"You, too," he said, "you, too-the best wife in the world-whom I have misused-Ah! that I could begin all over again!"
"You will-you will, my most dear!" she cried. "Oh! the wound will cure."
And, strange mixture that he was, he moaned that he should only be a poor maimed wretch.
Darpent now brought in a priest, fresh from giving the last Sacrements to the two mortally-wounded men. The wife looked at him in terror, but both he and Clement gently a.s.sured her that he was not come for that purpose to M. la Comte, but to set his mind at rest by giving him absolution before the dressing of the wound. Of course it was a precaution lest he should sink under the operation; and as we led her from the bedside, Clement bade me not let her return as yet.
But that little fragile creature was more entirely the soul of Love than any other being I have known. She did, indeed, when we had her in Madame Verdon"s little oratory hard by, kneel before the crucifix and pray with me, but her ear caught, before mine, the departing steps of the priest, and the entering ones of the surgeon. She rose up, simply did not listen to my persuasions, but walked in with quiet dignity. Madame Darpent was there, and would have entreated her to retire, but she said: "This is a wife"s place." And as she took his hands she met a look in his eyes which I verily believe more than compensated to her for all the years of weary pining in neglect. The doctor would have ordered her off, but she only said: "I shall not cry, I shall no faint." And they let her keep his hand, though Clement had to hold him. I waited, setting our hostess free to attend to one of her dying charges, from whom she could ill be spared.
And Cecile kept her word, though it was a terrible time, for there was no endurance in poor Armand"s shallow nature, and his cries and struggles were piteous. He could dare, but not suffer, and had not both she and Clement been resolute and tranquil, the doctor owned that he could not have succeeded.
"But Madame la Comtesse is a true heroin," he said, when our patient was laid down finally, tranquil and exhausted, to be watched over through the night.
The time that followed was altogether the happiest of all my poor sister-in-law"s married life. Her husband could hardly bear to lose sight of her for a moment, or to take anything from any hand save hers. If Madame Darpent had not absolutely taken the command of both she would never have had any rest, for she never seemed sensible of fatigue; indeed, to sit with his hand in hers really refreshed her more than sleep. When she looked forward to his recovery, her only regret was at her own wickedness in the joy that WOULD spring up when she thought of her poor cripple being wholly dependent on her, and never wanting to leave her again. I had been obliged to leave her after the first night, but I spent much of every day in trying to help her, and she was always in a tearful state of blissful hope, as she would whisper to me his promises for the future and his affectionate words-the fretful ones, of which she had her full share, were all forgotten, except by Clement Darpent, who shrugged his shoulders at them, and thought when he had a wife- Poor Armand, would he have been able, even as a maimed man, to keep his word? We never knew, for, after seeming for a fortnight to be on the way to recovery, he took a turn for the worse, and after a few days of suffering, which he bore much better than the first, there came that cessation of pain which the doctors declared to mean that death was beginning its work. He was much changed by these weeks of illness. He seemed to have pa.s.sed out of that foolish worldly dream that had enchanted him all his poor young life; he was scarcely twenty-seven, and to have ceased from that idol-worship of the Prince which had led him to sacrifice on that shrine the wife whom he had only just learned to love and prize. "Ah! sister," he said to me, "I see now what Philippe would have made me."
He asked my pardon most touchingly for his share in trying to abduct me, and Clement Darpent"s also for the attack on him, though, as he said, Darpent had long before shown his forgiveness. His little children were brought to him, making large eyes with fright at his deathlike looks, and clinging to their mother, too much terrified to cry when he kissed them, blessed them, and bade Maurice consider his mother, and obey her above all things, and to regard me as next to her.
"Ah! if I had had such a loving mother I should never have become so brutally selfish," he said; and, indeed, the sight of her sweet, tender, patient face seemed to make him grieve for all the sins of his dissipated life. His confessor declared that he was in the most pious disposition of penitence. And thus, one summer evening, with his wife, Madame Darpent, and myself watching and praying round him, Armand d"Aubepine pa.s.sed away from the temptations that beset a French n.o.ble.
I took my poor Cecile home sinking into a severe illness, which I thought for many days would be her death. All her old terror of Madame Croquelebois returned, and for many nights and days Madame Darpent or I had to be constantly with her, though we had outside troubles enough of our own. Those two sick-rooms seem to swallow up my recollection.
