Read Ebook: Hildegarde's Home by Richards Laura Elizabeth Howe Merrill Frank T Illustrator

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Ebook has 826 lines and 46452 words, and 17 pages

"Yes, that is it," said her mother. "I wonder if the funny things are still in it? Miss Agatha was an invalid, and her room looked as if she lived in it a good deal. She told me Bible stories in her soft, feeble voice, and showed me a very wonderful set of coloured prints illustrating the Old Testament. I remember distinctly that Joseph's coat was striped, red, green, yellow, and blue, like a mattress ticking gone mad, and that the she-bear who came to devour the naughty children was bright pink."

"Oh! delightful!" cried Hildegarde, laughing. "I must try to find those prints."

"She told me, too, about her sister Hester," Mrs. Grahame went on; "how beautiful she was, and how bright and gay and light-hearted. 'She was the sunshine, my dear, and we are the shadow, Barbara and I,' she said. I remember the very words. And then she showed me a picture, a miniature on ivory, of a lovely girl of sixteen, holding a small harp in her arms. She had large grey eyes, I remember, and long fair curls. Dear me! how it all comes back to me, after the long, long years. I can almost see that miniature now. Why--why, Hilda, it had a little look of you; or, rather, you look like it."

The girl flushed rosy red. "I am glad," she said softly. "And she died young, you say? Miss Hester, I mean."

"At twenty-two or three," assented her mother. "It was consumption, I believe. Cousin Wealthy Bond once told me that Hester had some sad love affair, but I know nothing more about it. I do know, however, that Uncle Aytoun , I do know that he was desperately in love with dear Cousin Wealthy herself."

"Oh!" cried Hildegarde. "Poor old gentleman! She couldn't, of course; but I am sorry for him."

"I remember her very words," said Mrs. Grahame. "'Captain Aytoun, it is not my intention ever to marry; but I esteem your friendship highly, and I thank you for the honour you offer me. Permit me to call your attention to this new variety of ranunculus.' But the poor captain said,--Cousin Wealthy could hardly bring herself to repeat this, for she thought it very shocking,--'Confound the ranunculus!' and strode out of the garden and away. And Cousin Wealthy took the card into the house, and folded it up, and wound pearl-coloured silk on it. It may be in her work-basket now, for she never destroys anything."

"Oh! that was a most delightful 'tell'!" sighed Hildegarde. "And now go on about Miss Agatha."

"I fear that is all, dear," said her mother. "I remember singing some hymns, which pleased the kind cousin. Then Miss Barbara came home from church; and I rather think her conscience had been pricking her about the 'Saint's Rest,' for she took me down and gave me some delicious jelly of rose leaves, which she said was good for a cold. We had waffles for tea, I remember, and we put cinnamon and sugar on them; I had never tasted the combination before, so I remember it. It was in a glass dish shaped like a pineapple. And after tea Miss Barbara tinkled 'Jerusalem, the Golden' on the piano, and we all sang, and I went to bed at nine o'clock. And that reminds me," said Mrs. Grahame, "that it must now be ten o'clock or after, and 'time for all good little constitutional queens to be in bed.'"

"Oh! must we go to bed?" sighed Hildegarde. "It is so very particularly lovely here. Well, I suppose we should have to go some time. Good-night, dear stars! good-night, all beautiful things that I know are there, though I cannot see you!"

Hildegarde helped her mother to lock up the house, and then, after a parting word and caress, she took her candle and went to the room she had chosen for her own. It opened out of her mother's dressing-room, so that by setting the doors ajar, they could talk to each other when so minded; and it had a dressing-room of its own on the other side, from which a flight of narrow, corkscrew stairs descended to the ground floor. These stairs had attracted Hildegarde particularly. It seemed very pleasant and important to have a staircase of one's own, which no one else could use. It is true that it was very dark, very crooked and steep, but that was no matter. The bedroom itself was large and airy; a little bare, perhaps, but Hildegarde did not mind that. The white paint was very fresh and clean, and set off the few pieces of dark old mahogany furniture well,--a fine bureau, with the goddess Aurora careering in brass across the front of the top drawer; a comfortable sofa, with cushions of the prettiest pale green chintz, with rosebuds scattered over it; a round table; a few spider-legged chairs; and a nondescript piece of furniture, half dressing-table, half chest of drawers, which was almost as mysteriously promising as the inlaid cabinet in Miss Agatha's room. The bed was large and solemn-looking, with carved posts topped by pineapples. The floor was bare, save for a square of ancient Turkey carpet in the middle. Hildegarde held the candle above her head, and surveyed her new quarters with satisfaction.

"Nice room!" she said, nodding her head. "The sort of room I have been thinking of ever since I outgrew flounces, and bows on the chairs. Dear papa! When I was at the height of the flounce fever, he begged me to have a frock and trousers made for the grand piano, as he was sure it must wound my sensibilities to see it so bare. Dear papa! He would like this room, too. It is a little strange-garrety to-night, but wait till I get the Penates out to-morrow!"

