‘The Gap, 2d Oct.
‘MRS. RUDDEN,—You are requested to pay over to the bearer, Mr. Foxholm, fifty pounds of the rent you were about to bring me to-morrow.—I remain, etc.,
‘ARTHURINE ARTHURET.’
‘What does it mean?’ asked Bessie again. ‘That’s just what Mrs. Rudden has come up to me to ask,’ said the Admiral. ‘This fellow presented it in her shop about a quarter of an hour ago. The good woman smelt a rat. What do you think she did? She looked at it and him, asked him to wait a bit, whipped out at her back door, luckily met the policeman starting on his rounds, bade him have an eye to the customer in her shop, and came off to show it to me. That young woman is demented enough for anything, and is quite capable of doing it—for some absurd scheme. But do you think it is hers, or a swindle?’
‘Didn’t she say she had given her autograph?’ exclaimed Susan.
‘And see here,’ said Bessie, ‘her signature is at the top of the sheet of note-paper—small paper. And as she always writes very large, it would be easy to fill up the rest, changing the first side over.’
‘I must take it up to her at once,’ said the Admiral. ‘Even if it be genuine, she may just as well see that it is a queer thing to have done, and not exactly the way to treat her tenants.’
‘It is strange too that this man should have known anything about Mrs. Rudden,’ said Mrs. Merrifield.
‘Mrs. Rudden says she had a message this morning, when she had come up with her rent and accounts, to say that Miss Arthuret was very much engaged, and would be glad if she would come to-morrow! Could this fellow have been about then?’
No one knew, but Bessie breathed the word, ‘Was not that young Mytton there?’
It was not taken up, for no one liked to pronounce the obvious inference. Besides, the Admiral was in haste, not thinking it well that Mr. Foxholm should be longer kept under surveillance in the shop, among the bread, bacon, cheeses, shoes, and tins of potted meat.
He was then called for; and on his loudly exclaiming that he had been very strangely treated, the Admiral quietly told him that Mrs. Rudden had been disturbed at so unusual a way of demanding her rent, and had come for advice on the subject; and to satisfy their minds that all was right, Mr. Foxholm would, no doubt, consent to wait till the young lady could be referred to. Mr. Foxholm did very decidedly object; he said no one had any right to detain him when the lady’s signature was plain, and Admiral Merrifield had seen him in her society, and he began an account of the philanthropical purpose for which he said the money had been intended, but he was cut short.
‘You must be aware,’ said the Admiral, ‘that this is not an ordinary way of acting, and whatever be your purpose, Mrs. Rudden must ascertain your authority more fully before paying over so large a sum. I give you your choice, therefore, either of accompanying us to the Gap, or of remaining in Mrs. Rudden’s parlour till we return.’
The furtive eye glanced about, and the parlour was chosen. Did he know that the policeman stationed himself in the shop outside?
The dinner at the Gap was over, and Miss Elmore, the headmistress, was established in an arm-chair, listening to the outpouring of her former pupil and the happy mother about all the felicities and glories of their present life, the only drawback being the dullness and obstructiveness of the immediate neighbours. ‘I thought Miss Merrifield was your neighbour—Mesa?’
‘Oh no—quite impossible! These are Merrifields, but the daughters are two regular old goodies, wrapped up in Sunday schools and penny clubs.’
‘Well, that is odd! The editor of the --- came down in the train with me, and said he was going to see Mesa—Miss Elizabeth Merrifield.’
‘I do think it is very unfair,’ began Arthurine; but at that moment the door-bell rang. ‘How strange at this time!’
‘Oh! perhaps the editor is coming here!’ cried Arthurine. ‘Did you tell himIlived here, Miss Elmore?’
‘Admiral Merrifield,’ announced the parlour-maid.
He had resolved not to summon the young lady in private, as he thought there was more chance of common-sense in the mother.
‘You are surprised to see me at this time,’ he said; ‘but Mrs. Rudden is perplexed by a communication from you.’
‘Mrs. Rudden!’ exclaimed Arthurine. ‘Why, I only sent her word that I was too busy to go through her accounts to-day, and asked her to come to-morrow. That isn’t against the laws of the Medes and Persians, is it?’
‘Then did you send her this letter?’
‘I?’ said Arthurine, staring at it, with her eyes at their fullest extent. ‘I! fifty pounds! Mr. Foxholm! What does it mean?’
