Lucy stood among a few other young people from the Close, watching for Anne, who came in, trim and bright, though still somewhat reddened in face and arms from her last attentions to the supper—an elaborate meal on such occasions, though lighter than the mid-day repast. There were standing pies of game, lobster and oyster patties, creams, jellies, and other confections, on which Sir Philip and his lady highly complimented Anne, who had been engaged on them for at least a couple of days, her mother being no longer able to assist except by advice.
“See, daughter Alice, you will learn one day to build up a jelly as well as to eat it,” said Sir Philip good-humouredly, whereat the small lady pouted a little and said—
“Bet lets me make shapes of the dough, but I won’t stir the pans and get to look like a turkey-cock.”
“Ah, ha! and you have always done what you liked, my little madam?”
“Of course, sir! and so I shall,” she answered, drawing up her pretty little head, while Lady Archfield gave hers a boding shake.
“Time, and life, and wifehood teach lessons,” murmured Mrs. Woodford in consolation, and the Doctor changed the subject by asking Peregrine whether the ladies abroad were given to housewifery.
“The German dames make a great ado about theirWirthschaft, as they call it,” was the reply, “but as to the result! Pah! I know not how we should have fared had not Hans, my uncle’s black, been an excellent cook; but it was in Paris that we were exquisitely regaled, and ourmaître d’hôtelwould discourse onragoûtsandentremetstill one felt as if his were the first of the sciences.”
“So it is to a Frenchman,” growled Sir Philip. “French and Frenchifications are all the rage nowadays, but what will your father say to your science, my young spark?”
The gesture of head and shoulder that replied had certainly been caught at Paris. Mrs. Woodford rushed into the breach, asking about the Princess of Orange, whom she had often seen as a child.
“A stately and sightly dame is she, madam,” Peregrine answered, “towering high above her little mynheer, who outwardly excels her in naught save the length of nose, and has the manners of a boor.”
“The Prince of Orange is the hope of the country,” said Sir Philip severely.
Peregrine’s face wore a queer satirical look, which provoked Sir Philip into saying, “Speak up, sir! what d’ye mean? We don’t understand French grins here.”
“Nor does he, nor French courtesies either,” said Peregrine.
“So much the better!” exclaimed the baronet.
Here the little clear voice broke in, “O Mr. Oakshott, if I had but known you were coming, you might have brought me a French doll in the latest fashion.”
“I should have been most happy, madam,” returned Peregrine; “but unfortunately I am six months from Paris, and besides, his honour might object lest a French doll should contaminate the Dutch puppets.”
“But oh, sir, is it true that French dolls have real hair that will curl?”
“Don’t be foolish,” muttered Charles impatiently; and she drew up her head and made an indescribably drollmoueof disgust at him.
Supper ended, the party broke up into old and young, the two elder gentlemen sadly discussing politics over their tall glasses of wine, the matrons talking over the wedding and Lady Archfield’s stay in London at the parlour fire, and the young folk in a window, waiting for the fiddler and a few more of the young people who were to join them in the dance.
The Archfield ladies had kissed the hand of the Queen, and agreed with Peregrine in admiration of her beauty and grace, though they did not go so far as he did, especially when he declared that her eyes were as soft as Mistress Anne’s, and nearly of the same exquisite brown, which made the damsel blush and experience a revival of the old feeling of her childhood, as if he put her under a spell.
He went on to say that he had had the good fortune to pick up and restore to Queen Mary Beatrice a gold and coral rosary which she had dropped on her way to St. James’s Palace from Whitehall. She thanked him graciously, letting him kiss her hand, and asking him if he were of the true Church. “Imagine my father’s feelings,” he added, “when she said, ‘Ah! but you will be ere long; I give it you as a pledge.’”
He produced the rosary, handing it first to Anne, who admired the beautiful filigree work, but it was almost snatched from her by Mrs. Archfield, who wound it twice on her tiny wrist, tried to get it over her head, and did everything but ask for it, till her husband, turning round, said roughly, “Give it back, madam. We want no Popish toys here.”
Lucy put in a hasty question whether Master Oakshott had seen much sport, and this led to a spirited description of the homely earnest of wild boar hunting under the great Elector of Brandenburg, in contrast with the splendours ofla chasse aux sangliersat Fontainebleau with the green and gold uniforms, the fanfares on the curled horns, the ladies in their coaches, forced to attend whether ill or well, the very boars themselves too well bred not to conform to the sport of the great idol of France. And again, he showed the diamond sleeve buttons, the trophies of a sort of bazaar held at Marly, where the stalls were kept by the Dauphin, Monsieur, the Duke of Maine, Madame de Maintenon, and the rest, where the purchases were winnings at Ombre, made not with coin but with nominal sums, and other games at cards, and all was given away that was not purchased. And again the levees, when the King’s wig was handed through the curtains on a stick. Peregrine’s profane mimicry of the stately march of Louis Quatorze, and the cringing obeisances of his courtiers, together with their strutting majesty towards their own inferiors, convulsed all with merriment; and the bride shrieked out, “Do it again! Oh, I shall die of laughing!”
It was very girlish, with a silvery ring, but the elder ladies looked round, and the bridegroom muttered ‘Mountebank.’
The fiddler arrived at that moment, and the young people paired off, the young couple naturally together, and Peregrine, to the surprise and perhaps discomfiture of more than one visitor, securing Anne’s hand. The young lady pupils of Madame knew their steps, and Lucy danced correctly, Anne with an easy, stately grace, Charles Archfield performed hisdevoirseriously, his little wife frisked with childish glee, evidently quite untaught, but Peregrine’s light narrow feet sprang, pointed themselves, and bounded with trained agility, set off by the tight blackness of his suit. He was like one of the grotesque figures shaped in black paper, or as Sir Philip, looking in from the dining-parlour, observed, “like a light-heeled French fop.”
As a rule partners retained one another all the evening, but little Mrs. Archfield knew no etiquette, and maybe her husband had pushed and pulled her into place a little more authoritatively than she quite approved, for she shook him off, and turning round to Peregrine exclaimed—
“Now, I will dance with you! You do leap and hop so high and trippingly! Never mind her; she is only a parson’s niece!”
“Madam!” exclaimed Charles, in a tone of surprised displeasure; but she only nodded archly at him, and said, “I must dance with him; he can jump so high.”
“Let her have her way,” whispered Lucy, “she is but a child, and it will be better not to make a pother.”
He yielded, though with visible annoyance, asking Anne if she would put up with a poor deserted swain, and as he led her off muttering, “That fellow’s friskiness is like to be taken out of him at Oakwood.”
Meanwhile the small creature had taken possession of her chosen partner, who, so far as size went, was far better suited to her than any of the other men present. They were dancing something original and unpremeditated, with twirls and springs, sweeps and bends, bounds and footings, just as the little lady’s fancy prompted, perhaps guided in some degree by her partner’s experience of national dances. White and black, they figured about, she with floating sheeny hair and glistening robes, he trim and tight and jetty, like fairy and imp! It was so droll and pretty that talkers and dancers alike paused to watch them in a strange fascination, till at last, quite breathless and pink as a moss rosebud, Alice dropped upon a chair near her husband. He stood grim, stiff, and vexed, all the more because Peregrine had taken her fan and was using it so as to make it wave like butterfly’s wings, while poor Charles looked, as the Doctor whispered to his father, far more inclined to lay it about her ears.
Sir Philip laughed heartily, for both he and the Doctor had been so much entranced and amused as to be far more diverted at the lad’s discomfiture than scandalised at the bride’s escapade, which they viewed as child’s play.
