Читать книгу Agnes Sorel - G. P. R. James - Страница 10

"This is beautiful writing," said the Duke of Orleans, laying one hand upon Jean Charost's shoulder, and leaning over him as he added the few last words to a proposal of accommodation between the prince and the Duke of Burgundy. "Can the hand that guides a pen so well wield a sword and couch a lance?"

"It may be somewhat out of practice, sir," replied Jean Charost, "for months have passed since it tried either; but, while my father lived, it was my pastime, and he said I should make a soldier."

"He was a good one himself, and a good judge," replied the duke. "But we will try you, Jean--we will try you. Now give me the pen. I can write my name, at least, which is more than some great men can do."

Jean Charost rose, and the duke, seating himself, signed his name in a good bold hand, and folded up the paper. "There, my uncle," he continued, "you be the messenger of peace to the Hôtel d'Artois. I must go to Saint Pol to see my poor brother. He was in sad case yesterday; but I have ever remarked that his fury is greatest on the eve of amendment. Would to God that we could but have an interval of reason sufficiently long for him to settle all these distracting affairs himself, and place the government of the kingdom on a basis more secure. Gladly would I retire from all these cares and toils, and pass the rest of my days--"

"In pleasure?" asked the Duke de Berri, with a faint smile.

A cloud came instantly over the face of the Duke of Orleans. "Nay, not so," he replied, in a tone of deep melancholy. "Pleasure is past, good uncle. I would have said--and pass the rest of my days in thought, in sorrow, and perhaps in penitence."

"Would that it might be so," rejoined the old man; and he shook his head with a sigh and a doubtful look.

"You know not what has happened here," said the Duke of Orleans, laying his hand gloomily upon his relation's arm. "An event fearful enough to awaken any spirit not plunged in utter apathy. I can not tell you. I dare not remember it. But you will soon hear. Let us go forth;" and, with his eyes fixed upon the ground, he walked slowly out of the room, accompanied by the Duke de Berri, without taking any further notice of Jean Charost, who followed, a step or two behind, to the outer court, where the horses and attendants of both the princes were waiting for them.

Some word, some indication of what he was to do, of what was expected from him, or how he was to proceed, Jean Charost certainly did look for. But none was given. Wrapped in dark and sorrowful meditations, the duke mounted and rode slowly away, without seeming to perceive even the groom who held his stirrup, and the young man remained in the court, a complete stranger among a crowd of youths and men, each of whom knew his place and had his occupation. His heart had not been lightened; his mind had not been cheered by all the events of the morning; and the gloomy, mysterious hints which he had heard of a dark and terrible crime having been committed within those walls, brooded with a shadowy horror over the scene. But those who surrounded him seemed not in the least to share such sensations. Death tenanted a chamber hard by; the darkened windows of the house that flanked the garden could be seen from the spot where they stood, and yet there appeared no heavy heart among them. No one mourned, no one looked sad. One elderly man turned away whistling, and re-entered the palace. Two squires, in the prime of life, began to spar and wrestle with rude jocularity, the moment their lord's back was turned; and many a monkey-trick was played by the young pages, while three or four lads, some older, some younger than Jean Charost himself, stood laughing and talking at one side of the court, with their eyes fixed upon him.

He felt his situation growing exceedingly unpleasant, and, after some consideration, he made up his mind to turn back again into the house, and ask to see the master of the pages, to whom he had been first directed; but, just as he was about to put this purpose in execution, a tall, gayly-dressed young man, with budding mustache, and sword and dagger by his side, came from the little group I have mentioned, and bowed low to the young stranger, with a gay but supercilious air. "May I inquire," he said, using somewhat antiquated phrases, and all the grimace of courtesy, "May I inquire, Beau Sire, who the Beau Sire may be, and what may be his business here?"

Jean Charost was not apt to take offense; and though the tone and manner were insolent, and his feelings but little in harmony with a joke, he replied, quietly enough, "My name is Jean Charost de Brecy, and my business, sir, is certainly not with you."

"How can the Beau Sire tell that?" demanded the other, while two or three more from the same youthful group gathered round, "seeing that he knows not my name. But on that score I will enlighten him. My name is Juvenel de Royans."

