A Reputed Changeling

This plea decided Anne, who had been on the point of declaring that she should have an excellent view from the top of the keep.  However, not only did she long to see Lucy again, but the enthusiasm was contagious, and there was an attraction in the centre of popular rejoicing that drew both her and her uncle, nor could there be a doubt of her being sufficiently protected when among the Archfield ladies.  So the arrangement was accepted, and then there was the cry—

“Hark! the Havant bells!  Ay! and the Cosham!  Portsmouth is pealing out.  That’s Alverstoke.  They know it there.  A salute!  Another.”

“Scarce loyal from the King’s ships,” said the Doctor, smiling.

“Nay, ’tis only loyalty to rejoice that the King can’t make a fool of himself.  So my father says,” rejoined Charles.

And that seemed to be the mood of all England.  When Anne and her uncle set forth in the summer sunset light the great hill above them was dark with the multitudes thronging around the huge pyre rising in the midst.  They rested for some minutes at the cottage indicated before the arrival of Sir Philip, who rode up accompanying the coach in which his three ladies were seated, and which was quite large enough to receive Dr. Woodford and Mistress Anne.  Charles was in the throng, in the midst of most of the younger gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and a good many of the naval and military officers, directing the arrangement of the pile.

What a scene it was, as seen even from the windows of the coach where the ladies remained, for the multitude of sailors, soldiers, town and village people, though all unanimous, were far too tumultuous for them to venture beyond their open door, especially as little Mrs. Archfield was very far from well, and nothing but her eagerness for amusement could have brought her hither, and of course she could not be left.  Probably she knew as little of the real bearings of the case or the cause of rejoicing as did the boys who pervaded everything with their squibs, and were only restrained from firing them in the faces of the horses by wholesome fear of the big whips of the coachman and outriders who stood at the horses’ heads.

It was hardly yet dark when the match was put to the shavings, and to the sound of the loud ‘Hurrahs!’ and cries of ‘Long live the Bishops!’  ‘Down with the Pope!’ the flame kindled, crackled, and leapt up, while a responsive fire was seen on St. Catherine’s Down in the Isle of Wight, and northward, eastward, westward, on every available point, each new light greeted by fresh acclamations, as it shone out against the summer night sky, while the ships in the harbour showed their lights, reflected in the sea, as the sky grew darker.  Then came a procession of sailors and other rough folk, bearing between poles a chair with a stuffed figure with a kind of tiara, followed by others with scarlet hats and capes, and with reiterated shouts of ‘Down with the Pope!’ these were hurled into the fire with deafening hurrahs, their more gorgeous trappings being cleverly twitched off at the last moment, as part of the properties for the 5th of November.

Little Mrs. Archfield clapped her hands and screamed with delight as each fresh blaze shot up, and chattered with all her might, sometimes about some lace and perfumes which she wanted Anne to procure for her in London at the sign of the Flower Pot, sometimes grumbling at her husband having gone off to the midst of the party closest to the fire, “Just like Mr. Archfield, always leaving her to herself,” but generally very well amused, especially when a group of gentlemen, officers, and county neighbours gathered round the open door talking to the ladies within.

Peregrine was there with his hands in his pockets, and a queer ironical smile writhing his features.  He was asked if his father and brother were present.

“Not my father,” he replied.  “He has a logical mind.  Martha is up here with her guardian, and I am keeping out of her way, and my brother is full in the thick of the fray.  A bonfire is a bonfire to most folks, were it to roast their grandsire!”

“Oh, fie, Mr. Oakshott, how you do talk!” laughed Mrs. Archfield.

“Nay, but you rejoice in the escape of the good Bishops,” put in Lucy.

“For what?” asked Peregrine.  “For refusing to say live and let live?”

“Not against letting live, but against saying so unconstitutionally, my young friend,” said Dr. Woodford, “or tyrannising over our consciences.”

Generally Peregrine was more respectful to Dr. Woodford than to any one else; but there seemed to be a reckless bitterness about him on that night, and he said, “I marvel with what face those same Eight Reverend Seigniors will preach against the French King.”

“Sir,” thrust in Sedley Archfield, “I am not to hear opprobrious epithets applied to the Bishops.”

“What was the opprobrium?” lazily demanded Peregrine, and in spite of his unpopularity, the laugh was with him.  Sedley grew more angry.

“You likened them to the French King—”

“The most splendid monarch in Europe,” said Peregrine coolly.

“A Frenchman!” quoth one of the young squires with withering contempt.

“He has that ill fortune, sir,” said Peregrine.  “Mayhap he would be sensible of the disadvantage, if he evened himself with some of my reasonable countrymen.”

