Old Maids and Young

Front matter

UNIFORM WITH THIS WORK. From the Memoirs of a Minister of France. By Stanley Weyman. The Impregnable City. By Max Pemberton. The Sea Wolves. By Max Pemberton. The Adventures of Captain Ho.n. By Frank Stockton. The White Shield. By Bertram Mitford. Old Maids and Young. By E. D'Esterre Keeling. Tuxter's Little Maid. By G. B. Burgin. The Hispaniola Plate (1683-1893). By John Bloundelle-Burton. A Free Lance in a Far Land. By Herbert Compton. The Highway ol Sorrow. By Hesba Stretton and ******** a Famous Russian Exile. The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane. By Frank Barrett. Tiny Luttrell. By E. W. Hornung. List, ye Landsmen ! By W. Clark Russell. A Prison Princess. By Major Arthur Griffiths. The Squire. By Mrs. Parr. The Little Minister. By J. M. Barrie. Kidnapped. By R. L. Stevenson. Catriona : A Sequel to " Kidnapped."

By R. L. Stevenson. Island Nights' Entertainments. By Robert Louis Stevenson. The Wrecker. By R. L. Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne. The New Ohio : a Story of East and West. By Edward E. Hale. Sybil Knox, or Home Again. By Edward E. Hale. The Story of Francis Cludde. By Stanley J. Weyman. CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, London; Paris & Melbourne. 35—9-95 UY Elsa D'Esterre/Keeling AUTHOR OF "THREE SISTERS," "IN THOUGHTLAND AND IN DREAMLAND," " ORCIIARDSCROFT," ETC. CASSELL and COMPANY, Limited LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE 1895 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Co MAUD IS LEAT-SA AN LEABAIRIN SEO, A MUIRNIN '. v CONTENTS fart I, CHIEFLY ABOUT ROTHA. CHAPTER PAGE I. — " Pray you, tread softly!" i II.— An Orphan 5 III.— First Steps in Education . . . . • . .13 IV.— "Je t'Aime" 25 V. — "Quick to Forget" 29 VI.— Parting from Nurse Barre 35 VII.— After Emigration to the Villa Eugenie . . 39 VIII.— Sons of Gentlemen 42 IX.— Three Little Girls 5° X.— "Oh, this Learning, what a Thing it is ! ' . . 55 XI. -Some Emotions 60 XII.— Talk.

Two Boys 71 XIII.— Rotha Reads her Father's Letters ... 78 XIV.— Mrs. Archdale hopes that Rotha has not been Naughty 8S XV— Mrs. Archdale Receives Rotha's Thanks . . 89 XVI.— Rotha Leaves Marseilles, and Rowan Dons Stockings 93 XVII.— Miss Onora Warwick, Bookseller .... 97 XVIII.— Miss Mariabella, Buff, and Tops 106 XIX.— Letters on the Breakfast Table . . . .116 XX. -Arrival of "the Fleetwood Child" . . .125 XXI.— The Subject of the Shop is Broached by Rotha 131 XXII.— A Meeting *34 XXIII.— Miss Onora Visits Colonel Fleetwood . . .139 Contents. VI CHAPTER PAGE XXIV.— Rotha Strips the Tree of Knowledge . . .142 XXV.— Miss Onora and Miss Mariabella Sit in Conclave 149 XXVI.— Rotha Returns from Cambridge . . . . 153 XXVII. — Among Chrysanthemums 157 XXVIII.— A Peace-Making 160 fart II. CHIEFLY ABOUT ROTHA'S FRIENDS.

Chapter I

" PRAY YOU, TREAD SOFTLY, /^VN the cross at her head they put the words POPPY, OUR LITTLE ONE. Pray you, tread softly. At her feet and head they planted poppies. They had called her "Poppy" when she lived, because she had loved poppies better than all flowers, and the name had excellently fitted the little lovely thing, with her lips like red flowers, and her brow like white flowers, poppy-flowers, purer red and milkier white than others. It seemed scarcely any wonder that she should die so young — all flowers die so young — but Rowan could not away with it. Rowan went down the stairs with the tears like great raindrops falling from his face upon his feet, plashing on to his shoes and making dull spots on them. He did not attempt to dry them away. At the stair foot he sat down and cried on, the tears running down his cheeks in channels, and down his neck.

