Time slipped by with mysterious rapidity.
Lydia was in the sixth form--she was a prefect--she was Head of the
School.
At seventeen she discovered that she had ceased to grow. She had
attained to her full height, and after all, it was not the outrageous
stature that had been prophesied for her. Only five feet eight inches,
and her slimness, and the smallness of her bones, made her look less
tall.
Her thick, brown hair was in one plait now, doubled under and tied with
a black ribbon, and her skirts reached down to her slender ankles.
Lydia still had doubts as to her own claims to beauty, and envied
Nathalie Palmer her bright, Devonshire complexion and blue eyes.
“Should you say I was _at all_ pretty, Nathalie?”
“Your eyes are lovely.”
“That’s what people always say about plain girls,” said Lydia
disgustedly.
“You look sort of foreign, and interesting,” said Nathalie
thoughtfully. “The shape of your face is quite different to anyone
else’s.”
It did not sound reassuring, and Lydia touched with the tips of her
fingers the salient cheek bones that gave an odd hint of Mongolianism
to her small olive-hued face.
“Your mouth is pretty, it’s so red,” said Nathalie. “Though I should
like it better if your teeth didn’t slope inwards.”
Nathalie adored Lydia, but she was incurably honest.
She went home for good the year before Lydia was to enter upon her last
term at Miss Glover’s.
“You’ll come and stay with us next year, won’t you?” entreated
Nathalie. “There’s no one but father and me at home, but quite a lot of
nice people live near.”
“Of course I’ll come. I’d love to come. I should just have left here,”
said Lydia.
She wondered whether Nathalie realized that on leaving school she would
be seeking for employment. Most of Miss Glover’s pupils had their homes
in the locality, and went as a matter of course “to help father in the
shop.” Several found situations as teachers, one had gone to Bristol
University to study for a medical degree, and only a minority, like
Nathalie herself, looked forward to living at home.
Lydia knew that she meant to write, and she had long ago told Nathalie
the secret of her ambitions, but she had said nothing about other work,
and the two girls parted without having broached the subject.
“It will be time enough to tell Nathalie when I know what I’m going to
do,” reflected Lydia, with characteristic caution.
She was sure that Aunt Beryl expected her to teach. Miss Glover herself
had hinted that a post as Junior Mistress might be available in a
year’s time to one of Lydia’s abilities. That would mean sleeping at
home, having long holidays in the summer, and lesser ones at Christmas
and Easter, and a salary as well as her midday dinner at school.
It might also mean a Senior Mistress-ship after a certain number of
years, an increase of salary, and the far-away, ultimate possibility
of partnership with the Head. And it would also mean an endless
succession of pupils, almost all local, a life spent among femininity
until her interests would all centre round numbers of her own sex, and
a narrowing of vision such as must be inevitable in a mind exclusively
engaged in intercourse with the half-developed faculties of youth.
Lydia wished to leave the little seaside town.
Regency Terrace should be her home; she wanted to come back there
for holidays, and to receive the proud welcome that had awaited her
after her visit to Wimbledon, when she had passed her examination with
first-class honours.
But her secret determination was to find work in London. Only in
London, thought Lydia, would her vaunted capabilities be put to the
test. Only there could she hope to come into contact with that strata
of life, somehow different to the one in which Aunt Beryl, or the
Jacksons, or the Senthovens moved, and to which, she felt inwardly
certain, she herself would be acclaimed instantly as by right divine.
Finally, only in the immensities of London did Lydia think that she
would gain the experience necessary for the fulfilment of her desire to
write.
Hitherto her keen critical faculty had left her exceedingly
dissatisfied with her own literary attempts.
Once at sixteen years old, she had entered a competition started by a
girl’s paper for a short story “dealing with animal life.” Lydia had
first of all written a long and exciting account of a runaway elephant
in the jungle in India, with a little English boy--chota-sahib--on its
back.
Aunt Beryl’s praises, which had been enthusiastic, had failed to
satisfy her, owing, Lydia supposed, to her own intimate conviction of
Aunt Beryl’s lack of discrimination.
