MISS FINLAYSON'S UNCLE, THE CANON
'It's all very well to tell you to do things for other people; but when
nobody wants anything done, how are you going to carry it out?' demanded
Charlotte Bigley of a circle of attentive listeners.
It was plain-work evening, some five weeks or so before the end of
the term; and fifty-five busy little people, on one side of the curtain,
sewed laboriously at fifty-five flannel garments, while thirty-two others,
in the seniors' room, were cutting out fresh ones and struggling with
what Miss Smythe called the 'fixing.' Usually, plain-work evening was
the dullest out of the seven, for conversation did not flourish under
the depressing dominion of flannel, and Miss Smythe, the needlework
mistress who came from the town twice a week to teach them, had never
managed to interest her pupils either in herself or in what they were
doing. But to-night there was something to discuss that thrilled every
one of the workers on both sides of the curtain, and the effect on
the flannel garments of this unusual enthusiasm even awoke a faint
wonderment in the mind of Miss Smythe. She did not know, never having
tried to win the confidence of the children, that the cause of the
emotion that was pulsing from end to end of the two playrooms was the
temporary residence, under the honoured roof of Wootton Beeches, of Miss
Finlayson's uncle, the Canon.
The Canon had always been an object of interest, theoretically, to the
girls at Wootton Beeches. They did not know much about him, except that
he lived in some cathedral town in the North of England, and came South
about once a year and spent part of his holiday at Wootton Beeches;
and they were familiar with his portrait, which always stood on the
writing-table in his niece's study. That was all they could have told
anybody; but the very lack of facts only added to the magic of his name,
and as none of them happened to be in touch with a bishop, or even
with a dean, Miss Finlayson's uncle the Canon continued to impress
them from a distance with his importance. Hitherto, his visit had always
happened to fall in the holidays; but, this time, he had unaccountably
appeared in the middle of the term, and the excitement of his actual
presence among them had given them enough news to put in their letters
home for quite two weeks. The day before, he had even replaced the curate
in the little chapel, and had not only read prayers but had delivered
an address on unselfishness as well; and it was this address that had
provided the whole school, on plain-work evening, with a burning topic of
conversation.
The problem that had just been put into words by Charlotte Bigley was one
that had exercised the ingenuity of everybody since yesterday morning.
To do good works was the present ardent desire of all their hearts; but
where were the good works to be found?
'I suppose there's always something to be done for somebody, only we've
got to discover what it is,' said Mary Wells, after profound reflection.
'He did say life was full of little things that were waiting to be done,
but it's so easy to talk like that,' complained Jean Murray. 'Why didn't
he say _what_ things?'
'Well, you see, we've got to discover what they are,' persisted Mary. When
she did manage to produce an idea, she was always very slow to part with
it.
'You said that before,' retorted Jean, impolitely; 'and it doesn't help
anybody at all. You can't go round _asking_ people, can you? They'd call
you a nuisance.'
Barbara sighed, and laid down the blackened piece of flannel she had been
toiling at since the beginning of term. Between the address of the Canon
and the shapelessness of her flannel petticoat, life was very difficult to
understand just then.
'Besides,' she chimed in, when Jean finished speaking, 'if everybody is
doing something for everybody else, there's nobody left to do anything
for!'
'Finny always says we are to do things for ourselves as much as we can,
and that the way to help other people most is to see that they don't
have to bother about _us_. That's not a bit the same thing as going round
and finding out what people want done for them,' continued Charlotte,
eloquently.
'They can't both be right,' declared Angela, shrilly. 'If the Canon says
one thing and Finny says another, what are we to believe, and what is the
truth of it all, I should like to know? The _truth_--that's what _I_ want!'
'Yes, you do,' remarked Babs, beginning to chuckle. 'You want it awfully
badly, most of the time.'
'You mind your own business, Barbara Berkeley, and I'll mind mine,'
advised Angela, threateningly.
'But that's just what we haven't got to do,' retorted Babs, with another
laugh. 'I've got to forget my own business and look after somebody else's,
and so have you. The Canon said so.'
'The Canon never said anybody was to have enough cheek for two people,
anyhow,' returned Angela, rather feebly. She generally ended in coming off
the worse in a battle of words with Barbara. On this occasion, however,
she had the junior playroom with her.
'You shouldn't joke about serious things, Barbara Berkeley,' said Mary
Wells, disapprovingly.
'Barbara Berkeley thinks she can laugh at everything!' cried Angela, with
renewed courage.
