My tears were soon checked by dreadful sea-sickness. We were no sooner
out of Dover than the cruel wind turned round upon us, and we had to go
beating about with all our sails reefed for a whole day and night before
it was safe to put into Calais.
All that time I was in untold misery, and poor nurse Tryphena was worse
than I was, and only now and then was heard groaning out that she was a
dead woman, and begging me to tell some one to throw her over board.
But it was that voyage which gave me my husband. He was not exactly at
his ease, but he kept his feet better than any of the other gentlemen,
and he set himself to supply the place of valet to his uncle, and of
maid to me, going to and fro between our cabins as best he could, for
he fell and rolled whenever he tried to more; sharp shriek or howl, or a
message through the steward, summoned him back to M. le Marquis, who had
utterly forgotten all his politeness and formality towards the ladies.
However, our sufferings were over at last. My husband, who was by
this time bruised from head to foot by his falls, though he made no
complaints, came to say we should in a few moments be in port. He helped
me to dress, for Tryphena thought she was dead, and would not move; and
he dragged me on deck, where the air revived me, and where one by one
the whole party appeared, spectacles of misery.
M. le Marquis did not recover himself till he was on shore, and caused
himself to be assisted to the quay between his nephew and the valet,
leaving me to myself; but the dear viscount returned for me, and after
he had set me ashore, as he saw I was anxious about Tryphena, he went
back and fetched her, as carefully as if she had been a lady, in spite
of the grumblings of his uncle and of her own refractoriness, for she
was horribly frightened, and could not understand a word he said to her.
Nevertheless, as soon as we had all of us come to ourselves, it turned
out that he had gained her heart. Indeed, otherwise I should have had
to send her home, for she pined sadly for some time, and nothing but her
love for me and her enthusiastic loyalty to him kept her up during the
first months.
As to my husband and me, that voyage had made us as fond of one
another’s company on one side of the Channel as we had been afraid of it
before on the other, but there was no more riding together for us. I had
to travel in the great coach with M. le Marquis, the three ladies, and
all our women, where I was so dull and weary that I should have felt
ready to die, but for watching for my husband’s plume, or now and
then getting a glance and a nod from him as he rode among the other
gentlemen, braving all their laughter at his devotion; for, bashful as
he was, he knew how to hold his own.
I knew that the ladies looked on me as an ugly little rustic foreigner,
full of English mauvaise honte. If they tried to be kind to me, it was
as a mere child; and they went on with their chatter, which I could
hardly follow, for it was about things and people of which I knew
nothing, so that I could not understand their laughter. Or when they
rejoiced in their return from what they called their exile, and
found fault with all they had left in England, my cheeks burned with
indignation.
My happy hours were when we halted for refreshments. My husband handed
me to my place at table and sat beside me; or he would walk with me
about the villages where we rested. The ladies were shocked, and my
husband was censured for letting me ‘faire l’Anglaise,’ but we were
young and full of spirits, and the being thus thrown on each other had
put an end to his timidity towards me. He did indeed blush up to his
curls, and hold himself as upright as a ramrod, when satire was directed
to us as Celadon and Chloe; but he never took any other notice of it,
nor altered his behaviour in consequence. Indeed, we felt like children
escaping from school when we crept down the stairs in early morning, and
hand-in-hand repaired to the church in time for the very earliest mass
among the peasants, who left their scythes at the door, and the women
with their hottes, or their swaddled babies at their backs. We would
get a cup of milk and piece of barley-bread at some cottage, and wander
among the orchards, fields, or vineyards before Mesdames had begun
their toiles; and when we appeared at the dejeuner, the gentlemen would
compliment me on my rouge au naturel, and the ladies would ironically
envy my English appetite.
Sometimes we rested in large hostels in cities, and then our walk began
with some old cathedral, which could not but be admired, Gothic though
it were, and continued in the market-place, where the piles of fruit,
vegetables, and flowers were a continual wonder and delight to me. My
husband would buy bouquets of pinks and roses for me; but in the coach
the ladies always said they incommoded them by their scent, and obliged
me to throw them away. The first day I could not help shedding a few
tears, for I feared he would think I did not value them; and then I
perceived that they thought the little Englishwoman a child crying for
her flowers. I longed to ask them whether they had ever loved their
husbands; but I knew how my mother would have looked at me, and forbore.
Once or twice we were received in state at some chateau, where our mails
had to be opened that we might sup in full toilet; but this was seldom,
for most of the equals of M. le Marquis lived at Paris. Sometimes our
halt was at an abbey, where we ladies were quartered in a guest-chamber
without; and twice we slept at large old convents, where nobody had
lived since the Huguenot times, except a lay brother put in by M. l’Abbe
to look after the estate and make the house a kind of inn for travelers.
There were fine walled gardens run into wild confusion, and little
neglected and dismantled shrines, and crosses here and there, with long
wreaths of rose and honeysuckle trailing over them, and birds’ nests in
curious places. My Viscount laughed with a new pleasure when I showed
him the wren’s bright eye peeping out from her nest, and he could not
think how I knew the egg of a hedge-sparrow from that of a red-breast.
Even he had never been allowed to be out of sight of his tutor, and he
knew none of these pleasures so freely enjoyed by my brothers; while as
to his sister Cecile, she had been carried from her nurse to a convent,
and had thence been taken at fourteen to be wedded to the grandson and
heir of the Count d’Aubepine, who kept the young couple under their own
eye at their castle in the Bocage.
