Rose D'Albret; or, Troublous Times.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXXII.

The morning broke clear and fair; a few light clouds indeed hung about the eastern sky, but only sufficient to catch the rays of the rising sun, and gather them together, in a more intense glow. But these were soon dispersed; and the sky beamed, within five minutes after the break of dawn, in clear and unclouded beauty. Those clouds, however, were still hanging over the verge of heaven, and not above half the disc of the orb of light showed itself above the horizon, when the Marquis de Chazeul, full dressed, left his own apartments, and hurried to those of his mother. As he went, the sound of a hunting horn was borne upon the wind to his ear; and pausing for a moment, with all that fierce, tenacious jealousy of the rights of the chase, which was entertained by the old feudal nobles of France; he muttered, "It must be a bold man, or well accompanied, to hunt so near the Château de Marzay. This must be seen to;" and striding on, he entered his mother's ante-room with very little respect for the half-completed toilet of her maids.

The Marchioness was still in bed; but, according to the custom of the day, she made no scruple of admitting any one who came in that situation; and her son was speedily at her bed-side. "Well, Chazeul," she said, with a shrewd smile, "the thing is done, I find; but tell me all about it. You did not disturb her I suppose?"

"No," answered Chazeul, "I found everything as still as death; and so I left it. I might have been tempted, indeed, to look in between the curtains, if I had had light enough to see my fair bride as she lay slumbering. I was afraid she might wake too."

"No great matter if she had," replied Madame de Chazeul. "The priest was not in his chamber; and the girl Blanchette would have been discreet."

"I don't know that," replied Chazeul.

"You don't know what?" demanded the Marchioness.

"I don't know that you are right in either the one or the other," answered her son; "for, as I went in, I certainly heard a noise in the next room, as if some one were locking the door, and there was a light, too, came through the key-hole. Then, as to Blanchette, she seemed to be seized with a sudden fit of perverseness. It cost me a full hour and a hundred lies, to persuade her to do as she was bid."

"The hour's time was a loss," observed his sweet mother; "as to the lies, that was no great expense. They are money easily coined. But I will teach that girl obedience before I have done with her. The hussy! it was but to enhance the price.--The priest in his room!--Ay, so he might be. Now I recollect, he was wandering about at that hour. And now, my dearly beloved son, between you and me, your absence for the next two or three hours, might be more advantageous than your presence. I have got to communicate your delinquency, you know, to my good brother, De Liancourt--in other words to tell him--ay, and prove to him too, that you have been seen creeping in and out of fair Rose's chamber at midnight; and it is ten to one that his first indignation falls upon you. That must have time to cool before you make your appearance; and in the mean time there is plenty to be done."

"Oh, I can find occupation," replied Chazeul. "There are men hunting in the forest; and I should much like to see who they maybe. I will mount, and take some half dozen men with me, to reconnoitre; and if I do not find them too strong, I will hunt them as fiercely as ever they chased deer."

"Take care of ambuscades," cried the Marchioness. "No, no, Chazeul. Better leave them alone till after the wedding. We have got other things to do. We must have a priest to bury the dead, and marry the living."

"How so?" exclaimed Chazeul, in some surprise; "is not father Walter here?"

"Ay, he is here," answered the Marchioness, "but I suspect the good man is not well enough to appear before noon."

She spoke with a meaning smile; and her son demanded, "What is it you mean, mother of mine? There is something in your eye."

"Nothing but rheum," rejoined the Marchioness. "However, if you needs must know, father Walter has discovered your folly with his niece Helen.--That is all."

"Pardi!" exclaimed Chazeul, "What is to be done now?"

"Nothing,"' answered the Marchioness. "I have provided for him. He is sick, you know. He is ill, and unable to leave his chamber till after the wedding. Let that suffice, my son."

"It will suffice for me, my most sagacious mother," replied Chazeul; "but will it suffice for others?"

"As I will manage it," said Madame de Chazeul. "At all events, it was the only step to be taken, without making him sick indeed; and that I had no time to consider. But it seems that, last night, after all the world were sleeping, but you and I and half-a-dozen others, he thought fit to send my page, Philip, to Chazeul, to bring a book of Hours belonging to the girl Helen from her room, and in my name too.--What is in it I know not; but I shall soon see. I trust, Chazeul, you have not been fool enough to write anything in the book; but if you have, that fire must prove your friend, and conceal your stupidity. The same element has proved serviceable to you before; for never did a green boy at college, put himself more completely in the power of an artful courtesan, than you did, by your pastoral epistles, in the power of Helen de la Tremblade. However, if they can decipher smoke and ashes, they may prove the contract. If not, it is dissolved."

Nicholas de Chazeul winced under the infliction. He was not one to bear easily the charge of folly even from his mother. Vice she might have charged him with at will; sin, crime, he would easily have borne; but weakness, foolishness, were accusations, against which all the vanity of his heart took arms; and his cheek grew red, his brow heavy, while he answered, "Perhaps not so stupid as you think, Madam. It was necessary to keep the girl quiet. I wrote nothing in any book, however; and perhaps, after all, you may yourself be deceived, and the priest know nothing about it."

Madame de Chazeul shook her head, replying, "Too surely!--I have been guilty of a folly as well as you, boy; and gave way to anger when I should have dealt more patiently. What is done, however, is done; and the only thing that remained, was, for me to cure one sharp act by another.--But let us talk no more of these matters. There lies the priest; and there he must lie till you are married. I will deal with your uncle and sweet Mademoiselle Rose, and you must do your part."

