MANNERS AND CUSTOMS--CLIQUE--THE LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE--OUT
VISITING--HOUSE-PRIDE--DRESSMAKING.
Eleanor and I were not always at home. We generally went visiting
somewhere, at least once a year.
I think it was good for us. Great as were the advantages of the life I
now shared over an existence wasted in a petty round of ignoble gossip
and social struggle, it had the drawback of being almost too
self-sufficing, perhaps--I am not certain--a little too laborious. I do
think, but for me, it must, at any rate, have become the latter. I am so
much less industrious, energetic, clever and good in every way than
Eleanor, for one thing, that my very idleness holds us back; and I think
a taste for gaiety (I simply mean being gay, not balls and parties), and
for social pleasure, and for pretty things, and graceful "situations"
runs in my veins with my French blood, and helps to break the current of
our labours.
We led lives of considerable intellectual activity, constant occupation,
and engrossing interest. We were apt to "foy" at our work to the extent
of grudging meal-times and sleep. Indeed, at one time a habit obtained
with us of leaving the table in turn as we finished our respective
meals. One member of the family after another would rise, bend his or
her head for a silent "grace," and depart to the work in hand. I have
known the table gradually deserted in this fashion till Mr. Arkwright
was left alone. I remember going back one day into the room, and seeing
him so. My entrance partially aroused him from a brown study. (He was at
all times very "absent") He rose, said grace aloud for the benefit of
the company--which had dispersed--and withdrew to his library. But we
abolished this uncivilized custom in conclave, and thenceforth sat our
meals out to the end.
So free were we in our isolation upon those Yorkshire moors from the
trammels of conventionality (one might almost say, civilization!), that
I think we should have come to begrudge the ordinary interchange of the
neighbourly courtesies of life, but for occasional lectures from Mrs.
Arkwright, and for going out visiting from time to time.
It was not merely that a life of running in and out of other people's
houses, and chatting the same bits of news threadbare with one
acquaintance after another, as at Riflebury, would have been unendurable
by us. The rare arrival of a visitor from some distant country-house to
call at the Vicarage was the signal for every one, who could do so with
decency, to escape from the unwelcome interruption. But as we grew
older, Mrs. Arkwright would not allow this. The boys, indeed, were hard
to coerce; they "bolted" still when the door-bell rang; but domestic
authority, which is apt to be magnified on "the girls," overruled
Eleanor and me for our good, and her mother--who reasoned with us far
more than she commanded--convinced us of how much selfishness there was
in this, as in all acts of discourtesy.
But what do we not owe to her good counsels? In how many evening talks
has she not warned us of the follies, affectations, or troubles to which
our lives might specially be liable! Against despising interests that
are not our own, or graces which we have chosen to neglect, against the
danger of satire, against the love or the fear of being thought
singular, and, above all, against the petty pride of clique.
"I do not know which is the worst," I remember her saying, "a religious
clique, an intellectual clique, a fashionable clique, a moneyed clique,
or a family clique. And I have seen them all."
"Come, Mother," said Eleanor, "you cannot persuade us you would not have
more sympathy with the intellectual than the moneyed clique, for
instance?"
"I should have warmly declared so myself, at one time," said Mrs.
Arkwright, "but I have a vivid remembrance of a man belonging to an
artistic clique, to whose house I once went with some friends. My
friends were artists also, but their minds were enlarged, instead of
being narrowed, by one chief pursuit. Their special art gave them
sympathy with all others, as the high cultivation of one virtue is said
to bring all the rest in its train. But this man talked the shibboleth
of his craft over one's head to other members of his clique with a
defiance of good manners arising more from conceit than from ignorance
of the ways of society; and with a transparent intention of being
overheard and admired which reminded me of the little self-conscious
conceits of children before visitors. He was one of a large family with
the same peculiarities, joined to a devout admiration of each other.
Indeed, they combined the artistic clique and the family clique in equal
proportions. From the conversation at their table you would have
imagined that there was but one standard of good for poor humanity, that
of one 'school' of one art, and absolutely no one who quite came up to
it but the brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, or connections by
marriage of your host. Now, I honestly assure you that the only other
man really like this one that I ever met, was what is called a
'self-made' man in a commercial clique. Money was _his_ standard, and
he seemed to be as completely unembarrassed as my artist friend by the
weight of any other ideas than his own, or by any feeling short of utter
satisfaction with himself. Their contempt for the conventionalities of
society was about equal. My artist friend had passed a sweeping
criticism for my benefit now and then (there could be no conversation
where no second opinion was allowed), and it was with perhaps a shade
less of condescension--a shade more of friendliness--that my commercial
friend once stopped some remarks of mine with the knowing observation,
'Look here, ma'am. Whenever I hear this, that, and the other bragged
about a party, what I always say is this, I don't want you to tell me
what he _his_, but what he _'as_.'"
