CHAPTER XXVII.
BRINGERS OF SUNSHINE.
It was December, and the fields and pastures were white in the tardy dawnwith the frosty mists of early winter, and Sir John Kirkland was busymaking his preparations for leaving Buckinghamshire and England with hisdaughter. He had come from Spain at the beginning of the year, hoping tospend the remnant of his days in the home of his forefathers, and to layhis old bones in the family vault; but the place was poisoned to him forevermore, he told Angela. He could not stay where he and his had been heldin highest honour, to have his daughter pointed at by every grinning loutin hob-nailed shoes, and scorned by the neighbouring quality. He onlywaited till Denzil Warner should be pronounced out of danger and on thehigh-road to recovery, before he crossed the Channel.
"There is no occasion you should leave Buckinghamshire, sir," Angelaargued. "It is the dearest wish of my heart to return to the Convent atLouvain, and finish my life there, sheltered from the world's contempt."
"What, having failed to get your fancy, you would dedicate yourself toGod?" he cried. "No, madam. I am still your father, though you havedisgraced me; and I require a daughter's duty from you. Oh, child, I soloved you, was so proud of you! It is a bitter physic you have given me todrink."
She knelt at his feet, and kissed his sunburnt hands shrunken with age.
"I will do whatever you desire, sir. I wish no higher privilege than towait upon you; but when you weary of me there is ever the Convent."
"Leave that for your libertine sister. Be sure she will finish a loose lifeby a conspicuous piety. She will turn saint like Madame de Longueville.Sinners are the stuff of which modern saints are made. And women loveextremes--to pass from silk and luxury to four-o'clock matins, and theCarmelite's woollen habit. No, Angela, there must be no Convent for you,while I live. Your penance must be to suffer the company of a petulant,disappointed old man."
"No penance, sir, but peace and contentment; so I am but forgiven."
"Oh, you are forgiven. There is that about you with which one cannot longbe angry--a creature so gentle and submissive, a reed that bends under ablow. Let us not think of the past. You were a fool--but not a wanton. No,I will never believe that! A generous, headstrong fool, ready with thineown perjured lips to blacken thy character in order to save the villain whodid his best to ruin thee. But thou art pure," looking down at her with asevere scrutiny. "There is no memory of guilt in those eyes. We will goaway together, and live peacefully together, and you shall still be thestaff of my failing steps, the light of my fading eyes, the comfort ofmy ebbing life. Were I but easy in my mind about those poor forsakengrandchildren, I could leave England cheerfully enough; but to know themmotherless--with such a father!"
"Indeed, sir, I believe, however greatly Lord Fareham may have erred, hewill not prove a neglectful father," Angela said, her voice growing low andtremulous as she pronounced that fatal name.
"You will vouch for him, no doubt. A licentious villain, but an admirablefather! No, child, Nature does not deal in such anomalies. The children arealone at Chilton with their English gouvernante, and the prim Frenchwoman,who takes infinite pains to perfect Henriette's unlikeness to a humanchild. They are alone, and their father is hanging about the Court."
"At Court! Lord Fareham! Indeed, sir, I think you must be mistaken."
"Indeed, madam, I have the fact on good authority."
"Oh, sir, if you have reason to think those dear children neglected, is itnot your duty to protect and care for them? Their poor, mistaken mother hasabandoned them."
"Yes, to play the great lady in Paris, where, when I went in quest ofher last July--while thou wert lying sick here--hoping to bring back apenitent, I was received with a triumphant insolence, finding her thecentre of a circle of flatterers, a Princess in little, with all the airsand graces and ceremonies and hauteur of the French Blood-royal. When Icharged her with being Malfort's mistress, and bade her pack her traps andcome home with me, she deafened me with her angry volubility. I to slanderher--I, her father, when there was no one in Paris, from the Place Royaleto the Louvre, more looked up to! But when I questioned my old friends theyanswered with enigmatical smiles, and assured me that they knew nothingagainst my daughter's character worse than all the world was saying aboutsome of the highest ladies in France--Madame, to wit; and with this coldcomfort I must needs be content, and leave her in her splendid infamy."
