Then he turned on his heel, and betook himself to burning his aloes once more.
CHAPTER XIV
THE WIDOW OF FRANCE
It was a small room, the curtains at the windows were drawn, and a fire burned brightly in the grate. On the polished oak of the floor, black with age, were scattered rare eastern carpets, low, cushioned seats, carved tables, and cabinets, holding those delicate and elegant trifles a woman loves—strange carvings, crystals of Venice, rare articles of faience, caskets, and vases wrought in quaint designs.
On the writing-table, a winged Mercury, the work of Benvenuto Cellini, held a lamp which filled the room with its amber light. Near the window was a clavichord, and hard by it was a lute left carelessly on a stool, whilst Nambu, the Queen’s Barbary ape, slept profoundly on the yellow satin cushions covering the window-seat. Here and there were a few books. An illuminated breviary in a golden case, with the arms of France set in brilliants thereon, lay on a prie-dieu made from the wood of the gates of the Holy Sepulchre. Beside this was carelessly flung a fan of marabout feathers, a vinaigrette, and a pair of gloves, while against the wall, overhanging these things, was a large golden cross, on which a Christ writhed in his last agony.
On the writing-desk, its pages open, was a volume of “The Prince,” by Machiavel the Florentine. In a cabinet near were some books—the “Odes of Ronsard,” the “Commentaries of Cæsar,” the “Lives of Plutarch,” and, strangely enough, the songs of Clement Marot.
There was time to see all this and more, for when we entered the cabinet it was empty, and I let my eyes run over my surroundings, more in idle curiosity than with any hope of gathering from them an index to the character of the strange woman, whom we all thought a figure of wax while her husband lived, but whose hidden strength was now beginning to be felt and feared. For five-and-twenty years, as wife and queen, she had suffered insult and contumely, such as falls to the lot of few women to bear. She had seen her rights as a wife and mother usurped, and the most brutal speech that has ever, perhaps, been made to a queen by a subject, had been flung at her by Anne de Montmorenci. She had endured and waited, until at length the time was white for her harvest of vengeance, and then she reaped. No pity had been shown to her, and she had learned how to be merciless. One by one her enemies had fallen. Diana was gone. That was indeed a day of triumph, when the insolent favorite was expelled from the Louvre! Then came the turn of others; but Montmorenci still lived, the first peer of the kingdom, Constable of France. In her eagerness to strike at him, for once the crafty Italian overreached herself, and fell into the snares set for her by her deadliest foes. How she escaped the Guise; how she humbled herself and sought the friendship of the Constable; how she played off ambition against ambition, party against party, and maintained her position to the last, are matters foreign to this story of the disaster of my life. I have merely digressed thus, to give some insight into the character of the woman we are to meet, a character so warped by the years of duplicity she had been forced to exercise, that it had become impossible for her to follow a straight course, even when such a course showed no difficulty against the attainment of her ends.
As we waited for Catherine, Marcilly turned toward a little table near to him, and picked up a bouquet of violets set in a holder of golden filagree. He was about to inhale the fragrance of the flowers, when Sancerre put his hand on his wrist, saying:
“Par le mordieu! Monsieur! Have you been so long away from the Court not to know that the scent of flowers here is sometimes unhealthy?”
Jean put down the bouquet with a slight start, and Cipierre paled a little beneath his sunburn, as he muttered something under his breath, and then checked himself, for a door we had not observed, so hidden was it in the wainscoting, opened slightly, and a figure stepped into the room.
It was Catherine, and I confess it was not without an emotion of misgiving and dislike that I saw the Queen-Mother again. She was tall for a woman, and inclined to stoutness, but her features, beneath the low, triangular cap she wore, were pale and clear-cut, and in the sleepy deeps of her dark eyes there gleamed a power and a strength, a light that had never shone in them when her husband was King.