TWO OLD RETAINERS
Faithful servants are no less important in a household than the members
of the family itself. Are we not every moment beholden to them for our
ease and comfort, so much in the routine of our daily lives depending on
them, that we can never be grateful enough for the pains they are at to
make its machinery run well and smoothly. In our family this was
certainly the case, very many of the old servants I remember in my
childhood being regarded by us as true and valued friends. Talking of
this one day to one of my cousins, he exclaimed, “Ah, indeed! what would
ever have become of us poor children, had it not been for the dear good
old servants!”
It was still the fashion in those days, to bring children up with great
severity, and for poor little princes and princesses in particular a
Spartan system of education was enforced. Under these circumstances it
was very often thanks to the servants that we escaped the Draconian
penalties attached to every trifling misdeed; they were always ready to
come to our aid in all our troubles, and by their adroitness and
good-nature helped us out of many of our worst scrapes. There were two,
in particular, who were our personal attendants, and can never be
dissociated from our family history, accompanying us on all our travels,
and literally sharing in all our joys and sorrows. The one was my
father’s valet, Masset, a dear old fellow, with a round smiling face
like a full moon, as good-natured as a big playful dog, always ready
with some amusing story or harmless piece of fun, if he saw that one’s
spirits were low and that one wanted cheering. Lang, on the contrary,
was a most dignified personage, tall, and speaking French beautifully,
and with well-cut features and a certain stiffness of manner, which we
felt to be rather imposing. But he was no less devoted to us, and I can
recall many an instance of his zeal in rendering us service. To give one
little example, one day, when in the Isle of Wight, my brother’s kite,
which he was flying, got caught in a tree; it was Lang who in a moment
had climbed the tree, and set free the kite, almost before the little
boy had time to distress himself about it. Lang told me about it
afterwards, and of the bad fall he had in coming down from the tree,
being really so badly shaken that he could not get up for a few minutes,
though luckily no bones were broken. “And what did Wilhelm do?” I asked.
“Oh! he ran off with his kite as fast as he could!” was the smiling
reply. I very much fear that we were often extremely thoughtless in the
way in which we took for granted that we should always find our wishes
carried out by either of these two trusty allies, and that we did not
always trouble ourselves to thank them afterwards. We have often laughed
since to think of the artful devices of good old Masset, on one
occasion, when my brother was shut up in his room for three weeks on a
diet of dry bread and water, taking care to cut such very thick slices
of bread, that inside each both butter and meat could be concealed; and
this he carried with the most innocent face in the world to the poor
hungry little prisoner, whose sole diversion, meanwhile, consisted in
dragging his table up to the attic window, so that by placing a chair on
it he could succeed in climbing out on the roof, to shoot at the
sparrows with his little crossbow!
In our house the servants always said “we,” in speaking of the family;
they quite felt that they belonged to it, and they were indeed fully
justified in feeling thus by their devotion to us all. We might well be
fond of them, though we certainly did not go quite so far as my mother,
who, as a very small child was so much attached to the funny little
wizened old man-servant who was her special attendant, that she was
heard to say: “Ce cher Rupp! ce cher Rupp! je voudrais tant l’embrasser!
je l’aime beaucoup plus que Papa!” But we liked ours quite as well as
all but our very nearest relations, perhaps rather better than some!
Masset, as his name shows, was of French extraction, descended from
Huguenot refugees. Another servant had one of those names with a Latin
termination not infrequently to be found in the Rhineland; he was called
Corcilius. Our great-uncle, the traveller, whose delight it was to give
nicknames to every one, amused himself with twisting and turning the
servants’ names. Thus Lang (Long) became Kurz (Short), Schäfer
(Shepherd) was transformed into Haas (Hare), and Corcilius was nicknamed
“Garcilaso de la Vega.” Many of these good people had been in our
service from father to son for several generations. One of our
game-keepers belonged to a family who had been keepers with us for a
couple of centuries. Many of our people lived to celebrate the jubilee
of their fiftieth year in our service. Alas, not all!
But these two, as I said, Lang and Masset, were our special friends, we
always felt so safe and sure with them, as if no danger could harm us. I
should never stop, if I began relating everything, the fatherly way in
which they took care of us, how often they carried us in their arms, all
they did to please us, when we were quite small. For I was only two
years old, when, the Rhine being frozen over for the first time for many
years, they carried us across, my little brother and myself, in order
that we might have a recollection of the unusual occurrence. And I do
remember it quite distinctly, and many another little incident of like
nature. I cannot think of these without emotion, but there was very much
also that had its purely comic side. Whilst we were staying in Baden,
later on, installed in the simplest, most modest fashion, with very few
servants, some one happened one day to ring at the front door, just at
the moment when Masset was summoned to my father. “Let me go,” I said;
“I will open the door!” But very firmly though gently, I was pushed on
one side. “No, dear child,--that cannot be, that would never do!” I was
eighteen at the time, but for both Lang and Masset I always remained a
child.
