Читать книгу Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances - Juliana Horatia Ewing - Страница 5

Table of Contents

The little old lady lived over the way, through a green gate that shut with a click, and up three white steps. Every morning at eight o’clock the church bell chimed for Morning Prayer—chim! chime! chim! chime!—and every morning at eight o’clock the little old lady came down the white steps, and opened the gate with a click, and went where the bells were calling.

About this time little Ida would kneel on a chair at her nursery window in the opposite house to watch the old lady come out and go. The old lady was one of those people who look always the same. Every morning her cheeks looked like faded rose leaves, and her white hair like a snow-wreath in a garden laughing at the last tea-rose. Every morning she wore the same black satin bonnet, and the same white shawl; had delicate gloves on the smallest of hands, and gathered her skirt daintily up from the smallest of feet. Every morning she carried a clean pocket-handkerchief, and a fresh rose in the same hand with her Prayer-book; and as the Prayer-book being bound up with the Bible was very thick, she seemed to have some difficulty in so doing. Every morning, whatever the weather might be, she stood outside the green gate, and looked up at the sky to see if this were clear, and down at the ground to see if that were dry; and so went where the bells were calling.

Ida knew the little old lady quite well by sight, but she did not know her name. Perhaps Ida’s great-uncle knew it; but he was a grave, unsociable man, who saw very little of his neighbours, so perhaps he did not; and Ida stood too much in awe of him to trouble him with idle questions. She had once asked Nurse, but Nurse did not know; so the quiet orphan child asked no more. She made up a name for the little old lady herself, however, after the manner of Mr. John Bunyan, and called her Mrs. Overtheway; and morning after morning, though the bread-and-milk breakfast smoked upon the table, she would linger at the window, beseeching—

“One minute more, dear Nurse! Please let me wait till Mrs. Overtheway has gone to church.”

And when the little old lady had come out and gone, Ida would creep from her perch, and begin her breakfast. Then, if the chimes went on till half the basinful was eaten, little Ida would nod her head contentedly, and whisper:

“Mrs. Overtheway was in time.”

Little Ida’s history was a sad one. Her troubles began when she was but a year old, with the greatest of earthly losses—for then her mother died, leaving a sailor husband and their infant child. The sea-captain could face danger, but not an empty home; so he went back to the winds and the waves, leaving his little daughter with relations. Six long years had he been away, and Ida had had many homes, and yet, somehow, no home, when one day the postman brought her a large letter, with her own name written upon it in a large hand. This was no old envelope sealed up again—no make-believe epistle to be put into the post through the nursery door; it was a real letter, with a real seal, real stamps, and a great many post-marks; and when Ida opened it there were two sheets written by the Captain’s very own hand, in round fat characters, easy to read, with a sketch of the Captain’s very own ship at the top, and—most welcome above all!—the news that the Captain’s very own self was coming home.

“I shall have a papa all to myself very soon, Nurse,” said Ida. “He has written a letter to me, and made me a picture of his ship; it is the Bonne Esperance, which he says means Good Hope. I love this letter better than anything he has ever sent me.”

Nevertheless, Ida took out the carved fans and workboxes, the beads and handkerchiefs and feathers, the dainty foreign treasures the sailor-father had sent to her from time to time; dusted them, kissed them, and told them that the Captain was coming home. But the letter she wore in her pocket by day, and kept under her pillow by night.

“Why don’t you put your letter into one of your boxes, like a tidy young lady, Miss Ida?” said Nurse. “You’ll wear it all to bits doing as you do.”

“It will last till the ship comes home,” said Miss Ida.

It had need then to have been written on the rock, graven with an iron pen for ever; for the Bonne Esperance (like other earthly hopes) had perished to return no more. She foundered on her homeward voyage, and went down into the great waters, whilst Ida slept through the stormy night, with the Captain’s letter beneath her pillow.

Alas! Alas! Alas!

