The cream tarts with pepper in them.--ARABIAN NIGHTS.
Hope, spring, and recovery carried the young Baronde Ribaumont on
his journey infinitely better than his companions had dared to
expect. He dreaded nothing so much as being overtaken by those
tidings which would make King Charles's order mere waste paper; and
therefore pressed on with little regard to his own fatigue,
although happily with increasing strength, which carried him a
further stage every day.
Lucon was a closely-guarded, thoroughly Catholic city, and his
safe-conduct was jealously demanded; but the name of Ribaumont
silenced all doubt. 'A relation, apparently, of M. de Nid de
Merle,' said the officer on guard, and politely invited him to
dinner and bed at the castle; but these he thought it prudent to
decline, explaining that he brought a letter from the King to the
Mother Prioress.
The convent walls were pointed out to him, and he only delayed at
the inn long enough to arrange his dress as might appear to the
Abbess most respectful, and, poor boy, be least likely to startle
the babe on whom his heart was set. At almost every inn, the
little children had shrieked and run from his white and gashed
face, and his tall, lank figure in deep black; and it was very
sadly that he said to Philip, 'You must come with me. If she turns
from me as an ogre, your bright ruddy face will win her.
The men were left at the inn with charge to let Guibert speak for
them, and to avoid showing their nationality. The three months of
Paris, and the tailors there, had rendered Philip much less
conspicuous than formerly; but still people looked at him narrowly
as he followed his brother along the street. The two lads had made
up their minds to encumber themselves with no nurses, or womanfolk.
The child should be carried, fondled, and fed by her boy-father
alone. He believed that, when he once held her in his arms, he
should scarcely even wish to give her up to any one else; and, in
his concentration of mind, had hardly thought of all the
inconveniences and absurdities that would arise; but, really, was
chiefly occupied by the fear that she would not at first let him
take her in his arms, and hold her to his heart.
Philip, a little more alive to the probabilities, nevertheless was
disposed to regard them as 'fun and pastime.' He had had many a
frolic with his baby-sisters, and this would be only a prolonged
one; besides, it was 'Berry's' one hope, and to rescue any creature
from a convent was a good work, in his Protestant eyes, which had
not become a whit less prejudiced at Paris. So he was quite
prepared to take his full share of his niece, or more, if she
should object to her father's looks, and he only suggested halting
at an old woman's stall to buy some sweetmeats by way of
propitiation--a proceeding which much amazed the gazing population
of Lucon. Two reports were going about, one that the King had
vowed a silver image of himself to St. Ursula, if her Prioress
would obtain his recovery by their prayers; the other that he was
going to translate her to the royal Abbey of Fontevrault to take
charge of his daughter, Madame Elisabeth. Any way, high honour by
a royal messenger must be intended to the Prioress, Mere Monique,
and the Luconnais were proud of her sanctity.
The portress had already heard the report, and opened her wicket
even before the bell could be rung, then eagerly ushered him into
the parlour, the barest and most ascetic-looking of rooms, with a
boarded partition across, unenlivened except by a grated hollow,
and the outer portion empty, save of a table, three chairs, and a
rugged woodcut of a very tall St. Ursula, with a crowd of pigmy
virgins, not reaching higher than the ample hem of her petticoat.
'Did Aunt Cecily live in such a place as this?' exclaimed Philip,
gazing round; 'or do they live on the fat among down cushions
inside there?
'Hush--sh,' said Berenger, frowning with anxiety; for a rustling
was heard behind the screen, and presently a black veil and white
scapulary appeared, and a sweet calm voice said, 'Peace be with
you, sir; what are your commands?
Berenger bowed low, and replied, 'Thanks, reverend Lady; I bring a
letter from the King, to request your aid in a matter that touches
me nearly.
'His Majesty shall be obeyed. Come you from him?
He was forced to reply to her inquiries after the poor King's
health before she opened the letter, taking it under her veil to
read it; so that as he stood, trembling, almost sickening with
anxiety, and scarcely able to breathe, he could see nothing but the
black folds; and at her low murmured exclamation he started as if
at a cannon-shot.
'De Ribaumont!' she said; 'can it be--the child--of--of--out poor
dear little pensionnaire at Bellaise?