Eleanor and I laughed merrily at the anecdote, even if we were not quite
converted to Mrs. Arkwright's views. And I must in justice add that
every visit which has taken us from home--every fresh experience which
has enlarged our knowledge of the world--has confirmed the truth of her
sage and practical advice.
If at home we have still inclined to feel it almost a duty to be proud
of intellectual tastes, quite a duty to be proud of orthodox opinions,
and, at the worst, a very amiable weakness indeed to think that there
are no boys like our boys, a wholesome experience of having other
people's tastes and views crammed down our throats has modified our
ideas in this respect. A strong dose of eulogistic biography of the
brothers of a gushing acquaintance made the names of Clem and Jack
sacred to our domestic circle for ever; and what I have endured from a
mangy, over-fed, ill-tempered Skye-terrier, who is the idol of a lady of
our acquaintance, has led me sometimes to wonder if visitors at the
Vicarage are ever oppressed by the dear boys.
I'm afraid it is possible--poor dear things!
I have positively heard people say that Saucebox is ugly, though he has
eyes like a bull-frog, and his tongue hangs quite six inches out of his
mouth, and--in warm weather or before meals--further still! However, I
keep him in very good order, and never allow him to be troublesome to
people who do not appreciate him. For I have observed that there are
people who (having no children of their own) hold very just and severe
views about spoiled boys and girls, but who (having dogs of their own)
are much less clear-sighted on the subject of spoiled terriers and
Pomeranians. And I do not want to be like that--dear as the dear boys
are!
Certainly, seeing all sorts of people with all sorts of peculiarities is
often a great help towards trying to get rid of one's own objectionable
ones. But like the sketching, one sometimes gets into despair about it,
and though the process of learning an art may be even pleasanter than to
feel one's self a master in it, one cannot say as much for the process
of discovering one's follies. I should like to get rid of _them_ in a
lump.
Eleanor said so one day to her mother, but Mrs. Arkwright said: "We may
hate ourselves, as you call it, when we come to realize failings we have
not recognized before, and feel that there are probably others which we
do not yet see as clearly as other people see them, but this kind of
impatience for our perfection is not felt by those who love us, I am
sure. It is one's greatest comfort to believe that it is not even felt
by GOD. Just as a mother would not love her child the better for its
being turned into a model of perfection by one stroke of magic, but does
love it the more dearly every time it tries to be good, so I do hope and
believe our Great Father does not wait for us to be good and wise to
love us, but loves us, and loves to help us in the very thick of our
struggles with folly and sin."
But I am becoming as discursive as ever! What I want to put down is
about our going out visiting. There is really nothing much to say about
our life at home. It was very happy, but there were no great events in
it, and Eleanor says it will not do for us to "go off at a tangent,"
and describe what happened to the boys at school and college; first,
because these biographies are merely to be lives of our own selves, for
nobody but us two to read when we are both old maids; and secondly,
because if we put down everything we had anything to do with in these
ten years, it will be so very long before our biographies are finished.
We are very anxious to see them done, partly because we are getting
rather tired of them, and Jack is becoming suspicious, and partly
because we have got an amateur bookbinding press, and we want to bind
them.
Well, as I said, we paid visits to relatives of mine, and to old friends
of the Arkwrights. My friends invited Eleanor, and Eleanor's friends
invited me. People are very kind; and it was understood that we were
happier together.
I was fortunate enough to find myself possessed of some charming cousins
living in a cathedral town; and at their house it was a great pleasure
to us to visit. The cathedral services gave us great delight; when I
think of the expression of Eleanor's face, I may almost say rapture.
Then there was a certain church-bookseller's shop in the town, which had
manifold attractions for us. Every parochial want that print and paper
could supply was there met, with a convenience that bordered on luxury.
There was a good store, too, of sacred prints, illuminated texts, and
oak frames, from which we carried back sundry additions to the
garnishing of our room, besides presents for Jack, who was as fond of
such things as we were. Parish matters were, naturally, of perennial
interest for us in our Vicarage home; but if ever they became a fad, it
was about this period.
But it was to a completely new art that this visit finally led us, which
I hardly know how to describe, unless as the art of dressmaking and
general ornamentation.
