Six to Sixteen: A Story for Girls

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  I GO BACK TO THE VINE--AFTER SUNSET--A TWILIGHT EXISTENCE--SALAD OFMONK'S-HOOD--A ROYAL SUMMONS.

  The few marked events of my life have generally happened on mybirthdays. It was on my fifteenth birthday that Mr. Arkwright got aletter from one of my relations on the subject of my going to live withmy great-grandfather and grandmother.

  They were now very old. My great-grandfather was becoming "childish,"and the little dear duchess was old and frail for such a charge alone.They had no daughter. The religious question was laid aside. My mostProtestant relatives thought my duty in the matter overwhelming, andwith all my clinging of heart to the moor home I felt myself that it wasso.

  I don't know how I got over the parting. I wandered hopelessly aboutfamiliar spots, and wished I had made sketches of them; but how could Iknow I had not all life before me? The time was short, and preparationshad to be made. This kept us quiet. At the last, Jack put in all myluggage, and did everything for me. Then he kissed me, and said, "GODbless you, Margery," and "linking" Eleanor by force, led her away andcomforted her like the good, dear boy he is. Clement drove me sorecklessly down the steep hill, and over the stones, that the momentaryexpectation of an upset dried my tears, and I did not see much of thevillagers' kind and too touching farewells.

  And so to the bleak station again, and the familiar old porter, whomfate seems to leave long enough at _his_ post, and on through thewhirling railway panorama, by which one passes to so much joy and somuch sorrow--and then I was at The Vine once more.

  I wonder if I am like my great-grandmother in her youth? Some people(Elspeth among them) declare that it is so; and others that I am like mypoor mother. I suppose I have some Vandaleur features, from an eerielittle incident which befell me on the threshold of The Vine--anappropriate beginning to a life that always felt like a weird, shadowydream.

  I did not ring the bell of the outer gate on my arrival, because Adolphe(grown up, but with the old, ruddy boy's face on the top of his man'sshoulders) was anxiously waiting for me, and devoted himself to myluggage, telling me that Master was in the garden. Thither I ran sohastily, that a straggling sweetbriar caught my hat and my net, anddragged them off, sending my hair over my shoulders. My hair is notlong, however, like Eleanor's, and it curls, and I sometimes wear itloose; so I did not stop to rearrange it, but hurried on towards mygreat-grandfather, who was coming slowly to meet me from the other endof the terrace, his hands behind his back, as of old. At least, Ithought it was to meet me; but as he came near I saw that he wasunconscious of my presence. He looked very old, his face was pale andshrivelled, like a crumpled white kid glove; his wild blue eyes,insensible of what was before them, seemed intently fixed on somethingthat no one else could see, and he was talking to himself, as we call itwhen folk talk with the invisible.

  It was very silly, but I really felt the colour fading from my face withfright. My great-grandfather's back was to the west, where a few bars ofred across the sky, as it was to be seen through the Scotch firs, wereall that remained of the sunset. That strange light was on everything,of which modern pre-Raphaelite painters are so fond. I was tired with mylong journey and previous excitement; and when I suddenly rememberedthat Mr. Vandaleur was said to have in some measure lost his reason, ashudder came over me. In a moment more he saw me. I think my crimsoncloak caught his eye, but his welcome was hardly less alarming than hisabstraction. He started, and held up his hands, and a pained, puzzledexpression troubled his face. Then a flush, which seemed to make himlook older than the whiteness; and then, with a shrill, feeble cry of"Victoire, ma belle!" he tottered towards me so hastily that I thoughthe must have fallen; but, like a vision, a little figure flitted fromthe French window of the drawing-room, and in a moment mygreat-grandmother was supporting him, and soothing him with gentlewords in French. I could see now how helpless he was. For a bit heseemed still puzzled and confused; but he clung to her and kissed herhand, and suffered himself to be led indoors. Then I followed them,through the window, into the room where the candles were not yet lightedfor economy's sake--the glare of the red sunset bars making everythingdark to me--with a strange sense of gloom.

  It would be hard to imagine a stronger contrast than that between mylife in my new home and my life in my home upon the moors. At theArkwrights' we lived so essentially with the times. Our politics, on thewhole, were liberal; our theology inclined to be broad; our ideas onsocial subjects were reformatory, progressive, experimental. Scientificsubjects were a speciality of the household; and, living in amanufacturing district, mere neighbourhood kept us with the greatcurrent of mercantile interests. We argued each other into a generalunfixity of opinions; and, full of youthful dreams of golden ages, werewilling to believe this young world--where not yet we, but only ourwords could fly--to be but upon the threshold of true civilization.Above all, life seemed so short, our hands were so full, so over-full ofwork, the daylight was not long enough for us, and we grudged meals andsleep.