'It is--it is!' cried Berenger. 'O Madame, you knew her at
Bellaise?
'Even so,' replied the Prioress, who was in fact the Soeur Monique
so loved and regretted by Eustacie. 'I loved and prayed for her
with all my heart when she was claimed by the world. Heaven's will
be done; but the poor little thing loved me, and I have often
thought that had I been still at Bellaise when she returned she
would not have fled. But of this child I have no knowledge.
'You took charge of the babes of La Sablerie, Madame,' said
Berenger, almost under his breath.
'Her infant among those poor orphans!' exclaimed the Prioress, more
and more startled and amazed.
'If it be anywhere in this life, it is in your good keeping,
Madame,' said Berenger, with tears in his eyes. 'Oh! I entreat,
withhold her no longer.
'But,' exclaimed the bewildered nun, 'who would you then be, sir?
'I--her husband--widower of Eustacie--father of her orphan!' cried
Berenger. 'She cannot be detained from me, either by right or
law.
'Her husband,' still hesitated Monique. 'But he is dead. The poor
little one--Heaven have mercy on her soul--wrote me a piteous
entreaty, and gave large alms for prayers and masses for his soul.
The sob in his throat almost strangled his speech. 'She mourned me
to the last as dead. I was borne away senseless and desperately
wounded; and when I recovered power to seek her it was too late!
O Madame! have pity--let me see all she has left to me.
'Is it possible?' said the nun. 'We would not learn the parentage
of our nurslings since all alike become children of Mother Church.
Then, suddenly bethinking herself, 'But, surely, Monsieur cannot be
a Huguenot.
It was no doubt the first time she had been brought in contact with
a schismatic, and she could not believe that such respectful
courtesy could come from one. He saw he must curb himself, and
explain. 'I am neither Calvinist nor Sacrementaire, Madame. I was
bred in England, where we love our own Church. My aunt is a
Benedictine Sister, who keeps her rule strictly, though her convent
is destroyed; and it is to her that I shall carry my daughter. Ah,
Lady, did you but know my heart's hunger for her!
The Prioress, better read in the lives of the saints than in the
sects of heretics, did not know whether this meant that he was of
her own faith or not; and her woman's heart being much moved by his
pleadings, she said, 'I will heartily give your daughter to you,
sir, as indeed I must, if she be here; but you have never seen
her?
'No; only her empty cradle in the burnt house. But I MUST know
her. She is a year old.
'We have two babes of that age; but I fear me you will scarce see
much likeness in either of them to any one you knew,' said the
Prioress, thoughtfully. 'However, there are two girls old enough
to remember the parentage of their companions, though we forbade
them to mention it. Would you see them, sir?
'And the infants, so please you, reverend Mother,' exclaimed
Berenger.
She desired him to wait, and after an interval of suspense there
was a pattering of little sabots behind the partition, and
through the grating he beheld six little girls in blue serge frocks
and tight white caps. Of the two infants, one with a puny, wizen,
pinched face was in the arms of the Prioress; the other, a big,
stout, coarse child, with hard brown cheeks and staring black-eyes,
was on its own feet, but with a great basket-work frame round its
head to save it from falls. There were two much more prepossessing
children of three or four, and two intelligent-looking girls of
perhaps eight and ten, to the elder of whom the Prioress turned,
saying, 'Agathe, I release you from my command not to speak of your
former life, and desire you to tell this gentleman if you know who
were the parents of these two little ones.
'Yes, reverend Mother,' said Agathe, readily; 'the old name of
Claire' (touching the larger baby) 'was Salome Potier: her mother
was the washerwoman; and Nannonciade, I don't know what her name
was, but her father worked for Maitre Brassier who made the
kettles.
Philip felt relieved to be free from all doubt about these very
uninviting little ones, but Berenger, though sighing heavily, asked
quickly, 'Permit me, Madame, a few questions.--Little maid, did you
ever hear of Isaac Gardon?
'Maitre Isaac! Oh yes, sir. We used to hear him preach at the
church, and sometimes he catechized us,' she said, and her lip
quivered.
'He was a heretic, and I abjure him,' added the other girl, perking
up her head.
'Was he in the town? What became of him?' exclaimed Berenger.