‘Then you never wrote that order?’
‘No! no! How should I?’
‘That is not your writing?’
‘No, not that.’
‘Look at the signature.’
‘Oh! oh! oh!’—and she dropped into a chair. ‘The horrible man! That’s the autograph I gave him this afternoon.’
‘You are sure?’
‘Quite; for my pen spluttered in the slope of the A. Has she gone and given it to him?’
‘No. She brought it to me, and set the policeman to watch him.’
‘What a dear, good woman! Shall you send him to prison, Admiral Merrifield? What can be done to him?’ said Arthurine, not looking at all as if she would like to abrogate capital punishment.
‘Well, I had been thinking,’ said the Admiral. ‘You see he did not get it, and though I could commit him for endeavouring to obtain money on false pretences, I very much doubt whether the prosecution would not be worse for you than for him.’
‘That is very kind of you, Admiral!’ exclaimed the mother. ‘It would be terribly awkward for dear Arthurine to stand up and say he cajoled her into giving her autograph. It might always be remembered against her!’
‘Exactly so,’ said the Admiral; ‘and perhaps there may be another reason for not pushing the matter to extremity. The man is a stranger here, I believe.’
‘He has been staying at Bonchamp,’ said Mrs. Arthuret. ‘It was young Mr. Mytton who brought him over this afternoon.’
‘Just so. And how did he come to be aware that Mrs. Rudden owed you any money?’
There was a pause, then Arthurine broke out—
‘Oh, Daisy and Pansy can’t have done anything; but they were all three there helping me mark the tennis-courts when the message came.’
‘Including the brother?’
‘Yes.’
‘He is a bad fellow, and I would not wish to shield him in any way, but that such a plot should be proved against him would be a grievous disgrace to the family.’
‘I can’t ever feel about them as I have done,’ said Arthurine, in tears. ‘Daisy and Pansy said so much about poor dear Fred, and every one being hard on him, and his feeling my good influence—and all the time he was plotting this against me, with my chalk in his hand marking my grass,’ and she broke down in child-like sobs.
The mortification was terrible of finding her pinnacle of fame the mere delusion of a sharper, and the shock of shame seemed to overwhelm the poor girl.
‘Oh, Admiral!’ cried her mother, ‘she cannot bear it. I know you will be good, and manage it so as to distress her as little as possible, and not have any publicity.’
‘1 will do my best,’ said the Admiral. ‘I will try and get a confession out of him, and send him off, though it is a pity that such a fellow should get off scot-free.’
‘Oh, never mind, so that my poor Arthurine’s name is not brought forward! We can never be grateful enough for your kindness.’
It was so late that the Admiral did not come back that night, and the ladies were at breakfast when he appeared again. Foxholm had, on finding there was no escape, confessed the fraud, but threw most of the blame on Fred Mytton, who was in debt, not only to him but to others. Foxholm himself seemed to have been an adventurer, who preyed on young men at the billiard-table, and had there been in some collusion with Fred, though the Admiral had little doubt as to which was the greater villain. He had been introduced to the Mytton family, who were not particular; indeed, Mr. Mytton had no objection to increasing his pocket-money by a little wary, profitable betting and gambling on his own account. However, the associates had no doubt brought Bonchamp to the point of being too hot to hold them, and Fred, overhearing the arrangement with Mrs. Rudden, had communicated it to him—whence the autograph trick. Foxholm was gone, and in the course of the day it was known that young Mytton was also gone.
The Admiral promised that none of his family should mention the matter, and that he would do his best to silence Mrs. Rudden, who for that matter probably believed the whole letter to have been forged, and would not enter into the enthusiasm of autographs.
‘Oh, thank you! It is so kind,’ said the mother; and Arthurine, who looked as if she had not slept all night, and was ready to burst into tears on the least provocation, murmured something to the same effect, which the Admiral answered, half hearing—
‘Never mind, my dear, you will be wiser another time; young people will be inexperienced.’
‘Is that the cruellest cut of all?’ thought Miss Elmore, as she beheld her former pupil scarcely restraining herself enough for the farewell civilities, and then breaking down into a flood of tears.
Her mother hovered over her with, ‘What is it? Oh! my dear child, you need not be afraid; he is so kind!’
