TRE MADOC.
IT was a toilsome journey. Andrew had taken great pains to provide easy
horses for us, and we carried some comforts in the way of provisions,
biscuits, gingerbread, two or three flasks of wine, and small packages
of coffee, and one of the new Chinese drink called tea, which had just
begun to come in fashion, and which has now become quite common, even
in tradesmen's families. For this, as for many other kindnesses, we
were indebted to Mr. Pepys and his good little wife.
We did not travel very rapidly, the roads being bad, even at this
time of the year, and such as in many places forbade our travelling
otherwise than in single file. The weather was charming—that was one
comfort—and the air as delicious as any I ever breathed in my life.
As we crossed the high moors, we saw abundance of those old heathen
monuments which abound in Normandy, and still more in Brittany, and
once we passed one almost exactly like that above our orchard, where my
father and I had our memorable conversation.
We stopped for rest and refreshment in little country towns, and
sometimes at lonely inns standing by themselves, such as would not have
been considered very safe abiding-places in France, and where we should
have been at a loss to make ourselves understood but for Andrew and the
sailor whom he had taken along from Plymouth. The Cornish tongue, which
is now fallen greatly into disuse, was at that time generally spoken
among the common people. I picked up a good deal of it afterward, but
at that time it was all heathen Greek to me, though my mother could
speak it a little.
I must needs say that, though we must have appeared as outlandish to
them as they did to us, the good folks were most kind to us, especially
when they had heard something of our story. They would express their
sympathy by sighs and tears, and by bringing out to us the best that
they had; and the men would often leave their work and walk miles
beside us to guide us on our way.
Simon kept up his courage very well, and indeed he enjoyed the journey;
but poor Jeanne's spirits sank lower and lower, and I think she would
have given out altogether had we not come, on the fifth day, to
cultivated fields and orchards. The sight of these last revived her
drooping courage, and when at last we reached the village of Tre Madoc,
always a neat little place, and passing it came to the brow of the hill
from which we looked down on the house of Tre Madoc, nestling amid
great trees in its south-land valley, with the clear stream falling in
a cascade at the upper end and rushing down to the sea, she was quite
another woman.
"Is this not beautiful, Jeanne?" said my mother, her eyes filling with
tears as she gazed on the old home, unseen for so many years.
"It is, madame; I won't deny it, though the house is nothing in
grandeur to the Tour d'Antin. And the cottages do look snug and
comfortable; but after all it is not France!"
"No, it is not France: don't you wish it were?" said I. "How nice it
would be to see a party of dragoons coming after us over the hill, and
to be afraid to pass yonder tumbling old cross lest some one should see
that we did not bow to it!"
I am conscious that I spoke these words all the more sharply because I
was myself dreadfully homesick—not for France so much as for London,
with which I had fallen in love, though I had begun by disliking it so
much. I had had a taste of that life of which I had so often dreamed,
and I found the cup too sweet to wish to have that taste the only one.
My mother looked at me in surprise, but she had no time to speak the
reproof which her eyes uttered. It seemed that we were expected and
watched for. We saw a little lad, who had been sitting with his dog and
clapper watching the birds, leave his occupation and run down toward
the house, and presently an elderly lady, surrounded by three or four
young ones, came out upon the porch.
"There are my mother and sisters," said Andrew "and," he added to me,
in a lower tone, "your mother, too, Vevette! I hope you will love her."
"I am sure I shall," I tried to answer graciously, though I felt
inwardly vexed. I always was provoked when Andrew said any such thing
implying a kind of property in me.
I felt an unaccountable shyness of these new relatives, such as I had
not been conscious of either in Jersey or London, and I wished the
meeting with them could be postponed. But our tired beasts now put
themselves into brisk motion, rejoicing, poor creatures, in the thought
of rest and food. We descended the hill, passed through a short avenue
of nut-trees, and came out before the same porch, overgrown with ivy
and a groat Virginia vine, as we used to call it, and found ourselves
in presence of our friends.
Andrew sprang from his horse and assisted my mother and myself to
dismount. The older lady clasped my mother in her arms.
"Dearest sister Margaret," said she, kissing her on both cheeks,
"welcome home! It is a happy day that sees you enter your father's
house once more. And this is my new daughter. Heaven bless you, my
love! I have a flock of maidens, as you see, but there is plenty of
room for one more. And who are these?" Turning to Simon and Jeanne, who
had also dismounted and stood modestly in the background.
