the flow of the day in my city home is lost for me. but pictures and portraits stand out, sometimes blurred, sometimes surprisingly distinct, upon a confused background. there was food enough for curiosity and dreaming in the pauses of suffering. i must have lived for several days in an enchanted world solely by the single glimpse i had of my godfather.
he had sent me a present of a book about cocks and hens, largely illustrated. i was sitting in the store-room poring over it in the dreary society of mrs. clement, the new housekeeper. the previous one, mrs. dudley, i remember vaguely as a stern unsympathetic person, with crimped iron-grey hair under a voluminous cap trimmed with puce ribbons. she once forced me to swallow a gregory-powder in a delusive snare of black-currant jam. i must have swallowed medicines before and since, and yet the taste and smell and look of that nauseous [pg 61]powder are still with me whenever my mind reverts to those days. hence my delight when i learned that mrs. dudley was going away, and my cordial welcome of her successor, mrs. clement.
"so she's in here," somebody cried, rapping with a stick upon the door ajar.
i looked up from my book and saw a wonderful sight, of which i was afterwards vividly reminded in a french school by a picture of the famous "postillon de longjumeau," a jaunty figure with a pointed black beard and a tall wide-brimmed hat on one side. he bore himself gallantly, wore top-boots, a long coat with several little capes to it, and carried a smart riding-whip in his hand. this was my godfather.
i had never seen him before, and to my lasting regret i have never seen him since. he was out in '48, was proscribed, and had wandered about strange lands. he died in china, having first sent my mother a pretty case of imperial tea, which she distributed in minute portions to all her friends, measuring the tea out with a small silver egg-cup. as fast as each consumed her portion, she returned for another, and as my mother had always a greater pleasure in giving than in receiving, my godfather's present was soon exhausted.
i remember being swung up in the air and shrieking in pretended fright, for children, sensational and dramatic little creatures, must persuade themselves there is an element of peril and adventure in their tamest diversions. not to imagine oneself afraid is to miss the peculiar zest of enjoyment.
when i was seated gravely on his knee, my godfather asked me to spell out a few lines of his book.
"cocks and hens—eh? just suit a little girl from the country," he laughed, helping me to hold the book.
"i had a little dog at mamma cochrane's. i liked it better than cocks and hens," i protested meekly.
"wants a dog now, does she? queer little woman! she's still too pale, mrs. clement, much too pale and thin. fretting for her mamma cochrane, i suppose. well, i'll see if i can't get her a nice dog with curly hair, that'll cry 'bow-wow' when you pull its tail. know where china is, missy?"
i had heard of a china doll, and my mamma cochrane had two beautiful black-and-white china dogs. i supposed at once that china was a land where the dogs and dolls were all of china,[pg 63] and i wondered if the people were of china too. my godfather laughed as only a big man with a beard seems to be able to laugh. i was sure you could hear him down in the hall and up in the nursery. it was very comforting, that loud laugh, and i became instantly communicative, and told him all i knew about america and new york. he said it took a much bigger boat to go to china, which was farther off than new york, and that there were crocodiles in the rivers that ate men, and there was so much sunshine that the people were quite yellow.
after that, whenever it was unusually sunny, i was safe to astonish somebody by saying i supposed it was always like that in china. somehow, the image of my jovial godfather was melted in a great glare of yellow light, through which yellow faces came and went, up and down long rivers, where unknown monsters, understood to be crocodiles, tossed about in a ruthless quest of man.
mrs. clement, the housekeeper, is another portrait that stands out in luminous relief from a crowd of unremembered faces. her dress was seemingly as unalterable as a uniform. it consisted of a black silk gown, very wide at the base and gathered in at a slim waist, a white lawn[pg 64] fichu trimmed with delicate lace, and fastened with a gold brooch containing the features of a young man with a dark moustache.
i never dared to ask her who the young man was. she was kind to me, but she kept me at arm's-length by her terrible sadness, and infant curiosity was the last thing she encouraged. her face was pale, her thin yellow hair was pale, and her blue eyes were pale. those faded hues suited the melancholy of her smile and regard.
seeing me persecuted and unhappy, she took me under her protection, and would let me sit for hours at her feet in the storeroom, while she mended linen.
i read to her, and when i was tired of reading i told her stories of my past. like grown-up mourners, it relieved me to talk of my sorrow and describe the paradise down there beside the pond and the applewoman's stall.
