Blanche Part 2

This audacious love-song at that time flitted from lip to lip at the court of King Francis, until about a year later the poet Ronsard sang it,--and after he had enriched it with two or three daintily elaborated verses it was incorporated with his works.

De Lancy had often hummed it when hastening through the gray corridors, or walking in the garden under the sombre boughs of the blossoming lindens. But never had Blanche heard it so completely and clearly. Warm and full the tones of his voice rang in her ears. Through this exuberant and frivolous nature pa.s.sed the agitating sense of an almost pathetic tenderness.

Blanche stared before her into the empty air, and there came into her face a great terror--a mighty longing!

VI

Gottfried watched and suffered--each hour more suspicious and uneasy.

In the castle chapel of Montalme stood a narrow-chested saint with peaked beard,--St. Sebaldus,--who bore on his wooden forefinger an amethyst ring. With this ring was connected a legend,--viz.,--that whoever would have the courage to draw it off the finger at midnight and put it on his own--to him Heaven would grant the fulfilment of his wish, even were it the most presumptuous in the world. But should the one who took off the jewel let it fall from his linger ere returning it on the following night, as in duty bound, to the saint, some terrible misfortune would speedily overtake him.

It was midnight, and deathly stillness reigned; the moonlight played about the pointed roof and glittered in the deeply set windows of the old castle. Black and heavy, almost as a bier-cloth, the shadow of this gigantic old building spread over the ground. In the garden below, the nightingales sobbed their sweet songs in the flowering lindens, sometimes interrupted by the weird screech of an owl. Then a slender figure glided softly through the echoing corridors of the castle--the figure of a love-sick girl. At times she paused and listened and laid her hand upon her breast. A vague, ghostly fear chilled the blood in her veins. Now she stepped through the high hall adjoining the chapel.

She opened the door heavily weighted with its ornamental iron bands and rosettes. The moonlight glanced through the coloured windows and painted fantastic images on the brown church pews. Two long, brilliant streaks of light cut through the shadows which broadened out over the marble floor.

Above the altar hung a Madonna with attenuated arms and too long a neck, as the "Primitives" in their nave awkwardness like to picture her. Blanche knelt before her and lisped an Ave and the Lord's Prayer; then turning to the saint who, stiff and complacent, gazed down from his pedestal, she drew the ring off his finger and put it on her own.

Just at this moment she heard a slight rustle outside, a confused feeling of dread and fear suddenly came over her,--a vague, painful fear of all the mysterious powers of night and darkness. Quite beside herself, she was hurrying out of the chapel when, in her confusion, she almost rushed into the arms of a man who stepped toward her in the adjacent hall.

Although she had pa.s.sed so softly through the house, one ear had recognised her step,--Henri de Lancy,--by whose chamber she was obliged to go in her way to the chapel.

And now he stood before her, and his blue eyes shone in the clear moonlight, and he bent over her smiling. She started back, but did not fly--only remained standing as if spellbound. When he seized her hand and she tried to free herself, however, he held her fast, whispering, "Stay only a little while, I pray you; I've so much to say to you!"

"Leave me! leave me!" she cried, timidly.

"Only a minute!" he begged of her. "You have always avoided me, I could never say it to you, but indeed you must long have known how infinitely I love you!"

He stooped over her--she trembled like a delicate rose-bud with which the spring wind plays. She thought of the saint's ring which she had on her finger for the purpose of conjuring Heaven to grant her Henri de Lancy's love. Had the conjuration then worked so speedily? Oh, measureless joy! Oh, never-antic.i.p.ated blessedness!

And yet--

It was so still--so late! "Leave me! leave me!" she whispered. "Wait, I must ask Gottfried."

"And do you believe he will know better than yourself whether you love me?"

He laid his arm round her--his kiss hovered over her lips--when--the door was torn open, and, with drawn dagger and face distorted with rage, Gottfried rushed upon De Lancy. "Cowardly traitor!" he yelled, and stopped, for Blanche, uttering a hoa.r.s.e shriek of anguish, stretched out her arms before the beloved man to protect him.

Woe! woe! in this moment the enchanted ring slipped from her finger!

VII

Angry men's voices echoed through the halls and galleries--then stillness reigned again.