His face as he wept B was lifted up, for any and all to see, for his sorrow was a child's sorrow, without shame. After a while two women came and knelt, one on either side of him " It's naught)-, Rowan," one of them whispered gently, "to cry like this." The boy gulped ; then spoke. It was his habit to defend his actions to these women. " 'Tisn' naughty when persons isn' naughty but ver' mis'rable ! " Rowan always spoke of humanity in the aggregate as "persons," and had a way of clipping his words that rendered his speech peculiar. She who had spoken continued : " Your sister, my dear little boy, has gone to God's beautiful heaven, to be happy with Him and the angels. You should be happy too." "/ havn' gone to God's beautiful heaven," came the very human answer from the mourner aged six ; " I'm les' with no one."

" With no one ? Why, Rowan, you've got your dear kind mother and dear kind aunt to be to you all that Poppy was." Rowan was silent. When adults adopt this strain they make further conversation impossible. The little boy had never heard of the proverb which lays down that self-praise counts for nothing, and was accustomed to hear his mother call herself his dear kind mother, and his aunt call herself his dear kind aunt. They were women and wise, of course, but some things seemed beyond their grasping. At the present moment it was evident that they failed to see that they were much too big to be put in the place left empty in his world by the loss of four-year-old Poppy. Fancy this dear kind mother and dear kind aunt being A Mourner. 3 wheeled by Rowan round the garden in a little wheel barrow that was big enough to hold Poppy !

Or fancy his crawling on all-fours over the lawn in front of the house, with on his back his dear kind mother and dear kind aunt in place of Poppy ! You cannot. Yet the deluded Brobdingnags recommended them selves as capable of being all to him that Poppy had been — Poppy, his playmate. Boy Rowan, with the good brain which has ever belonged rather to the dwarfs than to the giants, felt to the full the absurd impossibility of the thing ; but from sweet politeness or from heartweariness, or from his limited stock of words, or from a philosophic cui bono feeling, remained silent, blind with tears, only turning from time to time his small head from side to side, as if uneasy or in pain. She who had not spoken noticed the gesture, unfastened the child's stiff collar, and began mopping the wet, chafed throat, then kissed the little bared neck.

" Don't you think, mother's sweetheart, you could stop crying for a while?" " Poss certain I couldn't," Rowan answered, using one of the mangled adverbs which he appeared to think strengthened his affirmations, and with the tears that he could not check still pouring down his poor, flushed face. After a time the tears ceased to flow, and the child lay back in his mother's arms with only a film in his eyes. Then the lids closed, and Rowan slept. A gentleman descended the stairs, paused, and looked attentively at the sleeping child. " That little boy should be taken away out of this." " Where, doctor ? " " Anywhere. Where is Captain Archdale ? " B " He is on his way to Marseilles at present. I have no news concerning his health, doctor, but you said that the sea journey would save him." " Pardon me, Mrs. Archdale, I said " Oh, doctor, let me hope."

" Assuredly ; I have hopes myself. On what day do you expect him to touch France ? " ;' On Monday." :< Good. Go and join him with the child. My dear doctor ! " My dear Mrs. Archdale ! Can you not see that that little child will cry himself into a sickness if you keep him here ? Go on a journey with him, and he will be all right before you have crossed the Channel." " You don't know Rowan.' " Excuse me, I do. Can you spare me a few minutes, Miss Webster ? " The doctor turned to Mrs. Archdale's sister. The upshot of the few minutes' talk was, that two days later Miss Webster was seeing off her sister and the child Rowan at Victoria Station. Miss Webster was an old maid pure and simple. A friend of the present writer once said to a spinster that there would never have been an old maid but for the Fall.

The spinster wittily replied that there would never have been the Fall but for a married woman. That was a very pretty quarrel as it stood. Certain it is that in a world across which sorrow had fallen, old maids were needed. Miss Webster, having watched the train steam out of the station with her sister and sister's child, went back to the lonely house and wept for little dead Poppy.

