'Woman, you speak as if you knew not the
blow to this family, and to all who hoped for better days. What,
that my Lady, the heiress, who ought to be in a bed of state, with
velvet curtains, lace pillows, gold caudle-cups, should be here in
a vile ruin, among owls and bats, like any beggar, and all for the
sake, not of a young Lord to raise up the family, but of a
miserable little girl! Had I known how it would turn out, I had
never meddled in this mad scheme.'
Before Nanon could express her indignation, Eustacie had turned her
head opened her eyes, and called out, 'Miserable! Oh! what do you
mean? Oh, it is true, Nanon? is it well with her?
'As well as heart could wish,' answered Nanon, cheerily. 'Small,
but a perfect little piece of sugar. There, Lady, she shall speak
for herself.'
And as Nanon laid the babe on the young mother's bosom, the
thrilling touch at once put an end to all the repinings of the
heiress, and awoke far other instincts.
'My child! my little one, my poor little orphan--all cruel to her!
Oh, no welcome even from thy mother! Babe, babe, pardon me, I will
make it up to thee; indeed I will! Oh! let me see her! Do not
take her away, dear good woman, only hold her in the moonlight!'
The full rays of the moon, shining through the gable window,
streamed down very near where Eustacie lay, and by a slight
movement Dame Rotrou was able to render the little face as
distinctly visible to her as if it had been daylight, save that the
blanching light was somewhat embellishing to the new-born
complexion, and increased that curious resemblance so often borne
for the first few hours of life to the future self. Eustacie's cry
at once was, 'Himself, himself--his very face! Let me have her, my
own moonbeam--his child--my joy!'
The tears, so long denied, rushed down like summer rain as she
clasped the child in her arms. Dame Perrine wandered to and fro,
like one beside herself, not only at her Lady's wretched
accommodations, but at the ill omens of the moonlight illumination,
of the owls who snapped and hissed incessantly over the hay, and
above all the tears over the babe's face. She tried to remonstrate
with Eustacie, but was answered only, 'Let me weep! Oh, let me
weep! It eases my heart! It cannot hurt my little one! She
cannot weep for her father herself, so I must weep for her.'
The weeping was gentle, not violent; and Dame Rotrou thought it did
good rather than harm. She was chiefly anxious to be quit of
Perrine, who, however faithful to the Lady of Ribaumont, must not
be trusted to learn the way to this Huguenot asylum, and must be
escorted back by Rotrou ere peep of dawn. The old woman knew that
her own absence from home would be suspicious, and with many
grumblings submitted; but first she took the child from Eustacie's
reluctant arms, promising to restore her in a few moments, after
finishing dressing her in the lace-edged swaddling bands so
carefully preserved ever since Eustacie's own baby hood. In these
moments she had taken them all by surprise by, without asking any
questions, sprinkling the babe with water, and baptizing her by the
hereditary name of Berangere, the feminine of the only name
Eustacie had always declared her son should bear. Such baptisms
were not unfrequently performed by French nurses, but Eustacie
exclaimed with a sound half dismay, half indignation.
'Eh quoi!' said Perrine, 'it is only ondoyee. You can have all
the ceremonies if ever time shall fit; but do you think I could
leave my Lady's child--mere girl though it be--alone with owls, and
follets, and REVENANTS, and heretics, and she unbaptized? She
would be a changeling long ere morning, I trow.'
'Come, good woman,' said Rotrou, from between the trusses of hay at
the entrance; 'you and I must begin our Colin-Mail-lard again, or
it may be the worse for us both.'
And with the promise of being conducted to Eustacie again in three
nights' time, if she would meet her guide at the cross-roads after
dark, Perrine was forced to take her leave. She had never
suspected that all this time Maitre Gardon had been hidden in the
refectory below, and still less did she guess that soon after her
departure the old man was installed as her Lady's chief attendant.
It was impossible that Nanon should stay with Eustacie; she had her
day's work to attend to, and her absence would have excited
suspicion. He, therefore, came partly up the stairs, and calling
to Nanon, proffered himself to sit with 'cette pauvre,' and make
a signal in case Nanon should be wanted. The good woman was thus
relieved of a great care. She would not have dared to ask it of
him, but with a low reverence, she owned that it was an act of
great charity towards the poor lady, who, she hoped, was falling
into a tranquil sleep, but who she would hardly have dared to
leave. The pastor, though hardships, battles, and persecutions had
left him childless, had been the father of a large family; and
perhaps he was drawn the more strongly towards the mother and
child, because he almost felt as if, in fulfilling the part of a
father towards the widow of Berenger de Ribaumont, he was taking
her in the stead of the widow of his own Theodore.
