“For heaven’s sakes, Marion, stop that noise, and listen to this
advertisement.”
I had been looking in the papers for some time in the hope of getting
some permanent work to do. I was not making much money at my fancy
painting, and papa’s business was very bad. Ada was working on the
“Star,” and was helping the family considerably. She was the most
unselfish of girls, and used to bring everything she earned to mama. She
fretted all the time about the family and especially mama, to whom she
was devoted. Poor little soul, it did seem as if she carried the whole
weight of our troubles on her little shoulders.
I had been engaged to Reggie now a year. He had failed in his law
examinations, and that meant another year of waiting, for, as he said,
it would be impossible to marry until he passed. He had decided to go to
England this summer, to see if the “governor” wouldn’t “cough up” some
more cash, and he said he would then tell his family about our
engagement. He had not told them that yet. He had expected to after
passing his examinations, but having failed in these, he had to put it
off, he explained to me.
Ada used to say of Reggie that he was a “monument of selfishness and
egotism,” and that he spent more on himself for his clothes and
expensive rooms and other luxuries than papa did on our whole family.
She repeatedly declared that he was quite able to support a wife, and
that his only reason for putting off our marriage was because he hated
to give up any of the luxuries to which he was accustomed. In fact, Ada
had taken a dislike to my Reggie, and she even declared that St. Vidal
against whom she had been merely prejudiced because he was a French
wine-merchant, would have been more desirable.
Anyway, Ada insisted that it was about time for me to do something
toward the support of our family. Here I was nineteen years old and
scarcely earning enough to pay for my own board and clothes.
“Read that.”
She handed me the “Star,” and pointed to the advertisement:
WANTED: A young lady who has talent to work for an artist. Apply to
Count von Hatzfeldt, Château de Ramezay, rue Notre Dame.
“Why,” I exclaimed, “that must be the old seigniory near the Notre Dame
Cathedral.”
“Of course, it is,” said Ada. “I was reading in the papers that they are
going to make it into a museum of historical and antique things. It used
to be the home of the first Canadian governors, and there are big
cannons down in the cellars that they used. If I were you, I’d go right
over there now and get that work. There won’t be many applicants, for
only a few girls can paint.”
I was as eager as Ada, and immediately set out for the Château de
Ramezay.
It was a long ride, for we only had horse-cars in those days, and the
Château was on the other end of the city. I liked the ride, however, and
looked out of the window all of the way. We passed through the most
interesting and historical part of our city, and when we came to the
dismal, mottled, old stone jail, I could not help shuddering as I looked
up at it, and recalled what my brother Charles used to tell me about it
when I was a little girl. He said it was mottled because the house had
small-pox. If we did this or that, we would be thrown into that
small-pox jail and given black bread and mice to eat, and when we came
out we would be horribly pock-marked. He said all the anti-vaccination
rioters had been locked up in there, and they were pitted with marks.
As my car went by it, I could see the poor prisoners looking out of the
barred windows and a great feeling of fear and pity for the sorrows of
the world swept over me, so that my eyes became blinded with tears. A
covered van was going in at the gate. A woman next to me said:
“There’s the Black Maria. Look! There’s a young girl in it!”
My heart went out to that young girl, and I wondered vaguely what she
could have done that would make them shut her up in that loathsome
“pock-marked” jail.
When we reached the French hospital, “Hôtel Bon Dieu,” the conductor
told me to get off, as the Château was on the opposite side, a little
farther up the hill.
I went up the steps of the Château and banged on the great iron knocker.
No one answered. So I pushed the huge heavy door open--it was not
locked--and went in. The place seemed entirely deserted and empty, and
so old and musty, even the stairs seeming crooked and shaky. I wandered
about until finally I came to a door on the second floor, with a card
nailed on it, bearing the name: “Count von Hatzfeldt.”
I knocked, and the funniest little old man opened the door, and stood
blinking at me.
“Count von Hatzfeldt?” I inquired.
Ceremoniously he bowed, and holding the door open, ushered me in. He had
transformed that great room into a wonderful studio. It was at least
five times the size of the average New York studio, considered extra
large. From the beams in the ceiling hung a huge swing, and all about
the walls and from the ceilings hung skins and things he had brought
from Iceland, where he had lived for over six months with the Esquimaux,
and he had ever so many paintings of the people.
I was intently interested and I wished my father could see the place.
Count von Hatzfeldt showed me the work he was doing for the directors of
the Château de Ramezay Society, who were intending to make a museum of
the place. He was restoring the old portraits of the different Canadian
governors and men of historical fame in Canada.