*****

Two or three months had now passed away since Ida became an orphan. She had become accustomed to the crape-hung frock; she had learnt to read the Captain’s letter as the memorial of a good hope which it had pleased God to disappoint; she was fairly happy again. It was in the midst of that new desolation in her lonely life that she had come to stay with her great-uncle, and had begun to watch the doings of the little old lady who lived over the way. When dolls seemed vanity, and Noah’s Ark a burden, it had been a quiet amusement, demanding no exertion, to see what little she could see of the old lady’s life, and to speculate about what she could not; to wonder and fancy what Mrs. Overtheway looked like without her bonnet, and what she did with herself when she was not at church. Ida’s imagination did not carry her far. She believed her friend to be old, immeasurably old, indefinitely old; and had a secret faith that she had never been otherwise. She felt sure that she wore a cap indoors, and that it was a nicer one than Nurse’s; that she had real tea, with sugar and cream, instead of milk-and-water, and hot toast rather than bread-and-treacle for tea; that she helped herself at meals, and went to bed according to her own pleasure and convenience; was—perhaps on these grounds—utterly happy, and had always been so.

“I am only a little girl,” said Ida, as she pressed her face sadly to the cold window-pane. “I am only a little girl, and very sad, you know, because Papa was drowned at sea; but Mrs. Overtheway is very old, and always happy, and so I love her.”

And in this there was both philosophy and truth.

It is a mistake to suppose that the happiness of others is always a distasteful sight to the sad at heart. There are times in which life seems shorn of interests and bereaved of pleasure, when it is a relief, almost amounting to consolation, to believe that any one is happy. It is some feeling of this nature, perhaps, which makes the young so attractive to the old. It soothes like the sound of harmonious music, the sight of harmonious beauty. It witnesses to a conviction lying deep even in the most afflicted souls that (come what may), all things were created good, and man made to be blessed; before which sorrow and sighing flee away.

This was one of many things which formed the attraction for Ida in the little old lady who lived over the way. That green gate shut in a life of which the child knew nothing, and which might be one of mysterious delights; to believe that such things could be was consoling, and to imagine them was real entertainment. Ida would sometimes draw a chair quietly to the table beside her own, and fancy that Mrs. Overtheway was having tea with her. She would ask the old lady if she had been in time for church that morning, beg her to take off her bonnet, and apologize politely for the want of hot tea and toast. So far all was well, for Ida could answer any of these remarks on Mrs. Overtheway’s behalf; but it may be believed that after a certain point this one-sided conversation flagged. One day Nurse overheard Ida’s low murmurs.

“What are you talking about, Miss Ida?” said she.

“I am pretending to have Mrs. Overtheway to tea,” said Ida.

“Little girls shouldn’t pretend what’s not true,” replied Nurse, in whose philosophy fancy and falsehood were not distinguished. “Play with your dolls, my dear, and don’t move the chairs out of their places.”

With which Nurse carried off the chair into a corner as if it had been a naughty child, and Ida gave up her day-dream with a sigh; since to have prolonged the fancy that Mrs. Overtheway was present, she must have imagined her borne off at the crisis of the meal after a fashion not altogether consistent with an old lady’s dignity.

Summer passed, and winter came on. There were days when the white steps looked whiter than usual; when the snow-drift came halfway up the little green gate, and the snow-flakes came softly down with a persistency which threatened to bury the whole town. Ida knew that on such days Mrs. Overtheway could not go out; but whenever it was tolerably fine the old lady appeared as usual, came daintily down the steps, and went where the bells were calling. Chim! chime! chim! chime! They sounded so near through the frosty air, that Ida could almost have fancied that the church was coming round through the snowy streets to pick up the congregation.

Mrs. Overtheway looked much the same in winter as in summer. She seemed as fresh and lively as ever, carried her Prayer-book and handkerchief in the same hand, was only more warmly wrapped up, and wore fur-lined boots which were charming. There was one change, however, which went to Ida’s heart. The little old lady had no longer a flower to take to church with her. At Christmas she took a sprig of holly, and after that a spray of myrtle, but Ida felt that these were poor substitutes for a rose. She knew that Mrs. Overtheway had flowers somewhere, it is true, for certain pots of forced hyacinths had passed through the little green gate to the Christmas church decorations; but one’s winter garden is too precious to be cropped as recklessly as summer rose-bushes, and the old lady went flowerless to church and enjoyed her bulbs at home. But the change went to Ida’s heart.

Spring was early that year. At the beginning of February there was a good deal of snow on the ground, it is true, but the air became milder and milder, and towards the end of the month there came a real spring day, and all the snow was gone.

“You may go and play in the garden, Miss Ida,” said Nurse, and Ida went.