‘I hate people to be kind, that is the very thing,’ said Arthurine,—‘Oh! Miss Elmore, don’t go!—while he is meaning all the time that I have made such a fool of myself! And he is glad, I know he is, he and his hateful, stupid, stolid daughters.’
‘My dear! my dear!’ exclaimed her mother.
‘Well, haven’t they done nothing but thwart me, whatever I wanted to do, and aren’t they triumphing now in this abominable man’s treachery, and my being taken in? I shall go away, and sell the place, and never come back again.’
‘I should think that was the most decided way of confessing a failure,’ said Miss Elmore; and as Mrs. Arthuret was called away by the imperative summons to the butcher, she spoke more freely. ‘Your mother looks terrified at being so routed up again.’
‘Oh, mother will be happy anywhere; and how can I stay with these stick-in-the-mud people, just like what I have read about?’
‘And have gibbeted! Really, Arthurine, I should call them very generous!’
‘It is their thick skins,’ muttered she; ‘at least so the Myttons said; but, indeed, I did not mean to be so personal as it was thought.’
‘But tell me. Why did you not get on with Mesa?’
‘That was a regular take-in. Not to tell one! When I began my German class, she put me out with useless explanations.’
‘What kind of explanations?’
‘Oh, about the Swiss being under the Empire, or something, and shewouldgo into parallels of Saxon words, and English poetry, such as our Fraülein never troubled us with. But I showed her it would notdo.’
‘So instead of learning what you had not sense to appreciate, you wanted to teach your old routine.’
‘But, indeed, she could not pronounce at all well, and she looked ever so long at difficult bits, and then she even tried to correctme.’
‘Did she go on coming after you silenced her?’
‘Yes, and never tried to interfere again.’
‘I am afraid she drew her own conclusions about High Schools.’
‘Oh, Miss Elmore, you used to like us to be thorough and not discursive, and how could anybody brought up in this stultifying place, ages ago, know what will tell in an exam?’
‘Oh! Arthurine. How often have I told you that examinations are not education. I never saw so plainly that I have not educated you.’
‘I wanted to prepare Daisy and Pansy, and they didn’t care about her prosing when we wanted to get on with the book.’
‘Which would have been the best education for them, poor girls, an example of courtesy, patience, and humility, orgetting on, as you call it?’
‘Oh! Miss Elmore, you are very hard on me, when I have just been so cruelly disappointed.’
‘My dear child, it is only because I want you to discover why you have been so cruelly disappointed.’
It would be wearisome to relate all that Arthurine finally told of those thwartings by the Merrifields which had thrown her into the arms of the Mytton family, nor how Miss Elmore brought her to confess that each scheme was either impracticable, or might have been injurious, and that a little grain of humility might have made her see things very differently. Yet it must be owned that the good lady felt rather like bending a bow that would spring back again.
Bessie Merrifield had, like her family, been inclined to conclude that all was the fault of High Schools. She did not see Miss Elmore at first, thinking the Arthurets not likely to wish to be intruded upon, and having besides a good deal to think over. For she and her father had talked over the proposal, which pecuniarily was so tempting, and he, without prejudice, but on principle, had concurred with her in deciding that it was her duty not to add one touch of attractiveness to aught which supported a cause contrary to their strongest convictions. Her father’s approbation was the crowning pleasure, though she felt the external testimony to her abilities, quite enough to sympathise with such intoxication of success as to make any compliment seem possible. Miss Elmore had one long talk with her, beginning by saying—
‘I wish to consult you about my poor, foolish child.’
‘Ah! I am afraid we have not helped her enough!’ said Bessie. ‘If we had been more sympathetic she might have trusted us more.’
‘Then you are good enough to believe that it was not all folly and presumption.’
‘I am sure it was not,’ said Bessie. ‘None of us ever thought it more than inexperience and a little exaltation, with immense good intention at the bottom. Of course, our dear old habits did look dull, coming from life and activity, and we rather resented her contempt for them; but I am quite sure that after a little while, every one will forget all about this, or only recollect it as one does a girlish scrape.’
‘Yes. To suppose all the neighbourhood occupied in laughing at her is only another phase of self-importance. You see, the poor child necessarily lived in a very narrow world, where examinations came, whatever I could do, to seem everything, and she only knew things beyond by books. She had success enough there to turn her head, and not going to Cambridge, never had fair measure of her abilities. Then came prosperity—’
‘Quite enough to upset any one’s balance,’ said Bessie. ‘In fact, only a very sober, not to say stolid, nature would have stood it.’
