Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 5, November 1852

“But I am old.”

“More of that to you, ma’am, dear.”

“Do you wish me to be old?”

“I wish you, with all my heart and soul, to grow old,” I says, and from my heart I spoke, and she felt it; but, seeing she was melancholy, I thought to rouse her a bit. “Indeed, ma’am, I never saw you better in my life (that was true;) you’re as heavy again as you were when I first had the blessing of looking in yer sweet face, and sure your eyes are as bright as diamonds (that was a bit of a stretch,) and there’s thousands of dimples in your cheeks this minute (that was another).”

“There, there,” she says, smiling her calm smile, “you will not have me old.”

“Oh, the Holies forbid!” I said again, “it’s I that will have you old —but not yet.”

She took up wonderful after that. Sure we all like a taste of the flattery: some wish it addressed to their head – some to their heart– some to their great families, taking their pride out of blood, so thick, you could cut it with a knife – some (musheroons I call them) to their wealth – more to their beauty, which, though dead and buried to the world, is alive to them. Aunt dear, all like it: somehow, the thing to know is, when and how to give it. Well, my mistress bought a new bonnet, and such elegant caps, and altogether took a turn for the best. She was amused, too, at the notion of a little election, which I wondered at, seeing she was so timid in general.

“I’ll engage Cranley Hurst is a fine, strong house, ma’am,” I made bold to say.

“Oh, no, it’s a long, rambling, wandering sort of place, Ellen; all odd windows and odd gables – all odd and old.” So I said that I’d go bail his honor her cousin’s faction (his people, I meant) would keep off the other party at election times, when they break in, and knock every thing to bits; and I told her how my father remembered when the Kilconnel boys broke into Kilmurray-house, and the master canvassing – destroying, right and left – burning and murdering every one that was not of their way of thinking, and shouting over their ashes for liberty and freedom of election. That was the time, when knowing that more of the Kilconnel boys were forced to come over the Crag-road – where no road was ever made, only all bog – the Kilmurray men laid wait for them, and snared them into a gamekeeper’s lodge, making believe it was a whiskey-still – just a place where they had plenty of the mountain-dew – which (bad luck to it) is a wonderful strengthener of sin, and kept them there drinking and dancing until the election was over; and then, leaving the Kilconnel boys sleeping, the Kilmurray men disappeared in the night. When the poor fellows staggered out in the rising sun and found how it was, they grew very savage, and just fair and easy burnt the lodge. And may-be murderings and destructions did not grow out of that, and lawsuits – and persecutions – that made men of two attorneys, who never had cross or coin to bless themselves with before the burning of Crag-road lodge!

My mistress says they manage things more quietly here. I can’t say whether or not I’m glad of it, for I like a bit of a spree, now and then, to keep the life in me – for the English are wonderful quiet; you might as well travel with a lot of dummies, as with them: and the suspicious looks they cast on you, if you only speak civil to them, or look twice their way; the ladies rowling themselves up in shawls, in the corners of the railway carriage, and keeping their eyes fixed, as if it was a sin to be civil. I travel with my mistress, FIRST CLASS – aunt dear, let all the people know that, coming from mass, Sunday morning – so I see their ways; and the gentlemen bury their noses in a mighty perplexing sort of paper-covered book, called “Bradshaw,” or in a newspaper, which they read to themselves and keep to themselves, never offering to lend the “news” to any one, only shifting it into their pockets, as if they could get more out of it there. They scramble in and out of the carriages, without ever moving their hats, or offering to help the ladies out or in. The truth is they’re a good people; but uncommon surly, or uncommon shy. And as to that book, “Bradshaw,” I thought it must be diverting; people bought it so fast at the railway stations; and you see it sticking out of the pockets of the little scutty coats that are all the fashion, and out of the bags the ladies nurse like babies on their laps, and which they spend months of their time on, to make them look as if made of odds and ends of carpet – which, indeed, they do. I asked my mistress if she would not like to have “Bradshaw,” it must be such pleasant reading. So, with the same quiet smile with which she does every thing, she bought it, and gave it to me, saying:

“There it is, Ellen; I hope you may understand it.”

I was a little hurt, and made answer —

“Thank you kindly, ma’am: nothing puzzles me upon the print but foreign languages or, may-be, Latin.” And as we were going down to Cranley Hurst, I fixed my mistress in the first class, and myself opposite her, with a rale carpet-bag on my lap, and my “Bradshaw” in my hand.

“You may read if you like, Ellen,” said my mistress, the smile twinkling in her eyes (I’m sure her eyes were mighty soft and sly when she was young.)

