The Odd Women Part 24

Micklethwaite shook his head.

'Unworthy of you, Barfoot. Of course you couldn't really do such a thing.'

'But such women really challenge one. If she were rich, I think I could do it without scruple.'

'You seem to be taking it for granted,' said the mathematician, smiling, 'that this lady would--would respond to your lovemaking.'

'I confess to you that women have spoilt me. And I am rather resentful when any one cries out against me for lack of respect to womanhood. I have been the victim of this groundless veneration for females. Now you shall hear the story; and bear in mind that you are the only person to whom I have ever told it. I never tried to defend myself when I was vilified on all hands. Probably the attempt would have been useless; and then it would certainly have increased the odium in which I stood.

I think I'll tell cousin Mary the truth some day; it would be good for her.'

The listener looked uneasy, but curious.

'Well now, I was staying in the summer with some friends of ours at a little place called Upchurch, on a branch line from Oxford. The people were well-to-do--Goodall their name--and went in for philanthropy. Mrs.

Goodall always had a lot of Upchurch girls about her, educated and not; her idea was to civilize one cla.s.s by means of the other, and to give a new spirit to both. My cousin Mary was staying at the house whilst I was there. She had more reasonable views than Mrs. Goodall, but took a great interest in what was going on.

'Now one of the girls in process of spiritualization was called Amy Drake. In the ordinary course of things I shouldn't have met her, but she served in a shop where I went two or three times to get a newspaper; we talked a little--with absolute propriety on my part, I a.s.sure you--and she knew that I was a friend of the Goodalls. The girl had no parents, and she was on the point of going to London to live with a married sister.

'It happened that by the very train which took me back to London, when my visit was over, this girl also travelled, and alone. I saw her at Upchurch Station, but we didn't speak, and I got into a smoking carriage. We had to change at Oxford, and there, as I walked about the platform, Amy put herself in my way, so that I was obliged to begin talking with her. This behaviour rather surprised me. I wondered what Mrs. Goodall would think of it. But perhaps it was a sign of innocent freedom in the intercourse of men and women. At all events, Amy managed to get me into the same carriage with herself, and on the way to London we were alone. You foresee the end of it. At Paddington Station the girl and I went off together, and she didn't get to her sister's till the evening.

'Of course I take it for granted that you believe my account of the matter. Miss Drake was by no means the spiritual young person that Mrs.

Goodall thought her, or hoped to make her; plainly, she was a reprobate of experience. This, you will say, doesn't alter the fact that I also behaved like a reprobate. No; from the moralist's point of view I was to blame. But I had no moral pretentions, and it was too much to expect that I should rebuke the young woman and preach her a sermon. You admit that, I dare say?'

The mathematician, frowning uncomfortably, gave a nod of a.s.sent.

'Amy was not only a reprobate, but a rascal. She betrayed me to the people at Upchurch, and, I am quite sure, meant from the first to do so. Imagine the outcry. I had committed a monstrous crime--had led astray an innocent maiden, had outraged hospitality--and so on. In Amy's case there were awkward results. Of course I must marry the girl forthwith. But of course I was determined to do no such thing. For the reasons I have explained, I let the storm break upon me. I had been a fool, to be sure, and couldn't help myself. No one would have believed my plea--no one would have allowed that the truth was an excuse. I was abused on all hands. And when, shortly after, my father made his will and died, doubtless he cut me off with my small annuity on this very account. My cousin Mary got a good deal of the money that would otherwise have been mine. The old man had been on rather better terms with me just before that; in a will that he destroyed I believe he had treated me handsomely.'

'Well, well,' said Micklethwaite, 'every one knows there are detestable women to be found. But you oughtn't to let this affect your view of women in general. What became of the girl?'

'I made her a small allowance for a year and a half. Then her child died, and the allowance ceased. I know nothing more of her. Probably she has inveigled some one into marriage.'

'Well, Barfoot,' said the other, rolling about in his chair, 'my Opinion remains the same. You are in debt to some worthy woman to the extent of half your income. Be quick and find her. It will be better for you.'

'And do you suppose,' asked Everard, with a smile of indulgence, 'that I could marry on four hundred and fifty a year.

'Heavens! Why not?'

'Quite impossible. A wife _might_ be acceptable to me; but marriage with poverty--I know myself and the world too well for that.'

'Poverty!' screamed the mathematician. 'Four hundred and fifty pounds!'

'Grinding poverty--for married people.'

Micklethwaite burst into indignant eloquence, and Everard sat listening with the restrained smile on his lips.

