CHAPTER IV
HOW MONSIEUR KEPT HIS WORD
When M. de Montigny—after much ponderous leavetaking—finally took his departure, accompanied by Messire Gilles de Crohin, it is positively averred that Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, forgot for a moment her position and her dignity and danced around the narrow room like a child who has had its way after much fighting and arguing. It is even said that she dragged her dearly-loved François up from his chair and that, seizing both his hands, she forced him to join her in a whirl which literally swept him off his feet, raised a cloud of dust from the old wooden floor, and finally sent him sprawling and dizzy, and thoroughly out of temper, up against the table, from whence he poured a volley of abuse upon his devoted sister.
But I have oft marvelled if this story be true, for, of a truth, there was no one there to witness these events, and Queen Margot herself never put them on record. But there was Messire Gilles, and where he was at the moment I, for one, cannot say. He did accompany Messire de Montigny as far as the courtyard, and saw that noble Fleming ride off with an obviously heavy heart, after what had only been a partially successful errand. We are not going to suppose that Messire Gilles paused on his way back to the apartments of his princely master in order to listen at the keyhole. He was more like to have kicked open the door with scant ceremony and seen the young Queen of Navarre dancing a rigadoon in the middle of the floor with her reluctant brother. Certain it is, that anon he did stand there under the lintel, coughing and spluttering as the dust caught in his throat, and coughing so loudly, be it said, that the noise which he made drowned some of Monsieur's most sanguinary expletives. The next moment he had once more entered the room and closed the door behind him; and Marguerite paused in her mad dance in order to clap her hands gleefully together.
'Ah, Messire Gilles!' she exclaimed excitedly. 'Is it not wonderful? Is it not great? All arranged, and both Monsieur and that tiresome Fleming satisfied! Is it not a triumph, I say?'
'A triumph, indeed, your Majesty!' replied Gilles with a grim smile. ''Tis only our chief actor, methinks, who doth not look overjoyed.'
'I know,' rejoined Marguerite, with a sigh. 'But, then, Monsieur never really looks pleased. So I entreat you, Messire, remain with him now and make all arrangements for the journey to-morrow. Nay! 'twere far better you started this very night, slept and rested at St. Quentin and arrived at Cambray the day after to-morrow. I leave you with Messire Gilles, François,' she added, turning to Monsieur who, ill-humoured and still growling like a frowsy dog, was putting his rumpled toilet in order. 'Let him make all arrangements for your journey. He is always of good counsel.'
'Good counsel!' muttered Monsieur. 'Good counsel! I am sick to death of good counsels. Had I been left to myself——'
'Nothing would have happened, c'est entendu,' she riposted gaily. 'Nay! you'll not damp my ardour again, François; and you cannot deny that I have satisfied M. de Montigny whilst keeping my solemn promise to you. So I leave you now with Messire Gilles. The way is prepared. And, remember,' she added earnestly, 'that you are pledged to me as I was to you. I have fulfilled my share of the bargain. If you fail me now, I will never look upon your face again!’
As soon as Marguerite de Navarre had gone from the room, Gilles de Crohin drew a folded missive from inside his doublet and handed it to Monsieur.
'Just came by messenger from Paris,' he said curtly.
Monsieur snatched eagerly at the missive. It had been carefully folded into a tiny compass, tied with a shell-pink ribbon and sealed with mauve-coloured wax. Monsieur broke the seal and read the letter. A flush—which might have been one of pleasure, of excitement or of anger, or of all three combined—spread over his face. He read the letter again, and a dark frown appeared between his brows. Then he looked up into the face of the one faithful friend whom his many treacheries had not driven from his side.
'Gilles,' he said dolefully, 'I cannot go to Cambray.'
'I thought as much, Monseigneur,' replied Gilles dryly. 'That letter is from Madame de Marquette.'
'It is, my good Gilles,' sighed Monsieur. 'It is!' Then as Gilles said nothing, he added fretfully: 'She had promised to let me know as soon as Monsieur le Comte, her husband, would be absent from Paris.'
