MISS WILHELMINA CALLS UPON FLORA.
The breakfast things were scarcely removed the following morning, when
Miss Carr walked into the room, where Flora was employed at her
work-table, in manufacturing some small articles of dress.
"Your husband is afraid of me, Mrs. Lyndsay: he started off the moment
he saw me coming up to the door. I don't want to banish him from his own
house."
"Oh, not at all. He has business in town, Miss Carr. You have favoured
me with a very early visit."
"Too early? Just speak the truth plainly out. Why the deuce do people
tell so many stories, when it would be far easier to speak the truth? I
assure you, that you look so neat and comfortable in your morning
costume, that you have no reason to be ashamed. I like to come upon
people unawares,--to see them as they really are. You are welcome to
come and see me in my night-cap, when the spirit moves me. When I'm not
out walking, I'm always at home. Busy at work, too?" she continued,
putting a tiny cap upon her fist. "That looks droll, and tells tales."
"Oh, don't!--do spare me," cried Flora, snatching the article from her
odd companion, and hiding it away in the table-drawer. "I did not mean
that any one should catch me at this work."
"Don't think, my dear, that I am going to criticise you. I am no judge
of sewing,--never set a stitch in my life. It must be a dull way of
spending time. Can't you put your needle-work out?"
Flora shook her head.
"Too poor for that? Mrs. Turner's daughter takes in all such gimcracks.
Send what you've got over to her, and I'll pay for the making."
"Miss Carr!" said Flora, greatly distressed.
"What, angry again?"
"No, not exactly angry; but you wound my pride."
"It would do you no harm to kill it outright," said Miss Carr,
laughing--such a loud, jovial peal of merriment, which rang so clearly
from her healthy lungs, that Flora, in spite of her offended dignity,
was forced to laugh too.
"You feel better now. I hope the proud fit is going off, and we can
enjoy a reasonable chat. These clothes--what a bore they are, to both
poor and rich,--the rich setting their heart too much upon them, and the
poor despised because they have not enough to keep them warm,--and
those mean and old. Then, this is not all. There are the perpetual
changes of the fashions, which oblige people to put on what does not
suit them, and to make monstrous frights of themselves to dress in the
mode. You must have a morning-gown, a dinner-dress, and an evening
costume; all to be shifted and changed in the same day, consuming a deal
of time, which might be enjoyed in wholesome exercise. I have no
patience with such folly. The animals, let me tell you, are a great deal
better off than their masters. Nature has provided them with a coat
which never wants changing but once a-year; and that is done so
gradually, that they experience no inconvenience. No need of their
consulting the fashions, or patching and stitching to keep up a decent
appearance. It is a thousand pities that clothes were ever invented.
People would have been much healthier, and looked much better without
them."
"My dear madam, did not God himself instruct our first parents to make
garments of the skins of animals?"
"They were not necessary in a state of innocence, or He would have
created them like cows and horses, with clothes upon their backs," said
Wilhelmina, sharply. "It was their own fault that they ever required
such trumpery, entailing upon their posterity a curse as bad as the
thorns and thistles. For I always consider it as such, when sweltering
under the weight of gowns and petticoats on a hot day; and I rate
Mother Eve roundly, and in no measured terms, for her folly in losing
the glorious privilege of walking in buff."
"You must have been thinking of that," said Flora, rather mischievously,
and glancing down at Miss Wilhelmina's legs, "when you cut your
petticoats so short."
"You are welcome to laugh at any short petticoats," said Wilhelmina, "as
long as I feel the comfort of wearing them. Now do tell me,
candidly,--what impropriety is there in a woman showing her leg and
foot, more than in another woman showing her hand and arm? The evil lies
in your own thoughts. You see the Bavarian buy-a-broom girls passing
before your windows every day, with petticoats cut three or four inches
shorter than mine. You perceive no harm in that. 'It is the fashion of
her country,' you cry. Custom banishes from our minds the idea of
impropriety; and the naked savage of the woods is as modest as the
closely covered civilian. Now, why am I compelled to wear long
petticoats drabbling in the mud, when a Bavarian may wear hers up to the
knees, and nobody think the worse of her? I am as much a free agent as
she is; have as much right to wear what I please. I like short
petticoats--I can walk better in them--they neither take up the dust or
the mud, and leave my motions free and untrammelled--and what's more, I
mean to wear them.
"I have tried trowsers; but they fettered me. It is difficult to stow a
large figure like mine away into trowsers. I felt as if my legs were in
the stocks, and kicked them off in disdain--simply remarking--'what
fools men are!' So, you don't like my short petticoats? and I hate your
long ones. First, because they are slatternly and inconvenient;
secondly, because they make your stockings dirty; and thirdly, because
they give you the idea that they are intended to conceal crooked legs.
So don't say one word in their favour."
"It is but a matter of taste and opinion," said Flora; "we will not
quarrel about it. I think it wiser, however, in order to avoid
singularity, to conform to existing fashions."
"Mrs. Lyndsay, I can prove to you in less than two minutes, that you
transgress daily your own rules." Flora looked incredulous.
