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YOUTHFUL DAYS.
I MUST now pass somewhat rapidly over four or five years of my life. These years were spent quietly at home with my dear father and mother at the Tour d'Antin.
I was my mother's constant companion, and she instructed me herself in all that she thought it desirable for me to know, which was much more than was considered necessary for demoiselles in general. I learned to read and write both English and Italian, and I read many books in the former language which my mother had brought from home, or which had been sent to her from England since her marriage. These books would hardly have passed any French custom-house, for a very sharp lookout was kept at these places for heretical publications; but there were two or three vessels sailing from small ports on the coast, and commanded by persons of the Religion, by means of which, at rare intervals, my mother used to receive a package or letter from her friends in England.
Thus she become possessed of a copy of that most excellent book, "The Whole Duty of Man," which I read till I knew it almost by heart; "The Practice of Piety," Mr. Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying," and other excellent religious books of which that age, dissolute as it was, produced a great many. Sometimes my mother received other books and pamphlets, which she would not allow me even to look at, and many of which she burned with her own hands. These were plays and stories written by such authors as were in favor at the court of King Charles II.
The greatest disgrace I ever fell into with my parents came from stealing one of these books, and hiding myself away in the old tower to read it. It was a very witty play, and I was at first delighted with it, but my conscience soon made me aware that it was a wicked book; for, though of course I did not half understand it, I could see how profane it was, and how lightly and wickedly the most sacred name was used. My mother missed the book when she came to put away the contents of the package, and asked me whether I had seen it.
"No, maman," I answered; but I was not used to lying, and my face betrayed me. I was forced to confess and bring back the book. My mother's stern anger was all the more dreadful to me that she was usually so gentle. She would hear of no excuse or palliation.
"You have deceived me!" said she. "My daughter, whom I trusted, has lied to me. To gain a few moments of guilty pleasure, she has disobeyed her mother, and shamefully lied to conceal her disobedience. I want no words. I must quiet my own spirit before I talk with you. Go to your own room, and remain till you have permission to leave it. Think what you have done, and ask pardon of Him whom you have offended, and who abhors a lie."
I did as I was bid; but in no humble spirit. On the contrary, my heart was full of wrath and rebellion. In my own mind, I accused my mother of harsh unkindness in making, as I said to myself, such a fuss about such a little matter. Always inclined to be hard and stubborn under reproof, I was determined to justify myself in my own eyes. I said to myself that I was unjustly treated, that there was no such harm in reading a story-book, and so forth, and I set myself to remember all I possibly could of the play, and to form in my own mind an image of the world which it described.
Oh, if I could only live in a great city—in London or Paris—instead of such a lonely old place as the Tour d'Antin! But by degrees my conscience made itself heard. I remembered how kind and good my mother had always been to me: how she had laid aside her own employments to amuse me that I might not feel the want of companions of my own age; in short, when my mother came to me at bedtime, I was as penitent and humble as she could desire. She forgave me, and talked to me very kindly of my fault.
"Never, never, read a bad book, my child," she said. "You thereby do yourself an incalculable injury. We have not the power of forgetting anything. However deeply our impressions may be covered by others, they are still in existence, and likely to be revived at any time. No man can touch pitch and not be defiled, and no one can read and take pleasure in a bad book without being led into sin. You become like what your mind dwells upon. 'As a man thinketh, so is he.' Thus by thinking of and meditating upon the deeds of good men, and more especially those of our dear Lord, we are made like them, and are changed into the same image. This caution in reading is especially needful to you, my Vevette, as you are by nature facile and easily impressed."
"But, maman, why does my uncle send such books?" I ventured to ask.
My mother sighed.
"Your uncle, my love, does not think of such things as I do. He lives in the world of the court, where these things which your father and I consider all-important are but little regarded, or, if thought of at all, are considered as subjects for mockery."
"But, maman, I thought all English people were of the Religion. I thought they used the beautiful prayers in your prayer-book."
My mother sighed again.
"That is true, my child, but it is possible to hold the truth in unrighteousness. Here, where to be of the Religion is to put one's neck into the halter, there is no temptation to the careless and dissolute to join our numbers. Yet even here, under the very cross of persecution, the church is far from perfect. But we will talk more another time."
I was so penitent and so humbled in my own eyes that I made no objection when my mother deprived me of my two grand sources of amusement, the "Arcadia" of Sir Philip Sidney, and Mr. Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene," telling me that she should not let me have them again for a month.
I am somewhat inclined to doubt the wisdom of this measure. I know it threw me back upon myself for amusement in the hours when I was deprived of my mother's society, and left me more time to meditate, or rather, I should say, to dream of that fairy-land to which the volume of plays had introduced me.
However, I had them back again at the end of a fortnight, and with them a new book—a great quarto volume of voyages and travels, with several historical pieces, collected by Mr. Hackluyt, formerly a preacher to Queen Elizabeth. This gave a new turn to my thoughts. I rejoiced in the destruction of the great Armada, and wept while I exulted over the glorious death of Sir Richard Greville, and travelled to the Indies and the New World and dreamed over their marvels.
When I went, as I did now and then, to visit my old friends at the farm, I entertained David with these tales by the hour together, and even Lucille forgot her jealousy to listen. What castles in the air we built on the margins of those great rivers, and what colonies we planted in those unknown lands—colonies where those of the Religion were to find a peaceful refuge, and from which all the evils incident to humanity were to be excluded! They were harmless dreams at the least, and served to amuse us for many a long hour. I have seen some of these colonies since then, and have learned that wherever man goes his three great foes—the world, the flesh, and the devil—go also.
