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V. TWO FRIENDS
SCENE—Over the fire in Mrs. Kaye’s boarding-house. Cecilia Moldwarp and Betty Thurston.
C. So I settled the matter at once.
B. Quite right, too, Cis.
C. The dear woman was torn every way. Grandpapa and Aunt Phrasie wanted her to pin me down into the native stodge; and Lucius, like a true man, went in for subjection: so there was nothing for it but to put my foot down. And though little mother might moan a little to me, I knew she would stand up stoutly for me to all the rest, and vindicate my liberty.
B. To keep you down there. Such a place is very well to breathe in occasionally, like a whale; but as to living in them—
C. Just hear how they spend the day. First, 7.30, prayers in church. The dear old man has hammered on at them these forty years, with a congregation averaging 4 to 2.5.
B. You are surely not expected to attend at that primitive Christian hour! Cruelty to animals!
C. If I don’t, the absence of such an important unit hurts folks’ feelings, and I am driven to the fabrication of excuses. After breakfast, whatever is available trots off to din the Catechism and Genesis into the school-children’s heads—the only things my respected forefather cares about teaching them. Of course back again to the children’s lessons.
B. What children?
C. Didn’t I explain? Three Indian orphans of my uncle’s, turned upon my grandfather—jolly little kids enough, as long as one hasn’t to teach them.
B. Are governesses unknown in those parts?
C. Too costly; and besides, my mother was designed by nature for a nursery-governess. She has taught the two elder ones to be wonderfully good when she is called off. ‘The butcher, ma’am’; or, ‘Mrs. Tyler wants to speak to you, ma’am’; or, ‘Jane Cox is come for a hospital paper, ma’am.’ Then early dinner, of all things detestable, succeeded by school needlework, mothers’ meeting, and children’s walk, combined with district visiting, or reading to old women. Church again, high tea, and evenings again pleasingly varied by choir practices, night schools, or silence, while grandpapa concocts his sermon.
B. Is this the easy life to which Mrs. Moldwarp has retired?
C. It is her native element. People of her generation think it their vocation to be ladies-of-all-work to the parish of Stickinthemud cum-Humdrum.
B. All-work indeed!
C. I did not include Sundays, which are one rush of meals, schools, and services, including harmonium.
B. No society or rational conversation, of course?
C. Adjacent clergy and clergy woman rather less capable of aught but shop than the natives themselves! You see, even if I did offer myself as a victim, I couldn’t do the thing! Fancy my going on about the six Mosaic days, and Jonah’s whale, and Jael’s nail, and doing their duty in that state of life where it has pleased Heaven to place them.
B. Impossible, my dear! Those things can’t be taught—if they are to be taught—except by those who accept them as entirely as ever; and it is absurd to think of keeping you where you would be totally devoid of all intellectual food!
SCENE.—Art Student and distinguished Professor a year later. Soirée in a London drawing-room. Professor Dunlop and Cecilia.
Prof. D. Miss Moldwarp? Is your mother here?
C. No; she is not in town.
Prof. D. Not living there?
C. She lives with my grandfather at Darkglade.
Prof. D. Indeed! I hope Mr. and Mrs. Aveland are well?
C. Thank you, he is well; but my grandmother is dead.
Prof. D. Oh, I am sorry! I had not heard of his loss. How long ago did it happen?
C. Last January twelvemonth. My aunt is married, and my mother has taken her place at home.
Prof. D. Then you are here on a visit. Where are you staying?
C. No, I live here. I am studying in the Slade schools.
Prof. D. This must have greatly changed my dear old friend’s life!
C. I did not know that you were acquainted with my grandfather.
Prof. D. I was one of his pupils. I may say that I owe everything to him. It is long since I have been at Darkglade, but it always seemed to me an ideal place.
C. Rather out of the world.
Prof. D. Of one sort of world perhaps; but what a beautiful combination is to be seen there of the highest powers with the lowliest work! So entirely has he dedicated himself that he really feels the guidance of a ploughman’s soul a higher task than the grandest achievement in science or literature. By the bye, I hope he will take up his pen again. It is really wanted. Will you give him a message from me?
C. How strange! I never knew that he was an author.
Prof. D. Ah! you are a young thing, and these are abstruse subjects.
C. Oh! the Fathers and Ritual, I suppose?
Prof. D. No doubt he is a great authority there, as a man of his ability must be; but I was thinking of a course of scientific papers he put forth ten years ago, taking up the arguments against materialism as no one could do who is not as thoroughly at home as he is in the latest discoveries and hypotheses. He ought to answer that paper in the Critical World.
C. I was so much interested in that paper.
Prof. D. It has just the speciousness that runs away with young people. I should like to talk it over with him. Do you think I should be in the way if I ran down?