"Father, be sure she will come back to us. She has been led intowrong-doing by the artfullest of villains. She will discover the emptinessof her life, and come back to seek the solace of her children's love. Letus care for them meanwhile. They have no other kindred. Think of our sweetHenriette--so rich, so beautiful, so over-intelligent--growing from childto woman in the care of servants, who may spoil and pervert her even bytheir very fondness."
"It is a bad case, I grant; but I can stir no finger where that man isconcerned. I can hold no communication with that scoundrel."
"But your lawyer could claim custody of the children for you, perhaps."
"I think not, Angela, unless there was a criminal neglect of their bodies.The law takes no account of souls."
Angela's greatest anxiety--now that Denzil's recovery was assured--was forthe welfare of these children whom she fondly loved, and for whom she wouldhave gladly played a mother's part. She wrote in secret to her sister,entreating her to return to England for her children's sake, and to devoteherself to them in retirement at Chilton, leaving the scandal of herelopement to be forgotten in the course of blameless years; so that by thetime Henriette was old enough to enter the world her mother would haverecovered the esteem of worthy people, as well as the respect of the mob.
Lady Fareham's tardy answer was not encouraging. She had no design ofreturning to a house in which she had never been properly valued, andshe admired that her sister should talk of scandal, considering that thescandal of her own intrigue with her brother-in-law had set all Englandtalking, and had been openly mentioned in the London and Oxford Gazettes.Silence about other people's affairs would best become a young miss who hadmade herself so notorious.
As for the children, Lady Fareham had no doubt that their father, who hadever lavished more affection upon them than he bestowed upon his wife,might be trusted with the care of them, however abominable his conductmight be in other matters. But in any case her ladyship would not exchangeParis for London, where she had been slighted and neglected at Court aswell as at home.
The letter was a tissue of injustice and egotism; and Angela gave up allhope of influencing her sister for good; but not the hope of being usefulto her sister's children.
Now, as the short winter days went by, and the preparations for departurewere making, she grew more and more urgent with her father to obtain thecustody of his grandchildren, and carry them to France with him, where theymight be reared and educated under his own eye. Montpelier was the place ofexile he had chosen, a place renowned alike for its admirable climate andeducational establishments; and where Sir John had spent the previouswinter, and had made friends.
It was to Montpelier the great Chancellor had retired from the splendoursof a princely mansion but just completed--far exceeding his own originalintentions in splendour, as the palaces of new-made men are apt to do--andfrom a power and authority second only to that of kings. There thegrandfather of future queens was now residing in modest state, devoting theevening of his life to the composition of an authentic record of the laterebellion, and of those few years during which he had been at the head ofaffairs in England. Sir John Kirkland, who had never forgotten his owndisappointments in the beginning of his master's restored fortunes, had afellow-feeling for "Ned Hyde" in his fall.
"As a statesman he was next in capacity to Wentworth," said Sir John, "andyet a painted favourite and a rabble of shallow wits were strong enough toundermine him."
The old Knight confessed that he had ridden out of his way on severaloccasions when he was visiting Warner's sick-bed, in the hope of meetingHenrietta and Georg
e on their ponies, and had more than once been so luckyas to see them.
"The girl grows handsomer, and is as insolent as ever; but she has asorrowful look which assures me she misses her mother; though it was indeedof that wretch, her father, she talked most. She said he had told her hewas likely to go on a foreign embassy. If it is to France he goes, there isan end of Montpelier. The same country shall not hold him and my daughterwhile I live to protect you."
Angela began to understand that it was his fear, or his hatred of Fareham,which was taking him out of his native country. No word had been said ofher betrothal since that fatal night. It seemed tacitly understood that allwas at an end between her and Denzil Warner. She herself had been prostratewith a low, nervous fever during a considerable part of that long period ofapprehension and distress in which Denzil lay almost at the point of death,nursed by his grief-stricken mother, to whom the very name of his so latelybetrothed wife was hateful. Verily the papistical bride had brought agreater trouble to that house than even Lady Warner's prejudiced mind hadanticipated. Kneeling by her son's bed, exhausted with the passion of longprayers for his recovery, the mother's thoughts went back to the day whenAngela crossed the threshold of that house for the first time, so fair, somodest, with a countenance so innocent in its pensive beauty.