Our new neighbors at the hospital of St. Jacques—St. James indeed! I should like to hear what he would have said to them—gave us little trouble for some time. Indeed, they had troubles enough of their own. They were hardly settled in their new abode before a dreadful pestilential fever broke out among them, and several of the nuns died, while others were so reduced that there were not enough of well to tend the sick.
The French country people have a great dread of infection, so that nobody would go near them; and I don't know but they would have starved only that my father himself on one or two occasions carried them provisions, wine, and comforts for the sick.
There was great talk about the sickness, and those of the Religion did not hesitate to ascribe it to the pestiferous air of the cellars and vaults, which were known to be very extensive, and in which several persons had died after long confinement.
"It is the avenging ghost of poor Denise Amblot, who perished there with her infant," said old Marie, our cook.
"Not so, my Marie," answered my mother. "Denise has long been in paradise, if indeed she did perish as reported, and is happily in better employments than avenging herself on these poor creatures. Yet it may well be that the bad air of the vaults so long used as prisons may have poisoned those living over them."
After the fever came a fire, which broke out mysteriously and consumed all the fuel and provisions which the nuns had laid up for winter; and, to crown all, a sort of reservoir or pond, supposed by some to be artificial, which supplied a stream running through the convent grounds, burst its barriers one night after a heavy storm of rain. The muddy torrent, bearing everything before it—trees, walls, and even the very rocks in its course—swept through the garden and washed away the soil itself, besides filling the church with mud and debris half way up to the roof. Whether the hand of man had anything to do with these disasters I do not know, but it is not impossible.
At any rate, the two or three nuns who were left returned to Avranches, from whence they had come, and the place was again abandoned to the owls and other doleful creatures which haunt deserted buildings.
Meantime all over France the tide of persecution was rising and spreading, carrying ruin and devastation far and wide. There was no more any safety for those of the Religion. From all sides came the story of terror, of bereavement, of oppression, of flight. Every day brought new infringements of the edict, new encroachments on our rights and liberties.
The very sick and dying—nay, they more than any others—were objects of attack. Every physician was ordered, on pain of a heavy fine at the least, to give notice to the mayor and the priest of the parish whenever he was called upon to visit one of the Religion. Then the sick man was besieged with arguments, with threats, and horrible representations of the present and the future. If he yielded, which was seldom the case, his conversion was trumpeted as a triumph of the faith. If he persevered, as ninety-nine out of a hundred did, he was left to perish without help or medicine, and his dead body was cast out like a dog's in the next ditch.
It was at the peril of life that a mother repeated to her dying child, or a child to its parent, a few comforting texts of Scripture or a hymn. The alms collected among the Reformed for the solace of their own poor were seized upon and used for the maintenance of the so-called hospitals, which were simply prisons where young people and women were shut up, and every effort made, both by threats and cajolery, to induce them "to return to the bosom of their tender and gentle mother the Church," that was the favorite phrase. A few gave way and were set at liberty, but of these, the most part sooner or later recanted their recantations, with bitter tears of penitence and shame.
But those mothers and fathers who knew that their dead were dead, and entered into the rest of their Lord, were happy in comparison with others, whose sons were in the galleys chained to the oar with the vilest of the vile, with felons and murderers, sleeping on their benches if at sea, driven by the lash like brute cattle to pestiferous dungeons if on land, and liable at any time to be condemned to perpetual imprisonment or shot down and cast to the waves. And even these had not the worst of it.
There were hundreds of mothers who were entirely in the dark as to the fate of their daughters. The convents all over the land were filled with such girls, seduced from their homes on any or no pretext, and dragged away, never to be seen again. Whether they recanted and were made nuns, whether they remained firm and suffered imprisonment and a horrible death, their fate was equally unknown to their friends. In some of the convents, no doubt, were conscientious women, who did their duty according to their lights, and were as kind to their prisoners as circumstances permitted; but there were others who sought to augment their treasure of good works and win heaven, as they say, by exercising every severity, and trampling upon any natural feelings of compassion which might arise in their breasts.
Worse still, many convents were known to be schools of worldliness and vice, where the most dissolute manners prevailed. This was notably the case with the rich houses near Paris, where the superiors were often appointed by the king's mistress for the time being, and the convent was a resort for the young gentlemen of the court.
But it was upon the pastors that the vials of wrath were most lavishly poured out. Some, whose flocks were already scattered, escaped to foreign lands, but many remained behind to comfort their afflicted brethren. These were never for one moment in security. They journeyed from place to place in all sorts of disguises. They slept in dens and caves of the earth, or under the open sky; holding a midnight meeting here, comforting a dying person or a bereaved parent there; now celebrating the Lord's Supper, in some lonely grange or barn, to those of the faithful who had risked everything to break together the bread of life once more; now baptizing a babe, perhaps by the bedside of its dying mother, or uniting some loving and faithful pair of lovers who wished to meet the evils of life together. *
* See any collection of Huguenot memoirs.
Hunted down like wild beasts, they were condemned, if captured, to the gallows or the wheel, without even the pretence of a trial, after all temptations of pardons and rewards had failed to shake their faith. Now and then—very rarely—some one abjured; but, as I have said, these usually abjured their abjuration at the first opportunity, or died in agonies of remorse and despair.
As I have remarked before, our narrow corner of the world had hitherto got off easily, and we lived in comparative safety and in friendship with our neighbors. But the time was coming, and close at hand, when the storm was to reach alike the lofty aerie and the lowly nest.
My mother, I believe, would have been glad to emigrate at once. She thought with longings inexpressible of her quiet English home in the valley of Tre Madoc, of the old red stone house overhung with trees, where dwelt peace and quietness, with none to molest or make afraid; of the little gray church on the moor, with its tall tower, which served as a beacon to the wandering sailor, where the pure word of God was preached, and the old people and little children came every Sunday.