C. I should think a visit from you would be an immense pleasure to him; and I am sure it would be good for the place to be stirred up.
Prof. D. You have not learnt to prize that atmosphere in which things always seem to assume their true proportion, and to prompt the cry of St. Bernard’s brother—‘All earth for me, all heaven for you.’
C. That was surely an outcome of the time when people used to sacrifice certainties to uncertainties, and spoil life for the sake of they knew not what.
Prof. D. For eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.
Stranger. Mr. Dunlop! This is an unexpected pleasure!
C. (alone). Well, wonders will never cease. The great Professor Dunlop talking to me quite preachy and goody; and of all people in the world, the old man at Darkglade turning out to be a great physiologist!
VII. TWO OLD FRIENDS
SCENE.—Darkglade Vicarage study. Mr. Aveland and Professor Dunlop.
Prof. D. Thank you, sir. It has been a great pleasure to talk over these matters with you; I hope a great benefit.
Mr. A. I am sure it is a great benefit to us to have a breath from the outer world. I hope you will never let so long a time go by without our meeting. Remember, as iron sharpeneth iron, so doth a man’s countenance that of his friend.
Prof. D. I shall be only too thankful. I rejoice in the having met your grand-daughter, who encouraged me to offer myself. Is she permanently in town?
Mr. A. She shows no inclination to return. I hoped she would do so after the last competition; but there is always another stage to be mounted. I wish she would come back, for her mother ought not to be left single-handed; but young people seem to require so much external education in these days, instead of being content to work on at home, that I sometimes question which is more effectual, learning or being taught.
Prof. D. Being poured-upon versus imbibing?
Mr. A. It may depend on what amount there is to imbibe; and I imagine that the child views this region as an arid waste; as of course we are considerably out of date.
Prof. D. The supply would be a good deal fresher and purer!
Mr. A. Do you know anything of her present surroundings?
Prof. D. I confess that I was surprised to meet her with Mrs. Eyeless, a lady who is active in disseminating Positivism, and all tending that way. She rather startled me by some of her remarks; but probably it was only jargon and desire to show off. Have you seen her lately?
Mr. A. At Christmas, but only for a short time, when it struck me that she treated us with the patronage of precocious youth; and I thought she made the most of a cold when church or parish was concerned. I hinted as much; but her mother seemed quite satisfied. Poor girl! Have I been blind? I did not like her going to live at one of those boarding-houses for lady students. Do you know anything of them?
Prof. D. Of course all depends on the individual lady at the head, and the responsibility she undertakes, as well as on the tone of the inmates. With some, it would be only staying in a safe and guarded home. In others, there is a great amount of liberty, the girls going out without inquiry whether, with whom, or when they return.
Mr. A. American fashion! Well, they say young women are equal to taking care of themselves. I wonder whether my daughter understands this, or whether it is so at Cecilia’s abode. Do you know?
Prof. D. I am afraid I do. The niece of a friend of mine was there, and left it, much distressed and confused by the agnostic opinions that were freely broached there. How did your grand-daughter come to choose it?
Mr. A. For the sake of being with a friend. I think Thurston is the name.
Prof. D. I know something of that family; clever people, but bred up—on principle, if it can be so called, with their minds a blank as to religion. I remember seeing one of the daughters at the party where I met Miss Moldwarp.
Mr. A. So this is the society into which we have allowed our poor child to run! I blame myself exceedingly for not having made more inquiries. Grief made me selfishly passive, or I should have opened my eyes and theirs to the danger. My poor Mary, what a shock it will be to her!
Prof. D. Was not she on the spot?
Mr. A. True; but, poor dear, she is of a gentle nature, easily led, and seeing only what her affection lets her perceive. And now, she is not strong.
Prof. D. She is not looking well.
Mr. A. You think so! I wonder whether I have been blind, and let her undertake too much.
Prof. D. Suppose you were to bring her to town for a few days. We should be delighted to have you, and she could see the doctor to whom she is accustomed. Then you can judge for yourself about her daughter.
Mr. A. Thank you, Dunlop! It will be a great comfort if it can be managed.
VIII. AUNT AND NIECE
SCENE.—In a hansom cab. Mrs. Holland and Cecilia.
Mrs. H. I wanted to speak to you, Cissy.
C. I thought so!
Mrs. H. What do you think of your mother?
C. Poor old darling. They have been worrying her till she has got hipped and nervous about herself.
Mrs. H. Do you know what spasms she has been having?
C. Oh! mother has had spasms as long as I can remember; and the more she thinks of them the worse they are. I have often heard her say so.