CHAPTER x.x.xII. - ESCAPE
(Annora"s Narrative)
There was indeed a good deal pa.s.sing beyond those rooms where Margaret was so absorbed in her d"Aubepines that I sometimes thought she forgot her own kindred in them. Poor things! they were in sad case, though how Cecile could break her heart over a fellow who had used her so vilely, I could never understand. He repented, they said. So much the better for him; but a pretty life he would have led her if he had recovered. Why, what is there for a French n.o.ble to do but to fight, dance attendance on the King, and be dissipated? There is no House of Lords, no Quarter-Sessions, no way of being useful; and if he tried to improve his peasantry he is a dangerous man, and they send him a lettre de cachet. He has leave to do nothing but oppress the poor wretches, and that he is fairly obliged to do, so heavy are his expenses at Court. The King may pension him, but the pension is all wrung out of the poor in another shape! Heaven knows our English n.o.bles are far from what they might be, but they have not the stumbling-blocks in their way that the French have under their old King, who was a little lad then, and might have been led to better things if his mother had had less pride and more good sense.
Gaspard de Nidemerle does the best he can. He is a really good man, I do believe, but he has been chiefly with the army, or on his own estate. And he can effect little good, hampered as he is on all sides.
In those days, Clement Darpent was sad enough at heart, but he did not quite despair of his country, though things were getting worse and worse. Mademoiselle had saved the Prince and his crew, besotted as she was upon them; and finely they requited Paris, which had sheltered them. All the more decent folk among them were lying wounded in different houses, and scarcely any of their chiefs were left afoot but the Duke of Beaufort, with his handsome face and his fine curls of flaxen hair, looking like a king, but good for nothing but to be a king of ruffians.
What does the Prince do but go to the Hotel de Ville with the Duke of Orleans and Beaufort, at six o"clock in the evening of the 4th of July, under pretence of thanking the magistrates and deputies of letting him in. Then he demanded of them to proclaim that the King was a prisoner in Mazarin"s hands, and to throw themselves into the war. They would do no such thing, nor let themselves be intimidated, whereupon the Prince went out on the steps, and shouted to his rabble rout, where there were plenty of soldiers in disguise, who had been drinking ever since noon: "These gentlemen will do nothing for us," he cried. "Do what you like with them."
And then, like a coward, he got into a carriage with Monsieur and drove off, while M. de Beaufort, in a mercer"s shop, acted general to the mob, who filled the whole place. It was a regular storm. Flags with "Arret d"Union" were displayed, shots fired, the soldiers got into the houses and aimed in at the windows, logs of wood smeared with fat were set fire to before the doors so as to burn them down.
Clement, who was a depute for his arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, had, while this was going on, been getting together the younger and stronger men with the guard, to make a barricade of benches, tables, and chairs; and they defended this for a long time, but ammunition failed them, and the barricade began to give way amid the shouts of the mob. The poor old men crouching in the halls were confessing to the cures, expecting death every moment; but, happily, even that long July evening had an end; darkness came down on them, and there were no lights. The mob went tumbling about, at a greater loss than the deputies and magistrates, who did at least know the way. Clement, with a poor old gouty echevin on his arm, struggled out, he knew not how, into one of the pa.s.sages, where a fellow rushed at them, crying, "Down with the Mazarins!" but Clement knew by his voice that he was no soldier or bandit, but a foolish artisan, and at haphazard said: "Come, come, my good lad, none of this nonsense. This gentleman will give you a crown if you will help him out."
The man obeyed directly, muttering that he only did as others did; and when they had got out into the street, Clement, finding himself not far from the place where the lights and voices showed him that some one was in command, managed to get to the mercer"s shop with the poor old echevin, where he found M. de Beaufort, with his hair shining in the lamplight, his yellow scarf, and his long white feather, hanging over the features that were meant to be like an angel"s. When Clement, in aftertimes, read the Puritan poet Milton"s PARADISE LOST, he said he was sure that some of the faces of the fallen spirits in Pandemonium had that look of ruined beauty that he saw in the King of the Markets on that night.
Some of the town councilors who had got out sooner had gone to entreat the Duke of Orleans to stop the ma.s.sacre, but he would Do nothing but whistle, and refer them to his nephew De Beaufort. They were standing there, poor men, and he tapping his lip with his cane, stroking down his moustache, and listening to them with a sneer as they entreated him not to let their fellows perish. And then among them stood up Clement, with his old echevin by his side. He was resolved, he said, and began "Son of Henri IV., will you see the people perish whom he loved from the bottom of his heart? Yes, Monsieur, you inherit the charm by which he drew hearts after him, and was a true king of men! Will you misuse that attraction to make them fly at one another"s throats? In the name of the great Henri and his love for his people, I appeal to you to call off yonder a.s.sa.s.sins."
He had so far prevailed that Beaufort muttered something about not knowing things had gone so far, and a.s.sured the magistrates round him of his protection. He even went to the door and told some of his prime tools of agitation that it was enough, and that they might give the signal of recall; but whether things had gone too far, or whether he was not sincere, the tumult did not quiet down till midnight. After all, the rogues had the worst of it, for two hundred bodies of theirs were picked up, and only three magistrates and twenty-five deputies, though a good many more were hurt.
