We both said good-night, and went up to our room with a new object in
view. By our father’s advice we had resolved on keeping diaries, for the
first time in our lives, and had pledged ourselves to begin before we
went to bed.
Slowly and silently and lazily, my sister sauntered to her end of the
room and seated herself at her writing-table. On the desk lay a nicely
bound book, full of blank pages. The word “Journal” was printed on it in
gold letters, and there was fitted to the covers a bright brass lock and
key. A second journal, exactly similar in every respect to the first,
was placed on the writing-table at my end of the room. I opened my book.
The sight of the blank leaves irritated me; they were so smooth, so
spotless, so entirely ready to do _their_ duty. I took too deep a dip
of ink, and began the first entry in my diary by making a blot. This was
discouraging. I got up, and looked out of window.
“Helena!”
My sister’s voice could hardly have addressed me in a more weary tone,
if her pen had been at work all night, relating domestic events. “Well!”
I said. “What is it?”
“Have you done already?” she asked.
I showed her the blot. My sister Eunice (the strangest as well as the
dearest of girls) always blurts out what she has in her mind at the
time. She fixed her eyes gravely on my spoiled page, and said: “That
comforts me.” I crossed the room, and looked at her book. She had not
even summoned energy enough to make a blot. “What will papa think of
us,” she said, “if we don’t begin to-night?”
“Why not begin,” I suggested, “by writing down what he said, when he
gave us our journals? Those wise words of advice will be in their proper
place on the first page of the new books.”
Not at all a demonstrative girl naturally; not ready with her tears, not
liberal with her caresses, not fluent in her talk, Eunice was affected
by my proposal in a manner wonderful to see. She suddenly developed into
an excitable person--I declare she kissed me. “Oh,” she burst out, “how
clever you are! The very thing to write about; I’ll do it directly.”
She really did it directly; without once stopping to consider, without
once waiting to ask my advice. Line after line, I heard her noisy pen
hurrying to the bottom of a first page, and getting three-parts of the
way toward the end of a second page, before she closed her diary. I
reminded her that she had not turned the key, in the lock which was
intended to keep her writing private.
“It’s not worth while,” she answered. “Anybody who cares to do it may
read what I write. Good-night.”
The singular change which I had noticed in her began to disappear, when
she set about her preparations for bed. I noticed the old easy indolent
movements again, and that regular and deliberate method of brushing
her hair, which I can never contemplate without feeling a stupefying
influence that has helped me to many a delicious night’s sleep. She said
her prayers in her favorite corner of the room, and laid her head on
the pillow with the luxurious little sigh which announces that she
is falling asleep. This reappearance of her usual habits was really a
relief to me. Eunice in a state of excitement is Eunice exhibiting an
unnatural spectacle.
The next thing I did was to take the liberty which she had already
sanctioned--I mean the liberty of reading what she had written. Here it
is, copied exactly:
“I am not half so fond of anybody as I am of papa. He is always kind, he
is always right. I love him, I love him, I love him.
“But this is not how I meant to begin. I must tell how he talked to us;
I wish he was here to tell it himself.
“He said to me: ‘You are getting lazier than ever, Eunice.’ He said to
Helena: ‘You are feeling the influence of Eunice’s example.’ He said to
both of us: ‘You are too ready, my dear children, to sit with your hands
on your laps, looking at nothing and thinking of nothing; I want to try
a new way of employing your leisure time.’
“He opened a parcel on the table. He made each of us a present of a
beautiful book, called ‘Journal.’ He said: ‘When you have nothing to do,
my dears, in the evening, employ yourselves in keeping a diary of the
events of the day. It will be a useful record in many ways, and a good
moral discipline for young girls.’ Helena said: ‘Oh, thank you!’ I said
the same, but not so cheerfully.
“The truth is, I feel out of spirits now if I think of papa; I am not
easy in my mind about him. When he is very much interested, there is a
quivering in his face which I don’t remember in past times. He seems to
have got older and thinner, all on a sudden. He shouts (which he never
used to do) when he threatens sinners at sermon-time. Being in dreadful
earnest about our souls, he is of course obliged to speak of the devil;
but he never used to hit the harmless pulpit cushion with his fist as he
does now. Nobody seems to have seen these things but me; and now I have
noticed them what ought I to do? I don’t know; I am certain of nothing,
except what I have put in at the top of page one: I love him, I love
him, I love him.”
.......
There this very curious entry ended. It was easy enough to discover the
influence which had made my slow-minded sister so ready with her memory
and her pen--so ready, in short, to do anything and everything, provided
her heart was in it, and her father was in it.
But Eunice is wrong, let me tell her, in what she says of myself.
I, too, have seen the sad change in my father; but I happen to know
that he dislikes having it spoken of at home, and I have kept my painful
discoveries to myself. Unhappily, the best medical advice is beyond our
reach. The one really competent doctor in this place is known to be an
infidel. But for that shocking obstacle I might have persuaded my father
to see him. As for the other two doctors whom he has consulted, at
different times, one talked about suppressed gout, and the other told
him to take a year’s holiday and enjoy himself on the Continent.
