I was very glad the national reputation had gone so far. I really wished I were Charles Sumner (pardon me, dear Agnes), that I might properly receive the delegation. But I said, "Oh, certainly!" and, as it grew dark, with my admiring _cortege_ whispering now to the street full of admirers that madame was _Americaine_, I returned to the Three Cygnets.
And in the evening they all came. Really, you should see the pretty basket they brought for an _etrenne_. I could not guess then where they got such exquisite flowers; these lovely stephanotis blossoms, a perfect wealth of roses, and all arranged with charming taste in a quaint country basket, such as exists nowhere but in this particular section of this quaint old Normandy. In came the husband, dressed up, and frightened, but thoroughly good in his look. In came my friend; and then two sons and two wives, and three or four children: and, my dear Agnes, one of the sons, I knew him in an instant, was a man we had at Talbot Court House when your husband was there. I think the Colonel will remember him,--a black-whiskered man, who used to sing a little song about _le vin rouge_ of Bourgogne.
He did not remember me; that I saw in a moment. It was all so different, you know. In the hospital, I had on my cap and apron, and here,--well, it was another thing. My hostess knew that they were coming, and had me in her largest room, and I succeeded in making them all sit down; and I received my formal welcome; and I thanked in my most Parisian French; and then the conversation hung fire. But I took my turn now, and turned round to poor Louis.
"You served in America, did you not?" said I.
"Ah, yes, madame! I did not know my mother had told you."
No more did she, indeed; and she looked astonished. But I persevered,--
"You seem strong and well."
"Ah, yes, madame!"
"How long since you returned?"
"As soon as there was peace, madame. We were mustered out in June, madame."
"And does your arm never trouble you?"
"Oh, never, madame! I did not know my mother had told you."
New astonishment on the part of the mother.
"You never had another piece of bone come out?"
"Oh, no, madame! how did madame know? I did not know my mother had told you!"
And by this time I could not help saying, "You Normans care more for Christmas than we Americans; is it not so, my brave?"
And this he would not stand; and he said stoutly, "Ah, no, madame! no, no, _jamais_!" and began an eager defence of the religious enthusiasm of the Americans, and their goodness to all people who were good, if people would only be good. But still he had not the least dream who I was. And I said,--
"Do the Normans ever drink Burgundy?" and to my old hostess, "Madame, could you bring us a flask _du vin rouge de Bourgogne_?" and then I hummed his little chanson, I am sure Colonel Barthow will remember it,--"_Deux--gouttes--du vin rouge du Bourgogne._"
My dear Mrs. Barthow, he sprang from his chair, and fell on his knees, and kissed my hands, before I could stop him. And when his mother and father, and all the rest, found that I was the particular _soeur de la charite_ who had had the care of dear Louis when he was hurt, and that it was I he had told of that very day,--for the thousandth time, I believe,--who gave him that glass of claret, and cheered up his Christmas, I verily believe they would have taken me to the church to worship me.
They were not satisfied,--the women with kissing me, or the men with shaking hands with each other,--the whole _auberge_ had to be called in; and poor I was famous. I need not say I cried my eyes out; and when, at ten o'clock, they let me go to bed, I was worn out with crying, and laughing, and talking, and listening; and I believe they were as much upset as I.
Now that is just the beginning; and yet I see I must stop. But, for forty-eight hours, I have been simply a queen. I can hardly put my foot to the ground. Christmas morning, these dear Thibault people came again; and then the _cure_ came; and then some nice Madame Perrons came, and I went to mass with them; and, after mass, their brother's carriage came; and they would take no refusals; but with many apologies to my sweet old hostess, at the Three Cygnets, I was fain to come up to M.
Firmin's lovely _chateau_ here, and make myself at home till my friends shall arrive. It seems the poor Thibaults had come here to beg the flowers for the _etrenne._ It is really the most beautiful country residence I have seen in France; and they live on the most patriarchal footing with all the people round them.
I am sure I ought to speak kindly of them. It is the most fascinating hospitality. So here am I, waiting, with my little _sac de nuit_ to make me _aspettabile_; and here I ate my Christmas dinner. Tell the Colonel that here is "THE TRAVELLER'S TALE;" and that is why the letter is so long.
Most truly yours, HULDAH ROOT.
IV.
ONE CHRISTMAS MORE.
This last Christmas party is Huldah's own. It is hers, at least, as much as it is any one's. There are five of them, nay, six, with equal right to precedence in the John o' Groat's house, where she has settled down.
It is one of those comfortable houses which are still left three miles out from the old State House in Boston. It is not all on one floor; that would be, perhaps, too much like the golden courts of heaven. There are two stories; but they are connected by a central flight of stairs of easy tread (designed by Charles Cummings); so easy, and so stately withal, that, as you pass over them, you always bless the builder, and hardly know that you go up or down. Five large rooms on each floor give ample room for the five heads of the house, if, indeed, there be not six, as I said before.
