not a noble head? What an eye! what a smile! Ah! I know by that sigh how you sympathise; and you are aware he thought very kindly of you. You remember?”
“Do you suppose I can ever forget that?”
“No: his notice and his friendship were a real honour. Who can express what we have lost?”
“It is not only our own loss,” said Henrietta, “but what will become of the country, with its best men gone, and taken off in such a way? We have no other such statesman and friend for our King to rest on.”
“No man exactly like him, my child, that is true; but the King of kings, as he himself said, does not leave the sovereigns whom he anoints without friends and helpers. If one is taken, another springs up. If a statesman of one kind of genius dies, another appears. Mr. Pym, now, is a wonderful man, you must own.”
“Mr. Pym!” exclaimed Henrietta. “Can you compare that fat man, with his stout health, and his appetite, and his merriment, and his good liking for his dinner, and his showy dress, with Lord Strafford?”
“Ah! you are thinking of that dark, pale, wasted face, and the life like an anchoret’s, and the proud courtesy, and the politic gravity. How striking it was! But, my dear, the contrast was no greater than between Mr. Pym and those groaning Puritans, that he is supposed to be like. What is there of the sour Gospeller or the insolent malcontent about him?”
“No more than about my father.”
“Just so! And as for the statesmanship, is it not possible that a great man may do more by reconciling the King with his people, than by spurring him on to override them? You know there was once an idea that Mr. Hampden might serve the King in the Government. Well! I may tell you now, that that could never have happened while Lord Strafford lived. But now the King is free to take his own course, and satisfy his own likings. And Mr. Pym is a wonderful man! No man is like him for knowledge of his time!”
Henrietta sat thinking that these changes had better pass over Strafford’s grave than over his living head; and her friend perhaps detected her line of thought, for she altered her strain very quickly.
“You have had your distresses, my child, I am sure. I fear you have made no great way with your husband and his mother.”
“I have not tried,” Henrietta answered. “Harry is so good to me! I cannot tell you how forbearing he has been. And he has no thought of disloyalty, I am sure.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Lady Carlisle, with amazement.
“As he understands loyalty, he is very loyal, I assure you.”
“Is it possible! And so you are satisfied, after such an expenditure of doubt!”
“I did not say that,” Henrietta muttered.
Lady Carlisle put her arms round her.
“Tell me,” she whispered. “After all your devotedness, are you not happy?”
“Who is happy in these days?’ sighed Henrietta. “No, I am not satisfied while everybody around me is deficient in the very instinct which is so strong in me. But we must not speak of this. I chose my lot; and I must not complain of it. But, Lady Carlisle, I am no saint nor martyr.”
“And none but a saint or martyr should marry a Puritan and disaffected husband. I understand, my love.—O yes, I do. And now tell me—how will it be about your little one when it comes?—How is it to be about the observances? What do Puritan papas do about such matters?”
“Harry and I hoped that you would be one of the sponsors. Were we too presumptuous?”
“So far from it that I was thinking of something better—something far more worth your wishing.—Yes; I see you apprehend. If it could be done,—how would you like that the Queen—I dare not yet say anything of His Majesty—should stand sponsor for your child?”
Henrietta’s clasped hands and crimson face showed her rapture.
“Well: do not depend too much on my idea. I really feel confident of their Majesties’ interest in you to that point.—And, then, there is the consideration of their strong desire to propitiate the great leaders in the parliament. Do not you think it might have a good effect in the country that a grandchild of Mr. Hampden, and a Carewe, should be so honoured by their Majesties?”
Henrietta thought it would be the finest thing in the world for everybody. She did not believe her husband and her father could resist so angelical a piece of goodness in their Majesties who certainly had—“O! so much to forgive!”
Neither husband nor father was in any rapture on the proposal being mentioned. Harry said that he owned he could not understand Lady Carlisle, and that there must be some corroboration of her impression about their Majesties’ good will before he could give any sort of assent. In any case, he would ask no favour at Court, and he expressly forbade his wife to seek any, directly or indirectly. He and Mr. Hampden agreed, however, that if the honour should be spontaneously offered, it ought to be gracefully accepted. It was not a moment for churlish behaviour when the King had conceded some important matters, and was evidently disposed to come to some understanding with the chiefs of the popular cause.
“They are so chilling!” Henrietta complained to herself. “They never let me enjoy anything without a check! They spoil my pleasure beforehand about the christening of my own baby.”
Out of this it came that Harry was told that he had no heart, or none except for public affairs: and that he cared more for his precious dignity than for either wife or child. And before Henrietta had time to repent of her hasty speech, her husband had said that he had foreseen how it would be if he let her come to London. Her Court friends knew her weak side, and took advantage of it. He would not allow it: she must, for her own sake and for his honour, go down into the country before she had done any irreparable mischief by her unnatural and unpatriotic friendships.
