Joyce, being so untrained, had, however, but a poor account to give of
her intercession. The Colonel could do nothing without Elizabeth, and
his promise to consult his wife and see what steps could be taken did
not convey much comfort to the parson’s wife. She listened to Joyce’s
account of the manner in which she had fulfilled her commission with a
lengthening face. At the end she jumped up and gave the girl a kiss
which took Joyce very much by surprise. To this inexperienced Scotch
peasant-girl the ways of the English were extravagant and full of
demonstration, as are to English persons the manners of ‘foreigners’ in
general, both being disposed to believe that to show so much was rather
an indication that there was little feeling to show.
‘I am sure you meant it as well as possible,’ she said, ‘but you should
have seized an opportunity and spoken to the dear Colonel when there was
nobody there. Oh, I am sure you are as good as gold--and perhaps if they
will really get up a movement---- But I’ve been promised that so often, I
have not much faith in it. I thought you might just whisper a word to
your dear father, who thinks all the world of you, and the thing would
have been done.’ ‘It is the women,’ continued this oracle, ’as I told
you before, who hold back. If we had only the men to deal with, it would
be much easier to manage. But the women calculate and reckon up, and
they say, “It will be a loss of so much on the year’s income;” or “There
is so and so I wanted to buy; if I let him give the money away, I shall
have to do without it.” That is how they go on. Whereas the men don’t
think; they just put their hands in their pockets, and the thing’s
done--or it isn’t done,’ she added, with a sudden smile, looking up in
Joyce’s face. ‘Never mind,’ she continued, ‘don’t let us make ourselves
unhappy about it. Come and see what I am doing.’ She returned to the
corner from which she had sprung up on Joyce’s entrance. ‘Come and I’ll
show you my workshop, and how I keep the pot boiling,’ she cried.
The room was divided into two, a larger and a smaller portion, with
folding-doors, as is usual in such small habitations; but these doors
were always open, and Mrs. Sitwell’s corner was at the farther end,
commanding the whole space. Joyce saw with amazement a quantity of small
photographs ranged upon the ornate but rather shabby little desk at
which her friend worked, and which was covered with sheets of paper,
each containing a piece of writing and a number. Mrs. Sitwell took up
one of the photographs and handed it to Joyce.
‘Now tell me,’ she said, ‘what would you think was the character of that
gentleman, supposing that you were going to marry him, or to make him
your friend, or to engage him as your butler? What would you think of
him from his face?’
‘I think,’ said Joyce, bewildered, ‘that I should not be--very fond of
him: but I don’t know why.’
‘Oh, you dreadful little critic! why shouldn’t you be fond of him, as
you say? He is quite nice-looking--better than half the men you see. Now
here is what he really is,’ said Mrs. Sitwell, lifting one of the pieces
of paper and handing it to Joyce, who read with amazement: ‘No.
310.--This face is that of a man full of strength and character. The
brow shows great resolution, the eyes much courage and judgment. The
mouth is sensitive, and the nose expresses shrewdness and caution. He
will be very decided in action, but never rash; very steady in his
affections, but slow in forming any ties. There is a great but
suppressed love of art and music in the lines about his eyes.’
‘Well, dear, do not stare at me so; don’t you think, now you look at him
again, that it’s all true? or perhaps you would like this one better.’
The second was the photograph of a simpering girl, in that peculiar
combination of stare and simper which only photographs give. ‘Now, don’t
commit yourself,’ said Mrs. Sitwell, with a laugh. ‘Look at the account
of all her perfections before you say anything. “No. 603.--Ethelinda is
a young lady of many qualities. Her eyes show great sweetness of
disposition. She will be very true, and when she gives her heart, will
give it altogether. The lips show a highly sensitive and nervous
disposition, feeling too strongly for her own peace. There are also
signs of much musical power, and of great constancy in love."’
Joyce put down these two extraordinary literary compositions with
something like consternation. ‘It is perhaps stupid of me,’ she said,
‘not to understand.’
‘Oh no; it is not stupid at all. Perhaps you have never seen the
_Pictorial_? It has quite a great circulation, and is very popular. This
is a new branch of the answers to correspondents that made the _Family
Herald_ such a success. Don’t you know the Answers to Correspondents in
the _Family Herald_? Oh, you must indeed have been brought up out of the
world! But the _Pictorial_ is quite in advance of that. If you send your
photograph to the editor, you receive next week a description of your
character from Myra. Now Myra is me.’
