A Great Emergency and Other Tales Part 23

When the vulgar meal was over--that commonplace refreshment ordained and superintended by the elders of the household--Madam Liberality would withdraw into a corner, from which she issued notes of invitation to all the dolls. They were "fancy written" on curl papers and folded into c.o.c.ked hats.

Then began the real feast. The dolls came, and the children with them.

Madam Liberality had no toy tea-sets or dinner-sets, but there were acorn-cups filled to the brim, and the water tasted deliciously, though it came out of the ewer in the night nursery, and had not even been filtered. And before every doll was a flat oyster-sh.e.l.l covered with a round oyster-sh.e.l.l, a complete set of complete pairs, which had been collected by degrees, like old family plate. And when the upper sh.e.l.l was raised, on every dish lay a plum. It was then that Madam Liberality got her sweetness out of the cake.

She was in her glory at the head of the inverted tea-chest; and if the raisins would not go round, the empty oyster-sh.e.l.l was hers, and nothing offended her more than to have this noticed. That was her spirit, then and always. She could "do without" anything, if the wherewithal to be hospitable was left to her.

When one's brain is no stronger than mine is, one gets very much confused in disentangling motives and nice points of character. I have doubted whether Madam Liberality's besetting virtue were a virtue at all. Was it unselfishness or a love of approbation, benevolence or fussiness, the gift of sympathy or the l.u.s.t of power? Or was it something else? She was a very sickly child, with much pain to bear, and many pleasures to forego. Was it, as doctors say, "an effort of nature," to make her live outside herself and be happy in the happiness of others?

Equal doubt may hang over the conduct of her brothers and sister towards her. Did they more love her, or find her useful? Was their grat.i.tude--as grat.i.tude has been defined to be--"a keen sense of favours to come"? They certainly got used to her services, and to begging and borrowing the few things that were her "very own," without fear of refusal. But if they rather took her benevolence for granted, and thought that she "liked lending her things," and that it was her way of enjoying possessions, they may have been right; for next to one's own soul, one's own family is perhaps the best judge of one's temper and disposition.

And they called her Madam Liberality, so Madam Liberality she shall remain.

It has been hinted that there was a reason for the scarceness of the plums in the plum-cake. Madam Liberality's father was dead, and her mother was very poor, and had several children. It was not an easy matter with her to find bread for the family, putting currants and raisins out of the question.

Though poor, they were, however, gentle-folk, and had, for that matter, rich relations. Very rich relations indeed! Madam Liberality's mother's first cousin had fifteen thousand a year. His servants did not spend ten thousand. (As to what he spent himself, it was comparatively trifling.) The rest of the money acc.u.mulated. Not that it was being got together to do something with by and by. He had no intention of ever spending more than he spent at present. Indeed, with a lump of coal taken off here, and a needless candle blown out there, he rather hoped in future to spend less.

His wife was Madam Liberality's G.o.dmother. She was a good-hearted woman, and took real pleasure in being kind to people, in the way she thought best for them. Sometimes it was a graceful and appropriate way, and very often it was not. The most acceptable act of kindness she ever did to her G.o.d-daughter was when the child was recovering from an illness, and she asked her to visit her at the seaside.

Madam Liberality had never seen the sea, and the thought of it proved a better stimulus than the port wine which her doctor ordered so easily, and her mother got with such difficulty.

When new clothes were bought, or old ones refurbished, Madam Liberality, as a rule, went to the wall. Not because her mother was ever guilty of favouritism, but because such occasions afforded an opportunity of displaying generosity towards her younger sister.

But this time it was otherwise; for whatever could be spared towards "summer things" for the two little girls was spent upon Madam Liberality's outfit for the seaside. There was a new dress, and a jacket "as good as new," for it was cut out of "mother's" cloth cloak and made up, with the best binding and b.u.t.tons in the shop, by the village tailor. And he was bribed, in a secret visit, and with much coaxing from the little girls, to make real pockets instead of braided shams. The _second best_ frock was compounded of two which had hitherto been _very bests_--Madam Liberality's own, eked out by "Darling's" into a more fas.h.i.+onable fullness, and with a cape to match.

