The Education of Women.
Mr. Tottenham came back from town that evening alone. He explained that
Earnshaw had stayed behind on business. “Business partly mine, and
partly his own; he’s the best fellow that ever lived,” was all the
explanation he gave to his wife; and Lady Mary was unquestionably
curious. They talked a great deal about Edgar at dinner that evening,
and Phil made himself especially objectionable by his questions and his
indignation.
“He hasn’t been here so long that he should go away,” said Phil. “Don’t
he like us, papa? I am sure there is something wrong by your face.”
“So am I,” said little Molly. “You only look like that when some one has
been naughty. But this time you must have made a mistake. Even you might
make a mistake. To think of Mr. Earnshaw being naughty, like one of us,
is ridiculous.”
“Naughty!” cried Phil. “Talk of things you understand, child. I’d like
to know what Earnshaw is supposed to have done,” cried the boy, swelling
with indignation and dignity, with tears rising in his eyes.
“I’ve locked him up in the dark closet in the shop till he will promise
to be good,” said the father, with a laugh; “and if you will throw
yourself at my feet, Molly, and promise to bear half of his punishment
for him, I will, perhaps, let him out to-morrow.”
Little Molly half rose from her chair. She gave a questioning glance at
her mother before she threw herself into the breach; while Phil,
reddening and wondering, stood on the alert, ready to undertake he knew
not what.
“Nonsense, children; sit down; your father is laughing at you.
Seriously, Tom, without any absurdity, what is it?” cried Lady Mary. “I
wanted him so to-morrow to hear the first lecture--and he did not mean
to stay in town when he left here this morning.”
“It is business, mere business,” repeated Mr. Tottenham. “We are not all
fine ladies and gentlemen, like you and Phil, Molly. Some of us have to
work for our living. If it hadn’t been for Earnshaw, I should, perhaps,
have stayed myself. I think we had better stay in town the night of the
entertainment, Mary. It will be a long drive for you back here, and
still longer for the children. They are going to have a great turn out.
I have been writing invitations all day to the very finest of people. I
don’t suppose Her Grace of Middlemarch ever heard anything so fine as
Mr. Watson’s solo on the cornet. And, Phil, I rely on you to get an
encore.”
“Oh! I like old Watson. I’ll clap for him,” cried Phil, with facile
change of sentiments; though little Molly kept still eyeing her father
and mother alternately, not quite reassured. And thus the conversation
slid away from Edgar to the usual crotchets of the establishment.
“We have settled all about the seats, and about the refreshments,” said
Mr. Tottenham, with an air of content. “You great people will sit in
front, and the members of the establishment who are non-performers, on
the back seats; and the grandest flunkies that ever were seen shall
serve the ices. Oh! John is nothing to them. They shall be divinely
tall, and powdered to their eyebrows; in new silk stockings taken from
our very best boxes, for that night only. Ah, children, you don’t know
what is before you! Miss Jemima Robinson is to be Serjeant Buzfuz. She
is sublime in her wig. She is out of the fancy department, and is the
best of saleswomen. We are too busy, we have too much to do to spend
time in improving our minds, like you and your young ladies, Mary; but
you shall see how much native genius Tottenham’s can produce.”
