Peter Ibbetson Part 3

My mother soon became the pa.s.sionately devoted friend of the divine Madame Seraskier; and I, what would I not have done--what danger would I not have faced--what death would I not have died for her!

I did not die; I lived her protestant to be, for nearly fifty years. For nearly fifty years to recollect the rapture and the pain it was to look at her; that inexplicable longing ache, that dumb, delicious, complex, innocent distress, for which none but the greatest poets have ever found expression; and which, perhaps, they have not felt half so acutely, these glib and gifted ones, as _I_ did, at the susceptible age of seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve.

She had other slaves of my s.e.x. The five Napoleonic heroes did homage each after his fas.h.i.+on: the good Major with a kind of sweet fatherly tenderness touching to behold; the others with perhaps less unselfish adoration; notably the brave Capitaine Audenis, of the fair waxed mustache and beautiful brown tail coat, so tightly b.u.t.toned with gilt b.u.t.tons across his enormous chest, and imperceptible little feet so tightly imprisoned in s.h.i.+ny tipped female cloth boots, with b.u.t.tons of mother-of-pearl; whose hobby was, I believe, to try and compensate himself for the misfortunes of war by more successful attempts in another direction. Anyhow he betrayed a warmth that made my small bosom a Gehenna, until she laughed and snubbed him into due propriety and shamefaced self-effacement.

It soon became evident that she favored two, at least, out of all this little masculine world--the Major myself; and a strange trio we made.

Her poor little daughter, the object of her pa.s.sionate solicitude, a very clever and precocious child, was the reverse of beautiful, although she would have had fine eyes but for her red lashless lids. She wore her thick hair cropped short, like a boy, and was pasty and sallow in complexion, hollow-cheeked, thick-featured, and overgrown, with long thin hands and feet, and arms and legs of quite pathetic length and tenuity; a silent and melancholy little girl, who sucked her thumb perpetually, and kept her own counsel. She would have to lie in bed for days together, and when she got well enough to sit up, I (to please her mother) would read to her _Le Robinson Suisse_, _Sandford and Merton_, _Evenings at Home_, _Les Contes de Madame Perrault_, the s.h.i.+pwreck from "Don Juan," of which we never tired, and the "Giaour," the "Corsair,"

and "Mazeppa"; and last, but not least, _Peter Parleys Natural History_, which we got to know by heart.

And out of this latter volume I would often declaim for her benefit what has always been to me the most beautiful poem in the world, possibly because it was the first I read for myself, or else because it is so intimately a.s.sociated with those happy days. Under an engraving of a wild duck (after Bewick, I believe) were quoted W.C. Bryant's lines "To a Water-fowl." They charmed me then and charm me now as nothing else has quite charmed me; I become a child again as I think of them, with a child's virgin subtlety of perception and magical susceptibility to vague suggestions of the Infinite.

Poor little Mimsey Seraskier would listen with distended eyes and quick comprehension. She had a strange fancy that a pair of invisible beings, "La fee Tarapatapoum," and "Le Prince Charmant" (two favorite characters of M. le Major's) were always in attendance upon us--upon her and me--and were equally fond of us both; that is, "La fee Tarapatapoum" of me, and "Le Prince Charmant" of her--and watched over us and would protect us through life.

"O! ils sont joliment bien ensemble, tous les deux--ils sont inseparables!" she would often exclaim, _apropos_ of these visionary beings; and _apropos_ of the water-fowl she would say--

"Il aime beaucoup cet oiseau-la, le Prince Charmant! dis encore, quand il vole si haut, et qu'il fait froid, et qu'il est fatigue, et que la nuit vient, mais qu'il ne veut pas descendre!"

And I would re-spout--

_"'All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night be near!'"_

And poor, morbid, precocious, overwrought Mimsey's eyes would fill, and she would meditatively suck her thumb and think unutterable things.

And then I would copy Bewick's wood-cuts for her, as she sat on the arm of my chair and patiently watched; and she would say: "La fee Tarapatapoum trouve que tu dessines dans la perfection!" and treasure up these little masterpieces--"pour l'alb.u.m de la fee Tarapatapoum!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

There was one drawing she prized above all others--a steel engraving in a volume of Byron, which represented two beautiful beings of either s.e.x, walking hand in hand through a dark cavern. The man was in sailor's garb; the lady, who went barefoot and lightly clad, held a torch; and underneath was written--

_"And Neuha led her Torquil by the hand, And waved along the vaults her flaming brand."_

I spent hours in copying it for her, and she preferred the copy to the original, and would have it that the two figures were excellent portraits of her Prince and Fairy.

Sometimes during these readings and sketchings under the apple-tree on the lawn, the sleeping Medor (a huge nondescript sort of dog, built up of every breed in France, with the virtues of all and the vices of none) would wag his three inches of tail, and utter soft whimperings of welcome in his dream; and she would say--

"C'est le Prince Charmant qui lui dit; 'Medor donne la patte!'"

Or our old tomcat would rise from his slumbers with his tail up, and rub an imaginary skirt; and it was--

"Regarde Mistigris! La fee Tarapatapoum est en train de lui frotter les oreilles!'"

We mostly spoke French, in spite of strict injunctions to the contrary from our fathers and mothers, who were much concerned lest we should forget our English altogether.

In time we made a kind of ingenious compromise; for Mimsey, who was full of resource, invented a new language, or rather two, which we called Frankingle and Inglefrank, respectively. They consisted in anglicizing French nouns and verbs and then conjugating and p.r.o.nouncing them Englishly, or _vice versa_.

