Come with words as medicinal as true,
Honest as either.--Shakspere.
Now, there are many people who would here leave their reader in
suspense, and, darting off to some other part of the tale, would not
give the most remote hint of Lady Constance's fate, till they had
drawled through two or three long chapters about a frog and a roasted
apple, or any other thing, if possible still more irrelevant. But far
be such disingenuous dealing from me, whose sole aim, intent, and
object, is to give my reader pleasure; and by now and then detailing
some little accident or adventure, to keep him just enough awake to
prevent the volume falling out of his hand into the fire; to win
sometimes a smile, and sometimes a sigh, without aspiring either to
laughter or tears; tickling his soul, as it were, with the point of a
feather, so as neither to rouse nor to lull; and to leave him in such
a state, that when he lays down the book he knows not whether he has
been reading or dreaming.
Such are the luxurious aspirations of Vonderbrugius, who is recorded
to have himself written more than one volume in his sleep, and to have
even carried them to the printer in a state of somnambulency. After
this, without more ado, he proceeds to relate, that the worthy Dr.
Wilbraham, finding somebody take him by the arm, turned round in a
state of vexation and worry, if I may use the word, which overcame the
natural gentleness of his disposition, and made him demand, rather
sharply, what the stranger wanted with him.
"Why, doctor," replied the man, "you must come instantly to my lord
cardinal, who has been struck with the pestilent air in returning from
Richmond, and desires to consult with you on the means of preventing
its bad effects."
"Pshaw!" cried the good chaplain, pettishly; "I'm not Dr. Butts! How
could you frighten me so? We come to see the doctor ourselves."
"Stand out of the way, then, if you are not him," cried the man,
changing his tone, and rudely pushing between the clergyman and Lady
Constance. "The cardinal must be served first, before such as you, at
least;" and knocking loudly against the door, he soon brought forth a
page, who informed him that the physician was at the house of old Sir
Guy Willoughby, farther down in the same street.
On this news, the messenger immediately set off again, leaving Dr.
Wilbraham to discuss what matters he liked with the page, now that his
own insolent haste was satisfied. The servants instantly recognised
their master's uncle, and permitted him, with his fair companions, to
enter and take possession of his book-room, while awaiting his return;
and the rosy maid, whom Sir Osborne had found scrubbing crucibles, now
bustled about with good-humoured activity to make the lady
comfortable.
Long seemed the minutes, however, to the mind of poor Constance till
the physician's return. Her path was now entirely amidst
uncertainties, and at each step she knew not whether it would lead her
to safety or destruction. Such a proceeding as that in which she was
engaged does not strike one, when calmly related, as full of half the
anxiety and alarm that really accompanied it. Let it be remembered,
that not only her fortune, but her liberty for life, and the whole
happiness of her existence, were involved; and it may be then
conceived with what trembling fear she awaited each incident that
might tend to forward her escape or to betray her flight.
Though it seemed to her an age, Dr. Butts was not really long in
returning; but no language can depict the astonishment of his
countenance when he beheld Lady Constance with his uncle. "'Odslife!"
cried he, "what is this? Lady, are you ill, or well, or wise? Uncle,
are you mad, or drunk, or foolish?"
The good clergyman informed him that he was in none of the
predicaments to which he alluded, and then proceeded to relate the
circumstances and motives which had induced them to resolve upon
leaving the court of England and flying to France, to claim the
protection of the French king, who was, in fact, the lady's sovereign
as far as regarded her maternal estates.
"It's a bad business!" cried Dr. Butts, who still stood in the middle
of the floor, rubbing his chin, and not yet recovered from his
surprise; "it's a bad business! I always thought it would be a bad
business. Nay, nay, lady, do not weep," continued the kind-hearted
mediciner, seeing the tears that began to roll silently over
Constance's cheek; "it is not so bad as that. Wolsey will doubtless
claim you at the hands of the French king; but Francis is not a man to
give you up. However, take my advice: retire quietly to one of your
châteaux, and live like a nun till such time as this great friendship
between the two courts is past. It will not last long," he added, with
a sententious shake of the head: "it will not last long. But,
nevertheless, you keep yourself in France, as secretly as may be,
while it does last."