My mother explained matters, and our poor friends were welcomed in
their turn and committed to the care of a very nice old woman, to be
made comfortable, while one of half a dozen old blue-coated serving-men
led away our horses and attended to our luggage.
Then we were conveyed into a parlor, a large low room wainscoted with
cedar and hung with handsome though faded needlework. Here we were
relieved of our riding gear and presented to our other cousins, of whom
I was too tired and confused to see aught but that Betty was small and
dark, Margaret tall and fair, and Rosamond very much like somebody I
had known, I could not say whom.
"But you are both tired with your long journey, I am sure," said my
aunt, after the first greetings had been exchanged. "Rosamond and Betty
shall show you your lodgings, and when you have refreshed yourselves we
will meet at supper. I have given you the gilded room, Margaret, and to
Agnes—or do you call her Genevieve?—the little chamber over the porch
beside it. I might have given you a more sumptuous apartment, my dear,"
she added, turning to me; "though indeed we are but plain country folks
at best; but the porch room hath a pleasant lookout, and I thought you
would like to be near your mother."
I murmured something, I hardly knew what, and my mother answered for
me. "Vevette is not used to luxury, my dear sister, and the porch room
is good enough for any young maid. May I ask you to send Jeanne to me?
She will feel herself very strange, I fear."
"She shall attend you directly," answered my aunt; "and glad I am that
two such confessors for the faith should find a shelter under this
roof."
"Take heed to the steps," said Rosamond, as we came to the foot of the
staircase; "they are somewhat slippery."
That they were, being of dark oak, and polished like glass with age
and much scrubbing. However, I was used to polished floors, and so did
not get a fall. We traversed a long gallery hung with pictures, and
came to my mother's room, which was large and low. Above the wainscot,
the walls were covered with old-fashioned stamped and gilded leather,
such as one seldom sees now. The bed was of needlework, with wondrous
white and fine linen—a matter in which we Corbets have always been
particular. There was a small Turkey carpet on the floor, and quite
a fine Venice glass, with branches, handsomer than that in my aunt's
dressing-room in London. I thought the room as pretty as any one I
had ever seen. Indeed, the whole house was finished with a richness
uncommon in remote country houses at that day, for the men of the
family, taking naturally to a seafaring life, had brought home from
abroad many articles of luxury and beauty.
My own room was by far the prettiest I had ever inhabited, even at any
aunt's house in London. It was partly over the porch, as my aunt had
said, and had a kind of projecting window which commanded a lovely view
of the sea and the shore. The bed was small and hung with white, and
there was a queer old cabinet or chest of drawers, which reminded me at
once of Jeanne's cherished bahut, which she often sighed over.
"That cabinet came from the south of France, they say," said Rosamond,
seeing my eyes fixed upon it. "My grandfather brought it home for a
present to his wife."
"There she goes," said Betty, laughing. "Rosamond knows the history of
every old piece of furniture and tapestry and every old picture and
sampler in the old house, and will retail them to you by the hour, if
you care to listen to her. They are all precious relics in her eyes."
"I am sure I shall care," said I, seeing that Rosamond looked a little
dashed. "I love things that have histories, and that old cabinet is so
like one that my poor foster-mother used to have, that I fell in love
with it in a moment; I think Rosamond and I will agree finely."
It was now Betty's turn to look a little vexed, but her face cleared up
directly.
"You will have abundance of entertainment, then, for the house is a
museum of old furniture and oddities. But this old tabernacle is a
convenient affair. Here are empty drawers, as you see, and a place to
write, and in this large drawer you will find clean towels and napkins
as you want them. Come, Rosamond, let us leave Agnes to dress herself.
I am sure she must feel the need of it."
I did indeed need such a refreshment, after my long ride. My mail was
already in the room, and it was with considerable satisfaction that I
arrayed myself in one of the new frocks which had been made for me in
London, and which, as I could not but be aware, set off to considerable
advantage my slender, erect figure. Then, very well satisfied with
myself, I went into my mother's room, where I found Jeanne, much
refreshed in mind and body, and disposed to regard her new home with
more favorable eyes. My mother was already dressed, and, seated in
a great chair covered with needlework flowers in faded silks, was
directing Jeanne in the unpacking of her mail and the disposition of
her clothes.
