Chapter 4

"'Do you mind Mrs. Moss's being old, and dressing in that hideous brown dress?' I asked in a whisper at the ear of one of these round heads. 'Think of the rosebuds on the brocade, and the pea-green satin, and the high-heeled shoes. Ah!' I added, 'you are only a pug, and pugs don't think.' Nevertheless, I pulled out the pincushion, and showed it to each dog in turn, and the sight of it so forcibly reminded me of my vain hopes, that I could not help crying. A hot tear fell upon the nose of the oldest and fattest pug, which so offended him that he moved away to another mat at some distance, and as both the others fell fast asleep, I took refuge in my own thoughts.

"The question arose why should not Mrs. Moss have the pincushion after all? I had expected her to be young and beautiful, and she had proved old and ugly, it is true; but there is no reason why old and ugly people should not have cushions to keep their pins in. It was a struggle to part with my dear strawberry pincushion in the circumstances, but I had fairly resolved to do so, when the rustle of leave-taking began, and I had to come out of my corner.

"'Bid Mrs. Moss good-day, Mary,' said my grandmother; and added, 'the child has been wild to come and see you, Anastatia.'

"Mrs. Moss held out her hand good-naturedly. 'So you wanted to see me, my dear?' said she.

"I took my hand out of my pocket, where I had been holding the pincushion, and put both into Mrs. Moss's palm.

"'I brought this for you ma'am,' I said. 'It is not a real strawberry; it is emery; I made it myself.'

"And the fact of having sacrificed something for Mrs. Moss made me almost fond of her. Moreover, there was an expression in her eyes at that moment which gave them beauty. She looked at my grandmother and laid her hand on my head.

"'I lost all mine, Elizabeth.'

"I thought she was speaking of her pincushions, and being in a generous mood, said hastily,

"When that is worn out, ma'am, I will make you another.'

"But she was speaking of her children. Poor Mrs. Moss! She took another huge pinch of snuff, and called, 'Metcalfe.'

"The faded little woman appeared once more.

"'I must give you a keepsake in return, my dear,' said Mrs. Moss. 'The china pug, Metcalfe!'

"Metcalfe (whose face always wore a smile that looked as if it were just about to disappear, and who, indeed, for that matter, always looked as if she were just about to disappear herself) opened one of the cabinets, and brought out a little toy pug in china, very delicately coloured, and looking just like one of my friends on the mat. I fell in love with it at once, and it was certainly a handsome exchange for the strawberry pincushion.

"'You will send the child to see me now and then, Elizabeth?' said Mrs. Moss as we retired.

"In the end Mrs. Moss and I became great friends. I put aside my dream among the 'vain fancies' of life, and took very kindly to the manor in its new aspect. Even the stuffed footman became familiar, and learnt to welcome me with a smile. The real Mrs. Moss was a more agreeable person than I have, I fear, represented her. She had failed to grasp solid happiness in life, because she had chosen with the cowardice of an inferior mind; but she had borne disappointment with dignity, and submitted to heavy sorrows with patience; and a greater nature could not have done more. She was the soul of good humour, and the love of small chat, which contrasted so oddly with her fierce appearance, was a fund of entertainment for me, as I fed my imagination and stored my memory with anecdotes of the good old times in the many quiet evenings we spent together. I learnt to love her more heartily, I confess, when she bought a new gown and gave the _feuille-morte_ satin to Mrs. Metcalfe.

"Mrs. Metcalfe was 'humble companion' to Mrs. Moss. She was in reality single, but she exacted the married title as a point of respect. At the beginning of our acquaintance I called her 'Miss Metcalfe,' and this occasioned the only check our friendship ever received. Now I would, with the greatest pleasure, have addressed her as 'My Lord Archbishop,' or in any other style to which she was not entitled, it being a matter of profound indifference to me. But the question was a serious one to her, and very serious she made it, till I almost despaired of our ever coming to an understanding on the subject.

