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Agnes Sorel

<h4>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h4> To dwell minutely upon a period unfilled by action, and merely marked by the revolution of day and night, even in the life of a person in whom we have some interest, would be almost as dull as to describe in detail the turning of a grindstone. It is not with the eventless events of a history that we have to do--not with the flat spaces on the road of life. We sit not down to relate a sleep or to paint a fishpond. Little occurred to Jean Charost during the rest of his stay in France that is worth the telling which will not be referred to hereafter. Let us change the scene then, and, spreading the wings of Fancy, fly on through the air of Time to a spot some years in advance. There was an old house, or rather palace, and well it deserved the name, situated near the great city of London, close upon the banks of the River Thames. Men now living can remember parts of it still standing, choked up with houses, like some great shell of the green deep incrusted with limpets and other tiny habitations of the vermin of the sea. At the time of this history it had gardens running all around it, extending wide and pleasantly on the water side, though but narrow between the palace itself and the stone-battlemented wall which separated them from the great Strand road leading from the Temple gate of the city to the village of Charing. Fretted and richly carved in some parts, plain and stern in others, the old palace of the Savoy combined in itself the architecture of several ages. Many were the purposes it had served too--sometimes the place of revelry and mirth--sometimes the witness of the prisoner's tears. It had been the residence of John, king of France, during his captivity in England some half century before; and since that time it had principally served--grown almost by prescription to be so used--as an honorable prison for foreign enemies when the chances of war brought them in bonds to England. In the midst of the embattled wall that I have mentioned, and projecting a little beyond its line, stood a great gate-house, which has long since been pulled down, or has fallen, perhaps, without the aid of man; and that gate-house had two large towers of three stories each, affording very comfortable apartments, as that day went, to their occasional tenants. They were roomy and pleasant of aspect enough. One of these towers was appropriated to the wardens of the Savoy and their families, while the other received at various times a great number of different denizens, sometimes princes, sometimes prisoners, sometimes refugees, people who remained but a few days, people who passed there half a lifetime. The stone walls within were thickly traced with names, some scrawled with chalk, or written in ink; and among these the most conspicuous were records of the existence there for several years of persons attached to the unfortunate King John. It was a cheerful building in those days; nothing obscured the view or hid the sunshine; and the smiling gardens, the glittering river, or the busy high-road could be seen from most of the windows of the palace. In a room on the first floor of the eastern tower of the gate-house, Jean Charost is once more before us. Monterreau's blood-stained bridge, the dauphin and the murderers, and the dying Duke of Burgundy, have passed away; and there are but two women with him. Yes, I may call them women both, though their ages are very far apart. One is in the silver-haired decline of life, the other is just blossoming; they are the withered flower and the bud. They were seated round a little table, and had evidently been talking earnestly. Madame De Brecy's eyes had traces of tears on them, and those of the young girl, turned up to Jean Charost's face, were full of eagerness and entreaty. "In vain, dear mother--in vain," said Jean Charost. "My resolution is as firm as ever. Jacques Cœur is generous; but I can not lay myself under such an obligation, and even at the most moderate rate, to raise such a sum in the present state of France, would deprive you of two thirds of your whole income. This captivity is weary to me. To remain here year after year, while France has been dismembered, her crown bought and sold, her fair fields ravaged, her cities become slaughter-houses, has been terrible--has doubled the load of time, has depressed my light spirits, and almost worn out hope and expectation. But yet I will not trust the fate of two, so dear as you two are, to the power of circumstances. You say, apply to Lord Willoughby. I have applied; but it is in vain. He gives me, as you know, all kindly liberty: no act of kindness or courtesy is wanting. But on one point he is inflexible, and we all feel and know that he is ruled by a power which he must obey. It is the same with others who have prisoners of some consideration. They can not place them at reasonable ransom, though the rules of chivalry and courtesy require it." "He seems a kind man, Jean," said the young girl, still looking in his face. "He spoke gently and good-humoredly to me." "Ay, gentleness and good humor, my sweet Agnes," said Jean Charost, "will not make a man disobey the commands of his monarch. Another month, and I shall