But she had disconcertingly found that it would be utterly impossible
to submit the story to Grandpapa’s discerning ear and incisive judgment.
Why?
Lydia, disregarding a certain violent inclination to shelve the whole
question, had ruthlessly analyzed her feelings of discomfort at the
very idea of hearing Grandpapa’s comments upon her work. There was no
doubt of it--Grandpapa would say that Lydia knew nothing about India,
or runaway elephants, or chota-sahibs--she had suddenly writhed,
remembering the very book of travels in which she first met with that
expression--that her story was all written at second or third hand, and
was therefore worthless. With a courage that afterwards struck her as
surprising, Lydia had envisaged the horrid truth.
She had lacked the heart to destroy the runaway elephant altogether,
but had stuffed the manuscript out of sight into the back of her
writing-table drawer, and resolutely sat down to consider whether she
could not lay claim to any first-hand impressions of animal life.
The result had been a short, humorously written sketch of one of
Shamrock’s innumerable escapades.
Lydia had not been awarded the first prize, as she inwardly felt would
have been in accordance with the dramatic fitness of things, but she
had thoroughly amused Grandpapa by reading the sketch to him aloud, and
she had taught herself a valuable lesson.
Experience, she had decided sweepingly, was the only royal road to
literature. She would write no more until experience was hers.
Experience, however, to Lydia’s way of thinking, was not to be gained
by remaining at Regency Terrace for ever.
When the last of her school days was approaching rapidly, she decided
that the time had come to speak.
“Grandpapa, I should like to ask your advice.”
“Light the gas, my dear. Your aunt is very late out this afternoon,”
was Grandpapa’s only reply.
When Grandpapa simulated deafness, it always meant that he was
displeased.
Lydia obediently struck a match, and the gas, through its crinkly pink
globe, threw a sudden spurt of light all over the familiar dining-room.
Grandpapa leant stiffly back in his arm-chair, a tiny, waxen-looking
figure, with alert eyes that seemed oddly youthful and mischievous,
seen above his knotted hands and shrunken limbs. He could see and hear
whatever he pleased, but it was becoming more and more difficult for
him to move, although he still staunchly refused to be helped from his
chair.
“Lyddie, where’s Shamrock?”
Useless to reply, as was in fact the case, “I don’t know.” The futility
of such a reply was bound to call forth one of Grandpapa’s most
disconcerting sarcasms.
“I’ll find out, Grandpapa.”
Luck favoured Lydia.
As a rule, one might as well attempt to follow the course of a comet as
that of Shamrock’s illicit excursions. But on this occasion Lydia at
once found him in the hall, and was so much relieved at the prospect
of success with Shamrock’s owner, that she failed to take notice
of the stealthy manner of Shamrock’s approach, denoting a distinct
consciousness of wrong-doing.
“Good little dog!” said Grandpapa delightedly. “They talk a great deal
of nonsense about his sneaking off into the town and stealing from the
shops--I don’t believe a word of it! He’s always here when _I_ want
him.”
At which Shamrock fawned enthusiastically upon his master, and Lydia
determined the hour to be a propitious one, and began again:
“Will you give me your advice, Grandpapa?”
“Lyddie, you said that a little while ago,” said Grandpapa severely.
“It’s a foolish feminine way of speaking, and I thought you had more
sense.”
Lydia looked at her disconcerting grandparent in silence.
She knew herself far better able to steer clear of his many and violent
prejudices than was matter-of-fact Uncle George, or unfortunate Aunt
Beryl, who often seemed to go out of her way in order to fall foul of
them. But this time she was conscious of perplexity.
“I don’t understand, Grandpapa. I really _do_ want your advice.”
“Advice is cheap,” said Grandpapa. “A great many people say they want
it, especially women. What they really want, Lyddie, is an opportunity
for telling someone what they have already decided to do. Then they
can say afterwards ‘Oh, but so-and-so and I talked it _all_ over and
he advised me to do such-and-such.’ You mark my word, no one ever yet
asked advice whose mind wasn’t more or less made up already.”
