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Transcriber’s Note
When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has
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signs=.
Some corrections have been made to the printed text. These are listed in
a second transcriber’s note at the end of the text.
A YELLOW ASTER
BY
IOTA
“And if this fought-for climax _is_ ever reached
and science, creeping along the path of experiment,
so invades the realm of Nature that a blue chrysanthemum
or A Yellow Aster can be produced at
will, the question still remains, has Nature been
made more beautiful thereby?”
_IN THREE VOLUMES_
VOL I
London 1894
HUTCHINSON & CO.
34 PATERNOSTER ROW
PRINTED AT NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND)
BY H. C. A. THIEME OF NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND)
AND
TALBOT HOUSE, ARUNDEL STREET
LONDON, W.C.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I. 1
CHAPTER II. 19
CHAPTER III. 27
CHAPTER IV. 37
CHAPTER V. 44
CHAPTER VI. 59
CHAPTER VII. 65
CHAPTER VIII. 87
CHAPTER IX. 100
CHAPTER X. 109
CHAPTER XI. 130
CHAPTER XII. 151
CHAPTER XIII. 159
CHAPTER XIV. 172
CHAPTER XV. 182
CHAPTER XVI. 193
CHAPTER XVII. 203
A YELLOW ASTER.
CHAPTER I.
THE stable-yard of Waring Park seemed to be slightly off its head on a
certain fine afternoon in June. Such an afternoon as it was, so sweet
and so soft, so full of fragrant sleepy haze, that any sound louder than
the sing-song of a cricket must have distracted any ordinary
nerve-possessing mortal.
On this particular afternoon however, the sole occupants of the yard
were the stable-boys, the groom’s urchin, and the under-gardener’s lad,
and as none of these had yet reached the level of nerves, whilst the
blood of all of them throbbed with the greed for illegal sport in every
shape, their state of lazy content was in no way upset by a medley of
blood-curdling shrieks, squeals, and gobbles that issued from the
throats of a little boy and a big turkey which the boy was swinging
round and round by the tail, from the vantage ground of a large smooth
round stone, with an amount of strength that was preternatural, if one
had judged by the mere length of him and had not taken into
consideration the enormous development of the imp’s legs and arms.
The stable-boys grinned, and smoked like furnaces as the show proceeded,
and the other two cheered like Trojans, in the cruelty of the natural
boy, and it might have gone badly for the turkey, if there had not
swooped down upon him and his tormentor, just in the nick of time, a
little lean wiry woman, armed with an authority, which even the imp,
after one spasmodic struggle, saw best not to gainsay.
“Master Dacre, whatever do you do it for? Do you think the bird has no
feelings? There is no sense in such goings-on.”
“There is sense,” spluttered the boy at full speed, “I like bein’ swung
and I like swingin’ the turkey, and I’ll learn him to like it too, and
if he don’t learn that anyway he’ll learn something else, which is
life’s discerpline, which father says I’m learnin’ when you whip me. If
I want it, so does the turkey and wuss. I b’longs to higher orders nor
beasts and birds.”
Here the grins of the stable-boys broke into hoarse guffaws, and Mary’s
ire culminated in a sharp rebuke all round.
“Go to your work, you idle fellows. I told your father long ago, Jim,
what ’ud be the latter end of you. As for you, Robert, I could cry when
I think of your blessed mother!
“And what business have you in the yard,” she cried, turning on the two
younger sinners. “Be off with you this instant. ’Tis easy to see none of
the men are about. You two, Jim and Robert, you’d be surprised
yourselves if you could see what soft idiots you look with them stumps
of pipes between your jaws.
“Look, Master Dacre, look at the bird’s tail. Haven’t you any heart at
all? The creature might have been through the furze covert—”
“There’s not a feather broke,” said the boy, after a critical survey,
“not one; I believe that tail were made for swingin’ as much as my arms
was.”