"Then, Monsieur Juvenel de Royans," replied the young man, growing a little angry, "I will in turn inform you how I know that my business is not with you. It is simply because it lies with his highness, the Duke of Orleans, and no one else."

"Oh, ho!" cried the young man, "we have a grand personage to deal with, who will not take up with pages and valets, I warrant; a chanticleer of the first crow! Sir, if you are not a cock of the lower court, perhaps it might be as well for you to vacate the premises."

"I really don't know what you mean, good youth," answered Jean Charost. "You seem to wish to insult me. But I will give you no occasion. You shall make one, if you want one; and I have only simply to warn you that his highness last night engaged me in his service."

"As what? as what?" cried a dozen voices round him.

Jean Charost hesitated; and Juvenel de Royans, seeing that he had gained some advantage, though he knew not well what, exclaimed, in a solemn and reproving tone, "Silence, messieurs. You are all mistaken. You think that every post in this household is filled, and therefore that there is nothing vacant for this young gentleman. But there is one post vacant, for which he is, doubtless, eminently qualified, namely, the honorable office of Instructor of the Monkeys."

"The first that I am likely to begin with is yourself," answered Jean Charost, amid a shout of laughter from the rest; "and I am very likely to give you the commencing lesson speedily, if you do not move out of my way."

"I am always ready for instruction," replied the other, barring the passage to the house.

Jean Charost's hand was upon his collar in a moment; but the other was as strong as himself, and a vehement struggle was on the point of taking place, when a middle-aged man, who had been standing at the principal door of the palace, came out and thrust himself between the two youths, exclaiming, "For shame! for shame! Ah, Master Juvenel, at your old tricks again. You know they have cost you the duke's favor. Take care that they do not cost you something more."

"The young gentleman offered me some instruction," said Juvenel de Royans, in a tone of affected humility. "Surely you would not have me reject such an offer, although I know not who he is, or what may be his capability for giving it."

"He is the duke's secretary, sir," said the elder man, "and may have to give you instruction in more ways than you imagine."

"I cry his reverence, and kiss the toe of his pantoufle," said the other, nothing daunted, adding, as he looked at Jean Charost's shoes, which were cut in a somewhat more convenient fashion than the extravagant and inconvenient mode of Paris, "His cordovanier; has been somewhat penurious in regard to those same pantoufle toes, but my humility is all the greater."

"Come with me, sir; come with me, and never mind the foolish boy," said the elder gentleman, taking Jean Charost's arm, and drawing him away. "I will take you to the maître d'hôtel, who will show you your apartments. The duke will not be long absent, and if his mind have a little recovered itself, he will soon set all these affairs to rights for you."

"Perhaps there may be some mistake," said Jean Charost, hesitating a little. "I think that you are the gentleman who introduced the Duke de Berri about half an hour ago; but, although his highness gave me the name of his secretary in speaking to that duke, he has in no way intimated to me personally that I am to fill such an office, and it may be better not to assume that it is so till I hear further."

"Not so, not so," cried the gentleman, with a smile. "You do not know the duke yet. He is a man of a single word: frank, and honest in all his dealings. What he says, he means. He may do more, but never less; and it were to offend him to doubt any thing he has said. He called you his secretary in your presence; I heard him, and you are just as much his secretary as if you had a patent for the place. Besides, shortly after Maître Jacques Cœur left him yesterday evening--the first time, when he was here alone, I mean--he gave orders concerning you. I am merely a poor écuyer de la main, but tolerably well with his highness. The maître d'hôtel, however, knows all about it."

By this time they had reached the vestibule of the palace, and Jean Charost was conducted by his new friend through a number of turning and winding passages, which showed him that the house was much larger than he had at first believed, to a large room, where they found an old man in a lay habit of black, but with the crown of his head shaved, immersed in an ocean of bundles of papers, tied up with pack-thread.

"This is the young gentleman of whom the duke spoke to you, signor," said Jean's conductor; "his highness's new secretary. You had better let him see his rooms, and take care of him till the duke comes, for I found young Juvenel de Royans provoking him to quarrel in the outer court."

