Chapter LXX: A Catastrophe

Three days passed over, during which my fair prisoner remained in her apartments and I saw nothing of her. The little Duke, however, I met frequently, playing with the watchdog in the castle-yard, or with a hawk which was his favourite companion, and which, from the tower-head, he plumed and urged to fly at every feathered biped that came in view. He seemed a good-humoured, happy little boy, and handsome withal; but as he never approached me, and I--for my own reasons--cared not to cultivate his acquaintance, we never spoke, though he saluted me very courteously whenever we passed.

On the fourth day Marie Louise came to the bartizan with her attendant; and on perceiving that I studiously avoided her, she promenaded there daily, and consequently I daily witnessed the little boy-husband toying with her, and hanging about 'his duchess,' for whom he evinced all the love of a child for a mother or for an elder sister; for Marie Louise was an incarnation of all gentleness and sweetness. Moreover she was kind and even affectionate to the boy, affecting to take an interest in his prattle, and in the playthings he hastened from time to time to show her; and more than once, when surprising them engaged in a game of romps, or playing with shuttlecock and battledore on the terrace, I have seen how Marie Louise grew deadly pale, and withdrew with a bow of sorrow and confusion.

Then I would reflect, that in ten years more this child would be a youth of twenty, perhaps strong, brave, and impassioned; and that Louise would still be young and beautiful.

My position became insupportable! I could not desert my command, nor retire from it until regularly relieved from head-quarters; but in a transport of bitterness I wrote to the Marquis of Gordon and to the Duke de Lavalette, praying them to appoint another captain of Lutzelstein, and allow me to rejoin my comrades in the field. Daily I looked for a reply; but weeks passed on, the brown autumnal woods were becoming bare and stripped; but no horseman came from the Rhine--no letter from the trenches before Seltz.

Marie Louise--the ignes fatus, the hope of happier days, the star that had shone before me so long, the sole object of my thoughts--was living under my care, under the same roof with me; but separated from her by the peculiarity of our relative positions, we might as well have had the wall of China between us.

One day I came somewhat abruptly upon her. She was seated thoughtfully on an angle of the terrace or rampart which surrounded the tower. Her white cheek rested on her whiter hand, and her eyes were fixed vacantly upon the foot of the valley which was traversed by the road that led towards Zaberne, and through which meandered a tributary of the Ell, and from its banks a haze was rising in the sunshine through the leafless woods. Her expression was mournful, yet from her eyes there fell no tears. Perhaps she felt the humiliation of being a captive in her own duchy of Alsace. She was dressed in a robe of light-blue Amboisienne, having sleeves trimmed with the richest white Mechlin lace--a dress that admirably became her pale complexion and bright golden hair, which was shaded by a beaver, and single ostrich feather white as snow. The little Duke was seated near her, absorbed in fitting and preparing for sea a toy-ship which one of Ruthven's soldiers had made for him--a fatal gift as it afterwards proved; and, impelled by an irresistible desire to hear her speak, and once more meet her winning eye in kindness, I drew near. She bowed to me; and then I became deeply moved when perceiving that large tears began to roll in slow succession down her face.

'Madame,' said I, 'pardon me; but the sight of this silent grief fills me with compassion. Is there aught in which I can serve you?'

'Nothing; yet I thank you, M. Blane,' was the gentle reply. 'M. le Duc,' she added, to the little boy, who, on my approach, had crept close to her side with childish curiosity, 'leave me, I have somewhat of importance to say to this gentleman--to M. le Chatelain, whom you know.'

'Then will M. le Chatelain allow me to sail my new ship in the lake, and send a soldier to take care of me?'

'Certainly, if you wish it.'

'Oh! thank you, M. le Chatelain.'

Anxious to be rid of him, I had consented, and he withdrew to float his mimic argosie in the mountain lake that rippled against the rampart below us.

'Hark you, M. le Duc,' said I, just as he lifted his little ship and was running away, 'take care of yourself.'

'Why, monsieur?'

'For many reasons; you love your Duchess, do you not?'

'Oh! yes, monsieur; are not her eyes so soft and gentle?'

