Читать книгу The Life of Sophia Jex-Blake - Graham Travers - Страница 9

“Went to sleep with a sore throat … and a bit of mignonette on my bosom. Darling Mother, how I treasure her flowers.

15th. Knew all my lessons better to-day, and kept my place as 2nd. … Had a note from Carry. Hurrah, people don’t know how nice it is to get a note at school. Done all my algebra for Mr. R. It strikes me we can do those problems in Kavanagh by equations.”

The joy of this discovery! “Problems” became her passion: she begged friends to send her some to solve, and took a mischievous pleasure in sending them herself occasionally to those who had not been so fortunate as to find the master-key of the “unknown quantity.” Sister Carry writes:

“Many thanks for your letters and numerous sums; I think the latter are rather overwhelming to me. I think I ought to have a little more instruction when you come, so please don’t send me any more at present.”

The diary continues:

“Did Cousin Jane’s equation and am very glad I have got such a sensible cousin. Made one to send her, and then couldn’t answer it myself.”

As cricket, tennis and hockey were unheard of in the girls’ school of those days, and as the child was not allowed to ride or to dance, it is scarcely surprising to learn that she was again troubled with weakness of the joints. Mrs. H. took her to one “Professor Georgii” and the school doctor met them at his house. The patient’s account of the interview is interesting in view of later developments:

“Then he went into another room which was rather dark. Dr. L. said, ‘I suppose I may come too. I am the physician,’ and G. said, ‘I suppose so’!”

The two men examined her spine—the headmistress, of course, being present—

“and after about ten minutes I was allowed to dress with the 2 men staring at me. I think they might have let us retire. …

The room for exercises is hung all round with prints of skeletons and flayed human beings, tho’ for a mercy they were covered with sort of curtains and only partially visible.”

She was condemned to an hour’s remedial exercises every day for six weeks, and as it took double that time to make the pilgrimage to and from the “Professor’s” house, three fatiguing hours were taken out of her working day.

And all for want of a few games in due season.

The “sheer stuff of life” was proving educative enough at this time, for Mrs. Jex-Blake and Sister Carry were both alarmingly ill, the latter with some contagious fever, the nature of which is not specified. It is touching to see the Father’s letters to his schoolgirl daughter: the handwriting has all at once become shaky and feeble, like that of an old man.

“I write in the dear Mother’s room,” he says in November, 1854, “in which and in sweet Carry’s I pass the greater part of the day. They have both been very ill, but I think I may say that now both are beginning to mend. … From the beginning of their illnesses they have never been able to see each other. … Oh, my darling child, I must not conceal from you the danger the best of Mothers has been in. God give you to value her more than ever, and keep you from ever, by disobedience of any kind, hurting her feelings and giving her pain.”

Two days later he writes again in answer to her eager enquiries,

“If, darling, I can buy anything with your money that I think Mummy or Carry will be pleased with, be sure I will.”

And again, three weeks later,

“My dear child—Your letters give me great pleasure, but, great though it be, I will most willingly give it up to dearest Mother and Sister when they are well enough to read and write letters.”

On Dec. 5th, 1854, his mind is sufficiently at ease to write a truly delightful letter, though the handwriting is still shaky:

“First and most substantially (if not principally) the “plum pudding” plan. It is really a capital one—‘The Crimea Army Fund’ or some such title it bears, and subscriptions are pouring in to it from high and low—donations of hundreds of pounds down to sixpences. It does not in any way interfere with the sending out of what you rightly enough consider are things of still greater importance; and which (much later than it ought to have been) the government and the public are now despatching to the poor sufferers. The intention is to send out vessel after vessel as quickly as possible, not only with materials for plum puddings and brown stout, but to help our poor soldiers, officers and privates, to get through the great hardships and privations of their severe winter campaign, as far as that can be managed. Warm extra clothing, flannel shirts and waistcoats, stockings, gloves, leather of various kinds, needles and thread, tea, tobacco, sugar, preserved and potted meats, raisins, sugar, wine, porter and a hundred other things in large quantities—enormous quantities—for at least 40 or 50,000 men.