Had the little Baronne de Ribaumont been lodged in a tapes-tried
chamber, between curtains of velvet and gold, with a beauffet by
her side glistening with gold and silver plate, as would have
befitted her station, instead of lying on a bed of straw, with no
hangings to the walls save cobwebs and hay, and wallflowers, no
beauffet but the old rickety table, no attendants but Nanon and
M. Gardon, no visitors but the two white owls, no provisions save
the homely fare that rustic mothers lived upon--neither she nor her
babe could have thriven better, and probably not half so well. She
had been used to a hardy, out-of-door life, like the peasant women;
and she was young and strong, so that she recovered as they did.
If the April shower beat in at the window, or the hole in the roof,
they made a screen of canvas, covered her with cloaks, and heaped
them with hay, and she took no harm; and the pure open air that
blew in was soft with all the southern sweetness of early spring-
tide, and the little one throve in it like the puff-ball owlets in
the hayloft, or the little ring-doves in the ivy, whose parent's
cooing voice was Eustacie's favourite music. Almost as good as
these her fellow-nestlings was the little Moonbeam, la petite
Rayonette, as Eustacie fondly called this light that had come back
to her from the sunshine she had lost. Had she cried or been heard,
the sounds would probably have passed for the wailings of the
ghostly victims of the Templars, but she exercised an exemplary
forbearance in that respect, for which Eustacie thought she could
not be sufficiently admired.
Like the child she was, Eustacie seemed to have put care from her,
and to be solely taken up with the baby, and the amusement of
watching the owl family.
There was a lull in the search at this moment, for the Chevalier
had been recalled to Paris by the fatal illness of his son-in-law,
M. de Selinvine. The old soldier, after living half his life on
bread and salad, that he might keep up a grand appearance at Paris,
had, on coming into the wealth of the family, and marrying a
beautiful wife, returned to the luxuries he had been wont only to
enjoy for a few weeks at a time, with in military occupation of
some Italian town. Three months of festivities had been enough to
cause his death; and the Chevalier was summoned to assist his
daughter in providing for his obsequies, and in taking possession
of the huge endowments which, as the last of his race, he had been
able to bequeath to her. Such was the news brought by the old
nurse Perrine, who took advantage of the slackening vigilance of
the enemy to come to see Eustacie. The old woman was highly
satisfied; for one of the peasants' wives had--as if on purpose to
oblige her Lady--given birth to twins, one of whom had died almost
immediately; and the parents had consented to conceal their loss,
and at once take the little Demoiselle de Ribaumont as their own--
guarding the secret till her mother should be able to claim her.
It was so entirely the practice, under the most favourable
circumstances, for French mothers to send their infants to be
nursed in cottages, that Perrine was amazed by the cry of angry
refusal that burst from Eustacie: 'Part with my child! leave her
to her enemies!--never! never! Hold your tongue, Perrine! I will
not hear of such a thing!'
'But, Madame, hear reason. She will pass for one of Simonette's!'
'She shall pass for none but mine!--I part with thee, indeed! All
that is left me of thy father!--the poor little orphaned innocent,
that no one loves but her mother!'
'Madame--Mademoiselle, this is not common sense! Why, how can you
hide yourself? how travel with a baby on your neck, whose crying
may betray you?'
'She never cries--never, never! And better I were betrayed than
she.'
'If it were a boy---' began Perrine.
'If it were a boy, there would be plenty to care for it. I should
not care for it half so much. As for my poor little lonely girl,
whom every one wishes away but her mother--ah! yes, baby, thy
mother will go through fire and water for thee yet. Never fear,
thou shalt not leave her!'
'No nurse can go with Madame. Simonette could not leave her home.'
'What needs a nurse when she has me?'
'But, Madame,' proceeded the old woman, out of patience, 'you are
beside yourself! What noble lady ever nursed her babe?'
'I don't care noble ladies--I care for my child,' said the
vehement, petulant little thing.
'And how--what good will Madame's caring for it do? What knows she
of infants? How can she take care of it?'
'Our Lady will teach me,' said Eustacie, still pressing the child
passionately to her heart; 'and see--the owl--the ring-dove--can
take care of their little ones; the good God shows them how--He
will tell me how!'
