Violet Keith : an autobiography

Chapter I

We stood alone, my brother Willie and I, by the bed from which the body of our dead mother had been removed only a few hours before. Long years have passed since then, but every object in that large cold room seems as distinct as if I had never quitted it ; the lofty bed with its long white curtains, the large windows draped in white, the crimson carpet, the dressing table with its service of white and gold ; the large mirror, above which was suspended an old-fashioned woodcut of " the Pilgrim's Progress/' on which Willie and I used to delight to trace the wanderings of Pilgrim, with eye and finger alike busy following him in his flight from the city of destruction to his entrance into the golden gate ; and more vivid than aught else, is that long dread mark on the white sheet, made by the pressure of the coffin, that indelible mark which time has never been able to efface from my. mind.

As we looked, our tears fell fast ; it was the last trace of the dear mother, who, a few evenings before, smiled upon us and spoke so kindly, when we came to kiss her before going to bed. How well we remembered and how eagerly we repeated each word and look of that evening now. Ah ! could we but once more feel the touch of that, then, white hand,

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• 016 smoothing down our hair as it used to do every night ; but it could not be, she had entered into her rest ; and for us, her beloved ones, the days of darkness were come. Darkness came on apace ; with what different aspects this darkness comes, and how differently do we greet his coming. In happy cheerful homes he is welcomed with light and with song, the bright coal fire is stirred, crimson curtains are drawn snugly round, and children's bright faces look sweeter and brighter for the surrounding gloom. But to us, poor lonely children, in that cold large room, he came step by step, slowly and surely, enlarging each object as he enveloped it in his misty shroud, and making our hearts beat with a dread of we knew* not what.

The rain which had fallen without intermission during the day, now increased almost to a tempest, while the wind passed by with a low moaning wail, as if a sick spirit were borne on its blast, and ever returning to raise the branches of the surrounding birch trees and dash them with a dull flapping noise on the dripping windows , the very elements had conspired to show us more forcibly our loneliness and desolation.

" We will always love each other, Violet."

I believe there are whispers of God to the soul ; I do not think that the Holy Ghost is shown forth to us in the Bible merely to make up the number three in the Godhead ; I believe there is a divine, penetrating life I power, which comes from the Eternal Father upon us ; I believe that our sense of truth, our thoughts, and our experience in this world, are influenced by the immediate touch of the mind of God upon our mind : and so it was that in the power of the Spirit these words passed from Willie's lips into my heart, kindling there a sense of perfect safety and protection, in the abiding love of my young brother, boy as he was.

VIOLET KEITn. 7

How doth this divine emotion purify both those who exercise it, and those who receive its benefactions ! By it God maintains the household. From its secret springs He nourishes the new generations of men. Even afar off from its source, it shines with power enough to guide the world, and lead men up the pleasant paths of civilization and peace. What, then, shall be its redemptive and educating power in that far off land of heaven, where our spirit's progress shall be ever onward and upward ?

We know that in this world, love, like all the higher faculties of the soul, grows in power with exercise and age. A. youth does not love his parent as a father loves his son ; love is a thing of leaves, blossoms, and fruit, each in its order.

We sometimes connect together the manifestations of it, which we see in this life, to get a large view of what it will be in the future ; even in this world, with our imperfectly developed faculties, we occasionally see in others, or experience in ourselves, that which gives us some conception of the divine power of love which we shall possess in the world to come.

Love is indestructible, there is nothing which love cannot do ; it never faileth, never grows weary, nothing in the soul is superior, nothing equal to it ; let love be an active feeling there, and all the other faculties come before it, and lay down their rubies and pearls at its feet ; by its mighty influence we govern by a smile ; all the higher feelings of our nature follow in the train of this mighty power, and open to it as the sunflower to the sun.

I put my hand in Willie's, and we passed from my mother's deserted room, into the drawing room with all its blaze of light and warmth, where my uncle (whom we had never seen until the preceding day) sat reading a newspaper, and did not acknowledge our entrance, by either word or look. While I now write, after a lapse of so many years, the scene I then saw is as fresh as yesterday.

My uncle, a tall, bony man, grey eyes, grey hair, hook nose, hard mouth, (I can find no other expression which will convey my meaning equally well,) sits in a large easy chair, at one side of the fire place, his crossed legs reaching half way over the soft rug, the remainder of which was occupied by a beautiful greyhound, whose handsome head formed a good contrast to the gaily wrought bunches of flowers it rested on. Poor Poftto, one of our trials on the morrow was parting from thee.

