CHAPTER VIII.
I need hardly here detail my visit to the Admiral de Coligny, which was my first act after rising the next morning, as that visit had no results either affecting myself or the Protestant cause. I had, in the mean time, however, written to my cousin, giving him tidings of his sons, and beseeching to speak with him on matters of deep importance to us both. I said all that was kind, all that was affectionate; and I besought him to give me an interview alone, if it were but of a few minutes, before midday.
On my return to the merchant's house I found an answer. It was not in his handwriting, though an attempt had evidently been made to imitate it; and the reply, though given in an affected tone of courtesy, was tantamount to a refusal.
The Baron de Blancford, it said, would be very happy to see me, as well as any other of his near relations, and would receive me whenever I chose to call upon him; but, at the same time, to save me unnecessary trouble, it might be as well to let me know that he should not be able to entertain me till after the following Monday. The letter went on to add some unmeaning compliments on my valour and distinction, and some heartless thanks for the care and attention I had shown his sons.
After I had read it I handed it to good Martin Vern, whose only comment was, "Well, then, we must go to the halls of the Parliament, where all is already prepared for us. Come, seigneur, I am at your service."
It was, I confess, most painful to me to enter into open contest with the father of Louise de Blancford, and I determined that nothing should draw from me one angry word or rash expression. We were upon the ground first, however; and, as I walked up and down in the hall of last steps, Martin Vern somewhat reassured me by telling me that I should find my cousin a completely altered being.
In about ten minutes there was a slight movement among the number of petitioners and others at the farther end of the hall, and an old man advanced, with an upright carriage but slow step, towards the entrance of the great chamber. He was pale, and much shrivelled with age; but, though small in stature, he was dignified, and his eye seemed to have lost none of its fire. On seeing Martin Vern, he stopped; and turned his eyes on me for a moment; but the next instant he advanced and took me by the hand.
"I cannot be mistaken," he said. "This must be Monsieur de Cerons. My dear young friend! I rejoice to meet you once before I go to meet your father again in those mansions which I doubt not he has reached, and which I humbly trust in Christ that I may be also permitted soon to enter."
I needed no other words to tell me that this was the President des Chappes, of whom Martin Vern had spoken; and, after a few words more of inquiry and retrospect, the worthy magistrate turned the conversation to the subject which had brought me thither.
"I have come myself," he said, "Though not very well, to prohibit the sale of this property, not knowing whether you would arrive in time or not. No one can know so well as I do the terms on which the transfer was made to your cousin, as I drew the very paper I see now in your hands. I was at that time a lawyer in the royal court of Bordeaux; and, though not exactly in my line of business, I put the matter in order for your father with my own hand. Alas! I knew not that I should never see him more after I witnessed the signature of that deed. But here I think come our opponents: I will not call them adversaries, for I love not to see a breach in families. This must be either the Baron de Blancford, or some other person who thinks himself of importance."
I turned to see, and perceived the baron, followed by several other gentlemen, advancing rapidly up the hall, and speaking, it seemed to me, angrily with the young Seigneur de Blaye. At all events; their brows were frowning and their cheeks were heated; and, not knowing whether the sight of my attendants without might not have produced all these signs of indignation, I remained without taking any farther notice, to let the storm burst. To my surprise, however, the baron advanced and took my hand. "Henry," he said, in a voice that trembled with emotion, "my poor boy has arrived, I fear dying of the wound you mentioned in your letter. I see you feel for me," he continued; "and no one shall prevent me expressing my thanks for the kindness and,--and--and--"
While he spoke his eyes had rested on the pale and withered countenance of the President des Chappes: a look of doubt and surprise came into his face; he turned white; he hesitated, and then added confusedly, "Charles is eager and anxious to see you. He thought you would have come this morning. Who is that beside you--the old man?" he asked, in a lower tone.
"That," I replied, "is an old friend of my father's: Monsieur des Chappes, formerly of Bordeaux." The baron trembled excessively; and, as far as possible to let him recover himself, I went on. "I would have been at your house long ago, but you yourself refused to receive me till after Monday."
"I!" cried the baron; "I said no such thing. I said I would receive you whenever you chose to come--I--"
"My fair cousin, I have your note," I replied; "There it is!"
