Rose D'Albret; or, Troublous Times.

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Satisfied that the presence of Helen de la Tremblade in the château, had not been discovered, father Walter sat in the sacristy without any effort to quit it, although as the reader must have divined, from his words, it was in his power so to do, notwithstanding all the precautions of Madame de Chazeul's servants to prevent him. I had well nigh said that he sat there calmly; for the exterior was so tranquil and still, that it was requisite to look into his heart ere one could fancy that there was anything but repose within. Calm? Oh, no! There, all was agitated and turbulent. The clear precision of his thoughts indeed soon gained their ascendancy; and the plan was speedily laid out for meeting the difficulties of the moment, for overcoming the obstacles presented to him, for thwarting the schemes of his adversaries. All confusion of mere idea was speedily swept away; but much was still left behind: and that which did remain, was the tumult of conflicting passions, the struggle between strong convictions and habitual feelings.

All that had taken place within the last few hours, had worked an extraordinary change in the sensations of Walter de la Tremblade. New perceptions had forced themselves upon him, both in regard to his own heart, and to the conduct and views of others. If I have at all succeeded in conveying to the reader a just view of his character, it must have been already made clear, that he was a man in whom strong passions and great powers of mind, had been bowed down by the influence of the peculiar religious doctrines of the church to which he belonged--doctrines false and evil it is true--principles, which, in many instances besides his own, prostituted the highest qualities and most brilliant talents, to the support of an institution, raised upon error, cemented by falsehood, covered over with crime; but still his devotion had been sincere and strong. He had believed all that his church told him; he had given up thought and judgment to her; his own passions, desires, and feelings, had been fused into her purposes; and, if they ever were individually brought into action, it was in the course which she had fixed for them.

But as I have said, a change had now come over him; the deep well of the heart's strongest emotions had been opened; the stream had gushed forth in a torrent; and many of the delusions which had encumbered the way of his understanding had been swept away. Many but not all. The stern attachment to the church of Rome, and the blind submission to all her dogmas, which had taught him to believe that those who attempted to try her doctrines even by the words of Christ himself, were worthy of nought but persecution and punishment, had been brought into contest with his love for her on whom all his tenderest affections had centred--for her whom he had looked upon from infancy as his child; and they had given way. He felt that he had been led wrong; he had learned, that ambition and the love of domination were part of the creed of Rome, and that, in obeying her fiery dictates, he had supported with his whole strength, the wicked and the base, against the good and noble.--He had learned it by his own sorrows; and, although perhaps he had in some degree perceived it before, and had believed that it was only justifiable to do so, for the great object of the defence of the church, the anguish of his heart now made him comprehend that the dreadful dogma, "the end justifies the means," is always false, and that there is no truth but in the Apostle's own words, "thou shalt not do evil that good may come of it."

Many another feeling, many another conclusion, on which we cannot pause, rose in Walter de la Tremblade's heart and mind; and regret and self-reproach, and the dread of being hurried by the torrent of passions and circumstances into sin and crime, agitated him dreadfully. The truth and fervour of his religious feelings remained the same. Even his attachment to the church, in whose tenets he had been educated, was unchanged, although he admitted that man's vices and prejudices had obscured and perverted her real dogmas. By her he was resolved to abide; but he determined at the same time, to remove himself for ever from the temptations to evil, to which he had been hitherto exposed; and the conclusion to which he came, in the end, was expressed by words which he muttered to himself: "I will take no farther part in this horrible strife; I will but frustrate the wicked arts of this bad woman and her base son, and then, in some far and rigid monastery, wear out the rest of life in prayer."

The time seemed short; for, of all the many terrible struggles that take place within the breast of man, there is none so full of rapid contention, as when the first convictions force themselves upon us, that all our previous course has been one grand error; and when the acts on which we have prided ourselves, the wisdom that has made us vain, the vigour that has proved weakness, the prudence that we have found folly, the penetration that has been but blindness, the meanness of our ambition, and the darkness of our light, stand revealed in their nakedness and deformity, under the bright beams of religious truth. He could have gone on thinking thus for hours, and they would have seemed but as a moment. The clock at length struck three; and the bell was still vibrating, when the sound of an opening door was heard, and then a step. The lock close upon his right hand, was then turned; and the next instant Estoc stood before him.

"Ah! Monsieur de la Tremblade," said the old soldier, "are you here? Have you seen your niece?"

