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IV. The Queen's Twin |  |
IV.
Presently I saw a low gray house standing on a grassy bank close to the road. The door was at the side, facing us, and a tangle of snowberry bushes and cinnamon roses grew to the level of the window sills. On the doorstep stood a bent-shouldered little old woman. There was an air of welcome and of unmistakable dignity about her. "She sees us coming!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd in an excited whisper. "There, I told her I might be over this way again, if the weather held good, and if I came I'd bring you. She said right off she'd take great pleasure in havin' a visit from you. I was surprised; she's usually so retirin'."
Even this reassurance did not quell a faint apprehension on our part; there was something distinctly formal in the occasion, and one felt that consciousness of inadequacy which is never easy for the humblest pride to bear. On the way I had torn my dress in an unexpected encounter with a little thorn bush; I could now imagine how it felt to be going to Court and forgetting one's feathers or Court train.
The Queen's Twin was oblivious of such trifles; she stood waiting with a calm look until we came near enough to take her kind hand. She was a beautiful old woman, with clear eyes and a lovely quietness and genuineness of manner; there was not a trace of anything pretentious about her, or high-flown, as Mrs. Todd would say comprehensively. Beauty in age is rare enough in women who have spent their lives in the hard work of a farmhouse; but autumn-like and withered as this woman may have looked, her features had kept, or rather gained, a great refinement. She led us into her old kitchen, and gave us seats, and took one of the little straight-backed chairs herself, and sat a short distance away, as if she were giving audience to an ambassador. It seemed as if we should all be standing; one could not help feeling that the habits of her life were more ceremonious, but that for the moment she assumed the simplicities of the occasion.
Mrs. Todd was always Mrs. Todd,—too great and self-possessed a soul for any occasion to ruffle. I admired her calmness, and presently the slow current of neighborhood talk carried us easily along; we spoke of the weather and the small adventures of the way, and then, as if I were after all not a stranger, our hostess turned almost affectionately to speak to me.
"The weather will be growing dark in London now. I expect that you've been in London, dear?" she said.
"Oh yes," I answered. "Only last year."
"It is a great many years since I was there; along in the forties," said Mrs. Martin. 'Twas the only voyage I ever made. Most of my neighbors have been great travelers. My brother was master of a vessel, and his wife usually sailed with him; but that year she had a young child more frail than the others, and she dreaded the care of it at sea. It happened that my brother got a chance for my husband to go as supercargo, being a good accountant, and came one day to urge him to take it. He was very ill disposed to the sea, but he had met with losses, and I saw my own opportunity and persuaded them both to let me go too. In those days they didn't object to a woman's being aboard to wash and mend; the voyages were sometimes very long. And that was the way I come to see the Queen."
Mrs. Martin was looking straight in my eyes, to see if I showed any genuine interest in the most interesting person in the world.
"Oh, I am glad you saw the Queen," I hastened to say. "Mrs. Todd has told me that you and she were born the very same day."
"We were indeed, dear," said Mrs. Martin, and she leaned back comfortably and smiled as she had not smiled before. Mrs. Todd gave a satisfied nod and glance, as if to say that things were going on as well as possible in this anxious moment.
"Yes," Mrs. Martin resumed, as she drew her chair a little nearer, "'twas a very remarkable thing: we were born the same day, and at exactly the same hour, after you allowed for all the difference in time. My father figured it out sea-fashion. Her Royal Majesty and I opened our eyes upon this world together: say what you may, 'tis a bond between us."
Mrs. Todd assented with an air of triumph, and untied her hat strings and threw them back over her shoulders with a gallant air.