"You do not wear a _bustle_, which is now considered by all ladies an
indispensable article of dress."
"You are right: it is a disgusting fashion, which destroys the grace and
just proportions of the female form. A monstrous piece of absurdity,
that I have never adopted, and never will."[A]
[A] During twenty years Flora kept her word.
"Bravo! Bravo!" shouted Miss Wilhelmina, clapping her hands in an
ecstasy of delight. "I have conquered you with your own weapons. There
is no slipping past the horns of that dilemma. You refuse to wear a
hump on your back, and I decline the honour of the long petticoats. Let
us hear how you can justify yourself?"
"You have gained an advantage by my own admission," said Flora; "but I
can't consider myself beat."
"Fairly out of the field, my dear--fairly out of the field. Acknowledge
the defeat with a good grace. Let us shake hands, and drink a glass of
wine together in token of peace."
"I never keep wine in the house," said Flora, rather embarrassed, at the
request, particularly at such an early hour of the day.
"Never keep wine in your house! Why, how do you contrive to keep up your
spirits, without a glass of wine now and then?"
"We are young, and require no artificial stimulants, to render us
cheerful and happy."
"Well, I require stimulants," said Miss Wilhelmina, "with the violent
exercise I take. I do not object to a glass of brandy-and-water, or even
of gin, when I feel exhausted."
"If you feel ill, Miss Carr, I will send out and get some."
"Ill! Lord bless you! I never was ill for an hour in my life. So, you
cannot afford a little luxury like wine? My child, I pity you: I am sure
you require it. I wish you were better off."
"I shall never quarrel with Providence, from whom we have received so
many blessings, on that account," said Flora; "I am very grateful for
the real comforts we enjoy."
"Poor comfort!" quoth Miss Wilhelmina. "My ideas of comfort are always
associated with wealth. I maintain, that no one can really be
comfortable without it. What should I be, without money? An antiquated,
despised old maid--and with all my expensive habits, and queer notions,
the very boys in the village would hold me in derision. For even boys
know the importance of money, and let me pass unmolested through the
midst of them."
"I perceive that you are very popular with the young folks," said Flora.
"All bribery and corruption, my dear. Boys are but men abridged and
cramped down into skeleton jackets. When I come to a town, I throw a
handful of small silver coin into the middle of the first group of boys
I find in my path. The next time they see me coming they cry out
lustily, 'Off with your hats, boys: here comes the rich lady!' Off go
the tattered hats and caps, and my small coin pays for the compliment."
"Your plan is an expensive one," said Flora; "no wonder the boys regard
you with such favour."
"I never found money fail but in one instance," said Miss Wilhelmina
thoughtfully. "Mind, it is not to every one that I would communicate my
experience. People like to talk of themselves--to tell portions of
their history; it relieves their minds. There are very few to whom I
have ever told mine; but I think it will amuse you. The follies of
others are always entertaining.
"My father was Scotch--my mother Irish. The two nations don't amalgamate
very well together. The children of such an union are apt to inherit the
peculiar national failings of both. My father united to a love of
science a great deal of mechanical genius. He was a clever, prudent,
enterprising man, and amassed a large fortune. My mother I never
knew--she died when I was an infant. My father hired a good-natured,
easy kind of woman, to be nurse. She was a widow, without children, whom
he afterwards promoted to the head of his table. She was his third wife.
He had one son by his first marriage, who had been born in Scotland, and
adopted by a rich uncle. He afterwards got an appointment in India; and
I never saw him above half-a-dozen times in my life--and only when a
child. He was a handsome, proud man, very Scotch in all his words and
ways. We never took to one another. He thought me a spoilt,
disagreeable, pert child; and I considered him a cross, stern man; and
never could be induced to call him brother.
"I inherited a good property from my mother, which made me a very
independent little lady, in my own conceit. I knew, that the moment I
became of age, I was my own mistress. Perhaps it was this consciousness
of power which made me the queer being I am.
"My step-mother was very fond of me. She spoilt me shockingly--more than
most mothers indulge their brats. She always seemed to retain a sense of
the inferior position she had held. Not a common failing, by-the-by:
persons raised unexpectedly to wealth, from the lower class, generally
measure their presumption by their ignorance. She always treated me as a
superior. My father was very fond of her. These passive women are always
great favourites with men. They have no decided character of their own,
and become the mere echoes of superior minds. A vain man loves to see
his own reflection in one of these domestic magnifying glasses: it is so
gratifying to be the Alpha and Omega in his own house. His former wives
were both handsome, conceited women, who thought so much of themselves
that they could reflect no perfections but their own. In this respect I
resembled my mother--from a baby I thought fit to have a will and
opinions of my own.
"My step-mother always yielded to my masterly disposition when a child,
generally ending the brief contest with the remark, 'What a pity Willie
was not a boy! What a fine spirited boy she would have made!' When I
grew a tall girl, I became more independent still, and virtually was
mistress of the house. My father sent me to school. I learnt quickly
enough; but I was expelled from half a dozen for striking my teacher
whenever she dared to raise her hand to correct me. At length my
education was finished, and I returned home for good, as wild and as
fierce as an untamed colt.
