CHAPTER III
GABRIELLE DE VERNET.
Pepin had spoken the truth about the château. It lay amongst the trees like a kernel in a nut. Many of the gigantic oaks which girdled it about thrust their long branches against the ramparts that looked down upon its narrow fosse. A man might have ridden in the forest for a year, and have known nothing of the turreted, castle-like building whereto Gabrielle de Vernet had, after the death of the Count, withdrawn to keep herself unspotted from the world. Paul de Guyon, halting in parley with a lackey at the wood's edge, could espy neither path nor gateway; and suffered his horse to be led through the mazy labyrinth of tree and bush, until he stood at last before the drawbridge and clattered into the ill-paved courtyard.
"My lady is at her devotions," said the man, "but I doubt not she will see your Excellency at once. Meanwhile, I will look to the comfort of your men."
"Ah," said Pepin, smacking his lips, "an honest soup with lettuce and leeks, a nice piece of bouillé, a frangipani and some green peas à la bourgeoise."
The man looked at him with amazement.
"It is the eve of the feast of St. Philip and St. James," said he simply, "monsieur will not wish to break the fast."
"To break the fast!" gasped Pepin, "aye, my friend, I have the mind to break it and that right soon. But I was ever a man of simple tastes—a well-boiled capon now!"
The servant shrugged his shoulders and turned to de Guyon.
"If only we had known of your Excellency's coming," said he. "It was otherwise before my master died. But now ah, we are put to shame in our own house!"
"Suffer no shame on my account, good friend," said de Guyon, "I am a soldier and look for a soldier's fare. Your mistress is at her devotions, did you say?"
"In the chapel yonder, monsieur "
"Then I came fortunately. Pepin, look to the men and behave yourself. I am going to say my prayers."
"Ho, ho," said Pepin to himself, "mon maître goes to pray. Surely the stars will fall!"
The chapel was upon the left side of the courtyard, a quaint Norman nook with fine rounded arches and pilaster-like buttresses, which had warred with the centuries and won victories. A stream of light was poured through its open but richly carved doorway, and the narrow windows were so many pictures of saints and angels hung up upon the begrimed walls. De Guyon, standing in the porch, observed many little shrines with candles burning before them, and he could hear the voice of the priest soft in a rippling monotone of prayer. When at last he ventured to enter, and to kneel at the bottom of the nave, the flicker of tapers and the long shadows they cast in the ashes and upon the bare stone pavement, blinded his eyes to any observation of the few worshippers who knelt before the high altar. But the magnificent ornaments of the chapel made themselves plain; and he doubted no longer those rumours of Gabrielle de Vernet's wealth which had come to the Court and had made "the little Huguenot" a subject for the gossip of the curious and of the king. None but a very rich woman, he said, could have heaped those altars with such jewelled crosses and such inlaid candlesticks. The very crucifix nailed to the wall above the pulpit must have been worth the salary of an almoner. Soft carpets, unsurpassable carvings of wood, pictures of the Christ and of saints, shrines whereon diamonds and rubies and precious stones caught the tapers' light, and adding to it their own fires, scattered dancing rays upon the gloom, were evidences of an ardent love of church—and of a well-filled purse. Whatever might have been the creed of the girlish mistress of the Château aux Loups, and there were many who avowed that in her heart she despised the Catholic religion, and was even less than a good Protestant, she yet conformed to the outward observance of the old forms. This chapel was an unanswerable witness to her generosity. It remained for the lieutenant to learn if it were also a witness to her sincerity.