“Thank you, ma’am,” I answered; “one of my mother’s second cousins married a ‘Bradshaw,’ and may-be I’d find something about his family here.” A gentleman stared at me over his “Bradshaw,” and a mighty pert little old lady, who was reading her “Bradshaw,” let down her glass and asked me when I left Ireland. [Aunt dear, how did she know I was Irish?] I looked and looked at one page – and then at another – leaf after leaf – it was about trains, and going and coming – and figures in, and figures out – all marked, and crossed, and starred – up trains, down trains, and Sunday trains – without a bit of sense.

“When will our train arrive at Cranley station?” asked my lady, after I had been going across, and along, and about, and over “Bradshaw” for an hour or two – I was so bothered, I could not tell which.

“It was written as a penance for poor traveling sinners,” I answered in a whisper, for I did not want to let on I couldn’t understand it: she did not hear me, and asked the question again.

“I can read both running-hand and print, ma’am,” I said; “but none of my family had a turn for figures, and this looks mighty like what my brother got a prize for – they called it by the name of all-gib-raa.”

My mistress sometimes looks very provoking – and that’s the truth – I can hardly think her the same at one time that she is at another.

The little pert lady thrust her “Bradshaw” into her bag, and snapt the clasp – then turning round to the gentleman, she snapt him – “Do you understand Bradshaw, sir?”

“Noa,” he drawled out, “not exactly – I heard of a gentleman once who did, but im-me-diate-ly after he became insane!”

I shut the book – oh aunt, I would not be that, you know, for all the books that ever were shut and opened. What should I do without my senses?

Of all the ancient places you ever heard tell of, Cranley Hurst is the quarest I ever saw. When you think you are at the far end of the building, it begins again – rooms upon rooms – shut up for ages – and passages leading to nothing, and nothing leading to passages – and a broad terrace looking over such a beautiful bog, and a pathway under the terrace to Cranley-marsh (that’s English for bog.) I often go that path, thinking of the waste lands of my own poor country. Oh, aunt, to see the great innocent frogs, the very moral[7 - “Picture” – “model.”] of the Irish ones, and lizards, turning and wriggling among the bullrushes; and between the floating islands of green, plashy weeds, that veil the deep pools, you see fish floating round the great gray stones, which, my mistress says, the Romans flung into Cranley-marsh to make a bridge. You should hear my mistress talk of it – she has such fine English.

“Although it’s a flat,” she says, “I like it better than any mountain I ever saw. Such a combination of rich color – such orchis – such shades and masses of iris – such floats of rush-cotton – such banks of forget-me-nots – such ferns – and, in the spring, such piles of golden blossoming furze: the peat, so dark and intense, forms a rich contrast to the vegetation; and the ‘Roman stones,’ piled here and there into low pyramids, have a gray, solemn effect, and afford shelter to numerous migratory birds, who feed abundantly upon the insects that hover, like metallic vapors, over the deepest pools.” Them were her very words.

The reception, I must tell you, we got at Cranley Hurst, seemed to me mighty cool – I felt my mistress tremble as she leaned on me; but there was neither master nor mistress at the door to welcome her. The servants were there, to be sure, to carry the things to her room; but she paused in the long, low hall, that was furnished like a parlor, to look at one picture, then at another; and while she stood before one of a very dark, sorrowful lady – a little pale, wizen’d woman stole out of a room in the distance, and shading her eyes with one hand, while she leaned with the other on a cross-headed stick, she crept, rather than walked, toward my mistress. Her arms were only little bones, wrapt in shriveled skin, and deep ruffles fell from her elbows. She was more of a shadow than a substance – so very small – so over and above little – that if I had seen her at the Well of Sweet Waters on Midsummer-eve, I would have crossed myself, knowing she was one of the good people. She would have been a fair go-by-the-ground, but for her high-heeled shoes; and, daylight as it was, I did not like the looks of her. The nearer she came, the more wild and bright her eyes glistened; and the lace borders of her cap flew back from her small sallow features. Though I could not help watching the withered woman, I tried to go close to my mistress; but when I made the least motion, she waved her stick, and her eyes flashed so, that I was rooted to the floor at once. She stole over the floor, and the silence was increased by her presence. Aunt, dear, you know I hate silence; and this hung like a weight on my heart, and gathered over us like clouds – suffocating. At last she came close to me; the border of her cap flapped against my hand, but, to save my life, I could not move. Her eyes were on me; they were everywhere at once. She crept round to my mistress, rested her hands on the cross of her stick, and stared at her; her eyes flashing, not like soft summer lightning, but like what we once watched darting into the very heart of the fine ould tower of Castle Connel.