"And yet she was guilty at heart even then," Lady Warner told herself, inthe long night-watches, after the trial at Westminster Hall, when Angela'spublic confession of an unlawful love had been reported to her by herfavourite Nonconformist Divine, who had been in court throughout the trial,with Lady Warner's lawyer, watching the proceedings in the interest of SitDenzil. Lady Warner received the news of the verdict and sentence withunspeakable indignation.
"And my murdered son!" she gasped, "for I know not yet that God willhear my prayers and raise him up to me again. Is his blood to count fornothing--or his sufferings--his patient sufferings on that bed? A fine--apaltry fine--a trifle for a rich man. I would pay thrice as much, thoughit beggared me, to see him sent to the Plantations. O Judge and Avenger ofIsrael! Thou hast scourged us with pestilence, and punished us with fire;but Thou hast not convinced us of sin. The world is so sunk in wickednessthat murder scarce counts for crime."
The day of terror was past. Denzil's convalescence was proceeding slowly,but without retrograde stages. His youth and temperate habits had helpedhis recovery from a wound which in the earlier stages looked fatal. He wasnow able to sit up in an armchair, and talk to his visitor, when Sir Johnrode twenty miles to see him; but only once did his lips shape the namethat had been so dear, and that occasion was at the end of a visit whichSir John announced as the last.
"Our goods are packed and ready for shipping," he said. "My daughter and Iwill begin our journey to Montpelier early next week."
It was the first time Sir John had spoken of his daughter in thatsick-room.
"If she should ever talk of me, in the time to come," Denzil said--speakingvery slowly, in a low voice, as if the effort, mental and physical, werealmost beyond his strength, and holding the hand which Sir John had givenhim in saying good-bye--"tell her that I shall ever remember her witha compassionate affection--ever hold her the dearest and loveliest ofwomen--yes, even if I should marry, and see the children of some fair andchaste wife growing up around me. She will ever be the first. And tellher that I know she forswore herself in the court; and that she was theinnocent dupe of that villain--never his consenting companion. And tell herthat I pity her even for that so misplaced affection which tempted her toswear to a lie. I knew, sir, always, that she loved him and not me. Yes,from the first. Indeed, sir, it was but too easy to read that unconsciousbeginning of unholy love, which grew and strengthened like some fataldisease. I knew, but nursed the fond hope that I could win her heart--inspite of him. I fancied that right must prevail over wrong; but it doesnot, you see, sir, not always--not----" A faintness came over him;whereupon his mother, re-entering the room at this moment, ran to him andrestored him with the strong essence that stood handy among the medicinebottles on the table by his chair.
"You have suffered him to talk too much," she said, glancing angrily at SirJohn. "And I'll warrant he has been talking of your daughter--whose namemust be poison to him. God knows 'tis worse than poison to me!"
"Madam, I did not come to this house to hear my daughter abused----"
"It would have better become you, Sir John Kirkland, to keep away from thishouse."
"Mother, silence! You distress me worse than my illness----"
"This, madam, is my farewell visit. You will not be plagued any more withme," said Sir John, lifting his hat, and bowing low to Lady Warner.
He was gone before she could reply.
* * * * *
The baggage was ready--clothes, books, guns, plate, and linen--allnecessaries for an exile that might last for years, had been packed for thesea voyage; but the trunks and bales had not yet been placed in the waggonthat was to convey them to the Tower Wharf, where they were to be shippedin one of the orange-boats that came at this season from Valencia, ladenwith that choice and costly fruit, and returned with a heterogeneous cargo.At Valencia the goods would be put on board a Mediterranean coastingvessel, and landed at Cette.
Sir John began to waver about his destination after having heard fromHenriette of her father's possible embassy. Certainly if Fareham were to beemployed in foreign diplomacy, Paris seemed a likely post for a man who wasso well known there, and had spent so much of his life in France. And ifFareham were to be at Paris, Sir John considered Montpelier, remote as itwas from the capital, too near his enemy.
