Chapter I: January (1)

Here, winter holds his unrejoicing court,
And through his airy hall the loud misrule
Of driving tempest is for ever heard.
THOMSON'S _Seasons_.

It was a dark, dismal day. Thick black clouds hung across the sky. There was a faint chirping of sparrows amongst the lifeless creepers, and that was all. A roaring fire burnt in my grate; before which my dog, a great tawny creature of the boarhound breed, lay sleeping at her ease. It was cold, very cold; in all nature there seemed no life. A white, thick covering rested upon the ground. Snow had fallen heavily the last week of the old year, and much, I feared, must fall again, judging by the yellowish grey, leaden pall I saw overhead.

I lay in bed; the doctor had just been, and had prescribed for me a day of rest, and a day in the house, on account of a chill caught the week before.

How immortal we should feel, I reflected, if it were not for influenza, colds, and rheumatism, and such like small deer amongst diseases. What a glory life would be in their absence! Alas! we poor mortals, we spend much time in trivial illness; not maladies of the heroic and grand mediæval school, such as the Black Death or the sweating sickness, but in weary, long episodes of chills, and colds, which make us feel ill, and low, and produce irritability and heart-searchings. It is sad also to think how many days slip by for all of us in the English winter--unloved and dreary days of twilight, and of little pleasure unless taken rightly and softened by letters to, and from old friends, and by hours spent with favourite books.

Yet each cloud has its silver lining, if we have but eyes to see; and as an old cottager once said to me, "Yer might do worse than be in bed when Mother Shipton plucks her geese." Yes, I reflected, I might be worse, and I looked round my Norman-windowed chamber--for to-day should be spent with my books.

Life to a woman, as has been justly said, is a series of interrupted sentences; and in these days of hurry and scurry, life seems almost more interrupted than it did to our mothers twenty years ago, and leisure, of all delightful things, is the most delightful, the rarest and the most difficult to obtain. Leisure with thought is a necessity for mental development, and yet in these days of motor-driving, flying-machines, and radium we only think of getting on--getting on--but where?

I lay back comfortably and looked with pleasure at the pile of books by my bedside. They were all dear, tried, and trusted friends. There was Malory. How I love his pictures of forest and castle, and his battles, while his last scenes of Launcelot and Arthur, are almost the greatest, and grandest that I know.

[Sidenote: FLOWERS FROM THE SOUTH]

How pathetic they are! and yet how simple, instinct with living poetry, and noble passion! Then I saw my much-worn Shakespeare, and I looked forward to a dip in _The Tempest_, and later on meant to refresh my mind with the story of the ill-fated Duke of Buckingham, who was betrayed near here by his treacherous steward, Banister. I looked round and saw other friends close to hand. Amiel's beautiful story of a noble life, teeming with highest thought; "Gerontius' Dream," by England's great poet and ecclesiastic; Tennyson's "Idylls of the King;" and a few of Montaigne's admirable essays, "that charming old man" of whom, Madame de Sévigné wrote, "it was impossible to weary, for, old friend as he was, he seemed always so fresh and new." I shall never be dull, I said with a laugh, and I shall live in fairy-land with my dogs and my poets. "You might do worse than lie in bed, as my old friend said," I repeated to myself; and I realized that even for days spent in bed there were compensations. Just as I was preparing to stretch out my arm and take a volume of Amiel, there came a loud knock at the door, and my daughter, a child of seven, ran in with the news--

"Oh, mama, here is a box of flowers for you, and they have come all the way from France; I know it, for Célestine said so."

"Flowers," I cried; "how delightful!" On hearing me speak, the big dog jumped up with a friendly growl, and insisted upon standing up with her forepaws on the bed and inspecting the flowers.

"See!" cried Bess, "carnations and roses. Now, why can't we always have carnations and roses? Miss Weldon says there is a time for everything; but I'm sure there's never half time enough for flowers and play."

"Perhaps not, Bess," I said. "But the snow and the frost make us long for and love the flowers all the more, and if you did no lessons you wouldn't enjoy your playtime half as much as you do now."

Bess laughed contemptuously; she is a somewhat modern child, and has no time to look "ahead," as she calls it, nor any belief in the glories of adversity. Gravely she seated herself on my bed and enunciated the following sentences--

"Mama," she said in her clear bird-like voice, "I worry a little about something every day."

"No, not really, dear," I answered, rather horrified at this unusual display of gravity on her part. And I began to fear that there had been too many lessons of late, and had a terrible vision of over-pressure and undue precocity, as I took the little thing's hand and said, "Tell me, what is it?" Whereupon Bess replied solemnly, her eyes looking into space--

"I worry about something every day, and that is, wasting so much good time on lessons, when I might be quite happy, and do nothing but play."

"But, my dear," I began, "if it was all play, how would you ever learn to read or to write? And when you grew up and got quite big, you wouldn't like to be quite ignorant and to know nothing, would you?"

"I should know as much as I ought," replied Bess, sturdily.

"No, dear, you wouldn't," I said. "You couldn't talk as a lady, you wouldn't know any history or geography, or know how to speak French or German, or be able to read nice books, or do any of the things which are going to be very nice, but which perhaps are not very nice just at the beginning."

"I should know what Burbidge knows," replied Bess, stoutly; "besides which," she added, "dogs don't know French, and no dates, and yet papa doesn't call them ignorant." And then my little maid turned with a scarlet face, and feeling perhaps a little worsted in the argument said, "Mama, let me scurry off for your maid."

