"And age recounts the feats of youth."Thomson.
"And age recounts the feats of youth."
Thomson.
"I was the only daughter among nine children," began old Marie, when the girls and Ralph had made her sit down in their own parlour, and they had all drunk her "good health and many happy returns" in raspberry vinegar and water, and then teased her till she consented to tell them her story. "That is to say, my little young ladies and young Monsieur, I had eight brothers. Not all my own brothers: my father had married twice, you see. And always when the babies came they wanted a little girl, for in the family of my grandfather too, there were but three boys, my father and his two brothers, and never a sister. And so one can imagine how I was fêted when I came, and of all none was so pleased as the old 'bon papa,' my father's father. He was already very old: in our family we have been prudent and not married boy and girl, as so many do now, and wish often they could undo it again. Before he had married he had saved and laid by, and for his sons there was something for each when they too started in life. For my father there was the cottage and the little farm at Stéfanos."
"Where is Stéfanos, Marie?" interrupted Ralph.
"Not so far, my little Monsieur; nine kilometers perhaps from Châlet."
"Nine kilomètres; between five and six miles? We must have passed it when we were driving," said Ralph.
"Without doubt," replied Marie. "Well, as I was saying, my father had the paternal house at Stéfanos for his when he married, and my uncles went to the towns and did for themselves with their portions. And the bon papa came, of course, to live with us. He was a kind old man—I remember him well—and he must have had need of patience in a household of eight noisy boys. They were the talk of the country, such fine men, and I, when I came, was such a tiny little thing, you would hardly believe there could be a child so small! And yet there was great joy. 'We have a girl at last,' they all cried, and as for the bon papa he knew not what to do for pleasure.
"I shall have a little grand-daughter to lead me about when my sight is gone, I shall live the longer for this gift of thine,' he said to my mother, whom he was very fond of. She was a good daughter-in-law to him. She shall be called 'Marie, shall she not? The first girl, and so long looked for. And, Eulalie,' he told my mother, 'this day, the day of her birth, I shall plant an apple-tree, a seedling of the best stock, a 'reinette,' in the best corner of the orchard, and it shall be her tree. They shall grow together, and to both we will give the best care, and as the one prospers the other will prosper, and when trouble comes to the one, the other will droop and fade till again the storms have passed away. The tree shall be called 'le pommier de la petite.'"
"My mother smiled; she thought it the fancy of the old man, but she was pleased he should so occupy himself with the little baby girl. And he did as he said: that very day he planted the apple-tree in the sunniest corner of the orchard. And he gave it the best of his care; it was watered in dry weather, the earth about its roots was kept loose, and enriched with careful manuring; no grass or weeds were allowed to cling about it, never was an apple-tree better tended."
Marie paused. "It is not always those that get the most care that do the best in this world," she said, with a sigh. "There was my Louis, our eldest, I thought nothing of the others compared with him! and he ran away to sea and nearly broke my heart."
"Did he ever come back again?" asked the children. Old Marie shook her head.
"Never," she said. "But I got a letter that he had got the curé somewhere in the Amérique du sud—I know not where, I have not learnt all about the geography like these little young ladies—to write for him, before he died of the yellow fever. And he asked me to forgive him all the sorrows he had caused me: it was a good letter, and it consoled me much. That was a long time ago; my Louis would have been in the fifties by now, and my other children were obedient. The good God sends us comfort."
"And about the apple-tree, tell us more, Marie," said Molly. "Did it do well?"
"Indeed yes. Mademoiselle can judge, are not the apples good? Ah, yes, it did well, it grew and it grew, and the first walk I could take with the hand of the bon papa was to the apple-tree. And the first words I could say were 'Mi pommier à Malie.' Before many years there were apples, not so fine at the first, of course, but every year they grew finer and finer, and always they were for me. What we did not eat were sold, and the money given to me to keep for the Carnival, when the bon papa would take me to the town to see the sights."
"And did you grow finer and finer too, Marie?" said Sylvia.
Marie smiled.
"I grew strong and tall, Mademoiselle," she said. "As for more than that it is not for me to say. Buttheyall thought so, the father and mother and the eight brothers, and the bon papa, of course, most of all. And so you see, Mademoiselle, the end was I got spoilt."
"But the apple-tree didn't?"
"No, the apple-tree did its work well. Only I was forgetting to tell you there came a bad year. Everything was bad—the cows died, the harvest was poor, the fruit failed. To the last, the bon papa hoped that 'le pommier de la petite' would do well, though nothing else did, but it was not so. There was a good show of blossom, but when it came to the apples,every onewas blighted. And the strange thing was, my little young ladies and little Monsieur, that that was the year the small-pox came—ah, it was a dreadful year!—and we all caught it."
"All?" exclaimed Sylvia.
"Yes, indeed, Mademoiselle—all the seven, that is to say, that were at home. I cannot remember it well—I was myself too ill, but we all had it. I was the worst, and they thought I would die. It was not the disease itself, but the weakness after that nearly killed me. And the poor bon papa would shake his head and say he might have known what was coming, by the apple-tree. And my mother would console him—she, poor thing, who so much needed consoling herself—by saying, 'Come, now, bon papa, the apple-tree lives still, and doubtless by next year it will again be covered with beautiful fruit. Let us hope well that our little one will also recover.' And little by little I began to mend—the mother's words came true—by the spring time I was as well as ever again, and the six brothers too. All of us recovered; we were strong, you see, very strong. And after that I grew so fast—soon I seemed quite a young woman."
