NOTES BY MAGDALENE ANTONY.
The first public event of which I have any recollection, or rather
the first time I can clearly recollect having a glimpse beyond our
own little world in London and Netherby, was one warm evening in
August, 1658.
My mother was coming home with me and Dolly from the house of Mr.
John Milton in Bird-Cage Walk, past Whitehall, when we noticed many
people clustering like bees around the doors of the palace; and I
remember my mother lifting up her finger, and saying to Dolly and me,
who were discussing some of our small affairs eagerly:--
"Hush, children, the Protector is there, in sore sickness."
And then I remember noticing that the groups of people through which
we were passing were all speaking low and walking softly, as people
do in sick-chambers, and every now and then looking up anxiously to
the palace-windows.
I recollect a hush and awe creeping over me, and a guilty feeling, as
if Dolly and I had been chidden for talking in church.
And all spoke in murmurs, and no one said anything I could hear
distinctly, until, as we were leaving the space in front of the
palace, from the last point at which we could see the windows, my
mother turned back to look. It happened that at that moment two men
were standing close to us, and one pointed to the palace, and said:
"It was _there!_ the murderers set up the black scaffold there, just
under those windows. I see it now; and so, I trow, does the murderer
on his sick-bed inside. And so will more than one when the black
pall comes out at those doors. The day of vengeance always comes at
last."
The words went through me like a shudder. They were spoken in a deep
hissing whisper, more like the gnashing of teeth than speaking.
I did not venture to tell my mother of them. I did not know if she
had heard them. I never told anyone of them. They lay seething and
working in my brain, as so many perplexities do in children's
minds--half-shaped, half-shapeless, altogether voiceless, like ghosts
waiting to be born--and tormented me greatly.
For in a few days the terrible black train did leave those
palace-doors. My mother took us to see it. And my mother wept, and
Aunt Gretel, which was not so wonderful, because Aunt Gretel would
weep as easily at anything that moved her as we, children. But my
father wept, and even Uncle Roger; and Annis, the nurse, was stiller
than ever. And there was great silence and quiet weeping among the
people as the black train passed from the Palace to the Abbey. It
was a great day of mourning; and my father told us we must never
forget it. For all the people of England, said he, that day had lost
their best friend. But all the time I could not get it out of my
head that somebody had called him a murderer, and had called this day
of mourning a day of vengeance.
It puzzled me exceedingly, more especially as Dr. Rich, the quiet
clergyman who lived in the little house at the end of our garden, and
Austin his son, our playfellow, would not, I knew, have anything to
do with the procession; and, indeed, would never call the Protector
anything but Mr. Cromwell. And Annis, our nurse, never called him
anything but Oliver Cromwell (although in her that was not
remarkable, since she called even our father and mother Leonard and
Olive); and I had heard her say often, no man was to be called a
"Protector" who let hundreds of poor Friends languish in prison.
Also Aunt Dorothy, I knew, would not come to stay with us on account
of something that had to do with the Protector. All which things
made a great tumult and chaos in my brain.
But I must confess that the result was, that we grew up with a great
tenderness for the Royalist side.
There was little in the shows and titles of the Commonwealth to
enkindle the imaginations of children.
In all the fairy tales and romaunts and poems we knew, there was no
such prosaical title as Lord Protector. Indeed, we agreed that the
Bible history itself became much more interesting after the judges
were changed into kings, however wrong it might have been of the Jews
to wish for the change. We felt that the threat of his taking our
"sons" to be his horsemen and charioteers, and our "daughters" to be
his cooks and confectionaries, would certainly not have deterred us
from demanding a king. We thought it would be undoubtedly more
glorious to be my Lady Confectionary to a queen, or my Lord
Charioteer to a king, than to be anything in the sober untitled train
of a protector. Queen Esther was to us a far more romantic personage
than Deborah, who was only a mother in Israel. And on Sundays, when
the sermons were very long and we were allowed to read the Bible to
keep us from going to sleep, we found great solace in expatiating
upon Shushan the palace, among the courts of the gardens with
mysterious splendours of fine linen and purple--beds of gold and
silver--pavement of red, blue, white, and black marble--silver rings
and pillars of marble, between which were to be caught glimpses of
fair ladies in robes fragrant with perfumes--of a crown royal and a
golden sceptre.
But besides these enchantments for our earthly imaginations, the
Royalist cause, as expounded to us by Austin Rich and his brothers,
laid hold on our hearts by the irresistible charm of suffering
majesty. Over the story of the young orphan Princess Elizabeth,
dying in the castle where her father had been imprisoned, with her
head pillowed on the Bible she loved, we wept many tears. The young
Duke of Gloucester, who had declared to the king just before his
execution that he would let them tear him in pieces rather than
accept his brother's throne, was one of our earliest heroes.
And, above all, the name of King Charles was sacred to us. Our
mother always spoke of him with a tender respect. We knew how he had
worn the portrait of the queen his wife next his heart, and only
parted with it with his life. We thought it quite natural that
Archbishop Usher, seeing from the roof of Lady Peterborough's house
the king's coat laid aside and his hair bound up for the fatal
stroke, should have been able to see no more, but been led fainting
away. Moreover, Austin Rich had sundry pathetic stories of Episcopal
clergymen plundered, and their parsonages pillaged by Parliament
troopers, because they would not deny the king or refuse to pray for
him.
So that we were quite prepared to welcome the next great public event
which made an impression on us after the funeral of the Protector.
This was the entry of King Charles II. into London. A king was
actually coming through our streets! Our king; who had passed his
youth in exile! He was coming to be crowned in the Abbey, and to
reign over us. And if a king, then of course the queen would come,
and princes, and princesses, with all the splendours belonging to
them.
We were sorry our kindred did not seem quite happy about it. But we
had been told to speak respectfully of the king, and we had heard the
minister in one of the churches pray for him. So that, on the whole,
Dolly and I came to the conclusion that it would not be very wrong
for us to enjoy the magnificence as much as we certainly did.
Especially as Aunt Dorothy (who, our mother told us, was as good as
Aunt Gretel, and Aunt Gretel we well knew was better than any one
else) was coming to town for nothing else but to see the face of His
Majesty and do him honour.
The previous festivities had excited our expectations to a high
pitch. There had been heralds, in coats of many colours, proclaiming
the king at different places in the streets; and crowds shouting,
"The king, God bless him!" and bells breaking out into peals of joy;
and bonfires--we could count thirty one evening from our upper
windows--along the high road from Westminster to the City, in the
streets, on the bridges, by the water-side.
