POOR MATILDA--THE AWKWARD AGE--MRS. BULLER TAKES COUNSEL WITH HER
FRIENDS--THE "MILLINER AND MANTUAMAKER"--MEDICAL ADVICE--THE MAJOR
DECIDES.
It was not because Major Buller's high opinion of Miss Airlie was in any
way lowered that he decided to send us to school. In fact it was only
under long and heavy pressure, from circumstances as well as from Aunt
Theresa, that he gave his consent to a plan which never quite met with
his approval.
Several things at this time seemed to conspire to effect it. The St.
Quentins were going on long leave, and Miss Airlie would go with them.
This was a heavy blow. Then we heard of this school after Miss Airlie
had left Riflebury, a fact so opportune as to be (so Aunt Theresa said)
"quite providential." If we were to go to school, sending us to this one
would save the trouble of making personal inquiries, and perhaps a less
wise selection, for Major Buller had confidence in Mr. Arkwright's good
judgment. The ladies to whose care his daughter was confided were
probably fit to teach us.
"It would save a great deal of trouble," my guardian confessed, and it
must also be confessed that Major Buller was glad to avoid trouble when
he could conscientiously do so.
I think it was his warm approval of Eleanor which finally clinched the
question. He thought that she would be a good companion for poor
Matilda.
Why I speak of her as "poor Matilda" demands some explanation.
Before I attempt to give it I must say that there is one respect in
which our biographies must always be less satisfactory than a story that
one might invent. When you are putting down true things about yourself
and your friends, you cannot divide people neatly into the good and the
bad, the injurers and the injured, as you can if you are writing a tale
out of your head. The story seems more complete when you are able
either to lay the blame of the melancholy events on the shoulders of
some unworthy character, or to show that they were the natural
punishment of the sufferer's own misconduct. But in thinking of Matilda
and Aunt Theresa and Major Buller, or even of the Doctor and Mrs.
Buller's lady friends, this is not possible.
The morbid condition--of body and mind--into which Matilda fell for some
time was no light misfortune either as regards her sufferings or the
discomfort it produced in the household, and I am afraid she was both
mismanaged and in fault herself.
It is safe, at any rate, to take the blame for one's own share, and I
have often thought, with bitterness of spirit, that, child as I was, I
might have been both forbearing and helpful to Matilda at a time when
her temper was very much tried by ill-health and untoward circumstances.
We had a good many squabbles about this period. I piqued myself upon
generally being in the right, and I did not think then, as I do now,
that it is possible to be most in the right in a quarrel, and at the
same time not least to blame for it.
Matilda certainly did by degrees become very irritable, moody, and
perverse, and her perversity developed itself in ways which puzzled poor
Aunt Theresa.
She became silent and unsociable. She displayed a particular dislike to
the privileges of being in the drawing-room with grown-up "company," and
of accompanying Aunt Theresa when she paid her afternoon calls. She
looked very ill, and stoutly denied that she was so. She highly resented
solicitude on the subject of her health, fought obstinately over every
bottle of medicine, and was positively rude to the doctors.
For her unsociability, I think, Miss Perry's evil influence was partly
to blame. Poor Matilda clung to her belief in our late governess when
she was no more to us than a text upon which Aunt Theresa and her
friends preached to each other against governesses in general, and the
governesses each had suffered from in particular. Our lessons with Major
Buller, and the influence of Miss Airlie's good breeding and
straightforward kindness, gave a healthier turn to our tastes; but when
Miss Airlie went away and Major Buller proclaimed a three weeks' holiday
from the Latin grammar, and we were left to ourselves, Matilda felt the
want of the flattery, the patronage, and the small excitements and
mysteries about nothing, to which Miss Perry had accustomed her. I blush
to think that my companionship was less comfort to her than it ought to
have been. As to Aunt Theresa, she was always too busy to give full
attention to anything; and this does not invite confidence.
Another reason, I am sure, for Matilda's dislike to appearing in company
was a painful sense of her personal appearance; and as she had heard
Aunt Theresa and her friends discuss, approve, and condemn their friends
by the standard of appearances alone, ever since she was old enough to
overhear company conversation, I hardly think she was much to blame on
this point.
Matilda was emphatically at what is called "an awkward age"; an age more
awkward with some girls than with others. I wish grown-up ladies, who
mean to be kind to their friends' daughters, would try to remember the
awkwardness of it, and not increase a naturally uncomfortable
self-consciousness by personal remarks which might disturb the composure
of older, prettier, and better-dressed people. It is bad enough to be
quite well aware that the size of one's hands and feet prematurely
foreshadow the future growth of one's figure; that these are the more
prominent because the simple dresses of the unintroduced young lady seem
to be perpetually receding from one's bony-wrists above, and shrinking
towards the calves of one's legs below, from those thin ankles on which
one is impelled to stand by turns (like a sleeping stork) through some
mysterious instinct of relieving the weak and overgrown spine.