‘Poor things! They were so happy—so open-hearted. I did long to caution them. “Pull cup, steady hand.”’
‘It will all come right now,’ said Bessie. ‘Mrs Arthuret spoke of their going away for the winter; I do not think it will be a bad plan, for then we can start quite fresh with them; and the intimacy with the Myttons will be broken, though I am sorry for the poor girls. They have no harm in them, and Arthurine was doing them good.’
‘A whisper to you, Miss Merrifield—they are going back with me, to be prepared for governesses at Arthurine’s expense. It is the only thing for them in the crash that young man has brought on the family.’
‘Dear, good Arthurine! She only needed to learn how to carry her cup.’
I. FATHER AND DAUGHTER
SCENE.—The drawing-room of Darkglade Vicarage. Mr. Aveland, an elderly clergyman. Mrs. Moldwarp,widow on the verge of middle age.
Mr. A. So, my dear good child, you will come back to me, and do what you can for the lonely old man!
Mrs. M. I know nothing can really make up—
Mr. A. Ah! my dear, you know only too well by your own experience, but if any one could, it would be you. And at least you will let nothing drop in the parish work. You and Cicely together will be able to take that up when Euphrasia is gone too.
Mrs. M. It will be delightful to me to come back to it! You know I was to the manner born. Nothing seems to be so natural!
Mr. A. I am only afraid you are giving up a great deal. I don’t know that I could accept it—except for the parish and these poor children.
Mrs. M. Now, dear father, you are not to talk so! Is not this my home, my first home, and though it has lost its very dearest centre, what can be so dear to me when my own has long been broken?
Mr. A. But the young folks—young Londoners are apt to feel such a change a great sacrifice.
Mrs. M. Lucius always longs to be here whenever he is on shore, and Cicely. Oh! it will be so good for Cicely to be with you, dear father. I know some day you will be able to enjoy her. And I do look forward to having her to myself, as I have never had before since she was a little creature in the nursery. It is so fortunate that I had not closed the treaty for the house at Brompton, so that I can come whenever Phrasie decides on leaving you.
Mr. A. And she must not be long delayed. She and Holland have waited for each other quite long enough. Your dear mother begged that there should be no delay; and neither you nor I, Mary, could bear to shorten the time of happiness together that may be granted them. She will have no scruple about leaving George’s children now you and Cicely will see to them—poor little things!
Mrs. M. Cicely has always longed for a sphere, and between the children and the parish she will be quite happy. You need have no fears for her, father!
II. BROTHER AND SISTER
SCENE—The broad walk under the Vicarage garden wall, Lucius Moldwarp, a lieutenant in the Navy. Cicely Moldwarp.
C. Isn’t it disgusting, Lucius?
L. What is?
C. This proceeding of the mother’s.
L. Do you mean coming down here to live?
C. Of course I do! Without so much as consulting me.
L. The captain does not ordinarily consult the crew.
C. Bosh, Lucius. That habit of discipline makes you quite stupid. Now, haven’t I the right to be consulted?
L. (A whistle)
C. (A stamp)
L. Pray, what would your sagacity have proposed for grandpapa and the small children?
C. (Hesitation.)
L. (A slight laugh.)
C. I do think it is quite shocking of Aunt Phrasie to be in such haste to marry!
L. After eleven years—eh? or twelve, is it?
C. I mean of course so soon after her mother’s death.
L. You know dear granny herself begged that the wedding might not be put off on that account.
C. Mr. Holland might come and live here.
L. Perhaps he thinks he has a right to be consulted.
C. Then she might take those children away with her.
L. Leaving grandpapa alone.
C. The Curate might live in the house.
L. Lively and satisfactory to mother. Come now, Cis, why are you so dead set against this plan? It is only because your august consent has not been asked?
C. I should have minded less if the pros and cons had been set before me, instead of being treated like a chattel; but I do not think my education should be sacrificed.
L. Not educated! At twenty!
C. Don’t be so silly, Lucius. This is the time when the most important brain work is to be done. There are the art classes at the Slade, and the lectures I am down for, and the Senior Cambridge and cookery and nursing. Yes, I see you make faces! You sailors think women are only meant for you to play with when you are on shore; but I must work.
