Six to Sixteen | Page 5

opposite to me. But I
could get no further just then. I put my hands before my eyes as if to
shade them from the light; but Eleanor is very quick, and she found out
that I was crying. She jumped up and threw herself at my feet.
"Margery, dear Margery! what is the matter?"

I could only sob, "My mother, O my mother!" and add, almost bitterly,
"It is very well for you to write about your childhood, who have had a
mother--and such a mother!--all your life; but for me----"
Eleanor knelt straight up, with her teeth set, and her hands clasped
before her.
"I do think," she said slowly, "that I am, without exception, the most
selfish, inconsiderate, dense, unfeeling brute that ever lived." She
looked so quaintly, vehemently in earnest as she knelt in the firelight,
that I laughed in spite of my tears.
"My dear old thing," I said, "it is I who am selfish, not you. But I am
going on now, and I promise to disturb you no more." And in this I was
resolute, though Eleanor would have burned our papers then and there,
if I had not prevented her.
Indeed she knew as well as I did that it was not merely because I was
an orphan that I wept, as I thought of my early childhood. We could not
speak of it, but she knew enough to guess at what was passing through
my mind. I was only six years old when my mother died, but I can
remember her. I can remember her brief appearances in the room where
I played, in much dirt and contentment, at my Ayah's feet--rustling in
silks and satins, glittering with costly ornaments, beautiful and scented,
like a fairy dream. I would forego all these visions for one--only
one--memory of her praying by my bedside, or teaching me at her knee.
But she was so young, and so pretty! And yet, O Mother, Mother!
better than all the triumphs of your loveliness in its too short prime
would it have been to have left a memory of your beautiful face with
some devout or earnest look upon it--"as it had been the face of an
angel"--to your only child.
As I sit thinking thus, I find Eleanor's dark eyes gazing at me from her
place, to which she has gone back; and she says softly, "Margery, dear
Margery, do let us give it up." But I would not give it up now, for
anything whatever.]
The first six years of my life were spent chiefly with my Ayah. I loved

her very dearly. I kissed and fondled her dark cheeks as gladly as if
they had been fair and ruddy, and oftener than I touched my mother's,
which were like the petals of a china rose. My most intimate friends
were of the Ayah's complexion. We had more than one "bearer" during
those years, to whom I was greatly attached. I spoke more Hindostanee
than English. The other day I saw a group of Lascar sailors at the
Southampton Station; they had just come off a ship, and were talking
rapidly and softly together. I have forgotten the language of my early
childhood, but its tones had a familiar sound; those dark bright faces
were like the faces of old friends, and my heart beat for a minute, as
one is moved by some remembrance of an old home.
When my mother went out for her early ride at daybreak, before the
heat of the day came on, Ayah would hold me up at the window to see
her start. Sometimes my father would have me brought out, and take
me before him on his horse for a few minutes. But my nurse never
allowed this if a ready excuse could prevent it. Her care of me was
maternal in its tenderness, but she did not keep me tidy enough for me
to be presentable off-hand to company.
There was always "company" wherever my mother went--gentleman
company especially. The gentlemen, in different places, and at different
times, were not the same, but they had a common likeness. I used to
count them when they rode home with my father and mother, or
assembled for any of the many reasons for which "company" hung
about our homes. I remember that it was an amusement to me to
discover, "there are six to-day," or "five to-day," and to tell my Ayah. I
was even more minute. I divided them into three classes: "the little ones,
the middle ones, and the old ones." The "little ones" were the very
young men--smooth-cheeked ensigns, etc.; the "old ones" were usually
colonels, generals, or elderly civilians. From the youngest to the oldest,
officers and civilians, they were all very good-natured to me,