CHAPTER XVII.

MY NEW FRIENDS.

I AWOKE in the morning tired enough; but dressing and a cup of coffee refreshed me, and by the time my uncle's carriage and servants came for me, I was quite ready to attend him. The Vevette of a year ago would perhaps have breathed a prayer for guidance under such difficult circumstances, but I never even thought of it. I was carried to the ambassador's residence, and led through more than one grand apartment to the room where my new uncle and aunt were awaiting me.

My aunt, Madame de Fayrolles, was a woman of forty or thereabout, elegantly dressed and rouged in a way that made me open my eyes at first. Rouge was not then commonly worn in England—scarcely at all, in truth, save by such kind of madams as Lady Castlemaine—but in France it was a regular part of the toilette of a lady of quality, and was worn without any disguise. She received me kindly, kissing me on both cheeks, and then presenting me to a gentleman in a semi-clerical dress, whom she called Father Martien.

I felt some of my old childish terror of a priest revive, as the gentleman bowed to me, but of course I returned his salute politely. After a few words, he quitted the room, saying that he hoped to meet me again and know me better.

"That is a distinguished man," said madame, as he closed the door behind him. "He is the ambassador's confessor, and very high in his order. Men say he is as like to be general."

"General of what?" I asked.

My aunt stared.

"Of the Jesuits, of course—what else? But I forget, you know nothing of these matters. My poor brother-in-law! Ah, what a pity he was so obstinate! But we will not talk of that now," catching a warning glance from her husband. "Tell me, petite, how old art thou?"

I told her.

"And they have not yet settled thee in life? Ah well, so much the better. And now what shall we do to amuse you?"

I could not help thinking my aunt very charming, in spite of the rouge which had so shocked me at first. She had all the brightness and sparkle, all the grace of manner of a genuine French woman, and when she desired to please she was certainly irresistible. She set to work at once to reform my dress, and the manner of wearing my hair, exchanging with her waiting-damsel many comments upon my good looks. Then she would turn out all her jewels for my amusement, and bestowed several elegant trifles upon me, besides a box of beautiful perfumed gloves.

"I will divide these with Aunt Jemima," said I; "she has beautiful hands."

"Nay, keep them for yourself, I have a little cadeau for the good aunt—what did you call her?"

"Jemima," I replied.

"Ah, what a horror of a name! But no matter, so she is kind to thee."

And my aunt began, while displaying all her fans and other trinkets, to question me about my own affairs. My uncle, who came in, soon joined in the conversation, and by easy degrees, and almost without knowing it, they won from me my whole family history, from beginning to end.

Then my uncle in his turn, began to explain matters, as he said. I cannot, at this distance of time, recall what he said exactly, but he made it clearly appear that his conversion to the Romish Church was a matter of deep conviction, and an act of quite disinterested faith, which had brought upon him most unmerited obloquy and persecution. He told me he had been on his way to the Tour d'Antin to visit my father, when he had been met by the news of the demolition of the chateau.

"I hurried down at once," said he. "I had hoped to induce my dear brother, if not to conform, which indeed, knowing his disposition, I hardly dared to expect, at least to withdraw quietly and in safety either to Jersey or Geneva, from which places he could easily be recalled had it been desirable. Judge, my dear Genevieve, of my feelings when I found my brother dead, his house a mass of ruins, and his wife and child fled no one knew whither. It was believed that you had put to sea under the guidance of the young English gentleman, and that you had all perished together. A fisherman, who had been driven over to Jersey by the storm, reported seeing a boat bottom upward and some floating articles of female apparel which confirmed me in the idea, and I mourned you as dead till I met you last night. I was at once struck with your resemblance to our family, and on inquiry found that you were indeed my niece."

I need not repeat all that was said to me that day. Suffice it to say that I returned home at night completely bewitched by these new relatives. I found Aunt Jem a little out of humor at my staying away so long, but she was easily pacified by my excuses, and delighted by the boxes of gloves and of French comfits I had brought her from my Aunt Zenobie. French gloves were then, as they are now, very much better than any made in England.

This was the first of many succeeding visits, in the course of which Monsieur and Madame de Fayrolles gained more and more of my confidence and regard.

They were very attentive to Aunt Jem also, but she did not like them as well as I did. I well remember a remark of hers with which her husband was not at all pleased.

"They are fishing for you, Vevette. They mean to make a convert of you, and then what will the sailor say?"

"Nonsense, Jem," said my Uncle Charles sharply. "What interest have they in the matter? Why should you wish to set Vevette against her father's family?"

"I do not wish it," returned Aunt Jem, looking at once hurt and surprised, for Uncle Charles, though often moody, was seldom anything but kind to his wife, of whom he was both fond and proud. "I am sure it is but natural they should wish to bring the child to their own way of thinking. I am not sure but I should like to be of that way myself," she added, sighing a little. "It is a comfortable kind of faith after all. One puts one's self into the hands of a priest, and then one is sure of salvation."

