I
Old Nicolle, restless and cross, was fidgeting about the room, fingering with fussy inconsequence the beautiful clothes which her mistress had taken off half an hour ago preparatory to going to bed—clothes of great value and of vast beauty, which had cost more money to acquire than good Nicolle had ever handled in all her life. There was the beautiful gown which Madame had worn this evening at supper, fashioned of black satin and all slashed with white and embroidered with pearls. There was the underdress of rich crimson silk, worked with gold and silver braid; there were the stockings of crimson silk, the high-pattened shoes of velvet, the delicately wrought fan, the gloves of fine chamois skin, the wide collarette edged with priceless lace. There was also the hideous monstrosity called the farthingale—huge hoops constructed of whalebone and of iron which, with the no less abominable corset of wood and steel, was intended to beautify and to refine the outline of the female figure and only succeeded in making it look ludicrous and ungainly. There were, in fact, the numberless and costly accessories which go to the completion of a wealthy lady's toilet.
Madame had divested herself of them all and had allowed Nicolle to wrap a woollen petticoat round her slender hips and to throw a shawl over her shoulders. Then, with her fair hair hanging in heavy masses down her back, she had curled herself up in the high-backed chair beside the open window—the open window, an it please you! and the evening, though mild, still one of early March! Old Nicolle had mumbled and grumbled. It was ten o' the clock and long past bedtime. For awhile she had idled away the hour by fingering the exquisite satin of the gown which lay in all its rich glory upon the carved dowry chest. Nicolle loved all these things. She loved to see her young mistress decked out in all the finery which could possibly be heaped up on a girlish and slender body. She never thought the silks and satins heavy when Jacqueline wore them; she never thought the farthingale unsightly when Jacqueline's dainty bust and shoulders emerged above it like the handle of a huge bell.
But gradually her patience wore out. She was sleepy, was poor old Nicolle! And Madame still sat squatting in the tall chair by the open window, doing nothing apparently save to gaze over the courtyard wall to the distance beyond, where the graceful steeple of St. Géry stood outlined like delicate lace-work against the evening sky.
''Tis time Madame got to bed,' reiterated the old woman for the twentieth time. 'The cathedral tower hath chimed the quarter now. Whoever heard of young people not being abed at this hour! And Madame sitting there,' she added, muttering to herself, 'not clothed enough to look decent!'
Jacqueline de Broyart looked round to old Nicolle with amusement dancing in her merry blue eyes.
'Not decent?' she exclaimed with a laugh. 'Why, my dear Colle, nobody sees me but you!'
'People passing across the courtyard might catch sight of Madame,' said Nicolle crossly.
'People?' retorted Jacqueline gaily. 'What people?'
'Monseigneur had company to-night.'
'They all went away an hour ago.'
'Then there are the varlets and maids——'
'E'en so,' rejoined Jacqueline lightly, 'my attire, meseems, is not lacking in modesty. I am muffled up to my nose in a shawl and—— Oh!' she added with a quick sigh of impatience, 'I am so comfortable in this soft woollen petticoat. I feel like a human being in it and not like a cathedral bell. How I wish my guardian would not insist on my wearing all these modish clothes from Paris! I was so much more comfortable when I could don what I most fancied.'
'Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy,' said Nicolle sententiously, 'knows what is due to your rank, Madame, and to your wealth.'
'Oh! a murrain upon my rank and upon my wealth!' cried the young girl hotly. 'My dear mother rendered me a great disservice when she bare me to this world. She should have deputed some simple, comfortable soul for the work, who could have let me roam freely about the town when I liked, run about the streets barefooted, with a short woollen kirtle tied round my waist and my hair flying loose about my shoulders. I could have been so happy as a humble burgher's daughter or a peasant wench. I do so loathe all the stiffness and the ceremony and the starched ruffles and high-heeled shoes. What I want is to be free—free!—Oh!——'
And Jacqueline de Broyart stretched out her arms and sighed again, half-longingly, half-impatiently.