Without, the dewdrops rustled in the leaves, but the nightingales were hushed. In her lonely chamber sat a pale, sad girl, tearless and comfortless. When the gray morning came a gloomy rider stormed out of the castle.

VIII

At that time,--in the beginning of the sixteenth century,--shortly after the battle of Marignano, and the great awakening at Wittenberg, there brooded over creation a sultry atmosphere, in which the thoughts and feelings of men frothed and raved with unbridled wantonness, stimulated by the storm-ridden air.

King Francis had brought back with him to his native land, after his sojourn in Italy and his conference with Pope Leo, a highly cultivated artistic taste, united with a certain subtle depravity of morals.

Henceforth his court became an open field for the fine arts, and an arena for the most debauched, sensual orgies. And not merely owing to his high position, but also because he maintained in the midst of his wildest excesses the prestige of a magnanimous chivalry, his example influenced all the young people of France directly and irresistibly.

It was in the zenith of this regal frivolity and regal favour that Henri's voluptuous life was interrupted by the above-related intermezzo of sincere, honest love for this child of Montalme. But it was at the very time when King Francis, basely deserting his n.o.ble wife, the good Queen Claude, at the head of a jolly troupe of knights, accompanied by the most beautiful women of France, was roving from city to city, from castle to castle, from forest to forest, making the air resound with the clang of cymbals, the blowing of horns, and the baying of dogs; in summer dropping down on the fairest flower-strewn meadows, or near mossy-green woods to hold their revels, and in winter pelting each other with s...o...b..a.l.l.s and filling the various castles with shouts and laughter.

Now here--now there--he appeared as in a fairy tale--like a vision--the impersonation of joy. Where one hoped to find him he had just vanished, and where he was not expected he came. This constant change of residence frequently embarra.s.sed his ministers or those immediately responsible for affairs of state, as well as the foreign amba.s.sadors.

And whilst the most serious problems were perplexing their heads, he, with his knights and the "pet.i.te bande," was ranging all over the country in search of adventure, and when needed was never to be found.

It was as difficult to prevent one's self from being infected with the frivolity of the king's court--if living in the midst of it--as to keep one's health intact in a plague lazaretto. To have done it, one must have been peculiarly organised, and Henri de Lancy was not peculiarly organised.

IX

Weeks pa.s.sed. Ever slower the time dragged on amid the aching stillness of Montalme. Blanche's trembling hope, which resolved itself at first into hot, feverish unrest, changed by degrees to stony despair.

She grew paler and paler--her languid steps ever more feeble--her talk abstracted and disconnected. With head slightly bent forward, her lips half-open, and her eyes fixed on vacancy, she watched and listened--in vain! He came not, and n.o.body came who could give her any knowledge of him. Once when Gottfried, who did not allow her to be out of his sight in this sad, sad time, sought for her in vain in castle and garden, led by a jealous suspicion, he climbed up into the tower chamber which De Lancy had occupied. Through the half-open door he espied Blanche. She was sitting at the foot of the bed upon which De Lancy had been laid when wounded. She smiled, and on her innocent lips trembled the words of his daring love-song:

"Si tu veux m'apaiser Redonne--moi la vie Par l'esprit d'un baiser."

She was dreaming!

Whole nights she sat up sleepless in her bed and murmured or sang softly to herself. And now many times through the stillness of night she heard the beat of a horse's hoof at full speed pa.s.sing her window.

Who could the rider be who thus hurried by Montalme at the dead of night?

There was one person in the castle whose faith was firm as a rock in De Lancy's truth. This was Dame Isabella. Daily she invented fresh excuses for his remaining away--daily arrayed herself in expectation of his return. For hours together she would grin and curtsey before the mirror, preparing for her advent at court.

One day when Blanche, with her hands in her lap, sat brooding, Dame Isabella rushed to her, exclaiming, "Blanche! Blanche! quick, the royal hunting party is coming by the castle!"

Blanche trembled, for she knew that he must be among the king's retinue. She stepped to the window.

Like a gold embroidered thundercloud, the hunting-party whirled out of the distance and drew nearer. Horns sounded and rapid hoof-beats vibrated on the air. As they approached, a good chance was afforded to see the costly apparel of the ladies, and also of the gentlemen, of whom an old chronicler of the times avers, not without point, that some among them wore their lands and castles on their shoulders.