Experience has to be bought, generally at the cost of some humiliating
youthful mistakes. Those who profit by these unpleasant transactions
early in life may be congratulated.
Lydia, the anxious diplomatist, so acutely desirous of keeping in the
good graces of those who had control of her destiny, found that she had
made a mistake in approaching Grandpapa privately upon the momentous
subject.
Grandpapa, indeed, had received her carefully-thought-out explanation
with not too bad a grace.
“So you don’t think you’re learning enough, eh, Lyddie? D’you think you
know more than Aunt Beryl already?”
Lydia had nearly cried.
“No, Grandpapa,” she began in the horrified accents of outraged
conventionality, when she remembered in time Grandpapa’s uncanny
faculty for penetrating to one’s real true, inmost opinion.
“Not more,” she said boldly, “but I know as much of Little Arthur’s
History as there is in the book, and auntie can’t take me any further
in French or fractions, and she never has time to give me proper music
lessons I only do scales, and Weber’s Last Valse, by myself. And I can
_feel_ I’m not getting on, Grandpapa--and I do so want to.”
“Why?”
“I’ve got to earn my own living,” said Lydia, rather proud of the
words, “and besides, I’m going to write books.”
“Can you spell?”
“Yes, Grandpapa.”
“You’ll be the first woman of my acquaintance that could, then,” said
Grandpapa unbelievingly.
“But there are heaps of other things I ought to know besides spelling,”
she urged.
“Well, I suppose that’s true. But what is it you want to do? I won’t
pay for a Madame to come and parlyvoo every day,” said Grandpapa in
sarcastic allusion to a recent flight on the part of Aunt Beryl’s
friends, the Jacksons.
“Would it be very expensive to let me go to school for a little bit,
Grandpapa?”
“What, and come back a great hulking tomboy, all muddy boots, and
scratched hands like your cousins?”
There was less opposition than Lydia had expected in his manner, and
she began to plead eagerly.
“I wouldn’t, truly I wouldn’t--I needn’t play games at all. It’s only
for the lessons I want to go. Beatrice and Olive only like it for the
hockey, they _hate_ their lessons. But I would work all the time,
Grandpapa, and bring back heaps of prizes.”
“Mind, if I let you go at all, it would be only as a day boarder,” said
Grandpapa warningly. But there was more than a hint of concession in
his tone.
“That’s all I want,” said Lydia.
“I’ll think it over, and talk to your aunt. Now go and fetch me
to-day’s paper.”
Grandpapa occasionally made a feint of reading the newspaper to
himself, although he was never seen to turn over a page.
“I can’t, Grandpapa. Aunt Beryl took it away, but she is going to bring
it back this evening.”
“You _can’t_?” said Grandpapa in a voice that contrived to be terrible,
although it was so small and high-pitched: “Don’t talk nonsense!
There’s no such thing as _can’t_. There’s _won’t_, if you like.”
Lydia felt very much distressed. Grandpapa’s anger and contempt were
not pleasant at any time, and just now when he appeared so nearly
disposed to grant her heart’s desire, she was less than ever wishful of
incurring them.
“Aunt Beryl has lent the paper to Mrs. Jackson for something,” she
faltered, feeling much disposed to cry. “She said you were sure not to
want it before to-night.”
“Quite wrong. I want it at once. Now don’t say _can’t_ again,” said
Grandpapa sharply.
The unfortunate Lydia looked helplessly at her tyrant.
“There’s no such thing as _can’t_,” said Grandpapa truculently. “Just
you take hold of that and don’t you ever forget it. Never place any
reliance on a person who says _can’t_. Let ’em say they won’t--or
they don’t want to--that may be true. The other isn’t. Anybody can do
anything, if they only make up their minds to it.”
Grandpapa and his descendant faced one another in silence for a minute
or so across the echo of this Spartan theory. At last the old man said
contemptuously:
“If you haven’t learnt _that_ yet, you’re not ready for any more
schooling than we can give you here, I can tell you.”
It was as Lydia had feared!
The future of one’s education, the whole of one’s career in fact, was
at stake.
Lydia gulped at an enormous lump in her throat and managed to
articulate with sufficient determination:
“I’ll fetch it.”
Then she hurried out of the room, wondering what on earth she should do
next.
Rush out and buy another paper?
The shops were a long way off, and very likely the morning papers might
be all sold out.