Noblemen are sending deer from their parks, and game to be potted and preserved and sent over, and some have offered their yachts to convey the good things; and tradespeople have come forward to give liberally from the stocks in their shops and warehouses. So I shall enclose 1s. and think you cannot do better than give it as your mite in the good cause. There are as you say ‘such hosts of things to subscribe to,’ and I am very thankful for the privilege God gives me of being able to help. It is one of the greatest luxuries we can enjoy, depend upon it, my own darling. … There is no literally ‘war news,’ this week, but there have been terrible disasters among the combined fleets in the Black Sea. A most furious storm there the middle of last month has sadly damaged many of the ships, and destroyed several—one went down laden with the intended winter store (in many articles) for our whole army—forty thousand specially warm great coats, and numerous other things in proportion, which cannot be replaced instanter, and it is feared that very great suffering by thousands for some weeks must be the consequence. The loss of that one vessel and cargo is estimated at £1,000,000. But, worse than all the money loss, many hundred people perished in that and other vessels. Your cousin Robert, whom I don’t know that you ever saw even, embarks to-morrow for the Crimea. He is a young lieutenant in the 18th foot.

I think if we keep of the same mind, we can manage a backgammon board when you come home, cups and all; only, as I am an old hand at it—having played, I should think almost half-a-century ago—you will expect, please, to be soundly beaten if we engage together. I have read ‘Patronage’—about the same period, perhaps, as when we played that game of backgammon, but I do think novels in general are very so-so things, and some so wondrous foolish that it is worse than waste of time to read them. …

There was a good deal at Worthing^[9] that was very pleasant, my sweet Sophy, and I can recollect it with satisfaction. If there was anything otherwise, it never even crosses my mind, I assure you; and do you get rid of all thoughts of it too. I have not the smallest doubt that, by God’s blessing, you will be a great ‘comfort’ to me. I have said so a thousand times, and you won’t prove Daddy a false prophet I know. I have nothing to ‘forgive’ my own child—nothing whatever, darling. You have had childish faults enough, I daresay, but they were ‘the faults of a child’ certainly, and I could not remember a single one of them.

I won’t get a sore throat if I can help it, even for the sake of Sody’s black-currant jam; but, if I do catch one, I know I may have a whole jar if I want it, and I shall not perhaps like it the less that you made it. Love from all. I will not forget to come for you on the 23rd., my precious child. God keep you and bless you very much.

Your affect. Father,

T. Jex-Blake.”

At last, on December 13th, comes a letter from her Mother:

“Darling So,

I feel very thankful to be once more able to enjoy a letter from, and to write to you. I look forward with great pleasure to Saturday week, but pray try to be quiet in your joy when I meet you, because I am still weak and soon upset, and people will be very vexed with you if I am the worse. Above all I could wish that you did not get into trouble, and say and do what you should not, because it agitates me to hear of it. If you, my own darling child, could but once realise how trying you are by your impetuosity and restlessness, and (must I still say?) roughness, even when you are not put out, you would try very hard to conquer any outbreaking into extra roughness.

And, indeed, dear So, God has bestowed upon you much wherewith you might be agreeable, and help others, if you would but avail yourself of it.”

Meanwhile the scrap of a diary goes on:

“Dec. 16th. … Got a letter from my precious sister. She says she is nearly well, but she is so careless of self I half mistrust her account, especially as I am told by Mummy and Tom she is very thin and pale. She speaks of a chance of her being shaved. I hope to goodness she won’t, the darling. …

Thinking of darling Dad’s birthday tomorrow. I hope I shall wake early and be first to wish him joy. … His last day to be 64! In his 66th year tomorrow. The darling. Sody hopes she’ll make him so happy yet. This day week, heigh ho! I must try and persuade Daddy to let me stay over Sunday. It will be but one lesson lost and two days gained and one a Sunday. …

17th. Dear Dad’s birthday. Woke up once I think, in the dark, and again before it was light to wish him many happy returns.”

The wishing must have been volcanic in its intensity to judge by what follows:

“While dressing, Kate, who had not got up, woke up to ask if it was not his birthday, she had been dreaming it was, and that he in consequence was playing a duet on the piano with her, but would play the bass first, not together with her. … Mrs. H. ill, not up all day. No Mangnall. … I must have walked 6 miles at least. Wonderful for me. Had a dispute about extempore sermons, I saying it meant without written help, Mlle. and Sarah saying people might have notes and yet be extempore. Mlle. as politely and sapiently as usual called me nobody. She has neither sense nor temper to dispute. It is foolish to entangle myself with her. My dear Dad’s birthday nearly over.

