'I am sure the lady looked at you as if she loved you.'
'Simpleton! She looked to see how she could beguile me. Love! They do nothing for love here, you foolish boy, save par amour . If she loved me, her father was the last person she would have sent me. No, no; 'tis a new stratagem, if I could only seen my way into it. Perhaps Sir Francis will when he can spend an hour on me.'
Though full of occupation, Sir Francis never failed daily to look in upon his convalescent guest, and when he heard of the Chevalier's interview, he took care that Berenger should have full time to consult him; and, of course, he inquired a good deal more into the particulars of the proposal than Philip had done. When he learnt that the Chevalier had offered all the very considerable riches and lands that Diane enjoyed in right of her late husband as an equivalent for Berenger's resignation of all claims upon the Nid-de-Merle property, he noted it on his tables, and desired to know what these claims might be. 'I cannot tell,' said Berenger. 'You may remember, sir, the parchments with our contract of marriage had been taken away from Chateau Leurre, and I have never seen them.'
'Then,' said the Ambassador, 'you may hold it as certain that those parchments give you some advantage which he hears, since he is willing to purchase it at so heavy a price. Otherwise he himself would be the natural heir of those lands.'
'After my child,' said Berenger, hastily.
'Were you on your guard against mentioning your trust in your child's life?' said Sir Francis.
The long scar turned deeper purple than ever. 'Only so far as that I said there still be rights I had no power to resign,' said Berenger. 'And then he began to prove to me--what I had no mind to hear' (and his voice trembled) '--all that I know but too well.'
'Hum! you must not be left alone again to cope with him,' said Walsingham. 'Did he make any question of the validity of your marriage?'
'No, sir, it was never touched on. I would not let him take her name into his lips.'
Walsingham considered for some minutes, and then said, 'It is clear, then, that he believes that the marriage can be sufficiently established to enable you to disturb him in his possession of some part, at least, of the Angevin inheritance, or he would not endeavour to purchase your renunciation of it by the hand of a daughter so richly endowed.'
'I would willingly renounce it if that were all! I never sought it; only I cannot give up her child's rights.'
'And that you almost declared,' proceeded Walsingham; 'so that the Chevalier has by his negotiation gathered from you that you have not given up hope that the infant lives. Do your men know where you believe she is?'
'My Englishmen know it, of course,' said Berenger; 'but there is no fear of them. The Chevalier speaks no English, and they scarcely any French; and, besides, I believe they deem him equally my butcher with his son. The other fellow I only picked up after I was on my way to Paris, and I doubt his knowing my purpose.'
'The Chevalier must have had speech with him, though,' said Philip; 'for it was he who brought word that the old rogue wished to speak with you.'
'It would be well to be quit yourself of the fellow ere leaving Paris,' said Walsingham.
'Then, sir,' said Berenger, with an anxious voice, 'do you indeed think I have betrayed aught that can peril the poor little one?'
Sir Francis smiled. 'We do not set lads of your age to cope with old foxes,' he answered; 'and it seems to me that you used far discretion in the encounter. The mere belief that the child lives does not show him where she may be. In effect, it would seem likely to most that the babe would be nursed in some cottage, and thus not be in the city of La Sablerie at all. He might, mayhap, thus be put on a false scent.'
'Oh no,' exclaimed Berenger, startled; 'that might bring the death of some other person's child on my soul.'
'That shall be guarded against,' said Sir Francis. 'In the meantime, my fair youth, keep your matters as silent as may be --do not admit the Chevalier again in my absence; and, as to this man Guibert, I will confer with my steward whether he knows too much, and whether it be safer to keep of dismiss him!'
'If only I could see the King, and leave Paris,' sighed Berenger.
And Walsingham, though unwilling to grieve the poor youth further, bethought himself that this was the most difficult and hopeless matter of all. As young Ribaumont grew better, the King grew worse; he himself only saw Charles on rare occasions, surrounded by a host of watchful eyes and ears, and every time he marked the progress of disease; and though such a hint could be given by an Ambassador, he thought that by far the best chance of recovery of the child lay in the confusion that might probably follow the death of Charles IX. in the absence of his next heir.
Berenger reckoned on the influence of Elisabeth of Austria, who had been the real worker in his union with Eustacie; but he was told that it was vain to expect assistance from her. In the first year of her marriage, she had fondly hoped to enjoy her husband's confidence, and take her natural place in his court; but she was of no mould to struggle with Catherine de Medicis, and after a time had totally desisted. Even at the time of the St. Bartholomew, she had endeavoured to uplift her voice on the side of mercy, and had actually saved the lives of the King of Navarre and Prince of Conde; and her father, the good Maximilian II., had written in the strongest terms to Charles IX. expressing his horror of the massacre. Six weeks later, the first hour after the birth of her first and only child, she had interceded with her husband for the lives of two Huguenots who had been taken alive, and failing then either through his want of will or want of power, she had collapsed and yielded up the endeavour. She ceased to listen to petitions from those who had hoped for her assistance, as if to save both them and herself useless pain, and seemed to lapse into a sort of apathy to all public interests. She hardly spoke, mechanically fulfilled her few offices in the court, and seemed to have turned her entire hope and trust into prayer for her husband. Her German confessor had been sent home, and a Jesuit given her in his stead, but she had made no resistance; she seemed to the outer world a dull, weary stranger, obstinate in leading a conventual life; but those who knew her best-and of these few was the Huguenot surgeon Pare-knew that her heart had been broken two guilty lives, or to make her husband free himself from his bondage to bloody counsels. To pray for him was all that remained to her-and unwearied had been those prayers. Since his health had declined, she had been equally indefatigable in attending on him, and did not seem to have a single interest beyond his sick chamber.
As to the King of Navarre, for whose help Berenger had hoped, he had been all these months in the dishonourable thraldom of Catherine de Medicis, and was more powerless than ever at this juncture, having been implicated in Alencon's plot, and imprisoned at Vincennes.
And thus, the more Berenger heard of the state of things, the less hopeful did his cause appear, till he could almost have believed his best chance lay in Philip's plan of persuading the Huguenots to storm the convent.
CHAPTER XXVII. THE DYING KING
Die in terror of thy guiltiness,
Dream on, dream on of bloody deeds and death,
Fainting, despair, despairing yield thy breath
KING RICHARD III.
A few days later, when Berenger had sent out Philip, under the keeping of the secretaries, to see the Queen-mother represent Royalty in one of the grand processions of Rogation-tide, the gentle knock came to his door that always announced the arrival of his good surgeon.
'You look stronger, M. le Baron; have you yet left your room?'
'I have walked round the gallery above the hall,' said Berenger. 'I have not gone down-stairs; that is for to-morrow.'
'What would M. le Baron say if his chirurgeon took him not merely down-stairs, but up on flight at the Louvre?'