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Agnes Sorel

<h4>CHAPTER XIII.</h4> The cool twilight of a fine winter's evening filled the air as the train of the Duke of Orleans approached his château of Beauté. Standing on a high bank, with the river flowing in sight, and catching the last rosy rays, which still lingered in the sky after the sun was set, the house presented a grand, rather than a graceful appearance, though it was from the combination of beautiful forms and rich decoration with the defensive strength absolutely requisite in all country mansions at that day, that it derived its name of Beauté. The litter had been repaired at Juvisy, and the Duke of Orleans had taken possession of it again; but as the cavalcade wound up the ascent toward the castle, the prince put his head out, and ordered one of the nearest attendants to call Lomelini to him. "I am ill, Lomelini," he said, as soon as the maître d'hôtel rode up; "I am ill. Go forward and see that my bed-chamber is prepared." "Had I not better send back for your highness's chirurgeon?" asked Lomelini. "'Tis a pity he was left behind in Paris." "No, no," replied the prince; "let him stay where he is. He overwhelms me with his talk of phlebotomy and humors, his calculations of the moon, and his caption of fortunate hours. 'Tis but a little sickness that will pass. Besides, there is the man at Corbeil. He can let blood, or compound a cooling potion." As soon as the cavalcade had entered the court-yard of the château, the duke was assisted from his litter, and retired at once to his chamber, leaning upon the arm of Lomelini, who was all attention and humble devotion. The rest of the party then scattered in different directions, most of those present knowing well where to betake themselves, and each seeking the dwelling-place to which he was accustomed. Jean Charost, however, had no notion where he was to lodge, and now, for the first time, came into play the abilities of his new servant, Martin Grille. His horses were stabled in a minute--whether in the right place or not, Martin stopped not to inquire--and, the moment that was done, divining well the embarrassment of an inexperienced master, the good man darted hither and thither, acquiring very rapidly, from the different varlets and pages, a vast amount of information regarding the château and its customs. He found Jean Charost walking up and down a large hall, which opened directly, without any vestibule, from the principal door of entrance, and plunged so deeply was he in meditation, that he seemed to see none of the persons who were passing busily to and fro around him. The revery was deep, and something more: it was not altogether pleasant. Who, in the cares and anxieties of mature life, does not sometimes pause and look back wistfully to the calmer days of childhood, decking them with fanciful memories of joys and sports, and burying in forgetfulness the troubles and sorrows which seemed severe at the time. The two spirits that are in man, indeed, never exercise their influence more strongly in opposition than in prompting the desire for peace, and the eagerness for action. Jean Charost was busy at the moment with the unprofitable, fruitless comparison of the condition in which he had lately lived and his present station. The calm and tranquil routine of ordinary business; the daily occupation, somewhat monotonous, but without anxiety, or even expectation; the peaceful hours for study, for thought, or for exercise, when not engaged in the service of no very exacting master, acquired a new and extraordinary interest in his eyes now that ambition was gratified, and he appeared to be in the road to honor and success. It was not that he was tired of the Duke of Orleans's service: it was not that he misappreciated the favors he received, or the kindness with which he had been treated; but the look back or the look forward makes a great difference in our estimate of events and circumstances, and he felt that full appreciation of the past which nothing that is not past can altogether command. Yet, if he strove to fix upon any point in regard to which he had been disappointed, he found it difficult to do so. But there was something in the whole which created in his breast a general feeling of depression. There was a sensation of anxiety, and doubt, and suspicion in regard to all that surrounded him. A dim sort of mist of uncertainty hung over the whole, which, to his daylight-loving mind, was very painful. One half of what he saw or heard he did not comprehend. Men seemed to be speaking in a strange, unlearned language--to be acting a mystery, the secret of which would not be developed till near the end; and he was pondering over all these things, and asking himself how he should act in the midst of them, when Martin Grille approached, and, in a low tone, told him all that he had discovered, offering to show him where the secretary's apartments were situated. "But can I be sure that the same rooms are destined for me?" asked Jean Charost. "Take them, sir, take them," answered Martin Grille; "that is to say, if they are good, and suit you. The only quality that is not valued at a court is modesty. It is always better to seize what you can get, and the difficulty