"And did the small-pox not spoil your beauty, Marie?" inquired Sylvia with some little hesitation. It was impossible to tell from the old woman's face now whether the terrible visitor had left its traces or not; she was so brown and weather worn—her skin so dried and wrinkled—only the eyes were still fine, dark, bright and keen, yet with the soft far-away look too, so beautiful in an old face.
"No, Mademoiselle," Marie replied naïvely, "that was the curious part of it. There were some, my neighbour Didier for one, the son of the farmer Larreya——"
"Why, Marie, that'syourname," interrupted Molly. "'Marie Larreya,'—I wrote it down the other day because I thought it such a funny name when grandmother told it me."
"Well, well, Molly," said Sylvia, "there are often many people of the same name in a neighbourhood. Do let Marie tell her own story."
"As I was saying," continued Marie, "many people said I had got prettier with being ill. I can't tell if it was true, but I was thankful not to be marked: you see the illness itself was not so bad with me as the weakness after. But I got quite well again, and that was the summer I was sixteen. My eldest brother was married that summer,—he was one of the two sons of my father's first marriage and he had been away for already some time from the paternal house. He married a young girl from Châlet; and ah, but we danced well at the marriage! I danced most of all the girls—there was my old friend Didier who wanted every dance, and glad enough I would have been to dance with him—so tall and straight he was—but for some new friends I made that day. They were the cousins of my brother's young wife—two of them from Châlet, one a maid in a family from Paris, and with them there came a young man who was a servant in the same family. They were pleasant, good-natured girls, and for the young man, there was no harm in him; but their talk quite turned my silly head. They talked of Châlet and how grandly the ladies there were dressed, and still more of Paris—the two who knew it—till I felt quite ashamed of being only a country girl, and the fête-day costume I had put on in the morning so proudly, I wished I could tear off and dress like my new friends. And when Didier came again to ask me to dance, I pushed him away and told him he tired me asking me so often. Poor Didier! I remember so well how he looked—as if he could not understand me—like our great sheep-dog, that would stare up with his soft sad eyes if ever I spoke roughly to him!
"That day was the beginning of much trouble for me. I got in the way of going to Châlet whenever I could get leave, to see my new friends, who were always full of some plan to amuse themselves and me, and my home where I had been so happy I seemed no longer to care for. I must have grieved them all, but I thought not of it—my head was quite turned.
"One day I was setting off for Châlet to spend the afternoon, when, just as I was leaving, the bon papa stopped me.
"'Here, my child,' he said, holding out to me an apple; 'this is the first of this season's on thy pommier. I gathered it this morning—see, it is quite ripe—it was on the sunny side. Take it; thou mayest, perhaps, feel tired on the way.'
"I took it carelessly.
"'Thanks, bon papa,' I said, as I put it in my pocket. Bon papa looked at me sadly.
"'It is never now as it used to be,' he said. 'My little girl has never a moment now to spare for the poor old man. And she would even wish to leave him for ever; for thou knowest well, my child, I could not live with the thought of thee so far away. When my little girl returned she would find no old grandfather, he would be lying in the cold church-yard.'
"The poor old man held out his arms to me, but I turned away. I saw that his eyes were filled with tears—he was growing so feeble now—and I saw, too, that my mother, who was ironing at the table—work in which I could have helped her—stooped to wipe away a tear with the corner of her apron. But I did not care—my heart was hard, my little young ladies and young Monsieur—my heart was hard, and I would not listen to the voices that were speaking in my conscience.
"'It is too bad,' I said, 'that the chances of one's life should be spoilt for such fancies;' and I went quickly out of the cottage and shut the door. But as I went I saw my poor bon papa lift his head, which he had bent down on his hands, and say to my mother,
"'There will be no more apples this year on the pommier de la petite. Thou wilt see, my daughter, the fortune of the tree will leave it.'
"I heard my mother say something meant to comfort him, but I only hurried away the faster.
"What my grandfather meant about my wishing to leave him was this,—my new friends had put it in my head to ask my parents to consent to my going to Paris with the family in which the two that I told you of were maid and valet. They had spoken of me to their lady; she knew I had not much experience, and had never left home. She did not care for that, she said. She wanted a nice pretty girl to amuse her little boy, and walk out with him. And of course the young man, the valet, told me he knew she could not find a girl so pretty as I anywhere! I would find when I got to Paris, he said, how I would be admired, and then I would rejoice that I had not stayed in my stupid little village, where it mattered not if one had a pretty face or not. I had come home quite full of the idea—quite confident that, as I had always done exactly what I wished, I would meet with no difficulty. But to my astonishment, at the paternal house, one would not hear of such a thing!
"'To leave us—thou, our only girl—to go away to that great Paris, where one is so wicked—where none would guard thee or care for thee? No, it is not to be thought of,' said my father with decision; and though he was a quiet man who seldom interfered in the affairs of the house, I knew well that once that he had said a thing with decision, it was done with—it would be so.
"And my mother said gently,
"'How could'st thou ask such a thing, Marie?'
"And the bon papa looked at me with sad reproach; that was worse than all.
"So this day—the day that bon papa had given me the first apple of the season—I was to go to Châlet to tell my friends it could not be, I felt very cross and angry all the way there.
"'What have I done,' I said to myself, 'to be looked at as if I were wicked and ungrateful? Why should my life be given up to the fancies of a foolish old man like bon papa?'
"And when I got to Châlet and told my friends it was not to be, their regret and their disappointment made me still more displeased.
"'It is too much,' they all said, 'that you should be treated still like a bébé—you so tall and womanly that one might think you twenty.'