Perhaps, however, he was somewhat comforted by her later observation, “He is as ugly as Old Nick, and looks like always laughing at you; but I wish you could dance like him, Mr. Archfield, only then you wouldn’t be my dear old great big husband, or so beautiful to look at. Oh, yes, to be sure, he is nothing but a skipjack such as one makes out of a chicken bone!”
And Anne meanwhile was exclaiming to her mother, “Oh, madam! how could they do such a thing? How could they make poor Charley marry that foolish ill-mannered little creature?”
“Hush, daughter, you must drop that childish name,” said Mrs. Woodford gravely.
Anne blushed. “I forgot, madam, but I am so sorry for him.”
“There is no reason for uneasiness, my dear. She is a mere child, and under such hands as Lady Archfield she is sure to improve. It is far better that she should be so young, as it will be the more easy to mould her.”
“I hope there is any stuff in her to be moulded,” sighed the maiden.
“My dear child,” returned her mother, “I cannot permit you to talk in this manner. Yes, I know Mr. Archfield has been as a brother to you, but even his sister ought not to allow herself to discuss or dwell on what she deems the shortcomings of his wife.”
The mother in her prudence had silenced the girl; but none the less did each fall asleep with a sad and foreboding heart. She knew her child to be good and well principled, but those early days of notice and petting from the young Princesses of the House of York had never faded from the childish mind, and although Anne was dutiful, cheerful, and outwardly contented, the mother often suspected that over the spinning-wheel or embroidery frame she indulged in day dreams of heroism, promotion, and grandeur, which might either fade away in a happy life of domestic duty or become temptations.
Before going away next morning Peregrine entreated that Mistress Anne might have the Queen’s rosary, but her mother decidedly refused. “It ought to be an heirloom in your family,” said she.
He threw up his hands with one of his strange gestures.
“For Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do.”ISAAC WATTS.
“For Satan finds some mischief stillFor idle hands to do.”
ISAAC WATTS.
Peregrine went off in good spirits, promising a visit on his return to London, of which he seemed to have no doubt; but no more was heard of him for ten days. At the end of that time the Portsmouth carrier conveyed the following note to Winchester:—
HONOURED AND REVEREND SIR—Seven years since your arguments and intercession induced my father to consent to what I hoped had been the rescue of me, body and soul. I know not whether to ask of your goodness to make the same endeavour again. My father declares that nothing shall induce him again to let me go abroad with my uncle, and persists in declaring that the compact has been broken by our visits to Papist lands, nor will aught that I can say persuade him that the Muscovite abhors the Pope quite as much as he can. He likewise deems that having unfortunately become his heir, I must needs remain at home to thin the timber and watch the ploughmen; and when I have besought him to let me yield my place to Robert he replies that I am playing the part of Esau. I have written to my uncle, who has been a true father to me, and would be loth to part from me for his own sake as well as mine but I know not whether he will be able to prevail; and I entreat of you, reverend sir, to add your persuasions, for I well know that it would be my perdition to remain bound where I am.Commend me to Mrs. Woodford and Mistress Anne. I trust that the former is in better health.—I remain, reverend sir, Your humble servant to command, PEREGRINE OAKSHOTT.Given at Oakwood House,This 10th of October 1687.
HONOURED AND REVEREND SIR—Seven years since your arguments and intercession induced my father to consent to what I hoped had been the rescue of me, body and soul. I know not whether to ask of your goodness to make the same endeavour again. My father declares that nothing shall induce him again to let me go abroad with my uncle, and persists in declaring that the compact has been broken by our visits to Papist lands, nor will aught that I can say persuade him that the Muscovite abhors the Pope quite as much as he can. He likewise deems that having unfortunately become his heir, I must needs remain at home to thin the timber and watch the ploughmen; and when I have besought him to let me yield my place to Robert he replies that I am playing the part of Esau. I have written to my uncle, who has been a true father to me, and would be loth to part from me for his own sake as well as mine but I know not whether he will be able to prevail; and I entreat of you, reverend sir, to add your persuasions, for I well know that it would be my perdition to remain bound where I am.
Commend me to Mrs. Woodford and Mistress Anne. I trust that the former is in better health.—I remain, reverend sir, Your humble servant to command, PEREGRINE OAKSHOTT.
Given at Oakwood House,This 10th of October 1687.
This was very bad news, but Dr. Woodford knew not how to interfere; moreover, being in course at the Cathedral, he could not absent himself long enough for an expedition to Oakwood, through wintry roads in short days. He could only write an encouraging letter to the poor lad, and likewise one to Mr. Horncastle, who under the Indulgence had a chapel of his own. The Doctor had kept up the acquaintance formed by Peregrine’s accident, and had come to regard him with much esteem, and as likely to exercise a wholesome influence upon his patron. Nothing more was heard for a week, and then came another visitor to the Doctor’s door, Sir Peregrine himself, on his way down, at considerable inconvenience, to endeavour to prevail with his brother to allow him to retain his nephew in his suite.
“Surely,” he said, “my brother had enough of camps in his youth to understand that his son will be none the worse squire for having gone a little beyond Hampshire bogs, and learnt what the world is made of.”
“I cannot tell,” said Dr. Woodford; “I have my fears that he thinks the less known of the world the better.”
“That might answer with a heavy clod of a lad such as the poor youth who is gone, and such as, for his own sake and my brother’s, I trust the younger one is,fruges consumere natus; but as for this boy, dulness and vacancy are precisely what would be the ruin of him. Let my brother keep Master Robert at home, and give him Oakwood; I will provide for Perry as I always promised to do.”
“If he is wise he will accept the offer,” said Dr. Woodford; “but ’tis hard to be wise for others.”
“Nothing harder, sir. I would that I had gone home with Perry, but mine audience of his Majesty was fixed for the ensuing week, and my brother’s summons was peremptory.”
“I trust your honour will prevail,” said Mrs. Woodford gently. “You have effected a mighty change in the poor boy, and I can well believe that he is as a son to you.”
“Well, madam, yes—as sons go,” said the knight in a somewhat disappointing tone.
She looked at him anxiously, and ventured to murmur a hope so very like an inquiry, and so full of solicitous hope, that it actually unlocked the envoy’s reserve, and he said, “Ah, madam, you have been the best mother that the poor youth has ever had! I will speak freely to you, for should I fail in overcoming my brother’s prejudices, you will be able to do more for him than any one else, and I know you will be absolutely secret.”
Mrs. Woodford sighed, with forebodings of not long being able to aid any one in this world, but still she listened with earnest interest and sympathy.
“Yes, madam, you implanted in him that which yet may conquer his strange nature. Your name is as it were a charm to conjure up his better spirit.”
“Of course,” she said, “I never durst hope, that he could be tamed and under control all at once, but—” and she paused.
