Part 34 (2/2)
While the elder sister was all movement and agitation, the younger stood calm and still beside her father's chair, her hands clasped in his, her thoughtful eyes looking down at him as he talked, stopping now and then in his story of adventures to eat and drink.
He looked much older than when he surprised her in the Convent garden. His hair and beard, then iron grey, were now silver white. He wore his own hair, which was abundant, and a beard cut after the fas.h.i.+on she knew in the portraits of Henri Quatre. His clothes also were of that style, which lived now only in the paintings of Vand.y.k.e and his school.
”How the girl looks at me!” Sir John said, surprising his daughter's earnest gaze. ”Does she take me for a ghost?”
”Indeed, sir, she may well fancy you have come back from the other world while you wear that antique suit,” said Hyacinth. ”I hope your first business to-morrow will be to replenish your wardrobe by the a.s.sistance of Lord Rochester's tailor. He is a German, and has the best cut for a justau-corps in all the West End. Fareham is shabby enough to make a wife ashamed of him; but his clothes are only too plain for his condition. Your Spanish cloak and steeple hat are fitter for a travelling quack doctor than for a gentleman of quality, and your doublet and vest might have come out of the ark.”
”If I change them, it will be but to humour your vanity, sweetheart,” answered her father. ”I bought the suit in Paris three years ago, and I swore I would cast them back upon the snip's hands if he gave me any new-fangled finery. But a riding-suit that has crossed the Pyrenees and stood a winter's wear at Montpelier-where I have been living since October-can scarce do credit to a fine lady's saloon; and thou art finest, I'll wager, Hyacinth, where all are fine.”
”You would not say that if you had seen Lady Castlemaine's rooms. I would wager that her gold and silver tapestry cost more than the contents of my house.”
”Thou shouldst not envy sin in high places, Hyacinth.”
”Envy! I envy a--”
”Nay, love, no bad names! 'Tis a sorry pa.s.s England has come to when the most conspicuous personage at her Court is the King's mistress. I was with Queen Henrietta at Paris, who received me mighty kindly, and bewailed with me over the contrast betwixt her never-to-be-forgotten husband and his sons. They have nothing of their father, she told me, neither in person nor in mind. 'I know not whence their folly comes to them!' she cried. It would have been uncivil to remind her that her own father, hero as he was, had set no saintly example to royal husbands; and that it is possible our princes take more of their character from their grandfather Henry than from the martyr Charles. Poor lady, I am told she left London deep in debt, after squandering her n.o.ble income of these latter years, and that she has sunk in the esteem of the French court by her alliance with Jermyn.”
”I can but wonder that she, above all women, should ever cease to be a widow.”
”She comes of a light-minded race and nation, Angela; and it is easy to her to forget; or she would not easily forget that so-adoring husband whose fortunes she ruined. His most fatal errors came from his subservience to her. When I saw her in her new splendour at Somerset House, all smiles and gaiety, with youth and beauty revived in the suns.h.i.+ne of restored fortune, I could but remember all he was, in dignity and manly affection, proud and pure as King Arthur in the old romance, and all she cost him by womanish tyrannies and prejudices, and difficult commands laid upon him at a juncture of so exceeding difficulty.”
The sisters listened in respectful silence. The old cavalier cut a fresh slice of chine, sighed, and continued his sermon.
”I doubt that while we, the lookers on, remember, they, the actors, forget; for could the son of such a n.o.ble victim wallow in a profligate court, surrender himself to the devilish necromancies of vicious women and viler men, if he remembered his father's character, and his father's death? No; memory must be a blank, and we, who suffered with our royal master, are fools to prate of ingrat.i.tude or neglect, since the son who can forget such a father may well forget his father's servants and friends. But we will not talk of public matters in the first hour of our greeting. Nor need I prate of the King, since I have not come back to England to clap a periwig over my grey hairs, and play waiter upon Court favour, and wear out the back of my coat against the tapestry at Whitehall, standing in the rear of the crowd, to have my toes trampled upon by the sharp heels of Court ladies, and an elbow in my stomach more often than not. I am come, like Wolsey, girls, to lay my old bones among you. Art thou ready, Angela? Hast thou had enough of London, and play-houses, and parks; and wilt thou share thy father's solitude in Buckinghams.h.i.+re?”
”With all my heart, sir.”
”What! never a sigh for London pleasures? Thou hast the great lady's air and carriage in that brave blue taffety. The nun I knew three years ago has vanished. Can you so lightly renounce the splendour of this house, and your sister's company, to make a prosing old father happy?”
”Indeed, sir, I am ready to go with you.”
”How she says that-with what a countenance of woeful resignation! But I will not make the Manor Moat too severe a prison, dearest. You shall visit London, and your sister, when you will. There shall be a coach and a team of stout roadsters to pull it when they are not wanted for the plough. And the Vale of Aylesbury is but a long day's journey from London, while 'tis no more than a morning's ride to Chilton.”
”I could not bear for her to be long away from me,” said Hyacinth. ”She is the only companion I have in the world.”
”Except your husband.”
”Husbands such as mine are poor company. Fareham has a moody brow, and a mind stuffed with public matters. He dines with Clarendon one day, and with Albemarle another; or he goes to Deptford to grumble with Mr. Evelyn; or he creeps away to some obscure quarter of the town to hob-n.o.b with Milton, and with Marvel, the member for Hull. I doubt they are all of one mind in abusing his Majesty, and conspiring against him. If I lose my sister I shall have no one.”
”What, no one; when you have Henriette, who even three years ago had shrewdness enough to keep an old grandfather amused with her impertinent prattle?”
”Grandfathers are easily amused by children they see as seldom as you have seen Papillon. To have her about you all day, with her everlasting chatter, and questions, and remarks, and opinions (a brat of twelve with opinions), would soon give you the vapours.”
”I am not so subject to vapours as you, child. Let me look at you, now the candles are lighted.”
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