Perrine regarded her Lady much as if she were in a naughty fit,
refusing unreasonably to part with a new toy, and Nanon Rotrou was
much of the same mind; but it was evident that if at the moment
they attempted to carry off the babe, the other would put herself
into an agony of passion, that they durst not call forth; and they
found it needful to do their best to soothe her out of the deluge
of agitated tears that fell from her eyes, as she grasped the child
so convulsively that she might almost have stifled it at once.
They assured her that they would not take it away now--not now, at
any rate; and when the latent meaning made her fiercely insist that
it was to leave her neither now nor ever, Perrine made pacifying
declarations that it should be just as she pleased--promises that
she knew well, when in that coaxing voice, meant nothing at all.
Nothing calmed her till Perrine had been conducted away; and even
then Nanon could not hush her into anything like repose, and at
last called in the minister, in despair.
'Ah! sir, you are a wise man; can you find how to quiet the poor
little thing? Her nurse has nearly driven her distracted with
talking of the foster-parents she has found for the child.'
'Not found!' cried Eustacie. 'No, for she shall never go!'
'There!' lamented Nanon--'so she agitates herself, when it is but
spoken of. And surely she had better make up her mind, for there
is no other choice.'
'Nay, Nanon,' said M. Gardon, 'wherefore should she part with the
charge that God has laid on her?'
Eustacie gave a little cry of grateful joy. 'Oh, sir, come nearer!
Do you, indeed, say that they have no right to tear her from me?'
'Surely not, Lady. It is you whose duty it is to shield and guard
her.'
'Oh, sir, tell me again! Yours is the right religion. Oh, you are
the minister for me! If you will tell me I ought to keep my child,
then I will believe everything else. I will do just as you tell
me.' And she stretched out both hands to him, with vehement
eagerness.
'Poor thing! This is no matter of one religion or another,' said
the minister; 'it is rather the duty that the Almighty hath
imposed, and that He hath made an eternal joy.'
'Truly,' said Nanon, ashamed at having taken the other side: 'the
good pasteur says what is according to nature. It would have
gone hard with me if any one had wished to part me from Robin or
Sara; but these fine ladies, and, for that matter, BOURGEOISES too,
always do put out their babes; and it seemed to me that Madame
would find it hard to contrive for herself--let alone the little
one.'
'Ah! but what would be the use of contriving for myself, without
her?' said Eustacie.
If all had gone well and prosperously with Madame de Ribaumont,
probably she would have surrendered an infant born in purple and in
pall to the ordinary lot of its contemporaries; but the exertions
and suffering she had undergone on behalf of her child, its
orphanhood, her own loneliness, and even the general disappointment
in its sex, had given it a hold on her vehement, determined heart,
that intensified to the utmost the instincts of motherhood; and she
listened as if to an angle's voice as Maitre Gardon replied to
Nanon--
'I say not that it is not the custom; nay, that my blessed wife and
myself have not followed it; but we have so oft had cause to repent
the necessity, that far be it from me ever to bid a woman forsake
her sucking child.'
'Is that Scripture?' asked Eustacie. 'Ah! sir, sir, tell me more!
You are giving me all--all--my child! I will be--I am--a Huguenot
like her father! and, when my vassals come, I will make them ride
with you to La Rochelle, and fight in your cause!'
'Nay,' said Maitre Gardon, taken by surprise; 'but, Lady, your
vassals are Catholic.'
'What matters it? In my cause they shall fight!' said the feudal
Lady, 'for me and my daughter!'
And as the pastor uttered a sound of interrogative astonishment,
she continued--
'As soon as I am well enough, Blaise will send out messages, and
they will meet me at midnight at the cross-roads, Martin and all,
for dear good Martin is quite well now, and we shall ride across
country, avoiding towns, wherever I choose to lead them. I had
thought of Chantilly, for I know M. de Montmorency would stand my
friend against a Guisard; but now, now I know you, sir, let me
escort you to La Rochelle, and do your cause service worthy of Nid
de Merle and Ribaumont!' And as she sat up on her bed, she held up
her little proud head, and waved her right hand with the grace and
dignity of a queen offering an alliance of her realm.
Maitre Gardon, who had hitherto seen her as a childish though
cheerful and patient sufferer, was greatly amazed, but he could not
regard her project as practicable, or in his conscience approve it;
and after a moment's consideration he answered, 'I am a man of
peace, Lady, and seldom side with armed men, nor would I lightly
make one of those who enroll themselves against the King.'