‘Then those--are going into a newspaper,’ said Joyce, looking at the
pieces of written paper with a mingling of curiosity and shame.
‘Those--are going into the _Pictorial_, and they are going to give a
great deal of pleasure to various people, and to put a little money into
my pocket, which wants it very much,’ said the parson’s wife. ‘Now, what
is there to object to in that?’
‘Indeed,’ said Joyce, ‘I was not thinking of objecting. I was only taken
by surprise.’
‘Ah!’ cried Mrs. Sitwell, with a little moisture enhancing the keen
sparkling of her eyes, ‘that is what you all say, you well-off people,
who never knew what it was to want a sovereign! You are surprised at the
way we poor unfortunates have to take to make a little money. Why, I
would simply do anything for a little money--anything that was not
wrong, of course. You don’t know what money means to us. It means
clothes for the children and a nursemaid to take care of them, and good
food, which they require, and a hundred little things, which you people
who never were in want of them never think of.’
‘But I was not accustomed to be rich. I know what it means to have
nothing. No,’ Joyce added hurriedly, ‘perhaps that is not true; for when
I had nothing I wanted nothing, and that must be the same thing as
having everything. I find no difference,’ she said.
‘Then you don’t know anything about it, just the same. The dreadful
thing is to have nothing and want a great many things--and this is the
case of so many of us. How could we live upon poor Austin’s little pay?
People think a clergyman ought to have private means--but where are we
to get the private means? We have a little something in my family, but
my mother has it for her life. I don’t want my mother to die, who is
always so kind to the children, that I may get my little share. It would
only be a few hundred pounds, after all. And Austin’s people thought
they did enough for him when they gave him his education, as they call
it--sending him to Oxford to learn expensive habits. A great deal too
much is made of education,’ said the parson’s wife. ‘I don’t think I
shall take any trouble about education for my children. They get on
better without it, in my opinion.’
This dreadful assertion made Joyce gasp with horror. Not take any
trouble about education!--which was the only thing in all the world to
take trouble about. But she did not trust herself to say anything, and
indeed Mrs. Sitwell did not leave her time.
‘But they _shall_ be comfortable and have things as nice as possible
while they are babies,’ cried the parson’s wife; ‘and when I found out
that I could do this, I was as pleased as Punch. One goes upon rules,
you know--it is not all guess-work; and my opinion is, there is a great
deal in it. Austin says that supposing these people had everything in
their favour, no bad influences or anything of that kind, then what I
find in their faces would be true. Let me see, now. Let me read yours.
You have a great deal that is very nice in you, dear. You are of a most
generous disposition. You would give anything in the world that you had
to give. But you are apt to get frightened, and not to follow it out.
And you are musical--I can see it in your eyes.’
‘Indeed, I don’t know anything at all about music.’
‘That has nothing to do with it,’ said Mrs. Sitwell. ‘You would have
been if you had known. And you are _very_ sensitive, dear. You put
meanings upon what people say, and take offence, or the reverse, when
none is meant. You are full of imagination; but you haven’t much
courage. You love people very much, or you dislike them very much. You
are devoted to them, or else you can’t endure them.’
‘I don’t think I ever do that,’ said Joyce sedately, taking it all with
great gravity.
‘Oh, of course you have been modified by education, as Austin says.
Nobody is just as nature made them; but that is what you would be if you
had been left alone, you know. I’ll write it all out for you when I have
a little time. Give me back Ethelinda and No. 310. I have a kind of idea
these two simpletons are going to be married, and they want each to know
a little more of the other--that is, you know, they want the prophet to
agree with them; and say this is the sweetest girl that ever was--and
that is the nicest man. And you may be sure that the better you speak of
any one, the more you will agree with what they think of themselves.
When you say they are musical and intellectual, and all that, they think
how wonderful that you should understand them so well! though they may
be the stupidest of people that ever were seen.’
‘But----’ Joyce said, with timidity.
‘I don’t want any buts. You would never let any one do anything if you
were to carry a “but” with you everywhere. If you heard me say to Sir
Sam the soap-boiler what excellent taste he had, and how beautiful his
house was, you would think it was wrong perhaps, and put in that “but”
of yours. But why? Gillow, who did it all, is supposed to have excellent
taste, and poor dear Sir Sam thinks it perfection. And it pleases him to
be told so. Why shouldn’t I please him? If I were of his way of
thinking, I would admire it too; and don’t you see, when you sympathise
with a man, and want to please him, you _are_ of his way of
thinking--for the moment,’ the little lady added. ‘Now just wait a
minute till I finish off my people,’ she said.
