He hastened back to the castle; but he was a.s.sured at the gates by all the several persons who were standing there that no one had pa.s.sed. On examining the doors of the garden, every one of them was found to be closed; and the Marquis of Ma.s.seran came to a conclusion, which was not pleasant for a man engaged in his peculiar pursuits, namely, that he was deceived and betrayed by some one of his own household.

CHAPTER VII.

The observation may seem trite, that to every period of life is a.s.signed by the Almighty and Munificent Being, who at our creation adapted to each part of our material form the functions that it was to execute and the labours it was to sustain, either peculiar powers of endurance or counterbalancing feelings, which render the inevitable cares and sorrows apportioned to every epoch of our being lighter and more easy to be borne. The woes of childhood are, in themselves, speedily forgotten. The pains are soon succeeded by pleasures, and care, gnawing care, the rack of after-life, is then unknown. Boyhood, eager, enthusiastic, hopeful boyhood, the age of acquisition and expectation, though it may know from time to time a bitter pang, scarcely less in its degree than those that afflict mature life, has so many compensating enjoyments, its own sunshine is so bright, the light that shines upon it from the future is so dazzling, that the griefs serve but as a preparation and a warning, too little remembered when once they are past. Old age, with its decay, with the extinction of earthly hopes, with the prospect of the tomb, has also dulled sensibilities that allow us not to feel many of the more painful things of early years. The blunted edge of appet.i.te may not give so keen a zest to pleasure; but the apathy which accompanies it extends to griefs as well as joys, and, if wisely used, is one of the best preparations for a resignation of that state of being which we have tried in the balance of experience and have found wanting; wanting in all that can satisfy a high and ethereal spirit; wanting in all things but its grand purpose of trial for a life to come. But, besides all this, unto that period of old age, thus prepared and admonished for another state, G.o.d himself has also given comfort and consolation, a promise and a hope: a promise brighter than all the promises of youth, a hope brighter than all those that have withered away upon our path of life.

There is still another age, however; an age the most perilous, often the most full of pains; an age when the eager aspirations of youth reach out the hand towards fruition; when the great truths of disappointment break upon us; when we first learn the bitter lesson that hope has told us idle tales, that fortune is of fickle favour, that friendships are too often false, that our own hearts do ourselves wrong, that enjoyment itself is often a vanity and often a vision, that we must suffer, and grieve, and repent in the midst of a world which, shortly before, we fancied was composed of nothing but brightness, and beauty, and happiness. I speak of the time of life when we first put on manhood, and meet all its sorrows at the moment when we expect nothing but its joys.

For that period, too, there is a bright compensation given, there is a sustaining principle implanted in our breast, common to the highest and the lowest, the savage and the civilized; a principle that furnishes a balm for many wounds, that surrounds us with an atmosphere of consolation, hope, and joy, and enables us to live on in one splendid dream, even in the midst of hard and dark realities.

That principle is love; and that principle was warm and strong in the bosom of Bernard de Rohan, as, on the day after that in which the conversations we have mentioned in our last chapter took place, he stood, a few minutes before the setting of the sun, under a group of tall fir-trees that had pitched themselves upon a pinnacle of the rock, about ten yards distant from the farther angle of the garden attached to the chateau of Ma.s.seran. The trees grew very close together; and, what between scanty soil and the mountain winds, their large trunks had contorted themselves into manifold strange shapes. From this group two or three rows of the same kind of firs ran down the side of the hill into the valley. One would have supposed that they were the remains of some old avenue had the lines been but a little more regular.

