Gaskell Catherine Henrietta Milnes
Spring in a Shropshire Abbey
My old friend always enjoys speaking disparagingly of shows and exhibitions, whatever he really thinks, for even gardeners are not without some particle of envy, I shrewdly suspect.
“Well,” continued Burbidge, “after business,” and I knew business meant something connected with the garden, “I went on to Clun, and there was a deal of getting to get to Clun – stopping, waiting, and misinforming, but at last the job got done. When yer wants, yer gets, as Humphrey Kynaston said when he made the leap.”
“Yes, Burbidge, but how about your brother?” I said, trying to make him keep to his point.
“I found him and Sal,” answered Burbidge, “strange as bats in sunlight. They were both overlooked, sure enough. Dazed and dimmy, same as if they had been bashed and bummelled for a whole live-long week.”
“What did you do?” I inquired.
I KNOW OF A CHARM
“I just spoke,” was his reply. “But I couldn’t get no answer. One and t’other, they looked like cats as had been fair nicked by a blacksmith’s dog, and they youped and trembled whensoever I spoke – and wouldn’t answer, more than bats in a rick-yard. As to Sal, I couldn’t get nothing out of she, save that a white dove had flown again her bedroom winder, and had called out, ‘Come, spirit, come;’ and as to brother Benjamin, he nodded and spoke Dutch, he war that mazed and foolish, and while he war taking on like, who should step inside but his son Frank. And Frank he come in bold as a lion, and trim as a dandy with a bobbish tie, and he said, ‘Here be Malachi, him as was born under this roof when my missus war took worse all of a sudden. He be a tall young fellow, hale, hearty, and fresh as a May sprig. He have joined the volunteers, and has at home his uniform, which be next best to a general’s.’ And when brother Ben heard him, he fair burst out in a rage. ‘What matters it,’ he saith, ‘what generals, or kings, or thy sons clothe themselves in, or who has beef or beer when I sits in mortal fear;’ and he shivered and quailed same as a poor body in a Poorhouse as hasn’t nought of his own, not so much as his own pipe or the shirt to his back. And while father and son were talking, Malachi he comed up, and he said, smiling like an April day, ‘Never you fear, grandad, for all I’m young, I know of a charm as ’ull free you from all her hanky-panky ways.’ And then, without a word from his grandad, he kind of touched his stick as if he war touchin’ a pretty wench as he war keeping company with, and he started whistlin’ an old tune, and he called out over his shoulder, ‘I’ll cure ye,’ and laughed as one who has a joke all to hisself, and so out went Malachi.
“Then there was quiet for a bit, and I heard naught but a crying of the wind outside; but suddenly voices got introduced, and we heard a crying and a calling and a scuffling in the garden, or thereabouts, loud as the cry of the Seven Whistlers; and I sat quiet till I could stand no more, then I peered out, and there, sure enough, war Malachi and the witch.
“And Malachi, he called out, ‘Down on yer knees, yer old hathan, or I’ll beat yer – old witch as yer call yerself – black and blue if yer don’t stir yer old tongue and say arter me, “I hain’t got no magic, nor no charms neither, I be a born fool, and I swear I’ll leave Benjamin Burbidge and his granddaughter for ever more alone.”’
“And the witch,” continued old Thomas, “her did swear it. ‘So help me God, I will,’ her cried out; and her spoke as true as Gospel truth, for I think her meant it, for as Malachi said, ’tis wonderful, even with a witch, the magic of a stout ash-plant.”
Burbidge’s words still rung in my ears when running up the garden path I saw my little maiden approaching me.
“We shall be late,” she cried excitedly, “if you don’t come at once – at once, I say. And think what a terrible thing it would be to keep Prince Charming waiting.”
I nodded to Burbidge and started off with Bess at a brisk trot up the front drive, mounted the field that led to the station, and waited panting on the platform for the little dog.
To my surprise Bess had a cloak on her arm.
“You are not cold, child?” I asked.
“No, no, mum; but what if the pug was to catch cold?”
“We must hope not, for that would be a calamity,” I answered.
Bess skipped and danced up and down, clinging to my hand, jumping and swaying backwards and forwards, as if her little body were made of quicksilver. Then, after a while, she suddenly fell into a reflective mood, and asked what are the best ways of forgetting that you are waiting?
“To think of something else, or not to want so badly,” I answered.
“I couldn’t do that,” answered Bess, gravely, “because I shouldn’t be me if I did, and he couldn’t be Prince Charming if I didn’t want him. I feel,” she gasped, “as if I just want, want till I am dying of wanting.”