“I will want you to work on this Heraldry,” he said, and indicated a
long table scattered with water-color paper, water colors, and sketches
of coats of arms. “I will sketch in the coat of arms, and you will do
the painting, young lady. We use this gold and silver and bronze a great
deal. This, I suppose, you know, is called ‘painting _en gauche_.’”
I assured him I could do it. Papa had often painted in that medium, and
had taught me. I told the Count that once a well-known artist of Boston
called on papa to help him paint some fine lines on a big illustration.
He said his eyes were bothering him, so he could not finish the work. It
just happened that at that time papa’s eyes were also troubling him, but
as he did not want to lose the work, he had said:
“I’ll send my little girl to you. She can do it better than I.”
“And Count von Hatzfeldt,” I said proudly, “I did do it, and the artist
praised me when I finished the work, and he told papa he ought to send
me to Boston to study at the art schools there.”
At that time I was only thirteen. The Boston artist gave me ten dollars.
I gave eight of it to mama. With the other two, I bought fifty cents’
worth of candy, which I divided among all of us, mama included. With the
dollar-fifty left, I bought Ellen a birthday present of a brooch with a
diamond as big as a pea in it that cost twenty-five cents. Then Ellen
and I went to St. Helen’s Island, and there we ate peanuts, drank
spruce beer (a French-Canadian drink), had two swings and three
merry-go-rounds, and what with the ten cents each for the ferry there
was nothing left to pay our carfare home. So we walked, and mama was
angry with us for being so late. She slapped Ellen for “talking back,”
and I always got mad if Ellen got hurt, so I “talked back” worse and
then I got slapped, too, and we both had to go to bed without supper.
I didn’t tell all this to the Count; only the first part about doing the
work, etc. He said--he talked with a queer sort of accent, like a
German, though I believe he was Scandinavian:
“Ya, ya! Vell, I will try you then. Come you to vork to-morrow and if
you do vell, you shall have five dollar a veek. For that you vill vork
on the coat of arms two hours a day, and if I find you can help me mit
the portraits--it maybe you can lay in the bag-grounds, also the
clothes--if so, I vill pay you some little more. Ya, ya!”
He rubbed his hands and smiled at me. He looked so much like a funny
little hobgoblin that I felt like laughing at him, but there was also
something very serious and almost angry in his expression.
“Now,” said he, “the pusiness talk it is all done. Ya, ya!”
He said “Ya, ya!” constantly when he was thinking.
“I have met your good papa,” he went on, “and I like him much. He is a
man of great gift, but--”
He threw out his hands expressively.
“Poor papa,” I thought. “I suppose he let the Count see how
unbusiness-like and absent-minded he is.”
After a moment the Count said:
“His--your papa’s face--it is a typical northern one--such as we see
plenty in Scandinavia-- Ya, ya!”
“Papa is half-Irish and half-English,” I explained.
He nodded.
“Ya, ya, it is so. Nevertheless his face is northern. It is typical,
while you--” He regarded me smilingly. “Gott! You look like one little
Indian girl that I meet when I live in the North. Her father, the people
told me, was one big rich railway man of Canada, but he did not know
that pretty little Indian girl, she was his daughter. Ya, ya!”
He rubbed his hands, and nodded his head musingly, as he studied me.
Then:
“Come, I will show you the place here.”
Pulling aside a curtain covering a large window (the Count shut out all
the light except the north light), he showed me the great panorama of
the city below us. We looked across the St. Lawrence River, and in the
street directly below was the old Bonsecour market. I could see the
carts of the “habitants” (farmers) loaded with vegetables, fruit and
fresh maple syrup, some of it of the consistency of jelly. Never have I
tasted such maple syrup since I left Canada. In the midst stood the old
Bonsecour Church.
“Good people,” it seemed to say, benevolently, “I am watching over you
all!”
“It is,” said the Count, “the most picturesque place in Montreal. Some
day I will paint it, and then it shall be famous. Ya, ya! At present it
is convenient to get the good things to eat. I take me five or ten cents
in my hand, and those good habitants they give me so much food I cannot
use it all. You vill take lunch with me, Ya, ya! and we will have the
visitors here in the Château de Ramezal. Ya, ya!”
He had kept on tap two barrels of wine, which he bought from the Oke
monks. He said they made a finer wine than any produced in this country
or the United States. They made it from an old French recipe and sold it
for a mere song. These monks, he told me, also made cheese and butter,
and the cheese, he said, was better than the best imported. I used to
see these monks on the street, and even in the coldest days in winter
they wore only sandals on their feet, and their bare heads were shaved
bald on top. They owned an island down the St. Lawrence, and depended on
its products for their existence.