“He has improved—vastly improved,” said the uncle. “Indeed, when first I took him with me, while he was still weak, and moreover much overcome by sea-sickness, while all was strange to him, and he was relieved by not finding himself treated as an outcast, I verily thought him meeker than other urchins, and that the outcry against him was unmerited. But no sooner had we got to Berlin, and while I was as yet too busy to provide either masters or occupations for my young gentleman, than he did indeed make me feel that I had charge of a young imp, and that if I did not watch the better, it might be a case of war with his Spanish Majesty. For would you believe it, his envoy’s gardens joined ours, and what must my young master do, but sit atop of our wall, making grimaces at the dons and donnas as they paced the walks, and pelting them from time to time with walnuts. Well, I was mindful of your counsel, and did not flog him, nor let my chaplain do so, though I know the good man’s fingers itched to be at him; but I reasoned with him on the harm he was doing me, and would you believe it, the poor lad burst into tears, and implored me to give him something to do, to save him from his own spirit. I set him to write out and translate a long roll of Latin despatches sent up by that pedant Court in Hungary, and I declare to you I had no more trouble with him till next he was left idle. I gave him tutors, and he studied with fervour, and made progress at which they were amazed. He learnt the High Dutch faster than any other of my people, and could soon jabber away in it with the best of the Elector’s folk, and I began to think I had a nephew who would do me no small credit. I sent him to perfect his studies at Leyden, but shall I confess it to you? it was to find that no master nor discipline could keep him out of the riotings and quarrels of the worse sort of students. Nay, I found him laid by with a rapier thrust in the side from a duel, for no better cause than biting his thumb at a Scots law student in chapel, his apology being that to sit through a Dutch sermon drove him crazy. ’Tis not that he is not trustworthy. Find employment for the restless demon that is in him, and all is well with him; moreover, he is full of wit and humour, and beguiles a long journey or tedious evening at an inn better than any comrade I ever knew, extracting mirth from all around, even the very discomforts, and searching to the quick all that is to be seen. But if left to himself, the restless demon that preys on him is sure to set him to something incalculable. At Turin it set him to scraping acquaintance with a Capuchin friar, a dirty rogue whom I would have kept on the opposite side of the street. That was his graver mood; but what more must he do, but borrow or steal, I know not how, the ghastly robes of the Confraternity of Death—the white garb and peaked cap with two holes for the eyes, wherewith men of all degrees disguise themselves while doing the pious work of bearing the dead to the grave. None suspected him, for the disguise is complete, and a duke may walk unknown beside a water-carrier, bearing the corpse of a cobbler. All would have been well, but that at the very brink of the grave the boy’s fiend—’tis his own word—impelled him to break forth into his wild “Ho! ho! ho!” with an eldritch shriek, and slipping out of his cerements, dash off headlong over the wall of the cemetery. He was not followed. I believe the poor body belonged to a fellow whose salvation was more than doubtful in spite of all the priests could do, and that the bearers really took him for the foul fiend. It was not till a week or two after that the ring of his voice and laugh caused him to be recognised by one of the Duke of Savoy’s gentlemen, happily a prudent man, loth to cause a tumult against one of my suite, and he told me all privately in warning. Ay, and when I spoke to Peregrine, I found him thoroughly penitent at having insulted the dead; he had been unhappy ever since, and had actually bestowed his last pocket-piece on the widow. He made handsome apologies in good Italian, which he had picked up as fast as the German, to the gentleman, who promised that it should go no farther, and kept his word. It was the solemnity, Peregrine assured me, that brought back all the intolerableness of the preachings at home, and awoke the same demon.”
“How long ago was this, sir?”
“About eighteen months.”
“And has all been well since?”
“Fairly well. He has had fuller and more responsible work to do for me, his turn for languages making him a most valuable secretary; and in the French Court, really the most perilous of all to a young man’s virtue, he behaved himself well. It is not debauchery that he has a taste for, but he must be doing something, and if wholesome occupations do not stay his appetite, he will be doing mischief. He brought on himself a very serious rebuke from the Prince of Orange, churlishly and roughly given, I allow, but fully merited, for making grimaces at his acquaintance among the young officers at a military inspection. Heaven help the lad if he be left with his father, whose most lively notion of innocent sport is scratching the heads of his hogs!”
Nothing could be said in answer save earnest wishes that the knight might persuade his brother. Mrs. Woodford wished her brother-in-law to go with him to add force to his remonstrance; but on the whole it was thought better to leave the family to themselves, Dr. Woodford only writing to Major Oakshott, as well as to the youth himself.
The result was anxiously watched for, and in another week, earlier in the day than Mrs. Woodford was able to leave her room, Sir Peregrine’s horses stopped at the door, and as Anne ascertained by a peep from the window, he was only accompanied by his servants.
“Yes,” he said to the Doctor in his vexation, “one would really think that by force of eating Southdown mutton my poor brother had acquired the brains of one of his own rams! I declare ’tis a piteous sight to see a man resolute on ruining his son and breaking his own heart all for conscience sake!”
“Say you so, sir! I had hoped that the sight of what you have made of your nephew might have had some effect.”
“All the effect it has produced is to make him more determined to take him from me. The Hampshire mind abhors foreign breeding, and the old Cromwellian spirit thinks good manners sprung from the world, and wit from the Evil One!”
“I can quite believe that Peregrine’s courtly airs are not welcomed here; I could see what our good neighbour, Sir Philip Archfield, thought of them; but whereas no power on earth could make the young gentleman a steady-going clownish youth after his father’s heart, methought he might prefer his present polish to impishness.”
“So I told him, but I might as well have talked to the horse block. It is his duty, quotha, to breed his heir up in godly simplicity!”
“Simplicity is all very well to begin with, but once flown, it cannot be restored.”
“And that is what my brother cannot see. Well, my poor boy must be left to his fate. There is no help for it, and all I can hope is that you, sir, and the ladies, will stand his friend, and do what may lie in your power to make him patient and render his life less intolerable.”
“Indeed, sir, we will do what we can; I wish that I could hope that it would be of much service.”
“My brother has more respect for your advice than perhaps you suppose; and to you, madam, the poor lad looks with earnest gratitude. Nay, even his mother reaps the benefit of the respect with which you have inspired him. Peregrine treats her with a gentleness and attention such as she never knew before from her bear cubs. Poor soul! I think she likes it, though it somewhat perplexes her, and she thinks it all French manners. There is one more favour, your reverence, which I scarce dare lay before you. You have seen my black boy Hans?”
“He was with you at Oakwood seven years ago.”
“Even so. I bought the poor fellow when a mere child from a Dutch skipper who had used him scurvily, and he has grown up as faithful as a very spaniel, and mightily useful too, not only as body servant, but he can cook as well as any Frenchmaître d’hôtel, froth chocolate, and make the best coffee I ever tasted; is as honest as the day, and, I believe, would lay down his life for Peregrine or me. I shall be cruelly at a loss without him, but a physician I met in London tells me it would be no better than murder to take the poor rogue to so cold a country as Muscovy. I would leave him to wait on Perry, but they will not hear of it at Oakwood. My sister-in-law wellnigh had a fit every time she looked at him when I was there before, and I found, moreover, that even when I was at hand, the servants jeered at the poor blackamoor, gave him his meals apart, and only the refuse of their own, so that he would fare but ill if I left him to their mercy. I had thought of offering him to Mr. Evelyn of Says Court, who would no doubt use him well, but it was Peregrine who suggested that if you of your goodness would receive the poor fellow, they could sometimes meet, and that would cheer his heart, and he really is far from a useless knave, but is worth two of any serving-men I ever saw.”
To take an additional man-servant was by no means such a great proposal as it would be in most houses at present. Men swarmed in much larger proportion than maids in all families of condition, and the Doctor was wealthy enough for one—more or less—to make little difference, but the question was asked as to what wages Hans should receive.
The knight laughed. “Wages, poor lad, what should he do with them? He is but a slave, I tell you. Meat, clothes, and fire, that is all he needs, and I will so deal with him that he will serve you in all faithfulness and obedience. He can speak English enough to know what you bid him do, but not enough for chatter with the servants.”
So the agreement was made, and poor Hans was to be sent down by the Portsmouth coach together with Peregrine’s luggage.
“The head remains unchanged within,Nor altered much the face,It still retains its native grin,And all its old grimace.“Men with contempt the brute surveyed,Nor would a name bestow,But women liked the motley beast,And called the thing a beau.”The Monkies, MERRICK.