Mrs. H. Yes; she has gone on much too long overworking herself, and not letting your grandfather suspect anything amiss.
C. Nerves. That is what it always is.
Mrs. H. Dr. Brownlow says there is failure of heart, not dangerous or advanced at present, but that there is an overstrain of all the powers, and that unless she keeps fairly quiet, and free from hurry and worry, there may be very serious, if not fatal attacks.
C. I never did think much of Dr. Brownlow. He told me my palpitations were nothing but indigestion, and I am sure they were not!
Mrs. H. Well, Cissy, something must be done to relieve your mother of some of her burthens.
C. I see what you are driving at, Aunt Phrasie; but I cannot go back till I have finished these courses. There’s my picture, there’s the cookery school, the ambulance lectures, and our sketching tour in August. Ever so many engagements. I shall be free in the autumn, and then I will go down and see about it. I told mother so.
Mrs. H. All the hot trying months of summer without help!
C. I never can understand why they don’t have a governess.
Mrs. H. Can’t you? Is there not a considerable outgoing on your behalf?
C. That is my own. I am not bound to educate my uncle’s children at my expense.
Mrs. H. No; but if you contributed your share to the housekeeping, you would make a difference, and surely you cannot leave your mother to break down her health by overworking herself in this manner.
C. Why does grandpapa let her do so?
Mrs. H. Partly he does not see, partly he cannot help it. He has been so entirely accustomed to have all those family and parish details taken off his hands, and borne easily as they were when your dear grandmamma and I were both there at home, that he cannot understand that they can be over much—especially as they are so small in themselves. Besides, he is not so young as he was, and your dear mother cannot bear to trouble him.
C. Well, I shall go there in September and see about it. It is impossible before.
Mrs. H. In the hopping holidays, when the stress of work is over! Cannot you see with your own eyes how fagged and ill your mother looks, and how much she wants help?
C. Oh! she will be all right again after this rest. I tell you, Aunt Phrasie, it is impossible at present—(cab stops).
IX. THE TWO SISTERS
SCENE.—A room in Professor Dunlop’s house. Mrs. Moldwarp and Mrs. Holland.
Mrs. H. I have done my best, but I can’t move her an inch.
Mrs. M. Poor dear girl! Yet it seems hardly fair to make my health the lever, when really there is nothing serious the matter.
Mrs. H. I can’t understand the infatuation. Can there be any love affair?
Mrs. M. Oh no, Phrasie; it is worse!
Mrs. H. Worse! Mary, what can you mean?
Mrs. M. Yes, it is worse. I got at the whole truth yesterday. My poor child’s faith has gone! Oh, how could I let her go and let her mingle among all those people, all unguarded!
Mrs. H. Do you mean that this is the real reason that she will not come home?
Mrs. M. Yes; she told me plainly at last that she could not stand our round of services. They seem empty and obsolete to her, and she could not feign to attend them or vex us, and cause remarks by staying away, and of course she neither could nor would teach anything but secular matters. ‘My coming would be nothing but pain to everybody,’ she said.
Mrs H. You did not tell me this before my drive with her.
Mrs. M. No, I never saw you alone; besides, I thought you would speak more freely without the knowledge. And, to tell the truth, I did think it possible that consideration for me might bring my poor Cissy down to us, and that when once under my father’s influence, all these mists might clear away. But I do not deserve it. I have been an unfaithful parent, shutting my eyes in feeble indulgence, and letting her drift into these quicksands.
Mrs. H. Fashion and imitation, my dear Mary; it will pass away. Now, you are not to talk any more.
Mrs. M. I can’t— (A spasm comes on.)
X. AUNT AND NEPHEW
SCENE.—Six months later, Darkglade Vicarage, a darkened room. Mrs. Holland and Lucius.
Mrs. H. Yes, Lucius, we have all much to reproach ourselves with; even poor grandpapa is heart-broken at having been too much absorbed to perceive how your dear mother was overtasked.
L. You did all you could, aunt; you took home one child, and caused the other to be sent to school.
Mrs. H. Yes, too late to be of any use.
L. And after all, I don’t think it was overwork that broke the poor dear one down, so much as grief at that wretched sister of mine.
Mrs. H. Don’t speak of her in that way, Lucius.
L. How can I help it? I could say worse!
Mrs. H. She is broken-hearted, poor thing.
L. Well she may be.
Mrs. H. Ah, the special point of sorrow to your dear mother was that she blamed herself, for—
L. How could she? How can you say so, aunt?
Mrs. H. Wait a moment, Lucius. What grieved her was the giving in to Cissy’s determination, seeing with her eyes, and not allowing herself to perceive that what she wished might not be good for her.
