Part 17 (1/2)
”There's some fearful tie Between me and that spirit world, which G.o.d Brands with His terrors on my troubled mind.”
KINGSLEY.
The final blow had fallen upon Anne Woodford so suddenly that for the first few days she moved about as one in a dream. Lady Archfield came to her on the first day, and showed her motherly kindness, and Lucy was with her as much as was possible under the exactions of young Madam, who was just sufficiently unwell to resent attention being paid to any other living creature. She further developed a jealousy of Lucy's affection for any other friend such as led to a squabble between her and her husband, and made her mother-in-law unwillingly acquiesce in the expediency of Anne's being farther off.
And indeed Anne herself felt so utterly forlorn and desolate that an impatience of the place came over her. She was indeed fond of her uncle, but he was much absorbed in his studies, his parish, and in anxious correspondence on the state of the Church, and was scarcely a companion to her, and without her mother to engross her love and attention, and cut off from the Archfields as she now was, there was little to counterbalance the restless feeling that London and the precincts of the Court were her natural element. So she wrote her letters according to her mother's desire, and waited anxiously for the replies, feeling as if anything would be preferable to her present unhappiness and solitude.
The answers came in due time. Mrs. Evelyn promised to try to find a virtuous and G.o.dly lady who would be willing to receive Mistress Anne Woodford into her family, and Lady Oglethorpe wrote with vaguer promises of high preferment, which excited Anne's imagination during those lonely hours that she had to spend while her strict mourning, after the custom of the time, secluded her from all visitors.
Meantime, in that anxious spring of 1688, when the Church of England was looking to her defences, the Doctor could not be much at home, and when he had time to listen to private affairs, he heard reports which did not please him of Peregrine Oakshott. That the young men in the county all abhorred his fine foreign airs was no serious evil, though it might be suspected that his sharp ironical tongue had quite as much to do with their dislike as his greater refinement of manner.
His father was reported to be very seriously displeased with him, for he openly expressed contempt of the precise ways of the household, and absented himself in a manner that could scarcely be attributed to aught but the licentious indulgences of the time; and as he seldom mingled in the amus.e.m.e.nts of the young country gentlemen, it was only too probable that he found a lower grade of companions in Portsmouth. Moreover his talk, random though it might be, offended all the Whig opinions of his father. He talked with the dogmatism of the traveller of the glories of Louis XIV, and broadly avowed his views that the grandeur of the nation was best established under a king who asked no questions of people or Parliament, 'that senseless set of chattering pies,' as he was reported to have called the House of Commons.
He sang the praises of the gracious and graceful Queen Mary Beatrice, and derided 'the dried-up Orange stick,' as he called the hope of the Protestants; nor did he scruple to p.r.o.nounce Popery the faith of chivalrous gentlemen, far preferable to the whining of sullen Whiggery. No one could tell how far all this was genuine opinion, or simply delight in contradiction, especially of his father, who was in a constant state of irritation at the son whom he could so little manage.
And in the height of the wrath of the whole of the magistracy at the expulsion of their lord-lieutenant, the Earl of Gainsborough, and the subst.i.tution of the young Duke of Berwick, what must Peregrine do but argue in high praise of that youth, whom he had several times seen and admired. And when not a gentleman in the neighbourhood chose to greet the intruder when he arrived as governor of Portsmouth, Peregrine actually rode in to see him, and dined with him. Words cannot express the Major's anger and shame at such consorting with a person, whom alike, on account of parentage, religion, and education, he regarded as a son of perdition. Yet Peregrine would only coolly reply that he knew many a Protestant who would hardly compare favourably with young Berwick.
It was an anxious period that spring of 1688. The order to read the King's Declaration of Indulgence from the pulpit had come as a thunder-clap upon the clergy. The English Church had only known rest for twenty-eight years, and now, by this unconst.i.tutional a.s.sumption of prerogative, she seemed about to be given up to be the prey of Romanists on the one hand and Nonconformists on the other; though for the present the latter were so persuaded that the Indulgence was merely a disguised advance of Rome that they were not at all grateful, expecting, as Mr. Horncastle observed, only to be the last devoured, and he was as much determined as was Dr. Woodford not to announce it from his pulpit, whatever might be the consequence; the latter thus resigning all hopes of promotion.
News letters, public and private, were eagerly scanned. Though the diocesan, Bishop Mew, took no active part in the pet.i.tion called a libel, being an extremely aged man, the imprisonment of Ken, so deeply endeared to Hamps.h.i.+re hearts when Canon of Winchester and Rector of Brighstone, and with the b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.size and the execution of Alice Lisle fresh in men's memories, there could not but be extreme anxiety.
In the midst arrived the tidings that a son had been born to the king--a son instantly baptized by a Roman Catholic priest, and no doubt destined by James to rivet the fetters of Rome upon the kingdom, destroying at once the hope of his elder sister's accession. Loyal Churchmen like the Archfields still hoped, recollecting how many infants had been born in the royal family only to die; but at Oakwood the Major and his chaplain shook their heads, and spoke of warming pans, to the vehement displeasure of Peregrine, who was sure to respond that the Queen was an angel, and that the Whigs credited every one with their own sly tricks.
The Major groaned, and things seemed to have reached a pa.s.s very like open enmity between father and son, though Peregrine still lived at home, and reports were rife that the year of mourning for his brother being expired, he was, as soon as he came of age, to be married to Mistress Martha Browning, and have an establishment of his own at Emsworth.
Under these circ.u.mstances, it was with much satisfaction that Dr.
Woodford said to his niece: ”Child, here is an excellent offer for you. Lady Russell, who you know has returned to live at Stratton, has heard you mentioned by Lady Mildmay. She has just married her eldest daughter, and needs a companion to the other, and has been told of you as able to speak French and Italian, and otherwise well trained. What! do you not relish the proposal?”
”Why, sir, would not my entering such a house do you harm at Court, and lessen your chance of preferment?”
”Think not of _that_, my child.”
”Besides,” added Anne, ”since Lady Oglethorpe has written, it would not be fitting to engage myself elsewhere before hearing from her again.”
”You think so, Anne. Lady Russell's would be a far safer, better home for you than the Court.”
Anne knew it, but the thought of that widowed home depressed her.
It might, she thought, be as dull as Oakwood, and there would be infinite chances of preferment at Court. What she said, however, was: ”It was by my mother's wish that I applied to Lady Oglethorpe.”
”That is true, child. Yet I cannot but believe that if she had known of Lady Russell's offer, she would gladly and thankfully have accepted it.”
So said the secret voice within the girl herself, but she did not yet yield to it. ”Perhaps she would, sir,” she answered, ”if the other proposal were not made. 'Tis a Whig household though.”
”A Whig household is a safer one than a Popish one,” answered the Doctor. ”Lady Russell is, by all they tell me, a very saint upon earth.”
Shall it be owned? Anne thought of Oakwood, and was not attracted towards a saint upon earth. ”How soon was the answer to be given?”
she asked.
”I believe she would wish you to meet her at Winchester next week, when, if you pleased her, you might return with her to Stratton.”
The Doctor hoped that Lady Oglethorpe's application might fail, but before the week was over she forwarded the definite appointment of Mistress Anne Jacobina Woodford as one of the rockers of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, his Majesty having been graciously pleased to remember her father's services and his own sponsors.h.i.+p.