18th. … [Mrs. H.] promised I should nurse her when I came back, and I did, and after dinner played chess and backgammon with Mrs. H. and Conny. Mrs. H. lent me Woodstock to read. Nice, but not equal to some of Scott’s.

Turned out some of my letters from my pocket. Hope I have not turned out any I want of Carry’s, but they are safe in my glazed box.

21st. At Georgii’s had a fuss with Conny in the dressing-room because I was complaining of having only a week and asked her if she would think a week enough with her Mother. She said no, but her Mother was better than mine. I was silly enough to be offended, and gave her two good slaps on her shoulders which were convenient, as I was doing her frock, and then we had a regular squabble. … I said it was very ungenerous. I should not have said it if she had been my guest far away from her friends, and I don’t believe I should, though my conscience smote me about Mary Bayley.”

This reference to Mary Bayley is interesting, as Sophy had been at no less than three schools since the days of their companionship. The persistent recollection of some trifling unkindness is a typical instance of the compunction she suffered when she hurt anyone in a way she understood.

“Got such a jolly letter from Mummy as if she had half got back her mischief. Two bits of French, too, we are getting on. She certainly deserves a ‘satisfaisant’.”

When the Christmas holidays came on, Sophy’s course of exercises from the “Professor” was not nearly over, and a week’s interruption was the utmost that could be allowed. The holidays were long enough, however, to allow of another week at home towards the end of January. Her birthday fell in this second week, and suggestion was made that the two sisters should have a party and a “Christmas” tree. The correspondence about this little event is interesting as showing something of the conditions in which Sophy would be expected to settle down when her schooldays finally came to an end. The preparations contrast curiously with what young folk now-a-days, even in a much humbler walk of life, consider necessary on these occasions.

“13 Sussex Square,

10th Jan.

Darling So,

I am so much better for the quiet I have had the last week that I think I may authorize you to ask Mrs. H. to advance you 4, or, if needful, 5 shillings to spend in little things for a Christmas tree. I am very anxious to have it if possible, and I think it entirely depends on the self-command you can exert over yourself; if you and Carry will go about it quietly, and you yield at once if I say I do not wish to add to our numbers, or if I object on any other point. …

One thing I must tell you that I cannot have a great many, neither do I wish unnecessary expense,^[10] when the daily calls from societies where funds are failing and souls perishing for want are so numerous.”

Sister Carry writes with characteristic calm and reasonableness:

“13 Sussex Square,

January 11th.

Dear Sophy,

I suppose probabilities are now in favour of the Christmas tree. I don’t think it need do Mummy much harm, supposing affairs are conducted with very unusual prudence and quietness. We shall defer buying any ready-made-sweetmeat-ornaments (this is an 8-syllabled compound word) until you come home, and then I think Mummy will quite like that we should get them without her presence. I also think it will be very desirable (if possible) that we should dress up the tree without troubling her much; but I don’t know exactly how far we should be up to it. However, I think the most important points of all are that a certain friend of ours should endeavour to live in, and diffuse around her, a certain atmosphere of peace and calmness; and that the tree should be quite ready in very good time, so that there should be no bustle or worry about it towards the last. … I mean to try to provide (with pecuniary assistance from Mummy) some supply of purses, penwipers and markers for the tree; I think a couple of cut markers such as you gave Daddy the other day, on broad ribbon, would be very good; of course I mean them to be made by you. I suppose I shall probably have a letter from you tomorrow or Saturday; I consider I ought to have had one. With best love, I am, dear Sophy,

Your very affectionate sister,

C. A. Jex-Blake.”

Presumably the little festival took place in due course, but there is no further reference to it among the papers. The strain of loving parental homilies continues.

“Bear in mind that all our powers and faculties are perverted by the fall, but my child cannot be rid of her responsibility; if you say you cannot pray—that is at once a subject for prayer. Down on your knees and tell God so.”