For an instant words failed Mary and she employed herself hushing the
bird into his pen. When she came back, Dacre had disappeared, and the
yard seemed to be quite clear of human life, not to be traced even by
the smell of shag tobacco.
Pursuit was useless, as Mary very well knew, so she returned to her
nursery a good deal down at heart, muttering and murmuring as she went.
“Oh Lord, whatever is to be the end of it all? Learning is the ruin of
the whole place, and yet them children is as ignorant as bears,
excepting for their queer words and ways. Set them to read a Royal
Reader or to tot up a sum, bless you, they couldn’t for the life of
them. And the tempers of the two,” she went on, putting the cross
stitches on a darn, “their parents had no hand in them anyway. Where
they got ’em from the Lord only knows. Tempers, indeed! And from them
two blessed babies as bore ’em.” She lifted her head and glanced out of
the window.
“Look at ’em,” she whispered, “hand in hand up and down the drive,
talking mathymatics, I’ll be bound,” and Mary’s eyes returned to her
basket a trifle moist. She had nursed Mrs. Waring and Mrs. Waring’s
children, and she was a good soul with a deal of sentiment about her.
As it happened, Mr. and Mrs. Waring were not discussing mathematics.
They were just then deeply and solemnly exercised in their minds as to
the exact date of a skeleton recently unearthed from some red sandstone
in the neighbourhood. They had dismissed the carriage at the hall gates,
and were now hot in argument concerning the bones, each holding
diametrically opposed views on the subject, and struggling hard to prove
his or her side.
Now and again the husband’s voice rose to a pretty high pitch, and his
fine mouth was touched with a sneer, and the wife’s eyes flashed and
flamed and shot out indignant wrath. Her hat had fallen off far down the
drive, and her rings of yellow fluffy hair fell wildly over her
forehead, one small hand was clenched in eager protest, but the other
was clasped tight in her husband’s.
They always went like this, these two; they had got into the foolish way
very early in their acquaintance and had never been able to get out of
it.
Suddenly some common hypothesis struck them both at once, and Mrs.
Waring cried out with a gasp,
“If we can prove it, I am right.”
“Yes, if you can prove it, darling, that’s the point, and I hope that
you never will. Have you any idea, dear love, what the proving of this
will undo, what it must upset?”
“I think I have,” she said slowly, her blue eyes gleaming eagerly, “but
it seems to me whenever a great hubbub is made about the upsetting of
some theory, that it generally ends in being much ado about nothing, and
that the new thing that springs from the ashes of the old dead, is
infinitely more beautiful than ever its predecessor was, for it is one
step nearer the truth.”
“Dearest, we must end our talk,” groaned Mr. Waring, peering with
terrified looks through his eyeglasses. “Here is Gwen, most slightly
clad and of a bright blue tint, pursued by Mary. I fear very much that
story of Boadicea you told her has instigated her to this action. I
think, dearest, I will go to the study and work out this question of
date.”
Mr. Waring turned nervously and made a gentle effort to disengage his
hand from his wife’s, but she clutched him firmly. “Henry,” she cried,
“you would not desert me?”
“Oh, my dear,” he gasped, “what can I do? The child must be cleansed
and, I presume, punished. I can be of no use,” and he still showed signs
of flight, but the horror-stricken eyes of his wife, fixed pleadingly on
him, made him waver and wait.
By a superhuman effort Mary got up first.
“Oh, ma’am,” she shrieked in tones that went through Mrs. Waring’s head,
“Oh, ma’am, look at her! I found her with nothing on but this rag and
some leaves, painted blue, and varnished—varnished, sir, eating acorns
outside of the orchard fence. It’s common indecency, ma’am, and if it’s
to continue I can’t”—
By this time Gwen had arrived, desperately blown, but overflowing with
words; rather an advantage under the circumstances, for her parents had
not one between them.
“Mother, I were a woaded Briton and blue all over. Mag Dow did me behind
and I done the front, and it aren’t common naked if queens done it like
you said. She did, Mary, say it Thursday when she begun the history
course. Dacre was to be a woaded king too, but he were a beast and
wouldn’t do nothing but swing turkeys for discerpline.”
