Читать книгу The Girls of the Hamlet Club - Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley - Страница 8

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‘Oh! Why, it’s Bobs and Babs!’ cried Cicely, looking at the drawing on Margia’s block while the easel was being set up.

Margia smiled. ‘Do you know them? They were wandering in the wood one day, and I persuaded Babs to be still just long enough to let me catch her expression. Bobs was easier.’

Cicely laughed and nodded. ‘I don’t know them well. I’ve spoken to them once, and to Miriam. But we aren’t friends yet. I’d like to be.’

‘You couldn’t do better. Now I want to get in the background. I posed the children at the foot of that great beech—isn’t he a beauty?—and gave all my time to them. To-day I want to paint the trees; they are really more in my line than figures. I feel quite flattered that you recognised Bobs and Babs. Look through my sketch-book and you’ll see it’s generally landscape and most often trees.’

Cicely sat turning the pages and giving constant exclamations of delight. ‘Oh, is this Hampden Glade? How beautiful! Do you sell your pictures? I never saw such lovely tree-paintings before.’

Margia laughed. ‘I generally manage to dispose of them. I’ve had some good commissions too. I love the woods, and I like to be out painting better than anything else.’ Her face clouded suddenly. ‘Come, let’s get to business, Cicely! Can you tell me your trouble? Just tell me in a general way, if you like, without any details.’

‘Oh, it’s not a secret. Daddy wants me to do what I’d like best—what would make me happiest, he says—but he’d like me to do one thing, and I don’t want to. I’ll tell you;’ and Cicely plunged into her story.

Margia listened, saying nothing, looking up continually at her tree, and then painting on with quick, delicate touches, her face very grave.

‘So, you see,’ Cicely ended, ‘I want to go home to Mrs Gaynor and the girls. I’ve been very happy there. I hate the thought of any change. I don’t see half a chance of things being as jolly here’——

‘That is hardly the question,’ Margia interrupted quickly. ‘I’m sorry your father put it to you like that. To have a good time is not the end of all things. If you feel you have chosen as he wished, you’ll be happier than if you feel you haven’t. If he goes away, and you know you’ve disappointed him, you won’t be happy, Cicely—not really, though things may be as jolly as ever.’

‘You think not? You think it would worry me afterwards?’ Cicely asked doubtfully.

‘I’m sure of it. But you’re making your choice much more difficult by laying the stress on the wrong point. The question is not what you want, but what it is right for you to do. The thing to decide is not where you’ll have the most enjoyment, but whether your life is to be brave or cowardly, a great life or a poor, mean one.’

Cicely stared. ‘Oh, but how? All that? Just by deciding whether I’ll please daddy or myself?’

Margia nodded. ‘Let me think a moment!’ and she worked on swiftly, her brows knit. Suddenly she said, ‘Cicely, you know where we are?’

‘In Green Hailey Wood!’ and Cicely stared again.

‘No; it’s Great Hampden Wood. Old John is one of my heroes, and I think you said you liked him too?’

‘Rather! We had an essay on him at school, and we had a lot read to us first, and I’ve loved him ever since. He was ripping!’

Margia smiled, for the adjective sounded strange in this connection. She did not attempt to explain that, however, but said quietly, ‘Well, then, you should try to be like him. He had to do exactly what you have to do now.’

Cicely’s eyes widened. ‘Please tell me; for I don’t see it a bit!’ she said. ‘He didn’t have to leave school and the girls and his home, and go to a new school and some cross old grandparents.’

‘No; but he had to leave home and give up his easy country life for the sake of others. He had to choose between his own wishes and his duty. And he needn’t have done what he did. What was twenty shillings to him? He owned all these woods, that great park, and the big house you’ve seen. What did that little tax matter to him? But it mattered to some people, and if he had paid it, the taxes which would have followed would have mattered to everybody in the country. It was only the beginning, and he saw that. He had to choose—and, Cicely, I never quite realised what the choice must have meant till I came to Hampden the first time.’

‘Go on!’ Cicely begged. ‘Tell me, please. You haven’t lived here always, then?’