"I have," answered Walter de la Tremblade, taking his hand and pressing it with strong emotion in his own. "I have, and I know all. Deeply, deeply, my old friend, do I thank you for your fatherly kindness to my poor girl. God will bless you for it: God will reward you, if not here, hereafter. I have no time, however, to offer you thanks such as are your due."

"I want no thanks, good father," replied Estoc. "I promised the good man who is dead there," and he pointed to the chapel, "to be a Father to her; and as long as old Estoc lives, she shall never want an arm to strike for her, and a home to receive her. Where is she? I hope you have not been harsh with her--"

The priest shook his head with a melancholy smile. "Harsh with her!" he said. "No, God forbid. She is with Mademoiselle d'Albret. But now listen tome, Estoc, and let us take counsel together, regarding what is to be done. You see me here a prisoner."

"Ha!" cried Estoc, "a prisoner? How is that?"

"I will tell you," answered the priest; "but understand, it is but a prisoner in appearance. They think I am so, but that strong door, though locked, and double locked, would melt away at my touch, as if it were thin air. But there is much for you to learn; dark deeds are going on within these walls, which must be prevented. First, however, there is an enterprize which you must achieve, connected with my confinement here. From Helen's words I discovered some two hours ago, that there is, in a book of Hours lying in her chamber at Chazeul, the only letter left unburnt by that incarnate fiend, Jacqueline de Chazeul. If Helen's account be right, that letter amounts to what they call in the French law, a promise,--par paroles de future, between her and Nicholas de Chazeul--in itself an absolute bar to his marriage with any one else. I instantly roused the page of the Marchioness, and sent him off on horseback to bring the book."

"I saw him go," replied Estoc. "He passed me, as I lay waiting under the bushes at the bottom of the hill."

"Then he is safe so far," replied the priest. "It seems, however, that the man who lies in the same room, while pretending to be asleep, overheard our words, and conveyed the tidings to his mistress. She sent her men to place me in confinement, and will, beyond all doubt, cause the boy to be brought to her on his return, and burn the paper. You must undertake to stop him by the way, and to obtain that precious document."

"That will be easily done," replied Estoc. "I will set about it instantly."

"But there is more to be considered, much more," rejoined the priest. "The boy must be instructed to carry the book on to his mistress, after you have taken possession of the letter you will find amongst its pages. He must be told to say nothing of his having been stopped, but to give it to her quietly, as if he had but gone and returned; for the only way to deal with that woman, is to conceal from her closely your intentions and your power, or she will ever have ready a plan to frustrate you."

"I may tell him," replied Estoc, "but will he obey?"

"I think he will," answered the priest. "I placed him with the Marchioness. To me he owes his whole education. He has ever shown himself attached with boyish devotion to my poor Helen; and she tells me that, in the hour of her indignity and shame, he merited a blow from his fierce mistress, by showing her an act of kindness. If he be but told, that he must do this for the sake of Helen de la Tremblade, I feel sure he will, at every risk."

"Write it down, write it down," said Estoc, dipping a pen in the ink that stood upon the table, and holding it to the priest. "He will believe your word sooner than mine."

Walter de la Tremblade took the pen and wrote--"Philip de Picheau, I beseech you, if you have any regard for him who protected you in childhood and in youth, or for your poor friend Helen de la Tremblade, to give up the book which you are bringing, to Monsieur Estoc, whom you have often seen and know well, to let him take from it that which he thinks fit, and then to carry on the volume of Hours to Madame de Chazeul, without telling her that you have been stopped by the way. I beg of you also to follow entirely the directions of Monsieur Estoc, if you would merit my regard and save Mademoiselle de la Tremblade from deep grief--perhaps from death."

He signed his name, and gave the paper to Estoc, saying in a confident tone, "He will do it."

"And how am I to act when I have got this letter?" asked Estoc.

"Ay, that is the question!" replied the priest. "As yet you do not know all these people's intentions, and it is necessary that you should be informed of all, in order that you should be prepared for whatever it may be necessary to do. You are resolute and fearless, I know, and have before now done much with small means and a strong hand. You may be called upon before many hours are over, to use the sword in defence of right and justice."

"That I am quite ready to do," replied Estoc. "It is but wiles and cunning I fear, for there I am no match for your good Marchioness. But let me hear, father, what are her plans and purposes?"

