Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

								

that woman’s right is to do no wrong. So that she came at once when
called, and felt as a mother ought to feel, that she multiplied her
obedience vastly, by bringing all her children. Being in a soft state
of mind, the old man was glad to see them all, and let them play with
him as freely as childhood’s awe of white hair allowed. Then he laid
his hand upon Roger, the heir of the house, and blessed him on his
way to bed; and after that he took his supper, waited on by Artemise,
who was very grateful for his kindness to her children. So that she
brought him the right thing, exactly at the right moment, without
overcrowding him; and then she poured him sparkling wine, and comforted
his weary feet, and gave him a delicious pipe of Persian meconopsis,
free from the bane of opium, yet more dreamy than tobacco. Also she
sprinkled round him delicate attar of the Vervain (sprightlier and less
oppressive than the scent of roses), until his white beard ceased to
flutter, and the strong lines of his face relaxed into soft drowsiness.
Observing thence the proper time when sweet sleep was encroaching, and
haste, and heat, and sudden temper were as far away as can be from a
man of Eastern blood, Artemise, his daughter, touched him with the
smile which he used to love, when she was two years old and upward; and
his thoughts without his knowledge flew back to her mother.
“Father to me, father dearest,” she was whispering to him, in the
native tongue which charms the old, as having lulled their cradles;
“father to me, tell what trouble has together fallen on you in this
cold and foreign land.”
Melody enough was still remaining, in the most melodious of all mortal
languages, for a child to move a father into softer memories, at the
sound of ancient music thus revived, and left to dwell.
“Child of my breast,” the prince replied, in the very best modern
Hellenic, “a strong desire to sleep again hath overcome mine intellect.”
“Thus is it the more suited, father, for discourse with such as mine.
Let your little one share the troubles of paternal wisdom.”
Suasion more than this was needed, and at every stage forthcoming, more
skilfully than English words or even looks could render, ere ever the
paternal wisdom might be coaxed to unfold itself; and even so it was
not disposed to be altogether explicit.
“Ask me no more,” he said at last; “enough that I foresee great
troubles overhanging this sad house.”
“Oh, father, when, and how, and what? How shall we get over them, and
why should we encounter them? And will my husband or my children----”
The prince put up one finger as if to say, “Ask one thing at a time,”
the while he ceased not to revolve many and sad counsels in his
venerable head; and in his gaze deep pity mingled with a father’s pride
and love. Then he spoke three words in a language which she did not
comprehend, but retained their sound, and learned before her death that