‘No; we lived in London. My sister and I studied there; but last spring she was appointed painting-mistress in a big school near here, and we took a cottage at Totteridge. I cycled to Hampden one day, with his story in my mind, and understood it as I had never done before. I saw what he had had to give up. His beautiful home—that great peaceful park, and the woods and farms and hills, all his—and he a quiet country gentleman, liking to work in his study, ride about among his tenants, do his duty as magistrate in the quiet little towns, and live at home with his boys and girls. He had to give it all up. His choice that day in Kimble Church—quite near you at Whiteleaf—meant, first, his summons to London and all the worry and annoyance of the law-courts. And the case went against him, of course. But that wasn’t the end. He couldn’t give it up and go home then. He saw how things were going, and what was to come, and he had become known as one who would stand up against injustice. Instead of his quiet home-life, there came the turmoil and excitement of elections for Parliament. Then followed those years of strife and legal warfare, argument and discussion, when he was the one man who kept things straight in Parliament and made peace many a time’——

‘I know!’ Cicely said unexpectedly. ‘But for him they’d have sheathed their swords in one another’s bodies. I remember!’

‘Yes. He was needed there, and he knew it. He never shirked the duty he had taken up, but it was the end of his home-life. I wonder if he ever felt like you, that he wished the changes had never come! You know the end of the story. He saw this beautiful, peaceful Bucks he loved so much filled with war and fighting—soldiers in every village, soldiers on the hills at night; fine old houses burned to the ground, though his own escaped. He left his wife and children, and went off to drill soldiers, to lead his troop, to show the roads and passes through the hills which he knew so well. He fell at Chalgrove Field, and died two days later at Thame, after great suffering, quite a young man still. Now, Cicely, reduce the choice he had to make to its simplest, and what was it? His own ease and comfort, or his duty to others—wasn’t that it?’

Cicely nodded, her face very sober. ‘And you mean that everybody who puts others first and their own way last does what he did, only in a smaller way?’

‘Everybody has to face the same choice sooner or later. And it decides whether our life shall be heroic, or low, poor, and selfish. That’s what I mean. I might put it more strongly still, but I’m afraid you’d think I was preaching.’

‘Oh, please go on. I won’t. I mean, I wish you would. People want preaching sometimes, you know.’

‘Well, what is it that we call “duty,” or “service of others”? Isn’t it God’s will for us coming into conflict with our own? Isn’t that the real choice for each of us?’

Cicely sat looking very grave, her fingers twisting delicate leaves of wood-sorrel into a wreath, her thoughts far away. At last she said, ‘But sometimes people haven’t any choice. Sometimes they have to do things they don’t like, with no chance of getting out of it. There was a girl I knew at school; she was set on going to college, and she was sure of a scholarship as soon as she was old enough. But when she was seventeen her mother had a stroke and was awfully ill, and the girl had to give up all thought of college and stay at home and nurse her. It wasn’t at all what she had planned, and she was fearfully disappointed. But she had no choice; there was nobody else. She just had to do it.’

‘But I think the choice remained. She could do it joyfully, glad to give up her ambitions for her mother’s sake; or grudgingly, resenting the necessity. It would make all the difference to her mother how it was done.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that. Then you mean that I must not only stay here to please daddy, but make him think I’m glad to do it?’

‘You want him to be happy about you while he’s away, don’t you?’

‘Oh yes! More than anything, almost.’

‘Well, then?’ and Margia gave Cicely a quick look.

‘I’ll do it; at least I’ll try,’ Cicely said suddenly. ‘I’ve known all along I ought to, but I didn’t want to make up my mind and give up all thought of going home. I’ve been putting it off’——

‘I know. Oh, Cicely, I know—and don’t I wish I didn’t!’

Margia’s outburst, after such a while of quiet talking, startled Cicely.

She looked up quickly. ‘Oh, I’d quite forgotten! You said you—you were in a hole too. Won’t you tell me, please? Or mustn’t you?’

‘No, I’ll play fair. I’ve been lecturing myself as much as you, and I’ve been quite aware of it. I’ve only put into words what has been in my mind for days, but I wouldn’t admit it. I wouldn’t think about it. For I have felt, like you, that I would have to do the thing I don’t like; but, like you, I have been putting off the final decision. But after the way I’ve talked to you there’s no escape. I should feel such a humbug if I failed now, and you’d certainly tell me to practise what I preached.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t! But won’t you tell me, please?’