[Sidenote: BESS ON EDUCATION]

A moment later Bess returned in company with Célestine, my French maid. Célestine entered like a whirlwind; she was sure that "Madame se fatigue." "With one cold in de head un repos absolu is necessary," she declared. However, when she saw the flowers, and I explained that they came from "la belle France," she affirmed "que tout allait bien," and was mollified. She brought me water and some vases, and Bess and I proceeded to sort out the beautiful Neapolitan violets and snip the ends of the rose and carnation stalks. "I like cutting," cried Bess, eagerly. "It's doing something, Burbidge says," and just now the gardener is my little daughter's hero, and Burbidge's reasons for everything in her eyes rule the universe. I like to think of the poor stalks in water, I said; they are so thirsty, like poor tired men who have travelled over sandy deserts. Then I asked Célestine to hand me some water, and begged her to let it be tepid and to add a few drops of eau-de-Cologne in each glass.

"Madame will spoil the rose and the carnation, his own smell is all that is needed," answered my waiting-woman severely. But I begged her to comply with my request, for I wanted my dear friend's gifts to live in water as long as possible, and to revive quickly.

"Ah, they are charming," I said, as Célestine and Bess triumphantly arranged the vases around my bed. They placed a bowl of roses on Oliver Cromwell's cabinet, at least it was said to be his, a cabinet of rose and walnut wood which has innumerable secret drawers. What papers, I wondered, have lain there? Perhaps State papers from Master Secretary Milton, poet and minister; ambitious, aspiring letters from his wife; tear-stained appeals from Royalists; pretty notes from his best beloved daughter, gentle Mistress Claypole. Who knows? And that day it held my little pieces of jewelry, my fans, odds and ends of ribbon, shoes, bows, and collars, and on it, filling the air with sweet perfume, rested a bowl of January roses. How fragrant they were, carrying with them all the breath of summer. Roses are the sweetest of all flowers--the triumph of summer suns, and summer rains, at least so they seemed to me. Those that I gazed on were a selection of exquisite teas: pink, fawn, copper, and creamy white, all the various tints of dying suns were represented, as they stood in an old Caughley bowl; and then I looked at the carnations and buried my nose in their sweet aromatic scent--some of these were of absolute pearl grey, and make me think of the doves of St. Mark when they circle or alight in the Piazza of the City of Lagoons.

"That's a beauty," said Bess, authoritatively. "Why it's the colour of Smokey." Smokey is the nursery Persian cat. "I did not know, mama," continued Bess, "that flowers was grey--I thought they was always red, white, or blue. Burbidge would call that a dust-bin blow."

"Flowers are all colours--at least gardeners make them so," I answered.

"Ah, madame forgets," interrupted Célestine, who with Gallic vivacity always likes her share of the conversation, "there are no blue roses."

"You are right," I answered, "there are no blue roses; they are only the flowers of our imaginations, but they never fade," and I laughed. I spoke in French, and this irritated Bess. Bess has a Shropshire nurse, Winifrede Milner, who has unfortunately an invincible objection to Célestine, in fact to foreigners of all kinds. It is a religion of hatred and objections, and creates continual disagreements in the household. Bess, owing to the nursery feud, sternly sets her face against everything foreign, and, above all, against speaking another tongue.

[Sidenote: BESS DISLIKES FOREIGNERS]

"I won't jabber like Célestine when she talks," she cried, "it sounds like shaking up a money-box, only no money comes out. Burbidge says 'foreigners are like sparrows when a cat's about. They talk when they've nothing to say, and go on when they've done.'"

"Oh, Bess, you must not be rude. If you were in France, you wouldn't like to hear rude things said about England, or English people."

"I shouldn't mind," replied Bess, sturdily, "because they wouldn't be true. When things aren't true, Miss Weldon says, you should rise above such considerations, and take no notice."

To divert the child I asked her abruptly what she was going to do. "You must go out, Bess," I said, "if the sun shines, and take poor Mouse." Mouse looked at me reproachfully as I spoke--she understood my reference to outdoor exercise, but hated the idea of wetting her feet, besides which she considered going out with any one except me beneath her dignity. Of all boarhounds that I have ever known, mine is the most self-indulgent and the most self-satisfied of my acquaintance. Besides which, secretly I felt convinced she was hopeful of sharing my meals, and lying later on the bed when no one was looking.

"Old Mouse is no good," retorted Bess, disdainfully. "She only follows grown-up people. If I lived in heaven," she added dreamily, "I should have a real, live dog, that would walk with me, although I was only a child cherubim."

"Well," I pursued, "but what are you going to do?"

"Me?" inquired Bess, with small attention to grammatical niceties. "When I've done my lessons I shall go out with Burbidge. We are going to put up cocoa-nuts for tom-tits, and hang up some pieces of fat bacon for the starlings, besides which we are going to sweep round the sundial for the rooks. Papa said they were to be fed, and we are going to do it--Burbidge and me."

"What will Miss Weldon do?" I asked.

"Oh, she will read," with great contempt said Bess; "she reads, and never sees anything. Burbidge says that there are many who would know more if they read less."

"See after my canaries," I cried, as Bess flew off to finish her lessons, buoyed up with the hope later of going out with our old gardener. Outside I heard him, our faithful old retainer of some seventy years, tramping heavily on the red Ercal gravel. He was about to sweep a place by the sundial on which to feed my birds.

