Girlhood and Womanhood<br />The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes by Sarah Tytler (snow like ashes series TXT) 📕

idle weeks at Carter Hill before; but they always came upon her afresh with a sense of strangeness, bringing at the same time a tide of old associations.

Miss Sandys was a blunt woman by nature, and it was only by great effort that she had become fine-edged. So [Page 339]she said to Miss West, with a sort of naïve abruptness, "I'll tell you what, Miss West, we'll have cake to tea, because there are only you and I, and it is the first night of the holidays; and we'll have a strong cup, since we have all the teapot to ourselves. I think I shall try my hand this week at some of my old tea-cakes and pies and things which my mother taught me to bake. I am going to have my cousin Jamie and his wife here. He is a rough sailor, and his conversation does not suit before the girls. She was only a small farmer's daughter, and cannot behave prettily at all. But they are worthy people, and are the nearest relations I have left in the world. Perhaps I'll take you to see them in the summer, Miss West. Ah, dear! it is liberty-hall at my cousin Jamie's little place. Peggy's Haven, he calls it, after his old ship and his old wife. But it is a fine change for me, though it would not do for the young people to hear about it—you understand, Miss West."

Miss West understood, and she readily acquiesced in the prospect of meeting Captain and Mrs. Berwick. She was even flattered by it. The right chord of genuine nobility was in her, though she was reported to be satirical. It was true that she was slightly disposed to make abrupt, ironical speeches, the practice being one of her few small privileges. But she felt that Miss Sandys' confidence was honourable alike to giver and receiver, and that the terms on which she lived with her employer did no discredit to either. The fact was that Miss West returned thanks for these same terms in the middle of her confession of errors every day of her life.

[Page 340]Accordingly Miss West drank the strong tea, and did her best to relish the little blocks of cake, though they were slightly stale; and not the less did she enjoy them that she settled in her private mind to propose buttered toast next time, and to prepare it herself. She listened and replied to Miss Sandys' conversation, which did not now run so much on school incidents as on affairs in general. Miss Sandys' talk was shrewd and sensible at all times, and not without interest and amusement, especially when it diverged, at this point and that, to her own experience, and to the customs and opinions of her youth, when faded Miss West was a baby.

Christmas brought holidays to Miss Sandys' school, but Christmas Eve was, in other respects, very unmarked. It would have been dull, almost grim, to English notions. There was no Christmas tree, no waits, no decorating of the church for the morrow. Still, it was the end of the year—the period, by universal consent, dedicated to goodwill and rejoicing all over the world—the old "daft days" even of sober, austere Scotland. Jenny and Menie, in the kitchen, were looking forward to that Handsel Monday which is the Whit Monday of country servants, and the family gathering of the peasantry in Scotland. First footing and New Year's gifts were lighting up the servant girls' imaginations. The former may be safely looked upon as over with Miss Sandys and Miss West, but they were not without visions of New Year's gifts—the useful, considerate New Year's gifts of mature years. Miss West was at this moment knitting an exquisitely fine, yet warm, veil which she had begun two months ago, and which she [Page 341]had good hopes of completing within the next few days. Miss Sandys had a guess that this veil was for her velvet bonnet, and looked at it admiringly as a grand panacea for her spring face-ache.

In the course of the evening Miss Sandys, after a fit of absence of mind, suddenly asked Miss West's name.

On the spur of the moment, she answered, with surprise, "Why, Miss West, to be sure. What do you mean, Miss Sandys?" Then she reflected, laughed, and owned that she had almost forgotten that she had a Christian name. But she had certainly got one, and it was Magdalene, or Madge, or Maddie; once it was Mad; and as she said Mad she laughed a second time, to conceal a break in her voice.

Miss Sandys smiled awkwardly and guiltily, and observed quickly, "My Christian name is Christian. Did you know that, Miss West? Oh, I forgot; you must have seen it marked on the table and bed linen."

"Mine is to be read on my pocket-handkerchiefs. Our Christian names preserved on table-cloths and pocket-handkerchiefs!—droll, isn't it, Miss Sandys?"

"Of course they are in our books and letters," corrected matter-of-fact Miss Sandys. "I dare say they are in a couple of family Bibles, too (at least, I can speak for one), and in the records of births and baptisms in session books, if these are not destroyed by damp and rats; and since names are recorded in heaven," Miss Sandys was drawn on to ramble, "surely our Christian names are there, my dear."

Miss West knew as well as if she had been told it, that [Page 342]Miss Sandys was about to bestow on her a present with which her Christian name was to be connected. Miss Sandys' eyes had failed through long looking over lessons, and she no longer did any handiwork, save coarse knitting, hemming, and darning. But she had a fuller purse than her companion, and shops, even metropolitan shops, were to be reached by letter from Carter Hill.

In addition to the strong tea and the cake, Miss Sandys further treated Miss West to a supper of such dainties as toasted cheese and Edinburgh ale. There were prayers—they seemed quite family prayers—with only the four worshippers to join in them. Then there was a shake of the hands, and Miss West lit her candle, retired, and shut herself up in her own little room. Its daily aspect was so unchanged, that it appeared when she entered it as though the holidays had not come, and that it must still be the ordinary bustling school life.