she listened with mild interest, and i was not so engrossed in my own troubles as not to remark the sadness of mrs. clement. the children up-stairs were sure she had committed some dreadful murder, and was brooding in remorseful reminiscence. they did not like her, because she once scolded them for their treatment of me; but nothing they could say would induce me to think[pg 65] ill of my melancholy friend, and i continued to sit at her feet and watch her in wonder and awe.
her niece eily came into our service shortly afterwards. she had a beautiful fresh face like a wild-flower, made up of sweet dark-blue eyes, a blossom of a mouth, and morning hues upon her cheek. she was a girl made to beguile sense and sternness, and transform the lion to a lamb. everybody immediately loved her, she had such a delicious way of saying "ah, sure!" and lifting up a pair of the most irish of eyes in bewitching appeal.
my parents adopted her as a sort of daughter, and a mere hint of a lover at her heels was enough to wake the quixote in my stepfather. they married her afterwards to a promising young englishman, my father giving her away and my mother supplying the trousseau.
the englishman was so enamoured of all things irish that he gave the most flagrantly hibernian names to his children, in opposition to eily's romantic tastes, who adored every out-of-the-way name of fiction. when i met them, years afterwards, his affected drawl and pretty suspicion of lisp managed to give a foreign charm to our common name "paddy," by which the eldest boy was called.
eily's face was just the same wild-flower, a little faded and drawn, and "ah, sure!" was still on the tip of her tongue in all the beguiling glamour of erin. but what a sad change! tears looked fatally near the surface, and the smile was deprecating and anxious.
she had fallen from petted servitude into troubled servitude, and longed for the clatter of her aunt's household keys among the linen and china and preserve-presses of the storeroom. she longed for my stepfather's cheery "well, eily, little puss," and instead had to listen to an exacting husband's complaints of her deficiencies as housekeeper and sick-nurse. he had married a bird, and grumbled incessantly because it lacked the solid capacities of a cow.
"and your aunt, eily?" i asked.
"poor aunt died long ago. she never recovered the death of her only child, frank, who was drowned going out to america."
so the young man in the brooch was mrs. clement's son, after all, and her melancholy, that had so puzzled my childhood, was not the gloom of remorse but the stamp of a common bereavement.
by the side of my grandfather's avenue of rose-trees ran a neighbour's garden. my [pg 67]grandfather was on nodding terms with his neighbour; but there sometimes came a bright-faced lad with a flaxen down upon his upper lip. his name caught my fancy, and i thought a fairy prince could not have a finer one. it now represents to the world a figure so very different from the vague but pleasant profile memory likes to dwell upon, that i permit myself to doubt if that kind boy and the o'donovan rossa of new york can be the same person.
the stripling i recall seems to me to have been eternally singing or whistling. i specially remember one song he was fond of—"love among the roses."
he would look across the low hedge and sing out, "where's my little wife?" i kept it as a delightful secret from all the world that i was married to a boy called o'donovan rossa. the world is a cold confidant in such delicate matters, and has a way of looking as if it did not take little children seriously.
but o'donovan rossa had a little sister of his own whom he loved devotedly, so he knew all about little girls and their ways, and appeared to understand my conversation. so few grown-up people do understand the conversation of children, and children know this.
he would spring over the hedge just like a mythical personage, and tumble unexpectedly on the grass-plot beside me, and my daisy-chains were matter of absorbing interest to him. then what stories he had about blue dragon-flies, humming-birds, and bewitched crows! you may imagine if i looked forward to visits to grandpapa cameron's cottage, with such a prospective attraction.
i did not disdain the rougher friendship of dennis, my grandfather's gardener. he was a cheery individual with a very red face. he once gave me an orange and a penny when i arrived with cheeks and eyelids swollen from crying, with a conviction that i could bear my sorrows no longer. i ate my orange, and suddenly the world seemed brighter, and when i went off alone to purchase a pennyworth of crab-apples at a fruit-shop hard by, i began to take pleasure at the thought of to-morrow.
i was further consoled by one of grandpapa's shining five-shilling pieces, and then dennis called me to fetch him a tool, shouting, "look sharp now, and do something for your living," and i was so enchanted that all sense of desolation and ill-usage left me.
it is so easy to make a child happy that it is a[pg 69] mystery to me how the art is not universal with grown-up persons.