[Sidenote: FEEDING THE BIRDS]

Birds of all kinds come to this outside dining-hall--tom-tits, the beautiful little blue and green variety, perky and no larger than a wren; wrens with deep guttural bell-like notes and brown tails up-tilted; robins with flaming breasts; ill-bred, iridescent, chattering starlings; a few salmon-breasted chaffinches, the tamest of all wild birds; spotted thrushes, and raven-hued blackbirds; besides an army of grey sparrows, very tame, very cheeky, and very quarrelsome. Added to all these were the rooks, and a flight of grey-pated hungry jackdaws who uttered short sharp cries when they saw the corn and scraps of bread, but who dared not approach as near as the other and smaller birds.

Across my latticed windows dark shadows passed and repassed; they were caused by the jackdaws and the rooks who swept down at intervals, and carried off a big piece of bread when nobody was at hand. The old gardener fed this strange feathered crew, and then stood aside to see the fun. How the starlings jabbered and screamed, and what an ill-bred, ill-conditioned lot they were, as they all talked at once, screamed, scolded--vulgar, loud, noisy, common, and essentially of low origin.

A few of the Watch Tower pigeons swept down with a flutter of musical wings, and were about to fall upon the food, when crowds of jackdaws left the old stone tiled roof and dashed in for their share, uttering as they went their weird ghostly cry. For a moment the noise was chaotic--the pigeons cooed and strutted, the starlings screamed, and the jackdaws pressed greedily forward to seize and carry off all they could get. Suddenly there was a noise, hungry, passionate, furious, like an angry motor pressing forward in a race and bent on dealing death on all sides; and I saw the peacock dash forward, his tail up, and his neck outstretched. He fell upon the food and would allow none to partake of any, till he had had his fill. Behind him followed his three wives, but at a respectful distance; he was not gallant like a barndoor cock, in fact he was much too fine a fellow to think of any one but himself. His tail feathers were not yet quite perfect, and they seemed swathed in places in silver paper, but his neck was glorious, of a brilliant blue with shimmers of golden reflections, and of a colour that has no equal. He had a viperish head, and was gloriously beautiful, and morally, a collection of all the vices--greedy, spiteful, and furiously ill-tempered. He slew, last spring, a whole clutch of young "widdies," as the country people call ducklings, and killed, in a fit of anger, two of his own chicks. Burbidge dislikes him on account of the damage he does in a garden, but respects him for his beauty.

"He is like an army of 'blows'" (blossoms), he says, "and creates more damage than a tempest at harvest time, does old Adam."

Mouse, whilst I was watching the scene outside through the long lancet window, seized upon her opportunity and leapt up upon the bed.

"I wish you wouldn't," I said feebly. "I am sure the fire was nice enough, even for a dog." But Mouse thought differently; she turned round in a distracting, disagreeable way, some three or four times, as wild dogs are said to do in the prairies, on the bed--my bed, and then flumped down heavily across my feet. I wriggled uneasily, but Mouse had gained her point and had no feelings for my discomfort; she rested upon the bed, which to every well-constituted dog-mind is a great achievement, almost an acknowledgment of sovereignty. There she would lie, I knew, until some divertisement could be suggested that would appeal to her palate, or some suggestion of danger outside. For Mouse is greedy and lazy, but faithful as most dogs are, and few human beings. I dared not slap or speak rudely, for great Danes are gifted with acute sensibilities; and if I were to be so ill-judged as to express displeasure by an unpleasant gesture, she would remain broken-hearted and aggrieved for the rest of the day.

Alas! for the liberty of the subject. I groaned for folks who indulge their dogs in caprice and greed, but I had not the courage to fight for myself and so had to suffer. There is really much to be urged in favour of the fortunate people who are dog-less.

[Sidenote: A GARDEN OF EDEN]

I turned my head and looked with delight at my flowers. While I gazed, my mind flew back, and away to the land of sunshine from whence they came. I thought of sunny Mentone with its blue sky, and glittering groves of oranges and lemons that hung in the sunlight like balls of fire and light; of Cap St. Martin stretching seaward, and, above all, of the beautiful garden of La Mortola that I visited several times when I stayed at the Bellevue. How wonderfully exquisite that garden was, running down to the turquoise sea, a perfect fairy-land of delight--the old villa, once a mediæval palace, in the centre, with its well, with its marble floors, its cypress groves and fir pines, its sheets of brilliant anemones, its agaves and aloes, and its cacti.

It made me think of the garden of Eden before the Fall, that garden of La Mortola--it seemed hardly a real place, so beautiful was it; and its thirty maidens that weeded the paths and watered the blossoms, seemed scarcely more real.

How well I remembered walking round the garden, with the kind and courteous owner of this land of enchantment; how he showed us all his rare and strange plants, plants from all parts of the world, old and new. There were many varieties of oranges and lemons, and the air, as we walked in the golden light of a March day, was laden with the entrancing sweetness of the Pittosporum. But above all, what interested me most in the Enchanted Land was the old Roman road, which runs just above the kitchen garden, and below the flower garden. Here, it is recorded on a tablet let into the wall, is the place where Napoleon and his victorious army passed into Italy. It is a narrow little path on which the whole of the French army passed, with scarcely room for two men to ride abreast. Below lay the sea like a lake, of that wonderful delicate blue that is only to be seen in Mediterranean waters, tideless and brilliant, and beyond were the purple coasts of Corsica.

