And Lord Maxwell has ta’en his good-night.’
Madame La Comtesse de Bourke was by no means a helpless fine lady. She had several times accompanied her husband on his expeditions, and had only not gone with him to Madrid because he did not expect to be long absent, and she sorely rued the separation.
She was very busy in her own room, superintending the packing, and assisting in it, when her own clever fingers were more effective than those of her maids. She was in her robe de chambre, a dark blue wrapper, embroidered with white, and put on more neatly than was always the case with French ladies in déshabille. The hoop, long stiff stays, rich brocade robe, and fabric of powdered hair were equally unsuitable to ease or exertion, and consequently were seldom assumed till late in the day, when the toilette was often made in public.
So Madame de Bourke’s hair was simply rolled out of her way, and she appeared in her true colours, as a little brisk, bonny woman, with no actual beauty, but very expressive light gray eyes, furnished with intensely long black lashes, and a sweet, mobile, lively countenance.
Estelle was trying to amuse little Jacques, and prevent him from trotting between the boxes, putting all sorts of undesirable goods into them; and Ulysse had collected his toys, and was pleading earnestly that a headless wooden horse and a kite, twice as tall as himself, of Lanty’s manufacture, might go with them.
He was told that another cerf-volant should be made for him at the journey’s end; but was only partially consoled, and his mother was fain to compound for a box of woolly lambs. Estelle winked away a tear when her doll was rejected, a wooden, highly painted lady, bedizened in brocade, and so dear to her soul that it was hard to be told that she was too old for such toys, and that the Swedes would be shocked to see the Ambassador’s daughter embracing a doll. She had, however, to preserve her character of a reasonable child, and tried to derive consolation from the permission to bestow ‘Mademoiselle’ upon the concierge’s little sick daughter, who would be sure to cherish her duly.
‘But, oh mamma, I pray you to let me take my book!’
‘Assuredly, my child. Let us see! What? Télémaque? Not “Prince Percinet and Princess Gracieuse?”’
‘I am tired of them, mamma.’
‘Nor Madame d’Aulnoy’s Fairy Tales?’
‘Oh no, thank you, mamma; I love nothing so well as Télémaque.’
‘Thou art a droll child!’ said her mother.
‘Ah, but we are going to be like Télémaque.’
‘Heaven forfend!’ said the poor lady.
‘Yes, dear mamma, I am glad you are going with us instead of staying at home to weave and unweave webs. If Penelope had been like you, she would have gone!’
‘Take care, is not Jacques acting Penelope?’ said Madame de Bourke, unable to help smiling at her little daughter’s glib mythology, while going to the rescue of the embroidery silks, in which her youngest son was entangling himself.
At that moment there was a knock at the door, and a message was brought that the Countess of Nithsdale begged the favour of a few minutes’ conversation in private with Madame. The Scottish title fared better on the lips of La Jeunesse than it would have done on those of his predecessor. There was considerable intimacy among all the Jacobite exiles in and about Paris; and Winifred, Countess of Nithsdale, though living a very quiet and secluded life, was held in high estimation among all who recollected the act of wifely heroism by which she had rescued her husband from the block.
Madame de Bourke bade the maids carry off the little Jacques, and Ulysse followed; but Estelle, who had often listened with rapt attention to the story of the escape, and longed to feast her eyes on the heroine, remained in her corner, usefully employed in disentangling the embroilment of silks, and with the illustrations to her beloved Télémaque as a resource in case the conversation should be tedious. Children who have hundreds of picture-books to rustle through can little guess how their predecessors could once dream over one.
Estelle made her low reverence unnoticed, and watched with eager eyes as the slight figure entered, clad in the stately costume that was regarded as proper respect to her hostess; but the long loose sacque of blue silk was faded, the feuille-morte velvet petticoat frayed, the lace on the neck and sleeves washed and mended; there were no jewels on the sleeves, though the long gloves fitted exquisitely, no gems in the buckles of the high-heeled shoes, and the only ornament in the carefully rolled and powdered hair, a white rose. Her face was thin and worn, with pleasant brown eyes. Estelle could not think her as beautiful as Calypso inconsolable for Ulysses, or Antiope receiving the boar’s a head. ‘I know she is better than either,’ thought the little maid; ‘but I wish she was more like Minerva.’
The Countesses met with the lowest of curtseys, and apologies on the one side for intrusion, on the other for déshabille, so they concluded with an embrace really affectionate, though consideration for powder made it necessarily somewhat theatrical in appearance.
These were the stiffest of days, just before formality had become unbearable, and the reaction of simplicity had set in; and Estelle had undone two desperate knots in the green and yellow silks before the preliminary compliments were over, and Lady Nithsdale arrived at the point.
‘Madame is about to rejoin Monsieur son Mari.’
‘I am about to have that happiness.’
‘That is the reason I have been bold enough to derange her.’
‘Do not mention it. It is always a delight to see Madame la Comtesse.’
‘Ah! what will Madame say when she hears that it is to ask a great favour of her.’
‘Madame may reckon on me for whatever she would command.’
‘If you can grant it—oh! Madame,’ cried the Scottish Countess, beginning to drop her formality in her eagerness, ‘we shall be for ever beholden to you, and you will make a wounded heart to sing, besides perhaps saving a noble young spirit.’
‘Madame makes me impatient to hear what she would have of me,’ said the French Countess, becoming a little on her guard, as the wife of a diplomatist, recollecting, too, that peace with George I. might mean war with the Jacobites.
‘I know not whether a young kinsman of my Lord’s has ever been presented to Madame. His name is Arthur Maxwell Hope; but we call him usually by his Christian name.’
‘A tall, dark, handsome youth, almost like a Spaniard, or a picture by Vandyke? It seems to me that I have seen him with M. le Comte.’ (Madame de Bourke could not venture on such a word as Nithsdale.)
‘Madame is right. The mother of the boy is a Maxwell, a cousin not far removed from my Lord, but he could not hinder her from being given in marriage as second wife to Sir David Hope, already an old man. He was good to her, but when he died, the sons by the first wife were harsh and unkind to her and to her son, of whom they had always been jealous. The eldest was a creature of my Lord Stair, and altogether a Whig; indeed, he now holds an office at the Court of the Elector of Hanover, and has been created one of his peers. (The scorn with which the gentle Winifred uttered those words was worth seeing, and the other noble lady gave a little derisive laugh.) ‘These half-brothers declared that Lady Hope was nurturing the young Arthur in Toryism and disaffection, and they made it a plea for separating him from her, and sending him to an old minister, who kept a school, and who was very severe and even cruel to the poor boy. But I am wearying Madame.’
‘Oh no, I listen with the deepest interest.’
‘Finally, when the King was expected in Scotland, and men’s minds were full of anger and bitterness, as well as hope and spirit, the boy—he was then only fourteen years of age—boasted of his grandfather’s having fought at Killiecrankie, and used language which the tutor pronounced treasonable. He was punished and confined to his room; but in the night he made his escape and joined