Spring in a Shropshire Abbey. Gaskell Catherine Henrietta Milnes

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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.

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.

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 СКАЧАТЬ