Archibald Malmaison

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.