A Reputed Changeling

One interruption however I had, namely, from Major Oakshott, who came in great perturbation to ask what was the last I had seen of his son Peregrine.  It appears that the unfortunate young man never returned home after the bonfire on Portsdown Hill, where his brother Robert lost sight of him, and after waiting as long as he durst, returned home alone.  It has become known that after parting with us high words passed between him and Lieutenant Sedley Archfield, insomuch that after the unhappy fashion of these times, blood was demanded, and early in the morning Sedley sent the friend who was to act as second to bear the challenge to young Oakshott.  You can conceive the reception that he was likely to receive at Oakwood; but it was then discovered that Peregrine had not been in his bed all night, nor had any one seen or heard of him.  Sedley boasts loudly that the youngster has fled the country for fear of him, and truly things have that appearance, although to my mind Peregrine was far from wanting in spirit or courage.  But, as he had not received the cartel, he might not have deemed his honour engaged to await it, and I incline to the belief that he is on his way to his uncle in Muscovy, driven thereto by his dread of the marriage with the gentlewoman whom he holds in so much aversion.  I have striven to console his father by the assurance that such tidings of him will surely arrive in due time, but the Major is bitterly grieved, and is galled by the accusation of cowardice.  “He could not even be true to his own maxims of worldly honour,” says the poor gentleman.  “So true it is that only by grace we stand fast.”  The which is true enough, but the poor gentleman unwittingly did his best to make grace unacceptable in his son’s eyes.  I trust soon to hear again of you, my dear child.  I rejoice that Lady Oglethorpe is so good to you, and I hope that in the palace you will guard first your faith and then your discretion.  And so praying always for your welfare, alike spiritual and temporal.—Your loving uncle, JNO.  WOODFORD.

Truly it was well that Anne had secluded herself to read this letter.

So the actual cause for which poor Charles Archfield had entreated silence was at an end.  The very evil he had apprehended had come to pass, and she could well understand how, on his return in a horror-stricken, distracted state of mind, the childish petulance of his wife had worried him into loss of temper, so that he hardly knew what he said.  And what must not his agony of remorse be?  She could scarcely imagine how he had avoided confessing all as a mere relief to his mind, but then she reflected that when he called himself a murderer the words were taken in another sense, and no questions asked, nor would he be willing to add such grief and shame to his parents’ present burthen, especially as no suspicion existed.

That Peregrine’s fate had not been discovered greatly relieved her.  She believed the vault to go down to a considerable depth after a first platform of stone near the opening, and it was generally avoided as the haunt of hobgoblins, fairies, or evil beings, so that no one was likely to be in its immediate neighbourhood after the hay was carried, so that there might have been nothing to attract any one to the near neighbourhood and thus lead to the discovery.  If not made by this time, Charles would be far away, and there was nothing to connect him with the deed.  No one save herself had even known of his having been near the castle that morning.  How strange that the only persons aware of that terrible secret should be so far separated from one another that they could exchange no confidences; and each was compelled to absolute silence.  For as long as no one else was suspected, Anne felt her part must be not to betray Charles, though the bare possibility of the accusation of another was agony to her.

She wrote her condolences in due form to Fareham, and in due time was answered by Lucy Archfield.  The letter was full of details about the infant, who seemed to absorb her and her mother, and to be as likely to live as any child of those days ever was—and it was in his favour that his grandmother and her old nurse had better notions of management than most of her contemporaries.  In spite of all that Lucy said of her brother’s overwhelming grief, and the melancholy of thus parting with him, there was a strain of cheerfulness throughout the letter, betraying that the poor young wife of less than a year was no very great loss to the peace and comfort of the family.  The letter ended with—

There is a report that Sir Peregrine Oakshott is dead in Muscovy.  Nothing has been heard of that unfortunate young man at Oakwood.  If he be gone in quest of his uncle, I wonder what will become of him?  However, nurse will have it that this being the third seventh year of his life, the fairies have carried off their changeling—you remember how she told us the story of his being changed as an infant, when we were children at Winchester; she believes it as much as ever, and never let little Philip out of her sight before he was baptized.  I ask her, if the changeling be gone, where is the true Peregrine? but she only wags her head in answer.

