Mrs. Molesworth - White Turrets

“You are laughing at me again,” she said reproachfully. “No, it was worse than that. Her son turned out very badly, and was killed in a duel, and her daughter died, and they lost a lot of money, and in the end it came to our grandmother, you see, whose husband took the name Maryon. But the family has never been so well off since.”

“And in the face of all those warnings, your sister persists – no, what is it she wants to do or not to do?” said the young man, looking rather perplexed. “The ghost can’t bully her for not marrying a man she doesn’t care for, surely? I thought better of ghosts than that!”

“No, it’s not that. It is that she wants to leave home and make a career for herself. And I admire her for it. That’s why we were so pleased to come here: we want to find out about a lot of things.”

Eric looked really grave.

“Why is your sister not content to stay at home?” he inquired. “Even if she were a man, there are men whose vocation it is not to have a profession, whose work and duties are there, all ready for them. Is it not much the same with Miss Maryon, considering your father’s illness, and all there must be to look after?”

His hearer seemed surprised and almost startled. There are aspects of our daily life, ways of looking at our surroundings, with which we might long have been familiar – commonplace, matter-of-fact reflections, requiring no special genius of discrimination to call them forth – which, nevertheless when put into words by an outsider, strike us with extraordinary effect. Almost do they come upon us with the force of a revelation.

So was it just now with Celia Maryon. As she took in the full bearing of young Balderson’s observations, she felt more and more struck by them. She looked up in his face with a strange cloud in her eyes, and Eric himself felt surprised. He imagined that he had somehow or other hurt or offended her.

“I beg your pardon,” he began, “if – Of course I would not be so presumptuous as to suppose I could judge of the circumstances.”

Celia smiled. She would be true to her colours at any cost, and her colours meant her sister Winifred. The truth was that she was at a loss how to reply; she had never looked at things in this light before. She wanted to think it all over quietly by herself, but she was not going to allow this to any one else.

“No,” she said, “of course you can’t judge. You don’t know Winifred, or what there is in her. My other sister, Louise, is the home one. She is not nearly so clever as Winifred, but she does pretty well. The bailiff isn’t bad, though I’m afraid he’s going to leave, and old Mr Peckerton, the lawyer, comes over if he’s wanted. Things go on in a groovy, old-fashioned way, but, oh, no! Winifred could never find her life-work in these directions.”

And again Celia smiled, a superior, almost contemptuous little smile this time. Her own words half-persuaded herself that she had been foolish to be so impressed by the young man’s scarcely conscious remonstrance.

“Ah, of course I can’t pretend to judge,” he repeated, and the modesty of his tone encouraged her to say a little more, to stifle her own misgivings as much as to keep up her sister’s dignity.

“Winifred is intended for a larger life altogether,” she said. “And there are three of us at home. People are beginning to see the facts about women’s lives differently. Why should we be condemned to trivial idleness? Look how some have thrown off the trammels! There is Miss Norreys, for instance. Could you imagine her spending her life in ordering legs of mutton and darning stockings?”

“No,” said Eric simply, “I couldn’t. And I don’t think any woman’s life need be, or should be, so dull and narrow. But still, Hertha Norreys is not a fair example. She has a gift, an undoubted gift. I think its greatness is scarcely yet recognised by herself or others; perhaps it never will be. But still she has not ignored it. She felt she had a talent and she was bound to cultivate it, and she has done so. In her case there was no choice.”

Celia looked interested.

“I am glad you allow that , at any rate,” she said, and glancing at her, the young man almost fancied that she blushed a little. “Of course I think cleverness like Winifred’s a gift, but I can understand ordinary people not looking upon it as if she had a great talent for music, or – or painting. It is easier when you have the one distinct power. Now there is Lady Campion. Your mother seems to think her so talented, but she has not concentrated her talents.”

“No,” said Eric, drily, “she certainly has not.”

“And,” pursued Celia, “she is married. She shouldn’t have married if she wanted to be something.”

“But perhaps she didn’t, or, at least, not what you call ‘something.’ She thinks herself very much ‘something’ or ‘somebody,’ and her marriage has certainly not stood in her light.” Celia hesitated.

“You don’t like Lady Campion?” she said, abruptly.

“Oh yes, I do,” he replied, lightly. “She’s by no means a bad sort of woman,” he went on, hastily. Celia was not the kind of girl to whom it seemed natural to talk slang. “But she wouldn’t have been half what she is if she hadn’t married. The best of her, in my humble opinion, comes out as a wife. I like to see her with her husband. She recognises his superiority.”

“Oh dear,” thought Celia, “what a man’s way of putting it!”

“For he really is a first-rate fellow in his own line. And she is not a genius, though she is – oh yes! she is – clever, though sometimes she makes herself just a little ridiculous.”

Celia did not speak. This was again a new light to her. She felt confused. She had pictured Lady Campion quite differently, somehow, and she felt sure Winifred had done the same, pitying her for having married and thus rashly clipped her wings.

“She – Lady Campion – admires Miss Norreys exceedingly,” said Celia, after a little silence. “That should be a bond between you, for I can see you admire her exceedingly too.”

Eric looked somewhat surprised. The young girl had more perception than he had given her credit for.

“Yes,” he said, “I do. I admire her very much indeed. As an artist, I place her more highly than might be generally thought reasonable, and, as a woman, yes, I admire her too, and respect her, except for – ”

“What?” asked Celia, eagerly.

“I cannot tell you,” he answered. “I was going to say that, as a woman, there is one direction in which I cannot admire her. But I cannot explain more fully, and perhaps I may have misjudged her. She is one in whom it would be difficult to believe there existed any of the weaknesses that one finds in smaller characters.”

This was high praise. Celia’s interest in Hertha grew with every word.

“I wish I knew her,” she said, earnestly. “I should so like to meet her.”

Her words reached the ears of her companion on the other side. Mr Fancourt was beginning to feel as if he had had about enough of the neighbour – a talkative woman of forty or thereabouts, well up in the topics of the day, and of his own small section of the world in particular – on his left, whom hitherto he had deliberately chosen in preference to the pretty young creature on his right. And now, with the calm insouciance of an experienced diner-out, he turned to Celia.

“There must be more in her than I suspected,” he said to himself. “She seems to have succeeded in making Balderson talk, and he can be pretty heavy in hand when it doesn’t suit him to be lively.”

“You are speaking of Miss Norreys, are you not?” he asked. The name had caught his attention, and, when Celia bowed in response – “Yes, she is charming,” he went on. “It is curious: I have found myself thinking of her two or three times during dinner. There is a certain something which I cannot define, which reminds me of her in that girl on the other side of the table – nearer our host – yes,” as he followed Celia’s eyes, “the girl next but one to my wife. You know her , Mrs Fancourt, by sight – in pale green? No?” (He thought everybody knew his wife.) “Ah, well, you know her now.”