"But how to get to France is the question," said Dr. Wilbraham: "we
shall do well enough when we are there, I doubt not. It is how to get
to France that we must think of."
"Oh! we will manage that," replied Dr. Butts; "we will manage that:
though, indeed, these are not things that I like to meddle with; but,
nevertheless, I suppose I must in this case. Nay, nay, my dear lady,
do not grieve. 'Slife! you a soldier's daughter, and afraid! Nay,
cheer up, cheer up! It shall all go right, I warrant."
The doctor seated himself, and observing that Constance looked pale
and cold, he insisted on her swallowing a Venice glass of mulled sack
and going to bed. As to the sack, he said, he would ensure it for the
best in Europe; and in regard to the beds in his house, he could only
say, that he had once entertained the four most famous alchymists of
the world, and they were not men to sleep on hard beds. "Taste the
sack, lady; taste the sack;" he continued. "Believe me, it is the best
medicine in the pharmacy, and certainly the only one I ever take
myself. Then while you go and court your pillow, I will, devise some
scheme with this good uncle of mine to help you over to the
Frenchman's shore."
The physician's rosy maid was now called, and conducted Lady Constance
and Mistress Margaret to a handsome bedchamber, where we shall leave
them for the present; and without prying, into Dr. Butts's household
furniture, return to the consultation that was going on below.
"Well, uncle," said the physician, as soon as Lady Constance had left
them, "you have shown your wisdom truly, in running away with an
heiress for another man. On my life, you have beaten the man who was
hanged for his friend, saying that he would do as much for him another
time! Why, do you know, you can never show your face in England
again?"
"My good nephew," replied Dr. Wilbraham quietly, "for all your fine
words, if you had been in my situation you would have done just as I
have done. I know you, Charles."
"Not I, i'faith," cried Dr. Butts; "I would not have budged a foot."
"What! when you saw her cast upon the world, friendless and helpless,"
cried the old man, "with nobody to advise her, with nobody to aid her,
with nobody to console her? So sweet a girl, too! such an angel in
heart, in mind, in disposition; all desolate and alone in this wide
rough world! Fie, Charles, fie! you would have gone with her."
"Perhaps I might; perhaps I might," replied the physician: "however,
let us now think of the best means of serving her. What can be done?"
As usual in such cases, fifty plans were propounded, which, on
examination, were found to be unfeasible. "I have it!" cried Dr.
Butts, at last, after discarding an infinite variety. "There was a
nun's litter came up yesterday to the inn hard by; it will hold three,
and you shall set off to-morrow by daybreak as nuns."
"But how?" cried Dr. Wilbraham, with horror and astonishment depicted
in his face. "You don't mean me to go as a nun?"
"Faith, but I do!" replied the physician; "it would be fully as bad
for you to be discovered as for Lady Constance. Now, there is no dress
in the world that I know of but a nun's that will cover your face and
hide your beard. Oh! you shall be a nun, by all means. I will get the
three dresses this very night from a frippery in Pool Street; I will
knock them up, and you shall be well shaved to-morrow morning, and
will make as fine an old Sister Monica as the best of them."
Dr. Wilbraham still held out stoutly, declaring that he would not so
disguise himself and disgrace his cloth on any account or
consideration; nor was it till the physician showed him plainly, that
by this means alone Lady Constance's safety could be ensured, that he
would at all hear of the travesty thus proposed.
"Where, then, do you intend us to go?" asked Dr. Wilbraham, almost
crying with vexation at the bare idea of being so metamorphosed. "I
cannot, and I will not, remain long in such a dress."