To take the bull by the horns was always the best way of dealing with
Grandpapa.
Lydia said resolutely:
“Well, I haven’t yet made up my mind, Grandpapa, that’s why I want to
talk to you.”
“So that I can advise you to do whatever you want to do?” satirically
demanded Grandpapa. “Well, my dear, you know me well enough to know
that I shan’t do _that_. Talk away.”
Thus encouraged, Lydia began.
“I am seventeen, Grandpapa.”
She pretended not to hear Grandpapa’s cheerful ejaculation, “Only
seventeen, my dear? Quite a young child, then.”
“I shall be eighteen by the time I leave school next month, and
there’ll be my future to think about. I know Miss Glover means to give
me a chance of a Junior Mistress-ship, or I suppose I could get a post
as governess, as Aunt Beryl is always suggesting. It would be a pity to
waste all my education at dressmaking, or anything like that, though I
suppose I _could_ take up something of the sort. Only really I feel as
though I’d rather use my head than my hands. Of course, I like anything
to do with figures, and Mr. Almond seemed to think that I shouldn’t
have any difficulty in getting into the Bank here.”
She paused.
“Well,” said Grandpapa, “you’ve told me all the things you _don’t_ mean
to do. Now tell me what you’ve really decided.”
Lydia, although rather angry, could not help laughing outright, and
immediately felt that her laughter had done herself and her cause more
good than any amount of eloquence. Eloquence indeed was invariably
wasted upon Grandpapa, who preferred any good speaking that might take
place to be done by himself.
“Now, child, have done with this nonsense and speak out. What is it you
want?”
Lydia drew a long breath.
“To go and work in London.”
There was a long pause, and then Grandpapa said in rather a flat voice:
“So that’s it, is it? Well, well, well--who’d have thought it?”
“Grandpapa! you didn’t think I should stay here _always_?” protested
Lydia. “How am I ever to get any experience, in one place all the time,
never seeing any new people?”
“‘Never’ is a long day,” quoth Grandpapa.
“But I shall have to begin soon if I’m to work at all. You and Aunt
Beryl have always said that I must do something when I leave school.”
“And supposing I said now that things have looked up a little, and you
could live at home and help your aunt a bit, and take little Shamrock
out of a morning. Eh, Lyddie, what then?”
Lydia was silent, but she did not attempt to conceal that her face fell
at the suggestion.
“Well, well, well,” said Grandpapa again, “so it’s to be London!”
“Then you’ll let me go,” Lydia exclaimed, trying to keep the eagerness
out of her voice.
Grandpapa uttered one of his most disagreeable, croaking laughs.
“Don’t talk like a little fool, my dear! You know very well that if you
want to go, you’ll go. How can I prevent it? I am only an old man.”
Lydia was disconcerted. Grandpapa never spoke of himself as old, and
the hint of pathos in the admission, unintentional though she supposed
it to be, seemed to her out of place in the present juncture.
She grew more annoyed as the evening wore on, for Grandpapa was really
very tiresome.
“A useless old man, that’s what I am,” he soliloquized, taking care,
however, to make himself perfectly audible.
“What is the matter, Grandpapa?” said the much surprised Aunt Beryl.
Everyone knew how angry Grandpapa would have been had he suspected
anyone else of looking upon him as a useless old man.
“Anno Domini,” sighed Grandpapa melodramatically, “Anno Domini! No one
left but little Shamrock to keep the old man company.”
“Grandpapa!” cried Aunt Beryl indignantly, “I’m sure if you had to
depend on the dog for company, you _might_ complain. But you know very
well that isn’t the case. Why, here’s George only too ready to have a
game of Halma, if you want to. Or Lydia could read out to you for a
bit.”
“Lyddie’s off to London, my dear,” sighed Grandpapa in martyred
accents, for all the world, thought Lydia indignantly, as though she
meant to start off by the next train.