The shadow of those trees completely concealed any one who stood beneath them, and the eyes must have been very near that could have perceived Bernard de Rohan as he leaned against one of them, gazing upon a particular part of the garden wall immediately under one of the small watch-turrets. He thus waited some time, with an eagerness of expectation, it is true, which in no other situation or circ.u.mstance had he ever known before; but, at the same time, with sweet thoughts, and hopes, and happy memories, which cheered the moments, and made even the impatience that he felt appear like some of those drinks which man has invented to satisfy his thirst, and which are at once pungent and grateful to the taste. He had waited some time, we have said, when at length, as a distant snowy peak began to change its hue and turn rosy with the rays of the setting sun, the small postern door on which his eyes were fixed was seen to move upon its hinges, and then stood ajar.

Bernard de Rohan sprang forward, pa.s.sed the small open s.p.a.ce in a moment, and, pushing back the door more fully, stood within the garden of the castle of Ma.s.seran.

Scarce a step from the gate, with her hand pressed upon her heart, as if to stop the palpitation of fear and agitation, stood a lady, perhaps of twenty years of age. She was certainly not more; and her beauty, like the morning sun, seemed to have the promise of a long, bright race before it. She was very graceful and very beautiful. The whole form seemed to breathe of a bright and high spirit; but even had it not been that her person so perfectly harmonized with her mind, and was, in fact--as nature probably intended should be the case--an earthly type of the soul within, yet Bernard de Rohan would still have loved her as deeply, as tenderly as he did, for he knew that spirit to be bright and beautiful; he knew the heart to be tender, and devoted, and affectionate; he knew the mind to be pure and high, and fixed in all its purposes of right.

He had been brought up with her from youth; her father had been his guardian, and a parent to him when his own parents were no more. She had fancied herself a sister to him till the hearts of both told them it was happy she was not so. No disappointments had ever befallen them in the course of their affection; no obstacles had been thrown in their way till that time; and yet, though neither opposed, nor troubled, nor disappointed, they loved each other with true and constant hearts, and feared not the result of any hour of trial.

She was very beautiful, certainly. It was not alone that all the features of her face were fine, but it was also that the form of the face itself was beautiful, and the way that the head was placed upon the neck, and the neck rose from the shoulders, all gave a peculiarity of expression, a grace, which is only to be compared to that of some ancient statue from a master's hand. The eyes, too, were very, very lovely, deep blue, and full of liquid light; with dark black eyelashes that curtained them like a dark cloud fringing the edge of the western sky, but leaving a s.p.a.ce for the bright light of evening to gush through upon the world. Her complexion was a clear, warm brown; but now, as she stood, there was something, either in the agitation of the moment or in the cold light of the hour, which made her look as pale as marble.

She was pressing her hand upon her heart, and leaning slightly forward, with an eager look towards the door, as if prepared to fly should any one appear whom she did not expect. The instant she saw Bernard de Rohan, however, her whole face was lighted up with a glad smile, and she sprang forward to meet him with the unchecked joy of pure and high affection. They were in a moment in each other's arms.

"My Isabel! my beloved!" he said. "I thought that this man had determined to shut me out from beholding you again."

"And so he would," replied the lady. "So he would if he had the power.

But oh! Bernard, I fear him--I fear him in every way: I fear him on my own account, I fear him on yours."

"Oh! fear not, fear not, Isabel," replied Bernard de Rohan. "He can but bring evil upon his own head if he attempts to wrong either you or me.

Already has he placed himself in danger. But tell me, my beloved, tell me, is he really absent from the castle, or was it but a pretence to avoid seeing me when I came yesterday?"

"No, he is absent," replied Isabel de Brienne. "In that, at least, there is no deception, for I saw him ride out with but a few horses yesterday towards midday. He took the small covered way by the back of the castle and by the other side of the gardens. I saw him from the window of my chamber in the keep, and I do not believe that he has since returned."

"It must have been to avoid me," said Bernard de Rohan, thoughtfully; "and yet, how could he know that I was here? Did he ever hint at such knowledge, my Isabel?"

"Not to me," she answered; "but I have scarcely seen him since that terrible night. I have been in my mother's sick chamber, to which his cruelty and brutality have brought her. Nor would he ever, even if I had seen him, nor would he ever mention your name to me. He would fain have me forget it, Bernard; but on that score I have much to tell you too."

