Just as they were getting tired of tables d'hote dinners, there came to
their hotel an enthusiast for learning. It was before the days of
women's colleges; they were established, but frequented only by
pioneers, in whose ranks no Henriettas are to be found. But courses of
lectures were so ordinary that not even the most timid could look
askance at them. As philanthropy had failed, and no one could pretend
that art could be a resource for Henrietta,--her career of sketches and
two part-songs had been phenomenally short (invaluable as it has proved
itself for many Englishwomen suffering from her complaint)--everything
pointed to study as the next solution on the list.
Study. Henrietta had not read a book which required any mental exertion
since her dozen chapters of "I Promessi Sposi," fifteen years ago.
Still, the lectures sounded pleasant to her; they were a novelty, they
were--she could not think of anything else they were--a novelty must be
their claim to distinction.
She and the travelling friend found a boarding-house near the
lecture-room. London and the lodgings both looked dismal after the
brightness of abroad, but they were excited at the prospect of
establishing themselves on their own account. It was enterprising, but
not too enterprising.
Henrietta found a band of enthusiasts at the lecture; it seemed her fate
to run up against enthusiasm she could not share. Young ladies,
middle-aged ladies, even old ladies, all listening spellbound--at least
if not absolutely spellbound, spellbound compared to Henrietta--to an
elderly gentleman discoursing on Aristotle. For most of them Aristotle,
and the satisfaction of using their minds were sufficient, but a little
knot of middle-aged women in the front, with hair inclined to be short,
and eyes bursting with intelligence, used learning as a symbol of
emancipation. Lectures were their vote. Now they would be in prison.
Henrietta listened for five minutes, then suddenly her thoughts darted
to her portmanteau: she had lost the key at Dieppe. They went on to the
incivility at the Custom-house, the incivility of the waiter at Bale,
the incivility of the gardener at her old home, the geranium bed in the
garden--would her stepmother attend to it?--her father, was his eyesight
really failing? She came back with a jump to find that the lecture had
moved on several pages. She listened with fair success for another five
minutes, then her mind wandered to her landlady at the lodgings; was she
perfectly honest, did her expression inspire confidence? There was that
pearl brooch Louie had given her; it was Louie's birthday to-morrow, she
must write, and hear also how Tom was getting on in this his second term
at school, she must send him a hamper. She had settled the contents of
the hamper when she found that someone was speaking to her. The lecturer
was asking whether she felt she would care to write a paper. He hoped as
many ladies as possible would make an attempt at the papers; it would be
a great pleasure and interest to him to look through them, etc.
On the way back she found Miss Gurney entranced with everything; she
seemed to have picked up a great deal more than Henrietta. They went at
once to a library and a bookshop to get what they had been advised to
read, and Miss Gurney bought reams of paper. She was hard at work the
whole evening. Henrietta had one of the books open before her, but she
found the same difficulty in concentrating herself that she had done at
the lecture. Miss Gurney was rapidly filling an exercise book with an
abstract, and was keeping up a conversation as well.
"Ah _that_ was the piece I couldn't quite understand this morning. Yes I
see, now it is quite clear. Look, Miss Symons. Oh, I shall learn Greek,
I certainly shall, as he said, it will make it twenty times more
interesting."
What were they all so excited about? Henrietta had never cared about
abstract questions, and she could not see that there was any object in
discovering what the ancient Greeks thought about them more than two
thousand years ago. The evening before, she and Miss Gurney had had an
interesting conversation on the weekly averages of house-books. Then she
felt comfortable and on the solid earth. Why then, was she attending
lectures on Aristotle? Well, because Miss Gurney had a friend whose
cousin had married the lecturer, Professor Amery, and in the difficult
problem of choosing a subject, when there was nothing she really cared
to know about, this was as good a reason as any other.
Then Henrietta remembered how she and Emily Mence years ago at school,
had argued the whole of Saturday afternoon about Mary Queen of Scots,
and had not been on speaking terms the following day, because Emily had
called Mary frivolous. Had she ever really been that queer little girl?
Still she was anxious to give the lecturer a chance, most anxious, for
she had already had to suffer from Minna and Louie's sympathy that the
parish work was a failure. She read three chapters and fell asleep in
the middle of the fourth, and went to bed half an hour earlier than
usual. Next morning she could not remember a word of what she had read,
but for two dates and one sentence, which remained in her head. "Even
now, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, in spite of an
unparalleled advance in our knowledge of the natural sciences, the world
has not yet produced a mind, which can equal that of Aristotle in its
astounding versatility and profundity of learning." She determined to
persevere, but was it her subconscious self which discovered a vast
arrear of letters which it was incumbent on her to answer before she
thought of anything else?
After the lecture there was a class at which everyone talked. Even the
dear old lady next to Henrietta was asking a quavering question. Yes, a
little delicate old lady had energy to keep the current of the lecture
in her head. She said that Aristotle's problem whether it was possible
for slaves to have ordinary virtues, made her think of the difference in
the Christian teaching of St. Paul's epistles. Had any of the other
Greek philosophers been more humane in their views on slavery? Then
another voice struck in, and compared the ancient idea of slavery with
the slave code of the United States. The voice was rather strident, but
not unpleasant. It had a great deal to say, and for some minutes seemed
likely to take the lecture altogether from the mouth of the lecturer.