Harry Thornleigh kept very quiet during this talk. His head was still
rather giddy, poor fellow; his balance was still disturbed by the face
and the eyes and the look which had come to him like a revelation. It
would be vain to say that he had never been in love before; he had been
in love a dozen times, lightly, easily, without much trouble to himself
or anyone else. But now he did not know what had happened to him. He
kept thinking what she would be likely to like, what he could get for
her--if, indeed, he ever was again admitted to her presence, and had
that voiceless demand made upon him. Oh! what a fool he had been, Harry
thought, to waste his means and forestall his allowance, and spend money
for no good, when all the time there was existing in the world a being
like that! I don’t know what his allowance had to do with it, and
neither, I suppose, did Harry; but the thought went vaguely through his
head amid a flood of other thoughts equally incoherent. He was glad of
Edgar’s absence, though he could not have told why; and when Lady Mary
began, in the drawing-room after dinner, to describe the new-comer to
her husband, he sat listening with glaring eyes till she returned to
that stale and contemptible joke about Mrs. Smith, upon which Harry
retired in dudgeon, feeling deeply ashamed of her levity. He went to the
smoking-room and lit his cigar, and then he strolled out, feeling a want
of fresh air, and of something cool and fresh to calm him down. It was a
lovely starlight night, very cold and keen. All the mists and heavy
vapours had departed with the day, and the sky over Tottenham’s was
ablaze with those silvery celestial lights, which woke I cannot tell how
many unusual thoughts, and what vague inexplicable emotion and delicious
sadness in Harry’s mind. Something was the matter with him; he could
have cried, though nobody was less inclined to cry in general; the water
kept coming to his eyes, and yet his soul was lost in a vague sense of
happiness. How lovely the stars were; how stupid to sit indoors in a
poky room, and listen to bad jokes and foolish laughter when it was
possible to come out to such a heavenly silence, and to all those
celestial lights. The Aurora Borealis was playing about the sky,
flinging waving rosy tints here and there among the stars, and as he
stood gazing, a great shadowy white arm and hand seemed to flit across
the heavens, dropping something upon him. What was it? the fairy gift
for which those blue eyes had asked him, those eyes which were like the
stars? Harry was only roused from his star-gazing by the vigilant
butler, attended by a footman with a lantern, who made a survey of the
house every night, to see that all the windows and doors were shut, and
that no vagrants were about the premises.
“Beg your pardon, Sir,” said that functionary, “but there’s a many
tramps about, and we’re obliged to be careful.”
Harry threw away his cigar, and went indoors; but he did not attempt to
return to the society of his family. Solitude had rather bored him than
otherwise up to this moment; but somehow he liked it that night.
Next morning was as bright and sunshiny as the night had been clear, and
Lady Mary was again bound for the village, with Phil and his sister.
“Come with us, Harry; it will do you good to see what is going on,” she
said.
Harry had no expectation of getting any good, but he had nothing to do,
and it seemed possible that he might see or hear of the beautiful
stranger, so he graciously accompanied the little party in their walk.
Lady Mary was in high spirits. She had brought all her schemes to
completion, and on this day her course of lectures was to begin.
Nothing could surpass her own conscientiousness in the matter. No girl
graduate, or boy graduate either, for that matter, was ever more
determined to work out every exercise and receive every word of teaching
from the instructors she had chosen. I do not think that Lady Mary felt
herself badly equipped in general for the work of life; indeed, I
suppose she must have felt, as most clever persons do, a capability of
doing many things better than other people, and of understanding any
subject that was placed before her, with a rapidity and clearness which
had been too often remarked upon to be unknown to herself. She must have
been aware too, I suppose, that the education upon which she harped so
much, had not done everything for its male possessors which she expected
it to do for the women whose deficiencies she so much lamented. I
suppose she must have known this, though she never betrayed her
consciousness of it; but by whatever means it came about, it is certain
that Lady Mary was a great deal more eager for instruction, and more
honestly determined to take the good of it, than any one of the girls at
Harbour Green for whose benefit she worked with such enthusiasm, and who
acquiesced in her efforts, some of them for fun, some of them with a
half fictitious reflection of her enthusiasm, and all, or almost all,
because Lady Mary was the fashion in her neighbourhood, and it was the
right thing to follow her in her tastes and fancies. There was quite a
pretty assembly in the schoolroom when the party from Tottenham’s
arrived--all the Miss Witheringtons in a row, and the young ladies from
the Rectory, and many other lesser lights. Harry Thornleigh was somewhat
frightened to find himself among so many ladies, though most of them
were young, and many pretty.
“I’ll stay behind backs, thanks,” he said, hurriedly, and took up a
position near the door, where Phil joined him, and where the two
conversed in whispers.
“They’re going to do sums, fancy,” said Phil, opening large eyes, “mamma
and all! though nobody can make them do it unless they like.”
“By Jove!” breathed Harry into his moustache. Amaze could go no further,
and he felt words incapable of expressing his sentiments. I don’t know
whether the spectacle did the young fellow good, but it stupefied and
rendered him speechless with admiration or horror, I should not like to
say which. “What are they doing it for?” he whispered to Phil, throwing
himself in his consternation even upon that small commentator for
instruction.