L. Work enough here!
C. Goody-goody! Babies, school-children, and old women! I’m meant for something beyond that, or what are intellect and artistic faculty given for?
L. You could read for Cambridge exam. all the same. Here are tons of books, and grandpapa would help you. Why not? He is not a bit of a dull man. He is up to everything.
C. So far asyouknow. Oh no, he is not naturally dense. He is a dear old man; but you know clerics of his date, especially when they have vegetated in the country, never know anything but the Fathers and church architecture.
L. Hum! I should have said the old gentleman had a pretty good intelligence of his own. I know he set me on my legs for my exam. as none of the masters at old Coade’s ever did. What has made you take such a mortal aversion to the place? We used to think it next door to Paradise when we were small children.
C. Of course, when country freedom was everything, and we knew nothing of rational intercourse; but when all the most intellectual houses are open to me, it is intolerable to be buried alive here with nothing to talk of but clerical shop, and nothing to do but read to old women, and cram the unfortunate children with the catechism. And mother and Aunt Phrasie expect me to be in raptures!
L. Whereas you seem to be meditating a demonstration.
C. I shall tell mother that if she must needs come down to wallow in her native goodiness, it is due to let me board in Kensington till my courses are completed.
L. Since she won’t be an unnatural daughter, she is to leave the part to you. Well, I suppose it will be for the general peace.
C. Now, Lucius, you speak out of the remains of the old tyrannical barbarism, when the daughters were nothing but goods and chattels.
L. Goods, yes, indeed, and betters.
C. No doubt the men liked it! But won’t you stand by me, Lucius? You say it would be for the general peace.
L. I only said you would be better away than making yourself obnoxious. I can’t think how you can have the heart, Cis, such a pet as you always were.
C. I would not hurt their feelings for the world, only my improvement is too important to be sacrificed, and if no one else will stand up for me, I must stand up for myself.
III. BRIDE-ELECT AND FATHER
SCENE.—Three weeks later. Breakfast table at Darkglade Vicarage, Mr. Aveland and Euphrasia reading their letters. Three little children eating bread and milk.
E. There! Mary has got the house at Brompton off her hands and can come for good on the 11th. That is the greatest possible comfort. She wants to bring her piano; it has a better tone than ours.
Mr. A. Certainly! Little Miss Hilda there will soon be strumming her scales on the old one, and Mary and Cis will send me to sleep in the evening with hers.
E. Oh!
Mr. A. Why, Phrasie, what’s the matter?
E. This is a blow! Cicely is only coming to be bridesmaid, and then going back to board at Kensington and go on with her studies.
Mr. A. To board? All alone?
E. Oh! that’s the way with young ladies!
Mr. A. Mary cannot have consented.
E. Have you done, little folks? Then say grace, Hilda, and run out till the lesson bell rings. Yes, poor Mary, I am afraid she thinks all that Cecilia decrees is right; or if she does not naturally believe so, she is made to.
Mr. A. Come, come, Phrasie, I always thought Mary a model mother.
E. So did I, and so she was while the children were small, except that they were more free and easy with her than was the way in our time. And I think she is all that is to be desired to her son; but when last I was in London, I cannot say I was satisfied, I thought Cissy had got beyond her.
Mr. A. For want of a father?
E. Not entirely. You know I could not think Charles Moldwarp quite worthy of Mary, though she never saw it.
Mr. A. Latterly we saw so little of him! He liked to spend his holiday in mountain climbing, and Mary made her visits here alone.
E. Exactly so. Sympathy faded out between them, though she, poor dear, never betrayed it, if she realised it, which I doubt. And as Cissy took after her father, this may have weakened her allegiance to her mother. At any rate, as soon as she was thought to have outgrown her mother’s teaching, those greater things, mother’s influence and culture, were not thought of, and she went to school and had her companions and interests apart; while Mary, good soul, filled up the vacancy with good works, and if once you get into the swing of that sort of thing in town, there’s no end to the demands upon your time. I don’t think she ever let them bore her husband. He was out all day, and didn’t want her; but I am afraid they do bore her daughter, and absorb attention and time, so as to hinder full companionship, till Cissy has grown up an extraneous creature, not formed by her. Mary thinks, in her humility, dear old thing, that it is a much superior creature; but I don’t like it as well as the old sort.
Mr. A. The old barndoor hen hatched her eggs and bred up her chicks better than the fine prize fowl. Eh?