'Not after all the Queen-mother had done!' cried Eustacie.
'Martyrdom is better than rebellion,' quietly answered the old man,
folding his hands. Then he added 'Far be it from me to blame those
who have drawn the sword for the faith; yet, Lady, it would not be
even thus with your peasants; they might not follow you.'
'Then,' said Eustacie, with flashing eyes, 'they would be
traitors.'
'Not to the King,' said the pastor, gently. 'Also, Lady, how will
it be with their homes and families--the hearths that have given
you such faithful shelter?'
'The women would take to the woods,' readily answered she; 'it is
summer-time, and they should be willing to bear something for my
sake. I should grieve indeed,' she added, 'if my uncle misused
them. They have been very good to me, but then they belong to me.'
'Ah! Lady, put from you that hardening belief of seigneurs. Think
what their fidelity deserves from their Lady.'
'I will be good to them! I do love them! I will be their very
good mistress,' said Eustacie, her eyes filling.
'The question is rather of forbearing than of doing,' said the
minister.
'But what would you have me do?' asked Eustacie, petulantly.
'This, Lady. I gather that you would not return to your
relations.'
'Never! never! They would rend my babe from me; they would kill
her, or at least hide her for ever in a convent--they would force
me into this abhorrent marriage. No--no--no--my child and I would
die a hundred deaths together rather than fall into the hands of
Narcisse.'
'Calm yourself, Lady; there is no present fear, but I deem that the
safest course for the little one would be to place her in England.
She must be heiress to lands and estates there; is she not?'
'Yes; and in Normandy.'
'And your husband's mother lives? Wherefore then should you not
take me for your guide, and make your way--more secretly than would
be possible with a peasant escort--to one of your Huguenot towns on
the coast, whence you could escape with the child to England?'
'My belle-mere has re-married! She has children! I would not
bring the daughter of Ribaumont as a suppliant to be scorned!' said
Eustacie, pouting. 'She has lands enough of her own.'
'There is no need to discuss the question now,' said M. Gardon,
gravely; for a most kind offer, involving much peril and
inconvenience to himself, was thus petulantly flouted. 'Madame
will think at her leisure of what would have been the wishes of
Monsieur le Baron for his child.'
He then held himself aloof, knowing that it was not well for her
health, mental or bodily, to talk any more, and a good deal
perplexed himself by the moods of his strange little impetuous
convert, if convert she could be termed. He himself was a deeply
learned scholar, who had studied all the bearings of the
controversy; and, though bound to the French Reformers who would
gladly have come to terms with the Catholics at the Conference of
Plassy, and regretted the more decided Calvinism that his party had
since professed, and in which the Day of St. Bartholomew confirmed
them. He had a strong sense of the grievous losses they suffered
by their disunion from the Church. The Reformed were less and less
what his ardent youthful hopes had trusted to see them; and in his
old age he was a sorrow-stricken man, as much for the cause of
religion as for personal bereavements. He had little desire to win
proselytes, but rather laid his hand to build up true religion
where he found it suffering shocks in these unsettled, neglected
times; and his present wish was rather to form and guide this
little willful warm-hearted mother--whom he could not help
regarding with as much affection as pity--to find a home in the
Church that had been her husband's, than to gain her to his own
party. And most assuredly he would never let her involve herself,
as she was ready to do, in the civil war, without even knowing the
doctrine which grave and earnest men had preferred to their
loyalty.
He could hear her murmuring to her baby, 'No, no, little one, we
are not fallen so low as to beg our bread among strangers.' To
live upon her own vassals had seemed to her only claiming her just
rights, but it galled her to think of being beholden to stranger
Huguenots; and England and her mother-in-law, without Berenger,
were utterly foreign and distasteful to her.
Her mood was variable. Messages from Blaise and Martin came and
went, and it became known that her intended shelter at Chollet,
together with all the adjacent houses, had been closely searched by
the younger Ribaumont in conjunction with the governor; so that it
was plain that some treachery must exist, and that she only owed
her present freedom to her detention in the ruined temple; and it
would be necessary to leave that as soon as it was possible for her
to attempt the journey.
