The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 989, December 10, 1898

THE FRENCH FLEET SIGNALLED.

Mrs. Bryce could seldom be happy for long together in one place. Before the end of September she had decided to quit Folkestone for Sandgate. Polly, nothing loath, chimed in with the plan eagerly; and Mr. Bryce, whatever he thought or wished, made no objection.

“If Buonaparte should come, my dear, what then?” was all that he ventured to suggest; and Mrs. Bryce snapped her fingers, not at him, but at the First Consul.

“Let him come, if he will. Pray, my dear, do you consider that we are bound to shape our course with a view to pleasing old Nap?” demanded the vivacious lady.

Mr. Bryce disclaimed any such meaning. He wondered privately what his wife’s feelings would be, if one day a round shot from a French ship should rush through the room in which she might be seated. But in that respect Sandgate was no worse than Folkestone; and since he never expected logic from his wife, he made no effort to convince her that she might be in the wrong.

To Sandgate therefore they went, on a rainy autumn day, when the sea wailed dismally, and the wind howled more dismally still, and the lodgings which Mr. Bryce had managed to secure wore an aspect most dismal of all. Even Mrs. Bryce’s spirits were affected by the state of the atmosphere.

Books in their possession were few, and had all been read. Jack failed to appear so soon as they had expected. Mr. Bryce sallied forth, despite the rain, but the ladies could not think of following his example. Mrs. Bryce, in despair, turned to one or two old volumes of the Gentleman’s Magazine, lying in a corner, and in so doing, to her gratification, she fished out two or three recent numbers of the same serial, including the current number for September, 1803.

“Ah, ha, my dear Polly, now we shall do!” she declared cheerfully. “Now we may defy the elements, and you shall get on with your purse-netting, and I will find something to read aloud for your entertainment. I wonder much that Jack does not come.”

“Jack is busy, or he would be here,” Polly said confidently. Just as she had her half-netted blue silk purse nicely arranged between foot and knee, Mr. Bryce walked in, carrying letters, at the sight of which Polly dropped her work and started up.

“Nay, not from France. Nothing from France,” Mr. Bryce said, with quick understanding; and Polly returned to her seat languidly. “One from Bath for you, and one from Norfolk for my wife. Two letters in a day! You may count yourselves fortunate.”

Mr. Bryce disappeared anew, and Polly remarked--

“My grandmother has written to me.”

“Read it aloud, Polly. ’Twill serve before the magazine,” quoth Mrs. Bryce; and Polly complied, looking ahead, lest she should stumble upon any sentence meant only for herself. The letter[1] ran as follows:--

“Bath. Oct. 28; 1803.

“MY DEAR POLLY,--Yours to Molly has very seriously disquieted my mind, I assure you. If General Moore, with his g^{t} experience, considers that the French landing may be apprehended as likely soon to Take Place, ’tis sure the height of imprudence for you to remain in that neighbourhood, where the French Army, if it lands, will doubtless Pillage and Burn to the best of their Ability.

“Nor does it appear to me, my dear Polly, that you will be greatly the better off in Lon^{n}, where certainly the Invading Army will immediately march, so soon as it has effected a Landing.

“I am therefore about to Propose what seems to me the wiser plan for all concerned. Which is, that you and Mrs. Bryce shou’d return again to Bath, without Delay, leaving Mr. Bryce, as Dou’tless he will desire, to take his proper share in the Defence of our Country. If Mrs. Bryce be willing to act according to this plan. I most gladly offer to her such Humble Accommodation as is in my power to bestow. The aspect of affairs is truly Alarming; and if it be seriously apprehended that Lon^{n} is like to be in greater danger of Bustle and Trouble than Bath, there is no Necessity for you all to remain in that part of England. If Mrs. Bryce can dispense for awhile with the Good Table, to which she is used, and can put up with more Humble Fare, then every friendly Accommodation in my power is at her Service.

“Last Saturday there appear’d before the Market Place forty-three Blacks, who said they had been prisoners to the french, but had been retaken, and were come to offer themselves volunteers to King George. The Countrymen stared at them, and the women cried out upon them for ugly creatures. The next morning here arrived a coach-full of the same colour. They are all sent to Marlborough, how to be disposed of I don’t know.

“My love to Jack, who I hope will not be spoiled by his many friends--alas, too frequently the case in these days of scarcity of Good Young Men. Molly is well and behaves herself.

