Lord Montagu's Page: An Historical Romance

by G. P. R. James

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  The _auberge_, the _cabaret_, the _gite_, were the usual places ofrepose for travellers in the reign of Louis XIII., as they had beenunder that of his father, Henry IV. Some change, indeed, had taken placein point of comfort and refinement; and even before the epoch of LouisXIV., which was now rapidly approaching, many an auberge was a verycomfortable and luxurious dwelling. But there was another roof, which,in those days, afforded in Catholic countries--and even now afford, onthe less frequented lines of travel--a more peaceful and little lesscomfortable or luxurious resting-spot than the houses of publicentertainment. This was the large monastery, the abbey or the priory ofany of the hospitable orders; and in Savoy these were peculiarlynumerous, as their splendid ruins still attest.

  Alas that in the march of what we call improvement so much that is goodis swept away! Many undoubtedly were the vices and the evils which hadcrept into the Romish Church; great, we Protestants believe, was thecorruption of her faith; but the time will come when the whole worldwill own that to that Church we owe a debt of gratitude for arts,institutions, faith itself, preserved, and will regret that in thefanatical zeal of religious innovation the good and the bad werepromiscuously crushed together.

  With the men who bore the litter sent by the Abbe Scaglia was a surgeonof some eminence, who strongly advised that the wounded youth should becarried to the Abbey of St. Pierre rather than to a noisy inn in Aix. Itwas but a mile from the city, he said: the air was pure and fine, andthe attendance of the sisters, who were of an order of charity, would beworth more than that of any nurses who could be found in the town. Theywere the servants of God; the others were the servants of Mammon: and noone could doubt which would do their duty best.

  His reasoning was conclusive; and Edward Langdale was accordinglycarried to the abbey and kindly received.

  No need to dwell upon his illness. It was severe, but it was not fatal;and, by the reader's leave, we will advance six days in our story andlook into the chamber which had been assigned him in the hospital-partof the building. Lord Montagu sat by his bedside with a cheerful look,and the young man was already able to raise himself upon his arm andlisten to or answer questions. His noble friend had passed theintervening time, as he had proposed, at Aix, and his days were full ofbusiness and excitement; but still he had found leisure to ride out eachday and visit his page.

  "Well, Ned," he said, "you are now in a fair way. The surgeon tells methere is no doubt of your recovery now, if you have even tolerableprudence; so I shall leave you for a day or two and go to Turin. I trustyou will be able to travel shortly after I come back; for I have wantedyou much during your long absence, and shall want you more now. There isHenry Freeland; he is stupid as an ass; and then George Abbot, who hassense enough when you give him three hours to think over what he has todo, is as slow as an elephant."

  "I was indeed very long on my journey, my lord," replied Edward; "but Ican assure you I could not help it. One unfortunate accident afteranother detained me, as I have partly told you."

  "Ay, Madame de Chevreuse wrote me all that," said Montagu. "You were illfrom a knock on the head at Rochelle. You are too quick, my boy, and, Idare say, brought it on yourself; but I would rather have a ready handand a ready head than a slow heart and a dull understanding. It wasunfortunate, it is true; for it gave an excuse for sending away LordDenbigh's fleet. But that was all a pretext. We understand theseRochellais well; and they will quarrel amongst themselves till they losetheir city. Then you were caught by this great cardinal and detained byhim. You must tell me all about that by-and-by. It is a marvel he hangedyou not; and you must have managed him skilfully. But tell me aboutthese two blacksmith horse-doctors you had with you. They say they metyou on the road at Chartres, and that you would have none of theircompany."

  "They say true, my lord," answered Edward. "I liked not their faces, andI wished to ride alone. Besides, I had seen one of them, I am sure, atNantes, in the court of the castle; and I feared he might be one of thecardinal's people. But, as he is here in Savoy, whither he said from thefirst he was coming, I was probably mistaken. However, it is alwaysbetter to be sure of your company."

  "Oh, they are honest fellows," said Lord Montagu; "and, as I amcontinually wanting a smith, I have engaged them both to go with me asfar at least as Liege. If they were the cardinal's men they would not goout of the cardinal's reach."

  It may be necessary to explain that in those days, in Europe, men weremuch in the same state as travellers in Hindostan at present. Eachservant you had with you had his specialty, and the train of a man ofmeans and retinue consisted of a dozen more persons than any one nowrequires. It is true that at great towns you could find artificers ofall sorts, ready to repair your coach or shoe your horses, or performany services which the accidents of the road might require; but, if oneof those accidents occurred between great town and great town, you mighthave to travel twenty miles with a lame horse or a broken vehicle,unless you had some one with you capable of rectifying the mischanceupon the spot. Poor men were obliged to submit to such inconveniences,but the rich were prepared against them; and, as Lord Montagu's objectwas haste, and that rapidity of movement which is the best concealment,he very naturally desired to guard against all impediments.

