MY PRETTY MOTHER—AYAH—COMPANY. My name is Margaret Vandaleur. My father was a captain in her Majesty’s 202nd Regiment of Foot. The regiment was in India for six years, just after I was born; indeed, I was not many months old when I made my first voyage, which I fancy Eleanor is thinking of when she says that I have had some adventures. Military ladies are said to be unlucky as to the times when they have to change stations; the move often chancing at an inconvenient moment. My mother had to make her first voyage with the cares of a young baby on her hands; nominally, at any rate, but I think the chief care of me fell upon our Ayah. My mother hired her in England. The Ayah wished to return to her country, and was glad to do so as my nurse. I think that at first she only intended to be with us for the voyage, but she stayed on, and became fond of me, and so remained my nurse as long as I was in India. I have heard that my mother was the prettiest woman on board the vessel she went out in, and the prettiest woman at the station when she got there. Some people have told me that she was the prettiest [I got so far in writing my life, seated at the round, three-legged pinewood table, with Eleanor scribbling away opposite to me. But I could get no further just then. I put my hands before my eyes as if to shade them from the light; but Eleanor is very quick, and she found out that I was crying. She jumped up and threw herself at my feet. “Margery, dear Margery! what is the matter?” I could only sob, “My mother, O my mother!” and add, almost bitterly, “It is very well for you to write about your childhood, who have had a mother—and such a mother!—all your life; but for me——” Eleanor knelt straight up, with her teeth set, and her hands clasped before her. “I do think,” she said slowly, “that I am, without exception, the most selfish, inconsiderate, dense, unfeeling brute that ever lived.” She looked so quaintly, vehemently in earnest as she knelt in the firelight, that I laughed in spite of my tears. “My dear old thing,” I said, “it is I who am selfish, not you. But I am going on now, and I promise to disturb you no more.” And in this I was resolute, though Eleanor would have burned our Indeed she knew as well as I did that it was not merely because I was an orphan that I wept, as I thought of my early childhood. We could not speak of it, but she knew enough to guess at what was passing through my mind. I was only six years old when my mother died, but I can remember her. I can remember her brief appearances in the room where I played, in much dirt and contentment, at my Ayah’s feet—rustling in silks and satins, glittering with costly ornaments, beautiful and scented, like a fairy dream. I would forego all these visions for one—only one—memory of her praying by my bedside, or teaching me at her knee. But she was so young, and so pretty! And yet, O Mother, Mother! better than all the triumphs of your loveliness in its too short prime would it have been to have left a memory of your beautiful face with some devout or earnest look upon it—“as it had been the face of an angel”—to your only child. As I sit thinking thus, I find Eleanor’s dark eyes gazing at me from her place, to which she has gone back; and she says softly, “Margery, dear Margery, do let us give it up.” But I would not give it up now, for anything whatever.] The first six years of my life were spent chiefly When my mother went out for her early ride at daybreak, before the heat of the day came on, Ayah would hold me up at the window to see her start. Sometimes my father would have me brought out, and take me before him on his horse for a few minutes. But my nurse never allowed this if a ready excuse could prevent it. Her care of me was maternal in its tenderness, but she did not keep me tidy enough for me to be presentable off-hand to company. There was always “company” wherever my When callers came, I was often sent into the drawing-room. Great was my dear Ayah’s pride when I was dressed in pink silk, my hair being arranged in ringlets round my head, to be shown off to the company. I was proud of myself, and was wont rather to strut than walk into the room upon my best kid shoes. They were pink, to match my frock, and I was not a little vain of them. There were usually some ladies in the room, dressed in rustling finery like my mother, but not like her in I remember my mother, but I remember my father better still. I did not see very much of him, but when we were together I think we were both thoroughly happy. I can recall pretty clearly one very happy holiday we spent together. My father got some leave, and took us for a short time to the hills. My clearest memory of his face is as it smiled on me, from under a broad hat, as we made nosegays for Mamma’s vases in our beautiful garden, where the fuchsias and geraniums were “hardy,” and the sweet-scented verbenas and heliotropes were great bushes, loading the air with perfume. I have one remembrance of it almost as distinct—the last. |