I shudder almost as I write the words. How little we thought that my poor grandfather’s one useful gift would have so fatal an ending!
But I must put it down in order. It was the end of many things. Of my life at The Vine among them, and very nearly of my life in this world altogether. My great-grandfather made delicious salads. I have heard him say that he preferred our English habit of mixing ingredients to the French one of dressing one vegetable by itself; but he said we did not carry it far enough, we neglected so many useful herbs. And so his salads were compounded not only of lettuce and cress, and so forth, but of dandelion, sorrel, and half-a-dozen other field or garden plants. Sometimes one flavour preponderated, sometimes another, and the sauce was always good.
Now it is all over it seems to me that I must have been very stupid not to have paid more attention to the strange flavour in the salad that day. But I was thinking chiefly of the old lady, who was not very well (Elspeth had an idea that she had had a very slight “stroke,” but how this was we cannot know now), whilst my grandfather was almost flightily cheerful. I tasted the salad, and did not eat it, but I was the less inclined to complain of it as they seemed perfectly satisfied.
Then my grandmother was taken ill. At first we thought it a development of what we had noticed. Then Mr. Vandaleur became ill also, and we sent Adolphe in haste for the doctor. At last we found out the truth. The salad was full of young leaves of monk’s-hood. Under what delusion my poor grandfather had gathered them we never knew. Elspeth and I were busy with the old lady, and he had made the salad without help from any one.
From the first the doctor gave us little hope, and they sank rapidly. Their priest, for whom Adolphe made a second expedition, did not arrive in time; they were in separate rooms, and Elspeth and I flitted from one to the other in sad attendance. The dear little old lady sank fast, and died in the evening.
Then the doctor impressed on us the necessity of keeping her death from my great-grandfather’s knowledge.
“But supposing he asks?” said I.
“Say any soothing thing your ready wit may suggest, my dear young lady. But the truth, in his present condition, would be a fatal shock.”
It haunted me. “Supposing he asks.” And late in the evening he did ask! I was alone with him, and he called me.
“Marguerite, dear child, thou wilt tell me the truth. Why does my wife, my Victoire, thy grandmother, not come to me?”