A chandelier hung from the centre of the room glittering with crystal pendants, blue and gold tea-china on the centre table, lace curtains, softly cushioned sofas, pictures, sculpture, and flowers, the pink blossoms of the camelia, contrasting with the white wax-like roses of the Cape jasmine, filling the room with its perfume. The flowers were my mother's especial care. I watered them next morning before our departure, my own tears falling fast while Willie stood by sobbing as if his heart would break.

Our uncle took us to Scotland where his home was, and placed Willie in the house of a chemist, where a hope was held out to him of one day becoming a Doctor, if he were steady and industrious, while I was sent to a ladies' school, that I might, as my uncle emphatically said, learn to be a governess, and earn my bread honestly. He talked a great deal to the lady preceptress of the necessity of my being taught as quickly a3 possible to earn my bread, as he termed it, in consequence of his being obliged to defray the expense of my own and my brother's education, and thereby injuring his own family, and absolutely depriving them of their birthright.

VICLET KEITH. 9

While he spoke, I felt myself a sort of culprit as I sat huddled up in my travelling dress, and I thought then, what afterwards I found to be the case, that he had impressed Mrs. Moodie with a high respect for his saintly and generous character.

Upon my uncle's departure, Mrs. Moodie drew me towards her, removed my travelling dress, smoothed my hair with both hands, kissed my cheek, and spoke lovingly and encouragingly, gave me some fruit and cakes, and telling me I would find several little girls of my own age there, brought me into the school room.

The girls were just putting by their books for recess, as it was called there, which means the hour in the middle of the day when the day scholars go home to dine, and the boarders eat their lunch and amuse themselves until the bell rings for school again. For a few minutes all was hubbub and noise, until the day scholars went, and then I found there were fourteen young ladies of different ages in the room, all of them intent on demolishing huge piles of bread and butter, which, together with apples, formed their noonday meal.

Having satisfied their hunger, one of them observed me sitting apart, my tears falling in large drops into my lap, and coming up to me, she said, laughingly —

w Come Miss, what's your name, and I will introduce you to your future friends ?"

Taking me by the hand, she led me to the table where most of the girls stood, and rattled over in succession : Miss Gordon, Miss Rose, Miss Brown, Miss Goodbrand, when, seeing my look of misery, she stopped suddenly, and putting a hand on eaeh side of my face, drew it towards her own, shutting one eye, and squinting in the most ludicrous manner with the other, she drawled out —

" Cry, baby, cry, put 'your finger in your eye,'' — until all the girls, and I among the number, shouted with laughter.

Miss Baird was the name of the young lady who had thus set me at my ease ; she was a good-tempered, kind-hearted girl, who depended more on her neighbour's than her own exertion, for obtaining a knowledge of her lessons, and in every way took life as easy as possible ; she was my best friend in these my most trying days, and I repaid her in the after time \)j regularly writing her French exercises for her. This was an easy matter to me ; all my early days were spent in the south-west of France, we having only removed to England a year previous to the death of my mother. French was virtually my own language, and I spoke, read, and wrote French with a facility which I only acquired in English by hard study. My power in French was soon discovered, and made me very popular.

u Violet will sit by me," Miss Baird would say. " No she shan't, she'll sit by me," two or three other voices would call out simultaneously, while during the hour in which we studied our French lessons, I was made use of as a kind of living dictionary and grammar.

The greatest difficulty they had to encounter seemed to be their inability to distinguish the gender of inanimate nouns, and in consequence I was constantly assailed by such questions as il Is garden male or female ?" " Is the room a woman or a man ? ' '

Mrs. Moodie was a woman in whom the milk of human kindness flowed largely, well informed, and sensible, altogether more suited for the arduous duties she had assumed, than most people who undertake them. Her household consisted . of fourteen young ladies besides myself, two governesses, one fat, good tempered, and young, yclept Miss Walker, the other Miss Forrester, thin, severe, and thirty-five, both performing their duties to the best of their ability.

