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A GREAT STEP.
MY Aunt Jem's death was, of course, a great shock to me, and might well have opened my eyes as to the course wherein I was walking, but I would not have them opened.
In the state of mind I was at that time, it seemed to me only a new injury. I was like one possessed. In the midst of all my worldliness and backsliding, my heart had clung to Andrew, and I had believed in his faithfulness and uprightness. Now he turned out no better than the rest. There was no truth in anything. My father and mother had served the Lord faithfully, and how had they been rewarded? If they had indeed served him aright, would he not have stretched forth his hand to help and deliver them?
Thus I reasoned, contemning the generation of his children, and wilfully shutting my eyes to the fact that the Lord nowhere in the New Testament promises exemption from sorrow, and the cross in this world as a reward for faithful service. There is no person so open to the attacks of Satan as a professed and enlightened Christian who is living in known and wilful sin.
The first effect of my aunt's death was to throw me more completely into the hands of Madame de Fayrolles. I was very unwell after the funeral, and indeed kept my bed for several days. As soon as I was able to be up, madame came to me full of affection and of caresses. She informed me that she and her husband were going to travel to Bath and to several other watering-places, and that she had arranged to take me with her. My health and spirits would be all the better for the change, and my uncle had given his consent.
"So you have nothing to do but to get ready, and we will set out in a few days," she concluded. "Have you an attendant, or shall I provide one?"
Now Mercer had waited upon me since my aunt's death, my own damsel having gone to a more lucrative place. She had tended me with the most devoted kindness, and I had become greatly attached to her; but when I asked her whether she would accompany me on my journey, to my surprise and chagrin she flatly refused.
"But why?" I asked.
"Well, Mrs. d'Antin, the truth is this," said Mercer. "I am fond of travelling, it is true, and I like you. You have always been a good young lady to me. But—I mean no disrespect—I do not like that French lady, and I like her attendants still less. Besides—"
"Well, besides what?" I asked a little impatiently. "Besides is always the real reason, I find."
"Besides, madame, I should not think it right," added Mercer, turning very red, though she spoke with great resolution. "I have lived too much for the follies of this world as it is. I know I have a liking for them, and am therefore best out of their way. Some words your blessed mother said to me when she was here, and I was waiting upon her, stuck in my mind and first made me think of something beyond this life, and my poor dear lady's death has been another warning to me about living for this world. My sister has a ladies' boarding-school at Hackney, in which I can invest my savings, and I can be a help to her in teaching the ladies to work and in looking after their dress and manners. She will be very glad to have me with her, and I hope I shall be able to do some good in the world before I leave it."
"Oh, very well," I said petulantly, "if you prefer teaching cross and satin stitch to stupid girls, and seeing that they comb their hair and put on clean linen, to attending upon and travelling with me—"
"I do not prefer it, madam," answered Mercer. "I choose it, because I know that I shall be putting myself out of the way of temptation, and into the way of doing good. Besides, madame, I am a simple unlearned woman who does not know how to answer for her faith, and to say the truth, I would not like to trust myself among a family all made up of Papists."
"You are very bigoted," said I, in a superior tone. "Don't you suppose there are as good Christians among Papists as you call them, as there are among Protestants? Don't you believe a Papist can be saved?"
"As to that," answered Mercer readily, "that there are those among them that live up to their lights, such as they are, I don't deny, but I don't say nor believe that they are as good Christians as they would be if their lights were brighter. As to their being saved, that is no business of mine. I know that the Scriptures are very hard upon idolaters, especially those idolaters who might know better."
"But the Papists do not worship images," I said. "The veneration of holy images is permitted because this veneration is not paid to the image itself, but to that which it represents."
"But the second commandment is explicit about that," returned Mercer. "That very veneration is forbidden, because we are not to bow down to them. Besides if there is nothing in the image itself, why do they venerate one image so much more than another?"
"Oh, you are a great casuist," said I. "I wonder you do not take orders instead of going into a school. The long and the short of it is, you think it will be a fine thing to set up for yourself and to have a parcel of young ladies to govern."
"You are mistaken, madame," answered Mercer, with enough of dignity to make me ashamed of my petulance. "If you were to remain here in London or to go into the country, even down to that barbarous Cornwall, that my poor dear lady dreaded so much, I would give up all thoughts of going into the school, and stay with you as long as you wished, and that for your dear mother's sake as well as your own. But into the family of Madame de Fayrolles I will not go. And I do beg and entreat you, Mrs. Vevette, to think twice before you do so. Think of what your mother would say—think!"
But the conversation was here interrupted by a call from my aunt. She did not seem at all displeased when I told her of Mercer's decision.
"It is just as well," said she. "Of course, if you wished for the good woman, and she desired to come, I should say nothing against it; but it would not have been comfortable for her or you. But I wonder she should refuse so good an offer."
"It was a case of conscience, I believe," said I. "She was afraid of being converted."
"Oh, I understand. Well, petite, it is just as well. I shall have no difficulty. You shall take my second woman, who has been well trained and is an accomplished seamstress and hair-dresser. So, Mrs. Mercer—" as that damsel entered the room "you will not go with your young lady because you are afraid of being converted. Does not that in itself show you how weak your cause is, and how conscious you are of its weakness?"
Madame spoke smilingly, and Mercer answered also with a twinkle of the eye.
"If I might venture to put a case, madame?"
