JULY 4.--By noon to-day arrived Martyn, {127} with Mary his wife,
Margaret and Avice their daughters, Uchtred their second son, and
poor Harry Fulford's orphan, Isabel, who has had a home with them
ever since she left school. Though she is only a cousin once
removed, she seems to fall into the category of eligible nieces, and
indeed she seems the obvious companion for us, as she has no home,
and seems to me rather set aside among the others. I hope there is
no jealousy, for she is much better looking than her cousins, with
gentle, liquid eyes, a pretty complexion, and a wistful expression.
Moreover, she is dressed in a quiet ladylike way, whereas grandmamma
looked out just now in the twilight and said, "My dear Martyn, have
you brought three boys down?" It was a showery, chilly evening, and
they were all out admiring the waves. Ulsters and sailor hats were
appropriate enough then, but the genders were not easy to
distinguish, especially as the elder girl wears her hair short--no
improvement to a keen face which needs softening. She is much too
like a callow undergraduate altogether, and her sister follows suit,
though perhaps with more refinement of feature--indeed she looks
delicate, and was soon called in. They are in slight mourning, and
appear in gray serges. They left a strap of books on the sofa, of
somewhat alarming light literature for the seaside. Bacon's ESSAYS
AND ELEMENTS OF LOGIC were the first Emily beheld, and while she
stood regarding them with mingled horror and respect, in ran Avice
to fetch them, as the two sisters are reading up for the Oxford
exam--'ination' she added when she saw her two feeble-minded aunts
looking for the rest of the word. However, she says it is only Pica
who is going up for it this time. She herself was not considered
strong enough. Yet there have those two set themselves down with
their books under the rocks, blind to all the glory of sea and
shore, deaf to the dash and ripple of the waves! I long to go and
shout Wordsworth's warning about 'growing double' to them. I am
glad to say that Uchtred has come and fetched Avice away. I can
hardly believe Martyn and Mary parents to this grown-up family.
They look as youthful as ever, and are as active and vigorous, and
full of their jokes with one another and their children. They are
now gone out to the point of the rocks at the end of our promontory,
fishing for microscopical monsters, and comporting themselves boy
and girl fashion.
Isabel has meantime been chatting very pleasantly with grandmamma,
and trying to extricate us from our bewilderment as to names and
nicknames. My poor mother, after strenuously preventing
abbreviations in her own family, has to endure them in her
descendants, and as every one names a daughter after her, there is
some excuse! This Oxford Margaret goes by the name of Pie or Pica,
apparently because it is the remotest portion of Magpie, and her
London cousin is universally known as Metelill--the Danish form, I
believe; but in the Bourne Parva family the young Margaret Druce is
nothing worse than Meg, and her elder sister remains Jane. "Nobody
would dare to call her anything else," says Isa. Avice cannot but
be sometimes translated into the Bird; while my poor name, in my
second London niece, has become the masculine Charley. "I shall
know why when I see her," says Isa laughing. This good-natured
damsel is coming out walking with us old folks, and will walk on
with me, when grandmamma turns back with Emily. Her great desire is
to find the whereabouts of a convalescent home in which she and her
cousins have subscribed to place a poor young dressmaker for a six
weeks' rest; but I am afraid it is on the opposite side of S.
Clements, too far for a walk.
