The Farringdons Part 6

CHAPTER IV

SCHOOL-DAYS

Up to eighteen we fight with fears, And deal with problems grave and weighty, And smile our smiles and weep our tears, Just as we do in after years From eighteen up to eighty.

When Elisabeth was sixteen her noonday was turned into night by the death of her beloved Cousin Anne. For some time the younger Miss Farringdon had been in failing health; but it was her role to be delicate, and so n.o.body felt anxious about her until it was too late for anxiety to be of any use. She glided out of life as gracefully as she had glided through it, trusting that the sternness of her principles would expiate the leniency of her practice; and was probably surprised at the discovery that it was the leniency of her practice which finally expiated the sternness of her principles.

She left a blank, which was never quite filled up, in the lives of her sister Maria and her small cousin Elisabeth. The former bore her sorrow better, on the whole, than did the latter, because she had acquired the habit of bearing sorrow; but Elisabeth mourned with all the hopeless misery of youth.

"It is no use trying to make me interested in things," she sobbed in response to Christopher's clumsy though well-meant attempts to divert her. "I shall never be interested in anything again--never. Everything is different now that Cousin Anne is gone away."

"Not quite everything," said Christopher gently.

"Yes; everything. Why, the very trees don't look the same as they used to look, and the view isn't a bit what it used to be when she was here.

All the ordinary things seem queer and altered, just as they do when you see them in a dream."

"Poor little girl!"

"And now it doesn't seem worth while for anything to look pretty. I used to love the sunsets, but now I hate them. What is the good of their being so beautiful and filling the sky with red and gold, if _she_ isn't here to see them? And what is the good of trying to be good and clever if she isn't here to be pleased with me? Oh dear! oh dear! Nothing will ever be any good any more."

Christopher laid an awkward hand upon Elisabeth's dark hair, and began stroking it the wrong way. "I say, I wish you wouldn't fret so; it's more than I can stand to see you so wretched. Isn't there anything that I can do to make it up to you, somehow?"

"No; nothing. Nothing will ever comfort me any more; and how could a great, stupid boy like you make up to me for having lost her?" moaned poor little Elisabeth, with the selfishness of absorbing grief.

"Well, anyway, I am as fond of you as she was, for n.o.body could be fonder of anybody than I am of you."

"That doesn't help. I don't miss her so because she loved me, but because I loved her; and I shall never, never love any one else as much as long as I live."

"Oh yes, you will, I expect," replied Christopher, who even then knew Elisabeth better than she knew herself.

"No--I shan't; and I should hate myself if I did."

Elisabeth fretted so terribly after her Cousin Anne that she grew paler and thinner than ever; and Miss Farringdon was afraid that the girl would make herself really ill, in spite of her wiry const.i.tution. After much consultation with many friends, she decided to send Elisabeth to school, for it was plain that she was losing her vitality through lack of an interest in life; and school--whatever it may or may not supply--invariably affords an unfailing amount of new interests. So Elisabeth went to Fox How--a well-known girls' school not a hundred miles from London--so called in memory of Dr. Arnold, according to whose principles the school was founded and carried on.

It would be futile to attempt to relate the history of Elisabeth Farringdon without telling in some measure what her school-days did for her; and it would be equally futile to endeavour to convey to the uninitiated any idea of what that particular school meant--and still means--to all its daughters.