"Go on," said my aunt.
"Suppose, madame, one of your own family, a woman neither very bright nor very learned, should be offered a service in a Protestant family, where she would be likely all the time to hear her own faith attacked by an accomplished Protestant minister—what would your ladyship advise her to do?"
"Fairly posed," returned my aunt, laughing good-naturedly. "Well, well, I will not urge you. But at least accept this little remembrance from me," she added, drawing out a very elegant little étui, with pencil tablets and all complete. "It will be useful to you and is valuable in itself."
Mercer accepted the present with many thanks, and retired.
"That is a good soul," said my aunt. "What a pity she is not a Catholic? She might have a real vocation."
The next day I removed to the lodgings which my uncle and aunt had been inhabiting for some time, and my uncle's establishment was broken up. He gave me all my poor aunt's wardrobe, except her most valuable jewels, and I in turn bestowed upon Mercer such of the things as were likely to be useful to her, together with a number of books of devotion which had belonged to Aunt Jem's mother.
Mercer was profuse in her thanks, and we parted the best of friends. I visited the good woman many years afterward, and found her at the head of the school which she had entered, and though an old lady, still hale and strong, and ruling her little kingdom with a wise and vigorous hand. I took from among her young ladies, one to be waiting-gentlewoman to myself and my eldest daughter, and I have never had reason to regret the choice.
I had written to my Lord Stanton asking permission to stay for a while with Madame de Fayrolles, and received a speedy answer, as some one from the neighborhood was coming direct to London. My lord evidently wrote in a good deal of irritation, and his letter was to the effect that he had not the least objection to my residing with Madame de Fayrolles since from all he could hear, she was a woman of reputation. He only hoped she had no sons to be bewitched—this sentence was scratched out, but I could read it. He sent me some money for my private purse and would remit more if I needed it. In short, it was plain that my lord dreaded nothing so much just now as having me returned on his hands.
Theo, on the contrary, who wrote at the same time, gave me a most warm and pressing invitation to make my home with her, as long as I pleased, and she begged me to think twice before placing myself wholly in the hands of Madame de Fayrolles. I shall not repeat her arguments, though they were all good and wise. Indeed, I hardly read them myself. I could not endure the idea of returning to Devonshire on any terms.
I found a luxurious apartment prepared for me in the house Monsieur de Fayrolles had taken for the season, and here I remained for some two or three weeks, coaxed and flattered to the top of my bent. Every means was used to attach me to my new friends, and separate me from old ones.
Neither my lord nor Theo said a word about Andrew, and I had not heard a word from Tre Madoc in a long time. I had asked Mr. Pepys about Andrew, and he admitted that he had heard the story of his approaching marriage from excellent authority, and believed it to be true.
From this time I became like one desperate. I put away my French Bible, so dear as having been my mother's, and the little brown English prayer-book she had carried off in our hasty flight from the Tour d'Antin. I could not make up my mind to destroy them, so I made them into a package, sealed them up, and committed them to Mercer's care, from whom I reclaimed them long afterward.
I read only the books of controversy and devotion supplied to me by Father Martien. I began to use a rosary, and to fancy that I found comfort and help in praying to the virgin. I was quite ready to have made a profession of my new faith at this time, but to my surprise and disappointment, Father Martien put me off. He said I had not had time to know my own mind or to receive proper instruction.
The truth was, I believe, he did not think it would be very safe either for my uncle or himself. There was in England a growing jealousy of Roman Catholics and their influence, a jealousy well founded enough in itself, though it culminated afterward in the follies and wickedness of the so-called Popish plot. It would be dangerous to have it known that a young lady of good family, a ward of my Lord Stanton's, had been induced to abandon the English for the Romish Church.
This refusal, however, only increased my eagerness. I really persuaded myself that I embraced all those dogmas which I had been educated to regard with horror, as monstrous and profane. My aunt, while greatly edified by my devotion, was a little alarmed at it. It was at that time no part of her plan to have me become a religious, as she called it. She took me out with her a great deal, and paid great attention to my dress and manners. Both she and my uncle were very kind and indulgent, but they contrived to keep me in a kind of honorable restraint—a restraint so gentle that I never felt it at all.
I was not permitted to visit by myself any of the young ladies of my own age whose acquaintance I had made at my Aunt Jemima's, and though my friends were made welcome and treated with great courtesy, yet somehow their visits gradually fell off, and I saw them no more.
In a few weeks we visited the Bath, as my aunt had proposed, and remained for some time seeing a good deal of company. From thence we went to Epsom, at which place the king was residing, though he kept no court and had very few about him, save the very most dissolute of his courtiers, for he had by this time thrown off all pretence to decency of conduct. It was at Epsom that Monsieur de Fayrolles received a summons to return at once to France. It seems he had some sort of command over the household guards, from which command he had been absent longer than his royal master approved.
My uncle received this notice in the morning at the hands of Father Martien, who had come down with some letters from the French ambassador. In the evening, my gentlewoman came to me with a message desiring my immediate presence in my aunt's room. I found her seated beside her husband, while Father Martien stood behind her chair. The faces of all three wore a very solemn expression, and I trembled, I hardly knew why. My aunt bade me be seated. Zelie placed a chair for me and then at a sign from her mistress withdrew.
