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MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S
REMEMBRANCES.
BY
JULIANA HORATIA EWING.
LONDON:
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.
NEW YORK: E. & J.B. YOUNG & CO.
[Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.]
TO MY HUSBAND
A.E.
IN REMEMBRANCE OF
1866 AND 1867
J.H.E.
CONTENTS.
IDA
MRS. MOSS
THE SNORING GHOST
REKA DOM
KERGUELEN'S LAND
IDA.
... "Thou shall not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale Primrose."
_Cymbeline._
The little old lady lived over the way, through a green gate that
shut with a click, and up three white steps. Every morning at eight
o'clock the church bell chimed for Morning Prayer--chim! chime! chim!
chime!--and every morning at eight o'clock the little old lady came
down the white steps, and opened the gate with a click, and went where
the bells were calling.
About this time also little Ida would kneel on a chair at her nursery
window in the opposite house to watch the old lady come out and go.
The old lady was one of those people who look always the same. Every
morning her cheeks looked like faded rose-leaves, and her white hair
like a snow-wreath in a garden laughing at the last tea-rose. Every
morning she wore the same black satin bonnet, and the same white
shawl; had delicate gloves on the smallest of hands, and gathered her
skirt daintily up from the smallest of feet. Every morning she carried
a clean pocket-handkerchief, and a fresh rose in the same hand with
her Prayer-book; and as the Prayer-book, being bound up with the
Bible, was very thick, she seemed to have some difficulty in so doing.
Every morning, whatever the weather might be, she stood outside the
green gate, and looked up at the sky to see if this were clear, and
down at the ground to see if that were dry; and so went where the
bells were calling.
Ida knew the little old lady quite well by sight, but she did not know
her name. Perhaps Ida's great-uncle knew it; but he was a grave,
unsociable man, who saw very little of his neighbours, so perhaps he
did not; and Ida stood too much in awe of him to trouble him with idle
questions. She had once asked Nurse, but Nurse did not know; so the
quiet orphan child asked no more. She made up a name for the little
old lady herself, however, after the manner of Mr. John Bunyan, and
called her Mrs. Overtheway; and morning after morning, though the
bread-and-milk breakfast smoked upon the table, she would linger at
the window, beseeching--
"One minute more, dear Nurse! Please let me wait till Mrs. Overtheway
has gone to church."
And when the little old lady had come out and gone, Ida would creep
from her perch, and begin her breakfast. Then, if the chimes went on
till half the basinful was eaten, little Ida would nod her head
contentedly, and whisper--
"Mrs. Overtheway was in time."
Little Ida's history was a sad one. Her troubles began when she was
but a year old, with the greatest of earthly losses--for then her
mother died, leaving a sailor husband and their infant child. The
sea-captain could face danger, but not an empty home; so he went back
to the winds and the waves, leaving his little daughter with
relations. Six long years had he been away, and Ida had had many
homes, and yet, somehow, no home, when one day the postman brought her
a large letter, with her own name written upon it in a large hand.
This was no old envelope sealed up again--no make-believe epistle to
be put into the post through the nursery door: it was a real letter,
with a real seal, real stamps, and a great many post-marks; and when
Ida opened it there were two sheets written by the Captain's very own
hand, in round fat characters, easy to read, with a sketch of the
Captain's very own ship at the top, and--most welcome above all!--the
news that the Captain's very own self was coming home.
"I shall have a papa all to myself very soon, Nurse," said Ida. "He
has written a letter to me, and made me a picture of his ship; it is
the 'Bonne Esperance,' which he says means Good Hope. I love this
letter better than anything he has ever sent me."
Nevertheless, Ida took out the carved fans and workboxes, the beads,
and handkerchiefs, and feathers, the dainty foreign treasures the
sailor-father had sent to her from time to time; dusted them, kissed
them, and told them that the Captain was coming home. But the letter
she wore in her pocket by day, and kept under her pillow by night.
"Why don't you put your letter into one of your boxes, like a tidy
young lady, Miss Ida?" said Nurse. "You'll wear it all to bits doing
as you do."
"It will last till the ship comes home," said Miss Ida.
It had need then to have been written on the rock, graven with an iron
pen for ever; for the "Bonne Esperance" (like other earthly hopes) had
perished to return no more. She foundered on her homeward voyage, and
went down into the great waters, whilst Ida slept through the stormy
night, with the Captain's letter beneath her pillow.
Alas! Alas! Alas!
* * * * *
Two or three months had now passed away since Ida became an orphan.
She had become accustomed to the crape-hung frock; she had learnt to
read the Captain's letter as the memorial of a good hope which it had
pleased God to disappoint; she was fairly happy again. It was in the
midst of that new desolation in her lonely life that she had come to
stay with her great-uncle, and had begun to watch the doings of the
little old lady who lived over the way. When dolls seemed vanity, and
Noah's Ark a burden, it had been a quiet amusement, demanding no
exertion, to see what little she could see of the old lady's life, and
to speculate about what she could not; to wonder and fancy what Mrs.
Overtheway looked like without her bonnet, and what she did with
herself when she was not at church. Ida's imagination did not carry
her far. She believed her friend to be old, immeasurably old,
indefinitely old; and had a secret faith that she had never been
otherwise. She felt sure that she wore a cap indoors, and that it was
a nicer one than Nurse's; that she had real tea, with sugar and cream,
instead of milk-and-water, and hot toast rather than bread-and-treacle
for tea; that she helped herself at meals, and went to bed according
to her own pleasure and convenience; was--perhaps on these very
grounds--utterly happy, and had always been so.
