Spring in a Shropshire Abbey

At first I thought Bess’s reluctance sprang from the fact that Prince Charming would have to be left at the Abbey, although I assured her that Auguste would fully console the Prince for our absence; but say what I would, Bess seemed out of spirits. And so, before we started, I sat down on a bench and asked my little girl, who looked worried, if she was not feeling well.

“Yes,” answered Bess, “only, only – ” And then I found out the truth. “When Nan and I were walking in the town,” Bess explained, “Mr. James, Hals’ father’s coachman, came into the chemist’s shop and told us that Fräulein was dreadful bad, tumbled down and broke her leg, he said. He laughed and said it was a judgment for being that nasty to Master Harry. But oh, mama, could it – could it really be?”

“No, Bess,” I answered quickly, “don’t think that for a moment. You were very naughty, and very silly, but then you are only a little child, and you did not know what you said, or understood what you meant. Beside,” I said rather grandly, to get over the difficulty, “God has other work than to attend to the idle words of a little child. So dry your eyes, dear, and be a happy little person again. Run upstairs and fetch a basket, and we will go off together.”

But Bess shook her head. “I will be a happy little girl,” she said, “but I’d rather not go all the same,” and she left me.

So I started off alone with Mouse, who, nothing loth, followed me gladly on my expedition.

We all have favourite flowers, or imagine that we have, probably owing to some early association or to some tender recollection. Queen Bess is said to have best loved meadow-sweet, with which her chambers were strewn. The great Condé, they say, was devoted to pinks; and Marie Antoinette is said to have loved sweet rocket, bunches of which were brought her by Madame Richard to the Temple.

I called to mind these favourite blossoms, but my floral love is not of the garden, it has no place in tended borders. I love it even better than the choicest rose, or the most brilliant gladiolus, or the most stately lily. It grows amongst the hedgerows of Shropshire, and is known as the wild white violet.

THE FLOWERS OF SPRING

Its scent is sweet but often elusive, and as evanescent as a beautiful smile. Our highly cultivated borders and parterres are beautiful, but our wild carpets in field and wood more beautiful. Wild flowers come amidst the grass, and blossom at their own sweet will in their own sweet place, and the moor, meadow, or coppice make the most enchanting background for their loveliness.

I wandered along the green paths with hedgerows starting into life, and came to the conclusion that the flowers we each love best are the homely flowers of childhood that we played by, and plucked as children. The dog-rose, the violet, or the primrose, whose leaves we know the inside and the outside of, whose stalks we have handled a hundred times, and whose scents recall dear faces, and gentle memories, that go back to long ago.

I walked along, Mouse following dutifully behind me. The hedgerows were full of green curls and twists, groups of wild arums glittered on the banks below hazel and quickset hedges. Here and there little patches of grass had burst into emerald green, and a few daisies were turning their discs to heaven, whilst in sheltered spots dim primroses were dawning shyly on the world, filling the atmosphere with sweet dalliance and dreaminess. Once, as I wandered along, I saw behind a cottage in a lane a mauve carpet of periwinkles, and once, beneath a chestnut, I saw the glitter of golden king-cups, that Wordsworth loved so well. The afternoon was very fair, purple and golden lights flitted round the hills and rested on the freshly ploughed hillsides; “longer days and sunshine,” the thrushes seemed to sing, and I heard them piping exultantly in every orchard as I passed. I went by the Red Marsh Farm, past the old mullion-windowed barn, which is said to have been a chapel in monkish days, and so across the close-nipped fields to Sherlot Forest. I walked by a patch of gorse all ablaze with golden blossoms. Tiny young rabbits dashed under cover, showing their white scuts. My great hound lumbered after them like a luggage train in mad career; but nothing happened – they vanished like lightning, and Mouse joined me panting at the hunting gate below. As I whistled her into heel, I noticed that the honeysuckles in the hedgerow were clothing themselves in silvery green, and that a willow by a pool was bursting into golden glory. The earth was dry and I could not resist sitting down for a moment. A squirrel dashed up an oak and scolded and chattered, Mouse, seeing him, growled angrily; a greenfinch flew from out of a thicket, giving me a beautiful vision of apple-green wings; whilst in the distance I heard, far off, the note of a distant blackbird singing a song of regret and tender longing. How enchantingly lovely all was, and on all sides no sounds but country ones.

