Griselda Curfew lived with her Great-Grandmother in the last cottage in the Lane. She was ten years old, and her Great-Grandmother was one hundred and ten years old, and there was not as much difference between them as you might suppose. If Griselda’s Great-Grandmother had been twice, or thrice, or four times ten years old, there would have been a great deal of difference; for when you are twenty or thirty or forty, you feel very differently from when you were ten. But a hundred is a nice round number, and it brings things home in a circle; so Griselda’s ten seemed to touch quite close the ten of Great-Grandmother Curfew, who was a hundred years away, and yet so very near her.
Great-Grandmother Curfew liked the things that Griselda liked. She did not, as middling old people do, pretend to like what Griselda liked, she really liked what Griselda liked. When Griselda sat threading bead-necklaces, Great-Grandmother Curfew liked sorting the bead-box into little heaps of different sizes and colours, and giving them to Griselda as she wanted them. When Griselda put her doll to bed, Great-Grandmother Curfew liked helping to undo the buttons, and talking in whispers with Griselda till Arabella had been ‘got-off’; and when Arabella was naughty, and wouldn’t go off, Great-Grandmother Curfew liked singing ‘Hush, hush, hush!’ to her, rocking the restless one against her shoulder until she was quiet and good. Above all, when Griselda was making cakes, Great-Grandmother Curfew liked picking the currants or grating the nutmeg; and as for the cakes, she liked them so much, that out of a batch of seven she always ate four.
Great-Grandmother Curfew had six teeth left, and all her faculties. She could see, hear, smell, taste, talk, feel, and remember. She could misremember, too. She misremembered the things that had happened last week, and she remembered the things that had happened a hundred years ago. She could not walk very much, so on fairly fine days Griselda sat her at the open window, looking out on the Lane where the world went by; and on very fine days, she sat her in the garden at the back, where the bees hummed. In summer, Great-Grandmother Curfew liked to sit near the currant-bushes, or the raspberry canes, or better still among the green peas. She said she could wag her finger at the starlings, when they came stealing. But when Griselda came to take her in, there would always be quantities of little strings stripped of their currants on all the currant-bushes within reach; or a host of little white fingers robbed of their raspberries poking out all over the canes; or dozens of empty pea-pods hanging open on the green-pea-vines. And Great-Grandmother Curfew, seeing Griselda observing all this, would shake her old head and say, ‘Oh them starlings, them starlings! I must of dropped off for forty winks, and then how them starlings do nip in!’
And Griselda pretended not to see that Great-Grandmother Curfew’s withered finger-tips were stained bright red, or that there were green specks under her crinkled finger-nails.
But in autumn, Great-Grandmother Curfew preferred to be set down by the hazel-hedge, and at those times the ground round her chair would be littered with green shells. When she heard Griselda coming, she would stare at the shells, and mutter, ‘Oh them squirrels, them squirrels.’ And Griselda said nothing till bedtime, when she mentioned, ‘I’m going to give you a dose tonight, Gramma.’
‘I don’t want no dose, Grissie.’
‘Yes, Gramma, you do.’
‘I don’t like doses. They’re that nasty.’
They’re good for you,’ said Griselda, getting the bottle.
‘I won’t take no dose, I tell you.’
If you don’t, you’ll wake up in the middle of the night with the collywobbles.’
‘No, I won’t, Grissie.’
‘I think you will, Gramma.’
‘Why do you think so?’
‘Well, I just do think so. And I think the squirrels will too, if somebody don’t give them doses.’
‘Oh,’ said Great-Grandmother Curfew. But when Griselda put the medicine under her nose, she shook her head and cried, ‘No, I won’t! I won’t unless Bella has one too!’
‘All right, Gramma, and you see how good she is about it.’ Griselda tilted the glass against her doll’s china mouth. ‘You’ll be as good as Bella, I know.’
‘No I won’t! No I won’t!’
‘Come along.’
‘Can I have a sweetie after?’
‘Yes.’
‘Two sweeties?’
‘Yes.’
‘And will you tell me a story?’
‘Yes.’
‘And sing me to sleep?’
‘Yes, Gramma. Come along, now.’
Then at last Great-Grandmother Curfew drank down the nasty physic, and made a funny face as though she was going to cry; but Griselda popped the first sweet so quick into her mouth that her funny face turned into a smile instead, and her old eyes grew bright and greedy for the second sweet. When she was tucked up cosily in bed, under the patchwork quilt, Great-Grandmother Curfew said, ‘What tale will you tell me tonight, Grissie?’
‘I’ll tell you the tale about a giant, Gramma.’
‘The giant who had three heads?’