“Do you mean that for an insult, sir?” exclaimed Sedley Archfield, striding forward.

“As you please,” said Peregrine.  “To me it had the sound of compliment.”

“Oh la! they’ll fight,” cried Mrs. Archfield.  “Don’t let them!  Where’s the Doctor?  Where’s Sir Philip?”

“Hush, my dear,” said Lady Archfield; “these gentlemen would not fall out close to us.”

Dr. Woodford was out of sight, having been drawn into controversy with a fellow-clergyman on the limits of toleration.  Anne looked anxiously for him, but with provoking coolness Peregrine presently said, “There’s no crowd near, and if you will step out, the fires on the farther hills are to be seen well from the knoll hard by.”

He spoke chiefly to Anne, but even if she had not a kind of shrinking from trusting herself with him in this strange wild scene, she would have been prevented by Mrs. Archfield’s eager cry—

“Oh, I’ll come, let me come!  I’m so weary of sitting here.  Thank you, Master Oakshott.”

Lady Archfield’s remonstrance was lost as Peregrine helped the little lady out, and there was nothing for it but to follow her, as close as might be, as she hung on her cavalier’s arm chattering, and now and then giving little screams of delight or alarm.  Lady Archfield and her daughter each was instantly squired, but Mistress Woodford, a nobody, was left to keep as near them as she could, and gaze at the sparks of light of the beacons in the distance, thinking how changed the morrow would be to her.

Presently a figure approached, and Charles Archfield’s voice said, “Is that you, Anne?  Did I hear my wife’s voice?”

“Yes, she is there.”

“And with that imp of evil!  I would his own folk had him!” muttered Charles, dashing forward with “How now, madam? you were not to leave the coach!”

She laughed exultingly.  “Ha, sir! see what comes of leaving me to better cavaliers, while you run after your fire!  I should have seen nothing but for Master Oakshott.”

“Come with me now,” said Charles; “you ought not to be standing here in the dew.”

“Ha, ha! what a jealous master,” she said; but she put her arm into his, saying with a courtesy, “Thank you, Master Oakshott, lords must be obeyed.  I should have been still buried in the old coach but for you.”

Peregrine fell back to Anne.  “That blaze is at St. Helen’s,” he began.  “That—what! will you not wait a moment?”

“No, no!  They will want to be going home.”

“And have you forgotten that it is only just over Midsummer?  This is the week of my third seventh—the moment for change.  O Anne! make it a change for the better.  Say the word, and the die will be cast.  All is ready!  Come!”

He tried to take her hand, but the vehemence of his words, spoken under his breath, terrified her, and with a hasty “No, no! you know not what you talk of,” she hastened after her friends, and was glad to find herself in the safe haven of the interior of the coach.

Ere long they drove down the hill, and at the place of parting were set down, the last words in Anne’s ears being Mrs. Archfield’s injunctions not to forget the orange flower-water at the sign of the Flower Pot, drowning Lucy’s tearful farewells.

As they walked away in the moonlight a figure was seen in the distance.

“Is that Peregrine Oakshott?” asked the Doctor.  “That young man is in a desperate mood, ready to put a quarrel on any one.  I hope no harm will come of it.”

CHAPTER XIV

Gathering Mouse-Ear

“I heard the groans, I marked the tears,  I saw the wound his bosom bore.”SCOTT.

After such an evening it was not easy to fall asleep, and Anne tossed about, heated, restless, and uneasy, feeling that to remain at home was impossible, yet less satisfied about her future prospects, and doubtful whether she had not done herself harm by attending last night’s rejoicings, and hoping that nothing would happen to reveal her presence there.

She was glad that the night was not longer, and resolved to take advantage of the early morning to fulfil a commission of Lady Oglethorpe, whose elder children, Lewis and Theophilus, had the whooping-cough.  Mouse-ear, namely, the little sulphur-coloured hawk-weed, was, and still is, accounted a specific, and Anne had been requested to bring a supply—a thing easily done, since it grew plentifully in the court of the castle.

She dressed herself in haste, made some of her preparations for the journey, and let herself out of the house, going first for one last look at her mother’s green grave in the dewy churchyard, and gathering from it a daisy, which she put into her bosom, then in the fair morning freshness, and exhilaration of the rising sun, crossing the wide tilt-yard, among haycocks waiting to be tossed, and arriving at the court within, filling her basket between the churchyard and the gateway tower and keep, when standing up for a moment she was extremely startled to see Peregrine Oakshott’s unmistakable figure entering at the postern of the court.