So at last the great festival came. Banners hidden for years waving
from the windows all down the streets; fountains flowing with wine;
bells clashing all together in sudden peals, as if they had gone wild
for joy; and all the people as mad for joy as the bells--some
shouting, some weeping; strangers greeting each other like old
friends. And such dresses! Old Cavalier wardrobes brought to light
again; and some ladies and gentlemen in the new French fashions, with
dresses gilded, slashed, tasseled, plumed, laced; every one trying to
show their loyalty by going as far from the old Puritan plainness as
possible, in materials as rich as could be purchased, and of every
colour of the rainbow. We thought it almost as splendid as Shushan
the palace in the days of Esther the queen. Trumpets, bells, drums,
songs, wild shouts; colour and music everywhere, May-day
everywhere,--in dresses, in banners, in the budding trees, in the
blue skies; all the city, all the world seemed to us gone wild with
joy.
And Aunt Dorothy, the soberest and gravest of all our kindred, as
wild as any one; crying out, "The king, God bless him!" kissing Dolly
and me again and again in a way which surprised us exceedingly, as we
were not aware of having done any thing remarkably good; and even at
bed-time the caresses exchanged between us usually went no further
than our courtesying and kissing her hand, and being told to be good
children.
And then the king!
On horseback, as a king should be; in gorgeous apparel, smiling and
bowing right and left, as if he felt we were all friends;
acknowledging every courtesy with the easy grace natural to him.
And as he passed by, Aunt Dorothy actually sank down on one knee and
clasped her hands as if in prayer, while the tears streamed over her
face; and we thought we heard her murmur, "Lord, now let thy servant
depart in peace." For she told us the salvation of England had come.
So the king went on to his palace; and the loyal lords and ladies
followed him in their coaches, brilliant with jewels and smiles. And
Aunt Dorothy, Dolly, and I looked on, when suddenly, while the
procession was pausing for a minute, one of the loveliest of the
ladies turned towards us; and when she saw Aunt Dorothy, her face,
which was graver and paler than most of those in that gay company
broke into smiles and into a sudden glow; and she seemed looking on
beyond us, and then her eyes came back and rested on us again, a
little sadly.
Aunt Dorothy exclaimed,--
"Lettice Davenant!"
And I looked, and loved her face at once, and yet wondered. For our
mother had talked to us of her as the brightest creature in the
world; and we had always pictured our loveliest fairy princesses as
like what our mother had told us of Lettice Davenant, with eyes like
diamonds, and teeth like pearls, and a colour like fresh roses, and a
brilliant changing face, with a flash and play like precious stones
about it.
And now she sat there quietly dressed, unlike the ladies round her;
bedecked with few jewels; with a sweet, calm face, rather like the
good women in New Testament pictures, than a princess in a fairy tale.
So she also passed on, following the king to the palace. And the
people rejoiced, and sang and feasted far into the night.
We were wakened from our first sleep by sounds of revelry and wild
songs echoing through the streets. Strange sounds to us.
We crept close to each other, Dolly and I; and I said, "Dolly, do you
think it was as good as the Book of Esther?"
But Dolly confessed to being a little disappointed. The king in the
fairy tales was so different from other people, she said; you always
knew him from any one else, even when he was dressed like a beggar.
How, she could not quite tell; perhaps his face actually shone, and
his clothes, instead of being only shone upon, like other people's.
But our king was dressed like a king in a fairy tale, there was
nothing to complain of in that; and yet, if Aunt Dorothy had not told
us, we might not have known him from the gentlemen with him. We
agreed that it would be convenient, since the faces of real kings did
not shine, that they should always wear crowns. Otherwise one might
make mistakes, which would be such a pity.
Perhaps, when our king was crowned, however, it would be all right.
But we concluded that it certainly was a very delightful thing to
have a king of our own, whether his face shone, or whether he was a
head and shoulders taller than other men, or not. It made every one
dress so beautifully, and seem so glad, and set all the bells and
trumpets going so gloriously. And we hoped very soon there would
come also the queen, and the princes and princesses.
And then the world would be something like fairy-land indeed. Our
father and mother, and Uncle Roger, and all the good people, would of
course be rewarded, and made happy all the rest of their days, when
our king found them out, as he would be sure to do in time. Of
course, they were not expecting to be rewarded. On the contrary,
they would be exceedingly surprised when the king found them out, and
embraced them, and made them sit on his right hand. The good people
in the fairy tales always were. But there was sure to be no mistake
in the end. The good people always had their due when the true
prince came. And it was not to be thought of that England was to be
worse governed than a kingdom in fairy-land.
The next week we were still more satisfied that we had entered on
this fairy world. For as Isaac, Dolly, and I were passing
Westminster Abbey, we heard an unwonted sound issuing from it, and
crept in to listen. Then, for the first time, we heard the organ,
with the chant of the choristers. But we no more thought of its
being an earthly instrument, made of wood and metal, than of the
golden streets of the New Jerusalem being made of gold like one of
our coins.
The wonderful sounds rolled up and down the aisles, and wound in and
out among the arches, and wreathed the old stone pillars, and seemed
to lose themselves in far-off shrines and mysterious endless recesses
like those in a forest, and then to come back again changed and
intertwined with earlier echoes to mingle with the new tides of music
that kept streaming forth; until we found that all the while the
wondrous tones had seemed wandering at their own sweet will, they had
been building a temple within the temple--a temple of melody within
the temple of stone. And the Abbey was no more a sculptured edifice,
but a living body with a living soul. And when this temple was
built, angels came and sang in it--voices such as we had never heard
on earth--clear as bells, and free as winds, without a touch of the
struggle and sadness in them which common human voices have.
Thus Isaac, Dolly, and I walked home, with the gates of paradise all
open around us.
The next morning we crept out again to listen if these heavenly gates
were open still.
But on our way we met a noisy, riotous crowd dragging along a bear
which was to be baited in the Spring Gardens. Isaac said "baiting"
meant that it was to be torn in pieces by dogs for the amusement of
the people, after killing and gashing as many dogs as it could,
meantime, in its own defence. This was an amusement which the
Protector had not permitted. The thought of it closed the gates of
paradise to me, at least for that day.
OLIVE'S RECOLLECTIONS.
They laid him in the Abbey among the kings.
For two years the dust of Tudors and Plantagenets was honoured (so
Roger thought) by the neighbourhood of the mortal part of the man who
had served England as any of her kings might have been proud to have
served her--had loved her, as we believe, more than home or life, or
even the esteem of good men--had made her greater than any king or
prince had ever made her, from Alfred to the Elizabeth whom he called
"that great queen."