"Genevieve," said my uncle seriously, "the time has come for you to make a decisive choice as to your future conduct. We are obliged to return to France immediately. Will you return with us, embrace the true Catholic faith, and be to us as a daughter, or will you remain in this land of heretics, and return to my Lord Stanton, or to his daughter who has invited you?"
"Nay, my friend, state the case fairly—that might not be the alternative," said madame. "Vevette might undoubtedly be married before we leave England, since Mr. Cunningham has made application for her hand already. Besides, her cousin, Mr. Corbet, is as we hear just about to return with his bride, and I dare say they would not be sorry to give Vevette a home."
This last news—I hope I do my aunt no injustice when I say I believe she made it up for the occasion—decided me. I was not a moment in saying that if monsieur pleased, I would return to France with him.
"But if you return with us it must be as a Catholic," said my uncle. "I do not profess to be bigoted, but I cannot, I dare not, take an open heretic to the court of the most Christian king."
"Mademoiselle has already confessed to me her desire of being admitted into the bosom of our holy mother church," said Father Martien. "Is it not so, my daughter?"
"It is so," I answered quite calmly and resolvedly. "I am ready to make a profession at any time."
The priest and my aunt were loud in their expressions of gratitude to all the saints. My uncle merely said:
"That settles the matter then. We shall go to London to-morrow and from thence set out at once for Paris. There is no time to consult my Lord Stanton, nor is there any need of doing so since he has given his consent to your residing with us."
The next day we went to London, where we remained less than a week, settling up affairs, paying off servants and tradespeople, and taking leave of our friends.
I was in a high state of excitement, and it did not strike me at the time, but I well remember now that I was hardly left to myself a moment, and that care was taken that I should never have the opportunity of speaking alone with any of my Protestant friends.
My good Mercer came to see me, but she was not admitted, nor did I know of her visit till long afterward. There was no need, however, of all these precautions. I was possessed of only one idea—to separate myself as far as possible from Andrew, and to get out of the country before he came into it. I felt as if I could have gone to the ends of the earth to avoid him.
Besides I was delighted with the prospect of seeing Paris and Versailles, and that court my aunt described to me in such glowing colors. I conceived that I should be a person of a good deal of importance, and even began to have dreams of a grand alliance. As to love, I said to myself it was all sentimental nonsense, just fit for boys and girls. I had got over all that. In short, my heart was given to the world. That was the god of my idolatry, and it paid me the wages it usually bestows upon its votaries.
We were favored with a passage in a king's ship, and therefore fared better than most people do in crossing the channel, but we had a rough time. Every member of our party was sick but myself, and I had my hands full with waiting upon my aunt, who fell into all sorts of terrors and fits of the nerves, and was sure we were going to be drowned. However, we reached Calais in safety, and after waiting a day or two to refresh ourselves, we took the way to Paris.
Whether it was that I had been so long away from France that I had forgotten how it looked, or that Normandy had been in a more flourishing condition than the other provinces, or finally, that I contrasted what I now saw with what I had seen in England, I cannot tell; but certainly the country looked terribly forlorn to me. There was little tillage, and what there was seemed by no means flourishing; the people had a crushed, oppressed, half-fed look which was very sad to see. Even when the vintage was going on there seemed very little rejoicing.
Once, taking a by-road to avoid a hill, we came upon what must have been a flourishing vineyard a day or two before, but the vines were crushed and torn from their supports, and lay withering upon the ground, the beautiful grapes were scattered and spoiled, while two or three women with faces of blank despair were trying to rescue some of the fruit from the general destruction.
"Oh, the poor people!" I exclaimed. "What has happened to them?"
"A boar hunt probably," said my uncle indifferently.
"But why should that have wrought such ruin?" I asked.
"Because, little simpleton, the boar would as soon go through a vineyard as anywhere else, and when he does it is needful that the hunt should follow him, which is not very good for the vineyards."
"And so for the sake of some great man's pleasure of an hour or two the poor man's heritage is destroyed," said I indignantly. "What a shame! What wickedness!"
"Tut, tut! Petite! Remember that we are not now in England where every clown can bring his lord to justice, but in France where nobles have privileges. But I wonder where the owner is. Where is your husband, my good woman?" he called out, as we came opposite the workers.
"Alas, monsieur, I do not know," answered the poor woman, with streaming eyes. "Monsieur the marquis was hunting yesterday and took a short cut through our vineyard to arrive the sooner, and my husband was so ill-advised as to utter some harsh words and maledictions which the marquis overheard; so he bade the huntsmen take him away and teach him better manners. Since then I have not seen him, and Heaven knows what has become of him. Oh, monsieur, if you would but intercede for us; I am sure my husband meant no harm."
"He should be more careful with his words," returned my uncle. "My good woman, I am not acquainted with your marquis, and cannot therefore take the liberty of speaking for your husband; but there is some money for you. Drive on, postilion."
My heart was sick with the injustice and tyranny, the effects of which I had just seen, but my aunt and uncle seemed to think little of it, and indeed I saw enough more sights of the same kind before we reached Paris. The simple truth was and is, that in France the common people have no rights whatever, but are absolutely at the mercy of their lord. Their crops, the honor of their families, their very lives, depend upon his humor, and how great soever may be the wrong, there is no redress.
I had seen little of this sort of thing in Normandy. The only great proprietor near the tour, besides my father and Monsieur Le Roy, who were both Huguenots, was a gentleman of great kindness, and one who made a conscience of dealing justly with his people. I was heart-sick before we reached our destination, and wished twenty times I were back in England.
