The Caxtons: A Family Picture Part 45

So the discussion was dropped; and in the mean while, Uncle Jack, like the short-faced gentleman in the "Spectator," "distinguished himself by a profound silence."

CHAPTER III.

Blanche has contrived to a.s.sociate herself, if not with my more active diversions,--in running over the country and making friends with the farmers,--still in all my more leisurely and domestic pursuits. There is about her a silent charm that it is very hard to define; but it seems to arise from a kind of innate sympathy with the moods and humors of those she loves. If one is gay, there is a cheerful ring in her silver laugh that seems gladness itself; if one is sad, and creeps away into a corner to bury one's head in one's hand and muse, by and by, and just at the right moment, when one has mused one's fill, and the heart wants something to refresh and restore it, one feels two innocent arms round one's neck, looks up, and lo! Blanche's soft eyes, full of wistful, compa.s.sionate kindness, though she has the tact not to question; it is enough for her to sorrow with your sorrow,--she cares not to know more. A strange child,--fearless, and yet seemingly fond of things that inspire children with fear; fond of tales of fay, sprite, and ghost, which Mrs. Primmins draws fresh and new from her memory as a conjurer draws pancakes hot and hot from a hat. And yet so sure is Blanche of her own innocence that they never trouble her dreams in her lone little room, full of caliginous corners and nooks, with the winds moaning round the desolate ruins, and the cas.e.m.e.nts rattling hoa.r.s.e in the dungeon-like wall. She would have no dread to walk through the ghostly keep in the dark, or cross the church-yard what time,--

"By the moon's doubtful and malignant light,"--

the gravestones look so spectral, and the shade from the yew-trees lies so still on the sward. When the brows of Roland are gloomiest, and the compression of his lips makes sorrow look sternest, be sure that Blanche is couched at his feet, waiting the moment when, with some heavy sigh, the muscles relax, and she is sure of the smile if she climbs to his knee. It is pretty to chance on her gliding up broken turret-stairs, or standing hushed in the recess of shattered cas.e.m.e.nts; and you wonder what thoughts of vague awe and solemn pleasure can be at work under that still, little brow.

She has a quick comprehension of all that is taught to her; she already tasks to the full my mother's educational arts. My father has had to rummage his library for books to feed (or extinguish) her desire for "further information," and has promised lessons in French and Italian--at some golden time in the shadowy "By and by"--which are received so gratefully that one might think Blanche mistook "Telema que"

and "Novelle Morali" for baby-houses and dolls. Heaven send her through French and Italian with better success than attended Mr. Caxton's lessons in Greek to Pisistratus! She has an ear for music which my mother, who is no bad judge, declares to be exquisite. Luckily there is an old Italian, settled in a town ten miles off, who is said to be an excellent music-master, and who comes the round of the neighboring squirearchy twice a week. I have taught her to draw,--an accomplishment in which I am not without skill,--and she has already taken a sketch from nature, which, barring the perspective, is not so amiss; indeed, she has caught the notion of "idealizing" (which promises future originality) from her own natural instincts, and given to the old witch-elm, that hangs over the stream, just the bough that it wanted to dip into the water and soften off the hard lines. My only fear is that Blanche should become too dreamy and thoughtful.

Poor child, she has no one to play with! So I look out, and get her a dog, frisky and young, who abhors sedentary occupations,--a spaniel, small, and coal-black, with ears sweeping the ground. I baptize him "Juba," in honor of Addison's "Cato," and in consideration of his sable curls and Mauritanian complexion. Blanche does not seem so eerie and elf-like while gliding through the ruins when Juba barks by her side and scares the birds from the ivy.

One day I had been pacing to and fro the hall, which was deserted; and the sight of the armor and portraits--dumb evidences of the active and adventurous lives of the old inhabitants, which seemed to reprove my own inactive obscurity--had set me off on one of those Pegasean hobbies on which youth mounts to the skies,--delivering maidens on rocks, and killing Gorgons and monsters,--when Juba bounded in, and Blanche came after him, her straw hat in her hand.

Blanche. "I thought you were here, Sisty: may I stay?"

Pisistratus.--"Why, my dear child, the day is so fine that instead of losing it indoors, you ought to be running in the fields with Juba."

Juba.--"Bow-wow."

Blanche.--"Will you come too? If Sisty stays in, Blanche does not care for the b.u.t.terflies!"

Pisistratus, seeing that the thread of his day-dreams is broken, consents with an air of resignation. Just as they gain the door, Blanche pauses, and looks as if there were something on her mind.

Pisistratus--"What now, Blanche? Why are you making knots in that ribbon, and writing invisible characters on the floor with the point of that busy little foot?"

Blanche (mysteriously).--"I have found a new room, Sisty. Do you think we may look into it?"

Pisistratus--"Certainly; unless any Bluebeard of your acquaintance told you not. Where is it?"

Blanche.--"Upstairs, to the left."

Pisistratus.--"That little old door, going down two stone steps, which is always kept locked?"

Blanche.--"Yes; it is not locked to-day. The door was ajar, and I peeped in; but I would not do more till I came and asked you if you thought it would not be wrong."