He took it and read it through, and certainly never did I behold the cheek, even of a timid girl, change its hue so frequently. At length, however, he tore it to atoms and trampled it under his feet, saying, "I am fooled! It is the production of a lady, Henry de Cerons, and therefore I must say no more."
He paused and gazed round him for a moment or two in silence, as if uncertain how to proceed, while the Seigneur de Blaye remained playing with his sword-knot; and maintaining a determined silence; and the rest who had followed the baron conversed together in a low tone.
"Now speak with him alone," whispered Martin Vern, who had been talking to Monsieur des Chappes; and I immediately followed the suggestion, saying, "As it appears, my noble cousin, that the interview which I asked this morning, for the purpose of communicating to you a most important fact, was only prevented by a mistake of the baroness in regard to your intentions, perhaps you will give me five minutes' conversation with you alone; the proclamation of sale will not take place for a quarter of an hour."
"Where can we speak alone?" said the baron, with a furtive look at Des Chappes. "I fear that--"
"Oh, in one of the bureaux," said the president. "I will wait here for you, my young friend. Huissier, lead these two gentlemen to some cabinet where they may confer."
"And pray," said the Seigneur de Blaye, "am I to remain here idling my time away till you return, baron?"
"You came, good sir, to see the sale, I think," replied the baron, sharply, "Not to enjoy my conversation, which, I suppose, could not be very entertaining to you;" and, thus saying, he followed the huissier, who led us to a small room, where we were left alone.
The moment the door was shut, the baron seized me by both hands, and gazed in my face with a wild and haggard eye. "Henry!" he exclaimed, "what are you here for? What is the meaning of this?"
"The meaning, sir," I answered, calmly but firmly, "the meaning is simply that the estates of Cerons cannot be sold. Make me not say anything painful to you, but you know, as well as I do, that they must not and cannot be sold."
"Henry! Henry!" burst forth from the baron, "do not drive me to despair!"
"God forbid!" I cried, earnestly; "I seek anything but that. On the contrary, turn, my lord, to those who really love and can really serve you, and among the most zealous count myself. I have raised myself, unsupported and alone, from nothing. With your support, and in your defence and aid, I can do far more; and, if you will let me, I will in ten minutes chastise yon empty coxcomb, who seeks your sweet child's dowry, not her hand. The estate of Cerons cannot be sold; but still I will enable you to--"
"You cannot, you cannot," replied the baron, interrupting me vehemently. "You do not know that I have bound myself to him in a large sum that I cannot pay. The money I borrowed to pay the poor child's dowry is gone. I have nothing to give with her. He will claim the bond I gave him. If the sale be stopped, I am distrusted."
"Nay, nay," I said, "all this may be well amended."
"Impossible! impossible!" he said, in a low tone. "I am ruined, disgraced. Why, your very opposition is enough. I cannot stop the sale without calling his claim upon me. You cannot stop it without exposing all."
"But hear me," I said, "but hear me. I know all: you have nothing to explain. If you will consent to my marriage with Louise, dowerless, portionless, I will allow you to stay the sale without one word of the where--hear me! hear me!--and I will instantly put it in your power to quash this man's claim with a single word, and render him your debtor. I know he cannot pay that debt, and therefore--"
"Can you do this? Can you do this?" cried the baron, with his whole face brightening.
"Ay, my cousin, I can," I replied, "and will this moment; and, if he dare but sneer, I will lash him from that look like an unruly hound."
"That is needless! that is needless!" replied the baron, a look of triumph coming over his face. "He will be my debtor, I not his; that will be sufficient. But oh, Henry," he added, while his look fell again and his cheek became pale, "oh, Henry! there is another! there is another! Perdition is on either hand; and if I snatch at the aid you so nobly and generously offer, I fall into another abyss, perhaps worse than that from which you snatch me; and yet, if the sale do not take place, it is double destruction. What can I do? what ought I to do! Tell me! tell me, if you pity me!"