have lain a prisoner seven long years. Why, Agnes, my hair is growing gray, while yours is getting darker every hour. I can recollect your locks like sunshine on a hill, and now a raven's wing is hardly blacker." "Ah, I saw a gray hair the other day in that curl upon your temple," said the girl, with a laugh. "You will soon be a white-headed old man, Jean, if you obstinately remain here, when our dear mother would willingly sell all to free you. Though I think, after all, you are getting a little younger since we came. We have now been three years with you in this horrible country, and I think you look a year younger." Jean Charost smiled, saying, "Certainly I do, Sunshine, else do you shine in vain." "Well, I am going out to seek more sunshine," said the girl. "I will wander away up the bank of the river, and say an ave at the Blackfriars' Church. And then, perhaps, I will go into the Church of the Templar's, and look at the tombs of the old knights, with their feet crossed, and their swords half drawn; and then I will come back again; for then it will be dinner-time. Good-by till then." She tripped away with a light step, down the stair-case, out upon the road; and when Jean Charost looked after her out of the window he saw her going slowly and thoughtfully along. But Agnes did not continue that pace for any great distance. As soon as she was out of the gate tower of the Savoy, she hurried on with great rapidity, turned up a narrow lane between two fields on the west of the road, and, passing the house of the Bishop of Lincoln, not even stopping to scent her favorite briar rose which was thick upon the hedges, paused at a modern brick house--modern in those days--with towers and turrets in plenty, and the arms of the house of Willoughby hung out from a spear above the gate. An old white-headed man sat upon the great stone bench beneath the archway; and a soldier moved backward and forward upon a projecting gallery in front of the building. A page, playing with a cat, was seen further in under the arch, in the blue shade, and one or two loiterers appeared in the court beyond, on the side where the summer sun could not visit them. Agnes stopped by the porter's side, and asked if she could see the Lord Willoughby. "Doubtless, doubtless," said the man, "if he be not taking his forenoon sleep, and that can hardly be, for old Thomas of Erpingham has been with him, and the right worshipful deaf knight's sweet voice would well-nigh rouse the dead--'specially when he talks of Azincourt. Go, boy, to our lord, and tell him a young maiden wants to see him. Ah, I can recollect the time when that news would have got a speedy answer. But alack, fair lady, we grow slow as we get old. Sit you down by me now, till the page returns, and then the saucy fellows in the court dare not gibe." Agnes seated herself, as he invited her; but she had not waited long ere the boy returned, and ushered her through one long passage to a room on the ground floor, where she found the old lord writing a letter--with some difficulty it must be confessed; for he was no great scribe--but very diligently. He hardly looked round, but continued his occupation, saying, "What is it, child? The boy tells me you would speak with me." "When you have leisure, my good lord," replied Agnes, standing a little behind him. But the old man started at her voice, and turned round to gaze at her. "Ah!" he exclaimed. "My little French lady, is that you? It is very strange, your face always puts me in mind of some one else, and your tongue does so too. However, there is no time in life to think of such things. Sit you down--sit you down a moment. I shall soon have finished this epistle--would it were in the fire. I have but a line to add." He was near a quarter of an hour, however, in finishing that line; and Agnes sat mute and thoughtful, gazing at his face, and, as one will do when one has important interests depending on another, drawing auguries from every line about it. It was a good, honest old English face, with an expression of frank good nature, a little testiness, and much courtesy; and the young girl drew favorable inferences before she ended her reverie. At length the letter was finished, folded, sealed, and dispatched; and then turning to Agnes, the old soldier took her hands in his, saying, "I am glad to see you, my dear. What is it you want? Our friend at the Savoy--your father--brother--husband--I know not what, is not ill, I hope." "Very ill," replied Agnes, in a quiet, gentle tone. "Ha!" cried the old gentleman. "How so? What is the matter?" "He is ill at ease, my lord--sick at heart--is in a fever to return to his own land." "You little deceiver," cried Lord Willoughby, laughing. "You made me anxious about the good young baron, and now it is but the old story, after all. But why should he pine so to get back to France? This is a fine country--this a fine city; and God is my witness I do all I can to make him happy. He is little more than a prisoner in name." "But still a prisoner, my lord," replied Agnes, with a touching earnestness. "The very name is the chain. Think you not that to a gentleman, a man of a free spirit, the very feeling of being a prisoner is heavier than fetters of iron to a serf. You may cage a singing-bird, my lord, but an eagle beats