a chair for his excited visitor.
"Don't be rash, Gilbert," observed he, calmly tying the strings of
the portfolio.
"Bash!" muttered Gilbert, between his closed teeth. "I tell you,
they have discovered the hiding-place!"
"Have they? Then it was fortunate that I thought of dining to-day
with Mr. Passmore."
"Father Cuthbert, do you care for nothing on earth?" said Gilbert,
raising his voice.
"Gilbert," remarked Mr. Stevens, in his most placid manner, "I have
already desired you not to be too rash. Allow me to remind you, that
calling me 'Father Cuthbert' in a Protestant house, and especially in
that tone of voice, is scarce likely to advance our interests. As to
my caring for nothing on earth, I shall care to hear your
information, when you can deliver yourself of it in a reasonable
manner."
Gilbert, with some difficulty repressing his indignation, came to the
conclusion that the being before him was inaccessible to feeling.
"When I arrived at the well," said he, "I was very near falling into
it. I"--
"Ah! rash, as usual," commented Stevens, affectionately patting the
portfolio.
"I lighted safely on the ledge of the door," pursued Gilbert, "but
when I gave the necessary push, I found that it refused to stir. It
had been made up from the inside."
"Something underneath the door, which stuck, of course," said Stevens.
"I took out my knife," replied Gilbert, "and with great difficulty
steadied myself so that I could pass the blade under the door. There
was nothing underneath, but the door refused to stir."
"What did you do then?"
"Came back to you directly, to ask you whether we ought to leave the
country."
"You did not try at the other end?"
"In broad daylight? Mr. Stevens, what can you be thinking of?"
"The interests of the cause, my friend."
"Ah, well! I have the greatest respect for the interests of the
cause, but I have also a slight disposition to attend to the
interests of Gilbert Irvine."
"That is precisely your bane, my excellent Gilbert. And there are
other defects in you beside."
"And pray, what excuse could you have devised to gain entrance?"
"Gilbert, I wonder at your marvellous incapacity for lying. Now it
comes quite natural to me."
"Seems so," said Gilbert, grimly.
"Well, as your disposition to attend to the interests of Gilbert
Irvine is so strong, I will not require more of you than to attempt
the entrance by night. I noticed when I left the house that one of
the drawing-room windows was unfastened. You can get in that way,
and pass through Mrs. Celia's chamber."
"I'm blessed if I'll try that style of putting my neck in a noose for
you more than this once!" Gilbert burst forth.
"I don't ask it of you more than this once," replied Stevens.
"And suppose they have fastened the window since you were there, as
is probably the case?"
"If you cannot get in, come back to me. We must find out whether
they have discovered the hiding-place. But I will take the next
chance myself; and, Gilbert, it shall be in broad daylight."
Gilbert stared at him, and shook his head with an incredulous laugh.
"You are a poor conspirator, Gilbert," lamented Stevens. "Can you
plaster a wall?"
"No," said Gilbert.
"I can. Can you mend a harpsichord?"
"Not I, indeed."
"I can. And can you make a tansy pudding?"
"Holy Mary! such women's work!"
"Women are useful, my friend, in their way--occasionally. And it is
desirable, now and then, even for the nobler sex, to know how to do
women's work. Now I dare say you have not the least notion how a
shirt is made? I can sew beautifully."
"By the head of St. Barbara!"--Gilbert began.
"Avoid Catholic oaths, Gilbert, if you please. And never be above
learning. Pick up all you can--no matter what. It may come in use
some time."
"I wish you would tell me how you mean to get in?"
"Mr. Passmore was observing at dinner that he wanted a new
under-footman. I shall offer myself for the place."
Gilbert's eyes and mouth opened rather wide.
"I can carry coal-scuttles, my friend," said Mr. Cuthbert Stevens,
insinuatingly. "And I could black a boot. In a week (or as soon as
my purpose was served) I should have a bad cough, find that the work
was too hard for me, and leave."
"Father Cuthbert, you are a clever fellow!" said Gilbert, slowly.
Father Cuthbert made no attempt to deny the impeachment.
"And where am I to be, while you are blacking your boots and carrying
your coal-scuttles?"
"Quietly pursuing your inquiries between here and Exeter, and keeping
out of scrapes--if you can. You will find me here again this day
month."
On the evening of the next day, Squire Passmore saw and engaged a new
under-footman.
"A tall, personable fellow," said he to his family; "very
well-spoken, and capable, he seems. He comes from Exeter, and his
name is George Shepherd."
