Mrs. Merrifield was rather shocked, but she felt that she herself was in a glass house, was, in fact, keeping a literary daughter, so she only committed herself to, 'She is very young.'
'Only one-and-twenty,' returned Mrs. Arthuret triumphantly; 'but then she has had such advantages, and made such use of them. Everything seems to come at once, though, perhaps, it is unthankful to say so. Of course, it is no object now, but I could not help thinking what it would have been to us to have discovered this talent of hers at the time when we could hardly make both ends meet.'
'She will find plenty of use for it,' said Mrs. Merrifield, who, as the wife of a country squire and the mother of nine children, did not find it too easy to make her ends meet upon a larger income.
'Oh yes! indeed she will, the generous child. She is full of plans for the regeneration of the village.'
Poor Mrs. Merrifield! this was quite too much for her. She thought it irreverent to apply the word in any save an ecclesiastical sense; nor did she at all desire to have the parish, which was considered to be admirably worked by the constituted authorities, 'regenerated,' whatever that might mean, by a young lady of one-and-twenty. She rose up and observed to her daughter that she saw papa out upon the lawn, and she thought it was time to go home.
Mrs. Arthuret came out with them, and found what Bessie could only regard as a scene of desolation. Though gentlemen, as a rule, have no mercy on trees, and ladies are equally inclined to cry, 'Woodman, spare that tree,' the rule was reversed, for Miss Arthuret was cutting, and ordering cutting all round her ruthlessly with something of the pleasure of a child in breaking a new toy to prove that it is his own, scarcely listening when the Admiral told her what the trees were, and how beautiful in their season; while even as to the evergreens, she did not know a yew from a cedar, and declared that she must get rid of this horrid old laurustinus, while she lopped away at a Portugal laurel. Her one idea seemed to be that it was very unwholesome to live in a house surrounded with trees; and the united influence of the Merrifields, working on her mother by representing what would be the absence of shade in a few months' time, barely availed to save the life of the big cedar; while the great rhododendron, wont to present a mountain of shining leaves and pale purple blossoms every summer, was hewn down without remorse as an awful old laurel, and left a desolate brown patch in its stead.
'Is it an emblem,' thought Bessie, 'of what she would like to do to all of us poor old obstructions?'
After all, Mrs. Merrifield could not help liking the gentle mother, by force of sympathy; and the Admiral was somewhat fascinated by the freshness and impetuosity of the damsel, as elderly men are wont to be with young girls who amuse them with what they are apt to view as an original form of the silliness common to the whole female world except their own wives, and perhaps their daughters; and Bessie was extremely amused, and held her peace, as she had been used to do in London. Susan was perhaps the most annoyed and indignant. She was presiding over seams and button-holes the next afternoon at school, when the mother and daughter walked in; and the whole troop started to their feet and curtsied.
'Don't make them stand! I hate adulation. Sit down, please. Where's the master?'
'In the boys' school, ma'am,' said the mistress, uncomfortably indicating the presence of Miss Merrifield, who felt herself obliged to come forward and shake hands.
'Oh! so you have separate schools. Is not that a needless expense?'
'It has always been so,' returned Susan quietly.
'Board? No? Well, no doubt you are right; but I suppose it is at a sacrifice of efficiency. Have you cookery classes?'
'We have not apparatus, and the girls go out too early for it to be of much use.'
'Ah, that's a mistake. Drawing?'
'The boys draw.'
'I shall go and see them. Not the girls? They look orderly enough; but are they intelligent? Well, I shall look in and examine them on their special subjects, if they have any. I suppose not.'
'Only class. Grammar and needlework.'
'I see, the old routine. Quite the village school.'
'It is very nice work,' put in Mrs. Arthuret, who had been looking at it.
'Oh yes, it always is when everything is sacrificed to it. Good-morning, I shall see more of you, Mrs.-ahem.'
'Please, ma'am, should I tell her that she is not a school manager?' inquired the mistress, somewhat indignantly, when the two ladies had departed.
'You had better ask the Vicar what to do,' responded Susan.