among the blurred memories of days so remote is a ball given in the big town house. the excitement could not but reach us up-stairs beneath the stars. the nurse and housemaid were equally aflame, and stood watching the guests from the corner of the topmost landing, that commanded a glimpse of the drawing-room lobby. the rustle of silk and the sort of perfumed chatter that belongs to gatherings in full dress reached us, broken and vague like the beautiful fancies of dreams. our little feet pattered with yearning to be down below in the thick of social pleasures, and we shouted out our recognition of each side face as a guest crossed the lobby. it was not the brilliant assortment of silks and satins and laces, the gleam of jewelled array, or the chatter that intoxicated me; it was the first blast of music that rolled up to us, and the penetrating charm of the fiddles.
i was always less looked after than the others, and watching my opportunity, i slipped down-stairs in my nightdress; i felt i must hear those fiddles nearer, and see how people looked when they danced. mrs. clement saw me a few steps above the drawing-rooms, and wanted to carry[pg 70] me back to bed; but i prayed so hard for one look, that she took me into her arms, and, skirting the lobby, went in on tip-toe to the cardroom, at the top of the drawing-rooms, where several persons were playing at little tables. some of the guests looked up at the melancholy lady in black silk with the little child in its night-dress, staring in bewilderment at them. but mrs. clement placed her finger on her lips, and they smiled at me and continued their play.
they were playing "il bacio," and even now i can never hear that tinkling waltz without a throb. it brought tears to my eyes then, and all night it formed the accompaniment of my dreams. the only couple i clearly saw in that paradise of colour, light, scent, and sound was my stepfather, who whirled past us with a tall dark girl in amber satin, who was smiling most radiantly as she danced.
this girl springs into my pictures of childhood in an odd inconsequent way. she was very handsome, of the sparkling brunette type, with white teeth, and hard bright eyes as black as the hair that rippled low down on either temple, and was caught under the ear in an old-fashioned bunch of ringlets. she was under my mother's protection, who was very kind and generous to[pg 71] her, having an inscrutable liking for strangers,—above all, needy strangers. she was a woman to turn her back inevitably upon a friend in prosperity, and court him in poverty. there was nothing of the snob in my mother, i must admit.
another vivid picture i have of this young girl is a gloomier and more impressive one. i cannot tell why i was chosen for that drive. i suppose it was because i looked so delicate and unhappy that my stepfather insisted on having me. he drove a pair of spirited horses, and i sat opposite my mother and the dark young girl. she did not smile once that day, and the extreme sadness of her face riveted my attention. i thought i had never seen any one so beautiful and interesting, and i wondered why her eyes kept continually filling with tears.
she and my mother whispered mysteriously from time to time, and the disconnected words that reached my ears were no enlightenment for my puzzled brain. ordinarily i was too dreamy or too excited to have much curiosity for my fellows. i preferred my own thoughts to speculations upon creatures so dull and undiverting as big people. but this day it was different. a brilliant young lady in long dresses, with a glittering ring upon her finger, whom my parents[pg 72] treated with every kindness and consideration, could be just as miserable apparently as a small neglected girl. it was truly a wonderful discovery.
we drove along the kilmainham road, i now know, and as we went farther north, the pretty girl's tears flowed more freely, only she did not cry as we children cry. she bit her lips, and every moment thrust her handkerchief angrily into her eyes. my mother seemed to scold her for having wished to come that way, and i thought wanted to divert her attention from something the girl was evidently anxious to see.
we stopped near a large building, and there was my stepfather turned towards us and talking a strange jargon. from dint of puzzling over each word, i arrived at the extraordinary conclusion that somebody this young girl loved was in prison, that it was not wicked apparently to be locked up in prison, and that the woodwork they were gazing at, my stepfather with his hat in his hand, was something bad men were getting ready for her friend's destruction. the young girl stared up at the woodwork with streaming passionate eyes, and then buried her face in her handkerchief, and rocked from side to side in a dreadful way. we were driving on,[pg 73] and i gazed up to see what my stepfather was doing. he, too, was wiping away tears, and his hat was right down upon his eyes.
the mystery was solved years afterward. this girl was engaged to a political prisoner recently condemned to death. my mother used to take her to see him at kilmainham jail, and she had insisted on being driven round by the prison the day before the execution.
my grandmother lies farther back, a fainter picture in that world of unsatisfactory grown-up people. while she lived, her favourite present to each of her granddaughters was either a grey or green silk dress, with a poky bonnet and ribbons to match. in the grey we must have looked like little quakeresses, and in the green like a gathering of the "gentle people" out of the moonlit woods, our proper dominion.
her i remember indistinctly as a thin-lipped, unpleasant-looking woman, who had a fixed opinion that children must either be "saucy" or "bold." i was bold, because i was always too frightened of her to say anything, saucy or meek.