“I exceedingly like a letter from you, and bustle down a little earlier on Tuesday morning that I may have time to enjoy it before breakfast. … Cousins Kate and Elinor Jex-Blake say they do not at all delight in Mathematics, they are sorry to say.”

“We are very sorry to disappoint you, but indeed we cannot sanction your going to see the ‘Wizard of the North.’ I do hope and believe you will submit cheerfully to give up what it would make me very sleepless and unhappy to have you go to. Now get a victory and believe the disappointment all for the best.”

“Though I am most decidedly better, it arises, I think, from perfect quiet, the least change or bustle brings on spasm or headache, or both. Carry had Punch, and thought you sent it. I don’t like it, I think it a vulgar paper, and don’t wish it sent. I don’t at all object to the ‘Illustrated News’ occasionally.”

Apparently Sophy declined to sit down under this condemnation of her beloved Punch, for a fortnight later Mrs. Jex-Blake writes: “I will return both the Punches in the hamper. The last was capital.”

In May, 1855, a family holiday in Wales was proposed, and, as usual, the question was raised whether Sophy could be allowed to be of the party. There is no suggestion in all the correspondence that her Father ever wished to be rid of her company except on the ground of his wife’s health. On May 23rd Mrs. Jex-Blake writes:

“Daddy and I have a strong wish that you should see Wales, and it is truly painful to deny you such a pleasure and advantage but you see, dear, I can’t help my health, and the being so easily upset and made ill by worry. Indeed I am grieved to find you can fully understand this, for you say your head aches if you get excited; but, darling, strive to go on with your different duties and don’t get excited. … Now, sweetest, assure me that you will try to be controlled by me, and try to fall into our habits, not always restless and having some grand scheme of your own that must be carried out. … I do not ask you to promise, but if next week you feel you can, looking to God, assure me you will to the utmost try to be a comfort and not break out in these violent excitements, which not only upset me at the time but haunt and disturb me at night, … we are wonderfully anxious to give you the pleasure, but meanwhile don’t be excited at school about it.

Shall we not be happy at Bettws-y-Coed if darling So is with us and we all consider each other’s comfort?”

The microscopic school diary had for five months been non-existent; the imperious demand of this glorious anticipation called a fresh volume into being.

“Thursday, May 24th [1855.] My answer was to come about Wales. When I got my letter I prayed God to help me to bear it, for I was nearly sure it would be a refusal, and I was quite prepared for it and determined to keep my promise not to worry about it. I put my letter in my pocket and ran away from them all. Then I burst it open and read, ‘Daddy and I have such a strong wish you should see Wales, and it is truly painful to deny you such a pleasure.’ There, thought I, but I had expected it and didn’t feel so dreadfully disappointed. Then I read on and oh, I found it was not so, that I should go. Oh, I got so excited and half began to cry. Then came Mummy’s caution not to be excited, but it was impossible. Dropped down there and thanked God. Oh, then I trust He has granted my prayer. Glory to God in the highest. Oh, I was so thankful.

25th. … Got a letter from Tom. How kind of him to write, it really was, and he has got a first bachelor’s degree. G. told me he saw his name in the paper.

Had a great shortness and pain in taking long breaths. G. said there was some irregularity in the heart, I believe. Laurie came in afternoon and said my heart was wrong again. Left me some medicine.

28th. Mrs. H. told me to lie down and sleep if I felt tired, but I am much better. … K. seized on ‘Prince and Peasant’ and M. on ‘Anecdotes of Animals’ the 2 books Miss Smith had left me. I was very cross, I had nothing to do. I seized on Anecdotes after Prayers to take up. M. was in high dudgeon, as if it was her right. But I carried it off. But upstairs I thought it was not right. ‘In honour preferring one another.’ So I took it her. But it was a hard struggle. … I am glad I got that little victory.

Miss C. came to G.‘s for the last time. I was so sorry and so were most folks. She gave me a little parcel, or at least put it in my pocket on condition I should not open it till I got home. I thought it was some mischief but took it. It was such a lovely gold pencil case, ‘from a schoolgirl.’ Dear girl, it was very kind of her.