"I am only a little girl," said Ida, as she pressed her face sadly to
the cold window-pane. "I am only a little girl, and very sad, you
know, because Papa was drowned at sea; but Mrs. Overtheway is very
old, and always happy, and so I love her."
And in this there was both philosophy and truth.
It is a mistake to suppose that the happiness of others is always a
distasteful sight to the sad at heart. There are times in which life
seems shorn of interests and bereaved of pleasure, when it is a
relief, almost amounting to consolation, to believe that any one is
happy. It is some feeling of this nature, perhaps, which makes the
young so attractive to the old. It soothes like the sound of
harmonious music, the sight of harmonious beauty. It witnesses to a
conviction lying deep even in the most afflicted souls that (come what
may), all things were created good, and man made to be blessed; before
which sorrow and sighing flee away.
This was one of many things which formed the attraction for Ida in the
little old lady who lived over the way. That green gate shut in a life
of which the child knew nothing, and which might be one of mysterious
delights; to believe that such things could be was consoling, and to
imagine them was real entertainment. Ida would sometimes draw a chair
quietly to the table beside her own, and fancy that Mrs. Overtheway
was having tea with her. She would ask the old lady if she had been in
time for church that morning, beg her to take off her bonnet, and
apologise politely for the want of hot tea and toast. So far all was
well, for Ida could answer any of these remarks on Mrs. Overtheway's
behalf; but it may be believed that after a certain point this
one-sided conversation flagged. One day Nurse overheard Ida's low
murmurs.
"What are you talking about, Miss Ida?" said she.
"I am pretending to have Mrs. Overtheway to tea," said Ida.
"Little girls shouldn't pretend what's not true," replied Nurse, in
whose philosophy fancy and falsehood were not distinguished. "Play
with your dolls, my dear, and don't move the chairs out of their
places."
With which Nurse carried off the chair into a corner as if it had been
a naughty child, and Ida gave up her day-dream with a sigh; since to
have prolonged the fancy that Mrs. Overtheway was present, she must
have imagined her borne off at the crisis of the meal after a fashion
not altogether consistent with an old lady's dignity.
Summer passed, and winter came on. There were days when the white
steps looked whiter than usual; when the snowdrift came halfway up the
little green gate, and the snowflakes came softly down with a
persistency which threatened to bury the whole town. Ida knew that on
such days Mrs. Overtheway could not go out; but whenever it was
tolerably fine the old lady appeared as usual, came daintily down the
steps, and went where the bells were calling. Chim! chime! chim!
chime! They sounded so near through the frosty air, that Ida could
almost have fancied that the church was coming round through the snowy
streets to pick up the congregation.
Mrs. Overtheway looked much the same in winter as in summer. She
seemed as fresh and lively as ever, carried her Prayer-book and
handkerchief in the same hand, was only more warmly wrapped up, and
wore fur-lined boots, which were charming. There was one change,
however, which went to Ida's heart. The little old lady had no longer
a flower to take to church with her. At Christmas she took a sprig of
holly, and after that a spray of myrtle, but Ida felt that these were
poor substitutes for a rose. She knew that Mrs. Overtheway had flowers
somewhere, it is true, for certain pots of forced hyacinths had passed
through the little green gate to the Christmas church decorations; but
one's winter garden is too precious to be cropped as recklessly as
summer rose-bushes, and the old lady went flowerless to church and
enjoyed her bulbs at home. But the change went to Ida's heart.
Spring was early that year. At the beginning of February there was a
good deal of snow on the ground, it is true, but the air became milder
and milder, and towards the end of the month there came a real spring
day, and all the snow was gone.
"You may go and play in the garden, Miss Ida," said Nurse, and Ida
went.
She had been kept indoors for a long time by the weather and by a
cold, and it was very pleasant to get out again, even when the only
amusement was to run up and down the shingly walks and wonder how soon
she might begin to garden, and whether the gardener could be induced
to give her a piece of ground sufficiently extensive to grow a crop of
mustard-and-cress in the form of a capital I. It was the kitchen
garden into which Ida had been sent. At the far end it was cut off
from the world by an overgrown hedge with large gaps at the bottom,
through which Ida could see the high road, a trough for watering
horses, and beyond this a wood. The hedge was very thin in February,
and Ida had a good view in consequence, and sitting on a stump in the
sunshine she peered through the gap to see if any horses came to
drink. It was as good as a peep-show, and indeed much better.
"The snow has melted," gurgled the water, "here I am." It was
everywhere. The sunshine made the rich green mosses look dry, but in
reality they were wet, and so was everything else. Slish! slosh! Put
your feet where you would, the water was everywhere. It filled the
stone trough, which, being old and grey and steady, kept it still, and
bade it reflect the blue sky and the gorgeous mosses; but the trough
soon overflowed, and then the water slipped over the side, and ran off
in a wayside stream. "Winter is gone!" it spluttered as it ran.