  The object of that nobleman in the long journey which he was even thentaking was to forward the great schemes of one to whom he was devotedwith a warmth and sincerity of attachment very rare even then, rarerstill now. The famous Duke of Buckingham, favorite of two kings, andruler for a time of both king and people, was a man of great and daringenterprise, of bold and courageous action, but of small foresight andof less discretion. Unfortunate in action, from causes which he oftencould not control, he was great in purpose and even obstinate inresolution. The fault was generally a want of capacity for detail, and amiscalculation of the means in his power as proportioned to the end hehad in view. For the first time in life, however, he had now consideredhis steps well and devised each move on the political chess-boardaccurately. Whatever were his motives, (none has discovered them, nor,perhaps, ever will,) his present object was to humble France and toraise England at her expense; and, while he himself prepared eagerly fora war in which he was not fitted for command, his most intimate friendand confidant, Lord Montagu, was intrusted with the execution of thatgreat political scheme which is the only bright point in Buckingham'scareer as a statesman. His task was, in the first place, to unite everydiscontented person and party in France against the crown, to combineHuguenots with dissatisfied Catholics, a turbulent nobility with aturbulent people, and to disunite the powers, wherever they might be,which supported the throne. But in the next place came the still moreimportant part of the scheme. It was to bring together all the foreignenemies of France, a discordant and heterogeneous body, and to directtheir efforts in one concentrated torrent against a kingdom alreadydistracted by internal feuds.

  Few men could have been better fitted for these tasks; but in somerespects Lord Montagu was wanting. He was somewhat too confiding; thoughpolitic, he was not sufficiently reserved; though clear-sighted, he wasnot observant of small particulars.

  Hitherto he had been successful in all he had attempted; and now, byEdward's bedside, he spoke with some satisfaction of all he haddone:--how he had remained in France in despite of the terrible ministerwho then already ruled the destinies of that great country; how he hadpassed from house to house and castle to castle, giving consistency toplans and direction to purposes which had previously been vague andundefined; how he had obtained written assurances of co-operation andsupport from many of the most powerful nobility and the mostinfluential factions in France; how his efforts in Spain and Lorraineand Savoy were all on the eve of triumph.

  "Here," he said, "I have met with more difficulty than I expected. Thecourt of the duke is divided. Many of his advisers have been gained byRichelieu, and a number of the chief nobility are attached to analliance with France. It was to strengthen the hands of our friend theAbbe Scaglia, and to comm
it irrevocably to our party many of the mostinfluential of these nobles, that we held the secret meeting in the oldChateau of Groslie, where you found us so unexpectedly. Your coming wasnot, in truth, inopportune; for all was settled, and further discussionwould have done harm rather than good."

  "I am glad your lordship has been so successful in great matters," saidEdward, "while I have been so unsuccessful in smaller ones. Indeed,though I cannot trace my want of success to any fault of my own, yet Icannot help feeling that my failure to accomplish any thing that wasintrusted to me must have shaken your lordship's confidence in me.Either I must have been stupid, or most unfortunate,--which is perhapsworse."

  "Nonsense, lad!" said Lord Montagu. "Many of the most successful men Ihave ever known failed in their first efforts: some failed for manyyears. There is in circumstance, my good youth, a dead weight which nohuman strength can overcome. We sent you to France because you werelikely to pass where no man of riper years and known reputation couldhave made his way; but we were well aware that you had difficulties tocontend with which were sure to try you hard and probably mightfrustrate all your efforts. But you have not wholly failed. You havebeen delayed, impeded; but you have made known the views of Englandwhere it was necessary they should be known, and you have brought meintelligence of the state of preparation of his Grace of Buckingham,which was most important at the present moment."

  "Indeed, my lord!" cried Edward, with a look of extreme surprise. "Thecardinal minister opened all the letters and read them in my presence,and I heard no such intelligence."

  "Look there!" said Montagu, taking a letter from his pocket and holdingit up before the young man's eyes. "You thought that there was nothingon that sheet but what is written in black ink; and so did Richelieu;but he did not and could not discover all that is told in those orangecharacters unless he had possessed the secret, only known to threepersons, of the liquid which brings out the characters from theapparently blank paper. It is only a marvel, my boy, that you passed atall. We hardly expected it; but you have passed, and, though delayedupon your journey, have brought me this intelligence in time. Thiscardinal is very shrewd; but there are people as shrewd as he. This newswill hurry the movements of Savoy, Lorraine, the empire; and yet he hadthis letter in his hand and suffered it to pass."

