A Woman's Burden: A Novel

"Is she pretty?"

"He doesn't say. But knowing how Uncle Barton hates our sex, I quite expect he has chosen some raw-boned, prim, board-school monster, just to spite me. I am sure she's horrid. Her name sounds horrid."

"Then she shan't teach me!"

The interruption came from behind the window curtain, and Hilda laughed gaily.

"Hiding in there, Dicky? Come and have a piece of cake."

"You horrid child," cried his mother, as the pale-faced Dicky emerged from his retreat. "What a turn you gave me! Why can't you sit on a chair like a Christian instead of poking in window corners? What have you been doing?"

"Reading 'Robinson Crusoe.'"

"You should be at your lessons; really, I never knew so idle a child. You're breaking my heart with your horrid ways, you know you are! I'm sure I'm the most afflicted woman in the world. If I didn't bear up I don't know what would become of you!"

Dicky, well used to his mother's wailing, took no notice whatever, but under the wing of Hilda devoted himself to the demolition of cake to a most alarming extent. He was a delicate, nervous child, wan and peevish; far too tall and old-fashioned for his age. Under judicious management as to diet, work, play, and exercise, he would have developed into a charming little fellow; but Mrs. Darrow, with her ill-disciplined mind, was the worst possible parent to be charged with the up-bringing of such a child. She overwhelmed him with caresses one moment, declaring that he was her all, boxed his ears the next, and lamented that she was burdened with him; so that Dicky came as near hating his mother as a child of ten well could, and Mrs. Darrow, instinctively feeling this, bewailed his lack of affection and sought to scold him into loving her. If ever Uncle Barton did a wise thing in his life, it was when he engaged a governess for the neglected boy, though of course everything depended upon the personality of the governess. So far Mrs. Darrow was in the dark, and out of sheer contradiction to Uncle Barton was prepared to make herself highly unpleasant to the new-comer, and nobody could be more disagreeable than Mrs. Dacre Darrow, as the parish of Lesser Thorpe knew to its cost. She was a past-mistress in the arts of scandal-mongering, nagging, and back-biting. The strength for a right-down hatred was not in her.

"If my new governess isn't pretty, like Hilda, I don't want her," said Dicky, when his mother had wailed herself into a state of momentary passiveness. "I don't like ugly people."

"Would you like me to teach you, Dicky?" laughed Hilda.

"Oh, yes; we could read 'Robinson Crusoe' together!"

"I'm afraid that's not a lesson book, Dicky."

But Dicky insisted that Defoe was better than any lesson book.

"Lesson books make my head ache," he said; "and I learn a lot of hard words in 'Robinson Crusoe' without thinking. Why can't lesson books be nice like that?"

"You little imp," burst out his mother furiously; "the idea of talking about what you like. You'll be taught by a black woman if I choose; and I'll burn all those rubbishy story-books."

Thus did Mrs. Darrow, who had read nothing but society journals and fashion magazines, blend discipline with criticism.

"I never saw such a child," she wailed; "he's not a bit like me. Oh, Dicky, Dicky, why haven't you your mother's sweet disposition and sweet temper?"

Before Dicky could reply to this truly overwhelming question, to which but one answer was expected, a dried-up little man appeared at the French window opening on to the lawn, and stepped into the room. Hilda half rose to fly from her arch enemy, but being caught, decided it would be undignified to retreat. So she resumed her seat and talked in low tones to Dicky. Mrs. Darrow still lay on her sofa, and welcomed the stranger in the faintest of low tones, meant to be expressive of great weakness.

"How are you, Uncle Barton," she said. "I can hardly speak, I am so ill."

"I know, I know," rasped out the cynic grimly. "I heard you talking to Dicky, no wonder you can't chatter now."

"I must do my duty to my child," cried Mrs. Darrow with more energy, "even though my health suffers."

Mr. Barton surveyed the plump recumbent figure with grim humour.

"You feel your parental duties too much, Julia, they will wear you out. How do you do, Miss Marsh? I see you and Julia have been spoiling your digestions with strong tea. Muffins too! Oh, Lord, think of your complexions!"

Hilda laughed, and glanced into a near mirror. Her complexion was her strong point, and she had no fear of its being criticised even by disagreeable Mr. Barton.

"I'm afraid my appetite is stronger than my vanity," she said.

"Then you must have the appetite of an ostrich," growled Barton, sitting down near his niece; "but Julia, poor dear, eats nothing."

"That I don't," murmured Mrs. Darrow. "I peck like a bird."

"What kind of a bird – a canary, or an albatross?"

"Uncle Barton!" cried the outraged Julia in capital letters.

"There, there, it's all right. Anyone can see you eat nothing. You are all skin and bone. Dicky, come here, sir. Your new governess will be here in ten minutes."

"In ten minutes!" screeched Mrs. Darrow, bounding from the sofa with more energy than might have been expected. "She can't – she mustn't. I'm not ready to receive her. Oh, Uncle Barton!" – the irrepressible feminine curiosity would out – "what is she like?"

"Very ugly, small, dark-haired, dark-skinned."

"I knew it. I knew you would choose an ugly woman!"

Barton chuckled.

"Only as a foil to yourself, my dear. Now then, Dicky, what is the matter?"

"I don't like an ugly governess," whimpered Dicky. "Can't Hilda teach me?"

"I don't know about that, Dick. If beauty is the essential factor in your teacher, then certainly Miss Marsh is more than qualified. What do you say, Miss Marsh? Will you undertake this young gentleman's education?"

Hilda shook her head, and laughed herself into a pretty state of confusion. It certainly became her.

"I'm not clever enough," said she, wincing under Barton's regard.

"H'm. That's a pity, otherwise you might have had this fifty pounds a year."

"What?" screamed Mrs. Darrow, "do you intend to give this creature fifty pounds?"

"Why not? She's worth it."

"Who is she?"

"Dicky's governess – Miss Crane."

"But who is she? – where does she come from?"

"London. You had better make further inquiries of her in person, for there's the fly driving up to the gate."

Dignity, or rather her exhibition of it, prevented Mrs. Darrow rushing to the window. She seated herself like a queen on the sofa, and spread out her sable skirts, so as to receive the ugly governess with the true keep-your-distance hospitality of the British matron. At the same time she remonstrated with Uncle Barton for his rash and unnecessary generosity.

"If you gave her twenty pounds a year it would be more than enough," she said snappishly. "I could do well with the other thirty."

"No doubt. But you don't teach Dicky, you see."