Henrietta looked in its direction, and saw a small apple-cheeked elderly
lady. The voice and the face both set her thinking, and by the end of
the lecture she was certain that the elderly lady was Miss Arundel. She
spoke, and when Miss Arundel had recollected who she was (it took a
little time), Henrietta received a most cordial invitation to tea.
Miss Arundel lived with a niece in a couple of rooms quite close to
Henrietta. Mrs. Marston was dead, and Miss Arundel had retired from the
school with just enough to live in decent comfort.
"So now, after teaching all my life, I am giving myself the treat of
learning, and I can't tell you how I am enjoying it, Miss Symons. Ada
and I both like Professor Amery so much." And she prosed on about the
lecture and the books she was reading, and did not much care to talk
over the old times, which were still very dear to Henrietta. It amazed
Henrietta to think that she had once blushed and trembled at the look of
this fussy, garrulous little governess.
She might be something of a bore, but there was no question of her
happiness, her interest in life. She had been getting up at six the last
three mornings that she might finish a book, a large book in two volumes
with close print, that had to be returned to the library. Henrietta
could imagine nothing in the world for which she would get up at six
o'clock. Then her thoughts went like lightning to the morning when the
telegram had come telling of little Madeline's death. The wound she had
thought healed burst out afresh; for a few seconds she felt as if she
could hardly breathe. Get up at six o'clock, of course she would have
forfeited her sleep with joy, night after night. In the midst of envy,
she felt something like contempt for Miss Arundel as a child running
after shadows.
On her way home, she compared her past with Miss Arundel's. Miss Arundel
could look back on busy, successful, happy years. Her room was filled
with tributes from old pupils, they were continually writing to her and
coming to see her, that Henrietta knew; she did not know how often they
had thanked her, and told her what they owed her.
Then she envied Miss Arundel's powers of mind. After forty years of
unceasing and exhausting work she seemed as fresh as a schoolgirl, and
far more capable of learning, while Henrietta after twenty years of
rest, had not merely lost all the qualities she had had as a child, but
had gained none from age and experience to take their place. The
realization of this fact startled and humiliated her. If her powers had
already declined at forty, what was to happen in the twenty years of
life that she might reasonably count upon as still before her?
She thought of Miss Arundel's words: "Etta Symons is a girl with
possibilities; I shall be interested to see how she will turn out." Miss
Arundel had long forgotten them, and now looked on Henrietta simply as a
co-member of the lectures, but she said to her niece after Henrietta had
been to tea, "What a very no-how person Miss Symons is; I should like to
shake her."
Henrietta tried her hardest to work at the lectures, to recover if
possible what she had lost, but it was no use. A person of more
character and determination might have succeeded, in spite of the long
years of mental self-indulgence, so might a person more ready to take
advice. But at forty, as I have said, she felt she was beyond advice, so
she would not notice Miss Gurney's hints. She chose to despise her
numberings and brackets, though she was half-envious of them. And,
however contemptible these aids may be to a real student, they were
evidently the one hope for Henrietta's foggy mind.
She began a paper on the sly, and with much sweat of brow the following
sentence emerged: "There are a number of celebrated writers in ancient
Greece, and among the number we may notice Aristotle, who wrote a number
of celebrated books, among which two called the 'Ethics' and 'Republic'
are very celebrated. He also wrote many other works, but none are so
celebrated as the two above mentioned." She had not written a paper for
twenty-three years, and she felt as helpless as if she were trying to
express herself in French. Her essays had been well thought of at
school.
As she was floundering along, up came Miss Gurney and looked over her
shoulder. "Oh Miss Symons, I should have a margin if I were you; I know
Professor Amery likes a margin for the corrections, he said so himself.
Oh, and you don't mind my saying so, but Aristotle did not write a
republic. Shall I just scratch that out? That was Plato. And I should
have a new paragraph there; and I always find, I don't know if you will,
that it makes it easier to underline some of the words."
"I am not at all certain that I am going to write a paper," said
Henrietta. "I just wrote a few notes down to amuse myself."
"Oh, I'm so sorry, dear. Well, if you should think of doing the paper,
you must read this article, it's such a help, it really puts all one
wants to say."
"Oh no, I shouldn't care to read that at all."
"Oh do. Let me put it here, and then you can look at it."
"No, thank you."
Miss Gurney went out, and Henrietta sat at her paper for two hours and a
half. It was so bad, so unintelligible, that she actually cried over it,
and when she heard Miss Gurney's step, she carried it off to her bedroom
and locked the door. Miss Gurney was after her in an instant.
"How are you getting on with your paper, dear? Can I be of any help?"
She did finish it at last, and gave it to Mr. Amery. She knew it was
bad, but she was too ignorant to know quite how bad. Professor Amery,
with the extreme courtesy of elderly gentlemen, wrote: "I think there
are one or two points which I have not made quite clear. Would you care
to talk them over with me after the class?" But this offer was so
alarming that Henrietta "cut" her lectures for two weeks.
There would have been more chance for her, if only she could have become
in the least interested. She tried the French Revolution next term for
a change, but liked it no better than Aristotle. Intellectual life was
dead and buried in her long ago. What would have really suited her best
in the present circumstances would have been shorthand and type-writing,
but at that time no such occupation was open to her.
She would perhaps have jogged on indefinitely at the lectures, if Miss
Gurney, whose great interest was novelty and change, and whose abstracts
of learned books had lately become much less voluminous, had not jumped
at a suggestion to take a delicate niece abroad, and proposed that
Henrietta should come too. So Henrietta consented, and with little
regret they gave up the lodgings, and said good-bye to learning.