There was a sense of solid property to be derived from being able to take in at a glance the stock of well-mended under-garments, half of which were generally at the wash. Besides, they had been added to, and all the stockings were darned, and only one pair in the legs where it would show, below short petticoat mark.

Then there was a bonnet newly turned and trimmed, and a pair and a half of new boots, for surely boots are at least half new when they have been (as the village cobbler described it in his bill) "souled and healed"?

Poor little Madam Liberality! When she saw the things which covered her bed in their abundance, it seemed to her an outfit for a princess.

And yet when her G.o.dmother asked Podmore, the lady's-maid, "How is the child off for clothes?" Podmore unhesitatingly replied, "She've nothing fit to be seen, ma'am," which shows how differently the same things appear in different circ.u.mstances.

Podmore was a good friend to Madam Liberality. She had that open-handed spirit which one acquires quite naturally in a house where everything goes on on a large scale, at somebody else's expense. Now Madam Liberality's G.o.dmother, from the very largeness of her possessions, was obliged to leave the care of them to others, in such matters as food, dress, the gardens, the stables, etc. So, like many other people in a similar case, she amused herself and exercised her economical instincts by troublesome little thriftinesses, by making cheap presents, dear bargains, and so forth. She was by nature a managing woman; and when those very grand people, the butler, the housekeeper, the head-gardener, and the lady's-maid had divided her household duties among them, there was nothing left for her to be clever about, except such little matters as joining the f.a.g-ends of the bronze sealing-wax sticks which lay in the silver inkstand on the malachite writing-table, and being good-natured at the cheapest rate at which her friends could be benefited.

Madam Liberality's best neckerchief had been very pretty when it was new, and would have been pretty as well as clean still if the washerwoman had not used rather too hot an iron to it, so that the blue in the check pattern was somewhat faded. And yet it had felt very smart as Madam Liberality drove in the carrier's cart to meet the coach at the outset of her journey. But when she sat against the rich blue leather of her G.o.dmother's coach as they drove up and down the esplanade, it was like looking at fairy jewels by daylight when they turn into faded leaves.

"Is that your best neckerchief, child?" said the old lady.

"Yes, ma'am," blushed Madam Liberality,

So when they got home her G.o.dmother went to her odds-and-ends drawer.

Podmore never interfered with this drawer. She was content to be despotic among the dresses, and left the old lady to faddle to her heart's content with bits of old lace and ribbon which she herself would not have condescended to wear.

The old lady fumbled them over. There were a good many half-yards of ribbon with very large patterns, but nothing really fit for Madam Liberality's little neck but a small Indian scarf of many-coloured silk. It was old, and Podmore would never have allowed her mistress to drive on the esplanade in anything so small and youthful-looking; but the colours were quite bright, and there was no doubt but that Madam Liberality might be provided for by a cheaper neck-ribbon. So the old lady shut the drawer, and toddled down the corridor that led to Podmore's room.

She had a good general idea that Podmore's perquisites were large, but perquisites seem to be a condition of valuable servants in large establishments, and then anything which could be recovered from what had already pa.s.sed into Podmore's room must be a kind of economy. So she resolved that Podmore should "find something" for Madam Liberality's neck.

"I never noticed it, ma'am, till I brought your shawl to the carriage," said Podmore. "If I had seen it before, the young lady shouldn't have come with you so. I'll see to it, ma'am."

"Thank you, Podmore."

"Can you spare me to go into the town this afternoon, ma'am?" added the lady's-maid. "I want some things at Huckaback and Woolsey's."

Huckaback and Woolsey were the linendrapers where Madam Liberality's G.o.dmother "had an account." It was one of the things on a large scale over the details of which she had no control.

"You'll be back in time to dress me?"

"Oh dear, yes, ma'am." And having settled the old lady's shawl on her shoulders, and drawn out her cap-lappets, Podmore returned to her work.

It was a work of kindness. The old lady might deal shabbily with her faded ribbons and her relations, but the butler, the housekeeper, and the lady's-maid did their best to keep up the credit of the family.

It was well known that Madam Liberality was a cousin, and Podmore resolved that she should have a proper frock to go down to dessert in.

