The Portland Vase

This story was published in a Christmas issue of the Atlantic Advocate, which was printed in Fredericton. The Atlantic Advocate has suffered the fate of too many  Canadian magazines.  The details are on the internet.

The Portland vase lived on the organ in the front parlour, and

when I was a child, the front parlour was a sacrosanct place.

Mother and grandmother would take the minister into it when he

made his visitations, and the minister, who was an Edinburgh man,

would lift his coattails and sit ponderously on a horse-hair sofa,

whole I crept into a chair in the corner and waited to be

catechized. The minister's eyes would sweep the room, sternly

appreciative, and when they lit on the Portland vase, he broke into

something approaching a smile.

   "What a lovely vase that is! Is it Wedgwood?"

   "Yes. I brought it over from home," grandmother would say,

with a curious note to her voice.

   "Home" was Ireland, where grandmother had been a pretty young

thing in her youth, so people said, though the grandmother I knew

was a grey-haired old lady, with a twinkle in her eye and a back as

straight as a ruler. Her family was landed gentry, none the less

proud because its pedigree was not really so very long. Grandfather

was a footman, with a handsome face and a strong body, who used to

drive grandmother to take music lessons once a week, and to church

sometimes on Sundays.

   It was natural enough that they fell in love, but it might

have ended there, with neither of them screwing up enough courage

to cross the boundaries of the class structure, had not the

carriage overturned in the ditch one day, pinning grandmother

underneath it. Grandfather, who was a powerful man, succeeded in

lifting the carriage enough the free her, and carried her back

gently to the house. But her family lost no time in making it clear

that a handsome face and strong muscles did not make grandfather

good enough for their daughter.

   They dismissed grandfather. It was a poor reward for saving their daughter, but that’s the way things were in those days.  Grandfather who went to Dublin, and 

Grandmother’s family sent her away to school. And three months later, they were

married. Grandmother's family had hardly finished congratulating

themselves on their success in breaking their daughter's

unfortunate attachment when they heard the news of the wedding. Her father sent her

passage money to Canada for a wedding-present, and declined to talk

about the matter any further. But her mother came to say goodbye,

and she brought a Wedgwood copy of the Portland vase with her. It was a family heirloom.

   "It will be nice in your home," she said. "Wherever that is."

   Two months later, grandmother reached Halifax with her new husband and the

Portland vase, and then came the journey inland to the lot of land which

grandfather purchased and cleared, where the Portland vase eventually came to

rest on the parlour organ.

   The years passed, and the Portland vase acquired a certain

aura of mystery and dignity. It stood first in the log cabin where

grandfather and grandmother set up their first home, grandmother,

a young bride of seventeen, and grandfather a heavy-set man of

twenty-seven. It looked on with classical, aristocratic calm while 

grandmother bore thirteen children and lost seven of them. When

grandfather built a stone house to replace the log cabin, the

Portland vase moved to the front parlour. Sometimes grandmother

would take us in and show it to us, and tell us how it was a exact

copy of the famous glass vase which was discovered in the tomb of

a Roman emperor, and how it was made in the famous shops of Josiah

Wedgwood.

   "There were beautiful things made over in the Old Country,"

she said, once.

   "Do you wish you could go back, grandmother?" I asked her.

   "Oh, there's nothing to go back to," said grandmother, "and

I've been away for so long that I've half forgotten. I'm too old

now."

   My two young brothers and myself were the children of

grandmother's youngest boy. Father took over the farm when

grandfather died of typhoid fever, and we were brought up in the

stone farmhouse, with its closely sealed front parlour. When we

were very small, we were not allowed in it, but after I grew old

enough to take lessons on the organ, I used to go in for an hour

every day, and practice my scales, pumping at the wheezing pedals

and staring at the Portland vase which swayed very slightly on the

organ case in front of me. I used to wonder, as I looked at it,

what grandmother’s fine relatives would think of us now, if they

could see us.

   When I started my music lessons, I ended an era for the front

parlour. It was no longer so closely sealed, and sometimes the

family gathered there to listen to me play, although father

preferred to read the newspaper in the kitchen. Sometimes

grandmother played herself, although her fingers were stiff. My

little brothers came in, and when my youngest brother Drake (we

called him that because his hair stood up on the crown of his head

like a drake's tail) got his pup, sometimes it came in, too.

