Madame de Bellaise granted Suzanne to her niece without difficulty, evidently guessing the truth, but knowing the peril of the situation too well to make any inquiry. Perhaps she was disappointed that her endeavours to win the girl to her Church had been ineffectual, but to have any connection with one ‘relapsed’ was so exceedingly perilous that she preferred to ignore the whole subject, and merely let it be known that Suzanne was to accompany Mademoiselle Darpent, and this was only disclosed to the household on the very last morning, after the passports had been procured and the mails packed, and she hushed any remark of the two English girls in such a decided manner as quite startled them by the manifest need of caution.
“We should have come to that if King James were still allowed to have his own way,” said Naomi.
“Oh no! we are too English,” said Anne.
“Our generation might not see it,” said Naomi; “but who can be safe when a Popish king can override law? Oh, I shall breathe more freely when I am on the other side of the Channel. My aunt is much too good for this place, and they don’t approve of her, and keep her down.”
CHAPTER XXII
Revenants
“But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
I’ll cross it, though it blast me.”Hamlet.
Floods of tears were shed at the departure of the two young officers of sixteen and seventeen. The sobs of the household made the English party feel very glad when it was over and the cavalcade was in motion. A cavalcade it was, for each gentleman rode and so did his body-servant, and each horse had a mounted groom. The two young officers had besides each two chargers, requiring a groom and horse boy, and each conducted half a dozen fresh troopers to join the army. A coach was the regulation mode of travelling for ladies, but both the English girls had remonstrated so strongly that Madame de Bellaise had consented to their riding, though she took them and Suzanne the first day’s journey well beyond the ken of the Parisians in her own carriage, as far as Senlis, where there was a fresh parting with the two lads, fewer tears, and more counsel and encouragement, with many fond messages to her son, many to her sister in England, and with affectionate words to her niece a whisper to her to remember that she would not be in a Protestant country till she reached Holland or England.
The last sight they had of the tall dignified figure of the old lady was under the arch of the cathedral, where she was going to pray for their safety. Suzanne was to ride on a pillion behind the Swiss valet of Mr. Fellowes, whom Naomi had taken into her confidence, and the two young ladies each mounted a stout pony. Mr. Fellowes had made friends with the Abbé Leblanc, who was of the old Gallican type, by no means virulently set against Anglicanism, and also a highly cultivated man, so that they had many subjects in common, besides the question of English Catholicity. The two young cousins, Ribaumont and D’Aubépine, were chiefly engaged in looking out for sport, setting their horses to race with one another, and the like, in which Charles Archfield sometimes took a share, but he usually rode with the two young ladies, and talked to them very pleasantly of his travels in Italy, the pictures and antiquities which had made into an interesting reality the studies that he had hated when a boy, also the condition of the country he had seen with a mind which seemed to have opened and enlarged with a sudden start beyond the interests of the next fox-hunt or game at bowls. All were, as he had predicted, greatly shocked at the aspect of the country through which they passed: the meagre crops ripening for harvest, the hay-carts, sometimes drawn by an equally lean cow and woman, the haggard women bearing heavy burthens, and the ragged, barefooted children leading a wretched cow or goat to browse by the wayside, the gaunt men toiling at road-mending with their poor starved horses, or at their seigneur’s work, alike unpaid, even when drawn off from their own harvests. And in the villages the only sound buildings were the church and presbytére by its side, the dwellings being miserable hovels, almost sunk into the earth, an old crone or two, marvels of skinniness, spinning at the door, or younger women making lace, and nearly naked children rushing out to beg. Sometimes the pepper-box turrets of a château could be seen among distant woods, or the walls of a cloister, with a taper spire in the midst, among greener fields; and the towns were approached through long handsome avenues, and their narrow streets had a greater look of prosperity, while their inns, being on the way to the place of warfare, were almost luxurious, with a choice of dainty meats and good wines. Everywhere else was misery, and Naomi said it was the vain endeavour to reform the source of these grievances that had forced her father to become an exile from his native country, and that he had much apprehended that the same blight might gradually be brought over his adopted land, on which Charles stood up for the constitution, and for the resolute character of Englishmen, and Anne, as in duty bound, for the good intentions of her godfather. Thus they argued, and Anne not only felt herself restored to the company of rational beings, but greatly admired Charles’s sentiments and the ability with which he put them forward, and now and then the thought struck her, and with a little twinge of pain of which she was ashamed, would Naomi Darpent be the healer of the wound nearly a year old, and find in him consolation for the hero of her girlhood? Somehow there would be a sense of disappointment in them both if so it were.
At length the spires and towers of Douai came in sight, fenced in by stern lines of fortification according to the science of Vauban—smooth slopes of glacis, with the terrible muzzles of cannon peeping out on the summits of the ramparts, and the line of salient angle and ravelin with the moat around, beautiful though formidable. The Marquis de Nidemerle had sent a young officer and sergeant’s party to meet the travellers several miles off, and bring them unquestioned through the outposts of the frontier town, so closely watched in this time of war, and at about half a mile from the gates he himself, with a few attendants, rode out all glittering and clanking in their splendid uniforms and accoutrements. He doffed his hat with the heavy white plume, and bowed his greeting to the ladies and clergymen, but both the young Frenchmen, after a military salute, hastily dismounted and knelt on one knee, while he sprang from his horse, and then, making the sign of the Cross over his son, raised him, and folding him in his arms pressed him to his breast and kissed him on each cheek, not without tears, then repeated the same greeting with young D’Aubépine. He then kissed the hand of his belle cousine, whom, of course, he knew already, and bowed almost to the ground on being presented to Mademoiselle Woodford, a little less low to Monsieur Archfield, who was glad the embracing was not to be repeated, politely received Mr. Fellowes, and honoured the domestic abbé with a kindly word and nod. The gradation was amusing, and he was a magnificent figure, with his noble horse and grand military dress, while his fine straight features, sunburnt though naturally fair, and his tall, powerful frame, well became his surroundings—‘a true white Ribaumont,’ as Naomi said, as she looked at the long fair hair drawn back and tied with ribbon. “He is just like the portrait of our great-grandfather who was almost killed on the S. Barthélémi!” However, Naomi had no more time to talk of him, for he rode by her side inquiring for his mother, wife, and children, but carefully doing the honours to the stranger lady and gentleman.
Moat and drawbridge there were at Portsmouth, and a sentry at the entrance, but here there seemed endless guards, moats, bridges, and gates, and there was a continual presenting of arms and acknowledging of salutes as the commandant rode in with the travellers. It was altogether a very new experience in life. They were lodged in the governor’s quarters in the fortress, where the accommodation for ladies was of the slenderest, and M. de Nidemerle made many apologies, though he had evidently given up his own sleeping chamber to the two ladies, who would have to squeeze into his narrow camp-bed, with Suzanne on the floor, and the last was to remain there entirely, there being no woman with whom she could have her meals. The ladies were invited to sup with the staff, and would, as M. de Nidemerle assured them, be welcomed with the greatest delight. So Naomi declared that they must make their toilette do as much justice as possible to their country; and though full dress was not attainable, they did their best with ribbons and laces, and the arrangement of her fair locks and Anne’s brown ones, when Suzanne proved herself an adept; the ladies meantime finding no small amusement in the varieties of swords, pistols, spurs, and other accoutrements, for which the marquis had apologised, though Naomi told him that they were the fittest ornaments possible.