She sat down, though there was no fire, and thought a little, till she fell on her knees and prayed in low murmurs that God would enable her to bear this season, which made her heavy, sick, and faint with associations, and that He would render her contented with many undeserved blessings, and resigned to many natural penalties which He ordained. Next, with strange inconsistency to all but the Hearer of prayer and the Framer of the wayward human heart, she besought to be forgiven and delivered from levity and folly—to be kept humble and mindful of death. "It is ill tearing up weeds by the roots," she said to herself plainly, when she had risen from her knees, "and I am vain and volatile, and I like to mystify and tease my neighbour to this day."

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II.

Christmas Day rose with a clear, frosty blue sky. Miss Sandys and Miss West both felt the unwonted stillness of the house; and they could not help a lurking suspicion that time without public occupation might hang a dead weight on their hands. The two ladies went through the ceremony of wishing each other a merry Christmas, Scotland though it was. Miss Sandys went off to put into execution her holiday cooking practice—for it was refreshing to her to have a bowl instead of a book in her grasp—and to make her preparations for welcoming her primitive cousins. Miss West sat down to write her letters and to work at her veil and at her other New Year's gifts.

She wished she could work with her mind as well as her fingers, so that it might not run on picturing what this day was in tens of thousands of homes throughout Christendom. It had always been an unruly member this fancy of hers, and it was particularly busy at this season. Yesterday the roads had resounded with the blithe tramp of eager feet hieing homewards. To-day the air was ringing with the pleasant echo of voices round hearths, the fires of which flashed like the sun, and where age and youth met in the perfect confidence and sweet fearlessness of family affection. In her mind's eye, she had yesterday seen railways and coaches disgorging their cheerful loads; she had witnessed the meetings at lodge gates, in halls, and on the thresholds of parlour and cottage kitchens; she had looked on the bountiful boards, where cherished guests crowned the festival, of which Miss Sandys' rasping [Page 344]tea and stale cake was a half-pathetic, half-comic version. To-day she was in spirit with the multitude walking in close groups to holly-wreathed churches, sharing in the light-hearted thoughtlessness of many an acknowledgment, and in the deep gratitude of many a thanksgiving. She strove to put herself aside altogether in her meditations, and simply to rejoice with those who rejoiced; but she had not attained this degree of unselfishness; she could not help believing sometimes that she had plucked all the thorns and none of the roses of life. But if you suppose that she betrayed this yearning and pining to the world at large, you are very much mistaken. As has been told, she had the right chord of genuine nobility and generosity in her, and she laboured to fit her cross to her own back, so that it might not overshadow and crush others. Her fingers went nimbly about her gifts—trifling things, only enough to gladden simple hearts. She gratified Miss Sandys by praising her rusty accomplishments in cookery; she uttered a jest or two for the benefit of Jenny and Menie, who had a liking for her, though they called her "scornful;" and she brought in holly and box from the garden to decorate the sitting-rooms. The last move, however, proved nearly a failure, for there was one little pink and white blossom of laurustinus, which had ventured out in a sheltered nook, though half of its leaves were blanched ashen grey. It somehow or other raised such a tide of sentiment in her as all but overcame her.

Miss West desired work for this season, and she got work, and tolerably hard work too, for besides completing her New Year's gifts, she had to help to entertain Captain and Mrs. Berwick.

[Page 345]The visitors were so vulgar, according to fine people, that they were not even sensible of their own vulgarity. And so good-natured were they, that they were not offended because cousin Sandys did not invite them with any of the genteel parents of her pupils. They took this reserved hospitality as a complimentary admission of their kinsmanship. But they were not intrinsically more coarse-minded than many dukes and duchesses. Captain Berwick, it is true, was nautical in his tone, and talked shop, but that is permitted to sea captains in novels, nay, enjoined upon them. He was apt to be broad in his jokes, and to use unwarrantable expressions, for which he bent his shock head in penitent apology the moment after he had used them. "It is the effect of bad habits, Kirsten and Peggy," he would cry: "you women know nothing of bad habits any more than of bad words."

Mrs. Berwick was a particularly round-eyed woman, and was plump and ruddy where the Captain was battered and weather-beaten. She placed the scene of most of her narratives in the kitchens of her acquaintances, and scrambled with her dramatis personæ through the strong situations of a servant's history.

Nevertheless the manner of the Berwicks was not without the refreshing influence of common, rude fresh air. They were not exceptionally coarse-minded, but unluckily they were neither strong nor fine minded. They were ponderous, clumsy beings, and although genuine and warm-hearted, were destitute of internal resources. They expected to be constantly eating and drinking, or to be constantly entertained. If they were not entertained, they [Page 346]showed their weariness without restraint, by yawning outrageously. The entertaining of Captain and Mrs. Berwick was therefore no sinecure. But Miss West was loyal. She walked with the Captain, so that he might have more than his one smoke a day, and perseveringly copied and sang Braham's songs for him. She designed and cut out patterns for Mrs. Berwick, who, as the Captain had saved money, did not make her own dresses, but nevertheless loved to accumulate patterns of sleeves, capes, and flounces. She listened to her tales, and helped her to as much more kitchiana as she could produce on short notice. She