I looked at my little girl. “Suppose he didn’t come by this train, what would you do then?”
“I don’t know. Go to bed, I think, and cry.”
THE PRINCE ARRIVES
But happily there was no need of so sad an ending to a bright spring day, for as I spoke the train rushed in. The porter hurried forward, and there was a general commotion. Two passengers got out, a couple of old fowls were removed, and a second later, a little basket also was taken out of the luggage-van.
“Shall I have this sent to the Abbey?” inquired the station-master.
But Bess would not hear of so slow a manner of getting the pug-puppy down. In delirious joy the little mantle was flung on the ground and her arms were tightly clasped round the basket. When one has been sent a pug-pup there is only one place to go to – home.
So I picked up the mantle, and Bess, bearing her cherished possession, led the way.
Then there was tea, which, as we have no bells, Bess saw to herself.
I heard her in the passage giving a hundred contradictory orders. It is to come at once, and then, there’s to be broth for the puppy and cakes, “sponge and the other, and meat,” and at last she returned breathless to me.
“I have ordered everything,” she cried, and took the little dog off my knee. It was a sweet little baby dog with a crinkly-crankly black phiz and dear little blinking, cloudy blue eyes. The ribbon that was sent to adorn his neck was much too big to fasten round his throat, but he looked contented and rested drowsily under Bess’s continued protestations of affection.
After tea we sat on before the chapel hall fire.
“I thought last Christmas,” said Bess, “when I had the white bride doll, that I never should want nothing no more. But now that I have the pug Prince, I know I shall never want anything again, not if I live to be a hundred.”
“Wait till the next time,” I laughed. At that moment I heard a scratching at the study door, which opens upon the chapel hall. I opened it and took Mouse gently by the collar.
“Bess,” I said, while I held on tightly, “the introduction must be made, but with tact,” and I and Mouse returned together.
I put the puppy on the rug. Mouse looked at it sadly and then walked severely away.
“Why does she behave like that?” asked Bess. “See, Mouse is whining and wants to go out.”
“She is jealous,” I said.
“Why should she mind?”
“Think, Bess,” I replied, “what would you say if there came here a new baby, a new helpless little thing. Might it not be just a little bit of a trial to you, don’t you think, when you saw all the world running about to welcome it, cake, tea, milk, cream, all ordered for it at once? We none of us like being put in the shade, not even Mouse.”
Bess looked at me, and then putting the pug down, she cast her arms effusively round the great hound’s neck.
“You must forgive my little pup,” she said coaxingly, “and not hate presents, even if they are for other people,” and a shower of kisses followed.
Mouse was mollified; she looked at me gravely. He has not the first place, she seemed to say, and she came and laid her great head solemnly on my knees.
“She knows,” said Bess, “that not even Prince Charming can put her nose out of joint.”
Mouse watched the little pug out of the corner of her eye, but with more sadness than malice. Bess fed her with slices of cake, whilst the pug approached her future gigantic companion.
“All friends now,” Bess whispered. “Nobody now to get nice but Nana; but nurses always take longer to forgive than dogs.”
NANA IS KIND
In the evening I stole upstairs and found Prince Charming sleeping in his little basket by Bess’s bed. Apparently old Nana had yielded to his charms, or else was reconciled to his having a nursery existence.
She got up from her sewing and said with a smile on her good old face, “Bless her little heart, how it do please her, the pup; but then she must have what she has a mind to.”
After this, I had a quiet hour with my books, and I took down for the last half-hour a volume of Montaigne. What delightful company he is, always bright and cheery, full of knowledge, and yet always so human. I came to the passage which Madame de Sévigné always said brought tears to her eyes. I refer to the “affection of the Mareschal de Montluc for his son who died in the island of Madeira.”
“My poor boy,” wrote the Mareschal, “never saw me with other than a stern and disdainful countenance, and now he is gone in the belief that I neither knew how to love him, nor esteemed him according to his deserts,” and the remorse and pity of it all. In the silence of the night it all came home to me. What a touching picture it is, the reserved old man with no word of love on his tongue, and yet his heart full of affection. “For whom,” cries the grief-stricken old man, “did I reserve the discovery of that singular affection that I had for him in my soul?” What a pathetic tale it is, one of Montaigne’s many. What a homely tongue the great essayist has, and yet what a wise one – possessing, as he does, the art of telling us all the old tales of Greece and Rome clothed in summer verdure, so that the leaves of his discourse never grow stale or faded. He makes the ancient world live again, and gives men and women who lived and died hundreds of years before he was born new life and beauty.