“The head remains unchanged within,Nor altered much the face,It still retains its native grin,And all its old grimace.
“Men with contempt the brute surveyed,Nor would a name bestow,But women liked the motley beast,And called the thing a beau.”
The Monkies, MERRICK.
The Woodford family did not long remain at Winchester. Anne declared the cold to be harming her mother, and became very anxious to bring her to the milder sea breezes of Portchester, and though Mrs. Woodford had little expectation that any place would make much difference to her, she was willing to return to the quiet and repose of her home under the castle walls beside the tranquil sea.
Thus they travelled back, as soon as the Doctor’s Residence was ended, plodding through the heavy chalk roads as well as the big horses could drag the cumbrous coach up and down the hills, only halting for much needed rest at Sir Philip Archfield’s red house, round three sides of a quadrangle, the fourth with a low wall backed by a row of poplar trees, looking out on the alternate mud and sluggish waters of Fareham creek, but with a beautiful garden behind the house.
The welcome was hearty. Lady Archfield at once conducted Mrs. Woodford to her own bedroom, where she was to rest and be served apart, and Anne disrobed her of her wraps, covered her upon the bed, and at her hostess’s desire was explaining what refreshment would best suit her, when there was a shrill voice at the door: “I want Mistress Anne! I want to show her my clothes and jewels.”
“Coming, child, she is coming when she has attended to her mother,” responded the lady. “White wine, or red, did you say, Anne, and a little ginger?”
“Is she never coming?” was again the call; and Lady Archfield muttering, “Was there ever such an impatient poppet?” released Anne, who was instantly pounced upon by young Mrs. Archfield. Linking her arm into that of her visitor, and thrusting Lucy into the background, the little heiress proceeded to her own wainscotted bedroom, bare according to modern views, but very luxurious according to those of the seventeenth century, and with the toilette apparatus, scanty indeed, but of solid silver, and with a lavish amount of perfumery. Her ‘own woman’ was in waiting to display and refold the whole wedding wardrobe, brocade, satin, taffetas, cambric, Valenciennes, and point d’Alençon. Anne had to admire each in detail, and then to give full meed to the whole casket of jewels, numerous and dazzling as befitted a constellation of heirlooms upon one small head. They were beautiful, but it was wearisome to repeat ‘Vastly pretty!’ ‘How exquisite!’ ‘That becomes you very well,’ almost mechanically, when Lucy was standing about all the time, longing to exchange the girlish confidences that were burning to come forth. ‘Young Madam,’ as every one called her in those times when Christian names were at a discount, seemed to be jealous of attention to any one else, and the instant she saw the guest attempt to converse with her sister-in-law peremptorily interrupted, almost as if affronted.
Perhaps if Anne had enjoyed freedom of speech with Lucy she would not have learnt as much as did her mother, for the young are often more scrupulous as to confidences than their seniors, who view them as still children, and freely discuss their affairs among themselves.
So Lady Archfield poured out her troubles: how her daughter-in-law refused employment, and disdained instruction in needlework, housewifery, or any domestic art, how she jangled the spinnet, but would not learn music, and was unoccupied, fretful, and exacting, a burthen to herself and every one else, and treating Lucy as the slave of her whims and humours. As to such discipline as mothers-in-law were wont to exercise upon young wives, the least restraint or contradiction provoked such a tempest of passion as to shake the tiny, delicate frame to a degree that alarmed the good old matron for the consequences. Her health was a continual difficulty, for her constitution was very frail, every imprudence cost her suffering, and yet any check to her impulses as to food, exertion, or encountering weather was met by a spoilt child’s resentment. Moreover, her young husband, and even his father, always thought the ladies were hard upon her, and would not have her vexed; and as their presence always brightened and restrained her, they never understood the full amount of her petulance and waywardness, and when they found her out of spirits, or out of temper, they charged all on her ailments or on want of consideration from her mother and sister-in-law.
Poor Lady Archfield, it was trying for her that her husband should be nearly as blind as his son. The young husband was wonderfully tender, indulgent, and patient with the little creature, but it would not be easy to say whether the affection were not a good deal like that for his dog or his horse, as something absolutely his own, with which no one else had a right to interfere. It was a relief to the family that she always wanted to be out of doors with him whenever the weather permitted, nay, often when it was far from suitable to so fragile a being; but if she came home aching and crying ever so much with chill or fatigue, even if she had to keep her bed afterwards, she was equally determined to rush out as soon as she was up again, and as angry as ever at remonstrance.
Charles was gone to try a horse; and as the remains of the effects of her last imprudence had prevented her accompanying him, the arrival of the guests had been a welcome diversion to the monotony of the morning.
He was, however, at home again by the time the dinner-bell summoned the younger ladies from the inspection of the trinkets and the gentlemen from the live stock, all to sit round the heavy oaken table draped with the whitest of napery, spun by Lady Archfield in her maiden days, and loaded with substantial joints, succeeded by delicacies manufactured by herself and Lucy.
As to the horse, Charles was fairly satisfied, but ‘that fellow, young Oakshott, had been after him, and had the refusal.’
“Don’t you be outbid, Mr. Archfield,” exclaimed the wife. “What is the matter of a few guineas to us?”
“Little fear,” replied Charles. “The old Major is scarcely like to pay down twenty gold caroluses, but if he should, the bay is his.”
“Oh, but why not offer thirty?” she cried.
Charles laughed. “That would be a scurvy trick, sweetheart, and if Peregrine be a crooked stick, we need not be crooked too.”
“I was about to ask,” said the Doctor, “whether you had heard aught of that same young gentleman.”
“I have seen him where I never desire to see him again,” said Sir Philip, “riding as though he would be the death of the poor hounds.”
“Nick Huntsman swears that he bewitches them,” said Charles, “for they always lose the scent when he is in the field, but I believe ’tis the wry looks of him that throw them all out.”
“And I say,” cried the inconsistent bride, “that ’tis all jealousy that puts the gentlemen beside themselves, because none of them can dance, nor make a bow, nor hand a cup of chocolate, nor open a gate on horseback like him.”
“What does a man on horseback want with opening gates?” exclaimed Charles.
“That’s your manners, sir,” said young Madam with a laugh. “What’s the poor lady to do while her cavalier flies over and leaves her in the lurch?”
Her husband did not like the general laugh, and muttered, “You know what I mean well enough.”
“Yes, so do I! To fumble at the fastening till your poor beast can bear it no longer and swerves aside, and I sit waiting a good half hour before you bring down your pride enough to alight and open it.”
“All because youwouldsend Will home for your mask.”
“You would like to have had my poor little face one blister with the glare of sun and sea.”
“Blisters don’t come at this time of the year.”
“No, nor to those who have no complexion to lose,” she cried, with a triumphant look at the two maidens, who certainly had not the lilies nor the roses that she believed herself to have, though, in truth, her imprudences had left her paler and less pretty than at Winchester.
If this were the style of the matrimonial conversations, Anne again grieved for her old playfellow, and she perceived that Lucy looked uncomfortable; but there was no getting a moment’s private conversation with her before the coach was brought round again for the completion of the journey. All that neighbourhood had a very bad reputation as the haunt of lawless characters, prone to violence; and though among mere smugglers there was little danger of an attack on persons well known like the Woodford family, they were often joined by far more desperate men from the seaport, so that it was never desirable to be out of doors after dark.
The journey proved to have been too much for Mrs. Woodford’s strength, and for some days she was so ill that Anne never left the house; but she rallied again, and on coming downstairs became very anxious that her daughter should not be more confined by attendance than was wholesome, and insisted on every opportunity of change or amusement being taken.
One day as Anne was in the garden she was surprised by Peregrine dashing up on horseback.