I peeped over the hedge, men were ploughing and sowing the grain, and away to the west I heard a boy whistling a few notes of a half-forgotten tune. What was the tune, I wondered.

How few folks whistle or sing now; the time was when everybody “sang a bit,” as Burbidge calls it, to their work – men in the hayfields, women at the washtub. Was the world, when it sang at its work, a happier or jollier world? I asked myself.

“HEAVEN’S HIGH MESSENGER”

I passed over a stile and walked across a clover field. How prosperous it looked, how green after the seared and sad appearance of permanent pasture, which still lay brown and lifeless. Overhead the bravest of all West-country songsters was singing – the skylark. What a speck he appeared throbbing in the sky, only a little dot hardly bigger than a pin’s head; but what a voice he had, what a cry of exultant joy was his, what a melody of passion, what a glory of triumphant music! I stood and listened like the poet, and wondered how a bird could sing so; such joy, such passionate melody seemed superhuman, and how the notes were produced in the tiny throat was then and will always remain a mystery. He did not seem a living, breathing bird; only a voice – a voice of incarnate joy and gladness. Silver hammers seemed to throb within him and to beat out a prayer of ecstatic joy, which no heart could measure, and no human tongue pronounce. Then suddenly, as a leaf, he fell, and the exquisite singer of a moment before became again only the little brown bird, a dweller amongst green fields, and a familiar of everyday life. Yet for all that we, too, dwell on earth and toil and spin, it is well to have heard the music of heaven. I walked along refreshed and gladdened, for in spite of the shadows that envelope us, “there burns in each an invisible sun,” and amid such scenes it is impossible not to feel a passing ray.

At last I reached the well-known bank. A few shy violets were in blossom – the afternoon sun was playing upon the opening blossoms. I picked two or three tiny flowers, but only a few, for I like to leave a spot as fair as I found it, and the little petals were still tightly curled. Growing close to the violet was another charming woodland flower, the wood-sorrel, or witches’ cheeses as village children often call it here. The little blossoms were of an exquisite translucent white, with delicate lavender veins, and strange triangular leaves that folded up at night like the leaves of a sensitive plant.

Some people say that the wood-sorrel is the true shamrock used by St. Patrick to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity. Be this as it may, it is a delightful little plant, and one of the most charming inhabitants of our English woods.

Its veined delicate petals recalled to me the form and beauty of the exquisite grass of Parnassus, which I have often discovered on the moors of the west coast of Scotland and in a few spots in the wildest parts of the Shropshire hills. A little further on, I came to a patch under a hazel tree of bronze leaves. These I recognized to be the leaves of the ground ivy, and its minute mauve blossoms were just coming into blossom. This plant used to be called ales-hoof, and was formerly put into beer as a flavouring, much in the same manner as we put borage now into claret cup, or introduce into badminton a peach, or a spray of nettles. From the ground ivy an excellent tea can be made which possesses purifying qualities for the blood, and which was formerly much used in Shropshire as a spring tonic. Tea from a decoction of nettles is also constantly drunk in Shropshire, as is also a drink made from wild mallows.

THE BREATH OF SPRING

As I retraced my steps the light was fast fading, and the gold turning into lavender. All was dying, the reds and golds turning into sombre browns and greys. Flowers were falling asleep, and far away I saw a line of cattle gently driven to some far farm-steading. As I walked across the meadows, I noted that the little lambs had crept to their dams’ sides, and meant to remain there quiet and snug till the small hours of the morning. Alone in the dusk I caught here and there the triumphant song of the throstle; all else was still. In the gloaming I saw dimly brown figures crossing upland and valley to the lonely hamlets that nestled amongst a starry mist of damson groves. The bright March day of work and gaiety was over. Frost might visit the earth in the night, but to-morrow, judging by the red sunset, would be another day of gladness and hope and brightness. I told myself spring had come, and that soon all our dear feathered friends would return. The nightingales would sing in the south, in every hazel coppice, and in the dusky groves of twilight, whilst all over England swallows would fly, near smoky towns and over lonely meres and rivers alike, carrying the message that sovereign summer was at hand.

When I returned to the Abbey, I found that Bess was in bed.

“She be asleep,” nurse said, “but she seemed wonderful busy about something, all in a flurry like, and didn’t take no notice, not even of the pug; but her would say her prayers twice over. And when I asked why for? She answered it war best so, for the Lord somehow would make her happy, even if she had to pray twice over for a blessing.”

