At last we passed a distant steeple and large castle, which we were told
belonged to Ryswyk, the castle of the Prince of Orange; then we went
along through long rows of trees, and suddenly emerging from them we
beheld a vast plain, a great wood, and a city crowned with towers and
windmills.
Sir Andrew had been there before, and after showing our passports, and
paying our fare to the boatman, who received it in a leathern bag, he
left the servants to manage the landing of the carriage at the wharf,
and took us through the streets, which were as scrupulously clean and
well-washed, pavement and all, as if they had been the flags of
an English kitchen, and as silent, he said, as a Sunday morning in
Edinburgh. Even the children looked like little models of Dutchmen and
Dutchwomen, and were just as solid, sober, and silent; and when Sir
Andrew, who could speak Dutch, asked a little boy our way to the street
whence my brother had dated his letter, the child gave his directions
with the grave solemnity of a judge.
At last we made out way to the Mynheer Fronk’s house, where we had been
told we should find my Lord Walwyn’s lodgings. It was a very tall
house, with a cradle for a stork’s nest at the top, and one of the birds
standing on a single long thin leg on the ridge of the very high roof.
There were open stalls for cheese on either side of the door, and a
staircase leading up between. Sir Andrew made it known to a Dutchman, in
a broad hat, that we were Lord Walwyn’s sisters come to see him, and he
thereupon called a stout maid, in a snowy round cap and kerchief, who in
the first place looked at our shoes, then produced a brush and a cloth,
and, going down on her knees, proceeded to wipe them and clean them. Sir
Andrew submitted, as one quite accustomed to the process, and told us
we might think ourselves fortunate that she did not actually insist on
carrying us all upstairs, as some Dutch maids would do with visitors,
rather than permit the purity of their stairs and passages to be soiled.
He extracted, meantime, from the Dutchman, that the Englishman had been
very ill with violent bleedings at the lungs, but was somewhat better;
and thus we were in some degree prepared, when we had mounted up many,
many stairs, to find our Eustace sitting in his cloak, though it was a
warm summer day, with his feet up on a wooden chair in front of him, and
looking white, wasted, weak, as I had never seen him.
He started to his feet as the door opened and he beheld us, and would
have sprung forward, but he was obliged to drop back into his chair
again, and only hold out his arms.
‘My sisters, my sisters!’ he said; ‘I had thought never to have seen you
again!’
‘And you would have sailed again for Scotland!’ said Annora.
‘I should have been strong in the face of the enemy,’ he replied, but
faintly.
There was much to be done for him. The room was a very poor and bare
one, rigidly clean, of course, but with hardly and furniture in it but
a bed, table, and two chairs, and the mistress or her maid ruthlessly
scoured it every morning, without regard to the damp that the poor
patient must inhale.
It appeared that since his expedition to Scotland the estate in Dorset
had been seized, so that Harry Merrycourt could send him no more
remittances, and, as the question about the Ribaumont property in
Picardy was by no means decided, he had been reduced to sad straits. His
Dutch hostess was not courteous, and complained very much that all the
English cavaliers in exile professed to have rich kindred who would
make up for everything, but she could not see that anything came of
it. However, she did give him house-room, and, though grumbling, had
provided him with many comforts and good fare, such as he was sure could
not be purchased out of the very small sum he could give her by the
week.
‘And how provided?’ he said. ‘Ah! Nan, can you forgive me? I have had to
pledge the last pearl of the chaplet, but I knew that Meg would redeem
it.’
He had indeed suffered much, and we were eager to do our utmost for
his recovery. We found the house crowded with people, and redolent of
cheese. This small, chilly garret chamber was by no means proper for a
man in his state of health, nor was there room for us in the house. So,
leaving Nan with him, I went forth with Sir Andrew to seek for fresh
lodgings. I need not tell how we tramped about the streets, and asked at
many doors, before we could find any abode that would receive us. There
were indeed lodgings left vacant by the gentlemen who had attended the
King to Scotland, but perforce, so many scores had been left unpaid that
there was great reluctance to receive any cavalier family, and the more
high-sounding the name, the less trust there was in it. Nothing but
paying down a month beforehand sufficed to obtain accommodation for us
in a house belonging to a portly widow, and even there Nan and I would
have to eat with the family (and so would my brother if he were well
enough), and only two bedrooms and one sitting-room could be allotted
to us. However, these were large and airy; the hangings, beds, and linen
spotless; the floors and tables shining like mirrors; the windows clean,
sunny, and bright; so we were content, and had our mails deposited there
at once, though we could not attempt to move my brother so late in the
day.