Phil’s eyes were screwed tightly in his head, round as two great O’s of
amazement; but he only shook that organ, and made no response. I think,
on the whole, Phil was the one of all the assembly (except his mother)
who enjoyed it most. He was privileged to sit and look on, while others
were, before his eyes, subjected to the torture from which he had
temporarily escaped. Phil enjoyed it from this point of view; and Lady
Mary enjoyed it in the delight of carrying out her plan, and riding high
upon her favourite hobby. She listened devoutly while the earliest
propositions of Euclid were being explained to her, with a proud and
happy consciousness that thus, by her means, the way to think was opened
to a section at least of womankind; and what was more, this very clever
woman put herself quite docilely at her lecturer’s feet, and listened to
every word he said with the full intention of learning how to think in
her own person--notwithstanding that, apart from her hobby, she had
about as much confidence in her own power of thought as most people.
This curious paradox, however, is not so uncommon that I need dwell upon
it. The other persons who enjoyed the lecture most, were, I think, Myra
Witherington, who now and then looked across to her friend Phil, and
made up her pretty face into such a delightful copy of the lecturer’s,
that Phil rolled upon his seat with suppressed laughter; and Miss
Annetta Baker, who--there being no possibility of croquet parties at
this time of the year--enjoyed the field-day immensely, and nodded to
her friends, and made notes of Lady Mary’s hat, and of the new Spring
dresses in which the Rectory girls certainly appeared too early, with
genuine pleasure. The other ladies present did their best to be very
attentive. Sometimes a faintly smothered sigh would run through the
assembly; sometimes a little cough, taken up like a fugue over the
different benches, gave a slight relief to their feelings; sometimes it
would be a mere rustle of dresses, indicative of a slight universal
movement. The curate’s wife, unable to keep up her attention, fell to
adding up her bills within herself, a much more necessary mathematical
exercise in her case, but one also which did very little towards paying
the same, as poor Mrs. Mildmay knew too well. Miss Franks, the old
doctor’s eldest daughter, after the first solemnity of the commencement
wore off, began to think of her packing, and what nonsense it was of
papa to send her here when there was so much to do--especially as they
were leaving Harbour Green, and Lady Mary’s favour did not matter now.
There was one real student, besides Lady Mary, and that was Ellen
Gregory, the daughter of the postmistress, who sat far back, and was
quite unthought of by the great people, and whose object was to learn a
little Euclid for an approaching examination of pupil-teachers, and not
in the least the art of thinking. Ellen was quite satisfied as to her
powers in that particular; but she knew the effect that a little Euclid
had upon a school-inspector, and worked away with a will, with a mind as
much intent as Lady Mary’s, and eyes almost as round as Phil’s.
From this it will be seen that Lady Mary’s audience was about as little
prepared for abstract education as most other audiences. When it was
over, there was a pleasant stir of relief, and everybody began to
breathe freely. The lecturer came from behind his table, and the ladies
rose from their benches, and everybody shook hands.
“Oh, it was delightful, Lady Mary!” said the eldest Miss Witherington;
“how it does open up one’s mental firmament.”
“Mr. Thornleigh, will you help me to do the fourth problem?” said Myra.
“I don’t understand it a bit--but of course you know all about it.”
“I!” cried Harry, recoiling in horror, “you don’t mean it, Miss
Witherington? It’s a shame to drag a fellow into this sort of thing
without any warning. I couldn’t do a sum to save my life!”
“Lady Mary, do you hear? is it any shame to me not to understand it,
when a University man says just the same?” cried Myra, laughing. Poor
Harry felt himself most cruelly assailed, as well as ill-used
altogether, by being led into this extraordinary morning’s work.
“I hope there’s more use in a University than that rot,” he said. “By
Jove, Aunt Mary! I’ve often heard women had nothing to do--but if you
can find no better way of passing your time than doing sums and
problems, and getting up Euclid at your time of life----”
“Take him away, for heaven’s sake, Myra!” whispered Lady Mary; “he is
not a fool when you talk to him. He is just like other young men, good
enough in his way; but I can’t be troubled with him now.”
