Chapter 2

Eleven days had passed since the sudden termination of the fatal tournament, and Henri of France still lay speechless and insensible as he had fallen in the lists, when, from the insecure fastening of his helmet, it had given way before the lance of Montgomeri, and caused him to receive the full force of the blow on his eyebrow, thence fatally injuring the brain. Still life was not extinct, and, though against all reason, hopes were still entertained by many for his eventual recovery. In one of the apartments of the Louvre, forming the suite of the queen dauphine, sat the unfortunate Comte de Montgomeri and his betrothed bride. Sometimes sanguine that Henri would, nay, must recover; at others plunged in the depth of despair—had been the alternate moods of the count during these eleven days. His friends conjured him to lose no time in retiring from France, at least for a time; and Idalie herself, though she shrunk from the idea of parting, with an indefinable feeling of foreboding dread, yet so trembled for his safety if he remained, as to add her solicitations to those of others. Still the count lingered. The very thought of his having been the ill-fated hand to give the death-blow to the monarch he revered, and the friend he loved, was too horrible to be realized. He could not believe that such would be; yet so dark was his despair, so agonizing his self-accusations, that even his interviews with Idalie had lost their soothing sweetness, and he did but deplore that her pure love had been given to one so darkly fated as himself.

It was after one of these bursts of misery that the Comte de Montemar, who had been engaged with papers at the further end of the apartment, approached and sought to comfort him by an appeal to those holier feelings, which Montgomeri possessed in a much higher degree than most of his countrymen.

“It is not well, my friend,” De Montemar said, “to poison thus the brief moments we may yet pass together. Remember, thou wert no willing agent of that higher power, by whose mandate alone it was that our monarch fell. All may seem dark, yet even out of darkness He brought forth light—out of a very chaos the most unwavering order; and does He not do so still? Abide by the advice of those who urge thee to quit France till order is restored, and our gracious sovereign’s last words remembered and acted upon. Italian blood is hot and eager to avenge; but fear not, we shall meet again in happier days, and, oh, embitter not thus the few moments still left my poor child!”

Softened and subdued more than he had been yet, Montgomeri folded his arm round the weeping Idalie, kissed the tears from her pale cheek, conjured her forgiveness, and promised to battle with the despondency that almost crushed him.

“And wilt thou indeed do this?” she rejoined, imploringly. “Oh, bless thee for such promise! Yet I fear thee, Montgomeri. And when apart from me, and these troubled thoughts regain ascendency, thou wilt rush on danger, on death, to escape them. Think, then, dearest, that it is not your own life alone which you risk; that one is bound up in it which cannot rest alone. Will the ivy blossom and smile when the oak has fallen? And as the oak is to the lowly yet clinging ivy, so art thou to me.”

Folding her still closer, Montgomeri in his turn sought to reassure and soothe, but with less success than usual. Every look and tone of Idalie betrayed that heavy weight which had increased with each day that brought the hour of parting nearer. Breathed to none, and battled with as it had been, still it seemed to hold every faculty chained, and at length caused her head to sink on the bosom of De Lorges with such a burst of irrepressible anguish as to excite his alarm, and tenderly he conjured her to reveal its cause.

“I know it is a weakness, a folly, Gabriel, unworthy of the woman whom thou lovest; but scorn it not, upbraid it not, bid it go from me! Is there not woe enough in parting, that before the hope of meeting ever rises a dim and shapeless darkness impossible to be defined, yet so folding round my future as to bury all of hope, of trust, of every feeling, save that we shall not meet as we have parted?”

“Is it change in me thou fearest, love? No. Then heed it not; ’tis but a baseless fancy, which will come when the frame is weakened by the anguish of the mind. Believe me—”

He was interrupted. The hangings over the door leading by a private passage to the dauphine’s own rooms were suddenly drawn aside, and, closely muffled, Mary of Scotland stood before them, with anxiety and haste visibly imprinted on her features.

“This is no time for ceremony, my lord, or we would apologize for our intrusion,” she said, turning towards the Count de Montemar; “our business is too weighty for an indifferent messenger. Count de Lorges,” she added, addressing him abruptly, and pausing not for Montemar’s courtly words, “tarry not another night in Paris; you have been unwise to loiter here so long. Pause for no thought, no marvel. Fly at once; put the broad seas between you and France, and there may be happiness in store for you yet. Dearest Idalie, for thy sake, even as for Montgomeri’s, I am here: do not look upon me thus.”

“Now must we part—now? Your highness means not now!” exclaimed Idalie, as her cold hands convulsively closed round the count’s arm. “What has he done that he should fly?”

“Nothing to call the blush of shame to his cheek or thine, dear child. The words I have heard may mean nothing, may be but wrung from woman’s agony, for the grief of Catherine de Medicis is of no softening nature; yet ought Montgomeri to leave Paris without delay, for there may be some to act on broken words, even as on an imperial mandate. Detain him not, Idalie; we shall visit Scotland perchance ere long, and there no grief shall damp a bridal.”

“Stay but one moment more, royal lady,” entreated De Lorges, as the dauphine turned to go; “one word, for mercy. How fares the king? Is there no more hope? Does he still lay as he has done ever since that fatal stroke?”

Mary looked at him somewhat surprised, and very sorrowfully.

“No, Montgomeri, no!” she said, after a pause of much feeling; “the soul has escaped the shattered prison, and Henri is at rest.”

Montgomeri staggered back with a heavy, almost convulsive groan. He knew not till that moment how powerfully hope had sustained him. The shock was almost as fearful as if he had never thought of death; and yet the horrible conviction that he was a regicide had scarcely for one instant left his mind.

“Montemar, let not this be, for the sake of thy poor child, of both. Part them ere long,” whispered the queen (dauphine no more), as the count knelt before her in involuntary homage; “think not of us now. Would to God we were still Dauphine of France and not her queen. Montgomeri’s danger, I fear, is imminent; let him not linger, and may our Lady guard him still.”

She departed as she spoke; and Montemar, infected with her evident anxiety, hesitated not to obey.

“Rouse thee, Montgomeri,” he said, earnestly; “fly, for the sake of this poor, drooping flower; let not our Idalie weep for a darker doom than even this sad parting. Come to thy father’s heart awhile, my child. Have I no claim upon thy love?”

Gently he drew her from Montgomeri’s still detaining arm, almost relieved to find her insensible to any further suffering. His beseeching words to fly ere Idalie again awoke to consciousness, moved the count to action. Still he lingered to kiss again and again the pale cheek and lips of his beloved; then convulsively wringing the count’s hand, rushed from the room and from the palace at the very moment that voices shouted “Long live Francis the Second, God preserve the King!”