One amusing little scene, though it has not to do with them, but with
another old servant, I cannot help relating here. In my mother’s
bedroom hung a lamp with a pink shade, giving a very agreeable light
whenever it chose to burn, but more often than not a source of infinite
trouble and annoyance. Now-a-days with the comfort and convenience of
electricity or even of ordinary petroleum lamps, people can little
imagine the nuisance of the old-fashioned oil-lamps. Two or three times
in the course of an evening they had to be wound up with a sort of big
key--and even then they would not burn! All the same everyone was agreed
as to their being a most admirable invention! One evening when my poor
little invalid brother was being put to bed, as he happened for once to
be free from pain, my mother came away and joined us others at the
tea-table. For she felt safe in leaving Otto to the care of his devoted
attendant, a very old man, quite a relic of the past, as he had been in
my grandmother’s service and had been handed on to us. Suddenly the door
opened, and a wrinkled old face, crowned with snow-white hair, peeped
in.--“Your Highness, the lamp is going out!” My mother jumped up. To
rush into the other room, pull down the lamp, and carry it outside
before its feeble light was entirely extinguished and had poisoned the
atmosphere with its fumes--all this was the work of an instant. But how
we all laughed! till the tears ran down our cheeks. And we were laughing
still when my mother came back to the tea-table, quite astonished at our
merriment, and asking its cause. To her it had seemed just the most
natural thing in the world that the old servant should appeal to her,
and that she should run to his assistance.
I should like to mention each and every one of those whose faithful
service was so invaluable to our family during the years in which we
were tried by sickness and suffering; many were admirable in their
untiring devotion, but the two I have spoken of above and beyond all the
rest. No words could do justice to the tact, the discretion, the
unwearied patience, with which their duties were fulfilled. Never did
they utter a word of complaint, on any of those long and fatiguing
journeys, all the responsibility of whose arrangements fell on them, and
which had to be performed under circumstances of exceptional difficulty,
with my mother in her crippled condition, having to be carried in and
out of train and boat, and my father and brother also helpless invalids.
To say nothing of the amount of luggage that was required for the whole
party, nurse and lady’s maid, tutor, governess, and lady-in-waiting! And
travelling was by no means so simple and easy a matter in those days.
But Lang and Masset were equal to the circumstances, and managed it all
without a hitch. For our journey from Bonn to Paris a whole
railway-carriage had to be reserved, so that my mother, whose convulsive
fits at that time followed one another in swift succession, barely
giving her time between to recover consciousness, might rest undisturbed
in the hammock put up for her. As for the preceding journey, that from
Neuwied to Bonn, however difficult it may have been to plan, it was so
successfully carried out, that to us children it was all unalloyed
enjoyment, like a page out of a fairy tale! As my mother could not stand
the shaking of the steamer, one of the Rhenish coal-barges had been
chartered, thoroughly cleaned and fitted out with mats and awnings, and
the deck strewn with fresh flowers everywhere, and in order that the
little journey should not take too long, the barge was taken in tow by
one of the Rhine-steamers. It was all too delightful, so Wilhelm and I
thought, this novel style of travelling, and everything so amusing--the
little cabin with its sky-light, and above all the lovely little dancing
waves in the wake of the steamer. We were quite lost in the enjoyment of
the hour, and had but a faint understanding of the cares weighing on the
elders of our party, though those were brought before us again, when we
reached the landing-stage, and saw our mother carried unconscious ashore
by Lang and Masset. As in spite of all their care and the excellent
arrangements made, she had lain in convulsions the whole time, they
might well feel somewhat discouraged at this first step in the
pilgrimage undertaken in quest of health and solace for our invalids.
But such grave thoughts cannot altogether quell the natural high spirits
of youth, and I remember the peals of laughter that greeted us from my
Uncle Nicholas, my mother’s youngest brother, who was awaiting our
arrival in the garden of the villa at Bonn, and who declared that he had
known we were coming long before the boats were in sight, our approach
having been heralded by the smell of ether and chloroform which
surrounded us like an atmosphere as we glided along! That strong smell
of ether and all the other medicaments used--and used in vain--to still
those fearful paroxysms of pain, this remains for me so indissolubly
associated with certain scenes and memories of my childhood, that as my
pen traces these words, the air I breathe is pervaded with them once
more!