“Mary, I think perhaps you should give Miss Gwen a bath, and then we
will consider what further course to take.”
Mrs. Waring caught her skirts nervously and drew a step nearer to her
husband.
“A bath, ma’am! Don’t you see she’s painted and varnished, no water’ll
touch that, ma’am, turpentine it must be and cart grease, not to say
paraffin,—and, ma’am, the indecency!”
“Please, Mary,” implored the tortured woman, “oh, please take her away
and put the cart grease on—and—the other things, and we can then talk
over the rest.”
Here the light of a sudden inspiration leapt into her face, and she
turned to her husband. “Henry,” she said solemnly, “do you not think
that Gwen should go to bed? She seems to me,” she continued, taking a
critical survey of the blue-daubed figure, “she seems to me a little old
for such very peculiar adaptations of history.”
“To bed,” remarked the husband infinitely relieved. It seemed quite a
happy solution to the whole question, and must fulfil every purpose,—be
Gwen’s Nemesis, a salve to Mary’s hurt morality, and a merciful
deliverance to all others concerned. “Yes, a very sensible suggestion of
yours, dearest. I consider that it would be a most salutary measure to
send Gwen to bed.”
“Indeed, sir,” remarked Mary, without a particle of the satisfaction
that might have been expected from her, “Miss Gwen will be fit for no
other place by the time I’ve done with her, what with the paraffin and
the scrubbing and her skin that tender. Oh come, Miss, come away,” she
cried grimly, laying hold of Gwen.
“Grace, my darling,” said Mr. Waring, passing his free hand wearily over
his brow, “such scenes as these are indeed upsetting. I am quite unable
to take up the thread of our discourse.”
“I feel as you do, Henry,” said his wife sadly, “we seem to have so very
little time to ourselves.”
“Do you think, Grace, we should procure a tutor for those children? Let
me see, how old are they?”
“I have their ages down somewhere in my tablets,” said Mrs. Waring
rummaging in her pocket, and producing a little book of ivory tablets.
She consulted it anxiously.
“Just fancy!” she exclaimed with astonished eyes, “Dacre will be seven
in April—I had no idea he was so old—and I see Gwen is just twelve
months younger.”
“I think their physical powers are now fairly developed—indeed, I am of
opinion that the boy’s development will continue to be mainly physical;
he will, I fear, run much to cricket and other brutal sports. But no
doubt he has some small amount of brain power that should be made the
most of. We must now get someone who will undertake this business for
us, dear love.”
“Ah,” said his wife plaintively, “the feeding and physical care of
children seems a terrible responsibility; it weighs upon my life. But
the development of their intellectual powers!—I wish the time for it had
kept off just a little longer, until we were farther on in our last, our
best work. And if,” she said wearily, “you think the brain power of
Dacre, at least, is so insignificant, the task becomes Herculean.”
“We must consult the rector, dear.”
“I feel in some way we must have failed in our duty. The grammar that
child spoke was appalling, as was also the intonation of her words. I
wonder how this has come to pass? I should have thought her mere
heredity would have saved us this.”
Mrs. Waring sighed heavily, fate seemed against her, even heredity was
playing her false.
“It is shocking, dear, but accountable,” said her husband soothingly,
“you are disturbed, and forget how widely modified heredity becomes by
conditions. If I recollect aright Gwen mentioned one—Mag—h’m, Dow.
Children are imitative creatures. And now, with regard to another
matter. I think, dear love, it were wiser if you discontinued that
proposed course of history. The imagination of our daughter Gwen must
not be fostered until it has a sounder intellectual basis to work up
from.”
“Very well, dear,” and Mrs. Waring sighed a sigh of relief. No one but
herself knew the horrible embarrassment of having those two children
sitting opposite to her and glaring all over her, while she discoursed
to them on the customs of the early Britons, and it was only a consuming
sense of duty that had seized on her, and forced her to the task.