"On every other point she was unassuming almost to non-entity. She was weak-minded to the verge of mental palsy. She was more benevolent in deed, and more wandering in conversation, than any one I have met with since. That is, in ordinary life. In the greenhouse or garden (with which she and the head-gardener alone had any real acquaintance) her accurate and profound knowledge would put to shame many professed garden botanists I have met with since. From her I learnt what little I know of the science of horticulture, and with her I spent many happy hours over the fine botanical works in the manor library, which she alone ever opened.

"And so I became reconciled to things as they were, though to this day I connect with that shade of _feuille-morte_ satin a disappointment not to be forgotten."

* * * * *

"It is a dull story, is it not, Ida?" said the little old lady, pausing here. She had not told it in precisely these words, but this was the sum and substance of it.

Ida nodded. Not that she had thought the story dull, so far as she had heard it, and whilst she was awake; but she had fallen asleep, and so she nodded.

Mrs. Overtheway looked back at the fire, to which, indeed, she had been talking for some time past.

"A child's story?" she thought. "A tale of the blind, wilful folly of childhood? Ah, my soul! Alas, my grown-up friends! Does the moral belong to childhood alone? Have manhood and womanhood no passionate, foolish longings, for which we blind ourselves to obvious truth, and of which the vanity does not lessen the disappointment? Do we not still toil after rosebuds, to find _feuilles-mortes_?"

No voice answered Mrs. Overtheway's fanciful questions. The hyacinth nodded fragrantly on its stalk, and Ida nodded in her chair. She was fast asleep--happily asleep--with a smile upon her face.

The shadows nodded gently on the walls, and like a shadow the little old lady stole quietly away.

When Ida awoke, she found herself lying partly in the arm-chair, and partly in the arms of Nurse, who was lifting her up. A candle flared upon the table, by the fire stood an empty chair, and the heavy scent that filled the room was as sweet as the remembrance of past happiness. The little old lady had vanished, and, but for the hyacinth, Ida would almost have doubted whether her visit had not been a dream.

"Has Mrs. Overtheway been long gone, Nursey?" she asked, keeping her eyes upon the flowerpot.

"Ever so long!" said Nurse, "and here you've been snoring away, and the old lady's been downstairs, telling me how comfortably you were asleep, and she's coming again to-morrow evening, if you're good."

It was precisely twelve minutes since Mrs. Overtheway left the house, but Nurse was of a slightly exaggerative turn of mind, and few people speak exactly on the subject of time, especially when there is an opportunity of triumphing over someone who has been asleep before bed-time. The condition of Ida's being good was also the work of Nurse's own instructive fancy, but Ida caught eagerly at the welcome news of another visit.

"Then she is not angry with me for falling asleep, Nursey? I was so comfortable, and she has such a nice voice, I couldn't help it; I think I left off about the pugs. I wish I had a pug with a wrinkled black snout, don't you, Nursey?"

"I'm sure I don't, Miss Ida. My father kept all sorts of pigs, and we used to have one with a black snout and black spots, but it was as ugly as ugly could be; and I never could fancy the bacon would be fit to eat. You must have been dreaming, I'm sure; the old lady would never tell you about such rubbish, I know."

"It's pugs, not pigs, Nursey; and they're dogs, you know," said Ida, laughing. "How funny you are! And indeed she did tell me, I couldn't have dreamt it; I never dreamt anything so nice in my life."

"And never will, most likely," said Nurse, who was very skilful in concluding a subject which she did not want to discuss, and who was apt to do so by a rapid twist in the line of argument, which Ida would find somewhat bewildering. "But, dear Miss Ida," she continued, "do leave off clutching at that chair-arm, when I'm lifting you up; and your eyes 'll drop out of your head, if you go on staring like that."

