Stray Pearls: Memoirs of Margaret De Ribaumont, Viscountess of Bellaise, Yonge [love books to read txt] 📗

My safety and freedom being thus secure, I was asked, as mistress of the house, whether I would continue the custom my mother had begun of receiving on a Monday, chiefly for the sake of our exiled countryfolk at Paris.

It had been left in doubt, till my fate and my wishes should be known, whether the reunion should take place on the Monday or not; but all lived so simply and within so short a distance that it was very easy to make it known that Lady Walwyn and Madame de Bellaise would receive as usual.

The rule in ordinary French society was then as now, to offer only eau-sucree, sherbets, and light cakes as refreshments, but my mother told me with some disgust that it was necessary to have something more substantial on the buffet for these great Englishmen.

‘Yes,’ said Annora, ‘I do believe it is often the only meal worth the name that they get in a week, unless my brother invites them to supper.’

On learning this Tryphena and I resolved that though pies were the most substantial dish at present prepared, we would do our best another time to set before them such a round of salt beef as would rejoice their appetites; and oh! the trouble we had in accomplishing it.

Meantime I submitted to be dressed as my mother wished, much indeed as I am now, except that my hair was put into little curls, and I had no cap. The Queen-Regent wore none, so why should I? Moreover, my mother said that it would not be good taste to put on any jewels among the English.

Alas! I could see why, as the salon filled with gentlemen and ladies, far fewer of the last than the first, for some wives had been left at home with their children to keep possession of the estates, and send what supplies they could to their lords in exile. Some, like brave Lady Fanshawe, traveled backwards and forwards again and again on their husbands’ affairs; and some who were at Paris could not afford a servant nor leave their little children, and others had no dress fit to appear in. And yet some of the dresses were shabby enough—frayed satin or faded stained brocade, the singes and the creases telling of hard service and rough usage. The gentlemen were not much better: some had their velvet coats worn woefully at the elbows, and the lace of their collars darned; indeed those were the best off, for there were some who had no ladies to take care of them, whose fine Flanders lace was in terrible holes.

Some gallants indeed there were to ruffle it as sprucely as ever, and there were a few who had taken service as musketeers or archers of the guard; but these were at that time few, for the King was still living, and they did not despair of an accommodation which would soon bring them home again. As my mother had predicted, the gentlemen with the ragged lace tried in vain to affect indifference to the good things on the buffet, till they had done their devoir by me as their hostess. Eustace and Nan were on the watch and soon were caring for them, and heaping their plates with food, and then it was that my sister’s face began to light up, and I knew her for herself again, while there was a general sound of full gruff English voices all round, harsh and cracking my mother called it, but Nan said it was perfect music to her, and I think she began to forgive me when she found that to me likewise it had a sound of home.

But my mother was greatly gratified that evening, for there appeared in our salon the dark bright face of the Prince of Wales, closely followed by a tall handsome man in the prime of life, whom I had never seen before.

‘Do not derange yourself,’ said Prince Charles, bending his black head, bowing right and left, and signing with his hand to people to continue their occupations. ‘I always escape to places where I can hear English tongues, and I wanted to congratulate Madame on her reception yesterday, also to present to her my cousin Prince Rupert, who arrived this afternoon.’

Prince Rupert and some of the wiser and more politic gentlemen, Eustace among them, drew apart in consultation, while the Prince of Wales stood by me.

‘They are considering of a descent on the Isle of Wight to carry off my father from Carisbrooke,’ he said.

‘And will not your Highness be with them?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes, I shall be with them, of course, as soon as there is anything to be done; but as to the ways and means, they may arrange that as they choose. Are you to be at Madame de Choisy’s ball’

I was quite provoked with him for being able to think of such matters when his father’s rescue was at stake; but he bade me ask his mother and mine whether it were not an important question, and then told me that he must make me understand the little comedy in which he was an actor.

Prince as he was, I could not help saying that I cared more for the tragedy in which we all might be actors; and he shrugged his shoulders, and said that life would be insupportable if all were to be taken in the grand serious way. However, Prince Rupert appealed to him, and he was soon absorbed into the consultation.

My brother told us the next morning of the plan. It was that Prince Rupert, with the ships which he had in waiting at Harfleur, should take a trusty band of cavaliers from Paris, surprise Carisbrooke, and carry off His Sacred Majesty. Eustace was eager to go with them, and would listen to no representations from my mother of the danger his health would incur in such an expedition in the month of November. She wept and entreated in vain.

‘What was his life good for,’ he said, ‘but to be given for the King’s service?’

Then she appealed to me to persuade him, but he looked at me with his bright blue eyes and said:

‘Meg learned better in Lorraine;’ and I went up and kissed him with tears in my eyes, and said: ‘Ah! Madame, we have all had to learn how loyalty must come before life, and what is better than life.’

And then Annora cried out: ‘Well said, Margaret! I do believe that you are an honest Englishwoman still.’

My brother went his way to consult with some of the other volunteers, and my mother called for her sedan chair to go and see whether she could get