My mother always loved the English Church. She kept her prayer-book by her, and used to read it every day. She taught me many precious lessons out of it, so that when I was twelve years old, I knew it almost by heart. This love of hers for the English Church was in some degree shared by my father, and, as I heard afterward, was a reason for his being looked coldly upon by some of the Religion, to whom the very name of bishop was an abomination; and no wonder, since with them it was another name for oppressor and persecutor. But they found, when the trial came, that the Chevalier d'Antin and his gentle lady were as ready to put all to hazard for their faith as the best of them.
As I have said, my mother was desirous of emigrating, as so many others had done. But my father would not consent to forsake his poor tenants and peasants, many of whom had come with him from Provence. He thought himself in some sort their shepherd, and responsible for their welfare.
This was a very different estimation from that in which some of our neighbors held their people. There were three or four large estates about Avranches and St. Lo, the owners of which lived in Paris the year round, or followed the court in its movements, and left their lands and people to the care of agents, taking no thought for them except to extract from them as much money as possible.
But such was not my father's idea. He held that every large landowner was a steward under God, responsible for the welfare of those placed under his charge, and that he had no right to use his estate merely for his own enriching or aggrandizement. One who did so, he held for an unfaithful servant, who, would be called to a strict account whenever his Lord should return, and who could expect nothing else for his reward than outer darkness and gnashing of teeth.
I have seen something of great landowners since that day, and I fear this idea of duty is very far from common among them. Certainly I have never known one, unless it is my husband, who fulfilled it as my father did. He was not always dictating or patronizing. He did not regard his tenants and workpeople either as little children or as dumb beasts, but as rational, accountable creatures.
Of course, he met with plenty of hindrance and opposition. The Norman is a slow thinker, and very conservative. That "our fathers did so" is reason enough for them to do so also, and they are as full of prejudice and superstition as any people in France, except perhaps their neighbors of Brittany. But they are good honest folk, sober for the most part, except on some special occasions, very industrious, and extremely domestic and frugal in their habits. Their houses are generally comfortable, according to French ideas, and they often have a great deal of wealth laid by in the shape of fine linen, gold ornaments, and furniture. Oh, how I should like to see the inside of a Norman farm-house once more! Those very cakes of sarrasin, which I used to hate, would taste like ambrosia. But I am wandering again, in the fashion of old people.
My father, holding these ideas, did not feel at liberty to seek safety himself and leave his poor people as sheep without a shepherd. He would gladly have sent my mother and myself to a place of safety, but my mother would not hear of leaving him, nor did they see their way clear to part with me. So we remained together till I was fourteen years old. My mother instructed me in all sorts of womanly accomplishments, and from Mrs. Grace, I learned to do wonderful feats of needlework, especially in darning, cut work, and satin stitch, which in my turn, I taught to Lucille, with my mother's full approbation, for she said I learned in teaching. And besides, in these days of flight and exile, it behoved every one to practise those arts by which they might earn their bread in a strange land.
These lessons were sometimes very pleasant to both of us; at others they were disturbed by that spirit of jealousy which had always been Lucille's bane, and which, as she did not strive to conquer it, increased upon her. She was always vexed that I should do anything which she could not, and if she could not almost directly equal or excel the pattern I set before her, she would abandon the work in disgust, sometimes with expressions of contempt, sometimes with an outburst of temper which made me fairly afraid of her for the time.
But we always made up our quarrels again, for she was really anxious to learn, and besides that I think she truly loved me at that time. Poor Lucille! David I seldom saw. He had gone, with the full approbation of his father and mine, to learn the trade of a ship-carpenter at Dieppe, where he soon distinguished himself by his skill. His holidays, which were few and far between, he always spent at home, and he never came without bringing presents to his family, and some little product of his skill and ingenuity—a reel, a little casket inlaid with ivory or precious woods, or a small frame for my embroidery. I have one or two of these things still.
My own temptations did not lie toward jealousy, which was one reason perhaps that I had so much patience with Lucille; for I have observed that people usually have the least toleration for the faults most resembling their own. I was always, from my earliest years, a dreamy, imaginative child. I heard but little of the world—that world in which my uncle and aunt lived at court. But now and then I got a peep at it through the medium of the plays and tales which my other uncle would persist in sending—for I am sorry to say that I had more than once repeated the offence of stealing and studying some of these books—and this same world had great charms for me.
I had been less with my mother than usual for some months, for she and my father had many private consultations from which I was excluded. I used to take my work to the top of the old tower or out in the orchard, and while my fingers were busy with my stocking or my pattern, my fancy was making me a grand demoiselle, and leading me to balls and gardens and all the scenes of the English court.
Of the English court, I say, for my wildest dreams at that time never led me to the court of Louis XIV. That was too closely associated with the dangers and inconveniences of our condition for me to think of it with anything but horror. Thus I spent many hours worse than unprofitably. Then my conscience would be aroused by some Bible reading with my mother or some tale of suffering heroism from my father, and I would cast aside my dreams and return to those religious duties which at other times were utterly distasteful to me. In short, I was double-minded, and as such was unstable in all my ways.
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TRUST AND DISTRUST.
"YOU are to have a holiday to-day, Mrs. Vevette," was Grace's announcement to me one fine morning somewhere toward the end of September. "Your mother has one of her bad headaches."
"Oh, how sorry I am!" I exclaimed, thinking not of the holiday but of the headache. "Is it very bad, Mrs. Grace?"
