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

So the Princess prattled on without needing much reply, until her namesake had finished her work, with which she was well pleased, and promised to remember her.  To Anne it was an absolute marvel how she could thus talk when she knew that her husband had deserted her father in his need, and that things were in a most critical position.

The Queen could not refrain from a sigh of relief when her step-daughter had retired to the Cockpit; and after seeking her sleepless bed, she begged Anne, “if it did not too much incommode her, to read to her from the Gospel.”

The next day was Sunday, and Anne felt almost as if deserting her cause, when going to the English service in Whitehall Chapel Royal, now almost emptied except of the Princess’s suite, and some of these had the bad taste and profanity to cough and chatter all through the special prayer drawn up by the Archbishop for the King’s safety.

People were not very reverent, and as all stood up at the end of the Advent Sunday service to let the Princess sweep by in her glittering green satin petticoat, peach-coloured velvet train, and feather-crowned head, she laid a hand on Anne’s arm, and whispered, “Follow me to my closet, little Woodford.”

There was no choice but to obey, as the Queen would not require her reader till after dinner, and Anne followed after the various attendants, who did not seem very willing to forward a private interview with a possible rival, though, as Anne supposed, the object must be to convey some message to the Queen.  By the time she arrived and had been admitted to the inner chamber or dressing-room, the Princess had thrown off her more cumbrous finery, and sat at ease in an arm-chair.  She nodded her be-curled head, and said, “You can keep a secret, little Woodie?”

“I can, madam, but I do not love one,” said Anne, thinking of her most burthensome one.

“Well, no need to keep this long.  You are a good young maiden, and my own poor mother’s godchild, and you are handy and notable.  You deserve better preferment than ever you will get in that Popish household, where your religion is in danger.  Now, I am not going to be in jeopardy here any longer, nor let myself be kept hostage for his Highness.  Come to my rooms at bedtime.  Slip in when I wish the Queen good-night, and I’ll find an excuse.  Then you shall come with me to—no, I’ll not say where, and I’ll make your fortune, only mum’s the word.”

“But—Your Royal Highness is very good, but I am sworn to the Prince and Queen.  I could not leave them without permission.”

“Prince!  Prince!  Pretty sort of a Prince.  Prince of brickbats, as Churchill says.  Nay, girl, don’t turn away in that fashion.  Consider.  Your religion is in danger.”

“Nay, madam, my religion would not be served by breaking my oath.”

“Pooh!  What’s your oath to a mere pretender?  Besides, consider your fortune.  Rocker to a puling babe—even if he was what they say he is.  And don’t build on the Queen’s favour—even if she remains what she is now, she is too much beset with Papists and foreigners to do anything for you.”

“I do not,” Anne began to say, but the Princess gave her no time.

“Besides, pride will have a fall, and if you are a good maid, and hold your tongue, and serve me well in this strait, I’ll make you my maid of honour, and marry you so that you shall put Lady before your name.  Ay, and get good preferment for your uncle, who has had only a poor stall from the King here.”

Anne repressed an inclination to say this was not the way in which her uncle would wish to get promotion, and only replied, “Your Royal Highness is very good, but—”

Whereat the Princess, in a huff, exclaimed, “Oh, very well, if you choose to be torn to pieces by the mob, and slaughtered by the priests, like poor Godfrey, and burnt by the Papists at last, unless you go to Mass, you may stay for aught I care, and joy go with you.  I thought I was doing you a kindness for my poor mother’s sake, but it seems you know best.  If you like to cast in your lot with the Pope, I wash my hands of you.”

Accordingly Anne courtesied herself off, not seriously alarmed as to the various catastrophes foretold by the Princess, though a little shaken in nerves.  Here then was another chance of promotion, certainly without treason to her profession of faith, but so offered that honour could not but revolt against it, though in truth poor Princess Anne was neither so foolish nor so heartless a woman as she appeared in the excitement to which an uneasy conscience, the expectation of a great enterprise, and a certain amount of terror had worked her up; but she had high words again in the evening, as was supposed, with the Queen.  Certainly Anne found her own Royal Mistress weeping and agitated, though she only owned to being very anxious about the health of the King, who had had a second violent attack of bleeding at the nose, and she did not seem consoled by the assurances of her elder attendants that the relief had probably saved him from a far more dangerous attack.  Again Anne read to her till a late hour, but next morning was strangely disturbed.

The Royal household had not been long dressed, and breakfast had just been served to the ladies, when loud screams were heard, most startling in the unsettled and anxious state of affairs.  The Queen, pale and trembling, came out of her chamber with her hair on her shoulders.  “Tell me at once, for pity’s sake.  Is it my husband or my son?” she asked with clasped hands, as two or three of the Princess’s servants rushed forward.

“The Princess, the Princess!” was the cry, “the priests have murdered her.”

“What have you done with her, madam?” rudely demanded Mrs. Buss, one of the lost lady’s nurses.

Mary Beatrice drew herself up with grave dignity, saying, “I suppose your mistress is where she likes to be.  I know nothing of her, but I have no doubt that you will soon hear of her.”

There was something in the Queen’s manner that hushed the outcry in her presence, but the women, with Lady Clarendon foremost of them, continued to seek up and down the two palaces as if they thought the substantial person of the Princess Anne could be hidden in a cupboard.

