A Reputed Changeling Part 49

"So you were there? Well, you shall hear. You know how things stood with me--your mother, my good spirit, dead, my uncle away, my father bent on driving me to utter desperation, and Martha Browning laying her great red hands on me--"

"Oh, sir, she really loved you, and is far wiser and more tolerant than you thought her."

"I know," he smiled grimly. "She buried the huge Scot that was killed in the great smuggling fray under the Protector, with all honours, in our family vault, and had a long-winded sermon preached on my untimely end. Ha! ha!" with his mocking laugh.

"Don't, sir! If you had seen your father then! Why did no one come forward and explain?"

"Mayhap there were none at hand who knew, or wished to meddle with the law," he said. "Well, things were beyond all bearing at home, and you were going away, and would not so much as look at me. Now, one of the few sports my father did not look askance at was fis.h.i.+ng, and he would endure my being out at night with, as he thought, poor man, old Pete Perring, who was as stern a Puritan as himself; but I had livelier friends, and more adventurous. They had connections with French free-traders for brandy and silks, and when they found I was one with them, my French tongue was a boon to them, till I came to have a good many friends among the Norman fishermen, and to know the snug hiding-places about the coast. So at last I made up my mind to be off with them, and make my way to my uncle in Muscovy. I had raised money enough at play and on the jewels one picks up in an envoy's service, and there was one good angel whom I meant to take with me if I could secure her and bind her wings. Now you know with what hopes I saw you gathering flowers alone that morning."

Anne clasped her hands; Charles had truly interfered with good cause.

"I had all arranged," he continued; "my uncle would have given you a hearty welcome, and made our peace with my father, or if not, he would have left us all his goods, and secured my career. What call had that great lout, with a wife of his own too, to come thrusting between us? I thought I should make short work of him, and give him a lesson against meddling--great unlicked cub as he was, while I had had the best training at Berlin and Paris in fencing; but somehow those big strong fellows, from their very clumsiness, throw one out.

And he meant mischief--yes, that he did. I saw it in his eyes. I suppose his sulky rustic jealousy was a-fire at a few little civilities to that poor little wife of his. Any way, when he bore me down like the swing of a windmill, he drove his sword home. Talk of his being innocent! Why should he never look whether I were dead or alive, but fling me headlong into that pit?"

Anne could not but utter her eager defence, but it was met with a sinister smile, half of scorn, half of pity, and as she would have gone on, "Hus.h.!.+ your pleading only fills up the measure of my loathing."

Her heart sank, but she let him go on, listening perhaps less attentively as she considered how to take him.

"In fact," he continued, "little as the lubber knew it, 'twas the best he could have done for me. For though I never looked for such luck as your being out in the court at that hour, I did think the chance not to be lost of visiting the garden or the churchyard, and there were waiting in the vault a couple of stout Normans, who were to come at my whistle. It seems that when I came tumbling down in their midst, senseless and bleeding like a calf, they did not take it quite so easily as your champion above, but began doing what they could for me, and were trying to staunch the wound, when they heard a trampling and a rumbling overhead, and being aware that our undertaking might look ugly in the sight of the law, and thinking this might be pursuers, they carried me off with all speed, not so much as stopping to pick up the things that have made such a commotion. Was there any pursuit?"

"Oh no; it must have been the haymakers."

"No doubt. The place was in no great favour with our own people; they were in awe of the big Scot, who is in comfortable quarters in my grave, and the Frenchmen could not have found their way thither, so it was let alone till Mistress Martha's researches. So I came to myself in the boat in which they took me on board the lugger that was waiting for us; and instead of making for Alderney, as I had intended, so as to get the knot safely tied to your satisfaction, they sailed straight for Havre. They had on board a Jesuit father, whom I had met once or twice among the Duke of Berwick's people, but who had found Portsmouth too hot to hold him in the frenzy of Protestant zeal on the Bishops' account. He had been beset, and owed his life, he says, to the fists of the Breton and Norman sailors, who had taken him on board. It was well for me, for I doubt if ever I was tough enough to have withstood my good friends'

treatment. He had me carried to a convent in Havre, where the fathers nursed me well; and before I was on my legs again, I had made up my mind to cast in my lot with them, or rather with their Church."

