I believe my mother
had such a wholesome dread of me, especially when backed by my own
true English brother, that she was glad to defer the tug of war. And
as the proces was thus again deferred, I think she hoped that my
brother would have no excuse for intercourse with the Darpents. She
had entirely broken off with them and had moreover made poor old Sir
Francis and Lady Ommaney leave the Hotel de Nidemerle, all in
politeness as they told us, but as the house was not her own, I
should have found it very hard to forgive their expulsion had I been
Margaret.
As for me, my mother now watched over me like any other lady of her
nation. She resorted far less to Queen Henrietta than formerly, and
always took me with her whenever she went, putting an end now, in my
twenty-fourth year, to the freedom I had enjoyed all my life. She
did not much like leaving me alone with Eustace, and if it had not
been for going to church on Sunday, I should never have gone out with
him. he was not strong enough now to go to prayers daily at Sir
Richard Browne's chapel, but he never failed that summer to take me
thither on a Sunday, though he held that it would be dishonourable to
let this be a way for any other meetings.
My mother had become devout, as the French say. She wore only black,
went much more to church, always leaving me in the charge of Madame
Croquelebois, whom she borrowed from the d'Aubepines for the purpose,
and she set all she could in train for the conversion of my brother
and myself.
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