Chapter II. An Orphan

ABOUT a month prior to Mrs. Archdale's arriving in Marseilles and taking up her abode at the house of Nurse Barre, there had arrived there an English clergyman on his way to England from Greece, where he had lost his wife. The Reverend George Fleet wood, having resolved to make a short stay at the French port with the daughter who was travelling with him, had chosen the house of Nurse Barre for a resting-place. Nurse Barre had been trained in no hospital, and knew as little as any of her neighbours knew about sick-tending as a science. In her young days, which had merged into the dim past at the time here under consideration, she had been nurse to little children and from them had received the name by which she is here called. She was a spinster of that age at which spinsters like to pass for matrons.

It may be thirty, or it may be fifty. With her it was fifty. She wore on the third finger of her left hand a thin ring which had been her mother's, and on the brass-plate laid against her house-door was inscribed " Mrs. Barre." Some people called her Mrs. Barre, but by most she was called " Nurse " Barre, and this was the name she liked best, for there is the fine mysterious ness about the title "Nurse" that there is — well, about the title " Mr." Nurse Barre was famous in Marseilles. Her house was one of the many which bore the inscription " English spoken here," and was one of the few bearing that inscription in which English really was spoken. The right sort of English, too ; not foreign English, but home English, and homely English ; English regardless of grammar and style, Kersey- English.

Nurse Barre had not learned to conjugate " lie " as a separate verb from " lay." She said " s'runken " for " shrunken," and said " gewse " and " portmantle," and said " vawses " and " Febuary," and " will you set down ? " She maintained that she knew she was lacking in what the French call bone tone. In that she was wrong, for her tone was ex cellent. What she lacked was academical knowledge. She was not that anomalous thing, a lady of culture reduced to be lodging-letter, but was what is called a plain soul by persons who rightly regard themselves as elaborated souls. She was infinitely pleasant in her simplicity, and the mere sight of her set one thinking of white pure linen, and soft large blankets, and hot tea, and floury potatoes, and English basins and jugs, and water, heaps of water, and quiet, kind attention, and the courtesy of "ma'am" and "sir." And all these things were really to be met with at the house of Nurse Barre.

She piqued herself, moreover, on her English kitchen, and boasted, with justice, that she was none of your potty food cooks (by potty food she meant pot-au-feu), and was for none of your French menews. She was a real English housekeeper, and one with those generous hands which tell you that they do not butter bread " thin." The thing had got bruited about. It was known at the docks, and known at the British Consulate ; it was known by the British chaplain ; every English resident in Marseilles knew of it, and all who came to Marseilles heard of it. There was always a raid Fa therless. 7 being made on Nurse Barre's house, and in this way she had come to pick and choose her lodgers. The Reverend George Fleetwood was given rooms partly because of his being " the Reverend," partly because Nurse Barre had known and been deeply attached to his wife.

Mrs. Archdale was given rooms chiefly because Rowan Archdale said at the outset of their interview, " Poss certain I shall like being here," addressing the remark to Nurse Barre, who, with all her fifty years, not proof against blandishments like this, forthwith declared that the rooms were at the disposal of the young gentleman and his mother ; and that what she could do to make them comfort able and happy she would do. The rooms taken by Mrs. Archdale were those which had been before occupied by the Reverend George Fleetwood and his daughter, only the latter of whom now lived with Nurse Barre. What had happened to bring this about was, briefly, as follows : On the eve of the day fixed for the departure of the clergyman and his child, the little girl had brought an intimation to Nurse Barre which she had worded as follows : " My papa has died, Nurse Barre ; just like my mamma."

This was said in a voice of bell-like clearness, and neither flush nor pallor altered the curiously calm face of the little girl. Only one of two constructions could be put on her words, or, rather, on her manner of saying them — either she was wholly without feeling, or to her large and lovely faith "died "was simply one with ascended into heaven. On recalling the incident later, Nurse Barre accounted for it in the more charitable way. At the actual time she was too completely taken aback to reflect on it, and with an exclamation of dismay she caught the child's hand, and hastily left the room with her. There was no mistake. The Reverend George Fleetwood was dead. He was a handsome, singularly stern-faced man. Death had accentuated the beauty while modifying the sternness of his face. He was lying on a couch, and a book lay upon his breast.