'You want to be free, Madame,' muttered old Nicolle through her toothless gums, 'so that you might go and meet that masked gallant who has been haunting the street with his music of late. You never used to sigh like this after freedom and ugly gowns before he appeared upon the scene.'
'Don't scold, old Colle!' pleaded the girl softly. And now her arms were stretched towards the old waiting-woman.
Nicolle resisted the blandishment. She was really cross just now. She turned her back resolutely upon the lovely pleader, avoiding to look into those luminous blue eyes, which had so oft been compared by amorous swains to the wild hyacinths that grow in the woods above Marcoing.
'Come and kiss me, Colle,' whispered the young charmer, 'I feel so lonely somehow to-night. I feel as if—as if——'
And the young voice broke in a quaint little gasp which was almost like a sob.
In a moment Nicolle—both forgiving and repentant—was kneeling beside the high-backed chair, and with loving, wrinkled hands holding a delicate lace handkerchief, she wiped the tears which had gathered on Jacqueline's long, dark lashes.
'My precious lamb, my dove, my little cabbage!' she murmured lovingly. 'What ails thee? Why dost thou cry? Surely, my pigeon, thou hast no cause to be tearful. All the world is at thy feet; every one loves thee, and M. de Landas—surely the finest gentleman that ever walked the earth!—simply worships the ground thy little foot treads on. And—and'—added the old woman pitiably—'thy old Colle would allow herself to be cut into a thousand pieces if it would please thee.'
Whereupon Jacqueline broke into a sudden, gay and rippling laugh, even though the tears still glistened on her lashes.
'I shouldn't at all enjoy,' she said lightly, 'seeing my dear old Colle cut into a thousand pieces.'
'Then what is it, my beloved?'
Jacqueline made no reply. For a few seconds she remained quite silent, her eyes fixed into nothingness above old Colle's head. One would almost have thought that she was listening to something which the old woman could not hear, for the expression on her face was curiously tense, with eyes glowing and lips parted, while the poise of her girlish figure was almost rigidly still. The flame of the wax candles in the tall sconces flickered gently in the draught, for the casement-window was wide open and a soft breeze blew in from the west.
'Come, my cabbage,' pleaded Nicolle as she struggled painfully to her feet. 'Come and let thy old Colle put thee to bed. Thou must be tired after that long supper party and listening to so much talking and music. And to-morrow yet another banquet awaits thee. Monseigneur hath already desired thy presence——'
'I don't want to go to another banquet to-morrow, Colle,' sighed the young girl dolefully. 'And I am sick of company and of scrapings and bowings and kissing of hands—stupid flummery wherewith men regale me because I am rich and because they think that I am a brainless nincompoop. I would far rather have supper quietly in my room every night—quite alone——'
But old Colle evidently thought that she knew better than that. 'Heu! heu!' she muttered with a shrug of the shoulders, accompanied by a knowing wink. 'What chance wouldst thou have then of seeing M. de Landas?'
'I hardly can speak with M. de Landas during those interminable banquets,' rejoined Jacqueline with a sigh. 'My guardian or else M. de Lalain always seem in the way now whenever he tries to come nigh me.'
'I'll warrant though that M. de Landas knows how to circumvent Monseigneur,' riposted the old woman slyly. Like so many of her sex who have had little or no romance in a dull and monotonous life, there was nothing that old Colle enjoyed more than to help forward a love intrigue or a love adventure. M. de Landas she had, as it were, taken under her special protection. He was very handsome and liberal with money, and in his love-making he had all the ardour of his Southern blood, all of which attributes vastly appealed to old Colle. The fact that Monseigneur le Baron d'Inchy did not altogether favour the young man's suit—especially of late—lent additional zest to Nicolle's championship of his claims.
'Even so,' said Jacqueline with sudden irrelevance, 'there are moments when one likes to be alone. There is so much to think about—to dream of——'
'I know, I know,' murmured the old woman crossly. 'Thy desire is to sit here half the evening now by the open window, and catch a deathly ague while listening to that impudent minstrel who dares to serenade so great a lady.'