Clement saw his old echevin safe home, left word at our house that he was unhurt, but did not come in; and at Maison Verdon, no one had even guessed what danger he was in, for all the attention of the household was spent on the wounded men, one of whom died that night.
Things got worse and worse. Eustace was very anxious to leave Paris before the summer was over, lest bad weather should make him unable to travel. The year he had put between himself and Millicent had more than run out; and besides, as he said to me, he would not expose himself again to undergo what he had endured in his former illness, since he could have no confidence that my mother, and even Margaret, might not be driven to a persecution, which, if his senses should fail him, might apparently succeed. "Nor," said he, "can I leave you unprotected here, my sister."
We lingered, partly from the difficulty of getting horses, and the terrible insecurity of the roads, partly from the desire to get Clement to attend to Cardinal de Retz"s warning and escape with us. There was no difficulty on his mother"s account. She was longing to enter Port Royal, and only delayed to keep house for him, with many doubts whether she were not worldly in so doing; but he still felt his voice and presence here in the Hotel de Ville a protest, and he could not give up the hope of being of use to his country.
Meantime, M. de Nemours recovered from his wound only to be killed in a duel by M. de Beaufort, his brother-in-law; the Prince of Conde"s rage at his defeat threw him into a malignant fever; the Duke of Orleans was in despair at the death of his only son, a babe of five years old; the Fronde was falling to pieces, and in the breathing time, Eustace obtained a pa.s.s from our own King, and wrote to Solivet, who was with the royal army outside, to get him another for himself and me-explaining that he was bound by his promise to Madame van Hunker, and that his health was in such a state that my care was needful to him.
Solivet answered the letter, sending the pa.s.sport, but urging on him to remain at Paris, which would soon be at peace, since Mazarin was leaving the Court, and a general amnesty was to be proclaimed if the gates of Paris were opened to the King without the Cardinal.
But there were to be exceptions to this amnesty, and Solivet wrote at the same time to my mother. I have not the letter, and cannot copy it, but what he said was to urge her not to permit my brother to drag me away to Holland, for when he was gone all might still be arranged as she wished. As to "ce coquina de Darpent," as Solivet kindly called him, he had made himself a marked man, whom it was dangerous to leave at large, and his name was down for Vincennes or the Bastille, if nothing worse, so that there need be no more trouble about him. So said my half-brother, and he had no doubt made himself certain of the fact, in which he somewhat prematurely exulted.
My poor dear mother! I may seem to have spoken unkindly and undutifully about her in the course of these recollections. She was too French, and I too English, ever to understand one another, but in these last days that we were together she compensated for all that was past. She could not see a good and brave young life consigned to perpetual imprisonment only for being more upright than his neighbours; she did remember the grat.i.tude she owed even to a creature comme ca, and I even believe she could not coolly see her daughter"s heart broken. She had not even Margaret to prompt or persuade her, but she showed the letter at once to Eustace, and bade him warn his friend. Oh, mother, I am thankful that you made me love you at last!
Eustace drove first to the office, and got his pa.s.ses countersigned by the magistracy for himself and me and our servant, showing a laquais whose height and complexion fairly agreed with those of Clement Darpent. There was no time to be lost. In the dusk of an August evening my brother was carried to the corner of the Rue St. Antoine in my mother"s sedan. He could not walk so far, and he did not wish to attract observation, and he reached the house on foot, cloaked, and with his hat slouched. He found that Clement had received a note, as he believed from the Coadjutor, who always knew everything, giving the like warning that he would be excluded from the amnesty. His hopes of serving his country were over, and he felt it so bitterly, and so grieved for it, that he scarcely thought at first of his personal safety. It was well we had thought for him.
Eustace had brought a suit of our livery under his cloak, and he and poor Madame cut Clement"s hair as short as if he had been a Roundhead. She had kept plenty of money in the house ever since she had feared for her son, and this they put in a belt round his waist. Altogether, he came out not at all unlike the laquais Jacques Pierrot, whom he was to personate. Eustace said the old lady took leave of her son with her stern Jansenist composure, which my tender-hearted Clement could not imitate. Eustace rejoined the chairmen and came back through the dark streets, while Clement walked at some distance, and contrived to slip in after him. My mother had in the meantime gone to the Hotel d"Aubepine and fetched poor Meg.
Cecile had just taken the turn, as they say, and it was thought she would live, but Meg could scarcely be spared from her, and seemed at first hardly to understand that our long-talked-of departure was suddenly coming to pa.s.s. It was well that she had so much to occupy her, for there was no one save her son, whom she loved like that brother of ours, and she would not, or could not, realise that she was seeing him for the last time.
