Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/374

366 Every pass and gully of those hills was familiar to them; and after long rides, the lawns at home, the seat on the terrace at sunset, the lingering in the flower gardens till the moon was bright, were the sweetest repose!

“If it could but last!”

That was the thought in all their minds. While such events were proceeding as the King’s mock parliament of peers at York, brought to an end by the petitioning of the indignant patriot lords, and of the angry city of London, and of every considerable place in the kingdom, it was unnatural that any intelligent woman, and especially a Hampden, should be in utter ignorance of such portentous facts. Harry could speak with all his neighbours, and utter his opinions everywhere but in his own house. He saw his mother almost every morning in his rounds. He saw Dr. Giles on other days than Sundays, and in other places than the church. The tenants were of the Hampden politics almost to a man; and thus Harry’s news and his opinions need not burn in his pocket, though he must preserve silence towards his wife. The question was how Henrietta could bear the utter oblivion of public affairs in which she was living.

“I do not think there is any oblivion in the case,” Lady Carewe observed one day.

“O aunt!” exclaimed Alice, who was now the established eldest daughter at home, “who is there to tell her anything?”

“I do not know, Alice; but I am persuaded that she has means of information.”

“And why not?” asked Harry. “Why should she not hear, in the way she best likes, whatever she desires to know?”

“Quite right, Harry!” his mother said. “It is much to be wished that every one should look our public affairs in the face.”

“But how can Henrietta hear if nobody tells her anything, and she reads no news-letters?” Alice persisted.

“She blames Lady Carlisle for not reciprocating her correspondence openly,” said Harry.

“She does, does she?” exclaimed Lady Carewe.

“She shows me all the letters—I mean, she shows me that she is sending letters to Lady Carlisle as often as she wants to send. I carry them to the letter-bag myself.”

“You don’t see the letters themselves, Harry?”

“By my own desire I do not. Nor do I vex her with the sight of what I say to her father or Richard about the King’s behaviour. It would make her unhappy.”

“Where does she address her letters to Lady Carlisle?”

“To wherever the Court may be when Lady Carlisle is in waiting, which I believe she usually is.”

“How does Henrietta know where the Court is? It is never in the same place many weeks together. How does she follow its movements?”

“That I do not know,” was Harry’s reply.

It set his mother musing; but if Henrietta had been present, she could not have thrown much light upon the mystery.

It was quite true that, as she told Harry, she wished Lady Carlisle would send her letters without fears and suspicions, as Henrietta sent hers. How the Court lady did transmit her letters Henrietta had no idea whatever; and she did not consult Harry because Lady Carlisle made it a test of her faithfulness that, having liberty to correspond in any manner with whomsoever she would, she should use that liberty as her correspondent understood it. Henrietta saw no need for mystery in sending her own letters; but, after giving due notice that there need be no mystery on the other side either, she could only receive the letters as they came; and they came in all manner of strange ways. Sometimes she found one in her work-basket or her dressing-box; sometimes a packet was lying in her path on the lawn, or in the lane; sometimes it was in the pocket of her saddle, or in her bible at church. No servant admitted any knowledge of the matter; and she saw no consciousness in any of their faces. As her own letters were sent away by her husband’s hand, she did not apprehend any whispered scandal: and she let the matter take its course.

Thus the summer and autumn passed away. When the election of Mr. Hampden was coming on, it was plain that she was aware how the people exulted over that impatience of the King which had rendered a fresh parliament inevitable;—a parliament which would show a bolder spirit, and demand greater concessions than the last. Henrietta observed to her husband that His Majesty himself certainly regretted that impatience, and that therefore she supposed he had committed an error. She naturally desired, too, that her father should be honourably returned to the new House; and she heard with satisfaction the accounts Harry daily brought home of the enthusiasm of the yeomen of the county on behalf of Mr. Hampden. She was present with her family when his election was declared, though she did not conceal her disgust at the levity of the popular tone, and especially at the disloyal violence of Mr. Urrey, their neighbour.

“Nobody regards what Urrey says,” was Harry’s reply, when she wished Mr. Urrey would never speak to her, for that she did not know how to hold her patience in replying. “Nobody minds what Urrey says. He is all talk and no work. He may lead a clodpole or two here and there into mischief; but they soon find him out, and let him rail at the fine people of the land as he pleases.”

This was all very well; but Henrietta described Mr. Urrey in her next letter to Court as a fellow whom it would be well to beware of; in return for which she received thanks which might be jest or earnest, but which puzzled her for the moment.

After the parliament met, Henrietta’s tranquillity was visibly shaken. The reversal of so many acts of the King’s policy in so few weeks shocked her; and the questions which sometimes escaped from her anxious heart proved that she feared for the King’s safety, as well as his throne: but the first time of her showing herself completely overpowered was when the news of Lord Strafford’s attainder was flying through the kingdom,—and far beyond the kingdom, over all Europe and across the Atlantic. Day after day,