"Ah, that youth, that youth," cried the maître d'hôtel, with a strong foreign accent. "He will get himself into trouble, and Heaven knows the trouble he has given me. But can not you, good Monsieur Blaize, just show the young gentleman his apartments? Here are the keys. I know it is not in your office; but I am so busy just now, and so sad too, that you would confer a favor upon me. Then bring him back, as soon as he knows his way, and we three will dine snugly together in my other room. It is two hours past the time; but every thing has been in disorder this black day, and the duke has gone out without any dinner at all. Will you favor me, Monsieur Blaize?"

"With pleasure, with pleasure, my good friend," replied the old écuyer, taking the two keys which the other held out to him, and saying, in an inquiring tone, "The two rooms next to the duke's bed-room, are they not?"

"No, no. The two on this side, next the toilet-chamber," answered the other. "You will find a fire lighted there, for it is marvelous cold in this horrid climate;" and Monsieur Blaize, nodding his head, led the way toward another part of the palace.

Innumerable small chambers were passed, their little doors jostling each other in a long corridor, and Jean Charost began to wonder when they would stop, when a sharp turn brought them to a completely different part of the house. A large and curiously-constructed stair-case presented itself, rising from the sides of a vestibule, in two great wings, which seemed all the way up as if they were going to meet each other at the next landing-place, but yet, taking a sudden turn, continued separate to the top of the five stories through which they ascended, without any communication whatsoever between the several flights. Quaint and strange were the ornaments carved upon the railings and balustrades: heads of devils and angels, cherubims with their wings extended, monkeys playing on the fiddle, dragons with their snaky tails wound round the bones of a grinning skeleton, and Cupid astride upon a goose. In each little group there was probably some allegory, moral or satirical; but, though very much inclined, Jean Charost could not pause to inquire into the conceit which lay beneath, for his companion led the way up one of the flights with a rapid step, and then carried him along a wide passage, in which the doors were few and large, and ornamented with rich carvings, but dimly seen in the ill-lighted corridor. At the end, a little flight of six broad steps led them to another floor of the house, more lightsome and cheerful of aspect, and here they reached a large doorway, with a lantern hanging before it and some verses carved in the wood-work upon the cornice.

Here Monsieur Blaize paused for a moment to look over his shoulder, and say, "That is the duke's bed-chamber, and the door beyond his toilet-chamber, where he receives applicants while he is dressing; and now for the secretary's room."

As he spoke, he approached a little door--for no great symmetry was observed--and, applying a key to the lock, admitted his young companion into the apartments which were to be his future abode. The first room was a sort of antechamber to the second, and was fitted up as a sort of writing-chamber, with tables, and chairs, and stools, ink-bottles and cases for paper, while a large, open fire-place displayed the embers of a fire, which had been sufficiently large to warm the whole air within. Within this room wat another, separated from it by a partition of plain oak, containing a small bed, very handsomely decorated, a chair, and a table, but no other furniture, except three pieces of tapestry, representing, somewhat grotesquely, and not very decently, the loves of Jupiter and Leda. The two chambers, which formed one angle of the building, and received light from two different sides, had apparently been one in former times, but each was large enough to form a very convenient room; and there was an air of comfort and habitability, if I may use the term, which seemed to the eye of Jean Charost the first cheerful thing he had met with since his entrance into the palace.

On the table, in the writing-room, were spots of ink of no very old date; and one article, belonging to a former tenant had been left behind, in the shape of a sword hanging by one of the rings of the scabbard from a nail driven into the oaken partition. In passing through, Jean Charost paused to look at it, and the old écuyer exclaimed, "Ah, poor fellow! he will never use it again. That belonged to Monsieur De Gray, the duke's late secretary, who was killed in a rencounter near Corbeil. Master Juvenel de Royans thought to get the post, but he had so completely lost the duke's favor by his rashness and indiscretion, that it was flatly refused him.

"Then probably he will be no great friend of mine," said Jean Charost, with a faint smile; "and perhaps his conduct just now had as much of malice in it as of folly."

Monsieur Blaize paused and meditated for a moment. He was at that age when the light tricks and vagaries of sportive youth are the most annoying--not old enough to dote upon the reflected image of regretted years, nor young enough to feel any sympathy with the follies of another age. He was, nevertheless, a very just man, and, as Jean Charost found afterward, just in small things as well as great; in words as well as deeds.