Pisistratus.--"Very good in you, my discreet little cousin. I have no doubt it is a ghost-trap; however, with Juba's protection, I think we might venture together."

Pisistratus, Blanche, and Juba ascend the stairs, and turn off down a dark pa.s.sage to the left, away from the rooms in use. We reach the arch-pointed door of oak planks nailed roughly together, we push it open, and perceive that a small stair winds down from the room,--it is just over Roland's chamber.

The room has a damp smell, and has probably been left open to be aired; for the wind comes through the unbarred cas.e.m.e.nt, and a billet barns on the Hearth. The place has that attractive, fascinating air which belongs to a lumber-room,--than which I know nothing that so captivates the interest and fancy of young people. What treasures, to them, often lie hid in those quaint odds and ends which the elder generations have discarded as rubbis.h.!.+ All children are by nature antiquarians and relic-hunters. Still, there is an order and precision with which the articles in that room are stowed away that belies the true notion of lumber,--none of the mildew and dust which give such mournful interest to things abandoned to decay.

In one corner are piled up cases and military-looking trunks of outlandish aspect, with R. D. C. in bra.s.s nails on their sides. From these we turn with involuntary respect and call off Juba, who has wedged himself behind in pursuit of some imaginary mouse. But in the other corner is what seems to me a child's cradle,--not an English one, evidently; it is of wood, seemingly Spanish rosewood, with a railwork at the back, of twisted columns; and I should scarcely have known it to be a cradle but for the fairy-like quilt and the tiny pillows, which proclaimed its uses.

On the wall above the cradle were arranged sundry little articles that had, perhaps, once made the joy of a child's heart,--broken toys with the paint rubbed off, a tin sword and trumpet, and a few tattered books, mostly in Spanish; by their shape and look, doubtless children's books.

Near these stood, on the floor, a picture with its face to the wall.

Juba had chased the mouse, that his fancy still insisted on creating, behind this picture, and as he abruptly drew back, the picture fell into the hands I stretched forth to receive it. I turned the face to the light, and was surprised to see merely an old family portrait; it was that of a gentleman in the flowered vest mid stiff ruff which referred the date of his existence to the reign of Elizabeth,--a man with a bold and n.o.ble countenance. On the corner was placed a faded coat of arms, beneath which was inscribed, "Herbert De Caxton, Eq: Aur: AEtat: 35."

On the back of the canvas I observed, as I now replaced the picture against the wall, a label in Roland's handwriting, though in a younger and more running hand than he now wrote. The words were these "The best and bravest of our line, He charged by Sidney's side on the field of Zutphen; he fought in Drake's s.h.i.+p against the armament of Spain. If ever I have a--" The rest of the label seemed to have been torn off.

I turned away, and felt a remorseful shame that I had so far gratified my curiosity,--if by so harsh a name the powerful interest that had absorbed me must be called. I looked round for Blanche; she had retreated from my side to the door, and, with her hands before her eyes, was weeping. As I stole towards her, my glance fell on a book that lay on a chair near the cas.e.m.e.nt and beside those relics of an infancy once pure and serene. By the old-fas.h.i.+oned silver clasps I recognized Roland's Bible. I felt as if I had been almost guilty of profanation in my thoughtless intrusion. I drew away Blanche, and we descended the stairs noiselessly; and not till we were on our favorite spot, amidst a heap of ruins on the feudal justice-hill, did I seek to kiss away her tears and ask the cause.

"My poor brother!" sobbed Blanche, "they must have been his,--and we shall never, never see him again!--and poor papa's Bible, which he reads when he is very, very sad! I did not weep enough when my brother died.

I know better what death is now! Poor papa! poor papa! Don't die, too, Sisty!"

There was no running after b.u.t.terflies that morning; and it was long before I could soothe Blanche. Indeed, she bore the traces of dejection in her soft looks for many, many days; and she often asked me, sighingly, "Don't you think it was very wrong in me to take you there?"

Poor little Blanche, true daughter of Eve, she would not let me bear my due share of the blame; she would have it all, in Adam's primitive way of justice,--"The woman tempted me, and I did eat." And since then Blanche has seemed more fond than ever of Roland, and comparatively deserts me to nestle close to him, and closer, till he looks up and says, "My child, you are pale; go and run after the b.u.t.terflies;" and she says now to him, not to me, "Come too!" drawing him out into the suns.h.i.+ne with a hand that will not loose its hold.

Of all Roland's line, this Herbert de Caxton was "the best and bravest!"

yet he had never named that ancestor to me,--never put any forefather in comparison with the dubious and mythical Sir William. I now remembered once that, in going over the pedigree, I had been struck by the name of Herbert,--the only Herbert in the scroll,--and had asked, "What of him, uncle?" and Roland had muttered something inaudible, and turned away.

And I remembered also that in Roland's room there was the mark on the wall where a picture of that size had once hung. The picture had been removed thence before we first came, but must have hung there for years to have left that mark on the wall,--perhaps suspended by Bolt during Roland's long Continental absence. "If ever I have a--" What were the missing words? Alas! did they not relate to the son,--missed forever, evidently not forgotten still?