'He would not be in the town,' said the elder girl. 'My poor
father had sent him word to go away.
'Eh quoi?
'Our father was Bailli la Grasse,' interposed the younger girl,
consequentially. 'Our names were Marthe and Lucie la Grasse, but
Agathe and Eulalie are much prettier.
'But Maitre Gardon?' still asked Berenger.
'He ought to be take and burnt,' said the new Eulalie; 'he brought
it all on us.
'How was it? Was my wife with him--Madame de Ribaumont? Speak, my
child.
'That was the name,' said one girl.
'But Maitre Gardon had no great lady with him,' said the other,
'only his son's widow and her baby, and they lodged with Noemi
Laurent, who made the patisserie.
'Ah!' cried Berenger, lighting up with the new ray of hope. 'Tell
me, my dear, that they fled with him, and where.
'I do not know of their going,' said Agathe, confused and overborne
by his eagerness.
'Curb yourself, sir,' said the Prioress, 'they will recollect
themselves and tell you what they can.
'It was the little cakes with lemoned sugar,' suggested the younger
girl. 'Maitre Tressan always said there would be a judgment on us
for our daintiness. Ah! he was very cross about them, and after
all it was the Maitre of Lucon who ate fifteen of them all at once;
but then he is not a heretic.
Happily for Berenger, Agathe unraveled this speech.
'Mademoiselle Gardon made the sugar-lemoned cakes, and the Mayor of
Lucon, one day when he supped with us, was so delighted with them
that he carried one away to show his wife, and afterwards he sent
over to order some more. Then, after a time, he sent secretly to
my father to ask him if Maitre Gardon was there; for there was a
great outcry about the lemon cakes, and the Duke of Alencon's army
were coming to demand his daughter-in-law; because it seems she was
a great lady, and the only person who could make the cakes.
'Agathe!' exclaimed the Prioress.
'I understand,' said Berenger. 'The Cure of Nissard told me that
she was traced through cakes, the secret of which was only known at
Bellaise.
'That might be,' said Mere Monique. 'I remember there was
something of pride in the cakes of Bellaise, though I always tried
to know nothing of them.
'Well, little one, continue,' entreated Berenger. 'You are giving
me life and hope.
'I heard my father and mother talk about it,' said Agathe, gaining
courage. 'He said he knew nothing of great people, and would give
nobody up to the Catholics, but as to Maitre Isaac, he should let
him know that the Catholic army were coming, and that it would be
the better for us if we had no pastor within our walls; and that
there was a cry that his daughter's lemon cakes were made by the
lady that was lost.
'And they escaped! Ah! would that I could thank the good man!
'Surely yes, sir, I never saw them again. Maitre Tressan the elder
prayed with us. And when the cruel soldiers came and demanded the
lady and Maitre Isaac, and all obstinate Calvinists, our mayor and
my father and the rest made answer that they had no knowledge of
the lady, and did not know where Maitre Gardon was; and as to
Huguenots, we were all one as obstinate as the other, but that we
would pay any fine within our means so they would spare our lives.
Then the man in the fine coat said, it was the lady they wanted,
not the fine; and a great deal he said besides, I know not what but
my father said, 'It is our life's blood that they want,' and he put
on his breastplate and kissed us all, and went away. Then came
horrible noises and firing of cannon, and the neighbours ran in and
said that the enemy were battering down the old crumbly bit of wall
where the monastery was burnt; and just then our man Joseph ran
back all pale, and staring , to tell us my father was lying badly
hurt in the street. My mother hurried out, and locked the door to
keep us from following.
The poor child broke down in tears, and her sister went on. 'Oh,
we were so frightened--such frightful sounds came close, and people
ran by all blood and shrieking--and there was a glare in the sky--
and nobody came home--till at last it grew so dreadful that we hid
in the cellar to hear and see nothing. Only it grew hotter and
hotter, and the light through the little grating was red. And at
last there was a noise louder than thunder, and, oh, such a
shaking--for it was the house falling down. But we did not know
that; we tried to open the door, and could not; then we cried and
called for father and mother--and no one heard--and we sat still
for fear, till we slept--and then it was all dark, and we were very
hungry. I don't know how time went, but at last, when I was
daylight again, there was a talking above, a little baby crying,
and a kind voice too; and then we called out, 'Oh, take us out and
give us bread.' Then a face looked down the grating. Oh, it was
like the face of an angel to us, with all the white hair flying
round. It was the holy priest of Nissard; and when one of the
cruel men said we were only little heretics who ought to die like
rats in a hole, he said we were but innocents who did not know the
difference.