Joyce sat in a bewilderment which had become almost perennial in her
mind, and watched the woman of business before her. Mrs. Sitwell took up
photograph after photograph, examining each with every appearance of the
most conscientious care. She would put down the little portrait, and
write a few sentences, looking at it from time to time as a painter
might look at his model,--then pausing, biting her lips as if some
contradictory feature puzzled her, would take it up again and follow its
lines, sometimes with the end of her pen, sometimes with the point of
her finger, knitting her brows in the deepest deliberation. ‘I wish
people wouldn’t be so much alike,’ she said. ‘I wish they wouldn’t all
show the same traits of character. I can’t make all the ladies
affectionate and musical, and all the men determined and plucky, can
I?--but that’s what they expect, you know. Now here’s one,’ she cried,
selecting a photograph, ‘upon whom I shall wreak my rage. She shall be
everything she wouldn’t like to be; that will make the others laugh who
have got off so much better. I’ll put it as nicely as I can, but she
won’t like it. Listen!--“The brows denote much temper, verging upon the
sullen, against which I warn Arabella to be on her guard. There is a
tendency to envy in the lines of the nose; the thinness of the lips
shows an inclination to the use of language which might develop into
scolding in later life. The eyes show insensibility to love, which might
make her very cruel to her admirers if she has any. Arabella ought to
take great care to obtain a proper command of herself, so as to keep
these dangerous qualities under. There is a strength in all the lines,
which probably will assure her success if she tries; but she will have
much to struggle against. There is something in the form of her chin
which I suspect to mean love of money, if not avarice; and there seem
some traces of greed about the mouth, but of these last I am not quite
sure.” There! what do you think of that as a foil? It will make the
others more delighted than ever with their own good qualities.’
‘And do you see all that in the face?’
‘Look!’ cried Mrs. Sitwell, placing the photograph before Joyce with a
triumphant movement. It was a heavy, unattractive face, such as hang by
dozens in the frames of poor photographers, and are accepted by the
subjects with that curious human humility which mingles so strangely
with human vanity, and teaches us to be complacent about anything which
is our own. The parson’s wife snatched it back and threw it among the
little heap on the table. ‘Now I have done for to-day,’ she said; ‘and
you know you are going with me round my district. Don’t look so
miserable about Arabella; I have sacrificed her to the satisfaction of
the others--the greatest happiness of the greatest number, don’t you
know? But all the same, it’s all there--every word’s true. I’ve no more
doubt she’s a nasty, ill-speaking, ill-tempered toad, than I have that
you are the nicest girl I know--only it doesn’t always do to say it. If
there were many unfavourable ones, inquirers would fall off. I give them
one now and then to show what I can do when I think proper. Come along.
We’ll take a look at the children first, and then we’ll go--and forget
that there ever was a cheap photograph done. Oh, how I loathe them all!’
Mrs. Sitwell said.
They went upstairs accordingly to see the children, of whom there were
three, the youngest being a baby of some seven or eight months old.
‘They are not fit to be seen,’ said the nursemaid, who was maintained by
those photographs.
‘They have got their nursery overalls on, and not very much underneath,’
said their mother. ‘We keep our swell things for swell occasions. But
look at those legs!’ Joyce was not deeply learned in babies’ legs, her
experience lying among elder children. But there are few women to whom
the round, soft, infantine limbs--‘the flesh of a little child,’ as the
Old Testament writer says, when he wants to describe perfect health and
freshness--have not a charm, and she was able to admire and praise to
the mother’s full content. ‘Little Augustine--we give him his full name
to distinguish him from his father, and also because of the church--is
really wonderfully clever, though I say it that shouldn’t,’ said Mrs.
Sitwell; ‘and little May is the most perfect little mother! You should
see her taking care of baby! Do you know, I was at my Characters two
days after that boy was born. I couldn’t afford to lose a week! I sat up
in bed and did them. Don’t you think it was clever of me?’ she said,
with a laugh, as they went downstairs--‘and never did me the least
harm.’ The rapid succession of aspects in which this little person
disclosed herself took away Joyce’s breath. Her mind was of slower
action than that of her new friend. She had not been able to settle with
herself what she thought of the photographs and the _Pictorial_ and the
sacrifice of the ugly Arabella, when her companion flashed round upon
her in the capacity of the devoted and admiring mother, which softened
her sharp voice, and lit up her face with love and sweetness.