‘I dare say it will seem a very small matter to you, but it’s big to me. I told you we came here in the spring. My sister teaches drawing and painting in Wycombe’——

‘In the school Miriam Honor goes to?’ and Cicely looked up quickly. ‘Where I shall be going too?’

‘Why, yes! We had better be friends, then, Cicely, for we shall see a good deal of one another. Well, I have never felt any wish for teaching, but I have done much painting out in the woods, and have been as successful in my work as my sister has been in hers. But all summer I have been longing for autumn, and now that it has come it is even more wonderful than I expected. The colours of the woods are beyond anything I ever dreamed of, and I want to be painting every day till the last scrap of daylight is gone.’

Cicely looked at Margia curiously. ‘The woods are beautiful, of course, and all the trees are very pretty, but’——

‘Child, they’re wonderful!—marvellous!—and quite unpaintable. I try, of course, but I never get anywhere near’——

‘Oh! Why, your sketches are just exactly’——

Margia laughed. ‘I know only too well that they’re not. But I want to do what I can, and use every minute of every day till the leaves fall. And—this is the trouble! My sister was ill last holidays, and hardly strong again when term began. A fortnight ago she had a breakdown, and has had to go away for a change. She has gone to friends, who will look after her well, so she didn’t need me. Indeed, the doctor said it was better she should be with strangers. And I was anxious not to go away just now. They have tried to do without her at school so far; but now they have written that they will have to fill her place at half-term if she is unable to resume her work. And the doctor has forbidden her to teach for three months, and says he will not answer for the consequences if she attempts it.’

‘What a pity! But perhaps she’ll be able to get another appointment. Was it a very good one?’

‘Very, and she is most anxious not to lose it. The thought of doing so is weighing on her mind and keeping her back, they say.’

‘But where do you come in? I don’t quite see’——

‘The point is,’ said Margia ruefully, ‘that they have offered me the post until she is well again. They know my work—I have shown it in Wycombe—and they think I could teach. I don’t believe I could, and I dislike the thought of it intensely. To spend all my time shut up in school; to go down into town every day, when I want to be in the woods, up here on the hills; to be teaching girls, who would know I’m not a teacher, and would be rude, and laugh and whisper behind my back, and disobey if I ever dared to give them orders’——

‘Oh, Miss Lane, girls aren’t like that!’

‘Aren’t they? I’m afraid of them, and they’d soon find it out. I wouldn’t mind the little ones, but the big, grown-up girls would be too much for me. I hate the very thought of it. It isn’t my work. I haven’t patience, either, and I know I should get cross about little things and make a fool of myself when I had to teach a class. Can you imagine anything more different from sitting quietly out here, painting all day, and perhaps seeing nothing more lively than a squirrel or a rabbit for hours? And it means giving up my work entirely except on Saturdays, and in this most wonderful season, when all the tints are so exquisite. I’ve been waiting all summer for this time, and now that it has come I have to go and teach girls in school.’

‘Oh, it is hard lines!’ Cicely said sympathetically. ‘I don’t think it’s a little thing at all. I think it’s most awfully rotten for you. But you won’t find the girls so bad, Miss Lane. Miriam Honor wouldn’t go on as you said.’

Margia gave herself a little shake. ‘I shall have to face it somehow, I suppose. Perhaps you can help me with the girls, Cicely. Give me some points. What ought I to do? I would like to get on well with them from the first.’

‘Oh, how can I tell? Be strict, Miss Lane, not slack! Let them see you’re in earnest. Girls don’t like slack teachers, who can’t keep order.’

‘I should have thought they’d prefer to have an easy time.’

‘I don’t think they do. They say, “Oh, Miss So-and-so’s no good; she can’t keep order a scrap.” I’ve heard that often. They think more of you if you’re bossy.’

Margia sighed. ‘It’s the one thing I’m not! Well?’

‘Oh, well, you must always be awfully fair, you know, and—and—oh, you’ll find you know all the other things! Girls are all right, really, Miss Lane. If you’re decent to them, they’ll be decent to you; and you will, you know.’

Margia sighed again. ‘Be strict! Be fair! Be decent! Are those the commandments? Thank you, Cicely. I’ll try, but’——

‘It’s great cheek of me, of course, but you asked me, you know.’

‘Of course I did. You’ll have helped me very much if I can only live up to your advice. But I haven’t told you the crowning point of the situation yet. I have an invitation from an old friend to go with her after Christmas to Italy. You know what that means to a painter. I have never been abroad; but if I take my sister’s place the journey will be out of the question, as school will begin again early in January.’