CHAPTER IV.

My uncle sat on one side the fireplace, my mother on the other; and I, at a small table between them, prepared to note down the results of their conference; for they had met in high council, to a.s.sess their joint fortunes,--determine what should be brought into the common stock and set apart for the Civil List, and what should be laid aside as a Sinking Fund. Now my mother, true woman as she was, had a womanly love of show in her own quiet way,--of making "a genteel figure" in the eyes of the neighborhood; of seeing that sixpence not only went as far as sixpence ought to go, but that, in the going, it should emit a mild but imposing splendor,--not, indeed, a gaudy flash, a startling Borealian coruscation, which is scarcely within the modest and placid idiosyncracies of sixpence,--but a gleam of gentle and benign light, just to show where a sixpence had been, and allow you time to say "Behold!" before

"The jaws of darkness did devour it up."

Thus, as I once before took occasion to apprise the reader, we had always held a very respectable position in the neighborhood round our square brick house; been as sociable as my father's habits would permit; given our little tea-parties, and our occasional dinners, and, without attempting to vie with our richer a.s.sociates, there had always been so exquisite a neatness, so notable a housekeeping, so thoughtful a disposition, in short, of all the properties indigenous to a well-spent sixpence, in my mother's management, that there was not an old maid within seven miles of us who did not p.r.o.nounce our tea-parties to be perfect; and the great Mrs. Rollick, who gave forty guineas a year to a professed cook and housekeeper, used regularly, whenever we dined at Rollick Hall, to call across the table to my mother (who therewith blushed up to her ears) to apologize for the strawberry jelly. It is true that when, on returning home, my mother adverted to that flattering and delicate compliment, in a tone that revealed the self-conceit of the human heart, my father--whether to sober his Kitty's vanity into a proper and Christian mortification of spirit, or from that strange shrewd ness which belonged to him--would remark that Mrs. Rollick was of a querulous nature; that the compliment was meant, not to please my mother, but to spite the professed cook and housekeeper, to whom the butler would be sure to repeat the invidious apology.

In settling at the Tower, and a.s.suming the head of its establishment, my mother was naturally anxious that, poor battered invalid though the Tower was, it should still put its best leg foremost. Sundry cards, despite the thinness of the neighborhood, had been left at the door; various invitations, which my uncle had hitherto declined, had greeted his occupation of the ancestral ruin, and had become more numerous since the news of our arrival had gone abroad; so that my mother saw before her a very suitable field for her hospitable accomplishments,--a reasonable ground for her ambition that the Tower should hold up its head as became a Tower that held the head of the family.

But not to wrong thee, O dear mother! as thou sittest there, opposite the grim Captain, so fair and so neat,--with thine ap.r.o.n as white, and thy hair as trim and as sheen, and thy morning cap, with its ribbons of blue, as coquettishly arranged as if thou hadst a fear that the least negligence on thy part might lose thee the heart of thine Austin,--not to wrong thee by setting down to frivolous motives alone thy feminine visions of the social amenities of life, I know that thine heart, in its provident tenderness, was quite as much interested as ever thy vanities could be, in the hospitable thoughts on which thou wert intent. For, first and foremost, it was the wish of thy soul that thine Austin might, as little as possible, be reminded of the change in his fortunes,--might miss as little as possible those interruptions to his abstracted scholarly moods at which, it is true, he used to fret and to pshaw and to cry Papa! but which nevertheless always did him good, and freshened up the stream of his thoughts. And, next, it was the conviction of thine understanding that a little society and boon companions.h.i.+p, and the proud pleasure of showing his ruins and presiding at the hall of his forefathers, would take Roland out of those gloomy reveries into which he still fell at times. And, thirdly, for us young people, ought not Blanche to find companions in children of her own s.e.x and age? Already in those large black eyes there was something melancholy and brooding, as there is in the eyes of all children who live only with their elders.

And for Pisistratus, with his altered prospects, and the one great gnawing memory at his heart,--which he tried to conceal from himself, but which a mother (and a mother who had loved) saw at a glance,--what could be better than such union and interchange with the world around us, small though that world might be, as woman, sweet binder and blender of all social links, might artfully effect? So that thou didst not go, like the awful Florentine,--

"Sopra for vanita che par persona,"--

"over thin shadows that mocked the substance of real forms," but rather it was the real forms that appeared as shadows, or vanita.

What a digression! Can I never tell my story in a plain, straightforward way? Certainly I was born under Cancer, and all my movements are circ.u.mlocutory, sideways, and crab-like.

CHAPTER V.

"I think, Roland," said my mother, "that the establishment is settled,--Bolt, who is equal to three men at least; Primmins, cook and housekeeper; Molly, a good, stirring girl, and willing (though I've had some difficulty in persuading her to submit not to be called Anna Maria). Their wages are but a small item, my clear Roland."

"Hem!" said Roland; "since we can't do with fewer servants at less wages, I suppose we must call it small."