Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/458

450 of her, indeed, are very indistinct; but there is one scene, the memory of which the long years that have elapsed have not faded, though I must have been a mere infant when the circumstance occurred. I was sleeping in a small room within that in which my parents slept—I suppose it was the dressing-room. I remember that I was lying in a little bed with white curtains, and I have a vague recollection of seeing my father sitting before a glass in that room whilst his valet shaved him. But on the occasion in question I was awakened in the middle of the night—or at least it appeared to me so—by a light, and my father’s voice loud and in anger; and when I opened my eyes, I saw him standing with his back to me, and my mother kneeling at his feet, weeping violently. I think I hear her sobs now, and the plaintive voice in which she said, “Oh, Reginald, be merciful! Trample on me, if you will! Insult me as you do daily! Torture me in every way but one, and I’ll not complain; but, oh, don’t say I shall not be allowed to see him! It will break my heart; it will, indeed!”

What my father would have responded to this appeal I do not know, for, terrified by the scene, I began to howl so loud that they both forgot their own quarrel whilst they tried to pacify me.

“We should not come here,” said my father, bitterly, “nor make him the confidant of our shame. Go to sleep, my boy; go to sleep,” he added, drawing the clothes over me before he left the room. My mother, poor soul!—I sigh whilst I write it—bent over me and gave me a passionate kiss as she whispered, “Don’t be frightened, darling; it’s only a trifling misunderstanding betwixt papa and me; we shall be all right again to-morrow.”

I went to sleep; and when I awoke in the morning, although I remembered very well what had occurred, an instinctive delicacy I suppose prevented my ever mentioning the circumstance even to my mother, much less to the servants.

Of my mother’s person I have a very indistinct recollection; but when, many years afterwards, a garret was opened at Elfdale, which had always been used as a lumber-room, and kept locked, a picture of her, which in my early recollections hung over the mantel-piece in the dining-room, was found sownsewn [sic] up in a packing-cloth. It was a beautiful thing, independent of its being, as I feel certain it was, an admirable likeness. She is represented standing before a mirror, trying the effect of some wild flowers in her hair; an open music-book, with the name of Rose Callender legibly inscribed on it, lies on the floor; whilst a straw hat tied with blue ribbons, and an open glass door with a glimpse of a green pasture beyond, indicate that she has just come in from the walk in which she has plucked them. A second door which opens into the interior of the house is also ajar, and a man’s head, with smiling face, which I should never have recognised to be that of my father, is looking in; the beautiful, blooming, fair-haired creature being, however, too much occupied with the lovely vision she was contemplating in the mirror to be aware of the presence of the intruder. I have since learnt that there was an especial interest attached to this picture, which was painted for my father before the marriage took place, in order to commemorate his first interview with his future wife. By what circumstances that interview was brought about, I shall relate by-and-by.

In that early portrait of my mother, I can discern a resemblance to what I was myself in my youth, and it is thus I judge of its fidelity; for, according to my own imperfect recollections, she was pale and thin, gliding about the house with a quiet, noiseless step, as if she did not wish to wake the echoes with her foot. The face of glad surprise looking in at the door is still more unlike the wan, haggard, austere countenance of my father as I remember it; and the contrast betwixt the picture and the image of the originals, as they live in my mind, tells a sad tale of woe, considering the few years that had elapsed betwixt the period of its execution and that from which I date my recollections.

I can recall another scene, though I cannot say whether it was antecedent or subsequent to the one above described as occurring in my bed-room—in which I know, although I cannot tell how I know it, that Sir Ralph Wellwood was an actor. It was in our own park, not far from the spot where I was detected kissing Clara, and consequently only divided by the wall from the Staughton grounds. I see it as a tableau—how we got to the place, I cannot tell; but my mother is leaning against a tree—I even know which tree it was—it is an elm; and I have lately had it surrounded by rails, on which I have placed an inscription, requesting my successors at Elfdale, whoever they may be, not to cut down that tree; although why I do this I scarcely know myself. Against this tree she is leaning; in tears, and holding her handkerchief to her eyes. A little distance from her stands a tall, handsome man, whom I recognise as Sir Ralph Wellwood; he is talking earnestly, I think beseechingly, and near him stands a lady—Lady Wellwood, I think. I had an imperfect comprehension at the time, that some matter of great importance was under discussion. I even understood that the conversation referred to my mother’s unhappiness; and that Sir Ralph was entreating Lady Wellwood to do something—what I know not. Neither do I know what followed; for there the curtain falls, and I see no more.

There is another person mixed up with these childish recollections—a lady who was always dressed in black, and who wore a strange, mysterious kind of cap upon her head. This was my grandmother, and the cap—which combined with the feelings of awe and dislike she inspired, made me fancy her something allied to a witch—was a widow’s cap of the most lugubrious fashion, which she wore from the period of her husband’s death to her own. To my childish eyes she looked preternaturally old, though she could not have been so in reality; but I believe she suffered from rheumatism, and that the joints of her fingers were considerably enlarged; which, not understanding it to be the result of disease, added to the mystery of her being, and augmented my terrors. There was a large arm-chair appropriated I to the especial use of this lady, which being of