She nodded again, and then, putting on her wrapper, proceeded to brush out her long, fair hair. It was beautiful hair; and as it fell in shining waves from the brush, Hildegarde began to think again of the dead Hester, who had had fair hair, too, and whom her mother had thought she resembled a little. She hoped that this might have been Hester's room. Indeed, she had chosen it partly with this idea, though chiefly because she wished to be near her mother. It certainly was not Miss Agatha's room, for that was on the other side of the passage. Her mother's room had been Miss Barbara's, she was quite sure, for "B" was embroidered on the faded cover of the dressing-table. Another large room was too rigid in its aspect to have been anything but a spare room or a death chamber, and Mr. Aytoun's own room, where he had died like a gentleman and become a "beautiful remains," was on the ground floor. Therefore, it was very plain, this must have been Hester's room. Here she had lived her life, a girl like herself, thought Hildegarde, and had been gay and light-hearted, the sunshine of the house; and then she had suffered, and faded away and died. It was with a solemn feeling that the young girl climbed up into the great bed, and laid her head where that other fair head had lain. Who could tell what was coming to her, too, in this room? And could she make sunshine for her mother, who had lost the great bright light which had warmed and cheered her during so many years? Then her thoughts turned to that other light which had never failed this dear mother; and so, with a murmured "My times be in thy hand!" Hildegarde fell asleep.

MORNING HOURS.

"The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn: Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled: The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in his heaven-- All's right with the world!"

THESE seemed the most natural words to sing, as Hildegarde looked out of her window next morning; and sing them she did, with all her heart, as she threw open the shutters and let the glad June sunlight stream into the room. All sad thoughts were gone with the night, and now there seemed nothing but joy in the world.

"Where art thou, tub of my heart?" cried the girl; and she dived under the bed, and pulled out the third reason for her choosing this room. Her mother, she knew, would not change for anything the comfortable "sitz," the friend of many years; so Hildegarde felt at full liberty to enjoy this great white porcelain tub, shallow, three feet across, with red and blue fishes swimming all over it. She did not know that Captain Robert Aytoun had brought it in the hold of his ship all the way from Singapore, for his little Hester, but she did know that it was the most delightful tub she had ever dreamed of; and as she splashed the crystal water about, she almost ceased, for the first time, to regret the blue river which had been her daily bathing-place the summer before. Very fresh and sweet she looked, when at last the long locks were braided in one great smooth braid, and the pretty grey gingham put on and smoothed down. She nodded cheerfully to her image in the glass. It was, as dear Cousin Wealthy said, a privilege to be good-looking, and Hildegarde was simply and honestly glad of her beauty.

"Now," she said, when the room was "picked up," and everything a?rable hung up to air, "the question is, Go out first and arrange the Penates after breakfast, or arrange the Penates now and go out later?" One more glance from the window decided the matter. "They must wait, poor dears! After all, it is more respectful to take them out when the room is made up than when it is having its sheet and pillow-case party, like this."

She went down her own staircase with a proud sense of possession, and opening the door at its foot, found herself in a little covered porch, from which a flagged walk led toward the back of the house. Here was a pleasant sort of yard, partly covered with broad flags, with a grassy space beyond. Here were clothes-lines, well, and woodshed; and here was auntie, standing at her kitchen door, and looking well satisfied with her new quarters.

"What a pleasant yard, auntie!" said Hildegarde. "This is your own domain, isn't it?"

"Reckon 'tis!" replied the good woman, smiling. "Jes' suits me, dis does. I kin have some chickens here, and do my washin' out-doors, and spread out some, 'stead o' bein' cooped up like a old hen myself."

A high wall surrounded auntie's domain, and Hildegarde looked round it wonderingly.

"Oh! there is a door," she said. "I thought mamma said there was a garden. That must be it, beyond there. Call me when breakfast is ready, please, auntie." Passing through the door, she closed it after her, and entered--another world. A dim, green world, wholly different from the golden, sunny one she had just left; a damp world, where the dew lay heavy on shrubs and borders, and dripped like rain from the long, pendent branches of the trees. The paths were damp, and covered with fine green moss. Great hedges of box grew on either side, untrimmed, rising as high as the girl's head; and as she walked between them their cool glossy leaves brushed against her cheek. Here and there was a neglected flower-bed, where a few pallid rosebuds looked sadly out, and pinks flung themselves headlong over the border, as if trying to reach the sunlight; but for the most part the box and the great elms and locusts had it their own way. Hildegarde had never seen such locust-trees! They were as tall as the elms, their trunks scarred and rough with the frosts of many winters. No birds sang in their green, whispering depths; the silence of the place was heavy, weighted down with memories of vanished things.