I remembered at the end of my first visit my kind host asking me amongst his rare and beautiful flowers, what I had most admired? I replied, the sheets of violets, but violets as it is impossible to imagine in chilly England, sheets of purple, unhidden by leaves, and gorgeous in their amethystine glory--violets growing in great beds many yards long in the middle of the garden, like mantles of purple. They were a glorious vision, a sight of beauty that I shall never forget, a revelation of colour. As I looked at the bunches that my friend had sent, I thought of those exquisite perfumed _parterres_, of the song of the blackcaps amongst the olives, of the golden sunlight, and of the radiant beauty of sea and sky. Yes, the garden of La Mortola was wonderfully, marvellously beautiful, and it even then seemed to me doubly beautiful, seeing it as I did in my mental vision, across sheets of snow and in the grim atmosphere of an English winter.

What a true joy beautiful memories are! the real jewels of the soul that no robber can steal, and that no moth or rust can corrupt, the great education of sense and heart. Then I took my books and enjoyed a browse. What a good thing leisure is, leisure to read and think. Nobody interrupted me, only the chimes of the old parish church told me the hour from time to time.

With measured cadence, drowsily and melodiously they sounded across the snow-bound earth. "Time to dream, time to dream," they seemed to say.

Later on came my luncheon, cutlets with onion chips and jelly. Mouse got the bones. She was polite enough to leap off the bed and to crack them on the floor--and I was grateful for small mercies. A minute afterwards, and I rang my hand-bell, and Célestine scurried down.

"Madame a froid, madame est malade," and in her impetuous Gallic way, waited for no reply. However, when I could make myself heard, I told her that I meant to get up, as my friend was coming down from the Red House to embroider with me.

[Sidenote: THE GREAT CURTAINS]

When my toilet was completed, I begged Célestine to bring my big basket from the chapel hall below, and the curtain that I was engaged in embroidering for my oratory. The background is of yellow linen and is thickly covered with fourteenth and fifteenth century birds, beasts, and flowers, and in the centre of each there is an angel.

Each curtain is three yards four inches, by two yards four inches. The birds, beasts, and flowers are all finely shaded and are worked in crewels, tapestry wools divided, in darning and fine Berlin wools, and all these various sorts seem to harmonize and mingle wonderfully well together.

The picture, for it really is a picture, was drawn out for me by a very skilful draughtsman. The birds, beasts, and angels have been taken from old Italian work, from mediæval stained-glass windows, and from old missals, and then drawn out to scale. There are Tudor roses, Italian carnations, sprays of shadowy love-in-the-mist, dusky wallflowers, and delightful half-heraldic birds and beasts, running up and hanging down the stems. It is a great work. Constance, who is good enough to admire it, says that she is sure that the Water-poet would have said, if he could have seen it--

"Flowers, plants and fishes, beasts, birds, flies and bees,
Hills, dales, plains, pastures, skies, seas, rivers, trees:
There's nothing near at hand or farthest sought
But with the needle may be shaped and wrought.
Moreover, posies rare and anagrams,
Art's life included, within Nature's bounds."

There are four curtains to do, and alas, I have only one pair of hands!

I keep all carefully covered up with old damask napkins as I go along, so that neither ground nor work can get rubbed or soiled, and embroider, myself, in what my old housekeeper calls pie-crust sleeves, to save the slightest friction from my dress on the yellow linen.

As to the cherubim's and seraphim's wings, they have been my great and constant delight. I dreamt of a wild glory of colour which I hardly dared to realize, but of which I found wonderful examples one sunny day in the macaw grove at the Zoo. I went up and down and inspected the marvellous birds for an hour, drinking in with rapture the extraordinary richness of their plumage. How marvellous they were! Red, blue, mauve, green, scarlet, rose, and yellow, all pure unsullied colours, and like flashes of light. They seemed to me like a triumphant tune set to pealing chords. There seemed in those glorious creatures to be no drawbacks, no shadows, no trivialities of daily life. In their resplendent feathers they appeared to gather light and to reproduce the majesty of the sun itself.

[Sidenote: THE JOY OF COLOUR]

I went home, my eyes almost dazzled with their radiancy, and a week after attempted to work into my curtain something of what I had seen--a feeble reflection, I fear, but still a reflection. In my angels and cherubim I have allowed no greys or browns, no twilight shades. Everywhere I have introduced a pure warm note of intense joyous colour, and if I have not always succeeded, at least the wings of my celestial beings have been a great source of delight to imagine, and to execute. In my colouring it has been always morning. Bess was charmed to run and fetch me the different wools needed--"Summer suns," she called them.

I have often noticed that to a young child, pure brilliant colours are an intense joy and a source of gaiety. It is only as the shades of the prison-house draw near, and press upon us, that the lack of appreciation creeps in for what to children and to primitive man is a great and constant glory. That day I was going to embroider some anemones, such as I remembered in the old market-place of Mentone, and a sprig of stocks, such as I recollected once having seen on a drive to Brigg. The eye of the mind can be a great pleasure if properly cultivated. It may not be actually correct, but it can give the soul and the life of things remembered, even through the mist of years.