With vague fears of his intentions, and instinctive terror of meeting him alone, heightened by that dread of his power, she flew in at the great bailey tower door, hoping that he had not seen her, but tolerably secure that even if he had, and should pursue her, she was sufficiently superior in knowledge of the stairs and passages to baffle him, and make her way along the battlements to the tower at the corner of the court nearest the parsonage, where there was a turret stair by which she could escape.

Up the broken stairs she went, shutting behind her every available door in the chambers and passages, but not as quickly as she wished, since attention to her feet was needful in the ruinous state of steps and walls.  Through those massive walls she could hear nothing distinctly, but she fancied voices and a cry, making her seek more intricate windings, nor did she dare to look out till she had gained a thick screen of bushy ivy at the corner of the turret, where a little door opened on the broad summit of the battlemented wall.

Then, what horror was it that she beheld?  Or was it a dream?  She even passed her hands over her face and looked again.  Peregrine and Charles, yes, it was Charles Archfield, were fighting with swords in the court beneath.  She gave a shriek, in a wild hope of parting them, but at that instant she saw Peregrine fall, and with the impulse of rushing to aid she hurried down, impeded however by stumbles, and by the doors, she herself had shut, and when she emerged, she saw only Charles, standing like one dazed and white as death.

“O Mr Archfield! where is he?  What have you done?”  The young man pointed to the opening of the vault.  Then, speaking with an effort, “He was quite dead; my sword went through him.  He forced it on me—he was pursuing you.  I withstood him—and—”

He gasped heavily as the words came one by one.  She trembled exceedingly, and would have looked into the vault, with, “Are you quite sure?” but he grasped her hand and withheld her.

“Only too sure!  Yes, I have done it!  It could not be helped.  I would give myself up at once, but, Anne, there is my wife.  They tell me any shock would kill her as she is now.  I should be double murderer.  Will you keep the secret, Anne, always my friend?  And ’twas for you.”

“Indeed, indeed, I will not betray you.  I go away in two hours,” said Anne; and he caught her hand.  “But oh!” and she pointed to the blood on the grass, then with sudden thought, “Heap the hay over it,” running to fill her arms with the lately-cut grass.

He mechanically did the same, and then they stood for a moment, awe-stricken.

“God forgive me!” said the poor young man.  “How to hide it I hardly know, but for her sake, ah—’twas that brought me here.  She could not rest last night till I had promised to be here early enough in the morning to give you a piece of sarcenet to be matched in London.  Where is it?  Ah!  I forget.  It seems to be ages ago that she was insisting that I should ride over so as to be in time.”

“Lucy must write,” said Anne, “O Charley! wipe that dreadful sword, look like yourself.  I am going in a couple of hours.  There is no fear of me! but oh! that you should have done such a thing! and through me!”

“Hush! hush! don’t talk.  I must be gone ere folks are about.  My horse is outside.”  He wrung her hand and kissed it, forgetting to give her the pattern, and Anne, still stunned, walked back to the parsonage, her one thought how to control herself so as to guard Charles’s secret.

It must be remembered that in the generation succeeding that which had fought a long civil war, and when duels were common assertions of honour and self-respect among young gentlemen, homicide was not so exceptional and heinous an offence in ordinary eyes as when a higher value has come to be set on life, and acts of violence are far less frequent.

Charles had drawn his sword in fair fight, and in her own defence, and thus it was natural that Anne Woodford should think of his deed, certainly with a shudder, but with more of pity than of horror, and with gratitude that made her feel bound to do her utmost to guard him from the consequences; also there was a sense of relief, and perhaps a feeling as if the victim were scarcely a human creature like others.  It never occurred to her till some time after to recollect it would have had an unpleasant sound that she had been the occasion of such an ‘unseemly brawl’ between two young men, one of them a married man.  When the thought occurred to her it made the blood rash hotly to her cheeks.

It was well for her that the pain of leaving home and the bustle of preparation concealed that she had suffered a great shock, and accounted for her not being able to taste any breakfast beyond a draught of milk.  Her ears were intent all the time to perceive any token whether the haymakers had come into the court and had discovered any trace of the ghastly thing in the vault, and she hardly heard the kind words of her uncle or the coaxings of his old housekeeper.  She dreaded especially the sight of Hans, so fondly attached to his master’s nephew, and it was with a sense of infinite relief—instead of the tender grief otherwise natural—that she was seated in the boat for Portsmouth, and her uncle believing her to be crying, left her undisturbed till she had composed herself to wear the front that she knew was needful, however her heart might throb beneath it, and as their boat threaded its way through the ships, even then numerous, she looked wistfully up at the tall tower of the castle, with earnest prayers for the living, and a longing she durst not utter, to ask her uncle whether it were right to pray for the poor strange, struggling soul, always so cruelly misunderstood, and now so summarily dismissed from the world of trial.