When my lady looked down from the picture, she saw the withered woman.

“Old Maud!” she cried. And, oh! what sorrow there was in them two words!

“The soul outlives the body,” said the woman, in a crackling voice – not loud – but sharp and dry, “and the voice outlives the beauty. They said the fair Cicely Cranley was coming, and I laughed at them. No; they said Mrs. Bingham was coming – that was it – and I said it must be Miss Cicely; for Mistress Bingham had never entered the door of Cranley Hurst since she broke faith with her cousin.”

“Hush, Maud!” said my poor mistress, turning from the witch, who faced round, and would look at her; “there – keep back. Ellen, keep her back – her mind is gone.”

“But not her memory,” screamed the hag, striking her stick upon the floor. “I mind the open window – and the ropy ladder – and my young master’s misery when the hawk ’ticed away the dove that was to be his bride – his own first cousin.”

“It was too near, Maud.”

“No; the Cranleys married in and out – in and out – and what brings you now? withered and shriveled like myself, with only the voice! – nothing but the voice! More worn – and old – and gray – than himself – a lean old man! You called me ‘Ugly Maud’ once; what are you now? Augh!”

She threw down her stick, and began waving her bony arms, and sailing round my poor mistress, in a sort of mock dance. I stepped in between them, to keep her eyes off my lady; but she dodged between us, mocking, and saying cruel words, and looking, just as a curse would look, if it had a body. All of a sudden, a hard, firm step came up the hall: I knew it was the master of Cranley Hurst. The little hag paused, pointed to me to pick up her stick, which, like a fool, I did. Stepping back, she curtsied reverently to my lady, her little pinched face changing into something human; then, going to meet the master, “I came to give the fair Miss Cicely welcome,” she said, “but I could not find her: that old lady stole her voice! She Miss Cicely!”

The master struck something which hung in the hall; they call it a gong: the air and house shook again at the deep, loud noise, and from half a dozen doors servants rushed in.

“Can none of you take care of Maud?” he said. “She is insane, now – quite. Keep her away from this end of the house.”

“I only came to look for Miss Cicely: I found a voice – SHE stole a voice!” said the old creature; and she continued talking and screaming until the doors were shut, the echo of the alarum being like the whisperings of spirits around the walls. I wished myself anywhere away, and I did not know where to go; the house was all strange to me; the cousins seemed afraid to look at each other. My mistress drew down her veil, and extended her hand; hard as it is – thin and worn – the master kissed it as fondly as if it had been the hand of a fresh fair girl of eighteen. Aunt dear, it was as strange a meeting as ever was put in a book – those two aged people – one who had loved, the other who had taken her own will; and small blame to her, aunt. Sure it was better for her to run off at the last moment, than take a false oath at God’s altar.

I shall never forget the look of downright, upright love that shone in the master’s face, as they stood like two monuments forenint[8 - Opposite.] each other. I don’t know when they’d have left off or moved, if the sister-in-law, Mrs. James Cranley, had not flung into the hall, followed by her maid, with a clothes-basket, full of printed papers and sealed letters, and a footman running on with a big tea-tray, covered with the same sort of combustables. She came in speaking; and one word was so hot foot after the other, that it was out of the question to know what she meant.

She was a tight-made little lady – nor young, nor old – without a cap (though it would be only manners to ask after it) mighty tight, and terrible active – spinning round like a top, and darting off like a swallow; her head looked like a pretty tiger’s – fierce and keen: she seemed ready to pounce on any thing – living or dead; no creature could be easy, or quiet, or comfortable, or contented in the same room with her. I saw that in a minute, and thought she’d be the death of my poor lady.

As soon as she saw her and the master standing the way I told you of, sure enough she sprung on her: you would have thought they had lain in the same cradle, to see the delight of her: she pulled up her veil, and kissed her on both cheeks.

“You dear creature!” she exclaimed. “Now, I know I shall have your sympathy – your help – your experience. Now, don’t interrupt me, Cousin Francis (the poor gentleman was looking dull and stupid) don’t interrupt me – don’t tell me of difficulty,” she said. “I should think no one in the county has forgotten how triumphantly I carried the question of the green pinafores in the very teeth of the rector and the churchwardens: the children wear them to this very day. I’ll organize an opposition such as no power can withstand. I’ll neither give nor take rest;” (I believed that,) “and if Lady Lockington’s candidate should be returned, in violation of every constitutional right, I’ll petition the house.” She waved her hand round like the sails of a wind-mill. I never saw a prettier little hand, nor one that had a more resolute way with it.

