Stray Pearls

Things got worse and worse. Eustace was very anxious to leave Paris before the summer was over, lest bad weather should make him unable to travel. The year he had put between himself and Millicent had more than run out; and besides, as he said to me, he would not expose himself again to undergo what he had endured in his former illness, since he could have no confidence that my mother, and even Margaret, might not be driven to a persecution, which, if his senses should fail him, might apparently succeed. 'Nor,' said he, 'can I leave you unprotected here, my sister.'

We lingered, partly from the difficulty of getting horses, and the terrible insecurity of the roads, partly from the desire to get Clement to attend to Cardinal de Retz's warning and escape with us. There was no difficulty on his mother's account. She was longing to enter Port Royal, and only delayed to keep house for him, with many doubts whether she were not worldly in so doing; but he still felt his voice and presence here in the Hotel de Ville a protest, and he could not give up the hope of being of use to his country.

Meantime, M. de Nemours recovered from his wound only to be killed in a duel by M. de Beaufort, his brother- in-law; the Prince of Conde's rage at his defeat threw him into a malignant fever; the Duke of Orleans was in despair at the death of his only son, a babe of five years old; the Fronde was falling to pieces, and in the breathing time, Eustace obtained a pass from our own King, and wrote to Solivet, who was with the royal army outside, to get him another for himself and me-explaining that he was bound by his promise to Madame van Hunker, and that his health was in such a state that my care was needful to him.

Solivet answered the letter, sending the passport, but urging on him to remain at Paris, which would soon be at peace, since Mazarin was leaving the Court, and a general amnesty was to be proclaimed if the gates of Paris were opened to the King without the Cardinal.

But there were to be exceptions to this amnesty, and Solivet wrote at the same time to my mother. I have not the letter, and cannot copy it, but what he said was to urge her not to permit my brother to drag me away to Holland, for when he was gone all might still be arranged as she wished. As to 'ce coquina de Darpent,' as Solivet kindly called him, he had made himself a marked man, whom it was dangerous to leave at large, and his name was down for Vincennes or the Bastille, if nothing worse, so that there need be no more trouble about him. So said my half-brother, and he had no doubt made himself certain of the fact, in which he somewhat prematurely exulted.

My poor dear mother! I may seem to have spoken unkindly and undutifully about her in the course of these recollections. She was too French, and I too English, ever to understand one another, but in these last days that we were together she compensated for all that was past. She could not see a good and brave young life consigned to perpetual imprisonment only for being more upright than his neighbours; she did remember the gratitude she owed even to a creature comme ca, and I even believe she could not coolly see her daughter's heart broken. She had not even Margaret to prompt or persuade her, but she showed the letter at once to Eustace, and bade him warn his friend. Oh, mother, I am thankful that you made me love you at last!

Eustace drove first to the office, and got his passes countersigned by the magistracy for himself and me and our servant, showing a laquais whose height and complexion fairly agreed with those of Clement Darpent. There was no time to be lost. In the dusk of an August evening my brother was carried to the corner of the Rue St. Antoine in my mother's sedan. He could not walk so far, and he did not wish to attract observation, and he reached the house on foot, cloaked, and with his hat slouched. He found that Clement had received a note, as he believed from the Coadjutor, who always knew everything, giving the like warning that he would be excluded from the amnesty. His hopes of serving his country were over, and he felt it so bitterly, and so grieved for it, that he scarcely thought at first of his personal safety. It was well we had thought for him.

Eustace had brought a suit of our livery under his cloak, and he and poor Madame cut Clement's hair as short as if he had been a Roundhead. She had kept plenty of money in the house ever since she had feared for her son, and this they put in a belt round his waist. Altogether, he came out not at all unlike the laquais Jacques Pierrot, whom he was to personate. Eustace said the old lady took leave of her son with her stern Jansenist composure, which my tender-hearted Clement could not imitate. Eustace rejoined the chairmen and came back through the dark streets, while Clement walked at some distance, and contrived to slip in after him. My mother had in the meantime gone to the Hotel d'Aubepine and fetched poor Meg.

