The Chaplet of Pearls, Charlotte M. Yonge [good beach reads TXT] 📗

course along the corridor, swiftly as a bird, Veronique following, and vainly shrieking to her to stop. Diane, appearing at the other end of the gallery, saw but for a moment the little figure, with the cloak gathered round her neck, and floating behind her, understood Veronique's cry and joined in the chase across hall and gallery, where more stains were to be seen, even down to the marble stairs, every step slippery with blood. Others there were who saw and stood aghast, not understanding the apparition that flitted on so swiftly, never pausing till at the great door at the foot of the stairs she encountered a gigantic Scottish archer, armed to the teeth. She touched his arm, and standing with folder arms, looked up and said, 'Good soldier, kill me! I am a Huguenots!'

'Stop her! bring her back!' cried Diane from behind. 'It is Mdlle. De Nil-de-Merle!'

'No, no! My husband is Huguenot! I am a Huguenot! Let them kill me, I say!'--struggling with Diane, who had now come up with her, and was trying to draw her back.

'Puir lassie!' muttered the stout Scotsman to himself, 'this fearsome night has driven her demented.'

But, like a true sentinel, he moved neither hand nor foot to interfere, as shaking herself loose from Diane, she was springing down the steps into the court, when at that moment the young Abbe de Mericour was seen advancing, pale, breathless, horrorstruck, and to him Diane shrieked to arrest the headlong course. He obeyed, seeing the wild distraction of the white face and widely glaring eyes, took her by both hands, and held her in a firm grasp, saying, 'Alas, lady, you cannot go out. It is no sight for any one.'

'They are killing the Protestants,' she said; 'I am one! Let me find them and die.'

A strong effort to free herself ensued, but it was so suddenly succeeded by a swoon that the Abbe could scarcely save her from dropping on the steps. Diane begged him to carry her in, since they were in full view of men-at-arms in the court, and, frightful to say, of some of the ladies of the palace, who, in the frenzy of that dreadful time, had actually come down to examine the half-stripped corpses of the men with whom they had jested not twelve hours before.

'Ah! it is no wonder,' said the youthful Abbe, as he tenderly lifted the inanimate figure. 'This has been a night of horrors. I was coming in haste to know whether the King knows of this frightful plot of M. de Guise, and the bloody work that is passing in Paris.'

'The King!' exclaimed Diane. 'M. l'Abbe, do you know where he is now? In the balcony overlooking the river, taking aim at the fugitives! Take care! Even your _soutane_ would not save you if M. d'O and his crew heard you. But I must pray you to aid me with this poor child! I dread that her wild cries should be heard.'

The Abbe, struck dumb with horror, silently obeyed Mdlle. De Ribaumont, and brought the still insensible Eustacie to the chamber, now deserted by all the young ladies. He laid her on her bed, and finding he could do no more, left her to her cousin and her maid.

The poor child had been unwell and feverish ever since the masque, and the suspense of these few days with the tension of that horrible night had prostrated her. She only awoke from her swoon to turn her head from the light and refuse to be spoken to.

'But, Eustacie, child, listen; this is all in vain--he lives,' said Diane.

'Weary me not with falsehoods,' faintly said Eustacie.

'No! no! no! They meant to hinder your flight, but---'

'They knew of it?' cried Eustacie, sitting up suddenly. 'Then you told them. Go--go; let me never see you more! You have been his death!'

'Listen! I am sure he lives! What! would they injure one whom my father loved? I heard my father say he would not have him hurt. Depend upon it, he is safe on his way to England.'

Eustacie gave a short but frightful hysterical laugh, and pointed to Veronique. 'She saw it,' she said; 'ask her.'

'Saw what?' said Diane, turning fiercely on Veronique. 'What vile deceit have you half killed your lady with?'

'Alas! Mademoiselle, I did but tell her what I had seen,' sighed Veronique, trembling.

'Tell me!' said Diane, passionately.

'Yes, everything,' said Eustacie, sitting up.

'Ah! Mademoiselle, it will make you ill again.'

'I WILL be ill--I WILL die! Heaven's slaying is better than man's. Tell her how you saw Narcisse.'

'False girl!' burst out Diane.

'No, no,' cried Veronique. 'Oh, pardon me, Mademoiselle, I could not help it.'

In spite of her reluctance, she was forced to tell that she had found herself locked out of her mistress's room, and after losing much time in searching for the CONCIERGE, learnt that the ladies were locked up by order of the Queen-mother, and was strongly advised not to be running about the passages. After a time, however, while sitting with the CONCIERGE'S wife, she heard such frightful whispers from men with white badges, who were admitted one by one by the porter, and all led silently to a small lower room, that she resolved on seeking out the Baron's servant, and sending him to warn his master, while she would take up her station at her lady's door. She found Osbert, and with him was ascending a narrow spiral leading from the offices--she, unfortunately, the foremost. As she came to the top, a scuffle was going on--four men had thrown themselves upon one, and a torch distinctly showed her the younger Chevalier holding a pistol to the cheek of the fallen man, and she heard the worlds, _'Le baiser d'Eustacie! Jet e barbouillerai ce chien de visage,'_ and at the same moment the pistol was discharged. She sprang back, oversetting, as she believed, Osbert, and fled shrieking to the room of the CONCIERGE, who shut her in till morning.

