CHAPTER XII.
We must change the scene once more, and return to the palace of Philip Augustus. The whirlwind of passion had passed by; but the deep pangs of disappointed expectation, with a long train of gloomy suspicions and painful anticipations, swelled in the bosom of the monarch, like those heavy, sweeping billows which a storm leaves behind on the long-agitated sea.
Philip Augustus slowly mounted the stairs of the great keep of the castle, pausing at every two or three steps, as if even the attention necessary to raise his foot from the one grade to the other interrupted the deep current of his thoughts. So profound, indeed, were those thoughts, that he never even remarked the presence of Guerin, till at length, at the very door of the queen's apartments, the minister beseeched him to collect himself.
"Remember, sire," said the bishop, "that no point of the lady's conduct is reproachable; and, for Heaven's sake! yield not your noble mind to any fit of passion that you may repent of hereafter."
"Fear not, Guerin," replied the king: "I am as cool as snow;" and opening the door, he pushed aside the tapestry and entered.
Agnes had heard the step, but it was so different from her husband's general pace, that she had not believed it to be his. When she beheld him, however, a glow of bright, unspeakable joy, which in itself might have convinced the most suspicious, spread over her countenance.
Philip was not proof against it; and as she sprang forward to meet him, he kissed her cheek, and pressed her in the wonted embrace. But there is nought so pertinacious on earth as suspicion. 'Tis the fiend's best, most persevering servant. Cast it from us with what force we will--crush it under what weight of reasoning we may, once born in the human heart, it still rises on its invisible ladder, and squeezes its little drop of corroding poison into every cup we drink.
The queen's women left the room, and Philip sat down by the embroidery frame where Agnes had been working before she went out. He still held her hand in his, as she stood beside him; but fixing his eyes upon the embroidery, he was in a moment again lost in painful thought, though his hand every now and then contracted on the small fingers they grasped, with a sort of habitual fondness.
Agnes was surprised and pained at this unwonted mood; and yet she would not deem it coldness, or say one word that might irritate her husband's mind; so that for long she left him to think in silence, seeing that something most agonising must evidently have happened, so to absorb his ideas, even beside her.
At length, however, without making a motion to withdraw her hand, she sunk slowly down upon her knees beside him; and, gazing up in his face, she asked, "Do you not love me, Philip?" in a low, sweet tone, that vibrated through his soul to all the gentler and dearer feelings of his heart.
"Love you, Agnes!" cried he, throwing his arms round her beautiful form, and pressing kiss upon kiss on her lips--"love you! Oh God! how deeply!" He gazed on her face for a moment or two, with one of those long, straining, wistful glances that we sometimes give to the dead; then, starting up, he paced the room for several minutes, murmuring some indistinct words to himself, till at length his steps grew slower again, his lips ceased to move, and he once more fell into deep meditation.
Agnes rose, and, advancing towards him, laid her hand affectionately upon his arm, "Calm yourself, Philip. Come and sit down again, and tell your Agnes what has disturbed you. Calm yourself, beloved! Oh, calm yourself!"
"Calm, madam!" said the king, turning towards her with an air of cold abstraction. "How would you have me calm?"
Agnes let her hand drop from his arm; and, returning to her seat, she bent her head down and wept silently.
Philip took another turn in the chamber, during which he twice turned his eyes upon the figure of his wife--then advanced towards her, and leaning down, cast his arm over her neck. "Weep not, dear Agnes," he said,--"weep not; I have many things to agitate and distress me. You must bear with me, and let my humour have its way."
Agnes looked up, and kissed the lips that spoke to her, through her tears. She asked no questions, however, lest she might recall whatever was painful to her husband's mind. Philip, too, glanced not for a moment towards the real cause of his agitation. There was something so pure, so tender, so beautiful, in the whole conduct and demeanour of his wife--so full of the same affection towards him that he felt towards her--so unmixed with the least touch of that constraint that might make her love doubted, that his suspicions stood reproved, and though they rankled still, he dared not own them.
"Can it be only a feeling of cold duty binds her to me thus?" he asked himself; "she cited nought else to support her resolution of not flying with that pale seducer, D'Auvergne; and yet, see how she strives for my affection! how she seems to fix her whole hopes upon it!--how to see it shaken agitates her!"
