Schemes and Speculations.
Edgar went home in the evening, feeling a degree of agitation which he
had scarcely given himself credit for being capable of. He had been on
so low a level of feeling all these years, that he believed himself to
have grown duller and less capable of emotion, though he could not
explain to himself how it should be so. But now the stormwinds had begun
to blow, and the tide to rise. The mere sight of Lady Augusta was enough
to have brought back a crowd of sensations and recollections, and there
had lately been so many other touches upon the past to heighten the
effect of this broad gleam of light. Even the curious recognition of
him, and the apparently foolish enmity against the Ardens, which the
young lady at Tottenham’s had shown, had something to do with the
ferment of contending feelings in which he found himself. Hate them! no,
why should he hate them? But to be thus called back to the recollection
of them, and of all that he had been, had a strangely disturbing
influence upon his mind. In his aimless wanderings alone over Europe,
and in his sudden plunge into a family life quite new to him in
Scotland, he had believed himself utterly set free from all the
traditions and associations of the former existence, which was indeed
more like a chapter out of a romance than a real episode in life. Taking
it at the most, it was nothing but an episode. After years of neglected
youth, a brief breathless moment of power, independence, and a kind of
greatness, and then a sharp disruption from them all, and plunge into
obscurity again. Why should that short interval affect him more than all
the long tracts of less highly coloured life, from which it stood out
like a bit of brilliant embroidery on a sombre web? Edgar could not
tell; he felt that it did so, but he could not answer to himself why.
Mr. Tottenham talked all the way back about one thing and another, about
Miss Lockwood, and the scandal which had suddenly shocked the
establishment, about little Mary Thornleigh and her brilliant marriage,
about the evening entertainment to be given in the shop, which was quite
as important to him. Fortunately for Edgar, his companion was capable of
monologue, and went on quite pleasantly during their drive without need
of anything more than a judicious question or monosyllable of assent.
“I’ll tell you one thing, Earnshaw,” he said, “in such undertakings as
mine the great thing is never to be discouraged; never allow yourself
to be discouraged; that is my maxim; though I am not always able
to carry it out. I hope I never shall give in to say that because
things go wrong under my management, or because one meets with
disappointments--therefore things must always go wrong, and nothing
good ever come of it. Of course, look at it from a serious point of
view, concerts and penny readings, and so forth are of no importance.
That is what Gussy always tells me. She thinks religion is the only
thing; she would like to train my young ladies to find their chief
pleasure in the chapel and the daily service, like her Sisters in their
convent. I am not against Sisterhoods, Earnshaw; I should not like to
see Gussy go into one, it is true--”
“Is there any likelihood of that?” Edgar asked with a great start, which
made the light waggon they were driving in, swerve.
“Hallo! steady!” cried Mr. Tottenham, “likelihood of it? I don’t know.
She wished it at one time. You see, Earnshaw, we don’t sufficiently
understand, seeing how different they are, how much alike women are to
ourselves. I suppose there comes a time in a girl’s life, as well as in
a man’s, when she wants to be herself, and not merely her father’s
daughter. You may say she should marry in that case; but supposing she
doesn’t want to marry, or, put the case, can’t marry as she would wish?
What can she do? I think myself they overdo the devotional part; but a
Sisterhood means occupation, a kind of independence, a position of her
own--and at the same time protection from all the folly we talk about
strong-minded women.”
“But does it mean all this?” said Edgar surprised, “that is not the
ordinary view?”
“My dear fellow, the ordinary view is all nonsense. I say it’s
protection against idiotic talk. The last thing anyone thinks of is to
bring forward the strong-minded abuse in respect to a Sisterhood. But
look here; I know of one, where quite quietly, without any fuss, there’s
the Sister Doctor in full practice, looking after as many children as
would fill a good-sized village. She’s never laughed at and called Dr.