"He has proved himself an indomitable villain," thought the Knight. "And Icould not always keep as close a watch upon my daughter as I have donein the last six weeks. No. If Fareham be for France, I am for some othercountry. I might take her to Florence, and put the Apennines between herand that daring wretch."
It may be, too, that Sir John had another reason for lingering, after allwas ready for the journey. He may have been much influenced by Angela'sconcern about his grandchildren, and may have hesitated at leaving themalone in England with only salaried guardians.
"Their father concerns himself very little about them, you see," he toldAngela, "since he can entertain the project of a foreign embassy, whilethose little wretches are pining in a lonely barrack in Oxfordshire."
"Indeed, sir, he is a fond father. I would wager my life that he is deeplyconcerned about them."
"Oh, he is an angel, on your showing! You would blacken your sister'scharacter to make him a saint."
The next day was fine and sunny, a temperature as of April, after themorning frost had melted. There was a late rose or two still lingering inthe sheltered Buckinghamshire valley, though it wanted but a fortnight ofChristmas. Angela and her father were sitting in a parlour that faced theiron gates. Since their return from London Sir John had seemed uneasy whenhis daughter was out of his sight; and she, perceiving his watchfulness andtrouble, had been content to abandon her favourite walks in the lanes andwoods and to the "fair hill of Brill," whence the view was so lovely andso vast, on one side reaching to the Welsh mountains, and on anothercommanding the nearer prospect of "the great fat common of Ottmoor," asAubrey calls it, "which in some winters is like a sea of waters." For herfather's comfort, noting the sad wistful eyes that watched her coming inand going out, she had resigned herself to spend long melancholyhours within doors, reading aloud till Sir John fell asleep, playingbackgammon--a game she detested worse even than shove-halfpenny, whichlatter primitive game they played sometimes on the shovel-board in thehall. Life could scarcely be sadder than Angela's life in those grey winterdays; and had it not been for an occasional ride across country with herfather, health and spirits must alike have succumbed to this monotony ofsadness.
This morning, as on many mornings of late, the subject of the boy and girlat Chilton had been discussed with the Knight's tankard of home-brewed andhis daughter's chocolate.
"Indeed, sir
, it would be a cruel thing for us to abandon them. AtMontpelier we shall be a fortnight's journey from England; and if eitherof those dear creatures should fall ill, dangerously ill, perhaps, theirfather beyond the seas, and we, too, absent--oh, sir, figure to yourselfHenriette or George dying among strangers! A cold or a fever might carrythem off in a few days; and we should know nothing till all was over."
Sir John groaned and paced the room, agitated by the funereal image.
"Why, what a raven thou art, ever to croak dismal prophecies. The childrenare strong and well, and have careful custodians. I can have no dealingswith their father. Must I tell you that a hundred times, Angela? He is aconsummate villain: and were it not that I fear to make a bigger scandal,he or I should not have survived many hours after that iniquitoussentence."
A happy solution of this difficulty, which distressed the Knight much morethan his stubbornness allowed him to admit, was close at hand that morning,while Angela bent over her embroidery frame, and her father spelt throughthe last _London Gazette_ that the post had brought him.
The clatter of hoofs and roll of wheels announced a visit; and while theywere looking at the gate, full of wonder, since their visitors were of sosmall a number, a footman in the Fareham livery pulled the iron ring thathung by a chain from the stone pillar, and the bell rang loud and long inthe frosty air. The Fareham livery! Twice before the Fareham coaches andliveries had taken that quiet household by surprise; but to-day terrorrather than surprise was in Angela's mind as she stood in front of thewindow looking at the gate.
Could Fareham be so rash as to face her father, so daring as to seek afarewell interview on the eve of departure? No, she told herself; suchfolly was impossible. The visitor could be but one person--Henriette. Evenassured of this in her own mind, she did not rush to welcome her niece, butstood as if turned to stone, waiting for the opening of the gate.
Old Reuben, having seen the footman, went himself to admit the visitors,with his grandson and slave in attendance.