The fiend had his answer ready. It might be pride--the fear of sinking from the queen of a great kingdom, back into the daughter of a petty prince. It might be vanity--which would be painfully wrung to leave splendour, and riches, and admiration of a world, to become--what?--what had been the wife of a great king--a lonely, unnoticed outcast from her once husband's kingdom. Still, he thought it was impossible. She had never loved splendour--she had never sought admiration. Her delights had been with him alone, in sports and amusements that might be tasted, with any one beloved, even in the lowest station. It was impossible;--and yet it rankled. He felt he wronged her. He was ashamed of it;--and yet those thoughts rankled! Memory, too, dwelt with painful accuracy upon those words he had overheard,--notwithstanding her own feelings, she would not quit him!--and imagination, with more skill than the best sophist of the court of Crœsus, drew therefrom matter to basis a thousand painful doubts.
As thus he thought, he cast himself again into the seat before the frame; and his mind being well prepared for every bitter and sorrowful idea, he gave himself up to the gloomy train of fancies that pressed on him on every side: the revolt of his barons--the disaffection of his allies--the falling off of his friends--the exhaustion of his finances--and last, not least, that dreadful interdict, that cut his kingdom off from the Christian world, and made it like a lazar house. He resolved all the horrible proofs of the papal power, that he had seen on his way: the young, the old, clinging to his stirrup and praying relief--the dead, the dying, exposed by the road-side to catch his eye--the gloomy silence of the cities and the fields--the deathlike void of all accustomed sounds, that spread around his path wherever he turned:--he thought over them all; and, as he thought, he almost unconsciously took up the chalk wherewith Agnes had been tracing the figures on her embroidery, and slowly scrawled upon the edge of the frame, "Interdict! Interdict!";
She had watched his motions as a mother watches those of her sick child; but when she read the letters he had written, a faint cry broke from her lips, and she became deadly pale. The conviction that Philip's resolution was shaken by the thunders of the Roman church took full possession of her mind, and she saw that the moment was arrived for her to make her own peace the sacrifice for his. She felt her fate sealed,--she felt her heart broken; and though she had often, often contemplated the chances of such a moment, how trifling, how weak had been the very worst dreams of her imagination to the agony of the reality!
She repressed the cry, however, already half uttered; and rising from her seat with her determination fixed, and her mind made up to the worst evil that fate could inflict, she kneeled down at the king's feet, and, raising her eyes to his, "My lord," she said, "the time is come for making you a request that I am sure you will not refuse. Your own repose, your kingdom's welfare, and the church's peace require--all and each--that you should consent to part from one who has been too long an object of painful contest. Till I thought that the opinion of your prelates and your peers had gained over your will to such a separation, I never dared, my noble lord, even to think thereof; but now you are doubtless convinced that it must be so; and all I have to beg is, that you would give me sufficient guard and escort, to conduct me safely to my father's arms; and that you would sometimes think with tenderness of one who has loved you well."
Agnes spoke as calmly as if she had asked some simple boon. Her voice was low but clear; and the only thing that could betray agitation, was the excessive rapidity of her utterance, seeming as if she doubted her own powers to bring her request to an end.
Philip gazed upon her with a glance of agony and surprise, that were painful even to behold. His cheek was as pale as death; but his brow was flushed and red; and as she proceeded, the drops of agony stood upon his temples. When she had done, he strove to speak, but no voice answered his will; and after gasping as for breath, he started up, exclaimed with great effort, "Oh, Agnes!" and darted out of the chamber.
At ten paces' distance from the door stood Guerin, as if in expectation of the king's return. Philip caught him by the arm, and, scarcely conscious of what he did, pointed wildly with the other hand to the door of the queen's apartments.
"Good God! my lord," cried the minister, well knowing the violent nature of his master's passion. "In Heaven's name! what have you done?"
"Done! done!" cried the monarch. "Done! She loves me not, Guerin! She seeks to quit me. She loves me not, I say! She loves me not! I, that would have sacrificed my soul for her! I, that would have abjured the cross--embraced the crescent--desolated Europe--died myself, for her. She seeks to leave me! Oh, madness and fury!" and clenching his hands, he stamped with his armed heel upon the ground, till the vaulted roofs of the keep echoed and re-echoed to the sound.
"Oh! my lord! be calm, in Heaven's name!" cried Guerin. "Speak not such wild and daring words! Remember, though you be a king, there is a King still higher; who perhaps even now chastens you for resisting his high will."