Mary, M.D.; and there’s the Sister Head-Master, with no Governing Body
to make her life miserable. They don’t put forward that view of the
subject. Possibly, for human nature is very queer, they think only of
the sacrifice, &c.; but I don’t wonder, for my part, that it’s a great
temptation to a woman. Gussy Thornleigh is twenty-five, too old to be
only her mother’s shadow; and if nothing else that she likes comes in
her way--”
Mr. Tottenham made a pause. Did he mean anything by that pause? Poor
Edgar, who felt himself to be a sport to all the wild imaginations that
can torture a man, sat silent, and felt the blood boiling in his veins
and his heart leaping in his throat. It was as well that his companion
stopped talking, for he could not have heard any voice but that of his
own nerves and pulses all throbbing and thrilling. Heaven and earth!
might it be possible that this should come about, while he, a man, able
and willing to work, to slave, to turn head and hands to any occupation
on the earth, should be hanging on helpless, unable to interfere? And
yet he had but this moment told Gussy’s mother that she need not fear
him! A strong impulse came upon him to spring down from the waggon and
walk back to town and tell Lady Augusta to fear everything, that he
would never rest nor let her rest till he won her daughter back to a
more smiling life. Alas, of all follies what could be so foolish? he,
the tutor, the dependent, without power to help either himself or her.
The waggon rushed along the dark country road, making a little circle of
light round its lamps, while the sound of the horses’ feet, and the roll
of the wheels, enveloped them in a circle of sound, separating, as it
were, this moving speck of light and motion from all the inanimate
world. It would have been as easy to change that dark indifferent sphere
suddenly into the wide and soft sympathy of a summer evening, as for
Edgar, at this period of his life, to have attempted from this hopeless
abstraction, in which he was carried along by others, to have interfered
with another existence and turned its course aside. Not now--if ever,
not yet--and, ah, when, if ever? It was a long time before he was able
to speak at all, and his companion, who thus wittingly or unwittingly,
threw such firebrands of thought into his disturbed mind was silent too,
either respectful of Edgar’s feelings, or totally unconscious of them,
he could not tell which.
“May I ask,” he inquired, after a long pause, clearing his throat, which
was parched and dry, “what was meant by ‘Helena’s sad business?’ What
has become of that Miss Thornleigh?”
“What has become of her is, that she’s married,” said Mr. Tottenham. “A
very natural thing, though Helena, I believe, was a little ashamed of
herself for giving into it. She married a man who has nothing but his
brains to recommend him--no family to speak of, and no money, which,
between ourselves, is a good deal worse. He is a professor, and a
critic, and that sort of thing--too clever for me, but he suits her
better than anyone I know. Helena is a totally different sort of person,
sure to have her own way, whatever she takes into her head. Now Gussy,
on the contrary----”
“Mr. Tottenham,” said Edgar, hoarsely, “for God’s sake, don’t say any
more.”
“Ah!” said the other; and then he added, “I beg your pardon, I beg your
pardon,” and flourished his whip in the air by way of a diversion. This
manœuvre was so successful that the party had quite enough to think of
to keep their seats, and their heads cool in case of an accident, as the
spirited beasts plunged and dashed along the remaining bit of way. “That
was as near a spill as I remember,” Mr. Tottenham said, as he threw the
reins to the groom, when, after a tearing gallop up the avenue, the bays
drew up at the door. He was flushed with the excitement and the
struggle; and whether he had put Edgar to the torture in ignorance, or
with any occult meaning, the sufferer could not discover. The momentary
gleam of danger at the end had however done even Edgar good.
Lady Mary met them at dinner, smiling and pretty, ready to lend an ear
to anything interesting that might be said, but full of her own projects
as when they left her. She had carried out her plans with the
business-like despatch which women so often excel in, and Edgar, whose
mind had been so remorselessly stirred and agitated all day, found
himself quite established as an active coadjutor in her great scheme at
night.
“I have sent a little circular to the printers,” said Lady Mary, “saying
when the German lectures would be resumed. You said Tuesday, I think,
Mr. Earnshaw? That is the day that suits us best. Several people have
been here this afternoon, and a great deal of interest has been excited
about it; several, indeed, have sent me their names already. Oh, I told
them you were working half against your will, without thinking very much
of the greatness of the object; indeed, with just a little
contempt--forgive me, Mr. Earnshaw--for this foolish fancy of women
trying to improve their minds.”