‘Yes, that one.’
‘And he lived in a brass castle?’
‘Yes, that one.’
‘I like that one,’ said Great-Grandmother Curfew, nodding her old head, her eyes bright with anticipation. ‘Now then, you tell it to me, and mind you don’t go and leave any of it out.’
Griselda sat down by the bed, and held her Great-Grandmother’s little thin hand under the quilt, and began.
‘Once upon a time there was a Giant, and he had Three Heads, and he lived in a BRASS CASTLE!’
‘Ah!’ breathed Great-Grandmother Curfew. There was a little silence, and then she asked, ‘Have you told me the story, Grissie?’
‘Yes, Gramma.’
‘All of it?’
‘Every word of it.’
‘Didn’t you leave a bit out?
‘Not one bit.’
‘I like that story,’ said Great-Grandmother Curfew. ‘Now you sing me to sleep.’
Then Griselda sang a song that Great-Grandmother Curfew had sung to her son, and her son’s son (who was Griselda’s father). And her own great-grandmother, who had sung it to her mother and to her, when she was a little baby, had had it from the mouth of her grandmother, for whom the song was written.
‘Hush, hush, hush!
And I dance mine own child,
And I dance mine own child,
Hush, hush, hush!’
This was the song that had come down to Griselda from her great-grandmother, who had had it from her great-grandmother, who had had it from her grandmother, who was the child in the song. Griselda sang it over and over, fondling her Gramma’s hand under the quilt. Now and then she stopped singing and listened, and Great-Grandmother Curfew opened one bright eye and said:
‘Now don’t you go and leave me, Grissie. I aren’t asleep yet.’
Griselda sang once more:
‘Hush, hush, hush!
And I dance mine own child!
And I dance mine own child!
Hush, hush, hush!’
Stop and listen again. Again the old eyelid quivered. ‘I aren’t asleep yet. Don’t go and leave me, Grissie.’
So again over and over:
‘Hush, hush, hush!
And I dance mine own child!’
Stop. Listen. ‘Hush, hush, hush!’ Very very softly Griselda crept her little hand out of the bed. Great-Grandmother Curfew was fast asleep, breathing like a child.
You see how very near is a hundred-and-ten to ten years old.
All this was in the year 1879, when little girls of ten paid twopence a week to go to school, and old women of a hundred-and-ten did not have the pension. You may wonder what Griselda and Great-Grandmother Curfew lived upon. Taken all round, it may be said that they lived on kindness. Their cottage was rented at a shilling a week, which was little enough, but even a shilling had to be obtained somehow; and then there was the two-pence for Griselda’s schooling. The cottage-rent was due to Mr Greentop, the Squire, and when Griselda’s father died, leaving Griselda and her great-grandmother alone without anybody to earn for them, everybody said:
‘Of course old Mrs Curfew will go to the Almshouse, and Griselda will go into service.’
But when this was proposed, Great-Grandmother Curfew kicked up a rare old fuss. ‘I won’t go to no Almshouse!’ she declared. ‘I am but a hunderd-and-nine, and I aren’t ripe for it. I will stay where I be. Aren’t I got Grissie to look after me?’
‘But what will you do while Griselda is at school?’ asked Mrs Greentop, who had come to look into matters.
‘Do? I’ll do a heap o’ things. I’ll set in the garden and weed where I’m set, and I’ll watch the pot that it don’t boil over, and I’ll mind the kitten don’t get into the milk, and I’ll make the spills, and tidy the kitchen drawer, and I’ll sharp the knives, and I’ll scrub the pertaties for supper. Do? What d’ye mean, do? If I can’t get about on my legs no more, that aren’t no reason for setting with my hands in my lap.’
‘But Mrs Curfew, suppose you were taken ill?’
‘Why should I be took ill? I’ve never been took ill yet, and I aren’t going to begin at my time o’ life.’
‘But Mrs Curfew, what about the cottage rent?’
For this old Mrs Curfew had no answer, and Mrs Greentop went on persuasively. ‘Come now, you’ll be much more comfortable at the Almshouse, and Griselda can come and see you there quite often. I’ll take her into my house to help with the children while I train her for kitchen-work.’
‘She knows kitchen-work already,’ said Great-Grandmother Curfew. ‘She can make and bake and sweep and clean like a little woman—and I aren’t going to no Almshouse. Leave that to lazybones like Em’ly Deane, who want to get out of doing, though she’s no more ‘n a hunderd, if that. Some people talk more ‘n the Gospel—and I’ll stay where I be.’