The Sunday after my arrival Willie came to see me, was kindly received by Mrs. Moodie, and ultimately I was allowed to spend two hours in the garden with him every Sunday afternoon ; these Sunday walks were the white days in a life otherwise weary enough. It is the dull monotony of each day being so like the last, which makes a school-girl's life so weary. A girl in her father's house, however quiet and recluse the life they may lead, sees an occasional visitor, or goes out shopping, or sometimes visits a neighbour ; but thelife of a school girl knows no such luxury ; Monday in one week is the exact counterpart of Monday in the next ; the same lessons, the same walk, taken at the same time, and at the same pace, even the 3ame dinner ; we knew what we were to have for dinner quite as well as the cook, and I am sure we would all have hailed potatoes and salt with delight, merely because it was different from the constant round of beef to-day and mutton to-morrow. I had lived about six months in Ellenkirk, when one day after dinner Mrs. Moodie said, taking a letter from her pocket :

"You will all be glad to hear that Miss Hamilton will be among us once more in a few days ; she sends her love to all, especially Miss Baird and Mis3 Goodbrand."

" I am so glad," burst simultaneously from the lips of each of the young ladies so addressed.

They often spoke of Gertrude Hamilton as the best and prettiest girl in the school ; she was an acknowledged favourite, and Miss Baird and Miss Goodbrand were her class mates..

A day or two afterwards she walked into the school-room, in recess, and was instantly surrounded by a troop of rejoicing girls.

She seemed about fourteen years of age, rather tall, well made, deep grey eye, sunny hair, and light step. I did not wonder that the other girls said she was so pretty ; she looked like a princess in the midst of our homely faces.

" These are the new girls ?" said she, interrogatively, to Miss Baird, as she turned towards myself and five or six others, and as we were named, gave her right hand to one, her left to another, until she had spoken a kind word, and given a bright smile to each ; it was evident she was the queen of the school. And so it was in her lessons ; her music was far above what any of us could attempt, she spoke Italian with its own soft cadence, German with the guttural accent of Herman, and French almost as easily as I did. She was an heiress and an only child, and yet the least selfish girl among us all.

She used to say that until she came to Mrs. Moodie's school at Ellenkirk, she had no home, wandering about with her father and mother, in search of health for the latter, which was never to come. From Rome to Florence, from Florence to Paris, and again on the German banks of the Rhine, no wonder she could speak the language of the French and German school girls she studied among, or deftly imitate the soft accents of the dark-eyed children she played with on the banks of the Po.

At her mother's death she was placed with Mrs. Moodie, where she remained until six months previous to the time of which I write ; she then went to spend with her father the remaining few months he was to reside in Britain, before going to join his regiment in Canada.

Our French and Italian master was a Roman Catholic priest, whose income, derived from a congregation of some hundred of the middling class, was so scanty as to oblige him to teach those languages, a perfect facility in which he had acquired during a residence of many years in the Vatican.

Mr. Forbes, such was our French teacher's name, was handsome, tall, and gentlemanly, with a composure and suavity of manner, which, to unprejudiced people, must have gone far to win favour. With the girls in Mrs. Moodie's school, the mere fact of his being a priest was sufficient cause of doubt and dislike ; he was nicknamed Guy Fawkes by one, Pope John the twenty-third by another, although what analogy existed between Mr. Forbes and either of these gentlemen, it would not be easy to say.

Neither Gertrude or I joined in these popular outbursts against the French master ; I did not because I had been accustomed to associate with Roman Catholics equally with Protestants, and could not conceive why the one was not as good as the other ; Gertrude, because she was herself a Catholic, and Mr, Forbes, besides being her teacher, was her spiritual director.

A few weeks after Gertrude's return to school, little Sara Douglas, a fine intelligent child of eight years of age, had measles, and was sent to a large room in one of the wings of the house to be nursed. Several of the older girls who had already had the disease, I among the number, took it in turns to amuse her as she became convalescent ; I liked this duty very much, and used to take the place of any of the others willingly ; by so doing I quite won her confidence.

One day she had a large piece of sponge cake, and drawing me towards her, and speaking very softly, although there was no one in the room, said, " take this key, Miss Keith, and in my drawer you will find a red box, bring it to me, if you please." I went to her room as she desired, and returned with a red painted box, about a foot long and half as wide, fastened by a little hook ; she took it from my hand and smiled, saying :

" I will tell you a great secret ; my brother James, who is now in the West Indies, made this box for me, and I am keeping all the nice things I get in it, and when I leave school I am to go to Jamaica to him, and I shall bring all the things I have and give them to him."

