Although Fräulein had charge over the girls’ education, Mr. Asplin
reserved to himself the right of superintending their studies and
dictating their particular direction. He was so accustomed to training
boys for a definite end that he had no patience with the ordinary
aimless routine of a girl’s school course, and in the case of his
daughters had carefully provided for their different abilities and
tastes. Esther was a born student, a clear-headed, hard-thinking
girl, who took a delight in wrestling with Latin verbs and in solving
problems in Euclid, while she had little or no artistic faculty. He
put her through much the same course as his own boys, gave her half an
hour’s private lesson on unoccupied afternoons, and cut down the two
hours’ practising on the piano to a bare thirty minutes. Esther had
pleaded to give up music altogether, on the ground that she had neither
love nor skill for this accomplishment, but to this the Vicar would not
agree.
“You have already spent much time over it, and have passed the worst of
the drudgery; it would be folly to lose all you have learnt,” he said.
“You may not wish to perform in public, but there are many other ways
in which your music may be useful. In time to come you would be sorry
if you could not read an accompaniment to a song, play bright airs to
amuse children, or hymn tunes to help in a service. Half an hour a day
will keep up what you have learned, and so much time you must manage to
spare.”
With Mellicent the case was almost exactly opposite. It was a waste
of time trying to teach her mathematics, she had not sufficient brain
power to grasp them, and if she succeeded in learning a proposition by
heart like a parrot, it was only to collapse into helpless tears and
protestations when the letters were altered, and, as it seemed to her,
the whole argument changed thereby.
Fräulein protested that it was impossible to teach Mellicent to reason,
but the Vicar was loath to give up his pet theory that girls should
receive the same hard mental training as their brothers. He declared
that if the girl were weak in this direction, it was all the more
necessary that she should be trained, and volunteered to take her
in hand for half an hour daily to see what could be done. Fräulein
accepted this offer with a chuckle of satisfaction, and the Vicar went
on with the lessons several weeks, patiently plodding over the same
ground without making the least impression on poor Mellicent’s brain,
until there came one happy never-to-be-forgotten morning when Algebra
and Euclid went spinning up to the ceiling, and he jumped from the
table with a roar of helpless laughter.
“Oh, baby! baby! this is past all bearing! We might try for a century,
and never get any further. I cannot waste any more time.” Then, seeing
the large tears gathering, he framed the pretty face in his hands,
and looked at it with a tender smile. “Never mind, darling! there are
better things in this world than being clever and learned. You will be
our little house-daughter; help mother with her work, and play and sing
to father when he is tired in the evening. Work hard at your music,
learn how to manage a house, to sew and mend, and cook, and you will
have nothing to regret. A woman who can make a home has done more than
many scholars.”
So it came to pass that Mellicent added the violin to her
accomplishments, and was despatched to her own room to practise
exercises, while her elder sister wrestled with problems and equations.
When Peggy Saville arrived, here was a fresh problem, for Fräulein
reported that the good child could not add five and six together
without tapping them over on her finger; was as ignorant of geography
as a little heathen, and had so little ear for music that she could not
sing “Rule Britannia” without branching off into “God save the Queen.”
But when it came to poetry!--Fräulein held up her hands in admiration.
It was absolutely no effort to that child to remember, her eyes seemed
to flash down the page, and the lines were her own, and as she repeated
them her face shone, and her voice thrilled with such passionate
delight that Esther and Mellicent had been known to shed tears at the
sound of words which had fallen dead and lifeless from their own lips.
And at composition, how original she was! What a relief it was to find
so great a contrast to other children! When it was the life of a great
man which should be written, Esther and Mellicent began their essays
as ninety-nine out of a hundred school-girls would do, with a flat
and obvious statement of birth, birth-place, and parentage, but Peggy
disdained such commonplace methods, and dashed headlong into the heart
of her subject with a high-flown sentiment, or a stirring assertion
which at once arrested the reader’s interest. And it was the same
with whatever she wrote; she had the power of investing the dullest
subject with charm and brightness. Fräulein could not say too much of
Peggy’s powers in this direction, and the Vicar’s eye brightened as he
listened. He asked eagerly to be allowed to see the girl’s MS. book,
and summoned his wife from pastry-making in the kitchen to hear the
three or four essays which it contained.
“What do you think of those for a girl of fourteen? There’s a pupil
for you! If she were only a boy! Such dash--such spirit--such a gift
of words! Do you notice her adjectives? Exaggerated, no doubt, and
over-abundant, but so apt, so true, so strong! That child can write:
she has the gift. She ought to turn out an author of no mean rank.”