Yet presently there was a revulsion of feeling as she was roused from her meditations by the coxswain’s answer to her uncle, who had asked what was a smart, swift little smack, which after receiving something from a boat, began stretching her wings and making all sail for the Isle of Wight.

The men looked significant and hesitated.

“Smugglers, eh?  Traders in French brandy?” asked the Doctor.

“Well, your reverence, so they says.  They be a rough lot out there by at the back of the Island.”

“There would be small harm in letting a poor man get a drink of spirits cheap to warm his heart,” said one of the other men; “but they say as how ’tis a very nest of ’em out there, and that’s how no one can ever pitch on the highwaymen, such as robbed Farmer Vine t’other day a coming home from market.”

“They do say,” added the other, “that there’s them as ought to know better that is thick with them.  There’s that young master up at Oakwood—that crooked slip as they used to say was a changeling—gets out o’ window o’ nights and sails with them.”

“He has nought to do with the robberies, they say,” added the coxswain; “but I could tell of many a young spark who has gone out with the fair traders for the sport’s sake, and because gentle folk don’t know what to do with their time.”

“And they do say the young chap is kept uncommon tight at home.”

Here the sight of a vessel of war coming in changed the topic, but it had given Anne something more to think of.  Peregrine had spoken of means arranged for making her his own.  Could that smuggling yacht have anything to do with them?  He could hardly have reckoned on meeting her alone in the morning, but he might have attempted to find her thus—or failing that, he might have run down the boat.  If so, she had a great deliverance to be thankful for, and Charles’s timely appearance had been a great blessing.  But Peregrine! poor Peregrine! it became doubly terrible that he should have perished on the eve of such a deed.  It was cruel to entertain such thoughts of the dead, yet it was equally impossible not to feel comfort in being rid for ever of one who had certainly justified the vague alarm which he had always excited in her.  She could not grieve for him now that the first shock was over, but she must suppress all tokens of her extreme anxiety on account of Charles Archfield.

Thus she was landed at Portsmouth, and walked up the street to the Spotted Dog, where Lady Worsley was taking an early noonchine before starting for London, having crossed from the little fishing village of Ryde.  Here Anne parted with her uncle, who promised an early letter, though she could hardly restrain a shudder at the thought of the tidings that it might contain.

CHAPTER XV

News From Fareham

“My soul its secret hath, my life too hath its mystery.Hopeless the evil is, I have not told its history.”JEAN INGELOW.

Lady Worsley was a handsome, commanding old dame, who soon made her charge feel the social gulf between a county magnate and a clergyman’s niece.  She decidedly thought that Mistress Anne Jacobina held her head too high for her position, and was, moreover, conceited of an unfortunate amount of good looks.

Therefore the good lady did her best to repress these dangerous tendencies by making the girl sit on the back seat with two maids, and uttering long lectures on humility, modesty, and discretion which made the blood of the sea-captain’s daughter boil with indignation.

Yet she always carried with her the dread of being pursued and called upon to accuse Charles Archfield of Peregrine’s death.  It was a perpetual cloud, dispersed, indeed, for a time by the events of the day, but returning at night, when not only was the combat acted over again, but when she fell asleep it was only to be pursued by Peregrine through endless vaulted dens of darkness, or, what was far worse, to be trying to hide a stream of blood that could never be stanched.

It was no wonder that she looked pale in the morning, and felt so tired and dejected as to make her sensible that she was cast loose from home and friends when no one troubled her with remarks or inquiries such as she could hardly have answered.  However, when, on the evening of the second day’s journey, Anne was set down at Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe’s house at Westminster, she met with a very different reception.

Lady Oglethorpe, a handsome, warm-hearted Irish woman, met her at once in the hall with outstretched hands, and a kiss on each cheek.

“Come in, my dear, my poor orphan, the daughter of one who was very dear to me!  Ah, how you have grown!  I could never have thought this was the little Anne I recollect.  You shall come up to your chamber at once, and rest you, and make ready for supper, by the time Sir Theophilus comes in from attending the King.”

Anne found herself installed in a fresh-smelling wainscotted room, where a glass of wine and some cake was ready for her, and where she made herself ready, feeling exhilarated in spirits as she performed her toilette, putting on her black evening dress, and refreshing the curls of her brown hair.  It was a simple dress of deep mourning, but it became her well, and the two or three gentlemen who had come in to supper with Sir Theophilus evidently admired her greatly, and complimented her on having a situation at Court, which was all that Lady Oglethorpe mentioned.

