A Reputed Changeling; Or, Three Seventh Years Two Centuries Ago by Yonge (best short novels of all time txt) 📖

brother.  Mrs. Woodford wished her brother-in-law to go with him to add force to his remonstrance; but on the whole it was thought better to leave the family to themselves, Dr. Woodford only writing to Major Oakshott, as well as to the youth himself.

The result was anxiously watched for, and in another week, earlier in the day than Mrs. Woodford was able to leave her room, Sir Peregrine’s horses stopped at the door, and as Anne ascertained by a peep from the window, he was only accompanied by his servants.

“Yes,” he said to the Doctor in his vexation, “one would really think that by force of eating Southdown mutton my poor brother had acquired the brains of one of his own rams!  I declare ’tis a piteous sight to see a man resolute on ruining his son and breaking his own heart all for conscience sake!”

“Say you so, sir!  I had hoped that the sight of what you have made of your nephew might have had some effect.”

“All the effect it has produced is to make him more determined to take him from me.  The Hampshire mind abhors foreign breeding, and the old Cromwellian spirit thinks good manners sprung from the world, and wit from the Evil One!”

“I can quite believe that Peregrine’s courtly airs are not welcomed here; I could see what our good neighbour, Sir Philip Archfield, thought of them; but whereas no power on earth could make the young gentleman a steady-going clownish youth after his father’s heart, methought he might prefer his present polish to impishness.”

“So I told him, but I might as well have talked to the horse block.  It is his duty, quotha, to breed his heir up in godly simplicity!”

“Simplicity is all very well to begin with, but once flown, it cannot be restored.”

“And that is what my brother cannot see.  Well, my poor boy must be left to his fate.  There is no help for it, and all I can hope is that you, sir, and the ladies, will stand his friend, and do what may lie in your power to make him patient and render his life less intolerable.”

“Indeed, sir, we will do what we can; I wish that I could hope that it would be of much service.”

“My brother has more respect for your advice than perhaps you suppose; and to you, madam, the poor lad looks with earnest gratitude.  Nay, even his mother reaps the benefit of the respect with which you have inspired him.  Peregrine treats her with a gentleness and attention such as she never knew before from her bear cubs.  Poor soul!  I think she likes it, though it somewhat perplexes her, and she thinks it all French manners.  There is one more favour, your reverence, which I scarce dare lay before you.  You have seen my black boy Hans?”

“He was with you at Oakwood seven years ago.”

“Even so.  I bought the poor fellow when a mere child from a Dutch skipper who had used him scurvily, and he has grown up as faithful as a very spaniel, and mightily useful too, not only as body servant, but he can cook as well as any French maître d’hôtel, froth chocolate, and make the best coffee I ever tasted; is as honest as the day, and, I believe, would lay down his life for Peregrine or me.  I shall be cruelly at a loss without him, but a physician I met in London tells me it would be no better than murder to take the poor rogue to so cold a country as Muscovy.  I would leave him to wait on Perry, but they will not hear of it at Oakwood.  My sister-in-law wellnigh had a fit every time she looked at him when I was there before, and I found, moreover, that even when I was at hand, the servants jeered at the poor blackamoor, gave him his meals apart, and only the refuse of their own, so that he would fare but ill if I left him to their mercy.  I had thought of offering him to Mr. Evelyn of Says Court, who would no doubt use him well, but it was Peregrine who suggested that if you of your goodness would receive the poor fellow, they could sometimes meet, and that would cheer his heart, and he really is far from a useless knave, but is worth two of any serving-men I ever saw.”

To take an additional man-servant was by no means such a great proposal as it would be in most houses at present.  Men swarmed in much larger proportion than maids in all families of condition, and the Doctor was wealthy enough for one—more or less—to make little difference, but the question was asked as to what wages Hans should receive.

The knight laughed.  “Wages, poor lad, what should he do with them?  He is but a slave, I tell you.  Meat, clothes, and fire, that is all he needs, and I will so deal with him that he will serve you in all faithfulness and obedience.  He can speak English enough to know what you bid him do, but not enough for chatter with the servants.”

So the agreement was made, and poor Hans was to be sent down by the Portsmouth coach together with Peregrine’s luggage.

CHAPTER X
The Menagerie

“The head remains unchanged within,
  Nor altered much the face,
It still retains its native grin,
  And all its old grimace.

“Men with contempt the brute surveyed,
  Nor would a name bestow,
But women liked the motley beast,
  And called the thing a beau.”

The Monkies, MERRICK.

The Woodford family did not long remain at Winchester.  Anne declared the cold to be harming her mother, and became very anxious to bring her to the milder sea breezes of Portchester, and though Mrs. Woodford had little expectation that any place would make much difference to her, she was willing to return to the quiet and repose of her home under the castle walls beside the tranquil sea.

Thus they travelled back, as soon as the Doctor’s Residence was ended, plodding through the heavy chalk roads as well as the big horses could drag the cumbrous coach up and down the hills, only halting for much needed rest at Sir Philip Archfield’s red house, round three sides of a quadrangle, the fourth with a low wall backed by a row of poplar trees, looking out on the alternate mud and sluggish waters of Fareham creek, but with a beautiful garden behind the house.

