GUEST NIGHT.
"I am glad to see you again, Cousin Humphrey."
It was two months after the meeting in the churchyard. Hilarie's house
was full; her guests overflowed into the village. It was, in fact, the
first guest night of the season.
"This is the beginning of Term," she said. "You shall make
acquaintance with the college."
"I have heard something about your college." He looked round the room,
which was the lady's bower, as if in search of some one.
"You can take me in, and I will tell you more about it during dinner."
There were more than the house-party. The place is within an hour of
Victoria, and a good many friends of the students had come out by
train to see what the college was like; what it meant; and if it had
come to stay.
A new social experiment always draws. First, it attracts the social
wobblers who continually run after the last new gospel. Then it
attracts those who watch social experiments from the outside. Thirdly,
it attracts the New Woman herself; those who are curious about the
New Woman; and those who hate the New Woman. Lastly, it attracts
those who are always in search of material for "copy." For all these
reasons, the guests present wore that expression of countenance
called, by their friends, "thoughtful;" it should rather be called
"uncertain." They looked about curiously, as if to find traces of
the experiment in the furniture, on the walls, in the students'
dresses; they listened in order to catch the note of the experiment
in the air; they cast suspicious looks to right and to left, as
expecting something to be sprung upon them. To be invited at all was
to make them realize that they were in the very van and forefront of
contemporary intellect; it also imposed upon them the difficult task
of pronouncing a judgment without a "lead." Now, without a lead these
philosophers are uncertain. Hence the aspect and appearance of the
guests this evening. They did not know what to think or what to say of
the college--no one had yet given them a lead; they were uncertain,
and they would be expected to pronounce a judgment.
The oracle who waits for a "lead" is common among us; he takes himself
seriously; he is said by his friends to have "made the most" of
himself: not that he has distinguished himself in any way, but he has
made the best out of poor materials, and he would have made himself a
good deal bigger and better had the materials been richer. As it is,
he reads all the thoughtful papers in all the magazines; he writes
thoughtful papers of his own, which he finds a difficulty in placing;
he sometimes gets letters into the papers giving reasons why he,
being a very little man, cannot agree with some great man. This makes
his chin to stick out. He even contrives to get people to read his
letters, as if it matters a brass farthing whether he agrees or does
not agree. Over a new social experiment, once he has got a "lead,"
this oracle is perfectly happy.
"We will talk presently," said Hilarie, turning to welcome new guests.
Humphrey stepped aside, and looked on while the room filled up. The
students, he remarked, who were all dressed in white, with ribbons
of their own individual choice, appeared to be a cheerful company of
damsels. To be sure, cheerfulness belongs to their time of life, and
to the profession of student, about which there should cling a certain
lawless joyousness--a buoyancy not found in the domestic circle, a
touch of the barrack, something of the camp, because they are recruits
in the armies that fight against ignorance and prejudice. These
white-robed students were full of cheerfulness, which bubbled over in
laughter and happy faces. One is told that in some colleges there are
students entirely given over to their studies, who wear dowdy dresses,
who push back their hair anyhow behind their spectacles, who present
faces of more than possible thoughtfulness. Here there were none such;
none were oppressed with study.
Rightly considered, every college for young persons should be
interesting. We have forgotten that there used formerly to be colleges
for old persons; for priests, as Jesus Commons and the Papey on London
Wall; for physicians; for surgeons; for serjeants-at-law; for debtors,
as the Fleet; for the decayed, as an almshouse; for criminals,
as Newgate; for paupers, as the workhouse. A college for girls is
naturally more interesting than one for young men: first, because
they are girls; next, because the male college contains so much that
is disquieting,--ambition and impatience, with effort; strenuous
endeavour to conciliate Fame, a goddess who presents to all comers
at first a deaf ear, eyes that see nothing, and a trumpet silently
dangling at her wrist; the resolution to compel Fortune, even against
her will, to turn round that wheel which is to bear them up aloft.
The strength of these ambitions stimulates the air--you may note this
effect in any of the courts at Cambridge. One remembers, also, that in
most cases Fame, however persistently wooed, continues to dangle the
silent trumpet; while Fortune, however passionately invoked, refuses
to turn the wheel; and that the resolution and determination of the
petitioner go for nothing. One observes, also, that the courts of
the colleges are paved with shattered resolutions, which make a much
better pavement than the finest granite. One remembers, also, that
there are found in the young man's college the Prig and the Smug, the
Wallower, the Sloth, the Creeping Thing, and the Contented Creature.