She had been kept indoors for a long time by the weather and by a cold, and it was very pleasant to get out again, even when the only amusement was to run up and down the shingly walks and wonder how soon she might begin to garden, and whether the gardener could be induced to give her a piece of ground sufficiently extensive to grow a crop of mustard-and-cress in the form of a capital I. It was the kitchen garden into which Ida had been sent. At the far end it was cut off from the world by an overgrown hedge with large gaps at the bottom, through which Ida could see the high road, a trough for watering horses, and beyond this a wood. The hedge was very thin in February, and Ida had a good view in consequence, and sitting on a stump in the sunshine she peered through the gap to see if any horses came to drink. It was as good as a peep-show, and indeed much better.

“The snow has melted,” gurgled the water, “here I am.” It was everywhere. The sunshine made the rich green mosses look dry, but in reality they were wet, and so was everything else. Slish! Slosh! Put your feet where you would, the water was everywhere. It filled the stone trough, which, being old and grey and steady, kept it still, and bade it reflect the blue sky and the gorgeous mosses; but the trough soon overflowed, and then the water slipped over the side, and ran off in a wayside stream. “Winter is gone!” it splurred as it ran. “Winter is gone, winter-is-gone, winterisgone!” And, on the principle that a good thing cannot be said too often, it went on with this all through the summer, till the next winter came and stopped its mouth with icicles. As the stream chattered, so the birds in the wood sang,—Tweet! tweet! chirrup! throstle! Spring! Spring! Spring!—and they twittered from tree to tree, and shook the bare twigs with melody; whilst a single blackbird sitting still upon a bough below, sang “Life!” “Life!” “Life!” with the loudest pipe of his throat, because on such a day it was happiness only to be alive.

It was like a wonderful fairy-tale, to which Ida listened with clasped hands.

Presently another song came from the wood; it was a hymn sung by children’s voices, such as one often hears carolled by a troop of little urchins coming home from school. The words fell familiarly on Ida’s ears:

“Quite through the streets, with silver sound,

The flood of life doth flow;

Upon whose banks on every side

The wood of life doth grow.

“Thy gardens and thy gallant walks

Continually are green;

There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers

As nowhere else are seen.

“There trees for evermore bear fruit,

And evermore do spring;

There evermore the Angels sit,

And evermore do sing.”

Here the little chorus broke off, and the children came pouring out of the wood with chattering and laughter. Only one lingered, playing under a tree, and finishing the song. The child’s voice rose shrill and clear like that of the blackbird above him. He also sang of Life—Eternal Life—knowing little more than the bird of the meaning of his song, and having little less of that devotion of innocence in which happiness is praise.

But Ida had ceased to listen to the singing. Her whole attention was given to the children as they scampered past the hedge, dropping bits of moss and fungi and such like woodland spoil. For, tightly held in the grubby hands of each—plucked with reckless indifference to bud and stalk, and fading fast in their hot prisons—were primroses. Ida started to her feet, a sudden idea filling her brain. The birds were right, Spring had come, and there were flowers—flowers for Mrs. Overtheway.

Ida was a very quiet, obedient little girl as a general rule; indeed, in her lonely life she had small temptation to pranks or mischief of any kind. She had often been sent to play in the back garden before, and had never thought of straying beyond its limits; but to-day a strong new feeling had been awakened by the sight of the primroses.

“The hole is very large,” said Ida, looking at the gap in the hedge; “if that dead root in the middle were pulled up, it would be wonderfully large.”

She pulled the root up, and, though wonderful is a strong term, the hole was certainly larger.

“It is big enough to put one’s head through,” said Ida, and, stooping down, she exemplified the truth of her observation.

“Where the head goes, the body will follow,” they say, and Ida’s little body was soon on the other side of the hedge; the adage says nothing about clothes, however, and part of Ida’s dress was left behind. It had caught on the stump as she scrambled through. But accidents will happen, and she was in the road, which was something.

“It is like going into the world to seek one’s fortune,” she thought; “thus Gerda went to look for little Kay, and so Joringel sought for the enchanted flower. One always comes to a wood.”

And into the wood she came. Dame Nature had laid down her new green carpets, and everything looked lovely; but, as has been before said, it certainly was damp. The little singer under the tree cared no more for this, however, than the blackbird above him.