This, I say, is mortifying enough, and if modesty and good breeding
carry us cheerfully through a not unfelt contrast with the assured
manners and flowing draperies of Mamma's lady friends in the
drawing-room, they might spare us the announcement of what it hardly
needs gold eyeglasses to discover--that we really grow every day.
Blushes come heavily enough to hands and cheeks when to the shyness of
youth are added the glows and chills of imperfect circulation: it does
not need the stare of strangers, nor the apologies of Mamma, to stain
our doubtful complexions with a deeper red.
All girls are not awkward at the awkward age. I speak most
disinterestedly on Matilda's behalf, for I never went through this phase
myself. It is perhaps because I am small that I can never remember my
hands, or any other part of me, feeling in my way; and my clothes--of
whatever length, breadth, or fashion--always had a happy knack of
becoming one with me in such wise that I could comfortably forget them.
The St. Quentin girls were nearer to Matilda's age than I, but they too
were very happy and looked very nice in the hobble-de-hoy stage of
girlhood. I am sure that they much preferred the company of their young
brothers to the company of the drawing-room; but they did what they were
told to do, and seemed happy in doing it. They had, however, several
advantages over Matilda. By judicious care (for they were not naturally
robust) they were kept in good health. They kept a great many pets, and
they always seemed to have plenty to do, which perhaps kept them from
worrying about themselves. Adelaide, for instance, did all the flowers
for the drawing-room and dinner-table. Mrs. St. Quentin said she could
not do them so well herself. They had a very small garden to pick from,
but Adelaide used lots of wild-flowers and grass and ferns. She often
let me help her to fill the china jars, and she was the only person who
ever seemed to like hearing about Grandpapa's paintings. They all did
something in the house. But I believe that their greatest advantage over
poor Matilda was that they had not been accustomed to hear dress and
appearance talked about as matters of the first importance, so that
whatever defects they felt conscious of in either did not weigh too
heavily on their minds.
On poor Matilda's they weighed heavily indeed. And she was not only
troubled by that consciousness of being plain, by which I think quite as
many girls are affected as by the vanity of being pretty (and which has
received far less attention from moralists); she was also tormented by
certain purely nervous fancies of her face being swollen, her eyes
squinting, and her throat choking, when people looked at her, which were
due to ill-health.
Unhappily, the ill-health which was a good excuse for Matilda's
unwillingness to "play pretty" in the drawing-room was the subject on
which she was more perverse than any other. It was a great pity that she
was not frank and confiding with her mother. The detestable trick of
small concealments which Miss Perry had taught us was partly answerable
for this; but the fault was not entirely Matilda's.
Aunt Theresa had not time to attend to her. What attention she did give,
however, made her so anxious on the subject that she took counsel with
every lady of her acquaintance, and the more she talked about poor
Matilda's condition the less leisure she had to think about it.
"It may be more mind than body, I'm afraid," said Aunt Theresa one
afternoon, on our return from some visiting in which Matilda had refused
to share. "Mrs. Minchin says she knew a girl who went out of her senses
when she was only two years older than Matilda, and it began with her
refusing to go anywhere or see any one."
Major Buller turned round on his chair with an anxious face, and a
beetle transfixed by a needle in his hand.
"It was a very shocking thing," continued Aunt Theresa, taking off her
bonnet; "for she had a great-uncle in Hanwell, and her grandfather cut
his throat. I suppose it was in the family."
Major Buller turned back again, and pinned the beetle by its proper
label.
"I suppose it was," said he dryly; "but as there is no insanity in my
family or in yours that I'm aware of, Mrs. Minchin's case is not much to
the point."
"Mrs. O'Connor won't believe she's ill," sighed Aunt Theresa; "_she_
thinks it's all temper. She says her own temper was unbearable till she
had it knocked out of her at school."
"Matilda's temper was good enough till lately," growled the Major.
"She says Dr. O'Connor's brother, who is the medical officer of a
lunatic asylum somewhere in Tipperary," continued Aunt Theresa,
"declares all mad women go out of their minds through ill-temper. He's
written a book about it."
"Heaven defend me, mind and body, from the theories of that astute
practitioner!" said Uncle Buller piously.
"It's all very well making fun of it, but everybody tells one that girls
are more trouble than any number of boys. I'm sure I don't remember
giving my mother any particular trouble when I was Matilda's age, but
the stories I've heard to-day are enough to make one's hair stand on
end. Mrs. Minchin knew another girl, who lost all her appetite just like
Matilda, and she had a very sulky temper too, and at last they found out
she used to eat black-beetles. She was a Creole, or something of that
sort, I believe, but they couldn't stop her. The Minchins knew her when
they were in the West Indies, when he was in the 209th; or, at least, it
was there they heard about her. The houses swarmed with black-beetles."
