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Nettie Garmer Barker - "Kansas Women in Literature"

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A Gentleman of France

S >> Stanley Weyman >> A Gentleman of France




'You will find six horses in the shed there,' the stranger cried
in a voice of command. 'Turn out the four to the left as you go
in. Give each a cut, and send it about its business!'

The man wheeled his horse before the words were well uttered, and
crying obsequiously 'that it was done,' flung his reins to one of
the other riders and disappeared in the shed, as if the order
given him were the most commonplace one in the world.

The party in the other room, however, by whom all could be heard,
were not slow to take the alarm. They broke into a shout of
remonstrance, and one of their number, leaping from the window,
asked with a very fierce air what the devil we meant. The others
thrust out their faces, swollen and flushed with the wine they
had drunk, and with many oaths backed up his question. Not
feeling myself called upon to interfere, I prepared to see
something diverting.

My companion, whose coolness surprised me, had all the air of
being as little concerned as myself. He even persisted for a
time in ignoring the angry lawyer, and, turning a deaf ear to all
the threats and abuse with which the others assailed him,
continued to look calmly at the prospect. Seeing this, and that
nothing could move him, the man who had jumped through the
window, and who seemed the most enterprising of the party, left
us at last and ran towards the stalls. The aspect of the two
serving-men, however, who rode up grinning, and made as if they
would ride him down, determined him to return; which he did, pale
with fury, as the last of the four horses clattered out, and
after a puzzled look round trotted off at its leisure into the
forest.

On this, the man grew more violent, as I have remarked frightened
men do; so that at last the stranger condescended to notice him.

'My good sir,' he said coolly, looking at him through the window
as if he had not seen him before, 'you annoy me. What is the
matter?'

The fellow retorted with a vast amount of bluster, asking what
the devil we meant by turning out his horses.

'Only to give you and the gentlemen with you a little exercise,'
my companion answered, with grim humour, and in a severe tone
strange in one so young--'than which nothing is more wholesome
after a full meal. That, and a lesson in good manners.
Maignan,' he continued, raising his voice, 'if this person has
anything more to say, answer him. He is nearer your degree than
mine.'

And leaving the man to slink away like a whipped dog--for the
mean are ever the first to cringe--my friend turned from the
window. Meeting my eyes as he went back to his seat, he laughed.
'Well,' he said, 'what do you think?'

'That the ass in the lion's skin is very well till it meets the
lion,' I answered.

He laughed again, and seemed pleased, as I doubt not he was.
'Pooh, pooh!' he said. 'It passed the time, and I think I am
quits with my gentlemen now. But I must be riding. Possibly our
roads may lie for a while in the same direction, sir?' And he
looked at me irresolutely.

I answered cautiously that I was going to the town of Rosny.

'You are not from Paris?' he continued, still looking at me.

'No,' I answered. 'I am from the south.'

'From Blois, perhaps?'

I nodded.

'Ah!' he said, making no comment, which somewhat surprised me,
all men at this time desiring news, and looking to Blois for it.
'I am riding towards Rosny also. Let us be going.'

But I noticed that as we got to horse, the man he called Maignan
holding his stirrup with much formality, he turned and looked at
me more than once with an expression in his eye which I could not
interpret; so that, being in an enemy's country, where curiosity
was a thing to be deprecated, I began to feel somewhat uneasy.
However, as he presently gave way to a fit of laughter, and
seemed to be digesting his late diversion at the inn, I thought
no more of it, finding him excellent company and a man of
surprising information.

Notwithstanding this my spirits began to flag as I approached
Rosny; and as on such occasions nothing is more trying than the
well-meant rallying of a companion ignorant of our trouble, I
felt rather relief than regret when he drew rein at four cross-
roads a mile or so short of the town, and, announcing that here
our paths separated, took a civil leave of me, and went his way
with his servants.

I dismounted at an inn at the extremity of the town, and,
stopping only to arrange my dress and drink a cup of wine, asked
the way to the Chateau, which was situate, I learned, no more
than a third of a mile away. I went thither on foot by way of an
avenue of trees leading up to a drawbridge and gateway. The
former was down, but the gates were closed, and all the
formalities of a fortress in time of war were observed on my
admission, though the garrison appeared to consist only of two or
three serving-men and as many foresters. I had leisure after
sending in my name to observe that the house was old and partly
ruinous, but of great strength, covered in places with ivy, and
closely surrounded by woods. A staid-looking page came presently
to me, and led me up a narrow staircase to a parlour lighted by
two windows, looking, one into the courtyard, the other towards
the town. There a tall man was waiting to receive me, who rose
on my entrance and came forward. Judge of my surprise when I
recognised my acquaintance of the afternoon! 'M. de Rosny?' I
exclaimed, standing still and looking at him in confusion.