I suppose it was the spectacle of suffering constantly before my eyes,
and of the utter inefficacy of the remedies prescribed, that gave me,
already as a child, the conviction of the absolute helplessness of
doctors in certain cases. Of course I know the immense strides medical
science has made since those days, but after all I wonder if to us it
would have brought much help! That which did, however, most undeniably
contribute to our comfort, and often helped to procure the sufferers
some moments’ ease and rest, that was the quiet unobtrusive service of
these two faithful souls. It was only natural that Masset’s devotion to
my father should outweigh all else; it literally knew no bounds, and a
very few months after his master’s death, his old servant was missing
too. He had thrown himself into the Rhine, seeking a grave there between
the blocks of ice with which the river was covered. His body was never
found. It was only by the print of his footsteps in the snow
(recognisable by the turning in of the toes), that some of the keepers
traced him down to the riverside, and that we learned his fate. He
simply could not live without the beloved master, to whom he belonged,
body and soul. But the shock was a terrible one to us all; we mourned
him most sincerely. Lang remained for years after my father’s death in
my mother’s service, and was with her when she came to see me in
Roumania. To the end he was the same invaluable, trustworthy servant,
with such sound judgment that my mother often asked his advice, always
receiving excellent counsel from the clear-headed, much experienced old
man.
I must not forget our old coachman, Lindner, who at my father’s funeral
drove the hearse, that none but himself might have the honour of
performing that last service for his master. It was a touching sight, so
uncontrollable was the grief of the fine old man, who, till then, had
often been the life and soul of every rustic gathering. He it was who
was generally the principal solo singer at every village festival.
Unless, indeed, it so happened that I was there to take my part! There
was always a sort of rivalry between us, as to which had the larger
store of songs, Lindner or I! And at last, I believe, I bore away the
palm; I knew even more than he did!
I am proud to think how sad all these good people were when I left my
old home on my marriage. The day when I had to take my leave of the
Ladies’ Nursing Union, I said to Lang as I stepped into the
carriage:--“Lang, je dois tenir un discours aujourd’hui.” And struggling
with his emotion, he replied: “Il doit être d’autant plus beau, qu’il ne
sera jamais oublié!”
I was missed by all the good country-folk. They had always called me
“our little princess!” And much nicer, prettier names still! The first
time I came back on a visit after my marriage, through the streets of
Neuwied and in the villages round about, they ran shouting:--“Our
Lisbeth is coming! Our Lisbeth is here again!”
With every workman and mechanic in the neighbourhood we had a personal
acquaintance, it was as if quite peculiar ties of very long standing
united them to us, for had not their fathers and grandfathers worked for
ours, for centuries past? So that we felt interested in all that
concerned them, and ourselves took great pride in the fact, that the
town of Neuwied had given birth to the celebrated wood-carver,
Rœntgen, specimens of whose beautiful artistic wood-mosaics found
their way to all the capitals of Europe, and decorate castles and
manor-houses in every land.
But it was the book-binder, Lesser, a Moravian, who was our special
favourite, and every week we spent several hours learning his craft of
him, till we were ourselves able to do some very pretty work. I have
still books in my possession, which I bound myself, fifty years ago, and
which are in perfectly good condition now. It would be a good thing if
all children were taught something of the sort, to amuse them in their
play-hours, instead of letting them run wild. There would be no
constraint needed; it would be merely giving a sensible and useful
outlet for those energies with which all children are naturally brimming
over, and which, misdirected, too often lead them into mischief. We were
always encouraged to look on at all events, whenever there were workmen
in the house or grounds, and we watched them with the greatest
[Illustration: A QUEEN AT HER LOOM]
interest, perhaps observing and learning more than was thought. And we
often talked to them too, so that there was really nothing so very much
to wonder at in those “Songs of the Crafts,” which I was one day to
write, nor in the intimate knowledge of each special kind of work which
they revealed. Quite young we thus learned to use our hands, and they
were never idle. I could give first-rate sewing lessons; here in
Roumania even I have taught many a young girl to embroider. But it was
the smith above all whom we were never tired of watching at his work.
Everything pertaining to the forge has a special fascination for
children--the bellows, and the tongs, and the sparks that fly, and the
blackened faces--it is all too delightful! One should allow children to
familiarise themselves with all these things, with the beauty and
dignity of human toil in its every aspect, that they may learn to have
the right feeling of respect both for the work itself, and for the
workers.
Nor can one too early impress on the minds of children the debt of
gratitude they owe to all those whose lives are passed in their service.
The young can certainly not be expected to realise all the
unselfishness--the utter forgetfulness and disregard of self, I should
rather say,--which are implied in the term of “good and faithful
servant.” But they can be taught to show thoughtfulness and
consideration towards all with whom they are brought into daily contact
in these relations.
Servants of the type of those whom I have tried to describe here, are
perhaps becoming more and more rare. In any case, where we do come
across them, we must look upon them as a gift from heaven, and it is in
heaven, too, that they will have their reward. For no earthly master,
however thoroughly he may recognise their merit, can ever hope to
requite or repay such services as theirs. My little tribute of words is
poor indeed to express the magnitude of such a debt. May they have found
their reward in a better world, united to the master they served so
faithfully on earth!