When Elisabeth had left her girlhood far behind her, the mere mention of the name, Fox How, never failed to send thrills all through her, as G.o.d save the Queen, and Home, sweet Home have a knack of doing; and for any one to have ever been a pupil at Fox How, was always a sure and certain pa.s.sport to Elisabeth's interest and friendliness. The school was an old, square, white house, standing in a walled garden; and those walls enclosed all the multifarious interests and pleasures and loves and rivalries and heart-searchings and soul-awakenings which go to make up the feminine life from twelve to eighteen, and which are very much the same in their essence, if not in their form, as those which go to make up the feminine life from eighteen to eighty. In addition to these, the walls enclosed two lawns and an archery-ground, a field and a pond overgrown with water-lilies, a high mound covered with gra.s.s and trees, and a kitchen-garden filled with all manner of herbs and pleasant fruits--in short, it was a wonderful and extensive garden, such as one sees now and then in some old-fashioned suburb, but which people have neither the time nor the s.p.a.ce to lay out nowadays. It also contained a long, straight walk, running its whole length and shaded by impenetrable greenery, where Elisabeth used to walk up and down, pretending that she was a nun; and some delightful swings and see-saws, much patronized by the said Elisabeth, which gave her a similar physical thrill to that produced in later years by the mention of her old school.

The gracious personality which ruled over Fox How in the days of Elisabeth had mastered the rarely acquired fact that the word _educate_ is derived from _educo_, to _draw out_, and not (as is generally supposed) from _addo_, to _give to_; so the pupils there were trained to train themselves, and learned how to learn--a far better equipment for life and its lessons than any ready-made cloak of superficial knowledge, which covers all individualities and fits none. There was no cramming or forcing at Fox How; the object of the school was not to teach girls how to be scholars, but rather how to be themselves--that is to say, the best selves which they were capable of becoming. High character rather than high scholarship was the end of education there; and good breeding counted for more than correct knowledge. Not that learning was neglected, for Elisabeth and her schoolfellows worked at their books for eight good hours every day; but it did not form the first item on the programme of life.

And who can deny that the system of Fox How was the correct system of education, at any rate, as far as girls are concerned? Unless a woman has to earn her living by teaching, what does it matter to her how much hydrogen there is in a drop of rain-water, or in what year Hannibal crossed the Alps? But it will matter to her infinitely, for the remainder of her mortal existence, whether she is one of those graceful, sympathetic beings, whose pathway is paved by the love of Man and the friendship of Woman; or one of that much-to-be-blamed, if somewhat-to-be-pitied, sisterhood, who are unloved because they are unlovely, and unlovely because they are unloved.

It is not good for man, woman, or child to be alone; and the companionship of girls of her own age did much toward deepening and broadening Elisabeth's character. The easy give-and-take of perfect equality was beneficial to her, as it is to everybody She did not forget her Cousin Anne--the art of forgetting was never properly acquired by Elisabeth; but new friendships and new interests sprang up out of the grave of the old one, and changed its resting-place from a cemetery into a garden. Elisabeth Farringdon could not be happy--could not exist, in fact--without some absorbing affection and interest in life. There are certain women to whom "the trivial round" and "the common task" are all-sufficing who ask nothing more of life than that they shall always have a dinner to order or a drawing-room to dust, and to whom the delinquencies of the cook supply a drama of never-failing attraction and a subject of never-ending conversation; but Elisabeth was made of other material; vital interests and strong attachments were indispensable to her well-being. The death of Anne Farringdon had left a cruel blank in the young life which was none too full of human interest to begin with; but this blank was to a great measure filled up by Elisabeth's adoration for the beloved personage who ruled over Fox How, and by her devoted friendship for Felicia Herbert.

In after years she often smiled tenderly when she recalled the absolute worship which the girls at Fox How offered to their "Dear Lady," as they called her, and of which the "Dear Lady" herself was supremely unconscious. It was a feeling of loyalty stronger than any ever excited by crowned heads (unless, perhaps, by the Pope himself), as she represented to their girlish minds the embodiment of all that was right, as well as of all that was mighty--and represented it so perfectly that through all their lives her pupils never dissociated herself from the righteousness which she taught and upheld and practised. And this att.i.tude was wholly good for girls born in a century when it was the fashion to sneer at hero-worship and to scoff at authority when the word obedience in the Marriage Service was accused of redundancy, and the custom of speaking evil of dignities was mistaken for self-respect.