And now one word, dear sister-devotees of the needle, about embroidery. Do not imagine that shading in five or six shades of the same colour, which is the way that nine people out of ten work, is the true and natural one. This only produces a sad and wooden flower, without life or gladness, and conceived and worked amongst the shades of twilight. Take any flower and place it in the sunlight, and you will see in any purple flower, for instance, that there are not only different shades, but different colours--red, mauve, blue, lavender, and violet. I realized as I gazed at my anemone, that it must be embroidered in greyish lavenders, with here and there pure notes of violet with heather tints, in red purples, in greyish whites, and with a vivid apple-green centre. All these were strikingly different colours, but were necessary in the shading to make my blossom look as if it had grown amidst sunlight and shower.

I stood my bunch of real flowers in water in as strong a light as possible; as to the sunshine, alas! of that there was but a scanty supply, and I had to imagine that mostly, as also the scent of the orange groves and the thrilling song of the blackcaps overhead, for in our northern world, let it be written with sorrow, many and long are the dull leaden months between each summer. Still light did something, and imagination did the rest. I imagined myself back under the brilliant sky of southern France, and I thought I saw the bowls of brilliant flowers as I had known them, whilst I threaded my needle.

Suddenly Mouse slipped off the bed, and whined at the door. I understood her anxiety to run out, for I, too, had heard a tramp on the gravel path outside, and had seen the keeper Gregson go off towards the back-door laden with a string of rabbits, a plover or two, and a brace of partridges neatly fastened to a stick, as is the way of keepers.

[Sidenote: MOUSE, POUR LE SPORT]

The black retriever that was following Gregson is a dear friend of Mouse's. Once my dog went out shooting. In the cells of her brain that day has always remained a red letter day; I believe on this celebrated occasion she ran in, and did all that a sporting dog should not do, knocked down a beater who was endeavouring to lead "the great beast," fought a yellow retriever, but did find and successfully bring back, puffing and panting like a grampus, a wounded bird that had escaped keepers, beaters, and trained dogs.

"Her's like a great colt in the plough, but her has a beautiful nose," Gregson always declared, "and if so be her had been brought up proper, would have been an ornament to her profession."

The memory of this "jour de gloire," as Célestine called it, had never left my canine friend, and my gigantic watch-dog had ever since retained a devouring passion for field sports. To humour my dog, I opened the door, and Mouse disappeared, and swept by like a hurricane, ponderous and terrible, down the newel staircase heaving and whining with impatience. A second later and I saw her below greeting Gregson effusively.

Our old keeper was pleased at her welcome. "Good Mouse," I heard him call. And then I heard him cry out to our French cook, Auguste, "Mouse, she seems like a bobby off duty when she finds me. There's nature in the dog for all her lives in the drawing-room, lies on sofas and feeds on kickshaws." Auguste agreed, and then seeing the game, gesticulated and exclaimed, "Quelle chasse! C'est splendide, et vous----" A moment later I heard the door close, and Gregson disappeared into the old Abbey kitchen to smoke, doubtless, the pipe of peace, after partaking liberally of a certain game pie, that we had the day before at luncheon.

The voices grew faint, and I returned to my work. I threaded several needles with different colours, pricked them handy for use in a pincushion, and then began to copy my flowers on the table as deftly as I could, and awaited my friend.

It was very peaceful outside. All looked grey and cold, the snow lay white and pure, and the only note of colour was the glistening ivy. There was no sound, the starlings had vanished. Far away I saw a flock of rooks, dim specks against the leaden sky. I sat and embroidered in silence, when suddenly the calm of the winter afternoon was broken by the gay laughter of a child, and I discerned my Bess, chattering below with our old gardener Burbidge.

In one hand he carried a pole, whilst Bess had tightly clutched hold of the other. I opened my lattice window and inquired what they were about to do?

The reply came back from Burbidge that he and the gardeners were going to shake off the snow from the great yew hedge by the bowling-green. "The snow be like lead to my balls," said the old man, "and as to the peacock's tail, I fear it will damage the poor bird unless it be knocked off dang-swang"--which is Burbidge's Shropshire way of saying "at once."

Burbidge always speaks of the yew peacock as the real bird, and of Adam, our blue-necked pet, as "him that plagues us in the garden."

Bess laughed with joy at the thought of so congenial an occupation.

"I shall help too," she cried, as she waved her hand to me, "for Ben" (the odd man) "has cut me a stick, and I am going to knock as well as anybody. I have done all my lessons, mamsie," she bawled. "I know enough for one day, and now I'm going to work, really work."

I kissed my hand, and Bess passed off the scene accompanied by a train of gardeners.

[Sidenote: A COUNTRY BRINGING UP]

Just before Bess was quite out of sight Célestine poked out her head from a top window above, and I heard her raise her voice to scold angrily but ineffectually. Célestine has an unfortunate habit of giving unasked, her advice freely. Like a cat, she has a horror of getting wet, and has a rooted belief that _une petite fille bien élevée_ should remain in, in bad weather, nurse her doll by the fire, or learn to make her dolly's clothes. I did not catch all that my maid said, but some of her stray words of indignation reached me. I heard that something was not _gentil_, and something else was _infâme_, and Bess in particular "une petite fille impolie." In answer to this I caught a defiant laugh from Bess, and then Célestine banged down her window above.