'Ah!' was Gilles' simple comment. 'And is M. le Comte de Marquette absent from Paris at this moment?'
'Cooling his heels in the dungeons of Vincennes, my good Gilles,' replied Monsieur lightly.
'Ah!' uttered Gilles once more; this time without any comment.
'Yes. I let His Majesty, my brother, know indirectly of certain doings of Monsieur de Marquette. I have no doubt, therefore, that that estimable worthy is incarcerated at Vincennes by now.'
'Under a false charge of conspiracy?'
'False? No!' retorted Monsieur. 'Doth he not conspire to keep his charming wife a virtual prisoner in his own palace?'
'Therefore he is to be kept a real prisoner under a denunciation from Monsieur le Duc d'Alençon and d'Anjou,' riposted Gilles dryly.
'Oh! not a denunciation, my good Gilles!' said Monsieur, wholly unperturbed. 'I only gave His Majesty a hint that M. de Marquette was not quite so faithful a subject as one would desire.'
'And the hint has landed M. de Marquette in Vincennes rightly enough.'
'Apparently,' concluded Monsieur placidly, as he held the delicately-scented missive of Madame de Marquette to his nose. 'So you see, my good Gilles,' he continued after a slight pause, 'how inconvenient it will be for me to go a-wooing a ponderous Flemish wench just now. Madame de Marquette is so dainty, so exquisite, so—so—what shall I say? ... What would you do, now, Gilles?' he added, with a sudden change of tone, 'if you were in my shoes?'
'Oh, I, Monseigneur,' quoth Gilles, with a careless shrug of the shoulders. 'Not being a prince of the blood I would probably stick to my promise and go and woo the Flemish wench at Cambray.'
'I believe you would, you dog!' retorted Monsieur with a yawn. 'And then hurry back to Paris, eh, in order to console Madame de Marquette?'
'Possibly, Monseigneur,' concluded Gilles simply.
'Well, then, the only difference 'twixt you and me, my dear Gilles—that is, 'twixt your moral sentiments and mine—is that I'll hie me first to console Madame de Marquette, and having done that, I'll—I'll——'
'Gravely offend the most devoted of sisters, Queen Marguerite of Navarre,' broke in Gilles quickly.
'Yes,' admitted Monsieur. 'I imagine that dear Margot will be in one of her most fretting humours when she finds that I am half-way to Paris instead of to Cambray. She hath vowed that if I fail her now in her schemes she'll never look on my face again. And she won't—for at least six months,' he added peevishly. 'Trust her for that! Margot is nothing if not obstinate! And my chance of getting a rich wife and some rich provinces of these accursed Netherlands will have vanished for ever. Ah, Gilles! my good Gilles!' he concluded, with naïve induction. 'You see what comes of it, if a man allows himself to be overruled by women!'
'Well!' retorted the other with a careless laugh. 'Meseems that Monseigneur hath not much cause to quarrel with his fate this time. King of the Netherlands!' he exclaimed, and gave a long, low whistle of appreciation. ''Tis no small matter——'
'Bah!' rejoined Monsieur with a shrug of the shoulders. 'To be a king among these dull-witted, slow-going Flemings is not altogether an enviable existence. Would you care for it, Gilles?'
'Oh, I, Monseigneur?' riposted Gilles gaily. 'I have so few kingly attributes.'
'Better to be Duc d'Alençon in Paris, eh, than King in Antwerp or in Ghent? Brrr!' added Monsieur, with a mock shudder. 'Think of the Flemish women, my good man!'
'I have thought of them, Monseigneur,' replied Gilles dryly, 'once or twice since we came into Flanders.'
'Well! and what did you think of them?'
'That God has fashioned uglier ones.'
'Where?'
'In many places—even in Paris.'
'Not often, Gilles.'
'I'll grant that, Monseigneur, an you command.'
'Now this Jacqueline, for instance——'
'Madame Jacqueline, Monseigneur?'