JULY 5.--Why did you never tell me how charming Metelill is? I
never supposed the Fulford features capable of so much beauty, and
the whole manner and address are so delightful that I do not wonder
that all her cousins are devoted to her; Uchtred, or Butts, as they
are pleased to name him, has brightened into another creature since
she came, and she seems like sunshine to us all. As to my namesake,
I am sorry to say that I perceive the appropriateness of Charley;
but I suppose it is style, for the masculine dress which in Pica and
Avice has an air of being worn for mere convenience' sake, and is
quite ladylike, especially on Avice, has in her an appearance of
defiance and coquetry. Her fox-terrier always shares her room,
which therefore is eschewed by her sister, and this has made a
change in our arrangements. We had thought the room in our house,
which it seems is an object of competition, would suit best for Jane
Druce and one of her little sisters; but a hint was given by either
Pica or her mother that it would be a great boon to let Jane and
Avice share it, as they are very great friends, and we had the
latter there installed. However, this fox-terrier made Metelill
protest against sleeping at the hotel with her sister, and her
mother begged us to take her in. Thereupon, Emily saw Isa looking
annoyed, and on inquiry she replied sweetly, "Oh, never mind, aunty
dear; I daresay Wasp won't be so bad as he looks; and I'll try not
to be silly, and then I daresay Charley will not tease me! Only I
had hoped to be with dear Metelill; but no doubt she will prefer her
Bird--people always do." So they were going to make that poor child
the victim! For it seems Pica has a room to herself, and will not
give it up or take in any one. Emily went at once to Avice and
asked whether she would mind going to the hotel, and letting Isa be
with Metelill, and this she agreed to at once. I don't know why I
tell you all these details, except that they are straws to show the
way of the wind, and you will see how Isabel is always the
sacrifice, unless some one stands up for her. Here comes Martyn to
beguile me out to the beach.
JULY 6 (Sunday).--My mother drove to church and took Edith, who was
glad neither to walk nor to have to skirmish for a seat. Isa walked
with Emily and me, and so we made up our five for our seat, which,
to our dismay, is in the gallery, but, happily for my mother, the
stairs are easy. The pews there are not quite so close to one's
nose as those in the body of the church; they are a little wider,
and are furnished with hassocks instead of traps to prevent
kneeling, so that we think ourselves well off, and we were agreeably
surprised at the service. There is a new incumbent who is striving
to modify things as well as his people and their architecture
permit, and who preached an excellent sermon. So we triumph over
the young folk, who try to persuade us that the gallery is a
judgment on us for giving in to the hired pew system. They may
banter me as much as they like, but I don't like to see them jest
with grandmamma about it, as if they were on equal terms, and she
does not understand it either. "My dear," she gravely says, "your
grandpapa always said it was a duty to support the parish church."
"Nothing will do but the Congregational system in these days; don't
you think so?" began Pica dogmatically, when her father called her
off. Martyn cannot bear to see his mother teased. He and his wife,
with the young ones, made their way to Hollyford, where they found a
primitive old church and a service to match, but were terribly late,
and had to sit in worm-eaten pews near the door, amid scents of
peppermint and southernwood. On the way back, Martyn fraternised
with a Mr. Methuen, a Cambridge tutor with a reading party, who has,
I am sorry to say, arrived at the house VIS-A-VIS to ours, on the
other side of the cove. Our Oxford young ladies turn up their noses
at the light blue, and say the men have not the finish of the dark;
but Charley is in wild spirits. I heard her announcing the arrival
thus: "I say, Isa, what a stunning lark! Not but that I was up to
it all the time, or else I should have skedaddled; for this place
was bound to be as dull as ditchwater." "But how did you know?"
asked Isa. "Why, Bertie Elwood tipped me a line that he was coming
down here with his coach, or else I should have told the mater I
couldn't stand it and gone to stay with some one." This Bertie
Elwood is, it seems, one of the many London acquaintance. He looks
inoffensive, and so do the others, but I wish they had chosen some
other spot for their studies, and so perhaps does their tutor,
though he is now smoking very happily under a rock with Martyn.
JULY 7.--Such a delightful evening walk with Metelill and Isa as
Emily and I had last night, going to evensong in our despised
church! The others said they could stand no more walking and heat,
and yet we met Martyn and Mary out upon the rocks when we were
coming home, after being, I must confess, nearly fried to death by
the gas and bad air. They laughed at us and our exertions, all in
the way of good humour, but it was not wholesome from parents. Mary
tried to make me confess that we were coming home in a self-
complacent fakir state of triumph in our headaches, much inferior to
her humble revelling in cool sea, sky, and moonlight. It was like
the difference between the BENEDICITE and the TE DEUM, I could not
help thinking; while Emily said a few words to Martyn as to how
mamma would be disappointed at his absenting himself from Church,
and was answered, "Ah! Emily, you are still the good home child of
the primitive era," which she did not understand; but I faced about
and asked if it were not what we all should be. He answered rather
sadly, "If we could'; and his wife shrugged her shoulders. Alas! I
fear the nineteenth century tone has penetrated them, and do not
wonder that this poor Isabel does not seem happy in her home.