And much vexed was he, for he had taken a fancy to his new servant,
when, four days later, Robert announced to him that George had such a
bad cough, and found the work so hard for his weak chest, that he
wished to leave at the end of the month.
"It ben't always the strongest-looking as is the strongest," observed
Cicely on the subject; "and I'm a-feared, Madam, that George is but
weakly, for all he looks so capable."
Madam Passmore, who felt very sorry for poor George, tried
diet-drinks, linseed tea, and lozenges, but all were to no purpose;
and at the end of the month the new footman left.
"What _are_ you doing, Mr. Stevens?" demanded Gilbert Irvine, as he
entered the lodger's room at Moreton on the same evening that the
under-footman's place at Ashcliffe Hull was again left vacant.
"Good-evening, Gilbert," responded Mr. Stevens, without looking up.
"Only making my official shirts into a rather smaller and neater
bundle. They may serve again, you know."
"And what news?" asked Gilbert.
"You were right," said Mr. Stevens. "They have found it out, and
have made up the well-door. But Mrs. Celia knows nothing about the
hiding-place, though she sleeps in the chamber."
"Well, and why couldn't you believe me at first? What have you
gained by all your trouble?"
"Why could I not believe you?" repeated Stevens. "Because you are
rash, as I always tell you. And what have I gained? A month's board
and lodging, and thirteen and fourpence. Look at it."
"Ugh!" said Gilbert to the shillings. "Well, I would not have
blacked a lot of dirty boots for you, if you'd been twice as many!"
"A mistake, Gilbert! a sad mistake!" said Stevens, tying up his
bundle. "Never be above doing anything for the good of the Church."
"Nor telling any number of lies," responded Gilbert. "Well, and
where are we to go now?"
"Back to France, and report to my Lady Ingram as quickly as possible."
"And what then?"
"That is for her to say. I should think she will come and fetch the
girl."
"And how are we to live meanwhile?"
"You, as you please. For me, being now so well equipped and in good
practice," answered Mr. Cuthbert Stevens, with an insinuating smile,
"if I found it impossible to get any other sort of work, I _could_
take another place as footman!"
Time passed calmly on for some months after Madam Passmore's
disclosure to Celia. The latter gradually lost the fear of being
claimed by strangers, and devoted herself to the very diligent study
of the Scriptures. The Squire and Madam Passmore became slowly
grayer, and Cicely Aggett a little whiter than before. But nothing
occurred to break the quiet tenor of events, until Henrietta's
marriage took place in the summer of 1711. The bridegroom was the
heir of a family living in the adjoining division of the county, and
the day was marked at Ashcliffe by much splendor and festivity. The
bride showed herself quiet and practical on this occasion, as on all
others; and as she had made her mark but little, she was
comparatively little missed. Cicely cried because she thought it was
the first break in the family, and Dolly because she fancied it was
the proper thing to do; but Henrietta herself would have scorned to
run the risk of spoiling her primrose silk by tears. Everything was
done _en règle_--wedding and breakfast, throwing the slipper,
dancing, and a number of other small observances which have since
been counted tedious or unseemly. And when the day was over, and
Henrietta Carey had departed to her new home, things sank down into
their old groove at Ashcliffe Hall.
When the year 1712 dawned, only the three younger sisters of the
family were at home. Harry had rejoined his regiment, and Charley
was away on a visit to his eldest sister and her husband.
So matters stood at Ashcliffe Hall on that New Year's Day when what
Celia dreaded came upon her.
[1] The peculiar drawing up of the chin towards the throat, known as
bridling, was a very essential point of fine breeding at the date of
this story.
[2] Of _La Petite Patenôtre Blanche_ there are as many versions as
lines. The one I give in the text rests on oral tradition. There is
another known to me, probably an older version, which I should have
preferred if I could have been quite sure of the words. It was used
by a woman who died in 1818 at the age of 108, and who therefore was
born four years before the death of Queen Anne. It was repeated to
me when a child of eight, and the only copy I can recover is my own
record at the time. I give this for what it is worth:
"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on;
Four corners to my bed,
Four angels at their head,--
One to read and one to write,
And two to guard my bed [at night.]"
[3] "The vapors" were pre-eminently the fashionable malady of the
reign of Queen Anne. The name answered to the sensation now known as
_ennui_: but doubtless, as Miss Strickland suggests in her "Lives of
the Queens of England," it was frequently used when its victim was
suffering from nothing more remarkable or novel than a bad temper.
IV.
MY LADY INGRAM.
