More Bywords Part 21

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 cla.s.ses 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 sh.o.r.e; 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 as _YOU_ know. 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.