"I will tell you, sir, if you will listen to my advice," I replied; "but you must decide speedily, for time wears. The most pressing evil is the one before you. The president Des Chappes will instantly forbid the sale if it be proclaimed. The cause of the prohibition must then be put on record. Nothing can ever erase that. Then comes upon you this Lord of Blaye; and, unprincipled libertine as he is, think you he will spare in any shape! At all events, sweep this away, and let us meet whatever other risk or difficulty may be in store as best we may. Will you consent, sir?"
"You know not, Henry de Cerons, you know not what those difficulties are. But what you ask must be done. She shall be yours; but you promise to aid me--to save me if you can?"
"To the very utmost of my power," I answered; "but I know or guess more than you suppose, sir. You are threatened with danger if you give your child to any but this libertine"--he bowed his head in token of assent--"and it is the baroness you fear?" I went on, but he interrupted me, exclaiming, "Not her! not her!"
"But the secrets she possesses," I rejoined, and he turned deadly pale.
"The only way," he said, after a pause of some minutes, "The only way will be for you to conceal your marriage."
"No, my lord," I replied, "that cannot be; but I will conceal your consent. Hear me!" I continued, seeing him about to grasp at it eagerly without any conditions, "hear me out. I will conceal your consent during your whole life, unless compelled by any process of law to reveal it, or driven by any attempts to annul our union. If you agree to that, draw up at once, in your own hand, your formal approbation of our union upon those conditions, so, if ever I produce that paper without need, the dishonour will fall on me. I will assign this bond to you; and, walking forth together from this room, we will at once forbid the sale, and set yon braggart boy at defiance. There are paper and pens upon that desk."
"Be it so, be it so!" cried the baron, seeming to revive from the tone of confidence with which I spoke; and, taking the pen, he wrote the words I put into his mouth. He read it over, and then gave it to me, and imagination can scarcely do justice to the feelings with which I received it.
I then assigned to him the bond; and, while I wrote, he remained with his eyes fixed musingly upon the ground.
"Henry," he said, taking it when I had done, but scarcely looking at the signature, "you think that I am rather weak to be so swayed by a woman so criminal that I should fear her. But believe me when I swear to you, that she holds her power over me by a gross falsehood. A few unfortunate words, written thoughtlessly, and seeming, as she has turned them, to countenance a deed that I abhorred, has bound me to misery and slavery."
"I grieve, sir, most truly," I replied; "but I hope the time will come when you will trust me more fully, and I doubt not then to be able----"
At that moment, however, one of the huissiers opened the door, saying, "Monsieur le Baron, the sale is about to be proclaimed." We both hurried to the house where it was to take place; but, ere we reached it, the proclamation was made, and the President des Chappes was in the act of saying, "I prohibit the sale in the name of Henry Count de Cerons and Des Bois."
"Speak! speak, sir!" I whispered to the baron; "forbid it also, that no cause may be entered on my part."
"I prohibit the sale also," he said, raising his voice aloud; and then added, in an ordinary tone, "I have just received intelligence which alters altogether my intentions."
"You have, sir?" exclaimed the Seigneur de Blaye, advancing with a menacing air. "Then you are, as I trust you remember, my debtor to the amount of forty thousand livres."
"Pardon me, sir!" said the baron, in that cold, bitter tone which I had more than once heard him use towards myself in former days, "I think, if I read this paper right, that it is you who are my debtor to the amount of twenty thousand. We will settle our accounts whenever you think fit."
The young man looked at the paper, and evidently recognised it well; then turned his eyes upon me, saying, "I understand to whom I am most a debtor, and will take occasion to settle my accounts with him before a week be over."
"I trust you will be punctual, Monsieur de Blaye," I replied; but the President des Chappes interfered, saying, "Young men! young men! many words like that uttered here will send you to the châtelet. I beseech you, sir," he continued, speaking to De Blaye, "as it seems to me that you have nothing to do with this cause, to leave the hall first."
De Blaye was about to reply, but one or two of the gentlemen who had accompanied him and the baron thither took him by the arm and drew him away. We remained in the hall some ten minutes longer, the baron speaking to Monsieur des Chappes in as unconcerned a tone as he could employ; but, the moment we had issued forth into the street, he spoke to me eagerly and long upon the subject whereon my own thoughts were most earnestly bent. He urged my immediate marriage and departure with Louise, and he promised himself to speak with her and prepare her mind for it.