"Winter is gone, winter-is-gone, winterisgone!" And, on the principle
that a good thing cannot be said too often, it went on with this all
through the summer, till the next winter came and stopped its mouth
with icicles. As the stream chattered, so the birds in the wood
sang--Tweet! tweet! chirrup! throstle! Spring! Spring! Spring!--and
they twittered from tree to tree, and shook the bare twigs with
melody; whilst a single blackbird sitting still upon a bough below,
sang "Life!" "Life!" "Life!" with the loudest pipe of his throat,
because on such a day it was happiness only to be alive.
It was like a wonderful fairy-tale, to which Ida listened with clasped
hands.
Presently another song came from the wood: it was a hymn sung by
children's voices, such as one often hears carolled by a troop of
little urchins coming home from school. The words fell familiarly on
Ida's ears:
"Quite through the streets with silver sound,
The flood of life doth flow;
Upon whose banks on every side
The wood of life doth grow.
"Thy gardens and thy gallant walks
Continually are green;
There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
As nowhere else are seen.
"There trees for evermore bear fruit,
And evermore do spring;
There evermore the Angels sit,
And evermore do sing."
Here the little chorus broke off, and the children came pouring out of
the wood with chattering and laughter. Only one lingered, playing
under a tree, and finishing the song. The child's voice rose shrill
and clear like that of the blackbird above him. He also sang of
Life--Eternal life--knowing little more than the bird of the meaning
of his song, and having little less of that devotion of innocence in
which happiness is praise.
But Ida had ceased to listen to the singing. Her whole attention was
given to the children as they scampered past the hedge, dropping bits
of moss and fungi and such like woodland spoil. For, tightly held in
the grubby hands of each--plucked with reckless indifference to bud
and stalk, and fading fast in their hot prisons--were primroses. Ida
started to her feet, a sudden idea filling her brain. The birds were
right, Spring had come, and there were flowers--_flowers for Mrs.
Overtheway_.
Ida was a very quiet, obedient little girl, as a general rule; indeed,
in her lonely life she had small temptation to pranks or mischief of
any kind. She had often been sent to play in the back garden before,
and had never thought of straying beyond its limits; but to-day a
strong new feeling had been awakened by the sight of the primroses.
"The hole is very large," said Ida, looking at the gap in the hedge;
"if that dead root in the middle were pulled up, it would be
wonderfully large."
She pulled the root up, and, though wonderful is a strong term, the
hole was certainly larger.
"It is big enough to put one's head through," said Ida, and, stooping
down, she exemplified the truth of her observation.
"Where the head goes, the body will follow," they say, and Ida's
little body was soon on the other side of the hedge; the adage says
nothing about clothes, however, and part of Ida's dress was left
behind. It had caught on the stump as she scrambled through. But
accidents will happen, and she was in the road, which was something.
"It is like going into the world to seek one's fortune," she thought;
"thus Gerda went to look for little Kay, and so Joringel sought for
the enchanted flower. One always comes to a wood."
And into the wood she came. Dame Nature had laid down her new green
carpets, and everything looked lovely; but, as has been before said,
it certainly was damp. The little singer under the tree cared no more
for this, however, than the blackbird above him.
"Will you tell me, please, where you got your primroses?" asked Ida.
The child made a quaint, half-military salute; and smiled.
"Yonder," he said laconically, and, pointing up the wood, he went on
with the song that he could not understand:
"Ah, my sweet home, Jerusalem,
Would God I were in thee!
Would God my woes were at an end,
Thy joys that I might see!"
Ida went on and on, looking about her as she ran. Presently the wood
sloped downwards, and pretty steeply, so that it was somewhat of a
scramble; yet still she kept a sharp look-out, but no primroses did
she see, except a few here and there upon the ground, which had been
plucked too close to their poor heads to be held in anybody's hands.
These showed the way, however, and Ida picked them up in sheer pity
and carried them with her.
"This is how Hop-o'-my-Thumb found his way home," she thought.
At the bottom of the hill ran a little brook, and on the opposite side
of the brook was a bank, and on the top of the bank was a hedge, and
under the hedge were the primroses. But the brook was between!
Ida looked and hesitated. It was too wide to jump across, and here, as
elsewhere, there was more water than usual. To turn back, however, was
out of the question. Gerda would not have been daunted in her search
by coming to a stream, nor would any one else that ever was read of in
fairy tales. It is true that in Fairy-land there are advantages which
cannot always be reckoned upon by commonplace children in this
commonplace world. When the straw, the coal, and the bean came to a
rivulet in their travels, the straw laid himself across as a bridge
for the others, and had not the coal been a degree too hot on that
unlucky occasion, they might (for anything Ida knew to the contrary)
still have been pursuing their journey in these favourable
circumstances. But a travelling-companion who expands into a bridge on
an emergency is not to be met with every day; and as to poor Ida--she
was alone. She stood first on one leg, and then on the other, she
looked at the water, and then at the primroses, and then at the water
again, and at last perceived that in one place there was a large,
flat, moss-covered stone in the middle of the stream, which stood well
out of the water, and from which--could she but reach it--she might
scramble to the opposite bank. But how to reach it? that nice, large,
secure, comfortable-looking stone.
"I must put some more stones," thought Ida. There were plenty in the
stream, and Ida dragged them up, and began to make a ford by piling
them together. It was chilly work, for a cloud had come over the sun;
and Ida was just a little bit frightened by the fresh-water shrimps,
and some queer, many-legged beasts, who shot off the stones as she
lifted them. At last the ford was complete. Ida stepped daintily over
the bridge she had made, and jumped triumphantly on to the big stone.