she used to lie in bed or on the parlour sofa, sipping egg-flip and reading religious books. she was very devout; but her religion, i suspect,[pg 74] served neither to brighten her own nor any one else's life. it had a sombre, vinegary aspect, more concerned with punishment due than pleasure merited, more attuned to severity than christian mildness.
by some unaccountable process she melted out of my existence, having darkened it for some months, from which i infer that her death passed unnoted by me or was not explained to me. i did not see her dead, and can record no gentle deed of hers living. she never kissed me, but sometimes shook my hand in a loose gentlemanly fashion, and exhorted me not to be so "bold."
once she nearly broke my heart. the cook had made some damson jam, and while i was alone in the parlour turning over the leaves of one of grandpapa's music-books, which looked so mysteriously wonderful to me, she carried in a specimen bowl, and left it on the table with some loose coppers. i still see that bowl. it was white, and had a wreath of pink roses.
when i tired of my music-book, i wandered by a natural impulse into temptation. the bowl was out of my reach, but i soon remedied that by drawing over a chair and climbing upon it. i dipped my finger into the bowl, and then put[pg 75] it into my mouth. it tasted, as indeed i fully anticipated, good. you may imagine the alacrity with which i continued the operation, without any heed of the blotches of jam that dropped upon the table.
both the hall-door and parlour-door were open, and i heard loud sobbing. i was acquainted with sorrow myself, which was a reason i never heard a child's cry unmoved. i slipped off my chair, and ran out into the hall.
a ragged little follow sat on the doorstep, crying as if his heart would burst. i raced down the steps, and sat by his side to comfort him. he had cut his foot, and i asked him if it would not hurt less if he had some apples to eat. crab-apples always soothed my own immeasurable woes and lightened the pangs of solitude for me. the weeping boy looked at me sullenly, and nodded.
in i flew again and came out with the coppers grasped in my jammy palm, and holding the bowl of damson jam tightly wedged between my pinafore and both hands.
"there's splendid jam here," i said, and invited the sufferer to dip his finger into the bowl.
he did so, and stopped crying. he was quite consoled, and nearly emptied the bowl in the[pg 76] avidity of his appreciation. then i gave him the coppers, and told him the name of the shop where he could get lots of the nicest crab-apples. the hall-door was still open, and the parlour was empty when i carried back the bowl. i left it on the table, and went out into the garden to talk to dennis.
i had no idea of having done wrong. at nurse's i was free to take what i liked, and i was not at all familiar with the sin of stealing. judge, then, my surprise when cook came out for me with a flaming face, and assured me i "would catch it." i stopped playing, and felt chill with apprehension. what was going to happen to me now? grandpapa was not there to protect me, and i had not much faith in dennis's power to save me.
cook dragged me up-stairs, scolding me all the way. she called me a thief, a robber, and said i was worse than the dreadful highwaymen they wrote of in books. i whimperingly protested. i was not a thief, i cried indignantly; i was not a robber. i did not know what a highwayman was, but i was sure i was not that either.
"ah! you'll catch it," was all cook deigned to reply.
how grossly and wickedly mismanaged children are by people who do not think or stop to study them! so many tears and tremors and moments of black despair, because angry and impatient persons will not take the trouble to use the right words and correct with justice and sense. to abuse an ignorant little child in disproportionate language, at an age when imagination exaggerates and magnifies everything, for an impulsive action and an inconsequent error, and tell her "she would catch it," is surely a hideous perversion of strength and power.
relatively speaking, that moment was not less vivid and awful for me than the worst hour of a heretic in the days of the inquisition. and i had as little faith in the justice or kindness of my judges as any wretch of those times.
my grandmother sat in bed with her glass of egg-flip in her hand, presiding relentlessly over my castigation. again i was informed that my crime was an appalling one. i had robbed money and robbed jam. there was no softening of my grandmother's face when i said, through my sobs of terror, that i only took the money to give it to a little boy that had hurt his foot and was crying. cook administered an unmerciful whipping, as if there were not beatings[pg 78] enough for me without cause down in the big town house i hated.
no, verily; there are times, when i look at happier children to-day and remember that poor unhappy little child of years ago, i feel there are wrongs we cannot be expected to forgive, scars no time can efface, blunders no after good will ever rectify. i could weep to-day as bitterly for that little child, so alone, so throbbing with untamed fears, as ever she wept for herself then.