"Very bad indeed," returned the lady-in-waiting, solemnly shaking her head; "I have seldom seen her worse. I have been up with her half the night. You must be very quiet, my dear, and not rush up and down-stairs, or drop your books, or—"
"May I go up to the farm and see Mother Jeanne?" I asked, breaking in upon the catalogue of what Grace called my "headlong ways." "I want to teach Lucille that new lace-stitch, and I dare say Jeanne won't mind if I do make a little noise," I added, with some resentment.
Not, of course, that I wished to disturb my mother, or indeed any one else, but I was a little tired of this same catalogue, which had been rehearsed so many times.
"There you go again, breaking right into the middle of a sentence," said Grace. "What would your mother say?"
"Perhaps she would say, 'Don't be always lecturing the child, Grace,'" said I mischievously, quoting some words I had overheard from my mother.
Then, as I saw by her rising color that she was really angry, I threw my arms round her and hugged her.
"There, don't be vexed, Gracy dear; you know I would not disturb maman for the world. But I do really want to go to the farm very much to teach Lucille the lace-stitch you showed me yesterday, and to see the new kittens."
"Kittens! What kittens?" said Grace, who was a dear lover of pussies of all sorts.
"Why, the new kittens. Don't you remember the beautiful young cats that David brought to his mother the last time he came home? One of them has kittens, and Mother Jeanne says I may have my choice of them."
"Oh, yes; go by all means, my dear; and I hope you will have a pleasant day. Only be sure you are at home before dark, and mind you don't wait till it is time you were here before you set out. And, as to the kitlings, if there should be a tortoise-shell or a dark brindle, I would choose that, especially if it have a white face. Such cats are always good-tempered and good mousers."
"I believe these cats are all white," said I; "the mother is as white as snow."
Grace's face was shadowed a little.
"I don't know about that," said she doubtfully. "In Cornwall, we think that white cats bring ill-luck. My poor sister had a beautiful white cat come to her, and that very night she broke her china jug, and the next day her husband fell from the tall pear-tree and was lamed for life."
"But these are not like common cats, you know," said I, suppressing a laugh which I knew would mortally offend Grace and perhaps lose me my holiday. "They are outlandish cats, with long hair and bushy tails. I should think that would be different."
"Perhaps so; but I would think about it a little. However, I will come down and see them myself."
I tiptoed through my mother's room into my own little cell, collected my working things into the pretty foreign basket which David had brought me the last time he came home, and then, kissing my mother's pale cheek, I descended the stairs softly, and did not give a single skip till I was beyond the precincts of the tower.
"How full of notions Grace is," I said to myself. "I wonder if all the Cornish people are like that." * (N.B. † If a hare had run across my own path, or I had heard a crow on my left hand, I dare say I should have turned back from my expedition.) "But I mean to have the kitten in spite of her. As though I would give up a beautiful long-haired white cat for such a fancy as that!"
* They are, even to this day.—L. S.† N. B.—nota bene
I did not hasten on my way, for it was early, and I found my walk so pleasant that I had no desire to shorten it. The bramble-berries and filberts that were ripening by the sides of the lane had great attractions for me. There were late autumn flowers to gather, and lizards to watch as they ran to and fro on the walls or sunned their gilded sides on a broad flat stone, vanishing like a shadow when one drew near. A great wind had blown the day before and thrown down many apples from the trees that overhung the lane.
I filled my pocket with some ripe golden pippins, and walked on eating one till I drew near the place where the highway to Avranches, such as it was, crossed our lane. This was a favorite resting-place, since it commanded a glorious view of sea and shore and the great fortress-monastery. There was a kind of crag or projecting rock some thirty feet high, round which the road wound, and which, while it presented a perpendicular face to the highway, was easily ascended by an active person from the side of the lane.
"I wonder whether they are gathering the vraic," I said to myself. "I should think a great quantity must have come ashore after the wind last night. I mean to climb up and see." *
* The vraic or varech is the seaweed, which is very abundant on this coast, and much esteemed for manure. It is regularly harvested in spring and autumn, but may be gathered at any time.
I climbed lightly up the rude rocky steps, but started as I came upon Lucille, who was sitting upon the dry moss which covered like a soft carpet the top of the rock. She was wrapped closely in her long black cloak, the hood of which was drawn over her head, somewhat to the detriment of her clean starched cap. Her unfailing companion, the distaff, was in her girdle, but the spindle lay idle beside her, though she seemed to have cleared a flat place especially for it to dance upon. Her hands were folded over her knee, and her eyes were fixed upon the high road, which from this elevated point could be traced all the way to Avranches.
I saw in a moment that she was in one of her moods, but I was in too high spirits with my walk and my holiday to mind that. And as she did not seem to hear my approach, I put my two hands over her eyes, saying, in the words of our child's game, "Guess whose fingers are all these."
"Vevette, how you startled me!" she exclaimed, rather angrily. And then, recovering herself, "How did you come here?"
"On my feet, since I have no wings," I answered, sitting down beside her on the dry moss. "Maman gave me a whole holiday because she has a headache, and I thought I would come down and teach you my new lace stitches. It is well I took a fancy to climb up here, or I should have missed you. But now, tell me how came you here?"
"Because I have a holiday as well as yourself," answered Lucille, in a tone which had no pleasure in it. "Aunt Denise has come up from Granville to see my mother, and maman said I might have a play-day too, and go to see Marie Lebrun if I liked. But I don't care about going. I know they only sent me away because they have secrets to talk about which they don't want me to hear."
"Well, why need you mind?" I asked. "Maman often says to me, 'Run away, petite, I wish to say something to Grace,' and I never mind it a bit. Of course grown people have things to talk about which they don't want children to hear. Why should you care?"
