To this Charles agreed, so M. L’Abbé 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 companionship for her niece. Noémi 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, passive, 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 Noémi 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’Aubépine, were to join him with their tutor, the Abbé 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 pass a party on to the Spanish territory with a flag of truce, and then the way would be easy. This passing, however, would be impossible for Noémi 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 passports 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.”