CHAPTER VIII.
A FAMILY HISTORY.
"We are not really connected," Mrs. Buller began. "She is Margery'sgreat-grandmother, and Margery and I are second cousins. That's all. ButI knew her long ago, before my poor cousin Alice married CaptainVandaleur. And I have heard the whole story over and over again."
I have heard the story more than once also. I listened with open mouthto Aunt Theresa at this time, and often afterwards questioned her aboutmy "ancestors," as I may almost call them.
Years later I used to repeat these histories to girls I was with. Whenwe were on good terms they were interested to hear, as I was proud totell, and would say, "Tell us about your ancestors, Margery." And if wefell out there was no surer method of annoying me than to slight thememory of my great-great-grandparents.
I have told their story pretty often. I shall put it down here in my ownway, for Aunt Theresa told a story rather disconnectedly.
The de Vandaleurs (we have dropped the _de_ now) were an old Frenchfamily. There was a Duke in it who was killed in the Revolution of '92,and most of the family emigrated, and were very poor. The title wasrestored afterwards, and some of the property. It went to a cousin ofthe Duke who was murdered, he having no surviving children; but they sayit went in the wrong line. The cousin who had remained in France, andalways managed to keep the favour of the ruling powers, got the title,and remade his fortunes; the others remained in England, very poor andvery proud. They would not have accepted any favours from the new royalfamily, but still they considered themselves deprived of their rights.One of these Vandaleur _emigres_ (the one who ought to have been theDuke) had married his cousin. They suffered great hardships in theirescape, I fancy, and on the birth of their son, shortly after theirarrival in England, the wife died.
There was an old woman, Aunt Theresa said, who used to be her nurse whenshe was a child, in London, who had lived, as a girl, in the wretchedlodgings where these poor people were when they came over, and she usedto tell her wonderful stories about them. How, in her delirium (she wasinsane for some little time before her son was born), Madame deVandaleur fancied herself in her old home, "with all her finery abouther," as Nurse Brown used to say.
Nurse Brown seems to have had very little sympathy with nervousdiseases. She could understand a broken leg, or a fever, "when folkskept their beds"; but the disordered fancies of a brain tried just toofar, the mad whims of a lady who could "go about," and who insisted upongoing about, and changing her dress two or three times a day, andreceiving imaginary visitors, and ordering her faithful nurse up anddown under the names of half-a-dozen servants she no longer possessed,were beyond her comprehension.
Aunt Theresa said that she and her brothers and sisters had the deepestpity for the poor lady. They thought it so romantic that she should cryfor fresh flowers and dress herself to meet the Queen in a dirty littlelodging at the back of Leicester Square, and they were always begging tohear "what else she did." But Nurse Brown seems to have been fondest ofrelating the smart speeches in which she endeavoured to "put sense into"the devoted French servant who toiled to humour every whim of herunhappy mistress, instead of being "sharp with her," as Nurse Brownadvised. Aunt Theresa had some doubts whether Mrs. Brown ever did makethe speeches she reported; but when people say they said this or that,they often only mean that this or that is what they wish they had said.
"If she's mad, I says, shave her head, instead of dressing her hair allday long. I've knowed mad people as foamed at the mouth and rolled theireyes, and would have done themselves a injury but for a strait-jacket;and I've knowed folks in fevers unreasonable enough, but they kept theirbeds in a dark room, and didn't know their own mothers. Madame's ways isbeyond me, I says. _You_ calls it madness: _I_ calls it temper.Tem--per, and no--thing else."
Aunt Theresa used to make us laugh by repeating Nurse Brown's sayings,and the little shake of herself with which she emphasized the lastsentence.