Nurse Barre took it, and having bent the page at which he had been reading from it, closed it. Four days later, she took the little girl to her father's grave, to lay flowers on it. When they returned home she lifted the child upon her lap, and said, Do you know what you are now, Miss Rotha ? " No, Nurse Barre." " You are an orphing." Is that the same as an orphan ? " " Just the very same." The little girl's face had been gravely polite, and Nurse Barre's face betrayed no embarrassment. " Now it's a very serious thing to be that, Miss Rotha," she continued, "and a grave dooty lies with me. I must ask you some questions. When were you born, my dear ? " " I can't remember that time, Nurse Barre." " No, miss, of course you can't " — a quick smile lit up Nurse Barre's eyes, while the little face lifted to hers remained very earnest — " but you can tell how old you are, and what your birthday is, and when you had one last."

" Yes, I can do that. I am seven years old, and— may I count on my fingers ? " " God bless me, yes ! " Nurse Barre looked surprised. Rotha placed the forefinger of her right hand to Question and Answer. 9 the thumb of her left, and counted on the white, small fingers. " There was Tuesday, which was my birthday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday, and Monday, and Tuesday — the one which wasn't my birthday — and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday, which is to-day ; that makes seven years and ten days, doesn't it ? " " Yes, miss. Now with a bit of blacklead and an envelope, I could tell you in a minute what your birthday is, and in what year you were born." " Could you really ? " Rotha, it was evident, was greatly impressed. She bent forward as Nurse Barre began to operate with pencil and paper.

" Please let me see you do it." Nurse Barre did it. " Now, my dear little lady, that's written down ; and nex' I want you to try and remember if you've any nex' of kin." It is pleasant to impress ; Nurse Barre was made of frail humanity, and was showing off a little. She was not surprised when Rotha asked — " What are necks of kin ? " " R'lations, miss. It's the word they use in law. Did you ever hear of your havin' a gran'pa ? " No. " Or a gran'ma?" " No." " Or an uncle ? " " No." " Or an auntie? "* " No." " Think hard every time you answer, miss. I know as your dear ma had no kinsfolk, for I've heard her say so times and again, poor dear young lady! but your pa must ha' belonged to people. Can't you call to mind any uncle who ever sent you a box of sweeties? Did you never get a dolly from an auntie ?

" " No," came still the answer in the sweet, clear voice. Nurse Barre sighed, then said " Well, your papa had friends, anyhow. > Every gentleman has friends. Now don't you think, Miss Rotha, that there's one of them that he may have appointed to be your gardeen, in case that he should die suddent, as he's done ? " " What is a ' gardeen ' ? " Rotha asked, perplexed. " Gardeen's the name of a person who takes the place of a parent, and does what's best for the child." " Then that's what you are, Nurse Barre." The young grave eyes met the old grave eyes. Nurse Barre battled with tears. " As well talk to a winged angel as to you, miss. There's no more o' the sense o' this world in you than there was in your dear ma, who was that lifted up with goodness that she was hardly mortal. Tell me now what I am to do.

There are all your pa's papers in that seketary. Shall I read 'em ? " " No — papa would not have liked that." "Just my own ideer. It don't seem to me as I've any right to pry into 'em. You must read 'em, Miss Rotha, when you get sense." " When I'm grown up ? " " Before that, miss. My proposal is that your pa's papers shall be all locked up until you're a young lady aged twelve. You'll have a lot o' sense by that time, bein' the quiet sort, and then you shall read 'em and take steps according. Till then you shall stav Rotha's New Home. 11 with me here, me not presooming any ways, but always your servant, miss, and you the young lady." " Yes, Nurse Barre. May I go on reading my book, Nurse Barre ? " " Lord save us, yes ! " Nurse Barre rose, colouring slightly, and the little girl took her book, and was soon lost in it.