'Yes!' And Monseigneur sighed. 'I have got to marry her, Gilles, if I wish for the sovereignty of the Netherlands.'
'Messire de Montigny hath been at pains to tell us, Monseigneur, that Madame Jacqueline is very beautiful—very beautiful, an it please you.'
'It would please me if she were beautiful. But have you ever seen a beautiful Fleming, Gilles?'
Gilles de Crohin was silent.
'Have you, Gilles?' insisted the Duke.
'Yes, Monseigneur,' replied Gilles curtly. 'Once.'
'The devil you did! Where?'
'In the land of dreams, Monseigneur.'
'Then it could not have been Madame Jacqueline. She is reality, alas! Ponderous reality, I fear! I have got to woo her, Gilles.'
'Yes, Monseigneur.'
'Under a mask and an assumed name.'
'No better way hath yet been found for wooing a wench.'
'I shall have to sing and sigh beneath a casement, and by the light of the moon risk breaking my neck in trying to climb up to a window.'
''Twill not be the first time Monseigneur hath done any of these things, and with a less worthy object to boot.'
'But this time, Gilles, I might be so much better employed in consoling Madame de Marquette for the absence of her lord.'
'Whereas, now, Monseigneur will have to send word back by the messenger—who, by the way, still waits below—that the denunciation against M. de Marquette was an error, and that you desire his immediate release.'
'Gilles!' retorted Monsieur coolly, 'have you become an idiot?'
'I didn't think so, Monseigneur.'
'Very well, then, do not talk as one. M. de Marquette cannot be better occupied than in cooling his heels at Vincennes. I am going to Paris, Gilles, in order to explain this to a charming grass-widow.'
'Yes, Monseigneur. When?'
'To-night.'
'Monseigneur goes to Paris to-night?'
'Yes. I have said so.'
'And Monseigneur means it?'
'Mon Dieu! Of course I mean it! You don't suppose that I am going to allow that exquisite Madame de Marquette to pine away in solitude, do you?'
'But Madame Jacqueline, Monseigneur?' protested Gilles de Crohin. 'The crown of the Netherlands——'
'Madame Jacqueline may go to the devil, Gilles, and the crown of the Netherlands after her——'
'But, Madame la Reyne——!'
'Ah! that is another matter. My dear sister can go to the devil if she likes, but I cannot send her thither. You must remain here and explain matters to her, Gilles.'
'I, Monseigneur?' exclaimed Gilles, very much crestfallen at this prospect.
'Yes. Not to-night, of course. To-morrow morning. I shall be a long way off by then—too far for her to run after me and bring me back like a whipped schoolboy; which, I doubt not, she were quite capable of doing! Once I get to Paris, I'll take care that she does not find me, and she'll have to pacify these tiresome Flemings as best she can.'
Gilles de Crohin looked down for a moment or two on the sprawling figure of the master whom he served—the long, loose limbs stretched out lazily, the narrow shoulders decked in exquisite satin, the perfumed beard, the delicate hands, the full, sensual lips and weak chin and jaw which characterized this last descendant of the Valois. But not a line of his own strong, rugged face betrayed just what he thought, and after a while he resumed in his dry, quiet way:
'I doubt, Monseigneur, that the tiresome Flemings will allow themselves to be pacified—nor will Madame la Reyne de Navarre, I'm thinking,' he muttered under his bristling moustache.
'She must, and they must, my good Gilles,' riposted Monsieur airily; and, with a wide gesture of his beringed hand, he appeared to wave aside all the obstacles which threatened the even course of his path of pleasure. 'Mordieu, man! If you are going to raise difficulties——' he said.
'The difficulties are there, Monseigneur. I am not raising them.'
'Well, then, you will have to smoothe them down for me, that's all! What do I pay you for?' he added roughly.
'I was not aware that Monseigneur was paying me for anything,' replied Gilles good-humouredly; 'or had paid me anything these three years past.'
'Then why do you serve me, I wonder?'
'I have oft wondered, too!' rejoined Gilles calmly.