"But I do care," said Lucille, and her eyes with tears. "I am not a child like you. I am three years older, and I do think they might trust me."
"It is not that they do not trust you, silly one," I returned, a little out of patience with the mood I could not comprehend. "As I tell you, there are things to be talked about by grown people which girls do not understand and ought not to know. Mrs. Grace has told me that a dozen times. What is the use of minding? We don't understand, and there is the end. Some time we shall, I suppose."
Lucille did not answer. She fixed her eyes once more on the highway, and I let mine wander off over the sands and the shore where people, looking like little black ants, were busily collecting the precious seaweed, to Mount St. Michael, whose turrets shone brightly in the sun.
"I wish I had wings," said I at last. "How I should like to fly over the sands and alight on the top of the mount yonder, where the great gilded angel used to stand looking over land and seas. I wonder whether he got tired of his perch and flew away some night."
"You should not speak so of the holy angels. It is not right," said Lucille gravely.
"I was not speaking of the angel, but of his image," said I; "that is quite another thing. Then I would spread my wings and travel over to the islands yonder, and then to England, where my uncles live."
"And get shot for a strange water-fowl," said Lucille, apparently diverted for the moment, and laughing at my fancy. "Then you would be stuffed and set up to be gazed at for sixpence a head, and that would be more tiresome than sitting at your embroidery."
"Yes, I don't think I should like it at all. Let me take the distaff, Lucille. I have not spun any thread in a long time. What beautiful fine flax!"
"Yes, it is some that my aunt brought me. She got it of a ship-captain who came from foreign parts. Take care you don't break my thread."
We chatted on indifferent subjects a while, and Lucille seemed to have recovered her good humor, when I inadvertently disturbed it again.
"Martin said he met your father coming from Avranches yesterday. What took him so far from home?"
"I don't know; they never tell me anything," answered Lucille, her face clouding.
"There might be a very good reason for his not telling you," I remarked in a low tone. "If his journey was about the Religion, it might be a great deal better for you to be able to say you did not know. And I dare say it was, for my father has been away a great deal of late."
"Oh, the Religion—always the Religion!" said Lucille between her teeth; "I hate the very name of the Religion."
"Lucille, how dare you?" I gasped, rather than spoke. I was too shocked to say more.
"Well, I do," she returned vehemently. "It spoils everything. It separates families and neighbors, shuts us up just to our own little selves, and cuts us off from everything that is pleasant. Jennette Maury can go to the Sunday fêtes and the dances on feast days under the great chestnut, but I must stay at home and read a musty book, because I am of the Religion. Other people live in peace, and nobody interferes with them. We live with a sword hung over our heads, and our daily path is like that over the Grève yonder—likely to swallow us up any time. And what do we gain by it in this world, I should like to know?"
"What should we lose in the next world if we deserted it?" I asked, finding my voice at last.
"I am not talking of deserting it. I am no Judas, though they seem to think I am by the way they treat me—never telling me anything. But I don't see why we should not have kept to the ways of our fathers, and saved all this trouble."
"WE DO keep to the faith of our fathers," said I, repeating the proud boast of the Vaudois, which I had long ago learned by heart. "Our church never was corrupted by Rome, and did not need reforming. But, Lucille, what would your father and mother say to such words?"
"I should never say such words to them," answered Lucille, "and I am foolish to say them to you. I suppose, however, you will go and repeat them to every one, and let the world say how much better and more religious is the heiress of the Tour d'Antin than poor Lucille Sablot."
"Lucille, you know better," I answered indignantly; "but I see you don't want anything of me, so I shall go home again, as you say Mother Jeanne is busy."
And gathering up my basket and laying down the distaff in Lucille's lap, I rose to depart, though I trembled so much with excitement and indignation that I could hardly stand.
Lucille looked at me in surprise, for in our ordinary quarrels, I grew cool as she grew angry, and vice versâ.
"Don't go, Vevette. I ought not to have spoken so. I did not half mean it, but I am so very, very unhappy."
As she spoke, she hid her face and burst into a flood of tears and sobs.
I sat down again, knowing from experience that when she recovered from her crying fit, her bad mood would be gone for that day.
So it proved. After sobbing a long time, she wiped her eyes and made a great effort to compose herself.
"I am sorry I was so cross," said she; "but I am so unhappy. There is so much that I cannot understand. Why should you be the heiress of d'Antin and I only a poor farmer's daughter? Why should you learn music and English and dress in silk, while I wear homespun and tend sheep, and come and go at everybody's call? Why should our enemies triumph and eat us up like bread, and live in all sorts of luxury, while we are poor and trodden down like the mire in the streets, and our Master never put forth a hand to help us? We give up everything for him, and he lets us be beaten on every side, and gives us nothing but promises—promises for another world, from which nobody has come back to tell us anything. No, I don't understand it."
Lucille spoke with a fire and passion compared to which her former vehemence was nothing.
I had never thought of these things—never dreamed of questioning anything that was taught me. Indeed, I believe I had been too full of dreams to think at all. I was stricken dumb before her at first, but as she gazed at me with her dark eyes like sombre flames, I felt I must say something, so I gave the only answer that occurred to me—the only one indeed that I have ever found.
"It is the will of God, Lucille, and he must know best."
Lucille muttered something which I did not quite hear.
"And besides, he does help us," I added, gathering courage. "Just think how all the martyrs have been helped to stand firm, and what joys they have felt even at the galleys and in dark dungeons, where they had hardly room to breathe."
"I know they say so," said Lucille; "but tell me, Vevette, have you experienced any of these wonderful joys. Because I know I never did."
