Moira familiarly uttered the names of grown young men who to Ellen were no more than shadows from an upper world, coldly courteous ghosts who did not see her even when they looked at her. Every season the little girl extended her interests and knowledge into a wider world and grew more alien. And gradually as the years flew by even the servants who had been in the old Trezevant place when they came there, and who somehow seemed to preserve for her, by their presence, the actuality of her motherhood, passed, until there was not one left. Gina, whose sympathy she had felt most keenly, though the sprightly Italian said nothing, was the last. And Gina went away to be married....
X
To be nearly sixteen; to have a great room all to oneself, with high windows that looked upon surfs of close, glittering, talkative leaves, and hills far off between them; to have a small library of one’s favourite books, and a whole corner of the room devoted to the paraphernalia of one’s dearest hobby, which was painting; to have a square high bed, covered with a tester, and a wonderful, many-shelved Sheraton table beside it, and candles in old green brass candlesticks; to have a row of white, built-in armoires full of pretty dresses and cloaks and shoes; to have all this and to know one has helped to create it, was to possess a shrine where the thoughts of girlhood might safely let themselves go to all the four winds of the imagination, like many-coloured birds set free, unmindful of the traps and huntsmen scouring the world beyond.
But Moira’s real favourite was not the lovely golden brown tapestry, nor the stained little bas relief of the Child, nor even the drawings of Michelangelo and Rembrandt, but a painting hung on the wall facing the foot of her bed, where she could look at it the first thing in the morning as she rose, and the last thing at night as she retired. It was a portrait of Mathilda’s grandmother at eighteen, painted in Virginia, a year before she crossed the plains with her young husband. The smooth, dark red hair was parted and drawn about the head above the ears like a cap, its gleam of colour apparent only in the gloss of the high lights. The blue eyes and fresh complexion and fine, regular features were done with infinite tenderness. She sat in a black gown, opening wide at the neck, against a red background formed by a cloak thrown over the chair. Moira knew it was good painting, of an exquisite older style, though the name of the painter was unsigned and had long been forgotten. She amused herself making little verses about it.
“My young great grandmother sits in her frame
And the red of her cloak burns warm as a flame....”
Many a time she sat up in her bed pretending to have conversations about the stirring adventures of her grandmother’s early days, for she had heard the whole story of the young woman’s arduous journey and home-building—and also about the young men who came to Thornhill, discussing their characters without reserve. One could do this in perfect propriety with a dead great grandmother.
“Tommy McNutt wants to come over every day and ride with me, Grandmother. But he squints out of doors, and he always wants to help you on a horse and he talks like a newspaper piece. I’d rather have somebody to talk to like old George Moore, wouldn’t you, dear? It’s a pity you were born too early to read George Moore. I know you would like him”—and she broke off for rhyme again:
“The courtly old painter I am sure wore lace
And the things he said brought a flush to her face.”