'My brother Henri would pay you better; so would my brother-in-law of Navarre.'
'That's just it, Monseigneur. Since there is not much fighting to do just now, other princes would pay me for doing dirty work for them, no doubt. But, being constituted as I am, if I have to do dirty work for any one I would sooner not be paid for doing it. This may sound curious morality, but so it is.'
The Duke laughed.
'Morality? From you, my good Gilles?'
'It does sound incongruous, does it not, Monseigneur?' said Gilles placidly. 'A soldier of fortune, like myself, cannot of a truth afford to have any morality. Mine consists in forgetting the many sins which I have committed and leaving others to commit theirs in peace.'
'Admirable in sentiment, my friend,' concluded Monsieur, with a cynical laugh. 'You will, therefore, leave me in peace to join Madame de Marquette, if I wish?'
'How can I prevent it, Monseigneur?'
'You cannot. But you can serve me by conciliating my sister during my absence.'
'I will serve Monseigneur to the best of my ability.'
'Very well, then. I start for Paris this night.'
'So Monseigneur hath already deigned to say.'
'I will let my sister understand that you and I are starting for Cambray. She will be overjoyed. You will ride with me as far as Noyon, and then under cover of the darkness you will return hither.'
'Yes, Monseigneur?'
'To-morrow, during the forenoon—not too early, remember—you will seek audience of Her Majesty and explain to her that unavoidable business caused me to change my mind at the eleventh hour; that I have gone—whither you know not—but that I shall return within a few weeks, or a few months, as soon as I have tired of my present business, and that in the meanwhile I adjure her, as she loves me, to keep those stodgy Flemings in a good humour. You understand?'
'I understand, Monseigneur.'
'Of course, Madame Marguerite will fume and fret——'
'Of course.'
'She will also probably throw books, or a slipper, or a cushion at your head——'
'Or the fire-irons, Monseigneur'
'But you won't mind that——'
'On the contrary, I shall enjoy it.'
'The more my sister frets the quicker will her choler be over.'
'The quicker, too, will the furniture of the hostel be smashed to pieces.'
'And when she hath calmed down, you and she can sit together quietly and make plans for the conciliation of my future loyal Flemish subjects.'
'I shall greatly look forward to so peaceful a tête-à-tête.'
'Then, that's settled!' concluded Monsieur airily, as he finally rose from his chair, yawned and stretched. 'Palsambleu! what a day of it I have had! Own to it, my good Gilles, I have well deserved a holiday and the company of Madame de Marquette after all this business and the scoldings and objurgations of my impetuous sister!'
'I doubt not, Monseigneur,' responded Gilles dryly, 'that Fate will, as usual, be kind and give you the full measure of your deserts.'
'Amen to that, my friend. Now, see to it that we get to horse within the hour. I'll to my dear Margot and receive her embraces and her praises for my readiness. And, remember,' he added warningly, just as Gilles, turning on his heel, was striding towards the door, 'that you will have to impress it upon Her Majesty most emphatically in your interview to-morrow that it will be no use her trying to find out where I am. Madame de Marquette and I will be beyond her reach. Between you and me, my good Gilles, I know of a cosy nest where——'
But Gilles de Crohin was apparently no longer in a mood to listen patiently to his Royal master's rigmarole.
'What about the safe conduct?' he broke in curtly. And he pointed to the papers which Messire de Montigny had been at such pains to complete.
'Oh! put it away, my good Gilles,' replied Monsieur carelessly. 'Put it away! It will be very handy a month hence, or two months, or three, when I am ready to go and woo that very solid Flemish maid.'
Without another word, Gilles de Crohin picked up the safe-conduct, folded it carefully and slipped it into the inner pocket of his doublet. Then, after a somewhat perfunctory obeisance, he strode out of the room.
Monsieur listened in complacent silence to the firm footsteps as they gradually died away down the corridor. Then he shrugged his shoulders and whistled softly to himself.
'A good fellow, that Gilles,' he murmured. 'I wonder what my dear sister will do to him to-morrow when she hears——?’