Your affectionate niece,
Rose.
She sealed her letter very carefully before putting it herself into
the oaken box on the hall-table. The late Mrs. Smith had imparted
pessimistic views to Rose on the subject of private correspondence if
left unprotected.
“It isn’t in nature not to read what isn’t meant for you, if it’s
lying about,” had said Mrs. Smith, in simple explanation of her own
well-informedness upon various affairs that might strictly have been
regarded as the concern of her neighbours rather than her own.
Rose, not sufficiently endowed with curiosity herself to indulge in
the reading of other people’s correspondence, was quite tolerantly
prepared to believe that this was nevertheless the general practice.
When she had finished her letter, she felt happier. No one had said
anything to her about her outburst of the preceding evening. She
had come down to breakfast heavy-eyed and apprehensive, although no
whit less resolved to maintain her own cause, but there had been no
sign that any one remembered the existence either of a cause or of a
champion.
The conversation had circled placidly round the customary subject of
“plans for the day” and the necessity of sending the young man Toby to
the station for the 10.39 train.
Rose had been partly relieved, partly disappointed, and wholly
perplexed.
She found the Aviolets, their standards, their aims and avoidances,
alike incomprehensible. She felt as though it would be an untold
relief to return to Uncle Alfred and his shop, where all the pitfalls
were of an obvious kind and where approval and disapproval were alike
manifested on equally established and well-defined lines.
“Would you care for a walk?” said Diana Grierson-Amberly, coming upon
her in the hall.
“Always walks!” thought Rose with uncomprehending resignation, but
Diana’s voice had sounded friendly, and she was grateful, although she
could never understand the satisfaction to be derived from walking for
half an hour along a country lane, with no shop windows to look into
and no given objective, and then turning round and walking along the
same road for another half hour back again.
“It isn’t even as though we had anything to say to one another,” she
reflected.
But it appeared that Miss Grierson-Amberly had something to say on this
occasion.
She sang the praises of the Aviolet family.
“I’ve always been so awfully fond of them all, here. Cousin Catherine
is such a dear.”
“Oh, yes,” said Rose, with more of uncertain interrogation than of
assent in her tone.
“I used to play with the boys a lot when I was younger, and they were
always so nice to me, though they were so much older. Ford and I have
always been great pals.”
There was a silence.
“He did so splendidly in South Africa. You know he was wounded at Spion
Kop?”
“Yes, I know.”
“They say that he went on encouraging his men and calling out to them
long after he was hit.”
“Did he?”
“Yes. We never could quite understand why he didn’t get recommended for
promotion, or something like that.”
Another silence.
“Of course, very likely his Colonel did recommend him for decoration,
and nothing came of it. I’m afraid there’s a certain amount of
wire-pulling that one doesn’t know about,” said Diana solemnly.
Once more Rose made no answer, and once more Diana persevered.
“This world is such a queer place, isn’t it? I mean, there’s so much
jealousy and pettiness to be found.”
“I suppose so.”
“Perhaps,” Diana laboriously amended, “I ought to say it’s not so much
the world that’s queer, as the people in it.”
On this last subtle commentary of Miss Grierson-Amberly’s upon mankind,
the silence that ensued was of so abysmal a character that it remained
unbroken for nearly ten minutes. Rose, although her vocabulary hardly
comprised the word platitude, was ruthlessly recognizing and condemning
the quality of her companion’s conversation as “utter bunkum,” and
Diana Grierson-Amberly, not without good cause, was discouraged.
Presently she tried again.
“Cousin Catherine is so fond of children, I expect she loves having
Cecil here. I always think it’s such an ideal place for a child, too.”
“Do you? Why?” said Rose, interested for the first time.
Unfortunately, Miss Grierson-Amberly’s observation had been
rhetorically, rather than literally, intended.
“Well, the garden, you know, and--and the house--and then Ford can
teach him to shoot, later on, and he can have a jolly time in the
holidays. Miss Wade is nice, too, isn’t she? I think it must be much
more fun to have a young governess.”
“She’s all right, but rather an ass, don’t you think?”
“I thought she seemed a nice little thing. You know, Mrs. Aviolet, I
do really think there’s heaps of good in everyone if you only look for
it,” said the girl, quite earnestly.
“Well, I don’t. I don’t see one single atom of good in that precious
Ford of yours, for instance,” Rose declared with sudden recklessness.
Diana’s face grew very grave and very pink. She turned and looked at
Rose, with the corners of her mouth rather turned down, and when she
spoke her voice was full of distress.
