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

his face and I saw a look of consternation pass over her features at sight of his wasted looks; but I only saw it for a moment, for he put an arm round her, and kissed her brow, as she hid her face against him.

The child, not contented with my embrace, ran and pulled his coat, crying, ‘My lord, my lord, I can speak English now;’ and he stooped to kiss her, while her mother turned to me with swimming eyes of mute inquiry, as of one who saw her long-cherished hope fulfilled only for her sorrow. She was less altered than had been feared. That smooth delicacy of her skin was indeed lost which had made her a distinguished beauty; but she still had a pair of eyes that made her far from insignificant, and there was an innocence, candour, and pleading sweetness in her countenance that—together, perhaps, with my pity—made even me, who had hitherto never liked her, lover her heartily.

I heard little or nothing of what they said to one another, being employed in keeping the child from them. She prattled freely in English, and was pleased to show me her baby-house, a marvel of Dutch neatness of handiwork, like that one which Madame van Hunker brought you, my daughter Peggy, when you were a little one. The doll we had given her had, however, the place of honour. Her sister, little Emilia told me, was married a month ago, and she was proceeding to make the little Dutch puppets in her baby-house enact the wedding, one being dressed in a black gown and stiff ruff, like a Genevan minister, when she caught a tone that made her cry out that mother was weeping, and stump across the floor in her stout little shoes to comfort her, before I could hinder her.

My brother and her mother set her down between them, and I had nought to do but to put in order the baby-house, till a great bell clanged through the house, which was the signal for dinner. Madame van Hunker was calmer by that time, and let Eustace hand her down, and place her at the head of the table, where she had around her no less than four families and two widows of our poor exiled Cavaliers and clergy. We had not found ourselves in so English a world for years past.

The hostess sat as one in a dream, doing her part like one moved by wires, and eating scarce anything, while Eustace showed all his usual courtliness of manner and grace. After dinner, he rested on a couch, as was his wont, before going back, and Millicent drew me into her chamber and wept on my neck, as she made me tell her all she had not been able to learn from him.

He had been very tender with her, and tried to persuade her that it was all for the best, and that there was happiness for them in the having no one between them now. She, poor woman, would fain, as I saw, have thrown aside all her houses and wealth to be his, and to tend him, were it merely for a few weeks, and she felt as if her love was strong enough to be his cure; but he had spoken of the cruel selfishness of giving away her power of aiding all these our fellow-countrymen in order that they two might come together for what he knew would be so brief a time. Yet he had not taken all hope from her, for he had talked of their reconsidering the matter if he were in better health after the winter, and, meantime, they could see each other often.

Poor thing! I believe she expected the miracle that might make him yet recover, and so she bore up, while Eustace was verily happy—having lived, as it were, nearly into spiritual love, and left behind that which had been earthly and corporeal, and thus he was content to rest. He had strained himself very hard to accomplish the journey, bring Clement and me into safety, and see Millicent again, and when the effort ceased, we fully saw, for the first time, how great it had been, and how far he was gone on that other journey. I do not think he crossed the threshold of our lodging half a dozen times after our arrival; but Millicent came into her town-house, and was with him every day. She had fitted the great dining chamber of that town-house as a chapel for our English service, and my brother went thither on two Sundays, on the second of which he saw M. Darpent received into our English Protestant Church. Clement had long inclined that way, having never forgotten the Huguenot training of his childhood, and the studies he had made, when his mother impelled him towards Port Royal, having resulted in farther doubts and yearning towards what Eustace had told him of our doctrine. Conversation with the learned Dr. Elson, one of our exiled divines, had completed the work, though he made his profession with pain and grief, feeling it a full severance from his country and his mother.

And the last time my dear brother left the house was to give me to his friend. He was anxious that I should be Clement’s wife before he left me, and there was no fear that we should starve, for, through trustworthy merchants, a small amount of the Darpent money had been transmitted to him before the State laid hands on his property as that of a fugitive. He might have bought himself a share in one of the great trading houses, or have—which tempted him most—gone out to the plantations in the new countries of Java or America; but Eustace prayed him to pledge himself to nothing until he should hear from Harry Merrycourt, to whom my brother had sent a letter before quitting Paris.

We would have had a quiet wedding, but Eustace was resolved, as he said, that all the world should know that it was not done in a corner, and Madame van Hunker WOULD give the wedding feast, and came to dress me for my bridal. You know the dress: the white brocade with hyacinth flowers interwoven in the tissue—and when she had curled my hair after her fancy, she kissed me and clasped round my neck the pearls of Ribaumont. I told her I would wear them then to please her and Eustace, and, in truth, I knew in my heart that I was the last true Ribaumont bride that ever would wear them. We were wedded in the chapel in Madame van Hunker’s house; and the Princess-Royal was there, and the Duke of York, and my Lord and Lady of Newcastle, and I know not who besides—only remembering that they all knew how to treat Clement as a man of distinction, who had, like them, given up all for conscience sake, and he, in his plain lawyer’s suit, with his fine, clear-cut face and grave eyes, looked, even in spite of his close-cropped head, as veritable a gentleman as any of them. The festivities ended the dinner, that being as much as my brother was able for. We went quietly back to our lodgings in Millicent’s coach, and Eustace went to rest on his bed, till she should have bidden farewell to her guests and could come and sup with us; but he and Clement forbade me to take off my finery, for it tickled their eyes.

And thus, when tidings came to the door that a gentlemen from England desired to see my Lord Walwyn, Harry Merrycourt, after all these years of seeing nothing but sad-coloured Puritan dames, came in upon this magnificent being in silvered brocade.

He said he thought he had stumbled on the Princess-Royal at least, and it was a descent to hear it was only plain Mistress Darpent! Harry had a good wife of his own by that time, who suited him far better than I should have done. Indeed, I believe he had only thought of wedding me to relieve my family from me. And when he saw how unlike M. Darpent was to all he had ever thought or believed of Frenchmen, and heard how well