Nurse Barre had offered half her dukedom, and this was all the thanks she had won. Rotha had listened to her with grave courtesy, and had assented to her proposal without a trace of emotion. She was now curled up in a big chair, reading. The sun had caught her hair and made a nimbus about her head. The little quiet face wore a rapt look. Nurse Barre stole peeps at her, then betook herself to the kitchen, leaving the child in possession of the sitting-room. After a time quiet eyes were lifted, and the owner of them made a survey of her surroundings. She was in a low, good-sized room, ill-furnished. The bow window was scantily curtained with thick white muslin, looped back with old gold silk ; short muslin blinds with many darns in them completed the window-drapery. Six horsehair chairs were ranged in rows of three against the walls.

Besides the leathern fauteuil in which the child sat, there was a capacious horsehair sofa. A bit of pretty colour came from a green-covered table in the window-light ; another table, in gloom, was covered with red cloth. For use was a small cabinet, having on it a jug of water and glasses ; for ornament a square piano, oblong, as square pianos always are, locked and covered with books and fancy boxes. The floor was carpeted, though only partially, with Kidderminster that had seen better days. A woollen rug, some oilcloth and some floor-paint hid from sight such bare wood as the Kidderminster was too scant to cover. The pictures, like the chairs, were six in number, and consisted of five pretty bran-new oleographs and a quaint, antique print representing Peace, in the like ness of a lady with a pleasant preponderance of green in her dress, and having an olive-branch in one hand and a spade in the other.

At one side of her lay cows and sheep ; at the other side stood a Gargantuan dove, considerably larger than any of the sheep, and not much smaller than the cows. A curly sea stretched away in the background. On this picture the child's eyes rested long ; then they strayed to the mantelpiece, over which was a large, dull, brass-framed mirror, swathed in paper-lace, and only faintly reflect ing the mantel-ornaments before it, a case of stuffed birds, flanked by two tall vases, filled with fluffy, dark grass. The little girl took it all in, then shut her eyes, and turned her face to the chair-back. An hour later she was lifted from the chair, sleeping. Life was going a little heavily with her— no mother, no father, no home ; this very strange room, and that very strange person, Nurse Barre. Thinking of it made her tired — she was only seven years old — and she fell asleep, with her warm face to the cold leather.

Chapter III. First Steps In Education

Nurse Barre, having undertaken the charge of the Reverend George Fleetwood's daughter, was resolved to give her not only a home, but also, as she put it, an education which should fit her for the drawing room. The amount of head-work, which, with this aim in view, she insisted on Rotha's doing daily was very considerable. It will here suffice to describe that done on the day upon which Mrs. Archdale arrived in Marseilles, and, by taking the room left unoccupied by the death of the little girl's father, worked a great change in her fate. It was seven o'clock in the morning, the breakfast-table was cleared, and Nurse Barre was " washing-up." With a dripping cup in her hand she turned to the child — " Make haste now, Miss Rotha. Tempest fugit, as your dear pa used to say. Take your books at once and begin the learning.

First stand with your Bible over there," pointing to the end of the room, " and read very serious." The little girl stood against the wall, and read in a clear, beautiful voice : " Deut'romony, ecks — eye — vee." " That's fourteen, Miss Rotha," exclaimed Nurse Barre, as she pulled a towel through the handle of the cup. The child went on : " What may be eaten and what not setra." " That don't seem to make no kind of sense, miss. i4 Old Maids and Young. It's in the book, Nurse Barre." " Let me see." Nurse Barre took up a handful of spoons, not to be idle on the way, and, rubbing them, crossed the room. She looked into the book. " What may be eaten, and what not, etc." "Yes. So it is. That's pronounced ' setterer.' Go on, miss. Rotha went on : " Ye are the children of the Lord your God. Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. — What does that mean, Nurse Barre ?

" "You're reading Holy Writ, Miss Rotha. Ask no questions." Nurse Barre got a little red, and dropt a spoon. She stooped and picked it up. The little girl's face did not change. She read on in her bell-like voice : "For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself above all the nations that are upon the earth. . . ." " Now stop a minute, Miss Rotha, you go on so quickly. I want to tell you, miss — that means before everyone!' The little girl listened with grave politeness to this elucidation of the very lucid, and continued : " Thou shalt not eat any abom'able thing. These are llie things which ye shall eat : the ox, the sheep, and the goat, the hart, and the roebuck, and the fallow-deer, and the wild goat, and the pee-wy-gee, ay-ar-gee."

