"n.o.ble monument, I salute you!" Smiling, debonair, the Marquis de Beauvillers removed his hat.
"And the n.o.ble mistress thereof?" suggested one of his train.
"She, of course!" he said, still surveying a scene different from that final memory he had carried away with him. Then had the rock reared itself in all the glamour of a sunny day; now was the sky overcast, while through a sullen mist the Mount loomed like a shadow itself.
"A cold place for our gay Elise!" One or two who viewed the sight for the first time looked disappointed; even the Marquis appeared for the instant more sober; but immediately regained his lively demeanor.
"Wait until you have seen it at its best," he retorted carelessly, and set the pace across the sands.
Midway, where once on the sands the men of Brittany had engaged in fierce conflict the ancient abbot"s forces, were the new-comers met by an imposing guard; escorted with due honor through the gates, and up the narrow street of the town.
As he climbed the winding highway, my lord, the Marquis, bestowed approving nod and smile this way and that; it may be that he already felt a nearer affiliation with these people; for his glance, gracious, condescending in pa.s.sing, was that of a man armed with the knowledge that he, kinsman of the King, might some day be called upon to govern here. But to these advances, the townspeople responded ill, and the young n.o.ble"s brow went delicately up, as if a little amused! _Mon dieu!_ did not unfriendly eyes peer from every lurking place around the royal palaces and pleasure grounds near Paris; and had they not encountered them all the way to the sea? People were the same everywhere; must be treated like bad children, and, with relays of troops from the capital to the sea, from the strand to the Mount"s high top, one could afford to smile at their petty humors. Above all, when one had more momentous matter for consideration! And my lord lifted his head higher, toward a rampart, where some one had once bid him _au revoir_, and where he might yet in fancy see a fluttering ribbon wave a bright adieu!
But to-day my lady, the Princess of the Rock, was not there; waited above, with her father, to receive him--then--in the great Hall of the Chevaliers. Until that morning she had not known of the coming of the Marquis, an impatient suitor, following the courier and the perfumed missive acquainting her with the n.o.ble"s near approach. Certainly had she shown surprise; but whether she was pleased or not, his Excellency could not tell.
He was still uncertain; standing, near the raised gallery, in the ancient _salle des chevaliers_, from time to time regarded her furtively! Often had she looked from one of the round windows, commanding a view of the sh.o.r.e and the sands; many times turned away.
At first sight of the company on the beach, the Governor had seen the girl"s face alter and noted the involuntary start she had given.
Whereupon, moving toward one of the giant fireplaces, had he sought for the sake of diplomacy and the end in view, to turn their conversation into a channel that should have interested her; spoke of plans to be made; preparations for festivities and merrymaking commensurate with the circ.u.mstances. But to these suggestions of gaieties, the prelude to a stately ceremony, had she hardly listened; paused absently before the blazing logs; once or twice seemed about to say something and stopped.
She was silent now, a slender figure beneath that great canopy of stone designed for the shelter of a score of knights; nervously twining and intertwining her fingers, she looked out at the shadows moving between the columns, playing around the bases, or melting in the vaulting.
"They should be almost here now," observed his Excellency, again seeking to break that spell of constraint, when suddenly she stepped to him.
"_Mon pere_," her voice sounded strained, unnatural, "it was you who wanted this marriage?"
"Yes," he had answered in some surprise; "yes."
"And I have not opposed you--the King--"
"Opposed? No! Of course not!"
"Then," more hurriedly, "must you do something in return for me! I do not want my--the wedding festivities--marred by anything unpleasant!
Promise that nothing will happen to him, the Black Seigneur, until after--"
"Impossible!" The sudden virulence her unexpected request awoke could not be concealed.
"Very well!" Before the anger in his gaze, her own eyes flashed like steel. "In that case, you can send the Marquis back! For I will not see him--to-day, to-morrow or any time again!"
Long he looked at her; the white face; the tightly compressed lips; the eyes that would not flinch! They reminded him of another"s--were of the same hue--so like, and yet so different! Unlike, in bespeaking a will he could not break! What he said, matters not; his face wore an ashy shade. She did not answer in words; but he felt, with strange bitterness, a revulsion; she seemed almost suddenly to have become hostile to him.
Gay voices sounded without; nearer; she walked to a door opposite the entrance their visitors were approaching. An instant, and she would have pa.s.sed out, when the Governor spoke.