“Gently, my good sister, gently,” said the master; but Mrs. James did not hear him. She pressed my lady into a chair, commanded her maid, with a fine French name, to lay down the basket, and said that she longed for sympathy quite as much as for assistance. “Active as I have been, and am,” she said, “it would delight me to turn over a few of my duties to your care. In town, it is worse – absolutely worse! Remember my committees —seven of a morning! Remember the public meetings – the bazaars, which could not go on without me – the Shanghai Commission – the petitions of the women of England – the concerts – the Attic Improvement Society! – duties of such public importance, that I have not spent an hour in my own house for weeks together; never seen your master’s face except beneath the shadow of a night-cap.” [Aunt, dear! I thought she was a widdy woman until that blessed minute, never hearing tell of her husband.] “Then the college committees for the education of young females, prevent my having time to inquire how my own daughter’s education progresses; and the ”Pap and Cradle Institute“ occupied so much of my attention, that my charming Edward will never get over the effects of that horrid small-pox, all through the carelessness of his nurse – dreadful creature! No, no; there is no repose for me, sweet cousin.” All this time she was tossing over the letters, like one mad, and my mistress shrinking away farther and farther from her. “Is it possible,” she exclaimed at last, “you take no interest in these things?”

The master said that his cousin was fatigued.

“Well, well! it is just possible,” said the lady; “but positively, before she goes to her room, I must interest her in my LITTLE ELECTION.”

At night, when I went up to attend upon my mistress, I told her I did not see any sign of what I should call an election, either in the house, or out of the house, though every living creature was tearing and working away for the dear life, at they could hardly tell what, and not a bit of dinner until half-past eight at night, when Christians ought to be half-way in their beds. Now, my poor lady always had her dinner at two, and yet what did you think she said to me? why – “eight is the fashionable hour!” But she was not herself, for she never troubled about what she’d put on next morning, only sat there like a statue; and when at last I coaxed her to go to bed, she laid awake, keeping down the sobs that rose from her very heart. Sure the quality has quare ways, and quare thoughts! And just as she fell into that sweet sleep which is as soft as swan’s-down, and as refreshing as the flowers in May, before the young birds call for food, or the sun looks upon the earth – that little whirligig of a lady came spinning into the room, as alive and as brisk as if no mortal ever needed sleep. “Whisht!” I says, stopping her frisking. “Whisht! if you plaze, whisht!” The start she took! and asked me what language “whisht” was; and, seeing it diverted her, I drew back to the door, and out on the landing, saying all the “Avourneens” and “Grama-chrees” and real Irish words I could think of, to take her off my mistress. So she called me a “dear creature,” and declared I would be quite attractive at her little election, if she might dress me up as a wild Irishwoman, and if I really would make myself useful. I was glad to get her out of my lady’s room, so that she might rest, but I had no notion of making a fool of myself for all the elections upon the face of the earth – I know my place better than that – I leave that to my superiors. Well, if the house was in a state of disturbance that day, what was it the next? Nothing but making cockades of blue glazed calico and of ribband, and turning her blue silk dresses into flags; and open house – all trying to waste and destroy the most they could; and such sending off dispatches, here, there, and every where; and such baskets-full of letters. Oh, then, surely the post-office should pray for an election as hard as ever it prayed for Valentine’s-day. I lost sight of my poor dear mistress that day, for as good as five hours, for the Honorable Mrs. James Cranley locked me and three others into a loft, making them cockades; and to be sure I did work. And I told one of the girls, when we were fairly come to the end, that I would not have worked as I did, and out of the sight of my poor lady, only for the honor of working for a member of parliament; and to hear the laugh was raised against me. “Why,” said Mrs. James’s English maid, “it’s not a parliament election at all, but an election for the master and mistress of a sort of a charity, called Cranley Hurst College, where children of some particular class are fed, and all that; and I believe some of the country gentry say they ought to nominate the master and mistress; but the Honorable Mrs. James has persuaded the Honorable Mr. Francis that the Cranleys should do it; and the people in the little town said it was neither the gentry, nor the Cranley family, but that every householder had a vote! and that one man’s vote was as good as another’s! and had that printed in the country paper.” And then the lawyers smelt it out, and gathered like crows in a corn-field, trying to strike war between neighbours – which is their custom – and, indeed, poor things, their bread, which must be very uncomfortable food for them, if they have any consciences – which I never heard tell they had; and there seemed but little doubt, if the Cranleys stood to their rights, there would be a lawsuit, and no election till that was over. This drove the Honorable Mrs. James mad: she said if once it got into law, none of them could ever expect to live to see an election at all; and, as I understood, settled it so that each named a candidate, and canvassed for votes. The Honorable Mrs. James wanted to get in one Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw (I wonder had they any call to the book); and they were decent people – bred, born, and reared in the Cranley family – and to be sure, Mrs. James beat Bannagher at canvassing! She was hand and glove with every one that had the least call in life to a vote; she kissed every child in the village; she promised every thing that everybody wanted; she promised Mr. Skeggs his eyesight, and an ould Mrs. Bland the use of her limbs; she danced in a hay-field, and sang Italian songs to those who never heard a word of the language before. Dear! Oh, dear! I could not help thinking how she was wasting her vitals – doing no real good for man or beast! Oh, if my poor mistress had but half her strength, what a woman she would be! And it was sore to see the downright black lies and falsities they all told of each other. There was some grand point of dispute about the weight of a loaf: at one time, one party had held with a mistress of the Cranley charity, that so much bread was enough for each child; and the other set said; “No; so much.” This was a grand quarrel. But those who would have voted for the small bread gave in, and owed they were wrong, and agreed to the large weight; but this made no differ, the others cried against them all the same, and paraded the country with a lump of bread pinched in, to make it look less, and decked it out on the top of its pole with black ribbands, and called it “The Cranley Hurst Starvation Loaf for Poor Children.” Well, I was fairly bothered amongst them; and every time the Honorable Mrs. James came across me – full or fasting, in public or in private – she would make me go over my Irish, and smile, and say – turning to ladies or gentlemen, no matter which, until I was shamed out of my very life – “Now, is not she delicious? Will she not make a sensation? She will carry all before her!”