"'And if I were thee, Marie,' said one, 'I would go all the same. They would soon forgive thee when they found how well things would go with thee at Paris. How much money thou wouldst gain!'
"'But how could I go?' I asked.
"Then they all talked together and made a plan. The family was to leave Châlet the beginning of the week following, sooner than they had expected. I should ask leave from my mother to come again to say good-bye the same morning that they were to start, and instead of returning to Stéfanos I should start with them for Paris. I had already seen the lady, a young creature who, pleased with my appearance, concerned herself little about anything else, and my friends would tell her I had accepted her offer. And for my clothes, I was to pack them up the evening before, and carry the parcel to a point on the road where the young man would meet me. They would not be many, for my pretty fête costumes, the dress of the country, which were my best possessions, would be of no use in Paris.
"'And once there,' said my friend, 'we will dress thee as thou should'st be dressed. For the journey I can lend thee a hat. Thou could'st not travel with that ridiculous foulard on thy head, hiding all thy pretty hair.'
"I remember there was a looking-glass in the room, and as Odette—that was the girl's name—said this, I glanced at myself. My poor foulard, I had thought it so pretty. It had been the 'nouvel an' of the bon papa! But I would not listen to the voice of my heart. I set out on my return home quite determined to carry out my own way.
"It was such a hot walk that day. How well I remember it! my little young ladies and little Monsieur, you would hardly believe how one can remember things of fifty years ago and more, as if they were yesterday when one is old as I am! The weather had been very hot, and now the clouds looked black and threatening.
"'We shall have thunder,' I said to myself, and I tried to walk faster, but I was tired, and oh, so hot and thirsty. I put my hand in my pocket and drew out the apple, which I had forgotten. How refreshing it was!
"'Poor bon papa,' I said to myself. 'I wish he would not be so exacting. I do not wish to make him unhappy, but what can I do? One cannot be all one's life a little child.'
"Still, softer thoughts were coming into my mind, I began to wish I had not given my decision, that I had said I would think it over. Paris was so far away; at home they might all be dead before I could hear, the poor bon papa above all; it was true he was getting very old.
"Just then, at a turn in the road, I found myself in face of Didier, Didier Larreya. He was walking fast, his face looked stern and troubled. He stopped suddenly on seeing me; it was not often of late that we had spoken to each other. He had not looked with favour on my new friends, who on their side had made fun of him (though I had noticed the day of the wedding that Odette had been very ready to dance with him whenever he had asked her), and I had said to my silly self that he was jealous. So just now I would have passed him, but he stopped me.
"'It is going to thunder, Marie,' he said. 'We shall have a terrible storm. I came to meet thee, to tell thee to shelter at our house; I told thy mother I would do so. I have just been to thy house.'
"I felt angry for no reason. I did not like his watching me, and going to the house to be told of all my doings. I resented his saying 'thou' to me.
"'I thank you, Monsieur Didier,' I said stiffly. 'I can take care of myself. I have no wish to rest at your house. I prefer to go home,' and I turned to walk on.
"Didier looked at me, and the look in his eyes was very sad.
"'Then it is true,' he said.
"'What is true?'
"'That you are so changed'—he did not say 'thou'—'that you wish to go away and leave us all. The poor bon papa is right.'
"'What has bon papa been saying?' I cried, more and more angry, 'What is it to you what I do? Attend to your own affairs, I beg you, Monsieur Didier Larreya, and leave me mine.'
"Didier stopped, and before I knew what he was doing, took both my hands in his.
"'Listen, Marie,' he said. 'Youmust. You are scarcely more than a child, and I was glad for you to be so. It would not be me that would wish to see you all wise, all settled down like an old woman at your age. But you force me to say what I had not wished to say yet for a long time. I am older than you, eight years older, and I know my own mind. Marie, you know how I care for you, how I have always cared for you, you know what I hope may be some day? Has my voice no weight with you? I do not ask you now to say you care for me, you are too young, but I thought you would perhaps learn, but to think of you going away to Paris? Oh, my little Marie, you would never return to us the same!"
"He stopped, and for a moment I stood still without speaking. In spite of myself he made me listen. He seemed to have guessed that though my parents had forbidden it, I had not yet given up the thoughts of going away, and in spite of my silly pride and my temper I was much touched by what he said, and the thought that if I went away he would leave off caring for me came to me like a great shock. I had never thought of it like that; I had always fancied that whatever I did I could keep Didier devoted to me; I had amused myself with picturing my return from Paris quite a grand lady, and how I would pretend to be changed to Didier, just to tease him. But now something in his manner showed me this would not do; if I defied him and my friends now, he would no longer care for me. Yet—would you believe it, my little young ladies and young Monsieur?—my naughty pride still kept me back. I turned from Didier in a rage, and pulled away my hands.
"'I wish none of your advice or interference,' I said. 'I shall please myself in my affairs.'
"I hurried away; he did not attempt to stop me, but stood there for a moment watching me.
"'Good-bye, Marie,' he said, and then he called after me, 'Beware of the storm.'
"I had still two miles to go. I hurried on, passing the Larreyas' farm, and just a minute or two after that the storm began. I heard it come grumbling up, as if out of the heart of the mountains at first, and then it seemed to rise higher and higher. I was not frightened, but yet I saw it was going to be a great storm—you do not know, my young ladies, what storms we have here sometimes—and I was so hot and so tired, and when the anger began to pass away I felt so miserable. I could not bear to go home and see them all with the knowledge in my heart of what I intended to do. When I got near to the orchard, which was about a quarter of a mile from the house, I felt, with all my feelings together, as if I could go no farther. The storm seemed to be passing over—for some minutes there had been no lightning or thunder.