The clock has just struck twelve. I have been writing and copying till
my eyes are heavy, and I want to follow Eunice’s example and sleep
as soundly as she does. We have made a strange beginning of this
journalizing experiment. I wonder how long it will go on, and what will
come of it.
SECOND DAY.
I begin to be afraid that I am as stupid--no; that is not a nice word to
use--let me say as simple as dear Eunice. A diary means a record of the
events of the day; and not one of the events of yesterday appears in my
sister’s journal or in mine. Well, it is easy to set that mistake right.
Our lives are so dull (but I would not say so in my father’s hearing
for the world) that the record of one day will be much the same as
the record of another. After family prayers and breakfast I suffer my
customary persecution at the hands of the cook. That is to say, I am
obliged, being the housekeeper, to order what we have to eat. Oh, how I
hate inventing dinners! and how I admire the enviable slowness of
mind and laziness of body which have saved Eunice from undertaking the
worries of housekeeping in her turn! She can go and work in her garden,
while I am racking my invention to discover variety in dishes without
overstepping the limits of economy. I suppose I may confess it privately
to myself--how sorry I am not to have been born a man!
My next employment leads me to my father’s study, to write under his
dictation. I don’t complain of this; it flatters my pride to feel that I
am helping so great a man. At the same time, I do notice that here again
Eunice’s little defects have relieved her of another responsibility.
She can neither keep dictated words in her memory, nor has she ever been
able to learn how to put in her stops.
After the dictation, I have an hour’s time left for practicing music.
My sister comes in from the garden, with her pencil and paint-box, and
practices drawing. Then we go out for a walk--a delightful walk, if my
father goes too. He has something always new to tell us, suggested by
what we pass on the way. Then, dinner-time comes--not always a pleasant
part of the day to me. Sometimes I hear paternal complaints (always
gentle complaints) of my housekeeping; sometimes my sister (I won’t say
the greedy sister) tells me I have not given her enough to eat. Poor
father! Dear Eunice!
Dinner having reached its end, we stroll in the garden when the weather
is fine. When it rains, we make flannel petticoats for poor old women.
What a horrid thing old age is to look at! To be ugly, to be helpless,
to be miserably unfit for all the pleasures of life--I hope I shall not
live to be an old woman. What would my father say if he saw this? For
his sake, to say nothing of my own feelings, I shall do well if I make
it a custom to use the lock of my journal. Our next occupation is to
join the Scripture class for girls, and to help the teacher. This is a
good discipline for Eunice’s temper, and--oh, I don’t deny it!--for my
temper, too. I may long to box the ears of the whole class, but it is
my duty to keep a smiling face and to be a model of patience. From the
Scripture class we sometimes go to my father’s lecture. At other times,
we may amuse ourselves as well as we can till the tea is ready. After
tea, we read books which instruct us, poetry and novels being forbidden.
When we are tired of the books we talk. When supper is over, we have
prayers again, and we go to bed. There is our day. Oh, dear me! there is
our day.
.......
And how has Eunice succeeded in her second attempt at keeping a diary?
Here is what she has written. It has one merit that nobody can deny--it
is soon read:
“I hope papa will excuse me; I have nothing to write about to-day.”
Over and over again I have tried to point out to my sister the absurdity
of calling her father by the infantile nickname of papa. I have reminded
her that she is (in years, at least) no longer a child. “Why don’t you
call him father, as I do?” I asked only the other day.
She made an absurd reply: “I used to call him papa when I was a little
girl.”
“That,” I reminded her, “doesn’t justify you in calling him papa now.”
And she actually answered: “Yes it does.” What a strange state of mind!
And what a charming girl, in spite of her mind!
THIRD DAY.
The morning post has brought with it a promise of some little variety in
our lives--or, to speak more correctly, in the life of my sister.
Our new and nice friends, the Staveleys, have written to invite Eunice
to pay them a visit at their house in London. I don’t complain at being
left at home. It would be unfilial, indeed, if we both of us forsook our
father; and last year it was my turn to receive the first invitation,
and to enjoy the change of scene. The Staveleys are excellent
people--strictly pious members of the Methodist Connection--and
exceedingly kind to my sister and me. But it was just as well for my
moral welfare that I ended my visit to our friends when I did. With my
fondness for music, I felt the temptation of the Evil One trying me,
when I saw placards in the street announcing that the Italian Opera was
open. I had no wish to be a witness of the shameful and sinful dancing
which goes on (I am told) at the opera; but I did feel my principles
shaken when I thought of the wonderful singers and the entrancing music.
And this, when I knew what an atmosphere of wickedness people breathe
who enter a theater! I reflect with horror on what _might_ have happened
if I had remained a little longer in London.
Helping Eunice to pack up, I put her journal into the box. “You
will find something to write about now,” I told her. “While I record
everything that happens at home, you will keep your diary of all that
you do in London, and when you come back we will show each other what we
have written.” My sister is a dear creature. “I don’t feel sure of being
able to do it,” she answered; “but I promise to try.” Good Eunice!