Ida relaxed the nervous grasp, to which she had been impelled by her energy on the subject of the pugs, let down her eyebrows, and submitted to be undressed. The least pleasant part of this ceremony may be comprised in the word curl-papers. Ida's hair was dark, and soft, and smooth, but other little girls wore ringlets, and so this little girl must wear ringlets too. To that end her hair was every night put into curl-papers, with much tight twisting and sharp jerking, and Ida slept upon an irregular layer of small paper parcels, which made pillows a mockery. With all this, however, a damp day, or a good romp, would sometimes undo the night's work, to the great disgust of Nurse. In her last place, the young lady's hair had curled with a damp brush, as Ida well knew, and Nurse made so much of her own grievance, in having to use the curl-papers, that no place was left for Ida's grievance in having to sleep upon them. She submitted this night therefore, as other nights, in patience, and sat swinging her feet and accommodating her head to the sharp tugs, which always seemed to come from unexpected quarters. Perhaps, however, her mind may have been running a little upon grievances, which made her say:

"You know, Nursey, how you are always telling me I ought to be thankful for having things, and not having things, and--"

"I wish you'd talk sense, and not give way with your head so when I pull, Miss Ida," retorted Nurse, "having things, and not having things; I don't know what you mean."

"Well, you know, Nursey, the other day when I said I didn't like bread-and-treacle treacled so long before, and soaked in, and you said I ought to be thankful that I had bread-and-treacle at all, and that I hadn't a wooden leg, and to eat anything I could get, like the old sailor man at the corner; well, do you know, I've thought of something I _am_ so thankful for, and that is that I haven't a red screen to my bed."

"I really do think, Miss Ida," said Nurse, "that you'll go out of your mind some day, with your outlandish fancies. And where you get them, I can't think. I'm sure _I_ never put such things into your head."

Ida laughed again.

"Never mind, Nursey, it all belongs to the pug story. Am I done now? And when you've tucked me up, please, would you mind remembering to put the flower where I can see it when I wake?"

Nurse did as she was asked, and Ida watched the hyacinth till she fell asleep; and she slept well.

In the morning she took her old post at the window. The little old lady had never seemed so long in making her appearance, nor the bells so slow to begin. Chim! chime! chim! chime! There they were at last, and there was Mrs. Overtheway. She looked up, waved a bunch of snowdrops, and went after the bells. Ida kissed her hand, and waved it over and over again, long after the little old lady was out of sight.

"There's a kiss for you, dear Mrs. Overtheway," she cried, "and kisses for your flowers, and your house, and everything belonging to you, and for the bells and the church, and everybody in it this morning, and--"

But, at this point of universal benevolence, Nurse carried her off to breakfast.

The little old lady came to tea as before. She looked as well as ever, and Nurse was equally generous in the matter of tea and toast. Mrs. Overtheway told over again what Ida had missed in the story of Mrs. Moss, and Ida apologized, with earnest distress, for her uncivil conduct in falling asleep.

"There I was snoring away, when you were telling me such a delightful story!" she exclaimed, penitently.

"Not snoring exactly, my dear," smiled the little old lady, "but you looked very happy."

"I thought Nursey said so," said Ida. "Well, I'm very glad. It would have been too rude. And you know I don't know how it was, for I _am_ so fond of stories; I like nothing so well."

"Well, shall I try again?" said Mrs. Overtheway. "Perhaps I may find a more amusing one, and if it does put you to sleep, it won't do any harm. Indeed, I think the doctor will say I'm very good company for you."

"You are very good! That _I_ can tell him," said Ida, fervently, "and please let it be about yourself again, if you can remember anything. I like true stories."

"Talking of snoring," said Mrs. Overtheway, "reminds me of something that happened in my youth, and it is true, though, do you know, it is a ghost story."

Ida danced in her chair.

"That is just what I should like!" she exclaimed. "Nurse has a ghost story, belonging to a farm-house, which she tells the housemaid, but she says she can't tell me till I am older, and I should so like to hear a ghost story, if it isn't too horrid."

"This ghost story isn't too horrid, I think," laughed the little old lady, "and if you will let me think a few minutes, and then forgive my prosy way of telling it, you shall have it at once."

There was a pause. The little old lady sat silent, and so sat Ida also, with her eyes intently fixed on Mrs. Overtheway's face, over which an occasional smile was passing.

"It's about a ghost who snored," said the little old lady, doubtfully.

