Philip Augustus; or, The Brothers in Arms

by G. P. R. James

She delighted no longer in things wherein she had most joyed. The opening flowers of the spring, the chanting of the wild melodious birds, the reviving glow of all nature's face after the passing of the long, chill winter, brought her no happiness. Her heart had lost its young expansion. Her eye§ were covered with a dim, shadowy veil, that gave its own dull, sombre hue to all that she beheld. Her ears were closed against every sound that spoke of hope, or pleasure, or enjoyment. Her life was one long, sad dream, overjoys passed away, and happiness never to return.

For many and many an hour, she would wander about through the woods; but when she saw the young green leaves opening out from the careful covering with which nature had defended their infancy, she would recall the time when, with her beloved husband, she had watched the sweet progress of the spring, and would weep to find him no longer by her side, and to see in the long, cold future an unchanging prospect of the same dull vacancy. Often, too, she would stray to the top of one of the high hills near the castle, and, gazing over the wide-extended view--the sea of woods waving their tender green heads below her--the mingling hills, and valleys, and plains beyond--the windings of the broad river, with the rich, rich vale through which it flows--and the distant gleams of towers and spires scattered over the fair face of the bright land of France, she would sigh as she looked upon the proud kingdom of her Philip, and would quickly shrink back from the wide extension of the scene to the small limit of her heart's feelings and her individual regrets.

She shrunk, too, from society. Her women followed, but followed at a distance; for they saw that their presence importuned her; and it was only when any message arrived from the king, or any news was brought concerning the progress of his arms, that they broke in upon her reveries. Then, indeed, Agnes listened as if her whole soul was in the tale; and she made the narrators repeat over and over again every small particular. She heard that one castle had fallen--that another district had submitted--that this baron had come over to the crown of France--or that city had laid its keys at the feet of Philip, dwelling on each minute circumstance, both of warfare and of policy, with as deep and curious an interest as if her life and hope had depended on the issue of each particular movement.

It was remarked, too, that the oftener the name of Philip was repeated in the detail, the more interest she appeared to take therein, and the more minute was her questioning; and if any eminent success had attended his arms, it would communicate a gleam of gladness to her eyes, that hardly left them during the whole day.

At other times she spoke but little, for it seemed to fatigue her; and, though from the blush of her cheek, which every evening seemed to come back brighter and brighter, and from a degree of glistening splendour in her eye, which grew more brilliant than it had ever been even in her happier days, her women augured returning health, yet her strength visibly failed; and that lovely hand, whose small but rounded symmetry had been a theme for half the poets of France, grew pale and thin, so that the one loved ring nearly dropped from the finger round which it hung.

It was not from a love of new things or new faces, for no one was more constant in all her affections than Agnes de Meranie; but though she avoided even the society of her own immediate followers, several of whom had attended upon her in her own land, yet Isadore of the Mount, from the time she had taken refuge in the castle where she was still detained by royal order, was often welcomed by the queen with a smile that the others could not win.

Perhaps the secret was, that Isadore never tried to console her--that she seemed to feel that the name of comfort under such circumstances was but a mockery; and though she strove, gently and sweetly, to divert the mind of the unhappy princess from the immediate subject of her grief, she did it by soft degrees, and never sought for a gaiety that she did not feel herself, and which she saw was sadly discordant with all the feelings of the queen when affected by others in the hope of pleasing her.

One morning, towards the end of March, on entering the apartments of the queen, Isadore found her with her head bent over her hand, and her eyes fixed upon the small circle of gold that had bound her to Philip Augustus, while drop after drop swelled through the long lashes of her eyelids, and fell upon the ring itself. Seeing that she wept, Isadore was about to retire; for there is a sacredness in grief such as hers, that a feeling heart would never violate.

The queen, however, beckoned her forward, and looking up, wiped the tears away. "One must be at a sad pitch of fortune, Isadore," said she, with a painful smile at her own melancholy conceit,--"one must be at a sad pitch of fortune, when even inanimate things play the traitor and leave us in our distress. This little magic symbol," she continued, laying one finger of the other hand upon the ring,--"this fairy token, that in general is destined to render two hearts happy or miserable, according to the virtue of the giver and the receiver--it has fallen from my finger this morning, though it has been my comfort through many a sorrow. Is not that ominous, Isadore?"

"Of nothing evil, I hope, lady," replied Isadore. "Trust me, 'tis but to show that it will be put on again under happier auspices."