now it will be understood why, for the sake of those who are to come after me, it is necessary to write this vindication. men, not knowing the whole truth, have called me coward and traitor, because, said they, having a felon purpose in my mind, i crept into morsigny behind a trusting woman's skirts.
that is not my view, and three times i have fought to maintain my opinion. you who have read so far, judge would i wilfully hurt mademoiselle by so much as a finger prick? judge, too, if gaspard hellewyl was the man to root his fortunes in his own dishonour? nowhere have i laid claim to be more than a simple-hearted gentleman, and the king's scheme, as laid before me, seems to me now, as it seemed to me then, a not unreasonable solution of a grave, threatening political difficulty. that the wrench of the forced separation must give mademoiselle pain i knew and lamented, but i judged her to be of too noble a mind to weigh selfishly the present brief sorrow, however sharp, against the peace, safety, and prosperity of a whole generation. at the court of france gaston de foix would certainly receive as honourable a care as in the wilds of navarre, together with a more splendid education, and so be the better fitted to carry the responsibility of his station. true, that education would give his mind a particular bias, but what of that? we all more or less reflect that which lies nearest, and to a child that is neither a difficulty nor a hardship. therefore from every point of view—from that of france, from that of navarre, from that of mademoiselle, even from that of the boy himself, i held, and hold to this day, that my action was justified. but slander holds otherwise, and it is easier to kill a plain-speaking and perhaps honest gentleman or two than choke a lie. but if at that time what men might say did not trouble me, morsigny had its own perplexities.
by nature the south not simply suspects, but hates the north, and so the men of morsigny gave us no welcome. nor do i blame them. in race, language, and sympathies we were at variance, and pamplona—the true pamplona, not that which reflected queen catherine's gallic sympathies—distrusted paris even as the fox distrusts the wolf, or the pigeon the kite. at morsigny there was courtesy, but it was the courtesy of silence and suspicion, so that in his twelve hours of the louvre, martin had learned more of the gossip of the kitchen than he did in as many days of morsigny.
for one thing, we could not understand their tongue, nor they ours. our northern guttural was to them a barbarism fit for fleering laughter, while their blend of spanish, bastard french, and basque sounded to us an unmeaning lisping prattle, pretty enough in a child's mouth, but a thing of derision for grown men.
partly this isolation pleased me, for it threw me much with mademoiselle suzanne and the young count, but only to find myself again fumbling with a doubt. the puzzle was mademoiselle herself. in paris she had stood for narbonne and navarre, pleading in the nation's stead as the very equal of philip de commines, while here, amongst her own folk, she was no more than body-servant to a child of six, his nurse, his playfellow, and at his wilful beck every hour of the day and night. it was true that morsigny treated her with all respect, but her humility to the child gaston was greater than the humility of morsigny to mademoiselle suzanne d'orfeuil.
to solve a puzzle the best course is to examine it closely and with persistent diligence. that is one obvious statement. here is another: it is a pleasant thing when duty and desire run in pairs. so it was now with me, or so i persuaded myself. to solve the puzzle was my desire, to secure the person of the little count was my duty, and the way to achieve both was to keep a close attendance on mademoiselle—or so, and with great ease, again i persuaded myself.
day by day, then, that i might the better fulfil my mission, we rode, we hawked, we hunted, we strolled, count gaston always one of three, and, what was much less satisfactory, a full-armed guard always where i did not desire them to be.
if we cooled ourselves in the woods, anton and pierre were prowling somewhere in the coverts; if we sunned ourselves in the garden, and played at the humanising passion of flower-culture, 'tuco or hugues glowered at me from unexpected corners. was mademoiselle doubtful of my loyalty? at the time i did not think so, but navarre was unsleeping in its suspicions of france, and to morsigny we stood for all that was hated in king louis. it rather seemed to me as if their watchfulness drove us closer together, as if she would make up to the stranger for their surly want of confidence. for day by day she grew more frank, though never forgetting what was due from the nurse of count gaston to the friend of philip de commines.
