1
Soon after the departure of Mademoiselle Duphot, there occurred two
distinct innovations at Morton. Miss Puddleton arrived to take
possession of the schoolroom, and Sir Philip bought himself a motor-car.
The motor was a Panhard, and it caused much excitement in the
neighbourhood of Upton-on-Severn. Conservative, suspicious of all
innovations, people had abstained from motors in the Midlands, and,
incredible as it now seems to look back on, Sir Philip was regarded as a
kind of pioneer. The Panhard was a high-shouldered, snub-nosed abortion
with a loud, vulgar voice and an uncertain temper. It suffered from
frequent fits of dyspepsia, brought about by an unhealthy spark-plug.
Its seats were the very acme of discomfort, its primitive gears unhandy
and noisy, but nevertheless it could manage to attain to a speed of
about fifteen miles per hour—given always that, by God’s good grace and
the chauffeur’s, it was not in the throes of indigestion.
Anna felt doubtful regarding this new purchase. She was one of those
women who, having passed forty, were content to go on placidly driving
in their broughams, or, in summer, in their charming little French
victorias. She detested the look of herself in large goggles, detested
being forced to tie on her hat, detested the heavy, mannish coat of
rough tweed that Sir Philip insisted she must wear when motoring. Such
things were not of her; they offended her sense of the seemly, her
preference for soft, clinging garments, her instinct for quiet, rather
slow, gentle movements, her love of the feminine and comely. For Anna at
forty-four was still slender, and her dark hair, as yet, was untouched
with grey, and her blue Irish eyes were as clear and candid as when she
had come as a bride to Morton. She was beautiful still, and this fact
rejoiced her in secret, because of her husband. Yet Anna did not ignore
middle age; she met it half-way with dignity and courage; and now her
soft dresses were of reticent colours, and her movements a little more
careful than they had been, and her mind more severely disciplined and
guarded—too much guarded these days, she was gradually growing less
tolerant as her interests narrowed. And the motor, an unimportant thing
in itself, served nevertheless to crystallize in Anna a certain tendency
towards retrogression, a certain instinctive dislike of the unusual, a
certain deep-rooted fear of the unknown.
Old Williams was openly disgusted and hostile; he considered the car to
be an outrage to his stables—those immaculate stables with their
spacious coach-houses, their wide plaits of straw neatly interwoven with
yards of red and blue saddler’s tape, and their fine stable-yard
hitherto kept so spotless. Came the Panhard, and behold, pools of oil on
the flagstones, greenish, bad-smelling oil that defied even scouring;
and a medley of odd-looking tools in the coach-house, all greasy, all
soiling your hands when you touched them; and large tins of what looked
like black vaseline; and spare tyres for which nails had been knocked
into the woodwork; and a bench with a vice for the motor’s insides which
were frequently being dissected. From this coach-house the dog-cart had
been ruthlessly expelled, and now it must stand chock-a-block with the
phaeton, so that room might be made for the garish intruder together
with its young bodyservant. The young bodyservant was known as a
chauffeur—he had come down from London and wore clothes made of
leather. He talked Cockney, and openly spat before Williams in the
coach-house, then rubbed his foot over the spittle.
‘I’ll ’ave none of yer expectoration ’ere in me coach-house, I tells
ee!’ bawled Williams, apoplectic with temper.
‘Oh, come orf it, do, Grandpa; we’re not in the ark!’ was how the new
blood answered Williams.
There was war to the knife between Williams and Burton—Burton who
expressed large disdain of the horses.
‘Yer time’s up now, Grandpa,’ he was constantly remarking; ‘it’s all up
with the gees—better learn to be a shovver!’
‘’Opes I’ll die afore ever I demean meself that way, you young blight!’
bawled the outraged Williams. Very angry he grew, and his dinner
fermented, dilating his stomach and causing discomfort, so that his wife
became anxious about him.
‘Now don’t ee go worryin’, Arth-thur,’ she coaxed; ‘us be old, me and
you, and the world be progressin’.’
‘It be goin’ to the devil, that’s what it be doin’!’ groaned Williams,
rubbing his stomach.
To make matters worse, Sir Philip’s behaviour was that of a schoolboy
with some horrid new contraption. He was caught by his stud-groom lying
flat on his back with his feet sticking out beneath the bonnet of the
motor, and when he emerged there was soot on his cheek-bones, on his
hair, and even on the tip of his nose. He looked terribly sheepish, and
as Williams said later to his wife:
‘It were somethin’ aw-ful to see ’im all mucked up, and ’im such a neat
gentleman, and ’im in a filthy old coat of that Burton’s, and that
Burton agrinnin’ at me and just pointin’, silent, because the master
couldn’t see ’im, and the master a-callin’ up familiar-like to Burton:
“I say! She’s got somethin’ all wrong with ’er exhaust pipe!” and Burton
acontradictin’ the master: “It’s that piston,” says ’e, as cool as yer
please.’
Nor was Stephen less thrilled by the car than was her father. Stephen
made friends with the execrable Burton, and Burton, who was only too
anxious to gain allies, soon started to teach her the parts of the
engine; he taught her to drive too, Sir Philip being willing, and off
they would go, the three of them together, leaving Williams to glare at
the disappearing motor.