“Oh, do not let us love in vain. Let us find out our love before the wave has gone over the dear one’s head,” is what I seemed to hear. “Do not let our lips call in the coming time, ‘Lord, too late, too late!’”
I thought of little Bess, the happy owner of her dog, and I said, at least, Lord, my little maid will look back on her childhood, I hope, as a happy, happy time, a time of flowers, and joyous play. Bad times must come, but let me be a happy parent in that I have given my child no more unhappy time than I could help!
The next morning. I sauntered off into the garden. There were the gladioli to plant, so that they might blossom well before the autumn frosts.
FLOWERS IN A GARDEN
First of all, come the beautiful early summer sorts such as the delicate Bride, Leonora, Mathilde, and Colvilli, and then in autumn the brilliant Brenchleyensis, Gandavensis, and exquisite soft tinted Lemoinei. Burbidge has a pocket-book in which the date of all plantings as well as sowings are registered. “Them gladiolouses,” as he calls them, “war put in the 4th of March last year, so they this year must be put in their places without delay in the red-walled garden to enliven the borders, and there must be a large patch in the kitchen garden for pulling” (picking), for Burbidge, in common with most gardeners, cannot bear picking his blossoms in the real flower garden. Blows for the garden is the old man’s constant adage, and he will sometimes say sourly, “What for do ladies want their places littered about with jars and tubs and what not, same as if their chambers was fresh-blown meads? Let ’em be, say I, where the hand of the Lord hath put ’em.” And he will add, “growing blows is right, ’cause it is in the way of nature, but I don’t hold to parlour bowers. They be unwholesome, not to say a bit retchy.” I am inclined to agree with my old friend in some of his strictures about the modern drawing-room, for a room laden with scents, and that has closed windows, is certainly a productive source of headaches.
As I stood by the garden watching Burbidge and his men plant the gladioli, a little figure dashed up to me. “Mama,” cried Bess, in a state of wild excitement, “they’ve come, two real princes, I really do believe.”
I was puzzled for a moment, but at last I stammered out, “Where? Where?”
“At the pond, at the pond,” exclaimed Bess, trembling with delight.
I could not get anything more out of Bess, but Burbidge, hearing her mention the pond, hobbled up.
“Bless her little heart!” he said, “the little lady means the swans.”
And in answer to my inquiry, “What swans?” he answered —
“Didn’t yer hear, mam, about the great birds? No?” Then he went on to tell me how, in the early morning, when he and the under-gardeners “war fettling up on the east side between six and seven, us suddenly heard a kind of unearthly crying, like some one moaning and sobbing, and whispering right up aloft. And then,” continued my old friend, “I seed such a sight as I’ve never seen afore. Fowls as big as chest o’ drawers flyin’ round and round. They came on flying in great circles, as if they couldn’t stop, till down they flumped like a couple of cannon balls, and struck slap into the great Abbey pool.
“I did,” pursued Burbidge, “tell Miss Célestine later to let yer know, seeing as you be interested in all fur and fluff, birds and insects, and most varmint, but her have no sense, save for frills and furbelows.”
On hearing of the arrival of the swans, I seized hold of Bess’s hand, and off we went together to welcome our new visitors.
They were beautiful white birds of spotless plumage, probably driven from the lake of Willey, or from further off, by the cruelty of their parents. For old swans become terribly fierce as the nesting season comes on, and will not even allow the offspring of a past spring to remain on their own waters.
“How lovely they are,” said Bess, enthusiastically. “It is a real fairy-story, mamsie, this time.”
MOUSE FEEDS ON BREAD
Then we returned to the Abbey, and brought out a basket of broken scraps. Bess threw some pieces into the water, and the swans stooped down their beautiful graceful necks and fed with avidity. Bess watched them intently, whilst Mouse, who had followed us too, looked on superciliously; and then, with great greediness, ate all the bread that she could reach, so that, as Bess said, “too much food should not be wasted on mere swans.”
“Isn’t she greedy?” cried Bess. “At home she hardly eats even cake!”
Poor old Mouse! She is made up of unamiable vices, excepting to us. Then Nana appeared, and declared crossly that my little girl would catch her death of cold standing on the damp grass by the water.