“Oh, dear me! I hope not. I hope she will marry a nice, kind man who
will be good to her, and have too much to do looking after her children
to waste her time writing stories,” cried Mrs. Asplin, who adored a
good novel when she could get hold of one, but harboured a prejudice
against all women-authors as strong-minded creatures, who lived in
lodgings, and sported short hair, inky fingers, and a pen behind the
ear. Mariquita Saville was surely destined for a happier fate. “When
a woman can live her own romance, why need she trouble her head about
inventing others!”
Her husband looked at her with a quizzical smile.
“Even the happiest life is not all romance, dear. It sometimes seems
unbearably prosaic, and then it is a relief to lose oneself in fiction.
You can’t deny that! I seem to have a remembrance of seeing someone
I know seated in a big chair before this very fire devouring a novel
and a Newtown pippin together on more Saturday afternoons than I could
number.”
“Tuts!” said his wife, and blushed a rosy red, which made her look
ridiculously young and pretty. Saturday afternoon was her holiday-time
of the week, and she had not yet outgrown her school-girl love of
eating apples as an accompaniment to an interesting book, but how
aggravating to be reminded of her weakness just at this moment of all
others! “What an inconvenient memory you have,” she said complainingly.
“Can’t a poor body indulge in a little innocent recreation without
having it brought up against her in argument ever afterwards. And I
thought we were talking about Peggy! What is at the bottom of this
excitement? I know you have some plan in your head.”
“I mean to see that she reads good books, and only books that will
help, and not hinder her progress! The rest will come in time. She must
learn before she can teach, have some experience of her own before she
can imagine the experiences of others; but writing is Peggy’s gift,
and she has been put in my charge. I must try to give her the right
training.”
From that time forward Mr. Asplin studied Peggy with a special
interest, and a few evenings later a conversation took place among
the young people which confirmed him in his conclusion as to her
possibilities. Lessons were over for the day, and girls and boys were
amusing themselves in the drawing-room, while Mr. Asplin read the
_Spectator_, and his wife knitted stockings by the fire. Mellicent
was embroidering a prospective Christmas present, an occupation which
engaged her leisure hours from March to December; Esther was reading,
and Peggy was supposed to be writing a letter, but was, in reality,
talking incessantly, with her elbows planted on the table, and her face
supported on her clasped hands. She wore a bright pink frock, which
gave a tinge of colour to the pale face, her hair was unbound from the
tight pig-tail and tied with a ribbon on the nape of her neck, from
which it fell in smooth heavy waves to her waist. It was one of the
moments when her companions realised with surprise that Peggy could
look astonishingly pretty upon occasion, and Oswald, from the sofa, and
Max and Bob, from the opposite side of the table, listened to her words
with all the more attention on that account.
She was discussing the heroine of a book which they had been reading
in turns, pointing out the inconsistencies in her behaviour, and
expatiating on the superior manner in which she--Mariquita--would have
behaved had positions been reversed. Then the boys had described their
own imaginary conduct under the trying circumstances, drawing forth
peals of derisive laughter from the feminine audience, and the question
had finally drifted from “What would you do?” to “What would you be?”
with the result that each one was eager to expatiate on his own pet
schemes and ambitions.
“I should like to come out first in all England in the Local
Examinations, get my degree of M.A., and be a teacher in a large High
School,” said Esther solemnly. “At Christmas and Easter I would come
home and see my friends, and in summer time I’d go abroad and travel,
and rub up my languages. Of course, what I should like best would be
to be head mistress of Girton, but I could not expect that to come for
a good many years. I must be content to work my way up, and I shall be
quite happy wherever I am, so long as I am teaching.”
“Poor old Esther! and she will wear spectacles, and black alpaca
dresses, and woollen mittens on her hands! Can’t I see her!” cried Max,
throwing back his head with one of the cheery bursts of laughter which
brought his mother’s eyes upon him with a flash of adoring pride. “Now
there’s none of that overweening ambition about me. I could bear up if
I never saw an improving book again. What _I_ would like would be for
some benevolent old millionaire to take a fancy to me, and adopt me as
his heir. I feel cut out to be a country gentleman and march about in
gaiters and knickerbockers, looking after the property, don’t you know,
and interviewing my tenants. I’d be strict with them, but kind at the
same time; look into all their grievances, and put them right whenever
I could. I’d make it a model place before I’d done with it, and all the
people would adore me. That’s my ambition, and a very good one it is
too; I defy anyone to have a better.”