We arrived in Paris at last, and I found myself dazzled by the splendid buildings and the grand equipages which met my eyes on every hand. The streets, it was true, were quite as dirty as London, but there was no fog or coal smoke to obscure the air or blacken the house fronts. My aunt was in the best of spirits at being once more in her dear native city, but I could not help thinking my uncle rather grave and preoccupied. As to Father Martien, he was always the same under every circumstance, and I have no doubt would have preserved the same calm countenance whether he were watching the agonies of a heretic on the wheel, or being himself served with the same sauce by the Iroquois.
My uncle had a fine hotel in a fashionable situation, and as a courier had been sent before us we found everything ready for our reception. I was assigned a small room which looked into a court, and had no exit but through my aunt's reception-room. It was prettily furnished enough, but I took a dislike to it from the first, because it reminded me of my little turret-room at the Tour d'Antin, which I would have preferred of all things to forget.
I had looked forward to Paris as a scene of gaiety and splendor far beyond anything I had ever seen, and so it was, but I very soon found that the gaiety and splendor were not for me. It was not that my aunt meant to be unkind; on the contrary, at that time she was amiability itself, but in France a young lady of good family lives before her marriage in a state of as much seclusion as if she were in a convent. In fact, almost every French young lady is placed in a convent at a very early age, from which she only emerges to be married to the man not of her own, but of her parents' choice, whom she perhaps never saw more than twice and never a moment alone, till she was married to him.
I could not complain of being treated as other girls were, but I must confess I found the life a very dull one. My aunt lost no time in securing for me the services of a music and a dancing master, and she often took me out with her in the coach, but I had no companions of my own age. I was not at all well. I had been accustomed to a great deal of exercise all my life, and that in the fresh air, and the state of excitement in which I had been kept for such a length of time began to tell on me.
I slept very little and was troubled by frightful dreams, which almost always took me back to the Tour d'Antin, and the dangers I had undergone there, or, what was still worse, I read and worked and prayed with my mother, and then waked to an intolerable sense of want and desolation. I told Father Martien of these dreams. He looked grave, pronounced them direct temptations of the devil, and said he feared I had some sin or some concealment yet upon my conscience which gave the evil spirit power over me. I assured him that such was not the case; but he still looked grave, bade me search my conscience anew, advised a retreat, and gave me to read the "Four Weeks' Meditations of Saint Ignatius."
This retreat and course of study were to be my final preparation for the public profession which I was to make. In the course of it, I secluded myself entirely in my room, which was so far darkened that I had only light enough to read. I fasted rigorously, saw no company, was allowed no recreation, and no employment save my rosary and my book of meditations. And such meditations—full of the grossest and most material images of death and its consequences—the decay of the senses, the desolation of the sick-room and the dying-bed, the corruption of the body, the flames and brimstone, the wheels and spits of purgatory and hell! In the midst of all this, the penitent is invited to pause and resolve seriously upon his or her vocation, just at the time and in the state when she is most incapable of judging reasonably of anything. No wonder the book has been instrumental in leading so many into the cloister.
I finished my month's retreat and was admitted into the fold of the Holy Catholic Church, as she dares to call herself, in the chapel of the king himself, who had taken a great interest in my story. I should like to give my reader an account of this important passage of my life, but in truth I remember very little about it. I have an indistinct recollection of knocking at a closed door and requesting admission to the church, of various chants and prayers, of censers and waxen tapers, but it is all like a confused dream. In fact, I was already very ill, though nobody suspected it. I recollect receiving a great many congratulations, and being saluted by the king himself, who, having been converted himself (save the mark), took a great interest in all converts.
The next morning found me in the stupor of such a fever as I had suffered in Jersey, and for two or three weeks I lay between life and death, unconscious of everything. At last, however, the disease took a turn, and I was pronounced out of danger.
For some time longer, I lay quietly in my bed, slowly gaining strength and the ability to think connectedly. I was indeed like one waking from a long dream, and I began to realize what I had done. All the instructions I had received in my youth—the very psalms I had learned from my foster-mother—returned upon me, and would not be put aside. My eyes were opened, and I was compelled to see and to own that I had deliberately sold myself to the world, and that unless I could find a place of repentance—which did not yet appear to me—I must reckon upon paying the price of the bargain, namely, my immortal soul.
Little did my aunt and my nurse guess, while I lay so quietly with closed eyes, what was going on within. I would have given worlds to weep, but I had no tears. Neither could I pray. My heart was dry as dust, and the unmeaning repetitions which had served me instead of prayers now inspired me with nothing but weariness and disgust. Oh, how I hated that image of the Virgin which stood opposite my bed, dressed in laces and satin, and wearing my own mother's pearl clasp! I had myself given it away for this purpose in one of my fits of devotion. If I had dared, I would have crushed the simpering waxen baby under my feet.
The stronger I grew, the more wretched I found myself. I was obliged to go to confession, but Father Martien's threats and cajoleries had no more effect upon me than to make me hate him, as the one who had led me into the snare from which I could see no escape, unless it were such a martyrdom as my father's, or the slower hidden agonies of a convent prison. For these I was by no means prepared, and I well knew they were what awaited me if I allowed my change of feeling to become known.