My husband had absolutely only seen her twice, and then through the
grating, and the marriage had taken place while he was in Savoy last
autumn. He knew his brother-in-law a little better, having been his
neighbour at Nid de Merle; but he shrugged his shoulders as he spoke of
‘le chevalier,’ and said he was very young, adored by his grandparents,
and rather headstrong.
As to growing up together in the unity that had always existed between
an absolute surprise to him to find that my dear brother was grieved
at parting with me. He said he had lain and heard our shouts in the
passages with wonder as we played those old games of ours.
‘As though you were in a den of roaring wild beasts,’ I said; for I
ventured on anything with him by that time, voices, I teased him about
his feelings at having to carry off one of these same savage beasts with
him; and then he told me how surprised he had been when, on the last
evening he spent in his chamber in our house, Eustace had come and
implored him to be good to me, telling him--ah, I can see my dear
brother’s boyish way!--all my best qualities, ranging from my always
speaking truth to my being able to teach the little dog to play tricks,
and warning him of what vexed or pained me, even exacting a promise that
he would take care of me when I was away from them all. I believe that
promise was foremost in my husband’s mind when he waited on me at sea.
Nay, he said when remembered the tears in my brother’s eyes, and saw how
mine arose at the thought, his heart smote him when he remembered that
his sister’s marriage had scarcely cost him a thought or care, and that
she was an utter stranger to him; and then we agreed that if ever we had
children, we would bring them up to know and love one another, and
have precious recollections in common. Ah! l’homme propose, mais Dieu
dispose.
It was only on that day that it broke upon me that we were to be
separated immediately after our arrival in Paris. M. de Bellaise was to
go to his regiment, which was at garrison at Nancy, and I was to be
left under the charge of old Madame la Marquise de Nidemerle at Paris. I
heard of it first from the Marquise himself in the coach, as he thanked
one of the ladies who invited me--with him--to her salon in Paris, where
there was to be a great entertainment in the summer. When I replied that
M. de Bellaise would have rejoined his regiment, they began explaining
that I should go into society under Madame de Nidemerle, who would exert
herself for my sake.
I said no more. I knew it was of no use there; but when next I could
speak with my husband--it was under an arbour of vines in the garden of
the inn where we dine--I asked him whether it was true. He opened large
eyes, and said he knew I could not wish to withdraw him from his duty to
his king and country, even if he could do so with honour.
‘Ah! no,’ I said; ‘I never thought of that.’ But surely the place of
a wife was with her husband, and I had expected to go with him to his
garrison at Nancy, and there wait when he took the field. He threw
himself at my feet, and pressed my hands with transport at what he
called this unheard-of proof of affection; and then I vexed him by
laughing, for I could not help thinking what my brothers would have
said, could they have seen us thus.
Still he declared that, in spite of his wishes, it was hardly possible.
His great-uncle and aunt would never consent. I said they had no right
to interfere between husband and wife, and he replied that they had
brought him up, and taken the place of parents to him; to which
I rejoined that I was far nearer to him. He said I was a mutinous
Englishwoman; and I rejoined that he should never find me mutinous to
him.
Nay, I made up my mind that if he would not insist on taking me, I would
find means to escape and join him. What! Was I to be carried about in
the coach of Madame de Nidemerle to all the hateful salons of Paris,
while my husband, the only person in France whom I could endure, might
be meeting wounds and death in the Low Countries while I might be
dancing!
So again I declined when the ladies in the coach invited me to their
houses in Paris. Should I go to a convent? they asked; and one began to
recommend the Carmelites, another the Visitation, another Port Royal,
till I was almost distracted; and M. le Marquis began to say it was a
pious and commendable wish, but that devotion had its proper times and
seasons, and that judgment must be exercised as to the duration of a
retreat, etc.
‘No, Monsieur,’ said I, ‘I am not going into a convent. A wife’s duty is
with her husband; I am going into garrison at Nancy.’
Oh, how they cried out! There was such a noise that the gentlemen turned
their horses’ heads to see whether any one was taken ill. When they
heard what was the matter, persecution began for us both.
We used to compare our experiences; the ladies trying to persuade me now
that it was improper, now that I should be terrified to death now that I
should become too ugly to be presentable; while the gentlemen made game
of M. de Bellaise as a foolish young lover, who was so absurd as to
encumber himself with a wife of whom he would soon weary, and whose
presence would interfere with his enjoyment of the freedom and
diversions of military life. He who was only just free from his
governor, would he saddle himself with a wife? Bah!
He who had been so shy defended himself with spirit; and on my side I
declared that nothing but his commands, and those of my father, should
induce me to leave him. At Amiens we met a courier on his way to
England, and by him we dispatched letters to my father.
M. de Nidemerle treated all like absurd childish nonsense, complimenting
me ironically all the while; but I thought he wavered a little before
the journey was over, wishing perhaps that he had never given his nephew
a strange, headstrong, English wife, but thinking that, as the deed was
done, the farther off from himself she was the better.
At least, he no longer blamed his nephew and threatened him with his
aunt; but declared that Madame de Rambouillet would soon put all such
folly out of our minds.
I asked my husband what Madame de Rambouillet could have to do with
our affairs; and he shrugged his shoulders and answered that the divine
Arthenice was the supreme judge of decorum, whose decisions no one could
gainsay.