Stray Pearls

CHAPTER X. OLD THREADS TAKEN UP.

I think M. de Solivet realised a little better what the sacrifice was to me, or rather how cruel the parting was to my poor people, when we set forth on our journey. We had tried to keep the time of our departure a secret, but it had not been possible to do so, and the whole court was filled with people weeping and crying out to their young lord and their good lady, as they called me, not to abandon them, kissing our dresses as we walked along, and crowding so that we could hardly pass.

Indeed, a lame man, whom I had taught to make mats, threw himself before the horses of our carriage, crying out that we might as well drive over him and kill him at once; and an old woman stood up almost like a witch or prophetess, crying out: 'Ah! that is the way with you all. You are like all the rest! You gave us hope once, and now you are gone to your pleasure which you squeeze out of our heart's blood.'

'Ah, good mother,' I said; 'believe me, it is not by my own will that I leave you; I will never forget you.'

'I trust,' muttered Solivet, 'that no one is here to report all this to that intendant de Roi,' and he hurried me into the carriage; but there were tears running down his cheeks, and I believe he emptied his purse among them, though not without being told by some of the poor warm-hearted creatures that no money could repay them for the loss of Madame la Comtesse.

'I did not know how sweet it is to be beloved,' he said to me. 'It is almost enough to tempt one to play the role de bon seigneur.'

'Ah! brother, if you would. You are no foreigner, you are wiser and would not make yourself suspected like me.'

He only laughed and shrugged his shoulders; but he was as good to our poor as it is possible to be as we live here in France, where we are often absolutely complelled to live at court, and our expenses there force us to press heavily on our already hard-driven peasants. I sometimes wonder whether a better time will come, when out good Duke of Burgundy tries to carry out the maxims of Monseigneur the Archbishop of Cambray; but I shall not live to see that day. [Footnote: No wonder Madame de Bellaise's descendants dust not publish these writings while the ancien regime continued!]

In due time we arrived in Paris. It was pouring with rain, so no one came to meet us, though I looked out at every turn, feeling that Eustace must indeed be unwell, or no weather would have kept him from flying to meet his Meg. Or had he in these six long years ceased to care for me, and should I find him a politician and a soldier, with his heart given to somebody else and no room for me?

My heart beat so fast that I could hardly attend to the cries of wonder and questions of the two children, and indeed of Cecile, to whom everything was as new and wonderful as to them, though in the wet, with our windows splashed all over, the first view of Paris was not too promising. However, at last we drove beneath our own porte cochere, and upon the steps there were all the servants. And Eustace, my own dear brother, was at the coach-door to meet us and hand me out.

I passed from his arms to those of my mother, and then to my sister's. Whatever might come and go, I could not but feel that there was an indefinable bliss and bien-etre in their very presence! It was home-coming home-more true content and rest than I had felt since that fatal day at Nancy.

My mother was enchanted with her grandson, and knew how to welcome Madame d'Aubepine as one of the family, since she was of course to reside with us. The Abbe also was most welcome to my mother.

How we all looked at one another, to find the old beings we had loved, and to learn the new ones we had become! My mother was of course the least altered; indeed, to my surprise, she was more embonpoint than before, instead of having the haggard worn air that I had expected, and though she wept at first, she was soon again smiling.

Eustace, Baron Walwyn and Ribaumont, as he now unfortunately had become, sat by me. He was much taller than when we had parted, for had not then reached his full height, and he looked the taller from being very thin. His moustache and pointed beard had likewise changed him, but there was clear bright colour on his cheek, and his dear brown eyes shone upon me with their old sweetness; so that it was not till we had been together some little time that I found that the gay merry lad whom I had left had become not only a man, but a very grave and thoughtful man.

Annora was a fine creature, well grown, and with the clearest, freshest complexion, of the most perfect health, yet so pure and delicate, that one looked at her like a beautiful flower; but it somehow struck me that she had a discontented and almost defiant expression. She seemed to look at me with a sort of distrust, and to be with difficulty polite to Madame d'Aubepine, while she was almost rude to the Abbe. She scarcely uttered a word of French, and made a little cry and gesture of disgust, when Gaspard replied to her in his native tongue, poor child.

She was the chief disappointment to me. I had expected to find, not indeed my little playfellow, but my own loving sister Nan; and this young lady was like a stranger. I thought, too, my mother would have been less lively, she seemed to me to have forgotten everything in the satisfaction of being at Paris. At first I feared she was looking at me with displeasure, but presently I observed that she had discarded her widow's veil, and looked annoyed that I still wore mine. Otherwise she was agreeable surprised in me, and turned to M. de Solivet, saying:

'Yes, my son, you are right, she is belle, assez belle; and when she is dressed and has no more that provincial air, she will do very well.'

It was Eustace, my brother, who gave me unmixed delight that evening, unmixed save for his look of delicate health, for that he should be graver was only suitable to my feelings, and we knew that we were in perfect sympathy with one another whenever our eyes met, as of old, while we had hardly exchanged a word. And then, how gracious and gentle he was with poor little Madame d'Aubepine, who looked up to him like a little violet at the food of a poplar tree!