"Away!" cried the king. "School not me, sir bishop! I tell thee, there is worse hell here, than if there had never been heaven;" and he struck his hand upon his mailed breast with fury, indeed almost approaching to insanity. "Oh, Guerin, Guerin!" he cried again, after a moment's pause, "she would leave me! Did you hear? She would leave me!"
"Let me beseech you, sire," said the minister once more. "Compose yourself, and, as a wise and good prince, let the discomfort and misery that Heaven has sent to yourself, at least be turned to your people's good; and, by so doing, be sure that you will merit of Heaven some consolation."
"Consolation!" said the monarch mournfully. "Oh, my friend, what consolation can I have? She loves me not, Guerin! She seeks to quit me! What consolation can I have under that?"
"At least the consolation, sire, of relieving and restoring happiness to your distressed people," answered the minister. "The queen herself seeks to quit you, sire. The queen herself prays you to yield to the authority of the church. After that, you will surely never think of detaining her against her will. It would be an impious rebellion against a special manifestation of Heaven's commands; for sure I am that nothing but the express conviction that it is God's will would have induced the princess to express such a desire as you have vaguely mentioned."
"Do you think so, Guerin?" demanded Philip, musing--"do you think so? But no, no! She would never quit me if she loved me?"
"Her love for you, my lord, may be suspended by the will of Heaven," replied the minister; "for surely she never showed want of love towards you till now. Yield then, my lord, to the will of the Most High. Let the queen depart; and, indeed, by so doing, I believe that even your own fondest hopes may be gratified. Our holy father the pope, you know, would not even hear the question of divorce tried, till you should show your obedience to the church by separating from the queen. When you have done so, he has pledged himself to examine it in the true apostolic spirit; and doubtless he will come to the same decision as your bishops of France had done before. Free from all ties, you may then recall the queen----"
"But her love!" interrupted Philip,--"can I ever recall her love?"
"If it be by the will of Heaven," replied Guerin, "that she seeks to leave you, her love for you, my lord, will not be lost, but increased a thousand fold when Heaven's blessing sanctions it: and the pope----"
"Curses upon his head!" thundered Philip, bursting forth into a new frenzy of passion,--"may pride and ambition be a curse on him and his successors for ever! May they grasp at the power of others, till they lose their own! May nation after nation cast off their sway! and itch of dominion, with impotence of means, be their damnation for ever! Now I have given him back his curse--say, what of him?"
"Nothing, my lord," replied Guerin; "but, that the only means to make him consent to your union with the princess is to part with her for a time. Oh, my lord! if you have not already consented,--consent, I beseech you: she prays it herself. Do not refuse her--your kingdom requires it: have compassion upon it. Your own honour is implicated; for your barons rebel, and you never can chastise them while the whole realm is bound to their cause by the strong bond of mutual distress."
"Chastise them!" said Philip thoughtfully, pausing on the ideas the minister had suggested. Then suddenly he turned to Guerin with his brow knit, and his cheek flushed, as if with the struggle of some new resolution. "Be it so, Guerin!" cried he,--"be it so! The interdict shall be raised--I will take them one by one--I will cut them into chaff, and scatter them to the wind--I will be king of France indeed! and if, in the mean while, this proud prelate yields me my wife--my own beloved wife--why, well; but if he dares then refuse his sanction, when I have bowed my rebellious subjects, his seat is but a frail one; for I will march on Rome, and hurl him from his chair, and send him forth to tread the sands of Palestine.--But stay, Guerin. Think you, that on examination he will confirm the bishops' decree, if I yield for the time?"
"I trust he will, my lord," replied the minister. "May I tell the queen you grant her request?" he added, eager to urge Philip's indecision into the irrevocable.
"Yes!" said the monarch, "yes!--Yet stay, Guerin,--stay!" and he fell into thought again; when suddenly some one, mounting the steps like lightning, approached the little vestibule where they stood. "Ha! have you taken the count D'Auvergne?" cried the king, seeing one of his serjeants-of-arms--his eyes flashing at the same time with all their former fury.
"No, my lord," replied the man: "he has not yet been heard of; but a messenger, in breathless haste, from the bishop of Tours, brings you this packet, sire. He says, prince Arthur is taken," added the serjeant.
