GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER.
"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 think _I_ could."
A shriek from Molly here startled them all, or perhaps I should say,
_would_ have 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 that
_reminded_ me."
"But what about, my dear child?"
"About telling stories; don't you remember grandmother _dear_, I said you
would be _perfect_ if you would tell us stories, and you didn't say you
wouldn't."
"And what's more, grandmother promised me one," said Ralph.
"_Did_ I, 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 fire
_inside_; 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't_ you 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 a _very_ little 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 asking
_my_ grandmother a question very like that."
"_Your_ grandmother!" exclaimed all the children--Molly adding, "Had
_you_ ever 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, and _then_ you 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 feel _so_ uncomfortable
when you know quite well what I _mean_? 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 us _about_ your 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. _She_ always 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. Did _you_ like 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 liked _best_," 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 an _awfully_ nice little girl."
"My grandmother was to outward appearance quiet and rather cold," replied
_their_ grandmother. "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, _please_ do," 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--the
_loveliest_ old 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. And _sometimes_, 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 child _cannot_ admire
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 their _business_
often 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 to _her_
grandmother, 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 held _very_ many, 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'm _so_
afraid 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're _very_ nice," 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 even _wished_ to 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 harm _could_ it 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, what _did_ you 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. _What_ a 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 I _could_ do. 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 I _could_ not 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. _I_ did 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, _what_ a 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, _do_ finish 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's _my_ good 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."