E. So that incubator-hatched chicks, with a hot-bed instead of a hovering wing and tender cluck-cluck, are the fashion! I was in hopes that coming down to the old coop, with no professors to run after, and you to lead them both, all would right itself, but it seems my young lady wants more improving.
Mr. A. Well, my dear, it must be mortifying to a clever girl to have her studies cut short.
E. Certainly; but in my time we held that studies were subordinate to duties; and that there were other kinds of improvement than in model-drawing and all the rest of it.
Mr. A. It will not be for long, and Cissy will find the people, or has found them, and Mary will accept them.
E. If her native instinct objects, she will be cajoled or bullied into seeing with Cissy’s eyes.
Mr. A. Well, Euphrasia, my dear, let us trust that people are the best judges of their own affairs, and remember that the world has got beyond us. Mary was always a sensible, right-minded girl, and I cannot believe her as blind as you would make out.
E. At any rate, dear papa, you never have to say to her as to me, ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’
IV. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
SCENE.—Darkglade Vicarage drawing-room.
Mrs. M. So, my dear, you think it impossible to be happy here?
C. Little Mamsey, whywillyou never understand? It is not a question of happiness, but of duty to myself.
Mrs. M. And that is—
C. Not to throw away all my chances of self-improvement by burrowing into this hole.
Mrs. M. Oh, my dear, I don’t like to hear you call it so.
C. Yes, I know you care for it. You were bred up here, and know nothing better, poor old Mamsey, and pottering suits you exactly; but it is too much to ask me to sacrifice my wider fields of culture and usefulness.
Mrs. M. Grandpapa would enjoy nothing so much as reading with you. He said so.
C. Oxford half a century old and wearing off ever since. No, I thank you! Besides, it is not only physical science, but art.
Mrs. M. There’s the School of Art at Holbrook.
C. My dear mother, I am far past country schools of art!
Mrs. M. It is not as if you intended to take up art as a profession.
C. Mother! will nothing ever make you understand? Nothing ought to be half-studied, merely to pass away the time as anaccomplishment(uttered with infinite scorn, accentuated on the second syllable), just to do things to sell at bazaars. No! Art with me means work worthy of exhibition, with a market-price, and founded on a thorough knowledge of the secrets of the human frame.
Mrs. M. Those classes! I don’t like all I hear of them, or their attendants.
C. If youwilllisten to all the gossip of all the old women of both sexes, I can’t help it! Can’t you trust to innocence and earnestness?
Mrs. M. I wish it was the Art College at Wimbledon. Then I should be quite comfortable about you.
C. Have not we gone into all that already? You know I must go to the fountain-head, and not be put off with mere feminine, lady-like studies! Pah! Besides, in lodgings I can be useful. I shall give two evenings in the week to the East End, to the Society for the Diversion and Civilisation of the Poor.
Mrs. M. Surely there is room for usefulness here! Think of the children! And for diversion and civilisation, how glad we should be of your fresh life and brightness among poor people!
C. Such poor! Why, even if grandpapa would let me give a lecture on geology, or a reading from Dickens, old Prudence Blake would go about saying it hadn’t done nothing for her poor soul.
Mrs. M. Grandpapa wanted last winter to have penny readings, only there was nobody to do it. He would give you full scope for that, or for lectures.
C. Yes; about vaccination and fresh air! or a reading of John Gilpin or the Pied Piper. Mamsey, you know a model parish stifles me. I can’t stand your prim school-children, drilled in the Catechism, and your old women who get out the Bible and the clean apron when they see you a quarter of a mile off. Free air and open minds for me! No, I won’t have you sighing, mother. You have returned to your native element, and you must let me return to mine.
Mrs. M. Very well, my dear. Perhaps a year or two of study in town may be due to you, though this is a great disappointment to grandpapa and me. I know Mrs. Payne will make a pleasant and safe home for you, if you must be boarded.
C. Too late for that. I always meant to be with Betty Thurston at Mrs. Kaye’s. In fact, I have written to engage my room. So there’s an end of it. Come, come, don’t look vexed. It is better to make an end of it at once. There are things that one must decide for oneself.
V. TWO FRIENDS
SCENE—Over the fire in Mrs. Kaye’s boarding-house. Cecilia Moldwarp and Betty Thurston.
