Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: Lady Throckmorton led us through a grand hall, up a fine
oak staircase, which reminded me of the great staircase at St. Jean.]
_[The Stanton-Corbet Chronicles.]_
_[Year 1728]_
The Foster-Sisters.
A STORY OF
THE DAYS OF WESLEY AND WHITFIELD.
BY
_LUCY ELLEN GUERNSEY_
_AUTHOR OF "LADY BETTY'S GOVERNESS," "LADY ROSAMOND'S BOOK,"_
_"THE CHEVALIER'S DAUGHTER," ETC._
"KINDRED TO SIX DEGREES, FOSTERSHIP TO A HUNDRED."
HIGHLAND PROVERB.
NEW EDITION.
LONDON:
JOHN F. SHAW & CO.
48 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. THE OLD CONVENT
II. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS
III. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS
IV. TROUBLES
V. THE BISHOP'S VISIT
VI. THE MIDNIGHT RAID
VII. A SUMMONS
VIII. FLIGHT FROM THE NEST
IX. LADY THROCKMORTON
X. MRS. DEBORAH
XI. THE INNOCENT BLOOD
XII. THE FUNERAL
XIII. NEWS AND CHANGES
XIV. NEWS
XV. THE SISTERS
XVI. HIGHBECK HALL
XVII. LIFE AT THE HALL
XVIII. WINTER
XIX. SURPRISES
XX. VISITORS
XXI. CHANGES AT HIGHBECK
XXII. NEWS FROM THE NORTH
XXIII. A HASTY REMOVAL
XXIV. "AN EARLY SNOW SAVES MUCKLE WOE"
XXV. THE DOCTOR FROM NEWCASTLE
XXVI. THE END
[Illustration]
_THE FOSTER-SISTERS._
CHAPTER I.
THE OLD CONVENT.
IF one thought anything of omens (which I do not in general, though
I confess I would rather not see the new moon through glass) I might
think it a bad one that my first distinct recollection is of a fall. It
happened in this wise: I was sitting on the edge of the great fountain
basin, eating a bit of spice cake, and watching some vernons—so they
call the little wild canaries in that part of the world—which were
flying in and out of the great ivy on the north wall, where I suppose
they had young ones. In my interest in the birds, I forgot that my
perch was both narrow and slippery. I leaned backward, the better to
obtain a view of the bird's nest, which I could but just see, and so
doing I lost my balance, and down I went into the water.
Luckily for me, there was help at hand, for the basin was deep and I
was small. Mother Prudentia was just coming for water, and pulled me
out before I had time to scream more than once. If I had seen her so
near, I should not have been sitting there, for the thing was strictly
forbidden. But she pulled me out and carried me to the dormitory, where
I was quickly undressed and well scolded at the same time, and popped
into bed.
I spent the rest of the day dully enough, but a little consoled by the
gift of a second piece of spice cake and the company of my doll, which
the good mother's relenting heart allowed me, after I had sobbingly
confessed that I was very sorry, and would never do so again. I think
she would even have let me get up but for the fear of my taking cold
and having consumption. Mother Prudentia was fully convinced that all
English women died of consumption, sooner or later.
To this day, the smell of a bit of fresh spice cake will bring that
whole scene before my eyes. I can see the arched cloisters surrounding
the paved court, with the old fountain well in the centre. I can look
through the great pointed doorway and see a second court, with a tall
cross in the centre surrounded by low grassy mounds, where generation
after generation of the sisters rested in peace. I can smell the odor
of the roses which grew so luxuriantly in the corner by the little
postern door which led into the church, and the wild lavender and the
rosemary, which had sprung up in those places—alas, very many—where the
marble pavement had gone to decay, or the cloister walls and arches
were in ruins. I can feel the very brooding, yet not stifling heat of
the summer day in June, and breathe the air smelling not only of the
aromatic herbs which so abound in that country, but also of the fresh
breath of the sea.
I may say this association was the beginning of these memoirs. For as I
was speaking of it to my dear Lady the last time she came to visit me,
she thought a little, and said she to me:
"Lucy, why don't you write out the recollections of those days? They
would be interesting to the children, by and by. You are a Corbet
on both sides, and you know the Corbets have always been famous for
writing chronicles. Come, take pen in hand, and have something to read
me when I come again."