If she had no sympathy for Madame de Vandaleur, she had a double sharefor the poor lady's husband: "a _good_ soul," as she used to call him.It was in vain that Jeanette spoke of the sweet temper andunselfishness of her mistress "before these terrible days"; her conducttowards her husband then was "enough for" Nurse Brown, so she said. Nosooner had the poor gentleman gone off on some errand for her pleasurethan she called for him to be with her, and was only to be pacified by afable of Jeanette's devising, who always said that "the King" hadsummoned Monsieur de Vandaleur. Jeanette was well aware that, thechildless old Duke being dead, her master had succeeded to the title,and she often spoke of him as Monsieur le Duc to his wife, which seemsto have pleased the poor lady. When he was absent, Jeanette's readyexcuse, "_Eh, Madame! Pour Monsieur le Duc--le Roi l'a fait appeller_,"was enough, and she waited patiently for his return.
Ever-changing as her whims and fancies were, the poor gentlemansacrificed everything to gratify them. His watch, his rings, hisbuckles, the lace from his shirt, and all the few trifles secured intheir hasty flight, were sold one by one. His face was familiar to thekeepers of certain stalls near to where Covent Garden Market now stands.He bought flowers for Madame when he could not afford himself food. Hesold his waistcoat, and buttoned his coat across him--and looked thinnerthan ever.
Then the day came when Madame wished, and he could not gratify herwish. Everything was gone. He said, "This will kill me, Jeanette;" andJeanette believed him.
Nurse Brown (according to her own account) assured Jeanette that itwould not. "Folk doesn't die of such things, says I."
But, in spite of common-sense and experience, Monsieur de Vandaleur diddie of grief, or something very like it, within twenty-four hours of thedeath of his wife, and the birth of their only son.
For some years the faithful Jeanette supported this child by her ownindustry. She was an exquisite laundress, and she throve where the Dukeand Duchess would have starved. As the boy grew up she kept him as faras possible from common companions, treated him with as much deferenceas if he had succeeded to the family honours, and filled his head withtraditions of the deserts and dignity of the de Vandaleurs.
At last a cousin of Monsieur de Vandaleur found them out. He also was anexile, but he had prospered better, had got a small civil appointment,and had married a Scotch lady. It was after he had come to the help ofhis young kinsman, I think, that an old French lady took a fancy to theboy, and sent him to school in France at her own expense. He was justnineteen when she died, and left him what little money she possessed.He then returned to England, and paid his respects to his cousin and theScotch Mrs. Vandaleur.
She congratulated herself, I have heard, that her only child, adaughter, was from home when this visit was paid.
Mrs. Janet Vandaleur was a high-minded, hard-headed, north-countrywoman. She valued long descent, and noble blood, and loyalty to a fallendynasty like a Scotchwoman, but, like a Scotchwoman, she also respectedcapability and energy and endurance. She combined a romantic heart witha practical head in a way peculiar to her nation. She knew the pedigreeof every family (who had a pedigree) north of the Tweed, and was,probably, the best housekeeper in Great Britain. She devoutly believedher own husband to be as perfect as mortal man may be here below, whilstin some separate compartment of her brain she had the keenest sense ofthe defects and weaknesses which he inherited, and dreaded nothing morethan to see her daughter mated with one of the helpless Vandaleurs.
This daughter, with much of her mother's strong will and practicalcapacity, had got her father's _physique_ and a good deal of hisartistic temperament. Dreading the development of _de Vandaleur_qualities in her, the mother made her education studiously practicaland orderly. She had, like most Scotch matrons of her type, too good agift for telling family stories, and too high a respect for ancestraltraditions, to have quite kept herself from amusing her daughter'schildhood with tales of the de Vandaleur greatness. But after herhusband discovered his young relative, and as their daughter grew up,she purposely avoided the subject, which had, probably, the sole effectof incr
easing her daughter's interest in the family romance. Mrs. Janetknew the de Vandaleur pedigree as well as her own, and had shown aminiature of the late Duke in his youth to her daughter as a child onmany occasions; when she had also alluded to the fact that the title bybirth was undoubtedly in the exiled branch of the family. Miss Vandaleurwas not ignorant that the young gentleman who had just completed hiseducation was, if every one had their rights, Monsieur le Duc; and shewas as much disappointed to have missed seeing him as her mother wasglad that they had not met.