"I have no right to come here!" said Hildegarde to herself. "I am sure they would not like it." Something white glimmered between the bending boughs of box which interlaced across her path. She half expected to see a shadowy form confront her and wave her back; but, pushing on, she saw a neglected summer-house, entirely covered with the wild clematis called virgin's-bower. She peeped in, but did not venture across the threshold, because it looked as if there might be spiders in it. Through the opposite door, however, she caught a glimpse of a very different prospect, a flash of yellow sunlight, a sunny meadow stretching up and away. Skirting the summer-house carefully, she came upon a stone wall, the boundary of the garden, beyond which the broad meadow lay full in the sunlight. Sitting on this wall, Hildegarde felt as if half of her were in one world, and half in the other; for the dark box and the drooping elm-branches came to the very edge of the wall, while all beyond was rioting in morning and sunshine.

"The new world and the old one, The green world and the gold one!"

she murmured, and smiled to find herself dropping into poetry, like Silas Wegg.

At this moment a faint sound fell on her ear, a far-away voice, which belonged wholly to the golden world, and had nothing whatever to do with the green. "Hi-ya! Miss Hildy chile!" the mellow African voice came floating down through the trees with an imperious summons; and Hildegarde jumped down from her stone perch, and came out of her dream, and went in to breakfast.

"And what is to be done, Mammina?" asked Hildegarde, when the "eggs and the ham and the strawberry jam" were things of the past, and they were out on the piazza again. "Do you realise, by the way, that we shall live chiefly on this piazza?"

"It is certainly a most delightful place," said Mrs. Grahame. "And I do realise that while it would be quite out of the question to change anything in Miss Barbara's sacred parlour, it is not exactly the place to be cosy in. But, dear child, I shall have to be in my own room a good deal, as this arranging of your dear father's papers will be my chief work through the summer, probably."

"Oh, of course! and I shall be in my room a good deal, for there is sewing, and all that German I am going to read, and--oh, and quantities of things to do! But still we shall live here a great deal, I am sure. It is just a great pleasant room, with one side of it taken off. And it is very quiet, with the strip of lawn, and the ledge beyond. One cannot see the road, except just a bit through the gate. Sometimes you can bring your writing down here, and I can grub in the flower-bed and disturb you."

"Thank you!" said her mother, laughing. "The prospect is singularly attractive. But, dear, you asked me a few minutes ago what was to be done. I thought it would be pleasant if we took out our various little belongings, and disposed them here and there."

"Just what I was longing to do!" cried Hildegarde. "All my precious alicumtweezles are crying out from the trunk, and waiting for me. But don't you want me to see the butcher for you, love, or let auntie tell me what she is going to make for dessert, or perform any other sacred after-breakfast rites?"

Mrs. Grahame shook her head, smiling, and Hildegarde flew upstairs, like an arrow shot from a bow.

In her room stood a huge trunk, already unlocked and unstrapped, and a box whose aspect said plainly that it contained books. All the dresses had been taken out the day before and hung in the roomy closet, pretty, simple gowns, mostly white or grey, for the dear father had disliked "mourning" extremely. Now Hildegarde took out her hats, the broad-brimmed straw with the white daisy wreath, the pretty white shirred mull for best, the black "rough and ready" sailor for common wear. These were laid carefully on a shelf in the closet, and covered with a light cloth to keep them from dust. This done as a matter of duty, the pleasant part began. One after another, a most astonishing array of things were taken from the trunk and laid on the bed, which spread a broad white surface to receive them: a trinket-box of ebony and silver; a plaster cast of the Venus of Milo, another of the Pompeian Psyche, both "treated" in some way that gave them the smooth lustre of old ivory; a hideous little Indian idol, carved out of dark wood, with eyes of real carbuncle; a doll's tea-set of exquisite blue and white china, brought to Hildegarde from Pekin by a wandering uncle, when she was eight years old; a stuffed hawk, confidently asserted by its owner to be the original "jolly gosshawk" of the Scottish ballad, which could "speak and flee"; a Swiss cuckoo clock; several great pink-lipped shells; a butterfly net; a rattlesnake's skin; an exquisite statuette of carved wood, representing Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, a copy of the famous bronze statue at Innsbruck; a large assortment of pasteboard boxes, of all sizes and shapes; three or four work-baskets; last of all, some framed photographs and engravings, and a number of polished pieces of wood, which were speedily put together into a bookcase and two or three hanging shelves. On these shelves and on the mantel-piece the various alicumtweezles were arranged and re-arranged, till at length Hildegarde gave a satisfied nod and pronounced them perfect. "But now comes the hard part!" she said. "The pictures! Who shall have the post of honour over the mantel-piece? Come here, dear persons, and let me look at you!" She took up two engravings, both framed in gilt laurel leaves, and studied them attentively. One was the portrait of a man in cavalier dress, strikingly handsome, with dark, piercing eyes and long, curling hair. The expression of the face was melancholy, almost sombre; yet there was a strange fascination in its stern gaze. On the margin was written,--

"John Grahame of Claverhouse, "Viscount Dundee."

