Henry of Guise; or, The States of Blois (Vol. 1 of 3)

by G. P. R. James

Nor did love want the advocates of nature and reason to support his cause. First came the thought of gratitude: she was grateful to God as the great cause of her deliverance; but ought she not to be grateful to him also, she asked herself, who was indeed--as every other human being is--an agent in the hand of the Almighty, but who was carried forward to that agency by every kindly, noble, and generous feeling, the contempt of danger and of death, and all those sensations and impulses which show most clearly the divinity that stirs within us?

In being grateful to him, she felt that she was grateful to God; and it was easy for Marie de Clairvaut to believe that such gratitude should only be bounded by the vast extent of the service rendered.

She did not exactly, in clear and distinct terms, ask herself whether she could refuse to devote to him the life that he had saved; but her heart answered the same question indirectly, and she thought that she could have no right to refuse him any thing that he might choose to ask as the recompense of the great benefit which he had conferred.

What might he not ask? was her next question; and then came back the memory of every look which she had seen, of every word which she had heard, at the moment when she was just recovering; and those memories at once told her what he might and would seek as his guerdon. Was it painful for her to think that he might even crave herself as the boon?--Oh no! A week before, indeed, she would have shrunk from the very idea with pain. The only alternative she could have seen would have been to be miserable herself, or to make him miserable.

Now such feelings were all changed and gone; and Marie de Clairvaut--having entertained those feelings sincerely, candidly, and without the slightest affectation--might feel surprised, and, perhaps, a little alarmed, at the change within herself; but she was by no means one to cling with any degree of pride or vanity to thoughts and purposes that were changed.

It is true that those thoughts and purposes had been changing gradually towards Charles of Montsoreau. But it was the events of that day which suddenly and strangely had completed the alteration. The near approach of death--the plunge, as it were, into the jaws of the grave, from which she had been rescued as by a miracle--had seemed to waken in her new sensations towards all the warm relationships of life, a clinging to her kindred beings of the world, a tenderer, a nearer affection for the thrilling ties of human life.

Then again, as regarded her young deliverer, and that near familiarity, from which the habit of her thoughts and the coldness of a heart unenlightened by love, had made her hitherto shrink with something more than maiden modesty:--in regard to these, her feelings had been suddenly and entirely changed by the circumstances in which she had been placed. It seemed as if to him, and for him, the first of all those icy barriers had been broken down, and was cast away for ever. She had been clasped in his arms--she had been pressed to his bosom--the warmth of his breath seemed still to play upon her cheek--her hand seemed still grasped in his; and when her mind returned to those ideas, after more than an hour of solitary thought, the memories--which at first had called the blood into her cheek, and made her hide her eyes for shame--were sweet and consoling. She thought that it was well to be thus--that it was well, as she could not but consent out of mere gratitude, to be the wife of Charles of Montsoreau if he sought her hand, that he should be the only man she could have ever made up her mind to wed; and that she could wed him with happiness.

Such was the character of the thoughts that occupied her during the rest of the day. Her mind might, indeed, turn from time to time to her relations of the lordly house of Guise, and she might inquire what would be their opinion in regard to her marriage with the young Count of Logères. The first time that she thus questioned herself, she was somewhat startled to find that she entertained some apprehensions of opposition, for those apprehensions showed her, more than aught else had done before, how entirely changed her feelings were towards Charles of Montsoreau. They made her feel that it was no longer a mere cold consent she had to give to her marriage with him; but that it was a hope and expectation which would be painful to lose.

The apprehensions themselves soon died away: she remembered the anxiety of both the Duke of Guise and the Duke of Mayenne that she should give her hand to some one, and she remembered, also, the half angry, half jesting remonstrances of both on her declaring her intention of entering a convent. She called to mind how they had urged her, some eight months before, to make a choice, representing to her that it was needful for their family to strengthen itself by every possible tie, and promising in no degree to thwart her inclinations if she chose one who would attach himself to them.

From the words of admiration and respect which she had more than once heard Charles of Montsoreau employ in speaking of her uncles, she doubted not that the only condition which they had made, would be easily fulfilled in his case; and thus she lay in calm thought, her fancy more busy than ever it had been before, and new but happy feelings in her heart, agitating her, certainly, but gently and sweetly. Glad visions, growing up one by one as she grew more familiar with such contemplations, came up to gild the future days--visions of peace, and home, and happiness--while the blessed blindness of our mortal being shut out from her sight the pangs, the cares, the horrors, the sorrows into which she was about to plunge.