"No," he said, thoughtfully; "no; I do not think he is one to bear malice--at all events, not long. His nature is a frank and generous one, though overlaid by much conceit and vanity, and carried away by a rash, unbridled spirit. It is probable he neither cared who or what you were, and merely resolved, in order to make the foolish boys round him laugh, that he would have what he called some sport with the stranger, without at all considering how much pain he might give, or where an idle jest might end. There are multitudes of such men in the world, and they gain, good lack! the reputation of gallant, daring spirits, simply because they put themselves and every one else in danger, as if the continual periling of a hard head were really any sign of being a brave man. But we must not keep the signor's dinner waiting. It is one of his little foibles to love his meat well done, and never drink bad wine. Your eyes seem seeking something. What is it you require?"

"I thought, perhaps," replied Jean Charost, "that my baggage might have been brought up here, as the apartment, it seems, was prepared for me. It must have come some time ago, I think. My horse, too, I left at the gates, and Heaven knows what has become of him."

"We will inquire--we will inquire as we go," said the écuyer; "but no great toilet is required here at the dinner hour. At supper we sometimes put on our smart attire; but, in these hazardous times, one never knows how, or how soon, the mid-day meal may be brought to an end."

Thus saying, he turned to the door, and, taking a different way back from that which he had followed in leading Jean Charost to his apartments, he paused for a moment at a little dark den, shut off from one of the lower halls by a half door, breast high, and spoke a few words to some invisible person within.

"Stall number nineteen," growled a voice from within. "But who's to dress him? No groom--no horse-boy, even!"

"We will see to that presently," replied the écuyer; and then seeing a man pass along the other side of the hall, he crossed over, spoke to him for a moment or two, and returning, informed Jean Charost that his baggage had arrived, and would be carried up to the door of his apartments before dinner was over.

On returning to the rooms of the maître d'hôtel, they found that high functionary emerged from his accounts, and ready to conduct them into his own private dining-room, where, by especial privilege, he took his meals with a select few, and certainly did not fare worse than his lord and master. There might be more gold on the table of the Duke of Orleans, but probably less good cheer. The maître d'hôtel himself was a sleek, quiet specimen of Italian humanity, always exceedingly full of business, very accurate, and even very faithful; by birth a gentleman; nominally an ecclesiastic; fond of quiet, if not of ease, and loving all kinds of good things, without the slightest objection to a sly joke, even if the whiskers of decency, morality, or religion were a little singed thereby. He was an exceedingly good man, nevertheless, a hater of all strife and quarreling, though in this respect he had fallen upon evil days; and his appearance and conduct, with his black beard, his tonsure, his semi-clerical dress, and his air of grave suavity, generally assured him respect from all members of the duke's household.

Two other officers, besides himself and the écuyer, formed the party at dinner with Jean Charost, and every thing passed with great decorum, all parties seeming to enjoy themselves among fat capon, snipes, rich Burgundy, and other delicacies, far too much to waste the precious moments in idle conversation.

Jean Charost thought the dinner very dull indeed, and wondered, with a feeling of some apprehension, if his meals were always to be taken in such solemn assembly. Peals of laughter, too, which he heard from a hall not far off, gave the gravity of the proceedings all the effect of contrast. But the young gentleman soon found that when that serious passion, hunger, was somewhat appeased, his companions could unbend a little. With the second course, a few quiet jokes began to fly about, staid and formal enough, indeed; but the gravity of the party was soon restored by Monsieur Blaize starting a subject of importance, in which Jean Charost was deeply interested. He announced to the maître d'hôtel that their young companion, not knowing the customs of the duke's household, had brought no servant with him, and it was agreed upon all hands that this was a defect to be remedied immediately.

Jean was a little puzzled, and a little alarmed at the idea of expense about to be incurred; for his education had been one of forced economy, and the thought of entertaining a servant for his own especial needs had never entered into his mind. He could only protest, however, in a subdued and somewhat anxious tone, that he knew not where or how to procure a person suitable; but, on that score, immediate assistance was offered him by the maître d'hôtel himself.