Then old Nana went on to say, “This afternoon, Miss Bess went out with Liza after you left, and as they comed in they was whispering together. I don’t hold with slyness,” and old Nana pursed up her mouth, and I felt, as the French say, that Liza would have at some future time a bad quarter of an hour, and that a storm was brewing in the domestic cup. I didn’t, however, ask for an explanation, but waited for the morrow to reveal the acts of to-day.

I walked downstairs and sat down before my writing-table, and wrote a long letter to a sister. What a comfortable relationship is that of a sister, a very armchair of affection, for with a sister no explanations are necessary. Then there is nothing too small to tell a sister. Worries, pleasures, little heartaches, all may find their way on paper, and not appear foolish or ill-placed. So I wrote away gaily, a little about flowers, books, garden, embroidery, cuisine, a little domestic worry, and I wound up with a quotation.

As I was folding up my letter, I suddenly heard a knock at the door. “Come in,” I cried, and I saw Liza at the door, candle in hand.

“Miss Bess is all right?”

“Oh yes, mam; but I thought I should like you to know – ”

Then Liza went on to say that nurse had taken on terribly, and was all of a stew because she had let Miss Bess spend her money as she had wished this afternoon.

“Miss Bess,” continued Eliza, “would have it so, and wouldn’t take no refusal; and, as Mrs. Milner was out at tea with Mrs. Burbidge, I had to let the child do as she had a mind to.”

“Well, what happened?”

“Oh, I hardly know,” replied Eliza. “We went to – ” mentioning a shop – “but there Miss Bess wouldn’t on no account that I or Mdlle. Célestine should come in. She called out, ‘Stay outside till I have done.’ So Mademoiselle and I we walked outside up and down till we was fit to drop, and then, I do assure you, mam,” added Eliza, “I knew nothing till I saw Miss Bess come out with a small parcel, which she held very tight and wouldn’t give up to nobody, and then I seed as it was directed in Mr. Burbidge’s handwriting – that is to say, there was a label; and we sent off the package, and I paid twopence in stamps for doing so, but Miss Bess wouldn’t tell me, ask her as much as I would, who it was for. Mademoiselle tried hard to make Miss Bess tell, but she couldn’t get nothing out of her, although she caught hold of her; but Mr. James, the butcher’s boy, coming up, Mademoiselle let Miss Bess be, and so we went home; and I didn’t think much about it till I looked into Miss Bess’s purse to-night to see what she had spent, and then I saw there wasn’t one penny left, and she must, I fear, have spent it all on the packet. It’s only right, mam, as you should know,“ pursued Liza, flushing crimson, ”lest Mrs. Milner should say that I had taken some, for just now Mrs. Milner be quite furious, fussing round and saying that Miss Bess has been fair robbed.”

“Never mind,” I said, “when I see Miss Bess in the morning I will go into the matter, and find out how she spent her money.”

I wondered, as I sat down and began to embroider after folding up my letter, what would be the explanation of the mystery. Probably, I said to myself, a little present to Harry, for Bess is a very generous little soul, and most of her pocket-money is spent in gifts.

NANA IS ANGRY

The next morning my old nurse, holding tightly Bess’s hand, came downstairs just as I had finished breakfast. She looked, as Burbidge would say, “black as tempest,” and I didn’t envy Eliza’s place in the nursery.

“Miss Bess will tell you,” she said, “and as for Liza, I think it a most disgraceful affair to have let the poor lamb spend her money as she and Mademoiselle did, and never so much as to turn their heads back. Pack of fools talkin’ to passers-by whilst the poor child was bein’ robbed. That’s what I call ’em.”

“I wasn’t,” cried Bess, stoutly. “It was my own money and my own fault. I paid it all myself, and I won’t tell nobody about it but mama.”

Old Nana took no notice of this outburst, and vowed that she would get the money back somehow, and let everybody know what she really thought of ’em. I said nothing, for the fat was in the fire, and the one thing that I am sure of was, that you couldn’t change anybody’s determination of over seventy; and what Nana determines to do, Nana will do, for all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. When Bess and I were alone, I turned to Bess. “Tell me, little girl,” I said.

Bess answered, “Oh, mama, I know it is all right. Nana’s very old, but she couldn’t get it out of me. I mean to tell nobody but you and Hals, for a secret is a secret.” And she added irrelevantly, “I couldn’t walk with you because I felt I must do it.”