"These," answered Walter de la Tremblade: "Some of them, I have already frustrated; but I know that, failing these, she will have recourse to force to effect the marriage of her base son with Mademoiselle d'Albret; for she has built up a scheme for his aggrandizement, which nothing will make her abandon, but death. Even perhaps his pre-contract with Helen, she will attempt to pass over by bold authority;" and he proceeded succinctly to display to the eyes of Estoc, the whole plans and purposes of Madame de Chazeul.

"But will Monsieur de Liancourt consent?" exclaimed Estoc. "He is honest at heart--I believe on my life he wishes well."

"But he is weak," replied the priest; "weak as the water of the stream, which may be turned by art whithersoever we will; yet when bent in a particular course, and concentrated within a narrow channel, moves mighty machines, and carries all before it. He is now entirely in the hands of this woman. I am no longer near him to guide him and to counteract her, and you will see that he will do her bidding, like a servant or a dog."

"Force, against force, then," answered Estoc, "and I think myself well justified in using the means I possess, to bring my men in hither. The passage through the wall between the two doors will hold us all, for we are not so many as I could wish; but I will be ready to appear at the first sign."

"How many are you?" asked the priest.

"Seventeen," replied Estoc; "but there are stout men amongst us, well trained to hard blows."

"There are eight and twenty in the château," answered Walter de la Tremblade, "and some of them good men at arms too."

"That matters nothing," cried Estoc, "if we can get in unperceived. Surprise doubles numbers. All the garrison could not act upon one point. We should seize the principal avenues to the chapel before they were aware; and the Count and Chazeul once prisoners, they might fret their souls to dust without preventing me from liberating Mademoiselle d'Albret. I could wish, indeed," he added thoughtfully, "to have had enough to overawe all resistance; for I would rather, if it were possible to avoid it, not stain the consecrated floor of the chapel with Christian blood."

The priest mused for a moment or two, and then replied, "And so would I. But theirs is the villany. Your enterprise is right and just. If they draw the sword to carry out their own iniquitous schemes, theirs is the crime and the sacrilege. I absolve you of all offence in doing aught that may be necessary to prevent the act they meditate."

"It may be better in the hall," said Estoc in return, after a moment's thought. "The contract must be signed there before the marriage, and there the first scene of violence must take place. True, it is not so easy to reach it, or to retreat from it, and we are there more open to attack; but if I can contrive it I will. I must think over the means, however, and I will be early here--as soon as I have got the letter from the boy. If we can lodge ourselves in the passage before it is full daylight, it will be better. The bushes give some shelter, it is true; and they cannot prevent my entrance, so long as I possess the key; but it were better to take them by surprise."

"Far better," replied the priest; "and I calculate that if he make haste, the boy may be back here by five. It was not much past one when he set out. Are you aware," he added laying his hand upon Estoc's arm, and pointing to a door in the sacristy, behind which the priest's vestments and various ornaments and relics were deposited, "Are you aware, that through that closet lies a passage in the hollow of the wall?"

"Oh, yes," replied Estoc, "it is necessary for the defence of the chapel port; but still that would only lead us to the court, and we should have to pass the Corps de Garde, go through the lower hall, and mount the staircase. However, I will think it all over as I go, and lay my plan. I know the château well, and every nook and corner. We shall find means no doubt. I have taken a stronger place than this with fewer men, and more to oppose us. Ere they should carry out their scheme, I would blow in the gates with petards and force my way to the hall sword in hand."

"I trust it will not be necessary," answered the priest. "Indeed I do not believe that there will be aught like bloodshed. Monsieur de Liancourt himself, I should think, would not suffer the sword to be drawn, especially as his heart must tell him that it is in a bad cause."

"Ay, and many of the good fellows here," replied Estoc, "would not take part against us, especially to force poor Rose into a marriage that she hates. Chazeul is little loved by any one; and the Marchioness is hated even by her people. I have heard them speak of her.--But now I will waste no more time. Farewell, Monsieur de la Tremblade: I will be back as soon as I have got the paper."

"God give you success," answered the priest; and Estoc, retiring through the door, closed it after him. Then issuing forth into the country, he crept quietly away under cover of some bushes which approached the walls, till upon the verge of the wood he found two of his men waiting for him. With them he returned to the village, called the rest of his little band together, paid the cottagers, whom he roused from their slumbers, for the accommodation he had received, and rode on towards Chazeul, giving out that it was not his intention to return.