“Of course, to me, it sounds so dreadful to hear you say a thing like
that. I simply can’t understand it. Why, Ford is really a perfect dear,
when you know him.”
“What about last night?”
“Well, you know, he can’t help what he thinks, now can he, Mrs.
Aviolet?” said the girl pleadingly. “You see, what I always feel,
is that there are two sides to every question. I think you ought to
remember that, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
The effect of reasonableness with which Diana uttered what Rose
regarded as futilities was remarkable.
It even impelled Rose to reply to them as though she felt them to be
worth a reply.
“I’m not angry with Ford for thinking that Ces should go to school.
It’s quite natural he should think so, I suppose. He’s only mixed
with two kinds of people all his life--those who go to public schools
and those who go to the national schools. He evidently doesn’t know
anything about the in-between people. That’s not his fault. But what
puts my monkey up, is him pretending to think that I’m a fool; that
I want to keep Cecil a molly-coddle, just for the sake of having him
tied to my apron-strings. He’s playing up to old Sir Thomas and Lady
Aviolet, that’s all, because they’re so stupid. They really do think
it’s only that. _Why_ Ford hates me is more than I can tell you--but
he does. He’s made things difficult for me ever since I came here.”
“May I say what I think?”
“Of course.”
Rose could not imagine why any one should ever want to do anything else.
“Well, then--I do hope you won’t think it rude of me to say this,
but you’ve given me leave to--it seems to me that you take a simply
terribly exaggerated view of things. Not only about Ford. (Of course,
what you say about his hating you is perfectly absurd. Why, he’s your
relation!) But it isn’t only about him. It struck me that you did
last night, when you were talking about your little boy. You say that
he--well, that he doesn’t always tell the truth. Of course I know it’s
a great pity, and _the_ thing of all others that one minds most--it
seems so awfully un-English, doesn’t it?--but, after all, Mrs. Aviolet,
he’s only a baby, isn’t he? He’ll begin to understand, in a very little
while, that he mustn’t tell stories, surely.”
“He knows that now,” said Rose wearily. “You don’t understand.
Sometimes I don’t think it’s his own fault, poor darling! He can’t help
it.”
“Well, that’s just what I say,” the girl argued perseveringly. “He’ll
know better later on. And really and truly, it’s perfectly wonderful
what school does for them. My young brother Tony was very delicate as a
baby, and I’m afraid we spoilt him dreadfully, but he improved in the
most marvellous way after his first term at a preparatory school. It
seems to make them so much more manly and sensible, you know.”
“Ces is manly already,” cried Rose, going off at a tangent. “I don’t
know what you’d say if you could see what _ordinary_ children are
like, after being born and brought up in the tropics. They haven’t
got a kick left in them by the time they get home, as a rule, nor for
months afterwards.”
“I didn’t mean----”
“That’s all right. I know you didn’t. I suppose the whole thing’s got
on my nerves, rather. It’s always Cecil this, and Cecil that, it seems
to me.”
“Only because they’re so--so interested in him.”
“I daresay, but it’s a funny way of showing it. You’d think they’d have
the sense to _see_, old people like them, that of course I know more
about him than they do.”
“But you know, he wants to go to school himself--really he does. He
says so.”
“I know,” said Rose briefly and bitterly.
“Well, then----?”
“Oh, of course, they’ve made him keen, telling him about the games and
all the rest of it. He didn’t want to go to school till it was put into
his head. You can make a child think it wants anything, even castor
oil, if you bluff it enough.”
“But school isn’t a nasty thing, like castor oil,” said Diana, with a
sort of ingenious stupidity.
“Chuck it,” Rose advised briefly. “You and me aren’t talking the same
language. We shouldn’t understand one another if we went on jawring
till we turned black in the face.”
No such disastrous consummation was achieved, but Miss Grierson-Amberly
seemed quite unable to abandon the discussion.
“But I do understand you, really and truly I do. Only it seems to me,
if you’ll forgive me for saying such a thing, that it would be more
unselfish of you to let Cecil do what he wants, and what everybody else
thinks best for him, than just to try and make him do what _you_ like.
I’m afraid I’m expressing it stupidly, but I daresay you’ll understand.
After all, if one loves any one, one wants the best thing for them,
doesn’t one? And you know, boys learn heaps of things at school that
one simply can’t give them at home--playing the game generally, and
_esprit de corps_, and all that sort of thing.”
“I’ve heard every bit of this before, and I daresay it’s all quite
true. But as long as Ces remains what he is, he’ll go to no school. I’d
as soon send an epileptic child to school as him.”
