FRAMING.
Mr. James Welsh did all that was requisite for the arrangement of
Arminell’s money-matters. She was entitled to her mother’s dower,
sufficient to maintain her in easy circumstances. The settlement of her
affairs with the trustees, guardians, and the solicitors of the family
was a delicate transaction; Arminell authorised Welsh to act for her,
and he managed with adroitness and tact, without grudging time or
trouble. Meanwhile she remained an inmate of his villa in the Avenue,
Shepherd’s Bush. She did not wish to be hasty in securing a house for
herself and engaging a companion. She would not, however, encroach on
the hospitality of the Welshes, and she insisted on becoming their
lodger, paying them a moderate weekly sum for her board. They were not
rich, their circumstances somewhat strait; it was an object with Mrs.
Welsh to save the penny on the ’bus by walking to the railway arch; and
though, in their exuberant hospitality, they would have cheerfully kept
her as their guest, and treated her to the best they could afford, she
insisted on their accepting her on her own terms, not on theirs.
Only by degrees did she realise to the full extent what her social
suicide implied. It was not possible for her to estimate its costs till
she had committed the irrevocable act which severed her from the world
to which she had belonged; as impossible, or almost as impossible as it
is for the girl who jumps off London Bridge to conceive of the altered
relations and strangeness of the region into which she will pass through
the mud and water of the Thames.
I know that nothing surprised me more as a child than being told that
water was composed of an infinite number of globules arranged like
pebbles in a bag; but the stream of social life, which looks equally
simple and elemental, is in reality made not only of the little
component globules of individual life, but of a thousand other circles
enclosing these globules, all distinct, self-contained, and rotating on
their own axes and taking their own courses. Each of these circles has
its special interests, its special tittle-tattle, its special spites,
and its special ambitions. There are circles of all sorts, professional,
and social, and intellectual, and those who pass from one to another
have to undergo mental adjustment before they can understand the
language and partake in the momentum of these spheres. Such is the
parsonic circle, such the sporting circle, such the circle of
politicians, such the legal circle. Let a hunter pitch his rider in pink
over a hedge into a ditchful of picnicing clergy and their wives and
daughters, and he will be as unable to talk with them as they to
entertain him. Let Mrs. Brown drop through the ceiling into an officers’
mess, and she will not have a thought, a taste, a word in common. Suffer
an archbishop to rise through a trap into the green-room of the ballet
girls, and what would they have in common? The gods live on Olympus,
mortals on the plain, and the demons in Tartarus, and all roll on
together in one current. Dante divides heaven into constellations, and
purgatory into mansions—all the blessed are separated by leagues of
ether, and all the lost by adamantine walls. They do not associate, the
former enjoy themselves by themselves in their cold planets and groups
of stars, and the latter stop in their several torments by themselves.
Their several virtues and several vices classify them and separate them
from their fellows. It is not otherwise in this world. We are all boxed
off from each other, and very uncomfortable when we step out of our
proper box into another.
Arminell felt keenly the solitude of her condition, and it weighed on
her spirits. It was not possible for her at once to accommodate herself
to her new surroundings. She had Mrs. Welsh to talk, or rather to listen
to, but Mrs. Welsh had no other subjects of conversation than the
iniquities of servants and the scandals in high life. According to Mrs.
Welsh, there was but one social circle in which reigned virtue, and that
was the circle of the middle class to which she belonged. Servants as
beneath that were bad, that her daily experience taught her, and the
upper ten thousand, as she knew by the voice of gossip and the
revelations of the press, were also corrupt. It is conceivable that one
may tire of hearing only two subjects discussed, even though these
subjects be of engrossing interest; and Arminell was fatigued with the
relation of the misdeeds of domestics, and the disorders of the
nobility. Shylock said to Antonio that he would talk with him, buy with
him, sell with him, but would not eat with him. Arminell could do
everything with Mrs. Welsh except think with her. The girl felt her
friendless condition. She had no companion of her own age, class, and
sex, to whom she could open her mind and of whom ask counsel. She could
have no more communication with those in the upper world to which she
had belonged, and which shared her intellectual and moral culture, than
can a fish have communication with the bird. It looks up and sees the
beautiful creatures skimming the surface of its element, sees their feet
moving in it, their beaks dipped below it, but the birds do not belong
to the aqueous element, nor the fish to the atmosphere, and they must
live apart accordingly. The bird can pull out a fish and gobble it, and
the fish can bite the toes of the swimming duck, and that is the limit
of their association.
