Part 2 (1/2)
Yes, it was her father, greyer but less sad of visage than at his last visit. His doublet and cloak were handsomer than the clothes he had worn then, though they were still of the same fas.h.i.+on, that English mode which he had affected before the beginning of the troubles, and which he had never changed.
Immediately after him there alighted a vision of beauty, the loveliest of ladies, in sky-blue velvet and pale grey fur, and with a long white feather encircling a sky-blue hat, and a collar of Venetian lace veiling a bosom that scintillated with jewels.
”Hyacinth!” cried Angela, in a flutter of delight.
The portress peered at the visitors through her spy-hole, and being satisfied that they were the expected guests, speedily opened the iron-clamped door.
There was no one to interfere between father and daughter, sister and sister, in the convent parlour. Angela had her dear people all to herself, the Mother Superior respecting the confidences and outpourings of love, which neither father nor children would wish to be witnessed even by a kinswoman. Thus, by a rare breach of conventual discipline, Angela was allowed to receive her guests alone.
The lay-sister opened the parlour door and ushered in the visitors, and Angela ran to meet her father, and fell sobbing upon his breast, her face hidden against his velvet doublet, her arms clasping his neck.
”What, mistress, hast thou so watery a welcome, now that the clouds have pa.s.sed away, and every loyal English heart is joyful?” cried Sir John, in a voice that was somewhat husky, but with a great show of gaiety.
”Oh, sir, I have waited so long, so long for this day. Sometimes I thought it would never come, that I should never see my dear father again.”
”Poor child! it would have been only my desert hadst thou forgotten me altogether. I might have come to you sooner, pretty one; indeed, I would have come, only things went ill with me. I was down-hearted and hopeless of any good fortune in a world that seemed given over to psalm-singing scoundrels; and till the tide turned I had no heart to come nigh you. But now fortunes are mended, the King's and mine, and you have a father once again, and shall have a home by-and-by, the house where you were born, and where your angel-mother made my life blessed. You are like her, Angela!” holding back the pale face in his strong hands, and gazing upon it earnestly. ”Yes, you favour your mother; but your face is over sad for your years. Look at your sister here! Would you not say a sunbeam had taken woman's shape and come dancing into the room?”
Angela looked round and greeted the lady, who had stood aside while father and daughter met. Yes, such a face suggested sunlight and summer, birds, b.u.t.terflies, all things buoyant and gladsome. A complexion of dazzling fairness, pearly, transparent, with ever-varying carnations; eyes of heavenliest blue, liquid, laughing, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with espieglerie; a slim little nose with an upward tilt, which expressed a contemptuous gaiety, an inquiring curiosity; a dimpled chin sloping a little towards the full round throat; the bust and shoulders of a Venus, the waist of a sylph, set off by the close-fitting velvet bodice, with its diamond and turquoise b.u.t.tons; hair of palest gold, fluffed out into curls that were traps for sunbeams; hands and arms of a milky whiteness emerging from the large loose elbow-sleeves-a radiant apparition which took Angela by surprise. She had seen Flemish vraus in the richest attire, and among them there had been women as handsome as Helena Forment; but this vision of a fine lady from the court of the ”roi soleil” was a revelation. Until this moment, the girl had hardly known what grace and beauty meant.
”Come and let me hug you, my dearest Puritan,” cried Hyacinth, holding out her arms. ”Why do you suffer your custodians to clothe you in that odious grey, which puts me in mind of lank-haired psalm-singing sc.u.m, and all their hateful works? I would have you sparkling in white satin and silver, or blus.h.i.+ng in brocade powdered with forget-me-nots and rosebuds. What would Fareham say if I told him I had a Puritan in grey woollen stuff for my sister? He sends you his love, dear, and bids me tell you there shall be always an honoured place in our home for you, be it in England or France, in town or country. And why should you not fill that place at once, sister? Your education is finished, and to be sure you must be tired of these stone walls and this sleepy town.”
”No, Hyacinth, I love the convent and the friends who have made it my home. You and Lord Fareham are very kind, but I could not leave our reverend mother; she is not so well or so strong as she used to be, and I think she likes to have me with her, because though she loves us all, down to the humblest of the lay-sisters, I am of her kin, and seem nearest to her. I don't want to forsake her; and if it was not against my father's wish I should like to end my days in this house, and to give my thoughts to G.o.d.”
”That is because thou knowest nought of the world outside, sweetheart,” protested Hyacinth. ”I admire the readiness with which folks will renounce a banquet they have never tasted. A single day at the Louvre or the Palais Royal would change your inclinations at once and for ever.”