Mrs Greentop sighed, and wondered what to say next to soften the blow, because she was quite sure that old Mrs Curfew could not possibly stay where she was. She turned to Griselda, who was sitting very quiet by the fire, busy with her crochet, and asked, ‘What do you say, Griselda?’
Griselda stood up and bobbed, and said, ‘If you please, ‘m, I can do Gramma before morning school, and I can come back and do her dinner at noon, and I can come to you afternoons and do the children and that till bedtime, and do Gramma’s bedtime when I come back—if you think Mr Greentop ‘ld be satisfied to let Gramma keep on in the cottage. I’d do my very best, ‘m. I can shine brasses, and fill lamps, and turn sheets sides to middle, and I could do the darning and buttons, and I’d love to bath baby, ‘m, best of all I would.’
‘And what about your Granny while you were with me?’ asked Mrs Greentop.
‘The Lane ‘ll keep an eye on her, ‘m,’ said Griselda, who knew the kindness of poor neighbours as even the Squire’s wife did not.
‘And the twopence for your schooling?’
‘I can earn that too, ‘m.’
‘And what about your food? You must eat, you know, Griselda.’
‘There’s the hens, and the bees, and the garden-stuff, ‘m. And all the firing we want from the woods.’
‘But who’ll see to all that, Griselda?’
‘I can do the hens in the morning before I do Gramma, and the garden in the evening, after she’s tucked up.’
Griselda seemed so sure about it all that Mrs Greentop could only murmur, ‘Well, I’ll speak to the Squire, and see.’
She did so, and it all got arranged as Great-Grandmother Curfew and Griselda intended it to. Mr Greentop allowed them the cottage and garden in return for Griselda’s daily services in the nursery. The twopence for her schooling she got from the mothers of the very small scholars who lived a mile and more distant from the school. Griselda undertook to collect and deliver these little ones every day. The garden would have been a problem, but here the Lane stepped in. The Lane not only kept an eye on Great-Grandmother Curfew while Griselda was out, but on the bees and chickens too; the Lane supplied her with seed; one planted for her, one hoed for her, a third got in her firing. The women stripped her currants and raspberries, and cut up her marrows, for jam. Clothing happened in oddments at all times, from all over the place. Somehow or other, Griselda and Great-Grandmother Curfew managed, and because they could go on living together, they were perfectly happy.
Just before she was eleven years old, Griselda Curfew was taken ill. She got out of bed one morning feeling dreadfully queer, but she said nothing to her Great-Grandmother. She made up the fire, put on the kettle, went outside and fed the chickens, said a word to the bees, and got a panful of potatoes for dinner. Then she came in, and hotted the teapot, and wetted the tea, and set it on the hob. Then she got her Great-Grandmother up and dressed, brushed what was left of her thin white hair, and gave her her breakfast.
‘Don’t you want nothing to eat this morning, Grissie?’ asked Great-Grandmother Curfew, crumbling her bread into her teacup.
Griselda shook her head, and sipped a hot cup, and felt a little better. Great-Grandmother Curfew took no particular notice, because Griselda often said she didn’t want anything to eat for breakfast, but this was usually because there was barely enough for one, let alone two. Before she left the house, she put Great-Grandmother Curfew in the sunniest window with the pan of potatoes, a bowl of water, and a good sharp knife.
‘That’ll be a great help for me, Gramma, if you can get them done,’ she said.
‘I’ll get ‘em done all right,’ said Great-Grandmother Curfew. ‘And when Ebenezer Wilcox goes by, I’ll call him in, and he can put the saucepan on the fire.’
‘That will be a help,’ said Griselda. ‘I’ll leave you Bella for company, and two peppermint drops to suck, one for each. Don’t you go giving Bella both drops now!’
‘She’s that greedy, she’ll want ‘em both,’ said Great-Grandmother Curfew, her eager eyes glancing from Griselda to Arabella. ‘Mebbe you’d better leave three pep’mint drops.’ She smiled her sweet greedy smile.
‘She’ll only be sick,’ said Griselda, feeling oh so sick herself, but keeping it down bravely. She sat Bella up in the window-seat, and Bella flopped over with her head in her lap.
‘She looks sick to me already,’ said Great-Grandmother Curfew beginning to scrape her potatoes. ‘Mebbe I’d better have both pep’mint drops arter all, to spare her stomach.’
Griselda reached for a book to prop Bella up with. Great-Grandmother Curfew had only two books in the world, the Bible that Griselda read in every Sunday, and another one she never read in at all, because it was so old, with funny print, and wrong spelling. But it came in useful to put under a broken chair-leg, or, as today, to support Bella. With its help, Bella sat up looking quite life-like.