"I know that I judge your heart right, dear Isabel," replied Bernard de Rohan, "when I say he would find it hard to make you forget that name; and yet I have had warnings within the last two days of many a dark and evil scheme, it would seem, against your peace and mine. A vague hint has been given me that one whom I know to be brave, and whom the world holds to be honest; one who was once my particular friend, and my comrade in many a day of difficulty, and strife, and peril; one who, I know, must be well aware, from many things that I have casually said in thoughtless freedom of heart, that you and I are linked together by promises that can never be broken, has been labouring hard to supplant me in your affection. Yet I will not believe them, Isabel; I will not believe, in the first place, that you would hear one word on such a score from any man. Neither will I believe--though he has certainly lingered strangely away from the army; though he has changed, I may say, marvellously, and from a gay, rash, thoughtless youth, become a cautious, calculating, somewhat impenetrable man--I will not believe that Adrian de Meyrand would do me wrong. No, no, I will trust him still."

"Trust him not, Bernard! trust him not!" replied Isabel. "Trust him not, Bernard! I, at least, know what he is. You say that your Isabel," she continued, gazing on him tenderly, "would not hear one word of love spoken by any other lips than your own. You do her right, dear Bernard.

She would not, if she could help it; and even when against her will, against remonstrance and anger, she has been forced to hear such words, she has scarce forgiven herself for what she could not avoid, and has reproached herself for that which was forced upon her. Do you, too, reproach her, Bernard?"

"Oh no," he replied, holding her to his heart, and gazing into the pure bright eyes, which seemed, as they were, deep wells of innocence and truth. "Oh no, dear Isabel; what was done unwillingly needs no reproach: but how was this? Tell me all! De Meyrand, then, has wronged me?"

"If he knew of your love for me, he has," replied Isabel de Brienne; "but promise me, Bernard, that no rash or hasty act will make me regret having spoken to you openly, and I will tell you all."

"None shall, my Isabel," replied her lover. "It is only dangerous rivals, or insolent ones, that require the sword of a brave man. De Meyrand is not the one, and probably may never be the other. Speak, dear one! I must hear all."

"Well, then," she answered, "before we quitted the court, I remarked that this Count of Meyrand paid me a.s.siduous court; and though certainly he was very attentive also to my mother and her new husband, still I avoided him, for there was something in his look and his manner that did not please me. I remarked, however, that many of the n.o.bles of the court--nay, even the king himself--seemed so to smooth the way and remove all obstacles, that he was frequently near me. One day he followed me through the crowded halls of the Louvre by my mother's side, and, when I could not avoid him, poured into my ears a tale of love which I speedily cut short. I told him at once that my heart was given and my hand plighted to another; and I besought my mother to confirm what I said, and stop all farther importunity. He had fascinated her, Bernard; and though she did what I requested, it was but coldly. He left me for the time; but the very next day, while I was alone in my mother's chamber, he came in and pursued the same theme. Then, Bernard, I fear I acted ill. He aroused my anger. I was indignant that he should thus persecute me after what I had said. I treated him with some scorn. I told him cuttingly, in answer to a question which he should not have asked, that, even were I not plighted in faith and bound by affection to another, I should never have felt for him aught but cold indifference.

He lost his temper at length, though it was long ere he would leave me; and as he did at length quit the room, I could hear something muttered between his teeth which sounded very much like a menace. Since then I have only seen him three times. Once more at the court; but by that time my brother had returned from Italy. He was with me, and the count did not come near. I have twice seen him here, when I have been forced out by the Lord of Ma.s.seran upon the pretence of a hunting-party. He comes not near the castle, however; and, when we did meet, he was distant and stately in his manner, but still there was something in his eyes that made me shudder."

