Tales and Novels Volume I Part 41

"_Hot_!" cried Herbert, who criticized her language, in return for her criticism upon his radishes, "I don't think you can call a radish _hot_--it is cold, I think: I know what is meant by tasting sweet, or sour, or bitter."

"Well," interrupted Favoretta, "what is the name for the taste of this radish which bites my tongue?"

"_Pungent_," said Isabella, and she eagerly produced a quotation in support of her epithet--

"'And _pungent_ radish biting infant's tongue.'"

"I know for once," said Matilda, smiling, "where you met with that line, I believe: is it not in Shenstone's Schoolmistress, in the description of the old woman's neat little garden?"

"Oh! I should like to hear about that old woman's neat little garden,"

cried Herbert.

"And so should I," said Mrs. Harcourt and Mad. de Rosier. Isabella quickly produced the book after supper, and read the poem.

Herbert and Favoretta liked the old woman and her garden, and they were much interested for the little boy, who was whipped for having been gazing at the pictures on the horn-book, instead of learning his lesson; but, to Isabella's great mortification, they did not understand above half of what she read--the old English expressions puzzled them.

"You would not be surprised at this, my dear Isabella," said Mad. de Rosier, "if you had made as many experiments upon children as I have. It is quite a new language to them; and what you have just been reading is scarcely intelligible to me, though you compliment me so much upon my knowledge of the English language." Mad. de Rosier took the book, and pointed to several words which she had not understood--such as "eftsoons," "_Dan_ Phoebus," and "_ne_ and _y_," which had made many lines incomprehensible.

Herbert, when he heard Mad. de Rosier confess her ignorance, began to take courage, and came forward with his confessions.

"_Gingerbread y rare_," he thought, was some particular kind of gingerbread; and "_Apples with cabbage net y covered o'er_" presented no delightful image to his mind, because, as he said, he did not know what the word _netycovered_ could mean.

These mistakes occasioned some laughter; but as Herbert perceived that he was no longer thought stupid, he took all the laughter with good humour, and he determined to follow, in future, Mad. de Rosier's example, in pointing out the words which were puzzling.

Grace was astonished, at the conclusion of the evening, to find Master Herbert in such high spirits. The next day she heard sounds of woe, sounds agreeable to her wishes--Favoretta crying upon the stairs. It had been a rainy morning: Favoretta and Herbert had been disappointed in not being able to walk out; and after having been amused the preceding evening, they were less disposed to bear disappointment, and less inclined to employ themselves than usual. Favoretta had finished her little basket, and her mother had promised that it should appear at the dessert; but it wanted some hours of dinner-time; and between the making and the performance of a promise, how long the time appears to an impatient child! how many events happen which may change the mind of the promiser!

Mad. de Rosier had lent Favoretta and Herbert, for their amus.e.m.e.nt, the first number of "The Cabinet of Quadrupeds," in which there are beautiful prints; but, unfortunately, some dispute arose between the children. Favoretta thought her brother looked too long at the hunchbacked camel; he accused her of turning over leaves before she had half seen the prints; but she listened not to his just reproaches, for she had caught a glimpse of the royal tiger springing upon Mr. Munro, and she could no longer restrain her impatience. Each party began to pull at the book; and the camel and the royal tiger were both in imminent danger of being torn in pieces, when Mad. de Rosier interfered, parted the combatants, and sent them into separate rooms, as it was her custom to do, whenever they could not agree together.

Grace, the moment she heard Favoretta crying, went up to the room where she was, and made her tiptoe approaches, addressing Favoretta in a tone of compa.s.sion, which, to a child's unpractised ear, might appear, perhaps, the natural voice of sympathy. The sobbing child hid her face in Grace's lap; and when she had told her complaint against Mad. de Rosier, Grace comforted her for the loss of the royal tiger by the present of a queen-cake. Grace did not dare to stay long in the room, lest Mad. de Rosier should detect her; she therefore left the little girl, with a strict charge "not to say a word of the queen-cake to her governess."

Favoretta kept the queen-cake, that she might divide it with Herbert; for she now recollected that she had been most to blame in the dispute about the prints. Herbert absolutely refused, however, to have any share of the cake, and he strongly urged his sister to return it to Grace.

Herbert had, _formerly_, to use his own expression, been accused of being fond of eating, and so, perhaps, he was; but since he had acquired other pleasures, those of affection and employment, his love of eating had diminished so much, that he had eaten only one of his own radishes, because he felt more pleasure in distributing the rest to his mother and sisters.

It was with some difficulty that he prevailed upon Favoretta to restore the queen-cake: the arguments that he used we shall not detail, but he concluded with promising, that, if Favoretta would return the cake, he would ask Mad. de Rosier, the next time they pa.s.sed by the pastrycook's shop, to give them some queen-cakes--"and I dare say she will give us some, for she is much more _really_ good-natured than Grace."

Favoretta, with this hope of a future queen-cake, in addition to all her brother's arguments, at last determined to return Grace's present--"Herbert says I had better give it you back again," said she, "because Mad. de Rosier does not know it."

Grace was somewhat surprised by the effect of Herbert's oratory, and she saw that she must change her ground. The next day, when the children were walking with Mad. de Rosier by a pastrycook's shop, Herbert, with an honest countenance, asked Mad. de Rosier to give Favoretta and him a queen-cake. She complied, for she was glad to find that he always asked frankly for what he wanted; and yet that he bore refusals with good humour.