"Oh!"

"I had been baulked of winning the one being near whom my devil never durst come. And blood-letting had pretty well disposed of him. I was as meek and mild as milk under the good fathers.

Moreover, as my good friend at Turin had told me, and they repeated it, such a doubly heretical baptism as mine was probably invalid, and accounted for my being as much a vessel of wrath as even my father was pleased to call me. There was the Queen's rosary drawing me too. Everything else was over with me, and it seemed to open a new life. So, bless me, what a soft and pious frame I was in when they chastened me, water, oil, salt and all, on what my father raged at folks calling Lammas Day, but which it seems really belongs to St. Peter in the Fetters. So I was named Pierre or Piers after him, thus keeping my own initial."

"Piers! oh! not Piers Pigwiggin?"

"Pierre de Pilpignon, if you please. I have a right to that too; but we shall come to it by and by. I can laugh now, or perhaps weep, over the fervid state I was in then, as if I had trodden down my snake, and by giving up everything--you, estate, career, I could keep him down. So it was settled that I would devote myself to the priesthood--don't laugh!--and I was ordered off to their seminary in London, partly, I believe, for the sake of piloting a couple of fathers, who could not speak a word of English. It was, as they rightly judged, the last place where my father would think of looking for me, but they did not as rightly judge that we should long keep possession there. Matters grew serious, and it was not over safe in the streets. There was a letter of importance from a friend in Holland, carrying the Prince of Orange's hypocritical Declaration, which was to be got to Father Petre or the King on the night--Hallowmas Eve it was--and I was told off to put on a secular dress, which I could wear more naturally than most of them, and convey it."

"Ah, that explains!"

"Apparition number one! I guessed you were somewhere in those parts, and looked up at the windows, and though I did not see you, I believe it was your eyes that first sent a thrill through me that boded ill for Roman orders. After that we lived in a continual state of rumours and alarms, secret messages and expeditions, until I, being strong in the arm and the wind and a feather-weight, was one of those honoured by rowing the Queen and Prince across the river. M. de St. Victor accepted me. He told me there would be two nurses, but never knew or cared who they were, nor did I guess, as we sat in the dark, how near I was to you. And only for one second did I see your face, as you were entering the carriage, and I blessed you the more for what you were doing for Her Majesty."

He proceeded to tell how he had accompanied the Jesuit fathers, on their leaving London, to the great English seminary at Douai, and being for the time convinced by them that his feelings towards Anne were a delusion of the enemy, he had studied with all his might, and as health and monotony of life began to have their accustomed effect in rousing the restlessness and mischievousness of his nature, with all the pa.s.sions of manhood growing upon him, he strove to force them down by fasting and scourging. He told, in a bitter, almost savage way, of his endeavours to flog his demon out of himself, and of his anger and disappointment at finding Piers Pilgrim in the seminary of Douai, quite as subject to his attacks as ever was Perry Oakshott under a sermon of Mr. Horncastle's.

Then came the information among the students that the governor of the city, the Marquis de Nidemerle, had brought some English gentlemen and ladies to visit the gardens. As most of the students were of British families there was curiosity as to who they were, and thus Peregrine heard that one was young Archfield of the Hamps.h.i.+re family, with his tutor, and the lady was Mistress Darpent, daughter to a French lawyer, who had settled in England after the Fronde. Anne's name had not transpired, for she was viewed merely as an attendant. Peregrine had been out on some errand in the town, and had a distant view of his enemy as he held him, flaunting about with a fine lady on his arm, forgetting the poor little pretty wife whom no doubt he had frightened to death."

"Oh! you little know how tenderly he speaks of her."