"And pray, will your sagacity let me know what my part is to be?" asked Chazeul; for be it remarked, that he always spoke in a somewhat jesting and irreverent tone to his excellent parent, even while he was most implicitly following her impulses.

"It is an easy one, my son," replied the Marchioness. "First you must go down to the village, and engage the curé to come up hither for the double duty that is to be performed. There is the old man to be buried. That had better take place at nine; and then there is the young man to be married, which must be done before noon. He will of course speak of father Walter, and say, it is his office to bury or marry all that die of the line of Liancourt; that he has special rights and privileges in the Chapel of Marzay, with which none can interfere, and more to the same purpose; but then you must put on a sad and solemn face, and answer that the good father was to have performed both ceremonies, but that this last night, by too much watching prayer and fasting by the corpse, he has fallen grievously ill, and has taken to his bed. Doubtless he will wish to see him when he comes up here, between the funeral and the wedding; but father Walter can get some refreshing sleep about that time; and 'twould be a sin to wake him."

Chazeul laughed. "You are armed at all points, I see," he answered; "but if, after all, Rose should show her refractory spirit at the altar, it will then be matter of regret and difficulty too, that we have not some one in our interest to go on quietly with the service, without having very fine ears for objections."

"As to the regret," said the Marchioness, "that is soon swept away. There was no way of avoiding what has been done. I know father Walter; and with him, when once his interests are opposed to yours, there is no way of dealing, but by force against wit. We are all very clever, Chazeul; and by experience of the world, we gain a certain degree of skill, like that of a village quacksalver; but a priest has a regular education in outwitting all the world, and a diploma to do it. Then for the difficulty, the curé is a good man--an excellent good man. Let him speak to me; and I will give him such reasons for thinking it best, Mademoiselle d'Albret should be your wife, that he will make you one, whether she says 'yes' or 'no,' I warrant."

"Well, all this will but occupy a short space," answered Chazeul; "and, therefore, if I am to be out of my uncle's way till his passion be cooled, pray tell me by your cabalistic art, when I may calculate that his vicinity will be safe; for I know not that I can play my part with him as well as I did with our fair Rose yesterday."

"Ay! you did that well," rejoined his mother, with an approving nod; "but you must not be back till near eleven; or if you be, you must keep your chamber as if afraid to appear. When you do, you must be mighty penitent, hear all his censure with deep humility, express your in grief broken words and sentences, that mean more than they say; never deny your crime, but plead temptation. That will be all easily done, when the first storm has blown over, especially when you are there ready to make the best atonement in your power, for any wrong you may have done the lady's reputation. What can be expected more? But there is one thing more to be considered. That old marauder, Estoc, was still at the village yesterday. I like it not; I know not what he wants: you must be on your guard! He may have designs we know not of. He certainly aided De Montigni and Rose in their escape. He may think Nicholas de Chazeul, a prize worth keeping in his hands,--a comfortable hostage for her marriage with the boy he loves so well. Before you venture into the village, send down and see if he be still there, and if he be, have the curé brought up to you.--But go not too near."

"Oh, I fear him not!" replied Chazeul; "he would never dare to draw a sword against me, under the very walls of Marzay. No fear, no fear, dear mother. But I will be cautious for the present. The men of Chazeul must soon be back, if all their throats be not cut, as, by my faith, I am tempted to think they must be, by their long stay; and when they return, I will drive the old wolf out of his lair at the lance's point. I have not forgotten him. But the delay of these men puzzles me.--They had strict orders to return as soon as a battle was lost or won."

"They may have been driven back with Mayenne across the Seine," replied Madame de Chazeul; "or towards Houdan and Versailles; and are not able to force their way across. Besides, you know the Bailli loves adventures, and is not un-fond of plunder. He may have some private enterprise in hand."

Chazeul shut his lips close. "He shall pay for it, if he have neglected my commands at a moment of need, for any scheme of his own," he said. "But I will go, good mother, and leave you to your devices. Fear not for me; I will take good care;" and thus saying he left her to pursue her tortuous plans to their consummation.

He himself was soon upon his horse's back, and down the slope; but ere he lost sight of the protecting walls of the castle, he sent forward one of the men who followed him, to inquire whether Estoc and his party were still in the village, riding slowly on with the rest. The attendant returned in about ten minutes, bringing intelligence that the place was clear.

"Monsieur Estoc," he said, "marched this morning an hour before daylight; having, it seems, received tidings in the night which hurried his departure. The cottager whom I spoke with, told me that he believed those tidings were, that some bands were coming up from the side of Chartres."

"The Bailli and our own people, on my life!" replied Chazeul; "or he would not have hurried away so soon. Which way did he go? I will have him pursued if they arrive in time."

"Towards Mortagne," answered the servant; "at least, so the man said."

"Did you hear aught of these hunters?" demanded his master.

"They did not pass through the village, Sir," was the reply, "but they were seen upon the edge of the wood by some of the people, and seemed somewhat strong in numbers."

"Then we must be strong ourselves, before we deal with them," observed his master, and rode on straight to the priest's house in the village. He found the worthy curé at the door of his dwelling--a stout, round faced, well-fed ecclesiastic; and, as so often happens in life, none of the objections or difficulties, against which answers had been prepared, were made. The priest merely expressed his sorrow that father Walter, his reverend friend, was unwell; and, knowing that both at funerals and marriages much good eating and drinking seldom failed to take place, he agreed to perform both ceremonies with equal pleasure.

Well was it for the Marquis de Chazeul, that Estoc was not aware of his visit to the village; for the old soldier was not as far off as he imagined; and had he known that such a prey was near, it might have been long before the walls of Marzay had seen their lord's nephew within them again.