"'Perhaps after all it will only skirt round about us,' I said. And as I thought this I entered the orchard and sat down on my own seat, a little bench that—now many years ago—the bon papa had placed for me with his own hands beside my pommier.
"I was so tired and so hot and so unhappy, I sat and cried.
"'I wish I had not said I would go,' I thought. 'Now if I change one will mock so at me.'
"I leaned my head against the trunk of my tree. I had forgotten about the storm. Suddenly, more suddenly than I can tell, there came a fearful flash of lightning—all about me seemed for a moment on fire—then the dreadful boom of the thunder as if it would shake the earth itself to pieces, and a tearing crashing sound like none I had ever heard before. I screamed and threw myself on the ground, covering my eyes. For a moment I thought I was killed—that a punishment had come to me for my disobedience. 'Oh! I will not go away. I will do what you all wish,' I called out, as if my parents could hear me. 'Bon papa, forgive me. Thy little girl wishes no longer to leave thee;' but no one answered, and I lay there in terror. Gradually I grew calmer—after that fearful crash the thunder claps seemed to grow less violent. I looked up at last. What did I see? The tree next to my pommier—the one but a yard or two from my bench—stood black and charred as if the burning hand of a great giant had grasped it; already some of its branches strewed the ground. And my pommier had not altogether escaped; one branch had been struck—the very branch on the sunny side from which bon papa had picked the apple, as he afterwards showed me! That my life had been spared was little less than a miracle." Marie paused....
"I left the orchard, my little young ladies and young Monsieur," she went on after a moment or two, "a very different girl from the one that had entered it. I went straight to the house, and confessed all—my naughty intention of leaving them all, my discontent and pride, and all my bad feelings. And they forgave me—the good people—they forgave me all, and bon papa took me in his arms and blessed me, and I promised him not to leave him while he lived. Nor did I—it was not so long—he died the next year, the dear old man! What would my feelings have been had I been away in Paris?"
Old as she was, Marie stopped to wipe away a tear. "It is nearly sixty years ago, yet still the tears come when I think of it," she said. "He would not know me now if he saw me, the dear bon papa," she added. "I am as old as he was then! How it will be in heaven I wonder often—for friends so changed to meet again? But that we must leave to the good God; without doubt He will arrange it all."
"And Didier, Marie?" said Sylvia, after a little pause. "Did you also make friends with him?"
Marie smiled, and underneath her funny old brown wrinkled skin I almost think she blushed a little.
"Ah yes, Mademoiselle," she said. "That goes without saying. Ah yes—Didier was not slow to make friends again—and though we said nothing about it for a long time, not till I was in the twenties, it came all as he wished in the end. And a good husband he made me."
"Oh!" cried Molly, "I see—thenthat'show your name is 'Larreya' too, Marie."
They all laughed at her.
"But grandmother said you had many more troubles, Marie," said Sylvia. "Long after, when first she knew you. She said you would tell us."
"Ah yes, that is because the dear lady wishes not herself to tell how good she was to me!" said Marie. "I had many troubles after my husband died. I told you my son Louis was a great grief, and we were poor—very poor—I had a little fruit-stall at the market—"
"Like my old woman in Paris," said Molly, nodding her head.
"And there it was the dear lady first saw me," said Marie. "It was all through the apples—bon papa did well for me the day he planted that tree! They were so fine—Madame bought them for the poor gentleman who was ill—and then I came to tell her my history; and when she took this house she asked me to be her concierge. Since then I have no troubles—my daughter married, long ago of course, but she died, and her husband died, and the friends were not good for her children, and it was these I had to provide for—my grand-daughters. But now they are very well off—each settled, and so good to me! The married one comes with her bébé every Sunday, and the other, in a good place, sends me always a part of her wages. And my son too—he that went to Paris—he writes often. Ah yes, I am well satisfied! And always my great-nephews send me the apples—every year—their father and their grandfather made the promise, and it has never been broken. And still, my little young ladies and little Monsieur—still, the old apple-tree at the paternal house at Stéfanos, is called 'le pommier de la petite.'"
"How nice!" said the children all together. "Thank you, Marie, thank you so much for telling us the story."
"I'll tell you a story of Jack-o-my-nory,And now my story's begun.I'll tell you another of Jack and his brother,And now my story's done."Old Nursery Rhyme.
"I'll tell you a story of Jack-o-my-nory,And now my story's begun.I'll tell you another of Jack and his brother,And now my story's done."
Old Nursery Rhyme.
Marie's story was the subject of much conversation among the children. Sylvia announced her intention of writing it down.
"She tells it so nicely," she said. "I could have written it down beautifully while she was talking, if she would have waited."
"She would not have been able to tell it so nicely if she had known you were waiting to write down every word as she said it," remarked grandmother. "At least in her place I don't thinkIcould."
A shriek from Molly here startled them all, or perhaps I should say,wouldhave done so, had they been less accustomed to her eccentric behaviour.
"What is the matter now, my dear?" said aunty.
"Oh," said Molly, gasping with eagerness, "grandmother's saying thatremindedme."
"But what about, my dear child?"
"About telling stories; don't you remember grandmotherdear, I said you would beperfectif you would tell us stories, and you didn't say you wouldn't."
"And what's more, grandmother promised me one," said Ralph.
"DidI, my dear boy?"
"Yes, grandmother," said Ralph, looking rather abashed, "don't you remember, grandmother—the day I called Prosper de Lastre a cad? I don't think he's a cad now," he added in a lower voice.