The king, as I have hinted, had been converted by the jubilee which had taken place some years before. He was still in the fervor of his first love, and as his spiritual guides could not succeed in making him give up Madame de Montespan and company, they compromised by urging him on to more and greater acts of severity against the so-called heretics. One might be an unbeliever even to denying the existence of a God at all, but to be a Huguenot, or even a Jansenist, was an unpardonable sin. Two or three great men, indeed, who were necessary to him by their talents as soldiers or statesmen, were allotted a sort of protection, but even these soon found their lives unbearable, and either conformed like Turenne afterward, or fled from the kingdom.
For a young girl like myself, away from all near friends, and, above all, one who had only lately conformed, there would be no hope. Even a suspicion of relapse would lead at once to a convent with all its possible horrors. No, there was no escape. I had left my Lord, and he had left me. I had denied him, and he would deny me. I must go on as I had begun, and that to the bitter end.
It was not one of the least of my troubles that I felt all my love for Andrew revive again. I began to doubt the truth of the stories I had heard, and to wonder whether they had not been invented for the very sake of entrapping me. Doubt soon grew into conviction, and, reasonably or unreasonably, I no more believed that Andrew was married than that I was. No, he would return in a year—return to claim me and to find that I was lost to him, to truth, and heaven forever.
It was in the church where I was kneeling for the first time since my illness that this thought came to me, and I cast myself on the ground and groaned almost aloud. My aunt observed the movement, as indeed nothing escaped her eyes, and when she returned she remarked upon it, saying that such a display of devotion, however commendable in private, was not in good taste in such a public place, and that I would do well to restrain myself.
About this time Father Martien was called away, and I made my confessions to a fat old priest at our parish church, who, I am persuaded, used to doze through half the time of confession and take snuff the other half. He was very kind, however, and gave me easy penances and plentiful absolutions. My religion had by this time become the merest form, kept up to save appearances, but now and then would recur the thought that perhaps Father Martien was right after all, and if so why I was living in mortal sin, a sacrilegious person for whom millions of ages in purgatory would be of no avail. Thus I was tossed from one doubt to another, and found comfort nowhere.
The discomfort of my mind could not but react upon my body. I grew pale, sallow, and was miserably unwell. My aunt lamented the loss of my beauty, and predicted that I should never find a husband. A husband indeed was what I now feared most of all. I determined that I would die before I would accept one, and then came the thought that not death would be the alternative but a convent. No, there was no hope anywhere.
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ANOTHER CHANGE.
WE remained in the neighborhood of Paris all that winter, sometimes at Fontainebleau, sometimes in the city itself, for, as I have said, my uncle had some office or command which kept him about the court.
My aunt had her balls and assemblies, her grand banquets and little suppers, and must have spent a great deal of money. I rarely saw anything of this gaiety, though I went out with my aunt in the carriage, and now and then, when she had a small assembly, I was allowed to sit at her elbow and look on, though I was not expected to speak unless spoken to, and then only in the shortest, most restrained manner.
Of the court I saw nothing. My aunt had hoped, I believe, to procure some place for herself, but in that she did not succeed. Still she was often at the court, and was liked by the king for her wit and sprightliness. When she was away, my only society was my maid Zelie, whom I had never liked, and now thoroughly distrusted, believing her to be a spy upon me, my aunt's lapdog and her parrot.
My only recreation was in reading the very few books which were thought proper for a young lady, my music, and my embroidery, and I only went out to go to church, whither I was attended by Zelie or an older woman who had been my aunt's nurse, and who, having been a Huguenot in her youth and then converted, was of course doubly zealous and devoted. Oh, to what a slavery had I brought myself! With what impassioned longing I looked back to the days when I used to climb the hill at Tre Madoc to attend to my little school or run down to the beach to watch the pilchard-fishing, and of those earlier times in Normandy when I played with Lucille and David in the orchards, or helped to pile up the golden and rosy apples for the eider-mill!
I would gladly have changed places with the poorest old woman in Cornwall for the privilege of walking abroad unfettered, and weeping my fill unwatched. I would have given all the costly furniture of our hotel, had it been mine, for half a dozen loose leaves of my mother's old prayer-book, for it was one of my great troubles that I could not remember the words of Scripture. I suppose it might have been some odd effect of my illness, but while my memory had become clear as to other things, it was in that respect almost a blank. In the state of mind I then was, I regarded this forgetfulness as a direct judgment from Heaven, and an express proof and mark of my reprobation. I thirsted for the water of life. I read again and again the few psalms and meagre bits of scripture contained in my books of devotion. That fountain was to be once more unsealed for me, but not till I had drank my fill of the bitter waters and broken cisterns for which I had forsaken it.
Meantime affairs were not going well with my uncle. I was told nothing, but I gathered from things that I overheard and from hints dropped in my presence that he had lost the favor of his royal master in the first place by outstaying his leave in England, and though he had hoped to make his peace by the presentation of a new convert to the Catholic faith, the offering had not been altogether sufficient. Court favor is of all earthly things one of the most uncertain.
My uncle had been a friend of the unhappy Madame de Valliere, who, at this time under the name of Sister Louise de la Misericorde, was striving to expiate her errors by a life of more than ordinary austerity among the Carmelite nuns of Paris. He had had the imprudence to speak contemptuously of Madame de Montespan, and his remarks had been carried to the lady's ears by one of those tale-bearers who flourish at court. Of course madame became his enemy. She had great influence with the king, though not so much as Madame de Maintenon came to have afterward. My uncle's disgrace grew more and more apparent every day, and at last he received peremptory orders to retire to his château in Provence, where he held some sort of office under government. He was allowed, however, to remain in Paris for two or three weeks, to settle up his affairs there, which were, I imagine, in no little confusion.