"Avert it, Heaven!" exclaimed Philip, tearing open the despatch. "Too true! too true!" he added: "and the people of Poitou in revolt! laying the misfortune to our door, for resisting the interdict. Oh, Guerin! it must be done--it must be done! The interdict must be raised, or all is lost.--Begone, fellow! leave us!" he exclaimed, turning to the serjeant, who tarried for no second command. Then, pacing up and down for an instant, with his eyes bent on the ground, the king repeated more than once:--"She seeks to leave me! she spoke of it as calmly as a hermit tells his beads. She loves me not!--Too true, she loves me not!"
"May I announce your will in this respect, my lord? demanded Guerin, as the king paused and pondered bitterly over all that had passed.
"Ask me not, good friend!--ask me not!" replied the king, turning away his head, as if to avoid facing the act to which his minister urged him, "Ask me not. Do what thou wilt; there is my signet,--use it wisely; but tear not my heart, by asking commands I cannot utter."
Thus speaking, the king drew his private seal from his finger, and placing it in Guerin's hand, turned away; and, with a quick but irregular step, descended the staircase, passed through the gardens, and issuing out by the postern gate, plunged into the very heart of the forest.
Guerin paused to collect his thoughts, scarcely believing the victory that had been obtained; so little had he expected it in the morning. He then approached the door of the queen's apartments, and knocked gently for admittance. At first it passed unnoticed, but on repeating it somewhat louder, one of Agnes's women presented herself, with a face of ashy paleness, while another looked over her shoulder.
"Enter, my lord bishop, enter!" said the second in a low voice. "Thank God, you are come! We know not what has so struck the queen; but she is very ill. She speaks not; she raises not her head; and yet by her sobbing 'tis clear she has not fainted. See where she lies!"
Guerin entered. From Philip's account, he had thought to find the queen with a mind composed and made up to her fortunes; but a sadly different scene presented itself. Agnes had apparently, the moment her husband had left her, caught down the crucifix from a little moveable oratory which stood in the room, and throwing herself on her knees before one of the seats, had been seeking consolation in prayer. The emotions which crossed her address to Heaven may easily be conceived; and so powerfully had they worked, that, overcoming all other thoughts, they seemed to have swept hope and trust, even in the Almighty, away before them, and dashed the unhappy girl to the ground like a stricken flower. Her head and whole person had fallen forward on the cushion of the seat, before which she had been kneeling. Her face was resting partly on her hands, and partly on the cross, which they clasped, and which was deluged with her tears; while a succession of short convulsive sobs was all that announced her to be amongst the living.
"Has she not spoken since the king left her?" demanded Guerin, both alarmed and shocked.
"Not a word, sir," replied her principal attendant. "We heard her move once, after the king's voice ceased; and then came a dead silence: so we ventured to come in, lest she should have fallen into one of those swoons which have afflicted her ever since the tournament of the Champeaux. We have striven to raise her, and to draw some word from her; but she lies there, and sobs, and answers nothing."
"Send for Rigord the leech," said Guerin; "I saw him in the hall:" and then approaching Agnes, with a heart deeply touched with the sorrow he beheld, "Grieve not so, lady," he said in a kindly voice; "I trust that this will not be so heavy a burden as you think: I doubt not--indeed I doubt not, that a short separation from your royal husband will be all that you will have to bear. The king having once, by your good counsel, submitted his cause to the trial of the holy church, our good father, the pope, will doubtless judge mildly, and soon restore to him the treasure he has lost. Bear up, then, sweet lady, bear up! and be sure that wherever you go, the blessings of a whole nation, which your self-devotion has saved from civil war and misery of every kind, will follow your footsteps, and smooth your way."
It was impossible to say whether Agnes heard him or not; but the words of comfort which the good bishop proffered produced no effect. She remained with her face still leaning on the cross, and a quick succession of convulsive sobs was her only reply. Guerin saw that all farther attempt to communicate with her in any way would be vain for the time; and he only waited the arrival of the leech to leave the apartment.
Rigord, who acted both as physician and historian to Philip Augustus, instantly followed the queen's attendant, who had been despatched to seek him; and, after having received a promise from him to bring intelligence of the queen's real state, the minister retired to his own chamber, and hastened to render Philip's resolution irrevocable, by writing that letter of submission to the holy see, which speedily raised the interdict from France.