The welcome was hearty.  Lady Archfield at once conducted Mrs. Woodford to her own bedroom, where she was to rest and be served apart, and Anne disrobed her of her wraps, covered her upon the bed, and at her hostess’s desire was explaining what refreshment would best suit her, when there was a shrill voice at the door: “I want Mistress Anne!  I want to show her my clothes and jewels.”

“Coming, child, she is coming when she has attended to her mother,” responded the lady.  “White wine, or red, did you say, Anne, and a little ginger?”

“Is she never coming?” was again the call; and Lady Archfield muttering, “Was there ever such an impatient poppet?” released Anne, who was instantly pounced upon by young Mrs. Archfield.  Linking her arm into that of her visitor, and thrusting Lucy into the background, the little heiress proceeded to her own wainscotted bedroom, bare according to modern views, but very luxurious according to those of the seventeenth century, and with the toilette apparatus, scanty indeed, but of solid silver, and with a lavish amount of perfumery.  Her ‘own woman’ was in waiting to display and refold the whole wedding wardrobe, brocade, satin, taffetas, cambric, Valenciennes, and point d’Alençon.  Anne had to admire each in detail, and then to give full meed to the whole casket of jewels, numerous and dazzling as befitted a constellation of heirlooms upon one small head.  They were beautiful, but it was wearisome to repeat ‘Vastly pretty!’ ‘How exquisite!’ ‘That becomes you very well,’ almost mechanically, when Lucy was standing about all the time, longing to exchange the girlish confidences that were burning to come forth.  ‘Young Madam,’ as every one called her in those times when Christian names were at a discount, seemed to be jealous of attention to any one else, and the instant she saw the guest attempt to converse with her sister-in-law peremptorily interrupted, almost as if affronted.

Perhaps if Anne had enjoyed freedom of speech with Lucy she would not have learnt as much as did her mother, for the young are often more scrupulous as to confidences than their seniors, who view them as still children, and freely discuss their affairs among themselves.

So Lady Archfield poured out her troubles: how her daughter-in-law refused employment, and disdained instruction in needlework, housewifery, or any domestic art, how she jangled the spinnet, but would not learn music, and was unoccupied, fretful, and exacting, a burthen to herself and every one else, and treating Lucy as the slave of her whims and humours.  As to such discipline as mothers-in-law were wont to exercise upon young wives, the least restraint or contradiction provoked such a tempest of passion as to shake the tiny, delicate frame to a degree that alarmed the good old matron for the consequences.  Her health was a continual difficulty, for her constitution was very frail, every imprudence cost her suffering, and yet any check to her impulses as to food, exertion, or encountering weather was met by a spoilt child’s resentment.  Moreover, her young husband, and even his father, always thought the ladies were hard upon her, and would not have her vexed; and as their presence always brightened and restrained her, they never understood the full amount of her petulance and waywardness, and when they found her out of spirits, or out of temper, they charged all on her ailments or on want of consideration from her mother and sister-in-law.

Poor Lady Archfield, it was trying for her that her husband should be nearly as blind as his son.  The young husband was wonderfully tender, indulgent, and patient with the little creature, but it would not be easy to say whether the affection were not a good deal like that for his dog or his horse, as something absolutely his own, with which no one else had a right to interfere.  It was a relief to the family that she always wanted to be out of doors with him whenever the weather permitted, nay, often when it was far from suitable to so fragile a being; but if she came home aching and crying ever so much with chill or fatigue, even if she had to keep her bed afterwards, she was equally determined to rush out as soon as she was up again, and as angry as ever at remonstrance.

Charles was gone to try a horse; and as the remains of the effects of her last imprudence had prevented her accompanying him, the arrival of the guests had been a welcome diversion to the monotony of the morning.

He was, however, at home again by the time the dinner-bell summoned the younger ladies from the inspection of the trinkets and the gentlemen from the live stock, all to sit round the heavy oaken table draped with the whitest of napery, spun by Lady Archfield in her maiden days, and loaded with substantial joints, succeeded by delicacies manufactured by herself and Lucy.

As to the horse, Charles was fairly satisfied, but ‘that fellow, young Oakshott, had been after him, and had the refusal.’

“Don’t you be outbid, Mr. Archfield,” exclaimed the wife.  “What is the matter of a few guineas to us?”

“Little fear,” replied Charles.  “The old Major is scarcely like to pay down twenty gold caroluses, but if he should, the bay is his.”

“Oh, but why not offer thirty?” she cried.

Charles laughed.  “That would be a scurvy trick, sweetheart, and if Peregrine be a crooked stick, we need not be crooked too.”

“I was about to ask,” said the Doctor, “whether you had heard aught of that same young gentleman.”

“I have seen him where I never desire to see him again,” said Sir Philip, “riding as though he would be the death of the poor hounds.”

“Nick Huntsman swears that he bewitches them,” said Charles, “for they always lose the scent when he is in the field, but I believe ’tis the wry looks of him that throw them all out.”

“And I say,” cried the inconsistent bride, “that ’tis all jealousy that puts the gentlemen beside themselves, because none of them can dance, nor make a bow, nor hand a cup of chocolate, nor open a gate on horseback like him.”

“What does a man on horseback want with opening gates?” exclaimed Charles.

“That’s your manners, sir,” said young Madam with a laugh.  “What’s the poor lady to do while her cavalier flies over and leaves her