"She had the low voice of your English dames,
Unused, it seems, to need rise half a note
To catch attention,--and their quiet mood,
As if they lived too high above the earth
For that to put them out in anything:
So gentle, because verily so proud;
So wary and afraid of hurting you,
By no means that you are not really vile,
But that they would not touch you with their foot
To push you to your place; so self-possessed,
Yet gracious and conciliating, it takes
An effort in their presence to speak truth:
You know the sort of woman,--brilliant stuff,
And out of nature."
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
The Tories were in power in the winter of 1711-12. The Duke of
Marlborough's credit at home had long been sinking, and he was now
almost at the lowest point in the Queen's favor. On that very New
Year's Day of which I have spoken, for the first time in the annals
of England, a Ministry had endeavored to swamp the House of Lords by
a wholesale creation of Peers. Politically speaking, Squire Passmore
was anything but happy, for he was a fervent Whig. He sat in the
parlor that morning, inveighing angrily against the Earl of Oxford
and all who followed or agreed with him--the Queen herself of course
excepted--for the edification of Madam Passmore--who was calmly
knotting--Isabella, and Celia.
"'Tis pity, John," said Madam Passmore, quietly, "that you have no
Tories to list you."
"I wish I had--the scoundrels!" exclaimed the Squire.
"O Mother!" cried Isabella, rising hurriedly from her seat in the
window, "sure here is some visitor of quality. There is a carriage
at the front door with arms on the panels."
"What arms?" asked her father.
"I don't understand anything about arms," said Isabella, "and one of
the coats I cannot see rightly. The one nearer here is all cut up
into little squares, and in one part there is a dog on his hind legs,
and in another a pair of yellow balls."
The Squire came to the window to see for himself. "Dog! balls!"
cried he. "A lion rampant and bezants--the goose!"
"Well, Father, I told you I did not understand it!" remonstrated
Isabella, in an injured tone.
"Madam, my Lady Ingram!" announced Robert, in a voice of great
importance.
The Squire turned round directly, and offered his hand to conduct the
visitor to a seat, like a well-bred gentleman of his day,--Madam
Passmore rising to receive her, and her daughters of course following
her example.
The stranger was a tall, commanding woman, with great stateliness of
carriage, and much languor of manner. She had evidently been very
handsome, but was now just past her prime. Her eyes and hair were
dark, her voice low and languishing. Altogether it struck Celia that
she was very like what Isabella would be in a few years, allowing for
the differences in color. She took the chair to which the Squire led
her, and addressed herself to Madam Passmore. There was a little
peculiarity of distinctness in her pronunciation.
"You wonder to see me, Madam," she began.
"Madam, I am honored by your Ladyship's visit."
"I am the widow of Sir Edward Ingram, who held a commission under His
Majesty King James. I come to speak with you on business."
"With _me_?" asked Madam Passmore, a little surprised.
"You are Madam Passmore, of Ashcliffe Hall?--Yes."
"Pray continue, Madam."
"Your daughters, Madam?" inquired the visitor, with a languid wave of
her hand towards the young ladies.
"Yes; does your Ladyship wish to see me without them?"
"Not at all--oh! not at all. Which is Mademoiselle Celia?"
"The woman's French!" exclaimed the Squire, under his breath.
Celia's blood rushed to her face and neck, and then ebbed, leaving
her white and faint, as she rose and came slowly forward. "Is this
my mother?" she was asking herself, in a mental tumult.
"Ah! that is you? Stand a little farther, if you please. I wish to
look at you."
"No; this is not my mother!" said Celia, to her own heart.
"Not by the half so tall as I should like--quite _petite_!" said Lady
Ingram, scanning Celia with a depreciatory air. "And so brown! You
cannot bridle--you have no complexion. Eh! _ma foi!_ what an
English-looking girl!"
The Squire had almost arrived at the end of his patience. Madam
Passmore said quietly, "I ask your Ladyship's pardon, but perhaps you
will tell me why you make these remarks on my daughter?"
"I beg yours," said Lady Ingram, languidly. "I thought I had told
you. She is a foundling?--Exactly. _Et bien_, she is my
daughter--that is, my husband's daughter."
"Thank Heaven, not yours!" growled the Squire, heard only by Isabella.
"My husband was married twice," pursued the visitor, unconscious of
his rising anger. "His first wife was an Englishwoman--short, I
suppose, and brown, like this girl. I am the second wife, _née_
Mademoiselle de La Croix, daughter of Monsieur the Marquis de La
Croix. _Tu peux m'embrasser ma fille_."
Celia would have obeyed somewhat reluctantly, had she understood her
step-mother. She stood still, unaware that she had been addressed at
all, since she had never learned the language in which Lady Ingram
had spoken to her.