Alas! for trusting to appearances. The stone that looked so firm, was
insecurely balanced below, and at the first shock one side went down
with a splash, and Ida went with it. What a triumph for the shrimps!
She scrambled to the bank, however, made up a charming bunch of
primroses, and turned to go home. Never mind how she got back across
the brook. We have all waded streams before now, and very good fun it
is in June, but rather chilly work in February; and, in spite of
running home, Ida trembled as much with cold as with excitement when
she stood at last before Mrs. Overtheway's green gate.
Click! Ida went up the white steps, marking them sadly with her wet
feet, and gave a valiant rap. The door was opened, and a tall, rather
severe-looking housekeeper asked:
"What do you want, my dear?"
A shyness, amounting to terror, had seized upon Ida, and she could
hardly find voice to answer.
"If you please, I have brought these for--"
For whom? Ida's pale face burnt crimson as she remembered that after
all she did not know the little old lady's name. Perhaps the severe
housekeeper was touched by the sight of the black frock, torn as it
was, for she said kindly:
"Don't be frightened, my dear. What do you want?"
"These primroses," said Ida, who was almost choking. "They are for
Mrs. Overtheway to take to church with her. I am very sorry, if you
please, but I don't know her name, and I call her Mrs. Overtheway
because, you know, she lives over the way. At least--" Ida added,
looking back across the road with a sudden confusion in her ideas,
"at least--I mean--you know--_we_ live over the way." And overwhelmed
with shame at her own stupidity, Ida stuffed the flowers into the
woman's hand, and ran home as if a lion were at her heels.
"Well! Miss Ida," began Nurse, as Ida opened the nursery door
(and there was something terrible in her "well"); "if I ever--" and
Nurse seized Ida by the arm, which was generally premonitory of her
favourite method of punishment--"a good shaking." But Ida clung close
and flung her arms round Nurse's neck.
"Don't shake me, Nursey, dear," she begged, "my head aches so. I have
been very naughty, I know. I've done everything you can think of; I've
crept through the hedge, and been right through the wood, and made a
ford, and tumbled into the brook, and waded back, and run all the way
home, and been round by the town for fear you should see me. And I've
done something you could never, never think of if you tried till next
Christmas, I've got some flowers for Mrs. Overtheway, only I did it so
stupidly; she will think me a perfect goose, and perhaps be angry,"
and the tears came into Ida's eyes.
"She'll think you a naughty, troublesome child, as you are," said
Nurse, who seldom hesitated to assume the responsibility of any
statement that appeared to be desirable; "you're mad on that old lady,
I think. Just look at that dress!"
Ida looked, but her tears were falling much too fast for her to have a
clear view of anything, and the torn edges of the rent seemed fringed
with prismatic colours.
To crown all she was sent to bed. In reality, this was to save the
necessity of wearing her best frock till the other was mended, and
also to keep her warm in case she should have caught cold; but Nurse
spoke of it as a punishment, and Ida wept accordingly. And this was a
triumph of that not uncommon line of nursery policy which consists in
elaborately misleading the infant mind for good.
Chim! chime! went the bells next morning, and Mrs. Overtheway came
down the white steps and through the green gate with a bunch of
primroses in her hand. She looked up as usual, but not to the sky. She
looked to the windows of the houses over the way, as if she expected
some one to be looking for her. There was no face to be seen, however;
and in the house directly opposite, one of the upper blinds was drawn
down. Ida was ill.
How long she was ill, and of what was the matter with her, Ida had no
very clear idea. She had visions of toiling through the wood over and
over again, looking vainly for something that could never be found; of
being suddenly surrounded and cut off by swollen streams; and of
crawling, unclean beasts with preternatural feelers who got into her
boots. Then these heavy dreams cleared away in part, and the stream
seemed to ripple like the sound of church bells, and these chimed out
the old tune
"Quite through the streets, with silver sound," &c.
And then, at last, she awoke one fine morning to hear the sweet
chim-chiming of the church bells, and to see Nurse sitting by her
bedside. She lay still for a few moments to make quite sure, and then
asked in a voice so faint that it surprised herself:
"Has Mrs. Overtheway gone to church?"
On which, to her great astonishment, Nurse burst into tears. For this
was the first reasonable sentence that poor Ida had spoken for several
days.
To be very ill is not pleasant; but the slow process of getting back
strength is often less pleasant still. One afternoon Ida knelt in her
old place at the window. She was up, but might not go out, and this
was a great grief. The day had been provokingly fine, and even now,
though the sun was setting, it seemed inclined to make a fresh start,
so bright was the rejuvenated glow with which it shone upon the
opposite houses, and threw a mystic glory over Mrs. Overtheway's white
steps and green railings. Oh! how Ida had wished to go out that
afternoon! How long and clear the shadows were! It seemed to Ida that
whoever was free to go into the open air could have nothing more to
desire. "Out of doors" looked like Paradise to the drooping little
maid, and the passers-by seemed to go up and down the sunny street in
a golden dream. Ida gazed till the shadows lengthened, and crept over
the street and up the houses; till the sunlight died upon the
railings, and then upon the steps, and at last lingered for half an
hour in bright patches among the chimney-stacks, and then went out
altogether, and left the world in shade.