9.--What a delightful sight is a large family of young things
together! The party is complete, for the Druces arrived yesterday
evening in full force, torn from their bucolic life, as Martyn tells
them. My poor dear old Margaret! She does indeed look worn and
aged, dragged by cares like a colonist's wife, and her husband is
quite bald, and as spare as a hermit. It is hard to believe him
younger than Martyn; but then his whole soul is set on Bourne Parva,
and hers on him, on the children, on the work, and on making both
ends meet; and they toil five times more severely in one month than
the professor and his lady in a year, besides having just twice as
many children, all of whom are here except the schoolboys. Margaret
declares that the entire rest, and the talking to something not
entirely rural, will wind her husband up for the year; and it is
good to see her sitting in a basket-chair by my mother, knitting
indeed, but they both do that like breathing, while they purr away
to one another in a state of perfect repose and felicity. Meantime
her husband talks Oxford with Martyn and Mary. Their daughter Jane
seems to be a most valuable helper to both, but she too has a worn,
anxious countenance, and I fear she may be getting less rest than
her parents, as they have brought only one young nursemaid with
them, and seem to depend on her and Meg for keeping the middle-sized
children in order. She seems to have all the cares of the world on
her young brow, and is much exercised about one of the boxes which
has gone astray on the railway. What do you think she did this
morning? She started off with Avice at eight o'clock for the S.
Clements station to see if the telegram was answered, and they went
on to the Convalescent Home and saw the Oxford dressmaker. It seems
that Avice had taken Uchtred with her on Sunday evening, made out
the place, and gone to church at S. Clements close by--a very long
walk; but it seems that those foolish girls thought me too fine a
lady to like to be seen with her in her round hat on a Sunday. I
wish they could understand what it is that I dislike. If I objected
to appearances, I am afraid the poor Druces would fare ill.
Margaret's girls cannot help being essentially ladies, but they have
not much beauty to begin with--and their dress! It was chiefly made
by their own sewing machine, with the assistance of the Bourne Parva
mantua-maker, superintended by Jane, 'to prevent her from making it
foolish'; and the effect, I grieve to say, is ill-fitting dowdiness,
which becomes grotesque from their self-complacent belief that it
displays the only graceful and sensible fashion in the place. It
was laughable to hear them criticising every hat or costume they
have seen, quite unaware that they were stared at themselves, till
Charley told them people thought they had come fresh out of Lady
Bountiful's goody-box, which piece of impertinence they took as a
great compliment to their wisdom and excellence. To be sure, the
fashions are distressing enough, but Metelill shows that they can be
treated gracefully and becomingly, and even Avice makes her serge
and hat look fresh and ladylike. Spite of contrast, Avice and Jane
seem to be much devoted to each other. Pica and Charley are another
pair, and Isa and Metelill--though Metelill is the universal
favourite, and there is always competition for her. In early
morning I see the brown heads and blue bathing-dresses, a-
mermaiding, as they call it, in the cove below, and they come in all
glowing, with the floating tresses that make Metelill look so
charming, and full of merry adventures at breakfast. We all meet in
the great room at the hotel for a substantial meal at half-past one,
and again (most of us at least) at eight; but it is a moot point
which of these meals we call dinner. Very merry both of them are;
Martyn and Horace Druce are like boys together, and the girls scream
with laughter, rather too much so sometimes. Charley is very noisy,
and so is Meg Druce, when not overpowered by shyness. She will not
exchange a sentence with any of the elders, but in the general laugh
she chuckles and shrieks like a young Cochin-Chinese chicken
learning to crow; and I hear her squealing like a maniac while she
is shrimping with the younger ones and Charley. I must except those
two young ladies from the unconscious competition, for one has no
manners at all, and the other affects those of a man; but as to the
rest, they are all as nice as possible, and I can only say, "How
happy could I be with either." Isa, poor girl, seems to need our
care most, and would be the most obliging and attentive. Metelill
would be the prettiest and sweetest ornament of our drawing-room,
and would amuse you the most; Pica, with her scholarly tastes, would
be the best and most appreciative fellow-traveller; and Jane, if she
could or would go, would perhaps benefit the most by being freed
from a heavy strain, and having her views enlarged.