"Ah yes, I remember now," said grandmother. "But do you know, my dears, I am so sorry I cannot find your Uncle Jack's manuscript. He had written it out so well—all I can find is the letter in which he first alluded to the incident, very shortly. However, I remember most of it pretty clearly. I will think it over and refresh my memory with the letter, and some day I will tell it to you."
"Can't you tell it us to-night then, grandmother dear?" said Molly in very doleful tones.
They were all sitting round the fire, for it was early December now, and fires are needed then, even at Châlet! What a funny fire some of you would think such a one, children! No grate, no fender, such as you are accustomed to see—just two or three iron bars placed almost on the floor, which serve to support the nice round logs of wood burning so brightly, but alas for grandmother's purse, so swiftly away! But the brass knobs and bars in front look cheery and sparkling, and then the indispensable bellows are a delightful invention for fidgety fingers like those of Ralph and Molly. How many new "nozzles" grandmother had to pay for her poor bellows that winter I should really be afraid to say! And once, to Molly's indescribable consternation, the bellows got on fireinside; there was no outward injury to be seen, but they smoked alarmingly, and internal crackings were to be heard of a fearful and mysterious description. Molly flew to the kitchen, and flung the bellows, as if they were alive, into a pan of water that stood handy. Doubtless the remedy was effectual so far as extinguishing the fire was concerned, but as for the after result on the constitution of the poor bellows I cannot report favourably, as they were never again fit to use.And, as this was the fourth pair spoilt in a month, Molly was obliged to give up half her weekly money for some time towards replacing them!
But we are wandering away from the talk by the fire—grandmother and aunty in their low chairs working—the three children lying in various attitudes on the hearthrug, for hearthrug there was, seldom as such superfluities are to be seen at Châlet. Grandmother was too "English" to have been satisfied with her pretty drawing-room without one—a nice fluffy, flossy one, which the children were so fond of burrowing in that grandmother declared she would need a new one by the time the winter was over!
"Can'tyou tell it to us to-night then, grandmother dear?" said Molly.
"I would rather think it over a little first," said grandmother. "You forget, Molly, that old people's memories are not like young ones. And, as Marie says, it is very curious how, the older one gets, the further back things are those that one remembers the most distinctly. The middle part of my life is hazy compared with the earlier part. I can remember the patterns of some of my dresses as averylittle girl—I can remember words said and trifling things done fifty years ago better than little things that happened last month."
"How queer!" said Molly. "Shall we all be like that, grandmother dear, when we get old?"
Grandmother laid down her knitting and looked at the children with a soft smile on her face.
"Yes, dears, I suppose so. It is the 'common lot.' I remember once askingmygrandmother a question very like that."
"Yourgrandmother!" exclaimed all the children—Molly adding, "Hadyouever a grandmother, grandmother dear?"
"Oh, Molly, how can you be so silly?" said Ralph and Sylvia, together.
"I'm not silly," said Molly. "It is you that are silly not to understand what I mean. I am sure anybody might. Of course I mean can grandmother remember her—did she know her? Supposing anybody's grandmother died before they were born, then they wouldn't ever have had one, would they now?"
Molly sat up on the rug, and tossed back her hair out of her eyes, convinced that her logic was unanswerable.
"You shouldn't begin by saying 'anybody's grandmother,'" remarked Ralph. "You put anybody in the possessive case, which means, of course, that the grandmother belonged to the anybody, andthenyou make out that the anybody never had one."
Molly retorted by putting her fingers in her ears and shaking her head vehemently at her brother. "Be quiet, Ralph," she said. "What's the good of muddling up what I say, and making my head feelsouncomfortable when you know quite well what Imean? Please, grandmother dear, will you go on talking as soon as I take my fingers out of my ears, and then he will have to leave off puzzling me."
"And what am I to talk about?" asked grandmother.
"Tell us about your grandmother. If you remember things long ago so nicely, you must remember story sort of things of then," said Molly insinuatingly.
"I really don't, my dear child. Not just at this moment, anyhow."
"Well, tell usaboutyour grandmother: what was she like? was she like you?"
Grandmother shook her head.
"That I cannot say, my dear; I have no portrait of her, nor have I ever seen one since I have been grown up. She died when I was about fifteen, and as my father was not the eldest son, few, if any, heirlooms fell to his share. And a good many years before my grandmother's death—at the time of her husband's death—the old home was sold, and she came to live in a curious old-fashioned house, in the little county town a few miles from where we lived. This old house had belonged to her own family for many, many years, and, as all her brothers were dead, it became hers. She was very proud of it, and even during my grandfather's life they used to come in from the country to spend the worst of the winter there. Dear me! what a long time back it takes us! were my grandmother living now, she would be—let me see—my father would have been a hundred years old by now. I was the youngest of a large family you know, dears. His mother would have been about a hundred and thirty. It takes us back to the middle of George the Second's reign."
"Yes," said Molly so promptly, that every one looked amazed, "George the First, seventeen hundred and fourteen, George the Second, seventeen hundred and twenty-seven, George the Third, seventeen hundred and——"
"When did you learn that—this morning I suppose?" observed Ralph with biting sarcasm.
"No," said Molly complacently, "I always could remember the four Georges. Sylvia will tell you.Shealways remembered the Norman Conquest, and King John, and so when we spoke about something to do with these dates when we were out a walk Miss Bryce used to be as pleased as pleased with us."
"Is that the superlative of 'very pleased,' my dear Molly?" said aunty.
Molly wriggled.