Cecile had just taken the turn, as they say, and it was thought she would live, but Meg could scarcely be spared from her, and seemed at first hardly to understand that our long-talked-of departure was suddenly coming to pass. It was well that she had so much to occupy her, for there was no one save her son, whom she loved like that brother of ours, and she would not, or could not, realise that she was seeing him for the last time.

It was a hot August night, and we worked and packed all through it, making Eustace lie down and rest, though sleep was impossible, and he said he wanted to see Meg and his mother as long as he could. As to Clement, we were afraid of the servants noticing him, so Eustace had locked him up in his own room, but he slept as little as any of us, and when his breakfast was brought him, he had never touched his supper. Certainly mine was the saddest bridegroom who ever stole away to be married; but I could forgive him. Did I not know what it was to be an exile, with one's heart torn for one's country's disgrace?

The difficulty was to get rid of the real Jacques Pierrot, but he gave us a little assistance in that way by coming crying to M. le Baron, to ask permission to take leave of his mother in the Faubourg St. Denis. This was readily granted to him, with strong insistence that he should be back by eleven o'clock, whereas we intended to start as soon as the gates were opened, namely, at six. Eustace had some time before purchased four mules and a carriage. He was not fit to ride in bad weather, and for me to have made a journey on horseback would have attracted too much attention, but the times were too uncertain for us to trust to posting, and mules, though slower than horses, would go on longer without resting, and were less likely to be seized by any army. I would take no maid-servant, as she would only have added to our dangers.

We ate our hearts till seven, when we succeeded in getting the mules to the door, and haste softened the parting for the moment. Indeed, Eustace and Meg had said much to each other in the course of the night. We had both knelt to ask my mother's forgiveness for having so often crossed her, and she finally wept and fainted, so that Meg was wholly occupied in attending to her.

Clement stood by the carriage, looking his part so well that my first impression was 'that stupid Jacques has come back after all.' Our anxiety now was to be entirely out of reach before the fellow came back, and hard was it to brook the long delay at the Porte St. Denis ere the officials deigned to look at us and our passes. However, my brother had gone through too many gates no to know that silver and an air of indifference will smooth the way, so we came through at last without our valet having been especially scanned.

Beyond the gates the sight was sad enough, the houses in the suburbs with broken windows and doors as though pillaged, the gardens devastated, the trees cut down, and the fields, which ought to have been ripening to harvest, trampled or mown for forage, all looking as if a hostile invader had been there, and yet it was the sons of the country that had done this, while swarms of starving people pursued us begging. Alas! had we not seen such a sight at home? We knew what it must be to Clement, but as he sat by the driver we durst not say a word of comfort to him.

At our intended resting-place for the night-I forget the name of it-we found every house full of soldiers of the royal army, and but for our passes I do not know what we should have done. Before every door there were dragoons drinking and singing round the tables, and some were dancing with the girls of the village. Some of them shouted at us when they saw we were coming from Paris, and called us runaway rebels; but Eustace showed his pass, told them what it was, for they could not read, and desired their officer to be fetched. He came out of the priest's house, and was very civil. He said Colonel de Solivet had desired that all assistance should be given to us, but that we had not been expected so soon. He really did not know where to quarter the lady or the mules, and he advised us to go on another league, while he dispatched an orderly with the intelligence to the colonel. There was nothing else to be done, though my brother, after his sleepless night, was becoming much exhausted, in spite of the wine we gave him, while as to the mules, they had an opinion of their own, poor things, as to going on again, and after all sorts of fiendish noises from the coachman, and furious lashings with his whip, the dragoons pricked them with their swords, and at last they rushed on at a gallop that I thought would have shaken Eustace to death.

However, before we had gone very far Solivet rode out to meet us. It was another cause of anxiety, although it was dusk, and he had expected us to have slept at St. Denis and to have arrived the next day, and he asked, what could have made us start so early, just as if we had been criminals fleeing from justice; but he took us to the chateau where he was quartered, and, though they were much crowded there, the family tried to make us