More Bywords

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?