MY NEW FRIENDS.
I AWOKE in the morning tired enough; but dressing and a cup of coffee
refreshed me, and by the time my uncle's carriage and servants came
for me, I was quite ready to attend him. The Vevette of a year ago
would perhaps have breathed a prayer for guidance under such difficult
circumstances, but I never even thought of it. I was carried to the
ambassador's residence, and led through more than one grand apartment
to the room where my new uncle and aunt were awaiting me.
My aunt, Madame de Fayrolles, was a woman of forty or thereabout,
elegantly dressed and rouged in a way that made me open my eyes at
first. Rouge was not then commonly worn in England—scarcely at all, in
truth, save by such kind of madams as Lady Castlemaine—but in France
it was a regular part of the toilette of a lady of quality, and was
worn without any disguise. She received me kindly, kissing me on both
cheeks, and then presenting me to a gentleman in a semi-clerical dress,
whom she called Father Martien.
I felt some of my old childish terror of a priest revive, as the
gentleman bowed to me, but of course I returned his salute politely.
After a few words, he quitted the room, saying that he hoped to meet me
again and know me better.
"That is a distinguished man," said madame, as he closed the door
behind him. "He is the ambassador's confessor, and very high in his
order. Men say he is as like to be general."
"General of what?" I asked.
My aunt stared.
"Of the Jesuits, of course—what else? But I forget, you know nothing
of these matters. My poor brother-in-law! Ah, what a pity he was so
obstinate! But we will not talk of that now," catching a warning glance
from her husband. "Tell me, petite, how old art thou?"
I told her.
"And they have not yet settled thee in life? Ah well, so much the
better. And now what shall we do to amuse you?"
I could not help thinking my aunt very charming, in spite of the
rouge which had so shocked me at first. She had all the brightness
and sparkle, all the grace of manner of a genuine French woman, and
when she desired to please she was certainly irresistible. She set to
work at once to reform my dress, and the manner of wearing my hair,
exchanging with her waiting-damsel many comments upon my good looks.
Then she would turn out all her jewels for my amusement, and bestowed
several elegant trifles upon me, besides a box of beautiful perfumed
gloves.
"I will divide these with Aunt Jemima," said I; "she has beautiful
hands."
"Nay, keep them for yourself, I have a little cadeau for the good
aunt—what did you call her?"
"Jemima," I replied.
"Ah, what a horror of a name! But no matter, so she is kind to thee."
And my aunt began, while displaying all her fans and other trinkets, to
question me about my own affairs. My uncle, who came in, soon joined in
the conversation, and by easy degrees, and almost without knowing it,
they won from me my whole family history, from beginning to end.
Then my uncle in his turn, began to explain matters, as he said. I
cannot, at this distance of time, recall what he said exactly, but he
made it clearly appear that his conversion to the Romish Church was a
matter of deep conviction, and an act of quite disinterested faith,
which had brought upon him most unmerited obloquy and persecution. He
told me he had been on his way to the Tour d'Antin to visit my father,
when he had been met by the news of the demolition of the chateau.
"I hurried down at once," said he. "I had hoped to induce my dear
brother, if not to conform, which indeed, knowing his disposition, I
hardly dared to expect, at least to withdraw quietly and in safety
either to Jersey or Geneva, from which places he could easily be
recalled had it been desirable. Judge, my dear Genevieve, of my
feelings when I found my brother dead, his house a mass of ruins, and
his wife and child fled no one knew whither. It was believed that you
had put to sea under the guidance of the young English gentleman, and
that you had all perished together. A fisherman, who had been driven
over to Jersey by the storm, reported seeing a boat bottom upward and
some floating articles of female apparel which confirmed me in the
idea, and I mourned you as dead till I met you last night. I was at
once struck with your resemblance to our family, and on inquiry found
that you were indeed my niece."
I need not repeat all that was said to me that day. Suffice it to
say that I returned home at night completely bewitched by these new
relatives. I found Aunt Jem a little out of humor at my staying away so
long, but she was easily pacified by my excuses, and delighted by the
boxes of gloves and of French comfits I had brought her from my Aunt
Zenobie. French gloves were then, as they are now, very much better
than any made in England.
This was the first of many succeeding visits, in the course of which
Monsieur and Madame de Fayrolles gained more and more of my confidence
and regard.
They were very attentive to Aunt Jem also, but she did not like them as
well as I did. I well remember a remark of hers with which her husband
was not at all pleased.
"They are fishing for you, Vevette. They mean to make a convert of you,
and then what will the sailor say?"
"Nonsense, Jem," said my Uncle Charles sharply. "What interest have
they in the matter? Why should you wish to set Vevette against her
father's family?"
"I do not wish it," returned Aunt Jem, looking at once hurt and
surprised, for Uncle Charles, though often moody, was seldom anything
but kind to his wife, of whom he was both fond and proud. "I am sure it
is but natural they should wish to bring the child to their own way of
thinking. I am not sure but I should like to be of that way myself,"
she added, sighing a little. "It is a comfortable kind of faith after
all. One puts one's self into the hands of a priest, and then one is
sure of salvation."