  How different it was under the shadow of this old Vine! I am verythankful, now, that I had grace, under the sense of "wasted time," whichwas at first so irritating, to hold by my supreme child-duty towards myaged parents against the mere modern fuss of "work," against what JohnWesley called the "lust of finishing" any labour, and to serve them intheir way rather than in my own. But the change was very great. How we"pottered" through the days!--with what needless formalities, whatslowness, what indecision! How fatiguing is enforced idleness! Howlengthy were the evening meals, where we sat, trifling with thevine-leaves under a single dish of fruit, till the gloaming deepenedinto gloom!

  At fifteen one is very susceptible of impressions; very impatient ofwhat one is not used to. The very four-post bed in which I sleptoppressed me, and the cracked basin held together for years by thecircular hole in the old-fashioned washstand. The execution-picture onlymade me laugh now.

  Then, as to the meals. No doubt a great many people eat and drink toomuch, as we are beginning to discover. Whether we at the Vicarage did, Icannot say; but the change to the unsubstantial fare on which very oldpeople like the Vandaleurs keep the flickering light of life aglow wasvery great; and yet in this slow, vegetating existence my appetite soondied away. The country was flat and damp too; and by and by neuralgiakept me awake at night, as regularly as the ghost of mygreat-grandfather had done in years gone by. But it is strange howquickly unmarked time slips on. Day after day, week after week ran by,till a lassitude crept over me in which I felt amazed at formerambitions, and a certain facility of sympathy, which has been in manyrespects an evil, and in many a good to me, seemed to mould me to theinterests of the fading household. And so I lived the life of mygreat-grandparents, which was as if science made no strides, and men nostruggles; as if nothing were to be done with the days, but to wearthrough them in all patient goodness, loyal to a long-fallen dynasty,regretful of some ancient virtues and courtesies, tender towards pastbeauties and passions, and patient of succeeding sunsets, till this agedworld should crumble to its close.

  My great-grandfather came to know me again, though his mind was in adisordered, dreary condition; from old age, Elspeth said, but it oftenrecalled what I had heard of the state of his mother's intellect beforeher death. The dear little old lady's intellects were quite bright, and,happily, not only entire, but cultivated. I do not know how people whothink babies and servants are a woman's only legitimate interests wouldlike to live with women who have either never met with, or longoutlived them. I know how my dear granny's educated mind and sense ofhumour helped us over a dozen little domestic difficulties, and brokethe neck of fidgets that seemed almost inevitable at her great age andin that confined sphere of interests.

  I certainly faded in our twilight existence, as if there were some truthin the strange old theory that very aged people can withdraw vital forcefrom young companions and live upon it. But every day and hour of mystay made me love and reverence my great-grandmother more and more, andbe more and more glad that I had come to know her, and perh
aps be ofsome little service to her.

  Indeed, it was my great-grandfather's condition that kept us so muchamong the shadows. The old lady had a delightful youthfulness of spirit,and took an almost wistful pleasure in hearing about our life at theArkwrights', as if some ambitious Scotch blood in her would fain havekept better pace with the currents of the busy world. But when mygrandfather joined us, we had to change the subject. Modern ideas jarredupon him. And it was seldom that he was not with us. The tender lovebetween the old couple was very touching.

  "It must seem strange to you, my dear, to think of such long lives solittle broken by events," said my great-grandmother. "But your deargrandfather and I have never been apart for a day since our happymarriage."

  I do not think they were apart for an hour whilst I was with them. Hefollowed her about the house, if she left him for many minutes, crying,"Victoire! Victoire!" chiefly from love, but I was sometimes spitefulenough to think also because he could not amuse himself.

  "The master's calling for you again," said Elspeth, with someimpatience, one day when grandmamma was teaching me a bit of daintycookery in the kitchen.

  "Oh, fly, petite!" she cried to me; "and say that his Majesty hassummoned the Duchess."

  Much bewildered, I ran out, and met my great-grandfather on the terrace,crying, "Victoire! Victoire!" in fretful tones.

  "His Majesty has summoned the Duchess, sir," said I, dropping a slightcurtsy, as I generally did on disturbing the old gentleman.

  To my astonishment, this seemed quite to content him. He drew in hiselbows, and spread the palms of his hands with a very polite bow,saying, "Bien, bien;" and after murmuring something else in French,which I did not catch, but which I fancy was an acknowledgment of theprior claims of royalty, he folded his hands behind his back andwandered away down the terrace, as I rushed off to my confectioneryagain.