“Ah!” cried Myra, with an unconscious imitation of Lady Mary’s own
manner, which startled, and terrified, and enchanted all the bystanders,
“if the higher education was only open to us poor women, if we were not
persistently kept from all means of improving ourselves--we might get in
time to be as intellectual as Mr. Thornleigh,” she added, laughing in
her own proper voice.
Lady Mary did not hear the end of this speech; she did not see herself
in the little mimic’s satire. She was too much preoccupied, and too
serious to notice the fun--and the smiles upon the faces of her friends
annoyed without enlightening her.
“How frivolous we all are,” she said, turning to the eldest Miss Baker,
with a sigh; “off at a tangent, as soon as ever the pressure is removed.
I am sure I don’t want to think it--but sometimes I despair, and feel
that we must wait for a new generation before any real education is
possible among women. They are all like a set of schoolboys let loose.”
“My dear Lady Mary, that is what I am always telling you; not one in a
hundred is capable of any intellectual elevation,” said the only
superior person in the assembly; and they drew near the lecturer, and
engaged him in a tough conversation, though he, poor man, having done
his duty, and being as pleased to get it over as the audience, would
have much preferred the merrier crowd who were streaming--with
suppressed laughter, shaking their heads and uttering admonitions to
wicked Myra--out into the sunshine, through the open door.
“Don’t do that again,” cried Phil, very red. “I say, Myra, I like you
and your fun, and all that; but I’ll never speak to you again, as long
as I live, if you take off mamma!”
“I didn’t mean it, dear,” said Myra, penitent. “I’m so sorry, I beg your
pardon, Phil. Lady Mary’s a dear, and I wouldn’t laugh at her for all
the world. But don’t you ever mimic anyone, there’s a good boy; for one
gets into the habit without knowing what one does.”
“Oh, that’s all very fine,” said Phil, feeling the exhortation against a
sin for which he had no capability to be out of place; but he did not
refuse to make up the incipient quarrel. As for Harry, he had not
listened, and consequently was not aware how much share he had in the
cause of the general hilarity.
“I should like to know what all the fun’s about,” he said. “Good lord!
to see you all at it like girls at school! Ladies are like sheep, it
seems to me--where one goes you all follow; because that good little
aunt of mine has a craze about education, do you all mean to make muffs
of yourselves? Well, I’m not a man that stands up for superior intellect
and that sort of thing--much; but, good gracious! do you ever see men go
in for that sort of nonsense?”
“That is because you are all so much cleverer, and better educated to
start with, Mr. Thornleigh,” said Sissy Witherington. He looked up at
her to see if she were laughing at him; but Sissy was incapable of
satire, and meant what she said.
“Well, perhaps there is something in that,” said Harry, mollified,
stroking his moustache.
Harry lunched with the Witheringtons at their urgent request, and thus
shook himself free from Phil, who was disposed, in the absence of
Earnshaw, to attach himself to his cousin. Mrs. Witherington made much
of the visitor, not without a passing thought that if by any chance he
should take a fancy to Myra--and of course Myra to him, though that was
a secondary consideration--why, more unlikely things might come to
pass. But Harry showed no dispositions that way, and stood and stared
out of the window of the front drawing-room, after luncheon, towards
Mrs. Smith’s lodgings, on the other side of the Green, with a
pertinacity which amazed his hostesses. When he left them he walked in
the same direction slowly, with his eyes still fixed on the cottage with
its green shutters and dishevelled creepers. Poor Harry could not think
of any excuse for a second call; he went along the road towards the
cottage hoping he might meet the object of his thoughts, and stared in
at the window through the matted growth of holly and rhododendrons in
the little garden, equally without effect. She had been seated there on
the previous evening, but she was not seated there now. He took a long
walk, and came back again once more, crossing slowly under the windows,
and examining the place; but still saw nothing. If Margaret had only
known of it, where she sat listlessly inside feeling extremely dull, and
in want of a little excitement, how much good it would have done her!
and she would not have been so unkind as to refuse her admirer a glance.
But she did not know, and Harry went back very unhappy, dull and
depressed, and feeling as if life were worth very little indeed to him.
Had that heavenly vision appeared, only to go out again, to vanish for
ever, from the eyes which could never forget the one glimpse they had
had of her? Harry had never known what it was to be troubled with
extravagant hopes or apprehensions before.