“What, dear?”

“Making it up with God,” replied Bess, but quite reverently. “When I heard that Fräulein had broken her leg, I knew that something must be done, for, for all you said, mamsie, I couldn’t help feeling that my curse might have done something; not,” explained Bess, “exactly made Fräulein break her leg, but it might have made it easier for her to do so.”

“Yes, dear, but tell me what you did.”

“Oh, you know, mamsie,” answered Bess. “I went off for a walk with Liza and Célestine, but first of all I slipped upstairs when nobody was looking and got my purse. I didn’t quite know what I had, for I didn’t stop to count the money inside, but there were three silver bits and four copper monies.

“When I got into Mr. – ’s shop,” pursued Bess, “I said I wanted something that would be a comfort to somebody who had broken their leg. And he said, ‘Certainly, Miss, I have just what you want.’ And he gave me a little leather case painted all over with pink and blue flowers, quite pretty, though not quite like any flowers that I know.”

“Yes, Bess,” I said, and took little Bess’s hand encouragingly.

A GIFT FROM BESS

“Well,” said Bess, “I don’t rightly understand monies, so I told Mr. – to take out what he wanted. But he said there wasn’t quite enough; so I said I would bring the rest next Saturday, when I got paid up for my good-conduct marks, if it wasn’t very much. And he said, ‘Don’t mention it, miss, only sixpence more.’

“So, then,” pursued Bess, “he did up the little packet, and if a shopman does not know what is good for a person with a broken leg, who should, I should like to know,” and Bess looked round her triumphantly.

Then my little maid went on to say, “I stuck on the label that Burbidge wrote for me, and that he did for me in the tool-house when we two were alone; but he put Miss, not Fräulein, as we neither of us knew how to spell it. But we wrote governess below, and Roderick, who, Burbidge says, is a scholar, put in ‘her with the broken leg,’ so they were sure to understand. And then Mr. – stuck it with his tongue – for it was all gummy – and I and he pressed it down tight, and then Liza and I carried it off to the post-office, and that is all.”

Then Bess added, with a catch in her throat, “I haven’t been wicked this time. Nana says it’s wicked to spend my money without telling you; but I say I must pay off God, for I want to be happy as princes and princesses are happy in fairy-stories.”

Bess’s attitude of mind was a little difficult to follow, as is often the case with children; but as I felt that the whole funny little business had sprung more from childish kindness than anything else, all I did was to kiss my little maid and say, “Fräulein will be pleased.”

Bess left me beaming. “My mama,” I heard her say later to her old nurse, “says there is no harm in what I did; and that I may give cigarette-cases or whatever I like to governesses who break their legs.”

Two days later Miss Weldon received a letter from Fräulein Schlieman, returning the case, and saying with some asperity —

“I do not smoke, whatever they believe of German women in England.”

Bess, on receiving back her gift, was filled with indignation.

“Why cannot governesses smoke?” she asked. “If I was a governess I should smoke to oblige.” And then, in a fit of virtuous fury, she handed over the case to Burbidge, with the lofty command of “Smoke at once.” Later on, my little daughter told me, “I couldn’t help it if Fräulein didn’t smoke.” And then added, “Anyway, God knows I spent my money on her, and Burbidge says that’s sure to count.”

CHAPTER IV

APRIL

“Strowe me the ground with daffodoundillesAnd cowslips and king-cups, and loved lillies,The pretie pawnce,And the cheveraunceShall match with the fayre flowre Delice.”Spenser, Shepherd’s Calendar.

A soft sweet day. A gentle rain had fallen all through the night, and the sense of spring was everywhere. Soft mellow sunshine flooded into the house. How the chestnut buds glistened in the sunlight, all damp, and sticky, and a few even had begun to uncurl.

The almonds were out in sheets of rosy pink blossom. Bees were humming everywhere, and thrushes were piping their jubilant strains on every gnarled apple tree.

I asked at breakfast for my little maid, but I was told that she was not yet down, and even our irreproachable butler Fremantle seemed almost inclined to laugh, if such a sedate and irreproachable person can descend to such levity, as he told me that Miss Bess, he feared, would be a little late that morning.