"For the last two days he has been in the same small inn with myself,"

replied Bernard de Rohan. "I will speak to him to-night, my Isabel, calmly and gently, I promise you; but he must learn to yield this suit if he still entertains it. Nay, look not grieved, dear one. I will keep my promise faithfully, and forgive the past so he offend not in the future."

"I grieve and apprehend, dear Bernard," she replied, "but think not that I would strive to stay you from any course that you yourself judge right. I know you are moderate and just, and that you will not think, as some might do, that you prove your love for me by fiery haste to expose a life on which hangs all my hopes of happiness. Your honour is to me far more than life; but oh, Bernard, judge but the more calmly, I beseech you, of what that honour requires, by thinking that not your life and happiness alone are the stake, but mine also. Having told you all truly, as I ever will through life, I must scarce venture a word more to persuade or dissuade; and yet I cannot think honour can call upon you even to speak angry or reproachful words, when this man himself was not told, by me at least, that it was his friend he was trying to supplant."

Bernard de Rohan's brow was somewhat cloudy, though he smiled. "I fear, my Isabel," he said, "that he knew the fact too well. I can call many a time to my mind when I have dropped words concerning you which he could not mistake. However, I have said I will pa.s.s over all that is gone, and now let us think of other brighter things."

"I know not," she replied, "I know not why, Bernard, but a dark shadow seems to overhang me, which prevents my thinking of brighter things.

Within the last year, so much has happened to cause apprehension and anxiety, so much to give birth to pain and grief, that my spirit has sunk; and, whereas everything used to seem full of brightness and hope, all is now full of despondency."

"Cheer thee, cheer thee, Isabel," replied Bernard, adding those caresses that cheer far more than words; "I will take thee from the midst of the sad things that must surround thee here. I know, dear Isabel, that thy mother was often harsh and always cold, and, since I and your brother have left you, you have had no support or comfort under the pain which her behaviour must have given."

"Oh, it was not her harshness nor her coldness, Bernard," replied Isabel Brienne; "I could have borne that easily; but when I recollected my dear father--when I remembered all his high and n.o.ble qualities--his kindness, his tenderness to her, and saw her again stand at the altar to give her hand to another so unlike him in everything, dark, treacherous, avaricious, and deceitful, it was then I first felt that I really wanted aid and consolation. It was then that I wanted help, I wanted protection and support; and even at that time I would have written to you to come to me with all speed if it had not been for some foolish feelings of shame."

"They were indeed wrong, my Isabel," replied Bernard; "for surely, Isabel, with our faith plighted by your own father's will, with a long, dear intimacy from childhood until now, if you could not repose full, unhesitating trust and confidence in me, where, where could you place it, Isabel?"

"I know it was foolish," she replied, "I know it was very foolish, Bernard; but yet, even now," and she looked down blushing upon the ground, "but yet, even now, the same foolish hesitation makes me scruple to tell you what I firmly believe is the best, nay, is the only plan by which we could hope to avoid the dangers that surround us."

"Nay, Isabel, nay," replied Bernard de Rohan, "after saying so much, you must say more. You must tell me all, freely, candidly. The brightest part of love is its confidence. It is that perfect, that unhesitating reliance, that interchange of every idea and every feeling, that perfect community of all the heart's secrets and the mind's thoughts, which binds two beings together more closely, more dearly than the dearest of human ties: more than the vow of pa.s.sion or the oath of the altar. It is that confidence which, did we not deny its sway, would give to earthly love a permanence that we find but seldom in this world. Oh, Isabel, you must not, indeed you must not, have even a thought that is not mine."

"Nor will I, Bernard," she replied, "nor will I; though I may blush to say what I was going to say, I will not hesitate to say it. It is this, then, Bernard: You must take me hence without delay."

"Oh, how gladly," he cried, throwing his arms round her, and kissing the glowing cheek that rested on his shoulder; "oh, how gladly, Isabel! I waited but for the arrival of your brother to propose that step to you myself. If this Lord of Ma.s.seran chooses to refuse me admission, I cannot force my way in, and you may be subject to every kind of grief and pain before I receive such authority from the king or from Brissac as will force him to give you up."