Anne, in the first impulse, exclaimed, “She is gone!”

In a moment Mrs. Royer turned, “Gone, did you say?  Do you know it?”

“You knew it and kept it secret!” cried Lady Strickland.

“A traitor too!” said Lady Oglethorpe, in her vehement Irish tone.  “I would not have thought it of Nanny Moore’s daughter!” and she turned her eyes in sad reproach on Anne.

“If you know, tell me where she is gone,” cried Mrs. Buss, and the cry was re-echoed by the other women, while Anne’s startled “I cannot tell!  I do not know!” was unheeded.

Only the Queen raising her hand gravely said, “Silence!  What is this?”

“Miss Woodford knew.”

“And never told!” cried the babble of voices.

“Come hither, Mistress Woodford,” said the Queen.  “Tell me, do you know where Her Highness is?”

“No, please your Majesty,” said Anne, trembling from head to foot.  “I do not know where she is.”

“Did you know of her purpose?”

“Your Majesty pardon me.  She called me to her closet yesterday and pledged me to secrecy before I knew what she would say.”

“Only youthful inexperience will permit that pledge to be implied in matters of State,” said the Queen.  “Continue, Mistress Woodford; what did she tell you?”

“She said she feared to be made a hostage for the Prince of Denmark, and meant to escape, and she bade me come to her chamber at night to go with her.”

“And wherefore did you not?  You are of her religion,” said the Queen bitterly.

“Madam, how could I break mine oath to your Majesty and His Royal Highness?”

“And you thought concealing the matter according to that oath?  Nay, nay, child, I blame you not.  It was a hard strait between your honour to her and your duty to the King and to me, and I cannot but be thankful to any one who does regard her word.  But this desertion will be a sore grief to His Majesty.”

Mary Beatrice was fairer-minded than the women, who looked askance at the girl, Princess Anne’s people resenting that one of the other household should have been chosen as confidante, and the Queen’s being displeased that the secret had been kept.  But at that moment frightful yells and shouts arose, and a hasty glance from the windows showed a mass of men, women, and children howling for their Princess.  They would tear down Whitehall if she were not delivered up to them.  However, a line of helmeted Life-guards on their heavy horses was drawn up between, with sabres held upright, and there seemed no disposition to rush upon these.  Lord Clarendon, uncle to the Princess, had satisfied himself that she had really escaped, and he now came out and assured the mob, in a stentorian voice, that he was perfectly satisfied of his niece’s safety, waving the letter she had left on her toilet-table.

The mob shouted, “Bless the Princess!  Hurrah for the Protestant faith!  No warming-pans!” but in a good-tempered mood; and the poor little garrison breathed more freely; but Anne did not feel herself forgiven.  She was in a manner sent to Coventry, and treated as if she were on the enemy’s side.  Never had her proud nature suffered so much, and she shed bitter tears as she said to herself, “It is very unjust!  What could I have done?  How could I stop Her Highness from speaking?  Could they expect me to run in and accuse her?  Oh, that I were at home again!  Mother, mother, you little know!  Of what use am I now?”

It was the very question asked by Hester Bridgeman, whom she found packing her clothes in her room.

“Take care that this is sent after me,” she said, “when a messenger I shall send calls for it.”

“What, you have your dismissal?”

“No, I should no more get it than you have done.  They cannot afford to let any one go, you see, or they will have to dress up the chambermaids to stand behind the Queen’s chair.  I have settled it with my cousin, Harry Bridgeman, I shall mix with the throng that come to ask for news, and be off with him before the crowd breaks in, as they will some of these days, for the guards are but half-hearted.  My Portia, why did not you take a good offer, and go with the Princess?”

“I thought it would be base.”

“And much you gained by it!  You are only suspected and accused.”

“I can’t be a rat leaving a sinking ship.”

“That is courteous, but I forgive it, Portia, as I know you will repent of your folly.  But you never did know which side to look for the butter.”

Perhaps seeing how ugly desertion and defection looked in others made constancy easier to Anne, much as she longed for the Close at Winchester, and she even thought with a hope of the Golden Lamb, Gracechurch, as an immediate haven sure to give her a welcome.

Her occupation of reading to the Queen was ended by the King’s return, so physically exhausted by violent nose-bleeding, so despondent at the universal desertion, and so broken-hearted at his daughter’s defection, that his wife was absorbed in attending upon him.

Anne began to watch for an opportunity to demand a dismissal, which she thought would exempt her from all blame, but she was surprised and a little dismayed by being summoned to the King in the Queen’s chamber.  He was lying on a couch clad in a loose dressing-gown instead of his laced coat, and a red night-cap replacing his heavy peruke, and his face was as white and sallow as if he were recovering from a long illness.

“Little godchild,” he said, holding out his hand as Anne made her obeisance, “the Queen tells me you can read well.  I have a fancy to hear.”

Immensely relieved at the kindness of his tone, Anne courtesied, and murmured out her willingness.

“Read this,” he said; “I would fain hear this; my father loved it.  Here.”

Anne felt her task a hard one when the King pointed to the third Act of Shakespeare’s Richard II.  She steeled herself and strengthened her voice as best she could, and struggled on till she came to—

“I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown,
My figured goblets for a dish of wood,
My sceptre for a palmer’s walking-staff,
My subjects for a pair