"You look well, my child," said she, holding out her hand to me. "Have
not the lines fallen to us in pleasant places? Even Jeanne admits that
the Cornish folk are Christian people, since, though they cannot speak
French, they know how to make cider."
"And very good cider too, madame," answered Jeanne; "and though I think
them not very polite to smile at the English which I learned so well to
speak in London, yet one must not expect too much of them, living as
they do at the very world's end. Why, they tell me, at least that old
sailor did, there is absolutely no land between the shore yonder and
that savage country of America. Do you think that can be true, madame?
It makes one almost afraid."
"It is quite true, my Jeanne; but I see no cause for fear," answered
my mother, smiling. "Some of our own people have settled in America,
and are prospering well. We have even relatives abiding there. My
husband and I have sometimes talked of the possibility of going thither
ourselves. Is not this a pretty place, my Vevette?"
"Yes, maman, very pretty, only—" and here I stopped; for something
choked me, and I felt a great disposition to cry.
"Only it is all strange and new, and my little one is overwrought,"
said my mother, kissing me. "I forget it is not a home-coming to you as
to me. Yet I hope you will try to be happy here," she added, regarding
me wistfully.
"Indeed I will, dear maman," I answered, making a great effort to
control myself, and succeeding pretty well. "I think the house is
beautiful, especially this room and my own; and only think, Mother
Jeanne, there is a bahut almost like yours, and my cousin Rosamond says
it came from the south of France. Perhaps it was made by the same man."
"That could hardly be, mamselle, for my great-grandfather made mine. He
was a skilful man, I have heard say, and made many beautiful pieces for
great houses."
"Then why not this one? Go and look at it," said I.
Jeanne obeyed, and soon came back in great excitement.
"It was—it really was made by my great-grandfather, madame!" she cried.
"There are the two doves pecketting on the top just the same, and the
very sign—the olive-leaf marked with a circle—which he used to put on
all his work. Is it not wonderful, madame? Is it not a good omen?"
And again she went back to examine the cabinet, and I followed her,
listening with interest while she pointed out the maker's sign carved
here and there upon the doors and drawers, and the peculiar beauty of
the steel hinges and locks.
This little incident diverted my mind and put me into better spirits,
and when Rosamond came to call us to supper, I was ready to meet her
with a smile. The meal was served in another room from that we had
seen before—a high-arched room with a gallery crossing one end, which
was situated—so Rosamond told me—in the older part of the house, and
was formerly the great hall. The meal was well served, and seemed
wonderfully abundant, though I was growing accustomed to English
profusion in the matter of eating and drinking. I could not but admire
the white, glossy sheen of the damask cloth and napkins, and the
beautiful china dishes, more beautiful than any I had ever seen. China
collecting was a great passion then, and my aunt in London would have
given one of her little pink ears for the curious standard dish full
of early strawberries which adorned the supper table, or the tall jug
crowned with frothy whipped cream beside it.
We young ones were more or less silent, of course, while my mother
and my Aunt Amy talked about old times, and who was dead, and whose
son had married which one's daughter, and all the rest of the chat
which goes on when old neighbors come together. My dear mother was—no
disparagement to her either—a bit of a gossip; though, as we had few
friends among our French neighbors, she had had little opportunity of
indulging her tastes; but now she grew more animated and interested
than I had ever seen her, in hearing all the news my Aunt Amy had to
tell.
"And what about our cousins at Stanton?" asked my mother presently.
"From what Andrew tells me, I suppose the present lady is not much like
the one I knew."
"No more than chalk is like cream cheese," answered Aunt Amy. "Yet she
is a good lady, too, and a kind stepmother to the lad who is left,
though she had two daughters of her own when she married my lord."
"And what like are they?"
"Nay, that you must ask Andrew. He has seen more of them than I have."
"Theo is well enough," said Andrew. "She is a merry girl, who cares not
much for anything but pleasure and finery, but she is good-natured at
least. Martha is a girl of another stamp. I pity the man who marries
her. She hath far more mind than Theo, but such a temper! Disagree with
her ever so little—do but dare to like what she hates or know something
she does not—and she is your enemy for life."