CHAPTER X

FIRST PRINCIPLES

Having allowed exactly a week to go by, Everard Barfoot made use of his cousin's permission, and called upon her at nine in the evening. Miss Barfoot's dinner-hour was seven o'clock; she and Rhoda, when alone, rarely sat for more than half an hour at table, and in this summer season they often went out together at sunset to enjoy a walk along the river. This evening they had returned only a few minutes before Everard's ring sounded at the door. Miss Barfoot (they were just entering the library) looked at her friend and smiled.

'I shouldn't wonder if that is the young man. Very flattering if he has come again so soon.'

The visitor was in mirthful humour, and met with a reception of corresponding tone. He remarked at once that Miss Nunn had a much pleasanter aspect than a week ago; her smile was ready and agreeable; she sat in a sociable att.i.tude and answered a jesting triviality with indulgence.

'One of my reasons for coming to-day,' said Everard, 'was to tell you a remarkable story. It connects'--he addressed his cousin--'with our talk about the matrimonial disasters of those two friends of mine. Do you remember the name of Micklethwaite--a man who used to cram me with mathematics? I thought you would. He is on the point of marrying, and his engagement has lasted just seventeen years.'

'The wisest of your friends, I should say.'

'An excellent fellow. He is forty, and the lady the same. An astonishing case of constancy.'

'And how is it likely to turn out?'

'I can't predict, as the lady is unknown to me. But,' he added with facetious gravity, 'I think it likely that they are tolerably well acquainted with each other. Nothing but sheer poverty has kept them apart. Pathetic, don't you think? I have a theory that when an engagement has lasted ten years, with constancy on both sides, and poverty still prevents marriage, the State ought to make provision for a man in some way, according to his social standing. When one thinks of it, a whole socialistic system lies in that suggestion.'

'If,' remarked Rhoda, 'it were first provided that no marriage should take place until _after_ a ten years' engagement.'

'Yes,' Barfoot a.s.sented, in his smoothest and most graceful tone. 'That completes the system. Unless you like to add that no engagement is permitted except between people who have pa.s.sed a certain examination; equivalent, let us say, to that which confers a university degree.'

'Admirable. And no marriage, except where both, for the whole decennium, have earned their living by work that the State recognizes.'

'How would that affect Mr. Micklethwaite's betrothed?' asked Miss Barfoot.

'I believe she has supported herself all along by teaching.'

'Of course!' exclaimed the other impatiently. 'And more likely than not, with loathing of her occupation. The usual kind of drudgery, was it?'

'After all, there must be some one to teach children to read and write.'

'Yes; but people who are thoroughly well trained for the task, and who take a pleasure in it. This lady may be an exception; but I picture her as having spent a lifetime of uncongenial toil, longing miserably for the day when poor Mr. Micklethwaite was able to offer her a home.

That's the ordinary teacher-woman, and we must abolish her altogether.'

'How are you to do that?' inquired Everard suavely. 'The average man labours that he may be able to marry, and the average woman certainly has the same end in view. Are female teachers to be vowed to celibacy?'

'Nothing of the kind. But girls are to be brought up to a calling in life, just as men are. It's because they have no calling that, when need comes, they all offer themselves as teachers. They undertake one of the most difficult and arduous pursuits as if it were as simple as washing up dishes. We can't earn money in any other way, but we can teach children! A man only becomes a schoolmaster or tutor when he has gone through laborious preparation--anything but wise or adequate, of course, but still conscious preparation; and only a very few men, comparatively, choose that line of work. Women must have just as wide a choice.'

'That's plausible, cousin Mary. But remember that when a man chooses his calling he chooses it for life. A girl cannot but remember that if she marries her calling at once changes. The old business is thrown aside--henceforth profitless.'

'No. Not henceforth profitless! There's the very point I insist upon.

So far is it from profitless, that it has made her a wholly different woman from what she would otherwise have been. Instead of a moping, mawkish creature, with--in most instances--a very unhealthy mind, she is a complete human being. She stands on an equality with the man. He can't despise her as he now does.'

'Very good,' a.s.sented Everard, observing Miss Nunn's satisfied smile.

'I like that view very much. But what about the great number of girls who are claimed by domestic duties? Do you abandon them, with a helpless sigh, to be moping and mawkish and unhealthy?'

'In the first place, there needn't be a great number of unmarried women claimed by such duties. Most of those you are thinking of are not fulfilling a duty at all; they are only pottering about the house, because they have nothing better to do. And when the whole course of female education is altered; when girls are trained as a matter of course to some definite pursuit; then those who really are obliged to remain at home will do their duty there in quite a different spirit.