The schoolmaster, on his side, seemed to have had so much advice and offers of assistance in lessons on history, geography, and physical science, that he had been obliged to refer her to the managers, and explain that till the next inspection he was bound to abide by the time-table.
'Ah, well, I will be one of the managers another year.'
So she told the Vicar, who smiled, and said, 'We must elect you.'
'I am sure much ought to be done. It is mere waste to have two separate schools, when a master can bring the children on so much better in the higher subjects.'
'Mrs. Merrifield and the rest of us are inclined to think that what stands highest of all with us is endangered by mixed schools,' said Mr. Doyle.
'Oh!' Arthurine opened her eyes; 'but education does all that!'
'Education does, but knowledge is not wisdom. Susan Merrifield's influence has done more for our young women than the best class teaching could do.'
'Oh, but the Merrifields are all so bornés and homely; they stand in the way of all culture.'
'Indeed,' said the Vicar, who had in his pocket a very favourable review of MESA's new historical essay.
'Surely an old-fashioned squire and Lady Bountiful and their very narrow daughters should not be allowed to prevent improvement, pauperise the place, and keep it in its old grooves.'
'Well, we shall see what you think by the time you have lived here long enough to be eligible for-what?'
'School manager, guardian of the poor!' cried Arthurine.
'We shall see,' repeated the Vicar. 'Good-morning.'
He asked Bessie's leave to disclose who MESA was.
'Oh, don't!' she cried, 'it would spoil the fun! Besides, mamma would not like it, which is a better reason.'
There were plenty of books, old and new, in Bessie's room, magazines and reviews, but they did not come about the house much, unless any of the Rockstone cousins or the younger generation were staying there, or her brother David had come for a rest of mind and body. Between housekeeping, gardening, parish work, and pottering, Mrs. Merrifield and Susan never had time for reading, except that Susan thought it her duty to keep something improving in hand, which generally lasted her six weeks on a moderate average. The Admiral found quite reading enough in the newspapers, pamphlets, and business publications; and their neighbours, the Greville family, were chiefly devoted to hunting and lawn tennis, so that there was some reason in Mrs. Arthuret's lamentation to the Vicar that dear Arthurine did so miss intellectual society, such as she had been used to with the High School mistresses-two of whom had actually been at Girton!
'Does she not get on with Bessie Merrifield?' he asked.
'Miss Bessie has a very sweet face; Arthurine did say she seemed well informed and more intelligent than her sister. Perhaps Arthurine might take her up. It would be such an advantage to the poor girl.'
'Which?' was on Mr. Doyle's tongue, but he restrained it, and only observed that Bessie had lived for a good many years in London.
'So I understood,' said Arthurine, 'but with an old grandmother, and that is quite as bad as if it was in the country; but I will see about it. I might get up a debating society, or one for studying German.'
In the meantime Arthurine decided on improving and embellishing the parish with a drinking fountain, and meeting Bessie one afternoon in the village, she started the idea.
'But,' said Bessie, 'there is a very good supply. Papa saw that good water was accessible to all the houses in the village str
eet ten years ago, and the outlying ones have wells, and there's the brook for the cattle.'
'I am sure every village should have a fountain and a trough, and I shall have it here instead of this dirty corner.'
'Can you get the ground?'
'Oh, any one would give ground for such a purpose! Whose is it?'
'Mr. Grice's, at Butter End.'
The next time Susan and Bessie encountered Arthurine, she began-
'Can you or Admiral Merrifield do nothing with that horrid old Grice! Never was any one so pigheaded and stupid.'
'What? He won't part with the land you want?'
'No; I wrote to him and got no answer. Then I wrote again, and I got a peaked-hand sort of note that his wife wrote, I should think. "Mr. Grice presented his compliments" (compliments indeed!), "and had no intention of parting with any part of Spragg's portion." Well, then I called to represent what a benefit it would be to the parish and his own cattle, and what do you think the old brute said?-that "there was a great deal too much done for the parish already, and he wouldn't have no hand in setting up the labourers, who were quite impudent enough already." Well, I saw it was of no use to talk to an old wretch like that about social movements and equal rights, so I only put the question whether having pure water easily accessible would not tend to make them better behaved and less impudent as he called it, upon which he broke out into a tirade. "He didn't hold with cold water and teetotal, not he. Why, it had come to that-that there was no such thing as getting a fair day's work out of a labouring man with their temperance, and their lectures, and their schools, and their county councils and what not!" Really I had read of such people, but I hardly believed they still existed.'
