Little Dick might not go to Biggin. Richard would certainly not allow any child of his to live in a royalist house, to incur a debt of obligation, and to receive those strong impressions of childhood which have an incalculable effect on the mature character. Henrietta might pay her duty to her old uncle if she would; but she must so far give up the charge of Dick. It was after another evening spent with the Countess that she announced that she would confide Dick to Aunt Carewe, and go down among her relations in the Fens. The Mashams would take care of her. She would pay her duty to Aunt Cromwell at Ely; and, for a few weeks, she might, as she said to herself, find some peace of mind. She trusted that, as always before, separation from Harry would revive her tenderness for him. They were not now happy together. The dreadful truth could not be hidden from herself. She feared it could no longer be hidden from her father.
Mr. Hampden indeed understood her restlessness. He counselled Harry to indulge every wish of hers which was not utterly unreasonable, as the sole hope of her finding her own way to peace at last. She therefore travelled to Biggin, with her husband for her escort, on one of the brightest days of July.
By the weight of the luggage in the cart which they passed and repassed on the road, it might seem as if Henrietta intended to remain permanently at Biggin. A remark or two had passed upon it at starting; but Henrietta was to be crossed in nothing, and she was left at full liberty. She had been largely supplied with money of late. If Lady Carewe had been in London, such an expenditure must have been accounted for; but Lady Carlisle had been her adviser and companion in making her purchases; and she declared that her young friend had only provided what was due for the child and grandchild of a Hampden and a Carewe.
During the latter stages of the journey, the horses had started more than once, as horses from a distance were apt to do, Harry was assured, in the Fen country, where the fowlers hide themselves in the sedges or behind the banks, to the terror of strange horses. As the travellers were passing a field of ripening wheat, Henrietta was nearly thrown by the shying of her horse, and Harry was angry accordingly, till he had found that no mischief was done. He had seen somebody lurking in the corn, he declared; and he committed Henrietta’s rein to one groom, and called the other to follow him. As soon as he had leaped the gate, and ridden a few yards into the corn, several armed men sprang out, and surrounded Harry and his groom, while two or three made their way into the road, and formed a guard round Henrietta. Her husband shouted to her not to be alarmed;—these were friends; and in a moment he was by her side, introducing to her the leader of the party, Major Petherick, whom she perhaps did not recollect, but who had been one of the party at Hampden on the evening of the return from Port Eliot. After a few words of apology from Major Petherick, and an assurance from Henrietta that she had not been at all agitated, the party proceeded, Harry falling behind, in earnest conversation with the officer in command of this strange ambush.
When he rode up alone, Henrietta was full of curiosity as to what this ambush could mean. The answer she obtained was that the country was in a disturbed state everywhere, more and more armed men appearing in all directions every day. The roads which led to well-known royalist houses were watched by the one party, and the appointments of the agents on the parliament side, and the councils of the leaders, were beset by spies.
“I hope, Henrietta,” said he, “that you have nothing in those trunks of yours that you cannot claim as your own: because—. Is there anything wrong with your stirrup? Let me see;” and Harry threw himself off his horse and went round to his wife’s stirrup. “Is it right now?”
“Quite right; but because of what, Harry? Why may I not carry about everything I have in the world?”
“Everything of your own, by all means, from your spinet to your watering-pot: but only your own. Carry no letters or chattels for any body. It is not pleasant, to ladies at least, to have their goods turned over by armed men; but it is really dangerous to be the bearer of other people’s despatches.”
“I did not know,” said Henrietta: “but I know now.”
“If I had not been with you,” continued Harry, “that party of Petherick’s men would probably have stopped the cart and searched your luggage. Nay, my dear: do not start so. There is no other ambush between this place and Biggin. Petherick assured me that we might ride as securely as in the park at Hampden.”
“How came those men to be watching this road?”
“Sir Oliver is believed to be expecting some guests not quite so innocent as ourselves.”
“What guests?”
“I know not. If it is true, you will soon see for yourself.”
“I do hope they will not be there to-day,” said Henrietta.
“So do I. When they enter the house I must leave it; and I wish to pay my duty to the old gentleman at full leisure and in peace. We owe him much.”
Both husband and wife were silent after this. They were thinking of their marriage as they passed into the old avenue, and the thought was not of the happiest.
No guests were there who could trouble Harry’s visit. The chaplain, and two gentlemen who had come to fish in the neighbourhood, were all. Helen Masham was coming, and perhaps a sister or two: that, again, was all.
Sir Oliver was older, and he was in graver spirits, and more dignified in manner, than Harry had yet seen him. His bearing reminded Henrietta of the day at Basing House. She did not say so, for she now kept close, as a sacred trust, all her recollections of the King and Queen. She never profaned their names by uttering them to persons who had no feeling or instinct of “the divinity that doth hedge a king.” Husband and wife