that galled me, galled to shame everything that was best in me; for i knew well, however half-menial her place and service might be, that in pure devotion of spirit and singleness of heart she was as much above me as any saint in glory. nor do i altogether mean a saint. saints are too aloof from the mire of our world to give a true comparison; she was as much above as every true-souled, pure-thoughted, loving woman is above the man who splashes on along the bye-ways of life, not too careful where he sets his foot so that he be but one stride nearer to his goal. by that i think you will see that i was beginning to love mademoiselle a little; and so, if you have some grasp of the complexities of the human mind, you can understand the half-conscious conflict that was in struggle between grieving the angel of my adoration and the shame lest, by omitting to cause that grief, certain white limbs should crack on the rack and certain lips i had kissed scream curses on the treachery of gaspard hellewyl. however soon a man may find other and sweeter lips to kiss, he can never, unless the beast of the field be the nobler brute, quite forget the touch of the mouth that has helped him to the dearer knowledge.
you see, then, the various cleft sticks that pinched me? and, if you are one of those having that grasp of which i have written, you will understand that morsigny's cup of satisfaction was heavily drenched with bitters.
in the end i again persuaded myself to satisfy my inclination; that is, to save the lips i had ceased to love by so prolonging my stay at morsigny that when the time came to ride north at a gallop mademoiselle would say in her heart: i can trust and not be afraid. so would the lips i had learned to love not grow white for the loss of the child who lay so near her heart of hearts.
so, as i have said, day by day our intimacy grew franker, until, as we rode amongst the whins, i thought the hour had struck to loosen the knot of at least one perplexity. little gaston was on his pony, coursing in and out of the brakes like a rabbit at play, and we two pacing soberly alone. she had asked her daily question: must i still wait, or has the time at last come to open monsieur de commines letter? and i had replied as usual: no, not yet, mademoiselle; trust me, i beg—still trust me.
"oh, monsieur!" she answered, not petulantly, but as if out of a very sore and weary heart, "why must the faith be always on one side? is there to be no trust in me?"
"no trust?" i echoed. "why, all navarre has trusted you, and to me it is a strange thing that a girl who is too humble to mount her horse at the chateau gate should yet be chosen to speak for navarre in paris." for a moment she looked aside in silence, then drily, as if i presumed upon her, she replied: "in my station i am what god made me, monsieur."
"for which god be thanked, mademoiselle!" i answered, in a voice as sober as her own. "my mother taught me that what he does is well done, but none the less it was strange, and a very great trust. is navarre so poor that it must choose a frail girl and a—a—how am i to put it without offence?—must choose you, in a word, you who—who——"
"am what i am! do not be afraid to speak your mind, monsieur. honest service is no woman's shame. but i will answer your question with another: is hellewyl so great a name in france, or even in flanders, that louis—you come from plessis, you know, and whoever comes from plessis comes from the king—that louis should choose gaspard hellewyl of all men to carry his message of peace to navarre? oh, monsieur, monsieur! because i speak plainly you are angry. who is this child's nurse to scoff at a hellewyl of solignac! can you give a thrust and not take one? a thrust? no, a whin scratch!"
"but a scratch that hurts, mademoiselle."
