“I should like to be swung by Ben from the old walnut tree, to garden, and catch tadpoles with Burbidge, and to drive the old grey mare all by myself with Crawley.” And Bess added: “Then, mamsie, I should be quite happy; and mummie, do let it come true on my first holiday, or on my next birthday.” “If there could be no ‘don’ts,’” another time Bess told me, “I should be always good; and if I had no nurse, or governess, I should never be naughty.” I try to implant in Bess’s mind that nurse and governess are her duties in life. She agrees but sadly, and like most modern people, poor child, wishes to get rid of life’s duties as quickly as possible. “I never mean to be naughty,” Bess asserts, “but naughtiness comes to me like spoiling a frock, when I least expect it.” And she once added, “I know, mummy, if people didn’t think me naughty I never should be.”
I pondered over these nursery problems as the work grew under my hands. How delicate and exquisite were all the shades of grey and lavender in the real flowers. I inspected my threaded needles, but I could not find amongst my crewels the necessary tints. I took a thread of tapestry wool, divided it carefully, and then turning to a box of Scotch fingering on cards, found exactly what was needed, a warm shade of heather. Embroidery is so much to me. It is part of my life, and flowers and birds when done recall thoughts and joys and pains, as scents are said to bring back the past to most people. A story is told of a French lady who, when they told her that her daughter-in-law did not like needlework, replied, “She is very young—she has never known real sorrow.”
A PLAYMATE FOR BESS
All of a sudden I dropped my work and started up, for all the dogs had begun to bark in chorus. I ran to the window. I heard the crunch of the gravel, and a minute later I saw a carriage drawn by a pair of greys stop before our old front door.
Out of the brougham there emerged the little figure of Harry, Colonel Stanley’s only little boy and Bess’s playmate. He was accompanied by his German governess, a fat, phlegmatic personage, Fräulein Schliemann by name. As she got out, I heard her say, “I have one letter to leave, most important,” and she stood waiting on the doorstep for Fremantle to show her into the house. In the selfsame moment, Harry, hearing voices in the rose garden, without a word, and nimble as a rabbit, darted through the wrought-iron gates and waved his hand to Bess. In a second Bess appeared, a shower of snow upon her cap and amongst her locks, but redolent of health, and full of gaiety. “Is that you, Hals?” she cried, and the children dashed off to the end of the garden together.
Fräulein in the mean time discoursed with Fremantle and gave up her letter. All this I noticed from my room. Through my window I heard peals of laughter, and I saw Hals on the back of an under-gardener, pursued by Bess, who was engaged in throwing handfuls of snow at him.
Happily this spectacle was not witnessed by Fräulein Schliemann, for water and snow are always repellent to her, and incomprehensible as sources of pleasure or amusement. She heaved a big sigh and then, preceded by the butler, went into the old chapel hall and plumped her fat self down on an old oak chair. A quick knock at my door, and Fremantle brought me the letter. The note contained an invitation for Bess to go over and spend the following Saturday afternoon at Hawkmoor, Colonel Stanley’s country house, some six miles away. It would be little Harry’s birthday, I was told, and the diversions and amusements in his honour, were to be great, and varied.
Punch and Judy in the front hall, a conjuror, a magic-lantern, and later on a birthday cake, with lighted candles, as many as the years that little Hals (as Bess calls him) would have attained to.
“Do,” wrote my cousin, Venetia Stanley, “let little Bess be at Harry’s eighth birthday. I often feel my little lad is very lonely, and Bess’s presence would make his birthday a double joy.”