"A most useful young lady," said Uncle Buller. "Does Matilda dine on our
native beetles, my dear? She hasn't touched my humble collection."
"Oh, if you make fun of everything----" Aunt Theresa began; but at this
moment Mrs. St. John was announced.
After the customary civilities, Aunt Theresa soon began to talk of poor
Matilda, and Mrs. St. John entered warmly into the subject.
To do the ladies of the regiment justice, they sympathized freely with
each other's domestic troubles; and indeed it was not for lack of taking
counsel that any of them had any domestic troubles at all.
"Girls are a good deal more difficult to manage than boys, I'm afraid,"
sighed Aunt Theresa, repeating Mrs. O'Connor's _dictum_.
"Women are _dreadful_ creatures at any age," said Mrs. St. John to the
Major, opening her brown eyes in the way she always does when she is
talking to a gentleman. "I always _longed_ to have been a man."
[Eleanor says she hates to hear girls say they wish they were boys. If
they do wish it, I do not myself see why they should not say so. But one
thing has always struck me as very odd. If you meet a woman who is
incomparably silly, who does not know an art or a trade by which she
could keep herself from starvation, who could not manage the
account-books of a village shop, who is unpunctual, unreasoning, and in
every respect uneducated--a woman, in short, who has, one would think,
daily reason to be thankful that her necessities are supplied by other
people, she is pretty sure to be always regretting that she is not a
man.
Another, trick that some silly ladies have _riles_ me (as we say in
Yorkshire) far more than this odd ambition for responsibilities one is
quite incompetent to assume. Mrs. St. John had it, and as it was
generally displayed for the benefit of gentlemen, who seem as a rule to
be very susceptible to flattery, I suppose it is more a kind of
drawing-room "pretty talk" than the expression of deliberate opinions.
It consists of contrasting girls with boys and women with men, to the
disparagement of the former, especially in matters over which
circumstances and natural disposition are commonly supposed to give them
some advantage.
I remember hearing a fat, good-natured girl at one of Aunt Theresa's
garden-parties say, with all the impressiveness of full conviction,
"Girls are far more cruel than boys, really. You know, women are _much_
more cruel than men--oh, I'm _sure_ they are!" and the idea filled me
not less with amazement than with horror. This very young lady had been
most good-natured to us. She had the reputation of being an unselfish
and much-beloved elder sister. I do not think she would have hurt a fly.
Why she said this I cannot imagine, unless it was to please the young
gentleman she was talking to. I think he did look rather gratified. For
my own part, the idea worried my little head for a long time--children
give much more heed to general propositions of this kind than is
commonly supposed.]
There was one disadvantage in the very fulness of the sympathy the
ladies gave each other over their little affairs. The main point was apt
to be neglected for branches of the subject. If Mrs. Minchin consulted
Mrs. Buller about a cook, that particular cook might be discussed for
five minutes, but the rest of a two hours' visit would probably be
devoted to recollections of Aunt Theresa's cooks past and present, Mrs.
Minchin's "coloured cooks" in Jamaica, and the cooks engaged by the
mothers and grandmothers of both ladies.
Thus when Aunt Theresa took counsel with her friends about poor Matilda,
they hardly kept to Matilda's case long enough even to master the facts,
and on this particular occasion Mrs. St. John plunged at once into a
series of illustrative anecdotes of the most terrible kind, for she
always talked, as she dressed, in extremes. The moral of every story was
that Matilda should be sent to school.
"And I'll send you over last year's numbers of the _Milliner and
Mantua-maker_, dear Mrs. Buller. There are always lots of interesting
letters about people's husbands and children, and education, and that
sort of thing, in the column next to the pastry and cooling drinks
receipts. There was a wonderfully clever letter from a 'M.R.C.S.' about
the difficulty of managing young girls, and recommending a strict school
where he had sent his daughter. And next month there were long letters
from five 'British Mothers' and 'A Countess' who had not been able to
manage their daughters, and had sent them to this school, and were in
every way satisfied. Mr. St. John declared that all the letters were
written by one person to advertise the school, but he always does say
those sort of things about anything I'm interested in."
"You're very kind," said Mrs. Buller.
"There was a most extraordinary correspondence, too, after that
shoemaker's daughter in Lambeth was tried for poisoning her little
brother," continued Mrs. St. John. "The _Saturday Review_ had an article
on it, I believe, only Mr. St. John can't bring papers home from the
mess, so I didn't see it. The letters were all about all the dreadful
things done by girls in their teens. There were letters from twelve
'Materfamiliases,' I know, because the editor had to put numbers to
them, and four 'Paterfamiliases,' and 'An Anxious Widower,' and 'A
Minister,' and three 'M.D.'s.' But the most awful letter was from 'A
Student of Human Nature,' and it ended up that every girl of fifteen was
a murderess at heart. If I can only lay my hand on that number---- but
I've lent it to so many people, and there was a capital paper pattern in
it too, of the _jupon a l'Imperatrice_, ready pricked."