"yes, monsieur, and hurts more than you; not even gaston's nurse is pleased to be told she is insignificant. have you the only thin skin in the world? but i forgive you, monsieur. it is right that a man should have pride of race, and if it will heal your wound i will avow that you are the greatest name in flanders, as"—she added softly—"you have shown yourself more than once to be the truest gentleman. but i will be even kinder; i will answer you your half-asked question: my insignificance was my safety. if monsieur de narbonne, monsieur de gourdon, monsieur d'arros, or any one of fifty who make the poverty of navarre rich, had suddenly disappeared, your king's spies—do you know that he has spies, even in la voulle? would to god we could hang them!—would have traced him within a day, and all france have hummed like a tapped hive. but who would miss such an insignificance as suzanne d'orfeuil? who would fear a couple of women travelling with a single servant? and yet, monsieur hellewyl, your louis may find that a woman is not always altogether a fool. oh, you men, you men! with your smug, complacent pride in your own proper wit, and your wisdom, and your courage! i tell you, monsieur, a woman's heart is as big as yours, her soul as great, and the courage that dares fight for its life is not the greatest courage in the world! oh, dieu-merci! monsieur, i forget myself; but you see i love navarre and morsigny as dearly as you love flanders and solignac; and when a woman loves, she forgets everything, even herself, and remembers only that she loves."
"but she also forgives, mademoiselle?"
"when a woman loves! you miss the context, monsieur hellewyl," she answered tartly.
"and am i not forgiven?"
"oh, la, monsieur! would you have me get down and curtsey? who am i to forgive the friend of the prince de talmont and envoy of louis of france! surely you forget yourself, as you did a minute back, only now it is your dignity, while then it was—what it was! what would your king say to such an abasement in his representative?"
"no king of mine, mademoiselle, as i have told you once before."
"he is our king whom we serve as king, monsieur and i would to god it were any one on earth but louis the cunning; whosoever touches him touches shame," and with a vicious little cut of her riding switch she rode on.
that was ever the way with her—deep-hearted, shallow-hearted, bitter-tongued, and womanly sweet, gentle, wrathful, mischievous all by turns—till, for all our daily rides and nearness, i felt that she kept me as much at arm's-length as did any surly, suspicious, ill-conditioned navarrois dog of them all. but a day came, though not till weeks had passed, when the little count himself broke down the barrier.
from the first we two had drawn together. for myself, i have always loved children; their faults are mostly ours, their sweetness god's and their own. their faith has no reserve, their love no limitation; and when divine wisdom sought a standard by which men might measure themselves, he set a little child in their midst.
but apart from my general love for children, it was necessary, for the success of the king's scheme, that i should win the boy's confidence. not simply that success or failure might hinge upon his willingness to travel with me, but that mademoiselle, seeing how my heart had opened to the lad, would suffer less. so, playing to win him, i won him out and out, and soon monsieur gaspard rivalled even his beloved suzanne as a playfellow.
but it was no play that broke down mademoiselle's reserve.
as jean volran had said, morsigny lay not far from the hills. first there was the green and gold of gorse and grass, then slopes of pinewood through which streams bickered and flashed in the sun, or angled through the groom like snow-wreaths blown by the wind. beyond these were ruder hills, rock-strewn and sheer of face as they lifted shoulder by shoulder to the peaks in the blue distance. we have no such scene in flanders, and for the novelty of its beauty i grew to love it almost as dearly as did mademoiselle for old friendship's sake, or the boy gaston, because there the healthy animal in him found full scope for play.
did i say that in this companionship of ours little gaston made one of three? that is a mistake. except when within the precincts of the chateau garden he made one of four. that i have hitherto forgotten brother paulus has but one reasonable excuse. mademoiselle had pushed him from my thoughts. and is it a reasonable excuse? brother paulus would be the first to admit it—brother paulus of the grey withered face and shining eyes, the man's deep heart, the woman's tenderness, the child's direct simplicity and ignorance of the world. what wrongs, what sorrows, his youth had suffered, god and his own spirit alone knew. with him, as with the grapes of his own provence, the crushing had but set free sweetness and strength, mellowed by age to a cordial whereby the weak grew strong, and they who fainted by the way took heart of grace to pack afresh their burdens on their backs and go cheerily forward.
so, at least, mademoiselle suzanne has said. i only know that a man's brave heart beat under the monk's black frock, and that in a time of trial gaspard hellewyl's perplexity of soul found frail brother paulus an unshaken rock of strength.