I did not know exactly what to answer to this question. In fact, in those days my conscience was in that uneasy state in which it always must be with any half-hearted person. No, I could not say that my religion was any comfort to me, and I hastened to change the conversation.
"Anyhow, Lucille, I don't think you would be any happier if we were to change places. You would be lectured and ordered about, and sent out of the way a great deal more than you are now, and you would not have nearly as much time to yourself. I believe, after all, it is more in being contented than anything else. Look at Gran'mère Luchon. She has as little as any one I know—living down by the shore in that dark smoky little hut with her two little grandchildren, and supporting them and herself with her net-making and mending and her spinning. And yet she is happy. She is always singing over her work, and I never heard her make a complaint."
"She is not there any more," said Lucille. "The new curé ordered her to go to mass, and because she would not, he has taken the children away and handed them over to the nuns, and nobody knows what, has become of the old woman."
"The wretches!" I exclaimed.
"Hush!" said Lucille. "Don't speak so loud; nobody knows who may be listening. I hate living so—in such constraint and danger all the time. It is odious."
"Don't let us talk about it any more," said I. "I have some news for you. My cousin, Andrew Corbet, from England, is coming to visit us. Will it not seem odd to have a cousin?"
"Not to me," said Lucille, making an effort to throw off her moodiness. "I have a plenty of them, you know. When do you expect him?"
"Next week, perhaps; the time is not set."
"What is he like?"
"I don't know; I have never seen him. He is about twenty years old, and has been educated at a great college in England, so I suppose he is like other young gentlemen. Come, let us eat some of Mrs. Grace's cakes and bonbons, and then I will show you my new stitch. Grace gave me a nice basket, because she said we might like to make a little feast under the trees."
Lucille had something too—a bottle of milk and some wheaten bread which she had set out to carry to Gran'mère Luchon, when she heard of the misfortune which had befallen the poor woman. We grew quite merry over our little feast, and the lesson in needlework went on prosperously afterward.
"You have caught it beautifully," said I. "Mrs. Grace would say that you excelled your pattern. But what are you looking at?"
For Lucille had dropped her work and was gazing intently in the direction of Avranches.
I turned my eyes the same way and beheld a procession coming up the road—of what sort I could not at first discover. There was a cross-bearer and two or three banners; then a sight dreaded by every Huguenot child in France—the Host carried under a fine canopy—and then came a dozen or so of donkeys, each led by a man and bearing a woman dressed in black, with a white scapular and long black veil.
"They are the nuns coming to take possession of the hospital," said Lucille. "It has been all repaired and fitted up anew, and they are to have a school and teach lace-making and embroidery."
"Lucille, what do you mean?" I exclaimed; for she had risen and stepped to the edge of the rock to have a better view. "They will see you. Come down here behind the bushes till they are past."
Lucille obeyed rather unwillingly, as I thought.
We peeped through the bushes as the procession advanced, and had a good view of the nuns. There were ten of them, riding with eyes cast down and hands folded in their large sleeves. One or two of them were very pretty, and all had a ladylike look.
Last came the two little grandchildren of poor Mère Luchon. The youngest, a mere baby, was sucking a lump of gingerbread, apparently quite content; but the sobs and tear-stained face of the other told a different story. She was seven years old, and was already a great help and comfort to the old woman. As she passed, she raised her streaming eyes as if imploring pity.
My blood boiled at the sight, and if I could have commanded the lightning from heaven, that procession would have gone no farther. It was closed by a number of villagers, all telling their beads, some with a great show of devotion, others languidly and carelessly enough.
The new curé came last of all. He was a small, thin, sharp-faced man, with a cruel mouth, and eyes that seemed to see everything at once. He was certainly a great contrast to poor Father Jean, who used to go about with his deep pockets filled with bonbons, which he distributed to Catholic and Protestant children alike.
"The wretches! The murderous brigands!" said I between my teeth. "Oh, if I could kill them all! The vile kidnappers! Oh, why does the Lord suffer such things?"
"That is what I ask," said Lucille. "Why should they be so prospered and have so much power if the Lord is not on their side? As to these children, I don't know that I pity them so very much. The old woman could not have lived long, and now they are sure of support and a good education. I think the nuns are very kind-looking ladies, for my part. And if they were right after all—if one's salvation does depend upon being a Roman Catholic—then they are right in forcing people to become so."
"Why did not our Lord and his apostles force all the Jews to become Christians?" I demanded hotly enough. "He said he had only to ask to receive more than twelve legions of angels. Why did not he do it, and shut up all those people who did not believe on him, or put them to death, if that is the right way?"
"He said his kingdom was not of this world, else would his servants fight," answered Lucille.
"Then the kingdom which is of this world, and whose servants do fight and oppress, is not his," I answered, for I could reason well enough when I was roused from my daydreams.
"We ought to be going," said Lucille, abruptly changing the subject. "The supper will be ready, and my father will be angry if I am not there. I am to be kept to rules as if I were no more than five years old."
Jeanne welcomed me with her usual affection, but her eyes were red with weeping, and she was evidently absent-minded.
I told her what we had seen.
"Yes, I have had the story from my sister," said Jeanne, her eyes overflowing as she spoke. "The poor old woman! Happily it cannot be long in the course of nature before she goes to her rest, but my heart aches for the little ones. My children, you must be doubly careful. This new priest is not like the old one—he will leave us no peace. You must take care never even to go near the church, or stop to look on at any of their doings. Perhaps a way of escape may be opened to us before long. It would indeed be hard to leave our home and go among strangers, but exile with liberty of worship would be better than living in such constant fear."