Bess fired up at this and retorted, “As if, Nana, people ever catch cold when they watch swans. Why, my mother watches birds hundreds of hours, and she never catches cold.”
But, in spite of Bess’s protestations, my little maid was carried off by Nan, who, I heard, afterwards went off to the post-office to get a postal order.
When Bess returned from her short turn, I noticed that she was grave and silent, and not at all the usual bouncing Bess of Wenlock, as we are wont to call her. I mentioned that I was going for a longer walk, in search of white violets, and begged her to come with me, if she was not too tired, and bring a basket in case we found any.
At first I thought Bess’s reluctance sprang from the fact that Prince Charming would have to be left at the Abbey, although I assured her that Auguste would fully console the Prince for our absence; but say what I would, Bess seemed out of spirits. And so, before we started, I sat down on a bench and asked my little girl, who looked worried, if she was not feeling well.
“Yes,” answered Bess, “only, only – ” And then I found out the truth. “When Nan and I were walking in the town,” Bess explained, “Mr. James, Hals’ father’s coachman, came into the chemist’s shop and told us that Fräulein was dreadful bad, tumbled down and broke her leg, he said. He laughed and said it was a judgment for being that nasty to Master Harry. But oh, mama, could it – could it really be?”
“No, Bess,” I answered quickly, “don’t think that for a moment. You were very naughty, and very silly, but then you are only a little child, and you did not know what you said, or understood what you meant. Beside,” I said rather grandly, to get over the difficulty, “God has other work than to attend to the idle words of a little child. So dry your eyes, dear, and be a happy little person again. Run upstairs and fetch a basket, and we will go off together.”
But Bess shook her head. “I will be a happy little girl,” she said, “but I’d rather not go all the same,” and she left me.
So I started off alone with Mouse, who, nothing loth, followed me gladly on my expedition.
We all have favourite flowers, or imagine that we have, probably owing to some early association or to some tender recollection. Queen Bess is said to have best loved meadow-sweet, with which her chambers were strewn. The great Condé, they say, was devoted to pinks; and Marie Antoinette is said to have loved sweet rocket, bunches of which were brought her by Madame Richard to the Temple.
I called to mind these favourite blossoms, but my floral love is not of the garden, it has no place in tended borders. I love it even better than the choicest rose, or the most brilliant gladiolus, or the most stately lily. It grows amongst the hedgerows of Shropshire, and is known as the wild white violet.
THE FLOWERS OF SPRING
Its scent is sweet but often elusive, and as evanescent as a beautiful smile. Our highly cultivated borders and parterres are beautiful, but our wild carpets in field and wood more beautiful. Wild flowers come amidst the grass, and blossom at their own sweet will in their own sweet place, and the moor, meadow, or coppice make the most enchanting background for their loveliness.
I wandered along the green paths with hedgerows starting into life, and came to the conclusion that the flowers we each love best are the homely flowers of childhood that we played by, and plucked as children. The dog-rose, the violet, or the primrose, whose leaves we know the inside and the outside of, whose stalks we have handled a hundred times, and whose scents recall dear faces, and gentle memories, that go back to long ago.
I walked along, Mouse following dutifully behind me. The hedgerows were full of green curls and twists, groups of wild arums glittered on the banks below hazel and quickset hedges. Here and there little patches of grass had burst into emerald green, and a few daisies were turning their discs to heaven, whilst in sheltered spots dim primroses were dawning shyly on the world, filling the atmosphere with sweet dalliance and dreaminess. Once, as I wandered along, I saw behind a cottage in a lane a mauve carpet of periwinkles, and once, beneath a chestnut, I saw the glitter of golden king-cups, that Wordsworth loved so well. The afternoon was very fair, purple and golden lights flitted round the hills and rested on the freshly ploughed hillsides; “longer days and sunshine,” the thrushes seemed to sing, and I heard them piping exultantly in every orchard as I passed. I went by the Red Marsh Farm, past the old mullion-windowed barn, which is said to have been a chapel in monkish days, and so across the close-nipped fields to Sherlot Forest. I walked by a patch of gorse all ablaze with golden blossoms. Tiny young rabbits dashed under cover, showing their white scuts. My great hound lumbered after them like a luggage train in mad career; but nothing happened – they vanished like lightning, and Mouse joined me panting at the hunting gate below. As I whistled her into heel, I noticed that the honeysuckles in the hedgerow were clothing themselves in silvery green, and that a willow by a pool was bursting into golden glory. The earth was dry and I could not resist sitting down for a moment. A squirrel dashed up an oak and scolded and chattered, Mouse, seeing him, growled angrily; a greenfinch flew from out of a thicket, giving me a beautiful vision of apple-green wings; whilst in the distance I heard, far off, the note of a distant blackbird singing a song of regret and tender longing. How enchantingly lovely all was, and on all sides no sounds but country ones.
