Archibald Malmaison: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Archibald Malmaison was the second son of Sir Clarence Butt Malmaison, of
Malmaison, Sussex. He had the odd distinction of being born on the 29th of
February, 1800. His elder brother, Edward, born 1798, died before him, as
will be hereinafter shown. There were no other brothers, but four girls
appeared after Archibald, two of whom died in childhood of scarlet fever,
while the other two grew up to be married. They have nothing to do with
the story, and will not be mentioned again.

The Malmaisons, as their name denotes, were of French descent--Huguenots.
Like many other emigrants, they yielded, in the course of a generation or
two, to a barbarous mispronunciation of their patronymic, which came to be
spoken of as if spelt "Malmsey."

How it happened that the chateau of the Empress Josephine was christened by
the same name, I know not; at all events, the Sussex Malmaisons have prior
claim to the title. The estate, which embraced between seven and eight
hundred acres, lay in that portion of the county which borders upon the
junction line of Kent and Surrey. Colonel Battledown, the Peninsular
soldier, owned the adjoining estate in Kent; while the Surrey corner was
occupied, at the epoch of this story, by the Honorable Richard
Pennroyal--he whose father, Lord Epsom, is said to have won ninety
thousand pounds from Fox in a single night's play. The three families had
been on a friendly footing with each other ever since the early part of
the reign of George III.

Sir Clarence had been an ally of the father of the Honorable Richard in
Parliament (they were both Whigs), and Colonel Battledown, though a Tory,
was such capital company as not only to compensate for his political
derelictions, but even to render them a matter for mutual
congratulation--they so enlivened the conversation! In truth, I suppose
the three gentlemen must have had many a boisterous discussion over their
nightly three or four bottles apiece of claret, and after their hard day
across country.

The Honorable Richard, by the by, was by far the youngest of the three; at
the time of Archibald's birth he was not much over twenty; but he had a
cool, strong brain, and quite as much gravity as his seniors, over whom,
in fact, he seems to have exercised a species of ascendency. Possibly he
inherited something of his noble father's ability--that of playing quietly
for big stakes when all the odds were in his favor. At all events, in the
year 1801 he married Miss Jane Malmaison, the baronet's sister, who was
fifteen years older than he, but who brought him fifty thousand pounds--a
not unimportant consideration to him at that time.

Mrs. Pennroyal has one claim upon our notice, and only one; seven years
after her marriage, at the age of forty-two, she completely lost her
memory, and became rather idiotic, and a few years later contrived to fall
into an ornamental fish-pond, and drowned there before her attendants
missed her. She was buried with much stateliness; but it is to be feared
that few persons missed her even then. She left no children.

Was poor old Jane the first member of the Malmaison line who had shown any
special weakness or peculiarity in the upper story? There was a hoary
tradition to the effect that the son or grandson of the first emigrant had
made some compact or other with the Evil One, the terms of which were that
he (the grandson) was to prolong his terrestrial existence for one hundred
and forty years by the ingenious device of living only every alternate
seven years, the intervening periods to be passed in a sort of
hibernation. In return for this accommodation he was, of course, to make
H.S.M. the usual acknowledgment!

The final upshot of this bargain--as is usually the way in these cases--is
not known. Did the worthy gentleman work his way into his third half
century? And had he, by that time, acquired astuteness sufficient to cheat
the other party to the contract of his due? History is silent; the only
thing asserted with any appearance of confidence is that Sir Eustace de
Malmaison possessed the power of vanishing at will from the eyes of men.
Nay, he would seem to have bequeathed this useful accomplishment to
certain of his descendants; for there is among the family documents a
curious narrative, signed and witnessed, describing how a member of the
family, in the time (I think) of the Second Pretender, did, being hard
pressed by the minions of the German Prince, and pursued by them into the
extreme eastern chamber of his house of Malmaison, suddenly and without
warning render himself invisible, insomuch that nothing of him remained
save his dagger, and the plume which he bore in his cap. This eastern
chamber had, at the time, but one outlet, and that was into a room already
guarded by the soldiery.

The chronicle goes on to say that the disappearance was not final: the
mysterious fugitive reappeared on the third day, in the same spot where he
had vanished, but apparently rather the worse for wear. He was at first
taken for a spirit, and all fled before him; but he, going hastily forward
to the dining hall, and finding a great sirloin of beef set out upon the
board, forthwith fell to, and, in a wondrous short time, devoured the
whole thereof, drinking also a gallon and a half of the wine of Burgundy.
This exploit restored the belief of the household in the material
consistency of their master, and thereupon was much thanksgiving,
feasting, and rejoicing. But the secret of the disappearance never was
revealed.