‘There, that’s better!’ said Griselda, feeling that her Gramma was not quite alone while she had Bella to talk to. Good-bye, Gramma, till dinner.’
But it was good-bye for longer than that.
For when Griselda had trudged a mile to fetch one of her tiny scholars, she fell down on the doorstep, and was found all of a heap by the tiny scholar’s mother.
‘Bless me, Griselda Curfew, how ill you do look!’ exclaimed the mother. ‘As sure as I stand here, you’ve took the fever.’
And Griselda had, and was whisked away to hospital without knowing anything about it. She had the fever very badly, with two relapses and a long convalescence. The first time she was clear in the head, she asked, ‘How’s my Gramma managing?’
‘Don’t you go worrying after your grandmother,’ said the pleasant nurse who looked after her. ‘Everything has been arranged for her, you may be sure of that.’
And so it had, for they had taken Great-Grandmother Curfew to the Almshouse at last.
Three months later, when Griselda left the hospital, very pale and thin and with her hair cropped short, Mrs Greentop’s own carriage came to fetch her. Griselda could hardly contain her excitement as the horses trotted nearer and nearer to the village. She did not yet know the truth, and expected in another minute to have her Gramma in her arms. Great was her disappointment when the high-stepping horses passed the top of the Lane, and trotted on towards the stone gate-posts of the Squire’s house.
‘Please, please!’ cried Griselda, kneeling up on the seat, and tapping the coachman’s broad back as though it were a door she wanted opened. The coachman looked over his shoulder and said, ‘It’s all right, little ‘un, you’re to go up to the Big House to have tea with the little masters and misses.’
Griselda sank back. Tea with the little Greentops—Harry, Connie, Mabel, and Baby—would have been a treat at any other time; but just now, when all she longed for was to hug her little Gramma, it was a mistaken kindness. She supposed kind Mrs Greentop just didn’t understand. Suppose Mrs Greentop had had the fever, and was going to see her baby for the first time for three months?
Mrs Greentop understood more than Griselda imagined. She met her on the big front steps, put her arm round her, and said, ‘Come along, Griselda, the children are dying to see what you look like with your hair cut short. I wonder if Baby will remember you.’
‘I hope so, ‘m,’ said Griselda meekly.
She went with Mrs Greentop into the nursery, where the children came clamouring about her.
‘I say, doesn’t Grizzel look funny!’ cried Harry.
‘I want my hair short too!’ shouted Connie, whose hair was straight.
‘I don’t,’ said Mabel, who had curls.
Baby was the only one who noticed nothing different. He crawled and grabbed Griselda by the ankle, buzzing, ‘Gizzie-gizzie-gizzie!’
‘He does know me!’ cried Griselda. ‘There, ‘m, he does know me, don’t you, my sweet?’ She caught him up in her arms, chanting, ‘I dance mine own child!’ Then she turned quickly to Mrs Greentop. ‘Please, ‘m, is anything the matter with my Gramma?’
‘No, Griselda, of course not,’ said Mrs Greentop. Her voice was a little flustered, and so especially kind that Griselda faltered, ‘Oh what is it, please, ‘m?’
‘Now, Griselda,’ Mrs Greentop sat down and drew Griselda to her. ‘I’m sure you’ll see it’s all for the best. While you were away there was nobody to look after Mrs Curfew properly, and such a nice comfortable room fell vacant in the Almshouse——’
‘The Almshouse!’ Griselda stared aghast.
‘One of the corner rooms, behind the rose-beds. Your Gramma has a lovely fire, and warm blankets, and tea and sugar, and everything possible,’ went on Mrs Greentop smoothly, as though she were covering up Griselda’s looks and feelings with a cosy quilt. ‘And the village is so proud of her, Griselda. She’s far the oldest inhabitant in the place, and all the visitors who come insist on seeing her, and talking to her, and they always leave her something nice. Tomorrow you shall go to see her too, and take her a little present.’
‘Tomorrow, ‘m?’
‘Yes, Griselda, it’s too late tonight.
‘I see, ‘m. Then tomorrow I can go and fetch her away.’
Mrs Greentop hesitated. ‘Where to, Griselda?’
‘To the cottage, ‘m.’
‘Well, you see, Griselda, Mr Greentop is thinking of selling the cottage, now that Mrs Curfew is settled so nicely where she is, and is so well looked after—and really, dear, you aren’t strong enough to do what you used to do.’
‘Grizzel’s crying,’ observed Mabel. ‘Grizzel, what are you crying for?’
‘Be quiet, Mabel, and don’t tease. Grizzel’s going to stay here and be Baby’s little nursery-maid, and you children are going to be very kind to her, and soon we’ll all be going away to Whitstable together, for six whole weeks. Think of that, Griselda!’