I sat down and worked in silence. Bess is an only child--and will come to no harm under old Burbidge's care, I said to myself. In fact, she will learn under his tutorship many of the delightful things that make life worth having afterwards. She will so acquire the knowledge of the things that are seen, and not learnt by book; she will get to know the different notes of the birds, and to distinguish their eggs. She will hear from him the names of the hedge-row flowers, and learn where to find the rare ones, and know by country names all the sweet natural things that enable us to appreciate a long walk in the country, or a turn round our gardens. She will thus unconsciously learn to love simple wild things, and homely pleasures, and these will be for her stepping-stones to the higher education in the future.

Why is the society of old servants so delightful to children? I asked myself this question, as I asked it also of my little maid, a few weeks before, when she gave me her definition of a happy day--a day to be spent, if I remember rightly, in the company of Burbidge with Ben the odd boy, and in driving with Crawley, the Yorkshire coachman.

"I should like to be swung by Ben from the old walnut tree, to garden, and catch tadpoles with Burbidge, and to drive the old grey mare all by myself with Crawley." And Bess added: "Then, mamsie, I should be quite happy; and mummie, do let it come true on my first holiday, or on my next birthday." "If there could be no 'don'ts,'" another time Bess told me, "I should be always good; and if I had no nurse, or governess, I should never be naughty." I try to implant in Bess's mind that nurse and governess are her duties in life. She agrees but sadly, and like most modern people, poor child, wishes to get rid of life's duties as quickly as possible. "I never mean to be naughty," Bess asserts, "but naughtiness comes to me like spoiling a frock, when I least expect it." And she once added, "I know, mummy, if people didn't think me naughty I never should be."

I pondered over these nursery problems as the work grew under my hands. How delicate and exquisite were all the shades of grey and lavender in the real flowers. I inspected my threaded needles, but I could not find amongst my crewels the necessary tints. I took a thread of tapestry wool, divided it carefully, and then turning to a box of Scotch fingering on cards, found exactly what was needed, a warm shade of heather. Embroidery is so much to me. It is part of my life, and flowers and birds when done recall thoughts and joys and pains, as scents are said to bring back the past to most people. A story is told of a French lady who, when they told her that her daughter-in-law did not like needlework, replied, "She is very young--she has never known real sorrow."

[Sidenote: A PLAYMATE FOR BESS]

All of a sudden I dropped my work and started up, for all the dogs had begun to bark in chorus. I ran to the window. I heard the crunch of the gravel, and a minute later I saw a carriage drawn by a pair of greys stop before our old front door.

Out of the brougham there emerged the little figure of Harry, Colonel Stanley's only little boy and Bess's playmate. He was accompanied by his German governess, a fat, phlegmatic personage, Fräulein Schliemann by name. As she got out, I heard her say, "I have one letter to leave, most important," and she stood waiting on the doorstep for Fremantle to show her into the house. In the selfsame moment, Harry, hearing voices in the rose garden, without a word, and nimble as a rabbit, darted through the wrought-iron gates and waved his hand to Bess. In a second Bess appeared, a shower of snow upon her cap and amongst her locks, but redolent of health, and full of gaiety. "Is that you, Hals?" she cried, and the children dashed off to the end of the garden together.

Fräulein in the mean time discoursed with Fremantle and gave up her letter. All this I noticed from my room. Through my window I heard peals of laughter, and I saw Hals on the back of an under-gardener, pursued by Bess, who was engaged in throwing handfuls of snow at him.

Happily this spectacle was not witnessed by Fräulein Schliemann, for water and snow are always repellent to her, and incomprehensible as sources of pleasure or amusement. She heaved a big sigh and then, preceded by the butler, went into the old chapel hall and plumped her fat self down on an old oak chair. A quick knock at my door, and Fremantle brought me the letter. The note contained an invitation for Bess to go over and spend the following Saturday afternoon at Hawkmoor, Colonel Stanley's country house, some six miles away. It would be little Harry's birthday, I was told, and the diversions and amusements in his honour, were to be great, and varied.

Punch and Judy in the front hall, a conjuror, a magic-lantern, and later on a birthday cake, with lighted candles, as many as the years that little Hals (as Bess calls him) would have attained to.

"Do," wrote my cousin, Venetia Stanley, "let little Bess be at Harry's eighth birthday. I often feel my little lad is very lonely, and Bess's presence would make his birthday a double joy."

In a moment I had scribbled back an answer. Of course Bess must go, I wrote. Harry was a dear little boy, and being entertained and the art of entertaining are parts of the higher and necessary education of children. I carried down my note myself, and assured Fräulein of my delight in accepting so charming an invitation for my little girl.

Fräulein simpered, and I called for tea. At the Abbey there are no bells on the ground floor. Then I remembered the children, and turned to Fräulein and asked her if she knew where they were.

"Heinrich is with Bess," I was told. About a quarter of an hour later, when a hissing urn was brought in, I begged Fremantle to ring my hand-bell, as a signal to the loiterers that tea was ready.

For some time this summons received no answer, but at last, breathless but blissful, the children appeared. But in what a plight! Heinrich's deep red velvet suit was soaked and sadly soiled, and his cap and long flaxen curls dripped with moisture, whilst Bess's garments were running with mud and wet, and as they both stood in the chapel hall, little pools of water guttered down beside them.

[Sidenote: FRÄULEIN IS FURIOUS]

Fräulein started up and screamed hysterically, and I darted forward. "My dears, how wet you are," I cried. "You must go and change at once." And without another word I hurried off both children to the nursery. It was an easy matter to put Bess into a fresh dry frock and into a clean white pinafore, but what could be done with Harry? I asked myself. He is a delicate child, and must not remain in damp clothes, so I turned to him resolutely, and asked, "Which will you do, Harry: get into one of Bess' dresses, or go to bed?"

