THE LADY PRINCIPAL.
The Principal of the Female College of Montpelier sat in her
room--office, call it, or study--her seat of authority, absorbed in
business. Her table was littered with papers; the waste-paper basket
overflowed with them. There was ink before her, a pen in her hand. Her
cap sat crooked on her head; her whitened hair was rumpled. The too
active cerebration within had no doubt disturbed the external trimness
of her dome of thought, as phrenologists used to tell us that it
worked ridges and hollows in the bones of the skull. She was deep in
thought. Her grey, intellectual features were tightened in the effort,
and her eye roved vacantly in space in search of those choice forms
which had long made her style the model of literary expression in
Montpelier.
She had spent the morning in compounding a syllabus, or a
compendium--matters in the manufacture of which she was unrivalled.
Now she was considering her address on female self-culture, shortly to
be delivered before the Institute of Emancipated Woman, with a list of
the hundred books which should form the inseparable companions of
every female aspirant to Breadth of View. Her eye wandered to the
terrestrial globe at her elbow--a symbol of her learned office, handed
down from her predecessors in more simple-minded times; and she
reviewed the distinguished literary reputations in remote places and
times--the less vulgarly popular or comprehensible, the better for her
purpose.
Ha! there was the Nile--Egypt--Manetho! A most respectable name
Manetho, and not too much said about him. The only difficulty was,
were his works extant? She was not sure, and her encyclopædia was too
old an edition to make it worth while looking up. Her eye moved
eastward: India? _eureka!_ The Rig Veda,--Max Müller and the 'Asiatic
Review'! She had read all about it in Littel's 'Living Age,' the
pirate's treasure-house.
The Rig Veda should head her list. She had not read it, to be sure;
but neither had those whom she addressed, and they would not be able
to read it, if they were to try--in the original, at least, and she
intended to pour scorn upon the use of translations; but it looked
well at the head of a list, showed comprehensiveness in the lecturer,
and ensured respect from the omniscient critic of the 'Montpelier
Review.'
The 'Zend-Avesta' made a handsome second; but as she did not desire to
smother her audience under the load of erudition, she considerately
offered it as an alternative to the Rig Veda. "A Saga" came next--she
did not specify which. Her familiarity with Scandinavian literature
was not intimate enough to particularise; but as not one of her
audience would know anything about it, that made little difference.
Being minded that nothing she said should savour of the too familiar,
she gave Klopstock the first place in her German list rather than
Goethe; and for the same reason Marlowe led off her English
dramatists, with Shakespeare far down among the ruck. Then there were
Hegel and Haekel, with permission to add the 'Critique of Pure Reason'
for those who relished intellectual nut-cracking. There was to have
been a name or two from every tribe and tongue in Europe; but in her
ignorance she could think of no Russian but Turguenief; and when she
came to the Lapps, Finns, Liths, and Basques, they had no literary
representative whom she had ever heard of. After that she took up a
publisher's list and filled up the remaining sixty places at random.
What did it matter? People would read what they liked or understood.
If they did not understand, it could not influence them one way or
other. She knew as well as you or I do, reader, that wheat is not
grown on pure sand; that loams, clays, moulds, each produce a
vegetation limited by their capacity; that everything will not grow
everywhere, and that, if it could, it would not be worth much. But
while the public laboured under the fad of comprehensiveness, she
recognised that she, its servant, must be comprehensive too, or her
employer would pay her off and get some one else who was up to its
standard. No one person could read, or, if they could, would care to
read, a tenth part of the literature upon her list; but that she
considered the one useful element in what she was about. It introduced
a moral influence. It would keep her audience humble--an end not
always easy to achieve where that audience is feminine, and more
richly endowed with aspiration than with solid learning--and show them
how much there still was which they did not know, notwithstanding
their acquirements.
There came a timid knock at the door, and a second, which the
Principal heard; and laying down her pen she sat bolt-upright and
said, "Come in."
It was Maida Springer who entered.
At the sight of her subordinate looking crushed and wan, the
Principal's aspect softened. Her impatience of interruption gave place
to those motherly instincts which nestled sweet and fresh about her
heart, though usually sheltered and concealed from an uncongenial
world under the dry husk of her superior-woman-hood.
"You--Maida?... I had almost given up hope of seeing you again. But
have you been sick? You do not look much benefited by your stay at the
shore--rather the other way."