I give these musty old details for what they are worth; they may perhaps be
construed as an indication that the race of Malmaison had some
peculiarities of its own.

As for Archibald, he was rather neglected than otherwise. He was a dull and
stolid baby, neither crying nor crowing much: he would sit all day over a
single toy, not playing with it, but holding it idly in his hands or
between his knees. He could neither crawl, walk, nor talk till long after
the usual time for such accomplishments. It seemed as if he had made up
his mind to live according to his birthdays--that is, four times as slow
as other people. The only things he did do well were eating and sleeping:
he never appeared to be thoroughly awake, nor was his appetite ever
entirely satisfied. As might be supposed, therefore, his body grew apace;
and at seven years old (or one and three quarters, as the facetious
Baronet would have it) he weighed twelve good pounds more than his brother
Edward, who was two years his senior, though, to be sure, not a specially
robust child.

For the rest, poor Archibald seemed to be affectionate, in a dim,
inarticulate way, though his sympathies were confined within somewhat
narrow limits. He loved a certain brindled cat that he had more than
anything else: next to her, his little baby sister; and oddly enough, he
conceived a sort of dog-like admiration for the Honorable Richard
Pennroyal--a compliment which that personage did nothing to deserve, and
which he probably did not desire. He had also a distinct feeling for
localities; he was never quite at his ease except in the nursery-room
where he slept; and, on the other hand, he never failed to exhibit
symptoms of distrust and aversion when he was carried into the East
chamber--that in which his great-grandfather had effected his mysterious
self-effacement. But the only thing that was certain to make him cry was
to be brought into the company of little Kate Battledown, the colonel's
only child, a year or two younger than Archibald, and universally admitted
to be the prettiest and most graceful baby in the neighborhood. But
Archibald, up to his seventh year, would do anything to get away from her
--short of walking.

In a word, he exhibited such symptoms of a deficient and perverted
understanding as would have gained him--had he been of humbler
birth--the descriptive title of "natural." Being a son of Sir Clarence
Butt Malmaison, he was considered to be peculiar only. The old wives of
the village maintained that he was the sort that could see elves, and
that, if one but knew how, he might be induced to reveal valuable secrets,
and to confer magic favors. But, looking the other way, he was to be
dreaded as a possible (though involuntary) agent of evil; especially
perilous was it, these venerable dames would affirm, to become the object
of his affection or caresses--a dogma which received appalling
confirmation in the fate of the brindled cat, who, after having been
caught by the leg in a trap intended for a less respectable robber of
hen-roosts, was finished by a bull-terrier, who took advantage of her
embarrassed circumstances to pay off upon her a grudge of long standing.
This tragedy occurred in January of the year 1807, and produced a
noticeable effect upon Master Archibald Malmaison. He neither wept nor
tore his hair, but took the far more serious course of losing his
appetite.

The most remarkable part of the story is yet to come. No one had told him
that the cat was dead, and the cat, having adventurous propensities, had
often been away from home for days at a time without leave or warning.
Nevertheless, Archibald was immediately aware of her fate, and even seemed
(judging from some expressions that escaped him) to have divined the
manner of it. He then gave intimation of an earnest desire to view the
remains; but in this he could not be gratified, for they had already been
secretly interred in an obscure corner of the back garden. Will it be
believed that the "peculiar" child hereupon got upon his fat legs, and,
without either haste or hesitation, deliberately ambled out of the
nursery, along the corridor, down the stairs, across the hall, through the
door, and so round to the back garden and to the very identical spot where
poor Tabby had been deposited!

The fact is sufficiently well attested; I am not aware that it has ever
been accounted for. The boy had never in his life walked so far before,
although his limbs were perfectly developed and able for much longer
pilgrimages. He did not resist being led away; but, as has been said, he
neglected his bread and milk, and every few days returned to the back
garden, and stood beside the grave in the cold, looking fixedly at it, but
making no active demonstration whatever. This went on for about six weeks,
and attracted a good deal of curiosity in the neighborhood. At length, in
the latter part of February, Archibald had a sort of fit, apparently of an
epileptic nature. On recovering from it, he called for a glass of milk,
and drank it with avidity; he then fell asleep, and did not awake again
for thirty-six hours.

By this time he was a personage of more importance at Malmaison than he had
ever yet been in his small life. The wise folk who stood around his crib
hazarded various predictions as to the issue of his unnatural slumber.
Some said he would lose what little wit he had; others, that he would
become an acknowledged wizard; others again, that he would never wake up
at all. In short, like other prophets, they foretold everything except
that which was actually to happen; and they would have foretold that too,
if they had thought of it in time.

Back to chapter list of: Archibald Malmaison