The station book stall?
That again was open to the same objections.
Borrow one from somebody else?
But whom?
Suddenly Lydia caught her breath.
Why not? It seemed obvious, once one had thought of it.
She hastily put on her hat, left the front door ajar behind her, and
walked out into the road and down a street that ran at an angle to
Regency Terrace.
“If you please, Mr. Raymond would be glad to have the morning paper
back again if Mrs. Jackson has quite finished with it,” she said
politely, relieved that it was late enough in the day for “the girl” to
open the door of the Jackson establishment to her, instead of one of
the family.
Five minutes later she was again confronting Grandpapa, this time
feeling triumphant and highly pleased with herself.
“I’ve got it, Grandpapa!”
Grandpapa’s claw-like old hand shot out and snatched at the newspaper.
“What’s the date on it?” he demanded.
Lydia read it aloud.
“That’s to-day’s all right.”
“I went round and asked----” began Lydia, desirous of exploiting her
resourcefulness.
“That’ll do, me dear. Never spoil an achievement by a long story about
it,” said Grandpapa. “I asked for the paper and you’ve brought it.
That’s quite enough.”
“Yes, Grandpapa,” said Lydia submissively.
Grandpapa pointed the moral no further but Lydia had unconsciously
added another paragraph to the Book of Rules which was to guide her
throughout the mysterious game that was just beginning for her:
“There’s no such thing as can’t.”
She heard nothing more for the next few days of her ambitious request
to be sent to school, and was far too cautious to risk a peremptory
refusal through importunity.
It was a week later that she became uncomfortably aware of an
indefinable alteration in her aunt’s manner towards her.
“Is anything the matter, auntie?” she gently ventured.
“Why should anything be the matter, dear?” said Aunt Beryl, her lips
very close together and her gaze not meeting Lydia’s.
The child’s heart sank.
Quite obviously Aunt Beryl was offended, and meant to adopt the trying
policy of ignoring any cause for offence. Twice she was too tired to
come upstairs and say good night to Lydia, although this had never
happened before, and several times when Lydia made little obvious
comments, of the sort that always constituted conversation between them
on their walks, Aunt Beryl appeared to be too much absorbed in thought
to have heard her.
“I would much rather be scolded,” reflected Lydia dismally.
She was not scolded, but Aunt Beryl’s sense of grievance presently
passed into a more articulate stage.
“Oh, don’t ask _me_, dear. I’m nobody. _I_ don’t know anything,” she
suddenly exclaimed with extreme bitterness, on a request for advice in
respect of Lydia’s knitting.
“Oh, auntie! are you angry?”
“Why should I be angry, dear? I may be _grieved_, but that’s another
matter.”
On this ground Aunt Beryl finally took her stand.
“I’m not angry, dear--I’m grieved.”
And grieved Aunt Beryl remained, tacitly waving away all Lydia’s timid
attempts at apology or explanation.
Could anything be better calculated to make one feel thoroughly
remorseful and uncomfortable?
Lydia, however, characteristically felt more resentful than remorseful.
The tension of the situation was slightly relieved one evening, greatly
to Lydia’s surprise, by Mr. Monteagle Almond.
“So you’re being sent to school, young lady?” he remarked quietly,
making Lydia jump.
“Oh, am I?”
“You ought to know. I understand that a certain young lady, not a
hundred miles away from where we are now, asked to be sent to school,
so that she might grow very learned. Isn’t that so?”
“I _should_ like to go to school,” faltered Lydia.
“Very natural,” said Mr. Almond indulgently. “Companions of your
own age attract you, no doubt. What would childhood be without other
children, eh, George? You remember?”
“I was not so well provided as you were, Monty,” said Uncle George
rather resentfully.
“Indeed, no. Are you aware, young lady, that I was one of a family of
fifteen?”
Aunt Beryl made a clicking sound with her tongue.
“Yes, Miss Raymond, fifteen. My father and mother were old-fashioned
people, and held that each child carried a blessing with it. Three died
in infancy, and a young brother was lost at sea. Otherwise I’m thankful
to say that we are all spared to this day.”
“Fancy!” said Aunt Beryl in a flat voice.
“Fifteen children,” repeated the grey-bearded clerk, “and my mother
kept her figure to the last day of her life. A lesson to the young
wives of to-day, I often think.”