'And how--how,' stammered Diane, 'should you know it was the Baron?'

Eustacie, with a death-like look, showed for a moment what even in her swoon she had held clenched to her bosom, the velvet cap soaked with blood.

'Besides,' added Veronique, resolved to defend her assertion, 'whom else would the words suit? Besides, are not all the heretic gentlemen dead? Why, as I sat there in the porter's room, I heard M. d'O call each one of them by name, one after the other, into the court, and there the white-sleeves cut them down or pistolled them like sheep for the slaughter. They lie all out there on the terrace like so many carcases at market ready for winter salting.'

'All slain?' said Eustacie, dreamily.

'All, except those that the King called into his own _garde robe_.'

'Then, I slew him!' Eustacie sank back.

'I tell you, child,' said Diane, almost angrily, 'he lives. Not a hair of his head was to be hurt! The girl deceives you.'

But Eustacie had again become insensible, and awoke delirious, entreating to have the door opened, and fancying herself still on the revolving elysium, 'Oh, demons, have pity!' was her cry.

Diane's soothings were like speaking to the winds; and at last she saw the necessity of calling in further aid; but afraid of the scandal that the poor girl's raving accusations might create, she would not send for the Huguenots surgeon, Ambroise Pare, whom the King had carefully secured in his own apartments, but employed one of the barber valets of the Queen-mother's household. Poor Eustacie was well pleased to see her blood flowing, and sank back on her pillow murmuring that she had confessed her husband's faith, and would soon be one with him, and Diane feared for a moment lest the swoon should indeed be death.

The bleeding was so far effectual that it diminished the fever, and Eustacie became rational again when she had dozed and wakened, but she was little able or willing to speak, and would not so much as listen to Diane's asseverations that Veronique had made a frightful error, and that the Baron would prove to be alive. Whether it were that the admission that Diane had known of the project for preventing the elopement that invalidated her words, or whether the sufferer's instinct made her believe Veronique's testimony rather than her cousin's assurances, it was all 'cramming words into her ear against the stomach of her sense,' and she turned away from them with a piteous, petulant hopelessness: 'Could they not even let her alone to die in peace!'

Diane was almost angered at this little silly child being in such an agony of sorrow--she, who could never have known how to love him. And after all this persistent grief was willfully thrown away. For Diane spoke in perfect sincerity when she taxed Veronique with an injurious, barbarous mistake. She knew her father's strong aversion to violence, and the real predilection that Berenger's good mien, respectful manners, and liberal usage had won from him, and she believed he had much rather the youth lived, provided he were inoffensive. No doubt a little force had been necessary to kidnap one so tall, active, and determined, and Veronique had made up her horrible tale after the usual custom of waiting-maids.

Nothing else SHOULD be true. Did she think otherwise, she should be even more frantic than Eustacie! Why, it would be her own doing! She had betrayed the day of the escape--she had held aloof from warning. There was pleasure in securing Nid-de-Merle for her brother, pleasure in balking the foolish child who had won the heart that disregarded her. Nay, there might have been even pleasure in the destruction of the scorner of her charms--the foe of her house--there might have been pride in receiving Queen Catherine's dexterous hint that she had been an apt pupil, if the young Baron had only been something different--something less fair, gracious, bright, and pure. One bright angel seemed to have flitted across her path, and nothing should induce her to believe she had destroyed him.

The stripped corpses of the murdered Huguenots of the palace had been laid in a line on the terrace, and the ladies who had laughed with them the night before went to inspect them in death. A few remnants of Soeur Monique's influence would have withheld Diane, but that a frenzy of suspense was growing on her. She must see for herself. If it were so, she must secure a fragment of the shining flaxen hair, if only as a token that anything so pure and bright had walked the earth.

She went on the horrible quest, shrinking where others stared. For it was a pitiless time, and the squadron of the Queen-mother were as lost to womanhood as the fishwomen of two centuries later. But Diane saw no corpse at once so tall, so young, and so fair, though blond Normans and blue-blooded Franks, lads scarce sixteen and stalwart warriors, lay in one melancholy rank. She at least bore away the certainly that the English Ribaumont was not there; and if not, he MUST be safe! She could obtain no further certainty, for she knew that she must not expect to see either her father or brother. There was a panic throughout the city. All Paris imagined that the Huguenots were on the point of rising and slaying all the Catholics, and, with the savagery of alarmed cowardice, the citizens and the mob were assisting the armed bands of the Dukes of Anjou and Guise to complete the slaughter, dragging their lodgers from