"That is not all, Bernard, that is not all," replied the lady. "This man is deceitful to all. Suppose but for a moment that, finding the King of France obliged to withdraw his troops from Italy, as I hear has been the case, he resolves to betray the trust that has been reposed in him, to submit himself again to the Duke of Savoy, to receive the troops of the emperor. Suppose, Bernard, he removes me and my mother beyond the limits of Savoy, beyond the power of the king of our own country, beyond your reach, Bernard, what would be the consequences then? I should be but a mere slave in his hands. But listen to me still, dear Bernard; there is more, more to be said; I have good reason to believe and know that all these dangers are not merely imaginary, but that he is actually dealing with the empire. I have seen couriers come and go, and heard them converse long with him in the German tongue. I have seen officers who spoke neither French nor Italian surveying the castle, and consulting with him over plans of other fortresses. Twice, also, when I have hesitated to ride forth with him, fearing dangers--I did not well know what--my mother, who is already his complete slave, has held out vague threats to me of removing me to far-distant lands, where my obedience would be more prompt and unhesitating. Now, even now, Bernard," she continued, "I believe that he is gone on some errand of this kind, and it would in no degree surprise me, ere three days are over, to see this place filled with German soldiers."

"Then, dear Isabel," exclaimed Bernard de Rohan, "we must lose no time.

I wrote to your brother to meet me at Gren.o.ble, and I have sent off messengers to him there and at Paris. But we must not wait for his coming. Your father's written consent will justify us, and the king is already aware that this man's faith and adherence to France is insecure.

It would have been better, indeed, if your brother had been here, for then he might, in the first place, have openly demanded you at the hands of this man."

"Oh no, no, Bernard," she replied; "I rejoice greatly that Henry is not here. I feel a sort of terror at the idea of his falling into the hands of this Lord of Ma.s.seran. You know that Henry's death would place great wealth at the disposal of my mother; and, though it is dreadful to say, yet I do fear there is no act at which this Italian would hesitate to obtain wealth or power, or any of the objects for which men strive on earth. I would not for the world that Henry should put himself into the hands of one so treacherous. If Henry be at Gren.o.ble, we can fly to him at once, and be united there."

"Better, far better, dear Isabel," replied her lover, "that we should be united before we go. There is a priest here who seems to have some regard for me, and who lingers still at the inn, I know not why. He will be easily persuaded to unite our hands, as our hearts are already united, and then my right to protect and defend you will bear no denial.

Let it be soon, too, my Isabel. Why not to-morrow night?"

She replied not for a moment or two. Not that she hesitated, not that there was a doubt in her own mind of what her answer must be; but yet she paused, with her hand clasped in that of Bernard de Rohan, and her eyes hid upon his shoulder, while he went on to persuade her, though there needed no persuasion.

"Consider, dear Isabel," he said, "the secret of this postern door is one that may be discovered at any time. He might return within a day. If we were to meet often, our meeting might be discovered. What it is necessary to do, it is necessary to do at once."

It need not be said that Bernard de Rohan's entreaties were successful.

Isabel promised to be there at the same hour on the following night, prepared for flight; and Bernard de Rohan undertook to have the contract of their marriage drawn up by some neighbouring notary, and a priest ready and willing to unite them.

"In four or five hours," he said, "we shall be within the pale of France, and, as you saw the other night, we shall have plenty of willing guards thither, dear Isabel. Besides that wilder retinue, too, my own train is down at the hamlet; but, of course, I must bring few people with me, for fear of attracting attention. Have you anybody in the castle, dear Isabel, besides good Henriot, who can give you aid and a.s.sistance?"

"Oh yes," replied the lady; "there is the maid who conveyed to you the note to-day. I can trust her."