The other portrait showed an older man, clad in a quaint dress, with a hat that would have been funny on any other head, but seemed not out of place here. The face was not beautiful, but calm and strong, with earnest, thoughtful eyes, and a firm mouth and chin. The legend bore, in curious black-letter, the words,--

"William of Orange Nassau, "Hereditary Grand Stadt-holder of the Netherlands."

And now the question was, Which hero was to have the chief place?

"You are the great one, of course, my saint!" said Hildegarde, gazing into the calm eyes of the majestic Dutchman, "and we all know it. But you see, he is an ancestor, and so many people hate him, poor dear!"

She looked from one to the other, till the fixed gaze of the pictured eyes grew really uncomfortable, and she fancied that she saw a look of impatience in those of the Scottish chieftain. Then she looked again at the space above the mantel-piece, and, after measuring it carefully with her eyes, came to a new resolution.

This arrangement gave great satisfaction; and the other pictures, the Correggio cherubs, Kaulbach's "Lili," the Raphael "violin-player," and "St. Cecilia," were easily disposed of on the various panels, while over the dressing-table, where she could see it from her bed, was a fine print of Murillo's lovely "Guardian Angel."

Hammer and screwdriver were brought, and soon the box was opened and the books in their places. Would any girls like to know what Hildegarde's books are? Let us take a glance at them, as they stand in neat rows on the plain, smooth shelves. Those big volumes on the lowest shelf are Scudder's "Butterflies," a highly valued work, full of coloured plates, over which Hildegarde sighs with longing rapture; for, from collecting moths and butterflies for her friend, Bubble Chirk, she has become an ardent collector herself, and in one of the unopened cases downstairs is an oak cabinet with glass-covered drawers, very precious, containing several hundred "specimens."

Here is "Robin Hood," and Gray's Botany, and Percy's "Reliques," and a set of George Eliot, and one of Charles Kingsley, and the "Ingoldsby Legends," and Aytoun's "Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers," which looks as if it had been read almost to pieces, as indeed it has.

On the next shelf is "Cranford," also well thumbed, and everything that Mrs. Ewing ever wrote, and "Betty Leicester," and Miss Yonge's historical stories, and the "Tales of a Grandfather," and "Lorna Doone," and the dear old "Days of Bruce," and "Scottish Chiefs," side by side with the "Last of the Barons," and the "Queens of England," and the beloved Homer, in Derby's noble translation, also in brown leather. Here, too, is "Sesame and Lilies," and Carlyle on Hero-Worship.

The upper shelf is entirely devoted to poetry, and here are Longfellow and Tennyson, of course, and Milton , and Scott , and Shelley and Keats, and the Jacobite Ballads, and Allingham's Ballad Book, and Mrs. Browning, and "Sir Launfal," and the "Golden Treasury," and "Children's Garland." There is no room for the handy volume Shakespeare, so he and his box must live on top of the bookcase, with his own bust on one side and Beethoven's on the other. These are flanked in turn by photographs of Sir Walter, with Maida at his feet, and Edwin Booth as Hamlet, both in those pretty glass frames which are almost as good as no frame at all.

But the persons expressed no opinion. Indeed, I am not sure that William the Silent could read English; and Dundee's knowledge of literature was slight, if we may judge from his spelling. I should not, however, wish Hildegarde to hear me say this.

Failing to elicit a response from her two presiding heroes, our maiden turned to Sir Walter, who always knew just how things were; and from this the natural step was to the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" , and there was an end of Hildegarde till dinner-time.

"And that is why I was late, dear love!" she said, as after a hasty explanation of the above related doings, she sank down in her chair at the dinner-table, and gave a furtive pat to her hair, which she had smoothed rather hurriedly. "You know you would have brained me with the hammer, if I had not put it away, and that the tacks would have been served up on toast for my supper. Such is your ferocious disposition."

"Ungenerous!" exclaimed Hildegarde with tragic fervour. "It was only a glove-button. It dropped off my glove, and it would not have disagreed with you in the least. I move that we change the subject." And at that moment in came Janet with the veal cutlets.

A WALK AND AN ADVENTURE.

ONE lovely afternoon, after they were well settled, and all the unpacking was done, Hildegarde started out on an exploration tour. She and her mother had already taken one or two short walks along the road near which their house stood, and had seen the brand-new towers of Mrs. Loftus's house, "pricking a cockney ear" on the other side of the way, and had caught a glimpse of an old vine-covered mansion, standing back from the road and almost hidden by great trees, which her mother said was Colonel Ferrers's house.

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