"Gently, gently, my son," said his mother, with a little laugh. "What
hath poor Martha done to you?"
"Nothing to me, mother, but I have seen enough of her doings to others.
I believe there is but one person in the world she stands in awe of—her
mother—and but one she loves—her half-brother, the young lord. I do
think she cares for him."
"Ah, well!" said my aunt easily. "If she has such a temper, it brings
its own punishment."
"And the punishment of a good many others also, unluckily," said
Andrew, and then the conversation turned to other things.
After supper Andrew proposed that we should go up and see the gardens.
The elders preferred sitting in the house, but we young ones went out,
after proper injunctions to keep moving and not to stay out after the
dew began to fall. Gardening, it appeared, had also been a fashion with
these curious Corbets, who seem to me from the earliest records to
have made their homes as pleasant as possible, only to run as far-away
from them as the limits of the world would allow. The flower-beds were
in their spring beauty, and were filled with rare plants and flowers,
which I never saw anywhere else.
The climate of Cornwall is very mild, so that the myrtle grows to a
great size out of doors, and many tender trees flourish which will not
live at all about London. I particularly admired a tall shrub With
red-veined leaves and covered with little scarlet bells in immense
profusion, and asked its name.
"I cannot tell you that," said Andrew. "My father brought it from the
West Indies, where it grows very large. This other bush, with bright
scarlet flowers and broad leaves, is from the Cape of Good Hope, but it
will bear no frost, so we take it in, in the winter."
"What great rosemary and lavender plants!" said I. "They make me think
of what Jeanne has told me about Provence, where they grow wild."
"They do fairly well, though the place is damp for them. See, yonder is
a tulip-tree. Is it not a grand one? The Americans make great use of
the wood, which, though soft, is very lasting for some purposes."
"What a pity to cut down such beautiful trees!" said I.
Andrew laughed.
"Trees are the great enemies over there," said he. "It did look
terribly wasteful to me to see great logs of bard maple, chestnut, and
oak, rolled into heaps and burned in the field, just to get rid of
them."
"What a shame!" said Betty. "Why not at least give them to the poor for
fuel. Goody Penaluna would be glad enough of such a log."
"If Goody Penaluna were there, she would have wood enough for the
asking," replied Andrew. "One can hardly say there are any poor, for
though they have often had hard times enough, yet it mostly comes share
and share alike."
"I believe Andrew hath a hankering after those same colonies in his
secret soul," said Betty. "You will find yourself transplanted thither
some time or other, Agnes."
Again I felt annoyed. I did not know why.
"Do not call me Agnes; call me Vevette," said I. "That is the name I
have always been used to."
"But Agnes is so much prettier. Vevette is like a nickname," objected
Betty.
"It is a sort of pet name, I suppose—short for Genevieve," remarked
Margaret. "If Vevette likes it best, she certainly has a right to
choose."
"But it is French," objected Betty again, "and she is an English girl
now. I am quite sure mother would prefer to have her called Agnes, and
Andrew too; wouldn't you, Andrew?"
"I should prefer that she should have her own way in the matter,"
answered Andrew shortly, and there the discussion ended for the time;
but we were no sooner in the house than Betty began it again, appealing
to her mother to say if it would not be much better for me to be called
by my English name now I was come to live in England.
"That is for her mother to say," replied Aunt Amy. "I presume she will
prefer to call her by the name she has been used to."
"I certainly shall prefer to do so, and to have others do so," said my
mother. "The name of Agnes was never a favorite of mine."
Betty said no more, but she never lost an opportunity of calling me
Agnes, till I took to calling her Elizabeth, to which name she had a
special aversion.
The next morning and for many succeeding days my mother was very
unwell, and I naturally spent most of my time with her in her
apartment, which was at some little distance from the rest of the
house. Jeanne attended on her, and Simon worked in the garden, taking
great pleasure in the variety of plants and flowers he found there. He
got on very well with his fellow-servants, being of a quiet and sober
disposition. He did not at all disturb himself when laughed at for his
mistakes in English, but only laughed back, or contented himself with
quietly correcting his mistake. But Jeanne's southern blood was more
easily stirred, and she more than once came to my mother declaring that
she could endure her life no longer.