The neighbourhood abounded with pretty clerical and country homes, where
my cousins were intimate; each one, so it seemed to Eleanor and me,
prettier than the last: sunshiny and homelike, with irregular
comfortable furniture, dainty with chintz, or dark with aged oak, each
room more tastefully besprinkled than the rest with old china, new
books, music, sketches, needlework, and flowers.
"Do you know, Eleanor," said I, when we were dressing for dinner one
evening before a toilette-table that had been tastefully adorned for our
use by the daughters of the house, "I wonder if Yorkshire women _are_ as
'house-proud' as they call themselves? I think our villagers are, in the
important points of cleanliness and solid comfort, and of course we are
at the Vicarage as to _that_--Keziah keeps us all like copper kettles;
but don't you think we might have a little more house-pride about
tasteful pretty refinements? It perhaps is rather a waste of time
arranging all these vases and baskets of flowers every day, but they are
_very_ nice to look at, and I think it civilizes one."
"_You're_ not to blame," said Eleanor decisively. "You're south-country
to the backbone, and French on the top. It is we hard north-country
folk, we business people, who neglect to cultivate 'the beautiful.'
We're quite wrong. But I think the beautiful is revenged on us," added
she with one of her quick, bright looks, "by withdrawing itself. There's
nothing comparable for ugliness to the people of a manufacturing town."
My mind was running on certain very ingenious and tasteful methods of
hanging nosegays on the wall.
"Those baskets with ferns and flowers in, against the wall, were lovely,
weren't they?" said I. "Do you think we shall ever be able to think of
such pretty things?"
"We're not fools," said Eleanor briefly. "We shall do it when we set our
minds to it. Meantime, we must make notes of whatever strikes us."
"There are plenty of jolly, old-fashioned flowers in the garden at
home," said I. It was a polite way of expressing my inward regret that
we had no tropical orchids or strange stove-plants. And Eleanor danced
round me, and improvised a song beginning:
"There are ferns by Ewden's waters,
And heather on the hill."
From the better adornment of the Vicarage to the better adornment of
ourselves was a short stride. Most of the young ladies in these country
homes were very prettily dressed. Not _a la_ Mrs. Perowne. Not in that
milliner's handbook style dear to "Promenades" and places of public
resort; but more daintily, and with more attention to the prettiest and
most convenient of the prevailing fashions than Eleanor's and my
costumes displayed.
The toilettes of one young lady in particular won our admiration; and
when we learned that her pretty things were made by herself, an
overwhelming ambition seized upon us to learn to do the same.
"Women ought to know about all house matters," said Eleanor, puckering
her brow to a gloomy extent. "Dressmaking, cookery, and all that sort of
thing; and we know nothing about any of them. I was thinking only last
night, in bed, that if I were cast away on a desert island, and had to
make a dress out of an old sail, I shouldn't have the ghost of an idea
where to begin."
"I should," said I. "I should sew it up like a sack, make three holes
for my head and arms, and tie it round my waist with ship's rope. I
could manage Robinson Crusoe dresses; it's the civilized ones that will
be too much for me, I'm afraid."
"I believe the sail would go twice as far if we could gore it," said
Eleanor, laughing. "But there's no waste like the wastefulness of
ignorance; and oh, Margery, it's the _gores_ I'm afraid of! If skirts
were only made the old-fashioned way, like a flannel petticoat! So many
pieces all alike--run them together--hem the bottom--gather the top--and
there you are, with everything straightforward but the pocket."
To our surprise we found that our new fad was a sore subject with Mrs.
Arkwright. She reproached herself bitterly with having given Eleanor so
little training in domestic arts. But she had been brought up by a
learned uncle, who considered needlework a waste of time, and she knew
as little about gores as we did. She had also, unfortunately, known or
heard of some excellent mother who had trained nine daughters to such
perfection of domestic capabilities that it was boasted that they could
never in after-life employ a workwoman or domestic who would know more
of her business than her employer. And this good lady was a standing
trouble to poor Mrs. Arkwright's conscience.
Her self-reproaches were needless. General training is perhaps quite as
good as (if not better than) special, even for special ends. In giving
us a higher education, in teaching us to use our eyes, our wits, and our
common-sense, she had put all meaner arts within our grasp when need
should urge, and opportunity serve.
"Aunt Theresa was always dressmaking," I said to Eleanor; "but I don't
remember anything that would help us. I was so young, you know. And when
one is young one is so stupid, one really resists information."
I was to have another chance, however, of gleaning hints from Aunt
Theresa.