The Chaplet of Pearls, Charlotte M. Yonge [superbooks4u .TXT] 📗

round it, in the alleys, in a tumult of amazement and indignation. He had been shamefully deceived and cheated, and justice he would have! He had been deprived of a thing of his own, and he would assert his right. He had been made to injure and disown the creature he was bound to protect, and he must console her and compensate to her, were it only to redeem his honour. He never even thought whether he loved her; he merely felt furious at the wrong he had suffered and been made to commit, and hotly bent on recovering what belonged to him. He might even have plunged down among the ladies and claimed her as his wife, if the young Abbe de Mericour, who was two years older than he, and far less of a boy for his years, had not joined him in his agitated walk. He then learnt that all the court knew that the daughter of the late Marquis de Nid-de-Merle, Comte de Ribaumont, was called by his chief title, but that her marriage to himself had been forgotten by some and unknown to others, and thus that the first error between the cousins had not been wonderful in a stranger, since the Chevalier’s daughter had always been Mdlle. de Ribaumont. The error once made, Berenger’s distaste to Diane had been so convenient that it had been carefully encouraged, and the desire to keep him at a distance from court and throw him into the background was accounted for. The Abbe was almost as indignant as Berenger, and assured him both of his sympathy and his discretion.

‘I see no need for discretion,’ said Berenger. ‘I shall claim my wife in the face of the sun.’

‘Take counsel first, I entreat,’ exclaimed Mericour. ‘The Ribaumonts have much influence with the Guise family, and now you have offended Monsieur.’

‘Ah! Where are those traitorous kinsmen?’ cried Berenger.

‘Fortunately all are gone on an expedition with the Queen-mother. You will have time to think. I have heard my brother say no one ever prospered who offended the meanest follower of the house of Lorraine.’

‘I do not want prosperity, I only want my wife. I hope I shall never see Paris and its deceivers again.’

‘Ah! But is it true that you have applied to have the marriage annulled at Rome?’

‘We were both shamefully deceivers. That can be nothing.’

‘A decree of his Holiness: you a Huguenot; she an heiress. All is against you. My friend, be cautions, exclaimed the young ecclesiastic, alarmed by his passionate gestures. ‘To break forth now and be accused of brawling in the palace precincts would be fatal—fatal—most fatal!’

‘I am as calm as possible,’ returned Berenger. ‘I mean to act most reasonably. I shall stand before the King and tell him openly how I have been tamperes with, demanding my wife before the whole court.’

‘Long before you could get so far the ushers would have dragged you away for brawling, or for maligning an honour-able gentlemen. You would have to finish your speech in the Bastille, and it would be well if even your English friends could get you out alive.’

‘Why, what a place is this!’ began Berenger; but again Mericour entreated him to curb himself; and his English education had taught him to credit the house of Guide with so much mysterious power and wickedness, that he allowed himself to be silenced, and promised to take no open measures till he had consulted the Ambassador.

‘He could not obtain another glimpse of Eustacie, and the hours passed tardily till the break up of the party. Charles could scarcely release Sidney from his side, and only let him go on condition that he should join the next day in an expedition to the hunting chateau of Montpipeau, to which the King seemed to look forward as a great holiday and breathing time.

When at length the two youths did return, Sir Francis Walsingham was completely surprised by the usually tractable, well-behaved stripling, whose praises he had been writing to his old friend, bursting in on him with the outcry, ‘Sir, sir, I entreat your counsel! I have been foully cozened.’

‘Of how much?’ said Sir Francis, in a tone of reprobation.

‘Of my wife. Of mine honour. Sir, your Excellency, I crave pardon, if I spoke too hotly,’ said Berenger, collecting himself; ‘but it is enough to drive a man to frenzy.’

‘Sit down, my Lord de Ribaumont. Take breath, and let me know what is this coil. What hath thus moved him, Mr. Sidney?’

‘It is as he says, sir,’ replied Sidney, who had beard all as they returned; ‘he has been greatly wronged. The Chevalier de Ribaumont not only writ to propose the separation without the lady’s knowledge, but imposed his own daughter on our friend as the wife he had not seen since infancy.’

‘There, sir,’ broke forth Berenger; ‘surely if I claim mine own in the face of day, no man can withhold her from me!’

‘Hold!’ said Sir Francis. ‘What mean this passion, young sir? Methought you came hither convinced that both the religion and the habits in which the young lady had been bred up rendered your infantine contract most unsuitable. What hath fallen out to make this change in your mind?’

‘That I was cheated, sir. The lady who palmed herself off on me as my wife was a mere impostor, the Chevalier’s own daughter!’

‘That may be; but what known you of this other lady? Has she been bred up in faith or manners such as your parents would have your wife?’

‘She is my wife,’ reiterated Berenger. ‘My faith is plighted to her. That is enough for me.’

Sir Francis made a gesture of despair. ‘He has seen her, I suppose,’ said he to Sidney.

‘Yes truly, sir,’ answered Berenger; ‘and found that she had been as greatly deceived as myself.’

‘Then mutual consent is wanting,’ said the statesman, gravely musing.

‘That is even as I say,’ began Berenger, but Walsingham help up his hand, and desired that he would make his full statement in the presence of his tutor. Then sounding a little whistle, the Ambassador despatched a page to request the attendance of Mr. Adderley, and recommended young Ribaumont in the meantime to compose himself.

Used to being under authority as Berenger was, the somewhat severe tone did much to allay his excitement, and remind him that right and reason were so entirely on his side, that he had only to be cool and rational to make them prevail. He was thus able to give a collected and coherent account of his discovery that the part of his wife had been assumed by her cousin Diane, and that the signature of both the young pair to the application to the Pope had been obtained on false pretences. That he had, as Sidney said, been foully cozened, in both senses of the word, was as clear as daylight; but he was much angered and disappointed to find that neither the Ambassador nor his tutor could see that Eustacie’s worthiness was proved by the iniquity of her relation, or that any one of the weighty reasons for the expediency of dissolving the marriage was remove. The whole affair had been in such good train a little before, that Mr. Adderley