of dispossessing you, nine times out of ten, makes men leave you what you have taken. Signor Lomelini is still with the duke; so that you can ask him no questions. You must be lodged some where, so you had better lodge yourself." Jean Charost thought the advice was good, especially as night had by this time fallen, and a single cresset in the hall afforded the only light, except when some one passed by with a lamp in his hand. He followed Martin Grille, therefore, and was just issuing forth, when Juvenel de Royans, and another young man of the same age, came in by the same door out of which he was going. At the sight of the young secretary, De Royans drew back with a look of affected reverence, and a low inclination of the head, and then burst into a loud laugh. Jean Charost gazed at him with a cold, unmoved look, expressive, perhaps, of surprise, but nothing else, and then passed on his way. "Those gentlemen will bring themselves into trouble before they have done," said Martin Grille. "That Monsieur De Royans is already deep in the bad books." "No deeper than he deserves," answered Jean Charost. "But perhaps they may find they have made a mistake before they have done." "Ah, good sir, never quarrel with a courtier," said the servant. "They are like wary fencers, and try to put a man in a passion in order to throw him off his guard. But here are your rooms, at the end of this passage. That door is the back entrance to the duke's apartments. The front is on the other corridor." With some lingering still of doubt, Jean Charost took possession of the rooms, which he found more convenient than those he had inhabited in Paris, and, by the aid of Martin Grille, all was speedily put in order. The hour of supper soon arrived, and, descending to the general table of the household, he found a place reserved for him by Monsieur Blaize, but a good deal of strange coldness in the manners of all around. Even the old écuyer; himself was somewhat distant and reserved; and it was not till long afterward that Jean Charost discovered how much malice any marks of favor from a prince can excite, and to how much falsehood such malice may give birth. His attempt to stop the horses of the litter had been severely commented on, as an act of impertinent forwardness, by all those who ought to have done it themselves; and they and every one else agreed, notwithstanding the duke's own words, that the attempt had only served to throw one of the horses down. The only person who seemed cordial at the table was the good priest, Father Peter; but the chaplain could afford very little of his conversation to his young friend, being himself, during the whole meal, the butt of the jester's wit, to which he could not refrain from replying, although, to say sooth, he got somewhat worsted in the encounter. All present were tired, however, and all retired soon to rest, with the exception of Jean Charost, who sat up in his bed-room for two or three hours, laying out for himself a course of conduct which would save him, as far as possible, from all minor annoyances. Nor was that course altogether ill devised for the attainment of even higher objects than he proposed. "I will live in this household," he thought, "as far as possible, by myself. I will seek my own amusements apart, if I can but discover at what time the duke is likely to want me. Any who wish for my society shall seek it, and I will, keep all familiarity at a distance. I will endeavor to avoid all quarrels with them; but, if I am forced into one, I will try to make my opponent rue it." At an early hour on the following morning the young man went forth to inquire after the duke's health, and learned from one of the attendants at his door that he had passed a bad and feverish night. "I was bidden to tell you, sir," said the man, "if you presented yourself, that his highness would like to see you at three this evening, but will not want you till then." This intimation was a relief to Jean Charost; and, returning to his room, where he had left Martin Grille, he told him to prepare both their horses for along ride. "Before breakfast, sir?" asked the man. "Yes, immediately," replied the young secretary. "We will breakfast somewhere, Martin, and dine somewhere too; but I wish to explore the country, which seemed beautiful enough as we rode along." "Monstrous white, sir," replied Martin Grille. "However, you had better take some arms with you, for we may chance to miss the high-road, I being in no way topographical. The country in this neighborhood does not bear the best reputation." Jean Charost laughed at his fears, and ere half an hour was over they were on their horses' backs and away. The morning was bright and pleasant, notwithstanding the keen frostiness of the air. Not a breath of wind stirred the trees, and the sun was shining cheerfully, though his rays had no effect upon the snow. There was a silence, too, over the whole scene, as soon as the immediate vicinity of the castle was passed, which was pleasant to Jean Charost, cooped up as he had been for several months previously in the close atmosphere of a town. From a slow walk, he urged his horse on into a trot, from a trot into a canter, and when at length the wood which mantled the castle was passed, and