At this point Uncle Buller literally exploded from the room. Aunt
Theresa said something about draughts, but I think even Mrs. St. John
must have been aware that it was the Major who banged the door.
I was sitting on the footstool by the fire-place making a night-dress
for my doll. My work had been suspended by horror at Mrs. St. John's
revelations, and Major Buller's exit gave an additional shock in which I
lost my favourite needle, a dear little stumpy one, with a very fine
point and a very big eye, easy to thread, and delightful to use.
When Mrs. St. John went away Major Buller came back.
"I am sorry I banged the door, my dear," said he kindly, "but whatever
the tempers of girls may be made of at fifteen, mine is by no means
perfect, I regret to say, at fifty; and I _cannot_ stand that woman. My
dear Theresa, let me implore you to put all this trash out of your head
and get proper medical advice for the child at once. And--I don't like
to seem unreasonable, my dear, but--if you must read those delectable
articles to which Mrs. St. John refers, I wish you'd read them at her
house, and not bring them into ours. I'd rather the coarsest novel that
ever was written were picked up by the children, if the broad lines of
good and evil were clearly marked in it, than this morbid muddle of
disease and crime, and unprincipled parents and practitioners."
Uncle Buller seldom interfered so warmly; indeed, he seldom interfered
at all. I think Aunt Theresa would have been glad if he would have
advised her oftener.
"Indeed, Edward," said she, "I'll do anything you think right. And I'm
sure I wouldn't read anything improper myself, much less let the
children. And as to the _Milliner and Mantuamaker_ you need not be
afraid of that coming into the house unless I send for it. Mrs. St. John
is always promising to lend me the fashion-book, but she never remembers
it."
"And you'll have proper advice for Matilda at once?"
"Certainly, my dear."
Mrs. Buller was in the habit of asking the regimental Surgeon's advice
in small matters, and of employing a civilian doctor (whose fees made
him feel better worth having) in serious illness. She estimated the
seriousness of a case by danger rather than delicacy. So the Surgeon
came to see Matilda, and having heard her cough, promised to send a
"little something," and she was ordered to keep indoors and out of
draughts, and take a tablespoonful three times a day.
Matilda had not gone graciously through the ordeal of facing the
principal Surgeon in his uniform, and putting out her tongue for his
inspection; and his prescriptions did not tend to reconcile her to being
"doctored." Fresh air was the only thing that hitherto had seemed to
have any effect on her aches and pains, or to soothe her hysterical
irritability, and of this she was now deprived. When Aunt Theresa
called in an elderly civilian practitioner, she was so sulky and
uncommunicative, and so resolutely refused to acknowledge to any
ailments, that (his other prescriptions having failed to cure her
lassitude, and his pompous manner and professional visits rather
provoking her feverish perversity) the old doctor also recommended that
she should be sent to school.
Medical advice is very authoritative, and yet Uncle Buller hesitated.
"It's like packing a troublesome son off to the Colonies, my dear," said
he. "And though Dr. Brown may be justified in transferring his
responsibilities elsewhere, I don't think that parents should get rid of
theirs in this easy fashion."
But when Eleanor came, the Major's views underwent a change. If I went
with Matilda, and we had Eleanor Arkwright for a friend, he allowed that
he would consent.
"That is if the girl is willing to go. I will send no child of mine out
of my house against her will."
Major Buller asked her himself. Asked with so much kindness, and
expressed such cheery hopes that change of air, regular occupation, and
the society of other young people would make her feel "stronger and
happier" than she had seemed to be of late, that to say that Matilda
would have gone anywhere and done anything her father wished is to give
a feeble idea of the gush of gratitude which his sensible and
sympathetic words awoke in her. Unfortunately she could not keep herself
from crying just when she most wanted to speak, and Uncle Buller, having
a horror of "scenes," cut short the one interview in which Matilda felt
disposed to confide in her parents.
But she confided to me, when she came to bed that night (_I_ didn't mind
her crying between the sentences), that she was very, very sorry to have
been "so cross and stupid," and that if we were not going to school she
meant to try and be very different. I begged her to let me ask Uncle
Buller to keep us at home a little longer, but Matilda would not hear of
it.
"No, no," she sobbed, "not now. I should like to do something he and
Mamma want, and they want us to go to school."
For my own part I was quite willing to go, especially after I had seen
Eleanor Arkwright. So we were sent--to Bush House.