The Line of Love; Dizain des Mariages Part 14

"Eh, Guillemette, Guillemette," he laughed. "Why, la.s.s--!"

"Faugh!" said Guillemette Moreau, as she pa.s.sed him, nose in air. "A murderer, a priest-killer."

Then the sun went black for Francois. Such welcoming was a bucket of cold water, full in the face. He gasped, staring after her; and pursy Thomas Tricot, on his way from ma.s.s, nudged Martin Blaru in the ribs.

"Martin," said he, "fruit must be cheap this year. Yonder in the gutter is an apple from the gallows-tree, and no one will pick it up."

Blaru turned and spat out, "Cain! Judas!"

This was only a sample. Everywhere Francois found rigid faces, sniffs, and skirts drawn aside. A little girl in a red cap, Robin Troussecaille's daughter, flung a stone at Francois as he slunk into the cloister of Saint Benoit-le-Betourne. In those days a slain priest was G.o.d's servant slain, no less; and the Rue Saint Jacques was a respectable G.o.d-fearing quarter of Paris.

"My father!" the boy cried, rapping upon the door of the Hotel de la Porte-Rouge; "O my father, open to me, for I think that my heart is breaking."

Shortly his foster-father, Guillaume de Villon, came to the window.

"Murderer!" said he. "Betrayer of women! Now, by the caldron of John! how dare you show your face here? I gave you my name and you soiled it. Back to your husks, rascal!"

"O G.o.d, O G.o.d!" Francois cried, one or two times, as he looked up into the old man's implacable countenance. "You, too, my father!"

He burst into a fit of sobbing.

"Go!" the priest stormed; "go, murderer!"

It was not good to hear Francois' laughter. "What a world we live in!"

he giggled. "You gave me your name and I soiled it? Eh, Master Priest, Master Pharisee, beware! _Villon_ is good French for _vagabond_, an excellent name for an outcast. And as G.o.d lives, I will presently drag that name through every muckheap in France."

Yet he went to Jehan de Vaucelles' home. "I will afford G.o.d one more chance at my soul," said Francois.

In the garden he met Catherine and Noel d'Arnaye coming out of the house.

They stopped short. Her face, half-m.u.f.fled in the brown fur of her cloak, flushed to a wonderful rose of happiness, the great eyes glowed, and Catherine reached out her hands toward Francois with a glad cry.

His heart was hot wax as he fell before her upon his knees. "O heart's dearest, heart's dearest!" he sobbed; "forgive me that I doubted you!"

And then for an instant, the balance hung level. But after a while, "Ysabeau de Montigny dwells in the Rue du Fouarre," said Catherine, in a crisp voice,--"having served your purpose, however, I perceive that Ysabeau, too, is to be cast aside as though she were an old glove.

Monsieur d'Arnaye, thrash for me this betrayer of women."

Noel was a big, handsome man, like an obtuse demi-G.o.d, a foot taller than Francois. Noel lifted the boy by his collar, caught up a stick and set to work. Catherine watched them, her eyes gemlike and cruel.

Francois did not move a muscle. G.o.d had chosen.

After a little, though, the Sieur d'Arnaye flung Francois upon the ground, where he lay quite still for a moment. Then slowly he rose to his feet. He never looked at Noel. For a long time Francois stared at Catherine de Vaucelles, frost-flushed, defiant, incredibly beautiful. Afterward the boy went out of the garden, staggering like a drunken person.

He found Montigny at the Crowned Ox. "Rene," said Francois, "there is no charity on earth, there is no G.o.d in Heaven. But in h.e.l.l there is most a.s.suredly a devil, and I think that he must laugh a great deal. What was that you were telling me about the priest with six hundred crowns in his cupboard?"

Rene slapped him on the shoulder. "Now," said he, "you talk like a man."

He opened the door at the back and cried: "Colin, you and Pet.i.t Jehan and that pig Tabary may come out. I have the honor, messieurs, to offer you a new Companion of the c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l--Master Francois de Montcorbier."

But the recruit raised a protesting hand. "No," said he,--"Francois Villon. The name is triply indisputable, since it has been put upon me not by one priest but by three."

6. _"Volia l'Estat Divers d'entre Eulx"_

When the Dauphin came from Geneppe to be crowned King of France, there rode with him Noel d'Arnaye and Noel's brother Raymond. And the longawaited news that Charles the Well-Served was at last servitor to Death, brought the exiled Louis post-haste to Paris, where the Rue Saint Jacques turned out full force to witness his triumphal entry. They expected, in those days, Saturnian doings of Louis XI, a recrudescence of the Golden Age; and when the new king began his reign by granting Noel a snug fief in Picardy, the Rue Saint Jacques applauded.