"I have more than a hundred and fifty names on my books," he said, "of lads all eager to be entered upon the duke's household in any capacity. I will look through the list by-and-by."

But, without giving him time to do so, every one of the gentlemen at the table hastened to mention some one whom he would be glad to recommend, leading Jean Charost to say to himself, "If the post of lackey to the duke's secretary be so desirable, how desirable must be the post of secretary itself!"

The discussion continued during the whole of the second course, each having a good deal to say in favor of his nominee, and each a jest to launch at the person recommended by any other.

"There is Pierre Crouton," said one elderly gentleman. "He was born upon my estate, near Charenton, and a brisker, more active lad never lived. He has had good instruction, too, and knows every corner of Paris from the Bastile to the Tour de Nesle."

"Well acquainted with the little Châtelet, likewise," said Monsieur Blaize. "I have heard that the jailer's great dogs will not even bark at him. But there is Matthew Borne, the son of old James Borne, who died in the duke's service long ago."

"Ay," said another, "poor James, when he was old, and battered to pieces, married the pretty young grisette, and this was her son. It's a wise son that knows his own father. Pray, what has become of her, Monsieur Blaize? You should know, if any one does."

"I know nothing about her," said the écuyer, somewhat sharply. "Her son came to me, asking a recommendation. I have given him that, and that's all I know."

"Trust to me, trust to me, my young friend," said the maître d'hôtel, in a whisper, to Jean Charost. "I will find the lad to suit you before nightfall. Come to me in half an hour, and you shall have a choice."

Jean Charost promised to follow his counsels, and soon after the little party broke up.

Strange is the sensation with which a young man encounters the first half hour of solitary thought in a new situation. Have you forgotten it, dear reader? Yes--perhaps entirely; and yet you must have experienced it at some time. When you first went to join your regiment; when, after all the bustle, and activity, and embarrassment, and a little sheepishness, and a little pride, and a little awkwardness perhaps, and perhaps all the casualties of the first mess dinner, you sat down in your barrack-room, not so much to review the events of the day, as to let the mind settle, and order issue out of chaos: you have felt it then. Or, when you have joined a squad of lawyer's clerks, or entered a merchant's counting-house, or plunged into a strange city, or entered a new university, and passed through all the initiations, and sat down in the lull of the evening or the dead of night, to find yourself alone--separate not only from familiar faces, and things associated with early associations, but from habitual thoughts and sensations, from family customs and domestic habits: you must have felt it then, and experienced a solitude such as a desert itself can hardly give.

Seated in his writing-room, without turning a thought or a look to his baggage, which had been placed at the door for himself to draw in, Jean Charost gave himself up to thought--I believe I might better say to sensation. He felt his loneliness, more than thought of it, and Memory, with one of those strange vagaries, in which she delights as much as Fancy, skipped at once over a period of fourteen or fifteen months, and carried him back at once to the small château of Brecy, and to the frugal table in his mother's hall. The quaint, long windows, with one pointed arch within another, and two or three pale yellow warriors of stained glass, transmitting the discolored rays upon the floor. The high-backed chair, never used since his father's death, standing against the wall, with a knob in the centre, resting against the iron chausses of an antiquated suit of armor, the plain oaken board in the middle of the room, and his mother and the two maids spinning in the sunniest nook, came up before his eyes almost as plainly as they had appeared the year and a half before. He heard the hound howling in the court-yard, and the song of the milk-maid bringing home the pail upon her head, and the song of the bird, which used to sit in March mornings on the topmost bough of an ash-tree, which had rooted itself on an inner tower, somewhat neglected and dilapidated. For a moment or two he was at home again. His paternal dwelling-place formed a little picture apart in his room in the Parisian palace, and the cheerful sunshine, pouring from early associations, formed a strange and striking contrast with the sort of dark isolation which he felt around him.

The contrast, perhaps, might have been as great if he had compared the present with days more recently passed; for in the house of Jacques Cœur he had been, from the first, at home; but still his mind did not rest upon it. It reverted to those earlier days; and he sat gazing on the floor, and wishing himself--notwithstanding the eagerness of youthful hope, the buoyancy of youthful spirits, the impetuosity of youthful desires--wishing himself once more in the calm and happy bosom of domestic life, and away from splendid scenes devoid of all warm and genial feelings, where gold and jewels might glitter and shine, but where every thing was cold as the metal, and hard as the stone.