She went on muttering and grumbling and fidgeting about the room, unmindful of the fact that at her words Jacqueline had suddenly jumped to her feet; eyes blazing, small fists clenched, cheeks crimson, she suddenly faced the garrulous old woman.
'Nicolle, be silent!' she commanded. 'At once! Dost hear?'
'Silent? Silent?' grumbled the woman. 'I have been silent quite long enough, and if Monseigneur were to hear of these doings 'tis old Nicolle who would get the blame. As for M. de Landas, I do verily believe that he would run his sword right through the body of the rogue for his impudence! I know.... I know,' she added, with a tone of spite in her gruff voice. 'But let me tell thee that if that rascally singer dares to raise his voice again to-night——'
She paused, a little frightened at the fierce wrath which literally blazed out of her mistress's eyes.
'Well?' said Jacqueline peremptorily, but in a very husky voice. 'Why dost thou not finish? What will happen if the minstrel, whose singing hath given me exquisite joy these three nights past, were to raise his heavenly voice again?'
'Pierre will make it unpleasant for him, that's all!' replied the old woman curtly.
'Pierre?'
'Yes; Pierre! M. de Landas' serving-man. I told him to be on the look-out, outside the postern gate, and—well!—Pierre has a strong fist and a heavy staff, and...'
In a moment Jacqueline was by Nicolle's side. She seized the old woman by the wrist so that poor Colle cried out with pain, and it was as the very living image of a goddess of wrath that the young girl now confronted her terrified serving-maid.
'Thou hast dared to do that, Nicolle?' she demanded in a choked and quivering voice. 'Thou wicked, interfering old hag! I hate thee!' she went on remorselessly, not heeding the looks of terror and of abject repentance wherewith Colle received this floodgate of vituperation. 'I hate thee, dost hear? And if Pierre doth but dare to lay hands on that exquisite singer I'll ask M. de Landas to have him flogged—yes, flogged! And I'll never wish to see thy face again—thou wicked, wicked Colle!'
Mastered by her own emotion and her passionate resentment, Jacqueline sank back into a chair, her voice broken with sobs, and tears of genuine rage streaming down her cheeks. Nicolle, quite bewildered, had stood perfectly still, paralysed in fact, whilst this storm of wrathful indignation burst over her devoted head. In spite of her terror and of her remorse, there had lingered round her wrinkled lips a line or two of mulish obstinacy. The matter of the unknown singer, who had not only ventured to serenade the great and noble Dame Jacqueline, Duchesse et Princesse de Ramèse and of several other places, just as if she were some common burgher's wench with a none too spotless reputation, had not ended with a song or two: no! the malapert had actually been impudent enough last night to scale the courtyard wall and to stand for over half an hour just below Madame's window (how he knew which was Madame's window Satan, his accomplice, alone could tell!) singing away to the accompaniment of a twangy lute, which she—Nicolle—for one, could never abide.
Fortunately, on that occasion Madame Jacqueline had been both modest and discreet. She had kept well within the room and even retired into the alcove, well out of sight of that abominable rascal; but she would not allow Colle to close the window and had been very angry indeed when the old woman with a few gruff and peremptory words had presently sent the malapert away.
That was yesterday. And now this outburst of rage! It was unbelievable! Madame Jacqueline of a truth was hot-tempered and passionate—how could she help being otherwise, seeing that she had been indulged and adulated ever since, poor mite of three, she had lost both father and mother and had been under the guardianship of Monseigneur d'Inchy and of half a dozen other gentlemen. Never, however, had Colle seen her quite like this, and for such a worthless cause! Colle could scarce credit her eyes and ears. And alas! there was no mistaking the flood of heartrending weeping which followed. Jacqueline sat huddled up in her chair, her face buried in her hands, sobbing and weeping as if her heart would break.