‘And ’er such a fine ’orse-woman and all!’ he would grumble, rubbing a
disconsolate chin.
It is not too much to say that Williams felt heart-broken, he was like a
very unhappy old baby; quite infantile he was in his fits of bad temper,
in his mouthings and his grindings of toothless gums. And all about
nothing, for Sir Philip and his daughter had the lure of horseflesh in
their very bones—and then there was Raftery, and Raftery loved Stephen,
and Stephen loved Raftery.
2
The motoring, of course, was the most tremendous fun, but—and it was a
very large but indeed—when Stephen got home to Morton and the
schoolroom, a little grey figure would be sitting at the table
correcting an exercise book, or preparing some task for the following
morning. The little grey figure might look up and smile, and when it did
this its face would be charming; but if it refrained from smiling, then
its face would be ugly, too hard and too square in formation—except for
the brow, which was rounded and shiny like a bare intellectual knee. If
the little grey figure got up from the table, you were struck by the
fact that it seemed square all over—square shoulders, square hips, a
flat, square line of bosom; square tips to the fingers, square toes to
the shoes, and all tiny; it suggested a miniature box that was neatly
spliced at the corners. Of uncertain age, pale, with iron-grey hair,
grey eyes, and invariably dressed in dark grey, Miss Puddleton did not
look very inspiring—not at all as one having authority, in fact. But on
close observation it had to be admitted that her chin, though minute,
was extremely aggressive. Her mouth, too, was firm, except when its
firmness was melted by the warmth and humour of her smile—a smile that
mocked, pitied and questioned the world, and perhaps Miss Puddleton as
well.
From the very first moment of Miss Puddleton’s arrival, Stephen had had
an uncomfortable conviction that this queer little woman was going to
mean something, was going to become a fixture. And sure enough she had
settled down at once, so that in less than two months it seemed to
Stephen that Miss Puddleton must always have been at Morton, must always
have been sitting at the large walnut table, must always have been
saying in that dry, toneless voice with the Oxford accent: ‘You’ve
forgotten something, Stephen,’ and then, ‘the books can’t walk to the
bookcase, but you can, so suppose that you take them with you.’
It was truly amazing, the change in the schoolroom, not a book out of
place, not a shelf in disorder; even the box lounge had had to be opened
and its dumb-bells and clubs paired off nicely together—Miss Puddleton
always liked things to be paired, perhaps an unrecognized matrimonial
instinct. And now Stephen found herself put into harness for the first
time in her life, and she loathed the sensation. There were so many
rules that a very large time-sheet had had to be fastened to the
blackboard in the schoolroom.
‘Because,’ said Miss Puddleton as she pinned the thing up, ‘even my
brain won’t stand your complete lack of method, it’s infectious; this
time-sheet is my anti-toxin, so please don’t tear it to pieces!’
Mathematics and algebra, Latin and Greek, Roman history, Greek history,
geometry, botany, they reduced Stephen’s mind to a species of beehive in
which every bee buzzed on the least provocation. She would gaze at Miss
Puddleton in a kind of amazement; that tiny, square box to hold all this
grim knowledge! And seeing that gaze Miss Puddleton would smile her most
warm, charming smile, and would say as she did so:
‘Yes, I know—but it’s only the first effort, Stephen; presently your
mind will get neat like the schoolroom, and then you’ll be able to find
what you want without all this rummaging and bother.’
But her tasks being over, Stephen must often slip away to visit Raftery
in the stables: ‘Oh, Raftery, I’m hating it so!’ she would tell him. ‘I
feel like you’d feel if I put you in harness—hard wooden shafts and a
kicking strap, Raftery—but my darling, I’d never put you into harness!’
And Raftery would hardly know what he should answer, since all human
creatures, so far as he knew them, must run between shafts—God-like
though they were, they undoubtedly had to run between shafts. . . .
Nothing but Stephen’s great love for her father helped her to endure the
first six months of learning—that and her own stubborn, arrogant will
that made her hate to be beaten. She would swing clubs and dumb-bells in
a kind of fury, consoling herself with the thought of her muscles, and,
finding her at it, Miss Puddleton had laughed.
‘You must feel that your teacher’s some sort of midge, Stephen—a
tiresome midge that you want to brush off!’
Then Stephen had laughed too: ‘Well, you are little, Puddle—oh, I’m
sorry—’
‘I don’t mind,’ Miss Puddleton had told her; ‘call me Puddle if you
like, it’s all one to me.’ After which Miss Puddleton disappeared
somehow, and Puddle took her place in the household.