“Your bedtime, Lydia,” said Aunt Beryl briskly. “Go upstairs now and
I’ll come and put the light out.”
Lydia was much too tactful to point out that it was still ten minutes
before her bedtime, understanding perfectly that the indiscreetness of
Mr. Monteagle Almond’s conversation was responsible for her accelerated
departure.
She had learnt that she was really going to school, and she was happy.
Aunt Beryl gradually became reconciled to the loss of her pupil, and
presently began to show signs of pride in Lydia’s advancement.
Once or twice Lydia heard her talking to Mrs. Jackson in the rapid
undertones always adopted by Aunt Beryl and Aunt Evelyn with their
friends.
“Quite a backward child, when she came to us last year. Between
ourselves, my sister-in-law never took much trouble.... I was quite
against sending her to Miss Glover’s at first--you know, I thought
she’d be so behind in everything. So she was, too, but the way that
child has picked up! You really wouldn’t believe it--I’m sure half the
sums in her book I couldn’t do myself. Never was good at figures.”
Lydia was very proud of her faculty for arithmetic. She thought very
little of being first in her class for English composition, and none of
the other girls thought much of it either, but they all envied her when
the weekly announcement came, as it frequently did:
“Problem No. 15. No one got that right except Lydia Raymond. Stand
up, Lydia Raymond, and show the class the working of No. 15 on the
black-board. ‘If a train left Glasgow at 8.45 a.m. on Wednesday,
travelling at the rate of 60 miles an hour----’”
Lydia enjoyed those problems, worked by herself on the black-board in
full view of half-a-dozen befogged, pencil-chewing seniors.
But for her French, Lydia would have found herself more highly placed
than she was in the school.
Monday and Thursday afternoons.
O horrible verbs, O hateful _Première Année de Grammaire_, and
thrice-hateful genders!
_Why_ should a table be feminine and an arm-chair masculine?
Lydia hated her French, and continued to say “Esker le feneter de la
salong ay ouvere?” in a lamentable voice and an unalterably British
accent. Very few of Miss Glover’s girls were “good at French.” Only
three had any acquaintance with German, and of these one was Dutch.
Many of them could play the piano correctly, and even brilliantly, some
of them could copy free-hand drawings or plaster casts, but hardly one
could write a letter without making mistakes in spelling, punctuation,
and English. All, unconsciously enough, were more or less defective in
the correct pronunciation of English.
Since brains, in Great Britain, are for the most part the prerogative
of the middle classes, it follows that their possessors enjoy a certain
prestige among their compeers which would, on those same grounds, be
denied them in more exalted circles.
Lydia found that her schoolfellows were proud of her cleverness, and
disposed to seek her friendship.
She easily assumed leadership amongst the group of girls of her own age
who were also day boarders at Miss Glover’s.
“_Do_ help me with this beastly sum, Lydia. I’m sure you can do it.”
Lydia always acceded very graciously to such frequent requests, partly
because she loved to show her own superior attainments, and partly
because of a very definite conviction, which she had never yet put
into words, that it was always worth while to show oneself agreeable.
In consequence of this complaisance, she was seldom at a loss for
companionship in play-time. There was always someone to walk about
with, arms round one another’s waists after the immemorial schoolgirl
practice, heads close together under black or scarlet tam o’ shanter,
for a better exchange of confidences.
Then Lydia put into practice Grandpapa’s Golden Rule: _Always let the
other people talk about themselves._
“I say, Lydia, I’ll tell you a secret. Mind, now, you’re not to say a
word to anyone, because I promised not to tell ... but I know I can
trust you?”
An interrogative turn to that last sentence.
“Yes, truly you can, Ethel. Tell me.”
“Well, promise you won’t tell. Not even if you’re asked?”
“Cross my heart----” in the glib, accustomed formula.
“Well, then, Daisy Butcher and May Holt have had a row. You know what
_frightful_ friends they’ve been ever since the beginning of the term?
Well, it’s all over, and they’ve quarrelled. Only don’t ever say I said
so because Edith told me, and I said I wouldn’t say because it was
May Holt herself who told her, and she made her promise not to say. I
wouldn’t say a word myself, only I really thought you _ought_ to know,
sitting next to May in class and everything. I say, do you _like_ May
Holt?”
Lydia, who thought May Holt common and stupid, was for a moment tempted
to say so. Then, innate caution and a distrust of her companion’s
garrulity restrained her.
