Читать книгу One in a Thousand; or, The Days of Henri Quatre - G. P. R. James - Страница 10

The Chevalier de St. Real, according to the ideas of hospitality entertained in those days, pressed the King of Navarre to his food, and urged the wine upon him; but scarcely had Henry's glass been filled twice, ere the sound of steps hurrying hither and thither was heard in the hall, and the young noble cast many an anxious look towards the door. It opened at length, and an old servant entered, who, approaching the chair of his young lord, whispered a few words in his ear.

"Indeed!" said St. Real; "I had hoped his sleep would have lasted longer. How seems he now, Duverdier?--is he refreshed by this short repose?"

"I cannot say I think it, sir," replied the servant; "but he asks anxiously for you, and we could not find you in the hall."

"I come," answered St. Real; and then turning to the King, he added, "My father's short rest is at an end, and I will now tell him of your visit, sir. Doubtless he will gladly see you, as there is none he respects more deeply."

"Go! go! my young lord," cried Henry; "I will wait you here, with these good gentlemen. Let me be no restraint upon you. Yet tell your father, my good lord, that my business is such as presses a man's visits on his friends even at hours unseasonable, else would I not ask to see him when he is ill and suffering."

The young lord of St. Real bowed his head and quitted the apartment; while Henry remained with the other guests, whose curiosity was not a little increased in regard to who this Maitre Jacques could be, by the great reverence which seemed paid to him. They had soon an opportunity of expressing their curiosity to each other, in the absence of the object thereof; for in a very few minutes the Chevalier of St. Real returned, and besought Henry to "honour his father's chamber with his presence." The King followed with a smile; and when the door of the little hall was closed behind them, laid his hand upon St. Real's arm, saying, "You are no good actor, my young friend."

"I am afraid not," replied St. Real, in a tone from which he could not banish the sadness occasioned by his father's illness; "yet I trust what I said may in no degree betray your Majesty."

"No, no," answered Henry, "I dare say not; and should you see any suspicions, St. Real, you must either--in penance for having shown too much reverence for a king, in an age when kings are out of all respect--you must either keep these gentry close prisoners here till I have reached Tours, and thence made a two-days' journey Paris-ward, or you must give me a guard of fifty men to push my way through as far as Chartres."

"It shall be which your Majesty pleases," replied St. Real; "but here is my father's chamber."

The spot where they stood was situated half way up a long passage traversing the central part of the chateau of St. Real, narrow, low, and unlighted during the day by anything but two small windows, one at each extreme. At present two or three lamps served to show the way to the apartments of the sick man, at the small low-framed doorway of which stood an attendant, as if stationed for the purpose of giving or refusing admittance to those who came to visit the suffering noble. The servant instantly threw back the plain oaken boards, clasped together by bands of iron, which served as a door, and the next moment Henry found himself in the ante-chamber of the sick man's room. The interior of the apartment into which he was now admitted was much superior in point of comfort to that which one might have expected from the sight of such an entrance. The ante-chamber was spacious, hung with rich though gloomy arras, and carpeted with mats of fine rushes. One or two beds were laid upon the ground for the old lord's attendants; and on many a peg, thrust through the arras, hung trophies of war or of the chase, together with several lamps and sconces which cast a considerable light into the room. The chamber beyond was kept in a greater degree of obscurity, though the light was still sufficient to show the King, as he passed through the intermediate doorway, the faded form of the old Marquis of St. Real, lying in a large antique bed of green velvet, with one thin and feeble hand stretched out upon the bed-clothes. At the bolster was placed one of those old-fashioned double-seated chairs which are now so seldom seen, even as objects of antiquarian research; and, from one of the two places which it afforded, an attendant of the sick rose up as Henry entered, and glided away into the ante-room. St. Real paused and closed the door between the two chambers; and Henry, advancing, took the vacant seat, and kindly laid his hand upon that of his sick friend.

"Why how now, lord Marquis?" he said, in a feeling but cheerful tone; "how now? this is not the state in which I hoped to find you. But, faith, I must have you better soon, for I would fain see you once more at the head of your followers."