It was a hot August night, and we worked and packed all through it, making Eustace lie down and rest, though sleep was impossible, and he said he wanted to see Meg and his mother as long as he could. As to Clement, we were afraid of the servants noticing him, so Eustace had locked him up in his own room, but he slept as little as any of us, and when his breakfast was brought him, he had never touched his supper. Certainly mine was the saddest bridegroom who ever stole away to be married; but I could forgive him. Did I not know what it was to be an exile, with one"s heart torn for one"s country"s disgrace?
The difficulty was to get rid of the real Jacques Pierrot, but he gave us a little a.s.sistance in that way by coming crying to M. le Baron, to ask permission to take leave of his mother in the Faubourg St. Denis. This was readily granted to him, with strong insistence that he should be back by eleven o"clock, whereas we intended to start as soon as the gates were opened, namely, at six. Eustace had some time before purchased four mules and a carriage. He was not fit to ride in bad weather, and for me to have made a journey on horseback would have attracted too much attention, but the times were too uncertain for us to trust to posting, and mules, though slower than horses, would go on longer without resting, and were less likely to be seized by any army. I would take no maid-servant, as she would only have added to our dangers.
We ate our hearts till seven, when we succeeded in getting the mules to the door, and haste softened the parting for the moment. Indeed, Eustace and Meg had said much to each other in the course of the night. We had both knelt to ask my mother"s forgiveness for having so often crossed her, and she finally wept and fainted, so that Meg was wholly occupied in attending to her.
Clement stood by the carriage, looking his part so well that my first impression was "that stupid Jacques has come back after all." Our anxiety now was to be entirely out of reach before the fellow came back, and hard was it to brook the long delay at the Porte St. Denis ere the officials deigned to look at us and our pa.s.ses. However, my brother had gone through too many gates no to know that silver and an air of indifference will smooth the way, so we came through at last without our valet having been especially scanned.
Beyond the gates the sight was sad enough, the houses in the suburbs with broken windows and doors as though pillaged, the gardens devastated, the trees cut down, and the fields, which ought to have been ripening to harvest, trampled or mown for forage, all looking as if a hostile invader had been there, and yet it was the sons of the country that had done this, while swarms of starving people pursued us begging. Alas! had we not seen such a sight at home? We knew what it must be to Clement, but as he sat by the driver we durst not say a word of comfort to him.
At our intended resting-place for the night-I forget the name of it-we found every house full of soldiers of the royal army, and but for our pa.s.ses I do not know what we should have done. Before every door there were dragoons drinking and singing round the tables, and some were dancing with the girls of the village. Some of them shouted at us when they saw we were coming from Paris, and called us runaway rebels; but Eustace showed his pa.s.s, told them what it was, for they could not read, and desired their officer to be fetched. He came out of the priest"s house, and was very civil. He said Colonel de Solivet had desired that all a.s.sistance should be given to us, but that we had not been expected so soon. He really did not know where to quarter the lady or the mules, and he advised us to go on another league, while he dispatched an orderly with the intelligence to the colonel. There was nothing else to be done, though my brother, after his sleepless night, was becoming much exhausted, in spite of the wine we gave him, while as to the mules, they had an opinion of their own, poor things, as to going on again, and after all sorts of fiendish noises from the coachman, and furious lashings with his whip, the dragoons p.r.i.c.ked them with their swords, and at last they rushed on at a gallop that I thought would have shaken Eustace to death.
However, before we had gone very far Solivet rode out to meet us. It was another cause of anxiety, although it was dusk, and he had expected us to have slept at St. Denis and to have arrived the next day, and he asked, what could have made us start so early, just as if we had been criminals fleeing from justice; but he took us to the chateau where he was quartered, and, though they were much crowded there, the family tried to make us comfortable. The master of the house gave up his own bed to my brother, and I shared that of his mother. "Jacques" in his character of valet, was to attend on his master, and sleep on the floor; and this gave the only opportunity of exchanging any conversation freely, but even this had to be done with the utmost caution, for the suite of rooms opened into each other, and Solivet, who was very anxious about Eustace, came in and out to see after him, little guessing how much this added to the inward fever of anxiety which banished all sleep from his eyes.
The kind people thought him looking so ill the next morning that they wanted to bleed him, and keep us there for a few days, but this was not to be thought of, as indeed Eustace declared, when I felt some alarm, that he could not be better till he was out of French territory.