Twilight came on and Ida sat by the fire, which rose into importance
now that the sunshine was gone; and, moreover, spring evenings are
cold.
Ida felt desolate, and, on the whole, rather ill-used. Nurse had not
been upstairs for hours, and though she had promised real tea and
toast this evening, there were no signs of either as yet. The poor
child felt too weak to play, and reading made her eyes ache. If only
there were some one to tell her a story.
It grew dark, and then steps came outside the door, and a fumbling
with the lock which made Ida nervous.
"Do come in, Nursey!" she cried.
The door opened, and someone spoke; but the voice was not the voice of
Nurse. It was a sweet, clear, gentle voice; musical, though no longer
young; such a voice as one seldom hears and never forgets, which came
out of the darkness, saying:
"It is not Nurse, my dear; she is making the tea, and gave me leave
to come up alone. I am Mrs. Overtheway."
And there in the firelight stood the little old lady, as she has been
before described, except that instead of her Prayer-book she carried a
large pot hyacinth in her two hands.
"I have brought you one of my pets, my dear," said she. "I think we
both love flowers."
The little old lady had come to tea. This was charming. She took off
her bonnet, and her cap more than fulfilled Ida's expectations,
although it was nothing smarter than a soft mass of tulle, tied with
white satin strings. But what a face looked out of it! Mrs.
Overtheway's features were almost perfect. The beauty of her eyes was
rather enhanced by the blue shadows that Time had painted round them,
and they were those good eyes which remind one of a clear well, at the
bottom of which he might see truth. When young she must have been
exquisitely beautiful, Ida thought. She was lovely still.
In due time Nurse brought up tea, and Ida could hardly believe that
her fancies were realized at last; indeed more than realized--for no
bread and treacle diminished the dignity of the entertainment; and
Nurse would as soon have thought of carrying off the Great Mogul on
his cushions, as of putting Mrs. Overtheway and her chair into the
corner.
But there is a limit even to the space of time for which one can
enjoy tea and buttered toast. The tray was carried off, the hyacinth
put in its place, and Ida curled herself up in an easy chair on one
side of the fire, Mrs. Overtheway being opposite.
"You see I am over the way still," laughed the little old lady. "Now,
tell me all about the primroses." So Ida told everything, and
apologized for her awkward speeches to the housekeeper.
"I don't know your name yet," said she.
"Call me Mrs. Overtheway still, my dear, if you please," said the
little old lady. "I like it."
So Ida was no wiser on this score.
"I was so sorry to hear that you had been made ill on my account,"
said Mrs. Overtheway. "I have been many times to ask after you, and
to-night I asked leave to come to tea. I wish I could do something to
amuse you, you poor little invalid. I know you must feel dull."
Ida's cheeks flushed.
"If you would only tell me a story," she said, "I do so like hearing
Nurse's stories. At least she has only one, but I like it. It isn't
exactly a story either, but it is about what happened in her last
place. But I am rather tired of it. There's Master Henry--I like him
very much, he was always in mischief; and there's Miss Adelaide, whose
hair curled naturally--at least with a damp brush--I like her; but I
don't have much of them; for Nurse generally goes off about a quarrel
she had with the cook, and I never could tell what they quarrelled
about, but Nurse said cook was full of malice and deceitfulness, so
she left. I'm rather tired of it."
"What sort of a story shall I tell you?" asked Mrs. Overtheway.
"A true one, I think," said Ida. "Something that happened to you
yourself, if you please. You must remember a great many things, being
so old."
And Ida said this in simple good-faith, believing it to be a
compliment.
"It is quite true," said Mrs. Overtheway, "that one remembers many
things at the end of a long life, and that they are often those things
which happened a long while ago, and which are sometimes so slight in
themselves that it is wonderful that they should not have been
forgotten. I remember, for instance, when I was about your age, an
incident that occurred which gave me an intense dislike to a special
shade of brown satin. I hated it then, and at the end of more than
half a century, I hate it still. The thing in itself was a mere folly;
the people concerned in it have been dead for many years, and yet at
the present time I should find considerable difficulty in seeing the
merits of a person who should dress in satin of that peculiar hue.
"What was it?" asked Ida.
"It was not amber satin, and it was not snuff-coloured satin; it was
one of the shades of brown known by the name of feuille-morte, or
dead-leaf colour. It is pretty in itself, and yet I dislike it."
"How funny," said Ida, wriggling in the arm-chair with satisfaction.
"Do tell me about it."
"But it is not funny in the least, unfortunately," said Mrs.
Overtheway, laughing. "It isn't really a story, either. It is not even
like Nurse's experiences. It is only a strong remembrance of my
childhood, that isn't worth repeating, and could hardly amuse you."
"Indeed, indeed, it would," said Ida. "I like the sound of it. Satin
is so different from cooks."
Mrs. Overtheway laughed.
"Still, I wish I could think of something more entertaining," said
she.
"Please tell me that," said Ida, earnestly; "I would rather hear
something about you than anything else."
There was no resisting this loving argument. Ida felt she had gained
her point, and curled herself up into a listening attitude
accordingly. The hyacinth stood in solemn sweetness as if it were
listening also; and Mrs. Overtheway, putting her little feet upon the
fender to warm, began the story of ----
MRS. MOSS.
