CANDID OPINIONS
We train up our children, kindly or harshly, according to our
temperaments, that they may walk along a certain road. The
road is usually one of several, and it is an almost invariable
chance that our children will take one contrary to that of our
choice.
Let there be no mistake about the Whittaker girls. They were not in any
way deceived or blinded by their mother's partiality for them.
"There is one thing you and I have got to make up our minds to, Maudie,"
said Julia, the day after they had had the little serious talk with
their mother. "It's one thing to climb up a wall, it's another to topple
over on the other side. If we don't look out what we are doing, _we_
shall topple over the other side of our wall."
"I don't understand you," said Maudie; "at least not quite."
"Well, it's like this," remarked Julia. "We have got to take everything
that mother says as partly being mother's way. I don't know whether you
have ever noticed it, Maudie, but mother never half does things. That's
why she's such a splendid worker on all these committees she goes in
for. Mother calls us beauties; she says you are purely Greek in type,
and that I am a cross between the French and Irish styles of beauty.
Well, that's as may be. We can't go against mother; it would be
rude--besides, it wouldn't be any good--but you and I needn't stuff each
other up--or even ourselves for that matter with the idea that we are
going to set the world on fire with our faces. We sha'n't," she ended
conclusively.
"I think you are rather nice-looking, Ju," said Maudie.
"Do you? I don't agree with you. But that's neither here nor there. As
to your being purely Greek--well, don't understand that either. I never
saw a Greek that was the least little bit like you. You remember those
girls at Madame's? Why, they had a touch of the East about them; they
were next door to natives. I used to talk to them about it. I told them
that I never knew Greeks were so dark--I always had an idea Greeks were
fair people--but Zoe declared they were the common or garden pattern,
and that a fair Greek was a thing almost unheard of."
"That's all rubbish and nonsense!" said Maudie in a more dominant tone
than was her wont. "Do you remember Maurice Dolmanides?"
"The man who was at the boarding-house in Paris? Of course I do."
"Well, he was ginger."
"So he was--yes. And he was a Greek, wasn't he? All the same, Maudie, he
had a Scotch mother, you know."
"Ah, I see. Yes, that does make a difference."
"I assure you," Julia went on, "that I talked it over with Zoe and
Olga, and they both declared that they were the ordinary Greek
type--round features, round black eyes, masses of coal-black hair,
palest of olive skins. There's a touch of the Orient about it. But you,
you are blonde; your nose has got a bump in the middle of it, your mouth
is far from Greek--"
"Oh, my mouth," cried Maudie, with a look at herself in the glass, "my
mouth is a regular shark's mouth!"
At this the two girls fell to laughing as heartily as if they were
discussing the merits of some animal rather than one of themselves.
"In short," Julia went on, when they had somewhat recovered themselves,
"in short, you and I have got to consider, first and foremost, what we
can do to be original. We are not beauties, although mother, poor dear
lady, persists that we have inherited an amount of beauty which is
absolutely fatal. Dress us in an ordinary manner and we should look
horrid. If we want to be any good in the world at all, we must do
something a bit out of the common."
"Follow in our mother's footsteps?" said Maudie.
"Not a bit of it. What good does mother do by all her strenuous efforts
to improve the condition of women? Is mother's condition one that
requires improvement? Not a bit of it. Is our condition one that
requires improvement? Not a bit of it."
"We don't know yet," said Maudie in a quiet, sensible tone.
"No, we don't. And until we get married and see how we get on with our
respective husbands, we shall have to remain in our ignorance. One thing
is very certain, Maudie, that neither you nor I are girls that can go
in leading-strings. We have been made original and unconventional and
independent; in fact, originality and unconventionalism and independence
have been rammed down our throats from the time we could remember
anything. It has been the key-note of mother's life. But we have, before
we can do anything in our own set, to see to our room and arrange all
our things. Now that old playroom is just as we left it. It's an awfully
jolly room, capable of great things in the way of adornment. We must get
daddy to have it done up for us, and to give us a certain amount for
furnishing it. And we must have a piano."
"A piano?" said Maudie. "I don't think a piano is at all a necessary
article. Clean paper and paint, a decent something to walk on--yes, that
we can fairly ask father to give us, and I'm sure he won't grudge it;
but seeing that neither you, nor I, nor mother knows one tune from
another, and that there is a piano that cost a hundred and twenty
guineas in the drawing-room, I don't think it would be fair to ask
father to spend even half that sum in such an instrument for our
exclusive use."
"Perhaps you are right," said Julia. "I must think that over. But a
piano we _must_ have. If we are going to have an At Home day we must be
able to have music, even though we can't make it ourselves."
"But why not have our At Home day in mother's drawing-room?"
"Because that would very quickly degenerate into mother's At Home day,
and you know what mother's At Home day means--seven women, two girls,
and half a man. No, if we have an At Home day of our own, it must be in
our own room. I'll tell you what we'll do, Maudie, we'll go up to town
and choose a little piano somewhere, the kind of piano that you see in
the Army and Navy Stores' list as suitable for yachts, and we'll pay for
it out of our allowance."
"But we can't."
"Yes, we can. We can take three years to pay for it. If we spend thirty
pounds on a piano, that's quite enough. People can't walk into your room
and ask you whether your piano cost thirty pounds or ninety pounds. It
wouldn't be very much out of our allowance for each of us to pay fifteen
pounds in three years--only five pounds a year--then the piano will be
ours."