Indeed, I found him so entirely spent and exhausted by his conversation
with Annora, that I would not let him say any more that night, but left
him to the charge of Tryphena, who would not hear of leaving him, and
was very angry with Mistress Nan, who, she said, in her English speech,
would talk a horse’s head off when once she began. In the morning Sir
Andrew escorted us to the lodgings, where we found my brother already
dressed, by the help of Nicolas, and looking forward to the change
cheerfully. I have given Sir Andrew my purse, begging him, with his
knowledge of Dutch, to discharge the reckoning for me, after which he
was to go to find a chair, a coach, or anything that could be had to
convey my brother in, for indeed he was hardly fit to walk downstairs.
Presently the Scottish knight knocked at the door, and desired to speak
with me. ‘What does this mean, Madame?’ he said, looking much amused.
‘My Lord here has friends. The good vrow declares that all his charges
have been amply paid by one who bade her see that he wanted for nothing,
and often sent dainty fare for him.’
‘Was no name given?’
‘None; and the vrow declares herself sworn to secrecy; but I observed
that by a lapsus linguoe she implied that the sustenance came from a
female hand. Have you any suspicions that my lord has a secret admirer?’
I could only say that I believed that many impoverished cavaliers had
met with great and secret kindness from the nobility of Holland;
that the King of England, as he knew, had interested himself about my
brother, and as we all had been, so to say, brought up in intimacy with
the royal family, I did not think it impossible that the Princess of
Orange might have interested herself about him, though she might not
wish to have it known, for fear of exciting expectations in others. Of
course all the time I had other suspicions, but I could not communicate
them, though they were increased when Sir Andrew went with Eustace’s
pledge to redeem the pearl; but he came back in wrath and despair,
telling me that a rascally Dutch merchant had smelt it out, and had
offered a huge price for it, which the goldsmith had not withstood,
despairing of its ransom.
Eustace did not ask who the merchant was, but I saw the hot blood
mounting in his pale cheek. Happily Annora was not present, so
inconvenient questions were avoided. He was worn out with the being
carried in a chair and then mounting the stairs, even with the aid of
Sir Andrew’s arm.
Tryphena, however, had a nourishing posset for him, and we laid him on a
day-bed which had been made ready for him, where he smiled at us,
said, ‘This is comfort,’ and dropped asleep while I sat by him. There
I stayed, watching him, while Nan, whose nature never was to sit
still, went forth, attended by Sir Andrew and Nicolas, to obtain some
needments. If she had known the language, and if it had been fitting for
a young demoiselle of her birth, she might have gone alone; these were
the safest streets, and the most free from riot or violence of any kind
that I ever inhabited.
While she was gone, Eustace awoke, and presently began talking to me,
and asking me about all that had passed, and about which we had not
dared to write. Nan, he said, had told him her story, and he was
horrified at the peril I had incurred. I replied that was all past, and
was as nothing compared with the consequences, of which my sister had no
doubt informed him. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I did not think it of Darpent.’
I said I supposed that the young man could not help the original
presumption of loving Annora, and that I could bear testimony that they
had been surprised into confessing it to one another. He sighed, and
said: ‘True. I had thought that the barrier between the robe and the
sword was so fixed in a French mind that I should as soon have expected
Nicolas to aspire to Mademoiselle de Ribaumont’s hand as Clement
Darpent.’
‘But in her own eyes she is not Mademoiselle de Ribaumont so much as
Mistress Annora Ribmont,’ I said; ‘and thus she treated him in a manner
to encourage his audacity.’
‘Even so,’ said Eustace, ‘and Annora is no mere child, not one of your
jeunes filles, who may be disposed of at one’s will. She is a woman
grown, and has been bred in the midst of civil wars. She had refused
Harry Merrycourt before we left home, and she knows how to frighten away
all the suitors our mother would find for her. Darpent is deeply worthy.
We should esteem and honour him as a gentleman in England; and were
he there, and were our Church as once it was, he would be a devout and
thankful member of it. Margaret, we must persuade my mother to consent.’
I could not help rejoicing; and then he added: ‘The King has been well
received, and is about to be crowned in Scotland. It may well be that
our way home may be opened. In that case, Meg, you, my joint-heiresses,
would have something to inherit, and before going to Scotland I had
drawn up a will giving you and your Gaspard the French claims, and
Annora the English estates. I know the division is not equal; but
Gaspard can never be English, and Annora can never be French; and may
make nearly as much of an Englishman of Darpent as our grandfather was.’
‘Nay, nay, Eustace,’ I said; ‘the names of Walwyn and Ribaumont must not
be lost.’