   One evening I was playing while grandmother and mother

listened. It was one of those sad songs that were composed during

the Great War, as we called it, where many young Canadian boys had

died, and girls who had looked forward to marriage found themselves

lonely spinsters. Mother and grandmother listened quietly, and I

could tell by the look in grandmother's eyes that she was not

thinking of the war that had ended in 1918, but of a more distant

time and place. But I guess the silence was too much for Drake, for

the door burst open, and he tore in, with the pup at his heels.

   "Drake!" mother cried. "Drake!"

   It was too late. In his excitement, the pup leaped on my lap

as I sat at the organ, and with a flick of his tail, he toppled the

vase which rolled to the floor, and smashed into a dozen pieces.

The aristocratic beauty lay broken on the floor. For a moment, we

were all too stunned to say anything

   "It's broken," mother said, at last.

   We were all still, even the pup.

   "Yes, it's broken," said grandmother, in a catch in her voice. She

would like to cry, I thought, but she won't.

   "Timothy," said mother (that was Drake's real name) "how many

times have I told you not to come in here like a hoyden with that

dog? Now look what you've done. I'll spank you well for this. Now 

stop blubbering." Drake was beginning to rub his eyes with his

little fists.

   "Don't spank the boy," said grandmother, in a curious,

controlled voice. "He didn't break it. It was the dog."

   "But your lovely vase is broken, grandmother. You'll never get

another like it."

   "It's not that important." She bent over the wreckage, and

began to pick up the pieces, slowly. "See, I could almost glue

these pieces together again if I wanted to."

   "Maybe we could gather them all up in a box," I said. I felt

sorry for Drake. He was the picture of contrition, struggling with

his tears.

   "Timothy," said grandmother, "find me a box in the kitchen

like a good boy, and I'll put these pieces of the vase in it. I

should have put this old vase away long ago."

   So we gathered the fragments of the vase together, and put

them in the box, which Grandmother shoved into a drawer in her

bureau, and never spoke of it again.

   Yet no one forgot it. I missed its aristocratic beauty as I

practiced my scales. Drake hadn't forgotten, either. He seemed to be

too good at doing odd jobs around the house, and whenever father

offered us a nickel to go to the village for the mail, Drake was the one who

wanted to go. It was two miles to the post office and back, which

was a long walk for a little boy, even though he was paid a nickel.

I began to wonder what he was up to.

   Christmas was always a great festival at our house. We hadn't

many toys, but Santa Claus always left us oranges, and grandmother

used to knit socks and sweaters for us all. And of course, we

always had a goose for dinner.

   We children had a hard time finding presents to give, although

mother generally gave us a quarter each to buy some gifts with. But

the Christmas after the Portland vase was broken, Drake wrapped up

a big present for grandmother and put it under the Christmas tree.

   "Oh, Drake," I said, "what is it?"

   "Never mind," said Drake, flushing red. "You'll find out."

   "I'll bet it's something stupid."

   "It is not," Drake replied, hotly. "Stop your teasing!"

   So I just looked superior. I had embroidered tea towels, and

was giving a pair to mother and another pair to grandmother.

   We opened the presents Christmas morning. Santa Claus had left

us each an orange, as usual. Mother was pleased with my embroidered

tea-towels, and said she would put them away for me, when I got

married myself. Grandmother had knitted three sweaters for her

grandchildren. Then Santa Claus, who was really our Dad, brought grandmother Drake's present.

   It was a big parcel, poorly wrapped. Drake hadn't much idea

how to do up a parcel. The wrapping almost fell off.

   The present emerged, and it turned out to be a great vase,

about the size of the Portland vase, but a gaudy and infinitely

ugly thing. I had seen its mates in Woolworth's. But it was as

large as the old vase had been, and it was an expensive purchase

for a boy like Drake.

   "Do you like it?" asked Drake, anxiously, for the expression

on grandmother's face was curious.

   "Oh, Drake, child," said grandmother, " you should never have 

spent your money on this."

   "But I wanted you to have another vase like your old one."

   "It's very, very beautiful," said grandmother.

   "I tried to get a vase just like your old one," Drake

explained, "but I couldn't find one. But this one is just as

pretty, don't you think?"

   "Every bit as pretty, Drake," said grandmother, turning the

ugly piece of crockery from side to side in her hands. "We'll put

it on the organ where the old vase used to be."

   "I think it's even prettier than your old vase. And besides,"

added Drake, sagely, "this vase is new, and the old one was old."

   "Yes, Drake," said grandmother, putting her hand gently on his

shoulder, "and that is very important. Old things not so much"