"My step-mother had a nephew--a lad whom my father had befriended very
much. He had paid for his education, had bound him to an eminent
surgeon, and, when his term expired, had enabled him, from the same
source, to walk the hospitals and attend the necessary lectures. Henry
was attending the last course which was to fit him for entering upon his
profession; and during that period he made our house his home.
"He was not handsome, but a well-grown, high-spirited, clever young
fellow. Not at all a sentimental person, but abounding in frolic and
fun, full of quaint, witty sayings, and the very incarnation of
mischief. We took amazingly to each other; and he enjoyed all my odd
freaks and fancies, and encouraged me in all my masculine propensities.
"I grew very fond of him: he was the only creature of his sex I ever
loved;--but I did love him, and I thought that he loved me. I considered
myself handsome and fascinating. All young people think so, if they are
ever so ordinary. It belongs to the vanity of the age, which believes
all things--hopes for all things, and entertains no fears for the
result.
"The girls at school had told me, that 'I was a perfect fright;' but I
did not believe them. They laughed at my snub nose and carrotty locks,
and said 'that it would take all my money to buy me a husband.'
"Now, by way of digression, I'm a great talker, Mrs. Lyndsay, and love
to ramble from one subject to another. Do just tell me, why a _snub_
nose should be reckoned vulgar, and red hair disgraceful?"
This was an awkward question. It was, however, put point blank. Flora
could not avoid giving something in the shape of an answer.
"It is impossible to account for these things," she said. "Any deviation
from a recognised standard of taste and beauty is always open to
objections. But there are a great many modifications of these rules.
Elegance of form, grace of manner, charms of expression, and even
sweetness of voice, will render plain persons not only agreeable, but
highly so."
"You reconcile me to my snub nose and red hair," said the odd woman.
"But few people possess a nice sense of discrimination; they are quick
at finding out defects, slow at discovering graces. The world is full of
unjust partialities. My snub nose would have been considered a beauty in
Africa. My red hair would have been admired in Italy; but there is no
struggling against national prejudices; and these bull-headed English
are the most prejudiced animals under the sun--and I was remorselessly
branded as a fright by a pack of sneering girls, half of whom had noses
as bad as my own. I had my private opinion on the subject, in which I
flattered myself my cousin (as I called Henry), would perfectly agree.
"He never told me he loved me. I felt certain that he did, and that it
was gratitude to my father, for all that he had done for him, which kept
him silent. This was a foolishly romantic notion of mine. But there was
a touch of romance about me in those days. I was green--very green. I
can laugh at myself now. But it has always been rather a sore subject.
"Henry did not speak himself. So I thought I would break the ice, and
speak for him. You look surprised. Well, I know it is not exactly
according to the general rules observed in such matters, which ties a
woman's tongue, and obliges her to wait with all humility, until she is
asked by some man, whom perhaps she does not care a fig for, to be his
wife. I never lived within rules, and I thought I had as much right to
please myself, and ask a man to marry me, as a man had to ask me to be
his wife.
"I made Henry an offer of my hand, heart, and fortune--and--it is no use
being ashamed at my time of life, of a thing which happened such a long
time ago--I was _refused_!--without any softening of the matter--down
right, positively refused.
"The ungrateful varlet did not even thank me for the honour. He briefly
told me, 'That I was a very amusing girl, but the last woman on earth
he should wish to make his wife; that as to money, it was certainly a
great inducement, but not enough to compensate for the sacrifice of his
principles. He had a good profession, and hoped to earn by it wealth and
independence.'
"Ah! how I hated him while he told me all this. How I have hated all his
sex from that hour, for his sake!
"However, my dear, it had this good effect,--it cured me of all such
ridiculous weakness then and for ever. I shook off the love fit, and
Wilhelmina was herself again.
"My step-mother died shortly after this, and I became the mistress of my
father's house. He was old and very infirm, and completely wrapped up in
his scientific studies. I only saw him occasionally, and then my
nonsense amused him. He pined after my step-mother; and very shortly
followed her to the grave. I had just attained my majority when he died,
and I came into a fine property, and found myself at my own disposal.
"Nobody cared for me, and I cared for nobody. I wished to take a peep at
the world, and determined to travel over as much of its surface as I
possibly could; and please myself as to the method I employed to effect
my object.
"I have been in a great many foreign countries, and seen a great many
strange people; and been an actor in many extraordinary scenes; and I
have come to the conclusion, that the world after all is not such a
terrible bad world to live in, and that the very worst of its
inhabitants are not entirely without some good."
As she finished this sentence, the church clock proclaimed to the whole
town the hour of one. Miss Wilhelmina sprang from her chair, exclaiming,
"Holloa! that's my dinner-hour. It will take me ten minutes to get home,
and the fish will be quite spoilt. Excuse me, Mrs. Lyndsay, and come and
take tea with me, like a good soul, to-morrow evening. I never take tea
later than six."
Miss Wilhelmina vanished. Flora laughed over the interview until her
husband came home, and then they had a good laugh together.