“You would not take the Queen’s rosary before,” he said. “You must now, to save it. My father has smelt it out. He says it is teraphim! Micah—Rachel, what not, are quoted against it. He would have smashed it into fragments, but that Martha Browning said it would be a pretty bracelet. I’d sooner see it smashed than on her red fist. To think of her giving in to such vanities! But he said she might have it, only to be new strung. When he was gone she said, ‘I don’t really want the thing, but it was hard you should lose the Queen’s keepsake. Can you bestow it safely?’ I said I could, and brought it hither. Keep it, Anne, I pray.”
Anne hesitated, and referred it to her mother upstairs.
“Tell him,” she said, “that we will keep it in trust for him as a royal gift.”
Peregrine was disappointed, but had to be content.
A Dutch vessel from the East Indies had brought home sundry strange animals, which were exhibited at the Jolly Mariner at Portsmouth, and thus announced on a bill printed on execrable paper, brought out to Portchester by some of the market people:—
“An Ellefante twice the Bignesse of an Ocks, the Trunke or Probosces whereof can pick up a Needle or roote up an Ellum Tree. Also the Royale Tyger, the same as has slaine and devoured seven yonge Gentoo babes, three men, and two women at the township at Chuttergong, nie to Bombay, in the Eastern Indies. Also the sacred Ape, worshipped by the heathen of the Indies, the Dancing Serpent which weareth Spectacles, and whose Bite is instantly mortal, with other rare Fish, Fowle, Idols and the like. All to be seene at the Charge of one Groat per head.”
Mrs. Woodford declared herself to be extremely desirous that her daughter should see and bring home an account of all these marvels, and though Anne had no great inclination to face the tiger with the formidable appetite, she could not refuse to accompany her uncle.
The Jolly Mariner stood in one of the foulest and narrowest of the streets of the unsavoury seaport, and Dr. Woodford sighed, and fumed, and wished for a good pipe of tobacco more than once as he hesitated to try to force a way for his niece through the throng round the entrance to the stable-yard of the Jolly Mariner, apparently too rough to pay respect to gown and cassock. Anne clung to his arm, ready to give up the struggle, but a voice said, “Allow me, sir. Mistress Anne, deign to take my arm.”
It was Peregrine Oakshott with his brother Robert, and she could hardly tell how in a few seconds she had been squeezed through the crowd, and stood in the inn-yard, in a comparatively free space, for a groat was a prohibitory charge to the vulgar.
“Peregrine! Master Oakshott!” They heard an exclamation of pleasure, at which Peregrine shrugged his shoulders and looked expressively at Anne, before turning to receive the salutations of an elderly gentleman and a tall young woman, very plainly but handsomely clad in mourning deeper than his own. She was of a tall, gaunt, angular figure, and a face that never could have been handsome, and now bore evident traces of smallpox in redness and pits.
Dr. Woodford knew the guardian Mr. Browning, and his ward Mistress Martha and Mistress Anne Jacobina were presented to one another. The former gave a good-humoured smile, as if perfectly unconscious of her own want of beauty, and declared she had hoped to meet all the rest here, especially Mistress Anne Woodford, of whom she had heard so much. There was just a little patronage about the tone which repelled the proud spirit that was in Anne, and in spite of the ordinary dread and repulsion she felt for Peregrine, she was naughty enough to have the feeling of a successful beauty when Peregrine most manifestly turned away from the heiress in her silk and velvet to do the honours of the exhibition to the parson’s niece.
The elephant was fastened by the leg to a post, which perhaps he could have pulled up, had he thought it worth his while, but he was well contented to wave his trunk about and extend its clever finger to receive contributions of cakes and apples, and he was too well amused to resort to any strong measures. The tiger, to Anne’s relief, proved to be only a stuffed specimen. Peregrine, who had seen a good many foreign animals in Holland, where the Dutch captains were in the habit of bringing curiosities home for the delectation of their families in theirLusthausen, was a very amusing companion, having much to tell about bird and beast, while Robert stood staring with open mouth. The long-legged secretary and the beautiful doves were, however, only stuffed, but Anne was much entertained at second hand with the relation of the numerous objects, which on the word of a Leyden merchant had been known to disappear in the former bird’s capacious crop, and with stories of the graceful dancing of the cobra, though she was not sorry that the present specimen was only visible in a bottle of arrack, where his spectacled hood was scarcely apparent. Presently a well known shrill young voice was heard. “Yes, yes, I know I shall swoon at that terrible tiger! Oh, don’t! I can’t come any farther.”
“Why, you would come, madam,” said Charles.
“Yes, yes! but—oh, there’s a two-tailed monster! I know it is the tiger! It is moving! I shall die if you take me any farther.”
“Plague upon your folly, madam! It is only the elephant,” said a gruffer, rude voice.
“Oh, it is dreadful! ’Tis like a mountain! I can’t! Oh no, I can’t!”
“Come, madam, you have brought us thus far, you must come on, and not make fools of us all,” said Charles’s voice. “There’s nothing to hurt you.”
Anne, understanding the distress and perplexity, here turned back to the passage into the court, and began persuasively to explain to little Mrs. Archfield that the tiger was dead, and only a skin, and that the elephant was the mildest of beasts, till she coaxed forward that small personage, who had of course never really intended to turn back, supported and guarded as she was by her husband, and likewise by a tall, glittering figure in big boots and a handsome scarlet uniform and white feather who claimed her attention as he strode into the court. “Ha! Mistress Anne and the Doctor on my life. What, don’t you know me?”
“Master Sedley Archfield!” said the Doctor; “welcome home, sir! ’Tis a meeting of old acquaintance. You and this gentleman are both so much altered that it is no wonder if you do not recognise one another at once.”
“No fear of Mr. Perry Oakshott not being recognised,” said Sedley Archfield, holding out his hand, but with a certain sneer in his rough voice that brought Peregrine’s eyebrows together. “Kenspeckle enough, as the fools of Whigs say in Scotland.”
“Are you long from Scotland, sir?” asked Dr. Woodford, by way of preventing personalities.
“Oh ay, sir; these six months and more. There’s not much more sport to be had since the fools of Cameronians have been pretty well got under, and ’tis no loss to be at Hounslow.”
“And oh, what a fright!” exclaimed Mrs. Archfield, catching sight of the heiress. “Keep her away! She makes me ill.”
They were glad to divert her attention to feeding the elephant, and she was coquetting a little about making up her mind to approach even the defunct tiger, while she insisted on having the number of his victims counted over to her. Anne asked for Lucy, to whom she wanted to show the pigeons, but was answered that, “my lady wanted Lucy at home over some matter of jellies and blancmanges.”
Charles shrugged his shoulders a little and Sedley grumbled to Anne. “The little vixen sets her heart on cates that she won’t lay a finger to make, and poor Lucy is like to be no better than a cook-maid, while they won’t cross her, for fear of her tantrums.”
At that instant piercing screams, shriek upon shriek, rang through the court, and turning hastily round, Anne beheld a little monkey perched on Mrs. Archfield’s head, having apparently leapt thither from the pole to which it was chained.