"Tenderly!--that's the way they speak of me at Oakwood, eh? Human, not to say elf, nature, could not withstand giving the fellow a start. I sped off, whipped into the Church, popped into a surplice I found ready to hand, caught up a candle, and!--Little did I think who it was that was hanging on his arm. So little did I know it that my heart began to be drawn to St. Germain, where I still imagined you. Altogether, after that prank, all broke out again. I entertained the lads with a few more freaks, for which I did ample penance, but it grew on me that in my case all was a weariness and a sham, and that my demon might get a worse hold of me if I got into a course of hypocrisy. They were very good to me, those fathers, but Jesuits as they were, I doubt whether they ever fathomed me. Any way, perhaps they thought I should be a scandal, but they agreed with me that their order was not my vocation, and that we had better part before my fiend drove me to do so with dishonour. They even gave me recommendations to the French officers that were besieging Tournay. I knew the Duke of Berwick a little at Portsmouth, and it ended in my becoming under-secretary to the Duke of Chartres. A man who knows languages has his value among Frenchmen, who despise all but their own."

Peregrine did not enter into full details of this stage of his career, and Anne was not fully informed of the habits that the young Duke of Chartres, the future Regent Duke of Orleans, was already developing, but she gathered that, what the young man called his demon, had nearly undisputed sway over him, and she had not spent eight months at St. Germain without knowing by report of the dissolute manners of the substratum of fas.h.i.+onable society at Paris, even though outward decorum had been restored by Madame de Maintenon. Yet he seemed to have been crossed by fits of vehement penitence, and almost the saddest part of the story was the mocking tone in which he alluded to these.

He had sought service at the Court in the hope of meeting Miss Woodford there, and had been grievously disappointed when he found that she had long since returned to England. The sight of the gracious and lovely countenance of the exiled Queen seemed always to have moved and touched him, as in some inexplicable manner her eyes and expression recalled to him those of Mrs. Woodford and Anne; but the thought had apparently only stung him into the sense of being forsaken and abandoned to his own devices or those of his evil spirit.

One incident, occurring some three years previously, he told more fully, as it had a considerable effect on his life. "I was attending the Duke in the gardens at Versailles," he said, "when we were aware of a great commotion. All the gentlemen were standing gazing up into the top of a great chestnut tree, the King and all, and in the midst stood the Abbe de Fenelon with his little pupils, the youngest, the Duke of Anjou, sobbing piteously, and the Duke of Burgundy in a furious pa.s.sion, stamping and raging, and only withheld from rolling on the ground by the Abbe's hand grasping his shoulder. 'I will not have him killed! He is mine,' he cried. And up in the tree, the object of all their gaze, was a monkey with a paper fluttering in his hand. Some one had made a present of the creature to the King's grandsons; he was the reigning favourite, and having broken his chain, had effected an entrance by the window into the King's cabinet, where after giving himself the airs of a minister of state, on being interrupted, he had made off through the window with an important doc.u.ment, which he was affecting to peruse at his leisure, only interrupting himself to hurl down leaves or unripe chestnuts at those who attempted to pelt him with stones, and this only made him mount higher and higher, entirely out of their reach, for no one durst climb after him. I believe it was a letter from the King of Spain; at any rate the whole Cabinet was in agony lest the brute should proceed to tear it into fragments, and a musqueteer had been sent for to shoot him down. I remembered my success with the monkey on poor little Madam Archfield's back--nay, perhaps 'twas the same, my familiar taking shape. I threw myself at the King's feet, and desired permission to deal with the beast. By good luck it had not been so easy as they supposed to find a musquet fit for immediate use, so I had full time. To ascend the tree was no more than I had done many times before, and I went high in the branches, but cautiously, not to give Monsieur le Singe the idea of being pursued, lest he should leap to a bough incapable of supporting me. When I had reached a fork tolerably high, and where he could see me, I settled myself, took out a letter, which fortunately was in my pocket, read it with the greatest deliberation, the monkey watching me all the time, and finally I proceeded to fold it neatly in all its creases. The creature imitated me with its black fingers, little aware, poor thing, that the musqueteer had covered him with his weapon, and was waiting for the first sign of tearing the letter to pull the trigger, but withheld by a sign from the King, who did not wish to sacrifice his grandson's pet before his eyes. Finally, after finis.h.i.+ng the folding, I doubled it a second time, and threw it at the animal. To my great joy he returned the compliment by throwing the other at my head. I was able to catch it, and moreover, as he was disposed to go in pursuit of his plaything, he swung his chain so near me that I got hold of it, twisted it round my arm, and made the best of my way down the tree, amid the 'Bravos!' started by the royal lips themselves, and repeated with ecstasy by all the crowd, who waved their hats, and made such a hallooing that I had much ado to get the monkey down safely; but finally, all dishevelled, with my best cuffs and cravat torn to ribbons, and my wig happily detached, unlike Absalom's, for it remained in the tree, I had the honour of presenting on my knee the letter to the King, and the monkey to the Princes. I kissed His Majesty's hand, the little Duke of Anjou kissed the monkey, and the Duke of Burgundy kissed me with arms round my neck, then threw himself on his knees before his grandfather to ask pardon for his pa.s.sion. Every one said my fortune was made, and that my agility deserved at least the cordon bleu. My own Duke of Chartres, who in many points is like his cousin, our late King Charles, gravely a.s.sured me that a new office was to be invented for me, and that I was to be Grand Singier du Roi. I believe he pushed my cause, and so did the little Duke of Burgundy, and finally I got the pension without the office, and a good deal of occasional employment besides, in the way of translation of doc.u.ments. There were moments of success at play.