A day or two later Anne heard from her uncle from Oxford.  He was extremely grieved at the condition of his beloved alma mater, with a Roman Catholic Master reigning at University College, a doctor from the Sorbonne and Fellows to match, inflicted by military force on Magdalen, whose lawful children had been ejected with a violence beyond anything that the colleges had suffered even in the time of the Rebellion.  If things went on as they were, he pronounced Oxford would be no better than a Popish seminary: and he had the more readily induced his old friend to consent to Charles’s desire not to remain there as a student, but to go abroad with Mr. Fellowes, one of the expelled fellows of Magdalen, a clergyman of mature age, but a man of the world, who had already acted as a travelling tutor.  Considering that the young widower was not yet twenty, and that all his wife’s wealth would be in his hands, also that his cousin Sedley formed a dangerous link with the questionable diversions of the garrison at Portsmouth, both father and friend felt that it was well that he should be out of reach, and have other occupations for the present.

Change of scene had, Dr. Woodford said, brightened the poor youth, and he was showing more interest in passing events, but probably he would never again be the light-hearted boy they used to know.

Anne could well believe it.

CHAPTER XVI

A Royal Nursery

“The duty that I owe unto your MajestyI seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.”King Richard III.

It was not till the Queen had moved from St. James’s, where her son had been born, to take up her abode at Whitehall, that Lady Oglethorpe was considered to be disinfected from her children’s whooping-cough, and could conduct Mistress Anne Jacobina Woodford to her new situation.

Anne remembered the place from times past, as she followed the lady up the broad stairs to the state rooms, where the child was daily carried for inspection by the nation to whom, it was assumed, he was so welcome, but who, on the contrary, regarded him with the utmost dislike and suspicion.

Whitehall was, in those days, free to all the world, and though sentries in the Life-guards’ uniform with huge grenadier caps were posted here and there, every one walked up and down.  Members of Parliament and fine gentlemen in embroidered coats and flowing wigs came to exchange news; country cousins came to stare and wonder, some to admire, some to whisper their disbelief in the Prince’s identity; clergy in gown, cassock, and bands came to win what they could in a losing cause; and one or two other clergy, who were looked at askance, whose dress had a foreign air, and whose tonsure could be detected as they threaded their way with quick, gliding steps to the King’s closet.

Lady Oglethorpe, as one to the manner born, made her way through the midst of this throng in the magnificent gallery, and Anne followed her closely, conscious of words of admiration and inquiries who she was.  Into the Prince’s presence chamber, in fact his day-nursery, they came, and a sweet and gentle-looking lady met them, and embraced Lady Oglethorpe, who made known Mistress Woodford to Lady Strickland, of Sizergh, the second governess, as the fourth rocker who had been appointed.

“You are welcome, Miss Woodford,” said the lady, looking at Anne’s high, handsome head and well-bred action in courtesying, with a shade of surprise.  “You are young, but I trust you are discreet.  There is much need thereof.”

Following to a kind of alcove, raised by a step or two, Anne found herself before a half-circle of ladies and gentlemen round a chair of state, in front of which stood a nurse, with an infant in her arms, holding him to be caressed and inspected by the lady on the throne.  Her beautiful soft dark eyes and hair, and an ivory complexion, with her dignified and graceful bearing, her long, slender throat and exquisite figure, were not so much concealed as enhanced by the simple mob cap and ‘night-gown,’ as it was then the fashion to call a morning wrapper, which she wore, and Anne’s first impression was that no wonder Peregrine raved about her.  Poor Peregrine! that very thought came like a stab, as, after courtesying low, she stood at the end of the long room—silent, and observing.

A few gentlemen waited by the opposite door, but not coming far into the apartment, and Lady Oglethorpe was announced by one of them.  The space was so great that Anne could not hear the words, and she only saw the gracious smile and greeting as Lady Oglethorpe knelt and kissed the Queen’s hand.  After a long conversation between the mothers, during which Lady Oglethorpe was accommodated with a cushion, Anne was beckoned forward, and was named to the Queen, who honoured her with an inclination of the head and a few low murmured words.