I have heard of the case of a lady who was either struck by lightning or
so paralyzed by electricity that she lay as one dead, bereft of power of
motion. She neither breathed nor did her pulse beat, she could not move
a muscle or articulate a sound. She was pronounced to be dead, and was
measured, shrouded, and put into her coffin. But though apparently dead,
she could hear all that went on in the room, the blinds being drawn
down, the number of feet and inches determined for her shell, the
sobbing of her mother, and the tramp of those who brought in her coffin.
She heard the undertaker ask her father on the day of the funeral,
whether he should at once screw her down—then, by a supreme effort she
succeeded in flickering an eyelid, and her father saw the movement and
sent for a surgeon.
Arminell was dead—dead to her relations, to her friends, and to her
acquaintance. They discussed her, and she was unable to defend herself.
They wept over her, and she could not dry their tears. She was
incapacitated by her own act from giving a token of life. She was
separated from every one with whom for eighteen years she had
associated, cut off from every interest which for all these years had
occupied her mind, severed from that stream of intellectual life in
which she had moved.
She would not quiver an eye in entreaty to be taken out of her shell,
she had deliberately gone into that chest, and to it she must henceforth
contract her interests and accommodate her habits. When we die we carry
away nothing with us of our treasure, but we have our friends and
relatives to associate with in the world of spirits; Arminell, by her
social death, had carried away with her her patrimony, but that was all.
She must make new acquaintances, and acquire fresh friends.
If there be any truth in the doctrine of the transmigration of spirits,
then the souls after death enter into new existences, as dogs, oxen,
elephants, cockatoos, or earth-worms. If so—the dog that fawns on us
with such speaking eyes may be the wife we still lament; and when we cut
a worm in two with our spade, we may be slicing in half our little lost
babe; and the beef of the ox served at our table may have been worn by
the wandering spirit of our most intimate friend.
There are two considerations which make me most reluctant to accept the
doctrine of transmigration—the one is that when we leave our human
frames and enter into those of dog or slug, what wretchedness it will be
for us to adapt our minds and feelings to doggish or sluggish limits.
And the other is that the distress must be insupportable to associate
with those with whom we have lived without the power of communicating
with them.
Now Arminell had transmigrated from the aristocratic order of beings
into the middle class order of beings, and she had to accommodate her
mind to the ways of this lower grade; and although sitting on a bench in
Hyde Park, she might see those she had known, talked to, loved, pass in
Rotten Row, she could no more communicate with them than can those who
have migrated into dog, and cockatoo, and slug, communicate with us.
In course of time, no doubt, she would find congenial spirits, get to
know and love nice girls in this new circle in which she found herself,
but that would take time. In course of time, no doubt, she would find
her place in this new order of life, be caught by its drift, and drive
forward with it. When we are in a railway carriage and cast something
from the window, that object is carried on by the momentum of the train,
and does not drop perpendicularly to the ground. So Arminell in falling
from her class was still for a while sensible of its impulses, but this
would cease in time.
There are cases known to science, in which a person has fallen into a
condition of mental blank, has forgotten everything acquired, and all
acquaintances, and has to begin from the beginning again, to learn to
know the relations and to acquire speech and every accomplishment. Now
such a case was not that of Arminell, for she remembered all her past,
nevertheless she had in this new condition to accept as lost a vast
amount of what she had acquired in eighteen years, and begin to
accumulate afresh.
Now—she was solitary. It had not occurred to her in her former life that
solitude could be oppressive. Then she had counted it as an escape from
the whirl of social intercourse. Then she had resented advice, and
undervalued sympathy; but now, when she was deprived of these things,
she felt the loss of them. The wife transmigrated into a dog may snap
and bark, but cannot otherwise express her heartache, and reproach her
husband when preparing for his second wife; nor can the worm plead and
look at us out of our child’s blue eyes and tell us it is our own little
one translated, when we lift the spade over it. So must Arminell remain
silent and unrecognised before all those who had loved her and known her
in her first existence.
The life she led in the Avenue, Shepherd’s Bush, was so unlike what she
had been accustomed to that it was not possible for her to fit herself
to it all at once. But Arminell had good sense, and a brave spirit. She
did not waste her energies on vain repining. She did not recoil from and
disparage that life into which she had entered. She accepted it, as she
had accepted the revelation of her folly.