"It must be her little ladyship," he said, taking his young mistress's viewof the case. "Lord Fareham would never dare to show his deceiving facehere."
A shrill voice greeted him from the coach window before he reached thegate.
"You are the slowest old wretch I ever saw!" cried the voice. "Don't youknow that when visitors of importance come to a house they expect to be letin? I vow a convent gate would be opened quicker."
"Indeed, your ladyship, when your legs are as old as mine----"
"Which I hope they never will be," muttered Henriette, as she descendedwith a languid slowness from the coach, assisted on either side by afootman; while George, who could not wait for her airs and graces, lethimself out at the door on the off side just as Reuben succeeded in turningthe key.
"So you are old Reuben!" he said, patting the butler on the shoulder withthe gold hilt of his riding-whip. "And you were here, like a vegetable, allthrough the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth?"
"Yes, your lordship, from the raising of Hampden's regiment."
"Ah, you shall tell me all about it over a pipe and a bottle. You must bevastly good company. I am come to live here."
"To live here, your honour?"
"Yes; sister and I are to live here while my father represents his Majestybeyond seas. I hope you have good stabling and plenty of room. My poniesand Mistress Henriette's Arab horse will be here to-morrow. I doubt I shallhave to build a place for my hawks; but I suppose Sir John will find me acottage for my Dutch falconer."
"Lord, how the young master do talk!" exclaimed Reuben, with an admiringgrin.
The boy was so rapid in his speech, had such vivacity and courage in hisface, such a spring in every movement, as if he had quicksilver in hisveins, Reuben thought; but it was only the quicksilver of youth, thatDivine ichor which lasts for so brief a season.
"It made me feel twenty years younger only to hear him prattle," Reubensaid afterwards.
Sir John and his daughter had come to meet the children by this time,and there were fond embracings, in the midst of which Henriette withdrewherself from her grandfather's arms, and retired a couple of paces, inorder to drop him the Jennings curtsy, sinking almost to the ground, andthen rising from billows of silk, like Venus from the sea, and handinghim a letter, with a circular sweep of her arm, learnt in London from herParisian dancing mistress, an apprentice of St. Andre's, not from theshabby little French cut-caper from Oxford.
"My father sends you this letter, sir."
"Is your father at Chilton?"
"No, sir. He was with us the day before yesterday, to bid us good-byebefore he started upon his foreign embassy," replied Henriette, strugglingwith her tears, lest she should seem a child, and not the woman of fashionshe aspired to be. "He left us early in the afternoon to ride back toLondon, and he takes barge this afternoon to Gravesend, to embark forArchangel, on his way to Moscow. I doubt you know he is to be his Majesty'sAmbassador at Muscovy?"
"I know nothing but what you told me t'other day, Henriette," the Knightanswered, as they went to the house, where George began to run about on anexploration of corridors, and then escaped to the stables, while Henriettestood in front of the great wood fire, and warmed her hands in a statelymanner.
Angela had found no words of welcome for her niece yet. She only huggedand kissed her, and now occupied herself unfastening the child's hood andcloak. "How your hands shake, auntie. You must be colder than I am; thoughthat leathern coach lets in the wind like a sieve. I suppose my people willknow where to dispose themselves?" she added, resuming her grand air.
"Reuben will take care of them, dearest."
"Why, your voice shakes like your hands; and oh, how white you are. But youare glad to see us, I hope?"
"Gladder than I can say, Henriette."
"I am glad you don't call me Papillon. I have left off that ridiculousname, which I ought never to have permitted."
"I doubt, mistress, you who know so much know what is in this letter," saidSir John, staring at Fareham's superscription as if he had come suddenlyupon an adder.
"Nay, sir, I only know that my father was shut in his library for a longtime writing, and was as white as my aunt is now when he brought it to me.'You and George, and your gouvernante and servants, are to go to the ManorMoat the day after to-morrow,' he said, 'and you are to give this letterinto your grandfather's hand.' I have done my duty, and await your Honour'spleasure. Our gouvernante is not the Frenchwoman. Father dismissed her forneglecting my education, and walking out after dark with Daniel Lettsome.'Tis only Priscilla, who is something between a servant and a friend, andwho does everything I tell her."