"Why, you must go down to Sandwich," answered the physician. "There is
a religious house there, under a sub-prioress, about a mile out of the
town, looking out over the sea. I know the dame, and a little money
will do much with her. Nay, look not shocked, good uncle. I mean not
to say that she is wicked, and would endanger her soul's repose for
mammon; but she is one of those that look leniently on small faults,
and would not choke at such an innocent sin as helping you out of the
cardinal's power. The time is lucky, too, for the cold wind last night
has given his haughty lord cardinalship a flow of humours to the head,
and he is as frightened about himself as a hen before a dray horse; so
that, perhaps, he may not think of sending to Richmond so soon as he
proposed.
"But, Charles," said Dr. Wilbraham, whose abhorrence of the nun's
dress was not to be vanquished, and who would have been right glad to
escape the infliction on any excuse, "will not your servants, who have
seen us come in one dress, think it very strange when they see us go
away in another? and may they not betray us?"
"Pshaw!" cried Dr. Butts; "they see a thousand odder things every day
in a physician's house. Do you think I let my servants babble? No, no!
They know well that they must have neither eyes, ears, nor
understanding for anything that passes within these doors. If I were
to find that they even did so much as to recollect a person they had
once seen with me, they should troop. But stay; go you to bed and
rest; I will away for these dresses, and bespeak the litter for
to-morrow at five. At Sandwich you are sure to find a bark for
Boulogne."
The next morning Dr. Wilbraham was awakened before it was light by the
physician entering his room with a candle in his hand, and followed by
a barber, who, taking the good priest by the nose, shaved him most
expeditiously before he was out of bed, having been informed by Dr.
Butts that the person under his hands was a poor insane patient, who
would not submit to any very tedious tonsorial operation.
When this was done, much to the surprise of the chaplain, who was in
truth scarcely awake, the barber was sent away, and the physician
produced the long black dress of a Benedictine nun, into which, after
much entreaty, he persuaded Dr. Wilbraham to get; not, however,
without the rest of his clothes, for no argument would induce him to
put on the woman's dress without the man's under it. First, then, he
was clothed with his ordinary black vest and silk hose, above which
came a full and seemly cassock; and then, as a superstructure, was
placed at the top of all the long black robes of the nun, which
swelled his bulk out to no inconsiderable size. This, however, was not
a disadvantage; for being tall and thin, he had great need of some
supposititious contour to make his height seem less enormous when
conjoined with his female habiliments. Upon the whole, with the rope
tied round his middle, and the coif and veil, he made a very
respectable nun; though there was in the whole figure a certain
long-backed rigidity of carriage, and straggling wideness of step,
that smacked infinitely of the masculine gender.
When all was completed, the physician led his transformed uncle down
to a little hall, to which Lady Constance and Mistress Margaret had
already found their way, habited in similar garments to those which
Dr. Butts had furnished for the chaplain.
In point of beauty Constance had never, perhaps, looked better than
now, when her small, exquisite features, and clear, delicate
complexion, slightly shaded by the nun's cap, had acquired an
additional degree of softness, which harmonised well with the pensive,
melancholy expression that circumstances had communicated to her
countenance. However, she was, perhaps, even more sad and agitated
than the night before, when haste had in some degree superseded
thought. She had now passed a nearly sleepless night, during the long
hours of which a thousand fears and anxieties had visited her pillow;
and on rising, the necessity of quitting her customary dress and
assuming a disguise impressed more strongly than ever upon her mind
the dangers of her situation.
The only person that seemed fully in her element was Mistress
Margaret, who, though, with the exception of a little selfishness, a
most excellent being, could not be expected to have fulfilled for
several years the high functions of lady's-maid without having
acquired some of the spirit of the office. God knows! in Lady
Constance's service she had possessed small opportunity of exercising
in any way her talents for even the little _intrigue d'ante-chambre_;
and though, in the case of Sir Osborne, she had done her best to show
her tact by retiring _à propos_, the present was the first occasion on
which she could enjoy a real, bustling, energetic adventure; and, to
do her justice, she enacted the nun to the life. With a vastly
consequential air she hurried about, till the rustling of her black
serge and the rattling of her wooden cross and rosary were quite
edifying; and finding herself, by dress at least, on an equality with
her mistress, she took the bridle off her tongue and let it run its
own course, which it did not fail to do with great vigour and
activity.