There is a serviceable Yorkshire word, descriptive of accommodation to
circumstances, which is worthy of being rescued from a provincialism and
of elevation into general acceptance, and that word is—to frame.
A raw country girl is taken into a household as servant. If she shows
token of adaptability to the situation, teachableness, and willingness,
she is said to frame.
A clerk settles into an office, is quick in acquiring the technicalities
of the business, is interested in his work, obliging as to extension of
hours under pressure, and he is said by his employers to frame.
A newly-married couple, if they make allowances for each other’s
weaknesses, are not self-willed and unyielding, if ready to make the
best of all circumstances, are said also to frame.
The frame is the situation, and it may be of all kinds, plain or rich,
narrow or wide; it may be guilt and burnished, or of rude cross-pieces
of oak. Into this frame the new life, like a picture, has to be fitted,
so much of margin has to be shorn off, or so much of mount has to be
added. The frame will not accommodate itself to the picture, the picture
must be adapted to the frame.
Arminell was in the process of framing, and the frame was one of her own
selection. Whether suitable or not, the situation could not be adapted
to her, she must adapt herself to it; she must cut away here, and piece
on there to fit it. The reader shall be shown some instances of the way
in which Arminell progressed with her framing.
In the first place, the girl had been accustomed all her life to having
a lady’s-maid in attendance on her, and putting to rights everything she
left in disorder. When she changed her dress, she had been accustomed to
throw her clothes about just where she had taken them off; she had not
put her gloves away, tidied her dressing-table, arranged her dresses in
the drawers. When, at first, she came to the Avenue, she did as she had
been wont, and was unable to understand the hints thrown out by her
hostess that the maid had too much of household work to do to be able to
act as a lady’s-maid as well. Then Arminell discovered that it engaged
Mrs. Welsh half-an-hour in the morning, another half-hour in the
afternoon, and a third in the evening, to arrange her clothes and room.
And as she was aware that Mrs. Welsh had no cook, and had to superintend
the cooking herself, this imposed on her hostess an extra and arduous
task. Mrs. Welsh expected before long to be a mother, and to accumulate
work on the good woman at such a time was unjustifiable.
Accordingly Arminell began to put her room to rights herself, learned
how to fold her gowns, and liked to arrange her boots tidily under the
dressing-table, and put her towels straight on the horse, and the comb
on the brush. After a week she found that the trouble she gave herself
was very slight, and that it afforded her real pleasure to be her own
lady’s-maid.
That was one item in the framing.
Mrs. Welsh had not much plate. Arminell was not particular about what
she ate, but she was accustomed to silver and glass, kept very bright,
and to unchipped and pretty china. The plate of the Welsh establishment
was electro-plate, and the plating was somewhat abraded. The forks and
spoons were scratched, not polished. If an egg had been eaten at
breakfast, it was not impossible to identify at dinner the spoon that
had been used for the egg. Even Castle E claret was not attractive when
the bowl of the wine-glass bore on it the impress of a thumb.
One day Arminell said to Mrs. Welsh, “I am sure that the girl is
overworked. Shall I give a final burnish to the silver and glass before
they come on table?” And Mrs. Welsh had joyfully assented. So Arminell
began to take a pride and find a pleasure in being butler in the house
of Welsh.
That was another item in the framing.
One day Mrs. Welsh threw out mysterious hints about the anticipated
addition to the family, and lamented that, owing to her being without a
cook, she had been unable to provide the many articles of clothing which
a new-comer into the world expects and exacts, to wit:—six long
night-dresses, half-a-dozen flannels, six shirts, the same number of
little socks, bibs to the number of one dozen, besides other articles
which for brevity we will include under an &c. What would little Welsh
do without his trousseau?
Then Arminell went out and bought linen and flannel, and horrocks, and
began to cut out and sew, and mark, and then hold up the little garments
and laugh and dance round them, and find a pleasure and pride in being a
sempstress.
That was another item in the framing.
In a couple of weeks, Mrs. Welsh was unable to further superintend the
cooking, The heat of the kitchen made her faint, and the girl, when left
to her own devices, devised startling effects, quite Wagnerian, Doréish.