'The same, sir,' he answered, with a quiet smile. 'You come from
the King of Navarre, I believe? and on an errand to me. You may
speak openly. The king has no secrets from me.'

There was something in the gravity of his demeanour as he waited
for me to speak: which strongly impressed me; notwithstanding
that he was ten years younger than myself, and I had seen him so
lately in a lighter mood. I felt that his reputation had not
belied him--that here was a great man; and reflecting with
despair on the inadequacy of the tale I had to tell him, I paused
to consider in what terms I should begin. He soon put an end to
this, however. 'Come, sir,' he said with impatience. 'I have
told you that you may speak out. You should have been here four
days ago, as I take it. Now you are here, where is the lady?'

'Mademoiselle de la Vire?' I stammered, rather to gain time than
with any other object.

'Tut, tut!' he rejoined, frowning. 'Is there any other lady in
the question? Come, sir, speak out. Where have you left her?
This is no affair of gallantry,' he continued, the harshness of
his demeanour disagreeably surprising me, 'that you need beat
about the bush. The king entrusted to you a lady, who, I have no
hesitation in telling you now, was in possession of certain State
secrets. It is known that she escaped safely from Chize and
arrived safely at Blois. Where is she?'

'I would to Heaven I knew, sir!' I exclaimed in despair, feeling
the painfulness of my position increased a hundred fold by his
manner. 'I wish to God I did.'

'What is this?' he cried in a raised voice. 'You do not know
where she is? You jest, M. de Marsac.'

'It were a sorry jest,' I answered, summoning up a rueful smile.
And on that, plunging desperately into the story which I have
here set down, I narrated the difficulties under which I had
raised my escort, the manner in which I came to be robbed of the
gold token, how mademoiselle was trepanned, the lucky chance by
which I found her again, and the final disappointment. He
listened, but listened throughout with no word of sympathy--
rather with impatience, which grew at last into derisive
incredulity. When I had done he asked me bluntly what I called
myself.

Scarcely understanding what he meant, I repeated my name.

He answered, rudely and flatly, that it was impossible. I do not
believe it, sir!' he repeated, his brow dark. 'You are not the
man. You bring neither the lady nor the token, nor anything else
by which I can test your story. Nay, sir, do not scowl at me,'
he continued sharply. 'I am the mouthpiece of the King of
Navarre, to whom this matter is of the highest importance. I
cannot believe that the man whom he would choose would act so.
This house you prate of in Blois, for instance, and the room with
the two doors? What were you doing while mademoiselle was being
removed?'

'I was engaged with the men of the house,' I answered, striving
to swallow the anger which all but choked me. 'I did what I
could. Had the door given way, all would have been well.'

He looked at me darkly. 'That is fine talking!' he said with a
sneer. Then he dropped his eyes and seemed for a time to fall
into a brown study, while I stood before him, confounded by this
new view of the case, furious, yet not knowing how to vent my
fury, cut to the heart by his insults, yet without hope or
prospect of redress.

'Come' he said harshly, after two or three minutes of gloomy
reflection on his part and burning humiliation on mine, 'is there
anyone here who can identify you, or in any other way confirm
your story, sir? Until I know how the matter stands I can do
nothing.'

I shook my head in sullen shame. I might protest against his
brutality and this judgment of me, but to what purpose while he
sheltered himself behind his master?

'Stay!' he said presently, with an abrupt gesture of
remembrance. 'I had nearly forgotten. I have some here who have
been lately at the King of Navarre's Court at St. Jean d'Angely.
If you still maintain that you are the M. de Marsac to whom this
commission was entrusted, you will doubtless have no objection to
seeing them?'

On this I felt myself placed in a most cruel dilemma. if I
refused to submit my case to the proposed ordeal, I stood an
impostor confessed. If I consented to see these strangers, it
was probable they would not recognise me, and possible that they
might deny me in terms calculated to make my position even worse,
if that might be. I hesitated but, Rosny standing inexorable
before me awaiting an answer, I finally consented.

'Good!' he said curtly. 'This way, if you please. They are
here. The latch is tricky. Nay, sir, it is my house.'