‘Grizzel,’ said Connie, pulling at her hand, ‘there’s teacake for tea.’
Griselda turned her head aside, and swallowed hard. It didn’t do to let children see the sorrows of life, she knew that. Those responsible for children must keep them cheerful and happy. But not in her worst moments at the hospital had she felt as bad as this. Teacake and Whitstable were nothing to her.
Mrs Greentop was as good as her word, and the next day Griselda was taken to see Great-Grandmother Curfew in her new quarters at the Almshouse—the new home that was so much older even than she was. Many a time Griselda had passed under the ancient archway into the square garden enclosed by the dwellings of old men and women who sat sunning themselves at their last doors. It was pretty and peaceful in that sunny courtyard. Every diamond window had its pot of geraniums, or petunias, or nasturtiums, every open door showed a crackling fire with a teapot on the hob, every old man had his pipe of tobacco, and every old woman her paper of snuff. The garden in the middle of the courtyard was divided into little plots, one for each almsman and almswoman. A young gardener was there weeding the cobbles, and trimming the edges, but the old men and women had a finger in their own patches, and those that had relatives were helped by sons and daughters to make their gardens pretty and productive. Already, as she followed Mrs Greentop along the path, Griselda wondered which of these plots belonged to her Gramma, and she planned to put in a few pea-sticks and currant bushes with the first pennies she could scrape together.
There were one or two visitors strolling about, stopping to say a word to the most interesting-looking inmates. A pleasant-looking lady and a clever-looking gentleman had paused by the door of Emily Deane, who was airing a grievance. Emily Deane, aged one-hundred-and-one, had for long been the show-piece of the famous old Almshouses.
‘Don’t you b’leeve her!’ chattered old Emily. ‘Don’t you b’leeve one word of it. Not a day more ‘n ninety-nine she ain’t. Did you look at her teeth? Six she got, and me only with two. She older ‘n me? No, sir, and no, ma’am. She got her six teeth, and I got my two. Why, it stands to reason!’
‘Good morning, Emily. What is the trouble?’ asked Mrs Greentop.
‘Goo’ morning to you, ma’am. Ol’ Mrs Curfew, she’s what’s the trouble. An ‘underd-and-ten? Not a day more ‘n ninety-nine! Hello, Grissie, you come to fetch yer grammer ‘ome? Sooner the better.’
Griselda thought so too, but Mrs Greentop only smiled. ‘No, Emily, Griselda has just come to see her Gramma, and how nicely off she is here.’ Then she turned to the lady and gentleman, whom she evidently knew. ‘Well, Margaret, well, Professor, and have you been to see Mrs Curfew yet?’
‘Wonderful old body,’ said the Professor.
‘Didn’t I tell you so?’
‘Not a day more ‘n ninety-nine,’ mumbled Emily Deane.
The pleasant lady called Margaret looked down kindly at Griselda. ‘And this is her little great-granddaughter who has been ill? Mrs Curfew told us all about her, and how sweetly she sang. How are you now, my dear?
Griselda bobbed, and said, ‘I’m quite well, thank you, ‘m.’
‘And will you sing for us, Griselda?’
‘Yes, ‘m,’ whispered Griselda shyly, for really she only sang for her Gramma and Baby Richard.
‘Some other day,’ added Mrs Greentop, to Griselda’s great relief. ‘For now we must go and see her great-grandmother. They haven’t seen each other for three months, you know. Don’t forget you’re coming to us tonight, Margaret. If you come early, you can see Richard in his bath.’
Then she moved on with Griselda down the sunny path, and stopped in a corner, and there, in her own little old rocking-chair, sat Great-Grandmother Curfew nodding by the fire. Griselda could contain herself no longer. She flew in and hugged her Gramma tight in her arms, and Mrs Curfew opened her eyes and said, ‘Hello, Grissie, so you got back then. What they been and done to your hair?’
‘They shaved it, Gramma, when I was ill.’
‘I don’t like it,’ said the old lady. ‘They didn’t ought to of done it without asking me. Are we going home now?’
‘Oh Gramma!’ whispered Griselda. Again Mrs Greentop came to the rescue, saying, ‘Not today, Mrs Curfew. Now you must show Griselda how nice and comfortable you are here. Look, Griselda, your Gramma might almost be at home, mightn’t she? She’s got her own chair and quilt, see, and her hassock, and her books and teapot, and the flowers in the window came out of your own garden.’
‘Oh, and Bella!’ exclaimed Griselda, catching sight of her doll peeping out of Great-Grandmother Curfew’s shawl.