An insignificant creature this Puddle, yet at moments unmistakably
self-assertive. Always willing to help in domestic affairs, such as
balancing Anna’s chaotic account books, or making out library lists for
Jackson’s, she was nevertheless very guardful of her rights, very quick
to assert and maintain her position. Puddle knew what she wanted and saw
that she got it, both in and out of the schoolroom. Yet every one liked
her; she took what she gave and she gave what she took, yes, but
sometimes she gave just a little bit more—and that little bit more is
the whole art of teaching, the whole art of living, in fact, and Miss
Puddleton knew it. Thus gradually, oh, very gradually at first, she wore
down her pupil’s unconscious resistance. With small, dexterous fingers
she caught Stephen’s brain, and she stroked it and modelled it after her
own fashion. She talked to that brain and showed it new pictures; she
gave it new thoughts, new hopes and ambitions; she made it feel certain
and proud of achievement. Nor did she belittle Stephen’s muscles in the
process, never once did Puddle make game of the athlete, never once did
she show by so much as the twitch of an eyelid that she had her own
thoughts about her pupil. She appeared to take Stephen as a matter of
course, nothing surprised or even amused her it seemed, and Stephen grew
quite at ease with her.
‘I can always be comfortable with you, Puddle,’ Stephen would say in a
tone of satisfaction, ‘you’re like a nice chair; though you are so tiny
yet one’s got room to stretch, I don’t know how you do it.’
Then Puddle would smile, and that smile would warm Stephen while it
mocked her a little; but it also mocked Puddle—they would share that
warm smile with its fun and its kindness, so that neither of them could
feel hurt or embarrassed. And their friendship took root, growing strong
and verdant, and it flourished like a green bay-tree in the schoolroom.
Came the time when Stephen began to realize that Puddle had genius—the
genius of teaching; the genius of compelling her pupil to share in her
own enthusiastic love of the Classics.
‘Oh, Stephen, if only you could read this in Greek!’ she would say, and
her voice would sound full of excitement; ‘the beauty, the splendid
dignity of it—it’s like the sea, Stephen, rather terrible but splendid;
that’s the language, it’s far more virile than Latin.’ And Stephen would
catch that sudden excitement, and determine to work even harder at
Greek.
But Puddle did not live by the ancients alone, she taught Stephen to
appreciate all literary beauty, observing in her pupil a really fine
judgment, a great feeling for balance in sentences and words. A vast
tract of new interest was thus opened up, and Stephen began to excel in
composition; to her own deep amazement she found herself able to write
many things that had long lain dormant in her heart—all the beauty of
nature, for instance, she could write it. Impressions of childhood—gold
light on the hills; the first cuckoo, mysterious, strangely alluring;
those rides home from hunting together with her father—bare furrows,
the meaning of those bare furrows. And later, how many queer hopes and
queer longings, queer joys and even more curious frustrations. Joy of
strength, splendid physical strength and courage; joy of health and
sound sleep and refreshed awakening; joy of Raftery leaping under the
saddle, joy of wind racing backward as Raftery leapt forward. And then,
what? A sudden impenetrable darkness, a sudden vast void all nothingness
and darkness; a sudden sense of acute apprehension: ‘I’m lost, where am
I? Where am I? I’m nothing—yes I am, I’m Stephen—but that’s being
nothing—’ then that horrible sense of apprehension.
Writing, it was like a heavenly balm, it was like the flowing out of
deep waters, it was like the lifting of a load from the spirit; it
brought with it a sense of relief, of assuagement. One could say things
in writing without feeling self-conscious, without feeling shy and
ashamed and foolish—one could even write of the days of young Nelson,
smiling a very little as one did so.
Sometimes Puddle would sit alone in her bedroom reading and re-reading
Stephen’s strange compositions; frowning, or smiling a little in her
turn, at those turbulent, youthful outpourings.
She would think: ‘Here’s real talent, real red-hot talent—interesting
to find it in that great, athletic creature; but what is she likely to
make of her talent? She’s up agin the world, if she only knew it!’ Then
Puddle would shake her head and look doubtful, feeling sorry for Stephen
and the world in general.
3
This then was how Stephen conquered yet another kingdom, and at
seventeen was not only athlete but student. Three years under Puddle’s
ingenious tuition, and the girl was as proud of her brains as of her
muscles—a trifle too proud, she was growing conceited, she was growing
self-satisfied, arrogant even, and Sir Philip must tease her: ‘Ask
Stephen, she’ll tell us. Stephen, what’s that reference to Adeimantus,
something about a mind fixed on true being—doesn’t it come in
Euripides, somewhere? Oh, no, I’m forgetting, of course it’s Plato;
really my Greek is disgracefully rusty!’ Then Stephen would know that
Sir Philip was laughing at her, but very kindly.
In spite of her newly acquired book learning, Stephen still talked quite
often to Raftery. He was now ten years old and had grown much in wisdom
himself, so he listened with care and attention.
‘You see,’ she would tell him, ‘it’s very important to develop the brain
as well as the muscles; I’m now doing both—stand still, will you,
Raftery! Never mind that old corn-bin, stop rolling your eye round—it’s
very important to develop the brain because that gives you an advantage
over people, it makes you more able to do as you like in this world, to
conquer conditions, Raftery.’
And Raftery, who was not really thinking of the corn-bin, but rolling
his eye in an effort to answer, would want to say something too big for
his language, which at best must consist of small sounds and small
movements; would want to say something about a strong feeling he had
that Stephen was missing the truth. But how could he hope to make her
understand the age-old wisdom of all the dumb creatures? The wisdom of
plains and primeval forests, the wisdom come down from the youth of the
world.