Margaret had kept things straight. I do not know how it was, but peace always went away with her; and my mother did things she never attempted when the real lady of the house was at home. And yet I might thank my own hasty folly for much of what befell.
Eustace was much better, sitting up in his night-gown by the fire, and ready, as I thought, to talk over everything, and redress my wrongs, or at least comfort the wretchedness that had grown upon me daily since that miserable quarrel with Clement. I poured it all out, and even was mad enough to say it was his fault for delaying so long the journey to the Hague. Clement, who had been well-nigh ready to join us and be a good Protestant, was going back to the old delusions, and taking office under the Government; and even if the bravoes had not killed him, he would be spoilt for any honest Englishwoman; and I might as well take that miserable little schoolboy, which I supposed was all my brother wished. Then the estate would be safe enough.
Eustace could only assure me that the delay was as grievous to him as to me. indeed, as I could see in a more reasonable mood, he had been unable to get from Ribaumont the moneys needful for the journey, the steward not venturing to send them while the roads were so unsafe; but when he begged me to have patience, it seemed to sting my headstrong temper, and I broke out in some such words as these: 'Patience! Patience! I am sick of it. Thanks to your patience, I have lost Clement. They have all but murdered him! and for yourself, you had better take care Millicent van Hunker does not think that such patience is only too easy when she has neither wealth nor beauty left!'
'Hush, Annora,' he answered, with authority and severity in his tone, but not half what I deserved; 'there is great excuse for you, but I cannot permit such things to be said.'
Here Tryphena came in and scolded me for making him talk; I saw how flushed he was, and became somewhat frightened. They sent me away, and oh! how long it was ere I was allowed to see him again! For in the morning, after a night of repenting and grieving over my heat, and longing to apologise for having reproached him for the delay which was as grievous to him as to me, the first thing I heard was that M. le Baron was much worse; he had had a night of fever; there was more bleeding, and much difficulty of breathing. My mother was with him, and I was on no account to be admitted.
And when I came out of my room, there sat Madame Croquelebois, who had been sent for from the Hotel d'Aubepine to keep guard over me, day and night; for she was lodged in that cabinet of my sister's into which my room opened, and my door on the other side was locked. It was an insult, for which the excuse was my interview with Clement. It made me hot and indignant enough, but there was yet a further purpose in it.
The next thing was to send for a certain Frere Allonville, a man who had been a doctor before he was converted and became a Dominican friar, and who still practiced, and was aid to do cures by miracle. I know this, that it would have been a miracle if his treatment had cured my brother, for the first thing he did was to bleed him, the very thing that Dr. Dirkius had always told us was the sure way to kill him, when he was losing so much blood already. Then the friar turned out Tryphena, on the plea that he must have a nurse who understood his language. As if poor Tryphena, after living thirteen years in France, could not understand the tongue quite enough for any purpose, and as if she did not know better how to take care of Eustace than any one else! But of course the language was not the real reason that she was shut out, and kept under guard, as it were, just as much as I was, while a Sister of Charity was brought in to act as my brother's nurse, under my mother, who, look you, never had been nurse at all, and always fainted at any critical moment.
Assuredly I knew why they were thus isolating my brother from all of us. I heard steps go upstairs, not only of the Dominican quack doctor, but of the Abbe Montagu, who had been previously sent to convert us. The good old Bonchamp, who had a conscience, was away at St. Germain with Gaspard de Nidemerle, and I-I had no one to appeal to when I knew they were harassing the very life out of my dearest, dearest brother, by trying to make him false to the Church and the faith he had fought for. I could do nothing-I was a prisoner; all by my own fault too; for they would have had no such opportunity had I not been so unguarded towards my brother. When I did meet my mother it chafed me beyond all bearing to see her devout air of resignation and piety. Her dear son was, alas! in the utmost danger, but his dispositions were good, and she trusted to see him in the bosom of the true Church, and that would be a consolation, even if he were not raised up by a miracle, which would convince even me. Poor woman, I believe she really did expect that his conversion would be followed by a miraculous recovery. I told her she was killing him-and well! I don't know what I said, but I think I frightened her, for she sent Mr. Walter Montague to see what he could do with me.
I told him I wondered he was not ashamed of such a conversion, supposing he made it, which I was sure he would not, as long as my brother retained his senses.
To which he answered that Heaven was merciful, and that so long as one was in communion with the true Church there was power to be redeemed in the next world, if not in this.
'A sorry way of squeezing into Heaven,' I said; and then he began arguing, as he had done a hundred times before, on the blessing and rest he had found in the Church, after renouncing his errors. And no wonder, for it is well known that my Lord Mandeville brought up his family to be mere Puritans. However, I said: 'Look you here, Mr. Montagu; if my brother, Lord Walwyn, gave himself to you of deliberate mind, with full health and faculties, you might think him a gain indeed. Or if you like it better, he would have a claim to the promises of your Church; but if you merely take advantage of the weakness of a man at the point of death to make him seem a traitor to his whole life, why, then, I should say you trusted, more than I do, to what you call Divine promises.'
He told me-as they always do-that I knew nothing about it, and that he should pray for me. But I had some trust that his English blood would be guilty of no foul play. I was much more afraid of the Dominican; only one good thing was that the man was not a priest. So went by Good Friday and Easter Eve. They would not let me go to church for fear I should speak to any one. Madame Croquelebois and my mother's old smirking tire-woman, Bellote, took turns to mount guard over me. I heard worse and worse accounts of my dear brother's bodily state, but I had one comfort. One of the servants secretly handed Tryphena this little note addressed to me, in feeble straggling characters:-
'Do what they may to me my will does not consent. Pray for me. If word were taken to the K. E. W. and R.'
It was some comfort that I should have that to prove what my brother was to the last. I made me able to weep and pray-pray as I had never prayed before-all that night and that strange sad Easter morning, when all the bells were ringing, and the people flocking to the churches, and I sat cut off from them all in my chamber, watching, watching in dread of sounds that might tell me that my dearest and only brother, my one hope, was taken from me, body and soul, and by my fault, in great part.
Oh! what a day it was, as time went on. Madame Croquelebois went to high mass, and Bellote remained in charge. I was, you understand, a prisoner at large. Provided some one was attending me, I went into any room in the house save the only one where I cared to be. And I was sitting in the salon, with my Bible and Prayer-book before me-not reading, I fear me, but at any rate attesting my religion, when there came up a message that Son Altesse Royale, the Duke of Gloucester, requested to be admitted to see Mademoiselle de Ribaumont.