She then opened the box, and I found it contained a gingerbread cake, nearly large enough to cover the bottom of the box, on which appeared the alphabet in raised letters, an apple, and a penny. She gave a look of joyous triumph as I examined the contents of the box, but alas, upon touching the apple it was found to be a mass of rottenness. Poor little thing, how she cried, sobbing so bitterly. I had some painted and lettered lozenges in my own keeping, and slipping from the room, I returned with, and placed them in the box, five in number.

" Look," said I, " these are much nicer than the apple ; beautiful red and white lozenges, and they will keep for years."

She looked at me as I spoke, and then at the lozenges, which I had arranged in a row above the gingerbread.

" 0, Miss Keith, I will never forget you," she exclaimed, smiling gladly through the tears which still stood on her cheek, and then, as if shocked by her own selfishness, she hurriedly said, pushing the box towards me :

"0,1 cannot take them, I am sure you were keeping them for your own brother."

" No, indeed ; Willie brought me those last Sunday, and when you go to the West Indies you will tell James that I sent them to him."

Wc placed the sponge cake also in the box, fastened it up, and returned it to the drawer ; subsequently she told me that sometimes she was so impatient to see James, that she thought of running away from school and going to the West Indies, how glad James would be to see her, and how happy they would both live together.

She showed me one or two of his letters, and I did not fee surprised by her devotion to the loving heart which dictated them.

At the end of the summer holidays, Sara came back as thin and pale as she had been before fat and rosy, her black dress telling its usual tale ; she put her right hand into my left, and stood for a few seconds without speaking. I kissed her thin cheek, and then she said in a soft low voice, without either a sigh or tear :

■} Brother James is dead ; I will never go to the West Indies."

Six weeks afterwards we were all assembled in the drawing room, it was Friday evening, and we frequently spent our Friday evenings there, as we had no lessons for next day ; Miss Forrester was singing that most beautiful of all Scottish airs,. " Logie O'Buchan," and had just finished the line, " They hae ta'en awa Jamie the flower o' them aw," when we observed Sara fall gently down on the sofa where she was sitting. .Mrs. Moodie lifted her up exclaiming :

" Go for Dr. White, she has fainted !"

The doctor was with us in a few minutes. No, she had not fainted ; she was dead ! all efforts were useless — most surely dead— died, as the doctor said, of disease of ihe heart ; truly he judged well, so she did.

A few weeks before this sad event, we were seated at breakfast one morning, when Sara said, " Mrs. Moodie, may I tell my dream ? I had such a beautiful dream last night.'

" Yes, Sara, tell us your dream."

" I dreamt," said the child, " I was standing by the drawing room window, when all at once the street was filled with angels, each having a crown on his head formed of stars; one of the angels, in addition to the crown on his head, had one in his hand ; he crossed the street and went into Annie Maitland's house, and placed the crown he carried in his hand on her mamma's head : Mrs. Maitland then came out with the angel, and they all ascended towards the sky by a path formed of the clouds ; I watched them until they were out of sight."

An hour afterwards we had intelligence of the death of Mrs. Maitland, which occurred through the night.*

The morning after Sara's death, her father and mother came to bring her to the place of sleep ; Gertrude and I were arranging a wreath of white jessamine to place on the coffin ; when they entered the room where we were, and where the body lay ; such a contrast they were to each other ; Mrs. Douglas, little, thin, and very like Sara, the very same sad face she wore since her brother's death ; the father a sensual, eating and drinking looking man, about the middle size, fat, red faced, head and neck in one.

Mrs. Douglas walked up to the child's body without noticing any one, tool^ne small hand in both her own, kissed the cold face just once, and then turned away, her pale lips rigidly compressed, evidently fearing her heart would fail.

The man looked at the body, not the face, it was covered, shut down the lid of the coffin with the spring, and raising it on his shoulder, walked out and placed it on the opposite seat of the carriage they had just left, and which was to convey them, together with their dead, again to the railway cars.

* A fact.

As her husband left the room, Mrs. Douglas asked, " where is Violet Keith?"

I was pointed out to her, and coming towards me, she put one cold thin hand on my shoulder, and pressed her pale lips to my cheek, and then passing from among us without uttering a word, entered the carriage which contained her living and her dead.

The deep eloquence of her touch on my shoulder and cheek, could have no rival in words ; in my after life I never received such thanks ; she, too, will die of disease of the heart some day.

