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

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.

The Princess had been at Bath when first she arrived, but at the end of a week preparations were made at the Cockpit, a sort of appendage to Whitehall, where the Prince and Princess of Denmark lived, and in due time there was a visit to the nursery.  Standing in full ceremony behind Lady Powys, Anne saw the plump face and form she recollected in the florid bloom of a young matron, not without a certain royal dignity in the pose of the head, though in grace and beauty far surpassed by the tall, elegant figure and face of Lady Churchill, whose bright blue eyes seemed to be taking in everything everywhere.  Anne’s heart began to beat high at the sight of a once familiar face, and with hopes of a really kind word from one who as an elder girl had made much of the pretty little plaything.  The Princess Anne’s countenance was, however, less good-natured than usual; her mouth was made up to a sullen expression, and when her brother was shown to her she did not hold out her arms to him nor vouchsafe a kiss.

The Queen looked at her wistfully, asking—

“Is he not like the King?”

“Humph!” returned Princess Anne, “I see no likeness to any living soul of our family.”

“Nay, but see his little nails,” said the Queen, spreading the tiny hand over her finger.  “See how like your father’s they are framed!  My treasure, you can clasp me!”

“My brother, Edgar!  He was the beauty,” said the Princess.  “He was exactly like my father; but there’s no judging of anything so puny as this!”

“He was very suffering last week, the poor little angel,” said the mother sadly; “but they say this water-gruel is very nourishing, and not so heavy as milk.”

“It does not look as if it agreed with him,” said the Princess.  “Poor little mammet!  Did I hear that you had the little Woodford here?  Is that you, girl?”

Anne courtesied herself forward.

“Ay, I remember you.  I never forget a face, and you have grown up fair enough.  Where’s your mother?”

“I lost her last February, so please your Royal Highness.”

“Oh!  She was a good woman.  Why did she not send you to me?  Well, well!  Come to my toilette to-morrow.”

So Princess Anne swept away in her rich blue brocade.  Her behest was obeyed, of course, though it was evidently displeasing to the nursery authorities, and Lady Strickland gave a warning to be discreet and to avoid gossip with the Cockpit folks.

Anne could not but be excited.  Perhaps the Princess would ask for her, and take her into the number of her own attendants, where she would no longer be in a Romish household, and would certainly be in a higher position.  Why, she remembered that very Lady Churchill as Sarah Jennings in no better a position than she could justly aspire to.  Her coming to Court would thus be truly justified.

The Princess sat in a silken wrapper, called a night-gown, in her chamber, which had a richly-curtained bed in the alcove, and a toilet-table with a splendid Venetian mirror, and a good deal of silver sparkling on it, while a strange mixture of perfumes came from the various boxes and bottles.  Ladies and tirewomen stood in attendance; a little black boy in a turban and gold-embroidered dress held a salver with her chocolate cup; a cockatoo soliloquised in low whispers in the window; a