“I should like to marry a very rich man with a big moustache, and
a beautiful house in London with a fireplace in the hall,” cried
Mellicent fervently. “I should have carriages and horses, and a diamond
necklace and three children; Valentine Roy--that should be the boy--and
Hildegarde and Ermyntrude, the girls, and they should have golden hair
like Rosalind, and blue eyes, and never wear anything but white, and
big silk sashes. I’d have a housekeeper to look after the dinners and
things, and a governess for the children, and never do anything myself
except give orders and go out to parties. I’d be the happiest woman
that ever lived.”
Lazy Oswald smiled in complacent fashion.
“And the fattest! Dearie me, wouldn’t you be a tub! I don’t know that I
have any special ambition. I mean to get my degree if I can, and then
persuade the governor to send me a tour round the world. I like moving
about, and change and excitement, and travelling is good fun if you
avoid the fag, and provide yourself with introductions to the right
people. I know a fellow who went off for a year and had no end of a
time; people put him up at their houses, and got up balls and dinners
for his benefit, and he never had to rough it a bit. I could put in a
year or two in that way uncommonly well.”
Rob had been wriggling on his chair and scowling in his wild-bear
fashion all the while Oswald was speaking, and at the conclusion he
relieved his feelings by kicking out recklessly beneath the table, with
the result that Peggy sat up suddenly with a “My foot, my friend! Curb
your enthusiasm!” which made him laugh, despite his annoyance.
“But it’s such bosh!” he cried scornfully. “It makes me sick to hear
a fellow talk such nonsense. Balls and dinners--faugh! If that’s your
idea of happiness, why not settle down in London and be done with it!
That’s the place for you! I’d give my ears to go round the world, but
I wouldn’t thank you to go with a dress suit and a valet; I’d want
to rough it, to get right out of the track of civilisation and taste
a new life; to live with the Bedouin in their tents as some of those
artist fellows have done, or make friends with a tribe of savages.
Magnificent! I’d keep a note-book with an account of all I did, and
all the strange plants and flowers and insects I came across, and write
a book when I came home. I’d a lot rather rough it in Africa that
lounge about Piccadilly in a frock coat and tall hat.” Robert sighed
at the hard prospect which lay before him as the son of a noble house,
then looked across the table with a smile: “And what says the fair
Mariquita? What _rôle_ in life is she going to patronise when she comes
to years of discretion?”
Peggy nibbled the end of her pen and stared into space.
“I’ve not quite decided,” she said slowly. “I should like to be either
an author or an orator, but I’m not sure which. I think, on the whole,
an orator, because then you could watch the effect of your words.
It is not possible, of course, but what I should like best would be
to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, or some great dignitary of the
Church. Oh, just imagine it! To stand up in the pulpit and see the dim
cathedral before one, and the faces of the people looking up, white
and solemn.... I’d stand waiting until the roll of the organ died away
and there was a great silence; then I would look at them, and say to
myself--‘A thousand people, two thousand people, and for half an hour
they are in my power. I can make them think as I will, see as I will,
feel as I will. They are mine! I am their leader.’--I cannot imagine
anything in the world more splendid than that! I should choose to be
the most wonderful orator that was ever known, and people would come
from all over the world to hear me, and I would say beautiful things in
beautiful words, and see the answer in their faces, and meet the flash
in the eyes looking up into mine. Oh--h! if it could only--only be
true; but it can’t, you see. I am a girl, and if I try to do anything
in public I am as nervous as a rabbit, and can only squeak, squeak,
squeak in a tiny little voice that would not reach across the room. I
had to recite at a prize-giving at school once, and, my dears, it was
a lamentable failure! I was only audible to the first three rows, and
when it was over, I simply sat down and howled, and my knees shook.
Oh, dear, the very recollection unpowers me! So I think, on the whole,
I shall be an authoress, and let my pen be my sceptre. From my quiet
fireside,” cried Peggy, with a sudden assumption of the Mariquita
manner, and a swing of the arms which upset a vase of chrysanthemums,
and sent a stream of water flowing over the table--“from my quiet
fireside I will sway the hearts of men----”
“My plush cloth! Oh, bad girl,--my new plush cloth! You dreadful Peggy,
what will I do with you!” Mrs. Asplin rushed forward to mop with her
handkerchief and lift the dripping flowers to a place of safety, while
Peggy rolled up her eyes with an expression of roguish impenitence.
“Dear Mrs. Asplin, it was not I, it was that authoress. She was
evolving her plots.... Pity the eccentricities of the great!”
(_To be continued._)