Oh yes, quite fairly, any one with wits about him can make his profit in the long-run among the Court set. And thus I had enough to purchase a pretty little estate and chateau on the coast of Normandy, the confiscated property of a poor Huguenot refugee, so that it went cheap. It gives the t.i.tle of Pilpignon, which I a.s.sumed in kindness to the tongues of my French friends. So you see, I have a station and property to which to carry you, my fair one, won by myself, though only by catching an ape."

He went on to say that the spot had been chosen advisedly, with a view to communication with the opposite coast, where his old connection with the smugglers was likely to be useful in the Jacobite plots. "As you well know," he said, "my father had done his utmost to make Whiggery stink in my nostrils, to say nothing of the kindness I have enjoyed from our good Queen; and I was ready to do my utmost in the cause, especially after I had stolen a glimpse of you, and when Charnock, poor fellow, returning from reconnoitring among the loyal, told me that you were still unmarried, and living as a dependent in the Archfields' house. Our headquarters were in Romney Marsh, but it was as well to have, as it were, a back door here, and as it has turned out it has been the saving of some of us."

"Oh, sir! you were not in that wicked plot?"

"Nay; surely _you_ are not turned Whig."

"But this was a.s.sa.s.sination."

"Not at all, if they would have listened to me. The Dutchman is no bigger than I am. I could have dropped on him from one of his trees at Hampton Court, or through a window, via presto, and we would have had him off by the river, given him an interview to beg his uncle's pardon, and despatched him for the benefit of his asthma to the company of the Iron Mask at St. Marguerite; then back again, the King to enjoy his own again, Dr. Woodford, archbishop or bishop of whatever you please, and a lady here present to be Marquise de Pilpignon, or Countess of Havant, whichever she might prefer. Yes, truly those were the hopes with which I renewed my communications with the contraband trade on this coast, a good deal more numerous since the Dutchman and his wars have raised the duties and driven many good men to holes and corners.

"Ever since last spring, when the Princess Royal died, and thus extinguished the last spark of forbearance in the King's breast, I have been here, there, and everywhere--Romney Marsh, Drury Lane, Paris, besides this place and Pilpignon, where I have a snug harbour for the yacht, Ma Belle Annik, as the Breton sailors call her. The crew are chiefly Breton; it saves gossip; but I have a boat's crew of our own English folk here, stout fellows, ready for anything by land or sea."

"The Black Gang," said Anne faintly.

"Don't suppose I have meddled in their exploits on the road," he said, "except where a King's messenger or a Royal mail was concerned, and that is war, you know, for the cause. Unluckily my personal charms are not easily disguised, so that I have had to lurk in the background, and only make my private investigations in the guise of my own ghost."

"Then so it was you saved the dear little Philip?" said Anne.

"The Archfield boy? I could not see a child sent to his destruction by that villain Sedley, whoever were his father, for he meant mischief if ever man did. 'Twas superhuman scruple not to hold your peace and let him swing."

"What was it, then, on his cousin's part?"