Just as Herbert was going to eat his queen-cake, he heard the sound of music in the street; he went to the door, and saw a poor man who was playing on the dulcimer--a little boy was with him, who looked extremely thin and hungry--he asked Herbert for some halfpence.

"I have no money of my own," said Herbert, "but I can give you this, which is my own."

Mad. de Rosier held his hand back, which he had just stretched out to offer his queen-cake; she advised him to exchange it for something more substantial; she told him that he might have two buns for one queen-cake. He immediately changed it for two buns, and gave them to the little boy, who thanked him heartily. The man who was playing on the dulcimer asked where Herbert lived, and promised to stop at his door to play a tune for him, which he seemed to like particularly.

Convinced by the affair of the queen-cake that Herbert's influence was a matter of some consequence in the family, Mrs. Grace began to repent that she had made him her enemy, and she resolved, upon the first convenient occasion, to make him overtures of peace--overtures which, she had no doubt, would be readily accepted.

One morning she heard him sighing and groaning, as she thought, over some difficult sum, which Mad. de Rosier had set for him; he cast up one row aloud several times, but could not bring the total twice to the same thing. When he took his sum to Mad. de Rosier, who was dressing, he was kept waiting a few minutes at the door, because Favoretta was not dressed. The young gentleman became a little impatient, and when he gained admittance his sum was wrong.

"Then I cannot make it right," said Herbert, pa.s.sionately.

"Try," said Mad. de Rosier; "go into that closet by yourself, and try once more, and perhaps you will find that you _can_ make it right."

Herbert knelt down in the closet, though rather unwillingly, to this provoking sum.

"Master Herbert, my dear," said Mrs. Grace, following him, "will you be so good as to go for Miss Favoretta's scissors, if you please, which she lent you yesterday?--she wants 'em, my dear."

Herbert, surprised by the unusually good-natured tone of this request, ran for the scissors, and at his return, found that his difficult sum had been cast up in his absence; the total was written at the bottom of it, and he read these words, which he knew to be Mrs. Grace's writing--"Rub out my _figurs_, and write them in your own." Herbert immediately rubbed out Mrs. Grace's figures with indignation, and determined to do the sum for himself. He carried it to Mad. de Rosier--it was wrong: Grace stared, and when she saw Herbert patiently stand beside Mad. de Rosier and repeat his efforts, she gave up all idea of obtaining any influence over him.

"Mad. de Rosier," said she to herself, "has bewitched 'em all; I think it's odd one can't find out her art!"

Mrs. Grace seemed to think that she could catch the knack of educating children, as she had surrept.i.tiously learnt, from a fas.h.i.+onable hairdresser, the art of dressing hair. Ever since Mrs. Harcourt had spoken in such a decided manner respecting Mad. de Rosier, her maid had artfully maintained the greatest appearance of respect for that lady, in her mistress's presence, and had even been scrupulous, to a troublesome extreme, in obeying _the governess's orders_; and by a studied show of attachment to Mrs. Harcourt, and much alacrity at her toilette, she had, as she flattered herself, secured a fresh portion of favour.

One morning Mrs. Harcourt found, when she awoke, that she had a headache, and a slight feverish complaint. She had caught cold the night before in coming out of a warm a.s.sembly-room. Mrs. Grace affected to be much alarmed at her mistress's indisposition, and urged her to send immediately for Dr. X----. To this Mrs. Harcourt half consented, and a messenger was sent for him. In the meantime Mrs. Harcourt, who had been used to be much attended to in her slight indispositions, expressed some surprise that Mad. de Rosier, or some of her children, when they heard that she was ill, had not come to see her.

"Where is Isabella? where is Matilda? or Favoretta? what is become of them all? do they know I am ill, Grace?"

"Oh dear! yes, ma'am; but they're all gone out in the coach, with Mad.

de Rosier."

"All?" said Mrs. Harcourt.

"All, I believe, ma'am," said Grace; "though, indeed, I can't pretend to be sure, since I make it my business not to scrutinize, and to know as little as possible of what's going on in the house, lest I should seem to be too particular."

"Did Mad. de Rosier leave any message for me before she went out?"

"Not with me, ma'am."

Here the prevaricating waiting-maid told barely the truth in words: Mad.

de Rosier had left a message with the footman in Grace's hearing.

"I hope, ma'am," continued Grace, "you weren't disturbed with the noise in the house early this morning?"

"What noise?--I heard no noise," said Mrs. Harcourt.

"No noise! dear ma'am, I'm as glad as can possibly be of that, at any rate; but to be sure there was a great racket. I was really afraid, ma'am, it would do no good to your poor head."

"What was the matter?" said Mrs. Harcourt, drawing back the curtain.

"Oh! nothing, ma'am, that need alarm you--only music and dancing."

"Music and dancing so early in the morning!--Do, Grace, say all you have to say at once, for you keep me in suspense, which, I am sure, is not good for my head."

"La, ma'am, I was so afraid it would make you angry, ma'am--that was what made me so backward in mentioning it; but, to be sure, Mad. de Rosier, and the young ladies, and Master Herbert, I suppose, thought you couldn't hear, because it was in the back parlour, ma'am."

"Hear what? what was in the back parlour?"