the road opened out upon the rounded side of the hill, boyhood's fountain of light spirits seemed reopened in his heart, and he urged his horse on into a wild gallop over the nearly level ground at the top. Martin Grille came panting after. He was not one of the best horsemen in the world, and, though he clung pretty fast to his steed's back, he was awfully shaken. That gay gallop, however, had a powerful moral effect upon the good varlet. Bad horsemen have always a great reverence for good ones. Martin Grille's esteem for his master's talents had been but small before, simply because his own worldly experience, his intimate knowledge of all tricks and contrivances, and the facile impudence and fertility of resources, which he possessed as the hereditary right of a Parisian of the lower orders, had enabled him to direct and counsel in a thousand trifles which had embarrassed Jean Charost simply because he had been unaccustomed to deal with them. But now, when Martin saw his easy mastery of the strong horse, and the light rein, the graceful seat, the joyous hilarity of aspect with which the young man bounded along, while he himself was clinging tight to the saddle with a fearful pressure, the sight made him feel an inferiority which he had never acknowledged to himself before. At length, Jean Charost stopped, looked round and smiled, and Martin Grille, riding up, exclaimed, in a half-dolorous half-laughing tone, "Spare me, sir, I beseech you. You forget I am not accustomed to such wild capers. Every man is awkward, I find, in a new situation; and though I can get on pretty well at procession pace, if my horse neither kicks nor stumbles, I would rather be excused galloping over hillsides, for a fortnight at least, till my leather and his leather are better acquainted." "Well, well," answered his master, "we will go a little more slowly, though we must have a canter now and then, if but to make the snow fly. We will ride on straight for that village where the church tower is peeping up over the opposite side of the hill." "There is a thick wood between us and it," said Martin Grille. "Doubtless the wood has a road through it," answered his master; and, without further discussion, rode on. The wood, or rather forest--for it was a limb of the great forest of Corbeil--of which Martin Grille spoke, lay in the hollow between two gentle ranges of hills, upon one of which he and his master were placed at the moment. It was deeper, more extensive, and more intricate than it had appeared to Jean Charost, seeing across from slope to slope, but not high enough to look down upon it as a map. As he directed his horse toward it, however, he soon came upon a road marked out by the track of horses, oxen, and carts, showing that many a person and many a vehicle had passed along it since the snow had fallen; and even had he clearly comprehended that his servant really entertained any apprehensions at all, he would only have laughed at them. On entering the wood, the snow upon the ground, shining through the bare stems of the trees and the thin, brown branches of the underwood, at first showed every object on either hand for several yards into the thicket. Even the footprints of the hare and the roe-deer could be seen; and Jean Charost, well accustomed to forest sports in his boyhood, paused at one spot, where the bushes were a good deal beaten down, to point out the marks to his servant, and say, "A boar has been through here." Some way further on, the wood became thicker, oaks and rapidly deciduous trees gave way to the long-persistent beech; and beneath the tall patriarchs of the forest, which had been suffered to grow up almost beyond maturity, a young undergrowth, reserved for firewood, and cut every thirteen or fourteen years, formed a screen into which the eye could not penetrate more than a very few feet. Every here and there, too, were stunted evergreens thickening the copse, and bearing upon their sturdy though dwarfish arms many a large mass of snow which they had caught in its descent toward the ground. Across the road, in one place, was a solid mass of ice, which a few weeks before had been running in a gay rivulet; and not twenty yards further was a little stream of beautiful, limpid water, without a trace of congelation, except a narrow fringe of ice on either bank. Here Jean Charost pulled up his horse, and then, slackening the rein, let the beast put down his head to drink. Martin Grille did so likewise; but a moment after both heard a sound of voices speaking at some little distance on the left. "Hark! hark!" whispered Martin Grille. "There are people in the wood--in the very heart of the wood." "Why, where would you find woodmen but in the wood?" asked Jean Charost. "You will hear their axes presently." "I hope we shall not feel them," said Martin Grille, in the same low tone. "I declare that the only fine wood scenery I ever saw has been at the back of the fire." "They have got a fire there," said Jean Charost, pointing onward, but a little to the left. "Don't you see the blue smoke curling up through the trees into the clear, cool air?" "I do indeed, sir," said Martin Grille. "Pray, sir, let us turn back. It's not half so pretty as a smoky chimney." "Are you a coward?" asked