The Marquis of St. Real shook his head, with a look which had neither melancholy nor fear in its expression, but which plainly conveyed his conviction that he was never destined to lead followers to the field again, or rise from the bed on which he was then stretched. Nor, indeed, although the young monarch spoke cheerful hopes--did he entertain any expectations equal to his words. The Marquis of St. Real was more than eighty years of age; and though his frame had been one of great power, and in his eyes there was still beaming the light of a fine heart and active mind, yet time had bowed him long before, and many a past labour and former hardship in the Italian wars had broken the staff of his strength, and left him to fall before the first stroke of illness. Sickness had come at length, and now all the powers of life were evidently failing fast. The features of his face had grown thin and sharp; his temples seemed to have fallen in; and over his whole countenance--which in his green old age had been covered with the ruddy hue of health--was now spreading fast the grey ashy colour of the grave.

"Your Majesty is welcome!" he said, in a low, faint voice, which obliged Henry to bend his head in order to catch the sounds; "but I must not hope, either for your Majesty or any one else, to set lance in the rest again. I doubt not," he continued, after a momentary pause--"I doubt not that you have thought me somewhat cold-hearted and ungrateful, after many favours received at your hands, and at those of your late noble mother, that I have not long before this espoused the cause of those whom I think unjustly persecuted. But I trust that you have not come to reproach me with what I have not done, but rather to show me now how I can serve you in my dying hour; without, however, even then forgetting the allegiance I owe to the crown of France, and my duty to her monarch."

"To reproach you I certainly have not come, my noble friend," answered Henry; "for I have ever respected your scruples, though I may have thought them unfounded. Nevertheless, what I have now to tell you will put those scruples to an end at once and for ever. The cause of Henry of Navarre and of Henry III. of France are now about to be united. My good brother-in-law, the King, has written to me for aid----"

"To you!--to you!" exclaimed the Marquis, raising his head feebly, and speaking with a tone of much surprise.

"Ay, even to me," answered Henry. "He found that he had misused a friend too long, that too long he had courted enemies; and, wise at length, he is determined to call around him those who really wish well to him and to our country, and to use against his foes that sword they have so long mocked in safety. I am now on my way to join him with all speed, while my friends and the army follow more slowly. As I advanced, I could not resist the hope that enticed me hither--the hope that, when justice, and friendship, and loyalty are all united upon our side, the Marquis of St. Real, to whom justice, and friendship, and loyalty were always dear, will no longer hesitate to give us that great support which his fortune, his rank, his renown, and his retainers enable him so well to afford."

"When Henry of Navarre lends his sword to Henry of France, how should I dream of refusing my poor aid to both?" answered the Marquis. "When you refuse not to serve an enemy, sir, how should I refuse to serve a friend? But my own services are over. This world and I, like two old friends at the end of a long journey, are just shaking hands before we part; but I leave behind me one that may well supply my place. Huon, my dear son, are you there?"

"I am here, sir," said the young lord, advancing: "what is your will, my father?"

"My son, I am leaving you," replied the Marquis. "I shall never quit this bed; another sun will never rise and set for me. I leave you in troublous times, Huon, in times of difficulty and of sorrow; but that which now smoothes my pillow at my dying hour, and makes the last moments of life happy, is the fearless certainty that, come what may, my son will live and die worthy of the name that he inherits; and will find difficulty and danger but steps to honour and renown. So long as injustice stained the royal cause, and cruelty and tyranny drove many a noble heart to revolt, I would take no part in the dissensions that have torn our unhappy land; though God knows I have often longed to draw the sword in behalf of the oppressed; but now that the crown calls to its aid those it once persecuted, in order to put an end to faction and strife, my scruples are gone, and, were not life gone too, none would sooner put his foot in the stirrup than I. But those days are past; and on you, my son, must devolve the task. A few hours now, and I shall be no more; yet I will not seek to command you how to act when I am gone. Your own heart has ever been a good and faithful monitor. Let me, however, counsel you to seek the Duke of Mayenne ere you draw the sword against him. Show him your purposes and your motives; and tell him that he may be sure those who have been neutral will now become his enemies--those who have been his friends will daily fall from him, unless he follow the dictates of loyalty and honour."