Supper passed in inquires after kinsfolk and old friends. Alas! of how many the answer was-slain, missing since such a battle. In prison, ruined, and brought to poverty, seemed to be the best I could hear of any one I inquired after. That Walwyn was not yet utterly lost seemed to be owing to Harry Merrycourt.

'He on the wrong side!' I exclaimed.

'He looks on the question as a lawyer,' said my brother; 'holding the duty of the nation to be rather to the law than to the sovereign.'

'Base! Unworthy of a gentleman!' cried my mother. 'Who would believe him the kinsman of the gallant Duc de Mericour?'

'He would be ashamed to count kindred with tat effeminate petit maitre!' cried Annora.

'I think,' said Eustace, 'that the wrong and persecution that his Huguenot grandfather suffered at the hands of his French family have had much power in inspiring him with that which he declares is as much loyalty as what I call by that honoured name.'

'You can speak of him with patience!' cried my mother.

'In common gratitude he is bound to do so,' said Annora.

For not only had Colonel Merrycourt preserved our brother's life after Naseby, but he had found a plea of service to the King which availed at the trial that followed at Westminster. Harry had managed to secure part of the estate, as he had likewise done for our other kindred the Thistlewoods, by getting appointed their guardian when their father was killed Chalgrove. But soldiers had been quartered on both families; there had been a skirmish at Walwyn with Sir Ralph Hopton, much damage had been done to the house and grounds, and there was no means of repairing it; all the plate had been melted up, there was nothing to show for it but a little oval token, with the King's head on one side, and the Queen's on the other; and as to the chaplet of pearls--

There was a moment's silence as I inquired for them. Annora said:

'Gone, of course; more hatefully than all the rest.'

My brother added, with a smile that evidently cost him an effort:

'You are the only pearl of Ribaumont left, Meg, except this one,' showing me his ring of thin silver with one pearl set in it; 'I kept back this one in memory of my grandmother. So Nan will have to go to her first ball without them.'

And had little Nan never been to a ball? No; she had never danced except that Christmas when a troop of cavaliers had been quartered at Walwyn-a merry young captain and his lieutenant, who had sent for the fiddles, and made them have a dance in the hall, Berenger, and Nan, and all. And not a week after, the young captain, ay, and our dear Berry, were lying in their blood at Alresford. Had Nan's heart been left there? I wondered, when I saw how little she brightened at the mention of the Court ball where she was to appear next week, and to which it seemed my mother trusted that I should be invited in token of my being forgiven.

I tried to say that I had never meant to return to the world, and that I still kept to my mourning; but my mother said with authority that I had better be grateful for any token of favour that was vouchsafed to me. She took me into her apartment after supper, and talked to me very seriously; telling me that I must be very careful, for that I had been so imprudent, that I should certainly have been deprived of the custody of my son, if not imprisoned, unless my good godmother, Queen Henrietta, and herself had made themselves responsible for me.

I told my mother that I had done nothing, absolutely nothing, but attend to the wants of my son's people, just as I had been used to see my grandmother, and my aunt Thistlewood, or any English lady, do at home.

'And to what had that brought England?' cried my mother. 'No, child, those creatures have no gratitude nor proper feeling. There is nothing to do but to keep them down. See how they are hampering and impeding the Queen and the Cardinal here, refusing the registry of the taxes forsooth, as if it were not honour enough to maintain the King's wars and the splendour of his Court, and enable the nobility to shine!'

'Surely it is our duty to do something for them in return,' I said; but I was silenced with assurances that if I wished to preserve the wardship of my child, I must conform in everything; nay, that my own liberty was in danger.

Solivet had hinted as much, and the protection of my child was a powerful engine; but-shall I confess it?-it galled and chafed me terribly to feel myself taken once more into leading-strings. I, who had for three years governed my house as a happy honoured wife, and for three more had been a chatelaine, complimented by the old uncle, and after his death, the sole ruler of my son's domain; I was not at all inclined to return into tutelage, and I could not look on my mother after these six years, as quite the same conclusive authority as I thought her when I left her. The spirit of self-assertion and self-justification was strong within me, and though I hope I did not reply with ingratitude or disrespect, I would make no absolute promise till I had heard what my brother Walwyn said of my position in its secular aspect, and the Abbe Bonchamps in its religious point of view. So I bade my mother good-night, and went to see how Cecile fared in her new quarters, which, to her grief, were in a wing separated from mine by a long corridor.

My mother had arranged everything, ruling naturally as if she were the mistress of the house. Thus she installed me in the great room where I had seen the old Marquis, though I would rather she had retained it, and given me that which I had occupied when I was there with my husband. However, I made no objection, for I felt so much vexed that I was extremely afraid of saying something to show that I thought she ought to remember that this was my house, and that she was my guest. I would not for the world have uttered anything so ungenerous and unfilial; and all I could do that night was to pray that she might not drive me to lose my self-command, and that I might both do right and keep my child.