Then there was an announcement of ‘His Majesty,’ and Anne, following the general example of standing back with low obeisances, beheld the tall active figure and dark heavy countenance of her Royal godfather, under his great black, heavily-curled wig.  He returned Lady Oglethorpe’s greeting, and his face lighted up with a pleasant smile that greatly changed the expression as he took his child into his arms for a few moments; but the little one began to cry, whereupon he was carried off, and the King began to consult Lady Oglethorpe upon the water-gruel on which the poor little Prince was being reared, and of which she emphatically disapproved.

Before he left the room, however, Lady Oglethorpe took care to present to him his god-daughter, Mistress Anne Jacobina Woodford, and very low was the girl’s obeisance before him, but with far more fright and shyness than before the sweet-faced Queen.

“Oh ay!” he said, “I remember honest Will Woodford.  He did good service at Southwold.  I wish he had left a son like him.  Have you a brother, young mistress?”

“No, please your Majesty, I am an only child.”

“More’s the pity,” he said kindly, and with a smile brightening his heavy features.  “’Tis too good a breed to die out.  You are Catholic?”

“I am bred in the English Church, so please your Majesty.”

His Majesty was evidently less pleased than before, but he only said, “Ha! and my godchild!  We must amend that,” and waved her aside.

The royal interview over, the newcomer was presented to the State Governess, the Countess of Powys, a fair and gracious matron, who was, however, almost as far removed from her as the Queen.  Then she was called on to take a solemn oath before the Master of the Household, of dutiful loyalty to the Prince.

Mrs. Labadie was head nurse as well as being wife to the King’s French valet.  She was a kindly, portly Englishwoman, who seemed wrapped up in her charge, and she greeted her new subordinate in a friendly way, which, however, seemed strange in one who at home would have been of an inferior degree, expressed hopes of her steadiness and discretion, and called to Miss Dunord to show Miss Woodford her chamber.  The abbreviation Miss sounded familiar and unsuitable, but it had just come into use for younger spinsters, though officially they were still termed Mistress.

Mistress or Miss Dunord was sallow and gray-eyed, somewhat older than Anne, and looking thoroughly French, though her English was perfect.  She was entirely dressed in blue and white, and had a rosary and cross at her girdle.  “This way,” she said, tripping up a steep wooden stair.  “We sleep above.  ’Tis a huge, awkward place.  Her Majesty calls it the biggest and most uncomfortable palace she ever was in.”

Opening a heavy door, she showed a room of considerable size, hung with faded frayed tapestry, and containing two huge bedsteads, with four heavy posts, and canopies of wood, as near boxes as could well be.  Privacy was a luxury not ordinarily coveted, and the arrangement did not surprise Anne, though she could have wished that on that summer day curtains and tapestry had been less fusty.  Two young women were busy over a dress spread on one of the beds, and with French ease and grace the guide said, “Here is our new colleague, Miss Jacobina Woodford.  Let me present Miss Hester Bridgeman and Miss Jane Humphreys.”

“Miss Woodford is welcome,” said Miss Bridgeman, a keen, brown, lively, somewhat anxious-looking person, courtesying and holding out her hand, and her example was followed by Jane Humphreys, a stout, rosy, commonplace girl.

“Oh!  I am glad,” this last cried.  “Now I shall have a bedfellow.”

This Anne was the less sorry for, as she saw that the bed of the other two was furnished with a holy water stoup and a little shrine with a waxen Madonna.  There was only one looking-glass among the four, and not much apparatus either for washing or the toilet, but Miss Bridgeman believed that they would soon go to Richmond, where things would be more comfortable.  Then she turned to consult Miss Dunord on her endeavour to improve the trimmings of a dress of Miss Humphreys.

“Yes, I know you are always in Our Lady’s colours, Pauline, but you have a pretty taste, and can convince Jane that rose colour and scarlet cannot go together.”

“My father chose the ribbons,” said Jane, as if that were unanswerable.

“City taste,” said Miss Bridgeman.

“They are pretty, very pretty with anything else,” observed Pauline, with more tact.  “See, now, with your white embroidered petticoat and the gray train they are ravishing—and the scarlet coat will enliven the black.”

There was further a little murmur about what a Mr. Hopkins admired, but it was lost in the arrival of Miss Woodford’s mails.