"Oh, auntie," he answered, blushing furiously, for he always calls me "auntie," although I am not his real aunt, "I would much rather go to bed than wear a girl's dress."

So we were about to put him into bed when a sudden brilliant idea flashed through my brain. "My husband's dressing-gown," I murmured. In a moment, kindly Fremantle, who heard me, had fetched it. It was yards too long, but it was turned up with an army of safety-pins, and so Hals' vanity was not humiliated. At least he was clothed in male attire! And we must always remember that self-respect in a little lad is even more easily wounded than love.

Five minutes later both children were dry, and clad in other costumes. "I don't think that they will be any the worse," I said to my old nurse, Milner. But as I entered the chapel hall I noticed that Fräulein looked as black as thunder. In her eyes the episode was a most disagreeable, even a disgraceful occurrence.

Hals paused on the threshold for a moment and looked at me beseechingly out of his pretty, round, short-sighted eyes.

"I am so sorry," I said apologetically, and felt really for a second a transitory shame, Fräulein looked so fierce and injured. "How did it happen?" I asked of Bess, by way of lifting the leaden pall of silence.

"Only a rat hunt," answered that young lady, jauntily, with her mouth full of buttered toast, for she had not waited for grace, but had slipped into her seat at the head of the tea-table. "There was a rat," she continued to explain, "in the potting-shed, and Trump and Tartar smelt him out and ran after him, and Hals joined in and tumbled over. He shouldn't wear smart clothes when he comes here. Nobody wants him to. Gregson says, 'By gum, give me the varminty sort,'" and Bess laughed rather rudely, after which there was an awkward and prolonged pause.

"Hals is your guest," at last I said severely; upon which Bess turned scarlet, and a second later plied Hals with seed and sponge cake at once.

I had the velvet suit taken to the kitchen fire to dry, but I must honestly confess that its magnificence was, I feared, a thing of the past. While we sat on, Fremantle entered, and in his most irreproachable voice informed us that Mrs. Langdale (the housekeeper) was of opinion that Master Harry's suit would not be fit for him to wear again that day. At this Fräulein wrung her hands and broke out into ejaculations. "Mein Gott! mein Gott!" she cried, and began to scold Harry furiously.

At this, Bess could keep down her wrath no longer. With flashing eyes she confronted Hals' governess. "It was my fault, all my fault," she said. "I told Hals to run like mad, and not to miss the fun."

Fräulein did not deign to answer Bess' justification of her pupil, but glared at Hals; and we all remained on in silence, and I noted that poor little Hals had a white face, and that both slices of cake on his plate remained untouched.

[Sidenote: FRIENDSHIP'S OFFER]

"I will write and explain all to Mrs. Stanley," I said at last; "only," and here I turned to Harry, "you must go back in the dressing-gown, dear, and be wrapped up warmly in a rug. No colds must be caught, and the suit shall be sent back to-morrow."

Hals nodded his head. Whatever happened he was not going to cry; only girls and muffs cried, but he knew that there was a bad time coming, when he would have to face the music.

Bess watched his face. She was up in arms. Directly after grace was said, and this time by her in a jiffy, she flung herself off her chair, flew upstairs defiant, and breathless. A minute later she reappeared, her face crimson, but her mouth set.

"How much?" she asked of Fräulein, in a hostile spirit. "How much? I say, if I _pay_, you mayn't punish."

But here Hals dashed forward, and would not let Bess put her purse into his governess's hand. "Don't," he said; "boys can't take money from girls." And Bess was left stammering and confused, with her own sky-blue purse left in her little fat paw. I pretended not to see what had happened as I sat down and wrote a note to my friend, Venetia Stanley, to explain all, and to beg forgiveness for the little culprit. I pleaded that tumbles, like accidents, would happen in the best regulated nurseries. I addressed my letter, and stuck down the envelope. This done, we all sat on in sombre silence round the fire. All conversation died upon our lips, Fräulein looked so sour and forbidding.

At last our gloomy interview was broken up by Fremantle entering the room and announcing the fact that Colonel Stanley's carriage was at the door, and a message from the coachman to the effect that he hoped the greys would not be kept waiting.

Then without more ado, Fremantle lifted Hals in his arms, for the dressing-gown was too long to permit the little boy to walk, and Tom, the footman, followed with a thick fur rug to wrap round him. "Give Master Hals my note," I called, as the little party vanished through the outside door.

Fräulein went last, an evil glare on her fat face, and "as dark as tempest," Burbidge would have said if he had seen her, and I noted that she would not take my hand at parting. She evidently thought the disaster that had befallen the red suit was due to me. I was _wae_ for the little man, as he vanished from my sight; that stupid German woman had no more sympathy with the young life that throbbed and beat in him, than if she were a table or a chair, and he would certainly have what the French call a bad quarter of an hour with her before she had done.

Bess stood for a minute or two after they were gone, and we looked blankly at each other. Bess cried, "Beast, beast!" and then burst into floods of tears. "She will punish him," she moaned, "she will punish him," and she buried her face amongst the sofa cushions of the great settee.