So we pushed on, and Solivet rode beside the window all day, making our course far safer and easier in one way, but greatly adding in others to the distressful vigilance that coloured Eustace"s thin cheeks and gleamed in his eyes, and made his fingers twitch at his sword whenever there was an unexpected halt, or any one overtook us. He conveyed us quite beyond the army, and brought us as far as Beuvais, where he made himself our host at the Lion Rouge, and gave us an excellent supper, which I could hardly swallow when I thought of his barbarous intentions towards Clement, who had to wait on us all the time, standing behind my chair and handing dishes.
I believe Solivet really meant to be a good brother; but his words were hard to endure, when he lectured us each apart, with all the authority of a senior-told me that Eustace was dying, and that every mile he traveled was hastening his end, laughing to scorn that one hope which buoyed me up, the Dirkius could do more for him than any one else, and almost commanding me to take him home again to Paris while it was possible.
And he equally hara.s.sed Eustace the next morning with representations of the folly of taking me away to Holland, and breaking off the advantageous Poligny match, to gratify my headstrong opposition and desire for a mesalliance, which would now happily be impossible, the fellow having ruined himself.
The fellow entered at that moment with M. le Baron"s coat and boots, and Eustace could hardly repress a smile. We could not but rejoice when Solivet took leave of us at the carriage door, very affectionate, but shrugging his shoulders at our madness, and leaving a corporal and his party to guard us to the frontier. They prolonged the sense of constraint, and forced us to be very guarded with poor Clement, but otherwise they were very useful. The inhabitants fancied us by turns great princes or great criminals, or both, being escorted out of the country. Once we were taken for the Queen escaping with the Cardinal, another time for the Prince of Conde eloping with Mademoiselle; but any way of soldiers secured for us plenty of civility, and the best food and lodgings to be had. They p.r.i.c.ked on our mules with a good-will, and when one of them fell lame they scoured the neighbourhood to find another, for which Eustace endeavoured to pay the just price, but I am afraid it went into the corporal"s pocket, and Clement never so nearly betrayed himself as when he refused to share with the escort the reckoning of which they stripped the landlord. Integrity in a Parisian valet was all too suspicious! However, to us they behaved very well; and, if all we heard were true, their presence may have saved us from being robbed, if not murdered, long before we reached the frontier.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII. - BRIDAL PEARLS
When once over the border, and our pa.s.sports duly examined, we breathed freely, and at our first resting-place Clement took out a suit of my brother"s clothes and appeared once more as a gentleman, except for his short hair. He was able, whenever French would serve, to take the management of our journey.
We finished it as before in a ca.n.a.l boat, and the rest of mind and body, and the sense of approaching Millicent, certainly did Eustace good; the hectic fever lessened, and though he slept little at night, he had much good slumber by day, lying on cloaks on deck as we quietly glided along the water, between the fields full of corn, with harvest beginning, and the tall c.o.c.ks of hay in the large fields, all plenty and high cultivation, and peaceful industry, in contrast with the places we had left devastated by civil war, and the famished population.
The comparison made Clement groan; and yet that ca.n.a.l journey had a pensive joy about it, as we sat beside our sleeping brother and conversed freely and fearlessly, as we had never been able to do for ten minutes together in all the long years that we had loved one another. There was something very sweet in the knowing that, exile as he was, he and I must be all the world to one another. And so indeed it has been. After our stormy beginning, our life has been well-nigh like our voyage on that smooth Dutch stream.
However, the sorrows were not yet over, although at that time we trusted that there would be healing for my dear brother in the very air of the Hague. We landed on a fine August evening, and were at once recognized by some of the English gentlemen who had little to do but to loiter about the quays and see the barges come in. It rejoiced my heart to hear my brother called Lord Walwyn again, instead of by his French t.i.tle. Yet therewith, it was a shock to see how changed they thought him since he had left them a year before; but they vied with one another in helping us, and we were soon housed in good lodgings. I knew what Eustace most wished to learn, and asked, with as good an air of indifference as I could a.s.sume, whether Vrow van Hunker were in the town. "Vrow van Hunker, the Providence of the Cavaliers?" asked one. "No; she is at her country-house, where she hath taken in there or four poor starving ladies and parsons with their families."
When I heard how she was using old Van Hunker"s wealth-in providing for our poor loyal folk, and especially for the clergy, pensioning some, hospitably receiving others in her own house, and seeking employment for others-I had to repent of all the scorn with which I had looked on Millicent Wardour as a poor fickle creature, and now I had to own that my brother"s love had been as nearly worthy of him as any creature could be.
Eustace would not, however, go to visit her until he had seen Dr. Dirkius, to whom he repaired early the next day, having caused a hackney coach to be ordered against his return, and bestowed Clement on an English friend who could speak French well. For Eustace held that it would be more fitting, in the sight of the world, for me to go with him to visit Madame van Hunker.
