did not know how sweet it is to be beloved,’ he said to me. ‘It is almost enough to tempt one to play the role de bon seigneur.’
‘Ah! brother, if you would. You are no foreigner, you are wiser and would not make yourself suspected like me.’
He only laughed and shrugged his shoulders; but he was as good to our poor as it is possible to be as we live here in France, where we are often absolutely complelled to live at court, and our expenses there force us to press heavily on our already hard-driven peasants. I sometimes wonder whether a better time will come, when out good Duke of Burgundy tries to carry out the maxims of Monseigneur the Archbishop of Cambray; but I shall not live to see that day. [Footnote: No wonder Madame de Bellaise’s descendants dust not publish these writings while the ancien regime continued!]
In due time we arrived in Paris. It was pouring with rain, so no one came to meet us, though I looked out at every turn, feeling that Eustace must indeed be unwell, or no weather would have kept him from flying to meet his Meg. Or had he in these six long years ceased to care for me, and should I find him a politician and a soldier, with his heart given to somebody else and no room for me?
My heart beat so fast that I could hardly attend to the cries of wonder and questions of the two children, and indeed of Cecile, to whom everything was as new and wonderful as to them, though in the wet, with our windows splashed all over, the first view of Paris was not too promising. However, at last we drove beneath our own porte cochere, and upon the steps there were all the servants. And Eustace, my own dear brother, was at the coach-door to meet us and hand me out.
I passed from his arms to those of my mother, and then to my sister’s. Whatever might come and go, I could not but feel that there was an indefinable bliss and bien-etre in their very presence! It was home—coming home—more true content and rest than I had felt since that fatal day at Nancy.
My mother was enchanted with her grandson, and knew how to welcome Madame d’Aubepine as one of the family, since she was of course to reside with us. The Abbe also was most welcome to my mother.
How we all looked at one another, to find the old beings we had loved, and to learn the new ones we had become! My mother was of course the least altered; indeed, to my surprise, she was more embonpoint than before, instead of having the haggard worn air that I had expected, and though she wept at first, she was soon again smiling.
Eustace, Baron Walwyn and Ribaumont, as he now unfortunately had become, sat by me. He was much taller than when we had parted, for had not then reached his full height, and he looked the taller from being very thin. His moustache and pointed beard had likewise changed him, but there was clear bright colour on his cheek, and his dear brown eyes shone upon me with their old sweetness; so that it was not till we had been together some little time that I found that the gay merry lad whom I had left had become not only a man, but a very grave and thoughtful man.
Annora was a fine creature, well grown, and with the clearest, freshest complexion, of the most perfect health, yet so pure and delicate, that one looked at her like a beautiful flower; but it somehow struck me that she had a discontented and almost defiant expression. She seemed to look at me with a sort of distrust, and to be with difficulty polite to Madame d’Aubepine, while she was almost rude to the Abbe. She scarcely uttered a word of French, and made a little cry and gesture of disgust, when Gaspard replied to her in his native tongue, poor child.
She was the chief disappointment to me. I had expected to find, not indeed my little playfellow, but my own loving sister Nan; and this young lady was like a stranger. I thought, too, my mother would have been less lively, she seemed to me to have forgotten everything in the satisfaction of being at Paris. At first I feared she was looking at me with displeasure, but presently I observed that she had discarded her widow’s veil, and looked annoyed that I still wore mine. Otherwise she was agreeable surprised in me, and turned to M. de Solivet, saying:
‘Yes, my son, you are right, she is belle, assez belle; and when she is dressed and has no more that provincial air, she will do very well.’
It was Eustace, my brother, who gave me unmixed delight that evening, unmixed save for his look of delicate health, for that he should be graver was only suitable to my feelings, and we knew that we were in perfect sympathy with one another whenever our eyes met, as of old, while we had hardly exchanged a word. And then, how gracious and gentle he was with poor little Madame d’Aubepine, who looked up to him like a little violet at the food of a poplar tree!
Supper passed in inquires after kinsfolk and old friends. Alas! of how many the answer was—slain, missing since such a battle. In prison, ruined, and brought to poverty, seemed to be the best I could hear of any one I inquired after. That Walwyn was not yet utterly lost seemed to be owing to Harry Merrycourt.
‘He on the wrong side!’ I exclaimed.
‘He looks on the question as a lawyer,’ said my brother; ‘holding the duty of the nation to be rather to the law than to the sovereign.’
‘Base! Unworthy of a gentleman!’ cried my mother. ‘Who would believe him the kinsman of the gallant Duc de Mericour?’
‘He would be ashamed to count kindred with tat effeminate petit maitre!’ cried Annora.
‘I think,’ said Eustace, ‘that the wrong and persecution that his Huguenot grandfather suffered at the hands of his French family have had much power in inspiring him with that which he declares is as much loyalty as what I call by that honoured name.’
‘You can speak of him with patience!’ cried my mother.
‘In common gratitude he is bound to do so,’ said Annora.
For not only had Colonel Merrycourt preserved our brother’s life after Naseby, but he had found a plea of service to the King which availed at the trial that followed at Westminster. Harry had managed to secure part of the estate, as he had likewise done for our other kindred the Thistlewoods, by getting appointed their guardian when their father was killed Chalgrove. But soldiers had been quartered on both families; there had been a skirmish at Walwyn with Sir Ralph Hopton, much damage had been done to the house and grounds, and there was no means of repairing it; all the plate had been melted up, there was nothing to show for it but a little oval token, with the King’s head on one side, and the Queen’s on the other; and as to the chaplet of pearls—
There was a moment’s silence as I inquired for them. Annora said:
‘Gone, of course; more hatefully than all the rest.’
My brother added, with a smile that evidently cost him an effort:
‘You are the only pearl of Ribaumont left, Meg, except this one,’ showing me his ring of thin silver with one pearl set in it; ‘I kept back this one in memory of my grandmother. So Nan will have to go to her first ball without them.’
And had little Nan never been to a ball? No; she had never danced except that Christmas when a troop of cavaliers had been quartered at Walwyn—a merry young captain and his lieutenant, who had sent for the fiddles, and made them have a dance in the hall, Berenger, and Nan, and all. And not a week after, the young captain, ay, and our dear Berry, were lying in their blood at Alresford. Had Nan’s heart been left there? I wondered, when I saw how little she brightened at the mention of the Court ball where she was to appear next week, and to which it seemed my mother trusted that I should be invited in token of my being forgiven.
I tried to say that I had never meant to return to the world, and that I still kept to my mourning; but my mother said with authority that I had better be grateful for any token of favour that was vouchsafed to me. She took me into her apartment after supper, and talked to me very seriously; telling me that I must be very careful, for that I had been so imprudent, that I should certainly have been deprived of the custody of my son, if not imprisoned, unless my good godmother, Queen Henrietta, and herself had made themselves responsible for me.
I told my mother that I had done nothing, absolutely nothing, but attend to the wants of my son’s people, just as I had been used to see my grandmother, and my aunt Thistlewood, or any English lady, do at home.
‘And to what had that brought England?’ cried my mother. ‘No, child, those creatures have no gratitude