And then, in the September after the Restoration, (by order of the
king who sold Dunkirk to the French, and spent the money like the
prodigal in the parable), the noble dust was taken out of its
resting-place, with the remains of the aged mother, and that
daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, whom the Protector had loved so dearly;
and of Blake, the great admiral, who had made the name of England a
renown from the shores of Italy and Algiers to Teneriffe and the
western islands of the Spanish main, to be cast contemptuously into a
pit in the neighbouring churchyard of St. Margaret's.
I think, when he was gone, most good men in England--at least most
Puritan good men--felt something was lost our generation was scarce
likely to recover. The Scottish ministers said that God's goodness
had marvellously caused true piety to flourish more under this
usurper than under her rightful kings; "turning bitter waters into
sweet by a miracle." And so thought Mr. Richard Baxter;
acknowledging, moreover, that he believed the Protector, misled as he
had been, "meant well in the main."
Good Mr. Philip Henry (who kept the day of the late king's death as a
fast day) wrote, that though during the years between forty and
sixty, "the foundations were out of course, yet in the matter of
God's worship thing went well; there was freedom and reformation."
Mistress Lucy Hutchinson acknowledged that he had much natural
greatness, and well became the place he had usurped, and that "his
personal courage and magnanimity upheld him against all enemies and
malcontents." And Mr. John Maidstone, his faithful "gentleman and
cofferer," wrote (when nothing but dishonour could come to any for
honouring him): "In the direst perils of the war, and the high places
of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of fire when it had
gone out in others." And he described him thus: "A body well compact
and strong; his stature under six feet (I believe two inches); his
head so shaped as you might see it both a _storehouse_ and a _shop_"
(full for every need, ready for all occasions); "a vast treasury of
natural parts; his temper exceeding fiery (as I have known), but the
flame of it kept down, for the most part, or soon allayed, with those
moral endowments he had; naturally compassionate towards objects in
distress, even to an effeminate measure, though God had made in him a
heart wherein was left little room for fear. _A larger soul, I
think, hath seldom dwelt in a house of clay than his was_."
But he was gone. And all the people in England who thought they
could govern England better than he had governed her, were at liberty
to try.
They did try, for a little more than a year. And at the end of that
time the whole nation, distracted to madness from end to end by the
disorders they brought about, threw itself at the feet of Charles the
Second, in a frenzy of loyalty, without conditions, simply
entreating, like a child wearied with its own wilfulness, to be
forgiven and governed and kept quiet, yielding every precious
right--the fruit of our forefathers' blood and toil--into his hands,
content, if he had been strong, to be made as servile as he pleased;
ready, alas, he being not strong, but weak and profligate, to be made
as base as (for the time) he could and did make it.
"Such," said Roger, "was the Aceldama from which that strong faithful
arm had saved us."
"Such," sighed my father, "was the end of the most beneficent of
despotisms that could not be immortal."
Roger never ceased, during the few months of the Commonwealth, to do
all he could to carry out what he believed would have been the Lord
Protector's wish, doing his utmost to serve my Lord Richard, the new
Protector, and, after his resignation, to keep order and discipline
in the army. But he worked with little hope. During all the times
of trial before or since, I never saw him so downcast and desponding
as then.
When once the Restoration came his spirits seemed, strangely, to rise
again.
He had done his best; and the worst had come. The hopeless struggle
without a chief was over, and henceforth he, and those who thought
with him, must gird on a new courage, not to contend but to endure.
I well remember how, on the evening of the day of the king's entry
into London, he came into our parlour, and unlaced his helmet, and
quietly ungirding his sword, laid it on a shelf behind the great
Family Bible.
He said nothing, but the action spoke; and we understood, and also
said nothing.
Then he left the room, and after a time came down, with every vestige
of the old armour of the Ironsides gone, in the plain dress of a
Puritan gentleman, and sitting down, he took Maidie on his knee, and
began to talk to her cheerily.
It overcame me altogether to see him so, for I knew it meant that he
had given up all hope for himself, and well-nigh for England, and the
tears fell fast on my sewing. He saw them, and gently setting Maidie
down, he came and sat down close by me, and said,--
"Let us thank God, Olive. The old army has been true to itself, and
to him who made it what it was, to the last.
"We were gathered on Black Heath to-day, thirty thousand of us;
enough to have swept the king and his courtiers, and London and its
citizens, into the Thames. We had done more than that before, I
think, with fewer of us. And we know, most of us, that this day is
as our last; the last of the old army he made. Many of us see
nothing left to fight for, and will go back quietly to farm and home,
to honest toil and trade, that is, if they will let us; for there are
not a few of us that look for a halter rather than a home when the
king enjoys his own again in security. They will hardly trust us
together in force again. The discipline which won Naseby and gained
Dunbar never wavered. But we let the royal party pass quietly, as if
the Lord General had given the word of command. And that, I think,
is something to give thanks for. It would not have been well to
tarnish his memory by disorders he would have reproved."
After that, the great army of the Commonwealth died away, as Roger
had expected, and was heard of no more, except when aged yeomen and
tradesmen, on village greens and in city homes, now and then
enkindled, as they spoke to each other of Naseby, Dunbar, Worcester,
and Dunkirk, into an enthusiasm strange to the next generation, who
had only known them peacefully labouring in the field, the workshop,
or at the forge.
But the bones of the Protector had not yet reached their last
resting-place. On the 3rd of January 1661; the anniversary of the
"martyrdom of His Sacred Majesty" eleven years before, the body of
the "great prince" was once more disinterred, with that of Bradshaw,
hanged throughout the day on a gibbet at Tyburn, and at night thrown
like that of a dog into a pit at the foot of the gallows.
It was a marvellous proof of the just judgments of God, some of the
Royalists thought, slow but sure.
Roger only said, when he could speak of it all, which was not for
long, "'_After that, have no more that they can do_.' They have done
the worst. And how little it is, that even the basest vengeance
could add to the dishonour of the dust, and the worm, which awaits
what is mortal of us all! The distance between Tyburn and the royal
tombs in the Abbey is little indeed, measured from heaven. Nor will
it take longer time from the one than from the other to hear the
trumpet when it sounds, and to obey its summons."
"But England is dishonoured by the deed."
"I think not," he replied; "or not chiefly by _that_ deed. The men
of England may be dishonoured that they did not acknowledge him
living. But no grave in England can dishonour him dead, or can take
his dust from the faithful keeping of his native earth; nor, I think,
can all men may do keep the day from coming when England shall feel
that not one spot only, but every inch of English earth is made more
sacred by his feet having trodden it, and by his dust being mingled
with it."
Little indeed can human vengeance add to the dishonour of death, when
once death is past.
But alas, on this side, how much is possible to human cruelty!