Obeying the stern motion of his hand, I passed before him into
the next room, feeling myself more humiliated than I can tell by
this reference to strangers. For a moment I could see no one.
The day was waning, the room I entered was long and narrow, and
illuminated only by a glowing fire. Besides I was myself,
perhaps, in some embarrassment. I believed that my conductor had
made a mistake, or that his guests had departed, and I turned
towards him to ask for an explanation. He merely pointed
onwards, however, and I advanced; whereupon a young and handsome
lady, who had been seated in the shadow of the great fireplace,
rose suddenly, as if startled, and stood looking at me, the glow
of the burning wood falling on one side of her face and turning
her hair to gold.

'Well!' M. de Rosny said, in a voice which sounded a little odd
in my ears. 'You do not know madame, I think?'

I saw that she was a complete stranger to me, and bowed to her
without speaking. The lady saluted me in turn ceremoniously and
in silence.

'Is there no one else here who should know you?' M. de Rosny
continued, in a tone almost of persiflage, and with the same
change in his voice which had struck me before; but now it was
more marked. 'If not, M. de Marsac, I am afraid--But first look
round, look round, sir; I would not judge any man hastily.'

He laid his hand on my shoulder as he finished in a manner so
familiar and so utterly at variance with his former bearing that
I doubted if I heard or felt aright. Yet I looked mechanically
at the lady, and seeing that her eyes glistened in the firelight,
and that she gazed at me very kindly, I wondered still more;
falling, indeed, into a very confusion of amazement. This was
not lessened but augmented a hundredfold when, turning in
obedience to the pressure of de Rosny's hand, I saw beside me, as
if she had risen from the floor, another lady--no other than
Mademoiselle de la Vire herself! She had that moment stepped out
of the shadow of the great fireplace, which had hitherto hidden
her, and stood before me curtseying prettily, with the same look
on her face and in her eyes which madame's wore.

'Mademoiselle!' I muttered, unable to take my eyes from her.

'Mais oui, monsieur, mademoiselle,' she answered, curtseying
lower, with the air of a child rather than a woman.

'Here?' I stammered, my mouth open, my eyes staring.

'Here, sir--thanks to the valour of a brave man,' she answered,
speaking in a voice so low I scarcely heard her. And then,
dropping her eyes, she stepped back into the shadow, as if either
she had said too much already, or doubted her composure were she
to say more. She was so radiantly dressed, she looked in the
firelight more like a fairy than a woman, being of small and
delicate proportions; and she seemed in my eyes so different a
person, particularly in respect of the softened expression of
her features, from the Mademoiselle de la Vire whom I had known
and seen plunged in sloughs and bent to the saddle with fatigue,
that I doubted still if I had seen aright, and was as far from
enlightenment as before.

It was M. de Rosny himself who relieved me from the embarrassment
I was suffering. He embraced me in the most kind and obliging
manner, and this more than once; begging me to pardon the
deception he had practised upon me, and to which he had been
impelled partly by the odd nature of our introduction at the inn,
and partly by his desire to enhance the joyful surprise he had in
store for me. 'Come,' he said presently, drawing me to the
window, 'let me show you some more of your old friends.'

I looked out, and saw below me in the courtyard my three horses
drawn up in a row, the Cid being bestridden by Simon Fleix, who,
seeing me, waved a triumphant greeting. A groom stood at the
head of each horse, and on either side was a man with a torch.
My companion laughed gleefully. 'It was Maignan's arrangement,'
he said. 'He has a quaint taste in such things.'

After greeting Simon Fleix a hundred times, I turned back into
the room, and, my heart overflowing with gratitude and wonder, I
begged M. de Rosny to acquaint me with the details of
mademoiselle's escape.

'It was the most simple thing in the world,' he said, taking me
by the hand and leading me back to the hearth. 'While you were
engaged with the rascals, the old woman who daily brought
mademoiselle's food grew alarmed at the uproar, and came into the
room to learn what it was. Mademoiselle, unable to help you, and
uncertain of your success, thought the opportunity too good to be
lost. She forced the old woman to show her and her maid the way
out through the garden. This done, they ran down a lane, as I
understand, and came immediately upon the lad with the horses,
who recognised them and helped them to mount. They waited some
minutes for you, and then rode off.'

'But I inquired at the gate,' I said.

'At which gate?' inquired M. de Rosny, smiling.

'The North-gate, of course,' I answered.