"A pretty gouvernante!"
"Nay, sir, she is as plain as a pikestaff; that is one of her merits.Mademoiselle thought herself pretty, and angled for a rich husband. Pleasebe so good as to read your letter, grandfather, for I believe it is aboutus."
Sir John broke the seal, and began to read the letter with a frowning brow,which lightened as he read. Angela stood with her niece clasped in herarms, and watched her father's countenance across the silky brown head thatnestled against her bosom.
"SIR,--Were it not in the interests of others, who must needs hold a placein your affection second only to that they have in my heart, I shouldscarce presume to address you; but it is to the grandfather of my childrenI write, rather than to the gentleman whom I have so deeply offended. Ilook back, sir, and repent the violence of that unhappy night; but know nochange in the melancholy passion that impelled me to crime. It would havebeen better for me had I been the worst rake-hell at Whitehall, than tohave held myself aloof from the modish vices of my day, only to concentrateall my desires and affections there, where it was most sinful to placethem.
"Enough, sir. Did I stand alone I should have found an easy solution of alldifficulties, and you, and the lady my madness has so insulted, would havebeen rid for ever of the despicable wretch who now addresses you.
"I had to remember the dear innocents who bring you this let
ter, and it wasof them I thought when I humbled myself to turn courtier in order to obtainthe post of Ambassador to Muscovy--in which savage place I shall be soremote from all who ever knew me in this country, that I shall be as goodas dead; and you would have as much compunction in withholding your loveand protection from my boy and girl as if they were de facto orphans. Isend them to you, sir, unheralded. I fling them into the bosom of yourlove. They are rich, and the allowance that will be paid you for them willcover, I apprehend, all outlays on their behalf, or can be increased atyour pleasure. My lawyers, whom you know, will be at your service for allcommunications; and they will spare you the pain of correspondence with me.
"I leave the nurture, education, and happiness of these, my only son anddaughter, solely in your care and authority. They have been reared inover-much luxury, and have been spoiled by injudicious indulgence. Buttheir faults are trivial faults, and are all on the surface. They aretruthful, and have warm and generous hearts. I shall deem it a furtherfavour if you will allow their nurse, or nurse-gouvernante, Mrs. PriscillaBaker, to remain with them, as your servant, and subject to your authority.Their horses, ponies, hawks, and hounds, carriages, etc., must beaccommodated, or not, at your pleasure. My girl is greatly taken up withthe Arab horse I gave her on her last birthday, and I should be glad ifyour stable could shelter him. I subscribe myself, perhaps for the lasttime, sir,
"Your obedient servant, and a penitent sinner,
"FAREHAM."
When he had come to the end of the letter, reading slowly and thoughtfully,Sir John handed it to his daughter, in a dead silence.
She tried to read; but at sight of the beloved writing a rush of tearsblinded her, and she gave the letter back to her father.
"I cannot read it, sir," she sobbed; "tell me only, are we to keep thechildren?"
"Yes. Henceforward they are our children; and it will be the business ofour lives to make them happy."
"If you cry, tante, I shall think you are vexed that we have come to plagueyou," said Henriette, with a pretty, womanly air. "I am very sorry forhis poor lordship, for he also cried when he kissed us; but he will haveskating and sledging in Muscovy, and he will shoot bears; so he will bevery happy."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
IN A DEAD CALM.
The great bales and chests, and leather trunks, on the filling whereofSir John's household had bestowed a week's labour, were all unpacked andcleared out of the hall, to make room for a waggon load of packages fromChilton Abbey, which preliminary waggon was followed day after day by otherconveyances laden with other possessions of the Honourable Henriette,or the Honourable George. The young lady's virginals, her guitar, herembroidery frames, her books, her "babies," which the maids had packed,although it was long since she had played with them; the young gentleman'sguns and whips, tennis rackets, bows and arrows, and a mass ofheterogeneous goods; there seemed no end to the two children's personalproperty, and it was well that the old house was sufficiently spacious toafford a wing for their occupation. They brought their gouvernante, and avalet and maid, the falconer, and three grooms, for whom lodgings had tobe found out-of-doors. The valet and waiting-woman spent some days indistributing and arranging all that mass of belongings; but at the end oftheir labour the children's rooms looked more cheerful than their luxuriousquarters at Chilton, and the children themselves were delighted with theirnew home.
