, I fear me, still remain his daughter-in-law in my household; or if you bore your own name and rank, this uncle and cousin of yours might learn that you were still living; and did they claim you–’

‘Oh, Madame, rather let me be your meanest kitchen-girl!’

‘To be—what do they call you?—Esperance Gardon will be quite enough. I have various women here—widows, wives, daughters or sufferers for the truth’s sake, who either are glad of rest, or are trained up to lead a godly life in the discipline of my household. Among them you can live without suspicion, provided,’ the old lady added, smiling, ‘you can abstain from turning the heads of our poor young candidates.’

‘Madame,’ said Eustacie, gravely, ‘I shall never turn any one’s head. There was only one who was obliged to love me, and happily I am nor fair enough to win any one else.’