I’d have given the world for a clear head, just to think about my mistress, and the Honorable Mr. Francis, and that horrid old Maud, who ought to be burnt for a witch, as she is. My mistress was obliged to get her own bonnet and shawl; and indeed, when she went out, she had not strength to come in, only that the Honorable Mr. Francis helped her. At last the day came: I had been up stairs to my lady, and found she had gone down stairs to breakfast! – there was a wonder! – and returning through the back hall, I saw two such pretty looking children, all in rags, not real natural rags, such as we see (I am sure I ought to know what rags are,) but nice, pretty, clean, pink gingham frocks, with pieces cut out of them on purpose – torn down here, and looped up there – and their clean, pretty white legs and feet quite bare, and their dear little, sweet, fat, fubsy hands filled with artificial flowers, poppies, and ears of corn. Well, aunt, you know how I doat on children; so as I just stooped down to kiss them, as I used poor Tom’s, and it seemed so natural to say to the youngest, who was hardly bigger than a Clonmel turf – “O! lanna machree was you, every bit of you” – when I heard a scream of delight from the Honorable Mrs. James: it was like the skirle of a paycock.

“You dear creature!” she shouted, “to get up such a delicious rehearsal; the very thing I wanted. Your dress is quite ready; Clotilde shall dress you. You must talk Irish unceasingly, it will prove the extensive charity we propose – that we mean to take in even the Irish. It is a bold stroke, but this is the period for bold strokes.” And so she talked and hustled me into a room, and the children with me; and before I could turn round (I had not had a bit of breakfast that day, and was starving alive with the hunger) she had my cap off, and my hair down about my shoulders, and my gown off, and a bran new bright scarlet petticoat, that (saving your presence) was half a mile too short, cut into a scollop here, and a scollop there, and a bright blue patch tacked on it here, and a green one there; and the body of a gown that did not half fit, in the same style, with folds of white muslin for shift-sleeves; and a bran new blue cloak, with such a beautiful pink bow in the back of the hood, and – the wickedness of her – to tare two or three slits in that. I was so bothered entirely, that I could not speak; and then the maid tossicated my hair, and stuck a bunch of shamroques over my ear, and placed one of the children in my arms (the grawleen of a thing got hers about my neck in a minute;) and every now and then the Honorable Mrs. James would stop and clap her hands, and talk that outlandish gibberish to her maid.

“And what is it all for, my lady?” I asked, when the breath returned to my body, and the courage to my heart. “Now that you are done with me, I’d like to go back to myself, if you plaze, for I never did join the mummers in my own country, and I don’t like it, my lady.”

“But you must like it!” she exclaimed, “you must like it – you are to be an Irish beggar-woman.”

“None of my breed was ever that ma’am.” I said, feeling as if a bolt of ice had run through my heart; but she never heeded me.

“And those are to be your children!”