Part 36 (1/2)
”How can I then, consistently with my duty and loyalty, swear to this William and Mary as my lawful sovereigns? I say not 'tis inc.u.mbent on me to refuse to live under them a peaceful life, but make oath to them as my King and Queen I cannot, so long as King James shall live. True, he has not been a friend to the Church, and has wofully trampled on the rights of Englishmen, but I cannot hold that this absolves me from my duty to him, any more than David was freed from duty to Saul. So, Anne, back must we go to the poverty in which I was reared with your own good father.”
Anne might grieve, but she felt the gratification of being talked to by her uncle as a woman who could understand, as he had talked to her mother.
”The first of August!” she repeated, as if it were a note of doom.
”Yes; I hear whispers of a further time of grace, but I know not what difference that should make. A Christian man's oath may not be broken sooner or later. Well, poverty is the state blessed by our Lord, and it may be that I have lived too much at mine ease; but I could wish, dear child, that you were safely bestowed in a house of your own.”
”So do not I,” said Anne, ”for now I can work for you.”
He smiled faintly, and here Mr. Fellowes joined them; a good man likewise, but intent on demonstrating the other side of the question, and believing that the Popish, persecuting King had forfeited his rights, so that there need be no scruple as to renouncing what he had thrown up by his flight. It was an endless argument, in which each man could only act according to his own conscience, and endeavour that this conscience should be as little bia.s.sed as possible by worldly motives or animosity.
Mr. Fellowes started at once with his servant for Walwyn, and Naomi accompanied the two Woodfords to Portchester. In spite of the cavalier sentiments of her family, Naomi had too much of the spire of her Frondeur father to understand any feeling for duty towards the King, who had so decidedly broken his covenant with his people, and moreover had so abominably treated the Fellows of Magdalen College; and her pity for Anne as a sufferer for her uncle's whim quite angered her friend into hot defence of him and his cause.
The dear old parsonage garden under the gray walls, the honeysuckle and monthly roses trailing over the porch, the lake-like creek between it and green Portsdown Hill, the huge ma.s.sive keep and towers, and the masts in the harbour, the Island hills sleeping in blue summer haze--Anne's heart clave to them more than ever for the knowledge that the time was short and that the fair spot must be given up for the right's sake. Certainly there was some trepidation at the thought of the vault, and she had made many vague schemes for ascertaining that which her very flesh trembled at the thought of any one suspecting; but these were all frustrated, for since the war with France had begun, the bailey had been put under repair and garrisoned by a detachment of soldiers, the vault had been covered in, there was a sentry at the gateway of the castle, and the postern door towards the vicarage was fastened up, so that though the parish still repaired to church through the wide court solitary wanderings there were no longer possible, nor indeed safe for a young woman, considering what the soldiery of that period were.
The thought came over her with a shudder as she gazed from her window at the creek where she remembered Peregrine sending Charles and Sedley adrift in the boat.
The tide was out, the mud glistened in the moonlight, but nothing was to be seen more than Anne had beheld on many a summer night before, no phantom was evoked before her eyes, no elfin-like form revealed his presence, nor did any spirit take shape to upbraid her with his unhallowed grave, so close at hand.
No, but Naomi Darpent, yearning for sympathy, came to her side, caressed her on that summer night, and told her that Mr. Fellowes had gone to ask her of her father, and though she could never love again as she had once loved, she thought if her parents wished it, she could be happy with so good a man.
CHAPTER XXIV: IN THE MOONLIGHT
I have had a dream this evening, While the white and gold were fleeting, But I need not, need not tell it.
Where would be the good?
Requiescat in Pace.--JEAN INGELOW.
Anne Woodford sat, on a sultry summer night, by the open window in Archfield House at Fareham, busily engaged over the tail of a kite, while asleep in a cradle in the corner of the room lay a little boy, his apple-blossom cheeks and long flaxen curls lying p.r.o.ne upon his pillow as he had tossed when falling asleep in the heat.
The six years since her return had been eventful. Dr. Woodford had adhered to his view that his oath of allegiance could not be forfeited by James's flight; and he therefore had submitted to be ousted from his preferments, resigning his pleasant prebendal house, and his sea-side home, and embracing poverty for his personal oath's sake, although he was willing to acquiesce in the government of William and Mary, and perhaps to rejoice that others had effected what he would not have thought it right to do.
Things had been softened to him as regarded his flock by the appointment of Mr. Fellowes to Portchester, which was a Crown living, though there had been great demur at thus slipping into a friend's shoes, so that Dr. Woodford had been obliged to a.s.severate that nothing so much comforted him as leaving the parish in such hands, and that he blamed no man for seeing the question of Divine right as he did in common with the Non-jurors. The appointment opened the way to the marriage with Naomi Darpent, and the pair were happily settled at Portchester.
Dr. Woodford and his niece found a tiny house at Winchester, near the wharf, with the clear Itchen flowing in front and the green hills rising beyond, while in the rear were the ruins of Wolvesey, and the buildings of the Cathedral and College. They retained no servant except black Hans, poor Peregrine's legacy, who was an excellent cook, and capable of all that Anne could not accomplish in her hours of freedom.
It was a fall indeed from her ancient aspirations, though there was still that bud of hope within her heart. The united means of uncle and niece were so scanty that she was fain to offer her services daily at Mesdames Reynaud's still flouris.h.i.+ng school, where the freshness of her continental experiences made her very welcome.
Dr. Woodford occasionally a.s.sisted some student preparing for the university, but this was not regular occupation, and it was poorly paid, so that it was well that fifty pounds a year went at least three times as far as it would do in the present day. Though his gown and ca.s.sock lost their richness and l.u.s.tre, he was as much respected as ever. Bishop Mews often asked him to Wolvesey, and allowed him to a.s.sist the parochial clergy when it was not necessary to utter the royal name, the vergers marshalled him to his own stall at daily prayers, and he had free access to Bishop Morley's Cathedral library.
The Archfield family still took a house in the Close for the winter months, and there a very sober-minded and conventional courts.h.i.+p of Lucy took place by Sir Edmund Nutley, a worthy and well-to-do gentleman settled on the borders of Parkhurst Forest, in the Isle of Wight.
Anne, with the thought of her Charles burning within her heart, was a little scandalised at the course of affairs. Sir Edmund was a highly worthy man, but not in his first youth, and ponderous--a Whig, moreover, and an intimate friend of the masterful governor of the island, Lord Cutts, called the ”Salamander.” He had seen Miss Archfield before at the winter and spring Quarter Sessions, and though her father was no longer in the Commission of the Peace, the residence at Winchester gave him opportunities, and the chief obstacle seemed to be the party question. He was more in love than was the lady, but she was submissive, and believed that he would be a kind husband. She saw, too, that her parents would be much disappointed and displeased if she made any resistance to so prosperous a settlement, and she was positively glad to be out of reach of Sedley's addresses. Such an entirely unenthusiastic acceptance was the proper thing, and it only remained to provide for Lady Archfield's comfort in the loss of her daughter.
For this the elders turned at once to Anne Woodford. Sir Philip made it his urgent entreaty that the Doctor and his niece would take up their abode with him, and that Anne would share with the grandmother the care of the young Philip, a spirited little fellow who would soon be running wild with the grooms, without the attention that his aunt had bestowed on him.
Dr. Woodford himself was much inclined to accept the office of chaplain to his old friend, who he knew would be far happier for his company; and Anne's heart bounded at the thought of bringing up Charles's child, but that very start of joy made her blush and hesitate, and finally surprise the two old gentlemen by saying, with crimson cheeks--
”Sir, your Honour ought to know what might make you change your mind. There have been pa.s.sages between Mr. Archfield and me.”