The old man paused, and a slight smile curled the lip of Henry of Navarre. His nature, however, was too frank to let anything which might pass for a sneer remain unexplained; and he said, "You know not these factious Guises well enough, my friend. They strike for dominion; and that game must be a hopeless one indeed, which they would not play to gratify their ambition. But let your son seek Mayenne! More! If he will, let him not decide whose cause he will espouse till he have heard all the arguments which faction can bring to colour treason. I fear not. Strong in the frank uprightness of a good cause, and confident both of his honesty and clear good sense, I will trust to his own judgment, when he has heard all with his own ears. Let him call together what followers he can; let him march them upon Paris; and, under a safe conduct from the Duke and from the King, visit both camps alike. True, that with Henry of Valois he will find much to raise disgust and contempt; but there, too, he will find the only King of France, and with him all that is loyal in the land. With Mayenne, and his demagogues of the Sixteen, he will find faction, ambition, injustice, and fanaticism and I well know which a St. Real must choose."

"Frank, noble, and confiding, ever, sire!" said the Marquis, "nor with us will your reliance prove vain. Oh, that we had a King like you! How few hearts then could, by any arts, be estranged from the throne!"

"Nay, nay," said Henry, smiling, "you forget that I am a heretic, my good lord--a Huguenot--a maheutre! They would soon find means to corrupt the base, and to persuade the weak against me, were I King of France to-morrow--which God forfend!--and, by my faith, were I a great valuer of that strange thing, life, I should look for poison in my cup, or a dagger in my bosom at every hour."

"And yet, my lord, you are going to trust yourself where daggers have lately been somewhat too rife," said the Chevalier de St. Real; "and that, too--if I understood you rightly--with but a small escort."

"As small as may be," answered the King, "consisting, indeed, of but this one faithful friend, who has never yet proved untrue;" and he laid his finger on the hilt of his sword, adding, gaily, "but no fear, no fear: my cousin brother-in-law could have no earthly motive in killing me but to make Mayenne King of France, which, by my faith, he seeks not to do. He knows me too well, also, to think that I would injure him, even if I could; and, perhaps, finds now, that by making head against the Guises, and their accursed League, I have been serving him ever, though against his will."

"Would it not be better, my lord," asked the old man, in a feeble voice--"would it not be better to wait till you are accompanied by your own troops?"

"No, no," replied Henry; "Mayenne presses him hard. He is himself dispirited, his troops are more so. Still more of the Spanish catholicon--I mean Spanish mercenaries--are likely to be added to the forces of the League; and I fear that, if some means be not taken to keep up his courage, more speedily than could be accomplished by the march of my forces, he may cast himself upon the mercy of the enemy, and France be lost for ever."

"The Duke of Guise went as confidently to Blois as your Majesty to Tours," said the Chevalier; "and the Duke of Guise was called a friend: you have been looked on as an enemy."

"But Guise was a traitor," answered Henry, "and met with treachery, as a traitor may well expect. He went confiding alone in his own courage, but knowing that his own designs were evil. I go, confiding both in myself and in my honesty; and well knowing, that in all France there is not one man who has just cause to wish that Henry of Navarre were dead."

"He has violated his safe conduct more than once," said the Marquis, "and may violate it again."

"It will not be in my person, then," answered the King; "for safe conduct have I none, but his own letter, calling for my aid in time of need. Two drops of my blood, I do believe, spilled on that letter, would raise a flame therewith in every noble bosom that would set half the land a-fire. But I fear not: kings have no right to fear. My honesty is my breastplate, my good friend; and the steel must be sharp indeed that will not turn its edge on that."