  "No thanks to me," said Edward; "for I knew not what was in it."

  He was in a somewhat desponding mood, and inclined to undervalue his ownservices; but he could not help seeing that papers had been put into hishands which, unknown to himself, must have led him to an ignominiousdeath if they had been discovered; and, for the time at least, he feltsick of political intrigue. There are moments; even in the midst of thebustle and turmoil, the eagerness and the excitement, of this world'sobjects and ambitions, when a consciousness of the excellence of perfecttruth and plain sincerity comes upon us, and we feel that if all menwould but follow the pure and plain injunction of the Savior, and dounto others as we would they should do unto us, we should be happierhere as well as hereafter. We excuse to ourselves our own acts by theactions of others. We say, "We must fight our adversaries with their ownweapons." We would be ready to follow the gospel precept if others wouldfollow it; but each man has the same apology, and no one will commenceobedience.

  But Edward felt that it did not befit one so young to discuss ethicswith his lord; and, changing the subject, he inquired, "How long didyour lordship say you would be absent?"

  "Some seven days," answered Lord Montagu. "And, from what the surgeonsays, I judge you will be able to travel about six days after. I havework here for at least that time."

  "I trust so, my lord; for I certainly feel my health improving," saidthe young man. "But I wish your lordship would not take thoseblacksmiths with you,--though they treated me well and kindly,--perhapsskilfully too: I can feel grateful to them, but cannot bring my mind toconfide in them."

  "Why, what is the matter with them?" asked Montagu, bluffly.

  "I know not, my lord," said Edward; "but they have both bad faces,--acunning and a double look."

  "Pooh, pooh! prejudice!" said Lord Montagu. "They are mighty good folks.Why, they have already cured two of my horses, which the people herecould make nothing of. You are sick and whimsical, boy. Now, tell me:how long did you stay at the Chateau of Dampierre? The fair duchess doesnot mention that fact; but she seems mightily smitten with you."

  "But a day and a night, my lord," replied Edward, not without a slightflush of the cheek. "She received a command from the court to retire toLorraine, and a letter--I presume from your lordship--arrived the sameday, telling me to go to Gray."

  "No need of reasons," said Montagu, somewhat shortly. "Well, have youheard that your somewhat unkind brother has succeeded in making hisescape?"

  "No; I have heard nothing, my lord," replied Edward. "You assured me heshould not be pursued."

  "Not so," answered Montagu. "A few words make a great difference, youngman. I assured you I would not pursue him,--not that he should not bepursued; and the Abbe Scaglia, as in duty bound, ordered an immediatesearch for one who had attempted such a crime in his presence. It hasthus far been unsuccessful, and I think will prove so altogether."

  "Has nothing at all been heard of him?" asked Edward.

  "Very little that can be at all relied upon," replied Lord Montagu. "Theservant who was with him when he so rashly leaped his horse into theriver was apprehended and questioned. He says that Sir Richard was onhis way to Lyons when the accident occurred; but on that road no traceof him can be discovered. A peasant declares he met with a man of anappearance like his, without boots, hat, or sword, wandering along themountain-paths toward _Les Echelles_, and a little boy says he saw thesame person at a distance; but this is all that has yet beendiscovered."

  "I would fain beseech the Abbe Scaglia to drop all pursuit," said theyoung man; "but I fear they will not let me write. It is useless to seekfor him now that I am, as they say, recovering; and, moreover, my lord,I think I was myself a good deal in fault. My words were rash andintemperate. I could not have borne them myself had I been in hisplace."

  "They certainly were not very sweet," said Lord Montagu, with a laugh;"and I will tell the abbe what you say, Ned. But you will soon be well,I do trust, and then this affair will terminate of itself."

  The conversation was not prolonged much further; and Lord Montagu lefthis young friend to the care of Pierrot and Jacques Beaupre and theattendance of the good sisters. Every kindness was shown him. The roomin which he had been placed was large and airy; the sunshine and thesweet summer air came streaming in at his window, and day by day hishealth improved; but still illness is ever tedious, and the hours passedheavily along. Thought was his only resource; but, for a young man ofhis character, thought--even enforced thought--is a blessing. Theadventure which had so nearly closed his life was not without its goodresults. He reproached himself for the harsh words he had uttered andthe harsh feelings he had entertained toward his brother, and heresolved to nourish better things in his heart. The five or sixpreceding years and the events they had brought with them had all had ahardening tendency; but, one by one, during the few last months,softening lessons of various kinds had disciplined and entenderedwithout enfeebling his spirit; and on the sixth day after Lord Montagu'sdeparture Edward rose for an hour or two from his bed of sickness, avery different being from him whom we first introduced to the reader.