‘She may make Darpent deserve a fresh creation, then,’ he answered,
smiling sadly. ‘It will be best to wait a little, as I have told her, to
see how matters turn out at home.’
I asserted with all my heart, and told him what our brother Solivet had
said.
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘Solivet and our mother will brook the matter much
better if she is to live in England, the barbarous land that they can
forget. And if I do not live, I will leave them each a letter that they
cannot quite disregard.’
I said I was glad he had not consented to Annora’s notion of bringing
Darpent to Holland, since Solivet might lie in wait for him, and
besides, it would not be treating our mother rightly.
‘No,’ said Eustace; ‘if I am ever strong enough again I must return to
Paris, and endeavour to overcome their opposition.’ And he spoke with a
weary sigh, though I augured that he would soon improve under our
care, and that of Tryphena, who had always been better for him than
any doctor. Then I could not help reproaching him a little with having
ventured himself in that terrible climate and hopeless cause.
‘As to the climate, that was not so much amiss,’ said Eustace. ‘Western
Scotland is better and more wholesome than these Dutch marshes. The
sea-gull fares better than the frog.’
‘But the cause,’ I said. ‘Why did you not wait to go with the King?’
‘There were reasons, Meg,’ he said. ‘The King was hounding--yes,
hounding out the Marquis to lead the forlorn hope. Heaven forgive me for
my disloyalty in thinking he wished to be quit of one so distasteful to
the Covenanters who have invited him.’
And when I broke forth in indignation, Eustace lowered his voice, and
said sadly that the King was changed in many points from the Prince of
Wales, and that listening to policy was not good for him. Then I asked
why, if the King hounded, as he called it, the Marquis, on this unhappy
expedition, should Eustace have share in it?
‘It was enough to anger any honest man,’ said Eustace, ‘to see the
flower of all the cavaliers thus risked without a man of rank or weight
to back him, with mere adventurers and remnants of Goring’s fellows, and
Irishmen that could only do him damage with the Scots. I, with neither
wife nor child, might well be the one to share the venture.’
‘Forgetting your sisters,’ said I. ‘Ah, Eustace, was there no other
cause to make you restless?’
‘You push me hard, Meg. Yes, to you I will say it, that there was a face
among the ladies here which I could not look on calmly, and I knew it
was best for her and for myself that I should be away.’
‘Is she there still?’ I asked.
‘I know not. Her husband had taken her to his country-house last time I
heard, and very few know that I am not gone with the King. It was but at
the last moment that he forbade me. It is better so.’
I thought of what his hostess had told me, but I decided for the present
to keep my own counsel.
We thought it right to pay our respects to the Princess of Orange, but
she was keeping very little state. Her husband, the Stadholder, was
on bad terms with the States, and had just failed in a great attack
on Amsterdam; and both he and she were indisposed. The Princess Royal
replied therefore to our request for admittance, that she could not
refuse to see such old friends of her family as the ladies of Ribaumont,
but that we must excuse her for giving us a private reception.
Accordingly we were conducted through numerous courts, up a broad
staircase of shining polished wood, through a large room, to a cabinet
hung with pictures, among which her martyered father held the foremost
place. She was a thin woman, with a nose already too large for her face,
inherited no doubt from her grandfather, the Grand Monarque, and her
manner had not the lively grace of her mother’s, but seemed as if it
had been chilled and made formal by her being so early transported
to Holland. She was taken thither at ten years old, and was not yet
nineteen; and though I had once or twice played with her before my
marriage, she could not be expected to remember me. So the interview was
very stiff at first, in spite of her kind inquiries for my brother, whom
she said the King loved and valued greatly. I wondered whether it could
have been she who had provided for his needs, and threw out a hint to
see if so it were, but she evidently did not understand me, and our
visit soon ended.
Our way of life at the Hague was soon formed. Eustace was our first
thought and care, and we did whatever we thought best for his health. I
would fain have taken him back to Paris with us, but autumn was setting
in, and he was not in a state to be moved, being only able to walk
from one room to the other, and I could hardly hope that he would
gain strength before the winter set in, since a sea voyage would be
necessary, as we could not pass through the Spanish Netherlands that
lay between us and France. Besides, while the King was in Scotland, he
always entertained the hope of a summons to England. Other exiles were
waiting in the same manner as ourselves, and from time to time we saw
something of them. The gentlemen would come and sit with my brother,
and tell him of the news, and we exchanged visits with the ladies,
whom Annora recognised at the room where an English minister held their
service; but they were a much graver and quieter set of exiles than
those we had known at Paris. They could hardly be poorer than those;
indeed, many were less strained, but they did not carry off their
poverty in the same gay and lively manner, and if they had only torn
lace and soiled threadbare garments, they shut themselves up from all
eyes, instead of ruffling gaily as if their rags were tokens of honour.