C. So I settled the matter at once.
B. Quite right, too, Cis.
C. The dear woman was torn every way. Grandpapa and Aunt Phrasie wanted her to pin me down into the native stodge; and Lucius, like a true man, went in for subjection: so there was nothing for it but to put my foot down. And though little mother might moan a little to me, I knew she would stand up stoutly for me to all the rest, and vindicate my liberty.
B. To keep you down there. Such a place is very well to breathe in occasionally, like a whale; but as to living in them—
C. Just hear how they spend the day. First, 7.30, prayers in church. The dear old man has hammered on at them these forty years, with a congregation averaging 4 to 2.5.
B. You are surely not expected to attend at that primitive Christian hour! Cruelty to animals!
C. If I don’t, the absence of such an important unit hurts folks’ feelings, and I am driven to the fabrication of excuses. After breakfast, whatever is available trots off to din the Catechism and Genesis into the school-children’s heads—the only things my respected forefather cares about teaching them. Of course back again to the children’s lessons.
B. What children?
C. Didn’t I explain? Three Indian orphans of my uncle’s, turned upon my grandfather—jolly little kids enough, as long as one hasn’t to teach them.
B. Are governesses unknown in those parts?
C. Too costly; and besides, my mother was designed by nature for a nursery-governess. She has taught the two elder ones to be wonderfully good when she is called off. ‘The butcher, ma’am’; or, ‘Mrs. Tyler wants to speak to you, ma’am’; or, ‘Jane Cox is come for a hospital paper, ma’am.’ Then early dinner, of all things detestable, succeeded by school needlework, mothers’ meeting, and children’s walk, combined with district visiting, or reading to old women. Church again, high tea, and evenings again pleasingly varied by choir practices, night schools, or silence, while grandpapa concocts his sermon.
B. Is this the easy life to which Mrs. Moldwarp has retired?
C. It is her native element. People of her generation think it their vocation to be ladies-of-all-work to the parish of Stickinthemud cum-Humdrum.
B. All-work indeed!
C. I did not include Sundays, which are one rush of meals, schools, and services, including harmonium.
B. No society or rational conversation, of course?
C. Adjacent clergy and clergy woman rather less capable of aught but shop than the natives themselves! You see, even if I did offer myself as a victim, I couldn’t do the thing! Fancy my going on about the six Mosaic days, and Jonah’s whale, and Jael’s nail, and doing their duty in that state of life where ithaspleased Heaven to place them.
B. Impossible, my dear! Those things can’t be taught—if they are to be taught—except by those who accept them as entirely as ever; and it is absurd to think of keeping you where you would be totally devoid of all intellectual food!
SCENE.—Art Student and distinguished Professor a year later. Soirée in a London drawing-room. Professor Dunlop and Cecilia.
Prof. D. Miss Moldwarp? Is your mother here?
C. No; she is not in town.
Prof. D. Not living there?
C. She lives with my grandfather at Darkglade.
Prof. D. Indeed! I hope Mr. and Mrs. Aveland are well?
C. Thank you,heis well; but my grandmother is dead.
Prof. D. Oh, I am sorry! I had not heard of his loss. How long ago did it happen?
C. Last January twelvemonth. My aunt is married, and my mother has taken her place at home.
Prof. D. Then you are here on a visit. Where are you staying?
C. No, I live here. I am studying in the Slade schools.
Prof. D. This must have greatly changed my dear old friend’s life!
C. I did not know that you were acquainted with my grandfather.
Prof. D. I was one of his pupils. I may say that I owe everything to him. It is long since I have been at Darkglade, but it always seemed to me an ideal place.
C. Rather out of the world.
Prof. D. Of one sort of world perhaps; but what a beautiful combination is to be seen there of the highest powers with the lowliest work! So entirely has he dedicated himself that he really feels the guidance of a ploughman’s soul a higher task than the grandest achievement in science or literature. By the bye, I hope he will take up his pen again. It is really wanted. Will you give him a message from me?
C. How strange! I never knew that he was an author.
Prof. D. Ah! you are a young thing, and these are abstruse subjects.
C. Oh! the Fathers and Ritual, I suppose?
Prof. D. No doubt he is a great authority there, as a man of his ability must be; but I was thinking of a course of scientific papers he put forth ten years ago, taking up the arguments against materialism as no one could do who is not as thoroughly at home as he is in the latest discoveries and hypotheses. He ought to answer that paper in theCritical World.
