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

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 Majesty
I 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!