After proceeding for five miles on the way, to a spot which the boy was obliged to pass on his road from the one château to the other, the old soldier halted his men, and ordered them to feed their horses with some corn which they had brought in their bags. A vigilant watch was kept in the meantime upon the side of the high bare hill, down which came the road from Chazeul, and at the foot of which wandered the Huisne; but one half hour passed after another, and no one appeared. All was still and silent, the stars twinkling out above, and the low wind whispering through the yellow grass that covered the wide extend of sloping land between them and a wood above. The road was scarcely to be traced by the eye, except where its sandy banks, against the deep back ground of the trees, marked the spot at which it issued forth from the forest; but upon that point Estoc kept his eyes fixed without seeing any dark object cross the lines, till the sky overhead began to assume a reddish hue, and the light spread gradually around. The day at length fully dawned, and the old soldier was giving his men directions to scatter themselves along the edge of the wood, and close round the boy as soon as he appeared, when the figure of some one on horseback suddenly issued forth upon the side of the hill, and came down at a quick pace, apparently not remarking that there was any one below, till he was half way to the bottom of the descent. Then, however, the boy suddenly pulled in his bridle rein, and seemed to hesitate; but the next instant, instead of turning back to the wood, he darted off to the left, with the intention of crossing the Huisne farther up. Estoc, however, detached three of his men along the low ground on the bank to cut him off there, while he rode up to deprive him of his retreat into the wood, and the rest of the party swept over the side of the hill in a semicircle, gradually drawing closer and closer round the poor page, who doubled before them like a hare before the hounds. At length he saw that the attempt to escape was vain, and pulling in his horse, he stood still till Estoc rode up to him.

"Ah, Monsieur Estoc! is it you?" exclaimed the page with a glad smile, when he saw who was his captor. "You have given me a terrible fright."

"More than needful, Philip," replied Estoc, "for we do not want to hurt you. But, get off your horse, my good boy, and come hither apart with me, for I have something to say to you."

The page did as he was directed; and Estoc, dismounting also, led him a little on one side, demanding, "Have you got it?"

"Got what?" rejoined the page, with a shy look of affected unconsciousness.

"Come, come--no more of that, Master Philip!" exclaimed Estoc: "I mean the book, as you know well enough."

"Yes, I have got it," answered the boy: "but you must not take it from me indeed, Estoc, for my mistress will be so angry."

"Let me look at it," said Estoc: "you shall have it back again, upon my honour! Have you opened it?"

"No!" cried the page with a look of surprise; "is there anything in it?"

"Yes, prayers, to be sure," replied the old soldier, satisfied by the boy's countenance that he spoke the truth. "Come, let me look at it--you shall have it back, I tell you."

The page drew slowly and unwillingly from a pouch under his arm, the book with its velvet cover and silver clasps, and placed it in Estoc's hand, saying, "You promise to give it back, mind."

"Ay!" answered the old soldier, "and I always keep promises;" and, as he spoke, he unfastened with some difficulty the stiff clasps, which seemed to be tightened in their hold by something swelling out the bulk of the volume.

"Ha, ha! you have done what the old gouvernante could not do," cried the boy.

"What, did she try to open it?" asked Estoc, turning over the pages.

"Ay, that she did, the nasty old wolf," replied the page; "and she kept me for two hours waiting in the hall, because she did not choose either to get up and fetch it, or let me. Ah! what have you got there?"

"What I seek," answered Estoc, giving the boy back the book, and putting a letter, which he had taken from between the leaves, in his pocket. "Now, master Philip," he continued, "take the book on to your mistress, and give it to her, without telling her that you have met with any one, or that any one has looked into it."

"She will know that, without any telling," answered the boy in a gloomy tone. "She will find out, in a minute, that the paper has been taken out, and perhaps have me hanged for stealing it, as she did Gabriel Houlot for robbing her of her gold bonbonnière, which was under the pillow of the coach all the time."

"Fear not, fear not!" said Estoc; "she does not know that there was anything in it: and it is to prevent her from knowing it, that I take the paper."

"But father Walter knows," rejoined the boy; "and he will tell her."

"No, no, he will not," replied Estoc. "But, to satisfy you, read that, if you can read."

"Oh, yes, I can!" said the page proudly; "good father Walter had me taught to read:" and, taking the paper which the priest had written, and which Estoc held out to him, he ran his eye over it rapidly. "Have I any regard for her?" he cried, as he saw the words referring to Helen, "Ah, that I have, poor thing! and would shed my blood to serve her, if it would do her any good. The old woman may hang me, if she likes; I will tell her nothing, the tiger!"

"That's a good youth," answered Estoc; "but, read it through."