C. I was so much interested in that paper.
Prof. D. It has just the speciousness that runs away with young people. I should like to talk it over with him. Do you think I should be in the way if I ran down?
C. I should think a visit from you would be an immense pleasure to him; and I am sure it would be good for the place to be stirred up.
Prof. D. You have not learnt to prize that atmosphere in which things always seem to assume their true proportion, and to prompt the cry of St. Bernard’s brother—‘All earth for me, all heaven for you.’
C. That was surely an outcome of the time when people used to sacrifice certainties to uncertainties, and spoil life for the sake of they knew not what.
Prof. D. For eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.
Stranger. Mr. Dunlop! This is an unexpected pleasure!
C. (alone). Well, wonders will never cease. The great Professor Dunlop talking to me quite preachy and goody; and of all people in the world, the old man at Darkglade turning out to be a great physiologist!
VII. TWO OLD FRIENDS
SCENE.—Darkglade Vicarage study. Mr. Aveland and Professor Dunlop.
Prof. D. Thank you, sir. It has been a great pleasure to talk over these matters with you; I hope a great benefit.
Mr. A. I am sure it is a great benefit to us to have a breath from the outer world. I hope you will never let so long a time go by without our meeting. Remember, as iron sharpeneth iron, so doth a man’s countenance that of his friend.
Prof. D. I shall be only too thankful. I rejoice in the having met your grand-daughter, who encouraged me to offer myself. Is she permanently in town?
Mr. A. She shows no inclination to return. I hoped she would do so after the last competition; but there is always another stage to be mounted. I wish she would come back, for her mother ought not to be left single-handed; but young people seem to require so much external education in these days, instead of being content to work on at home, that I sometimes question which is more effectual, learning or being taught.
Prof. D. Being poured-upon versus imbibing?
Mr. A. It may depend on what amount there is to imbibe; and I imagine that the child views this region as an arid waste; as of course we are considerably out of date.
Prof. D. The supply would be a good deal fresher and purer!
Mr. A. Do you know anything of her present surroundings?
Prof. D. I confess that I was surprised to meet her with Mrs. Eyeless, a lady who is active in disseminating Positivism, and all tending that way. She rather startled me by some of her remarks; but probably it was only jargon and desire to show off. Have you seen her lately?
Mr. A. At Christmas, but only for a short time, when it struck me that she treated us with the patronage of precocious youth; and I thought she made the most of a cold when church or parish was concerned. I hinted as much; but her mother seemed quite satisfied. Poor girl! Have I been blind? I did not like her going to live at one of those boarding-houses for lady students. Do you know anything of them?
Prof. D. Of course all depends on the individual lady at the head, and the responsibility she undertakes, as well as on the tone of the inmates. With some, it would be only staying in a safe and guarded home. In others, there is a great amount of liberty, the girls going out without inquiry whether, with whom, or when they return.
Mr. A. American fashion! Well, they say young women are equal to taking care of themselves. I wonder whether my daughter understands this, or whether it is so at Cecilia’s abode. Do you know?
Prof. D. I am afraid I do. The niece of a friend of mine was there, and left it, much distressed and confused by the agnostic opinions that were freely broached there. How did your grand-daughter come to choose it?
Mr. A. For the sake of being with a friend. I think Thurston is the name.
Prof. D. I know something of that family; clever people, but bred up—on principle, if it can be so called, with their minds a blank as to religion. I remember seeing one of the daughters at the party where I met Miss Moldwarp.
Mr. A. So this is the society into which we have allowed our poor child to run! I blame myself exceedingly for not having made more inquiries. Grief made me selfishly passive, or I should have opened my eyes and theirs to the danger. My poor Mary, what a shock it will be to her!
Prof. D. Was not she on the spot?
Mr. A. True; but, poor dear, she is of a gentle nature, easily led, and seeing only what her affection lets her perceive. And now, she is not strong.
Prof. D. She is not looking well.
Mr. A. You think so! I wonder whether I have been blind, and let her undertake too much.
Prof. D. Suppose you were to bring her to town for a few days. We should be delighted to have you, and she could see the doctor to whom she is accustomed. Then you can judge for yourself about her daughter.
Mr. A. Thank you, Dunlop! It will be a great comfort if it can be managed.