“Will you tell me, please, where you got your primroses?” asked Ida.

The child made a quaint, half-military salute, and smiled.

“Yonder,” he said laconically, and, pointing up the wood, he went on with the song that he could not understand:

“Ah, my sweet home, Jerusalem,

Would God I were in thee!

Would God my woes were at an end,

Thy joys that I might see!”

Ida went on and on, looking about her as she ran. Presently the wood sloped downwards, and pretty steeply, so that it was somewhat of a scramble; yet still she kept a sharp look-out, but no primroses did she see, except a few here and there upon the ground, which had been plucked too close to their poor heads to be held in anybody’s hands. These showed the way, however, and Ida picked them up in sheer pity and carried them with her.

Ida looked and hesitated. It was too wide to jump across and here, as elsewhere, there was more water than usual (p.13).

“This is how Hop-o’-my-thumb found his way home,” she thought.

At the bottom of the hill ran a little brook, and on the opposite side of the brook was a bank, and on the top of the bank was a hedge, and under the hedge were the primroses. But the brook was between!

Ida looked and hesitated. It was too wide to jump across, and here, as elsewhere, there was more water than usual. To turn back, however, was out of the question. Gerda would not have been daunted in her search by coming to a stream, nor would any one else that ever was read of in fairy tales. It is true that in Fairy-land there are advantages which cannot always be reckoned upon by commonplace children in this commonplace world. When the straw, the coal, and the bean came to a rivulet in their travels, the straw laid himself across as a bridge for the others, and had not the coal been a degree too hot on one unlucky occasion, they might (for anything Ida knew to the contrary) still have been pursuing their journey in these favourable circumstances. But a travelling-companion who expands into a bridge on an emergency is not to be met with every day; and as to poor Ida—she was alone. She stood first on one leg, and then on the other, she looked at the water, and then at the primroses, and then at the water again, and at last perceived that in one place there was a large, flat, moss-covered stone in the middle of the stream, which stood well out of the water, and from which—could she but reach it—she might scramble to the opposite bank. But how to reach it? that nice, large, secure, comfortable-looking stone.

“I must put some more stones,” thought Ida. There were plenty in the stream, and Ida dragged them up, and began to make a ford by piling them together. It was chilly work, for a cloud had come over the sun; and Ida was just a little bit frightened by the fresh-water shrimps, and some queer, many-legged beasts, who shot off the stones as she lifted them. At last the ford was complete. Ida stepped daintily over the bridge she had made, and jumped triumphantly on to the big stone. Alas! for trusting to appearances. The stone that looked so firm, was insecurely balanced below, and at the first shock one side went down with a splash, and Ida went with it. What a triumph for the shrimps! She scrambled to the bank, however, made up a charming bunch of primroses, and turned to go home. Never mind how she got back across the brook. We have all waded streams before now, and very good fun it is in July, but rather chilly work in February; and, in spite of running home, Ida trembled as much with cold as with excitement when she stood at last before Mrs. Overtheway’s green gate.

Click! Ida went up the white steps, marking them sadly with her wet feet, and gave a valiant rap. The door was opened, and a tall, rather severe-looking housekeeper asked:

“What do you want, my dear?”

A shyness, amounting to terror, had seized upon Ida, and she could hardly find voice to answer.

“If you please, I have brought these for——”

For whom? Ida’s pale face burnt crimson as she remembered that after all she did not know the little old lady’s name. Perhaps the severe housekeeper was touched by the sight of the black frock, torn as it was, for she said kindly:

“Don’t be frightened, my dear. What do you want?”

“These primroses,” said Ida, who was almost choking. “They are for Mrs. Overtheway to take to church with her. I am very sorry, if you please, but I don’t know her name, and I call her Mrs. Overtheway because, you know, she lives over the way. At least——” Ida added, looking back across the road with a sudden confusion in her ideas, “at least—I mean—you know—we live over the way.” And overwhelmed with shame at her own stupidity, Ida stuffed the flowers into the woman’s hand, and ran home as if a lion were at her heels.

“Well! Miss Ida,” began Nurse, as Ida opened the nursery-door (and there was something terrible in her “well”); “if I ever——” and Nurse seized Ida by the arm, which was generally premonitory of her favourite method of punishment—“a good shaking.” But Ida clung close and flung her arms round Nurse’s neck.