“Oh, how can you!” The distress in Diana’s voice was most unmistakably
genuine. “Indeed, indeed, I’m certain you’re exaggerating the whole
thing most dreadfully. And even if he _is_ as naughty as you think,
surely school would be the very----”
“Naughty!” Rose, like an explosion, repeated. “Who said he was naughty?
I’ll thank you to keep your advice about my boy till you’ve got one of
your own. You’ll know a bit more about it by that time, perhaps.”
For the second time, Diana coloured deeply; but after a moment she said
unresentfully:
“I’m afraid I’ve vexed you, and I’m so awfully sorry. I really only
said it because I’ve known the Aviolets all my life, and Cecil is such
a dear little boy.”
The last words mollified Rose instantly.
“It’s all right. I’m sorry, too, if I was rude. Don’t let’s talk about
it any more.”
They made spasmodic conversation upon indifferent subjects until
Squires was reached. Rose, tired and out of spirits, trailing slowly
upstairs, heard Diana’s voice incautiously raised in Lady Aviolet’s
morning-room.
“I hope I’ve done _some_ good, Cousin Catherine. I’ve been reading the
Riot Act, but of course----”
The door was closed, and Rose proceeded on her way, muttering
sub-audibly, “Damn her impudence!”
Her perceptions, acute, if inarticulate, sensed in Diana
Grierson-Amberly all the blind, limitless cruelty of the obtuse. She
felt strangely weak and frightened at the thought of it, as though
knowing that from that cruelty of the unimaginative there is no appeal.
In the nursery, she found Cecil strutting about, reciting a sort of
saga, with the intensely disapproving eyes of Miss Wade fixed upon him
in a horrified stare.
“An’ there was elephants there, and a tiger, and--and horses as big
as lions; and they all lay down in front of me until I said, ‘Up!’
Like that I said it, very loud and grand--‘_UP!_’ I said. That was in
Colombo, once.”
“Hallo, Ces,” Rose said rather wearily. She guessed, from the
expression of the governess, what was coming.
“I’m glad you’ve just happened to come in, Mrs. Aviolet. There’s
a little boy here who hardly seems to know the difference between
pretence and reality, I’m afraid.”
“What’s the matter?” Rose demanded ungraciously. She would not even
look at Miss Wade, and she kept one hand on Cecil’s forehead, stroking
back his thick, soft hair.
“Oh, I hope nothing’s the _matter_,” Miss Wade declared with sudden,
spurious brightness. “I’m sure Cecil will tell you himself that he’s
only been talking nonsense.”
“I’m not talking nonsense----”
“If you mean that rubbish I heard as I came in, about elephants and
tigers, it was nonsense, Ces, and you know it. You weren’t trying to
make Miss Wade believe it was true, were you? You wouldn’t be so silly,
a big boy like you.”
The appeal to Cecil’s vanity seemed to make him hesitate. At last he
gave an uncertain little laugh, and said: “No, Mummie. I only said it
for fun. It was just something I was inventing.”
Rose kissed him in sudden, passionate thankfulness.
“My precious! That’s a good boy!”
“It’s a pity, isn’t it, that Cecil should think it amusing to invent
things that never happened,” said Miss Wade mildly, “especially as
we know that he isn’t always quite as brave as he ought to be about
telling the exact truth. But I’m glad he’s been straightforward this
time.”
Rose did not think that she looked glad.
“If Cecil may go into the garden for a while, Mrs. Aviolet, I should be
glad to speak to you.”
“All right.”
Rose made no attempt at all at displaying an amiability which she was
far from feeling.
“As we’re on the subject,” said the little governess nervously, “I
thought I’d really better speak to you. Cecil is a dear little boy and
I’m very fond of him, but I really don’t know what to do about his
want of truth. I’m sorry to have to say it, Mrs. Aviolet, but he’s
untruthful--downright untruthful.”
“Have you just found it out or did his grandmother tell you so?” Rose
asked truculently.
“Lady Aviolet never mentioned such a thing to me, nor did any one else.
I am in the habit of forming my own opinions as to the character of
my pupils. I am a student of child-psychology,” said Miss Wade with
dignity. “It is a most serious fault, and one that cannot be corrected
too young.”
“If you’re thinking of his nonsense just now, Miss Wade----”
The governess interrupted her firmly. “No, that has nothing to do with
it. I have been meaning to speak to you for some little while. I should
have thought little or nothing of his wild inventions of imaginary
adventures, if I had not, more than once, found him out in a direct
untruth.”