Miss Smythe came up at the same moment and put the crowning touch on
Barbara's discomfiture by examining the luckless flannel petticoat and
disclosing the fact that she had sewed it up all the way round.
'How do you expect a child is going to get into that?' asked the
needlework mistress, holding up the misshapen garment to the derision of
the whole room.
Barbara accepted the criticism and the laughter with equal unconcern.
She had never supposed that any child was going to get into a petticoat
that only existed for her express torture and the witticisms of Miss
Smythe. It had been unpicked so often that it would scarcely hold the
large, uneven stitches she repeatedly put into it; and she took up the
scissors and began to undo it all over again as a necessary part of the
evening's proceedings. Hardly, however, had she snipped at the first
piece of cotton, than she was assailed on both sides by eager helpers,
thirsting for the painful pleasures of self-sacrifice.
'Let me do it for you, Babe!' exclaimed Angela, quite forgetting their
recent dispute on the very subject of the virtue she now was so anxious
to exploit.
'No, let me,' begged Mary Wells on the other side.
Barbara looked from one to the other doubtfully. The Canon had said
nothing about complications of this kind. Then Mary took the decision
and the flannel petticoat simultaneously out of her hands.
'Do, there's a dear,' she said coaxingly. 'Think how I helped you with
your German the day before yesterday.'
'It's a shame,' vowed Angela Wilkins, retiring sulkily. 'I did ask first!'
'Never mind,' said Babs, soothingly; 'I'm sure to do it again before long;
I always do.'
Angela, however, found a more abiding consolation in Barbara's temporary
idleness.
'You're not doing anything for anybody, that's certain!' she threw back
at her jeeringly. 'Why, you're the only idle person in the room! Call that
being unselfish, indeed!'
Barbara hastened to clear herself of the reproach by picking up Mary
Wells's neatly made and spotless piece of white flannel. She was not
sure what it was meant for, as it was not sewed together anywhere;
and she had never been shown how to do the elaborate scallops that
ornamented the edge of it. But a trifle like want of skill made very
little difference to a seeker after self-sacrifice; and Babs recklessly
plunged her needle into the beginning of the next scallop, and entangled
the silk hopelessly. A cry from Mary Wells disturbed her well-meant
efforts. The Canon, thought Mary, might say what he liked about people
doing things for others, but was it quite fair when they did them all
wrong?
'It's for my sister's baby,' she lamented, seizing her handiwork from the
zealous Barbara; 'and if I don't finish it soon, the baby will be too big
for head-flannels at all.'
'But--I wanted to do something for you,' protested Babs, in a disappointed
tone.
'You've stickied the needle, and left a great black finger-mark on it,'
wailed Mary Wells, making fresh discoveries, as she went on, of what Babs
_had_ done for her.
Miss Smythe came up to know what the fuss was about; and she promptly
added her word to the condemnation of Barbara Berkeley.
'What do you mean by touching anybody else's work, you naughty little
girl?' she said sharply. 'You are more trouble than anybody else in the
school, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.'
Barbara did not look at all ashamed of herself. She never did when people
were cross with her. Mary Wells had the grace to come to her assistance.
'Please, Miss Smythe,' she said, swallowing her mortification at the
ravages in the head-flannel, 'it was my fault as well. I took Barbara's
work, to begin with.'
The needlework mistress stared from one to the other. 'What's come over
the children?' she exclaimed. 'Why are you interfering with each other's
work like this?'
Barbara assumed an exaggerated expression of meekness. 'Please, it was
because we were both trying to sacrifice ourselves,' she announced.
It certainly sounded a ridiculous reason when it was put that way, but
it completed the perplexity of Miss Smythe, and that was something.
'It seems to me,' she said severely, 'that you are strangely forgetting
yourself, Barbara Berkeley. Commence what I gave you to do at once, and
stand up until I tell you to sit down again.'
'Why, the Canon _said_ we were to forget ourselves,' began Babs,
mischievously; and there is no doubt that a further penalty would have
been added to her punishment had not Jean Murray made a sudden diversion
by dropping her thimble. In spite of the want of success that had attended
Barbara's attempt at good works, the influence of the Canon was still
very strong among the occupants of the junior playroom; and five girls
hastily flung aside their work, and bumped their heads together on the
floor in their hurry to restore Jean her property. Jean took it with the
grudging manner of one who would like to have been in the fortunate
position of conferring rather than of accepting a service; and Miss
Smythe in despair condemned five more culprits to a standing position.
As luck would have it, the Canon expressed a wish that evening to see what
the young people were doing with themselves; and it happened that Miss
Finlayson brought him through the curtain into the junior playroom just
after the six ringleaders had been ordered to stand up.