The keeper was not in sight, being in fact employed over a sale of some commodities within. There was a general springing to the rescue. Charles tried to take the creature off, Sedley tugged at the chain fastened to a belt round its body, but the monkey held tight by the curls on the lady’s forehead with its hands, and crossed its legs round her neck, clasping the hands so that the effect of the attempts of her husband and his cousin was only to throttle her, so that she could no longer scream and was almost in a fit, when on Peregrine holding out a nut and speaking coaxingly in Dutch, the monkey unloosed its hold, and with another bound was on his arm. He stood caressing and feeding it, talking to it in the same tongue, while it made little squeaks and chatterings, evidently delighted, though its mournful old man’s visage still had the same piteous expression. There was something most grotesque and almost weird in the sight of Peregrine’s queer figure toying with its odd hands which seemed to be in black gloves, and the strange language he talked to it added to the uncanny effect. Even the Doctor felt it as he stood watching, and would have muttered ‘Birds of a feather,’ but that the words were spoken more gruffly and plainly by Sedley Archfield, who said something about the Devil and his dam, which the good Doctor did not choose to hear, and only said to Peregrine, “You know how to deal with the jackanapes.”
“I have seen some at Leyden, sir. This is a pretty little beast.”
Pretty! There was a recoil in horror, for the creature looked to the crowd demoniacal. Something the same was the sensation of Charles, who, assisted by Anne and Martha, had been rather carrying than leading his wife into the inn parlour, where she immediately had a fit of hysterics—vapours, as they called it—bringing all the women of the inn about her, while Martha and Anne soothed her as best they could, and he was reduced to helplessly leaning out at the bay window.
When the sobs and cries subsided, under cold water and essences without and strong waters within, and the little lady in Martha’s strong arms, between the matronly coaxing of the fat hostess and the kind soothings of the two young ladies, had been restored to something of equanimity, Mistress Martha laid her down and said with the utmost good humour and placidity to the young husband, “Now I’ll go, sir. She is better now, but the sight of my face might set her off again.”
“Oh, do not say so, madam. We are infinitely obliged. Let her thank you.”
But Martha shook her hand and laughed, turning to leave the room, so that he was fain to give her his arm and escort her back to her guardian.
Then ensued a scream. “Where’s he going? Mr. Archfield, don’t leave me.”
“He is only taking Mistress Browning back to her guardian,” said Anne.
“Eh? oh, how can he? A hideous fright!” she cried.
To say the truth, she was rather pleased to have had such a dreadful adventure, and to have made such a commotion, though she protested that she must go home directly, and could never bear the sight of those dreadful monsters again, or she should die on the spot.
“But,” said she, when the coach was at the door, and Anne had restored her dress to its dainty gaiety, “I must thank Master Peregrine for taking off that horrible jackanapes.”
“Small thanks to him,” said Charles crossly. “I wager it was all his doing out of mere spite.”
“He is too good a beau ever to spiteme,” said Mrs. Alice, her head a little on one side.
“Then to show off what he could do with the beast—Satan’s imp, like himself.”
“No, no, Mr. Archfield,” pleaded Anne, “that was impossible; I saw him myself. He was with that sailor-looking man measuring the height of the secretary bird.”
“I believe you are always looking after him,” grumbled Charles. “I can’t guess what all the women see in him to be always gazing after him.”
“Because he is so charmingly ugly,” laughed the young wife, tripping out in utter forgetfulness that she was to die if she went near the beasts again. She met Peregrine half way across the yard with outstretched hands, exclaiming—
“O Mr. Oakshott! it was so good in you to take away that nasty beast.”
“I am glad, madam, to have been of use,” said Peregrine, bowing and smiling, a smile that might explain something of his fascination. “The poor brute was only drawn, as all of our kind are. He wanted to see so sweet a lady nearer. He is quite harmless. Will you stroke him? See, there he sits, gazing after you. Will you give him a cake and make friends?”
“No, no, madam, it cannot be; it is too much,” grumbled Charles; and though Alice had backed at first, perhaps for the pleasure of teasing him, or for that of being the centre of observation, actually, with all manner of pretty airs and graces, she let herself be led forward, lay a timid hand on the monkey’s head, and put a cake in its black fingers, while all the time Peregrine held it fast and talked Dutch to it; and Charles Archfield hardly contained his rage, though Anne endeavoured to argue the impossibility of Peregrine’s having incited the attack; and Sedley blustered that they ought to interfere and make the fellow know the reason why. However, Charles had sense enough to know that though he might exhale his vexation in grumbling, he had no valid cause for quarrelling with young Oakshott, so he contented himself with black looks and grudging thanks, as he was obliged to let Peregrine hand his wife into her carriage amid her nods and becks and wreathed smiles.
They would have taken Dr. Woodford and his niece home in the coach, but Anne had an errand in the town, and preferred to return by boat. She wanted some oranges and Turkey figs to allay her mother’s constant thirst, and Peregrine begged permission to accompany them, saying that he knew where to find the best and cheapest. Accordingly he took them to a tiny cellar, in an alley by the boat camber, where the Portugal oranges certainly looked riper and were cheaper than any that Anne had found before; but there seemed to be an odd sort of understanding between Peregrine and the withered old weather-beaten sailor who sold them, such as rather puzzled the Doctor.
“I hope these are not contraband,” he said to Peregrine, when the oranges had been packed in the basket of the servant who followed them.
Peregrine shrugged his shoulders.
“Living is hard, sir. Ask no questions.”
The Doctor looked tempted to turn back with the fruit, but such doubts were viewed as ultra scruples, and would hardly have been entertained even by a magistrate such as Sir Philip Archfield.
It was not a time for questions, and Peregrine remained with them till they embarked at the point, asking to be commended to Mrs. Woodford, and hoping soon to come and see both her and poor Hans, he left them.
“Hear me, ye venerable core,As counsel for poor mortals,That frequent pass douce Wisdom’s doorFor glaikit Folly’s portals;I for their thoughtless, careless sakesWould here propose defences,Their doucie tricks, their black mistakes,Their failings and mischances.”BURNS.
“Hear me, ye venerable core,As counsel for poor mortals,That frequent pass douce Wisdom’s doorFor glaikit Folly’s portals;I for their thoughtless, careless sakesWould here propose defences,Their doucie tricks, their black mistakes,Their failings and mischances.”
BURNS.
For seven years Anne Woodford had kept Lucy Archfield’s birthday with her, and there was no refusing now, though there was more and more unwillingness to leave Mrs. Woodford, whose declining state became so increasingly apparent that even the loving daughter could no longer be blind to it.
The coach was sent over to fetch Mistress Anne to Fareham, and the invalid was left, comfortably installed in her easy-chair by the parlour fire, with a little table by her side, holding a hand-bell, a divided orange, a glass of toast and water, and the Bible and Prayer-book, wherein lay her chief studies, together with a little needlework, which still amused her feeble hands. The Doctor, divided between his parish, his study, and his garden, had promised to look in from time to time.
Presently, however, the door was gently tapped, and on her call “Come in,” Hans, all one grin, admitted Peregrine Oakshott, bowing low in his foreign, courteous manner, and entreating her to excuse his intrusion, “For truly, madam, in your goodness is my only hope.”
Then he knelt on one knee and kissed the hand she held out to him, while desiring him to speak freely to her.
“Nay, madam, I fear I shall startle you, when I lay before you the only chance that can aid me to overcome the demon that is in me.”
“My poor—”
“Call me your boy, as when I was here seven years ago. Let me sit at your feet as then and listen to me.”
“Indeed I will, my dear boy,” and she laid her hand on his dark head. “Tell me all that is in your heart.”
“Ah, dear lady, that is not soon done! You and Mistress Anne, as you well know, first awoke me from my firm belief that I was none other than an elf, and yet there have since been times when I have doubted whether it were not indeed the truth.”
“Nay, Peregrine, at years of discretion you should have outgrown old wives’ tales.”
“Better be an elf at once—a soulless creature of the elements—than the sport of an evil spirit doomed to perdition,” he bitterly exclaimed.
“Hush, hush! You know not what you are saying!”