'Alas, yes!'

'Why _alas_?' said the child with surprise, 'I assure you, M. le Gouverneur, she gives me twice as many sugarplums as ever my old nurse at Toul did, especially when she begs me not to tell any one that she has been weeping, for she weeps very often.'

'And this is your husband, Marie Louise?' said I, as the boy left us.

'Alas! poor child. He is very loveable, and reminds me much of what my foster-brother, René, and Vaudemont, were at his age; for this I love him.'

'Unhappy girl!'

'I am indeed a most unhappy girl; yet less so than if fate had united me to Pappenheim.'

'But this boy will be a man in time to come.'

'Ere that comes to pass I shall be--'

'Where?' 'In my grave, beside my mother.'

Her voice stirred all my old love within me, and her grief became painfully sympathetic. I took her soft velvet hands in mine. She allowed me to retain them, and, fortunately, where we stood no eye could overlook us. I was about to yield to the intoxication of the moment, and press her to my breast, when a step rang on the gravel, and the little Duke came running back in high glee to announce that his 'ship was afloat, and that we could see her by simply looking over the parapet.'

'Ah! M. le Chatelain,' said he, joyously, 'I see you are very fond of talking to Madame la Duchesse. So am I, for since I lost my mother, no lady has been so kind to me as dear Louise. I am her husband, to be sure, but you see, monsieur, that I am still a very little boy. Do you love my wife? I am sure that _I_ do; but she weeps often, and that makes me sad. I wish monsieur could cure her of weeping. She kisses me at night, when the master of the household puts me to bed in yonder lonely turret; but I always steal to her room in the morning, though I am sure to find her weeping.'

'You perceive, Arthur, that even this child observes my misery.'

I pressed her hands, and felt almost stifled by her emotions and my own.

'See, madame! see, M. le Chatelain, how bravely my ship crosses the lake!' exclaimed the little Duke, while clapping his hands in boyish glee he left us, and rushed again to the postern gate, which opened close to the water.

'Leave me now, Arthur; what more could you eay to me now, now when--all is over?'

'My God! I know not unless--' 'Unless what?'

'That I have the misfortune to be one of those, who, if noticed by princesses, are seldom happy enough to be long remembered by them.'

'Ah! why did you come near me again--and with these reproaches, too?'

'We cannot at all times control our hearts; and though mine is all but broken, I cannot remain separate from her who wrought me all this suffering and calamity.'

'Do you forgive me?' she sobbed.

'Forgive you--Oh, Marie Louise!'

'Alas, Arthur--you must--you would, indeed, if you knew all I have undergone.'

To resist the impulse that inspired us both to indulge in one mute embrace, was impossible; but how terribly was it interrupted!

At that moment there was a piercing cry from the rocks below. I sprang upon the parapet, and saw the little Duke d'Alsace struggling wildly with the waters of the lake into which he had fallen from a point of rock, when stooping over it, to land that fatal toy, his ship. The soldier who had accompanied him was hallooing vehemently for assistance, and a loud uproar of voices shook the whole castle. The Duke was fully three hundred yards from me, and I stood gazing at him, overwhelmed by many terrible emotions.

If that child was drowned, Marie Louise would be FREE; but if I permitted him to perish without a struggle, then would I be guilty of a wicked murder, and a dereliction of duty. Without longer hesitation I flung my sword, belt, and pourpoint upon the terrace, and springing over the rampart, to which Marie Louise was clinging, and looking paler than white marble, I plunged headlong into the lake, and on rising to the surface, struck out boldly for the drowning boy, who had now risen, and sunk thrice.

'Oh, yours is indeed a noble heart!' I heard Marie Louise cry from the wall above me, while, half blinded and suffocated by emotion and exertion, I swam with all my force. I saw another person spring into the lake with a loud halloo; but knew not, until afterwards, that he was Frank Ruthven, of Ramsay's Musketeers, who, being a swimmer more able than I, first reached the spot where the boy had now sunk, and it was fatally near the brink of the cascade, over which, despite all our efforts, the poor victim was swept and drowned.