Maida looked down. "I am well, Miss Rolph. I arrived by the
night-train. I suppose that accounts for my--for my want of looks,"
and she sighed; but more for the want of looks, than for herself.
"Did my letter miscarry? It is nearly a fortnight since I wrote."
Maida coloured. "I got it, Miss Rolph, and I am come to thank you. I
know I should have written at once; but--I meant to come instead.
Indeed I started, but--when----" Her voice died away. She looked down
more than she had done before, and her colour deepened.
"What was it, my dear? What prevented your coming?"
Maida lifted her head, drew a long breath, and raised her eyes to Miss
Rolph's face. Then the impossibility of uttering what there was to
tell arose before her. She bowed her head till the hat-brim and the
wisp of blue veil came down between her eyes and those of the
Principal. She strained down her arms before her, locked the fingers
of both hands together, and was speechless.
Miss Rolph was scarcely pleased that her kindly meant interest should
be put aside; but she was not the woman to obtrude unwelcome sympathy.
She stiffened back to business, and observed with manifest coldness of
voice--
"Your neglect may prove prejudicial to your interests, I fear; though
perhaps not. It would have been great advancement for you, and quite a
distinguished position, if you had been able to give the course on
political economy and sociology. You would have been the first woman
in this State to enter that important field. You would have made a
name, and become a leader in our sex's emancipation. On the other
hand, I admit that I felt a misgiving as to whether your character was
yet sufficiently formed for the post. The long ages of woman's
subordination have communicated a weakness of moral fibre to the
individual of today, which it requires maturity of years, experience,
and study, to overcome. I have feared at times that I detected some
remains of the old-fashioned missishness in your character, not yet
subdued. A year or two longer in your present duties may be
advantageous. I have arranged with Dr Langenwoert from Boston to
lecture three times a-week next term. After that--who knows?--but it
depends on yourself. The Committee believes, as you are aware, that
female education should be confided to women alone. You have been
appointed a professorial assistant _pro tem_. to Dr Langenwoert. Avail
yourself of your opportunities. Study his methods; and who knows but
you may succeed him?"
"Oh, Miss Rolph, how good you are! Forgive my seeming
thanklessness,--but, indeed--oh, Miss Rolph!"
Maida came forward and took the Principal's hand. Her voice was too
tremulous to be trusted; her eyes were brimming full. She had entered
that room feeling so lonely, desolate, and without a friend; and here,
in her professional chief, with whom her intercourse had been limited
to what related to her duties, was a woman who cared for her, bestowed
consideration, and was kind. She could have kissed the hand--she would
fain have kissed the lips which had spoken to her kindly; but Miss
Rolph was so very superior a woman, so above and beyond female
weakness!--and what was that which she had said just now about
_missish?_
Miss Rolph wheeled round on her pivoted chair, and looked with her
clear, cool eyes in the other's face.
"Maida Springer, you are in trouble! Tell me what it is. Am not I a
woman? Confide in me. I know you have no mother. I would try to advise
you as she might have done, though perhaps I am not quite old enough
for that."
She might have spared the last observation, being fifty-five, while
Maida was but thirty; but, good lady, though undeniably superior, she
was still a woman.
Maida's eyes overflowed. This was kindness unexpected.
"Take a chair, my dear. Draw up close to me, and tell me all." And
when Maida drew close, she laid a hand upon her shoulder, and one
soothingly upon the fingers wringing themselves into knots in
perturbed irresolution.
"I would--I would! But how? I cannot speak of it!"
"When people have done no wrong, there is nothing they need fear to
tell--to a friend. Injuries and mistakes often seem lessened when we
can bring ourselves to speak about them. A burden shared presses with
but half the weight it did before. Confide in me, Maida, Unburden your
trouble."
Maida's tears flowed freely. She made no effort to restrain them. They
softened the dry crust of misery which encased her spirit. Her head
inclined to her consoler. So did her heart in tender gratitude. She
caressed the soothing hand, but still the pent-up words refused to
come. Miss Rolph waited in silence, but found at length that she must
assist if the explanation was to be made.
"You said, Maida, that you intended to come instead of answering my
letter--that you started?"