“I know it too well, madam! There are times when I long and wish after goodness—nay, when Heaven seems open to me—and I resolve and strive after a perfect life; but again comes the wild, passionate dragging, as it were, into all that at other moments I most loathe and abhor, and I become no more my own master. Ah!”
There was misery in his voice, and he clutched the long hair on each side of his face with his hands.
“St. Paul felt the same,” said Mrs. Woodford gently.
“‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ Ay, ay! how many times have I not groaned that forth! And so, if that Father at Turin were right, I am but as Paul was when he was Saul. Madam, is it not possible that I was never truly baptized?” he cried eagerly.
“Impossible, Peregrine. Was not Mr. Horncastle chaplain when you were born? Yes; and I have heard my brother say that both he and your father held the same views as the Church upon baptism.”
“So I thought; but Father Geronimo says that at the best it was but heretical baptism, and belike hastily and ineffectually performed.”
“Put that aside, Peregrine. It is only a temptation and allurement.”
“It is an allurement you know not how strong,” said the poor youth. “Could I only bring myself to believe all that Father Geronimo does, and fall down before his Madonnas and saints, then could I hope for a new nature, and scourge away the old”—he set his teeth as he spoke—“till naught remains of the elf or demon, be it what it will.”
“Ah, Peregrine, scourging will not do it, but grace will, and that grace is indeed yours, as is proved by these higher aspirations.”
“I tell you, madam, that if I live on as I am doing now, grace will be utterly stifled, if it ever abode in me at all. Every hour that I live, pent in by intolerable forms and immeasurable dulness, the maddening temper gains on me! Nay, I have had to rush out at night and swear a dozen round oaths before I could compose myself to sit down to the endless supper. Ah, I shock you, madam! but that’s not the worst I am driven to do.”
“Nor the way to bring the better spirit, my poor youth. Oh, that you would pray instead of swearing!”
“I cannot pray at Oakwood. My father and Mr. Horncastle drive away all the prayers that ever were in me, and I mean nothing, even though I keep my word to you.”
“I am glad you do that. While I know you are doing so, I shall still believe the better angel will triumph.”
“How can aught triumph but hatred and disgust where I am pinned down? Listen, madam, and hear if good spirits have any chance. We break our fast, ere the sun is up, on chunks of yesterday’s half-dressed beef and mutton. If I am seen seeking for a morsel not half raw, I am rated for dainty French tastes; and the same with the sour smallest of beer. I know now what always made me ill-tempered as a child, and I avoid it, but at the expense of sneers on my French breeding, even though my drink be fair water; for wine, look you, is a sinful expense, save for after dinner, and frothed chocolate for a man is an invention of Satan. The meal is sauced either with blame of me, messages from the farm-folk, or Bob’s exploits in the chase. Then my father goes his rounds on the farm, and would fain have me with him to stand knee-deep in mire watching the plough, or feeling each greasy and odorous old sheep in turn to see if it be ready for the knife, or gloating over the bullocks or swine, or exchanging auguries with Thomas Vokes on this or that crop. Faugh! And I am told I shall never be good for a country gentleman if I contemn such matters! I say I have no mind to be a country gentleman, whereby I am told of Esau till I am sick of his very name.”
“But surely you have not always to follow on this round?”
“Oh no! I may go out birding with Bob, who is about as lively as an old jackass, or meet the country boobies for a hunt, and be pointed at as the Frenchman, and left to ride alone; or there’s mine own chamber, when the maids do not see fit to turn me out with their pails and besoms, as they do at least twice a week—I sit there in my cloak and furs (by the way, I am chidden for an effeminate fop if ever I am seen in them). I would give myself to books, as my uncle counselled, but what think you? By ill hap Bob, coming in to ask some question, found me studying theDivina Commediaof Dante Alighieri, and hit upon one of the engravings representing the torments of purgatory. What must he do but report it, and immediately a hue and cry arises that I am being corrupted with Popish books. In vain do I tell them that their admirable John Milton, the only poet save Sternhold and Hopkins that my father deems not absolute pagan, knew, loved, and borrowed from Dante. All my books are turned over as ruthlessly as ever Don Quixote’s by the curate and the barber, and whatever Mr. Horncastle’s erudition cannot vouch for is summarily handed over to the kitchen wench to light the fires. The best of it is that they have left me my classics, as though old Terence and Lucan were lesser heathens than the great Florentine. However, I have bribed the young maid, and rescued my Dante and Boiardo with small damage, but I dare not read them save with door locked.”
Mrs. Woodford could scarcely shake her head at the disobedience, and she asked if there were really no other varieties.
“Such as fencing with that lubber Robert, and trying to bend his stiff limbs to the noble art ofl’escrime. But that is after dinner work. There is the mountain of half-raw flesh to be consumed first, and then my father, with Mr. Horncastle and Bob discuss on what they call the news—happy if a poor rogue has been caught by Tom Constable stealing faggots. ’Tis argument for a week—almost equal to the price of a fat mutton at Portsmouth. My father and the minister nod in due time over their ale-cup, and Bob and I go our ways till dark, or till the house bell rings for prayers and exposition. Well, dear good lady, I will not grieve you by telling you how often they make me wish to be again the imp devoid of every shred of self-respect, and too much inured to flogging to heed what my antics might bring on me.”
“I am glad you have that shred of self respect; I hope indeed it is some higher respect.”
“Well, I can never believe that Heaven meant to be served by mortal dullness. Seven years have only made old Horncastle blow his horn to the same note, only more drearily.”
“I can see indeed that it is a great trial to one used to the life of foreign Courts and to interest in great affairs like you, my poor Peregrine; but what can I say but to entreat you to be patient, try to find interest, and endeavour to win your father’s confidence so that he may accord you more liberty? Did I not hear that your attention made your mother’s life happier?”
Peregrine laughed. “My mother! She has never seen aught but boorishness all her life, and any departure therefrom seems to her unnatural. I believe she is as much afraid of my courtesy as ever she was of my mischief, and that in her secret heart she still believes me a changeling. No, Madam Woodford, there is but one way to save me from the frenzy that comes over me.”
“Your father has already been entreated to let you join your uncle.”
“I know it—I know it; but if it were impossible before, that discovery of Dante has made itimpossibilissimo, as the Italian would say, to deal with him now. There is a better way. Give me the good angel who has always counteracted the evil one. Give me Mistress Anne!”
“Anne, my Anne!” exclaimed Mrs. Woodford in dismay. “O Peregrine, it cannot be!”
“I knew that would be your first word,” said Peregrine, “but verily, madam, I would not ask it but that I know that I should be another man with her by my side, and that she would have nothing to fear from the evil that dies at her approach.”
“Ah, Peregrine! you think so now; but no man can be sure of himself with any mere human care. Besides, my child is not of degree to match with you. Your father would justly be angered if we took advantage of your attachment to us to encourage you in an inclination he could never approve.”
“I tell you, madam—yes, I must tell you all—my madness and my ruin will be completed if I am left to my father’s will. I know what is hanging over me. He is only waiting till I am of age—at Midsummer, and the year of mourning is over for poor Oliver—I am sure no one mourns for him more heartily than I—to bind me to Martha Browning. If she would only bring the plague, or something worse than smallpox, to put an end to it at once!”
“But that would make any such scheme all the more impossible.”