"And suppose one of us gets married?" asked Maudie.
"Well, if one of us gets married, she must leave it for the other one."
"And the other one?"
"Well, if the other one gets married, she must leave it for the use of
the home."
"Oh, I see."
"Well," said Julia, briskly, putting down the book that she held in her
hand, "let us go into the playroom and just cast our eyes over its
capabilities."
So the two girls went off to their old playroom, which was just as they
had left it when they had departed for their school in Paris two years
before.
"It's a good shape," said Julia. "That bow window and those two little
windows on that side give it great possibilities. We ought to have a
cosy corner there."
"That will cost five-and-twenty guineas," said Maudie.
"Oh no; I mean a rigged-up cosy corner. We'll take in _Home Blither_ for
a few weeks. We are sure to get an idea out of that."
"I've never," remarked Maudie, "seen anything about a cosy corner in
_Home Blither_ that did not combine a washstand with it. We don't want a
washstand, Julia."
"No, not in this room--certainly not. I propose that we have a delicate
French paper with bouquets of roses--perhaps a white satin stripe with
bouquets of roses tied up with delicate blue or mauve ribbons. That will
give us an interesting background to work upon."
"Then for the curtains?" said Maudie.
"Well, for the curtains I should have--well, now, what should I have?
Well, I'll tell you. I should have chintz."
"I shouldn't; I should have cretonne. It will look warmer."
"We don't want to look warm; we want to look dainty. Or we might have
lace curtains."
"Yes, we might. And we might have those lovely dewdrops to hang in front
of the window, but of course it looks into the garden, and it would be
rather a pity to shut the garden out in any way."
"Yes," said Julia. "A little desk there," she went on; "white wood, you
know, the kind of thing that you get in the High Street all ready for
painting, or poker work. We might sketch all over it, or get our friends
to autograph it."
"Autograph it?"
"Yes. And then varnish it over with a very clear, colorless varnish. It
would look very beautiful, and it would be original too."
"Yes, it would be original. Supposing we have all the furniture like
that?"
"No, no, not all the furniture--only the writing-table. There's
something appropriate about autographs on a writing-table," Julia
declared.
Eventually Mr. Whittaker agreed to have the room done up according to
the girls' ideas, and to give them a certain sum for furnishing it
according to their own taste.
"Now I do beg, dear Alfie," said Mrs. Whittaker, who, in spite of her
desire that her girls should be original, was a person who loved to have
a finger in every pie, "now I do beg, Alfie, that you will not be too
lavish. Have the room thoroughly done up according to their ideas; that
is only right. I like the notion of delicate bouquets of roses, tied
together with a sky-blue ribbon, on a white satin stripe. It is elegant,
refined, and capable of great things in the general effect. I would have
a suitable ceiling paper to match, and you must give them a pretty
electric light arrangement in place of this simple one. After that,
leave everything to the girls. Yes, dears, the paint will have to be
touched up. It won't require newly painting, because, you see, it has
been white, and it is not in very bad condition. So have it entirely
done, Alfie--ceiling, walls, paint--then give them a sum of money, just
enough for them to exercise their ingenuity in making it go the very
furthest."
"I'll give you thirty pounds," said Alfred Whittaker, slapping his
pocket and thrusting his hand into it with an air of firm determination.
"Thirty pounds after I have done the decoration, and no more. If you
can't make a room look smart with thirty pounds, you don't deserve to
have a room of your own."
"All right, daddy. Thank you very much," said Julia.
"Yes, daddy dear, we'll make it do very nicely," said Maudie.
And then they sat down to hold another council of war.
"Maudie," said Julia, "thirty pounds won't go very far."
"No," replied Maudie. "We can't possibly buy a carpet under ten pounds
for a room of that size."
"Well, then, I'll tell you what we'll do--we'll polish the floor, and
we'll have two or three nice rugs. We shall get them for about a guinea
or thirty shillings apiece. And we must go in for bamboo."
"Oh, I hate bamboo," Maudie cried.
"We could enamel it white."
"H'm--bamboo enamelled white," said Maudie, dubiously; "it doesn't sound
particularly fascinating."
"Well, that was rather a nice stand we saw up at Derry & Tom's the other
day, wasn't it, with three sticks of bamboo arranged so as to hold a pot
in the middle? Enamelled white it would be rather fetching, particularly
if we had a nice trailing plant in it. Then we've got to get a fender;
and they've got some lovely basket chairs at Barker's, I know they have;
and I saw some tables at two-and-eleven in a shop down the High
Street--I don't know what the name is. Oh, we shall find it easy enough;
you can do a good deal at furnishing a room when you can get a table for
two-and-eleven."
"Yes, I daresay you're right. You've got a wonderful headpiece, Ju.
Then, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll get our room papered and
painted, and then we'll have the floor done up--that's all quite plain
sailing--and then we shall be better able to decide whether we'll have a
small square of carpet or two or three rugs. We needn't have very
expensive ones; it isn't as if we had got a lot of boys to come clumping
about with muddy boots, is it?"
"No, there's something in that. And I'll tell you what, Maudie--if we
have chintz for the curtains, we could have chintz covers for the big
old couch and the large armchair that we had in the room from the
beginning. One thing is very certain," Julia continued impressively,
"that we shall have to weigh every penny before we spend it."