"It did not move my grief, to see
The trace of human step departed,
Because the garden was deserted,
The blither place for me!
"Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken
Hath childhood 'twixt the sun and sward:
We draw the moral afterward--
We feel the gladness then."
E. BARRETT BROWNING.
"I remember," said Mrs. Overtheway, "old as I am, I remember
distinctly many of the unrecognized vexations, longings, and
disappointments of childhood. By unrecognized, I mean those vexations,
longings, and disappointments which could not be understood by nurses,
are not confided even to mothers, and through which, even in our
cradles, we become subject to that law of humanity which gives to
every heart its own secret bitterness to be endured alone. These are
they which sometimes outlive weightier memories, and produce life-long
impressions disproportionate to their value; but oftener, perhaps, are
washed away by the advancing tide of time--the vexations, longings,
and disappointments of the next period of our lives. These are they
which are apt to be forgotten too soon to benefit our children, and
which in the forgetting make childhood all bright to look back upon,
and foster that happy fancy that there is one division of mortal life
in which greedy desire, unfulfilled purpose, envy, sorrow, weariness
and satiety, have no part, by which every man believes himself at
least to have been happy as a child.
"My childhood, on the whole, was a very happy one. The story that I am
about to relate is only a fragment of it.
"As I look into the fire, and the hot coals shape themselves into a
thousand memories of the past, I seem to be staring with childish eyes
at a board that stares back at me out of a larch plantation, and gives
notice that 'This House is to Let.' Then, again, I seem to peep
through rusty iron gates at the house itself--an old red house, with
large windows, through which one could see the white shutters that
were always closed. To look at this house, though only with my mind's
eye, recalls the feeling of mysterious interest with which I looked at
it fifty years ago, and brings back the almost oppressive happiness of
a certain day, when Sarah, having business with the couple who kept
the empty manor, took me with her, and left me to explore the grounds
whilst she visited her friends.
"Next to a companion with that rare sympathy of mind to mind, that
exceptional coincidence of tastes, which binds some few friendships in
a chain of mesmeric links, supplanting all the complacencies of love
by intuition, is a companion whose desires and occupations are in
harmony, if not in unison, with one's own. That friend whom the long
patience of the angler does not chafe, the protracted pleasures of the
sketcher do not weary, because time flies as swiftly with him whilst
he pores over his book, or devoutly seeks botanical specimens through
the artist's middle distance; that friend, in short--that valuable
friend--who is blessed with the great and good quality of riding a
hobby of his own, and the greater and better quality of allowing other
people to ride theirs.
"I did not think out all this fifty years ago, neither were the tastes
of that excellent housemaid, Sarah, quite on a level with those of
which I have spoken; but I remember feeling the full comfort of the
fact that Sarah's love for friendly gossip was quite as ardent as mine
for romantic discovery; that she was disposed to linger quite as long
to chat as I to explore; and that she no more expected me to sit
wearily through her kitchen confidences, than I imagined that she
would give a long afternoon to sharing my day-dreams in the gardens of
the deserted manor.
"We had ridden our respective hobbies till nearly tea-time before she
appeared.
"'I'm afraid you must be tired of waiting, Miss Mary,' said she.
"'Tired!' I exclaimed, 'not in the least. I have been so happy, and I
am so much obliged to you, Sarah.'
"Need I say why I was so happy that afternoon? Surely most people have
felt--at least in childhood--the fascination of deserted gardens,
uninhabited houses, ruined churches. They have that advantage over
what is familiar and in use that undiscovered regions have over the
comfortable one that the traveller leaves to explore them, that the
secret which does not concern me has over the facts which do, that
what we wish for has over what we possess.
"If you, my dear, were to open one of those drawers, and find Nurse's
Sunday dress folded up in the corner, it would hardly amuse you; but
if, instead thereof, you found a dress with a long stiff bodice,
square at the neck, and ruffled round the sleeves, such as you have
seen in old pictures, no matter how old or useless it might be, it
would shed round it an atmosphere of delightful and mysterious
speculations. This curiosity, these fancies, roused by the ancient
dress, whose wearer has passed away, are awakened equally by empty
houses where someone must once have lived, though his place knows him
no more. It was so with the manor. How often had I peeped through the
gates, catching sight of garden walks, and wondering whither they led,
and who had walked in them; seeing that the shutters behind one window
were partly open, and longing to look in.
"To-day I had been in the walks and peeped through the window. This
was the happiness.
"Through the window I had seen a large hall with a marble floor and
broad stone stairs winding upwards into unknown regions. By the walks
I had arrived at the locked door of the kitchen garden, at a small
wood or wilderness of endless delights (including a broken swing), and
at a dilapidated summer-house. I had wandered over the spongy lawn,
which was cut into a long green promenade by high clipt yew-hedges,
walking between which, in olden times, the ladies grew erect and
stately, as plants among brushwood stretch up to air and light.
"Finally, I had brought away such relics as it seemed to me that
honesty would allow. I had found half a rusty pair of scissors in the
summer-house. Perhaps some fair lady of former days had lost them
here, and swept distractedly up and down the long walks seeking them.