"If you are long," he said, "The matter will be discovered, and I shall be forced either to sanction your union at once, or to oppose it. The latter," he continued, "of course, must not be done; but as you have promised to spare me, Henry, as far as possible, I trust that, by the utmost secrecy and expedition, you will let the whole assume the appearance of being done without my consent."
My answer may easily be conceived; but the baron's fears were not less eager than a lover's hopes, and he turned instantly from me to Martin Vern, who stood upon the steps of the Palais just behind us. Their conversation tended all to the same object; for the baron, from various matters that had been discussed, comprehended at once that the greater part of my information had been derived from the merchant. I did not hear their exact words, however, for at that moment a gay train passed along, and, before I was well aware, my hand was in that of the prince dauphin. The first expression of his countenance was pleasure at seeing me; but the next was shaded by some other feelings, and, after a few rapid questions, he asked me to come to Champigny the next day, and spend the following night there. There was a hope in my bosom, however, which prevented me from saying yes; and I replied, with a smile, that perhaps I might be obliged to quit Paris ere that. He smiled again, but seemed puzzled by my reply, saying, "Well, well, let it be so;" but, ere he left me, he came closer, and said in a low tone, "Promise me, upon your honour, De Cerons, to come to me at Champigny to-morrow night, if you do not quit Paris to go elsewhere. I have something important to say to you."
I promised without hesitation; and, grasping my hand warmly, he left me and went on. "Now," said the baron, as I turned towards him again, "I have settled it all with this good merchant, at whose house you lodge. Come with me, Henry, for Charles, poor boy, cries eagerly to see you; and to-night I will visit you, and tell you, I trust, that all is prepared."
Bidding adieu to Martin Vern for the time, with many thanks for all that he had done, I mounted my horse and accompanied the baron to his house, saying, as we rode along, "May I not hope to see Louise also? If we are to be so soon united, it were but needful that I should speak with her myself."
"Nay, Henry, nay," replied my cousin, with the blood mantling up in his cheek: "press it not if the baroness be there. If she be not, for a moment you can speak with the dear child, to tell her that, to save all farther pain on either part, your union is to take place in her chamber to-morrow night. Good old La Tour shall be brought from Montmorency to speak a blessing on you: the contract shall be duly drawn, and Albert shall be present, though I must not. One staircase shall be put in the hands of your people, to ensure your passing unopposed; the merchant engages that a gate of the city shall be kept open to give you exit; and then, as soon as she is yours, fly with her into the south without delay."
"To-morrow night, did you say?" I exclaimed, in some surprise: "can all be arranged by that time?"
"All, all," replied the baron; "and oh, Henry! when she is your wife, tell her that, towards her at least, her father was not made harsh by nature; tell, Henry--tell her, in one word, that she is like her mother; ay, and that, whatever she may think, I love her for that likeness."
"Oh! Monsieur de Blancford," I cried, moved by those words, "Why, why will you not shake off the yoke that presses on you? why do you not treat threats with scorn?"
"Because, Henry--because I have sold myself to a fiend," he answered. "Speak not of it now: one day I will tell you more."
We rode on; and I saw Charles de Blancford--terribly changed, indeed, in the space of two short days--I saw Louise, too, though it was but for a few short minutes; but that was enough to tell her that our fate was changed, and to ask her if she would consent to be mine so suddenly, so secretly, so unprepared. She replied not at first, but her looks left all other answer needless; and, ere she could reply, we heard the arrival of the baroness in the courtyard, and we parted.
With Charles I sat for some hours; and all I had to tell him of the transactions between his father and myself seemed to afford him better medicines than the druggist's shop could supply. I saw not the baroness: but, after my return to the house of Martin Vern, the baron came, and we passed nearly three hours in making every arrangement. The good merchant sat by and listened gravely, even sadly. Once I saw him bury his eyes in his hands, and he sighed often and deeply; but he promised all that we required in regard to his own aid; and, when the baron asked him if he thought not that our plan must certainly succeed, he replied, with a smile that I afterward understood better, "I will stake my life upon it."