Into this Saints' Rest, there have drifted together, by the eternal law of attraction,--Huldah, and Ellen Philbrick (who was with her in Virginia, and in France, and has been, indeed, but little separated from her, except on duty, for twenty years), and with them three other friends. These women,--well, I cannot introduce them to you without writing three stories of true romance, one for each. This quiet, strong, meditative, helpful saint, who is coming into the parlor now, is Helen Touro. She was left alone with her baby when "The Empire State" went down; and her husband was never heard of more. The love of that baby warmed her to the love of all others; and, when I first knew her, she was ruling over a home of babies, whose own mothers or fathers were not,--always with a heart big enough to say there was room for one more waif in that sanctuary. That older woman, who is writing at the Davenport in the corner, lightened the cares and smoothed the daily life of General Schuyler in all the last years of his life, when he was in the Cabinet, in Brazil, and in Louisiana. His wife was long ill, and then died. His children needed all a woman's care; and this woman stepped to the front, cared for them, cared for all his household, cared for him: and I dare not say how much is due to her of that which you and I say daily we owe to him. Miss Peters, I see you know. She served in another regiment; was at the head of the sweetest, noblest, purest school that ever trained, in five and twenty years, five hundred girls to be the queens in five hundred happy and strong families. All of these five,--our Huldah and Mrs. Philbrick too, you have seen before,--all of them have been in "the service;" all of them have known that perfect service is perfect freedom. I think they know that perfect service is the highest honor. They have together taken this house, as they say, for the shelter and home of their old age. But Huldah, as she plays with your Harry there, does not look to me as if she were superannuated yet.
"But you said there were six in all."
Did I? I suppose there are. "Mrs. Philbrick, are there five captains in your establishment, or six?"
"My dear Mr. Hale, why do you ask me? You know there are five captains and one general. We have persuaded Seth Corbet to make his home here,--yes, the same who went round the world with Mrs. Cradock. Since her death, he has come home to Boston; and he reports to us, and makes his head-quarters here. He sees that we are all right every morning; and then he goes his rounds to see every grandchild of old Mr. Cradock, and to make sure that every son and daughter of that house is 'all right.'
Sometimes he is away over night. This is when somebody in the whole circle of all their friends is more sick than usual, and needs a man nurse. That old man was employed by old Mr. Cradock, in 1816, when he first went to housekeeping. He has had all the sons and all the daughters of that house in his arms; and now that the youngest of them is five and twenty, and the oldest fifty, I suppose he is not satisfied any day until he has seen that they and theirs, in their respective homes, are well. He thinks we here are babies; but he takes care of us all the more courteously."
"Will he dine with you to-day?"
"I am afraid not; but we shall see him at the Christmas-tree after dinner. There is to be a tree."
You see, this house was dedicated to the Apotheosis of Noble Ministry.
Over the mantel-piece hung Raphael Morghen's large print of "The Lavatio," Caracci's picture of "The Washing of the Feet,"--the only copy I ever saw. We asked Huldah about it.
"Oh, that was a present from Mr. Burchstadt, a rich manufacturer in Wurtemberg, to Ellen. She stumbled into one of those villages when everybody was sick and dying of typhus, and tended and watched and saved, one whole summer long, as Mrs. Ware did at Osmotherly. And this Mr. Burchstadt wanted to do something, and he sent her this in acknowledgment."
On the other side was Kaulbach's own study of Elizabeth of Hungary, dropping her apron full of roses.
"Oh! what a sight the apron discloses; The viands are changed to real roses!"
When I asked Huldah where that came from, she blushed, and said, "Oh, that was a present to me!" and led us to Steinler's exquisite "Good Shepherd," in a larger and finer print than I had ever seen. Six or eight gentlemen in New York, who, when they were dirty babies from the gutter, had been in Helen Touro's hands, had sent her a portfolio of beautiful prints, each with this same idea, of seeking what was lost.
This one she had chosen for the sitting-room.
And, on the fourth side, was that dashing group of Horace Vernet's, "Gideon crossing Jordan," with the motto wrought into the frame, "Faint, yet pursuing." These four pictures are all presents to the "girls," as I find I still call them; and, on the easel, Miss Peters had put her copy of "The Tribute Money." There were other pictures in the room; but these five unconsciously told its story.
The five "girls" were always all together at Christmas; but, in practice, each of them lived here only two-fifths of her time. "We make that a rule," said Ellen laughing. "If anybody comes for anybody when there are only two here, those two are engaged to each other; and we stay. Not but what they can come and stay here if we cannot go to them."
In practice, if any of us in the immense circles which these saints had befriended were in a scrape,--as, if a mother was called away from home, and there were some children left, or if scarlet fever got into a house, or if the children had nobody to go to Mt. Desert with them, or if the new house were to be set in order, and nobody knew how,--in any of the trials of well-ordered families, why, we rode over to the Saints' Rest to see if we could not induce one of the five to come and put things through. So that, in practice, there were seldom more than two on the spot there.
But we do not get to the Christmas dinner. There were covers for four and twenty; and all the children besides were in a room upstairs, presided over by Maria Munro, who was in her element there. Then our party of twenty-four included men and women of a thousand romances, who had learned and had shown the nobility of service. One or two of us were invited as novices, in the hope perhaps that we might learn.
Scarcely was the soup served when the door-bell rang. Nothing else ever made Huldah look nervous. Bartlett, who was there, said in an aside to me, that he had seen her more calm when there was volley firing within hearing of her store-room. Then it rang again. Helen Touro talked more vehemently; and Mrs. Bartlett at her end, started a great laugh. But, when it rang the third time, something had to be said; and Huldah asked one of the girls, who was waiting, if there were no one attending at the door.
"Yes 'm, Mr. Corbet."
But the bell rang a fourth time, and a fifth.
"Isabel, you can go to the door. Mr. Corbet must have stepped out."
So Isabel went out, but returned with a face as broad as a soup-plate.
"Mr. Corbet is there, ma'am."
Sixth door-bell peal,--seventh, and eighth.
"Mary, I think you had better see if Mr. Corbet has gone away."