'Just so,' he rejoined with a nod. 'But they went out through
the West-gate and made a circuit. He is a strange lad, that of
yours below there. He has a head on his shoulder, M. de Marsac.
Well, two leagues outside the town they halted, scarcely knowing
how to proceed. By good fortune, however, a horse-dealer of my
acquaintance was at the inn. He knew Mademoiselle de la Vire,
and, hearing whither she was bound, brought her hither without
let or hindrance.'

'Was he a Norman?' I asked,

M. de Rosny nodded, smiling at me shrewdly. 'Yes,' he said, 'he
told me much about you. And now let me introduce you to my wife,
Madame de Rosny.'

He led me up to the lady who had risen at my entrance, and who
now welcomed me as kindly as she had before looked on me, paying
me many pleasant compliments. I gazed at her with interest,
having heard much of her beauty and of the strange manner in
which M. de Rosny, being enamoured of two young ladies, and
chancing upon both while lodging in different apartments at an
inn, had decided which he should visit and make his wife. He
appeared to read what was in my mind, for as I bowed before her,
thanking her for the obliging things which she had uttered, and
which for ever bound me to her service, he gaily pinched her ear,
and said, 'When you want a good wife, M. de Marsac, be sure you
turn to the right.'

He spoke in jest, and having his own case only in his mind. But
I, looking mechanically in the direction he indicated, saw
mademoiselle standing a pace or two to my right in the shadow of
the great chimney-piece. I know not whether she frowned more or
blushed more; but this for certain, that she answered my look
with one of sharp displeasure, and, turning her back on me, swept
quickly from the room, with no trace in her bearing of that late
tenderness and gratitude which I had remarked.



CHAPTER XIII.

AT ROSNY.

The morning brought only fresh proofs of the kindness which M. de
Rosny had conceived for me. Awaking early I found on a stool
beside my clothes, a purse of gold containing a hundred crowns;
and a youth presently entering to ask me if I lacked anything, I
had at first some difficulty in recognising Simon Fleix, so
sprucely was the lad dressed, in a mode resembling Maignan's. I
looked at the student more than once before I addressed him by
his name; and was as much surprised by the strange change I
observed in him for it was not confined to his clothes--as by
anything which had happened since I entered the house. I rubbed
my eyes, and asked him what he had done with his soutane.
'Burned it, M. de Marsac,' he answered briefly.

I saw that he had burned much, metaphorically speaking, besides
his soutane. He was less pale, less lank, less wobegone than
formerly, and went more briskly. He had lost the air of crack-
brained disorder which had distinguished him, and was smart,
sedate, and stooped less. Only the odd sparkle remained in his
eyes, and bore witness to the same nervous, eager spirit within.

'What are you going to do, then, Simon?' I asked, noting these
changes curiously.

'I am a soldier,' he answered, 'and follow M. de Marsac.'

I laughed. 'You have chosen a poor service, I am afraid,' I
said, beginning to rise; 'and one, too, Simon, in which it is
possible you may be killed. I thought that would not suit you,'
I continued, to see what he would say. But he answered nothing,
and I looked at him in great surprise. 'You have made up your
mind, then, at last?' I said.

'Perfectly,' he answered.

'And solved all your doubts?'

'I have no doubts.'

'You are a Huguenot?'

'That is the only true and pure religion,' he replied gravely.
And with apparent sincerity and devotion he repeated Beza's
Confession of Faith.

This filled me with profound astonishment, but I said no more at
the time, though I had my doubts. I waited until I was alone
with M. de Rosny, and then I unbosomed myself on the matter;
expressing my surprise at the suddenness of the conversion, and
at such a man, as I had found the student to be, stating his
views so firmly and steadfastly, and with so little excitement.
Observing that M. de Rosny smiled but answered nothing, I
explained myself farther.

'I am surprised,' I said, 'because I have always heard it
maintained that clerkly men, becoming lost in the mazes of
theology, seldom find any sure footing; that not one in a hundred
returns to his old faith, or finds grace to accept a new one. I
am speaking only of such, of course, as I believe this lad to be
--eager, excitable brains, learning much, and without judgment to
digest what they learn.'

'Of such I also believe it to be true,' M. de Rosny answered,
still smiling. 'But even on them a little influence, applied at
the right moment, has much effect, M. de Marsac.'