Peregrine only answered with a shrug. It appeared further, that as long as the conspirators had entertained any expectation of success, he had merely kept a watch over Anne, intending to claim her in the hour of the triumph of his party, when he looked to enjoy such a position as would leave his brother free to enjoy his paternal inheritance. In the failure of all their schemes through Mr.

Pendergrast's denunciation, Sir George Barclay, and one or two inferior plotters, had succeeded in availing themselves of the a.s.sistance of the Black Gang, and had been conducted by Peregrine to the hut that he had fitted up for himself. Still trusting to the security there, although his name of Piers Pilgrim or de Pilpignon had been among those given up to the Privy Council, he had insisted on lingering, being resolved that an attempt should be made to carry away the woman he had loved for so many years. Captain Burford had so disguised himself as to be able to attend the trial, loiter about the inn, and collect intelligence, while the others waited on the downs. Peregrine had watched over the capture, but being unwilling to disclose himself, had ridden on faster and crossed direct, traversing the Island on horseback, while the captive was rounding it in the boat. "As should never have been done," he said, "could I have foretold to what stress of weather you would be exposed while I was preparing for your reception. But for this storm--it rages louder than ever--we would have been married by a little parson whom Burford would have fetched from Portsmouth, and we should have been over the Channel, and my people hailing my bride with ecstasy."

"Never!" exclaimed Anne. "Can you suppose I could accept one who would leave an innocent man to suffer?"

"People sometimes are obliged to accept," said Peregrine. Then at her horrified start, "No, no, fear no violence; but is not something due to one who has loved you through exile all these years, and would lay down his life for you? you, the only being who overcomes his evil angel!"

"This is what you call overcoming it," she said.

"Nay; indeed, Mistress Anne, I would let the authorities know that they are hanging a man for murdering one who is still alive if I could; but no one would believe without seeing, and I and all who could bear witness to my existence would be rus.h.i.+ng to an end even worse than a simple noose. You were ready enough to denounce him to save that worthless fellow."

"Not ready. It tore my heart. But truth is truth. I could not do that wickedness. Oh! how can you? This _is_ the prompting of the evil spirit indeed, to expect me to join in leaving that innocent, generous spirit to die in cruel injustice. Let me go. I will not betray where you are. You will be safe in France; but there will yet be time for me to bear witness to your life. Write a letter.

Your father would thankfully swear to your handwriting, and I think they would believe me. Only let me go."

"And what then becomes of the hopes of a lifetime?" demanded Peregrine. "I, who have waited as long as Jacob, to be defrauded now I have you; and for the sake of the fellow who killed me in will if not in deed, and then ran away like a poltroon leaving you to bear the brunt!"

"He did not act like a poltroon when he saved the life of his general, or when he rescued the colours of his regiment, still less when he stood up to save me from the pain of bearing witness against him, and to save a guiltless man," cried Anne, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

Before she had finished her indignant words, Hans was coming in from some unknown region to lay the cloth for supper, and Peregrine, with an imprecation under his breath, had gone to the door to admit his two comrades, who came into the narrow entry on a gust of wind as it were, struggling out of their cloaks, stamping and swearing.

In the middle of the day, they had been much more restrained in their behaviour. There had at that time been a slight clearance in the sky, though the wind was as furious as ever, and they were in haste to despatch the meal and go out again to endeavour to stand on the heights and to watch some vessels that were being tossed by the storm. Almost all the conversation had then been on the chances of their weathering the tempest, and the probability of its lasting on, and they had hurried away as soon as possible. Anne had not then known who they were, and only saw that they were fairly civil to her, and kept under a certain constraint by Pilpignon, as they called their host. Now she fully knew the one who was addressed as Sir George to be Barclay, the prime mover in the wicked scheme of a.s.sa.s.sination of which all honest Tories had been so much ashamed, and she could see Captain Burford to be one of those bravoes who were only too plentiful in those days, attending on dissolute and violent n.o.bles.

She was the less inclined to admit their attentions, and s.h.i.+elded herself with a grave coldness of stately manners; but their talk was far more free than at noon, suggesting the thought that they had antic.i.p.ated the meal with some of the Nantz or other liquors that seemed to be in plenty.