"And the hand must be backward indeed," said the Marquis, "that would refuse its aid to such a heart. However, my lord, I give you my promise, and I am sure that my son will give you his, that the followers of St. Real shall be in the field within a month from this very night. Willingly, too, would we promise that they should join the royal cause; but, it is better, perhaps, as you have offered, that he who leads them should go free, till he shall have spoken his feelings freely to the leaders of the League."

"So be it! so be it, then!" answered Henry. "I apprehend no change of feeling towards me. My cause is that of justice, of loyalty, and of France. So long as I opposed your king in arms, I could hardly hope that a St. Real would join me, however great the private friendship might be between us; but, now that his cause is mine, and that the sword once drawn to withstand his injustice is drawn to uphold his throne, I know I shall meet no refusal. But I weary you, lord Marquis," he continued, rising; "and, good faith, I owe you no small apology for troubling you with such matters at such a time. Yet, I will trust," he added, laying his hand once more on that of the sick man--"yet I will trust that this is not our last meeting by very many, and that I shall soon hear of you in better health."

The Marquis shook his head. "My lord," he said, "I am a dying man; and though, perhaps, were the choice left to us, I would rather have died on the battle-field, serving with the last drops of my old blood some noble cause: yet, I fear not death, even here in my bed; where, to most men, he is more terrible. I have lived, I trust, well enough not to dread death; and I have, certainly, lived long enough to be weary of life. For the last ten years--though they have certainly been years of such health and strength as few old men ever know--yet, I have daily found some fine faculty of this wonderful machine in which we live, yielding to the force of time. The ear has grown heavy and the eye grown dim, my lord; the sinews are weak and the joints are stiff. Thank Heaven! the great destroyer has left the mind untouched: but it is time that it should be separated from the earth to which it is joined, and go back to God, who sent it forth. Fare you well, sir; and Heaven protect you! The times are evil in which your lot is cast; but if ever I saw a man who was fitted to bring evil times to good, it is yourself."

"Fare you well! fare you well, my good old friend!" answered Henry, grasping his hand; "and though I be a Huguenot, doubt not, St. Real, that we shall meet again."

"I doubt it not, my lord," replied the old man, "I doubt it not; and, till then, God protect your Majesty!"

Henry echoed the prayer, and quitted the sick man's chamber, followed by the young lord of St. Real. He suffered not his attendance long, however; but, retiring at once to rest, drank the sleeping cup with his young friend, and sent him back to the chamber of his father. He had judged, and had judged rightly, that the end of the old Marquis of St. Real was nearer than his son anticipated. After the King had left his chamber, he was visited by the surgeon and the priest, and then again slept for several hours. When he awoke there was no one but his son by his bed-side, and he gazed upon him with a smile, which made the young lord believe that he felt better.

"Are you more at ease, my father?" asked the young man, with reviving hopes.

"I am quite at ease, my dear Huon," replied his father. "I had hoped that in that sleep I should have passed away; but, by my faith, I will turn round and try again, for I am drowsy still." Thus saying, he turned, and once more closing his eyes, remained about an hour in sweet and tranquil slumber. At the end of that time, his son, who watched him anxiously, heard a slight rustle of the bedclothes. He looked nearer, but all was quiet, and his father seemed still asleep. There was no change either in feature or in hue; but still there was an indescribable something in the aspect of his parent that made the young man's heart beat painfully. He gazed upon the quiet form before him--he listened for the light whisper of the breath; but all was still--the throbbing of the heart was over, the light of life had gone out! St. Real was glad that he was alone; for, had any other eye than that of Heaven been upon him, he might not have given way to those feelings which would have been painful to restrain. As it was, he wept for some time in solitude and silence; and then, calling the attendants, proceeded to fulfil all those painful offices towards the deceased which in those days were sadly multiplied. When these were finished, the morning light was shining into the dull chamber of the dead; and St. Real, retiring to his own apartments, sent to announce his loss to his cousin and to the King of Navarre. The first instantly joined him, and offered such consolation as he thought most likely to soothe his cousin's mind. Henry of Navarre, however, was not in his chamber; and, on further inquiry, it was found that he had taken his departure with the first ray of the morning light.