After their departure, Miss Forrester packed up the child's clothes ; while she did so, I carried the red box to Mrs. Moodie, who decided it was not to be sent to her mother. Mrs. Moodie opened the box in my presence ; everything was there as it- had been left months before, gingerbread, penny, lozenges, and sponge cake, with the addition of a small wax doll, about an inch and a half in length, dressed in a pink gauze frock.

We all, teachers, boarders, and day scholars, mourned very sincerely for Sara : the boarders, with the true demonstrativeness of school girls, wore black ribbon fastening their collars for a month. ^k

In summer we spent our hour of recess in the garden, and a fine place it was for our plays or wralks, as our dispositions or age might dictate ; a few flower beds surrounded the house, and then, stretching for two or three acres, were green fields and forest trees, together with the more artificial and useful beauties of arbours and swings, the whole surrounded by a high and thick hawthorn hedge, outside of which rose a stone wall eight feet high.

When we returned from the garden when recess was over.

one or other of the older girls generally brought a flower to be presented to Mr. Forbes or Dr. Byers, the music master, both of these gentlemen receiving such presents very graciously.

We did not know where Dr. Byers lived ; he kept that secret to himself — he might have lived in paradise for aught we knew. I for one often wished him in heaven ; I never was intended for a musician, and received more harsh words and sour looks for badly practised lessons in that branch of my education, than for all my other studies put together.

Mr. Forbes treasured our offerings ; he had a great love for the beautiful, and certainly his home, if home it could be called, was not calculated to gratify his taste in that respect ; his house consisted of four rooms, built two above two, against the back of the little chapel, in which he officiated. A high stone wall surrounded the paved court, in which not a bkde of grass was to be seen.

One lovely day, during recess, we had strayed to the very op of the garden. When the bell rung for school, we ran as quickly as possible, so that we might be in the school room, as the rule was, ere the bell ceased ringing ; and so we thought not of a flower for our teacher. Gertrude had a rose in her hand, it was true, but it was faded with the hot sun, and not fit to be given away. During the French hour, she continued to pick, one by one, each bud and leaf it possessed, until naught was left but a crushed pink blossom at one end of a brown stem, which she threw upon the table, when the lesson was ended.

It was my day to lay aside the books in the book cupboard, — this duty devolved on each of the elder girls in succession ; and while thus occupied, I observed Mr. Forbes (who always took ten minutes after the hour in correcting the exercises)

take up Gertrude's crushed rose, press it to his lips, and then carefully put it inside his vest.

My heart smote me when I saw him thus carefully lay up the crushed thing ; and picking from a vase on the mantel shelf a beautiful moss rose full of buds and foliage, I laid it on the table before him. He thanked me with a smile, and seemed much gratified ; an hour afterwards I found my beautiful rose on the table.

Chapter II

My uncle paid periodical visits to myself and Willie, at the end of each successive six months — in my case, to pay for my board, and impress upon me the necessity of studying night and day if possible, the sooner to relieve him of the burden, which pressed so heavily upon him.

The visit to Willie was to pay his tailor's bill, the amount being limited to three pounds in six months. Mr. Rexford allowed Willie his board for the service he rendered in the shop after the two first year3 of his residence there , yet notwithstanding, Mr. Keith never failed to urge him to improve his time, so that he, (our uncle) might be spared this heavy expense of three pounds per six months. We had twice a year an invitation to spend an evening at Haddo Hall, where my uncle's family lived ; these invitations were always given by my uncle in person, and were by him limited to three hours, we being sent for at six, and returned to our respective homes at nine o'clock, by the same conveyance, his own carriage.

Haddo Hall was a large old house, built more like a Castle, than what we understand by a Hall ; situated in the midst of a noble park, filled with fine old trees, which could only have attained their present growth in centuries ; and a trout stream running through the grounds to the sea.

Haddo Hall came into our family by my great grandmother, who was the last of her race ; an honourable and an heiress in her own right. Her picture hung there in the gallery, full length, dressed in white satin, with the long pointed bodice and lace ruffles of the time ; she is represented standing in the recess of a deep oriel window ; the fingers of an exquisitely shaped hand touching the strings of a lute ; which with its antique stand occupies one side of the window. The face is one of perfect beauty, with the square forehead and small mouth betokening firmness and truth, a rich flood of mellow light from the setting sun streams into the room, and between the oriel and the sun, are seen pictured those very giant pines and elms that now spread their great arms beneath the wintry and summer sky.