My aunt was in despair. To be banished from court was to be cast out of heaven in her estimation. She hated the country, and went thither even for a few weeks with unwillingness. She wept and went into fits of the nerves, as she usually did under any disturbance of mind or body. The poor lady was really very ill for a few days, and as I was the only person who had the least control over her in her paroxysms, I had my hands full. However, she had an elastic constitution of mind and body, and she soon recovered, and began planning all sorts of amusements, one of which, I remember, was to be the refurnishing of the Château de Fayrolles from top to bottom. I was glad to see her diverted by anything, and I listened to all her schemes, and being ready with my pencil, was able to afford her pleasure by sketching designs for furniture, hangings, and the like, which even my uncle declared to be very clever.
One day, being left to myself while my aunt entertained a visitor, I began drawing from memory a sketch of my old home, the Tour d'Antin. I became so interested in my work as to take no note of the time, till I was surprised by the entrance of my uncle and Father Martien. I had not seen the latter gentleman for some weeks, nor was I at all glad to behold him now. My religion had become to me more and more an empty profession, and though I still went regularly to mass and confession, my attendance was the merest form. At mass and vespers, though I kept my book open, I thought of anything rather than the services, and as to my confessions, if I had repeated the Confiteor correctly, and then gone on in the orthodox devout whisper to say that I had become a Moslem and the fifteenth wife of the Grand Bashaw, good old Father Le Moyne would have been none the wiser, but would have given me absolution in his usual gentle, nasal sing-song. I had learned to love and respect the old man, for though indolent to a degree, he was kind and fatherly, and did not disgrace himself with wine or worse things, and it was with real dismay that I contemplated exchanging him for the sharp-sighted, cold Father Martien.
My uncle looked at the sketch and commended it, saying that it showed real talent. He then began asking me questions about it, sitting down with the drawing in his hand. At last—
"There is one thing, Vevette, which I have hesitated to ask you about, not wishing to revive painful memories; but the time has arrived when such an inquiry becomes necessary. Where did your father conceal his treasure?"
"His treasure!" I repeated. "I don't understand."
My uncle contracted his brows.
"Do not trifle with me," said he sternly. "I am well informed that my unhappy brother invested a great deal of the money which he acquired in one way and another in plate and jewels. What did he do with them? I know that he left them concealed somewhere about the estate; but where?"
"I do not know," I answered, with perfect truth; "I know that he and my cousin—" I could not bring myself to say Andrew—"hid away a part of what silver there was, but I never heard what they did with it. He sold a good deal, I know."
"And what disposition did he make of the money?"
"He turned a large part of it into diamonds. The rest he left with my foster-father, Simon Sablot, who afterward brought it to my mother in England."
"And the jewels, my daughter, what of them?" asked Father Martien.
"Oh, we carried them to England with us," I answered, inwardly rejoicing to give an answer so little satisfactory. "My mother sold them in London, and invested a part of the money in a little estate at Tre Madoc—the Welles House. The rest is in the hands of my lord, unless he has put it into land."
My uncle stamped his foot and bit his lip with vexation. It seems he thought his brother had left his treasures concealed, and hoped by my means to lay hands upon them. No doubt they would have made a very welcome supply at that time.
"Are you telling the exact truth, daughter?" asked Father Martien sternly.
"I am telling the exact truth, so far as I know it," I answered, with some spirit. "There may be some of the silver still concealed at the Tour d'Antin, but if so, I do not know where it is."
"Where should you think it would be most likely to be hidden?" was the next question.
"That I cannot tell either," I answered; "but I suppose the vault under the tower would be as probable a place as any."
"Is there not a vault under the old chapel?" asked Father Martien.
"Yes," I answered; "a burial vault."
"Have you ever been in it?"
"Yes, once; at the burial of one of our servants," I replied, availing myself of the orthodox Jesuit doctrine of mental reservation.
"Do you think your father would be likely to place the treasure in that vault?" was the next question.
"I do not know as to that," I answered. "I suppose he might. But I rather imagine that what silver there was, was buried somewhere about the orchard."
My uncle continued questioning me for some time, but as I could not tell him what I did not know, he was not much the wiser for my replies. He did not half believe that we had carried off the jewels, and declared that he meant to write to Lord Stanton on the subject of "my property," as I called it.
"It is mine," I replied indignantly; "my mother left it to me."
My uncle laughed contemptuously.
"Your mother had no more right to it than you have," said he. "Being married to your father, as they presume to say, by a Protestant minister, the marriage is no marriage by law. It was not worth a pin. You are an illegitimate child, and as such have no rights whatever. My brother's succession belongs to me, and I intend to have it."
"It is the truth, my daughter," said Father Martien, as I looked at him. "The blasphemous parody of the holy sacrament of marriage with which your wretched and guilty parents were united was not only invalid but was of itself a grievous crime in the eye of the law as well as of the Church."
If I had had the power of life and death in my hands, I should at that moment have laid both of these men dead at my feet. In my rage, I actually looked around for a weapon, and it was well for all parties that there was none at hand. Then, as the conviction of my utter helplessness and desolation came over me, I burst into an agony of tears.