It was the greatest wonder in the world that Nurse Barre did not drop all the spoons. She just pulled herself together in time, took a peep at the book, and said airily — A Lesson. 15 " Yes, that's the way it's spelled. Go on, Miss Rotha." " But how is it pronounced, Nurse Barre ? " " Let us pray." Nurse Barre laid aside towel and spoons, and folded her hands. The little girl followed suit, and they prayed. When they rose from their knees the younger face was transfigured, the other had still a world of perplexity in it. " Now, Miss Rotha, my dear, your hymn, Ancient and Modern." Even Nurse Barre seldom made so dire a blunder as this, and had she thought for a moment before speaking, she would not have erred so strangely ; but she was a little annoyed at having been unequal to the difficulties contained in Deuteronomy, chapter xiv., and she probably thought to impress her pupil by piling up words.

" Shall I say it or sing it, Nurse Barre ? " " Say it, first, Miss Rotha, and then sing it. I like to know as you've got the words all right in your head, and when you sing I'm that busy checkin' the toon, that you might be sayin' the words of any opery air, for all I'd notice. Recite it, miss, pitchin' your voice up here." Nurse Barre was on a flight of kitchen steps, dusting and rearranging a high shelf of a dresser. Rotha first said, then sang the hymn. " That's very nice." Nurse Barre was a little out of breath from making a too rapid descent to the floor. " Now let us lose no time, miss, but begin the counting. Which table have you learnt ? " A shadow passed over the child's bright face. " The counting," it was evident, was not looked forward to with pleasure. " Four times!' She passed a paper book.

Superior greatness was in Nurse Barre's smile. " Never mind giving me that, miss. I know my multiplications up to the hundreds. What's four times a hundred, Miss Rotha ? " " That's not in my tables, Nurse Barre." " Course it isn't, miss. No need to tell me that. It should be in your head, as it is in mine. Come, come ; you are rerely silly in some respecks for your pa's daughter, miss." A burning blush passed over Rotha's face. " You try to think it out now. Four times a hundred. Why ! it's ridic'lous easy. What's four times a little girl ? You just set down and try to think that out." Rotha sat down — a little gold-haired, wistful-faced thing — woe-stricken, the flush slowly fading from her cheeks, and leaving them very pale. The proud mouth quivered, but no tears fell. Nurse Barre went on with her work, and some five minutes passed.

Then she called the child to her. " Well, what is the answer, miss ? " I don't know." This was said in a low voice, with bent head. Then the head was raised, and the voice grew pleading. " It's nowhere in my arithmetic, and I can't think it out. Please don't be angry with me, Nurse Barre." The child's face quivered. " I've only been once a little girl." Nurse Barre lifted hands and eyes. " Well, to be sure, miss, but you do take things strangely. Why, the answer is as simple as simple. It's four little girls, of course ; and the other answer is four hundred, and four times anything The Counting!' 17 is just four of it. Now tell me what is four times a million ? " " Four." Rotha drew back some steps, as, having given this answer, she saw a tempest gathering in Nurse Barre's eyes. The latter dropped into a chair.

" Yes, stand away from me, miss ! " she said, in a voice thick with indignation. " Keep well away from me, for fear I'd forget that you're your pa's daughter and a lady. I can hardly hold my hands from off you this minute. It's like as if over the counting you became what they call idioticle. Four times a million — -four I May a poor woman be given patience. There now, I'll say no more." Rotha's face was beginning to work curiously, and her eyes filmed. '■ We've had enough of the counting for to-day. Shut up the book, and bring me the map of the British Islands. That's right. Open it out on the table where I can see it, and listen to what I'm saying." Rotha's face cleared, and it was plain that she did not at all recoil from the geography lesson. Nurse Barre paused for a moment, struggled with a tickling in her throat, and began : " You've learnt the names of the countries now, and the seas that go round and circlenavigate 'em, and the names of the lines down and across, the longychudcs and the lattychudes ; and the capitals, London with the Tower of London, and Edinburgh with the Dook of Edinburgh, and Dublin with no thing extrornary.