'Very nice, very charming, to be sure!' murmured the old gentleman,
whose benevolent face had gone a long way in carrying his address home to
the hearts of his hearers. 'Such a beautiful and womanly sight, too! I
suppose you are all working for the poor, eh, my dears? Very excellent
indeed, I'm sure!'
His niece was busy talking with Miss Smythe, and did not correct his
mistake; and the children were too shy to do more than look at one another
and giggle faintly. The Canon went on, and bent over Mary Wells, who
appealed to him at once by the serious expression of her face and her
diligent application to the head-flannel.
'And for whom are you working so industriously, may I ask?' he inquired
benignly.
'It's for my sister--I mean the baby,' stammered Mary, much flustered at
being thus singled out. The Canon felt a little perplexed, not having
supposed Mary Wells or her sister to belong to what he largely called
'the poor'; and he passed on hurriedly to where the six culprits stood
first on one leg and then on the other, trying to stitch at their work
with wavering and unsteadied fingers.
[Illustration: 'Dear me!' he said, slightly taken aback.]
'Dear me!' he said, slightly taken aback. 'Is it--is it quite usual--I
mean, do you find it _convenient_ to perform your--your embroidery in that
exceedingly arduous position?'
The six girls edged up to one another; and more giggles, very nervous
ones this time, greeted the Canon's remark. He put on his eye-glasses,
and began slowly to grasp the meaning of their uncomfortable position.
'Ah!' he said, with a knowing smile. 'So you have done something you
shouldn't, eh, my dears? Shocking, shocking! Let us see what the cause
of offence is, and perhaps we can get the punishment mitigated for you.
How would that be, eh?'
He turned to look for Miss Smythe, and the six put their heads together
for a hasty, whispered consultation.
'Let's tell him it's through his sermon,' urged Barbara, all agog with
mischief. 'It would be such fun!'
'Certainly not!' decided Angela, solemnly. 'He must never know. Didn't he
say it was splendid to suffer for righteousness's sake, and isn't this
_real_ righteousness?'
She carried the remaining four with her; and by the time Finny and Miss
Smythe joined the Canon in front of them, five out of the six faces glowed
with the fervour of martyrdom. The sixth was glowing too, but hardly
from such a lofty motive.
'Well,' said Miss Finlayson, gently, 'and what is the reason of this?'
Miss Smythe coughed and hesitated. She did not understand her pupils in
the least, but she had a certain feeling of loyalty towards them, and she
did not want to get them into trouble. Added to this, she really did not
know the reason of it.
'They--they were a little tiresome, and I made them stand up,' she
explained hurriedly. 'No doubt--only high spirits, and--and so on.
I--I could not quite grasp what had been upsetting them this evening,
and I always find standing up is--is an excellent remedy for--for high
spirits, in short.'
It was the opinion of the junior playroom afterwards that 'Smithy' had got
out of it very well; and she went up in its estimation henceforth. But
her explanation failed to satisfy Miss Finlayson. There was something
about the virtuousness on the offenders' faces that struck her as
being overdone; and she turned to the one at the end of the row, whose
countenance was a study in suppressed emotions, and tried to get at the
truth of the matter.
'What was it, Barbara?' she asked in that tone of hers that would make
any girl tell her anything. Not that Barbara, on this occasion, needed
forcing.
'It was because of the sermon yesterday,' she said, bubbling over
with enjoyment of the situation. 'And we were all trying to sacrifice
ourselves, and it was so difficult, because nobody wanted anything
done; and then Mary Wells sacrificed herself for me, so I tried to do
the same for her, and I only spoiled the baby's head-flannel, and made
Smithy--I mean Miss Smythe--wild. That was why I stood up. The other five
stood up because they all tried to sacrifice themselves for Jean's
thimble; and Miss Smythe hadn't heard the sermon, you see, and she only
thought they were being naughty, so----'
'That will do,' said Miss Finlayson, and she turned her back hurriedly
on the row of martyrs. The needlework mistress was almost in tears at what
she considered a wilfully frivolous manner of referring to a sermon by a
real canon. But the Canon just passed his hand across his mouth, and then
gave up the attempt to look shocked.
'You are very good little girls to listen so attentively to people's
sermons,' he said, smiling openly. 'And I think, if anybody ought to
stand up, it should be by rights a certain old gentleman who preaches
them. What do you say, Miss Smythe? If I promise to stand up for the
rest of the evening, will you let these six young ladies sit down?'