I might have answered that this salvation was a thing that a devout
Roman Catholic never could be sure of, since his salvation depends not
alone upon the all-perfect Saviour, but upon the offices of a man like
himself who may be altogether a sacrilegious person; but I had become
very shy of speaking upon religious subjects. I still, it is true,
kept up a form of devotion morning and evening, but with my conscience
constantly burdened by unrepented sins which I would not even confess
to be sins, my prayers could be only the emptiest of forms. My Bible
lay unread day after day, and though I did indeed go to church once
every Sunday, I did not greatly profit by that.
It was a time of great deadness in spiritual matters in the Church
of England, though there were a few faithful preachers who shone as
lights in a dark place. But our parish clergyman was not one of them.
Sometimes he gave us a disquisition on the heresies of the first ages
in the church, but his sermons in general were either upon the divine
right of kings and the wickedness of those who ventured in anything to
oppose them, or else dry lectures upon morals to the effect that vice
was bad and virtue was good. I heard about the Theban legionaries till
I wished they had been massacred long before they were, so that they
might have been lost in the mists of antiquity.
As to the moral lectures which formed a great part of the preaching
of the day, they were not like to have any great influence so long as
people saw the king, an open and shameless contemner of the laws of
God and man, publicly receiving the sacrament, while his attendants
meantime laughed and chatted among themselves as if they had been in a
playhouse, the Duke of York himself setting the example.
As I said, there were glorious exceptions—men who shunned not
fearlessly to declare the whole council of God, and to rebuke sin
wherever they found it, but these were not the rule, and they did not
come in my way. Sunday was a long day to us at my aunt's, though we did
our best to shorten it by reading romance and plays, playing at tables,
and seeing company at home.
My visit to Madame de Fayrolles was soon repeated, and it came to be an
understood thing that I should spend at least two days in the week with
her.
I made the acquaintance of Father Martien, as he was called, and found
him a very polished, agreeable gentleman. He was a Frenchman by birth,
but educated in Florence. We soon fell upon the subject of Italian
literature, and he ventured gently to criticise my pronunciation, and
offered his services to correct it by reading with me two or three
times a week. I had always been fond of the language, and accepted the
offer with enthusiasm. I hardly know how we began upon the subject of
religion, but we were in the midst of it before I was aware.
I had been well furnished, like every Huguenot child, with abundance
of answers to every argument that could be brought forward upon the
Romish side; but, alas, the armor was loose and dented from neglect,
and the sword rusty and out of use. My faith in Christianity itself
had been in some degree shaken by the sneers and arguments I had heard
from Lewis, and also from my Uncle Charles, who was a worshipper of Mr.
Hobbes. I had come to think that one form of faith was perhaps as good
as another—that so long as men led good lives, their opinions did not
very much matter, and so forth. When I tried to recall my old arguments
I remembered other things which roused my conscience, and made me
wretched, that I was glad to let them rest again.
I was persuaded to hear mass in the chapel of the French ambassador,
that I might enjoy the music. Aunt Jem herself went to the chapel of
the queen for the same reason, and I soon discovered that she was
leaning the same way as myself.
"Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird."
One might think so certainly, and yet how often do we see nets spread
in plain daylight, and the silly birds walking straight into them.
Every day I grew more and more indifferent to the faith in which I had
been educated, and for which my father had died. Every day I saw new
reason to regret the bigotry—so I learned to call it—which had brought
so many misfortunes upon our family. Every day I grew more attached to
my uncle and aunt, and came more under their influence.
My Aunt Jem even grew a little jealous, and murmured that it was rather
hard she should have so little of my company, when she had been the
means of my coming to town in the first place; but a little attention
from the ambassador's family, and a few introductions to great people,
and cards to great entertainments, soon reconciled her to the state of
things. As to my Uncle Charles, I am sorry to write it, but I have good
reason to believe that he was playing into the hands of Monsieur de
Fayrolles all the time. He was deep in debt, and embarrassments of all
sorts, caused by his high play and extravagant style of living, and I
believe that he deliberately turned me over to my French relations in
consideration of being relieved of some of the most pressing of these
liabilities.
One thing held me back from taking the last step to which I was now
being gently urged and persuaded—and that one thing was my love for
Andrew. I still wore his ring, and still watched vainly and with the
sickness of hope deferred for news of him. The news came at last.
I was breakfasting in my aunt's bedroom as usual, for Aunt Jem grew
more and more indolent in her habits and often did not rise till noon.
Her health was failing even then, and she had very bad nights, but
she would never confess that she was ill. She had, however, so far
yielded to pain and weakness as to remain at home for a day or two. I
was breakfasting with her, as I said, and trying to entertain her with
accounts of what I had seen and heard when out with Madame de Fayrolles
the day before, when my uncle entered the room.