“_What?_”
But Grandpapa, having dropped his bomb amongst them, not unwisely
elected to leave it there without waiting to see its effect.
“I shall go up to bed now, my boy. Will you give me an arm?”
“But it’s quite early. Don’t you feel well, Grandpapa? And what’s all
this about Lydia going away?”
Aunt Beryl received no answer.
Lydia was too much vexed and too much embarrassed to make any attempt
at stating her case, and Grandpapa had begun the tense process of
hoisting himself out of his arm-chair. When he was on his feet at
last, he allowed Uncle George to come and assist him out of the room
and up the stairs.
“Good night all,” said Grandpapa in a sorrowful, impersonal sort of
way, as he hobbled out of the room on his son’s arm. “I am getting to
be an old fellow now--I can’t afford to keep late hours. Bed and gruel,
that’s all that’s left for the old man.”
Aunt Beryl looked at Lydia with dismay.
“What’s all this about? Grandpapa hasn’t been like this since he was so
vexed that time when Uncle George took Shamrock out and lost him, and
he was away three days before a policeman brought him back. I remember
Grandpapa going on in just the same way then, talking about being an
old man and nobody caring for him. Such nonsense!”
Lydia had seldom heard so much indignation expressed by her quiet aunt,
and for a moment she hoped that attention might be diverted from her
own share in the disturbance of Grandpapa’s serenity.
But an early recollection of the unfortunate effects upon Aunt Beryl of
her withheld confidence, five years previously, came to her mind. Lydia
considered the position quietly for a few moments, and then decided
upon her line of attack.
“I know you’ll understand much better than Grandpapa did, and help me
with him,” she began.
Not for nothing had the child Lydia learnt the necessity for diplomacy
in dealing with those arbitrary controllers of Destiny called grown-up
people.
Aunt Beryl seemed a good deal startled, and perhaps rather
disappointed, which Lydia indulgently told herself was natural
enough, but the subtle appeal to range herself with her niece against
Grandpapa’s overdone pretensions was not without its effect.
And Lydia found an unexpected ally in Uncle George, when her scheme had
presently reached the stage of family discussion.
“You ought to get a good post enough,” he said judicially, “but you
mustn’t expect to keep yourself all at once unless you ‘live in’
somewhere!”
“If she goes to London at all,” Aunt Beryl said firmly, “she must go to
Maria Nettleship.”
Of course. Maria Nettleship, the _amie d’enfance_ of Aunt Beryl’s
younger days, who still punctually exchanged letters with her, and was
successfully managing a boarding-house in Bloomsbury.
“I should be happier about her with Maria Nettleship than if she was
just ‘living in’ with goodness knows whom to keep her company. And it’s
_nicer_, too, for a young girl like Lydia--you know what I mean,” said
Aunt Beryl mysteriously.
“But a boarding-house is expensive. I never thought of anything like
that, auntie. Why, I should cost you more than I would if I lived at
home, a great deal,” said Lydia, aghast.
“Oh, I could easily make an arrangement with Maria Nettleship. And you
want the chance, Lydia, my dear. I’m sure I don’t blame you. It’s not a
good thing to stay in one place all one’s life long, I suppose.” Aunt
Beryl gave a sigh. “It would be just an experiment for a little while,
and I’m sure the expense isn’t to be thought of when we know you would
be paying it all back in a year or two.”
“If it’s simply a question of the ready,” said Uncle George solemnly,
“I can lay my hand on something at the minute. A bachelor has few
expenses, and except for the little I make over to the house, I can
put by a tidy little bit every year. I should look upon it as quite a
profitable investment, Lydia, I assure you, to provide the needful on
this occasion.”
“Oh, Uncle George--thank you very much. But haven’t I any money at all
of my own without having to take yours?” cried Lydia, distressed.
Uncle George shook his head.
“Your poor mother was very unwise in the management of her
affairs--very unwise indeed. There’s a matter of twenty or twenty-five
pounds coming to you every year, Lydia, and that’s about all.”