"Hush, my daughter!" said the priest. "These tears do not become you. Let your natural affection for your parents be laid upon the altar of that church which they spurned, and it may become a merit. Indulged, it is in your case a sin against God and our holy religion."
My uncle, devout Catholic as he was, had not lost all feeling, nor was he a man to be put down in his own house even by a priest. He silenced the Father by a look, and then set himself to soothe me, saying that though he had thought it needful to tell me the truth, he should not visit upon me the misfortune of my birth, but should continue to regard me as a daughter so long as I showed myself dutiful to him and to my aunt. He bade me retire to my room and compose myself, saying that he would make my excuses.
"I am going into the country for a few days," said he. "When I return I shall hope to find that you have recovered your spirits and are prepared to submit to any arrangement your friends may think it best to make for your welfare."
My uncle gave me his hand as far as the door of my apartment, and parted from me with a fatherly salute, recommending me to lie down and rest awhile. He was very kind to me for the rest of the day, and seemed by his manner to wish to make me forget the harshness he had used toward me.
The next morning he called me into his own room and put into my hands a letter he had written to my Lord Stanton. It was to the effect that, having embraced the Catholic faith, and being resolved in future to make my home with my father's brother, I desired to have all my property put into the hands of Monsieur de Fayrolles, my natural guardian.
"You will copy this letter," said my uncle, "and I will inclose it in one of my own to my Lord Stanton. If he is an honest man, he will see the justice and wisdom of such an arrangement. If he is not, I must take other measures, for I am resolved not to be cheated of my right. Sit down here and copy the letter."
I had nothing for it but to obey, my uncle all the time standing by and observing me. When the copy was finished, he inclosed both letters in an envelope, and was just about sealing them, when my aunt called upon him. With an expression of impatience, he laid down the unsealed letter and went into the next room. In a moment I had turned down the corner of the sheet and written in small characters, "Don't, for Heaven's sake."
It was the work of a moment, and when my uncle returned he found me reading a book I had taken from the table. He reproved me for opening a book without leave, but seeing that it was only a play of Monsieur Racine's I had taken up, told me to keep it if I liked. He sealed the letter without looking at it again, told me he was pleased with my compliance, and gave me a gold piece to buy ribbons with, as he said. I was not sorry to receive it, for I was already turning over in my head plans of escape, and I knew that any plan I could form would need money to carry it out.
My uncle was absent several days, and came back in anything but a good humor. He had not succeeded in finding the treasure, if there was any to find, neither had he succeeded in letting the land. The house, having been reduced by the fire to a mere empty shell, had partly fallen in and filled up the cellars, while of the vault under the chapel, he said the whole floor seemed to have sunk into some abyss.
"So there really was a cavern underneath," I said. "There was a tradition to that effect, and my father always believed that such a cavern existed, and that it had some connection with the sea."
"It might have a connection with the infernal regions, judging from the sounds which proceed from it," said my uncle. "I was near falling into it headlong. It is the more vexatious because there are niches around the wall which have evidently been built up—one even quite lately."
"And they are quite inaccessible?" said my aunt.
"Oh, entirely. The whole building is so ruinous that one enters it only at the risk of one's life."
"The niches are only burial-places," I ventured to say, thinking at the same time that poor Grace's grave would now at least be safe from insult.
"Yes, but they may have been used for deposits of another sort. However, there is no use in thinking more about the matter. You are looking better, Vevette. I am glad to see you try to put on a more cheerful face. Your countenance lately has been a perpetual kill-joy—fit only for a convent of Carmelites."
Indeed, my health had improved. The very thought of escape, impracticable as it seemed at present, had put new life into me. I began to take a little care of myself, and to be anxious to acquire strength.
"I do not think, my friend, that the convent of the Carmelites will be Vevette's vocation," said my aunt, smiling. "I have an affair of great importance to lay before you when we are at leisure."
A cold chill struck to my heart as I heard these words and guessed what they might mean. The event proved that my forebodings were well founded. There was a certain Monsieur de Luynes, an elderly gentleman of good family, and very wealthy, who often visited my aunt, being indeed some sort of connection. This gentleman had lost his wife many years before, and having married off all his daughters, he had conceived the idea of providing a companion and nurse for his declining years. He was hideously ugly—tall, shambling, with bushy gray eyebrows, and a great scar on his cheek which had affected the shape of one of his eyes; but his manners were amiable and kind, and he had the reputation of leading a remarkably good life. He had always taken a good deal of notice of me, and had once or twice drawn me into conversation as I sat at my aunt's side, and I had thought him very agreeable. It was this Monsieur de Luynes who now made a formal proposal for my hand. I was not at all consulted in the matter. I was simply called into my aunt's boudoir, told of the proposal which had been made, and ordered to consider myself the future wife of Monsieur de Luynes.
"There is no reason for any delay," said my aunt. "Monsieur, who is himself very wealthy, does not ask for any dot with you. The trousseau can be prepared in a few days, and I will engage it shall be a fine one. You will be a happy woman, petite."
"Yes indeed; you may consider yourself most fortunate," added my uncle. "Considering the misfortune of your birth and your state of poverty and dependence, it is a match far beyond anything we have a right to expect for you. It will give me great pleasure to see you established at the head of Monsieur de Luynes' fine house before I leave Paris."
