More Bywords Part 22

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, why _WILL_ you 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 pa.s.s away the time as an _ACCOMPLISHMENT_ (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 cla.s.ses! I don't like all I hear of them, or their attendants.

C. If you _WILL_ listen to all the gossip of all the old women of both s.e.xes, 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 d.i.c.kens, 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 n.o.body 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 ap.r.o.n 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 c.o.x 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 c.u.m-Humdrum.