Jean Charost, turning somewhat sharply upon him. "Yes, sir," replied Martin, meekly: "desperate--I have an uncle who fights for all the family." "Then stay where you are, or go back if you like," replied his master. "I shall go and see who these folks are. You had better go back, if you are afraid." "Yes, sir--no, sir," replied Martin Grille. "I am afraid--very much afraid--but I won't go back. I'll stay by you if I have my brains knocked out--though, good faith, they are not much worth knocking just now, for they feel quite addled--curd--curd; and a little whey, too, I have a notion. But go on, sir; go on. They are not worth keeping if they are not worth losing." Jean Charost rode on, with a smile, pitying the man's fears, but believing them to be perfectly idle and foolish. The district of Berri, his native place, had hitherto escaped, in a great degree, the calamities which for years had afflicted the neighborhood of Paris. There was too little to be got there, for the plundering bands, which had sprung up from the dragon's teeth sown by the wars of Edward the Third of England and Philip and John of France, or those which had arisen from the contentions between the Orleans and Burgundian parties, to infest the neighborhood of Bourges; and while the Parisian, with his mind full of tales brought daily into the capital of atrocities perpetrated in its immediate vicinity, fancied every bush, not an officer, but a thief, his young master could hardly bring himself to imagine that there was such a thing as danger in riding through a little wood within less than half a league of the château of the Duke of Orleans. He went on then, in full confidence, for some fifty or sixty yards further; but then suddenly stopped, and raised his hand as a sign for his servant to do so likewise. Martin Grille almost jumped out of the saddle, on his master's sudden halt, and drew so deep a snorting sort of sigh that Jean Charost whispered, with an impatient gesture, "Hush!" The fact was, his ears had caught, as they rode on, a sound coming from the direction where rose the smoke, which did not altogether satisfy him. It was an exceedingly blasphemous oath--in those days, common enough in the mouths of military men, and not always a stranger to the lips of kings, but by no means likely to be uttered by a plain peasant or honest wood-cutter. He listened again: more words of similar import were uttered. It was evident that the approach of horses over the snow had not been heard, and that, whoever were the persons in the wood, they were conversing together very freely, and in no very choice language. Curiosity seized upon Jean Charost, who was by no means without his faults, and, quietly swinging himself from his horse's back, he gave the rein to Martin Grille, saying, in a whisper, "Here, hold my horse. I want to see what these people are about. If you see danger--and you have put the fancy into my head too--you may either bring him up to me, or ride away as fast as you can to the château of Beauté, and tell what has happened." "I will do both, sir," said Martin Grille, with his head a good deal confused by fear. "That is to say, I will first bring him up to you, and then ride away. But I do see danger now. Hadn't you better get up again?" Jean Charost walked on with a smile; but, after going some ten or fifteen paces, he slackened his speed, and, with a light step, turned in among the bushes, where there was a little sort of brake between two enormous old beech-trees. Martin Grille watched him as he advanced, and kept sight of him for some moments, while quietly and slowly he took his way forward in the direction of the smoke, which was still very plainly to be seen from the spot where the valet sat. It is not to be denied that Martin's heart beat very fast, and very unpleasantly, as much for his master as for himself perhaps; and certainly, as the dry twigs and bramble stalks made a thicker and a thicker sort of mist round Jean Charost's receding figure, the good man both gave him up for lost, and felt that he had conceived a greater affection for him than he had before imagined. He had a strong inclination, notwithstanding his fears, to get a little nearer, and was debating with himself whether he should do so or not, when all doubt and hesitation was put to an end by a loud shout, and a fierce volley of oaths from the wood. Nature would have her way; Martin Grille turned sharp round, struck his spurs into the horse's sides, and never stopped till he got to the gates of the château. A party of armed men was instantly collected on his report, with good Monsieur Blaize at their head, without waiting to seek casque or corselet; and compelling Martin Grille, very unwillingly, to go with them, they hurried on in the direction he pointed out, over the hill, and down toward the verge of the wood. They had not reached it, however, when, to the surprise of all, they beheld Jean Charost walking quietly toward them, bearing something in his arms, and, on approaching nearer, they perceived, with greater astonishment than ever, that his burden was a young child, wrapped in somewhat costly swaddling-clothes. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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