"Put thy trust in God, my Jeanne," said Father Simon. "We are all in his hands. We must remember that the church has never been promised anything in this world but tribulation and the cross. The crown is to come hereafter. Now let us think of something else. Mamselle Vevette, will you come and help to gather the apples on your own tree? They are quite ready, and I will carry them up for you when you go home."
I had been grave quite as long as I liked, and was very ready to enjoy the apple-picking from my own particular tree of golden Jeannetons, which had been solemnly planted when I was born, and now hung loaded with fruit. Never were such apples as those, I am sure. I wonder whether the tree is still in bearing? It must be old and moss-grown by this time, if it has not been cut down.
Jeanne made us a supper of fresh pan-cakes, galette, fruit, and rich cream cheese, and when I went home, Father Simon shouldered his hotte * and carried a famous load of beautiful apples up to the tower.
* A kind of deep, roomy basket, made to be carried on the shoulders.
I found my mother much better, and able to welcome me, and to hear all I had to tell her. I hesitated about repeating my conversation with Lucille on the rock, but my mind had been so disturbed that at last I thought best to do so, hoping to have my doubts laid at rest.
"You gave the right answer, my little one," said my mother when I had finished. "It is the will of God. Remember that he has never promised his children temporal prosperity. 'In the world ye shall have tribulation,' are his own words. Yet he does give his children many pleasures. There are beautiful flowers and fair fruits growing even by the side of the strait and narrow way, but we must not go out of the way to seek them. Neither must we be discouraged when the path leads over rocks and thorns, or even through marshes and quicksands; but remember that our dear Lord has trodden every step before us, and is waiting to receive us at the end."
Much more she said, in the same wise and gentle strain, and at last sent me to bed feeling somewhat comforted. The night was warm, and my door was left ajar for air. I had hardly fallen asleep, as it seemed to me, when I was waked by voices, and heard my mother say:
"I do not like what she says about Lucille. I fear the girl has been tampered with. Perhaps we should warn her parents."
"We will think about that," said my father. "Ah, my Marguerite, if you and the little one were but in safety—"
"Do not ask me to leave you, Armand—not yet," said my mother, clasping her hands. "If we could but send the child home to my sister, I should be at ease. Could we not do it, when Andrew comes?"
"We will consider of it," answered my father. "And now, my Pearl, let us betake ourselves to prayer."
The murmured sound of the prayer sent me to sleep, and I heard no more, but I turned Lucille's words over in my mind with a vague uneasiness many times during the next few days. I was destined to remember them for long afterward.
The next day was made memorable by an unlucky accident. Mrs. Grace was standing in the door of my room (which I have said was raised several steps), lecturing me in her usual prim fashion concerning certain untidinesses which she had discovered about my toilette-table, when, suddenly stepping backward, she fell down the stairs, bruising herself and spraining her ankle very badly.
We dared not send for a surgeon. There was an old man at Avranches who was very skilful, and with whom we had always been on good terms, though he was a Roman Catholic; but he had lately taken a young assistant (or rather had been given one, for we all believed the young man had been placed as a spy over the old one), and should it be known that we had a sick person in the house, we were in danger of being invaded by the priests, striving to force or coax the sick person into a recantation.
Happily my father had a pretty good practical knowledge of surgery, and both my mother and Mrs. Grace herself were strong in the virtues and uses of herbs and simples.
Mrs. Grace was presently put to bed and her ankle bandaged. She was in great pain, but the pain was little or nothing compared to the worry of helplessness, housekeeping cares, and the necessity of being waited upon instead of waiting upon others. Truth to say, she was but a troublesome charge.
My dear mother, who had borne this same cross of helplessness for many a year, preached patience in her gentle way.
Mrs. Grace assented to all she said, called herself a miserable, rebellious sinner, and the next minute fretted more than ever: over that careless Marie, who would be sure to burn the marmalade, or that stupid coward of a Julienne, who would not venture up to the top of the tower to bring in the drying fruit lest she should see the white chevalier. For after a long season of absence—for what ghostly purpose, who should say?—the white chevalier had again been seen walking on the battlements of the round tower, or passing the window of his wretched and guilty wife's apartment.
"Do not trouble yourself about the marmalade, my poor Grace," said my mother, with a somewhat woeful smile. "Who knows whether we shall be alive to eat it, or whether all our stores may not fall into the hands of our enemies?"
"I should like to spice the marmalade for them!" exclaimed Grace, quite overcome by the idea of her dainties being devoured by the Papisties, as she always called them.
"And as to the tower," continued my mother, "I think myself the maids may as well keep away from it. If the white chevalier and his wife should really have been seen, it is just as well not to run any risks."
"But whom then will you trust?" asked Grace, with a startled look.
My mother put to her lips a fresh rose she had brought in her hand, and glanced at me, and Grace said no more. I was not annoyed, as Lucille would have been, for I had become accustomed to such hints; and with a passing wonder as to whether my mother really believed in the white chevalier, I plunged into my dear "Arcadia," and forgot all earthly cares in the somewhat long-winded trials of the virtuous Parthenia. But I was destined to hear more of the matter.
That very evening, about an hour before sunset, my father asked me to walk with him. This was a great honor, for in my youth, children were by no means so familiar with their parents as they are now. Whether the change be for the better or no depends upon the parents a good deal.
We walked out by the lane, across a field, and through the loaded orchard bending with golden and ruddy fruit, some of which was already gathered for the cider-mill. The low sun shone under the branches, and turned the heaps of apples to heaps of gold and rubies. It was very still, but the tide was high, and came in over the distant sands with a hollow roar, which my father said portended a storm. He spoke little till we reached a little heathy eminence crowned with one of the monuments of ancient date so common in Normandy and Brittany. From this point we had a view for a long distance around, and nobody could come near us without being observed. My father sat down on one of the fallen stones, and motioned me to sit beside him.