But pass across the road to the Woman's College. Heavens! what
possibilities are there! What ambitions are hers! For her field is not
man's field, though some pretend. Not hers to direct the throbbing
engine, and make that thing of steel a thing of intelligence; not hers
to command a fleet; not hers to make the laws. She does not construct
lighthouses; she does not create new sciences; she does not advance
the old; she never invents, nor creates, nor advances; she receives,
she adapts, she distributes. How great are her possibilities! Though
she neither creates nor invents, she may become a queen of song,
a queen of the stage, a great painter, a great novelist, a great
poet--great at artistic work of every kind. Or, again, while her
brother is slowly and painfully working his way up, so that he will
become a Q.C. at forty, a Judge at sixty, the girl steps at once by
marriage into a position that dazzles her friends, and becomes a queen
of society, a patron of Art, a power in politics. Far be it from me to
suppose that the maidens of any college dream of possibilities such
as these. Perhaps, however, the possibilities of maidenhood are never
quite forgotten. There is another possibility also. Every great man
has a mother. Do maidens ever dream of the supreme happiness of having
a great man for a son? Which would a woman prefer, the greatest honour
and glory and distinction ever won by woman for herself, or to be the
mother of a Tennyson, a Gordon, a Huxley?
"Now, my cousin," said Hilarie. "The dinner is served."
So two by two they went into the old hall. It had been decorated
since the summer. The lower part was covered with tapestry; the upper
part was hung with armour and old weapons. There were also portraits,
imaginary and otherwise, of women wise and women famous. Queen
Elizabeth was there, Joan of Arc was there, George Sand, George Eliot,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jane Austen, Grace Darling, Rosa Bonheur,
and many others. The male observer remarked, with a sense of omission,
the absence of those queens of beauty whose lamentable lives make
history so profoundly interesting. Where were Rosamond, Agnes Sorel,
La Vallière, Nell Gwynne? Alas! they were not admitted.
"The house," said the president, taking her seat, "is much larger than
it looks. With the solar and the lady's bower and the tower, we have
arranged dormitories for forty and half a dozen sitting-rooms, besides
this hall, which is used all day long."
The musicians' gallery had been rebuilt and painted. It contained
an organ now and a piano, besides room for an orchestra. Six of
the students were sitting there with violins and a harp, ready to
discourse soft music during the banquet. There were three tables
running down the hall, with the high table, and all were filled with
an animated, joyous crowd of guests and residents.
"I want to interest you in my college," Hilarie began, when they were
seated.
Humphrey examined the menu. He observed that it was an artistic
attempt--an intelligent effort at a harmony. If only the execution
should prove equal to the conception!
"At present, of course, we are only beginning. What are you yourself
doing, however?"
"I follow--humbly--Art. There is nothing else. I paint, I write verse,
I compose."
"Do you exhibit?"
"Exhibit? Court the empty praises or the empty sneers of an ignorant
press? Never! I show my pictures to my friends. We confide our work
to each other."
Hilarie smiled, and murmured something inaudible.
"And we keep the outer world outside. You, I fear"--he looked down the
room--"admit the outer world. You lose a great deal. For instance, if
this mob was out of your lovely house, I might bring my friends. It
would be an ideal place for our pictures and our music, and for the
acting of our plays."
"I fear the mob must remain." Hilarie began to doubt whether her
college would appeal, after all, to this young man.
"What we should aim at in life," the artist continued, "is Art without
Humanity."
"I should have said that Humanity is the basis of all Art."
Her cousin shook his head. "Not true Art--that is bodiless. I fear you
do not yet belong to us."
"No; I belong to these girls, who are anything but bodiless."
"Your college, I take it, has something to do with helping people?"
"Certainly."
"My own view is that you cannot help people. You may give them things,
but you only make them want more. People have got to help themselves."
"Did you help yourself?"
"Oh, I am born to what my forefathers acquired. As for these girls, to
whom you are giving things, you will only make them discontented."
The president of the college looked round the hall. There were forty
white frocks encasing as many girls, students at her college, and as
many guests. There was a cheerful ripple of talk; one thought of a
dancing sea in the sunlight. There were outbursts of laughter--light,
musical; one thought of the white crests of the waves. In the
music-gallery the girls played softly and continuously; one thought
of the singing of birds in the coppice. The dinner was already half
finished. There is a solid simplicity about these guest nights. A
short dinner, with jellies, ices, and puddings, most commends itself
to the feminine heart.
"Let me tell you my design, at least. I saw that in this revolution
of society, going on so rapidly around us, all classes of women are
rushing into work."
"A woman who works ceases to be a woman," Humphrey spoke and shuddered.
"I think of my great-grandmother Hilarie, wife of Robert, who lies
buried in our church. She sat with her maids in the lady's bower and
embroidered. She administered everything--the food and the drink and
the raiment. She made them all behave with decency. She brought up the
children, and taught them right and wrong. Above all, she civilized.