”She is too young for a court life, or a town life either,” said Sir John. ”And I have no mind to remove her from this safe shelter till the King shall be firm upon his throne, and our poor country shall have settled into a stable and peaceful condition. But there must be no vows, Angela, no renunciation of kindred and home. I look to thee for the comfort of my old age!”
”Dear father, I will never disobey you. I shall remember always that my first duty is to you; and when you want me, you have but to summon me; and whether you are at home or abroad, in wealth and honour, or in exile and poverty, I will go to you, and be glad and happy to be your daughter and your servant.”
”I knew thou wouldst, dearest. I have never forgotten how the soft little arms clung about my neck, and how the baby lips kissed me, in this same parlour, when my heart was weighed down by a load of iron, and there seemed no ray of hope for England or me. You were my comforter then, and you will be my comforter in the days to come. Hyacinth here is of the b.u.t.terfly breed. She is fair to look upon, and tender and loving; but she is ever on the wing. And she has her husband and her children to cherish, and cannot be burdened with the care of a broken-down greybeard.”
”Broken-down! Why, you are as brave a gallant as the youngest cavalier in the King's service,” cried Hyacinth. ”I would pit my father against Montagu or Buckingham, Buckhurst or Roscommon-against the gayest, the boldest of them all, on land or sea. Broken-down, forsooth! We will hear no such words from you, sir, for a score of years. And now you will want all your wits to take your proper place at Court as sage counsellor and friend of the new King. Sure he will need his father's friends about him to teach him state-craft-he who has led such a gay, good-for-nothing life as a penniless rover, with scarce a sound coat to his back.”
”Nay, Hyacinth, the King will have no need of us old Malignants. We have had our day. He has shrewd Ned Hyde for counsellor, and in that one long head there is craft enough to govern a kingdom. The new Court will be a young Court, and the fas.h.i.+on of it will be new. We old fellows, who were gallant and gay enough in the forties, when we fought against Ess.e.x and his tawny scarves, would be but laughable figures at the Court of a young man bred half in Paris, and steeped in French fas.h.i.+ons and French follies. No, Hyacinth, it is for you and your husband the new day dawns. If I get back to my old meads and woods and the house where I was born, I will sit quietly down in the chimney corner, and take to cattle-breeding, and a pack of harriers, for the diversion of my declining years. And when my Angela can make up her mind to leave her good aunt she shall keep house for me.”
”I should love to be your housekeeper, dearest father. If it please Heaven to restore my aunt to health and strength, I will go to you with a heart full of joy,” said the girl, hanging caressingly upon the old cavalier's shoulder.
Hyacinth flitted about the room with a swift, birdlike motion, looking at the sacred images and prints, the tableau over the mantelpiece, which told, with much flourish of penmans.h.i.+p, the progress of the convent pupils in learning and domestic virtues.
”What a humdrum, dismal room!” she cried. ”You should see our convent parlours in Paris. At the Carmelites, in the Rue Saint Jacques, par exemple, the Queen-mother's favourite convent, and at Chaillot, the house founded by Queen Henrietta-such pictures, and ornaments, and embroidered hangings, and tapestries worked by devotees. This room of yours, sister, stinks of poverty, as your Flemish streets stink of garlic and cabbage. Faugh! I know not which is worse!”
Having thus delivered herself of her disgust, she darted upon her younger sister, laid her hands upon the girl's shoulders, and contemplated her with mock seriousness.
”What a precocious young saint thou art, with no more interest in the world outside this naked parlour than if thou wert yonder image of the Holy Mother. Not a question of my husband, or my children, or of the last fas.h.i.+on in hood and mantle, or of the new laced gloves, or the French King's latest divinity.”
”I should dearly like to see your children, Hyacinth,” answered her sister.
”Ah! they are the most enchanting creatures, the girl a perpetual sunbeam, ethereal, elfish, a being of life and movement, and with a loquacity that never tires; the boy a lump of honey, fat, sleek, lazily beautiful. I am never tired of admiring them, when I have time to see them. Papillon-an old friend of mine has surnamed her Papillon because she is never still-was five years old on March 19. We were at St. Germain on her birthday. You should have seen the toys and trinkets and sweetmeats which the Court showered upon her-the King and Queen, Monsieur, Mademoiselle, the Princess Henrietta, her G.o.dmother-everybody had a gift for the daughter of La folle Baronne Fareham. Yes, they are lovely creatures, Angela; and I am miserable to think that it may be half a year before I see their sweet faces again.”