The carriage was at the door when he came back from the physician"s. There never was anything to find fault with in his looks, and on this day, with his light brown hair and beard freshly-trimmed and shinning, his clear skin with the red colour in his cheek, and his bright eyes, in their hollow caves, there was something so transparent and sublimated in his aspect, that I thought that he looked more like a spirit than a bridegroom. He was gave and silent by the way, and there was something about him that withheld me from asking what Dirkius had said to him.
Thus we reached the entrance of the great double avenue, along which, as we presently saw, two English clergymen were walking together in conversation, and we saw a little farther on some children at play.
"This is well," said Eustace, as he looked out. "I thank G.o.d for this! It will be all the better for her that such a good work is begun."
"Nay," said I, "but what will the poor things do when she loses old Hunkers"s gold?"
"Sister," said Eustace, "I have left this too long, but I thought you understood that I am never like to wed my poor Millicent."
"Dirkius?" I said.
"Dirkius does but confirm what I have known ever since the spring, and so have you too, Nan, that it would be a miracle should I be here after this winter."
I had known it by my inner conviction, and heard him say the like often before; it was only a fancied outward hope that had been sustaining me, and I could obey when he bade me look cheerfully on Millicent, and remember the joy it was to him to see her at all, and, above all, employed in such tasks as would bring comfort to her.
The great Dutch house seemed full of English. Gentlewomen were sitting in the tapestried hall, spinning or working with their needle. We had been known to one or two of them in former times, and while they greeted us word was taken to Madame van Hunker that we were there, and a servant brought us word to ask us to come to her in her own parlour. There, up a few shallow steps, in a quiet, cool, wainscoted room, adorned with Eastern porcelain on shelves, we found her with her little daughter at her knee.
She met us at the door with a few faltering words, excusing herself for having given us the trouble to come to her.
"Best so, Millicent," said Eustace, and as he spoke she lifted her eyes to his face and I saw a look of consternation pa.s.s over her features at sight of his wasted looks; but I only saw it for a moment, for he put an arm round her, and kissed her brow, as she hid her face against him.
The child, not contented with my embrace, ran and pulled his coat, crying, "My lord, my lord, I can speak English now;" and he stooped to kiss her, while her mother turned to me with swimming eyes of mute inquiry, as of one who saw her long-cherished hope fulfilled only for her sorrow. She was less altered than had been feared. That smooth delicacy of her skin was indeed lost which had made her a distinguished beauty; but she still had a pair of eyes that made her far from insignificant, and there was an innocence, candour, and pleading sweetness in her countenance that-together, perhaps, with my pity-made even me, who had hitherto never liked her, lover her heartily.
I heard little or nothing of what they said to one another, being employed in keeping the child from them. She prattled freely in English, and was pleased to show me her baby-house, a marvel of Dutch neatness of handiwork, like that one which Madame van Hunker brought you, my daughter Peggy, when you were a little one. The doll we had given her had, however, the place of honour. Her sister, little Emilia told me, was married a month ago, and she was proceeding to make the little Dutch puppets in her baby-house enact the wedding, one being dressed in a black gown and stiff ruff, like a Genevan minister, when she caught a tone that made her cry out that mother was weeping, and stump across the floor in her stout little shoes to comfort her, before I could hinder her.
My brother and her mother set her down between them, and I had nought to do but to put in order the baby-house, till a great bell clanged through the house, which was the signal for dinner. Madame van Hunker was calmer by that time, and let Eustace hand her down, and place her at the head of the table, where she had around her no less than four families and two widows of our poor exiled Cavaliers and clergy. We had not found ourselves in so English a world for years past.
The hostess sat as one in a dream, doing her part like one moved by wires, and eating scarce anything, while Eustace showed all his usual courtliness of manner and grace. After dinner, he rested on a couch, as was his wont, before going back, and Millicent drew me into her chamber and wept on my neck, as she made me tell her all she had not been able to learn from him.
He had been very tender with her, and tried to persuade her that it was all for the best, and that there was happiness for them in the having no one between them now. She, poor woman, would fain, as I saw, have thrown aside all her houses and wealth to be his, and to tend him, were it merely for a few weeks, and she felt as if her love was strong enough to be his cure; but he had spoken of the cruel selfishness of giving away her power of aiding all these our fellow-countrymen in order that they two might come together for what he knew would be so brief a time. Yet he had not taken all hope from her, for he had talked of their reconsidering the matter if he were in better health after the winter, and, meantime, they could see each other often.
