Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

“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