THE MODERN VIEW OF LIFE.
The girls came home on Wednesday, and on the following Saturday Mrs.
Acheson and Belle were coming to tea. In the meantime Mrs. Chetwynd had
gone through more than one stormy scene with Marjorie and Eileen. The
girls positively declined to be presented to her gracious Majesty.
“You may get the dresses, mother,” said Eileen, “only I sincerely hope
you won’t, for we cannot wear them. We don’t quite know yet what we mean
to do with our lives; but fashionable society girls we will not be. Now,
mammy, why should we be fashionable girls if we dislike the idea?”
Here Marjorie, notwithstanding her rude words, went on her knees, wound
her strong young arms round her mother’s waist, and looked with such
imploring eyes into her face that, notwithstanding her anger, Mrs.
Chetwynd was touched in spite of herself.
“We should hate it all, you know, dear mammy,” said Marjorie. “I speak
for Eileen as well as for myself.—You agree with me, Eileen, don’t you?”
“Of course,” replied Eileen. “Well, Marjorie, have it out with the dear
mammy, for I must go at once to see Fowler’s last baby. I am taking it a
rattle and some chocolates.”
“You will kill a young infant if you give it chocolate,” said Mrs.
Chetwynd, “and I forbid you to go to Fox Buildings. No young ladies from
my house must go near such a place.”
“Dear me, mother, why not?” said Eileen.
“Eileen, my dear, I decline to argue with you. Really, when I think of
all that you two girls are doing to oppose me, and render my life
miserable, I could almost wish that you were back at school.”
“Of course, mother,” said Eileen gravely, “if you positively forbid me
to go I will obey you.”
She sat down on the nearest chair and stared hard at her mother.
“I do forbid you, Eileen. Young ladies of eighteen are not allowed to go
about London alone.”
“But really, mother, you are mistaken,” said Marjorie; “in these days
they are. All that dreadful period of bondage in which the girl of
twenty years ago was kept has passed away; the English girl of the
present day has her freedom. I have read all about it; I know it to be a
fact. College girls, too, have told me. You cannot deny us our
birthright, mammy, can you?”
“College girls? What do you know about college girls—those awful,
underbred, unwomanly creatures!” said Mrs. Chetwynd.
“You say that, mother, because you do not know them.”
“Well, I do know one thing,” continued Mrs. Chetwynd, her eyes filling
with tears. “I cannot imagine what I have done to deserve such girls as
you two. I have taken no end of pains with you both. Of course I was
obliged to stay in India during your father’s lifetime, which prevented
my having as much influence over you as I should otherwise have
obtained: but I little thought to come back to such a reward as this. I
sent you to the best schools I could afford, and have always attended to
your wardrobe, and given you plenty of pocket-money. I have done all
that a mother could do, and now just when I was beginning to expect my
reward, there come back to me a couple of——”
“Tomboys, mother darling,” said Marjorie. She wound her arms still
tighter round her mother’s waist, and kissed her on her cheek. “Mammy,
you’ll get accustomed to us after a bit,” she cried. “We are not in the
ordinary groove; but there are hundreds of girls like us. There will be
more girls like us year after year; all the modern training tends to it,
mammy, and you cannot keep us back. We are in the van, and in the van we
will stay. Mammy, we decline to go into society, we decline to turn
night into day, we decline to spend unnecessary money upon clothes.”
“And what do you intend to do, Marjorie; if I may venture to ask?” said
Mrs. Chetwynd, folding her hands in an attitude of despair. “Having
declined so much, is there anything you agree to?”
“Oh yes, lots, mother, now you are becoming reasonable, and we can talk.
First of all, what we want to know is, what allowance you will give us
both?”
“Your father made an extraordinary will,” said Mrs. Chetwynd. “I cannot
understand what made him do it, and I think he was wrong.”
“What was it? Do let us hear,” said Eileen.
“It was this: By his will, when you leave school and reach the age of
eighteen, you are both entitled to one hundred and fifty pounds a year,
and you are not to be coerced in the way you spend the money.”
“Hip! hip! hurrah!” cried Eileen. She sprang suddenly to her feet,
danced a minute in front of her mother, and then clapped Marjorie on the
shoulder.
“Then, of course, everything is plain,” she cried. “We won’t spend any
of that money on dress. Who would waste a precious hundred and fifty
pounds in stupid things like frocks?”
“Well, children, I shall give you each a proper wardrobe to start with,”
said Mrs. Chetwynd. “You have not brought anything fit to be seen from
school. Those dresses you have on now are simply disgusting; they are
not even clean. I have ordered the carriage, my dears, and am going to
take you at once to Madame Coray’s. She will make you two or three
everyday dresses and some evening ones.”
“But at least not with our money,” cried Marjorie; “that we cannot
permit to be spent in such willful waste. Oh, mother, please, do allow
us to dress as we like; do let us order our lives in our own way—do,
mammy, do.”
“I must know first of all what is your own way.”
“We want to be useful members of society, and to spend scarcely any
money on clothes. We have told you that we do not intend to be presented
to Her Majesty.”
“Well, I hope to get you to change your minds yet; but I will not order
the presentation dresses to-day.”