For instance, it was very cold, and the school-room window was open, so she would say in Frankingle--

"Dispeach yourself to ferm the feneeter, Gogo. It geals to pier-fend! we shall be inrhumed!" or else, if I failed to immediately understand--"Gogo, il frise a splitter les stonnes--maque aste et chute le vindeau; mais chute--le donc vite! Je snize deja!" which was Inglefrank.

With this contrivance we managed to puzzle and mystify the uninitiated, English and French alike. The intelligent reader, who sees it all in print, will not be so easily taken in.

When Mimsey was well enough, she would come with my cousins and me into the park, where we always had a good time--lying in ambush for red Indians, rescuing Madge Plunket from a caitiff knight, or else hunting snakes and field-mice and lizards, and digging for lizard's eggs, which we would hatch at home--that happy refuge for all manner of beasts, as well as little boys and girls. For there were squirrels, hedgehogs, and guinea-pigs; an owl, a raven, a monkey, and white mice; little birds that had strayed from the maternal nest before they could fly (they always died!), the dog Medor, and any other dog who chose; not to mention a gigantic rocking-horse made out of a real stuffed pony--the smallest pony that had ever been!

Often our united high spirits were too boisterous for Mimsey. Dreadful headaches would come on, and she would sit in a corner, nursing a hedgehog with one arm and holding her thumb in her mouth with the other.

Only when we were alone together was she happy, and then, _moult tristement!_

On summer evenings whole parties of us, grown-up and small, would walk through the park and the Bois de Boulogne to the "Mare d'Auteuil"; as we got near enough for Medor to scent the water, he would bark and grin and gyrate, and go mad with excitement, for he had the gift of diving after stones, and liked to show it off.

There we would catch huge olive-colored water-beetles, yellow underneath; red-bellied newts; green frogs, with beautiful spots and a splendid parabolic leap; gold and silver fish, pied with purply brown. I mention them in the order of their attractiveness. The fish were too tame and easily caught, and their beauty of too civilized an order; the rare, flat, vicious dytiscus "took the cake."

Sometimes, even, we would walk through Boulogne to St. Cloud, to see the new railway and the trains--an inexhaustible subject of wonder and delight--and eat ices at the "Tete Noire" (a hotel which had been the scene of a terrible murder, that led to a cause celebre); and we would come back through the scented night, while the glowworms were s.h.i.+ning in the gra.s.s, and the distant frogs were croaking in the Mare d'Auteuil.

Now and then a startled roebuck would gallop in short bounds across the path, from thicket to thicket, and Medor would go mad again and wake the echoes of the new Paris fortification, which were still in the course of construction.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

He had not the gift of catching roebucks!

If my father were of the party, he would yodel Tyrolese melodies, and sing lovely songs of Boieldieu, Herold, and Gretry; or "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or else the "Bay of Dublin" for Madame Seraskier, who had the nostalgia of her beloved country whenever her beloved husband was away.

Or else we would break out into a jolly chorus and march to the tune--

_"Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain dans la soupe; Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain, Marie, trempe ton pain dans le vin!"_

Or else--

_"La--soupe aux choux--se fait dans la marmite; Dans--la marmite--se fait la soupe aux choux."_

which would give us all the nostalgia of supper.

Or else, again, if it were too hot to sing, or we were too tired, M. le Major, forsaking the realms of fairy-land, and uncovering his high bald head as he walked, would gravely and reverently tell us of his great master, of Brienne, of Marengo, and Austerlitz; of the farewells at Fontainebleau, and the Hundred Days--never of St. Helena; he would not trust himself to speak to us of that! And gradually working his way to Waterloo, he would put his hat on, and demonstrate to us, by A+B, how, virtually, the English had lost the day, and why and wherefore. And on all the little party a solemn, awe-struck stillness would fall as we listened, and on some of us the sweet nostalgia of bed!

Oh, the good old time!

The night was consecrated for me by the gleam and scent and rustle of Madame Seraskier's gown, as I walked by her side in the deepening dusk--a gleam of yellow, or pale blue, or white--a scent of sandalwood--a rustle that told of a light, vigorous tread on firm, narrow, high-arched feet, that were not easily tired; of an anxious, motherly wish to get back to Mimsey, who was not strong enough for these longer expeditions.

On the shorter ones I used sometimes to carry Mimsey on my back most of the way home (to please her mother)--a frail burden, with her poor, long, thin arms round my neck, and her pale, cold cheek against my ear--she weighed nothing! And when I was tired M. le Major would relieve me, but not for long. She always wanted to be carried by Gogo (for so I was called, for no reason whatever, unless it was that my name was Peter).

She would start at the pale birches that shone out against the gloom, and s.h.i.+ver if a bough sc.r.a.ped her, and tell me all about the Erl-king--"mais comme ils sont la tous les deux" (meaning the Prince and the Fairy) "il n'y a absolument rien a craindre."

And Mimsey was _si bonne camarade_, in spite of her solemnity and poor health and many pains, so grateful for small kindnesses, so appreciative of small talents, so indulgent to small vanities (of which she seemed to have no more share than her mother), and so deeply humorous in spite of her eternal gravity--for she was a real tomboy at heart--that I soon carried her, not only to please her mother, but to please herself, and would have done anything for her.

As for M. le Major, he gradually discovered that Mimsey was half a martyr and half a saint, and possessed all the virtues under the sun.

"Ah, vous ne la comprenez pas, cette enfant; vous verrez un jour quand ca ira mieux! vous verrez! elle est comme sa mere ... elle a toutes les intelligences de la tete et du coeur!" and he would wish it had pleased Heaven that he should be her grandfather--on the maternal side.

_L'art d'etre grandpere!_ This weather-beaten, war-battered old soldier had learned it, without ever having had either a son or a daughter of his own. He was a _born_ grandfather!