'I allow that,' I said. 'But my mother, of whom I have spoken to
you, saw much of this youth. His fidelity to her was beyond
praise. Yet her faith, though grounded on a rock, had no weight
with him.'

M. de Rosny shook his head, still smiling.

'It is not our mothers who convert us,' he said.

'What!' I cried, my eyes opened. 'Do you mean--do you mean that
Mademoiselle has done this?'

'I fancy so,' he answered, nodding. 'I think my lady cast her
spell over him by the way. The lad left Blois with her, if what
you say be true, without faith in the world. He came to my hands
two days later the stoutest of Huguenots. It is not hard to read
this riddle.'

'Such, conversions are seldom lasting,' I said.

He looked at me queerly; and, the smile still hovering about his
lips, answered "Tush, man! Why so serious? Theodore Beza
himself could not look dryer. The lad is in earnest, and there
is no harm done.'

And, Heaven knows, I was in no mood to suspect harm; nor inclined
just then to look at the dark side of things. It may be
conceived how delightful it was to me to be received as an equal
and honoured guest by a man, even then famous, and now so grown
in reputation as to overshadow all Frenchmen save his master; how
pleasant to enjoy the comforts and amiabilities of home, from
which I had been long estranged; to pour my mother's story into
Madame's ears and find comfort in her sympathy; to feel myself,
in fine, once more a gentleman with an acknowledged place in the
world. Our days we spent in hunting, or excursions of some kind,
our evenings in long conversations, which impressed me with an
ever-growing respect for my lord's powers.

For there seemed to be no end either to his knowledge of France,
or to the plans for its development, which even then filled his
brain, and have since turned wildernesses into fruitful lands,
and squalid towns into great cities. Grave and formal, he could
yet unbend; the most sagacious of counsellors, he was a soldier
also, and loved the seclusion in which we lived the more that it
was not devoid of danger; the neighbouring towns being devoted to
the League, and the general disorder alone making it possible for
him to lie unsuspected in his own house.

One thing only rendered my ease and comfort imperfect, and that
was the attitude which Mademoiselle de la Vire assumed towards
me. Of her gratitude in the first blush of the thing I felt no
doubt, for not only had she thanked me very prettily, though with
reserve, on the evening of my arrival, but the warmth of M. de
Rosny's kindness left me no choice, save to believe that she had
given him an exaggerated idea of my merits and services. I asked
no more than this. Such good offices left me nothing to expect
or desire; my age and ill-fortune placing me at so great a
disadvantage that, far from dreaming of friendship or intimacy
with her, I did not even assume the equality in our daily
intercourse to which my birth, taken by itself, entitled me.
Knowing that I must appear in her eyes old, poor, and ill-
dressed, and satisfied, with having asserted my conduct and
honour, I was careful not to trespass on her gratitude; and while
forward in such courtesies as could not weary her, I avoided with
equal care every appearance of pursuing her, or inflicting my
company upon her. I addressed her formally and upon formal
topics only, such, I mean, as we shared with the rest of our
company; and I reminded myself often that though we now met in
the same house and at the same table, she was still the
Mademoiselle de la Vire who had borne herself so loftily in the
King of Navarre's ante-chamber. This I did, not out of pique or
wounded pride, which I no more, God knows, harboured against her
than against a bird; but that I might not in my new prosperity
forget the light in which such a woman, young, spoiled, and
beautiful, must still regard me.

Keeping to this inoffensive posture, I was the more hurt when I
found her gratitude fade with the hour. After the first two
days, during which I remarked that she was very silent, seldom
speaking to me or looking at me, she resumed much of her old air
of disdain. For that I cared little; but she presently went
farther, and began to rake up the incidents which had happened at
St. Jean d'Angely, and in which I had taken part. She
continually adverted to my poverty while there, to the odd figure
I had cut, and the many jests her friends had made at my expense.
She seemed to take a pleasure positively savage in these, gibing
at me sometimes so bitterly as to shame and pain me, and bring
the colour to Madame de Rosny's cheeks.

To the time we had spent together, on the other hand, she never
or rarely referred. One afternoon, however, a week after my
arrival at Rosny, I found her sitting alone in the parlour. I
had not known she was there, and I was for withdrawing at once
with a bow and a muttered apology. But she stopped me with an
angry gesture. 'I do not bite,' she said, rising from her stool
and meeting my eyes, a red spot in each cheek. 'Why do you look
at me like that? Do you know, M. de Marsac, that I have no
patience with you.' And she stamped her foot on the floor.

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