"Well, you will not?"
"I beg your pardon, Madam," answered Celia, speaking for the first
time, and in a very tremulous voice. "I did not understand what you
said."
"You speak French?"
"No, Madam."
"_Possible!_" exclaimed Lady Ingram. "You have never taught her to
speak French? She speaks only English? _Ma foi, quelle famille!_"
"I could scarce teach her what I knew not," replied Madam Passmore,
with quiet dignity.
"_C'est incroyable!_" drawled Lady Ingram, "Well, child, come here
and kiss me. How awkwardly you stoop! Your carriage is bad--very
bad. Ah, well! I shall see to all that. You will be ready to
return with me on Thursday?"
This was only Tuesday. Celia heard the question put with a sinking
of dismay. How should she go? yet how should she refuse?
"My Lady Ingram," said Squire Passmore, coming forward at last, "if
you were this child's own mother, or if her father were yet alive, I
could not of course set myself against your taking her away. But you
tell us that you are only her step-mother, and that her father is
dead. It seems to me, therefore, that she is at least as much our
child as yours--rather more, indeed, seeing that we have brought her
up from her cradle, and you have never cared to see her until this
day. Moreover, I hope your Ladyship will not take it ill of me, if I
ask you for some proof that you really are the child's step-mother."
"What proof shall I give you, Mr. Passmore?" asked Lady Ingram,
quietly. "I have every wish to satisfy you. If you desire to see
proofs that I am really Lady Ingram, ask the servants my name, or
look here"--
She drew a letter from her pocket, and held it out to the Squire.
The direction was--"To my Lady Ingram."
"Madam," said the Squire, returning the letter with a bow, "I do not
in the least doubt that I have the honor of addressing my Lady
Ingram. But can you satisfy me that you are Celia's step-mother?"
"If my word is not enough to satisfy you, Mr. Passmore," answered
Lady Ingram, not at all annoyed, "I know of nothing that will do it.
The marriage-registers of Celia's parents, or my own, would give you
no information concerning her: and she has no register of baptism. I
believe, however, that her name was written on a paper left with her,
in Sir Edward's hand. If you will produce that paper, I will show
you more of his writing, which you can compare with it. I think the
fact of my knowledge on the subject ought to prove to you that I am
the person whom I represent myself to be."
The writing on the two papers, when compared, tallied; and Squire
Passmore felt that Lady Ingram was right, and that she could not
produce any proof of her relationship so strong as the mere fact of
her knowledge of Celia's name and origin. If she really were Celia's
step-mother, he had no wish to prevent his adopted daughter from
making acquaintance with her own family: and he saw nothing for it
but to take Lady Ingram at her word.
"I am satisfied, Madam, that you have some relation to Celia," said
he. "And as to her visiting you--for I cannot consent to her being
taken entirely away--let the child choose for herself. Sure she is
old enough."
"Ah!" said Lady Ingram, shrugging her shoulders slightly. "Very
well. You shall decide, _chère_ Celia. At the least you will visit
me?"
"I will visit you, Madam, with pleasure," answered Celia, a little to
the damage of truth; "but these dear friends, who have had a care of
me from my childhood, I could not leave them entirely, Madam." The
sentence ended in tears.
"I am not an officer of justice, _ma belle_!" said Lady Ingram,
laughing faintly. "Ah, well! a visit let it be. You will come with
me--for a visit--on Thursday?"
"I will attend your Ladyship."
"You live near, Madam?" asked Madam Passmore, wondering whether she
could live so far away as the next county.
"I live in France," was the unconcerned answer,--"in Paris in the
winter, and not far thence in the summer."
The Squire almost gasped for breath. "And where is your summer
dwelling, Madam? I think, if you please, that I have a right to ask."
"Oh! certainly. At St. Germain-en-Laye."
"St. fiddlesticks-and-fiddlestrings!" roared the Squire.
"Sir!" observed Lady Ingram, apparently a little startled at last.
"Pope, Pretender, and Devil!" thundered the exasperated Whig.
"Ah! I only know one of the three," said Lady Ingram, subsiding.
"And pray which is that, Madam?" grimly inquired he.
"_Le Roi Jacques_--you call the Pretender," said she calmly, drawing
on her glove.
"If you please, Madam," asked Celia, with an effort, "do you know
what was my mother's name?"
"White, Black--some color--I know not whether Red, Green, or Blue.
She was a nobody--a mere nobody," replied her successor, dismissing
Celia's insignificant mother with a graceful wave of her hands.