My resolution was taken in a moment. If Monsieur de Luynes' offer had come to me at the beginning of my residence in France, I should instantly have accepted it, and rejoiced in the opportunity of doing so. But my mind had changed. I know not how, but I was just as certain that Andrew had remained faithful to me as if he himself had told me, and being so assured, I would have suffered myself to be thrown into the fire rather than marry any one else. I waited till my uncle had done speaking, and then, with a calmness which amazed myself, I told him of my determination.
"Tut!" said he. "Let me hear no such girlish folly. You will do what I consider best for you, and take care you do it with a good grace or it will be the worse for you."
"Nay, do not be severe with Vevette," said my aunt. "All girls think it necessary to put on such airs and make such declarations. Leave her to me."
Left to my aunt I was, and I set myself to soften her heart toward me. I begged only to be allowed to remain single, promising to be guided by her in everything else—to perform any menial service, to work my fingers to the bone. All was in vain. My aunt laughed at my entreaties, considering them only as the wilfulness of a child; told me the time would come when I would thank her for not yielding to my folly. Finally losing patience, as I continued weeping, she let me feel the iron hand masked under the velvet glove. She told me in severe tones that my wilfulness was unbearable, and that unless I gave way and did what was thought best for me, I should be sent to that same Carmelite convent to be brought to my senses.
"We have wished to be kind to you," she added; "but there are means of subduing refractory girls which the good sisters well know how to practise, and of which you shall make trial if you are disobedient. Now go to your room, dry your eyes, and let me see you looking your best when Monsieur de Luynes comes this evening."
I had nothing for it but to comply. My resolution was fixed as ever. They might send me to the Carmelites, starve me, bury me alive if they would, but I would never marry—never! However, I thought best to temporize. The evening found me dressed, my aunt herself looking over my toilette and commending my docility.
"I thought you would see the propriety of giving way," said she; "and I am glad for your sake you have done so. You would not have liked to be shut up alone in the charnel-house of the convent, without light or food for twenty-four hours together, as happened to a cousin of my own who set herself up against her father's authority. No, it is much better to be in my salon than in the company of mouldy skeletons."
I held my tongue; but I could have said that I should have preferred the society of the mouldiest Carmelite ever buried in sackcloth to that of Monsieur de Luynes. The kind old man was very attentive to me, made many gallant speeches, and presented me with a magnificent box of bonbons and preserved fruits, containing also a beautiful pearl clasp. I almost wished I could have loved him, and indeed if my heart had not been full of another, I believe I should have married him, if only to escape from my present state of servitude. But there it was: I loved Andrew. I should always love him, and I could never marry any one else, whether I ever saw him again or not.
Under ordinary circumstances, I should never have been left alone with my intended bridegroom till after the ceremony; but my aunt had a great opinion of the discretion and goodness of Monsieur de Luynes, which indeed he well deserved. She also trusted a good deal, I fancy, to his powers of persuasion, for she allowed him more than once to remain tête-à-tête with me for an hour or two at a time in the little salon, while she entertained her visitors or gave audience to the tradespeople who were busied with my wedding outfit. On one of these occasions I took a desperate resolution and opened to Monsieur de Luynes my whole heart. Monsieur tried hard to shake me, promising me every sort of good, and even going so far as to hint that I should, in the course of nature, outlive him; and then, being a widow, I could go where I liked and do as I pleased.
Finding, however, that even this agreeable prospect failed to move me, and that I was settled in my resolution, after two or three interviews, he bade me farewell with much kindness, and going to my uncle formally retracted his suit, saying that he would never wed an unwilling bride.
My aunt's anger was loud and voluble; my uncle's more silent and much more terrible. He said little except to bid me retire to my room. Here I remained till evening, without notice of any kind.
That night my lodging was changed to a bare attic at the top of the house, lighted only by a window in the roof, and furnished with a pallet bed, a straw chair, and a crucifix, with its vessel of holy water underneath. Into this cell, I was locked by my uncle's own hands, and here I remained prisoner for a fortnight, seeing nobody but my aunt's women, who once a day brought me a meagre supply of coarse food. I had but one companion—an ugly gray cat, which lived in the neighboring garret, and made her way to my cell through a hole in the wainscot, attracted, I suppose, by the smell of my soup. She shared my meals by day and my bed at night, and, I doubt not, sincerely regretted my departure. I have always loved and patronized ugly gray cats for her sake.
I was happier in this garret than I had been before in a long time. I had lived absolutely without prayer ever since my illness, for my repetitions of the rosary might as well have been repetitions of "Cruel Barbara Allen," for all the devotion there had been in them. But somehow my firm decision not to marry any one but my first love had brought help and comfort to me. It had been a step in the right direction.
When first locked into my prison cell, I had thrown myself on my knees and besought help from heaven to hold firm my resolution. That prayer had opened the way for others. I began to review my life and sincerely to repent the sins which had brought me into such straits. I saw and recognized the fact that the double-mindedness which had always been my bane, had in this instance lain at the root of my apostasy. I confessed the justice of my Heavenly Father, and was enabled wholly to surrender myself into his hands for time and eternity; and I received comfort, and even joy, such as I had never found before.
At the end of a fortnight, my uncle visited me again and inquired whether I were now ready to submit my will to his. Modestly, I hope, but certainly with firmness, I declared my determination unchanged, and was ordered instantly to prepare for a journey.