“Don’t shake me, Nursey, dear,” she begged, “my head aches so. I have been very naughty, I know. I’ve done everything you can think of; I’ve crept through the hedge, and been right through the wood, and made a ford, and tumbled into the brook, and waded back, and run all the way home, and been round by the town for fear you should see me. And I’ve done something you could never, never think of if you tried till next Christmas, I’ve got some flowers for Mrs. Overtheway, only I did it so stupidly; she will think me a perfect goose, and perhaps be angry,” and the tears came into Ida’s eyes.

“She’ll think you a naughty, troublesome child as you are,” said Nurse, who seldom hesitated to assume the responsibility of any statement that appeared to be desirable; “you’re mad on that old lady, I think. Just look at that dress!”

Ida looked, but her tears were falling much too fast for her to have a clear view of anything, and the torn edges of the rent seemed fringed with prismatic colours.

To crown all she was sent to bed. In reality, this was to save the necessity of wearing her best frock till the other was mended, and also to keep her warm in case she should have caught cold; but Nurse spoke of it as a punishment, and Ida wept accordingly. And this was a triumph of that not uncommon line of nursery policy which consists in elaborately misleading the infant mind for good.

Chim! chime! went the bells next morning, and Mrs. Overtheway came down the white steps and through the green gate with a bunch of primroses in her hand. She looked up as usual, but not to the sky. She looked to the windows of the houses over the way, as if she expected some one to be looking for her. There was no face to be seen, however; and in the house directly opposite, one of the upper blinds was drawn down. Ida was ill.

How long she was ill, and of what was the matter with her, Ida had no very clear idea. She had visions of toiling through the wood over and over again, looking vainly for something that could never be found; of being suddenly surrounded and cut off by swollen streams; and of crawling, unclean beasts with preternatural feelers who got into her boots. Then these heavy dreams cleared away in part, and the stream seemed to ripple like the sound of church bells, and these chimed out the old tune

“Quite through the streets, with silver sound,” &c.

And then, at last, she awoke one fine morning to hear the sweet chim-chiming of the church bells, and to see Nurse sitting by her bedside. She lay still for a few moments to make quite sure, and then asked in a voice so faint that it surprised herself:

“Has Mrs. Overtheway gone to church?”

On which, to her great astonishment, Nurse burst into tears. For this was the first reasonable sentence that poor Ida had spoken for several days.

To be very ill is not pleasant; but the slow process of getting back strength is often less pleasant still. One afternoon Ida knelt in her old place at the window. She was up, but might not go out, and this was a great grief. The day had been provokingly fine, and even now, though the sun was setting, it seemed inclined to make a fresh start, so bright was the rejuvenated glow with which it shone upon the opposite houses, and threw a mystic glory over Mrs. Overtheway’s white steps and green railings. Oh! how Ida had wished to go out that afternoon! How long and clear the shadows were! It seemed to Ida that whoever was free to go into the open air could have nothing more to desire. “Out of doors” looked like Paradise to the drooping little maid, and the passers-by seemed to go up and down the sunny street in a golden dream. Ida gazed till the shadows lengthened, and crept over the street and up the houses; till the sunlight died upon the railings, and then upon the steps, and at last lingered for half an hour in bright patches among the chimney-stacks, and then went out altogether, and left the world in shade.

Twilight came on and Ida sat by the fire, which rose into importance now that the sunshine was gone; and, moreover, spring evenings are cold.

Ida felt desolate, and, on the whole, rather ill-used. Nurse had not been upstairs for hours, and though she had promised real tea and toast this evening, there were no signs of either as yet. The poor child felt too weak to play, and reading made her eyes ache. If only there were some one to tell her a story.

It grew dark, and then steps came outside the door, and a fumbling with the lock which made Ida nervous.

“Do come in, Nursey!” she cried.

The door opened, and some one spoke; but the voice was not the voice of Nurse. It was a sweet, clear, gentle voice; musical, though no longer young; such a voice as one seldom hears and never forgets, which came out of the darkness, saying:

“It is not Nurse, my dear; she is making the tea, and gave me leave to come up alone. I am Mrs. Overtheway.”