As victim after victim proved, led forth to the ignominy and the
protracted anguish of the traitor's death, patiently giving up their
souls to God amidst such agonies as the torturer's knife could
inflict.
Some were in the prime of life and strong to feel; others aged and
weak to bear. But I never heard that any of the ten who so suffered
dishonoured either themselves, what they deemed "the good old cause,"
England, or the God who sustained them, by one unworthy word or moan.
The savage punishment of treason had never been inflicted once during
the Commonwealth. It was suffered eleven times in the first year
after the Restoration. It came back with the May-poles, and the
beautiful coats of many colours, and courtly manners.
The king was present at some of these executions. He went from them
to hear the beautiful heavenly music in the Royal Chapel; or to
listen to other music, not heavenly, in the palace.
But the people grew weary of this soon. It was feared that if these
executions were too often repeated, the minds of the Commonwealth
might once more become confused about the enormity of the crime,
illogically forgetting it in the enormity of the punishment. And it
was recommended they should not be continued; at all events, not so
near the royal residence.
But amidst all the restorations--which to us seemed not going forward
and upward, but backward and downward--there was one which brought me
some peaceful and hallowed hours.
It was the restoration of the old Liturgy.
There was comfort in creeping into some quiet corner of the Abbey, or
of the great churches of the city, to join in the old familiar sacred
words.
It was rest to kneel in silent adoration, and be certain one's heart
would not be turned aside from lifting itself up to God, by any
allusions to the triumphs or the reverses, the wrongs or the
revenges, of to-day.
It was joy, in the _Te Deum_, to lose sight of divisions and
factions, and with the glorious company of apostles, the goodly
fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs, the holy
Church throughout all the world, to praise Him of the majesty of
whose glory all the earth is full.
It was strength to stand up, and say with the Church of all ages and
lands: "I believe in God, the Father Almighty; and in Jesus Christ,
His only Son, our Lord; in the forgiveness of sins, in the holy
Catholic Church, and in the resurrection from the dead."
To stand up above the graves, and under the heavens, and say this to
God; in the words I used in my childhood, and Lady Lucy, and so many
of our holy dead all their lives, and the Church for so many ages;
words which had outlived so many wars, and which flowed from calm
depths so far beneath them all.
LETTICE'S DIARY.
Davenant Hall, _June_ 1660.--The country seems in a delirium of
delight to see us back again, and to have a king once more.
"The Usurper, or the people who followed him, must, one would think,
have made England very wretched, that the restoration of her old
state should drive her well-nigh wild with joy.
"At Dover, where His Majesty landed, and all along the road to
London, sober men and women knelt and sobbed out blessings on him!
Old men thanked God they saw this day before they died; Mothers held
up their children to look at him, that they might be able to carry on
to children and grandchildren the tradition of this glorious day!
"Arches of triumph across the sober old streets; banners from the
windows, mad huzzas from the sober crowds, in whose costume tarnished
relics of old Cavalier gaieties struggled to kindle the Puritan
sobriety into colour. Oh, the thrill all through the heart of the
old English shout of welcome and triumph, the old English cheer! No
wonder Marshal Turenne asked what it meant at Dunkirk.
"Dear, sober, solid, silent old England, when she goes wild, she does
it with a will. Bells, bonfires; dumb, patient crowds waiting, well
content, for hours, just for the moment's sight and the moment's
shout of welcome. The attempts to utter this joy in speeches and
processions, so hopelessly stiff and clumsy and inadequate, that
laughter and tears are kept in close neighbourhood all the time, so
delightfully inadequate to utter the welcome and delights in the
deep, dumb ocean of the nation's heart.
"So glad, so crazy with joy, to see us back again! Patient, blind,
hopeful, wilful, loyal old mother of us all; and why?
"Eleven years ago she suffered her king to die on the scaffold; and
this king, I think, is scarce like to be better.
"It is strange to be made so much of as we are by all the neighbours
here. No one has been very glad to have us for so many years. And
now we are all heroes and heroines, we who have been with the king in
his exile. They cannot hear enough of what we did and suffered in
foreign parts, and of the bearing of the royal family in their
adverse fortunes.
"And, in truth, we have come rather soon to the end of what we like
to say about His Majesty.
"Yet His Majesty also cannot fail but be swept on with the joy and
hope of the nation.
"Surely, surely the very welcome must be ennobling to him so
welcomed. The very love and trust of a whole people, such as this,
must inspire His Majesty to be worthy of the feeling he inspires;
must consume in its pure fires all that we had fain see consumed of
the past; must enkindle in his heart a returning glow of kingly
patriotism, which shall hallow it into an altar on which all falser
and baser fires shall be extinguished.
"I had scarce thought we should have had so much to regret in leaving
France. We had always felt it so completely a land of exile, and had
always so hoped our sojourn in it must be drawing to a close, that it
was not until we had to sever them we learned how many ties had
slowly been weaving themselves around us, and binding our hearts to
the strange country.
"Even the lofty rooms in the old palace, which had seemed such mere
prison-chambers when we entered them; even my father's old enemy 'the
stone woman, who could never empty her pitcher,' seemed to have
acquired a kind of right in us.
"Madame la Mothe made a vain attempt at softening the parting with
congratulatory little pleasantries. They broke down into tears and
tender reproaches, her heart being much moved at the time, moreover,
by the death of her nephew, for the sake of whose young widow she
consented to remain in 'the world' to manage the family estates.
"'Thou shouldst, indeed, have a heavy weight on thy conscience,' she
said to me, 'with all thine innocent looks. My poor nephew would
have been so happy with thee, if thou wouldst have wedded him; he
would never have gone to the wars and left this poor little helpless
widow to my guardianship. Then my nephew, still happily surviving,
and thou making his life good and pleasant, I should at last,
perhaps, have had leisure and grace to make a thorough conversion. I
should have gone to Port Royal, and thou, being brought in this way
more intimately acquainted with the exemplary piety of those saintly
ladies, wouldst once more have considered thy heresies, and at last
taken that little step--that one little step which divides thee from
the True Fold. Thus I should have made my own salvation and thine;
thou the salvation of my nephew. So all might have ended like a
romance composed for the edification of youth. And now see the
contrast! I remain in the world, bound to it by this poor young
widow (with whom otherwise I have no fault to find); thou returnest
to thine unbelieving England. My heart feels desolate for thee, as
if I lost thy mother and a second youth in losing thee. And, alas,
these gentlemen the Jesuits threaten to overwhelm Port Royal. Thus
every thing goes on to the wrong end. Or, if the romance is ever to
end right, there must be another volume, another volume not yet even
begun, quite out of my sight; which Heaven grant there may be!