"Delicious!" responded Ida. The two friends settled themselves comfortably, and in some such words as these was told the following story:--

THE SNORING GHOST.

_Clown._ Madman, thou errest: I say there is no darkness but Ignorance, in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in their fog.... What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?

_Malvolio._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.

_Clown._ What thinkest thou of his opinion?

_Malvolio_. I think nobly of the soul, and in no way approve his opinion.

_Twelfth Night_, iv. 2.

"I remember," said Mrs. Overtheway, "I remember my first visit. That is, I remember the occasion when I and my sister Fatima did, for the first time in our lives, go out visiting without our mother, or any grown-up person to take care of us."

"Do you remember your mother?" asked Ida.

"Quite well, my dear, I am thankful to say. The best and kindest of mothers!"

"Was your father alive, too?" Ida asked, with a sigh.

The old lady paused, pitying the anxious little face opposite, but Ida went on eagerly:

"Please tell me what _he_ was like."

"He was a good deal older than my mother, who had married very early. He was a very learned man. His tastes and accomplishments were many and various, and he was very young-hearted and enthusiastic in the pursuit of them all his life. He was apt to take up one subject of interest after another, and to be for the time completely absorbed in it. And, I must tell you, that whatever the subject might be, so long as his head was full of it, the house seemed full of it too. It influenced the conversation at meals, the habits of the household, the names of the pet animals, and even of the children. I was called Mary, in a fever of chivalrous enthusiasm for the fair and luckless Queen of Scotland, and Fatima received her name when the study of Arabic had brought about an eastern mania. My father had wished to call her Shahrazad, after the renowned sultana of the 'Arabian Nights' but when he called upon the curate to arrange for the baptism, that worthy man flatly rebelled. A long discussion ended in my father's making a list of eastern names, from which the curate selected that of Fatima as being least repugnant to the sobriety of the parish registers. So Fatima she was called, and as she grew up pale, and moon-faced, and dark-eyed, the name became her very well."

"Was it this Fatima who went out visiting with you?" asked Ida.

"Yes, my dear; and now as to the visit. The invitation came on my thirteenth birthday.

"One's birthday is generally a day of some importance. A very notable day whilst one is young, but less so when one is old, when one is being carried quickly through the last stages of life, and when it seems hardly worth while to count time so near the end of the journey. Even in youth, however some birthdays are more important than others. I remember looking forward to my tenth birthday as to a high point of dignity and advancement; and the just pride of the occasion on which I first wrote my age with more figures than one. With similar feelings, I longed to be thirteen. The being able to write my age with two figures had not, after all, shed any special lustre upon life; but when I was 'in my teens' it must 'feel different somehow.' So I thought. Moreover, this birthday was really to bring with it solid advantages. I was now to be allowed to read certain books of a more grown-up character than I had read hitherto, and to sit up till nine o'clock. I was to wear sandals to my shoes. My hair was henceforth to grow as long as I and the Fates would permit, and the skirts of my frocks were to take an inch in the same direction. 'In four more years,' I said to Fatima, as we sat on the eve of my birthday, discussing its manifold advantages, 'in four more years I shall be grown up. Miss Ansted was introduced at seventeen.' The prospect was illimitable.

"'Do people always grow much on their birthdays?' asked one of the little ones. I had boasted in the nursery, that when I was thirteen I should be 'nearly grown up,' and I myself had hardly outlived the idea that on one's birthday one was a year older than on the previous day, and might naturally expect to have made a year's growth during the night.

"This birthday, however, produced no such striking change. As usual, the presents were charming; the wreath as lovely as Fatima's deft fingers could make it, the general holiday and pleasure-making almost too much of a good thing. Otherwise, there was little to mark it from other days in the year.

"Towards evening we were all sitting on the grass, the boys with their heads on the sisters' laps, and there had been an outcry for a story, to which no one had responded; partly, perhaps, because the exquisite air of evening seemed a sufficient delight, the stillness too profound to be lightly disturbed. We had remained for some time without speaking, and the idea was becoming general among the girls that the boys were napping, when the summer silence was broken by the distant footfalls of a horse upon the high road.