“Did that pay for my being sent to school?”
“There was a little money of your father’s, that he left to me,” said
Aunt Beryl hastily. “I was always his favourite sister, whatever Evelyn
may say, and it seemed only natural that his child should have the
benefit of it, I’m sure. Now leave that, my dear, and tell me what sort
of work you think of looking out for in town.”
“Certainly,” said Uncle George, “that must be all cut and dried before
you think of starting off.”
Lydia felt almost bewildered by the rapidity with which things appeared
to be settling themselves. A boarding-house in London, independent
work, and leisure and opportunity for the writing that was to bring her
fame and money! She remembered once more, and this time with triumph,
Grandpapa’s old assertion: “There’s no such thing as _can’t_.”
Lydia’s determination to succeed, product partly of an ambitious
and resolute character, and partly of sheer ignorance as to the
difficulties that might lie in wait for her, was enhanced by an ardent
desire to justify the astonishingly practical belief in her that Aunt
Beryl and Uncle George were displaying.
Uncle George, who was not at all in the habit of paying compliments,
even said to her:
“I must say, it isn’t every girl who would have the courage to start
life as you’re proposing to do, Lydia, and you deserve every success,
I’m sure.”
After this, it was a disagreeable shock to find that another, and
entirely opposite, point of view could be taken of her venture.
One Wednesday evening, to Lydia’s infinite surprise, silent, dried-up
little Mr. Monteagle Almond suddenly broached the subject. He chose his
opportunity with evident care. Grandpapa, who still elected to maintain
his pose of rapidly-approaching dissolution, had waited until the first
game of chess was in full swing, and then demanded plaintively if
his son was too busy amusing himself to give the poor old man an arm
upstairs.
“Excuse me one moment, Monty.”
Uncle George had departed dutifully.
Almost at the same moment the maid Gertrude had put her head round the
door, the rest of her remaining outside the room, after the fashion
most deplored by Miss Raymond, and given breathless utterance:
“Oh, miss! Could you come out a minute, please? Shamrock’s got his head
squeezed in between the railings at the back, and I can’t get him out,
and he’s howling something awful!”
“That dog!”
Permitting herself only this forbearing exclamation, Aunt Beryl also
had hastened away.
Mr. Monteagle Almond remained seated before the chess-table, sedulously
tracing a little imaginary pattern on the board with one long yellow
forefinger.
Lydia was seated under the gas, which she had turned up as high as it
would go, absorbed in finishing a Sunday blouse for herself.
“I am sorry to hear of your projected departure, Miss Lydia,” suddenly
said Mr. Monteagle Almond. “Quite a break-up of the home circle.”
“Oh, no!” protested Lydia, who would have been more deeply concerned
at this fashion of viewing her going if she had not been accustomed to
Mr. Almond’s sententious phraseology on every occasion. “Besides, I’m
not going yet. It’s only a plan for next winter perhaps. I shan’t leave
school until the end of this term.”
Mr. Almond shook his head.
“A great wrench for old Mr. Raymond no doubt, and he seems to me to
be breaking up. To-night, for instance, he was quite tremulous. I was
sorry to see that.”
“So was I,” muttered Lydia rather viciously. It was really too bad of
Grandpapa to put on those airs that would take in anyone who did not
know all of which he was capable.
“The old are perhaps less apt at concealing their feelings than we
younger folk,” pursued Mr. Almond. “Now, I’m sure my good friends, your
aunt and uncle, have not allowed you to see how deeply your decision
will affect them.”
“They’ve been very kind,” said Lydia with emphasis. She was anxious
that no one should think her ungrateful.
“I have no doubt of it at all--none whatever. A most kind-hearted
fellow is George--most kind-hearted. And as for Miss Raymond--well, I
need not tell you what she is. I am sure that you remember her devoted
nursing of you--for which she afterwards suffered so severely--on the
occasion of some childish ailment of yours a couple of years ago.”