'Grice is very old, and the regular old sort of farmer,' said Bessie.
'But could not the Admiral persuade him, or Mr. Doyle?'
'Oh no,' said Susan, 'it would be of no use. He was just as bad about a playground for the boys, though it would have prevented their being troublesome elsewhere.'
'Besides,' added Bessie, 'I am sure papa would say that there is no necessity. He had the water analysed, and it is quite good, and plenty of it.'
'Well, I shall see what can be done.'
'She thinks us as bad as old Grice,' said Susan, as they saw her walking away in a determined manner.
The next thing that was heard was the Admiral coming in from the servants' hall, whither he had been summoned by 'Please, sir, James Hodd wishes to speak to you.'
'What is this friend of yours about, Bessie?'
'What friend, papa?'
'Why, this Miss Arthur-what d'ye call her?' said the Admiral (who on the whole was much more attracted by her than were his daughters). 'Here's a deputation from her tenant, James Hodd, with "Please, sir, I wants to know if 'tis allowed to turn folks out of their houses as they've paid rent for reg'lar with a week's notice, when they pays by the year."'
'You don't mean it!' exclaimed Mrs. Merrifield and Susan together.
'Poor old Mrs. West,' said the mother.
'And all the Tibbinses!' exclaimed Susan. 'She can't do it, can she, papa?'
'Certainly not, without the proper notice, and so I told James, and that the notice she had sent down to him was so much waste-paper.'
'So at least she has created a village Hampden,' said Bessie, 'though, depend upon it, she little supposes herself to be the petty tyrant.'
'I must go and explain to her, I suppose, to-morrow morning,' said the Admiral.
However, he had scarcely reached his own gate before the ulstered form was seen rushing up to him.
'Oh! Admiral Merrifield, good-morning; I was coming to ask you-'
'And I was coming to you.'
'Oh! Admiral, is it really so-as that impudent man told me-that those horrid people can't be got out of those awful tumbledown, unhealthy places for all that immense time?'
'Surely he was not impudent to you? He was only asserting his right. The cottages were taken by the year, and you have no choice but to give six months' notice. I hope he was not disrespectful.'
'Well, no-I can't say that he was, though I don't care for those cap-in-hand ways of your people here. But at any rate, he says he won't go-no, not any of them, though I offered to pay them up to the end of the time, and now I must put off my beautiful plans. I was drawing them all yesterday morning-two model cottages on each side, and the drinking fountain in the middle. I brought them up to show you. Could you get the people to move out? I would promise them to return after the rebuilding.'
'Very nice drawings. Yes-yes-very kind intentions.'
'Then can't you persuade them?'
'But, my dear young lady, have you thought what is to become of them in the meantime?'
'Why, live somewhere else! People in Smokeland were always shifting about.'
'Yes-those poor little town tenements are generally let on short terms and are numerous enough. But here-where are the vacant cottages for your four families? Hodd with his five children, Tibbins with eight or nine, Mrs. West and her widow daughter and three children, and the Porters with a bedridden father?'
'They are dreadfully overcrowded. Is there really no place?'
'Probably not nearer than those trumpery new tenements at Bonchamp. That would be eight miles to be tramped to the men's work, and the Wests would lose the washing and charing that maintains them.'
'Then do you think it can never be done? See how nice my plans are!'
'Oh yes! very pretty drawings, but you don't allow much outlet.'
'I thought you had allotments, and that they would do, and I mean to get rid of the pig-sties.'
'A most unpopular proceeding, I warn you.'
'There's nothing more unsanitary than a pig-sty.'
'That depends on how it is kept. And may I ask, do you mean also to dispense with staircases?'