To de Guyon, steeped in the unending niaiseries of the Court, with the glare of masquerade and banquet still in his eyes, the chill and gloom of this chapel were sobering. As he knelt at the foot of a great pillar and peered into the darkness of the chancel for the tapers before the tabernacle were unlighted—the reality of his task and the absurdity of it forced themselves upon his mind. It was the king's hope to lure "the little Huguenot" from her forest fastness, and to make sport of her creed; and—as de Guyon did not doubt—of her honour at the palace. A debauched appetite was made strong again in this thought of so dainty a dish. If only the mistress of the château could be tempted by intrigue to set foot in the palace, the battle was won. St. Anthony himself could not have shut his ears to the apocalypse of license and debauchery of which the king was the arch-priest. What mere intrigue could not accomplish, the wit of madame would ensure. This, at least, was the intention of those who had sent the young lieutenant of the guard to the work. There was scarce a finer man in the palace. His courage and good-nature were notorious. And he could play a part like Grandval himself. Only in the silence of the chapel did the hazard of the venture occur to him. How would he fare if "the little Huguenot" read his purpose? He had but six men with him. There must have been a hundred who would rally to the tocsin of the château. The fanatical warnings of the priest in the forest were prophetical of the common spirit. He might be cast into the fosse without, and no men of his company live to tell the tale of his coming. The common tongue said that Gabrielle was a woman of fine spirit. But that he must learn for himself.
Until this time, he had been unable from his place of observation to see anything of the company in the chapel. But now, when the priest had ended the mournful chanting, little acolytes in scarlet cassocks and white cottas kindled the tapers upon the high altar and also those in a great chandelier beneath the rood-screen. The new light fell upon a reredos of marble and gold, almost hidden by vases of white flowers. It fell, too, upon the face of an old priest gorgeously robed in a jewelled cope. While taper-bearers and thurifers prostrated themselves before the Host in the monstrance, and a hidden choir began to sing very sweetly the Latin hymn, "O Salutaris Hostia," de Guyon had eyes for none of these, but only for the little group of worshippers who knelt by the chancel gates. Here were some twelve men and women, all seemingly absorbed in their devotions, all dressed very soberly, and for the most part in plain black. There was not a man amongst them that hid his hair in a wig; not a woman of the company that seemed to know of the coiffure à boucles badines, au berceau d'amour or au mirliton. Simplicity was the note of it all, and de Guyon, when he had shaken off his surprise, admitted that this simplicity was in pretty harmony with the sombre note of the chapel. He might have been watching so many monks and nuns who had clothed themselves in lay dress—but timidly.
In the centre of the little company, there knelt a girl whose face was hidden from him, but whose figure and pose were infinitely graceful. He was led to believe by the position she occupied that she must be the countess, and that the men at her side were the poets and philosophers who had come to the château to air their graces and to fill their stomachs. For the time being she was occupied entirely with her devotions, and when she raised the smallest of white hands, it was to bury her face in them while she prostrated herself before the upraised Host, Anon, however, the music died away suddenly; the last cloud of incense floated to the vaulted roof; the acolytes extinguished the candles before the altar, and the girl rose and passed down the chapel. De Guyon said to himself that the gossips were right. If a Madonna had come out of one of the pictures above the shrines, and had stood before him, lending flesh and blood to the painter's vision, he could scarce have been more surprised. Such a delicacy of form and feature he had hardly seen in all the six years he had been at Versailles; had never known eyes in which so much tenderness and emotion seemed to lie. He declared that her mouth was like a rosebud upon which the dew has just fallen. She held herself with the grace of a woman grown grey in practising the courtesies; yet her limbs had the roundness and suppleness of maturing youth. The black robe, falling from her shoulders prettily yet without panier, and set off only with lace at her neck and wrists, was her best adornment. She wore no jewels; not so much as a band of gold upon her arm. Her brown hair was simply coiled upon her head. De Guyon said to himself that Legros, with all his art, could not have added to the effect of it. And with this thought he left the chapel to await her in the courtyard.
Her greeting was simple, neither effusive nor lacking welcome.
"I have heard of you, Monsieur de Guyon, from my Cousin Claude," said she, when he had presented his letters to her; "you must be tired, indeed. Let us think of supper before we read even these letters"—and so turning to the group of men standing behind her, she added simply—
"Gentlemen, let me present you Monsieur de Guyon, a lieutenant of his Majesty's Guards. He has ridden far to serve us, and we must thank him by hastening to supper."
She passed on with a graceful inclination of her head, while servants conducted de Guyon to a room in the right wing of the château. Ten minutes later he was supping in the hall.