itself to death against the bars. Would you be content to rest a captive in France, however well treated you might be? Would you be content to know that you could not revisit your own dear land, see the scenes where your youth had passed, embrace your friends and relations, breathe your own native air? Would you be content to sit down at night in a lonely room, not in your own castle, and, looking at your wrists, though you saw not the fetters there, say to yourself, 'I am a captive, nevertheless. A captive to my fellowman--I can not go where I would, do what I would. I am bound down to times and places--a prisoner--a prisoner still, though I may carry my prison about with me!' Would any man be content with this? and if so, how much less can a knight and a gentleman sit down in peace and quiet, content to be a prisoner in a foreign land, when his country needs his services, when every gentleman of France is wanted for the aid of France, when his king is to be served, his country's battles to be fought, even against you, my lord, and his own honor and renown to be maintained?" "Ay; you touch me there--you touch me there, young lady," said the old nobleman. "On my life, for my part, I would never keep a brave enemy in prison, but have him pay only what he could for ransom, and then let him go to fight me again another day." "Monsieur De Brecy's father," continued Agnes, simply, "died in a lost field against the English. The son is here in an English prison. Think you not that he envies his father?" "Perhaps he does, perhaps he does," cried Lord Willoughby, starting up, and walking backward and forward in the room. "But what can I do?" he continued, stopping before Agnes and gazing at her with a look of sincere distress. "The king made me promise that I would not liberate any of my prisoners, so long as he and I both lived, without his special consent, except at the heavy ransoms he himself had fixed. My dear child, you talk like a woman, and yet you touch me like a child. But you can, I am sure, understand that it is not in my power; or, upon my faith and chivalry, I would grant what you desire." The tears rose in Agnes's beautiful eyes. "I know you would be kind," she said. "But his mother insisted upon selling all they have to pay his ransom. He would not have it; for it would reduce her to poverty, and I came away to see if I could not move you." "On my life," cried Lord Willoughby, "I have a mind to send you to the king." "Where is he?" cried Agnes. "I am ready to go to him at once." The old lord shook his head: "He is in France," he said; and was going to add something more, when a tall servant suddenly opened the door, and began some announcement by saying, "My lord, here is--" But he was not suffered to finish the sentence; for a powerful, middle-aged man, unarmed, but booted and spurred, pushed past him into the room, and Lord Willoughby exclaimed, "Ha, Dorset! what brings you from France? Has aught gone amiss?" There was some cause for the latter question; for there was more than haste in the expression of the Earl of Dorset's countenance: there was grief, and there was anxiety. With a hasty step he advanced to Lord Willoughby, laid his hand upon his arm, and said something in a low voice which Agnes did not hear. The old lord started back with a look of sorrow and consternation. "Dead!" he exclaimed. "Dead! So young--so full of life--so needful to his people. Dorset, Dorset; in God's name, say that my ears have deceived me. Killed in battle, ha! Some random bolt from that petty town of Cone, whither he was marching when last I heard. It must be so. He, like the great Richard, was doomed to find such a fate--to fall before an insignificant hamlet by a peasant's hand. He exposed himself too much, Dorset--he exposed himself too much." Dorset shook his head: "No," he replied, "he died of sickness in his bed; but like a soldier and a hero still--calmly, courageously, without a faltering thought or sickly fear. Heaven rest his soul: we shall never have a greater or a better king. But harkee, Willoughby, I must go on at once and summon the council. Come you up with all speed; for there will be much matter for anxious deliberation, and need of wise heads, and much experience." "I will, I will," replied Lord Willoughby. "Ho, boy! without there. Get my horses ready with all speed. Farewell, Dorset; I will join you in half an hour. Now--Odds' life, my sweet young lady, I had forgot your presence. What was it we were saying? Oh, I remember now. The course of earthly events is very strange. That which brings tears to some eyes wipes them away from others. Come hither; I will write a note to your young guardian, and none but yourself shall be its bearer. My duty to my king is done, and I am free to act as I will. Stay for it; it shall be very short." He then drew a scrap of paper toward him, and wrote slowly, "The ransom of the Baron De Brecy is diminished one half. "In witness whereof I have set my hand. "Willoughby." "There, take it, dear child," he said, "and let him thank God, and thank you;" and drawing her toward him, he imprinted a kind and fatherly kiss upon her forehead, and then led her courteously to the door. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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