"And I married a man by the name of Albert, just the same as she did; and all by chance, for I didn't get the news that she had an Albert, too, till a fortnight afterward; news was slower coming then than it is now. My first baby was a girl, and I called her Victoria after my mate; but the next one was a boy, and my husband wanted the right to name him, and took his own name and
I asked Mrs. Martin if she lived alone all the year, and was told that she did except for a visit now and then from one of her grandchildren, "the only one that really likes to come an' stay quiet 'long o' grandma. She always says, quick as she's through her schoolin' she's goin' to live with me all the time. But she's very pretty an' has taking ways," said Mrs. Martin, looking both proud and wistful, "so I can tell nothing at all about it. Yes, I've been alone most o' the time since my Albert was taken away, and that's a great many years; he had a long time o' failing and sickness first." (Mrs. Todd's foot gave an impatient scuff on the floor.) "An' I've always lived right here. I ain't like the Queen's Majesty, for this is the only palace I've got," said the dear old thing, smiling again. "I'm glad of it, too. I don't like changing about, an' our stations in life are set very different. I don't require what the Queen does, but sometimes I've thought 'twas left to me to do the plain things she don't have time for. I expect she's a beautiful housekeeper; nobody couldn't have done better in her high place, and she's been as good a mother as she's been a queen."
"I guess she has, Abby," agreed Mrs. Todd instantly. "How was it you happened to get such a good look at her? I meant to ask you again when I was here t'other day."
"Our ship was layin' in the Thames, right there above Wapping. We was dischargin' cargo, and under orders to clear as quick as we could for Bordeaux to take on an excellent freight o' French goods," explained Mrs. Martin eagerly. "I heard that the Queen was goin' to a great review of her army, and would drive out o' her Buckin'ham Palace about ten o'clock in the mornin'; and I run aft to Albert, my husband, and brother Horace where they was standin' together by the hatchway, and told 'em they must one of 'em take me. They laughed, I was in such a hurry, and said they couldn't go; and I found they meant it and got sort of impatient when I begun to talk, and I was 'most broken-hearted; 'twas 'most all the reason I had for makin' that hard voyage. Albert couldn't help often reproachin' me, for he did so resent the sea, an' I'd known how 'twould be before we sailed; but I'd minded nothin' all the way till then, and I just crep' back to my cabin an' begun to cry. They was disappointed about their ship's cook, an' I'd cooked for fo'c's'le an' cabin myself all the way over; 'twas dreadful hard work, 'specially in rough weather; we'd had head winds an' a six weeks' voyage. They'd acted sort of ashamed o' me when I pled so to go ashore, an' that hurt my feelin's most of all. But Albert come below pretty soon. I'd never given way so in my life, an' he begun to act frightened, and treated me gentle, just as he did when we was goin' to be married; an' when I got over sobbin' he went on deck an' saw Horace an' talked it over what they could do; they really had their duty to the vessel, and couldn't be spared that day. Horace was real good when he understood everything, an' he come an' told me I'd more than worked my passage, an' was goin' to do just as I liked now we was in port. He'd engaged a cook, too, that was comin' aboard that mornin',
There was a moment when the Queen's Twin could not go on, and neither of her listeners could ask a question.
"Prince Albert was sitting right beside her in the carriage," she continued. "Oh, he was a beautiful man. Yes, dear, I saw 'em both together, just as I see you now; and then she was gone out o' sight in another minute, and the common crowd was spread all over the place, pushin' an' cheerin'. 'Twas some kind o' holiday, an' the carpenter and I got separated, an' then I found him again after I didn't think I should, an' he was all for makin' a day of it and goin' to show me all the sights,—he'd been in London before; but I didn't want nothin' else, an' we went back through the streets down to the waterside an' took the boat. I remember I mended an old coat o' my Albert's as good as I could, sittin' in the sun on the quarter deck all that afternoon, and 'twas all as if I was livin' in a lovely dream. I don't know how to explain it, but there hasn't been no friend I've felt so near to me ever since."
One could not say much, only listen. Mrs. Todd put in a discerning question now and then, and Mrs. Martin's eyes shone brighter and brighter as she talked. What a lovely gift of imagination and true affection was in this fond old heart! I looked about the plain New England kitchen, with its wood-smoked walls, its homely braided rugs on the worn floor, and all its simple furnishings. The loud-ticking clock seemed to encourage us to speak. At the other side of the room was an early newspaper portrait of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. On a shelf below were some flowers in a little glass dish, as if they were put before a shrine.