I peeped over the hedge, men were ploughing and sowing the grain, and away to the west I heard a boy whistling a few notes of a half-forgotten tune. What was the tune, I wondered.
How few folks whistle or sing now; the time was when everybody “sang a bit,” as Burbidge calls it, to their work – men in the hayfields, women at the washtub. Was the world, when it sang at its work, a happier or jollier world? I asked myself.
“HEAVEN’S HIGH MESSENGER”
I passed over a stile and walked across a clover field. How prosperous it looked, how green after the seared and sad appearance of permanent pasture, which still lay brown and lifeless. Overhead the bravest of all West-country songsters was singing – the skylark. What a speck he appeared throbbing in the sky, only a little dot hardly bigger than a pin’s head; but what a voice he had, what a cry of exultant joy was his, what a melody of passion, what a glory of triumphant music! I stood and listened like the poet, and wondered how a bird could sing so; such joy, such passionate melody seemed superhuman, and how the notes were produced in the tiny throat was then and will always remain a mystery. He did not seem a living, breathing bird; only a voice – a voice of incarnate joy and gladness. Silver hammers seemed to throb within him and to beat out a prayer of ecstatic joy, which no heart could measure, and no human tongue pronounce. Then suddenly, as a leaf, he fell, and the exquisite singer of a moment before became again only the little brown bird, a dweller amongst green fields, and a familiar of everyday life. Yet for all that we, too, dwell on earth and toil and spin, it is well to have heard the music of heaven. I walked along refreshed and gladdened, for in spite of the shadows that envelope us, “there burns in each an invisible sun,” and amid such scenes it is impossible not to feel a passing ray.
At last I reached the well-known bank. A few shy violets were in blossom – the afternoon sun was playing upon the opening blossoms. I picked two or three tiny flowers, but only a few, for I like to leave a spot as fair as I found it, and the little petals were still tightly curled. Growing close to the violet was another charming woodland flower, the wood-sorrel, or witches’ cheeses as village children often call it here. The little blossoms were of an exquisite translucent white, with delicate lavender veins, and strange triangular leaves that folded up at night like the leaves of a sensitive plant.
Some people say that the wood-sorrel is the true shamrock used by St. Patrick to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity. Be this as it may, it is a delightful little plant, and one of the most charming inhabitants of our English woods.
Its veined delicate petals recalled to me the form and beauty of the exquisite grass of Parnassus, which I have often discovered on the moors of the west coast of Scotland and in a few spots in the wildest parts of the Shropshire hills. A little further on, I came to a patch under a hazel tree of bronze leaves. These I recognized to be the leaves of the ground ivy, and its minute mauve blossoms were just coming into blossom. This plant used to be called ales-hoof, and was formerly put into beer as a flavouring, much in the same manner as we put borage now into claret cup, or introduce into badminton a peach, or a spray of nettles. From the ground ivy an excellent tea can be made which possesses purifying qualities for the blood, and which was formerly much used in Shropshire as a spring tonic. Tea from a decoction of nettles is also constantly drunk in Shropshire, as is also a drink made from wild mallows.
THE BREATH OF SPRING
As I retraced my steps the light was fast fading, and the gold turning into lavender. All was dying, the reds and golds turning into sombre browns and greys. Flowers were falling asleep, and far away I saw a line of cattle gently driven to some far farm-steading. As I walked across the meadows, I noted that the little lambs had crept to their dams’ sides, and meant to remain there quiet and snug till the small hours of the morning. Alone in the dusk I caught here and there the triumphant song of the throstle; all else was still. In the gloaming I saw dimly brown figures crossing upland and valley to the lonely hamlets that nestled amongst a starry mist of damson groves. The bright March day of work and gaiety was over. Frost might visit the earth in the night, but to-morrow, judging by the red sunset, would be another day of gladness and hope and brightness. I told myself spring had come, and that soon all our dear feathered friends would return. The nightingales would sing in the south, in every hazel coppice, and in the dusky groves of twilight, whilst all over England swallows would fly, near smoky towns and over lonely meres and rivers alike, carrying the message that sovereign summer was at hand.