‘Yes, you’ve been taking care of Bella for Griselda, haven’t you, Mrs Curfew?’
‘Has she been good, Gramma?’
‘On and off,’ said the old lady.
‘I brought you some pep’mint drops, Gramma.’
Griselda put the packet into the thin little hand, that hid it at once under the thick shawl. Great-Grandmother Curfew’s eyes grew suddenly bright, and her face puckered into its sly sweet smile. ‘That Em’ly Deane!’ she chuckled.
‘Em’ly Deane, Gramma?’
‘Jealous. She wur the oldest till I come. She aren’t now. She’ve only turned a ‘underd, the chit. Never mind that. She kin ‘ave it ‘er own way tomorrer, when you fetch me ‘ome.’
‘Oh Gramma!’ whispered Griselda.
‘I’ll be ready for you in the morning,’ said Great-Grandmother Curfew; and then, as suddenly as a baby or a kitten, she fell asleep.
‘Come along, Griselda,’ said Mrs Greentop very kindly. ‘I expect you’d like to take Bella with you, wouldn’t you?’
‘No, ‘m,’ said Griselda, ‘I’ll leave Gramma Bella. I’ve got Baby.’
She followed Mrs Greentop through the door and in and out of the cobbled paths, keeping her face turned aside into her sun-bonnet all the way.
Griselda applied herself very hard to Baby Richard all that day, and nobody interfered with her. Mrs Greentop understood so well what she was feeling that she talked it over with her husband when they were dressing for dinner. ‘I suppose it isn’t possible, John?’
‘Let well alone, my dear,’ advised the Squire. ‘They’ll both shake down to it soon, and the old dame will want more and more care every day now. That child could never earn the cottage rent, and look after the old thing into the bargain. Besides, I don’t want the rent, the sale of the cottage will mend the fences, and re-thatch the two roofs in the Hollow, with a bit over towards the new barn. Farmer Lawson’s offered me thirty for it, but I think he’ll go to thirty-five. Anyhow, the cottage isn’t worth repairing, and it will have to be sold.’
‘Hush,’ said Mrs Greentop, for Griselda was going by the door, crooning to Richard as she took him to his bath.
‘You’re too soft-hearted,’ said Mr Greentop, pinching her ear. ‘Now don’t dally, for that’s the doorbell, if I’m not mistaken.’
Their dinner-guests had arrived, and the first thing Margaret said to Mrs Greentop, after they had kissed, was ‘Can I see Richard?’
‘He’s just having his bath,’ said Mrs Greentop.
‘Oh, the blessing!’ exclaimed Margaret, and ran upstairs to the nursery without another word. Mrs Greentop ran after her, because she wanted to see Margaret see her perfect baby; and she called over her shoulder to the Professor, ‘Don’t you want to come too, James?’ She was quite sure that everybody wanted to see her baby in his bath.
‘Of course he doesn’t, my dear,’ said Mr Greentop impatiently. But the Professor very agreeably said, ‘Of course I do!’ So the two gentlemen went upstairs after the two ladies; and at the nursery door found Mrs Greentop holding it ajar with her finger to her lips; for above the splashing and crooning of Baby Richard in his bath rang the honey-sweet voice of Griselda Curfew:
‘Hush, hush, hush!
And I dance mine own child!
And I dance mine own child!
Hush, hush, hush!’
‘Oh, how perfectly charming!’ whispered Margaret.
But the Professor pushed his way quickly through the door and went straight up to the bath-tub, and said to Griselda, ‘What song is that, child? Where did you get the tune? Do you know what it is you’re singing?
Griselda looked up very startled, and she turned very red, and as she lifted the kicking baby out of the water she said, ‘Yes, sir. It’s what I sing Gramma to sleep with. Don’t scream, duckie! you be a good little boy. Look now, “I dance mine own child, I dance mine own child!”‘ sang Griselda, dancing Richard, rolled in his towel, up and down on her knee.
‘Who taught you that song?’ demanded the Professor.
‘What is the matter, Jim?’ asked Margaret.
‘Be quiet, Peggy,’ said the Professor. ‘Who taught you the words and the tune, Griselda?’
‘Nobody did, sir. Gramma used to sing it to my Grandad and to my Dad, and then to me, and now I sing it to her and baby.’
‘And who sang it to your Gramma?’
‘Her Gramma did.’
‘And who sang it to your Gramma’s Gramma?’
‘Don’t be absurd, Jim!’ laughed Margaret. ‘How can the child know? You must have got back to the days of William and Mary.’
‘I want to get back a bit further than that,’ said the Professor. ‘Now, Griselda—Griselda! dear me! and your Great-Grandmother spoke of you as Grissel!’