For Bertrand de Vandaleur had all the virtues and the weaknesses of hisfamily in intense proportions. He had a hopeless ignorance of the valueof money, which was his strongest condemnation before his Scotch cousin.He was high-minded, chivalrous, in some points accomplished, charming,and tender-hearted. But he was weak of will, merely passive inendurance, and quite without energy. He had a graceful, fanciful, butalmost weak intellect. I mean, it just bordered on mental deficiency;and at times his dreamy eyes took a wildness that was said to make himpainfully like his mother in her last days. He was an absurd butgracefully romantic idea of his family consequence. He was veryhandsome, and very like the miniature of the late Duke. It was mostdesirable that his cousin should not meet him, especially as she was ofthe sentimental age of seventeen. So Mrs. Janet Vandaleur hastened theirreturn from London to their small property in Scotland.
But there was no law to hinder Monsieur de Vandaleur from making aScotch tour.
One summer's afternoon, when she had just finished the making of somepreserves, Miss Vandaleur strolled down through a little wood behind thehouse towards a favourite beck that ran in a gorge below. She wassinging an old French song in praise of the beauty of a fair lady of thede Vandaleurs of olden time. As she finished the first verse, a voicefrom a short distance took up the refrain--
"Victoire de Vandaleur! Victoire! Victoire!"
It was her own name as well as that of her ancestress, and she blushedas her eyes met those of a strange young gentleman, with a sketch-bookin his hand, and a French poodle at his heels.
"Place aux dames!" said the stranger. On which the white poodle sat up,and his master bowed till his head nearly touched the ground.
They had met once as children, which was introduction enough in thecircumstances. Here, at last, for Victoire, was the embodiment of allher dreams of the de Vandaleur race. He was personally so like theminiature, that he might have been the old Duke. He was the young one,as even her mother allowed. For him, he found a companion whose birthdid not jar on his aristocratic prejudices, and whose strong characterwas bone and marrow to his weak one. Before they reached the house Mrs.Janet's precautions were vain.
She grew fond of the lad in spite of herself. The romantic side of hersympathized with his history. He was an orphan, and she had a mother'sheart. In the direct line he was a Duke, and she was a Scotchwoman. Hefreely consented to settle every penny he had upon his wife, and, as hismother-in-law justly remarked, "Many a cannier man wouldn't just havedone that."
In fine, the young people were married with not more than the usualdifficulties beforehand.
He was nineteen, and she was seventeen. They were my great-grandfatherand great-grandmother.
They had only one child--a son. They were very poor, and yet they gavehim a good education. I ought to say, _she_ gave him, for everythingthat needed effort or energy was done by my great-grandmother. The moreit became evident that her Bertrand de Vandaleur was less helpful andpractical than any Bertrand de Vandaleur before him, the more thereseems to have developed in her the purpose and capability inherited fromMrs. Janet. Like many another poor and ambitious mother, she studiedLatin and Greek and algebra that she might teach her son. And at thesame time she saved, even out of their small income. She began to "putby" from the boy's birth for his education, and when the time came hewas sent to school.
My grandfather did well. I have heard that he inherited his father'sbeauty, and was not without his mother's sense and energy. He had the deVandaleur quality of pleasing, with the weakness of being utterly ruledby the woman he loved. At twenty he married an heiress. His parents hadthemselves married too early to have reasonable ground for complaint atthis; but when he left his own Church for that of his wife, there came aterrible breach between them and their only son. His mother soonforgave him; but the father was as immovable in his displeasure as weakpeople can sometimes be. Happily, however, after the birth of a grandsonpeace was made, and the young husband brought his wife to visit hisparents. The heiress had some property in the West Indies, which theyproposed to visit, and they remained with the old people till justbefore they sailed. It was as a keepsake at parting that my grandfatherhad restored to his mother the watch which she gave to me. The child wasleft in England with his mother's relations.
My grandfather and grandmother never returned. They were among thecountless victims of the most cruel of all seas. The vessel they wentout in was lost during a week of storms. On what day or night, and inwhat part of the Atlantic, no one survived to tell.
Their orphan child was my dear father.