Betty used to take pleasure in teasing her, as indeed she did every
one who came within her reach, except her mother and Andrew, of whom
she stood in awe. She and I had more than one encounter, in which I
can safely say that she met her match, and she did not like me the
better for it; but Rosamond was her especial butt, and she made the
poor girl's life miserable. Rosamond was of a studious turn of mind,
and loved nothing so much as to get away by herself, with a great
chronicle, or with her French or Latin books. It was a somewhat
uncommon disposition at that time, when the education of women was much
neglected, even more than it is now. But the Corbets have always been
rather a bookish race, and Rosamond was a true Corbet in all things.
She loved acquiring new ideas above any other pleasure in the world.
She made Simon tell her all about Normandy and Brittany, and there were
several old sailors in the village to whose tales of foreign parts she
was delighted to listen for hours, albeit I fear they were sometimes
more romantic than reliable.
Aunt Amy never interfered with this taste of Rosamond's, but allowed
her to read as much as she pleased, though she never cared to open a
book herself. Margaret was Rosamond's champion in all things, though
she thought so much reading a waste of time; but Betty was always
tormenting the poor girl, hiding her books, destroying her collections
of dried plants and shells, and laughing at and exaggerating the
mistakes which she now and then made in her preoccupation. I must say
that in general Rosamond bore all with the utmost sweetness, but now
and then she would fly into a passion. Then Betty would provoke her
more and more till she succeeded in driving Rosamond into a burst of
passionate crying, which generally ended in a fit of the mother, which
brought my aunt on the scene.
Then Betty would be all sweetness and soothing attentions to the
sufferer, bringing everything she could think of to relieve her, and
affecting to pity and pet her till, if it had been me, I am sure I
should have boxed her ears. Aunt Amy never saw through these manœuvres,
but when Rosamond recovered, she would talk to her seriously about the
necessity of governing her temper, and Rosamond would listen humbly and
meekly promise to try and do better. There was always more real worth
in her little finger than there was in Betty's whole person, but her
timidity and absent-minded ways often made her appear at a disadvantage.
She and my mother were soon great friends, and she used to bring her
precious books to our apartment, where Betty dared not intrude. Here
she would read aloud to us for hours, or practise her French and
Italian with maman and myself. She spoke them both horribly, but was
very desirous to improve, and made great progress.
Margaret also joined in the French lessons, but she had a great
many other things on her hands. She took a good deal of the care of
housekeeping off her mother. She visited the poor in the village, and
worked for them, and she had taken upon herself a kind of supervision
of the dame school, which furnished all the education for the village
of Tre Madoc. Old Dame Penberthy, who taught or rather kept it, had not
been a very good scholar in her best days, I imagine, and she was now
old and half blind. The little children were sent to her to be kept out
of mischief, and taken away as soon as they were fit for any sort of
work. Some of the brightest of them learned enough to pick out, with
much stammering, a chapter in the Testament, and these were the dame's
best scholars, whom she exhibited with great pride.
Margaret, however, had lately taken the school in hand, moved thereto
by something she had read, and also by Andrew's wish for a better state
of things. He had seen in the American colonies day-schools established
for all sorts of children, and he wished for something of the same sort
at Tre Madoc. So Margaret had persuaded the dame to take home an orphan
grandniece, a clever girl who had lived a while at the court, and the
old woman easily fell into the way of letting this girl, Peggy Mellish
by name, have most of the charge of the school.
Margaret herself went every other day, to inspect the sewing and
spinning, and to hear the children say their horn-book and teach them
their Belief and Commandments. * By and by she would have me join her
in this work. I was fond of walking and of children; my mother and
Andrew favored the plan, and so I took hold of it with great zeal, and
after a few visits along with Margaret to learn her ways, I even took
charge of the school on alternate days, and soon knew as much about the
families of the children, their wants and ways, as Margaret herself.
* A horn-book was a printed sheet containing the alphabet and some
other lessons, protected from moist little lingers by a sheet of
transparent horn.
Thus it came to pass that Betty was in a manner left out in the cold.
It was her own fault, I must needs say, for she laughed equally at
Meg's and my teaching and Rosamond's learning; but she was not any more
pleased for that; and so, partly from idleness, partly for revenge, she
set herself to make mischief between Andrew and me. But I must put off
the relation to another chapter.
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