Joyce had further surprising experiences to go through in the district,
to which she now accompanied the parson’s wife, and where everything was
new to her. She thought within herself, if the minister’s wife had
fluttered into her granny’s cottage in the same way and stirred up
everything, that the reception Janet would have given her would have
been far from agreeable. Yet probably the minister’s wife had more means
of help than Mrs. Sitwell, and the poor women whom she visited more
actual money in the shape of wages than Janet had ever possessed. Joyce
felt herself retire with a shiver, feeling that quick resentment must
follow, when the charitable inquisitor put questions of a more than
usually intimate character--but no such result appeared. And there could
be no doubt about the practical advantage and thorough sympathy of the
visitor. She had a basket in her hand, out of which came sundry little
gifts, and her suggestions were boundless. ‘I have some old frocks of my
boy’s that would just do for that little man. Are you sure you can mend
them and make them up for him?’
‘Well, ma’am, I could try,’ the poor woman would say, with a curtsey.
‘Oh, I don’t believe in trying unless you know how to do it,’ said the
parson’s wife; ‘come up to my house at six, and bring the child, and
I’ll fit them on him, and show you how. You ought to go to the mothers’
meeting, where they will show you how to cut out and put things
together. It would be so useful to you with all your children.’ ‘Well,
Mrs. Smith,’ she ran on, darting in next door, ‘I hope things are going
on all right with you. Now he’s taken the pledge, you ought to be so
much more comfortable. But, dear me! you are in as great a muddle as
ever.’
‘He’s took the pledge, but he’s not kep’ it,’ said the woman sullenly.
‘I don’t wonder, if he has only a house like this to come home to. Why,
if I were in a cotton gown and a big apron like you, I’d have it all
spick and span in an hour. I wish I could turn to this moment,’ cried
the little lady, quivering with energy, ‘and show you what sort of a
place a man should come home to. Poor Mr. Smith, I don’t wonder he’s
broken the pledge. Why, that poor child makes my heart ache. When did it
have its face washed?’
‘I haven’t the heart to begin,’ said Mrs. Smith, subsiding into feeble
crying-- ‘I’m that ill and weak. And I don’t never get on with anything.’
‘Poor thing! is that so? I thought you couldn’t be well, you’re so
helpless. I’ll send the mission woman tomorrow morning to put all
straight for you, and you’d better go to the doctor tomorrow and let’s
get at the bottom of it. If you’re ill we must get you set right. I’ll
come and see what the doctor says, and I’ll send you something down for
the man’s supper. But for goodness’ sake wash the baby’s face and get
the place swept up a little before he comes in. That can’t hurt you.
Come, you mustn’t lose heart--we’ll see you through it,’ said the
parson’s wife.
There could not be a better parson’s wife, Joyce acknowledged, strange
though to her the type was. She petted and humoured the sick children as
if she had been their mother. She sat by a bedridden woman and listened
to a long rambling story about her illness and all its details, with
every appearance of interest and unquestionable patience. And when the
round was got through, she skipped out of the last house with the
satisfaction of a child to have got its task over. ‘Now let’s have a run
down to the river to see the boats, and then home to tea. You are going
to stay with us for tea? I want a good fast nice walk to blow all the
cobwebs out of my head.’
‘But you must be tired. And it must make your heart sore.’
‘You say that _sore_ in such a pathetic way,’ said Mrs. Sitwell,
laughing and mimicking Joyce with her soft, low-toned, Scotch voice--an
action which Joyce only detected after a minute or two, and which made
her flush with a troubled sense of being open to ridicule. The sensation
of being laughed at was also a thing to which she was entirely
unaccustomed. ‘But you can’t help them unless you see what they want,’
the parson’s wife went on. ‘And as half of them will cheat you if they
can, and you must find out the truth from your own observation, not from
what they tell you, you must simply put your heart in your pocket, and
think nothing of its being _sore_. And as for being tired, I’m never
tired, I have so many different things to do. If they were the same, I
should die of it. We are going to have some fun to-night--we are going
to have “Angels ever Bright and Fair” to meet you. Oh! don’t you know
what I mean by “Angels ever Bright and Fair”? I mean Mr. Bright, our
curate. He is the best little man in the world, and he is so pleased you
agree with him, only putting it so much more nicely.’ Then the little
mimic changed her tone, and was more Bright than Mr. Bright himself. ‘He
shall sing that song of his for you, and he will try to make a little
mild love to you, and it will all be great fun. But first let us go on
to the bridge and have a look at the boats.’