To-day, as yesterday and to-morrow and always, it is the duty of woman
to civilize. She is the everlasting priestess. This is therefore a
theological college."
Her cheek flushed, her eye brightened. She turned her head, as if
suspecting that she had said too much. Her cousin seemed not to have
heard; he was, in fact, absorbed in partridge.
"Now that all women want to work, will they continue to civilize?
I know not yet how things may go. They all want to work. They try
to work, whether they are fit for it or not. They take men's work
at a quarter the pay. I know not how it will end. They turn the men
adrift; they drive them out of the country, and then congratulate
themselves--poor fools! And for themselves, I chiefly dread their
hardening. The woman who tries to turn herself into a man is a
creature terrible--unnatural. I know the ideal woman of the past. I
cannot find the ideal woman of the present."
"There isn't any."
"If we surrender the sacerdotal functions, what have we in exchange?"
"I don't know." The manner meant, "I don't care;" but Hilarie hardly
observed the manner.
"I cannot alter the conditions, cousin. That is quite true. But there
are some things which can be done."
Hilarie went on, at this point, to tell a story, for one who could
read between the lines--which her cousin certainly could not--of a
girl dominated partly by a sense of responsibility and duty; one
who, being rich, must do something with her wealth, partly by that
passion for power which is developed in some hearts--not all--by
the possession of wealth; and partly by a deep sympathy with the
sufferings and sorrows of her impecunious sisters.
There are always, as we know, at every moment of life, two courses
open to us--the right and the wrong; or, if the choice is not so
elementary, the better and the worse. But there comes to those of the
better sort one supreme moment when we seem to choose the line which
will lead to honour, or the line which will lead to obscurity. To
the common sort the choice is only apparent, not real; men and women
are pushed, pulled, dragged, shoved, either in the way of fortune or
in the way of failure, by circumstances and conditions beyond our
control. To them there is no free will. When the time of repentance
arrives, we think that we choose freely. The majority cannot choose;
their lives are ordered for them, with their sins and their follies.
They might choose, but they are not able; they cannot see before them
or around them. A fog lies about their steps; they stumble along with
the multitude, getting now and then a pleasant bit, now and then a
thorny bit. Some walk delicately along a narrow way, which is grassy
and flowery, where the babbling brooks run with champagne, and the
spicy breezes are laden with the fragrance of melons, peaches, and
roast lamb. Some march and stagger along the broad way, thirsty and
weary, where there is no refreshment of brooks or of breezes. It is an
unequal world.
Such a supreme moment came to Hilarie after long consideration.
"I thought," she explained, "that if the Archbishop and his brethren
were living to-day, they would do something for the women who work."
Her cousin slowly drank a glass of champagne. "Yes?" he asked, without
much affectation of interest.
"I thought that if the Archbishop were living, he would like to found
a college--not for priests, nor for old villagers, but for girls; not
to teach anything, but to give them a place where they can go and
stay. In this college we do not teach anything. There are no lectures.
We need not do any work unless we please. Every girl does exactly what
she pleases: some study, some paint--not after your school, I fear;
some practise music; in fact, they do just what they please. I believe
that at least a dozen are writing novels, two or three are writing
verse, one or two are working for examinations. In the evening we
amuse ourselves."
"You give them all this?"
"Certainly. They come here whenever they please, and they can stay
here for three months, or more if there is necessity. In three words,
my cousin, I maintain an establishment of forty guests, and I fear I
shall have to increase the number."
"And what's the good of it?"
"When the Archbishop built his school, he argued, first, that
education is good even for the swineherd; next, that with education
follow manners; and, thirdly, that it was good for himself to give.
So, you see, it is good for the girls to get the rest and quiet;
living thus all together in a college raises their standard of
thought and manners; and, thirdly, it is good for me, as it was the
Archbishop, to give."
"I do not feel myself any call to give anybody anything."
"Meantime, I keep before myself the great function of woman. She is, I
say, the eternal priestess. She compels men into ways of gentleness
and courtesy; she inspires great thoughts. By way of love she leads to
the upper heights. But you do not feel these things."
"I do not, I confess."
"If the girls must work, I want them ever to keep before themselves
the task laid upon them. They have hitherto civilized man from the
home; they must now civilize him from the workshop. That, my cousin,
is the meaning of this college."
"You've got some rather pretty girls in the place," said Humphrey.
"Oh, pretty! What has that to do with it?"
The music ceased. There was a general lull. The guests all leaned back
in their chairs. The president knocked with her ivory hammer, and they
all returned to the lady's bower.