"Noel has followed the King's fortunes these ten years," said the Rue Saint Jacques; "it is only just. And now, neighbor, we may look to see Noel the Handsome and Catherine de Vaucelles make a match of it. The girl has a tidy dowry, they say; old Jehan proved wealthier than the quarter suspected. But death of my life, yes! You may see his tomb in the Innocents' yonder, with weeping seraphim and a yard of Latin on it.

I warrant you that rascal Montcorbier has lain awake in half the prisons in France thinking of what he flung away. Seven years, no less, since he and Montigny showed their thieves' faces here. La, the world wags, neighbor, and they say there will be a new tax on salt if we go to war with the English."

Not quite thus, perhaps, ran the meditations of Catherine de Vaucelles one still August night as she sat at her window, overlooking the acacias and chestnuts of her garden. Noel, conspicuously prosperous in blue and silver, had but now gone down the Rue Saint Jacques, singing, clinking the fat purse whose plumpness was still a novelty. That evening she had given her promise to marry him at Michaelmas.

This was a black night, moonless, windless. There were a scant half-dozen stars overhead, and the thick scent of roses and mignonette came up to her in languid waves. Below, the tree-tops conferred, stealthily, and the fountain plashed its eternal remonstrance against the conspiracy they lisped of.

After a while Catherine rose and stood contemplative before a long mirror that was in her room. Catherine de Vaucelles was now, at twenty-three, in the full flower of her comeliness. Blue eyes the mirror showed her,--luminous and tranquil eyes, set very far apart; honey-colored hair ma.s.sed heavily about her face, a mouth all curves, the hue of a strawberry, tender but rather fretful, and beneath it a firm chin; only her nose left something to be desired,--for that feature, though well-formed, was diminutive and bent toward the left, by perhaps the thickness of a cobweb. She might reasonably have smiled at what the mirror showed her, but, for all that, she sighed.

"O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone," said Catherine, wistfully. "Ah, G.o.d in Heaven, forgive me for my folly! Sweet Christ, intercede for me who have paid dearly for my folly!"

Fate grinned in her weaving. Through the open window came the sound of a voice singing.

Sang the voice:

_"O Beauty of her, whereby I am undone!

O Grace of her, that hath no grace for me!

O Love of her, the bit that guides me on To sorrow and to grievous misery!

O felon Charms, my poor heart's enemy--"_

and the singing broke off in a fit of coughing.

Catherine had remained motionless for a matter of two minutes, her head poised alertly. She went to the gong and struck it seven or eight times.

"Macee, there is a man in the garden. Bring him to me, Macee,--ah, love of G.o.d, Macee, make haste!"

Blinking, he stood upon the threshold. Then, without words, their lips met.

"My king!" said Catherine; "heart's emperor!"

"O rose of all the world!" he cried.

There was at first no need of speech.

But after a moment she drew away and stared at him. Francois, though he was but thirty, seemed an old man. His bald head shone in the candle-light. His face was a mesh of tiny wrinkles, wax-white, and his lower lip, puckered by the scar of his wound, protruded in an eternal grimace. As Catherine steadfastly regarded him, the faded eyes, half-covered with a bluish film, s.h.i.+fted, and with a jerk he glanced over his shoulder. The movement started a cough tearing at his throat.

"Holy Macaire!" said he. "I thought that somebody, if not Henri Cousin, the executioner, was at my heels. Why do you stare so, la.s.s? Have you anything to eat? I am famished."

In silence she brought him meat and wine, and he fell upon it. He ate hastily, chewing with his front teeth, like a sheep.

When he had ended, Catherine came to him and took both his hands in hers and lifted them to her lips. "The years have changed you, Francois," she said, curiously meek.

Francois put her away. Then he strode to the mirror and regarded it intently. With a snarl, he turned about. "The years!" said he. "You are modest. It was you who killed Francois de Montcorbier, as surely as Montcorbier killed Sermaise. Eh, Sovereign Virgin! that is scant cause for grief. You made Francois Villon. What do you think of him, la.s.s?"

She echoed the name. It was in many ways a seasoned name, but unaccustomed to mean nothing. Accordingly Francois sneered.