And there in the firelight stood the little old lady, as she has been before described, except that instead of her Prayer-book she carried a large pot hyacinth in her two little hands.

“I have brought you one of my pets, my dear,” said she. “I think we both love flowers.”

The little old lady had come to tea. This was charming. She took off her bonnet, and her cap more than fulfilled Ida’s expectations, although it was nothing smarter than a soft mass of tulle, tied with white satin strings. But what a face looked out of it! Mrs. Overtheway’s features were almost perfect. The beauty of her eyes was rather enhanced by the blue shadows that Time had painted round them, and they were those good eyes which remind one of a clear well, at the bottom of which he might see truth. When young she must have been exquisitely beautiful, Ida thought. She was lovely still.

In due time Nurse brought up tea, and Ida could hardly believe that her fancies were realized at last; indeed more than realized—for no bread-and-treacle diminished the dignity of the entertainment; and Nurse would as soon have thought of carrying off the Great Mogul on his cushions, as of putting Mrs. Overtheway and her chair into the corner.

But there is a limit even to the space of time for which one can enjoy tea and buttered toast. The tray was carried off, the hyacinth put in its place, and Ida curled herself up in an easy-chair on one side of the fire, Mrs. Overtheway being opposite.

“You see I am over the way still,” laughed the little old lady. “Now, tell me all about the primroses.” So Ida told everything, and apologized for her awkward speeches to the housekeeper.

“I don’t know your name yet,” said she.

“Call me Mrs. Overtheway still, my dear, if you please,” said the little old lady. “I like it.”

So Ida was no wiser on this score.

“I was so sorry to hear that you had been made ill on my account,” said Mrs. Overtheway. “I have been many times to ask after you, and to-night I asked leave to come to tea. I wish I could do something to amuse you, you poor little invalid. I know you must feel dull.”

Ida’s cheek flushed.

“If you would only tell me a story,” she said, “I do so like hearing Nurse’s stories. At least she has only one, but I like it. It isn’t exactly a story either, but it is about what happened in her last place. But I am rather tired of it. There’s Master Henry—I like him very much, he was always in mischief; and there’s Miss Adelaide, whose hair curled naturally—at least with a damp brush—I like her; but I don’t have much of them; for Nurse generally goes off about a quarrel she had with the cook, and I never could tell what they quarrelled about, but Nurse said cook was full of malice and deceitfulness, so she left. I am rather tired of it.”

“What sort of a story shall I tell you?” asked Mrs. Overtheway.

“A true one, I think,” said Ida. “Something that happened to you yourself, if you please. You must remember a great many things, being so old.”

And Ida said this in simple good faith, believing it to be a compliment.

“It is quite true,” said Mrs. Overtheway, “that one remembers many things at the end of a long life, and that they are often those things which happened a long while ago, and which are sometimes so slight in themselves that it is wonderful that they should not have been forgotten. I remember, for instance, when I was about your age, an incident that occurred which gave me an intense dislike to a special shade of brown satin. I hated it then, and at the end of more than half a century, I hate it still. The thing in itself was a mere folly; the people concerned with it have been dead for many years, and yet at the present time I should find considerable difficulty in seeing the merits of a person who should dress in satin of that peculiar hue.”

“What was it?” asked Ida.

“It was not amber satin, and it was not snuff-coloured satin; it was one of the shades of brown known by the name of feuille-morte, or dead-leaf colour. It is pretty in itself, and yet I dislike it.”

“How funny,” said Ida, wriggling in the armchair with satisfaction. “Do tell me about it.”

“But it is not funny in the least, unfortunately,” said Mrs. Overtheway, laughing. “It isn’t really a story, either. It is not even like Nurse’s experiences. It is only a strong remembrance of my childhood, that isn’t worth repeating, and could hardly amuse you.”

“Indeed, indeed it would,” said Ida. “I like the sound of it. Satin is so different from cooks.”

Mrs. Overtheway laughed.

“Still, I wish I could think of something more entertaining,” said she.

“Please tell me that,” said Ida, earnestly; “I would rather hear something about you than anything else.”

There was no resisting this loving argument. Ida felt that she had gained her point, and curled herself up into a listening attitude accordingly. The hyacinth stood in solemn sweetness as if it were listening also; and Mrs. Overtheway, putting her little feet upon the fender to warm, began the story of ——