The Man-at-Arms; or, Henry De Cerons. Volumes I and II. G. P. R. James

I do not mean to say that my cousin had injured me by his marriage, for surely he had a right to wed where and when he thought fit. But I am inclined to believe, from facts which I heard afterward, that the first germe of harsh and unkind feelings towards me was produced by a conviction that he had treated me with greater kindness and distinction than he afterward intended to keep up, and that it was his duty to make a provision for me, against which his inclination struggled.

      There were other matters, of which I may have to speak hereafter, which increased and perpetuated such feelings. He could not but recollect that, before the death of my father, he had been liberal of promises and generous in words; he had told him that he would breed me up for a soldier; that he would take care that I should have the means of advancing myself; and now, perhaps, his intentions were changed. If they were not, they certainly became so after a short time.

      He was, at that period, a gay and gallant man of about five or six-and-thirty years of age, handsome in appearance, specious in manners and words, with no traces of profligate life in his language or appearance, and very well fitted to gain and keep the love of any young heart not thoroughly versed in the ways of mankind. Although his marriage, as most marriages were at that time, had been arranged entirely by the relations of the lady, without any reference to her wishes, yet there is no doubt that she married him with a heart free from other attachments, and even prepossessed in his favour. From such feelings, of course, attachment easily sprung up; and, had he merited it, love, deep, devoted, heartfelt, unchanging love, would indubitably have followed. But alas! he did not deserve it; he took not the means to obtain it; and though the attachment remained, that attachment was mingled with sadness and perhaps with bitterness, and grave melancholy trod fast upon the steps of feasting and merriment.

      For my own part, I was of a cheerful and happy disposition, a little fanciful perhaps, and somewhat wild; somewhat fond, occasionally, of solitary wandering and deep thought; but at other periods light and gay as a butterfly. Thus, then, I felt not, scarcely perceived, indeed, that the demeanour of the general servants and retainers of my cousin's house was at all changed towards me; although it was so changed from the very first day of his marriage. But, had it been changed ten times as much; had they treated me with neglect, or scorn, or contemptible malice, the pain would have been more than compensated by the love and tenderness of that sweet lady, and by the constant care she showed me.

      She first it was who recollected that, born of noble birth, and connected with many of the great and proud of the land, it was needful that I should hate the common education and accomplishments of the day; and she argued that, if I were poor and penniless as her husband said, and required to make a name and fortune for myself, it was but the more necessary that, by the cultivation of my mind, even in an extraordinary degree, I should be provided with the means of accomplishing the more difficult task that was allotted to me. My strength of body and an eager, active spirit had already rendered me familiar with manly exercises in far greater degree than most youths of my age could boast of. But my mind was totally uncultivated. I could ride wild horses that many a man could not manage; I could fence as well as my little strength allowed me; my aim with the arquebus was true and firm; I know not the time when I could not swim; and my cousin's pages, though considerably older than myself, were unable to compete with me in leaping or pitching the bar. But could neither write nor read, and knew nothing of books or of the world, but by occasional words which I had heard spoken and treasured up in my memory.

      No sooner did she find that this was the case, than she herself became my instructress; and oh how kindly did she teach me, day after day, with unwearied patience; her fingers playing with the curls of my hair, and her eyes often bent thoughtfully upon me, as if she were calculating with some melancholy my future destiny and her own. Perhaps I was stupid, perhaps I was by nature inattentive; but the love, the deep love that I felt towards her, made me exert every energy of my mind to give her pleasure and to make her task easy; and, though the undertaking must have been dull, and my progress slow at first, yet she always seemed well satisfied, and cheered me on with words of bright encouragement.

      A time soon came, however, when her instructions became somewhat painful to her; apparently there was a languor in her eyes and in her tone, which seemed to me strange; and, without being told to do so, I spoke in a lower tone of voice, I paid more attention to everything she said, I avoided everything that could disturb or trouble her. It seemed to me that she was ill, and nature taught me how to act under such circumstances.

      At length, one day, she said to me, "I must give over teaching you for a time, Henry, but good Monsieur la Tour will take the task till I can follow it again." And she put me under the charge of the minister of our little village, or rather, indeed, of the chateau, a good man as ever lived, who had always shown himself fond of me, and who now followed up, with zeal and kindness, that which she had so kindly and generously begun. The whole family, and every one in the immediate neighbourhood, were, as is well known, of the Reformed religion, and my cousin, the Baron de Blancford, was at that time absent with the Protestant army.

      Shortly after, however, he returned, sent for, I believe, to be present at the birth of his first child, and great anxiety manifested itself in the household for several days. Fears were entertained for the safety of the lady, and great precautions taken; but at length I heard that the baroness had given birth to a child, and that she herself was proceeding favourably. With my heart full of joy and satisfaction, I ran to congratulate my cousin, thinking that there could be nothing but similar feelings in his own heart. He pushed me angrily away from him, however, exclaiming, "You fool, it is only a girl!"

      Not understanding what he meant, or comprehending in the slightest degree why the birth of a girl should give him less satisfaction than if a son had been born, I ran to the room of Monsieur la Tour, and told him what had happened; and then it was, for the first time, that I was made to understand how great was the difference made by the customs of the world between two classes of beings naturally equal. A vague idea, too, of my own circumstances was also communicated to my mind, and from that time the change which had taken place, and which daily increased, in the deportment of my cousin's servants towards me, was marked, understood, and felt painfully. Two days after the birth of his daughter the baron again left the chateau, but he remained long enough to make me feel most bitterly that I was no longer the boy that he had sported with and loved in former years.

      The lady soon recovered, and resumed her care of me without a change. She loved to have me with her; she loved to see me play with her infant; and, as month after month proceeded, the child's affection for me grew stronger and more strong, till there was none but her mother that she loved so well.

      About a year and a half afterward a son was born; and then another; and from the birth of the first I found that I was no longer an object of consideration to any one except to the good clergyman, whose affection towards me seemed to increase as that of others diminished, and to the sweet lady, who never for a moment, in her love and care for others, forgot her love and care for me. A change had come over the whole household, however; the lover had long been forgotten in the husband, the husband had been forgotten in the man of pleasure. Whenever any short cessation of hostilities permitted him to visit the capital, it was in Paris that the Lord of Blancford's time was wholly spent, and at other periods his days were passed in the pleasures of other great towns, afar from the family which required his care and direction, and from the wife whose love he had cast away.

      On her part, she showed not the slightest inclination to depart from his expressed wish that she would remain at the chateau of Blancford. She loved not great cities; she sought not to indemnify herself for her husband's neglect by following the same evil course in which he led: she enjoyed fully and entirely the pleasures of rural life, and found in the duties of a mother the greatest consolation and delight. Once in the course of the month, perhaps, she visited Bordeaux with the state becoming her rank and station, called upon some of the chief ladies of the city, and returned home after having remained there but a few hours. Very frequently, on these occasions, I accompanied her, and the kindness with which she mentioned me to all who were really good and estimable, seemed to bespeak for me their future protection and regard, although she never even hinted at such an object.

      I was her companion almost always in her walks, too; and from her conversation I daily gained information upon subjects with which