At first I felt powerless to soothe her, or to induce her to take a less gloomy view of the situation. "It is unfair and mean of the old Fräulein," she kept on calling out, "for I did offer to pay on the nail" (Bess has acquired a considerable amount of slang); "and I offered her all the money I had. Five shillings that came at Christmas, half a crown from Uncle St. John, and sixpence which I won in good marks from Miss Weldon." Bess was of opinion that so magnificent a sum was enough for a king's ransom, and ought to have bought all, or any attires, and to have silenced all voices of reproof.

I did not undeceive my little maid. After all, it was all her earthly wealth, and all that she possessed she had offered to save her little friend from punishment. Later on darkness fell, Fremantle appeared with a lamp, and Bess fetched her work, a kettle on a vermilion ground of cross-stitch, which I have often been told "will be so useful to papa on his birthday;" and I started reading aloud, for Bess's edification, one of Hans Andersen's beautiful stories.

[Sidenote: "BETTER THAN TRUE"]

As I closed the book, Bess exclaimed, "It is not true, but it is better than true--beautiful stories always are--and there, at least, is no horrid German governess. If I chose," my little girl said, "I should only have a Yorkshire, or a Shropshire governess. Burbidge says there's many wise folks as cannot understand foreigners; and Crawley says, 'Give me plain Yorkshire, and I'll knock sense into any one's head.'" Then we discussed the story. I had read the tale of the Ugly Duckling, perhaps the most beautiful story of all fairy-land. Bess listened open-mouthed, and her eyes glistened like stars with joy at the end. "I shall always think a swan is a fairy prince," she murmured. "Why don't beautiful things happen much oftener? Only lessons, nursery tea, stains, and mistakes come every day." As she spoke, the old church clock struck seven, and Bess put away her work in a little crimson bag.

I sat before the great open fireplace and listened to my little girl's talk. Through the latticed windows of the oratory shone a soft mist of stars.

"Sometimes beautiful things really happen," I said; and then through the open door I saw old Nana standing. A hurried kiss from Bess, and the child was gone.

Later on, in the evening, after dinner, I mounted the old newel staircase and made my way to the old nursery up in the roof with its latticed dormer windows. There, to my surprise, I found Bess wide awake.

"I have told Miss Bess not to talk no more," said Nana, rather sourly; "but she will run on about Master Harry and his German punishments."

My old body's sympathy for once was with Fräulein, for spoiling a vest and a velvet suit can never be otherwise than a crime in any nurse's eyes.

I went and sat by my little maid's white dimity hung cot.

"I think he will be forgiven," I said.

"P'raps he'll turn into a fairy prince," said Bess, and she took my hand, "and then it will all come right." In a few moments I saw that she was getting drowsy, for she looked at me with half-closed eyes--one eye tinnin' and the other carrin' trout, as Shropshire folks say when you are overcome with sleep. Then Bess went on in the sing-song voice that so often immediately precedes sleep with children, "Hals was an ugly duck to-day, but he'll turn into a swan or something nice some day."

"Some day," I nodded.

"Yes, when Hals' birthday comes." And Bess's eyes closed gently, and she slipped away into the blessed land of dreams.

When I went downstairs I found a letter from my friend Constance of the Red House, to tell me that at the last moment she was detained by a visit from a poor old body whose son was ill, and so couldn't come down to tea; but that she trusted on the morrow to find me, what Bess calls, "quite better."

[Sidenote: BILLY FIRE-DEW COMES]

The following day fresh snow fell. All nature lay covered up with what Burbidge calls "a fine hoodin'." Before my eyes a pure white dazzling plain of snow extended, and even the old stone roof and the ruined church glistened white and wonderful. As soon as I was called, I opened my window and saw my tame robin, who one summer was hatched in a yew hedge, appear on my window-sill. Billy Fire-Dew, Bess has christened him, and Billy Buttons he is known as, by Burbidge and the gardeners. He has a brilliant flame-coloured breast, soft rich brown wings, and large round liquid eyes. For a minute he rested upon the window, then with a joyous chirp he spread his wings and hopped upon a great Spanish chestnut sixteenth-century chest, which stands in the centre of my bedroom. On the chest are figures of gods and goddesses, burnt in by an iron.

Happily I was not unprovided with suitable refreshment to offer my little guest. A scrap of sponge cake in a wine glass, saved from last night's dinner, met with his entire approval. It had been intended for Mouse, but as at the last moment she could not be found, so Bill was in luck. I sprinkled some crumbs about the chest, and on my writing-table, and he hopped about puffing himself out, quite unabashed, and partook freely of the breakfast I offered him. I did not move as I watched him, but remained standing stock-still. I have always found one of the great secrets of bird taming is to keep immovable, till all sense of fear is lost by constant familiarity.

How beautiful he was, with his great hazel eyes, and his scarlet waistcoat beneath his sober hood.

He chirped loudly as he ate, and then flew joyfully from table to bed, and from bed to table, and so at last back to the window-sill, uttering at moments his clear bell-like cry. Whilst I was engaged in watching my little feathered friend, I heard the click of the latch of my door, and Bess entered bearing in her arms the nursery cat Grey Smokey.

"Oh, beware!" I cried alarmed. "Billy Fire-Dew is here." In an instant Bess had opened the door again and evicted her favourite, but not without noise; and Bill had caught fright, and with a loud shrill cry, had flown into the garden.

Then, outside the door, Smokey began to mew piteously. "Let her in," I said, "she can do no harm now. Bill is quite safe." So the puss entered, and although habitually the gentlest of creatures, I saw that the instinct of an animal of prey was strong within her.