“That’s a dear. I knew you would submit.—She is the best little mother
in the whole world,” said Eileen, rapturously kissing her parent, and
then clasping Marjorie’s hand.
“Then, you will give in all round, mammy dear?” said Marjorie.
“Suppose I say no?” answered Mrs. Chetwynd.
“Then I am afraid——” said Eileen. She glanced at Marjorie, and Marjorie
nodded.
Mrs. Chetwynd suddenly rose.
“Girls,” she said, “don’t say what you are just about to say. I can
guess what it is, and I am not prepared to listen. Until you are of age
it is your duty to obey me. Notwithstanding your father’s will, and the
improper allowance which I am forced to give you both, as long as you
are under my roof you must be clothed as I wish, and you must not go to
places that I disapprove of. My poor, dear, misguided children, a
woman’s true aim when she reaches maturity is to marry a good husband,
and to have a happy home of her own.”
“But I never intend to marry,” said Marjorie. “I have not the faintest
idea of putting myself under the control of any man. I mean to keep my
liberty and have a jolly good, useful time.”
“And so do I,” said Eileen. “I mean to have a very full and very busy
life, mother.”
“Ditto,” cried Marjorie.
“Letitia has not yet spoken,” said Mrs. Chetwynd.—“What are your wishes,
my love?”
“Well, of course, Aunt Helen, I should like a society-life very much.”
“But you’re just not going to have it, Lettie,” said Eileen. “You’ll
have to do exactly what we do. We have no idea of having our own mother
fagged to death; an old woman like mother taken out day and night at all
hours, just to give you a jolly time.”
“But, really, my dears, I am not an old woman,” said Mrs. Chetwynd
indignantly.
“Well, mother, you are not as young as you used to be. You are forty, if
you are a day, and no one at forty can be called a chicken. It’s much
more healthy for you to go to bed in good time. Oh, I have read a lot
about society and all its trash. It just encourages one to be terribly
immoral.”
“Immoral! my dear Eileen. It’s awful to hear you speak.”
“But it’s true, mother. For instance, people tell no end of fibs—lies I
call them. They say they are not at home when they are; they pretend to
be delighted to see a person who in reality they loathe. Oh, I am
acquainted with the ghastly round; and if you think I am going to let
myself in for it you are mistaken. But, dear old mammy, you shan’t be
worried any longer; we will go out with you now, and we’ll be as good as
gold, and you shall get us each a new dark-blue serge dress and a new
sailor hat, and a pair of thick dogskin gloves. Surely that is enough.”
“And what about evening dresses, and Sunday dresses, and visiting
dresses?” said Mrs. Chetwynd.
“As to Sunday dresses,” cried Marjorie, “I don’t see why neat serge
dresses should not do quite well for church; and as to visiting dresses,
we do not intend to visit in the ordinary sense. The friend who does not
wish to see us in our serge costumes we do not intend to cultivate.”
“There are still evening dresses, my dear.”
“But, mother, you are not going to take us out to dinners?”
“You must have one or two dinner dresses,” said Mrs. Chetwynd, “and that
is an end of the matter. Go upstairs and put on your hats. I am ashamed
to go out with you as matters now stand.”
The two girls left the room linking their arms together. Letitia
remained behind.
“May I ask, Letitia,” said Mrs. Chetwynd, “when this madness seized
Marjorie and Eileen?”
“It has been coming on gradually,” said Letitia. “It is very bad, I
know. I was afraid you would suffer a good deal when they explained
themselves.”
“But when did it begin?”
“Well, two or three girls—Americans, I think—joined the school last
term, and Marjorie and Eileen became great friends with them; and just
about then they began to change. They were always careless with regard
to their dress, and would not allow Miss Ross—our English teacher who
had us under her special care—to spend the money which you sent on dress
at all.”
“And do you mean to tell me that Miss Ross consulted them?”
“Well, Aunt Helen, they had an extraordinary way of pleading their own
cause. I cannot understand it. They have saved a good deal of money, if
that is any satisfaction.”
“None whatever, child. I have got more money than I know what to do
with, and I choose my girls to look nice. Letitia, what a pity it is you
are not my own child.”
“For some reasons I wish I were, Aunt Helen.”
“You are so very neat, dear, so very dainty—that is the only word for
it. What am I to do with those other two?”
“I am dreadfully afraid you will have to give them their own way.”
“Their own way! Nonsense, my dear! impossible. Children, only eighteen.”
“But old enough, according to your own showing, Aunt Helen, to be
presented to the Queen, to enter society, and to marry if suitable
husbands come to the fore.”
“Of course; but they would be presented to the Queen by their mother;
they would enter society under their mother’s wing; and if they married,
their husbands would look after them. Now to allow those wild imps,
those irresponsible girls, to have their own way is not to be heard of
for a single moment.”
“Well, Aunt Helen, I am sure it will come right in the end. They are
queer, obstinate, out-of-the-way girls; but they have got fine
characters, and would not willingly pain you. The only thing is that
they look at life from a totally different standpoint. I’ll have a right
good talk with them, so try not to fret. I will put it to them that it
is their bounden duty to yield to you. They often mind what I say when
they won’t mind their elders. But is not that the carriage? Had not I
better get ready?”