It was a boy's fancy. It was the fancy of an hour. He knew that the strangeness would soon pass away. Young as he was, he was aware that the spirit, spider-like, speedily spins out threads to attach itself to all the objects that surround it, however different to its accustomed haunts, however strange, and new, and rough may be the points by which it is encompassed.

At length he started up, saying to himself, "Ah, ha! the half hour must be past;" and quitting the room without locking the door behind him, he threaded his way through the long passage to the office of the maître d'hôtel.

The Italian seemed to have got through the labors of the day, and seated in a large chair, with his feet in velvet slippers, extended to the fire, was yielding after the most improved method to the process of digestion. He was neither quite awake, nor quite asleep, and in that benign state of semi-somnolence which succeeds a well considered meal happily disposed of. The five or ten minutes which Jean Charost was behind his time had been favorable, by enabling him to prolong his comfortable repose, and he received the young gentleman with the utmost benevolence, seating him by him, and talking to him in a quiet, low, almost confidential tone, but not at first touching upon the subject which brought his young visitor there. On the contrary, his object in inviting him seemed to have been rather to give him a general idea of the character of those by whom he was surrounded, and of what would be expected from him by the duke himself, than to recommend him a lackey.

Of the duke he spoke in high terms, as in duty bound, but of the duchess in higher terms still; mingling his commendations, however, with expressions of compassion, which led Jean Charost to believe that her married life was not as happy as her virtue merited. The young listener, however, discovered that the good signor had accompanied the duchess from her father's court at Milan, and had a hereditary right to love and respect her.

All the principal officers of the duke's household were passed one by one in review by the good maître d'hôtel, and although the prince and his lady were both spoken of with profound respect, none of the rest escaped without some satirical notice, couched in somewhat sharp, though by no means bitter terms. Even Monsieur Blaize himself was not exempt. "He is the best, the most upright, and the most prudent man in the whole household," said the signor; "just in all his proceedings, with a little sort of worldly wisdom, not the slightest tincture of letters, a great deal of honest simplicity, and is, what we call in Italy, 'an ass.'"

Such a chart of the country, when we can depend upon its accuracy, is very useful to a young man in entering a strange household; but, nevertheless, Jean Charost, though grateful for the information he received, resolved to use his own eyes, and judge for himself. To say the truth, he was not at all sorry to find the good maître d'hôtel in a communicative mood; for the curiosity of youth had been excited by many of the events of the morning, and especially by the detention and examination which he had undergone immediately after his arrival. That some strange and terrible event had occurred, was evident; but a profound and mysterious silence had been observed by every one he had seen in the palace regarding the facts. The subject had been carefully avoided, and no one had even come near it in the most unguarded moment. With simple skill he endeavored to bring round the conversation to the point desired, and at length asked, straightforwardly, what had occurred to induce the the duke's officers to put him and several others in a sort of arrest, as soon as he had entered the gates. He gained nothing by the attempt, however. "Ah, poor lady! ah, sweet lady!" exclaimed the master of the hotel, in a sad tone. "But we were talking, my young friend, of a varlet fitted for your service. I have got just the person to suit you. He is as active as a squirrel, as gay as a lark, understands all points of service for horse or man, and never asks any questions about what does not concern him--a most invaluable quality in a prince's household. If he has any fault, he is too chaste; so you must mind your morals, my young friend. His wages are three crowns a month, and your cast-off clothes, with any little gratuity for good service you may like to bestow. He will be rated on the duke's household, and nourished at his expense; but you will need a horse for him, which had better be provided as soon as possible. I advise you strongly to take him; but, nevertheless, see him first, and judge for yourself. He will be with you some time to-day; and now I must to work again. Ah, ha! It is a laborious life. Good-day, my son--good-day."

Jean Charost took his leave, and departed; but he could not help thinking that his instructive conversation with the maître d'hôtel had been brought to a somewhat sudden close by his own indiscreet questions.