"My daughter," said he, taking my hand in his with a certain solemnity, "you are now almost a woman, and old enough to be admitted into the knowledge of your father's secrets. But such knowledge is full of danger. Are you brave, my child? Are you a worthy descendant of those valiant Provençal and Vaudois women who hazarded their lives for the faith? Consider, my Vevette! Suppose you were required to go into the upper floor of the old tower, even to the ladies' bower, at night; would you be afraid to do it? Consider, and give me an answer."
All my better self rose up at this appeal. I considered a moment, and then answered firmly—
"I might be afraid, but I would do it, if it were my duty."
"There spoke a true Corbet woman!" said my father, smiling kindly on me and pressing the hand which he held. "'MY DUTY!' Let that be your motto, as it is that of your mother's house, and you will not go far wrong. Now listen while I impart to you a weighty secret. But let us first make sure that there are no eavesdroppers."
My father raised himself from the fallen stone and looked all around, but no one was in sight, and the sparse heath and short grass could not hide anything so large as a child of a year old. He even parted the brambles and wild vines and looked inside the monument (which was one of those made of three upright stones with a slab laid over the top), but found nothing worse than a pair of young owls and their mother, which were terribly disconcerted by his scrutiny, and hissed and snapped valiantly.
Meantime I waited with anxious curiosity, though I had a guess of what was coming.
"I have certain intelligence," said he, speaking in a low voice, "that one of our best and oldest pastors, Monsieur Bertheau, who has, at the risk of his life, visited and comforted many of our afflicted brethren in Charenton and elsewhere, is now flying from his enemies, and will arrive at this place some time to-night. He must be lodged in the old tower till the period of spring tides, when I shall hope to procure a passage for him to Jersey, or to England itself. Grace, who has usually taken charge of such fugitives, is now disabled. I must be away this night, and your mother is unable to do what is needful; besides that, her absence from her room might excite suspicion. Mathew grows old and forgetful, and I dare not trust any of the other servants. Dare you, my daughter, undertake to meet this venerable man in the ruins of the chapel to-night, and lead him by the secret passage to the room at the top of the tower, which has been prepared for him?"
"Yes, my father," I answered; "but how shall I know the way?"
"I will give you directions which will lead you to the entrance of the passage. Turn to your right after that, and you cannot miss your way. When the good man is in safety, you can come directly to your mother's room by another passage, which I will also indicate to you. But, my child, I must not conceal from you that there is danger in this trust. Should you be discovered by any of our enemies in giving help to this good old man, your life or your liberty must be the forfeit."
"I know it, my father," I answered; "but if it is my duty, I can do it. Besides, there is danger anyhow."
"That is true, my child. He that saveth his life is as like to lose it as he that layeth it down for the Lord's sake and the Gospels."
Then my father broke down, clasped me in his arms, and wept over me in the way that is so terrible to see in a strong man.
"My child, my Marguerite's only child! My treasure! And must I lay down thy young life also? Oh, Lord, how long, how long!"
Presently, however, he composed himself, and laying his hand on my head, he most solemnly dedicated me to God and his service, as the most precious thing he had to give. That dedication has never ceased to affect my life, even when I have strayed the farthest.
We returned home slowly, after my father had given me the most minute directions for finding the secret passage, and I had repeated them after him so as to imprint them on my memory, for I dared not write down even the least hint of them lest the paper should fall into the hands of our enemies.
I told my father that I would look into the chapel, and be sure that I understood what he had said.
"No one will think anything of it," I added. "I am always wandering about the place, and I often go to the chapel and sit in the old stalls."
"Very well, child. I trust thy discretion. Only come in before it is dark, lest the poor mother should be needlessly alarmed. And one thing more, my Vevette: let not a hint escape thee to the Sablots; not that I would not trust the father and mother with any secret, but I confess I mistrust Lucille after what you have told us about her."
"You don't think she would betray us?" I asked, startled.
"I cannot tell. If she has indeed been tampered with, she may not be able to help herself. At all events, the fewer people are in a secret the better."
When we returned to the tower I slipped away and entered the old chapel. It was of considerable extent—quite a church, in fact, though I suppose no service had been said there for perhaps a hundred years. The altar of wonderfully carved oak was still in its place, though all its ornaments and images had been removed or destroyed. The altarpiece which was painted on the wall still remained, and though faded and stained was still beautiful.
My father once told me that it had been painted by some great Spanish artist. The Virgin and her Babe were the central figures. She had a sad, grieved expression in her dark eyes, and I had a fancy that she was mourning over the use that had been made of her name. Certainly I think that gentle, lowly woman could hardly be happy in heaven itself if she knew how she was treated here on earth.
The chancel was surrounded by a row of carved niches or stalls with seats in them. I counted them from the left hand side of the altar, and putting my hand under the seat of the fourth I found and slightly pressed the button my father had told me of. It moved in my fingers, but I dared not open it.
"I suppose it was by this secret way that they brought the wife of the white chevalier when they buried her alive in the vault below," I thought.
And then, as a sound behind me made me turn with a thrill, I almost expected to see the poor murdered lady's ghost arise before me.
But it was only one of our numerous family of cats which had chosen this place for her young progeny.
If I had seen the ghost, however, I do not believe I should have blanched: I was too highly wrought up by enthusiasm and the kind of nervous excitement which has always served me in place of courage. I ascended the rickety stairs into the music loft, touched the yellow keys of the useless organ, and leaning over the ledge, tried to think how the place must have looked when it was full of kneeling worshippers. Then, being warned by the deepening shadows of the lateness of the hour, I went into the house to my supper.