Mr. Almond fixed an eye of melancholy severity upon Lydia, looking as
though he were much less sure than he alleged himself to be of her
remembering the occasion in question, and was consequently determined
to recall it to her memory.
Lydia was speechless with indignation.
Pneumonia a childish ailment!
One of the chief crises of her youth to be recalled merely as the
setting for the jewel of Aunt Beryl’s self-devotion!
Mr. Almond was worse than Grandpapa even.
It was clear to her that here was a point of view which required
readjustment.
“I shall be very, very sorry to leave home,” she said earnestly. “But
indeed I do think it’s the best thing I can do. If I get a good post
in London, it will lead to much more than my just going on at Miss
Glover’s, teaching, for ever. And it seems a shame not to make the very
most of the education I’ve had.”
“Very true. But I’m afraid you’ll be sadly missed. One had hoped, if
I may say so without offence, to see you taking your aunt’s place in
time. She has been very much tied now for a number of years.”
“I _do_ hope to help Aunt Beryl. But it would be a disappointment to
her and to Uncle George if I didn’t do something with the education
they’ve given me. In some ways,” said Lydia, “the thought of going to
London by myself frightens me--but honestly, Mr. Almond, I believe if I
once take the plunge, it’ll turn out to be the best and most profitable
for us all in the long run.”
She saw by his face, with decided relief, that the little man was
becoming mollified.
“I’m glad you look at it in that light. You’ll excuse me speaking like
this, I hope, but I’ll admit to you, Miss Lydia, that at first I was
inclined to think you might be going into this without much thought for
anyone but yourself. What you’ve just said shows me that I may have
misjudged you.”
“Indeed,” Lydia said deferentially, “I know it’s only from friendship
that you’re saying it at all. But I hope you’ll believe that I really
am not ungrateful to them all--and I do want to make them proud of me.
I hope I shall, too, if I have my chance.”
The middle-aged bank clerk looked at her with a gaze that seemed half
admiring and half envious.
“Well,” he said slowly, “they’re giving you your chance all right, Miss
Lydia. And I hope, if I may say so, that you’ll make the most of it,
both for your own sake and for theirs.”
And Lydia, whilst agreeing with him in all sincerity, felt with an odd
sense of triumph that she had reinstated herself in the good opinion of
the loyal friend of the family.
This opinion received a startling confirmation the next time that she
saw him.
“Have you decided upon the exact nature of your employment in London?”
he inquired of her, with an air of caution.
“Oh, no. I don’t very much care for the idea of teaching, and I should
have to learn shorthand and typewriting before I could get secretarial
work. What I should really like would be something to do with
figures--accountancy perhaps.”
“Ah! I thought so. The mathematical mind! A very rare thing in your
sex,” said Mr. Monteagle Almond, as he had frequently said before. “But
subject to the approval of your good aunt, I have here something that
may interest you, I think.”
Aunt Beryl and Lydia gazed eagerly at the paper he held out to them,
covered with telegraphic notes written in Mr. Almond’s neat little
clerkly hand.
“New venture. _Robes et Modes._ Started last year. Establishment
owned by Lady Proprietress, personally known to informant. Prem. in
West End already acquired and cap. assured.”
“Opening for educ. young lady; a/cs and help in sales-room when
required.”
“Live out; midday meal in. Special feature made of employees’
welfare.”
“Personal interview previous to engagt. Probably Sept. Salary to
begin--no premium.”
“_Only superior young ladies considered._”
“The last item,” said Mr. Almond solemnly, “was much dwelt upon by
my informant--Griswell, of the N. S. Bank. He could give me very few
details, but seeing that I was interested, he immediately offered to
communicate with the lady concerned, a personal friend of his. He
merely mentioned her name to me by chance, and was quite surprised at
my taking him up, like.”
“It was very kind of you to pass it on, I’m sure,” said Aunt Beryl
excitedly. “What do you say about it, Lydia?”
“I should like, if Mr. Almond will be so very kind, to hear all about
it,” said Lydia, her eyes shining and her heart full of excitement.