"I did. I was at Narwhal Junction waiting for the train, when I met a
very old friend on the platform--going to Clam Beach, just as I was
coming away. I could not resist going back with my old friend, it was
so long since we had met. And after that, the matter of the sociology
class escaped my memory."
"Very strange. Is Clam Beach a scene of such rackety dissipation that
people forget their private affairs? I had inferred from your
descriptions that it was quite retired--a place to rest in."
"My friend and I had not met for years. The meeting engrossed me."
Miss Rolph glanced in Maida's face, one sharp short glance, like an
inquisitive bird, and with the flicker of a smile which did not spread
beyond the corner of her mouth, inquired--
"And did--she?--your friend, take as engrossing an interest in you, my
dear? Such friendships are rare, as well as precious."
"I did not say 'she,' Miss Rolph. It was a gentleman."
"I imagined as much, my dear; but you were so hampered by your noun of
epicene gender, that I thought it best to be rid of it."
Maida blushed. "Oh, Miss Rolph! What will you think of me?--of my
fitness as a pioneer in Woman's cause?"
"Think, my dear? That you are a woman like the rest of us. This was a
feature in your nature that seemed missing. The absence of a universal
weakness does not necessarily argue strength. It may arise from
insensibility, and merely show an incomplete nature. I think better of
you, perhaps. Go on."
"I had known him long ago. My first situation, when I began to teach,
was in his uncle's house. He was a student at Harvard, but spent his
vacations at home with us. His cousins were mere children; his uncle
and aunt had their own affairs; I was his sole companion. He taught
me much. It was a happy time. We were both young, fresh and hopeful,
and--well---- He is the only young man I ever saw much of. He expected
to make his fortune right away, and we---- But I cannot speak of
it....
"That was ten years ago. We corresponded--for the first year or so.
After that we lost sight of one another. I came to Montpelier; he--was
making his fortune. He recognised me on the platform at Narwhal
Junction. I was so pleased to find that he remembered me. He asked if
I was married, and he told me that he was not. He went back with me to
Clam Beach--or so I thought. Perhaps I ought to put it the other way,
and say that it was I who went with him; but at any rate we went
together, and we were together there all the time. He knew nobody but
myself, and he did not care to make acquaintances, it seemed; and he
stayed on, though at first he had spoken of leaving in two days.
And so it appeared to me--is there not some excuse for me, Miss
Rolph?--that we were taking up our intimacy just where we had laid it
down before."
"Ah!" said Miss Rolph. The bird-like look of the philosophic
investigator had left her features now, and she was listening with
genuine interest. She had still a heart, away down deep below her
theories and professional fads, and there was perennial interest for
her in a kindness between man and woman; which may have been unworthy
of her position, but was as salt to preserve her nature sound and
wholesome.
"What is his name, my dear? One follows a story so much better for
knowing the names."
"Roe--Gilbert Roe. Has it not a pleasant sound?"
Miss Rolph's eyelids quivered in a momentary start. Then she looked
down into her lap, compressing her lips, and making as if she would
show no sign till all was told.
"He stayed on more than a week. He is there now, I daresay. He was
with me constantly--sat beside me at table. People said it was a sure
case, and congratulated me; and I--well--what else could I think? I
believed them. Looking back now, with my insight cleared by what came
after, I am bound to own that he said nothing in all that time. When I
tried to hark back to the community of feeling that had subsisted
between us long ago, he disregarded and passed it by. I am not
accusing him of behaving badly, remember. It is my own foolish
credulity alone which I have to blame; and oh, Miss Rolph, what
humiliation it has brought on me! It hunted me away home here. I dared
not, for shame, go back to Clam Beach, even to bring away my things."
"I do not follow."
"We went one day--it was yesterday, but it seems like years since, for
the gulf of misery I have waded across since then. There was a
clam-bake at Blue Fish Creek, and we were there. Everybody was there.
We were sitting apart in a shady place, waiting till the heat would
temper down. He was smoking or reading the paper, I forget which. All
of a sudden he jumped up and left me. I looked round. He was
addressing a lady who seemed unwilling to hear him. She tried to pass
on without noticing him. She had taken no notice of him at the Beach,
though they had been living under the same roof for a week. He
persisted in accosting her, and angry words passed between them. She
said she was free of him. He would not admit it."
"Who was the lady?"
"A Miss Hillyard of Chicago or somewhere. I am not acquainted with
her."