On the entrance of Dr. Wilbraham, with his face clad in rueful
solemnity, and his long strides at every step spreading out the
petticoats with which his legs were environed, like the parachute of a
balloon when it begins to descend, Mistress Margaret laughed outright;
and even Lady Constance, while reproving her for her ill-placed
gaiety, could hardly forbear a smile.
"My dear Dr. Wilbraham," said Constance, seeing the chagrin that sat
upon his countenance, "for how much, how very much have I to thank
you! And believe me, I feel deeply all the regard you must have for
me, to induce you to assume a disguise that must be so disagreeable to
you."
"Well," said Dr. Butts, "you are a sweet creature, and to my mind it
would not be difficult to make a man do anything to serve you.
However, sit you down, lady: here is something to break your fast; and
as it must serve for dinner and supper too, I will have you eat,
whether you are hungry or not; for there must be as little stopping on
the road as possible, and no chattering, Mistress Margaret; mind you
that."
Mistress Margaret vowed that she was silence itself; and the meal
which the good doctor's foresight had taken care to provide for them
being ended, he led them forth by a different door from that which had
given them entrance, not choosing to trust even the servants, of whose
discretion he had boasted the night before. Day had now dawned, and in
the court-yard of the inn they found a large litter, or sort of long
box swung between two horses, one before and the other behind, and
accompanied by a driver on horseback, who, smacking his whip, seemed
tired of waiting for them.
"Come, get in, get in!" cried he, "I have been waiting half-an-hour.
There's room enough for you, sure!" he proceeded, seeing some little
difficulty occur in placing the travellers; "why, I brought four just
like you up from Gloucester in it, three days ago. Here, come over to
this side, Mother Longshanks." This address to Dr. Wilbraham had again
very near overset Mistress Margaret's gravity; but at length, all
being placed, in spite of the chaplain's long legs, which were rather
difficult to pack, the travellers took leave of the physician, and
commenced their journey to the sea-coast.
All passed on tranquilly enough during the forenoon; and at a little
watering-house, where they stopped on the road, they were enabled
quietly to rehearse their parts, as Sister Wilbraham, Sister Margaret,
and Sister Grey. The good clergyman declared that his part should be
to keep down his veil and hold his tongue, and Mistress Margaret
willingly undertook to be the talker for the whole party, while
Constance, not yet at all assured of safety, listened for every sound
with a beating heart, and trembled at every suspicious look that she
beheld, or fancied that she beheld, in the people around her.
As soon as the horses were sufficiently refreshed, they again began
their journey, and had proceeded some way when the galloping of a
horse made itself heard behind them, and through the opening of the
curtains they could perceive a sergeant-at-arms, with full cognizance,
and accompanied by two followers, pass by the side of their vehicle.
In a moment after he stopped on overtaking their driver, who was a
little in advance, and seemed to question him in a hasty tone. "Three
nuns!" cried he, at length. "I must see that."
Constance, almost fainting, drew back in the corner of the litter. Dr.
Wilbraham shrunk himself up to the smallest space possible; and, in
fact, Mistress Margaret was the only one who preserved her presence of
mind. "If it were the lord cardinal himself," whispered she to her
lady, "he would never know you, my lady, in that dress."
In the mean time, the sergeant-at-arms rode up, and drew back the
curtain of the litter. "Your pardon, ladies," said he, giving a look
round, which seemed quite satisfactory; "I ask your pardon; but as I
am sent in pursuit of some runaways, I was obliged to look in."