"History is bad enough," she muttered. "I don't think we need have grammar too, just when I thought we were going to have nice story-talking. Didyoulike lessons when you were little, grandmother dear?" she inquired in a louder voice.
"I don't know that I did," said grandmother. "I was a very tom-boy little girl, Molly. And lessons were not nearly so interesting in those days as they are made now."
"Then they must have been—dreadful," said Molly solemnly, pausing for a sufficiently strong word.
"What did you like when you were little, grandmother?" said Sylvia. "I mean, what did you like best?"
"I really don't know what I likedbest," said grandmother. "There were so many nice things. Haymaking was delicious, so were snow-balling and sliding; blindman's buff and snapdragon at Christmas were not bad, nor were strawberries and cream in summer."
The children drew a long breath.
"Had you all those?" they said. "Oh, what a happy little girl you must have been!"
"And all the year round," pursued grandmother, "there was another delight that never palled. When I look back upon myself in those days I cannot believe that ever a child was a greater adept at it."
"What was that, grandmother?" said the children, opening their eyes.
"Mischief, my dears," said grandmother. "The scrapes I got into of falling into brooks, tearing my clothes, climbing up trees and finding I could not get down again, putting my head through window-panes—ah dear, I certainly had nine lives."
"And what did your grandmother say? Did she scold you?" asked Molly—adding in a whisper to Ralph and Sylvia, "Grandmother must have been anawfullynice little girl."
"My grandmother was to outward appearance quiet and rather cold," repliedtheirgrandmother. "For long I was extremely afraid of her, till something happened which led to my knowing her true character, and after that we were friends for life—till her death. It is hardly worth calling a story, but I will tell it to you if you like, children."
"Oh,pleasedo," they exclaimed, and Molly's eyes grew round with satisfaction at having after all inveigled grandmother into story telling.
"I told you," grandmother began, "that my grandmother lived in a queer, very old-fashioned house in the little town near which was our home. It was such a queer house, I wish you could have seen it, but long ago it was pulled down, and the ground where it stood used for shops or warehouses. When you entered it, you saw no stair at all—then, on opening a door, you found yourself at the foot of a very high spiral staircase that went round and round like a corkscrew up to the very top of the house. By the by that reminds me of an adventure of my grandmother's which you might like to hear. It happened long before I was born, but she has often told it me. Ah, Molly, I see that twinkle in your eyes, my dear, and I know what it means! You think you have got grandmother started now—wound up—and that you will get her to go on and on; ah well, we shall see. Where was I? Taking you up the corkscrew stair. The first landing, if landing it could be called, it was so small, had several doors, and one of these led into a little ante-room, out of which opened again a larger and very pretty drawing-room. It was a long, rather narrow room, and what I admired in it most of all were wall cupboards with glass doors, within which my grandmother kept all her treasures. There were six of them at least—in two or three were books, of which, for those days, grandmother had a good many; another held Chinese and Indian curiosities, carved ivory and sandal-wood ornaments, cuscus grass fans, a pair or two of Chinese ladies' slippers—things very much the same as you may see some of now-a-days in almost every prettily furnished drawing-room. And one, or two perhaps, of the cupboards contained treasures which are rarer now than they were then—theloveliestold china! Even I, child as I was, appreciated its beauty—the tints were so delicate and yet brilliant. My grandmother had collected much of it herself, and her taste was excellent. At her death it was divided, and among so many that it seemed to melt away. All that came to my share were those two handleless cups that are at the top of that little cabinet over there, and those were by no means the most beautiful, beautiful as they undoubtedly are. I was never tired of feasting my eyes on grandmother's china when I used to be sent to spend a day with her, which happened every few weeks. Andsometimes, for a great treat, she used to open the wall cupboards and let me handle some of the things—for it is a curious fact that a childcannotadmire anything to its perfect satisfaction without touching it too, and looking back upon things now, I can see that despite her cold manner, my grandmother had a very good knowledge of children and a real love and sympathy for them.
"One day—it was a late autumn day I remember, for it was just a few days after my ninth birthday—my birthday is on the fifteenth of November,—my mother told me that my father, having to drive to the town the following day, would take me with him to spend the day with grandmother.
"'And Nelly,' said my mother, 'do try to be very good and behave prettily. I really fear, my dear, that you will never be like a young lady—it is playing so much with your brothers, I suppose, and you know grandmother is very particular. The last time you were there you know you dressed up the cat and frightened poor old Betsy (my grandmother's cook) so. Do try to keep out of mischief this time.'
"'I can't,' I said. 'There is no one to play with there. I would rather stay at home;' and I teased my mother to say I need not go. But it was no good; she was firm about it—it was right that I, the only girl at home, should go to see my grandmother sometimes, and my mother repeated her admonitions as to my behaviour; and as I really loved her dearly I promised to 'try to be very good;' and the next morning I set off with my father in excellent spirits. There was nothing I liked better than a drive with him, especially in rather cold weather, for then he used to tuck me up so beautifully warm in his nice soft rugs, so that hardly anything but the tip of my nose was to be seen, and he would call me his 'little woman' and pet me to my heart's content.
"When we reached my grandmother's I felt very reluctant to descend from my perch, and I said to my father that I wished he would take me about the town with him instead of leaving me there.
"He explained to me that it was impossible—he had all sorts of things to do, a magistrate's meeting to attend, and I don't know all what. Besides which he liked me to be with my grandmother, and he told me I was a silly little goose when I said I was afraid of her.