But the Marquis, stepping quickly in a few moments later, noted nothing amiss between them. "Your Excellency!" With filial respect he greeted the Governor. "My Lady!" Gaily, approvingly, his eye pa.s.sed over her; then in that hall dedicated to chivalry, a graceful figure, he sank to his knee; raised a small cold hand, and pressed it to his lips.
CHAPTER XXV
THE UNDER WORLD
A coterie of brilliant folk soon followed in the wake of my lord, the Marquis" retinue; holy-day banners were succeeded by holiday ribbons; the _miserere_ of the mult.i.tude by paeans of merriment. Hymen, Io Hymen! In a.s.suming the leading role to which circ.u.mstances now a.s.signed her, the Governor"s daughter brought to the task less energy than she had displayed on that other occasion when visitors had sojourned at the rock. Her manner was changed--first, lukewarm; then, almost indifferent; until, at length, one day she fairly waived the responsibility of planning amus.e.m.e.nts; laid before them the question: What, now, would they like to do?
"Devise a play," said one.
"With shepherds and shepherdesses!"
The Marquis, however, qualified the suggestion. "A masque! that is very good; but, for this morning--I have been talking with the commandant--and have another proposal--"
"Which is?"
"To visit the dungeons."
"The dungeons?" My lady"s face changed.
"And incidentally inspect their latest guest! Some of you heard of him when we were here before--_Le Seigneur Noir_--the Black Seigneur!"
"_Le Seigneur Noir_!" They clapped their hands. "Yes, let us see him!
Nothing could be better. What do you say, Elise?"
She started to speak, but for the instant her lips could frame no answer; with a faint, strained smile, confronted them, when some one antic.i.p.ated her reply--
"Did she not leave it to us? It is we who decide."
And a merry party, they swept along, bearing her with them; up the broad stairway, cold, gray in the morn; beneath the abbot"s bridge--black, spying span!--to the church, and thence to the isolated s.p.a.ce before the guard-house to the dungeons. Here, at the sound of their voices, a man, carrying a bunch of keys--but outwardly the ant.i.thesis to the hunchback--peered from the entrance.
"Unless I am mistaken, the new jailer!" With a wave of his hand, the Marquis indicated this person. "The commandant was telling me his Excellency had engaged one--from Bicetre, or Fort l"Eveque, I believe?"
"Bicetre, my Lord!" said the man gravely. "And before that, the Bastille."
"Ah!" laughed the n.o.bleman. "That pretty place some of the foolish people are grumbling about! As if we could do without prisons any more than without palaces! But we have come, my good fellow, to inspect this lower world of yours!"
The man"s glance pa.s.sed over the paper the Marquis handed him; then silently he moved aside, and unlocked the iron doors.
"Are you not coming?" At the threshold the Marquis looked back. When first they had approached the guard-house, involuntarily had the Governor"s daughter drawn aside to the ramparts; now, with face half-averted, stood gazing off.
"Coming?" Surprised, the Marquis noted her expression; the fixed brightness of her eyes and her parted lips. "Oh, yes!" And turning abruptly, she hastened past him.
Would _they_ have to be locked in?--the half-apprehensive query of one of the ladies caused the jailer at first to hesitate and then to answer in the negative. He would leave the doors from the outer room open, and himself await there the visitors" return. With which rea.s.suring promise, he distributed lights; called a guardsman, familiar with the intricate underground pa.s.sages, and consigned them to his care.
One of the gay procession, the Lady Elise stepped slowly forward; the guide proved a talkative fellow, and seemed anxious to answer their many inquiries concerning the place. The _salle de la question_? Yes, it existed; but the ancient torture devices for the "interrogatory ordinary" and the "interrogatory extraordinary" were no longer pressed into service; the King had ordered them relegated to the shelves of the museum. The cabanons, or black holes? Louis XI built them; the _carceres duri_ and _vade in pace_, however, dated from Saint Mauritius, fourth abbot of the Mount.
"And the Black Seigneur? How have you accommodated him?"
"In the _pet.i.t exil_; just to the left! We are going there now."
"I--am going back!" A hand touched the arm of the Marquis, last of the file of visitors, and, lifting his candle, he held it so that the yellow glimmer played on the face of the Governor"s daughter. Her eyes looked deeper; full of dread, as if the very spirit of the subterranean abode had seized her. He started.
"Surely _you_, Elise, are not afraid?"