They clustered round, as eager as a set of schoolgirls, over Anne’s dresses.  Happily even the extreme of fashion had not then become ungraceful.

“Her Majesty will not have the loose drapery that folks used to wear,” said Hester Bridgeman.

“No,” said Pauline; “it was all very well for those who could dispose it with an artless negligence, but for some I could name, it was as though they had tumbled it on with a hay-fork and had their hair tousled by being tickled in the hay.”

“Now we have the tight bodice with plenty of muslin and lace, the gown open below to show the petticoat,” said Hester; “and to my mind it is more decorous.”

“Decorum was not the vogue then,” laughed Pauline, “perhaps it will be now.  Oh, what lovely lace! real Flanders, on my word!  Where did you get it, Miss Woodford?”

“It was my mother’s.”

“And this?  Why, ’tis old French point, you should hang it to your sleeves.”

“My Lady Archfield gave it to me in case I should need it.”

“Ah!  I see you have good friends and are a person of some condition,” put in Hester Bridgeman.  “I shall be happy to consort with you.  Let us—”

Anne courtesied, and at the moment a bell was heard, Pauline at once crossed herself and fell on her knees before the small shrine with a figure of the Blessed Virgin, and Hester, breaking off her words, followed her example; but Jane Humphreys stood twisting the corner of her apron.

In a very short time, almost before Anne had recovered from her bewilderment, the other two were up and chattering again.

“You are not a Catholic?” demanded Miss Bridgeman.

“I was bred in the Church,” said Anne.

“And you the King’s godchild!” exclaimed Pauline.  “But we shall soon amend that and make a convert of you like Miss Bridgeman there.”

Anne shook her head, but was glad to ask, “And what means the bell that is ringing now?”

“That is the supper bell.  It rings just after the Angelus,” said Hester.  “No, it is not ours.  The great folks, Lady Powys, Lady Strickland, and the rest sup first.  We have the dishes after them, with Nurses Labadie and Royer and the rest—no bad ones either.  They are allowed five dishes and two bottles of wine apiece, and they always leave plenty for us, and it is served hot too.”

The preparations for going down to the second table now absorbed the party.

As Hester said, the fare at this second table was not to be despised.  It was a formal meal shared with the two nurses and the two pages of the backstairs.  Not the lads usually associated with the term, but men of mature age, and of gentle, though not noble, birth and breeding; and there were likewise the attendants of the King and Queen of the same grade, such as Mr. Labadie, the King’s valet, some English, but besides these, Dusian, the Queen’s French page, and Signer and Signora Turini, who had come with her from Modena, Père Giverlai, her confessor, and another priest.  Père Giverlai said grace, and the conversation went on briskly between the elders, the younger ones being supposed to hold their peace.

Their dishes went in reversion to the inferior class of servants, laundress, sempstress, chambermaids, and the like, who had much more liberty than their betters, and not such a lack of occupation as Anne soon perceived that she should suffer from.

There was, however, a great muster of all the Prince’s establishment, who stood round, as many as could, with little garments in their hands, while he was solemnly undressed and laid in his richly inlaid and carved cradle—over which Père Giverlai pronounced a Latin benediction.

The nursery establishment was then released, except one of the nurses, who was to sleep or wake on a couch by his side, and one of the rockers.  These damsels had, two at a time, to divide the night between them, one being always at hand to keep the food warm, touch the rocker at need with her foot, or call up the nurse on duty if the child awoke, but not presume herself to handle his little Royal Highness.

It was the night when Mistresses Dunord and Bridgeman were due, and Anne followed Jane Humphreys to her room, asking a little about the duties of the morrow.

“We must be dressed before seven,” said the girl.  “One of us will be left on duty while the others go to Mass.  I am glad you are a Protestant, Miss Woodford, for the Catholics put everything on me that they can.”

“We must do our best to help and strengthen each other,” said Anne.

“It is very hard,” said Jane; “and the priests are always at me!  I would change as Hester Bridgeman has done, but that I know it would break my grand-dame’s heart.  My father might not care so much, if I got advancement, but I believe it would kill my grandmother.”

“Advancement! oh, but faith comes first,” exclaimed Anne, recalling the warning.

“Hester says one religion is as good as another to get to Heaven by,” murmured Jane.