‘Grissie, sir.’
‘Well, Grissie will do. What is your Grandmother’s name?’
‘My Gramma’s name is Griselda, and so was her Granny’s. We’re all Griselda, because of the song. It’s called Grissel’s song, sir.’
‘Yes, I know it is,’ said the Professor, rather surprisingly.
‘And it’s our song,’ said Griselda, drying Richard carefully in all the creases.
‘Little precious!’ said Margaret, stooping to kiss them.
‘Don’t interrupt, Peggy,’ said the Professor. ‘What do you mean, Griselda, by our song—your song?’
‘I mean it was written for us,’ said Griselda. ‘For one of us Griseldas, ever so long ago, but I don’t know which of us.’
‘Do you know who wrote it?’
‘Mr Dekker wrote it, sir.’
‘Exactly!’ said the Professor triumphantly.
‘What are you so excited about, James?’ demanded Margaret.
‘Shut up, Peggy. Now, Griselda, how do you come to know Mr Dekker wrote that song—and for “one of you”, too?’
‘Because it’s in the book, sir.’
‘What book?’
‘Gramma’s book. The one with the funny print and bad spelling.’
‘Oh, a printed book.’ The Professor’s voice sounded a little disappointed.
‘Yes, sir. But the song is in writing too, inside the cover, and under it he’s written “To mine own Grissel Thos. Dekker,” and the day of the month and the year after.’
‘What month? what year?’
‘The Eleventh Day of October, One Thousand Six Hundred and Three,’ said Griselda.
‘Eureka!’ said the Professor.
‘Are you out of your mind, James?’ inquired Margaret.
But the Professor merely asked another question. ‘Where is that book now?’
‘Bella’s sitting on it, I expect, sir.’
‘Bella?’
‘My doll, sir. It props her up beautiful.’
‘And where is Bella?’ The Professor’s eyes darted about the room.
‘I left her in the Almshouse, sir, with Gramma, for company.’
‘So you gave up your own child to another, did you, patient Grissel? Tomorrow we’ll go together to the Almshouse, to see your Gramma.’
Griselda’s eyes shone, as she buttoned the linen buttons of Richard’s swansdown-calico night-suit; but all she said was, ‘“Patient Grissel” is the name of the book, sir.’
‘Yes,’ said the Professor, ‘I know it is.’
The following day the Professor called for Griselda, and bore her off to the Almshouse. He came before she had done giving Richard his first bottle, and Mrs Greentop said, ‘Well, you are an early bird, James!’ To which the Professor answered, ‘I have a worm to catch.’
They found Great-Grandmother Curfew still in bed, propped up with pillows, and Bella beside her, peeping out of the patchwork quilt. She glanced at Griselda eagerly, saying, ‘Grissie! are we goin’ ‘ome now?’
‘This gentleman wants to see your book, Gramma.’
‘Well, there it is, on the window-ledge, if he want to hev a look at it.’
The Professor picked up the old leather book, and with great care opened it, and looked first at the title-page, and then inside the cover. Both times he nodded as though he was pleased, and then he sat down by Great-Grandmother Curfew, just like the doctor, and said, ‘Tell me about this book, Mrs Curfew. Can you remember anything you were told about it?’
‘Remember!’ cried Great-Grandmother Curfew indignantly. ‘In course I remember! I remember what my Gramma told me her Granny told her as though ‘twas yesterday. What d’ye take me for? A poor old piece like Em’ly Deane, who’ve got a mind like a sieve?’
‘Of course not, Mrs Curfew. Tell me exactly what you remember,’ said the Professor.
Great-Grandmother Curfew’s eyes became brighter than ever as they looked back into the past. ‘My Gramma,’ said she, speaking more clearly than Griselda had ever heard her speak before, ‘were born when King William of Orange sat upon the throne, God bless him, and her Granny was then ninety-three year old, though she didn’t live beyond one-hunderd-and-four, poor soul, but for eleven year she sang my Gramma the song in this book, which was the song her own Daddy made for her the year she were born, and put down in print and in handwriting too.’
‘Mr Thomas Dekker,’ said the Professor.
‘The very same, sir.’
‘Your great-great-great-great-grandfather?’
‘I dessay, sir.’
‘He was a famous man, Mrs Curfew.’
‘I shouldn’t wonder, sir.’
‘What was your Gramma’s Granny’s name, Mrs Curfew?’
‘Griselda, sir.’
‘And your name, Mrs Curfew?’
‘Griselda, sir.’
‘And this little girl is Griselda too.’
‘Well of course she is. Oh deary me!’ chuckled Great-Grandmother Curfew, ‘what a lot of questions about one and the same name.’