“Child,” she said afterwards, when they were in private, “if I had known what you looked like I would have sought a different position for you.  But, there, to get one’s foot—were it but the toe of one’s shoe—in at Court is the great point after all, the rest must come after.  I warrant me you are well educated too.  Can you speak French?”

“Oh yes, madam, and Italian, and dance and play on the spinnet.  I was with two French ladies at Winchester every winter who taught such things.”

“Well, well, mayhap we may get you promoted to a sub-governess’s place—though your religion is against you.  You are not a Catholic—eh?”

“No, your ladyship.”

“That’s the only road to favour nowadays, though for the name of the thing they may have a Protestant or two.  You are the King’s godchild too, so he will expect it the more from you.  However, we may find a better path.  You have not left your heart in the country, eh?”

Anne blushed and denied it.

“You will be mewed up close enough in the nursery,” ran on Lady Oglethorpe.  “Lady Powys keeps close discipline there, and I expect she will be disconcerted to see how fine a fish I have brought to her net; but we will see—we will see how matters go.  But, my dear, have you no coloured clothes?  There is no appearing in the Royal household in private mourning.  It might daunt the Prince’s spirits in his cradle!” and she laughed, though Anne felt much annoyed at thus disregarding her mother, as well as at the heavy expense.  However, there was no help for it; the gowns and laces hidden in the bottom of her mails were disinterred, and the former were for the most part condemned, so that she had to submit to a fresh outfit, in which Lady Oglethorpe heartily interested herself, but which drained the purse that the Canon had amply supplied.

These arrangements were not complete when the first letter from home arrived, and was opened with a beating heart, and furtive glances as of one who feared to see the contents, but they were by no means what she expected.

I hope you have arrived safely in London, and that you are not displeased with your first taste of life in a Court.  Neither town nor country is exempt from sorrow and death.  I was summoned only on the second day after your departure to share in the sorrows at Archfield, where the poor young wife died early on Friday morning, leaving a living infant, a son, who, I hope, may prove a blessing to them, if he is spared, which can scarcely be expected.  The poor young man, and indeed all the family, are in the utmost distress, and truly there were circumstances that render the event more than usually deplorable, and for which he blames himself exceedingly, even to despair.  It appears that the poor young gentlewoman wished to add some trifle to the numerous commissions with which she was entrusting you on the night of the bonfire, and that she could not be pacified except by her husband undertaking to ride over to give the patterns and the orders to you before your setting forth.  You said nothing of having seen him—nor do I see how it was possible that you could have done so, seeing that you only left your chamber just before the breakfast that you never tasted, my poor child.  He never returned till long after noon, and what with fretting after him, and disappointment, that happened which Lady Archfield had always apprehended, and the poor fragile young creature worked herself into a state which ended before midnight in the birth of a puny babe, and her own death shortly after.  She wanted two months of completing her sixteenth year, and was of so frail a constitution that Dr. Brown had never much hope of her surviving the birth of her child.  It was a cruel thing to marry her thus early, ungrown in body or mind, but she had no one to care for her before she was brought hither.  The blame, as I tell Sir Philip, and would fain persuade poor Charles, is really with those who bred her up so uncontrolled as to be the victim of her humours; but the unhappy youth will listen to no consolation.  He calls himself a murderer, shuts himself up, and for the most part will see and speak to no one, but if forced by his father’s command to unlock his chamber door, returns at once to sit with his head hidden in his arms crossed upon the table, and if father, mother, or sister strive to rouse him and obtain answer from him, he will only murmur forth, “I should only make it worse if I did.”  It is piteous to see a youth so utterly overcome, and truly I think his condition is a greater distress to our good friends than the loss of the poor young wife.  They asked him what name he would have given to his child, but all the answer they could get was, “As you will, only not mine;” and in the enforced absence of my brother of Fareham I baptized him Philip.  The funeral will take place to-morrow, and Sir Philip proposes immediately after to take his son to Oxford, and there endeavour to find a tutor of mature age and of prudence, with whom he may either study at New College or be sent on the grand tour.  It is the only notion that the poor lad has seemed willing to entertain, as if to get away from his misery, and I cannot but think it well for him.  He is not yet twenty, and may, as it were, begin life again the wiser and the better man for his present extreme sorrow.  Lady Archfield is greatly wrapped up in the care of the babe, who, I fear, is in danger of being killed by overcare, if by nothing else, though truly all is in the hands of God.  I have scarce quitted the afflicted family since I was summoned to them on Friday, since Sir Philip has no one else on whom to depend for comfort or counsel; and if I can obtain the services of Mr. Ellis from Portsmouth for a few Sundays, I shall ride with him to Oxford to assist in the choice of a tutor to go abroad with Mr. Archfield.