“She’s all right,” she said vaguely. “I thought you were rather friends
with her?”
“Not now,” said Ethel hastily. “If the quarrel comes out and there’s
any taking sides, I shall be on Daisy’s side. I think May Holt’s been
awfully mean. I simply can’t bear mean ways. I’m like that, you know.”
Thus Ethel’s confidences, similar to scores of others, all ending in
an exposition of the speaker’s view of her own personal traits of
character.
Storms raged in teacups, confidences were violated, the identical Ethel
who had sworn Lydia to secrecy on the May and Daisy quarrel, found
herself taxed with various indiscreet utterances and sent to Coventry.
“Well, it was Edith who told me, and she said May Holt was a liar,
what’s more,” sobbed Ethel, in counter-accusation that availed her
nothing, although it raised fresh and terrible issues between herself
and Edith, and again between Edith and May Holt, and all May Holt’s
partisans.
Lydia listened to it all, and thought how clever she had been to keep
clear of all this trouble.
It was a thing always to be remembered--the unwisdom of uttering
opinions that would probably be repeated to their object--never, never
to say anything that could not be safely repeated without making for
one an enemy.
Lydia silently added this conviction to her increasing store of worldly
wisdom.
So she welcomed the confidences of the other girls, most of whom
seemed quite unable to prevent themselves from talking, and she was
at the same time very careful never to render herself unpopular by
mischief-making or by carrying backwards and forwards any of their
indiscreet utterances.
“You can always trust Lydia,” said one or two of the girls.
And once she heard one of them exclaim:
“I’ve never heard Lydia Raymond say an unkind word about anybody.”
It sounded very sweet and charitable, but Lydia, with a sense of humour
not unlike her grandfather’s, had a little grim, private laugh at the
irony of it.
Several of her schoolfellows asked her to tea, or to an occasional
picnic in the summer, but Lydia very often regretfully said that her
aunt did not like her to go out much, and declined the invitations,
without ever referring them to Aunt Beryl at all.
She had a fastidious idea that she did not want to be reputed “great
friends” with the children of the more superior tradespeople, or even
with the two youthful social lights of the establishment, the daughters
of a rich local dentist.
Instinct, and certain recollections of her mother, led her to seek the
friendship of a quiet little girl, actually a boarder, whose home was
in the west of England, and of whom Lydia only knew that her father
was a clergyman, and that she had nice manners and somehow spoke
differently from the others. Her name was Nathalie Palmer.
Nathalie did not make so many confidences as did the other girls, and
when she did talk to Lydia it was of Devonshire and of her own home,
not of the people at school.
This Lydia observed, instinctively approved, and inwardly made note of
for future imitation.
As Nathalie knew no one outside the school, she was naturally unable to
ask Lydia to come home with her, but just before the midsummer break-up
her father came to visit her.
He stayed for two days at the Seaview Hotel, and Nathalie took Lydia to
luncheon there.
Mr. Palmer looked old to be the father of fourteen-year-old Nathalie,
and had a slow, clerical manner of speech that rather overawed Lydia.
She had never had a meal at any hotel since the days with her mother
and father in London, that seemed now so immeasurably remote, and she
felt rather nervous. Politely answering Mr. Palmer’s kind inquiries as
to her place in class, her favourite games and lessons, she was all
the time anxiously casting surreptitious glances at Nathalie to see how
she helped herself to the strange and numerous dishes proffered by the
waiter.
Aunt Beryl was very particular about “table-manners,” but at Regency
Terrace there was never any such bewildering profusion of knives and
forks to perplex one.
Once Lydia embarked upon the butter-dish, offered by Mr. Palmer, with
her own small knife, and then, leaving it in the butter-dish, found
only a very large knife left beside her plate with which to spread it.
Shame and disaster threatened.
Lydia looked up, and her distressed gaze met that of a waiter. To her
own effable surprise, she made a movement of her head that brought him
deferentially to her elbow with the required implement. Simplicity
itself!
Lydia inwardly decided that one need never be frightened, in the most
unaccustomed surroundings, if only one kept one’s head and never
betrayed any sense of insecurity.
Next day she had the gratification of being shyly told by Nathalie:
“Father said what a pretty face you had, Lydia, and what nice manners.
He was so glad I’d got such a nice friend, and he said I might ask you
whether one day your aunt would let you come and stay with us during
the holidays.”