‘Mrs Curfew, you ought to know that this is a very valuable book. Will you sell it to me?’
Great-Grandmother Curfew looked at him with her sly sweet greedy smile. ‘How valuable is it? Ten shilling?’
The Professor hesitated. ‘Much more valuable than that, Mrs Curfew.’
Suddenly Griselda plucked up her courage to speak.
‘Is it as valuable as thirty-five pound, if you please, sir?’
The Professor hesitated again, and said, ‘I think it is quite as valuable as fifty pounds, Griselda. At all events, I’ll give your Gramma fifty pounds for it, if she likes to sell it to me.’
‘Oh!’ breathed Griselda. ‘Thank you, sir!’
‘What you thanking the gentleman for, Grissie?’ demanded Great-Grandmother Curfew, tartly. ‘It’s my book, not yours.’
‘Yes, I know, Gramma,’ said Griselda anxiously.
‘And I won’t sell it to him——’ said the old lady obstinately.
‘Oh Gramma!’
‘—Under ten shilling,’ said Great-Grandmother Curfew.
The Professor laughed; but Griselda nearly cried for joy.
‘Now, Grissie, be done wi’ all this flummox,’ said Mrs Curfew. ‘Why don’t ye get me up and dress me? What they been and done to yer hair, child?’
‘They shaved it, Gramma, when I was in hospital.’
‘Was you in hospital?’
‘Yes, Gramma, don’t you remember?’
Great-Grandmother Curfew fixed a dull eye on Griselda’s cropped head. ‘I don’t like it,’ she said. ‘They shouldn’t a done it without my leave.’ Suddenly she looked very tired. ‘Get me up and dress me, Grissie. I want to go ‘ome.’
‘This afternoon, Gramma, this very afternoon!’ promised Griselda; and she thrust into the Professor’s hands the book of Patient Grissel, by Mr Thomas Dekker, and ran out of the cottage as fast as her legs could carry her. It was a very breathless Griselda who fell into the Squire’s study without knocking, and cried, ‘Oh please, sir, please, Mr Greentop, if Farmer Lawson’ll give you thirty pound for our cottage, we’ll give you thirty-five, oh please, Mr Greentop, we’ll give you fifty!’
There is not much more to tell. When the Professor arrived soon after Griselda, the matter was made clear; and when Mr Greentop understood that Great-Grandmother Curfew really did have as much as fifty pounds in the world, and when he heard Griselda herself laughing and crying and pleading all in one breath to be allowed to bring her Great-Grandmother home, and promising to come and look after Baby Richard for ever, when her Gramma did not need her any more—he gave in all at once, saying, ‘All right, Griselda, you shall have the cottage for thirty-five pounds, and I’ll take care of the other fifteen for you, and give it you as you and your Great-Grandmother need it.’ That very afternoon, Griselda drove to the Almshouse in Mrs Greentop’s victoria, with one of Mr Greentop’s farm-carts following after. Into the victoria she put Great-Grandmother Curfew, and her Bible, her hassock, her teapot, her patchwork quilt, and Bella; into the farm-cart she put her rocking-chair, her clock, and her little wooden box of clothes; and back they all went to the last cottage in the Lane, where the fire was already lit, and the bed freshly made. The hens were clucking, the bees were humming, the roses were all out in the garden, and the first thing Great-Grandmother Curfew said was, ‘Ef you was to set me down by the curran’ bushes, Grissie, I could fright away them starlings while you wet the tea.’
And that night, as the happy Griselda put her Granny to bed, she washed the red stains off her withered fingertips, and said, ‘Now you shall have a dose tonight.’
‘No, I shan’t, Grissie, doses is nasty.’
‘Yes, you shall, Gramma, and a sweetie after.’
‘Two sweeties? And you’ll tell me a story?’
‘I’ll tell you the story about the Giant who had three heads, and lived in a Brass Castle.’
‘I like that story. I reckon ol’ Em’ly Deane’s a happy ‘ooman tonight.’
‘Now, Gramma, take your dose.’
‘Have Bella took hers?’
‘Yes, and never a murmur. There’s your sweetie, and there’s your other sweetie. Let me tuck you up, and now you He still and listen. Once upon a time there was a Giant.’
‘Ah!’ said Great-Grandmother Curfew.
‘And he had Three Heads!’
‘Ahh!’
‘And he lived in a BRASS CASTLE!’
‘Ah!’ Great-Grandmother Curfew closed her eyes.
‘Hush, hush, hush!’ sang the happy Griselda, ‘And I dance mine own child! And I dance mine own child——!’