"We are lodged ever so much better here than at the Abbey," George toldhis grandfather. "We were ever so far away from father and mother, andthe house was under a curse, being stolen from the Church in King Henry'sreign. Once, when I had a fever, an old grey monk came and sat at thefoot of the bed, between the curtains, and wouldn't go away. He sat therealways, till I began to get well again. Father said there was nothingthere, and it was only the fever made me see him; but I know it was theghost of one of the monks who were flung out to starve when the Abbey wasseized by Cromwell's men. Not Oliver Cromwell, grandfather; but another badman of the name, who had his head cut off afterwards; though I doubt hedeserved the axe less than the Brewer did."
There was no more talk of Montpelier or exile. A new life began in the oldhouse in the valley, with new pleasures, new motives, new duties--a life inwhich the children were paramount. These two eager young minds ruled at theManor Moat. For them the fish-pond teemed with carp and tench, for themhawks flew, and hounds ran, and horses and ponies were moving from morningtill twilight; for them Sir John grew young again, and hunted fox and hare,and rode with the hawks with all the pertinacity of youth, for whom thereis no such word as enough. For them the happy grandfather lived in hisboots from October to March, and the adoring aunt spent industrious hoursin the fabrication of flies for trout, after the recipes in Mr. Walton'sagreeable book. The whole establishment was ordered for their comfort andpleasure; but their education and improvement were also considered ineverything. A Roman Catholic gentleman, from St. Omer, was engaged asGeorge's tutor, and to teach Angela and Henriette Latin and Italian,studies in which the niece was stimulated to industry by her desire tosurpass her aunt, an ambition which her volatile spirits never allowed herto realise. For all other learning and accomplishments Angela was her onlyteacher, and as the girl grew to womanhood aunt and niece read and studiedtogether, like sisters, rather than like pupil and mistress; and Angelataught Henriette to love those books which Fareham had given her, and so ina manner the intellect of the banished father influenced the growing mindof the child. Together, and of one opinion in all things, aunt and niecevisited and ministered to the neighbouring poor, or entertained theirgenteel neighbours in a style at once friendly and elegant. No existencecould have been calmer or happier, to one who was content to renounce allpassionate hopes and desires, all the romantic aspirations of youth; andAngela had resigned herself to such renunciation when she rose from hersick-bed, after the tragedy at Chilton. Here was the calm of the Conventwithout its restrictions and limitations, the peace which is not of thisworld, and yet liberty to enjoy all that is fairest and noblest in thisworld; for had not Sir John pledged himself to take his daughter and nieceand nephew for the grand tour through France and Italy, soon after George'sseventeenth birthday? Father Andrea, who was of Florentine birth, would gowith them; and with such a cicisbeo, they would see and understand all thetreasures of the past and the present, antique and modern art.
Lord Fareham was still in the north of Europe; but, after three years inRussia, had been transferred from Moscow to Copenhagen, where he was inhigh favour with the King of Denmark.
Denzil Warner had lately married a young lady of fortune, the only childand heiress of a Wiltshire gentleman, who had made a considerable figure inParliament under the Protector, but was now retired from public affairs.
And all that remained to Angela of her story of impassioned love, soleevidence of the homage that had been offered to her beauty or her youth,was a letter, now long grown dim with tears, which Henriette had given toher on the first night the children spent under their grandfather's roof.
"I was to hand you this when no one was by," the girl said simply, and lefther aunt standing mute and pale with a sealed letter in her hand.