Poor thing! I believe she expected the miracle that might make him yet recover, and so she bore up, while Eustace was verily happy-having lived, as it were, nearly into spiritual love, and left behind that which had been earthly and corporeal, and thus he was content to rest. He had strained himself very hard to accomplish the journey, bring Clement and me into safety, and see Millicent again, and when the effort ceased, we fully saw, for the first time, how great it had been, and how far he was gone on that other journey. I do not think he crossed the threshold of our lodging half a dozen times after our arrival; but Millicent came into her town-house, and was with him every day. She had fitted the great dining chamber of that town-house as a chapel for our English service, and my brother went thither on two Sundays, on the second of which he saw M. Darpent received into our English Protestant Church. Clement had long inclined that way, having never forgotten the Huguenot training of his childhood, and the studies he had made, when his mother impelled him towards Port Royal, having resulted in farther doubts and yearning towards what Eustace had told him of our doctrine. Conversation with the learned Dr. Elson, one of our exiled divines, had completed the work, though he made his profession with pain and grief, feeling it a full severance from his country and his mother.
And the last time my dear brother left the house was to give me to his friend. He was anxious that I should be Clement"s wife before he left me, and there was no fear that we should starve, for, through trustworthy merchants, a small amount of the Darpent money had been transmitted to him before the State laid hands on his property as that of a fugitive. He might have bought himself a share in one of the great trading houses, or have-which tempted him most-gone out to the plantations in the new countries of Java or America; but Eustace prayed him to pledge himself to nothing until he should hear from Harry Merrycourt, to whom my brother had sent a letter before quitting Paris.
We would have had a quiet wedding, but Eustace was resolved, as he said, that all the world should know that it was not done in a corner, and Madame van Hunker WOULD give the wedding feast, and came to dress me for my bridal. You know the dress: the white brocade with hyacinth flowers interwoven in the tissue-and when she had curled my hair after her fancy, she kissed me and clasped round my neck the pearls of Ribaumont. I told her I would wear them then to please her and Eustace, and, in truth, I knew in my heart that I was the last true Ribaumont bride that ever would wear them. We were wedded in the chapel in Madame van Hunker"s house; and the Princess-Royal was there, and the Duke of York, and my Lord and Lady of Newcastle, and I know not who besides-only remembering that they all knew how to treat Clement as a man of distinction, who had, like them, given up all for conscience sake, and he, in his plain lawyer"s suit, with his fine, clear-cut face and grave eyes, looked, even in spite of his close-cropped head, as veritable a gentleman as any of them. The festivities ended the dinner, that being as much as my brother was able for. We went quietly back to our lodgings in Millicent"s coach, and Eustace went to rest on his bed, till she should have bidden farewell to her guests and could come and sup with us; but he and Clement forbade me to take off my finery, for it tickled their eyes.
And thus, when tidings came to the door that a gentlemen from England desired to see my Lord Walwyn, Harry Merrycourt, after all these years of seeing nothing but sad-coloured Puritan dames, came in upon this magnificent being in silvered brocade.
He said he thought he had stumbled on the Princess-Royal at least, and it was a descent to hear it was only plain Mistress Darpent! Harry had a good wife of his own by that time, who suited him far better than I should have done. Indeed, I believe he had only thought of wedding me to relieve my family from me. And when he saw how unlike M. Darpent was to all he had ever thought or believed of Frenchmen, and heard how well he spoke English, and how he had borne himself at Paris, he quite forgave me, and only thought how he could serve Eustace, the man whom he had always loved beyond all others.
He was practicing law in London still, but he had had time to repent of having been on the wrong side when he saw what it had come to, and had the Protector at the head of affairs. He said, however, that negotiations for peace with France were like to begin, and that Mr. Secretary Milton was casting about for one learned in French law to a.s.sist in drawing the papers, so that he had little doubt that Mr. Darpent would be readily taken into one of the public officers in London.
Moreover, he said that the Walwyn property had been sequestered, but no one had yet purchased it, and he thought that for a fair sum, it might be redeemed for the family.
When Eustace and Millicent found that I would not hear of keeping the pearls, declaring that such things were not fit for a poor exiled lawyer"s wife, Millicent said they had always felt like hot lead on her neck. To compound the matter, Eustace persuaded her to have the chaplet valued by a Dutch jeweller, and to ask Margaret and Solivet, the guardians of the young Marquis de Nidemerle, to purchase them for him.
To Margaret was left whatever of the property M. Poligny would spare, and if Gaspard should have sons, one would bear the t.i.tle of Ribaumont, though the name would be extinct. So it was fitting that the pearls should return to that family, and the fair value, as we hoped, sufficed, in Harry Merrycourt"s hands, to redeem, in my husband"s name, the inheritance my brother had always destined for me.
This was the last worldly care that occupied our believed brother. He said his work was done, and he was very peaceful and at rest. His strength failed very fast after Harry Merrycourt came. Indeed, I think he had for months lived almost more by force of strong will than anything else, and now he said he had come to his rest. He pa.s.sed away one month after my wedding, on the 16th of October 1652, very peacefully, and the last look he gave any one here was for Millicent. There was a last eager, brighter look, but that was for nothing here.