I might have answered that this salvation was a thing that a devout Roman Catholic never could be sure of, since his salvation depends not alone upon the all-perfect Saviour, but upon the offices of a man like himself who may be altogether a sacrilegious person; but I had become very shy of speaking upon religious subjects. I still, it is true, kept up a form of devotion morning and evening, but with my conscience constantly burdened by unrepented sins which I would not even confess to be sins, my prayers could be only the emptiest of forms. My Bible lay unread day after day, and though I did indeed go to church once every Sunday, I did not greatly profit by that.

It was a time of great deadness in spiritual matters in the Church of England, though there were a few faithful preachers who shone as lights in a dark place. But our parish clergyman was not one of them. Sometimes he gave us a disquisition on the heresies of the first ages in the church, but his sermons in general were either upon the divine right of kings and the wickedness of those who ventured in anything to oppose them, or else dry lectures upon morals to the effect that vice was bad and virtue was good. I heard about the Theban legionaries till I wished they had been massacred long before they were, so that they might have been lost in the mists of antiquity.

As to the moral lectures which formed a great part of the preaching of the day, they were not like to have any great influence so long as people saw the king, an open and shameless contemner of the laws of God and man, publicly receiving the sacrament, while his attendants meantime laughed and chatted among themselves as if they had been in a playhouse, the Duke of York himself setting the example.

As I said, there were glorious exceptions—men who shunned not fearlessly to declare the whole council of God, and to rebuke sin wherever they found it, but these were not the rule, and they did not come in my way. Sunday was a long day to us at my aunt's, though we did our best to shorten it by reading romance and plays, playing at tables, and seeing company at home.

My visit to Madame de Fayrolles was soon repeated, and it came to be an understood thing that I should spend at least two days in the week with her.

I made the acquaintance of Father Martien, as he was called, and found him a very polished, agreeable gentleman. He was a Frenchman by birth, but educated in Florence. We soon fell upon the subject of Italian literature, and he ventured gently to criticise my pronunciation, and offered his services to correct it by reading with me two or three times a week. I had always been fond of the language, and accepted the offer with enthusiasm. I hardly know how we began upon the subject of religion, but we were in the midst of it before I was aware.

I had been well furnished, like every Huguenot child, with abundance of answers to every argument that could be brought forward upon the Romish side; but, alas, the armor was loose and dented from neglect, and the sword rusty and out of use. My faith in Christianity itself had been in some degree shaken by the sneers and arguments I had heard from Lewis, and also from my Uncle Charles, who was a worshipper of Mr. Hobbes. I had come to think that one form of faith was perhaps as good as another—that so long as men led good lives, their opinions did not very much matter, and so forth. When I tried to recall my old arguments I remembered other things which roused my conscience, and made me wretched, that I was glad to let them rest again.

I was persuaded to hear mass in the chapel of the French ambassador, that I might enjoy the music. Aunt Jem herself went to the chapel of the queen for the same reason, and I soon discovered that she was leaning the same way as myself.

"Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird."

One might think so certainly, and yet how often do we see nets spread in plain daylight, and the silly birds walking straight into them.

Every day I grew more and more indifferent to the faith in which I had been educated, and for which my father had died. Every day I saw new reason to regret the bigotry—so I learned to call it—which had brought so many misfortunes upon our family. Every day I grew more attached to my uncle and aunt, and came more under their influence.

My Aunt Jem even grew a little jealous, and murmured that it was rather hard she should have so little of my company, when she had been the means of my coming to town in the first place; but a little attention from the ambassador's family, and a few introductions to great people, and cards to great entertainments, soon reconciled her to the state of things. As to my Uncle Charles, I am sorry to write it, but I have good reason to believe that he was playing into the hands of Monsieur de Fayrolles all the time. He was deep in debt, and embarrassments of all sorts, caused by his high play and extravagant style of living, and I believe that he deliberately turned me over to my French relations in consideration of being relieved of some of the most pressing of these liabilities.

One thing held me back from taking the last step to which I was now being gently urged and persuaded—and that one thing was my love for Andrew. I still wore his ring, and still watched vainly and with the sickness of hope deferred for news of him. The news came at last.

I was breakfasting in my aunt's bedroom as usual, for Aunt Jem grew more and more indolent in her habits and often did not rise till noon. Her health was failing even then, and she had very bad nights, but she would never confess that she was ill. She had, however, so far yielded to pain and weakness as to remain at home for a day or two. I was breakfasting with her, as I said, and trying to entertain her with accounts of what I had seen and heard when out with Madame de Fayrolles the day before, when my uncle entered the room.