* * * * *
"How shall I thank or praise you for the sacrifice your love made for oneso unworthy--a sacrifice that cut me to the heart? Alas, my beloved, itwould have been better for both of us hadst thou given me thyself ratherthan so empty a gift as thy good name. I hoped to tell you, lip to lip, inone last meeting, all my gratitude and all my hopeless love; but though Ihave watched and hung about your gardens and meadows day after day, youhave been too jealously guarded, or have kept too close, and only with mypen can I bid you an eternal farewell.
"I go out of your life for ever, since I am leaving for a distant countrywith the fixed intention never to return to England. I bequeath you mychildren, as if I left you a rag of my own lacerated heart.
"If you ever think of me, I pray you to consider the story of my lifeas that of an invincible passion, wicked
and desperate if you will, butconstant as life and death. You were, and are, and will be to my latestbreath, my only love.
"Perhaps you will think sometimes, as I shall think always, that we mighthave lived innocently and happily in New England, forgetting and forgottenby the rabble we left behind us, having shaken off the slough of an unhappylife, beginning the world again, under new names, in a new climate andcountry. It was a guilty dream to entertain, perhaps; but I shall dreamit often enough in a strange land, among strange faces and strangemanners--shall dream of you on my death-bed, and open dying eyes to see youstanding by my bedside, looking down at me with that sweetly sorrowfullook I remember best of all the varying expressions in the face Iworship.--Farewell for ever.
"F."
While her son and daughter were growing up at the Manor Moat, Lady Farehamsparkled at the French Court, one of the most brilliant figures in thatbrilliant world, a frequent guest at the Louvre and Palais Royal, and thebrand-new palace of Versailles, where the largest Court that had evercollected round a throne was accommodated in a building of Palladianrichness in ornament and detail, a Palace whose offices were spaciousenough for two thousand servants. No foreigner at the great King's courtwas more admired than the lovely Lady Fareham, whose separation from herblack-browed husband occasioned no scandal in a society where the husbandsof beautiful women were for the most part gentlemen who pursued their ownvulgar amours abroad, and allowed a wide liberty to the Venus at home; norwas Henri de Malfort's constant attendance upon her ladyship a cause ofevil-speaking, since there was scarce a woman of consequence who had nother _cavaliere servante_.
Madame de Sevigne, in one of those budgets of Parisian scandal with whichshe cheered a kinsman's banishment, assured Bussy de Rabutin that LadyFareham had paid her friend's debts more than once since her return toFrance; but constancy such as De Malfort's could hardly be expectedwere not the golden fetters of love riveted by the harder metal ofself-interest. Their alliance was looked on with favour by all thatbrilliant world, and even tolerated by that severe moralist, the Duedu Montausier, who had been lately rewarded for his wife's civility toMademoiselle de la Valliere, now Duchess and reigning favourite, by beingmade guardian of the infant Dauphin.
Every one approved, every one admired; and Hyacinth's life in the landshe loved was like a long summer day. But darkness came upon that day assuddenly as the night of the tropics. She rose one morning, light-heartedand happy, to pursue the careless round of pleasure. She lay down in adarkened chamber, never again to mix in that splendid crowd.
Betwixt noon and twilight Henri de Malfort had fallen in a combat of eight,a combat so savage as to recall that fatal fight of five against fiveduring the Fronde, in which Nemours had fallen, shot through the heart byBeaufort.
The light words of a fool in a tavern, backed by three other fools, had ledto this encounter, in which De Malfort had been the challenger. He andone of his friends died on the ground, while three on the other sidewere mortally wounded. It would henceforth be fully understood that LadyFareham's name was not for ribald jesters; but the man Lady Fareham lovedwas dead, and her life of pleasure had ended with a pistol-ball from anunerring hand. To her it seemed the hand of Fate. She scarcely thought ofthe man who had killed him.
As her life had been brilliant and conspicuous, so her retirement from theworld was not without _eclat_. Royalty witnessed the solemn office of theChurch which transformed Hyacinth, Lady Fareham, into Mere Agnes, of theSeven Wounds; while, seated in the royal tribune, a King's mistress,beautiful and adored, thought of a day when she, too, might bring to yonderaltar the sacrifice of a broken spirit and a life that had outlived earthlyhappiness.
THE END.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends