In the Service of Rachel, Lady Russell. A story

Preface

The historical facts in this story are gathered chiefly from Burnet's History of His Own Time, The Life of Archbishop Tillotson, published with the complete edition of his Sermons in 1752, The Life of William Lord Russell, by Lord John Russell, and Mr Cave Browne's Lambeth Palace and its Associations, published in 1882. The scenes in the home life of Rachel Lady Russell, at Stratton and Southampton House, are taken from her Letters, published in 1832. In these letters, her children are. often lovingly mentioned ; and the picture of her happiness, as a devoted wife and

PREFACE.

. tender mother, is drawn by her own hand in glowing colours. These scenes are woven into this story — as they afford a touching contrast to others which followed them, when the husband whom Lady Russell so passionately loved, and by whom she stood with noble steadfastness in his hour of trial, was taken from her by a cruel death, in the very prime of his man hood. It is hardly necessary to say that the De Massu£ family, and others connected with it, in the course of the narrative, are wholly imaginary characters. Woodside, Leigh Woods, Clifton, October 1892. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. AT CANTERBURY, ..... I II. THE DEAN, ...... 20 III. A GRACIOUS LADY, ..... 40 IV. NEAR OF KIN, . . . . -57 V. A HAPPY HOME, ..... 78 VI. A MEETING, ...... 97 VII. VIA MEDIA, . . . . ■ "5 VIII. GREAT CHANGES, ..... 139 IX."

THE BIRDS ARE FLOWN, .... 160 X. AT STRATTON, . . -177 XL CONFESSIONS, ..... 204 XII. RIPENING PLOTS, ..... 236 XIII. THE STORM BURSTS, .... 269 XIV. DEATH AND LIFE, ...... 284 XV. REMINISCENCES, ... . LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE THE OLD CHEQUERS INN, canterbury, . Frontispiece CHRIST CHURCH GATE, CANTERBURY, . . 20 YORK GATE, NEAR THE STRAND, . . .90 THE BUILDING OF ST. PAUL'S, . . . 154 CHARING CROSS, . . . . .162 CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, . . . .194 THE GATEWAY OF LAMBETH PALACE, . . 33O LAMBETH CHURCH AND PALACE, . . ' For good example is an unspeakable benefit to mankind, and hath a secret power and influence upon those with whom we converse, to form them into the same dispositions and manners. ' It is a living rule that teacheth men without trouble, and lets them see their faults without open reproof and upbraiding.

Besides that, it adds great weight to a man's counsel and persuasion, when we see he advises nothing but what he does ; nor exacts anything from others from which he desires to be necessarily excused.' Archbishop Tillotson. IN THE SERVICE OF Rachel Lady Russell

Chapter I At Canterbury

1682. The driver of the stage waggon from Dover had, after a long and toilsome journey, drawn up his jaded horses before the Chequers Inn in the High Street of Canterbury. A knot of people generally collected, to watch the weary passengers descend from the waggon, to hear news, to look out for letters, and to question the driver of the cumbrous vehicle, and the guard who occupied a seat at the back, what luck they had had on the road. For what with deep ruts and obstructions of various kinds, and the fear of falling in with ill-disposed persons, who not unfrequently lay in wait for con veyances, public and private, to rifle the passengers' baggage and commit other depredations, this journey from Dover was often by no means an easy or a pleasant one. A One by one the passengers were helped out by the hostlers of the Chequers, and the little fat fussy host of that celebrated Inn, with his tall gaunt wife at his elbow, stood ready to receive any of the travellers who might wish for clean beds, good fare, and a night's rest. ' There's a gentlewoman inside,' the guard said, « who is in a swoon, and she'll be like to want a physician, Mistress Bunce, or I'm mistaken ; you'd better come here.' He had scarcely finished this invitation to Mistress Bunce, the tall landlady of the Chequers, when a young man sprang down the steps of the waggon and said : ' Can we have beds here to-night ?

The lady, my mother, is suffering from the baleful effects of the rough weather in the Channel' ' At your service, sir,' the landlady said. ' As good beds as any in the kingdom, and good fare to boot' ' There, that is enough. Help my sister to descend, and I will lift my mother down, if you will guide me to a good bed-chamber." ' Oh ! Louis, Louis ! ' cried a young voice from the depths of the waggon, 'hasten, I pray you! She is coming to, but she is half suffocated in this dread ful coach.' ' Hasten, then, to get out, Clarice. I cannot raise our mother in my arms till you make room.' A young girl of eighteen or twenty now jumped from the high step, and another voice said ; ' She is better, Louis. Oh, I thought she was dead. Mother, mother ! ' ' Get down, Clemence, and stand below to receive her when I carry her out.' ' Louis, my dear son, I wish I had died.

Why bring me back to life ? ' ' Now, mother, this is no time for parley,' Louis said firmly. ' Come, we will soon have you in a good bed.' ' The sea ! the terrible sea ! ' the poor lady moaned. ' Oh, Louis, Louis ! why did you make me cross the sea — better to die — better to die ! ' Louis wisely took no further notice of these feeble lamentations, but raised his mother, who was lying prostrate amongst the straw at the bottom of the waggon, and descended carefully, while the sister he called Clemence put her arms round her mother and supported her into the inn. 'Dear heart!' exclaimed Mistress Bunce. 'She looks as white as a ghost. Mayhap she has the plague, or the sweating sickness, or some disease, and then woe betide us, Bunce, if we take in these strange folk.' ' My mother's ailment is naught that is catching,' Clarice said. ' Do not be afraid, madame, but please show us our chamber.

It is sickness brought on by the fearsome storm we met in the Channel — nothing more.' 'Well, well, I'll despatch a messenger for a surgeon who lives in Saint Margaret's Street, and, good sir,' she called in a shrill voice, ' I cannot suffer you to haul in the baggage till Master Trotman gives me his word it is safe.' ' Safe ! ' exclaimed Louis ; ' what do you mean ? Do you take me for a cheat or a scoundrel ? I will pay your just reckoning,' he said proudly, 'as befits Louis de Massue of the noble race of Ruvigny. Make no more ado, but take madame to your best guest-chamber and provide her with a hot posset without further parley.' ' Hoighty-toighty, I see daylight now!' Mistress Bunce exclaimed. ' I could not for the life of me think what made you all speak as if you had pease pudding in your mouths, mincing and mowing.' ' Come now, Charity,' said Master Bunce, ' no more of this, or ' (in an aside) ' we'll lose good company.' Then to Louis he said : ' This hostel and all it provides for man and beast is mine, though from her tongue you might well think it was yonder good woman's. But she spends her spleen in words, and at bottom is a good soul, and a good housewife.' Mistress Bunce was leading the way to the broad oak stairs which led to the gallery round which the bed-chambers were situated. ' You talk mighty grand, Bunce,' she said, shooting a Parthian arrow as she departed ; ' but if ever there was a man a coward about the plague or any sickness, it's you.

Why, you cry if your tooth aches, and had to be held down while Master Trotman pulled out one t'other day.' Master Bunce tried to laugh scornfully, but it was but a poor attempt, and he looked abashed and mortified, to have his weaknesses thus laid bare by his wife. Louis de Massue still stood by the baggage in the entry, while his sisters attended their mother upstairs. ' Perhaps,' he said, ' it may be as well to summon this surgeon, not because there is any fear for you in the matter of the plague, but my mother's condition is such that physic may be useful.' ' I will despatch a servant at once, sir, and you will please to order what supper you may desire — roast capon, a good meat pasty, a sirloin of beef, a stuffed duck, a — ' ' Hold, I pray you,' Louis said, laughing, as this hearty English fare was offered for consideration. ' My sisters and I have not the stomachs of giants.

The roast capon will suffice, with a pint of light wine, Canary, if it please you.' ' And good strong ale, of the October brew, for you, sir?' ' No, no, your strong ale is too much for my head. I drink wine by preference. And add to the capon some conserve of fruit served with cream, and the supper will be fit for a prince.' ' And a prince he looks,' Master Bunce said, following Louis with admiring eyes as he passed out of the open court, round which the house was built, supported by pillars forming a colonnade where, in days long long before this June evening of 1682, the poorer pilgrims to the shrine in the Cathedral were wont to congregate, hoping for alms from their richer brethren who could afford to pay for accommodation in the suite of chambers above. Louis de Massue was tall and slightly built.

He had inherited from his mother, who was of English descent, a fair complexion and hair which had the ruddy glow of her Saxon ancestors. But his eyes were hazel, and the dark pencilled eyebrows above them were, with the rather pointed contour of his face, more decidedly French. He wore the usual dress of the young gentleman of his time — a short cloak lined with blue satin was tossed over his shoulder, his ruffles were lace, and his abundant hair fell in curls over a deep collar of the finest linen, edged with lace like the ruffles. Louis was sensitive and quick to take offence — a little too ready to lay his hand upon the short sword he wore at his belt — and extremely jealous that his descent from a noble French house should not be overlooked. His mother, on the contrary, was equally anxious to assert her English origin, and she had obstinately refused to speak the language of her husband's country, and clung pertinaciously to the belief that Protestant doctrine belonged to the English, and that, though there were some instances to the con trary, the French were Papists in tastes and feelings.

It had been to satisfy his mother that Louis had yielded to her entreaties at his father's death to take her and his two young sisters to England. What was the benefit, she urged, of his belonging to the noble house of Ruvigny, if he did not make use of it by the letter attesting his relationship which the Marquis de Ruvigny had given him? He had thought it well to obtain for himself and his children letters of naturalisation in England, and they had been sent to the safe keeping of his niece, Lady Russell. The Marquis had given Louis to understand that the tie of kinship was not so close as to warrant his attempting to include him and his sisters in these letters ; but he bade him seek out some of his mother's English kindred, and what with their influence and his own connection, though distant, with Lady Russell's family, he thought the settlement in Eng land might be well undertaken.

Louis's proud spirit had chased under what every one feels to be galling — the patronage of a relation. It is much easier to accept help from those with whom there is no tie of blood, than from those who are a little unwilling to acknowledge that the tie exists. Louis de Massue was undoubtedly on the watch for the slights and indignities which, as he conceived, the head of his house was disposed to put upon him, and no one ever looked out for slights and failed to find them ! Louis, as he stood by the door of the Chequers Inn, with the old Church of St. Mary Bredman's op posite, was telling himself he had better have let his mother and sisters remain in Picardy, and gone alone to England to feel his way, before removing the whole family across the Channel. Everything had AT CA NTERB UR Y. been against him from the first start — the stormy waves, so familiar to all who cross ' the silver streak which divides us from France, had beaten about the small packet in which they had sailed.

Deadly sea sickness had laid his mother prostrate, and she had been for some time previously in an ailing, hysterical condition, requiring much patience and forbearance from her children, of which it is only fair to say, they gave her a full measure. Louis's meditations were interrupted by the arri val of the surgeon, who, bustling and self-important, said : ' Stand aside, young sir ; I am summoned to a lady lying at the point of death.' ' I hope not, sir,' Louis said haughtily. ' The lady in question is my mother, Madame de Massue, and is suffering from fatigue and prolonged sea-sickness. I believe you are the surgeon for whom my good host sent a messenger.' ' I am Dr Trotman, sir, and will beg you to con duct me to the lady without further parley, or loss of time ; for my presence, sir, is required soon by no less a personage than his reverence the Dean.' ' It is necessary to show I am not to be treated as a nonentity,' Dr Trotman said to himself. 'This young popinjay is French, and brimful of his own importance, that is very clear.' Louis returned to the quadrangle and went into the entry where his baggage still lay in a large pile.

Master Bunce came hurrying out to receive the doctor, calling sharply to his wife to lead him to the lady's chamber. ' And leave the capon to burn, and the sauce to get smoked ? No ! And as to the sick lady, it's megrims that ails her.' Poor Mr Bunce, anxious that no more of his wife's uncomplimentary remarks should reach Louis's ears, was about to summon a serving-maid from the bar and order her to conduct the doctor to madame's chamber, when a pretty, sparkling face peeped over the balustrade of the staircase, and a voice said : 'Louis, is that the doctor? Bring him up, please.' Louis reached the place with two strides, and said : ' Come up, sir. My sister will conduct us to my mother's chamber.' ' She is crying piteously, Louis,' Clarice said, ' and vows she never wished to come to England, and I am cross-grained to her and that does no good.

Poor little mother ! I do pity her.' ' Follow my sister, sir,' Louis said, ' and I will await your opinion here.' Louis leaned against one of the wooden pillars which surrounded the gallery where he stood, near the door where Clarice and the doctor disappeared. ' The Dean ? Yes,' he thought, ' I remember that the great man mentioned the Dean of Canterbury — with an impossible name — as a good friend of Lady Russell.' Then Louis took from the deep pocket of his coat a case clasped with silver, and fitting a small key to its lock he examined some papers in it. ' Yes,' he said, ' I thought as much.' Written in pencil on the cover of one of the intro ductory letters were the words : ' Si vous restez a Canterbury, cherchez M. Tillotson ; il a beaucoup d'amitie pour Madame ma niece. Ses conseils vous seront bien utiles si vous les prenez de bonne part' 'If I take them in good part — that depends on what they may be.

Mon Dieu ! We say, c'est le premier pas qui coute. This first step has been bad enough, and as far as I see the next may be worse. So much money gone for this venture — so much harm from that voyage, tossing about on those cross currents for two days, unable to make the harbour. But it is done now, and I can never get her back to France, poor mother ! Clarice has spirit enough for all three, and with her help we may do better than I now fear. As soon as our supper is eaten I will make a visit to the Dean — this Solomon whose counsels I am to follow.' The doctor succeeded in calming his patient. He let a little blood from her arm, said he would send a sleeping potion, and call again the next day. Letting blood was the panacea for all ills in the seventeenth century, and Dr Trotman, highly satis fied with the result of his visit, and the happy certainty of retaining his patient for at least a week under his care, went gaily away to answer a summons to the Deanery, which had arrived almost at the same time as Master Bunce's of the Chequers Inn.

Madame de Massue was decidedly quieted by the treatment she had received ; that is to say, she was too weak to make any resistance to her daughters' decision, that she must lie in bed and not think of anything till she had had a good night. When once safely established in the large four-post bed, with its carved devices at the footboard, and its pillars surmounted with griffins' and dragons' heads, from which thick tapestry hangings — the delight of Mistress Bunce's heart — drooped in dusty festoons, Madame de Massue swallowed the sleeping potion, and, with no more complaints or tears, resigned herself to the inevitable, and fell fast asleep. The two sisters then went down to the parlour below, where they found Louis awaiting them, ready to attack the roast capon, served with slices of smoked ham, with a hearty appetite.

Mistress Bunce waited on her guests with a very heated face. She was anxious to be particularly civil, remembering that at first her manners had not been very engaging. She foresaw that her guests might be profitable, and that they were ' quality,' though ' French quality.' Still, there was no fear that her score would not be paid. ' I hope you find everything to your mind, sir,' she began, after filling a large grace-cup with her best canary. ' The capon is of my own rearing, and the bacon from my own pig ; no ill-fed pork is seen on my table. I am up with the sun and at my garden hard by, when many are lazying in their beds. Bunce is a sad lie-abed, and leaves the hard work to me.' ' That is very unkind,' Clemence said, for Louis made no rejoinder to any of Mistress Bunce's remarks, and seemed quite unconscious of her presence. 'No, no, Bunce is not unkind — he is only like all men, as you'll find fast enough when you take some fine beau to your husband.

Men are queer creatures at the best' ' That woman's tongue,' Louis murmured. Then aloud, 'We have all we need, madame; we do not desire to retain you. You must have other guests requiring your presence, for I hear voices as of new comers.' Mistress Bunce felt offended, but Louis's manner was courtly, and he called her ' madame.' ' I do not make myself cheap to any guests which are not real quality,' she said, ' but I have much to see to.' At this moment Bunce was heard calling his wife, and she swept out of the little parlour, shutting the door with a very significant bang. Clarice laughed merrily. ' Oh, fie, Louis ! You are ungracious. I thought it fine pastime to hear Mistress Bunce chatter about her capon and pigs.' ' I am in no mood for such folly. I did not know Englishwomen could be so garrulous.

But hearken, my sisters, we must decide what is best to do — and to this end I shall pay my respects to the Dean, to ■3 whom my most noble kinsman condescends to com mend me. I shall lose no time ; it is scarce seven o'clock, and while you tend our mother I will find my way to the Cathedral, for doubtless the Dean lives under its shadow.' ' May I come also ? ' Clarice asked. ' Oh, permit me, Louis, dear Louis.' ' I do not think you should accompany me to the Dean, if he grants me an interview ; but you may walk thither with me while I ascertain the Dean's pleasure.' Clarice was starting up to fetch her black lace hood, when Clemence said, — ' We ought to be sorting our things. The baggage has been carried up, and I am sure we present no attractive appearance in these sea-stained gowns. Yours has a large rent in it, Clarice.' 'Has it?

How did it happen — Ah! Iremember. It caught on a nail in that dreadful waggon. But my lace mantle hides all. Let me accompany you, Louis.' ' No, you had best remain with Clemence, child, and do her bidding.' ' I am not Clemence's servant ! ' and Clarice pouted. ' We should have brought a proper serving-maid with us, as I told you.' ' And as I told you there is not too much money to spare. Our purse will be empty when we reach London, as it is.' ' Oh, I am sick of hearing of money ! ' Clarice said A T C ANTE RB UR Y. 14 ' I want so many things that money gives. Why — why are we poor ? ' ' Do not be childish, Clarice,' Clemence said re provingly. And then in a lower key : ' Do you not see Louis is troubled. Let us go back to our mother and get our own bed-chamber ready. I shall be glad, I know, to lie down and sleep.

I am much fatigued.' ' I am not,' Clarice said. ' I hate that dull, dark chamber where we are to sleep. I saw a mouse scuttle across the floor, and a rat will come next. Oh ! I do not love England. How is it our mother has talked of England as Paradise ? It is no Paradise to me. I shall speak no more English, and I vow I cannot understand half of what these folk say. It may be English, but it has a very ugly sound.' ' It seems our English has an ugly sound to Mistress Bunce,' Louis said. ' Remember our proverb, Clarice — Chacun a son gout' ' Ah, mon frere, mais mon gout est parfait, et le gout de Madame Bunce — Bunce ! quel nom ! — est detestable. Voyez-vous ? ' Louis stooped and kissed his young sister's sore head, and then said : ' Bon soir, bon soir. Go to your beds and dream. I shall not see you again till to morrow morning, when I may have a plan to pro pound.' Clemence and Clarice de Massue were, like many sisters, very dissimilar in appearance and tastes.

Clemence was somewhat grave and slow to receive impressions. She was English in her reserve, and was never in any haste to care for new things or new people. The childhood of both girls had been passed in retirement in the old ruined chateau, which was the inheritance of the younger branch of the Ruvigny family. Monsieur de Massue was a staunch Protestant, and had, from broken health and broken fortunes, seldom left his house or desired any to visit him in his retreat. Louis had, like all gentlemen of his time, gone forth into the world at a very early a_-e. and was attached to the suite of one of Louis XIV.'s courtiers. But the hollowness of that luxuri ous society, and the flattery which was the surest way to success in it, were entirely repugnant to Louis de Massue's sense of what was manly and right.

Louis was no smooth-tongued courtier, and though his handsome person and ancient race gained for him a certain amount of favour, his strong religious bias, and his moral rectitude, did not win him the good will of those to whom self-indulgence and self-ad vancement were the rule of life. On the death of his father, Louis returned to the Chateau, hoping to retrieve the fallen fortunes of the family. But things were too far gone to render this possible, and he yielded to his mother's entreaties, and winding up his father's affairs with great diffi culty, he realised what could be saved from the wreck, and came to his mother's native country to seek his fortune, with his two young sisters, Clarice and Clemence. There were other reasons which made this departure desirable. There were signs of the approaching storm which resulted in the revoca tion of the Edict of Nantes, three years later, when the French Protestants were driven from their homes and their country by the will of a despotic sovereign.

The Marquis de Ruvigny, who was a faithful servant of the king, was not blind to the growing intolerance of the Court, and was preparing for his retirement to England whenever the blow should fall. His advice to his young kinsman was to depart while there was yet no actual danger, and find out friends amongst his mother's connections in her own country. Madame de Massue had married when she was very young. She was the daughter of a London goldsmith and clock-maker, who died early in life and left his children orphans, for Madame de Massue's mother had died at her birth. Her brother was too young to take any charge of her. Monsieur de Massue met her in a small meeting-house in London. He had come over to exchange devotional experiences with one of the leaders of the Separatists, and to seek spiritual edification.

The young girl, who sat with a rapt expression of devotion in her blue eyes, just below the pulpit, fascinated the susceptible Frenchman. He inquired her position, heard that she was an orphan and penniless, living on the charity of a distant relation, her brother having been put to his father's business under the man who succeeded him, and being entirely de pendent on him for his living. Assuring himself that the gentle blue-eyed girl was converted to God, and held the particular form of doctrine which he believed to be the only true Faith, Monsieur de Massue married Alice Jenkyns, and took her, scarcely more than a child-bride, to the old chateau in Picardy where she had lived up to this time. Madame de Massue had always been fairly sub servient to her husband's will, and true to her early profession of faith.

But when he was taken from her, and rumours of persecution were in the air, and Protestants were threatened with loss of all things if they still held to their doctrine, Madame de Massue's heart failed her. England would be a safe place of refuge, England was her own country ; it might be she should find her brother there. She had never heard from or of him, but he might be a rich man now — a civic dignitary, wealthy and prosperous. She had never really loved France, and she had insisted on her children speaking English more fre quently than French. She always addressed them in her own tongue, but Clemence, who was devoted to her father, would speak to him in the language he loved best, and in which he offered up morning and night — yes, and at midday also — French prayers which, like those of the English Separatists, were often exhortations and expostulations rather than prayer.

Many a time Clemence had felt sore at heart when she heard her mother disparage all that was French and exalt all that was English. Many a time had she gone to the little chamber in the old B A T CANTERBURY. chateau where her father, renouncing the world, held communion with God, and taking the Bible or some other religious book, she would read to him with the pure French accent that he loved to hear, and look ing up at him would say : ' Moi, j'aime la langue de France, mon pere, est-ce que je lis bien ?' Then her father would gather her to his breast and answer : ' Ah, oui, ma cherie, tu n'oublies pas que tu es une vraie fille de mon pays.' Louis and his father had not much in common. Louis had almost a morbid dread of professing more than he felt, and although a Protestant to his heart's core, he never could bring himself to speak in the old hall of the chateau where the faithful few of that remote district, not far from the sea in Picardy, gathered continually for the breaking of bread and prayer and reading of the Bible.

Simple folk, for the most part, were they, but now and again a dark eyed stranger, with a somewhat sinister expression of countenance, would sit amongst them, sent as a spy to report on the proceedings to the priests of the district. 'It would be well to be cautious in denunciation of the Mass and the Confessional, my father,' Louis said on one occasion when he had been present at a meeting, and had watched the face of a man at the further end of the hall. ' Nay, my son, I know no caution where the glory ■9 of God is concerned. I despise time-serving and abhor priest-craft, and I will ever hold my testimony against it' ' Your life is a testimony against it, my father — your manners and bearing are full of gentleness and meekness, till you touch these vexed questions ; and if as I hear at Court, the Protestants will soon be driven from the land and done to death if they make resistance — well—' ' I would suffer death gladly, my son, I would die for the truth.