He saluted my aunt with his usual kindness, and then asked me for a cup of coffee.

"And what is the news at court?" said my aunt.

"Nothing very special, that I know of. One of our ships from the West Indies has come in, and by the way, Vevette, I heard of an old friend of yours—"

My heart beat fast, and my hand trembled so that I was fain to set down my cup of chocolate.

"Your old friend and flame, our good cousin, has done a very wise thing," he continued, playing the while with my aunt's little dog. "He has married the daughter of a rich planter with I know not how many thousand slaves and acres, and means to settle in those parts as soon as he can arrange his affairs. What say you, chick? Shall I bespeak a willow garland for you?"

"I have no occasion for it, thank you," I answered, with a calmness which surprised myself. "That affair was broken off by my mother long ago."

"Of course," said my aunt. "Vevette has too much sense to regret that her cousin should look out for himself. I hope to see her make a much better marriage than that. She has improved wonderfully of late, and would grace any station."

"But are you quite sure this news is true?" I asked quietly. "It will be a great grief to Andrew's mother and sisters if he should settle abroad."

"I dare say they will reconcile themselves, seeing how much he gains by it," replied my uncle carelessly. "Besides, he may not remain abroad always. I dare say in time he will return to England, rebuild the old tumble-down court at Tre Madoc, and found a great estate. Report says the young lady is beautiful as well as rich, and that it was quite a love match. They believe in such things out there it seems."

"You believed in them once," said my aunt.

"Yes, in old days when you were young, my love; but there are no such things now, because there are no more such women."

My poor aunt brightened at this speech and the caress which accompanied it. All of her that was not spoiled by the world clung to her husband.

Sorrow in itself has no power for good, but only for evil. It is only while we look not at the things that are seen, but at those which are unseen, that it works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

The things unseen had become to me more unreal than any dream, and consequently this great blow only hardened and embittered instead of softening my heart. I said to myself that there was no truth or trust in anything—that Andrew was no better than the rest.

I cast myself loose from all the considerations which had hitherto restrained me, and gave myself wholly over to the influence of Monsieur and Madame de Fayrolles, and especially of Father Martien. Aunt Zenobie, with that consummate tact which distinguished her, and which I have sometimes even thought served her instead of a soul, never alluded to the subject of Andrew's marriage, and never showed that she had even heard of it, except by redoubling the amount of petting and caresses she bestowed on me.

Father Martien, on the other hand, hinted delicately at similar sorrows he had himself undergone in early life, and spoke of the consolations the church had to offer to wounded hearts, of the tender sympathy of the mother of God, and the comfort of having a woman like myself to whom I might confide all my sorrows, and who could understand my heart. I aright have said that he who made the woman's heart was at least as likely to understand it as any one else, and that women were not, as a general thing, more tender to women than the other sex.

But the truth was, I was eager to be—I will not say convinced, but persuaded. My soul was a fountain of bitter waters—a spring of boiling rebellion against Heaven, and anger against man. I only wished to divide myself as far as possible from Andrew and to go where I never need hear his name. I allowed myself to go constantly to mass with my aunt, to listen to Father Martien's arguments with complacency, and to give good hopes to my French friends that I meant to return to the bosom of the true church.

Another event occurred about this time, which had the effect of throwing me still more completely into the hands of Madame de Fayrolles. My Aunt Jemima died. As I have before hinted, she had long been ailing, though she had striven against her malady, and concealed its ravages with all the force of her will. But no human will is of any avail when death knocks at the door.

The day came when she was obliged to keep her bed and acknowledge herself ill, and from that time her decay was very rapid. It was most pitiable to see how she clung to that world which was slipping away from her—to the miserable crumbling idols which she had worshipped, but in which there was no help. She would be partly dressed every day, would see those—they were not many—who called upon her—would hear all the news of the court and the town. Her gentlewoman Mercer, who, was something of a religious person in her way—wished her to have a clergyman come to read prayers, but Aunt Jem refused. She was not as bad as that, she said; there was plenty of time; she was not going to die. She would be better when spring came—in truth, she was much better already.

Alas, poor lady, her death-warrant was signed and the messenger was at the door. Her end came very suddenly at last. There was barely time to send for a clergyman, and when he came, her speech was gone, though she had her senses and her eyes wandered from one face to another in agonized appeal for the help which no mortal could give.

Mercer in her hurry had brought not our parish clergyman, but her own, a serious and I believe truly religious young man, who tried to direct my aunt's thoughts and hopes to the only sure foundation, but she hardly attended, and we could not be sure even that she understood.

Surely there is no sight of martyrdom for the truth's sake so terrible, so pitiable, as the death-bed of one who, having given his whole heart and mind to the world, is called upon to leave it forever.

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