Part 31 (1/2)
”That is the apartment of my sister's youngest daughter,” said Madame de Bellaise, ”Noemi Darpent. I borrowed her for a little while to teach her French and dancing, but now that we are gone to war, they want to have her back again, and it will be well that she should avail herself of the same escort as yourself. All will then be selon les convenances, which had been a difficulty to me,” she added with a laugh.
Then opening the door of communication she said; ”Here, Noemi, we have found your countrywoman, and I put her under your care. Ah!
you two chattering little pies, I knew the voices were yours. This is my granddaughter, Marguerite de Nidemerle, and my niece--a la mode de Bretagne--Cecile d'Aubepine, all bestowing their chatter on their cousin.”
Noemi Darpent was a tall, fair, grave-faced maiden, some years over twenty, and so thoroughly English that it warmed Anne's heart to look at her, and the other two were bright little Frenchwomen-- Marguerite a pretty blonde, Cecile pale, dark, and sallow, but full of life. Both were at the age at which girls were usually in convents, but as Anne learnt, Madame de Bellaise was too English at heart to give up the training of her grandchildren, and she had an English governess for them, daughter to a Romanist cavalier ruined by sequestration.
She was evidently the absolute head of the family. Her daughter-in- law was a delicate little creature, who scarcely seemed able to bear the noise of the family at the long supper-table, when all talked with shrill French voices, from the two youths and their abbe tutor down to the little four-year-old Lolotte in her high chair. But to Anne, after the tedious formality of the second table at the palace, stiff without refinement, this free family life was perfectly delightful and refres.h.i.+ng, though as yet she was too much cramped, as it were, by long stiffness, silence, and treatment as an inferior to join, except by the intelligent dancing of her brown eyes, and replies when directly addressed.
After Mrs. Labadie's homeliness, Pauline's exclusive narrowness, Jane's petty frivolity, Hester's vulgar worldliness, and the general want of cultivation in all who treated her on an equality, it was like returning to rational society; and she could not but observe that Mr. Archfield altogether held his own in conversation with the rest, whether in French or English. Little more than a year ago he would hardly have opened his mouth, and would have worn the true b.u.mpkin look of contemptuous sheepishness. Now he laughed and made others laugh as readily and politely as--Ah! With whom was she comparing him? Did the thought of poor Peregrine dwell on his mind as it did upon hers? But perhaps things were not so terrible to a man as to a woman, and he had not seen those apparitions! Indeed, when not animated, she detected a certain thoughtful melancholy on his brow which certainly had not belonged to former times.
Mr. Fellowes early made known to Anne that her uncle had asked him to be her banker, and the first care of her kind hostess was to a.s.sist her in supplying the deficiencies of her wardrobe, so that she was able to go abroad without shrinking at her own shabby appearance.
The next thing was to take her to Poissy to request her dismissal from the Queen, without which it would be hardly decorous to depart, though in point of fact, in the present state of affairs, as Noemi said, there was nothing to prevent it.
”No,” said Mr. Fellowes; ”but for that reason Miss Woodford would feel bound to show double courtesy to the discrowned Queen.”
”And she has often been very kind to me--I love her much,” said Anne.
”Noemi is a little Whig,” said Madame de Bellaise. ”I shall not take her with us, because I know her father would not like it, but to me it is only like the days of my youth to visit an exiled queen.
Will these gentlemen think fit to be of the party?”
”Thank you, madam, not I,” said the Magdalen man. ”I am very sorry for the poor lady, but my college has suffered too much at her husband's hands for me to be very anxious to pay her my respects; and if my young friend will take my advice, neither will he. It might be bringing his father into trouble.”
To this Charles agreed, so M. L'Abbe undertook to show them the pictures at the Louvre, and Anne and Madame de Bellaise were the only occupants of the carriage that conveyed them to the great old convent of Poissy, the girl enjoying by the way the comfort of the kindness of a motherly woman, though even to her there could be no confiding of the terrible secret that underlay all her thoughts.