The plan that seemed most feasible to the vassals was, that Rotrou
should convey her in a cart of fagots as far as possible on the
road to Paris; that there his men should meet her by different
roads, riding their farm-horses--and Martin even hoped to be able
to convey her own palfrey to her from the monastery stable, and
thence, taking a long stretch across country, they trusted to be
able to reach the lands of a dependant of the house of Montmorency,
who would not readily yield her up to a Guise's man. But, whether
instigated by Perrine, or by their own judgment, the vassals
declared that, though Madame should be conducted wherever she
desired, it was impossible to encumber themselves with the infant.
Concealment would be impossible; rough, hasty rides would be
retarded, her difficulties would be tenfold increased, and the
little one would become a means of tracing her. There was no
choice but to leave it with Simonette.
Angrily and haughtily did Eustacie always reject this alternative,
and send fresh commands back by her messenger, to meet the same
reply in another form. The strong will and practical resolution of
the stout farmers, who were about to make a terrible venture for
her, and might reasonably think they had a right to prescribe the
terms that they thought best. All this time Maitre Gardon felt it
impossible to leave her, still weak and convalescent, alone in the
desolate ruin with her young child; though still her pride would
not bend again to seek the counsel that she had so much detested,
nor to ask for the instruction that was to make her 'believe like
her husband.' If she might not fight for the Reformed, it seemed
as if she would none of their doctrine!
But, true lady that she was, she sunk the differences in her
intercourse with him. She was always prettily and affectionately
grateful for every service that he rendered her, and as graciously
polite as though she had been keeping house in the halls of
Ribaumont. Then her intense love for her child was so beautiful,
and there was so much sweetness in the cheerful patience with which
she endured the many hardships of her situation, that he could not
help being strongly interested in the willful, spirited little
being.
And thus time passed, until one night, when Martin ventured over
the farm with a report so serious that Rotrou, at all risks,
brought him up to communicate his own tidings. Some one had given
information, Veronique he suspected, and the two Chevaliers were
certainly coming the next day to search with fire the old buildings
of the temple. It was already dawning towards morning, and it
would be impossible to do more at present than to let Rotrou build
up the lady in a vault, some little way off, whence, after the
search was over, she could be released, and join her vassals the
next night according to the original design.
As to the child, her presence in the vault was impossible, and
Martin had actually brought her intended nurse, Simonette, to
Rotrou's cottage to receive her.
'Never!' was all Eustacie answered. 'Save both of us, or neither.'
'Lady,' said M. Gardon as she looked towards him, 'I go my way with
my staff.'
'And you--you more faithful than her vassals--will let me take
her?'
'Assuredly.'
'Then, sir, even to the world's end will I go with you'
Martin would have argued, have asked, but she would not listen to
him. It was Maitre Gardon who made him understand the project.
There was what in later times has been termed an underground
railway amid the persecuted Calvinists, and M. Gardon knew his
ground well enough to have little doubt of being able to conduct
the lady safely to some town on the coast, whence she might reach
her friends in England. The plan highly satisfied Martin. It
relieved him and his neighbours from the necessity of provoking
perilous wrath, and it was far safer for her herself than
endeavouing to force her way with an escort too large not to
attract notice, yet not warlike enough for efficient defence. He
offered no further opposition, but augured that after all she would
come back a fine lady, and right them all.
Eustacie, recovering from her anger, and recollecting his services,
gave him her hand to kiss, and bade him farewell with a sudden
effusion of gratitude and affection that warmed the honest fellow's
heart. Rewards could not be given, lest they should become a clue
for her uncle; and perhaps they would have wounded both him and
their kind hosts, who did their best to assist her in their
departure. A hasty meal was provided by Nanon, and a basket so
stored as to obviate the need of entering a village, on that day at
least, to purchase provisions; Eustacie's money and jewels again
formed the nucleus of the bundle of clothes and spare swaddling-
banks of her babe; her peasant dress was carefully arranged--a
stout striped cloth skit and black bodice, the latter covered by a
scarlet Chollet kerchief. The winged white cap entirely hid her
hair; a gray cloak with a hood could either fold round her and her
child or be strapped on her shoulders. Her sabots were hung on
her shoulder, for she had learnt to go barefoot, and walked much
more lightly thus; and her little bundle was slung on a staff on
the back of Maitre Gardon, who in his great peasant's hat and coat
looked so like a picture of St. Joseph, that Eustacie, as the light
of the rising sun fell on his white beard and hair, was reminded of
the Flight into Egypt, and came close to him, saying shyly, 'Our
Blessed Lady will bless and feel for my baby. She knows what this
journey is.'
'The Son of the Blessed Mary assuredly knows and blesses,' he
answered.