Here the matter would have terminated, had not Mistress Margaret,
desirous of showing off a total want of fear, replied, "Quite welcome,
fair sir, quite welcome. We are travelling the same road." The officer
replied; and this brought on a long allegory on the part of Mistress
Margaret, who told him that they were nuns of Richborough, who had
been to London for medical advice for poor sister Mary, there, in the
corner (pointing to Dr. Wilbraham), who was troubled with the falling
sickness. The sergeant-at-arms recommended woodlice drowned in vinegar
as a sovereign cure, which the pretended nun informed him they had
tried; and though it must be owned that the abigail played her part
admirably well, yet, nevertheless, she contrived to keep her lady and
the chaplain in mortal fear for half-an-hour longer than was
necessary.
At length, however, the officer, taking his leave, rode away, and then
descended upon the head of Mistress Margaret the whole weight of good
Dr. Wilbraham's indignation. Not for many years had he preached such
an eloquent sermon upon the duty of adhering strictly to the truth
as on the present occasion; and he pointed out clearly to the
waiting-woman that she had told at least two-and-thirty lies more than
the circumstances required. Mistress Margaret, however, was obstinate
in her error, and would not see the distinction, declaring angrily
that she would either tell no lies at all, and let it be known who
they were, or she would tell as many as she thought proper.
"Margaret," said Lady Constance, in a calm, reproachful tone, that had
more effect than a more violent reproof, "you forget yourself." The
abigail was silent; but nevertheless she determined, in her own mind,
to give the good doctor more truth than he might like, on the very
first occasion; and such an opportunity was not long in occurring.
With the usual hankering which drivers and postilions always have for
bad inns, the master of the litter did not fail to stop for the night
at one of the smallest, meanest, and most uncomfortable little
alehouses on the road; and on getting out of the vehicle, the three
nuns were all shown into one room, containing two beds, one large and
one small one. It may easily be supposed such an arrangement did not
very well suit the circumstances of the case; and Constance looked at
Dr. Wilbraham, and Dr. Wilbraham at Constance, in some embarrassment.
On inquiring whether they could not have another room, they were
informed that there was indeed such a thing in the house, but that it
was always reserved for guests of quality. The hostess was surprised
at nuns giving themselves such airs: the room they had would do very
well for three people; and, in short, that they should have no other.
During all this time Mistress Margaret remained obstinately silent;
but at length, seeing the distress of her mistress, she brought up her
forces to the charge, and turned the tide of battle. Attacking the
hostess full tilt, she declared that there should be another room
found directly, informing her that the young lady was not a simple
nun, but noble and rich, and just named prioress of the Lord knows
where; that Sister Mary, _i.e_. Dr. Wilbraham, was badly troubled with
a night-cough, which would keep the prioress awake all night; and in
short, that Sister Mary must and should have a room to herself, for
which, however, they would willingly pay.
This latter hint overcame the hostess's objections, and the matter
being thus settled, they were allowed to repose in peace for the
night. Fatigue, anxiety, and want of sleep, had now completely
exhausted Constance; and weariness, acting the part of peace, closed
her eyes in happy forgetfulness till the next morning, when they again
set out for Sandwich.
Without any new adventure they arrived at that town; and after passing
through it, quickly perceived the convent rising on a slight elevation
to the left. As soon as this was in sight, so that he could not miss
his way, Dr. Wilbraham got out of the litter, for the purpose of
pulling off his nun's dress under some hedge, in order that, by
following a little later than themselves, he might appear at the gate
of the nunnery in his true character, without the change being
remarked by the driver of the litter, to whom he said on descending
that he would follow on foot.
After this, Constance and Mistress Margaret proceeded alone, and in a
few minutes reached the convent, where, presenting Dr. Butts's letter
to the prioress, they were received with all kindness and attention,
and found themselves comparatively free from danger. Dr. Wilbraham was
not long in arriving, restored to his proper costume; and being
admitted to the parlour, entered into immediate consultation with the
superior and Constance, as to the best means of concluding their
flight as happily as it had commenced.