  I found that this use of the old fable, which had calmed mygreat-grandfather in past days, was no new idea. It was, in fact, agraceful fiction which deceived nobody, and had been devised by mygreat-grandmother out of deference to her husband's prejudices. In thelong years when they were very poor, their poverty was made, not onlytolerable but graceful, by Mrs. Vandaleur's untiring energy, but (thoughhe wouldn't, or perhaps couldn't, find any occupation by which to add totheir income) the sight of his Victoire, who should have been a duchess,doing any menial work so distracted him, that my grandmother had todevise some method to secure herself from his observation when shewashed certain bits of priceless lace which redeemed her old dressesfrom commonness, or cooked some delicacy for Mons. le Duc's dinner, ormended his honourable clothes. Thus Jeanette's old fable came into use;first in jest, and then as an adopted form for getting rid of mygreat-grandfather when he was in the way. It must have astonished apractical woman like my great-grandmother to find how completely itsatisfied him. But there must have been a time when his helplessness andimpracticability tried her in many ways, before she fairly came torealize that he never could be changed, and her love fell in with hishumours. On this point he was humoured completely, and never inquired onwhat business his deceased Majesty of France required the attendance ofthe Duchess that should have been!

  To do him justice, if he was a helpless he was a very tender husband.

  "He has never said a rude or unkind word to me since we were boy andgirl together," said the little old lady, with tears in her eyes. Andindeed, courtesy implies self-discipline; and even now the old man'spoliteness checked his petulance over and over again. He never gave upthe habit of gathering flowers for my grandmother, and such exquisitecontrasts of colour I never saw combined by any other hand. Anotheraccomplishment of his was also connected with his love of plants.

  "It's little enough a man can do about a house the best of times," saidElspeth, "and the master's just as feckless as a bairn. But he makes afine sallet."

  I shudder almost as I write the words. How little we thought that mypoor grandfather's one useful gift would have so fatal an ending!

  But I must put it down in order. It was the end of many things. Of mylife at The Vine among them, and very nearly of my life in this worldaltogether. My great-grandfather made delicious salads. I have heard himsay that he preferred our English habit of mixing ingredients to theFrench one of dressing one vegetable by itself; but he said we did notcarry it far enough, we neglected so many useful herbs. And so hissalads were compounded not only of lettuce and cress, and so forth, butof dandelion, sorrel, and half-a-dozen other field or garden plants.Sometimes one flavour preponderated, sometimes another, and the saucewas always good.

  Now it is all over it seems to me that I must have been very stupid notto have paid more attention to the strange flavour in the salad thatday. But I was thinking chiefly of the old lady, who was not very well(Elspeth had an idea that she had had a very slight "stroke," but howthis was we cannot know now), whilst my grandfather was almost flightilycheerful. I tasted the salad, and did not eat it, but I was the lessinclined to complain of it as they seemed perfectly satisfied.

  Then my grandmother was taken ill. At first we thought it a developmentof what we had noticed. Then Mr. Vandaleur became ill also, and we sentAdolphe in haste for the doctor. At last we found out the truth. Thesalad was full of young leaves of monk's-hood. Under what delusion mypoor grandfather had gathered them we never knew. Elspeth and I werebusy with the old lady, and he had made the salad without help from anyone.

  From the first the doctor gave us little hope, and they sank rapidly.Their priest, for whom Adolphe made a second expedition, did not arrivein time; they were in separate rooms, and Elspeth and I flitted from oneto the other in sad attendance. The dear little old lady sank fast, anddied in the evening.

  Then the doctor impressed on us the necessity of keeping her death frommy great-grandfather's knowledge.

  "But supposing he asks?" said I.

  "Say any soothing thing your ready wit may suggest, my dear young lady.But the truth, in his present condition, would be a fatal shock."

  It haunted me. "Supposing he asks." And late in the evening he did ask!I was alone with him, and he called me.

  "Marguerite, dear child, thou wilt tell me the truth. Why does my wife,my Victoire, thy grandmother, not come to me?"

  Pondering what lie I could tell him, and how, an irresistible impulseseized me. I bent over him and said:

  "Dear sir, the King has summoned the Duchess."

  Does the mind regain power as the body fails? My great-grandfatherturned his head, and, as his blue eyes met mine, I could not persuademyself that he was deceived.

  "The will of his Majesty be done," he said faintly but firmly.

  The next few moments seemed like years. Had I done wrong? Had it donehim harm? Above all, what did he mean? Were his words part of one lastgraceful dream of the dynasty of the white lilies, or was his loyalsubmission made now to a Majesty not of France, not even of this world?It was an intense relief to me when he spoke again.

  "Marguerite!"

  I knelt by the bedside, and he laid his hand upon my head. An exquisitesmile shone on his face.

  "Good child; pauvre petite! His Majesty will call me also, before long.Is it not so? And then thou shalt rest."

  His fine face clouded again with a wandering, troubled look, and hisfingers fumbled the bed-clothes. I saw that he had lost his crucifix inmoving his hand to my head. I gave it him, and he clasped his hands overit once more, and carrying it to his lips with a smile, closed his eyeslike some good child going to sleep.

  And Thou, O King of kings, didst summon him, as the dark faded intodawn!