"That is my niece! The Gilbert Roe you speak of must be her husband."
"Husband? Ah! that may explain the cruelty of what he did next. And it
was cruel and humiliating to me! And there need have been no occasion
for it, if he had told me at the first that he was married. She
taunted him with my friendship. I heard her. And he--was it manly of
him?--he actually proposed to bring her to me, to ask if there was
anything between us more than old acquaintanceship!" Maida's voice
rose into a cry as she said it. She clenched her hands; and cheeks,
brow, neck, grew scarlet, and then she buried her face in her
handkerchief and sobbed.
"It must be Rose, my niece, and her husband. I would believe anything
that could be told me of them. There never were two such ill-regulated
young things brought together, I do believe--so fond, so foolish, so
obstinate and wayward. There never was such a fiasco as their married
life has proved. Both handsome, both clever, both well off, and each,
I believe, most truly attached to the other; yet neither would forbear
to gratify a whim, neither would submit to be crossed in the smallest
trifle by the other. They squabbled away for not much over a year, and
then the Divorce Court came in and parted them. A pair of unruly
children! It was whipped they should have been, and made promise to
kiss and be friends. Instead of that, they are divorced and
discredited for life, and nothing good need be expected ever to happen
to either of them any more. These ill-considered changes in our
customs are deplorable. It is good to rescue the downtrodden from
oppression, but only evil can come of confounding liberty with
licence."
"Perhaps you may be mistaken," Maida answered, looking up and drying
her eyes. It consoled her to hear her affronters soundly scolded, even
in their absence. "Hillyard is no such uncommon name. This lady passed
for unmarried at the hotel, and they say she is engaged to be married
to a gentleman from Canada. Yes, by the by, it was to remonstrate
about that, that Mr Roe spoke to her."
"So the Divorce Court, even, does not end their squabbles! Whom was
she said to be engaged to?"
"A Mr Naylor--a real nice gentleman, and devoted to her. Every one was
talking about the beautiful presents of jewellery he had ordered her
from New York."
"Naylor? What is he like?"
"He is real nice, I should say, by his looks, and very rich. He has
some nieces with him, well dressed and real aristocratic. Belong to
the first families, I guess, and quite thick with all the first people
at the Beach. No culture to speak of, but high-strung--very!"
"How old is this Mr Naylor, should you suppose? and what is he like?
Is he a tall man, now, for instance?"
"He is not tall--no. Thick-set, almost stout; a heap shorter than
Gil----Mr Roe. Middle-aged. His hair is beginning to turn. Not old,
though certainly not young, but with a nice kindly face, and real
cheerful. I hope she will stick to him. It would be real distressing
if she were to jilt him, and I don't see what call a divorced husband
can have to interfere. What were divorces made for, if not to keep bad
husbands from bothering?"
Miss Rolph had been moving uneasily in her chair. She stood up now,
looking agitated but very firm.
"I believe I know this Mr Naylor. The engagement must be broken off
without an hour's delay. The idea is horrible!... I thought I had done
with this awful girl. When she left her husband, and refused to listen
to right principle and common decency, I washed my hands of her. But
this---- It is an unimaginable horror! When does the next train leave
for Clam Beach, I wonder? How do you go?"
"You cannot go to-night You will not be able to connect," Maida
answered in some disgust. The idea of Naylor's coming in and securing
the lady, and leaving Roe forlorn, which she had begun to conjure up,
was distinctly consoling. She did not like to think of the energetic
Miss Rolph intervening to upset the pleasing possibility.
Miss Rolph spread out a map. "There is Lippenstock, a station where
all trains stop, close by. I can book for there, and drive over in the
evening."
Maida sighed. "If you go, Miss Rolph, would you kindly mention to Mrs
Denwiddie that I am here? You know her, I daresay; you seem to know
every one at the Beach. Say I got a telegram--say anything. She is
sure to be thinking something dreadful about my going away so
sudden-like--without a word, or taking away my things."
Miss Rolph, in her agitation, looked round on Maida. She could not
help smiling, notwithstanding her anxiety. The world is filled with
such a tangle of conflicting interests, and each of us has room in his
little brain only for the few which connect with himself.
"I do not know the lady, my dear; but I shall mention at the office
that you were suddenly called home. I will settle your bill, and bid
them pack up and forward your things."