So she had been very busy making a little slip out of a few yards of blue silk which had been over and above one of the old lady's dresses, and now she betook herself to the draper's to get spotted muslin to cover it and ribbons to trim it with.

And whilst Madam Liberality's G.o.dmother was still feeling a few twinges about the Indian scarf, Podmore ordered a pink neckerchief shot with white, and with pink and white fringes, to be included in the parcel.

But it was not in this way alone that Podmore was a good friend to Madam Liberality.

She took her out walking, and let her play on the beach, and even bring home dirty weeds and sh.e.l.ls. Indeed, Podmore herself was not above collecting cowries in a pill-box for her little nephews.

When Mrs. Podmore met acquaintances on the beach, Madam Liberality played alone, and these were her happiest moments. She played amongst the rotting, weed-grown stakes of an old pier, and "fancied" rooms among them--suites of rooms in which she would lodge her brothers and sister if they came to visit her, and where--with c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.ls for teacups, and lava for vegetables, and fucus-pods for fish--they should find themselves as much enchanted as Beauty in the palace of the Beast.

Again and again she "fancied" Darling into her sh.o.r.e-palace, the delights of which should only be marred by the growls which she herself would utter from time to time from behind the stakes, in the character of a sea-beast, and which should but enhance the moment when she would rush out and throw her arms round Darling's neck and reveal herself as Madam Liberality.

"Darling" was the pet name of Madam Liberality's sister--her only sister, on whom she lavished the intensest affection of a heart which was always a large one in proportion to her little body. It seemed so strange to play at any game of fancies without Darling, that Madam Liberality could hardly realize it.

She might be preparing by herself a larger treat than usual for the others; but it was incredible that no one would come after all, and that Darling would never see the palace on the beach, and the state-rooms, and the limpets, and the seaweed, and the salt-water soup, and the real fish (a small dab discarded from a herring-net) which Madam Liberality had got for her.

Her mind was filled with day-dreams of Darling's coming, and of how she would display to her all the wonders of the seash.o.r.e, which would reflect almost as much credit upon her as if she had invented razor-sh.e.l.ls and crabs. She thought so much about it that she began quite to expect it.

Was it not natural that her G.o.dmother should see that she must be lonely, and ask Darling to come and be with her? Perhaps the old lady had already done so, and the visit was to be a surprise. Madam Liberality could quite imagine doing a nice thing like this herself, and she hoped it so strongly that she almost came to believe in it.

Every day she waited hopefully, first for the post, and then for the time when the coach came in, the hour at which she herself had arrived; but the coach brought no Darling, and the post brought no letter to say that she was coming, and Madam Liberality's hopes were disappointed.

Madam Liberality was accustomed to disappointment.

From her earliest years it had been a family joke that poor Madam Liberality was always in ill-luck's way.

It is true that she was constantly planning; and if one builds castles, one must expect a few loose stones about one's ears now and then. But, besides this, her little hopes were constantly being frustrated by fate.

If the pigs or the hens got into the garden, Madam Liberality's bed was sure to be laid waste before any one came to the rescue. When a picnic or a tea-party was in store, if Madam Liberality did not catch cold, so as to hinder her from going, she was pretty sure to have a quinsy from fatigue or wet feet afterwards. When she had a treat she paid for the pleasurable excitement by a headache, just as when she ate sweet things they gave her toothache.

But if her luck was less than other people's, her courage and good spirits were more than common. She could think with pleasure about the treat when she had forgotten the headache. One side of her little face would look fairly cheerful when the other was obliterated by a flannel bag of hot camomile flowers, and the whole was redolent of every horrible domestic remedy for toothache, from oil of cloves and creosote to a baked onion in the ear. No sufferings abated her energy for fresh exploits, or quenched the hope that cold, and damp, and fatigue would not hurt her "this time."

In the intervals of wringing out hot flannels for her own quinsy, she would amuse herself by devising a desert island expedition on a larger and possibly a damper scale than hitherto, against the time when she should be out again.

It is a very old simile, but Madam Liberality really was like a cork rising on the top of the very wave of ill-luck that had swallowed up her hopes. Her little white face and undaunted spirit bobbed up after each mischance or malady as ready and hopeful as ever.