“Not if we deny our own for the world’s sake,” said Anne.  “Is the chapel here a Popish one?”

“No; the Queen has an Oratory, but the Popish chapel is at St. James’s—across the Park.  The Protestant one is here at Whitehall, and there are daily prayers at nine o’clock, and on Sunday music with three fiddlers, and my grandmother says it might almost as well be Popish at once.”

“Did your grandmother bring you up?”

“Yes.  My mother died when I was seven years old, and my grandmother bred us all up.  You should hear her talk of the good old times before the Kings came back and there were no Bishops and no book prayers—but my father says we must swim with the stream, or he would not have got any custom at his coffee-house.”

“Is that his calling?”

“Ay!  No one has a better set of guests than in the Golden Lamb.  The place is full.  The great Dr. Hammond sees his patients there, and it is all one buzz of the wits.  It was because of that that my Lord Sunderland made interest, and got me here.  How did you come?”

Anne briefly explained, and Jane broke out—

“Then you will be my friend, and we will tell each other all our secrets.  You are a Protestant too.  You will be mine, and not Bridgeman’s or Dunord’s—I hate them.”

In point of fact Anne did not feel much attracted by the proffer of friendship, and she certainly did not intend to tell Jane Humphreys all her secrets, nor to vow enmity to the other colleagues, but she gravely answered that she trusted they would be friends and help to maintain one another’s faith.  She was relieved that Miss Bridgeman here came in to take her first turn of rest till she was to be called up at one o’clock.

As Jane Humphreys had predicted, Mrs. Royer and Anne alone were left in charge of the nursling while every one went to morning Mass.  Then followed breakfast and the levee of his Royal Highness, lasting as on the previous day till dinner-time; and the afternoon was as before, except that the day was fine enough for the child to be carried out with all his attendants behind him to take the air in the private gardens.

If this was to be the whole course of life at the palace, Anne began to feel that she had made a great mistake.  She was by no means attracted by her companions, though Miss Bridgeman decided that she must know persons of condition, and made overtures of friendship, to be sealed by calling one another Oriana and Portia.  She did not approve of such common names as Princess Anne and Lady Churchill used—Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman!  They must have something better than what was used by the Cockpit folks, and she was sure that her dear Portia would soon be of the only true faith.

CHAPTER XVII

Machinations

“Baby born to woe.”F. T. PALGRAVE.

When Anne Woodford began to wake from the constant thought of the grief and horror she had left at Portchester, and to feel more alive to her surroundings and less as if they were a kind of dream, in which she only mechanically took her part, one thing impressed itself on her gradually, and that was disappointment.  If the previous shock had not blunted all her hopes and aspirations, perhaps she would have felt it sooner and more keenly; but she could not help realising that she had put herself into an inferior position whence there did not seem to be the promotion she had once anticipated.  Her companion rockers were of an inferior grade to herself.  Jane Humphreys was a harmless but silly girl, not much wiser, though less spoilt, than poor little Madam, and full of Cockney vulgarities.  Education was unfashionable just then, and though Hester Bridgeman was bettor born and bred, being the daughter of an attorney in the city, she was not much better instructed, and had no pursuits except that of her own advantage.  Pauline Dunord was by far the best of the three, but she seemed to live a life apart, taking very little interest in her companions or anything around her except her devotions and the bringing them over to her Church.  The nursery was quite a separate establishment; there was no mingling with the guests of royalty, who were only seen in excited peeps from the window, or when solemnly introduced to the presence chamber to pay their respects to the Prince.  As to books, the only secular one that Anne saw while at Whitehall was an odd volume of Parthenissa.  The late King’s summary of the Roman controversy was to be had in plenty, and nothing was more evident than that the only road to favour or promotion was in being thereby convinced.

“Don’t throw it down as if it were a hot chestnut,” said her Oriana.  “That’s what they all do at first, but they come to it at last.”

Anne made no answer, but a pang smote her as she thought of her uncle’s warnings.  Yet surely she might hope for other modes of prospering, she who was certainly by far the best looking and best educated of all the four, not that this served her much in her present company, and those of higher rank did not notice her at all.  Princess Anne would surely recollect her, and then she might be safe in a Protestant household, where her uncle would be happy about her.