10.--A worthy girl is Jane Druce, but I fear the Vicarage is no
school of manners. Her mother is sitting with us, and has been
discoursing to grandmamma on her Jane's wonderful helpfulness and
activity in house and parish, and how everything hinged on her last
winter when they had whooping-cough everywhere in and out of doors;
indeed she doubts whether the girl has ever quite thrown off the
effects of all her exertions then. Suddenly comes a trampling, a
bounce and a rush, and in dashes Miss Jane, fiercely demanding
whether the children had leave to go to the cove. Poor Margaret
meekly responds that she had consented. "And didn't you know,"
exclaims the damsel, "that all their everyday boots are in that
unlucky trunk?" There is a humble murmur that Chattie had promised
to be very careful, but it produces a hotter reply. "As if
Chattie's promises of that kind could be trusted! And I had _TOLD_
them that they were to keep with baby on the cliff!" Then came a
real apology for interfering with Jane's plans, to which we listened
aghast, and Margaret was actually getting up to go and look after
her amphibious offspring herself, when her daughter cut her off
short with, "Nonsense, mamma, you know you are not to do any such
thing! I must go, that's all, or they won't have a decent boot or
stocking left among them." Off she went with another bang, while
her mother began blaming herself for having yielded in haste to the
persuasions of the little ones, oblivious of the boots, thus
sacrificing Jane's happy morning with Avice. My mother showed
herself shocked by the tone in which Margaret had let herself be
hectored, and this brought a torrent of almost tearful apologies
from the poor dear thing, knowing she did not keep up her authority
or make herself respected as would be good for her girl, but if we
only knew how devoted Jane was, and how much there was to grind and
try her temper, we should not wonder that it gave way sometimes.
Indeed it was needful to turn away the subject, as Margaret was the
last person we wished to distress.
Jane could have shown no temper to the children, for at dinner a
roly-poly person of five years old, who seems to absorb all the fat
in the family, made known that he had had a very jolly day, and he
loved cousin Avice very much indeed, and sister Janie very much
indeeder, and he could with difficulty be restrained from an
expedition to kiss them both then and there.
The lost box was announced while we were at dinner, and Jane is gone
with her faithful Avice to unpack it. Her mother would have done it
and sent her boating with the rest, but submitted as usual when
commanded to adhere to the former plan of driving with grandmamma.
These Druce children must be excellent, according to their mother,
but they are terribly brusque and bearish. They are either seen and
not heard, or not seen and heard a great deal too much. Even Jane
and Meg, who ought to know better, keep up a perpetual undercurrent
of chatter and giggle, whatever is going on, with any one who will
share it with them.
10.--I am more and more puzzled about the new reading of the Fifth
Commandment. None seem to understand it as we used to do. The
parents are content to be used as equals, and to be called by all
sorts of absurd names; and though grandmamma is always kindly and
attentively treated, there is no reverence for the relationship. I
heard Charley call her 'a jolly old party,' and Metelill respond
that she was 'a sweet old thing.' Why, we should have thought such
expressions about our grandmother a sort of sacrilege, but when I
ventured to hint as much Charley flippantly answered, "Gracious me,
we are not going back to buckram"; and Metelill, with her caressing
way, declared that she loved dear granny too much to be so stiff and
formal. I quoted--
"If I be a Father, where is My honour?"
And one of them taking it, I am sorry to say, for a line of secular
poetry, exclaimed at the stiffness and coldness. Pica then put in
her oar, and began to argue that honour must be earned, and that it
was absurd and illogical to claim it for the mere accident of
seniority or relationship. Jane, not at all conscious of being an
offender, howled at her that this was her horrible liberalism and
neology, while Metelill asked what was become of loyalty. "That
depends on what you mean by it," returned our girl graduate. "LOI-
AUTE, steadfastness to principle, is noble, but personal loyalty, to
some mere puppet or the bush the crown hangs on, is a pernicious
figment." Charley shouted that this was the No. 1 letter A point in
Pie's prize essay, and there the discussion ended, Isa only sighing
to herself, "Ah, if I had any one to be loyal to!"