Then Arminell began diligently to study “Mrs. Warne’s Cookery Book,” and
descend to the subareal world and direct the proportions of condiments,
the rolling of pastry, the mincing of veal, and the stuffing of geese.
Mrs. Welsh had had a limited culinary horizon—beef olives, rissoles,
haricot, were the changes on joint, and the puddings were ground rice
mould, “shape” Mrs. Welsh called it, rice milk and apple-tart. Arminell
extended the range, and was pleased to surprise and delight Mr. Welsh,
when he returned fagged in the evening, with a dinner that was a
pleasure to eat. In a word, she found a gratification and pride in being
cook.
That was another item in the framing.
Later, a little Welsh appeared on the scene, and the monthly nurse
appeared simultaneously. It really seemed as if Mrs. Welsh had been
brought to bed of two babies, for the nurse was as helpless as the
infant. She could, or would, neither dust the patient’s room, nor lay a
fire, nor put a match to the fire when laid for her. She was incapable
of carrying upstairs a cup of tea or bowl of gruel. It was hard to say
which of the two babies was the most incapable, exacting, fractious, and
insatiable. The maid-of-all-work lost what little head she had, and her
temper went along with her head. When, finally, it became clear that the
corpulent, middle-aged baby drank something stronger than milk, Arminell
asked to have her dismissed, and undertook to attend to Mrs. Welsh and
the baby for the remaining fortnight.
Thus Arminell fell into the position of a nurse.
That was another item in the framing.
But there were other adjustments went to the framing. Arminell’s
superciliousness, her pride of intellect, her self-will, required much
paring down. Formerly she had treated what was common-place and humdrum
with contempt as beneath the regard of one gifted with intelligence. Now
she began to acknowledge that it was in the fulfilment of humdrum
duties, and in the accomplishment of common-place obligations that the
dignity and heroism of life lay.
Arminell had been accustomed to criticise severely those with whom she
associated, and to laugh at their weaknesses; and now she had learned
her own weakness, the disposition to laugh at others had departed from
her, and was replaced by great forbearance.
She began to wonder whether the regeneration of society was to be
effected by revolutionary methods, and was not best accomplished by the
slow processes of leavening with human charity.
How often had she supposed that happiness was impossible apart from the
amenities of life, that in the middle class, with its imperfect culture
and narrow aims, there could be no true felicity; that in the lowest
classes, where there was no refinement of taste, no polish of mind, no
discipline of intellect, life must be insupportable in its wretchedness.
But now she saw that happiness was of general distribution and was not
to be arrogated as a prerogative of one class alone, that, indeed, it
seemed to lose its freshness, its gaiety in proportion as knowledge
increased and culture advanced. The two Welshes were happy; James happy
in his work of furious onslaught against aristocracy, Tryphœna happy in
the little sphere of household duties, and supremely happy in giving
food to her baby. Not only so, but the slave, the maid-of-all-work, was
happy down the area, and sang over her drudgery.
Then Arminell recalled the game she had played as a child with her
companions in a circle, holding a string with a gold ring threaded on
it. One child stood in the centre and tried to discover who had the
ring, and the ring passed about the living hoop, and there was no hand
under which the ring might not be found. It was the same with the round
game of life. The gold ring of happiness was not retained by those in
gay clothing, nor to be found only under the taper fingers and in the
delicate palms, as often it slipped under the broad flat hands of those
in washing calico gowns, and quite as often was retained by the laughing
rogues in rags, whose rough hands were begrimed with dirt.
Consequently Arminell’s ideas on this point, as on many another,
underwent radical change. This also went towards the framing. Arminell’s
manner changed. Her impatience was replaced by gentleness and
consideration for others. Instead of her thoughts radiating from and
reverting to self, they played about others, to the forgetfulness of
self.
An underlying sadness never deserted her, but never intruded on notice.
She constrained herself to be cheerful, and its presence was only
revealed by great sweetness of disposition. She took interest in what
interested others, and did not force on others interest in her own
concerns.
There are frames ready-made for all of us. It falls to the lot of an
exceptional few to have frames made to fit them. Some of us make frames
for ourselves, and as we always over-estimate our size such frames are
never suitable. As we cannot expand or contract our frames to our
liking, we must do the other thing, stretch and shape our pictures to
them. I have seen coloured sketches on an elastic material capable of
being extended indefinitely. Well for us if our life’s picture be
painted on such accommodating material.