Heaven grant there be, my child, here or hereafter. For me,
certainly, not here; but, if Heaven wills, I pray for thee, here and
hereafter also.'
"Barbe was sorely distracted between me and her seven sisters and
brothers. At length she decided, with many tears, that duty bound
her to her family.
"'My father is an excellent man, mademoiselle, also a great
politician, and religious as a pastor; but in the affairs of the
earth, mademoiselle, he is a child, blameless--but a child.
"'And there are these seven other children. I call them still
children, because I am five years older than any of them, and because
they were children when I left them to attend mademoiselle, and gain
a living for the rest. The youngest is not yet eleven. The oldest
is scarcely twenty. He is a student, learned and "eloquent (my
father says) as Demosthenes." But, unhappily, not endowed with those
talents which earn bread. As yet I alone have developed these
inferior capacities; transitory, but, alas, so necessary in a world
where our corn has to be baked before it can be eaten, and one's flax
to be spun before it can be worn. What then can I do? If my father
should at last obtain that appointment he is always expecting from
some appreciating statesmen, or one of the children should develop
these inferior gifts for earning bread; and if then mademoiselle
should not, in the splendour of the establishment she was born to and
so well deserves, have forgotten her poor little French Huguenot
maid--'
"But here Barbe's eloquence broke down, and she wept.
"'I shall never forget thee, Barbe,' I said, 'nor the ten thousand
lessons of self-denial and sweet temper and cheerful diligence I have
learned from thee.'
"'But mademoiselle will then have ladies for her attendants,' sighed
Barbe, who, in spite of all I could say, had formed very exalted
ideas of our destinies.
"'Never one with such fingers as thine, or with a better heart,' I
said.
"'Then,' sighed Barbe, as she delicately arranged my hair in long
tresses, 'it might yet be. History, my father says, is more romantic
than the romances. I might even yet arrange again this luxuriant
hair.'
"'Scarcely luxuriant then, Barbe; or, if luxuriant gray, and only fit
to be soberly bound beneath some simple coif in some homely fashion,
quite unworthy of thy skilful fingers. You found three white hairs
yesterday.'
"'Sorrow, not years!' she said, quietly. 'Mademoiselle has allowed
me sometimes to know how it was she understood our sorrows so well.'
"'Sorrows partly, and partly years, Barbe,' I said. 'This Book tells
us the years are leading us on to the end of the sorrows, and the
sorrows training us to enjoy the harvest of the years.'
"And we shed tears together as she read the inscription I had written
on the large French Bible I had bought her as a souvenir.
"'Ah, mademoiselle,' she said, 'I shall always hear your voice
reading it; your voice and my mother's, the kindest I have ever known
or shall ever know till I meet you both again.'
"I saw Mistress Dorothy in the crowd at the entry into London. She
seemed half-kneeling--an unspeakable mark of honour from her dear
inflexible Puritan knees. She seemed a little aged; but her face was
all aglow with enthusiasm. And with her were two fair rosy children,
not like city children, who gazed at me with wide-open wondering
eyes--those of the eldest dark and flashing, like Dr. Antony's; the
other has Olive's eyes. I think she has told them something of
Lettice, little wild Lettice Davenant. They looked pleased, and yet
so puzzled.
"My eyes went past them, but in vain. None else of the old Netherby
friends was there. Alas, I fear, they are not all swept into this
tide of welcome.
"Roger's 'king,' I fear, lies silent underground. Like mine. His,
buried in state (they say), among the kings he supplanted, at
Westminster. Mine, laid in silence among the kings, his fathers, at
Windsor.
"The great gulf between us is hardly bridged over yet.
"Netherby is empty. Mr. Drayton and Mistress Gretel are in London
with Olive.
"This old place is in such order as if we had left it yesterday,
which is more, I think, than any other of the exiled Cavaliers can
say of their restored homes.
"I know how. I see the hands that did it all, at every turn, in
every nook, in every flower in my mother's terrace-garden so neat and
trim, in every grove and arbour of the Pleasaunce, where we used to
ramble in the old days.
"Ungrateful that I am! I could almost wish they had left it
neglected. I could almost wish the roses had run wild, that the
flower-beds had returned to the possession of forest weeds, the
smooth turf run up into long wild grasses, that the terrace walls
were green and moss-grown, that nature had been suffered to run into
the elfish kind of revels she likes to play when she finds her way
once more into gardens stolen from her domain, that time had been
suffered to weave the tangled garlands wherewith, as with a lavish
funereal pomp, he is wont to strew deserted places which have been
dear to human creatures.
"So much has run wild, has run to seed, has blossomed and shed its
bloom since then! So much is gone for ever and for ever, it is
almost more than I can bear to find these familiar things so much the
same. Ungrateful, diseased thoughts, I will not give them a minute's
voluntary entertainment.
"Gone? _Nothing_ worth keeping has really gone, not one blossom
worth living has really faded. They have not faded, they have
fruited. They have fruited, or they are ripening into fruit, sunbeam
by sunbeam, shower by shower, day by day. Rich summer-time, golden
harvest-time of life! God forbid that I never speak 'pulingly' (as
he said), as if spring faded and not ripened into summer, or dawn
died instead of glowed into day.
"And most of all this is so with thee, mother, mother! with thee,
whose lost presence makes garden, terrace, chamber, so sacred and so
sad. I know it--I know it! Thy dawn was full of tears, and has
glowed indeed into the day. I know it; and when I think of thee, of
thee and Harry, I rejoice in it.
"As to myself, I cannot rejoice at it. Nor need I try. Thank God, I
need not freeze my heart by vainly trying to make sorrow not sorrow.
The sorrow is my share of it now, and the joy is to come _through
that_, through opening our hearts patiently to that, not by closing
them and trying to make some wretched artificial sunshine out of the
shadow of the cloud. The cloud is sent to bring us not light, but
shadow and rain. Behind and after it the sunshine, when the time
comes for that!
"I thought I saw Job Forster among the thirty thousand on Blackheath;
the terrible thousands which kept France and Spain and Europe in awe
all these years, and kept us out of England. Why they let us come
back at all is the wonder. For they were not broken nor disordered,
but compact and strong as ever. And I scarce think they share in the
welcome the nation gives us. I think most of us breathed more freely
when that dread host was passed.
"I thought I saw Job Forster among them. Yet when I went into
Netherby, there he was at the old forge, working away as steadily and
soberly as if he had never left it, instead of roaming all over the
world at the beck of Oliver, beating army after army--English,
Royalist, Irish, Scottish, Spanish, on field after field.
"I could scarce trust my eyes. I was half afraid to speak to him,
fearing lest he should give me but a grim greeting as a fragment of
the "malignant interest" wherewith they have dealt somewhat sternly.