"How you would jockey them!" cried Charley, turning upon her so
roughly that the tears came into her eyes; and I must have put on
what you call my Government-house look, for Charley subsided
instantly.
11.--Here was a test as to this same obedience. The pupils, who are
by this time familiars of the party, had devised a boating and
fishing expedition for all the enterprising, which was satisfactory
to the elders because it was to include both the fathers.
Unluckily, however, this morning's post brought a summons to Martyn
and Mary to fulfil an engagement they have long made to meet an
American professor at ---, and they had to start off at eleven
o'clock; and at the same time the Hollyford clergyman, an old
fellow-curate of Horace Druce, sent a note imploring him to take a
funeral. So the voice of the seniors was for putting off the
expedition, but the voice of the juniors was quite the other way.
The three families took different lines. The Druces show obedience
though not respect; they growled and grumbled horribly, but
submitted, though with ill grace, to the explicit prohibition. Non-
interference is professedly Mary's principle, but even she said,
with entreaty veiled beneath the playfulness, when it was pleaded
that two of the youths had oars at Cambridge, "Freshwater fish, my
dears. I wish you would wait for us! I don't want you to attend
the submarine wedding of our old friends Tame and Isis." To which
Pica rejoined, likewise talking out of Spenser, that Proteus would
provide a nice ancient nymph to tend on them. Her father then
chimed in, saying, "You will spare our nerves by keeping to dry land
unless you can secure the ancient mariner who was with us
yesterday."
"Come, come, most illustrious," said Pica good-humouredly, "I'm not
going to encourage you to set up for nerves. You are much better
without them, and I must get some medusae."
It ended with, "I beg you will not go without that old man," the
most authoritative speech I have heard either Martyn or Mary make to
their daughters; but it was so much breath wasted on Pica, who
maintains her right to judge for herself. The ancient mariner had
been voted an encumbrance and exchanged for a jolly young waterman.
Our other mother, Edith, implored, and was laughed down by Charley,
who declared she could swim, and that she did not think Uncle Martyn
would have been so old-womanish. Metelill was so tender and
caressing with her frightened mother that I thought here at last was
submission, and with a good grace. But after a turn on the
esplanade among the pupils, back came Metelill in a hurry to say,
"Dear mother, will you very much _MIND_ if I go? They will be so
disappointed, and there will be such a fuss if I don't; and Charley
really ought to have some one with her besides Pie, who will heed
nothing but magnifying medusae." I am afraid it is true, as Isa
says, that it was all owing to the walk with that young Mr Horne.
Poor Edith fell into such a state of nervous anxiety that I could
not leave her, and she confided to me how Charley had caught her
foolish masculine affectations in the family of this very Bertie
Elwood, and told me of the danger of an attachment between Metelill
and a young government clerk who is always on the look-out for her.
"And dear Metelill is so gentle and gracious that she cannot bear to
repel any one," says the mother, who would, I see, be thankful to
part with either daughter to our keeping in hopes of breaking off
perilous habits. I was saved, however, from committing myself by
the coming in of Isabel. That child follows me about like a tame
cat, and seems so to need mothering that I cannot bear to snub her.
She came to propound to me a notion that has risen among these
Oxford girls, namely, that I should take out their convalescent
dressmaker as my maid instead of poor Amelie. She is quite well
now, and going back next week; but a few years in a warm climate
might be the saving of her health. So I agreed to go with Isa to
look at her, and judge whether the charming account I heard was all
youthful enthusiasm. Edith went out driving with my mother, and we
began our TETE-A-TETE walk, in which I heard a great deal of the
difficulties of that free-and-easy house at Oxford, and how often
Isa wishes for some one who would be a real guide and helper,
instead of only giving a playful, slap-dash answer, like good-
natured mockery. The treatment may suit Mary's own daughters, but
'Just as you please, my dear,' is not good for sensitive, anxious
spirits. We passed Jane and Avice reading together under a rock; I
was much inclined to ask them to join us, but Isa was sure they were
much happier undisturbed, and she was so unwilling to share me with
any one that I let them alone. I was much pleased with the
dressmaker, Maude Harris, who is a nice, modest, refined girl, and
if the accounts I get from her employers bear out what I hear of
her, I shall engage her; I shall be glad, for the niece's sake, to
have that sort of young woman about the place. She speaks most
warmly of what the Misses Fulford have done for her.