“Bath, it is expected, will soon be crowded with Irish Company. A great many large houses were engaged last week. The Bristol people think that, were the french to effect a landing on some of the Welsh coasts, they might soon expect to be troubled with them there and at Bath. Several meetings have been held on this subject. But ’tis the opinion of most that Lon^{n} lies in greater danger.

“Yesterday was a solemn day for humiliation. The places of worship were well attended; and the Clergy here exerted themselves, I trust, to the best of their Abilities.

“May God avert from old England so great a Calamity as the presence of an Enemy on her Soil.

“Adieu. Your affectionate Grandmother,

“C. FAIRBANK.”

Mrs. Bryce listened attentively, and pronounced the writer’s mode of expression to be “vastly old-fashioned.”

“But when you write, you may thank her all the same, Polly. Mrs. Fairbank means kindly, and if I thought old Nap would come in truth--but ’tis all bluster and empty boasting. For my part, I put no sort of belief in no invasion of our shores. But you may tell her that I am most sincerely grateful, and that, should occasion arise, I will not fail to avail myself of her generous hospitality.”

With which Mrs. Bryce settled herself comfortably in an apology for an easy-chair--real easy-chairs had not yet been evolved--and read her own letter.

“From my cousin in Norfolk. And if you’ll believe it, Polly, they’re all in a bustle and fright there too, lest Nap should land first on the eastern coast. He’ll have enough on hand, if he’s to go everywhere that’s expected of him! And if he goes there, they’ll get them away into the fen country, where ’tis thought the French Army won’t be able to follow.”

Presently the letter was put aside, and Mrs. Bryce betook herself to the Gentleman’s Magazine, not without another passing allusion, contemptuously worded, on the state of alarm into which folks in general seem to have fallen.

“Listen now to this, Polly. ’Tis vastly entertaining. ‘Human nature is too fond of novelty.... Never did it seem to be running so much from its proper course as in the present age, when we observe night turned into morning, and the mornings change into night.... Where are the good days of old Queen Bess? The sun-rise breakfast, the noon-tide repast, and the twilight pillow of repose?’”

Mrs. Bryce stopped, to indulge in a laugh. “But for my part I have no especial wish to go back to the manners of Queen Bess. Nor to change luncheon into dinner once more.” Then she went on reading:--

“‘But among the most prominent foibles of the age is dress. Every breeze (until the present war) wafted over some new Parisian extravagance and impropriety, and we had sufficient of our own without any importation of such French fashions, French manners, and French ruinations.’ Then, my dear, the same writer goes on to relate how, after an absence of fifteen years, he returned to his natal town, and on Sunday, when in church, he could not resist observing the dress of a certain young woman in his front. She wore ‘the Spanish cloak, the dome hat, the single thin muslin petticoat, and the still thinner loose robe that hung from her shoulders,’ all this making him suppose her to be some personage of no small importance. But, to his amaze, he found the young female to be--the butcher’s daughter! ’Tis a paper dated ‘August,’ and signed ‘Old Square Toes.’”

A pause, during which Polly’s thoughts flitted away to Fontainebleau, and then Mrs. Bryce started anew:--

“Listen next to this. ‘Definition of old gentleman of a civil shopkeeper. “His familiarity goes no farther than to accept whatever kind of weather I am pleased to bring, and to take in good part my opinion of the invasion.”’ Vastly entertaining. And now do but listen to somewhat else----”

But the “somewhat else” was never read, for Jack walked in unannounced, and with him a young fellow, Albert Pierce by name, nephew to the Admiral, and subaltern in a newly-arrived regiment at Shorncliffe.

Introductions followed, Polly bestowing one of her most graceful curtseys upon the new-comer, in consideration of his relationship to their old friends, Admiral and Mrs. Pierce. No doubt, too, Polly liked to be admired, as was natural in so pretty a girl, and she read instant appreciation of her charms in Mr. Pierce’s rather good-looking face. So she did her best to be agreeable to him during the next two hours, and seemed to be in tolerable spirits. Whether those spirits remained equally good, after she had disappeared from general observation, retiring to her room for the night, none about her could know.

Early the next morning Polly was roused from profound slumber by agitated sounds.

“Polly! Polly! Polly! Wake up this instant, Polly! I vow and protest the child is crazed! Wake up, Polly! Polly, do you hear? Polly, they’re coming!”

Polly roused herself with great deliberation. She was always a heavy sleeper in the morning, though lively enough at night, and she dragged herself to a sitting posture, with half-shut eyes and loosely-hanging hair, looking, it must be conceded, not quite so lovely as when generally visible to the world.

“Must I get up already, ma’am? ’Tis early.”