"And what is to become of my children's lessons and clothes?" I asked.
"Let the children mend their own clothes. It will be all the better for
them, and you have no need to be doing such work at all. Anne Penberthy
ought to take all that off your hands."
"And so she does," I answered, seeing that, by making use of the first
excuse that came to hand, I had given Amabel a false impression. "Anne
is a good girl and a faithful, if one ever lived; but I must have
something to do when I sit down, and I tire of knitting, after a while."
"Well, then, try writing, for a change," said my Lady, smiling; and
then she began to talk of one of the girls who had fallen and hurt
her knee (it was Bridget Polwarth, of course—trust her for that, poor
child!), and no more was said at that time.
But when evening was come, and the children were all abed, except two
or three of the elder ones, to whom Anne was diligently reading a new
book which my Lady brought down to us, then I began to think of what my
Lady had said that morning. I had plenty of time, and my eyes are very
good, so that I really hardly need glasses at all, except to do fine
darning and the like. I have had an uncommonly good education (though
I say it that shouldn't, perhaps), and I have passed, with my dear
Lady, through many strange chances and changes in this mortal life. Why
should I not write all these things down for the benefit of my Lady's
children? And so it has come to pass that I have really taken pen in
hand and begun this memoir, if it deserves so grand a name.
My first clear recollections are of the convent in Provence, where I
was bred with Mrs. Amabel Leighton till I was about sixteen years old.
The convent had once been a very wealthy establishment; and I have
heard that, in the early days of Louis Fourteenth, the abbess used to
entertain company in princely style, with more of magnificence and
luxury than any of the gentry round about, and, in fact, with more than
at all befitted a religious house.
But there was nothing of that sort done in my day. The means were
wanting, even if our good mother had cherished any such desires. I
am sure she did not, though, doubtless, she would have liked to have
new hangings for the church, to repair the cloisters, and make the
refectory at least weather-proof, and perhaps to mend our cheer a
little on feast days. But the resources were hardly large enough at
that time to furnish us with food and clothes, and so all these things
remained undone. However, the elders of the house consoled themselves
with the thought that they suffered for righteousness' sake, and were
laying up merit thereby, and the young ones were happy in their youth;
so we were a very cheerful household, after all.
Our foundation was one of those numerous offshoots from one of the
great orders, which, under different names, are found all over Europe,
and, as I said, had at one time enjoyed a princely revenue, of which
the best use had not always been made. The convent was, in some way
which I do not understand, a kind of dependency of the neighboring
noble family of Crequi, and was a very convenient place wherein to
bestow unmarried and portionless sisters, plain daughters, or those
to whom it was not convenient to give large dowries, and other
inconvenient female relations.
The abbess—such was her rank—had her carriage and the ladies their
servants, and they were by no means particular about keeping their
enclosure, as it is called, but visited and were visited themselves as
long and as often as they pleased. I heard all the story many a time
from Mother Prudentia, who had learned it, in her turn, from a very old
nun, who well remembered those days.
But presently there came a wonderful change. The famous Mother
Angelique was made abbess of Port Royal when hardly twelve years old,
and was converted afterward by the preaching of a wandering friar,
himself a very bad man, which shows how good may sometimes be done
even by wicked men. No sooner did the Mother Angelique become really
religious herself than she set about reforming her house. The nuns,
for the most part, seconded her with enthusiasm. No more gay visitors
were admitted. No more feasts were given or fine clothes worn. No
more worldly songs were heard. Instead one saw nothing but religious
ceremonies, works of charity, instructing and clothing of poor
children, and the like. Hours of silence were multiplied and strictly
observed, as were also the church services.
This change of affairs was greatly admired in some quarters, and as
severely condemned in others. Mother Angelique went about the country
visiting the different houses of the order and ours among the number.
Our own abbess was a young lady of that same noble family of Crequi,
and at that time about four and twenty.