“No, only for the infinitely odd fancy of thinking I can help in the
process,” said Edgar, dragging himself, as it were, within this new
circle of fantastic light. His own miseries and excitements, heaven help
him, were fantastic enough; but how real they looked by the side of this
theoretical distress! or so at least the young man thought. I cannot
tell with what half-laughing surprise, when his mind was at ease--but
half-irritated dismay when he was troubled--he looked at this lady,
infinitely more experienced in men and society and serious life than
himself, who proposed to improve her mind by means of his German
lessons. Was she laughing at him and the world? or was it a mere fashion
of the time which she had taken up? or, most wonderful of all, was she
sincere and believing in all this? He really thought she was, and so did
she, not perceiving the curious misapprehension of things and words
involved. It is common to say that a sense of humour saves us from
exposing ourselves in many ways, yet it is amazing how little even our
sense of humour helps us to see our own graver absurdities, though it
may throw the most unclouded illumination upon those of other people.
“That is a polite way of concealing your sentiments,” said Lady Mary;
“but never mind, I am not angry. I am so sure of the rightness of the
work, and of its eventual success, that I don’t mind being laughed at.
To enlarge the sphere of ideas ever so little is an advantage worth
fighting for.”
“Very well,” said Edgar, “I am proud to be thought capable of enlarging
somebody’s sphere. What do lectures on German mean? Before I begin you
must tell me what I have to do.”
“You must teach them the language, Mr. Earnshaw.”
“Yes, but where shall we begin? with the alphabet? Must I have a
gigantic black board to write the letters on?”
“Oh, not so rudimentary as that; most of the ladies, in fact, know a
little German,” said Lady Mary. “I do myself, just enough to talk.”
“Enough to talk! I don’t know any more of English, my native tongue,”
said Edgar, “than just enough to talk.”
“Don’t laugh at me, Mr. Earnshaw. I know nothing of the grammar, for
instance. We are never taught grammar. We get a kind of knowledge of a
language, just to use it, like a tool; but what is the principle of the
tool, or how it is put together, or in what way it is related to other
tools of the same description, I know no more than Adam did.”
“She knows a great deal more than I do,” said Mr. Tottenham, admiringly.
“I never could use that sort of tool, as you call it, in my life. A
wonderfully convenient thing though when you can do it. I never was much
of a hand at languages; you should learn all that when you are quite
young, in the nursery, when it’s no trouble--not leave it till you have
to struggle with verbs, and all that sort of thing; not to say that you
never can learn a foreign language by book.”
Mr. Tottenham uttered these sentiments in a comfortable leisurely,
dressing-gown and slippers sort of way. He did not give in to these
indulgences in reality, but when he came upstairs to the drawing-room,
and stretched himself in his great chair by the fire, and felt the
luxurious warmth steal through him, after the chill of the drive and the
excitement of its conclusion, he felt that inward sense of ease and
comfort which nerves a man to utter daring maxims and lay down the law
from a genial height of good-humour and content.
“Tom!” cried Lady Mary, with impatience; and then she laughed, and
added, “barbarian! don’t throw down all my arguments in your sleepy way.
If there is anything of what you call chivalry left in the world, you
men, who are really educated and whom people have taken pains with,
ought to do your best to help us who are not educated at all.”
“O! that is the state of the case? Am I so very well educated? I did not
know it,” said Mr. Tottenham, “but you need not compel us to follow
Dogberry’s maxim, and produce our education when there’s no need for
such vanities. I have pledged you to come to the shop, Mary, on
Wednesday week. They think a great deal of securing my lady. They are
going to give the trial scene from Pickwick, which is threadbare enough,
but suits this sort of business, and there’s a performance of Watson’s
on the cornet, and a duet, and some part songs, and so forth. I daresay
it will bore you. This affair of Miss Lockwood’s is very troublesome,”
Mr. Tottenham continued, sitting upright in his chair, and knitting his
brows; “everything was working so well, and a real desire to improve
showing itself among the people. These very girls, a fortnight since,
were as much interested in the glacier theory, and as much delighted
with the snow photographs as it was possible to be; but the moment a
private question comes in, everything else goes to the wall.”
“I suppose,” said Edgar, “the fact is that we are more interested about
each other, on the whole, than in any abstract question, however
elevating.”