"Well, what am I to do, Monsieur Estoc?" asked the page as he concluded. "I always promised to obey good father Walter; and, as he tells me to do what you direct me, I will do it. But, what does he mean about saving Mademoiselle Helen from death?--Where is she?--What has happened to her?"

Estoc paused thoughtfully for a moment; and the idea of telling the page that Helen was in the Château de Marzay, and directing him to help her, crossed his mind. The boy's regard for her, and his willingness to serve her and obey the priest, were too evident to be doubted; but discretion, seldom the quality of youth, was too likely to be wanting. "The priest has means of communicating with Helen, by the passage from the sacristy, he thought; and I suppose from what he said, that he has another key of the door. But yet he might be stopped. Most likely the Marchioness does not know where they have placed him. She is not one to overlook such chances, and a thousand to one, she has him removed when she wakes. Then the boy's wit might be of service if he knew all. I will risk something. It cannot do much harm.--Hark ye, Philip," he said aloud, "can you keep a secret without either blabbing it behind the door to a soubrette, or carrying it about in your face as plainly as if your tongue told it?"

"That I can," answered the page. "I have learned that in our house. There have been secrets enough there within the last two years, I can tell you."

"Well then," continued Estoc, "the truth is, that your companion in your room, heard good father Walter tell you to go upon this errand. He went directly and informed your mistress; and she, suspecting there was something in the book which she wished father Walter not to have, has caused him to be confined--locked up--so that he cannot stir."

"I will let him out," cried the boy eagerly.

"At all events be on the watch to serve him," replied the old soldier. "You may in the course of this morning have an opportunity of rendering him a great kindness, if you use your eyes and ears aright, and be ready to do so whenever he asks you."

"That I will!" exclaimed the page; "but pray tell me, Estoc, where is Mademoiselle Helen? What has become of her? I am sure you know more than you say.--Oh, Madame treated her cruelly--terribly."

"She is well," answered Estoc in a grave tone, "and so far in safety, that, if undiscovered, all will go right; but if she be once found by her enemies, her life will be held by a poor tenure, against that bad woman's malice."

The boy cast down his eyes and thought; then looking up, he cried, "She is in the Château of Marzay!"

"Ha!" exclaimed the old soldier, "what makes you think that?"

"Why, whom should she fly to, but Monsieur de Chazeul?" asked the page.

"Fly to him!" replied Estoc in a sharp tone. "She would fly from him to the farthest part of the earth. She abhors him. She hates him. Poor silly boy, you are mistaken."

The page looked puzzled. "He loved her once," he said in a meditative tone, "and she him. Of that I am very sure; for I took the letters."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the other, "then you owe her some gratitude; for she would not tell who brought them, for fear of injuring you, though dear enough it cost her."

"Ah, sweet lady!" cried the boy, "that is so like her.--Poor Mademoiselle Helen, I would die for her willingly," and the tears rose in his young eyes.

"Well, then," said Estoc, "watch for the opportunity of proving how you love her. You may find it soon also. Look well about you; mark every word, and yet seem unconscious; be ready to obey her in an instant: and above all remember, that, of all beings she has most cause to hate and dread, it is Monsieur de Chazeul. There is no one whom you can trust within the Château of Marzay, except father Walter, but least of all Nicholas de Chazeul. Her life may depend upon you, upon your prudence, upon your courage, and upon your quickness; and if you be driven forth, as she was, for serving her, come to me, and I will take you into my band, and make a soldier of you--I shall not be far distant."

The boy clapped his hands gladly; but Estoc went on, "No more, my good lad, at present. Go back to the château with all speed; say not a word to any one of having seen me; but tell the Marchioness how the old woman kept you before she would get the book."

"Stay, stay," cried the page; "I am not to know that Madame did not send me; is it not so?"

"Certainly," replied Estoc; "you are to forget all that I have told you, and only to remember that father Walter sent you for the book, and that you have brought it. That is all.--Now to your horse's back and away."

The boy obeyed at once, remounted, and rode off.

Estoc and his band soon followed; but at the distance of about a mile and a half from Marzay, he gave the word to halt; and then turning to his men he said, "We must take to the wood, my children.--Then for a short council of war; and after that for action!" Thus speaking, he himself dismounted, and led his horse through the brush-wood into the forest, followed by all his companions; but scarcely had he reached the thicket to which his steps were directed, when his ear was greeted by a loud flourish of hunting horns at no great distance.