Jane will be disappointed if I cannot have her rival candidate--a
pet schoolgirl who works under the Bourne Parva dressmaker. "What a
recommendation!" cries Pica, and there is a burst of mirth, at which
Jane looks round and says, "What is there to laugh at? Miss
Dadworthy is a real good woman, and a real old Bourne Parva person,
so that you may be quite sure Martha will have learnt no nonsense to
begin with."
"No," says Pica, "from all such pomps and vanities as style, she
will be quite clear."
While Avice's friendship goes as far as to say that if Aunt
Charlotte cannot have Maude, perhaps Martha could get a little more
training. Whereupon Jane runs off by the yard explanations of the
admirable training--religious, moral, and intellectual--of Bourne
Parva, illustrated by the best answers of her favourite scholars,
anecdotes of them, and the reports of the inspectors, religious and
secular; and Avice listens with patience, nay, with respectful
sympathy.
12.--We miss Mary and Martyn more than I expected. Careless and
easy-going as they seem, they made a difference in the ways of the
young people; they were always about with them, not as dragons, but
for their own pleasure. The presence of a professor must needs
impose upon young men, and Mary, with her brilliant wit and charming
manners, was a check without knowing it. The boating party came
back gay and triumphant, and the young men joined in our late meal;
and oh, what a noise there was! though I must confess that it was
not they who made the most. Metelill was not guilty of the noise,
but she was--I fear I must say it--flirting with all her might with
a youth on each side of her, and teasing a third; I am afraid she is
one of those girls who are charming to all, and doubly charming to
your sex, and that it will never do to have her among the staff. I
don't think it is old-maidish in us to be scandalised at her walking
up and down the esplanade with young Horne till ten o'clock last
night; Charley was behind with Bertie Elwood, and, I grieve to say,
was smoking. It lasted till Horace Druce went out to tell them that
Metelill must come in at once, as it was time to shut up the house.
The Oxford girls were safe indoors; Isa working chess problems with
another of the lads, Avice keeping Jane company over the putting the
little ones to sleep--in Mount Lebanon, as they call the Druce
lodging--and Pica preserving microscopic objects. "Isn't she
awful?" said one of those pupils. "She's worse than all the dons in
Cambridge. She wants to be at it all day long, and all through the
vacation."
They perfectly flee from her. They say she is always whipping out a
microscope and lecturing upon protoplasms--and there is some truth
in the accusation. She is almost as bad on the emancipation of
women, on which there is a standing battle, in earnest with Jane--in
joke with Metelill; but it has, by special orders, to be hushed at
dinner, because it almost terrifies grandmamma. I fear Pica tries
to despise her!
This morning the girls are all out on the beach in pairs and threes,
the pupils being all happily shut up with their tutor. I see the
invalid lady creep out with her beach-rest from the intermediate
house, and come down to her usual morning station in the shade of a
rock, unaware, poor thing, that it has been monopolised by Isa and
Metelill. Oh, girls! why don't you get up and make room for her?
No; she moves on to the next shady place, but there Pica has a
perfect fortification of books spread on her rug, and Charley is
sketching on the outskirts, and the fox-terrier barks loudly. Will
she go on to the third seat? where I can see, though she cannot,
Jane and Avice sitting together, and Freddy shovelling sand at their
feet. Ah! at last she is made welcome. Good girls! They have
seated her and her things, planted a parasol to shelter her from the
wind, and lingered long enough not to make her feel herself turning
them out before making another settlement out of my sight.
