A very satisfactory conclusion to a difficult affair!


* * *

Catherine came into her daughter’s apartment and signified that she wished to be left alone with her.

‘Margot,’ she said, ‘you will make your reappearance today, and you are looking as well as ever after your indisposition; but I am afraid that I have news which will be a shock to you, and I feel that it would be better if you learned it through me than in any other way.’

Margot lifted her great dark eyes to her mother’s face and waited in apprehension.

‘Monsieur de Guise was married a few days ago.’

Margot stared. ‘But … that is not possible.’

‘Quite possible, my daughter.’

‘But … who?’

‘To your friend … Catherine … the Princess of Clèves.’

Margot was stunned. It could not be. After everything that had happened between them, after all their protestations! She had trusted Henry completely, and he had said that he would never marry anyone but her.

‘My child, this is a shock to you. I know your feelings for this young man – indeed, they were most unmaidenly, and they carried you far, I fear, along the road of impropriety. Well, Henry of Guise knows when he must obey the wishes of his family – as you know that you must obey yours – and so he married the lady. By his attentions to her, I should say that he is not displeased. She is a good-looking young woman and as madly in love with him as … others have been.’

Margot lay still.

‘Now, my daughter,’ said Catherine, ‘you must not show your feelings or you will have the whole court laughing at you. You have been fooled as far as Monsieur de Guise is concerned. You gave yourself too easily. Now you must show your pride. When you appear to-night, remember that you are a Princess of France. There must be no more retirement, for I have let it be known that you are recovered. See how brave you can be. Show the court that you can snap your fingers at a faithless lover.’

When her mother had gone, Margot called her women to her. Was it true, she demanded, that Monsieur de Guise was married? Then why had she not been told?

They hung their heads. They dared not say. Margot stormed at them; she raged; but she did not weep.

She insisted that they dress her with the utmost care; she had grown thin in the last week or so, but she was none the less beautiful for that. Bitterness, anger, bewilderment had given a new wildness to her beauty.

She was gay to-night, and her mother watched her with approval.

Catherine knew – and Margot knew – that everywhere sly eyes were on her. In the banqueting hall, in the salle du bal, all were hoping for some excitement from the inevitable encounter between the Princess and the Duke.

Margot received his wife calmly; she complimented her on her looks and congratulated her on her marriage. Catherine of Clèves was a little frightened of those wild, glittering black eyes, but at the same time she was so happy to have married the man she had loved for so long that she could not care even if the Princess Margot hated her.

Margot coquetted gaily – first with one noble gentleman and then with another. Those wild, provocative glances, which until now had all been for Henry of Guise, were evenly distributed among the handsomest and most eligible of the noblemen.

They were enchanted by Margot, for Margot was completely sensuous; that overwhelming sex consciousness, that adoration of physical love, that promise of what she and she alone could give were irresistible.

Margot knew that Henry of Guise was watching her; and she was glad of that, since the whole performance was for him. She was desperately trying to put hate where love had been, loathing in the place of longing.

In the dance he came near enough to speak to her.

‘Margot, I must talk to you.’

She turned her head.

‘If you only knew, my love, my darling! If only you would listen to what I have to tell you.’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I have no wish to speak to you.’

‘Margot, darling, give me five minutes alone with you.’

‘I have no wish to speak to you.’

‘I will wait in the first of the green alleys. Our old meeting-place … do you remember?’

‘You may wait, for all I care.’

But her voice had broken and he could hear the sob in her throat.

‘In half an hour,’ he begged.

She could not trust herself to speak, so she turned her head away and shrugged her shoulders.

‘I will wait,’ he said, ‘all night if necessary.’

‘Wait all through to-morrow – if you care for such things.’

‘Margot,’ he implored; and the sound of her name on his lips was more than she could bear. She moved away from him.

She thought of his waiting. Was he waiting? He had said he would wait. But could she trust him to keep his word? He had said he would marry her, that nothing should stand in the way of their love; and, only a few days after that wonderful night they had spent together, he had married the Princess of Clèves.

She must go to see if he waited. I hate him now, she told herself, and it will be just to see if he really is waiting.