L. Cissy always did domineer over mother.
Mrs. H. Yes; and your mother was so used to thinking Cissy’s judgment right that she never could or would see when it was time to make a stand, and prevent her own first impressions from being talked down as old-fashioned,—letting her eyes be bandaged, in fact.
L. So she vexed herself over Cissy’s fault; but did not you try to make Cissy see what she was about?
Mrs. H. True; but if love had blinded my dear sister, Cissy was doubly blinded—
L. By conceit and self-will.
Mrs. H. Poor girl, I am too sorry for her now to use those hard words, but I am afraid it is true. First she could or would not see either that her companions might be undesirable guides, or that her duty lay here, and then nothing would show her that her mother’s health was failing. Indeed, by that time the sort of blindness had come upon her which really broke your mother’s heart.
L. You mean her unbelief, agnosticism, or whatever she chooses to call it. I thought at least women were safe from that style of thing. It is all fashion and bad company, I suppose?
Mrs. H. I hope and pray that it may be so; but I am afraid that it goes deeper than you imagine. Still, I see hope in her extreme unhappiness, and in the remembrance of your dear mother’s last words and prayers.
XI. GRANDFATHER AND GRAND-DAUGHTER
A month later. Mr. Aveland and Cecilia.
Mr. A. My dear child, I wish I could do anything for you.
C. You had better let me go back to London, grandpapa.
Mr. A. Do you really wish it?
C. I don’t know. I hate it all; but if I were in the midst of everything again, it might stifle the pain a little.
Mr. A. I am afraid that is not the right way of curing it.
C. Oh, I suppose it will wear down in time.
Mr. A. Is that well?
C. I don’t know. It is only unbearable as it is; and yet when I think of my life in town, the din and the chatter and the bustle, and the nobody caring, seem doubly intolerable; but I shall work off that. You had better let me go, grandpapa. The sight of me can be nothing but a grief and pain to you.
Mr. A. No; it gives me hope.
C. Hope of what?
Mr. A. That away from the whirl you will find your way to peace.
C. I don’t see how. Quiet only makes me more miserable.
Mr. A. My poor child, if you can speak out and tell me exactly how it is with you, I think it might be comfortable to you. If it is the missing your mother, and blaming yourself for having allowed her to overdo herself, I may well share with you in that. I feel most grievously that I never perceived how much she was undertaking, nor how she flagged under it. Unselfish people want others to think for them, and I did not.
C. Dear grandpapa, it would not have been too much if I had come and helped. I know that; but it is not the worst. You can’t feel as I do—that if my desertion led to her overworking herself, Aunt Phrasie and Lucius say that what really broke her down was the opinions I cannot help having. Say it was not, grandpapa.
Mr. A. I wish I could, my dear; but I cannot conceal that unhappiness about you, and regret for having let you expose yourself to those unfortunate arguments, broke her spirits so that her energies were unequal to the strain that I allowed to be laid on her.
C. Poor dear mother! And you and she can feel in that way about the importance of what to me seems—pardon me, grandpapa—utterly unproved.
Mr. A. You hold everything unproved that you cannot work out like a mathematical demonstration.
C. I can’t help it, grandpapa. I read and read, till all the premises become lost in the cloud of myths that belong to all nations. I don’t want to think such things. I saw dear mother rest on her belief, and grow peaceful. They were perfect realities to her; but I cannot unthink. I would give anything to think that she is in perfect happiness now, and that we shall meet again; but nothing seems certain to me. All is extinguished.
Mr. A. How do you mean?
C. They—Betty and her set, I mean—laughed at and argued one thing after another, till they showed me that there were no positive grounds to go on.
Mr. A. No material grounds.
C. And what else is certain?
Mr. A. Do you think your mother was not certain?
C. I saw she was; I see you are certain. But what am I to do? I cannot unthink.
Mr. A. Poor child, they have loosed you from the shore, because you could not see it, and left you to flounder in the waves.
C. Well, so I feel it sometimes; but if I could only feel that there was a shore, I would try to get my foothold. Oh, with all my heart!
Mr. A. Will you take my word, dear child—the word of one who can dare humbly to say he has proved it, so as to be as sure as of the floor we are standing on, that that Rock exists; and God grant that you may, in prayer and patience, be brought to rest on it once more.
C. Once more! I don’t think I ever did so really. I only did not think, and kept away from what was dull and tiresome. Didn’t you read something about ‘If thou hadst known—’
Mr. A. ‘If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.’ But oh, my dear girl, it is my hope and prayer, not for ever. If you will endure to walk in darkness for a while, till the light be again revealed to you.
C. At any rate, dear grandfather, I will do what mother entreated, and not leave you alone.