As for Felicia Herbert, she became for a time the very mainspring of Elisabeth's life. She was a beautiful girl, with fair hair and clear-cut features; and Elisabeth adored her with the adoration that is freely given, as a rule, to the girl who has beauty by the girl who has not.

She was, moreover, gifted with a sweet and calm placidity, which was very restful to Elisabeth's volatile spirit; and the latter consequently greeted her with that pa.s.sionate and thrilling friendship which is so satisfying to the immature female soul, but which is never again experienced by the woman who has once been taught by a man the nature of real love. Felicia was much more religious than Elisabeth, and much more p.r.o.ne to take serious views of life. The training of Fox How made for seriousness, and in that respect Felicia entered into the spirit of the place more profoundly than Elisabeth was capable of doing; for Elisabeth was always tender rather than serious, and broad rather than deep.

"I shall never go to b.a.l.l.s when I leave school," said Felicia to her friend one day of their last term at Fox How, as the two were sitting in the arbour at the end of the long walk. "I don't think it is right to go to b.a.l.l.s."

"Why not? There can be no harm in enjoying oneself, and I don't believe that G.o.d ever thinks there is."

"Not in enjoying oneself in a certain way; but the line between religious people and worldly people ought to be clearly marked. I think that dancing is a regular worldly amus.e.m.e.nt, and that good people should openly show their disapproval of it by not joining in it."

"But G.o.d wants us to enjoy ourselves," Elisabeth persisted. "And He wouldn't really love us if He didn't."

"G.o.d wants us to do what is right, and it doesn't matter whether we enjoy ourselves or not."

"But it does; it matters awfully. We can't really be good unless we are happy."

Felicia shook her head. "We can't really be happy unless we are good; and if we are good we shall 'love not the world,' but shall stand apart from it."

"But I must love the world; I can't help loving the world, it is so grand and beautiful and funny. I love the whole of it: all the trees and the fields, and the towns and the cities, and the prim old people and the dear little children. I love the places--the old places because I have known them so long, and the new places because I have never seen them before; and I love the people best of all. I adore people, Felicia; don't you?"

"No; I don't think that I do. Of course I like the people that I like; but the others seem to me dreadfully uninteresting."

"But they are not; they are all frightfully interesting when once you get to know them, and see what they really are made of inside. Outsides may seem dull; but insides are always engrossing. That's why I always love people when once I've seen them cry, because when they cry they are themselves, and not any make-ups."

"How queer to like people because you have seen them cry!"

"Well, I do. I'd do anything for a person that I had seen cry; I would really."

Felicia opened her large hazel eyes still wider. "What a strange idea!

It seems to me that you think too much about feelings and not enough about principles."

"But thinking about feelings makes you think about principles; feelings are the only things that ever make me think about principles at all."

After a few minutes' silence Elisabeth asked suddenly:

"What do you mean to do with your life when you leave here and take it up?"

"I don't know. I suppose I shall fall in love and get married. Most girls do. And I hope it will be with a clergyman, for I do so love parish work."

"I don't think I want to get married," said Elisabeth slowly, "not even to a clergyman."

"How queer of you! Why not?"

"Because I want to paint pictures and to become a great artist. I feel there is such a lot in me that I want to say, and that I must say; and I can only say it by means of pictures. It would be dreadful to die before you had delivered the message that you had been sent into the world to deliver, don't you think?"

"It would be more dreadful to die before you had found one man to whom you would be everything, and who would be everything to you," replied Felicia.

"Oh! I mean to fall in love, because everybody does, and I hate to be behindhand with things; but I shall do it just as an experience, to make me paint better pictures. I read in a book the other day that you must fall in love before you can become a true artist; so I mean to do so.

But it won't be as important to me as my art," said Elisabeth, who was as yet young enough to be extremely wise.

"Still, it must be lovely to know there is one person in the world to whom you can tell all your thoughts, and who will understand them, and be interested in them."