“Why, that is as much as to say that everything must give place to
gossip,” said Lady Mary, severely, “a doctrine I will never give in to.”
“And, by the way,” said Mr. Tottenham, sinking back into dreamy ease,
“that reminds me of your sister’s great news. What sort of a family is
it? I remember young Granton well enough, a good-looking boy in the
Guards, exactly like all the others. Little Mary is, how old?
Twenty-one? How those children go on growing. It is the first good
marriage, so to speak, in the family. I am glad Augusta is to have the
salve of a coronet after all her troubles.”
“What a mixture of metaphors!” cried Lady Mary, “the salve of a
coronet!”
“That comes of my superior education, my dear,” said Mr. Tottenham. “She
doesn’t deny it’s a comfort to her. Her eyes, poor soul, had a look of
satisfaction in them. And she has had anxiety enough of all kinds.”
“We need not discuss Augusta’s affairs, Tom,” said Lady Mary, with a
glance at Edgar, so carefully veiled that the aroused and exciting state
in which he was, made him perceive it at once. She gave her husband a
much more distinct warning glance; but he, good man, either did not, or
would not see it.
“What, not such a happy incident as this?” said Mr. Tottenham; “the
chances are we shall hear of nothing else for some time to come. It will
be in the papers, and all your correspondents will send you
congratulations. After all, as Earnshaw says, people are more interested
about each other than about any abstract question. I should not wonder
even, if, as one nail knocks out another, little Mary’s great marriage
may banish the scandal about Miss Lockwood from the mind of the shop.”
Lady Mary for some seconds yielded to an impulse quite unusual to her.
“What can the shop possibly have to do--” she began, hastily, “with the
Thornleigh affairs?” she added, in a subdued tone. “If it was our own
little Molly, indeed, whom they all know--”
“My dear Mary, they interest themselves in all your alliances,” said Mr.
Tottenham, “and you forget that Gussy is as well known among them as you
are. Besides, as Earnshaw says--Don’t go, Earnshaw; the night is young,
and I am unusually disposed for talk.”
“So one can see,” said Lady Mary, under her breath, with as strong an
inclination to whip her husband as could have been felt by the most
uncultivated of womankind. “Come and look at my prospectus and the
course of studies we are arranging for this winter, Mr. Earnshaw. Some
of the girls might be stirred up to go in for the Cambridge
examinations, I am sure. I want you so much to come to the village with
me, and be introduced to a few of them. There is really a great deal of
intelligence among them; uneducated intelligence, alas! but under good
guidance, and with the help which all my friends are so kindly willing
to give--”
“But please remember,” cried Edgar, struggling for a moment on the edge
of the whirlpool, “that I cannot undertake to direct intelligence. I can
teach German if you like--though probably the first German governess
that came to hand would do it a great deal better.”
“Not so, indeed; the Germans are, perhaps, better trained in the theory
of education than we are; but no woman I have ever met had education
enough herself to be competent to teach in a thoroughly effective way,”
cried Lady Mary, mounting her steed triumphantly. Edgar sat down humbly
by her, almost forgetting, in his sense of the comical position which
fate had placed him in, the daily increasing embarrassments which filled
his path. All the Universities put together could scarcely have made up
as much enthusiasm for education as shone in Lady Mary’s pretty eyes,
and poured from her lips in floods of eloquence. Mr. Tottenham, who
leaned back in his chair abstractedly, and pondered his plans for the
perfection of the faulty and troublesome little society in the shop,
took but little notice, being sufficiently occupied with views of his
own; but Edgar felt his own position as a superior being, and
representative of the highest education, so comical, that it was all he
could do to keep his gravity. To guide the eager uneducated
intelligence, to discipline the untrained thought, nay, to teach women
to think, in whose hands he, poor fellow, felt himself as a baby, was
about the most ludicrous suggestion, he felt, that could have been made
to him. But nothing could exceed the good faith and earnestness with
which Lady Mary expounded her plans, and described the results she hoped
for. This was much safer than the talk about little Mary Thornleigh’s
marriage--or the unexplainable reasons which kept Gussy Thornleigh from
marrying at all--or any other of those interesting personal problems
which were more exciting to the mind, and much less easily discussed.