In the drawing-room Humphrey left the president to the people who
pressed in upon her, and wandered round the room, looking, apparently,
for some one. Presently he discovered, surrounded by a company of
men, the girl who was called Molly. She, too, was dressed in white,
and wore a cherry-coloured ribbon round her neck; a dainty damsel she
looked, conspicuous for this lovely quality of daintiness among them
all. At sight of her the young man coloured, and his eye brightened;
then his face clouded. However, he made his way to her. She stepped
out of the circle and gave him her hand.
"It is a week and more," he whispered, "since I have seen you. Why not
say at once that you don't care about it any longer?"
"You are welcome to the college, Sir Humphrey," she replied aloud.
"Confess that it is a pretty sight. The president was talking to you
about it all dinner-time. I hope that you are interested."
"I think it is all tomfoolery," he replied ungraciously; "and a waste
of good money too."
"Hilarie wants money to make happiness. You do not look in the best of
tempers, Humphrey."
"I am not. I couldn't get enough to drink, and I have had to listen to
a lot of stuff about women and priestesses."
"Good stuff should not be thrown away, should it? Like good pearls."
"I want to talk to you--away from this rabble. Where can we go?"
"I will take you over the college." She led the way into the library,
a retired place, where she sat down. "Do you ask how I am getting on?"
"No, I don't." He remained standing. "You'll never go on the stage
with my consent."
"We shall see." By her quick dancing eye, by her mobile lips, by
the brightness of her quaint, attractive face, which looked as if
it could be drawn into shapes like an india-rubber face, she belied
his prophecy. "Besides, Hilarie wants me to become a tragic actress.
Please remember, once more, Humphrey, that what Hilarie wishes I must
do. I owe everything to Hilarie--everything."
"You drive me mad with your perverseness, Molly."
"I am going to please myself. Please understand that, even if I were
engaged to you, I would keep my independence. If you don't like that,
take back your offer. Take it back at once." She held out both her
hands, as if she was carrying it about.
"You know I can't. Molly, I love you too much, though you are a little
devil."
"Then let me alone. If one is born in a theatre, one belongs to a
theatre. I would rather be born in a theatre than in a West End
square. Humphrey, you make me sorry that I ever listened to you."
"Well, go and listen to that fiddler fellow who calls you Molly. Curse
his impudence!"
"Oh, if you had been only born differently! You belong to the people
who are all alike. You sit in the stalls in a row, as if you were made
after the same pattern; you expect the same jokes; you take the same
too much champagne; you are like the pebbles of the seashore, all
rounded alike."
"Well, what would you have?"
"The actors and show folk--my folk--are all different. As for kind
hearts, how can you know, with your tables spread every day, and your
champagne running like water? There's no charity where there's no
poverty."
"I don't pretend to any charity."
"It is a dreadful thing to be born rich. You might have been so
different if you had had nothing."
"Then you wouldn't have listened to me."
"Thank you. Listening doesn't mean consenting."
"You cannot withdraw. You are promised to me."
"Only on conditions. You want me to be engaged secretly. Well, I
won't. You want me to marry you secretly. Well, I won't."
"You are engaged to me."
"I am not. And I don't think now that I ever shall be. It flattered
me at first, having a man in your position following around. I should
like to be 'my lady.' But I can't see any happiness in it. You belong
to a different world, not to my world."
"I will lift you into my world."
"It looks more like tumbling down than getting lifted up. There is
still time, however, to back out. If you dare to maintain that I ever
said 'Yes,' I'll say 'No' on the spot. There!"
This sweet and loving conversation explains itself. Every one will
understand it. The girl lived in a boarding-house, where she took
lessons from an old actress in preparation for the stage. From time to
time she went to stay with her friend--her benefactress--who had found
her, after her father's death, penniless. At her country house she
met, as we have seen, her old friend Dick, and the other cousin. The
second meeting, outside the boarding-house, which the latter called,
and she believed to be, accidental, led to other meetings. They were
attended by the customary results; that is, by an ardent declaration
of love. The girl was flattered by the attentions of a young man of
position and apparent wealth. She listened to the tale. She found,
presently, that her lover was not in every respect what a girl expects
in a lover. His ideas of love were not hers. He turned out to be
jealous, but that might prove the depth and sincerity of his love;
suspicious, which argued a want of trust in her; ashamed to introduce
her to his own people; anxious to be engaged first and married next,
in secrecy; avowedly selfish, worshipping false gods in the matter
of art and science; and, worst of all, ill-tempered, and boorish in
his ill temper. Lastly, she was, at this stage, rapidly making the
discovery that not even for a title and a carriage and a West End
square ought she to marry a man she was unable to respect.
"We will now go back to the lady's bower," she said. "This talk,
Humphrey, will have to last a long while."