I was too restless and unhappy to sleep much, for I knew my feelings were wrong, and yet I was sure I was in the right in my wish to do good to the poor; and the sense of being bridled, and put into leading-strings, poisoned the pleasure I had at first felt in my return to my own family. I cannot describe the weary tumult of thought and doubt that tossed me, till, after a brief sleep, I heard the church-bells. I rose and dressed for early mass, taking my boy, who always awoke betimes, leaving the house quietly, and only calling my trusty lackey Nicolas to take me to the nearest Church, which was not many steps off. I do not think I found peace there: there was too much SELF in me to reach that as yet; but at any rate I found the resolution to try to bend my will in what might be indifferent, and to own it to be wholesome for me to learn submission once more.

As I was about to enter our court, I heard a little cough, and looking round I saw a gentleman and lady coming towards the house. They were my brother and sister, who had been to the daily prayers at the house of Sir Richard Browne, the English ambassador. I was struck at my first glance with the lightsome free look of Annora's face but it clouded ad grew constrained in an instant when I spoke to her.

They said my mother would not be awake nor admit us for an hour or two, and in the meantime Eustace was ready to come to my apartments, for indeed we had hardly seen one another. Annora anxiously reminded him that he must take his chocolate, and orders were given that this should be served in my cabinet for us both.

There is no describing what that interview was to us. we, who had been one throughout our childhood, but had been parted all through the change to man and woman, now found ourselves united again, understanding one another as no other being could do, and almost without words, entering into full sympathy with one another. Yes, without words, for I was as certain as if he had told me that Eustace had undergone some sorrow deeper than even loss of health, home, and country. I felt it in the chastened and sobered tone in which he talked to me of my cares, as if he likewise had crossed the stream of tears that divides us from the sunshine of our lives.

He did not think what I had attempted in Anjou foolish and chimerical-he could look at the matter with the eyes of an English lord of the manor, accustomed not to view the peasant as a sponge to be squeezed for the benefit of the master, but to regard the landlord as accountable for the welfare, bodily and spiritual, of his people. He thought I had done right, though it might be ignorantly and imprudently in the present state of things; but his heart had likewise burned within him at the oppression of the peasantry, and, loyal cavalier as he was, he declared that he should have doubted on which side to draw his sword had things thus in England. He had striven to make my mother and Queen Henrietta understand the meaning of what I had been doing, and he said the complaints sent up had evidently been much exaggerated, and envenomed by spite and distrust of me as a foreigner. He could well enter into my grief at the desertion of my poor people, for how was it with those at Walwyn, deprived of the family to whom they had been used to look, with many widows and orphans made by the war, and the Church invaded by a loud-voiced empty-headed fanatic, who had swept away all that had been carefully preserved and honoured! Should he ever see the old home more?

However, he took thought for my predicament. I had no choice, he said, but to give way. To resist would only make me be treated as a suspected person, and be relegated to a convent, out of reach of influencing my son, whom I might bring up to be a real power for good.

Then my dear brother smiled his sweetest smile, the sweeter for the sadness that had come into it, and kissed my fingers chivalrously, as he said that after all he could not but be grateful to the edict that had brought back to him the greatest delight that was left to him. 'Ah,' I said, 'if it had only been in Anjou!'

'If it had only been in Dorset, let us say at once,' he answered.

Then came the other question whether I might not stay at home with the children, and give myself to devotion and good works, instead of throwing off my mourning and following my mother to all the gaieties of the court.

'My poor mother!' said Eustace. 'You would not wish to make your example a standing condemnation of her?'

'I cannot understand how she can find pleasure in these things,' I cried.

'There is much in her that we find it hard to understand,' Eustace said; 'but you must remember that this is her own country, and that though she gave it up for my father's sake, England has always been a land of exile to her, and we cannot wonder at her being glad to return to the society of her old friends.'

'She has Annora to be with her. Is not that enough?'

'Ah, Meg, I trusted to you to soothe poor Annora and make her more comfortable.'

'She seems to have no intention of putting herself under my influence,' I said, rather hurt.

'She soon will, when she finds out your English heart,' said Eustace. 'The poor child is a most unwilling exile, and is acting like our old friends the urchins, opposing the prickles to all. But if my mother has Annora to watch over, you also have a charge. A boy of this little man's rank,' he said, stroking the glossy curls of Gaspard, who was leaning on my lap, staring up in wonder at the unknown tongue spoken by his uncle, 'and so near the age of the king, will certainly be summoned to attend at court, and if you shut yourself up, you will be unable to follow him and guide him by your counsel.'

That was the chief of what my dear brother said to me on that morning. I wrote it down at the moment because, though I trusted his wisdom and goodness with all my heart, I thought his being a Protestant might bias his view in some degree, and I wanted to know whether the Abbe thought me bound by my plans of devotion, which happily had not been vows.

And he fully thought my brother in the right, and that it was my duty to remain in the world, so long as my son needed me there; while, as to any galling from coming under authority again, that was probably exactly what my character wanted, and it would lessen the danger of dissipation. Perhaps I might have been in more real danger in queening it at Nid de Merle than in submitting at Paris.