Perhaps they were a present, and she had given a luck-penny for them,
lest they should cut love. Sarah said the housekeeper might have
dropped them there; but Sarah was not a person of sentiment. I did not
show her the marble I found by the hedge, the acorn I picked up in the
park, nor a puny pansy which, half way back to a wild heartsease, had
touched me as a pathetic memorial of better days. When I got home, I
put the scissors, the marble, and the pansy into a box. The acorn I
hung in a bottle of water--it was to be an oak tree.
"Properly speaking, I was not at home just then, but on a visit to my
grandmother and a married aunt without children who lived with her. A
fever had broken out in my own home, and my visit here had been
prolonged to keep me out of the way of infection. I was very happy and
comfortable except for one single vexation, which was this:
"I slept on a little bed in what had once been the nursery, a large
room which was now used as a workroom. A great deal of sewing was done
in my grandmother's house, and the sewing-maid and at least one other
of the servants sat there every evening. A red silk screen was put
before my bed to shield me from the candlelight, and I was supposed
to be asleep when they came upstairs. But I never remember to have
been otherwise than wide awake, nervously awake, wearily awake. This
was the vexation. I was not a strong child, and had a very excitable
brain; and the torture that it was to hear those maids gossiping on
the other side of the dim red light of my screen I cannot well
describe, but I do most distinctly remember. I tossed till the clothes
got hot, and threw them off till I got cold, and stopped my ears, and
pulled the sheet over my face, and tried not to listen, and listened
in spite of all. They told long stories, and made many jokes that I
couldn't understand; sometimes I heard names that I knew, and fancied
I had learnt some wonderful secret. Sometimes, on the contrary, I made
noises to intimate that I was awake, when one of them would rearrange
my glaring screen, and advise me to go to sleep; and then they talked
in whispers, which was more distracting still.
"One evening--some months after my ramble round the manor--the maids
went out to tea, and I lay in peaceful silence watching the shadows
which crept noiselessly about the room as the fire blazed, and wishing
Sarah and her colleagues nothing less than a month of uninterrupted
tea-parties. I was almost asleep when Aunt Harriet came into the room.
She brought a candle, put up my screen (the red screen again!), and
went to the work-table. She had not been rustling with the work things
for many minutes when my grandmother followed her, and shut the door
with an air which seemed to promise a long stay. She also gave a
shove to my screen, and then the following conversation began:
"'I have been to Lady Sutfield's to-day, Harriet.'
"'Indeed, ma'am.' But my aunt respectfully continued her work, as I
could hear by the scraping of the scissors along the table.
"'I heard some news there. The manor is let.'
"I almost jumped in my bed, and Aunt Harriet's scissors paused.
"'Let, ma'am! To whom!'
"'To a Mrs. Moss. You must have heard me speak of her. I knew her
years ago, when we were both young women. Anastatia Eden, she was
then.'
"I could hear my aunt move to the fire, and sit down.
"'The beautiful Miss Eden? Whom did she marry at last? Was there not
some love-affair of hers that you knew about?'
"'Her love-affairs were endless. But you mean Mr. Sandford. She
treated him very ill--very ill.'
"There was a pause, while the fire crackled in the silence; and then,
to the infinite satisfaction of my curiosity, Aunt Harriet said:
"'I've forgotten the story, ma'am. He was poor, was he not?'
"'He had quite enough to marry on,' my grandmother answered,
energetically; 'but he was not a great match. It was an old story, my
dear. The world! The world! The world! I remember sitting up with
Anastatia after a ball, where he had been at her side all the evening.
We sipped hot posset, and talked of our partners. Ah, dear!' and here
my grandmother heaved a sigh; partly, perhaps, because of the follies
of youth, and partly, perhaps, because youth had gone, and could come
back no more.
"'Anastatia talked of him,' she continued. 'I remember her asking me
if "her man" were not a pretty fellow, and if he had not sweet blue
eyes and the greatest simplicity I ever knew but in a child. It was
true enough; and he was a great deal more than that--a great deal more
than she ever understood. Poor Anastatia! I advised her to marry him,
but she seemed to look on that as impossible. I remember her saying
that it would be different if she were not an acknowledged beauty; but
it was expected that she would marry well, and he was comparatively
poor, and not even singular. He was accomplished, and the soul of
honour, but simple, provokingly simple, with no pretensions to carry
off the toast of a county. My dear, if he had been notorious in any
way--for dissipation, for brawling, for extravagance--I believe it
would have satisfied the gaping world, and he would have had a chance.
But there was nothing to talk about, and Anastatia had not the courage
to take him for himself. She had the world at her feet, and paid for
it by being bound by its opinion.'
"Here my grandmother, who was apt to moralize, especially when
relating biographies of young ladies, gave another sigh.
"'Then why did she encourage him?' inquired Aunt Harriet; who also
moralized, but with more of indignation and less of philosophy.
"'I believe she loved him in spite of herself; but at the last, when
he offered, she turned prudent and refused him.'
"'Poor man! Did he ever marry?'
"'Yes, and very happily--a charming woman. But the strange part of the
story is, that he came quite unexpectedly into a large property that
was in his family.'
"'Did he? Then he would have been as good a match as most of her
admirers?'
"'Better. It was a fine estate. Poor Anastatia!'
"'Serve her right,' said my aunt, shortly.