When I returned to the Abbey, I found that Bess was in bed.
“She be asleep,” nurse said, “but she seemed wonderful busy about something, all in a flurry like, and didn’t take no notice, not even of the pug; but her would say her prayers twice over. And when I asked why for? She answered it war best so, for the Lord somehow would make her happy, even if she had to pray twice over for a blessing.”
Then old Nana went on to say, “This afternoon, Miss Bess went out with Liza after you left, and as they comed in they was whispering together. I don’t hold with slyness,” and old Nana pursed up her mouth, and I felt, as the French say, that Liza would have at some future time a bad quarter of an hour, and that a storm was brewing in the domestic cup. I didn’t, however, ask for an explanation, but waited for the morrow to reveal the acts of to-day.
I walked downstairs and sat down before my writing-table, and wrote a long letter to a sister. What a comfortable relationship is that of a sister, a very armchair of affection, for with a sister no explanations are necessary. Then there is nothing too small to tell a sister. Worries, pleasures, little heartaches, all may find their way on paper, and not appear foolish or ill-placed. So I wrote away gaily, a little about flowers, books, garden, embroidery, cuisine, a little domestic worry, and I wound up with a quotation.
As I was folding up my letter, I suddenly heard a knock at the door. “Come in,” I cried, and I saw Liza at the door, candle in hand.
“Miss Bess is all right?”
“Oh yes, mam; but I thought I should like you to know – ”
Then Liza went on to say that nurse had taken on terribly, and was all of a stew because she had let Miss Bess spend her money as she had wished this afternoon.
“Miss Bess,” continued Eliza, “would have it so, and wouldn’t take no refusal; and, as Mrs. Milner was out at tea with Mrs. Burbidge, I had to let the child do as she had a mind to.”
“Well, what happened?”
“Oh, I hardly know,” replied Eliza. “We went to – ” mentioning a shop – “but there Miss Bess wouldn’t on no account that I or Mdlle. Célestine should come in. She called out, ‘Stay outside till I have done.’ So Mademoiselle and I we walked outside up and down till we was fit to drop, and then, I do assure you, mam,” added Eliza, “I knew nothing till I saw Miss Bess come out with a small parcel, which she held very tight and wouldn’t give up to nobody, and then I seed as it was directed in Mr. Burbidge’s handwriting – that is to say, there was a label; and we sent off the package, and I paid twopence in stamps for doing so, but Miss Bess wouldn’t tell me, ask her as much as I would, who it was for. Mademoiselle tried hard to make Miss Bess tell, but she couldn’t get nothing out of her, although she caught hold of her; but Mr. James, the butcher’s boy, coming up, Mademoiselle let Miss Bess be, and so we went home; and I didn’t think much about it till I looked into Miss Bess’s purse to-night to see what she had spent, and then I saw there wasn’t one penny left, and she must, I fear, have spent it all on the packet. It’s only right, mam, as you should know,“ pursued Liza, flushing crimson, ”lest Mrs. Milner should say that I had taken some, for just now Mrs. Milner be quite furious, fussing round and saying that Miss Bess has been fair robbed.”
“Never mind,” I said, “when I see Miss Bess in the morning I will go into the matter, and find out how she spent her money.”
I wondered, as I sat down and began to embroider after folding up my letter, what would be the explanation of the mystery. Probably, I said to myself, a little present to Harry, for Bess is a very generous little soul, and most of her pocket-money is spent in gifts.
NANA IS ANGRY
The next morning my old nurse, holding tightly Bess’s hand, came downstairs just as I had finished breakfast. She looked, as Burbidge would say, “black as tempest,” and I didn’t envy Eliza’s place in the nursery.
“Miss Bess will tell you,” she said, “and as for Liza, I think it a most disgraceful affair to have let the poor lamb spend her money as she and Mademoiselle did, and never so much as to turn their heads back. Pack of fools talkin’ to passers-by whilst the poor child was bein’ robbed. That’s what I call ’em.”
“I wasn’t,” cried Bess, stoutly. “It was my own money and my own fault. I paid it all myself, and I won’t tell nobody about it but mama.”
Old Nana took no notice of this outburst, and vowed that she would get the money back somehow, and let everybody know what she really thought of ’em. I said nothing, for the fat was in the fire, and the one thing that I am sure of was, that you couldn’t change anybody’s determination of over seventy; and what Nana determines to do, Nana will do, for all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. When Bess and I were alone, I turned to Bess. “Tell me, little girl,” I said.