THREE O'CLOCK.--I am sorry to say Charley's sketch turned into a
caricature of the unprotected female wandering in vain in search of
a bit of shelter, with a torn parasol, a limp dress, and dragging
rug, and altogether unspeakably forlorn. It was exhibited at the
dinner-table, and elicited peals of merriment, so that we elders
begged to see the cause of the young people's amusement. My blood
was up, and when I saw what it was, I said--
"I wonder you like to record your own discourtesy, to call it
nothing worse."
"But, Aunt Charlotte," said Metelill in her pretty pleading way, "we
did not know her."
"Well, what of that?" I said.
"Oh, you know it is only abroad that people expect that sort of
things from strangers."
"One of the worst imputations on English manners I ever heard," I
said.
"But she was such a guy!" cried Charley. "Mother said she was sure
she was not a lady."
"And therefore you did not show yourself one," I could not but
return.
There her mother put in a gentle entreaty that Charley would not
distress grandmamma with these loud arguments with her aunt, and I
added, seeing that Horace Druce's attention was attracted, that I
should like to have added another drawing called 'Courtesy,' and
shown that there was _SOME_ hospitality _EVEN_ to strangers, and
then I asked the two girls about her. They had joined company
again, and carried her beach-rest home for her, finding out by the
way that she was a poor homeless governess who had come down to stay
in cheap lodgings with an old nurse to try to recruit herself till
she could go out again. My mother became immediately interested,
and has sent Emily to call on her, and to try and find out whether
she is properly taken care of.
Isa was very much upset at my displeasure. She came to me
afterwards and said she was greatly grieved; but Metelill would not
move, and she had always supposed it wrong to make acquaintance with
strangers in that chance way. I represented that making room was
not picking up acquaintance, and she owned it, and was really
grateful for the reproof; but, as I told her, no doubt such a rule
must be necessary in a place like Oxford.
How curiously Christian courtesy and polished manners sometimes
separate themselves! and how conceit interferes with both! I acquit
Metelill and Isa of all but thoughtless habit, and Pica was
absorbed. She can be well mannered enough when she is not defending
the rights of woman, or hotly dogmatical on the crude theories she
has caught--and suppose she has thought out, poor child! And Jane,
though high-principled, kind, and self-sacrificing, is too narrow
and--not exactly conceited--but exclusive and Bourne Parvaish, not
to be as bad in her way, though it is the sound one. The wars of
the Druces and Maronites, as Martyn calls them, sometimes rage
beyond the bounds of good humour.
TEN P.M.--I am vexed too on another score. I must tell you that
this hotel does not shine in puddings and sweets, and Charley has
not been ashamed to grumble beyond the bounds of good manners. I
heard some laughing and joking going on between the girls and the
pupils, Metelill with her "Oh no! You won't! Nonsense!" in just
that tone which means "I wish, I would, but I cannot bid you,"--the
tone I do not like to hear in a maiden of any degree.
And behold three of those foolish lads have brought her gilt and
painted boxes of bon-bons, over which there was a prodigious
giggling and semi-refusing and bantering among the young folks,
worrying Emily and me excessively, though we knew it would not do to
interfere.
There is a sea-fog this evening unfavourable to the usual
promenades, and we elders, including the tutor, were sitting with my
mother, when, in her whirlwind fashion, in burst Jane, dragging her
little sister Chattie with her, and breathlessly exclaiming,
"Father, father, come and help! They are gambling, and I can't get
Meg away!"
When the nervous ones had been convinced that no one had been caught
by the tide or fallen off the rocks, Jane explained that Metelill
had given one box of bon-bons to the children, who were to be served
with one apiece all round every day. And the others were put up by
Metelill to serve as prizes in the 'racing game,' which some one had
routed out, left behind in the lodging, and which was now spread on
the dining-table, with all the young people playing in high glee,
and with immense noise.
"Betting too!" said Jane in horror. "Mr. Elwood betted three
chocolate creams upon Charley, and Pica took it! Father! Come and
call Meg away."
She spoke exactly as if she were summoning him to snatch her sister
from ROUGE ET NOIR at Monaco; and her face was indescribable when
her aunt Edith set us all off laughing by saying, "Fearful
depravity, my dear."
"Won't you come, father?" continued Jane; "Mr. Methuen, won't you
come and stop those young men?"