Beside him stood a lad in a blacksmith's apron, helping him at the
forge, with a curious perplexing half-resemblance in his face, which
perplexed me like a strain of some familiar tune interwoven into
strange music.
"But before I passed, Job looked up at my footsteps, and seeing me, I
suppose he forgot Naseby Worcester, malignancy, and everything, for
he threw down his tools, and striding forward, took my hands in both
of his, black as they were, and shook them till the tears ran down my
face, mostly for gladness, and a little for the pain in my fingers.
"'Mistress Lettice, my dear,' he said, 'I am right glad to see thee
back again. Come how ye may,' he added, to guard himself against any
political concession--'come how ye may.'
"Then Rachel came out at the door of the old cottage, her dear quiet
face little aged since I saw her at Oxford, when she made her way
through the royal lines to find her wounded husband in the prison.
Little aged, yet somewhat changed; ripened, not aged; less of outward
suffering, more of protecting motherliness in her ways and looks and
tones. And she, too, came forward and courtseyed, a little more
mindful of good manners, and bade me welcome, in words like the Book
of Ruth, to my country, and my people, and my father's house.
"How sweet it was! The old English country tongue; the old English
welcome, shyly suppressing twice as much pleasure as it uttered, so
sweet that I could say nothing, but could only take her hands in
mine, and seek refuge in the cottage, and sit quiet, with my head on
her kind old heart, until the crowding memories and joys and sorrows
and love and loss which stifled each other into silence found their
outlet in a burst of tears.
"It was soon over. And then a pale woman with a meek still face came
forward at Rachel's bidding from a dark corner of the room, where she
had been sitting sewing, and filled me a cup of fresh water from a
little basin outside the window.
"When she came close to me she smiled, and made a little reverence.
And the smile brought back for a moment the youth into her face. And
I knew at once she was Cicely, Gammer Grindle's grandchild. Then it
all flashed on me in an instant. I had found where the strain of the
familiar tune came from; the lad outside was her son, and by Divine
right, if not by human law, Sir Launcelot's heir.
"I shook her hand, and she lifted it to her lips and kissed it, with
a grace which brought back the day when that pale woman had danced
round the May-pole, laughing and rosy, and light-footed and
light-hearted, with so many looking on whose faces we should not see
again.
"I shall get used to it all in time. But now scarce a familiar old
sight or sound but would move me to tears, if I did not repress them;
as I do, of course. For I would not have the people think I came
back among them with a sorrowful heart, or one left in foreign parts.
"And how can they understand how the paths they have been going up
and down upon, and the doors they have been going in and out of every
day these eleven years, to me are doors into a buried past, and paths
trodden by feet that tread our earthly ways never more?
"Yet I think Rachel understands it, for as I was coming away she
said,--
"'There has been One walking all the way with us all, Mistress
Lettice, all the time. And He knows all.'
"It was just the strengthening word I wanted to turn me, from the
past to the Ever-Present, from the dead to the Living, for all live
unto Him. A glimpse into the heart of the Son of man, I think, such
as Rachel Forster has, gives those who have it a vision into the
hearts of all men.
"To my father, our home-coming is well-nigh unmixed delight. He is
as frolicsome as a boy, full of schemes for re-uniting and
reconciling the whole world, by means primarily of ale and roast
beef. How pleasant it is to hear his great hearty voice ringing
through the hall and court, among the stables, giving orders about
the stud, the farm, the hounds; waxing warm over Roundhead insolence
with the old servants; cracking jokes with the young ones; mistaking
people for their grandfathers and grandmothers; and making his way
out of all his entanglements by chivalrous old courtly compliments
and hearty old English jokes; and through all never ceasing to be the
courtier and the master, and scarcely ever losing his temper, except
now and then with the cool mockeries of Roland, and the reckless
carriage of Walter and the courtiers of the New Court whom he brings
to see us. Indeed, it needs an occasional refreshing of my father's
recollection of the days of the Roundheads to keep his loyalty to the
Old Court very warm towards the new."
OLIVE'S RECOLLECTIONS.
Aunt Dorothy was much with us during the months after the Restoration.
She was marvellously gracious and gentle all that time. She believed
that we had suffered for our political sins, and must be convinced by
the irresistible demonstration of failure of the vanity and folly of
our conduct; and she was too magnanimous and too confident to demand
confession. It must now be but too plain to us, she thought, that we
had erred grievously, and she only hoped our retribution might not be
too grievous. For herself, she forgave us our follies on the ground
of their failure. The King himself, who had so much to forgive, had
written a letter from Breda offering indemnity for the past and
liberty of conscience for the future, and should she be more rigid
than His Majesty? Far from it. She would take the whole family
under her wing, and protect us as far as lay in her power from the
consequences of our transgressions.
She had even some thoughts of extending toleration further than she
had once deemed possible. Mr. Baxter deemed a church government
possible which might include "Diocesans," Presbyterians, and
Independents; and a Liturgy which might be joined in by
moderate--very moderate--Arminians, and moderate (she feared
lukewarm) Calvinists.
She scarcely saw her way to it. If any one could accomplish such a
thing, Mr. Baxter might. Some indulgence ought, perhaps (if
possible), to be extended to the Prelatists, on account of their
loyalty. Some concessions might perhaps be made to the Independents
(among whom she did not deny were some godly men) to prevent their
straying further into the wilderness of the Fifth Monarchy party, the
Quakers, and the Anabaptists. Much was doubtless due to charity.
And when once the true Presbyterian order was established, the gates
of Zion rebuilt, and her walls--though in troublous times--it was to
be hoped that the sober beauty of her fair towers and palaces would
root out the prelatical passion for Babylonish splendours, and the
Independent predilection for new ways, and "holes and corners," from
the hearts of all that beheld.
For that the day of Presbyterial triumph had at last dawned on this
distracted England, she would not be so faint-hearted as to doubt.
Had not His Majesty three times signed the Scottish Covenant? Had
not the divines who went to see him at Breda been suffered to listen
(unsuspected of course by His Majesty) to his private devotions,
until their souls were moved within them? Had not the excellent
Countess of Balcarres told Mr. Baxter how satisfied the French
Presbyterian ministers were with his religious dispositions? Had not
Monsieur Gaches, pastor of Charenton, himself written to Mr. Baxter
how His Majesty attended and appreciated the French Protestant
services? Had not Mr. Baxter himself been appointed one of His
Majesty's chaplains? And if this were insufficient grounds for
confidence, what honest English heart, what loyal soul, could dare to
doubt that a young king with such bitter lessons behind him, with
such glorious hopes before him, trusted and welcomed as never king
had been by the nation, brought back (as she believed) mainly by the
agency of covenanted soldiers, and the prayers and loyal endeavours
of Presbyterian pastors and their flocks, would be faithful to his
oaths, more especially when to be faithful to his promises was to be
faithful to his interests? Was there not, moreover, the solemn
Conference actually going on among the divines of the various parties
at the Savoy?
