The Retrospect

by Ada Cambridge

While the happy pair were honeymooning, we assisted Mrs H., the bridegroom's mother, to prepare for them what we thought an ideal home in L——, a house so towny and stylish, compared with the farm homesteads in which we had been reared, that we were lost in our sense of the occupants' luck and bliss. I had been their little bridesmaid, and I now became their frequent visitor; I suppose their attentions to me were a return for our ill-omened hospitality to them. I used to sit on a stool in the firelit dusk, totally disregarded, while, on the other side of the hearth, H. nursed Cousin E. upon his knee and they whispered together. Later on, I sat on the same stool to nurse the baby, E. hanging over me to gloat upon him and assure herself that he was safe in my arms.

The other day I saw that house again, and, looking up at the windows, looked through them upon those past scenes with, oh! such different eyes. According to precedent, H. proved himself, very early in the day, to be the bad lot his wife's people had suspected. The first baby was the last, because there was not time for more. The young father lived beyond his means for a year or two, neglected his business, took to drink, went under, and left the young mother and child to the charity of the relatives who had probably foreseen how it would be. And now that I am older than they were I think of my parents' part in the matter, once so unquestioningly endorsed, and I shake my head. So will my children shake their heads over remembered acts of mine which, at the doing, were even as the decrees of Providence. Doubtless they have done so many a time.

In my flying visits to D—— I was drawn again and again to the neighbourhood of that old house. Any walk that I took for the sake of a walk led past it, and I stopped at the two gates every time, because I could not help it. The second gate, opening into the field that was part of the premises, had its separate associations. Here roamed Taffy, when he chose to keep in bounds, a white pony given to my eldest brother by his grandfather, but for his long lifetime the useful servant and beloved friend of the whole family; a dear, sweet-natured humorous creature, human in his affections and intelligence. Taffy walked about the domestic domain like a dog; he undid every fastening of every gate that attempted to confine his rambles. He used to come to the schoolroom window when we were at lessons and watch his chance to grab a mouthful of hair. When mother and I made our journeys together to see her parents, some fifteen miles off, we used to stop at a halfway inn to get a basinful of porter for Taffy, who loved it and drank it down like a Christian; he would not pass that inn without it. When thirsty at home he sought the pump in the stableyard, took the handle in his teeth and rattled it up and down, and as soon as water trickled from the spout applied his mouth thereto. When I have told this story to my present family, who never knew Taffy, tolerant and superior smiles have accused me of drawing the long bow; so I was pleased when a sister of mine, lately arrived from England after a thirty years' separation from me, was happily inspired to say at table before them all (we were speaking of old times), "Oh, do you remember Taffy and the pump?" proceeding to tell the tale again exactly as I had told it. Thus Taffy and I got tardy justice done us.

Here, too, in a memorable year, Wombwell's Menagerie established itself. It was the half of the business which the original Wombwell had left divided between a son and daughter, and the latter was the proprietress and travelling with it. My father let his field to her for the few days that must have been Winnold Fair days (St Wynewall originally—a fair held here annually at the beginning of March, literally from time immemorial, as, according to a deed of the reign of Edward the Confessor, it was flourishing in his day, and there are no records to tell how long before that); for I recall the state of the temperature. Which reminds me of an old Norfolk rhyme much in use amongst us, to indicate what might be expected in the way of weather at the season of the Fair:

"First come David, then come Chad,
Then come 'Winnle' as if he was mad."

So Mrs Edwards (I think that was her name) brought her Wombwell's Menagerie to our field. The numerous Black Marias of the caravan filed into the gate before our popping eyes, the elephant walking as one has heard of the lady doing in the sedan chair that had the bottom out; we could only see his monstrous feet and ankles underneath the house that he carried around him, and those massive members were partly swathed in bandages, because, we were told, the poor thing suffered from chilblains. The vehicles were formed into a hollow square, the arena roofed over (it was deliciously warm to go into out of the cold open air), and the grass floor thickly bedded in clean straw, from which we sifted treasure-trove of nuts and lost articles when the show was gone. The shutters were taken from the cages on the inner side, the entrance steps put down, and all was ready for business. There was a band, of course.

The contract gave our household the privilege of free access. I need not say that it was utilised to the utmost. We had special holidays on purpose. But the cream of those exciting days was Sunday, when there was no show and no public, and we were admitted to the bosom of the family, to see how it lived behind the scenes. In the afternoon of that day my mother went into the field to show a little neighbourly attention to the proprietress, taking me with her. It was one of the most interesting calls I ever made. We found Mrs Edwards a very superior lady, who did not travel with the show except now and then, to amuse herself while her children were away at school (her daughter, I think she said, was "finishing abroad"); she had her good house somewhere, like other ladies. She was in silk attire, very stylish, and her private van was a thing of luxury indeed; also she entertained us delightfully. We strolled about the empty arena, and fraternised with the animals. Many of them were let out for exercise; others we were allowed to fondle and converse with. The little gazelle on its slim legs raced round and round in front of the cages, mocking the futile leer and pounce of the great cats that would have intercepted it had circumstances allowed; the monkeys tweaked our ears and pulled the trimming off our hats; the great elephant swayed about like a moving mountain, and condescended to take our buns when we mustered courage to present them. Unforgettable Sunday afternoon! Almost worthy to be ranked with the splendid day at Port Said. The memory of it was in my mind when, on my second Sunday afternoon in England, I was behind the scenes in the "Zoo" at Regent's Park, dear little birds and beasties climbing over me and showing off their pretty tricks to me for love and not for money.

But, ah, the nights! The dark nights up in that attic bedroom, when the wintry wind bore the heart-thrilling plaints of homesick lions and tigers—so awfully close to one! Oh, suppose they should get out! I have never been conspicuously strong-minded when alone in the dark—I have too much imagination—and I used to burrow deep down in the bedclothes to shut out those appallingly suggestive sounds.

Time seems to deal tenderly with everything in England, and the two old gates were the very same old gates, apparently. Approaching them through the town, I passed the same old shops, with the same old names on some of them. Next door, across Priory Lane, the same family of doctors still lived, father and son in contiguous establishments; only the son of old was now the father, and there was a new son. The daughters of the parent house, young ladies of the old days, I found living still, to remember and to entertain me; one of them, a widow approaching her ninetieth year, was the most charmingly nimble-minded and witty person of her age that I ever met. Her intellectual audacity impressed me as one of the most striking incidents of my return to her little town. She had lived there always, and was yet unsubdued by the stodgy atmosphere—as awake to the humour of the ways of a little English town (in which, as she expressed it, "twopence-ha'penny would not speak to twopence") as I was. She was handsome too—altogether a dear.

Just opposite her old home, at the beginning (or end) of the street, swung an inn signboard the sight of which was more delightful to me than all the priceless canvases that I had been privileged to make acquaintance with at Grosvenor House a few days previously. This was the Rampant Horse of olden times—the very same red horse pawing space, his colour faded out, but his familiar lineaments intact; and it was a part of my phenomenal luck at that time to see it just when I did, for the next time I passed that way the sign had been taken down, doubtless to be "restored." I am convinced that it had not been touched in the half-century that I had been away, but just waiting there to greet me.