“Listen, madam; do but hear me. Even as children the very sight of Martha Browning’s solemn face”—Peregrine drew his countenance down into a portentous length—“her horror at the slightest word or sport, her stiff broomstick carriage, all impelled me to the most impish tricks. And now—letting alone that pock-marks have seamed her grim face till she is as ugly as Alecto—she is a Precisian of the Precisians. I declare our household is in her eyes sinfully free! If she can hammer out a text of Scripture, and write her name in characters as big and gawky as herself, ’tis as far as her education has carried her, save in pickling, preserving, stitchery, and clear starching, the only arts not sinful in her eyes. If I am to have a broomstick, I had rather ride off on one at once to the Witches’ Sabbath on the Wartburg than be tied to one for life.”
“I should think she would scarce accept you.”
“There’s no such hope. She has been bred up to regard one of us as her lot, and she would accept me without a murmur if I were Beelzebub himself, horns and tail and all! Why, she ogles me with her gooseberry eyes already, and treats me as a chattel of her own.”
“Hush, hush, Peregrine! I cannot have you talk thus. If your father had such designs, it would be unworthy of us to favour you in crossing them.”
“Nay, madam, he hath never expressed them as yet. Only my mother and brother both refer to his purpose, and if I could show myself contracted to a young lady of good birth and education, he cannot gainsay; it might yet save me from what I will not and cannot endure. Not that such is by any means my chief and only motive. I have loved Mistress Anne with all my heart ever since she shone upon me like a being from a better world when I lay sick here. She has the same power of hushing the wild goblin within me as you have, madam. I am another man with her, as I am with you. It is my only hope! Give me that hope, and I shall be able to endure patiently.—Ah! what have I done? Have I said too much?”
He had talked longer and more eagerly than would have been good for the invalid even if the topic had been less agitating, and the emotion caused by this unexpected complication, consternation at the difficulties she foresaw, and the present difficulty of framing a reply, were altogether too much for Mrs. Woodford. She turned deadly white, and gasped for breath, so that Peregrine, in terror, dashed off in search of the maids, exclaiming that their mistress was in a swoon.
The Doctor came out of his study much distressed, and in Anne’s absence the household was almost helpless in giving the succours in which she had always been the foremost. Peregrine lingered about in remorse and despair, offering to fetch her or to go for the doctor, and finally took the latter course, thereto impelled by the angry words of the old cook, an enemy of his in former days.
“No better? no, sir, nor ’tis not your fault if ever she be. You’ve been and frought her nigh to death with your terrifying ways.”
Peregrine was Hampshire man enough to know that to terrify only meant to tease, but he was in no mood to justify himself to old Patience, so he galloped off to Portsmouth, and only returned with the doctor to hear that Madam Woodford was in bed, and her daughter with her. She was somewhat better, but still very ill, and it was plain that this was no moment for pressing his suit even had it not been time for him to return home. Going to fetch the doctor might be accepted as a valid reason for missing the evening exhortation and prayer, but there were mistrustful looks that galled him.
Anne’s return was more beneficial to Mrs. Woodford than the doctor’s visit, and the girl was still too ignorant of all that her mother’s attacks of spasms and subsequent weakness implied to be as much alarmed as to depress her hopes. Yet Mrs. Woodford, lying awake in the night, detected that her daughter was restless and unhappy, and asked what ailed her, and how the visit had gone off.
“You do not wish me to speak of such things, madam,” was the answer.
“Tell me all that is in your heart, my child.”
It all came out with the vehemence of a reserved nature when the flood is loosed. ‘Young Madam’ had been more than usually peevish and exacting, jealous perhaps at Lucy’s being the heroine of the day, and fretful over a cold which confined her to the house, how she worried and harassed all around her with her whims, megrims and complaints could only too well be imagined, and how the entire pleasure of the day was destroyed. Lucy was never allowed a minute’s conversation with her friend without being interrupted by a whine and complaints of unkindness and neglect.
Lady Archfield’s ill-usage, as the young wife was pleased to call every kind of restriction, was the favourite theme next to the daughter-in law’s own finery, her ailments, and her notions of the treatment befitting her.
And young Mr. Archfield himself, while handing his old friend out to the carriage that had fetched her, could not help confiding to her that he was nearly beside himself. His mother meant to be kind, but expected too much from one so brought up, and his wife—what could be done for her? She made herself miserable here, and every one else likewise. Yet even if his father would consent, she was utterly unfit to be mistress of a house of her own; and poor Charles could only utter imprecations on the guardians who could have had no idea how a young woman ought to be brought up. It was worse than an ill-trained hound.”
Mrs. Woodford heard what she extracted from her daughter with grief and alarm, and not only for her friends.
“Indeed, my dear child,” she said, “you must prevent such confidences. They are very dangerous things respecting married people.”
“It was all in a few moments, mamma, and I could not stop him. He is so unhappy;” and Anne’s voice revealed tears.
“The more reason why you should avoid hearing what he will soon be very sorry you have heard. Were he not a mere lad himself, it would be as inexcusable as it is imprudent thus to speak of the troubles and annoyances that often beset the first year of wedded life. I am sorry for the poor youth, who means no harm nor disloyalty, and is only treating you as his old companion and playmate; but he has no right thus to talk of his wife, above all to a young maiden too inexperienced to counsel him, and if he should attempt to do so again, promise me, my daughter, that you will silence him—if by no other means, by telling him so.”
“I promise!” said Anne, choking back her tears and lifting her head. “I am sure I never want to go to Fareham again while that Lieutenant Sedley Archfield is there. If those be army manners, they are what I cannot endure. He is altogether mean and hateful, above all when he scoffs at Master Oakshott.”
“I am afraid a great many do so, child, and that he often gives some occasion,” put in Mrs. Woodford, a little uneasy that this should be the offence.
“He is better than Sedley Archfield, be he what he will, madam,” said the girl. “He never pays those compliments, those insolent disgusting compliments, such as he—that Sedley, I mean—when he found me alone in the hall, and I had to keep him at bay from trying to kiss me, only Mr. Archfield—Charley—came down the stairs before he was aware, and called out, ‘I will thank you to behave yourself to a lady in my father’s house.’ And then he, Sedley, sneered ‘The Parson’s niece!’ with such a laugh, mother, I shall never get it out of my ears. As if I were not as well born as he!”
“That is not quite the way to take it, my child. I had rather you stood on your maidenly dignity and discretion than on your birth. I trust he will soon be away.”
“I fear he will not, mamma, for I heard say the troop are coming down to be under the Duke of Berwick at Portsmouth.”
“Then, dear daughter, it is the less mishap that you should be thus closely confined by loving attendance on me. Now, goodnight. Compose yourself to sleep, and think no more of these troubles.”
Nevertheless mother and daughter lay long awake, side by side, that night; the daughter in all the flutter of nerves induced by offended yet flattered feeling—hating the compliment, yet feeling that it was a compliment to the features that she was beginning to value. She was substantially a good, well-principled maiden, modest and discreet, with much dignified reserve, yet it was impossible that she should not have seen heads turned to look at her in Portsmouth, and know that she was admired above her contemporaries, so that even if it brought her inconvenience it was agreeable. Besides, her heart was beating with pity for the Archfields. The elder ones might have only themselves to blame, but it was very hard for poor Charles to have been blindly coupled to a being who did not know how to value him, still harder that there should be blame for a confidence where neither meant any harm—blame that made her blush on her pillow with indignant shame.
Perhaps Mrs. Woodford divined these thoughts, for she too meditated deeply on the perils of her fair young daughter, and in the morning could not leave her room. In the course of the day she heard that Master Peregrine Oakshott had been to inquire for her, and was not surprised when her brother-in-law sought an interview with her. The gulf between the hierarchy and squirearchy was sufficient for a marriage to be thought amesalliance, and it was with a smile at the folly as well as with a certain displeased pity that Dr. Woodford mentioned the proposal so vehemently pressed upon him by Peregrine Oakshott for his niece’s hand.