He saluted my aunt with his usual kindness, and then asked me for a cup
of coffee.
"And what is the news at court?" said my aunt.
"Nothing very special, that I know of. One of our ships from the West
Indies has come in, and by the way, Vevette, I heard of an old friend
of yours—"
My heart beat fast, and my hand trembled so that I was fain to set down
my cup of chocolate.
"Your old friend and flame, our good cousin, has done a very wise
thing," he continued, playing the while with my aunt's little dog. "He
has married the daughter of a rich planter with I know not how many
thousand slaves and acres, and means to settle in those parts as soon
as he can arrange his affairs. What say you, chick? Shall I bespeak a
willow garland for you?"
"I have no occasion for it, thank you," I answered, with a calmness
which surprised myself. "That affair was broken off by my mother long
ago."
"Of course," said my aunt. "Vevette has too much sense to regret that
her cousin should look out for himself. I hope to see her make a much
better marriage than that. She has improved wonderfully of late, and
would grace any station."
"But are you quite sure this news is true?" I asked quietly. "It will
be a great grief to Andrew's mother and sisters if he should settle
abroad."
"I dare say they will reconcile themselves, seeing how much he gains by
it," replied my uncle carelessly. "Besides, he may not remain abroad
always. I dare say in time he will return to England, rebuild the old
tumble-down court at Tre Madoc, and found a great estate. Report says
the young lady is beautiful as well as rich, and that it was quite a
love match. They believe in such things out there it seems."
"You believed in them once," said my aunt.
"Yes, in old days when you were young, my love; but there are no such
things now, because there are no more such women."
My poor aunt brightened at this speech and the caress which accompanied
it. All of her that was not spoiled by the world clung to her husband.
Sorrow in itself has no power for good, but only for evil. It is only
while we look not at the things that are seen, but at those which are
unseen, that it works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory.
The things unseen had become to me more unreal than any dream, and
consequently this great blow only hardened and embittered instead of
softening my heart. I said to myself that there was no truth or trust
in anything—that Andrew was no better than the rest.
I cast myself loose from all the considerations which had hitherto
restrained me, and gave myself wholly over to the influence of Monsieur
and Madame de Fayrolles, and especially of Father Martien. Aunt
Zenobie, with that consummate tact which distinguished her, and which I
have sometimes even thought served her instead of a soul, never alluded
to the subject of Andrew's marriage, and never showed that she had even
heard of it, except by redoubling the amount of petting and caresses
she bestowed on me.
Father Martien, on the other hand, hinted delicately at similar sorrows
he had himself undergone in early life, and spoke of the consolations
the church had to offer to wounded hearts, of the tender sympathy of
the mother of God, and the comfort of having a woman like myself to
whom I might confide all my sorrows, and who could understand my heart.
I aright have said that he who made the woman's heart was at least as
likely to understand it as any one else, and that women were not, as a
general thing, more tender to women than the other sex.
But the truth was, I was eager to be—I will not say convinced, but
persuaded. My soul was a fountain of bitter waters—a spring of boiling
rebellion against Heaven, and anger against man. I only wished to
divide myself as far as possible from Andrew and to go where I never
need hear his name. I allowed myself to go constantly to mass with my
aunt, to listen to Father Martien's arguments with complacency, and
to give good hopes to my French friends that I meant to return to the
bosom of the true church.
Another event occurred about this time, which had the effect of
throwing me still more completely into the hands of Madame de
Fayrolles. My Aunt Jemima died. As I have before hinted, she had long
been ailing, though she had striven against her malady, and concealed
its ravages with all the force of her will. But no human will is of any
avail when death knocks at the door.
The day came when she was obliged to keep her bed and acknowledge
herself ill, and from that time her decay was very rapid. It was most
pitiable to see how she clung to that world which was slipping away
from her—to the miserable crumbling idols which she had worshipped,
but in which there was no help. She would be partly dressed every day,
would see those—they were not many—who called upon her—would hear
all the news of the court and the town. Her gentlewoman Mercer, who,
was something of a religious person in her way—wished her to have a
clergyman come to read prayers, but Aunt Jem refused. She was not as
bad as that, she said; there was plenty of time; she was not going to
die. She would be better when spring came—in truth, she was much better
already.
Alas, poor lady, her death-warrant was signed and the messenger was at
the door. Her end came very suddenly at last. There was barely time to
send for a clergyman, and when he came, her speech was gone, though
she had her senses and her eyes wandered from one face to another in
agonized appeal for the help which no mortal could give.
Mercer in her hurry had brought not our parish clergyman, but her own,
a serious and I believe truly religious young man, who tried to direct
my aunt's thoughts and hopes to the only sure foundation, but she
hardly attended, and we could not be sure even that she understood.
Surely there is no sight of martyrdom for the truth's sake so terrible,
so pitiable, as the death-bed of one who, having given his whole heart
and mind to the world, is called upon to leave it forever.
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