"Have I any brothers or sisters, Madam?"
"Sisters! no. Two brothers--one son of your mother, and one of mine."
"They live with you, Madam?"
"My son Philip does," said the Baronet's widow. "Your brother--Sir
Edward now--is away on his travels, the saints know where. But he
talked to me much about you before he went, and Philip teased me
about you--so I came."
"Celia!" said the Squire, sternly, "this woman is an alien, a Tory,
and a Papist. Will you still go?"
"Ought I not, Father?" she asked, in a low tone.
"Judge for yourself, child," he answered, kindly.
"I think I ought to go," said Celia, faintly.
"I am a Catholic, Mr. Passmore, it is true," remarked Lady Ingram,
quietly; "yet you need not fear me. Sir Edward, my husband, was
Protestant, and so is his son Edward: and I do not interfere. We are
all surely going to heaven, and what matter for the different roads?"
"I think I ought to go," repeated Celia, but Madam Passmore thought,
still more faintly than before.
"On Thursday, then," answered Lady Ingram, touching Celia's cheek
with her lips. "Ah! _ma chère_, how I will improve you when I have
you to myself!--how I will form you! That _bon ton_, that _aisance_,
that _maintien!_--you have them not. You shall soon! Adieu!"
"Well, sure, 'tis sore to lose you, Mrs. Celia, my dear!" observed
Cicely Aggett, as she sat sewing; "but more particular to a
stranger--among them dreadful Papists--and such a way off, too! Why,
'tis nigh a hundred mile from here to Paris, ben't it?"
"I don't know how far it is," said Celia, honestly; "but I am sure
'tis a very long way."
"Well, anyhow, you'll not forget us, dear heart?"
"I shall never do that, Cicely. But don't talk as if I were going
away altogether. 'Tis only a visit. I shall soon come back--in a
year, at the longest."
"Maybe, my dear," answered Cicely, quietly; "and maybe not, Mrs.
Celia. A year is a long time, and we none of us know what the Lord
may have for us afore then. Not one of us a-going along with you!
Well, you'll have Him with you, and He'll see to you a deal better
than we could. But to think of you going among them wicked, cruel
Papists! Don't have no more to do with none of them than you can
help--don't, my dear! Depend upon it, Mrs. Celia, they ben't a bit
better now than they was a hundred and fifty years ago, when they
burned and tormented poor folks all over the country, as my
grandmother used to tell me."
"What did she tell you about it, Cicely?"
"She were to Exeter,[1a] Mrs. Celia, and she lived till I was a matter
of fifteen; and many a tale she's told me of their doings in them old
times. But the one I always liked best was one her mother had told
her. Her mother had been a young maid when the burnings was a-going
on; she were to London,[1b] and was woman to a lady, one of them as
was burnt."
"Tell me about it, Cicely," requested Celia, with feelings of
curiosity and horror struggling for precedence.
"I'll tell you all I know about it, my dear. There! your ruffles is
done. I'll take Mrs. Bell's next. Well, Mrs. Celia, her name, my
great-grandmother's mistress, was Kyme; she was to Lincolnshire,
leastwise her husband, for she was a London lady herself. An old
family them Kymes be; they've dwelt in Lincolnshire ever since Moses,
for aught I know. Mrs. Anne--that was her name--was a sweet, gentle
lady; but her husband, Mr. Kyme, wasn't so likely: he'd a cruel rare
temper, I've heard my grandmother say. Well, and after a while Mr.
Kyme he came to use Mrs. Anne so hard, she couldn't live with him no
longer, and she came back to her father and mother. She never went
back to Lincolnshire; she took back her own name, and everybody
called her Mrs. Anne Askew, instead of Madam Kyme. I never
understood quite the rights of it, and I'm not sure my grandmother
did herself; but however, some way Mrs. Anne she got hold of a Bible,
and she fell a-reading it. And of course she couldn't but see with
half an eye, when she come to read, that all them Papishes had taught
her was all wrong, when she didn't find not one of their
foolishnesses set down in the book. And by and by the priests came
to hear of it. I don't just know how that were; I think somebody
betrayed her, but I can't tell who: not my great-grandmother, I'm
sure, for she held her lady dear. Ay, but there was a scrimmage when
they knowed! Poor young lady! all turned against her, her own father
and mother and all and the priests had their wicked will. They took
her to Newgate, and tried first to talk her over; but when they found
their talk was no good, but Mrs. Anne she held fast by what God had
taught her, they had her into the torture-chamber."
Celia drew a long breath.