‘Oh, hard lines! That is rotten!’ Cicely cried, in keen sympathy and dismay.

‘It can’t be helped. But the thought of Florence and Venice and Rome hasn’t made the choice any easier. Well, Cicely, we both seem to be facing a choice which is big enough for us, though it might not seem so to other people. Of course, I’ve known all along what I’d have to do, as you said yourself. But I’ve been putting off the thought, hesitating to make up my mind finally. I’ll write to-night, promising to begin work at the half-term. That still leaves me a week’s freedom. After that’—Margia shrugged her shoulders—‘I must do my best, that’s all. You must back me up with the girls, Cicely.’

‘Oh, I will! It will be jolly to have you there. And I’ll write to daddy and tell him I’ll stop here and be good, and he can be making his plans. I’d better’—Cicely’s lips quivered in spite of herself—‘I’d better write and say good-bye to Mrs Gaynor and the girls. I shall miss them all.’

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Margia said quickly. ‘He may take you home for a few days. You’ll have packing to do, and other friends to see.’

‘Oh, then, I won’t! I’d like to see them all once more;’ and Cicely sat looking thoughtful and downcast.

‘Your friend Miriam has made her choice, you know,’ said Margia suddenly, and Cicely turned to her quickly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I heard about it from her mother. Don’t tell Mirry I told you, though. But I’d like you to understand her. She and her brother—he is fourteen—both won scholarships to big boarding-schools, and both were keen to go. But Miriam had also tried for a scholarship to the day-school at Wycombe Moor, in the hope of winning one of the two. She’s very quick and clever, and she won both. Of course the boarding-school was by far the better. But they couldn’t afford to send both her and Dick away. Boarding-school means an outfit, where at home old clothes will do, and lots of other expense. Mrs Honor thought that, with some difficulty, she might manage it for one, but not for two. And she needed Mirry’s help at home with the little ones. She teaches them in the evenings, besides helping in the house whenever she is at home. So Miriam had to choose between the two scholarships, and whether she or Dick should go away. As she was the elder, she naturally had first choice. But then Dick hadn’t won a second scholarship.’

‘And so she let him go! That was hard lines, when she’d won the scholarship! Thank you for telling me,’ Cicely said soberly; and after a pause, ‘She seems quite happy about it, Miss Lane. I’ve thought all along what a happy girl she is. The first time I saw her she was singing, “Once I loved a maiden fair.” She’s got a lovely voice.’ Margia nodded. ‘She doesn’t let herself think about it now that it’s done.’

‘It isn’t her way. She’d say it was no use.’

Cicely sat thinking of Miriam, and suddenly remembered the other girls she had seen. She looked up quickly. ‘Miss Lane! Can you tell me what dreadful thing it was that Dorothy did?’

‘Dorothy?’ and Margia looked at her vaguely.

‘Oh, don’t you know about it? I thought if your sister taught in that school you might have heard. She did something dreadful, and some of the girls don’t want her to go back. Miriam says it was all a mistake, and she’s plucky to want to go. I heard them talking about it.’

‘I know nothing about it, Cicely. But if you overheard it by accident, I think you should say nothing about it. Now I must pack up, or I shall be caught in the dark before I’m out of the wood. How do you like my beech-tree?’

‘He’s a beauty!’ and Cicely took a long look at the pictured tree. ‘You can paint trees! It seems too bad you shouldn’t be allowed to go on doing it.’

Margia gave her a faint smile. ‘Now, none of that! We’d better not sympathise with one another. I’m going home to write to my sister before I have time to change my mind. It will do her good to know.’

She had gone a little way through the wood, when flying feet on the soft path made her look round, and Cicely came running after her.

‘I found these—near where we were sitting—among the leaves. I want you to have them. Fancy, in October!’ and she thrust a bunch of violets into Margia’s hand. ‘Aren’t they sweet? No smell, of course, but isn’t it nice to see them? It feels like spring. And I just wanted to say’—as Margia thanked her warmly—‘I couldn’t say it before, somehow, but I meant it all the time—thank you so much for all you’ve said, and I’m so awfully glad I met you. Good-bye!’ and she fled away through the wood, embarrassed and afraid to say much just then.