Besides, more than one event occurred to sadden that banished company.
The tidings came of the death of the young Lady Elisabeth, who had pine
away in the hands of her keepers, and died a week after her arrival at
Carisbrooke, where her father had been so long a prisoner, her cheek
resting her open Bible.
Annora, who had known her as a grave, sweet, thoughtful child, grieved
much for her, broken-hearted as she seemed to have been for her father;
and the Princess of Orange, knowing that Nan had seen the poor young
lady more lately than herself, sent for her to converse and tell of the
pretty childish ways of that ‘rosebud born in snow,’ as an English poet
prettily termed the young captive.
Ere long the poor Princess was in even more grievous trouble. Her
husband, the young Prince of Orange, died of smallpox, whereupon she
fell into such transports of grief that there was the greatest anxiety
respecting her, not only from compassion, but because she was the
staunch supporter of her exiled family to the best of her ability.
Eight days later, on her own nineteenth birthday, her son was born; and
in such gloom, that it was a marvel that mother or babe survived, for
the entire rooms were hung with black, and even the cradle of the child
was covered completely with black velvet, so that the poor little puny
infant seemed as if he were being put into a coffin. We saw the doleful
chamber ourselves, for Eustace sent us to pay our respects, and Queen
Henrietta honoured me with commands to write her a report of her widowed
daughter and first grandson.
For we were still at the Hague, Eustace gradually regaining strength,
and the bleedings had almost entirely ceased; but the physician who
attended him, the best I think whom I have even known, and whose regimen
did him more good than any other he had adopted, charged me, as I valued
his life, not to attempt a journey with him till after the winter should
be over, and summer entirely set in. If the effusion of blood could
be prevented he might even yet recover and live to old age, but if it
recurred again Dr. Dirkius would not answer for his life for an hour;
nor must he do aught that would give him a rheum or renew his cough.
After all, we were very peaceful and happy in those rooms at the Hague,
though Eustace was very anxious about the King, Annora’s heart was at
Paris, and I yearned after my son, from whom I had never thought to be
so long parted; but we kept our cares to ourselves, and were cheerful
with one another. We bought or borrowed books, and read them together,
we learned to make Holland lace, studied Dutch cookery, and Annora, by
Eustace’s wish, took lessons on the lute and spinnet, her education in
those matters having been untimely cut short. By the way, she had a real
taste for music, and the finding that her performance and her singing
amused and refreshed him gave her further zeal to continue the study and
conquer the difficulties, though she would otherwise have said she was
too old to go to school.
Then the frost set in, and all the canals and sluggish streams were
sheets of ice, to which the market people skated, flying along upon the
ice like birds. We kept my brother’s room as warm as it was in our power
to do, and made him lie in bed till the house was thoroughly heated, and
he did not suffer much or become materially worse in the winter, but he
was urgent upon us to go out and see the curious sights and share the
diversions as far as was possible for us. Most of the Dutch ladies
skated beautifully, and the younger ones performed dances on the ice
with their cavaliers, but all was done more quietly than usual on
account of the mourning, the Prince of Orange being not yet buried, and
his child frail and sickly. The Baptism did not take place till January,
and then we were especially invited to be present. Though of course my
brother could not go, Annora and I did so. The poor child had three
sets of States-General for his godfathers, his godmothers being his
grandmother, the elder Princess of Orange, and his great aunt, Queen
Elisabeth of Bohemia. The Duke of York, who had lately arrived, was
asked to carry the little Prince to church, but he shuddered at the
notion of touching a baby, as much as did his sister a the idea of
trusting her precious child with him, so the infant was placed in the
arms of one of his young aunts, Mademoiselle Albertine of Nassau.
I saw no more than a roll of ermine, and did not understand much of the
long sermon with which the Dutch minister precluded the ceremony, and
which was as alien to my sister’s ideas of a christening as it was to
mine. Many other English ladies were mingled with the Dutch ones in the
long rows that lined the aisle, and I confess that my eyes wandered a
good deal, guessing which were my countrywomen. Nearly opposite to me
was one of the sweetest faces I have ever seen, the complexion quite
pearly white, the hair of pale gold, in shining little rings over
the brow, which was wonderfully pure, though with an almost childish
overtone. There was peace on the soft dark eyes and delicately-moulded
lips and the fair, oval, though somewhat thin cheeks. It was a perfect
refreshment to see that countenance, and it reminded me of two most
incongruous and dissimilar ones--namely, the angelic face of the
Dutchess de Longueville when I had first seen her in her innocent,
untainted girlhood, and of the expression on the worn old countenance of
Madame Darpent.