She saw him at once – the tall, familiar figure, the handsomest man at the court of France. He came forward with a lover’s eagerness. ‘Margot, my love, you came. I knew you would.’

She would not give him her hands; she was afraid to let him touch her. She knew her own weakness; and her desire, she knew, would be stronger than her pride.

‘Well, traitor,’ she said, ‘what do you want?’

‘To put my arms about you.’

‘Shame! And you a husband … of a week, is it?’

‘Margot, it had to be.’

‘I know. You had sworn to marry me, but it had to be Catherine of Clèves. I wish you joy of her – that silly, simpering creature! You could have done better than that, Henry.’

He had her by the shoulders, but she wrenched herself free at once.

‘Cannot you see that I hate you now? Do you not understand that you have insulted me … humiliated me … betrayed me!’

‘You loved me,’ he said, ‘even as I loved you.’

‘Oh no, Monsieur,’ she answered bitterly; ‘far more than that, I would never have been led away. I would have faced death rather.’

‘Margot, you would have suffered more if I had died. You would not then have had even this pleasure you now enjoy in tormenting me. They planned my death – your mother, your brothers. My family were convinced that the only thing I could do was to marry Catherine if I would save myself. Darling, this is not the end for us. You are here. I am here. It is not what we planned, but we can still see each other, renew all that joy we have in each other.’

‘How dare you?’ she cried. ‘How dare you? Do you forget that I am a Princess of France?’

‘I forget everything but that I love you, that I can never know a moment’s happiness without you.’

‘Then know this also: I hate you. I loathe you and despise you. Never try to speak to me. Never try making your vile suggestions to me again. I have been a fool, but do you not think that I will find others to love me? Do not think that you can desert me, betray me … and then, when you want me again, that I shall come back like a … like a dog!’

She turned and ran back to the palace.

That evening she danced more gaily than she ever had before. She laughed and coquetted. Her eyes conveyed many a promise, and she was utterly bewitching; but when she retired to her apartments, and her women had undressed her, she threw herself on to her bed and wept so long and so passionately that they were afraid.

At last she fell silent and lay still; and in the morning when her women came to waken her, they found her skin flushed and clammy and her eyes glassy; she was in a high fever.

Catherine and the King thought that the affair of Margot and Henry of Guise had been settled to their satisfaction; the Cardinal of Lorraine and his family thought they had retreated in time from a highly dangerous situation; Henry of Guise had come out of the affair with acute melancholy which would not subside until the Princess Margot was once more his mistress. But the Princess herself lay ill – not caring if she were to die. She tossed and turned in a fever, suffering from that indifference to life which is called a broken heart.


* * *

Catherine lay very ill at Metz. She knew that no one expected her to live. She could smile seeing the hope in their faces. There was hardly anyone who would be likely to grieve for her.

As she lay in her bed, she was aware vaguely of the people about her; she was not sure where she was. At times she thought that she was in the Palace of Saint-Germain, and that in the room below, Henry, her husband, was making love to Diane. At others she thought she was riding in the forest near Fontainebleau or Amboise, and that, beside her, rode the King – King Francis, her father-in-law – and the ladies of his Petite Bande.

Then she would have moments of full consciousness. She would remember that her beloved son Henry was bravely fighting the Huguenot army, that King Charles was becoming more and more mad and must soon give place to his brother, who was growing more and more worthy of kingship. Then she would think that Margot must be married soon. The marriage with Sebastian had fallen through, as Philip of Spain now wanted him for one of his female relatives; but Margot should be married, for Margot was a wicked, wanton girl. She had taken another lover and scandalous stories were whispered about her; some said that she still had her eyes on Henry of Guise, and that only her stubborn pride prevented her from taking up her relationship with him where it had ceased on his marriage to Catherine of Clèves. They said that Margot took this new lover in order to flaunt him in the presence of young Henry of Guise, and that there was a smouldering passion between these two which must blaze up sooner or later. Catherine’s first duty was to find a husband for Margot – and who was there but the boy to whom her father had pledged her when they were little more than babies? Henry of Navarre! It would mean summoning him to court. By all accounts, he was as profligate as Margot, so they would make a good pair. Let them marry and satisfy each other – if satisfaction were possible to either of them.