Had not Mr. Baxter been encouraged to state all the Puritan
objections to the Prayer-book to the full--to propound any number of
"queries," and elaborate any number of alterations; and had he not
embraced the privilege to the full, sparing not a vestige of the
Babylonish vesture? Had he not, moreover, in a fortnight, drawn up
an amended Liturgy, correcting all the mistakes of the ancient
Prayer-book, and supplying all its omissions?--a form which, if there
must be forms, might satisfy the most scrupulous. Had not even the
learned Dr. Gauden, who had issued that most affecting Portraiture of
His Sacred Majesty, called the Icon Basilike, shown himself most
unfeignedly courteous and conciliating, and hopeful of an
accommodation?
All these considerations set Aunt Dorothy on such a lofty pinnacle of
hope, that she suffered even Annis Nye to call her Friend Dorothy
without open rebuke, and was suspected of meditating a scheme which
might even embrace Anabaptists ("if they would only rebaptise each
other, and not blaspheme other people's baptism") and Quakers, if
they would hold silent meetings.
The moment of triumph was not the moment for reproaches. Aunt
Dorothy, triumphing over us all, in fact, tolerated us all in
prospect.
I confess it was sometimes a little difficult to be thus loftily
forgiven; and, indeed, I remember once when in a moment of
unparalleled magnanimity Aunt Dorothy loftily extended her toleration
to Dr. Martin Luther, saying that, although she could never think him
justified about some things, yet that she believed after all "he was
right in the main, poor man, and great allowance must be made for one
so recently set free from Popery;" that Aunt Gretel herself was
roused to say privately to me, "Olive, dear heart, I believe if St.
Paul were to appear she would tell him that, after all, she believed
he was right in the main, although she never could think he was
justified in shaving his head at Cenchrea, but great allowances were
to be made for any one only just set free from being a Pharisee.'"
There were, indeed, a few symptoms which ruffled even Aunt Dorothy's
calm loyal confidence. It was unfortunate, she could not deny, that
(in consequence of certain legal technicalities) Mr. Baxter was
deprived of his living, the former vicar displaced by the
Commonwealth having at once entered on it as his right. But these
little perplexities were sure to be soon set right. All
transferences of authority were sure at first to press unjustly on
some.
In the meantime Mr. Baxter had been offered a bishopric. He had
declined the bishopric, until the Comprehension for which the
Conference was labouring was fully accomplished. But the bishopric
had been offered, the chaplaincy accepted; and who could doubt that
in time, if he wished, his living would be restored? the old vicar
being, moreover, scarce able to preach at all, and sixteen hundred
communicants having sent up a request from Kidderminster for the
restoration of Mr. Baxter.
It was also unfortunate, she admitted, that many hundred "painful
preachers" had been suddenly removed from their churches on the same
grounds as Mr. Baxter; but the Protector and his triers (said Aunt
Dorothy) had set an ill example, and ill fruit must be expected to
grow of it.
Then there were some severe dealings with books. Mr. John Milton's
"Defence of the English People" was burned at Charing Cross by the
public hangman. But at that, said Aunt Dorothy, no loyal person
could wonder, seeing that therein he had dared to speak of the late
king's execution as a great and magnanimous act. Properly regarded,
it was indeed a singular proof of His Majesty's clemency that Mr.
Milton's book only was burned, and not Mr. Milton himself.
The public burning of the Covenant was a more doubtful act. This she
saw with her own eyes at Kidderminster, in the market-place, before
Mr. Baxter's windows. The king had signed it and sworn to it, and
there were excellent things in it. But there was no denying it had
been used to seditious ends. Some (concluded Aunt Dorothy, pressed
hard for a Scriptural example) had ground the brazen serpent to
powder because it had been made an idol. And she had little doubt,
with reverence she said it, Moses would have done the same with the
very Tables of the Law, if they had been similarly desecrated. The
Ark itself was not spared, but suffered to fall into the hands of the
Philistines when Israel would have used it like a heathen charm.
Nevertheless, with these arguments I believe Aunt Dorothy herself was
not easy; she was driven to them by Job Forster, who had asked her
one day, with a grim irony, how she liked the new doings in Scotland,
the execution of Argyle, the forcing of Prelacy and the Prayer-book
on the unwilling Presbyterian people, and the burning of the Covenant
in Edinburgh.
But as the months of 1661 passed on, and the Conference stood still,
whilst Mr. Baxter and the other deprived ministers were not restored,
Aunt Dorothy's lofty confidence gradually changed into an irritable
apprehension, which took the form of vehement indignation against all
who refused to believe in the favorable issue of events, or who, as
she believed, stood in the way of it. And it often moved me much to
see how, with ingenious fondness, like a mother with a wild son, she
laid the blame on the servants of the house, on the riotous company
or grudging hospitality of the far country, on the very management of
the home itself rather than on the royal prodigal.
A large portion of this diverted current of wrath was poured on the
Queen-mother, Henrietta Maria, who held open celebration of Roman
Catholic rites in her palace.
To any information concerning the appropriation of apartments in the
king's palace to the king's "lady" or "ladies," she refused
absolutely to listen. "It is written," said she, "thou shalt not
speak evil of the ruler of thy people. But," she added, "if any one
were to blame, it was the party that had exposed him to the
seductions of his mother Jezebel, and the idolatrous foreign court.
Indeed, who can doubt the pureness of the king's Protestant
principle, which (even if his morals had been a little contaminated)
had resisted Papistical enticements so long?"
The scene in Whitehall, where the king, under a canopy of state, laid
his hands on those who were brought to him to heal them of "the
king's evil," while the chaplain repeated the words, "_He laid His
hands on the sick and healed them_," was indeed a sore scandal to
her. It made her very indignant with the chaplain, who had misguided
His Majesty.
"Mr. Baxter must be careful," she said, "how he conceded too much to
the Prelatical party."
But the chief force of her wrath was directed against the
Queen-mother, who, she said, had ruined one king and one generation
of Englishmen, and was doing her best to ruin a second; against the
Queen-mother and the Fifth Monarchy men.
To the insurrection of Venner, the winecooper, in January 1661, she
attributed the delay and disappointment in the Conference. How was a
young king, kept in exile so long, to learn in a moment to
distinguish between the various sects, or not to be induced by such
fanatical outbursts to believe the evil advisers who persuaded him
that outside the ancient Episcopal Church lay nothing but a slippery
descent from depth to depth?