Rose groaned almost involuntarily.
“You knew of this fault already?”
“Yes, of course I did.”
“He is so young, and such a dear little boy, and so good otherwise that
I feel sure he can be corrected. But I must ask you, Mrs. Aviolet, to
let me have a free hand in dealing with this.”
“No.”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Aviolet?”
“I said, ‘No.’”
Miss Wade looked quite confounded.
“Now _do_ you suppose,” Rose impatiently inquired, “that I should give
anybody a free hand, as you call it, in punishing my own child? What
am I his mother for, if I’m to go giving free hands to other people
all over the place? But you can tell me what your idea is--unless it’s
school, which, I may tell you, I’ve heard enough about--and a bit over.”
“Cecil is hardly fit for school until he has learnt to speak the truth.”
“That’s the first word of sense I’ve heard spoken about it yet. Well,
fire ahead.”
“Mrs. Aviolet, I do not wish you to take it upon my word alone, and
therefore I will refer you to my authority. Monroe on the ‘Moral
Education of Children.’”
“And what has Monroe got to say about it?”
“‘There are two faults, and two only, for which corporal punishment
should be inflicted: deliberate cruelty, and deliberate untruth. We
need not add that it should be made perfectly clear to the child that
the punishment is not given in anger, still less in revenge.’” Miss
Wade relinquished the head voice by which she had denoted that she was
quoting, and resumed her natural rather nasal accents.
“I am deeply distressed at having to say it, but Cecil will never
realize the full gravity of this dreadful fault unless he is punished
in such a way that he will remember it. I have tried reasoning with
him, and coaxing him, and scolding him, and he is always sorry, but
it produces no real effect at all. Indeed, Mrs. Aviolet, I dislike
the idea more than I can tell you, and I have never in my life had to
punish a pupil in such a manner before, but I should be failing in my
duty if--if----”
Miss Wade faltered and produced her handkerchief, choked by what Rose
instantly recognized as a perfectly real emotion.
“Oh, don’t cry! Anyway, you know, it wouldn’t be you who’d have to do
it. You’re not nearly strong enough. Besides, you’d never go through
with it. I shouldn’t myself. I should sob and howl--_roar_, in fact.
But it’s a man’s job.”
Miss Wade looked at her with an air of rather resentful astonishment.
“Then you have contemplated the idea of corporal punishment already?”
“Spare the rod and spoil the child. Of course I have, Miss Wade.”
“In general, I am thoroughly opposed to the system of corporal
punishment,” said Miss Wade gloomily. “I follow Dr. Monroe’s teaching,
and he is quite averse to it. But, as he says himself, persistent lying
and persistent cruelty are in a class apart and must be dealt with
accordingly.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“I hope that the occasion may not present itself, but if it does, Mrs.
Aviolet, if Cecil tells a direct lie again, then I must ask you either
to deal with him on the lines that I have indicated, or else to let his
uncle do so.”
“Ask for something you’re a bit more likely to get, I should,” Rose
advised the outraged little governess. “If Cecil tells a direct lie, as
you call it, again, he shall be whipped. We’ve tried everything else,
and it may as well be that. But it’ll be me who’ll settle when it’s
done, and how, and who by. And another thing--I’m going to give Ces
fair warning about it. Perhaps it’ll help him to be careful, poor lamb.”
She turned to go.
“One moment, Mrs. Aviolet, if you please. Has Cecil ever
been--castigated--before?”
“He’s been hit by his father,” said Rose briefly. “He’s never had
exactly what you might call a state whipping, so perhaps the disgrace
might make an impression on him. But I hope to goodness we shan’t have
to do it.”
She let the door slam on Miss Wade’s solemn reiteration of the hope,
already feeling that exasperation had committed her to a course of
action that her inner self disapproved.
Yet the thought of punishing little Cecil by beating him did not
horrify her. Her own mother had administered hearty and impetuous
slaps throughout Rose’s childhood, in moments of impatience, and
afterwards, as heartily and as impetuously, had smothered her with
kisses and given her slices of new bread thickly covered with jam. Rose
had borne no malice for the slaps, although they had always caused
her to roar lustily, for Mrs. Smith’s heavy-handed blows had never
been half-hearted affairs, and she had enjoyed the kisses and the
bread-and-jam.
“No bunkum from Dr. Monroe’s little books on Moral Education about
Mother!” Rose reminded herself, and smiled in a loving retrospective
appreciation of her parent’s thoroughness.