I had, as it happened, many letters to answer, and so forgot to trouble about Bess, for I had heard her chirp like a bird between six and seven in the morning, and therefore was not anxious. I remembered now that Bess had been often up to tea at the Red House of late, and that when Constance and she had met, they had whispered much, and that Bess had often caught her hand and held it tightly before parting, and then bubbled over with happy laughter. Once, when I asked Bess the cause of all this mystery, she replied, “Only white secrets, mum,” and Constance had laughed too, and repeated the child’s words, “Only white secrets.”

Whilst I stuck down my letters, I recalled these little half-forgotten episodes, when suddenly the door was flung open with a bang, and Bess stood before me; but not my every-day little Bess in short petticoats, and white pinafore, and her locks hanging round her, with a mane like a Church Stretton pony’s, but my little Bess clothed in a fancy-ball costume, in that of a diminutive jester of the fourteenth century, with cap and bells, in little yellow and pink tights with satin embroidered vest, and her luxuriant locks confined in a cap.

She entered shaking her bells merrily, and as I started up in surprise, she exclaimed, “Don’t say anything, mamsie, please don’t. Wait till you have heard my verse, or you will spoil everything. Constance has learnt it me, and I have said it over and over again. You see it is All Fools’ Day, and I must give you a surprise, for Nana says, a surprise is next best to a birthday.”

And then my little girl faced me, in the middle of the old chamber, with the great stone altar as a background, and piped aloud in her gay childish way. The old rhyme somewhat altered —

“When April her Folly’s throne exalts,While Dob calls Nell, and laughs because she halts,While Nell meets Tom, and says he too must play,Then laughs in turn, and laughing runs away,Let us my muse thro’ Folly’s harvest rangeAnd glean some moral into Wisdom’s grange.”AN APRIL FOOL

It is an old rhyme, and I am told that Constance had taught it to my little maid. I stood looking at my dear little fool, all blushes and sweet smiles. “Constance,” continued Bess, “was sure it would make you laugh.” And then, after a pause, she added, “I have not done yet. Listen; I know all the funny things, pit-pat. Miss Weldon may not find me clever, but Constance says I learnt at once what she taught me. You see, mum, it is all fun, and fun with Constance is better than boxes of sugar-plums;” and here my little lass began to cut a hundred capers, to jingle her bells, and to dance gaily, calling out, “There are heaps of funny things to do. I must send Burbidge on a sleeveless errand, tell Absalom to go for the map of the Undiscovered Islands, and send Célestine for pigeons’ milk, and won’t she be cross! Crabs won’t be in it, no, not if they were steeped in vinegar for a month, Nana says.” And away danced my little lass into the brilliant April sunshine.

I did not catch what she said to the old gardener outside, but I heard a deep roar of laughter from Burbidge, and a bass duet of guffaws, from Absalom and Roderick; and a minute later Burbidge entered from the garden and told me, his face beaming with honest pleasure, that “Miss Bess was the gayest little Folly that had ever come to Wenlock, and would surely make folks laugh like an ecall come what might.”

A few minutes later, and Bess flew off to her old nurse and to Auguste, and both I heard, by their shrill exclamations, affected to be overcome with laughter at her approach. Inside and outside, on this first of April, I heard sounds of merriment, as if a return to old customs had come back, and as if loud and jocund mirth had not died out of simple hearts. I thought of all the old games, plays, quips, and pranks, that the old walls of the Abbey Farmery must have heard and seen in the Middle Ages, for even the monks allowed times of folly and revelry, at Yule-tide and Candlemas, I have read; and on the first of April, All Fools’ Day, many must have been the hearty laugh, and simple joke, that folks made and passed on each other in Wenlock town, and all over old England.

I popped my letters into the box for post, and stepped out, as my task for the day was accomplished. The morning was enchantingly beautiful. “Old Adam” glistened beneath the sundial like a wondrous jewel, the eyes in his tail seemed of a hundred tints. He appeared, as Buffon said, “to combine all that delights the eye in the soft, and delicate tints of the finest flowers, all that dazzles it in the sparkling lustre of gems, and all that astonishes it, in the grand display of the rainbow.” His tail appeared of a hundred tints, and the red gold of the featherlets round the eyes flashed as if illuminated by fire. His grey, subdued wives, walked meekly beside him, and cast upon him humble glances of admiration, while he strutted before them with the pride of a Scotch piper, and expanded his tail with a strange mechanical whirr, that recalled the winding-up of some rich, elaborate, modern toy.