"'She was very beautiful,' my grandmother gently recommenced. She said
this, not precisely as an excuse, but with something of the sort in
her tone. 'Very beautiful! How stately she did look that night, to be
sure! She did not paint, and her complexion (a shade too high by day)
was perfection by candlelight. I can see her now, my dear, as she
stood up for a minuet with him. We wore hoops, then; and she had a
white brocade petticoat, embroidered with pink rosebuds, and a train
and bodice of pea-green satin, and green satin shoes with pink heels.
You never saw anything more lovely than that brocade. A rich old aunt
had given it to her. The shades of the rosebuds were exquisite. I
embroidered the rosebuds on that salmon-coloured cushion downstairs
from a piece that Anastatia gave me as a pattern. Dear me! What a
dress it was, and how lovely she looked in it! Her eyes were black, a
thing you rarely see, and they shone and glittered under her powdered
hair. She had a delicately curved nose; splendid teeth, too, and
showed them when she smiled. Then such a lovely throat, and
beautifully-shaped arms! I don't know how it is, my dear Harriet,'
added my grandmother, thoughtfully, 'but you don't see the splendid
women now-a-days that there were when I was young. There are plenty of
pretty, lively girls (rather too lively, in my old-fashioned
judgment), but not the real stately beauty that it was worth a twenty
miles' drive there and back, just to see, at one of the old county
balls.'
"My aunt sniffed, partly from a depressing consciousness of being one
of a degenerate generation, and of a limited experience in the matter
of county balls; partly also to express her conviction that principle
is above beauty. She said:
"'Then Miss Eden married, ma'am?'
"'Yes, rather late, Mr. Moss; a wealthy Indian merchant, I believe.
She lost all her children, I know, one after another, and then he
died. Poor Anastatia! It seems like yesterday. And to think she should
be coming here!'
"My grandmother sighed again, and I held my breath, hoping for some
further particulars of the lovely heroine of this romance. But I was
disappointed. My uncle's voice at this moment called loudly from
below, and Aunt Harriet hurried off with a conscious meritoriousness
about her, becoming a lady who had married the right man, and took
great care of him.
"'Supper, ma'am. I think,' she said, as she left the room.
"My grandmother sat still by the fire, sighing gently now and then,
and I lay making up my mind to brave all and tell her that I was
awake. In the first place (although I was not intentionally
eavesdropping, and my being awake was certainly not my fault), I felt
rather uneasy at having overheard what I knew was not intended for my
hearing. Besides this, I wanted to hear some more stories of the
lovely Mrs. Moss, and to ask how soon she would come to the manor.
After a few seconds my grandmother rose and toddled across the room.
I made an effort, and spoke just above my breath:
"'Granny!'
"But my grandmother was rather deaf. Moreover, my voice may have been
drowned in the heavy sigh with which she closed the nursery door.
"The room was empty again; the glare of the red screen was tenderly
subdued in the firelight; but for all this I did not go to sleep. I
took advantage of my freedom to sit up in bed, toss my hair from my
forehead, and clasping my knees with my arms, to rock myself and
think. My thoughts had one object; my whole mind was filled with one
image--Mrs. Moss. The future inhabitant of my dear deserted manor
would, in any circumstances, have been an interesting subject for my
fancies. The favoured individual whose daily walk might be between the
yew-hedges on that elastic lawn; who should eat, drink, and sleep
through the commonplace hours of this present time behind those
mystical white shutters! But when the individual added to this
felicitous dispensation of fortune the personal attributes of
unparalleled beauty and pea-green satin; of having worn hoops, high
heels, and powder; of countless lovers, and white brocade with pink
rosebuds--well might I sit, my brain whirling with anticipation, as I
thought: 'She is coming here: I shall see her!' For though, of
course, I knew that having lived in those (so to speak) pre-historic
times when my grandmother was young, Mrs. Moss must now be an old
woman; yet, strange as it may seem, my dear, I do assure you that I
never realized the fact. I thought of her as I had heard of her--young
and beautiful--and modelled my hopes accordingly.
"Most people's day-dreams take, sooner or later, a selfish turn. I
seemed to identify myself with the beautiful Anastatia. I thought of
the ball as one looks back to the past. I fancied myself moving
through the _minuet de la cour_, whose stately paces scarcely made the
silken rosebuds rustle. I rejected _en masse_ countless suitors of
fabulous wealth and nobility; but when it came to Mr. Sandford, I
could feel with Miss Eden no more. My grandmother had said that she
loved him, that she encouraged him, and that she gave him up for
money. It was a mystery! In her place, I thought, I would have danced
every dance with him! I would have knitted for him in winter, and
gathered flowers for him in the summer hedges. To whom should one be
most kind, if not to those whom one most loves? To love, and take
pleasure in giving pain--to balance a true heart and clear blue eyes
against money, and prefer money--was not at that time comprehensible
by me. I pondered, and (so to speak) spread out the subject before my
mind, and sat in judgment upon it.
"Money--that is, golden guineas (my grandmother had given me one on
my birthday), crowns, shillings, sixpences, pennies, halfpennies,
farthings; and when you come to consider how many things a guinea
judiciously expended in a toy-shop will procure, you see that money is
a great thing, especially if you have the full control of it, and are
not obliged to spend it on anything useful.
"On the other hand, those whom you love and who love you--not in
childhood, thank God, the smallest part of one's acquaintance.