'Oh! I forgot. But do you really mean to say that I can never carry out my improvements, and that these people must live all herded together till everybody is dead?'
'Not quite that,' said the Admiral, laughing; 'but most improvements require patience and a little experience of the temper and habits of the people. There are cottages worse than these. I think two of them have four rooms, and the Wests and Porters do not require so much. If you built one or two elsewhere, and moved the people into them, or waited for a vacant one, you might carry out some of your plans-gradually.'
'And my fountain?'
'I am not quite sure, but I am afraid your cottages are on that stratum where you could not bring the water without great expense.'
Arthurine controlled herself enough for a civil 'Good-morning!' but she shed tears as she walked home and told her pitying mother that she was thwarted on every side, and that nobody could comprehend her.
The meetings for German reading were, however, contrived chiefly-little as Arthurine guessed it-by the influence of Bessie Merrifield. The two Greville girls and Mr. Doyle's sister, together with the doctor's young wife, two damsels from the next parish, and a friend or two that the Arthurets had made at Bonchamp, formed an imposing circle-to begin.
'Oh, not on Wilhelm Tell!' cried Arthurine. 'It might as well be the alphabet at once.'
However, the difficulties in the way of books, and consideration for general incompetency, reduced her to Wilhelm Tell, and she began with a lecture first on Schiller, and then upon Switzerland, and on the legend; but when Bessie Merrifield put in a word of such history and criticisms as were not in the High School Manual, she was sure everything else must be wrong-'Fraülein Blümenbach never said so, and she was an admirable German scholar.'
Miss Doyle went so far as to declare she should not go again to see Bessie Merrifield so silenced, sitting by after the first saying nothing, but only with a little laugh in her eyes.
'But,' said Bessie, 'it is such fun to see any person having it so entirely her own way-like Macaulay, so cock-sure of everything-and to see those Bonchamp girls-Mytton is their name-so entirely adoring her.'
'I am
sorry she has taken up with those Myttons,' said Miss Doyle.
'So am I,' answered Susan.
'You too, Susie!' exclaimed Bessie-'you, who never have a word to say against any one!'
'I daresay they are very good girls,' said Susan; 'but they are-'
'Underbred,' put in Miss Doyle in the pause. 'And how they flatter!'
'I think the raptures are genuine gush,' said Bessie; 'but that is so much the worse for Arthurine. Is there any positive harm in the family beyond the second-rate tone?'
'It was while you were away,' said Susan; 'but their father somehow behaved very ill about old Colonel Mytton's will-at least papa thought so, and never wished us to visit them.'
'He was thought to have used unfair influence on the old gentleman,' said Miss Doyle; 'but the daughters are so young that probably they had no part in it. Only it gives a general distrust of the family; and the sons are certainly very undesirable young men.'
'It is unlucky,' said Bessie, 'that we can do nothing but inflict a course of snubbing, in contrast with a course of admiration.'
'I am sure I don't want to snub her,' said good-natured Susan. 'Only when she does want to do such queer things, how can it be helped?'
It was quite true, Mrs. and Miss Arthuret had been duly called upon and invited about by the neighbourhood; but it was a scanty one, and they had not wealth and position enough to compensate for the girl's self-assertion and literary pretensions. It was not a superior or intellectual society, and, as the Rockstone Merrifields laughingly declared, it was fifty years behindhand, and where Bessie Merrifield, for the sake of the old stock and her meek bearing of her success-nay, her total ignoring of her literary honours-would be accepted. Arthurine, half her age, and a newcomer, was disliked for the pretensions which her mother innocently pressed on the world. Simplicity and complacency were taken for arrogance, and the mother and daughter were kept upon formal terms of civility by all but the Merrifields, who were driven into discussion and opposition by the young lady's attempts at reformations in the parish.
It was the less wonder that they made friends where their intimacy was sought and appreciated. There was nothing underbred about themselves; both were ladies ingrain, though Arthurine was abrupt and sometimes obtrusive, but they had not lived a life such as to render them sensitive to the lack of fine edges in others, and were quite ready to be courted by those who gave the meed of appreciation that both regarded as Arthurine's just portion.
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