"My father entered the house without knocking—there was no need to lock doors in the quiet streets of the little old town, where everybody that passed up and down was known by everybody else, and theirbusinessoften known better by the everybody else than by themselves. We went up to the drawing-room, there was nobody there—my father went out of the room and called up the staircase, 'Mother, where are you?'
"Then I heard my grandmother's voice in return.
"'My dear Hugh—is it you? I am so sorry. I cannot possibly come down. It is the third Tuesday of the month. My wardrobe day.'
"'And the little woman is here too. What shall I do with her?' said my father. He seemed to understand, though I did not, what 'wardrobe day' meant.
"'Bring her up here,' my grandmother called back. 'I shall soon have arranged all, and then I can take her downstairs again.'
"I was standing on the landing by my father by this time, and, far from loth to discover what my grandmother was about, I followed him upstairs. You have no idea, children, what a curious sight met me! My grandmother, who was a very little woman, was perched upon a high stool, hanging up on a great clothes-horse ever so many dresses, which she had evidently taken out of a wardrobe, close by, whose doors were wide open. There were several clothes-horses in the room, all more or less loaded with garments,—and oh, what queer, quaint garments some of them were! The clothes my grandmother herself had on—even those I was wearing—would seem curious enough to you if you could see them now,—but when I tell you that of those she was hanging out, many had belonged tohergrandmother, and mother, and aunts, and great-aunts, you can fancy what a wonderful array there was. Her own wedding-dress was among them, and all the coloured silks and satins she had possessed before her widowhood. And more wonderful even than the dresses were a few, not very many, for indeed no room or wardrobe would have heldverymany, bonnets, or 'hats,' as I think they were then always called. Huge towering constructions, with feathers sticking straight up on the top, like the pictures of Cinderella's sisters in old-fashioned fairy-tale books—so enormous that any ordinary human head must have been lost in their depths."
"Did you ever try one on, grandmother?" said Molly.
Grandmother shook her head.
"I should not have been allowed to take such a liberty," she said. "I stood and stared about me in perfect amazement without speaking for a minute or two, till my grandmother got down from her stool, and my father told me to go to speak to her.
"'Are you going away, grandmother?' I said at last, my curiosity overcoming my shyness. 'Are these all your clothes? You will want a great many boxes to pack them in, and what queer ones some of them are!'
"'Queer, my dear,' said my grandmother. 'They are certainly not like what you get now-a-days, if that is what you mean by queer. See here, Nelly, this is your great-grandmother's wedding dress—white Padusoy embroidered in gold—why, child, it would stand alone! And this salmon-coloured satin, with the pea-green slip—will the stuffs they dye now keep their colour like that a hundred years hence?'
"'It's good strong stuff certainly,' said my father, touching it as he spoke. But then he went on to say to my grandmother that the days for such things were past. 'We don't want our clothes to last a century now, mother,' he said. 'Times are hurrying on faster, and we must make up our minds to go on with them and leave our old clothes behind. The world would get too full if everybody cherished bygone relics as you do.'
"I don't think she much liked his talking so. She shook her head and said something about revolutionary ideas, which I didn't understand. But my father only laughed; his mother and he were the best of friends, though he liked to tease her sometimes. I wandered about the room, peeping in among the rows of quaint costumes, and thinking to myself what fun it would be to dress up in them. But after a while I got tired, and I was hungry too, so I was very glad when grandmother, having hung out the last dress to air, said we must go down to dinner—my father had left some time before——"
"What did you have for dinner, grandmother?" said Sylvia. "It isn't that I care so much about eating," she added, blushing a little, "but I like to know exactly the sort of way people lived, you know."
"Only I wish you wouldn't interrupt grandmother," said Molly. "I'msoafraid it'll be bed-time before she finishes the story."
"Which isn't yet begun—eh, Molly?" said grandmother. "I warned you my stories were sadly deficient in beginning and end, and middle too—in short they are not stories at all."
"Never mind, they'reverynice," said Molly; "and if I may sit up till this one's done I don't mind your telling Sylvia what you had for dinner, grandmother dear."
"Many thanks for your small majesty's gracious permission," said grandmother. "But as to what we had for dinner, I really can't say. Much the same as you have now, I fancy. Let me see—it was November—very likely a roast chicken and rice pudding."
"Oh!" said Sylvia, in a tone of some disappointment; "go on then, please, grandmother."
"Where was I?" said grandmother. "Oh yes—well, after dinner we went up to the drawing-room, and grandmother, saying she was a good deal tired by her exertions of the morning, sat down in her own particular easy chair by the fire, and, spreading over her face a very fine cambric handkerchief which she kept, I strongly suspect, for the purpose, prepared for her after-dinner nap. It was really a regular institution with her—but I noticed she always made some little special excuse for it, as if it was something quite out of the common. She told me to amuse myself during her forty winks by looking at the treasures in the glass-doored cupboards, which she knew I was very fond of admiring, and she told me I might open the book cupboard if I wanted to take out a book, but on no account any of the others.
"Now I assure you, children, and by your own experience you will believe what I say, that, but for my grandmother's warnings, the idea of opening the glass doors when by myself would never have come into my head. I had often been in the drawing-room alone and gazed admiringly at the treasures without ever dreaming of examining them more closely. I had never evenwishedto do so, any more than one wishes to handle the moon or stars or any other un-get-at-able objects. But now, unfortunately, the idea was suggested, it had been put into my head, and there it stayed. I walked round the room gazing in at the cupboards in turn—the book ones did not particularly attract me—long ago I had read, over and over again, the few books in my grandmother's possession that I could feel interested in, and I stood still at last in front of the prettiest cupboard of all, wishing that grandmother had not forbidden my opening it. There were such lovely cups and saucers! I longed to handle them—one in particular that I felt sure I had never seen before. It had a deep rose pink ground, and in the centre there was the sweetest picture of a dear little shepherdess curtseying to an equally dear little shepherd.
