The news spread rapidly in Portsmouth and in the Isle of Wight that the wife and son of Bonaparte's favourite cavalry officer, the Governor of Corunna, had been brought in as prisoners; and thus, on the very day they were preparing to go on shore, escorted by Quentin, a staff-officer, in full uniform, came fussily on board in a boat pulled by marines.
Quentin recognised in him Lloyd Conyers, the aide-de-camp, whom he had frequently seen in Spain.
He had come, he stated, "by direction of the General commanding in the Isle of Wight, to invite Madame de Ribeaupierre, with her friends and attendants, to share the hospitality of his house—to consider it as her home, in fact, until she could make such arrangements as she wished."
"Is the general married, monsieur?" asked madame, smiling; "for I am not so very old."
"Madame, the general is married, and is nearer seventy than sixty," replied Conyers, laughing behind his great staff plume. "A boat is in readiness, and a carriage awaits you on the beach. The general lives at Minden Lodge, St. Helen's—we dine at half-past six."
Madame de Ribeaupierre, who was considerably crushed and crestfallen, accepted the general's offer; and accompanied by her maid, who had many misgivings and vague terrors of the natives, by her son and her aide-de-camp, as she laughingly styled Quentin, landed in the Isle of Wight; and for the first time in her life found herself treading English ground.
CHAPTER XXIV.
MINDEN LODGE.
"What thing is Love, which not can countervail
Naught save itself? even such a thing is Love.
And worldly wealth in worth as far doth fail,
As lowest earth doth yield to heaven above.
Divine is Love, and scorneth worldly pelf,
And can be bought with nothing but with self."
RALEIGH.
The month was only March; but in that southern portion of England, the white daisy and the golden buttercup already spotted the green sward; the hedge-rows nearly in full leaf, were quite like bird-meadows, so full were they of song; while the coo of the ring-dove and the wild pigeon were already heard in the copse. The gardens teemed with beautiful flowers, and the air was delicious, the heat of the great white chalky cliffs being tempered by the breeze from the deep blue sea.