"She was as beautiful as an angel, so Mother Benedict used to say, and
greatly admired," (I quote Mother Prudentia's own words), "but she
never seemed happy in all her gaiety, and, even at its height, she
would pass whole nights watching and weeping in the church, or in her
own private chapel. Some said she had been in love with a poor young
cousin, who disappeared, nobody knew exactly how, though every one
might guess; and the lady being offered her choice of the cloister or
a gay courtly bridegroom, chose the first." And then, if she were in
a very confidential mood, Mother Prudentia's voice would sink to a
whisper, as she told how the poor young man was believed to have been
put to death by his own relations at a spot in the chase where no grass
or flowers ever sprung afterward.
However that might be, the abbess hailed Mother Angelique as though she
had been an angel from Heaven. They spent long hours closeted together
or pacing up and down the cloistered walk which runs along the side of
the cemetery. There was a change in the house as sudden as that at Port
Royal. The carriages and horses were sold, all superfluous servants
dismissed, and the fare reduced to the plainest sort. No more visits
were made outside the walls and none received, except at the regular
times when the sisters were allowed to talk with their friends through
the grate in the parlors, in proper convent fashion.
Mother Prudentia said that most of the younger nuns fell into these new
ways easily enough, and were as enthusiastic as the abbess herself, so
that they had to be checked, rather than urged; but the elder women
were not so pliant. They liked their amusements, their good dinners
and suppers, and their gossip with visitors from outside; and the
abbess ran some risk of being murdered in her own house. Indeed, it was
believed that a severe illness which befell the lady about that time
was the effect of poison administered by a certain Italian nun who was
the most bitterly opposed to the new state of things.
For a while everything prospered. The Abbess was determined, and
seemed to have a real genius for government. She lived to see all her
measures carried out, and was succeeded by a spiritual daughter of
Mother Angelique's, who had been sent, with two or three others, to
assist in the work of reformation. The great revenues were used in
maintaining schools, in assisting the poor, and in establishing and
endowing a second house of our order in Toulon, to which daughters of
trades-people and the like were admitted; for none but ladies of noble
birth were allowed to renounce the world at our house. From all I can
hear, the abbess and her successor were true Christian women according
to their lights, and so, I am sure, were our own dear lady and most of
the family in my day.
But troublous times were at hand. The Port Royalists, or Jansenists,
as they came to be called, got into difficulty with the government and
with the Jesuits, who carried things with a high hand in France, as,
indeed, they do still, by all accounts. The whole family of the Mother
Angelique, with all who adhered to them, were pronounced heretical,
disobedient to the Pope, and altogether reprobate, and various bulls
and proclamations were issued against them by Pope and archbishop, king
and council.
Our house suffered with the rest, for the sake of the opinions which
they refused to renounce. Their revenues were pillaged, their lands
confiscated, their old priest and confessor was thrown into prison,
where he died; and though the sisters were allowed to retain possession
of their house and garden and enough land to raise a little corn and
oil and to pasture a few cows and sheep, it was rather on sufferance
and because they were under the protection of that same noble family of
Crequi, which happened to be in high favor at court.
Such was the state of things in my day. The house was almost ruinous,
and the vineyard, the olive orchard, and all together, furnished us
with a scanty subsistence. True, we children and the young novices
always had enough to eat, such as it was; but I fancy the Abbess and
the elder nuns kept more fasts than were in the calendar, while their
robes bore the marks of much careful mending and darning. Be this as it
might, I never heard a complaint. The good ladies were as cheerful as
possible, and in their hours of recreation would laugh and frolic like
school girls. They had formerly taught a little school for the children
of the neighboring village, and a few still came, almost by stealth, to
receive instruction in religion and needlework, and such other things
as were considered fit for them. We were not permitted to mix with
these children; but we knew them all by sight, and we were allowed to
make little presents for them, such as pincushions, caps, and aprons.
As I remember it now, I believe the ladies lived in perpetual
expectation of being turned out on the world or shut up in convents of
some other order; but they did not allow their fear to hinder them in
the discharge of their duties, or what they believed to be such. How
many times I have wished that these poor souls could have come under
the influence of such preachers and teachers as we have had of late
years in England. What a difference would the doctrines of free grace
and salvation have made in their lives.
[Illustration]