"'Trotting!' observed one of the supposed sleepers. We were not, as a family, given to explanations, and we drew a few more breaths of the evening air in silence. Then someone said:

"'We might make a story out of _that_, and fancy all sorts of things. Who is it? Where does he come from, and where is he going to?'

"'It is a messenger from the seat of war,' drawled the boy in my lap, without moving. Then, lifting his curly head for a moment, he cried, 'To horse! gentlemen, to horse! The enemy will be at Carter's Mill by midnight!'

"There was a pause; the solitary footfalls came nearer through the evening mists, and a small brother, of a quaint turn of mind, much given to the study of the historical portions of the Old Testament, sat up and said, slowly:

"'It is one of Job's messengers. _The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee._'

"The others boys laughed, but he lay down again, as solemnly as he had risen.

"'That was a foot-messenger,' said my boy, contemptuously.

"'It doesn't say so,' retorted the small brother.

"'Well, any way, the camels had been carried off--so what did he ride upon?'

"A squabble was imminent. I covered my boy's face with a handkerchief, to keep him quiet.

"'Listen!' I said. 'It's the post. The mail from the north was stopped on the highway, but he has saved the bags, and is riding hard for London.'

"'It's--'

"But the new suggestion was drowned in a general shout of--

"'It's coming up the lane!'

"The footfalls had diverged from the main road, and were coming up the sandy lane that skirted our wall. The boys lifted their heads, and we sat expectant. There was a pause, and a familiar gate-click, and then the footfalls broke upon the carriage-road, close by us. A man in livery, upon a well-groomed horse--nothing more, but rather an uncommon sight with us. Moreover, the man and his livery were strange, and the horse looked tired.

"This event broke up the sitting, and we were strolling up to the house, when a maid met us, saying that my mother wished to see me and Fatima.

"We found my mother sewing, with an opened letter beside her. It was written on one of the large quarto sheets then in use, and it was covered and crossed, at every available corner, in a vague, scratchy hand.

"'I have heard from an old friend of mine, Mary,' said my mother. 'She has come to live about twelve miles from here. There is something in the letter about you and Fatima, and you may read that part aloud, if you can. The top of the last page.'

"I found the place, and, with some difficulty, deciphered: 'The dear Major was all delicacy and consideration--'

"'No, no!' said my mother, 'the next sentence.'

"'Dear Cecilia was all sweetness. The dress was--'

"My mother took the letter, and found the right place herself, and then I read:

"'If you cannot come yourself, at least let us renew acquaintance in our children. I think you have two girls about thirteen? My Lucy, a dear child just fifteen, feels keenly the loss of her only sister, and some young companions would be a boon, as all our company will be _elders_. Pray send them. They can come by the coach, and shall be met at Durnford, at the Elephant and Castle.'

"'Is the other sister dead?' asked Fatima, pityingly, when we had discussed our personal interest in the subject.

"'Oh, no! only married,' said my mother.

"It was decided that we should go. This decision was not arrived at at once, or without some ups and downs. My mother could not go herself, and had some doubts as to our being old enough, as yet, to go out visiting alone. It will be believed that I made much of being able to say--'But you know, I am thirteen, now.'

"Next day, in the evening, my father was busy in his study, and my mother sat at the open window, with Fatima and me at her feet. The letter of acceptance had been duly sent by the messenger, but she had yet a good deal of advice to give, and some doubts to express. She was one of those people who cannot sit with idle fingers, and as she talked she knitted. We found it easy enough to sit idle upon two little footstools, listening to the dear kind voice, and watching two little clouds, fragments of a larger group, which had detached themselves, and were sailing slowly and alone across the heavens.

"'They are like us two,' Fatima had whispered to me; 'perhaps they are going to see some other clouds.'

"'I have observed two things which are apt to befall young people who go out visiting,' said my mother, as she turned a row in her knitting, 'one is, that they neglect little good habits while they are away, and the other is, that they make themselves very disagreeable when they come back.'