Madame de Bellaise, however, said how glad she was to secure this companions.h.i.+p for her niece. Noemi had been more attached than her family realised to Claude Merrycourt, a neighbour who had had the folly, contrary to her prudent father's advice, to rush into Monmouth's rebellion, and it had only been by the poor girl's agony when he suffered under the summary barbarities of Kirke that her mother had known how much her heart was with him. The depression of spirits and loss of health that ensued had been so alarming that when Madame de Bellaise, after some months, paid a long visit to her sister in England, Mrs. Darpent had consented to send the girl to make acquaintance with her French relations, and try the effect of change of scene. She had gone, indifferent, pa.s.sive, and broken- hearted, but her aunt had watched over her tenderly, and she had gradually revived, not indeed into a joyous girl, but into a calm and fairly cheerful woman.
When she had left home, France and England were only too closely connected, but now they were at daggers drawn, and probably would be so for many years, and the Revolution had come so suddenly that Madame de Bellaise had not been able to make arrangements for her niece's return home, and Noemi was anxiously waiting for an opportunity of rejoining her parents.
The present plan was this. Madame de Bellaise's son, the Marquis de Nidemerle, was Governor of Douai, where his son, the young Baron de Ribaumont, with his cousin, the Chevalier d'Aubepine, were to join him with their tutor, the Abbe Leblanc. The war on the Flemish frontier was not just then in an active state, and there were often friendly relations between the commandants of neighbouring garrisons, so that it might be possible to pa.s.s a party on to the Spanish territory with a flag of truce, and then the way would be easy. This pa.s.sing, however, would be impossible for Noemi alone, since etiquette would not permit of her thus travelling with the two young gentlemen, nor could she have proceeded after reaching Douai, so that the arrival of the two Englishmen and the company of Miss Woodford was a great boon. Madame de Bellaise had already despatched a courier to ask her son whether he could undertake the transit across the frontier, and hoped to apply for pa.s.sports as soon as his answer was received. She told Anne her niece's history to prevent painful allusions on the journey.
”Ah, madame!” said Anne, ”we too have a sad day connected with that unfortunate insurrection. We grieved over Lady Lisle, and burnt with indignation.”
”M. Barillon tells me that her judge, the Lord Chancellor, was actually forced to commit himself to the Tower to escape being torn to pieces by the populace, and it is since reported that he has there died of grief and shame. I should think his prison cell must have been haunted by hundreds of ghosts.”
”I pray you, madame! do you believe that there are apparitions?”
”I have heard of none that were not explained by some accident, or else were the produce of an excited brain;” and Anne said no more on that head, though it was a comfort to tell of her own foolish preference for the chances of Court preferment above the security of Lady Russell's household, and Madame de Bellaise smiled, and said her experience of Courts had not been too agreeable.
And thus they reached Poissy, where Queen Mary Beatrice had separate rooms set apart for visitors, and thus did not see them from behind the grating, but face to face.
”You wish to leave me, signorina,” she said, using the appellation of their more intimate days, as Anne knelt to kiss her hand. ”I cannot wonder. A poor exile has nothing wherewith to reward the faithful.”
”Ah! your Majesty, that is not the cause; if I were of any use to you or to His Royal Highness.”
”True, signorina; you have been faithful and aided me to the best of your power in my extremity, but while you will not embrace the true faith I cannot keep you about the person of my son as he becomes more intelligent. Therefore it may be well that you should leave us, until such time as we shall be recalled to our kingdom, when I hope to reward you more suitably. You loved my son, and he loved you--perhaps you would like to bid him farewell.”
For this Anne was very grateful, and the Prince was sent for by the mother, who was too proud of him to miss any opportunity of exhibiting him to an experienced mother and grandmother like the vicomtesse. He was a year old, and had become a very beautiful child, with large dark eyes like his mother's, and when Mrs. Labadie carried him in, he held out his arms to Anne with a cry of glad recognition that made her feel that if she could have been allowed the charge of him she could hardly have borne to part with him. And when the final leave-taking came, the Queen made his little hand present her with a little gold locket, containing his soft hair, with a J in seed pearls outside, in memory, said Mary Beatrice, of that night beneath the church wall.