Still she hoped on from month to month, or protested that she did,
although her hopes made her less and less glad, and more and more
irritable, until she tried all our tempers in turn. All except
Roger's. His patience and gentleness with her was unwearied.
"I know what she is feeling, Olive," he said. "I went through it all
between the Protector's death and the Restoration; hoping against
hope. It strains temper and heart as nothing else does. She will
have to give it up, and then she will be all right again."
"Give up hoping, Roger?" I said.
"Give up hoping against reason, give up trying to persuade oneself
down hill is up hill, and evening morning," he said, "and going into
the cloud coming out of it; giving up trying to see things as they
are not, Olive. Seeing things as they are, and still hoping, that
makes the spirit calm again. Hoping, knowing, that the end of the
road is up the heights, not into the abysses; that the evening is
only a foreshadowing of the morning that shall not tarry; that the
sun and not the cloud abides. That the Lord Christ," he added,
lowering his voice to tones which, soft as a whisper, vibrated
through my heart like thunder, "and not the devil, has all power in
heaven and in earth, and that His kingdom shall have no end."
"Your hope is for the Church, Roger, but not for England."
His face kindled as he answered,--
"Not for England? Always for England!--for England everywhere! Now;
in the ages to come; on this side of the sea, on the other side of
the sea; in the Old World and in the New; under the bondage of this
profligate tyranny, which must wear itself out as surely as a
putrifying carcass must decay; in the wilderness, where our people
are beginning a story more glorious, I believe, than all the heroic
tales of old Greece."
For at that time, whilst doing all in his power by promoting concord
amongst Christians to aid Mr. Baxter and the ministers who were
seeking for "healing and settlement," and whilst sharing my husband's
labours among those in prison, Roger began to look with a new
interest on the tidings which came to us from the Plantations,
especially those concerning Mr. John Eliot, who was labouring to
convert the poor Indian natives to Christianity. In this he and Aunt
Dorothy had much sympathy. Mr. Baxter had always taken a lively
interest in this missionary work. Collections had been made during
the Commonwealth to aid in supporting evangelists, and aid in
translating the Bible and good books into the languages of the
natives; and now, in the midst of all his conferences and
contentions, Mr. Baxter was labouring at obtaining a charter for a
_Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts_. And in this
he succeeded.
At that time a manuscript was much in Roger's hands, containing a
copy of Journals of the early Puritan settlers of forty years before.
He found it the best lesson of true hope he had ever read. And
during the winter evenings of 1661 he would often recite passages
aloud to us. Amidst the misunderstandings of good men and the
conflicts of parties, it was like a breath of bracing wind to listen
to those conflicts of our countrymen with rains and snows and storms,
and all the hardships of the wild country peopled by wild beasts and
wilder men. As in the Bible stories, there was little making of
sermons or drawing of morals in this narrative. The whole story was
a sermon, and engraved its own moral on the heart as it went on. In
three months half the first noble pilgrim band died, of cold and wet,
insufficient shelter and insufficient food. The original hundred
were reduced to fifty. Fifty living, and fifty graves to consecrate
the new country. Then the grave had to be levelled indistinguishably
into the sweep of the earth around, lest the hostile Indians, seeing
them, should violate them. Yet never a moan nor a murmur. Their
trust in God revealing itself in their patience and courage, their
cheerfulness and unquenchable hope. And now for the fifty were more
than twenty thousand; and the wilderness had become a place of
English homesteads and villages, fondly called by the old English
names.
As Roger read and told us of these things the world grew round to me
for the first time. I began to see there was another side to it.
And the vision of this new world--this new English world--rose before
me as a new Land of Promise, which if persecution ever made this
England for the time "the wilderness," might be a refuge for our
suffering brethren again.
Not indeed for us. I did not think so much of ourselves: our
convictions were moderate and our lives peaceable; and the Star
Chamber was not likely to be re-established within the memory of the
generation that had destroyed it. But the Anabaptists, and the more
decided Independents, who objected to all forms of prayer, and the
Quakers, might find such an asylum yet very welcome. Already there
were four thousand Quakers in prison. Some had been shut up, sixty
in a cell, and had died of bad air and scanty food. For sober
Presbyterians, like Aunt Dorothy and Mr. Baxter, or moderate people
attached with few scruples to the Liturgy, like my father, my
husband, and myself, there might not indeed be the triumph in store
of which Aunt Dorothy dreamed. But of persecution or imprisonment we
did not dream. The tide could never rise again in our lifetime as
high as that.
It perplexed us much that during all these months we saw nothing of
the Davenants. We did not chance to be at Netherby during the year
1661, or the beginning of 1662. My father had rheumatism, and was
ordered not to winter on the Fens; my husband was much occupied; so
that we did not have our usual summer holiday. Lettice and Sir
Walter, we heard, were for a time in London, about the Court; but we
saw nothing of them.
The children who were at Netherby brought back wonderful stories of
the sweet lady at the hall; and Maidie especially was inspired with a
love for her which reminded me of the fascination of Lady Lucy over
me in my own childhood.
I felt sure Lettice's heart could not change. Had her will, then,
grown so weak that she dared not make one effort to break through the
barriers which separated us?
Or was it, rather, stronger and more immovable than I had thought?
Did she indeed still refuse indemnity to the political offences of
the Commonwealth? Could, indeed, no lapse of time efface, no
shedding of traitors' blood expiate, the shedding of that royal blood
which separated her from Roger?
Nothing but repentance?--the repentance he could never feel without
desecrating the memory of that good prince who, as he believed, had
been trained by God, through conflict within and without, anointed by
wars, and crowned by victory after victory, to be such a ruler as
England had never known, over such an England as the world had never
seen.
What Roger thought, I knew not. He never mentioned the name of any
of the Davenants, except that of Walter, the youngest, who seemed to
come to him from time to time, and whom I saw once at his lodgings,
and did not recognize till after he had left, when Roger told me who
he was.
For I remember Walter Davenant a light-hearted boy, with frank face
and bearing, and eyes like his mother's. And this Walter Davenant
had a manner half reckless and half sullen; a dress which, with all
its laces and plumes and tassels, looked neglected; and restless,
uneasy eyes, which never steadily met yours.
"Is that Lettice Davenant's brother Walter?" I said.
"It is Walter Davenant, one of the courtiers of King Charles the
Second."
"He is a friend of yours, Roger."
"He is Lettice's brother," he replied; "and she asked me to see him
sometimes; and now and then he likes to come."