"As I gazed at this cup the idea struck me that it would be delicious to dress one of my dolls in the little shepherdess's costume, and, eager to see it more minutely, I opened the glass door, and was just stretching up my hand for the cup, when I again remembered what my grandmother had said. I glanced round at her; she was fast asleep; there was no danger; what harmcouldit do for me to take the cup into my hand for a moment? I stretched up and took it. Yes, it was really most lovely, and the little shepherdess's dress seemed to me a perfect facsimile of the one I had most admired upstairs in my grandmother's wardrobe—a pea-green satin over a pale pink or rather salmon-coloured quilted slip. I determined that Lady Rosabella should have one the same, and I was turning over in my mind the possibilities of getting satin of the particular shades I thought so pretty, when a slight sound in the direction, it seemed to me, of my grandmother's arm-chair, startled me. I turned round hastily—how it was I cannot tell, but so it was—the beautiful cup fell from my hands and lay at my feet in, I was going to say, a thousand fragments."
"Oh!" exclaimed Sylvia and Molly—"oh, grandmother, whatdidyou do?"
"First of all," grandmother continued, "first of all I stooped down and picked up the pieces. There were not a thousand of them—not perhaps above a dozen, and after all, grandmother was sleeping quietly, but to all appearance soundly. The sound that had startled me must have been a fancied one, I said to myself, and oh dear, what a terrible pity I had been startled!
"I gathered the bits together in my handkerchief, and stood staring at them in perfect despair. I dared not let myself burst out crying as I was inclined to do, for grandmother would have heard me and asked what was the matter, and I felt that I should sink into the earth with shame and terror if she saw what I had done, and that I had distinctly disobeyed her. My only idea was to conceal the mischief. I huddled the bits up together in my handkerchief, and huddled the handkerchief into my pocket—the first pocket I had ever had, I rather think—and then I looked up to see if the absence of the cup was very conspicuous. I thought not; the saucer was still there, and by pulling one or two of the other pieces of china forward a little, I managed to make it look as if the cup was just accidentally hidden. To reach up to do this, I had to draw forward a chair; in getting down from it again I made some little noise, and I looked round in terror to see if grandmother was awake. No, she was still sleeping soundly.Whata blessing! I got out of one of the book cupboards a book I had read twenty times at least, and sitting down on a stool by the fire I pretended to read it again, while really all my ideas were running on what I should, what Icoulddo. For I had no manner of doubt that before long the accident would be discovered, and I felt sure that my grandmother's displeasure would be very severe. I knew too that my having tried to conceal it would make her far less ready to forgive me, and yet I felt that Icouldnot make up my mind to confess it all. I was so miserable that it was the greatest relief to me a minute or two afterwards to hear the hall door open and my father's hearty voice on the stair."
"'I have come to fetch you rather sooner than I said, little woman,' he exclaimed, as he came in, and then he explained that he had promised to drive a friend who lived near us home from the town in our gig, and that this friend being in a hurry, we must leave earlier than usual. My grandmother had wakened up of course with my father's coming in. It seemed to me, or was it my fancy?—that she looked graver than usual and rather sad as she bade us good-bye. She kissed me very kindly, more tenderly than was her habit, and said to my father that he must be sure to bring me again very soon, so that as I was going downstairs with him, he said to me that he was glad to see how fond grandmother was getting of me, and that he would bring me again next week.Idid not feel at all pleased at this—I felt more unhappy than ever I had done in my life, so that my father, noticing it, asked what was the matter. I replied that I was tired and that I did not care for going to grandmother's, and then, when I saw that this ungracious answer vexed my kind father, I felt more and more unhappy. Every moment as we walked along—we were to meet the carriage at the inn where it had been left—the bits of broken china in my pocket bumped against my leg, as if they would not let themselves be forgotten. I wished I could stop and throw them away, but that was impossible. I trudged along, gloomy and wretched, with a weight on my heart that it seemed to me I would never get rid of. Suddenly—so suddenly that I could hardly believe my own senses, something caught my eye that entirely changed my whole ideas. I darted forward, my father was a few steps in front of me—the footpath was so narrow in the old town that there was often not room for two abreast—and——"
Just at this moment the door opened, and grandmother's maid appeared with the tea-tray. Molly gave an impatient shake.
"Oh,whata bother!" she said. "I quite forgot about tea. And immediately after tea it is always time for us to go to bed. It is eight o'clock now, oh grandmother,dofinish the story to-night."
"And why cannot my little girl ask it without all those shakes and 'bothers?'" said grandmother. She spoke very gently, but Molly looked considerably ashamed.
"Yes, grandmother dear," she replied meekly. Then she got up from the rug and stood by aunty patiently, while she poured out the tea, first "grandmothering" each cup to keep it from slipping about, then warming them with a little hot water, then putting in the beautiful yellow cream, the sugar, and the nice rich brown tea, all in the particular way grandmother liked it done. And during the process, Molly did not once wriggle or twist with impatience, so that when she carried grandmother's tea to her, very carefully and steadily, without a drop spilling over into the saucer in the way grandmother disliked to see, she got a kiss by way of reward, and what was still better perhaps, grandmother looked up and said,
"That'smygood little woman. There is not much more of what you call 'my story,' to tell, but such as it is, you may sit up to hear it, if you like."