The physicians said he died of the old wound in the lungs received at Naseby, so that he gave his life as much for the cause as my father and Berenger had done, though he had had far, far more to suffer in his nine years of banishment.
We left him in a green churchyard by the waterside, and Millicent saying through her tears that he had taught her to find comfort in her married life, and that he had calmed her and left her peace and blessing now in the work before her. And then we sailed with sore hearts for England, which was England still to me, though sadly changed from what I had once known it. We had come to think that there was no hope of the right cause ever prevailing, and that all that could be done was to save our own conscience, and do our best to serve G.o.d and man. "The foundations are cast down, and what hath the righteous done?"
We were met by Harry Merrycourt, who had obtained the employment for Clement that he had hoped for. It was well, for, when Walwyn was repurchased, all our money had been sunk in it, and enough borrowed to consume the rents for some years to come, and thus we had to live very frugally in a little house in Westminster; but as for that, I was far happier marketing in the morning with my basket on my arm, cooking my husband"s supper, making his shirts, and by and by nursing my babe, than ever I had been in all the stiff state and splendour of poor Margaret"s fine salons. Camlet suits me better than brocade, and a basket of fresh eggs better than a gold-enamelled snuff-box. While, though I did long to see the old home again, I knew it would be bare of those who had made it dear, and, besides, it would be as well that M. Darpent should rub off as much as might be of his French breeding before showing him among the Thistlewoods and Merrycourts, and all the rest of our country-folk. Moreover, after the stir of Paris he might have found himself dull, and he had the opportunity of studying English law; ay, and I saw him yearly winning more and more trust and confidence among those who had to do with him, and forming friendships with Mr. John Evelyn and other good men.
So, when better times came round, and we had our King and Court back, on the very day of my Harry"s birth, M. Darpent was recommended to my Lord Clarendon as too useful a secretary to be parted with, and therewith the great folk remembered that I came of an old Cavalier family. Indeed Queen Henrietta had promised my mother and sister to seek me out, though may be she would never have recollected it. After all it was the Duke of Gloucester who actually came and found me, riding up to our door with only one gentleman, and he no other than good old Sir Francis Ommaney.
Prince Henry was a fine youth, far handsomer and more like his blessed father than his brothers, and with as bright a wit and as winning and gracious as the King. He reproached me for not having come to see his mother, and asked merrily if I had turned Roundhead as well Frondeuse. I told him I had a good excuse, and showed him my three children, the youngest not yet a month old, and the other two staring open-mouthed to see a Prince so like other gentlemen.
Whereupon he asked if the little one was yet christened, and did him the honour to offer to be his G.o.dfather; and he noted that little Eustace promised to be like his uncle, and spake, with tears in his eyes, of the blessing my brother had been to him in his earlier stay at Paris, and how the remembrance of that example had helped him through the days when he had to undergo the same persuasions to forsake his father"s Church.
So whereas the two first christenings had been done privately, as among those under persecution, Master Harry was baptized in state and splendour in St. Margaret"s Church in full and open day, with all the neighbours gaping to see the Duke come forth, leading Mistress Darpent by the hand.
Thus I had to turn out my fine gowns (grown all too tight for me) and betake me to the Queen, who had become a little old woman, but was as gay and kind as ever, and told me much about my mother and sister. The King himself came and spoke to me, and said he supposed I wished to have the old t.i.tle revived; but I told him, with all thanks, that I liked my husband better by his own name than by that which I had rather leave sacred to my brother; whereat he laughed, and said he must make a low bow to me, as being the first person he had met who had nothing to ask from him.
That was all I saw of the Court. Before many weeks had pa.s.sed the cruel smallpox had carried off the young Duke of Gloucester in his twentieth year, taking him, mayhap, from the evil to come, in his bright youth and innocence, for had he lived, and kept himself unsoiled even to these days, he might have been sorely tempted to break that last promise made when he sat on his father"s knee.
Soon after Madame van Hunker came to England. There was Wardour property, which had descended to her, and she was glad to have a good cause for bringing her daughter Emilia to England. My children all knew and loved the fair and saint-like lady full of alms-deeds, and with the calm face that always was ready with comfort and soothing. The very sight of it would rest the fretful, hasty spirit; and I was thankful indeed that when Emilia married, her mother still abode near to us-I felt her like my guardian spirit.
My husband kept his post till my Lord Clarendon went out and the Cabal came in, and then, not liking those he had to work with, he gave up his office, and we retired into the country, while our children were still young enough to grow up in the love to Walwyn that I had always felt.