'Ah! we did,' said the elder girl. 'You are younger, sister, you
forget more;' and then, holding out her hands to Berenger, she
exclaimed, 'Ah! sir, take us away with you.
'My child!' exclaimed the Prioress, 'you told me you were happy to
be in the good course.
'Oh yes!' cried the poor child; 'but I don't want to be happy! I
am forgetting all my poor father and mother used to say. I can't
help it, and they would be so grieved. Oh, take me away, sir!
'Take care, Agathe, you will be a relapsed heretic,' said her
sister, solemnly. 'For me, I am a true Catholic. I love the
beautiful images and the processions.
'Ah! but what would our mother have said!' cried poor Agathe,
weeping more bitterly.
'Poor child, her old recollections have been renewed,' said the
Prioress, with unchanged sweetness; 'but it will pass. My dear,
the gentleman will tell you that it is as impossible for him to
take you as it is for me to let you go.
'It is so, truly, little one,' said Berenger. 'The only little
girl I cold have taken with me would have been my own;' and as her
eyes looked at him wistfully, he added, 'No doubt, if your poor
mother could, she would thank this good Mother-prioress for
teaching you to serve God and be a good child.
'Monsieur speaks well and kindly,' said the Prioress; 'and now,
Agathe, make your curtsey, and take away the little ones.
'Let me ask one question more, reverend Mother,' said Berenger.
'Ah! children, did you ever see her whom you call Isaac Gardon's
daughter-in-law?
'No, sir,' said the children; 'but mother did, and she promised one
day to take us to see the baby, for it was so pretty--so white,
that she had never seen the like.
'So white!' repeated Berenger to himself; and the Prioress, struck,
perhaps, by the almost flaxen locks that sparsely waved on his
temples, and the hue of the ungloved hand that rested on the edge
of the grille, said, smiling, 'You come of a fair family,
Monsieur.
'The White Ribaumonts,' said Berenger, 'and, moreover, my mother
was called the Swan of England; my little sisters have skins like
snow. Ah! Madame, though I have failed, I go away far happier than
if I had succeeded.
'And reveal the true faith,' began the nun; but Philip in the
meantime was nudging his brother, and whispering in English, 'No
Popish prayers, I say! Stay, give these poor little prisoners one
feast of the sweetmeats we brought.
Of this last hint Berenger was glad, and the Prioress readily
consented to a distribution of the dainties among the orphans. He
wished to leave a more lasting token of his gratitude to the little
maiden whose father had perhaps saved Eustacie's life, and
recollecting that he had about him a great gold coin, bearing the
heads of Philip and Mary, he begged leave to offer it to Agathe,
and found that it was received by good Mere Monique almost in the
light of a relic, as bearing the head of so pious a queen.
Then, to complete Philip's disgust he said, 'I took with me my
aunt's blessing when I set out; let me take yours with me also,
reverend Mother.
When they were in the street again, Philip railed at him as though
he had subjected himself to a spell.
'She is almost a saint,' answered Berenger.
'And have we not saints enough of our own, without running after
Popish ones behind grates? Brother, if ever the good old days come
back of invading France, I'll march straight hither, and deliver
the poor little wretches so scandalously mewed up here, and true
Protestants all the time!
'Hush! People are noticing the sound of your English.
'Let them! I never thanked Heaven properly before that I have not
a drop of French---' Here Berenger almost shook him by the
shoulder, as men turned at his broad tones and foreign words, and
he walked on in silence, while Berenger at his side felt as one
treading on air, so infinite was the burden taken off his mind.
Though for the present absolutely at sea as to where to seek
Eustacie, the relief from acquiescence in the horrible fate that
had seemed to be hers was such, that a flood of unspeakable
happiness seemed to rush in on him, and bear him up with a new
infusion of life, buoyancy, and thankfulness.