"If I could have had more to read, I should have known 'most everything about her," said Mrs. Martin wistfully. "I've made the most of what I did have, and thought it over and over till it came clear. I sometimes seem to have her all my own, as if we'd lived right together. I've often walked out into the woods alone and told her what my troubles was, and it always seemed as if she told me 'twas all right, an' we must have patience. I've got her beautiful book about the Highlands,—'twas dear Mis' Todd here that found out about her printing it, and got a copy for me; and it's been a treasure to my heart, just as if 'twas written right to me. I always read it Sundays now for my Sunday treat. Before that I used to have to imagine a good deal; but when I come to read her book, I knew what I expected was all true. We do think alike about so many things," said the Queen's Twin, with affectionate certainty. "You see, there is something between us, being born just at the same time: 'tis what they call a birthright. She's had great tasks put upon her, being the Queen, an' mine has been the humble lot; but she's done the best she could, nobody can say to the contrary, and there's something
"There, 'twouldn't play the part in her life it has in mine," said Mrs. Martin generously, in answer to something one of her listeners had said. "Sometimes I think, now she's older, she might like to know about us. When I think how few old friends anybody has left at our age, I suppose it may be just the same with her as it is with me; perhaps she would like to know how we came into life together. But I've had a great advantage in seeing her, an' I can always fancy her goin' on while she don't know nothin' yet about me,—except she may feel my love stayin' her heart sometimes, an' not know just where it comes from. An' I dream about our being together out in some pretty fields, young as ever we was, and holdin' hands as we walk along. I'd like to know if she ever has that dream, too. I used to have days when I made believe she did know, an' was comin' to see me," confessed the speaker shyly, with a little flush on her cheeks, "and I'd plan what I could have nice for supper; and I wasn't goin' to let anybody know she was here havin' a good rest, except I'd wish you, Almira Todd, or dear Mis' Blackett would happen in, for you'd know just how to talk with her. You see, she likes to be up in Scotland, right out in the wild country, better than she does anywhere else."
"I'd really love to take her out to see mother at Green Island," said Mrs. Todd, with a sudden impulse.
"Oh yes, I should love to have you," answered Mrs. Martin, and then she began to speak in a lower tone. "One day I got thinkin' so about my dear Queen," she said, "an' livin' so in my thoughts, that I went to work an' got all ready for her, just as if she was really comin'. I never told this to a livin' soul before, but I feel you'll understand. I put my best fine sheets and blankets I spun an' wove myself, on her bed, and I picked some pretty flowers and put 'em all round the house; an' I worked as hard an' happy as I could all day, and had as nice a supper ready as I could get, sort of tellin' myself a story all the time. She was comin', an' I was goin' to see her again, an' I kep' it up until nightfall; an' when I see the dark an' it come to me I was all alone, the dream left me, an' I sat down on the doorstep an' felt all foolish an' tired. An' if you'll believe it, I heard steps comin', an' an old cousin o' mine come wanderin' along, one I was apt to be shy of. She wasn't all there, as folks used to say, but harmless enough, and a kind of poor old talking body. An' I went right to meet her when I first heard her call, 'stead o' hidin', as I sometimes did, an' she come in dreadful willin', an' we set down to supper together; 'twas a supper I should have had no heart to eat alone."
"I don't believe she ever had such a splendid time in her life as she did then. I heard her tell all about it afterward!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd compassionately. "There, now I hear all this, it seems just as if the Queen might have known, and couldn't come herself, so she sent that poor old creatur' that was always in need!"
Mrs. Martin looked timidly at Mrs. Todd, and then at me. "'Twas childish o' me to go an' get supper," she confessed.
"I guess you wa'n't the first one to do that," said Mrs. Todd. "No, I guess you wa'n't the first one who's got supper that way, Abby"—and then for a moment she could say no more.
Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Martin had moved their chairs a little, so that they faced each other, and I, at one side, could see them both.
"No, you never told me o' that before, Abby," said Mrs. Todd gently. "Don't it show that, for folks that have any fancy in 'em, such beautiful dreams is
Mrs. Martin did not appear to understand at first, strange to say, when the secret of her heart was put into words; then a glow of pleasure and comprehension shone upon her face. "Why, I believe you're right, Almira!" she said, and turned to me.
"Wouldn't you like to look at my pictures of the Queen?" she asked, and we rose and went into the best room.
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IV. The Queen's Twin | |