I was venturing a glance now and then to delight myself without
disconcerting that gentle lady, when I felt Annora’s hand on my arm,
squeezing so hard, poor maid, that her fingers left a purple mark there,
and though she did not speak, I beheld, as it were, darts and arrows in
the gleam of her eyes. And then it was that I saw on the black velvet
dress worn by the lady a part of a necklace of large pearls--the pearls
of Ribaumont--though I should not have known them again, or perhaps
would Nan, save for the wearer.
‘Flaunting them in our very faces,’ muttered poor Nan; and if eyes could
have slain, hers would have killed the poor Vrow van Hunker on the spot.
As it was, the dark eyes met her fierce glance and sunk beneath it,
while such a painful crimson suffused the fair cheeks that I longed
to fly to the rescue, and to give at least a look of assurance that I
acquitted her of all blame, and did not share my sister’s indignation.
But there was no uplifting of the eyelids again till the ceremony was
ended, and we all had to take our places again in one of the thirty
state coaches in which the company had come to the christening.
I saw Madame van Hunker led out by a solid, wooden-faced old Dutchman,
who looked more like her father than her husband; and I told Annora that
I was sure she had worn the pearls only because he compelled her.
‘Belike,’ said my sister. ‘She hath no more will of her own than a hank
of flax! That men can waste their hearts on such moppets as that!’
But though we did not at all agree on the impression Madame van Hunker
had made on us, we were of one mind to say nothing of it to Eustace.
Another person laid her hand on Annora’s arm as she was about to enter
our carriage. ‘Mistress Ribmont!’ she exclaimed; ‘I knew not that you
were present in this land of our exile.’
I looked and saw a lady, as fantastically dressed as the mourning would
permit, and with a keen clever face, and Nan curtsied, saying: ‘My Lady
Marchioness of Newcastle! let me present to you my sister, Madame la
Vicomtesse de Bellaise.’
She curtsied and asked in return for Lord Walwyn, declaring that her
lord would come and see him, and that we must come to visit her. ‘We are
living poorly enough, but my lord’s good daughter Jane Doth her best for
us and hath of late sent us a supply; so we are making merry while it
lasts, and shall have some sleighing on ice-hills to-morrow, after the
fashion of the country. Do you come, my good lad is cruelly moped in
yonder black-hung place, with his widowed sister and her mother-in-law,
and I would fain give him a little sport with young folk.’
Lady Newcastle’s speech was cut short by her lord, who came to insist on
her getting into the coach, which was delaying for her, and on the way
home Nan began to tell me of her droll pretensions, which were like an
awkward imitation of the best days of the Hotel Rambouillet.
She also told me about the noble-hearted Lady Jane Cavendish, the
daughter of the Marquis’s first marriage--how she held out a house of
her father against the rebels, and acted like a brave captain, until
the place was stormed, and she and her sister were made prisoners. The
Roundhead captain did not treat them with over-ceremony, but such was
the Lady Jane’s generous nature that when the Royalists came to her
relief, and he was made captive in his turn, she saved his life by her
intercession.
She had since remained in England, living in a small lodge near the
ruins of her father’s house at Bolsover, to obtain what she could for
his maintenance abroad, and to collect together such remnants of
the better times as she might, such as the family portraits, and the
hangings of the hall. I longed to see this very worthy and noble lady,
but she was out of our reach, being better employed in England. Nan gave
a little sigh to England, but not such a sigh as she would once have
heaved.
And we agreed on the way home to say nothing to my brother of our
meeting with poor Millicent.
My Lord Marquis of Newcastle showed his esteem for my brother by coming
to see him that very day, so soon as he could escape from the banquet
held in honour of the christening, which, like all that was done by the
Dutch, was serious and grim enough, though it could not be said to be
sober.
He declared that he had been ignorant that Lord Walwyn was at the Hague,
or he should have waited on him immediately after arriving there, ‘since
nothing,’ said the Marquis, ‘does me good like the sight of an honest
cavalier.’ I am sure Eustace might have said the same; and they sat
talking together long and earnestly about how it fared with the King in
Scotland, and how he had been made to take the Covenant, which, as they
said, was in very truth a dissembling which must do him grievous ill,
spiritually, however it might serve temporally. My Lord repeated his
lady’s invitation to a dinner, which was to be followed up by sleighing
on hills formed of ice. Annora, who always loved rapid motion as an
exhilaration of spirits, brightened at the notion, and Eustace was
anxious that it should be accepted, and thus we found ourselves pledged
to enter into the diversions of the place.