30th. Very difficult geometry problem. I doubt if I can do it. Mortimer was home, and told us some very good stories of—— the nurse of his ward. Mrs. H. said in the evening she would like to be nurse there (!) She said how should I get on who so hate injustice, and I said I thought such open acknowledged injustice was not the hardest to bear. This brought down an awful storm of wonder, reasoning, etc., till at length I got off to bed so tired.

June 1st. A little fracas with Mlle. at G.’s. Little Henriquez is here. It is strange to be with a Jew and a R. Catholic so closely. Con rather worrying, and I not rather cross. Oh, dear, ‘Charity never faileth.’ ‘The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.’

Laurie came and left me some more medicine.

4th. Miss Teed’s birthday. Many happy returns to her. Wonder if Carry remembers. … I want so to know Minnie’s exact birthday.

know it is near. …

Went in the gardens. K. and S. persecuted me with grass and I can’t run after them. When I caught S. and when we were indoors I gave it her rather roughly. She was very cross and would not have any of [my] jam at tea, she never will when she is cross with me. Got a sore throat.

5th. Throat very fairly bad, and very ‘cheval’ as M. would say. Apropos it’s her birthday. …

Just before prayers I was in the cupboard and someone shut the door nearly on me. I threw it open again and half upset the great slate. We had been rather uproarious all afternoon as M’s sisters had been here and said holidays did begin on 18th. When I came out of the cupboard I managed to tread on M’s toes, and Mlle. packed me off to bed. I said ‘All right,’ shook hands with her, kissed S. and went off. Mlle. wasn’t very angry nor I very sorry and so we were all very comfable. Seized on K. for a kiss as she came up and she seemed forbidden to speak to me. However we had a nice hug and she wasn’t very horrified.

6th. Found a handbill on my dressing-table from Mrs. H. ‘for Sophy’ called Telling Jesus.”

This entry closes the school diary.

She seems to have remained at the Notting Hill school till Easter, 1856, and to have carried away with her the warm good will and genuine—if sorely tried—respect of her headmistress, Mrs. H., with whom she kept up a correspondence for some time. For another year and a half she seems to have attended some school at Brighton within reach of her home, but study here was discouraged, and she became the patient of another doctor—or quack?—who prescribed a course of rubbing.

“Under the new regulation of no study,” writes Mrs. H., “I suppose you have plenty and to spare of the dolce far niente. I smiled at the ‘few lessons,’ and wondered in what occupation you might possibly spend your 24 hours. … Be assured, dear Sophy, that so much trifling and frivolity is culpable in the sight of Heaven. It is an unworthy waste of God’s gifts, and you are capable of something so much better!”

That life, even now, was not all “trifling and frivolity” is obvious from the following letter, which was written a few weeks later:

“Monday, Sept. 8th. 1856.

My own darling Mother,

This subject of confirmation has come up again, and I really must say I am positively shocked at the way it is settled and talked about. It is ‘How old are you?’ ‘Does your Papa wish you to be confirmed?’ and never, ‘Are you fit to be?’ or ‘Do you really wish it?’ It is just as if it were a history lecture to be attended. I really think it is wicked. Miss H. took it for granted that I should be and stuck down my name. I said, ‘No thank you, Miss H.,’ to her great indignation. I assured her you wished me to do exactly as I liked on such a subject, which she did not choose to believe at all.

But I really do wish it, Mother. I think it would help me, and I long to take the Lord’s Supper with you. Will you let me be confirmed from home?—that is, spend the actual day of confirmation at home, so that I may think of something besides how I am dressed and how good or bad an examination I passed, on the day I take those solemn promises on myself. Mother, dear, I seem less able to speak to you than anyone, but I do feel very much about it. It is just—‘I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments,’ I do hope. No, I can’t write what I mean or anything else. Just write me one line by return of post. Mr. E. is certainly not the minister I should have chosen, nor Miss H.’s the place I should have preferred, but I don’t think that ought to stand in the way, for it is not in respect to them I stand.

I think I should have preferred waiting another year, but I don’t think I can quite expect God’s blessing on His child while I defer owning myself such.

Oh, Mother, Mother, how I wish you were here, but it seems as if He had expressly left me to myself each time confirmation has been spoken of. I do not think you will refuse either the permission I ask, or your blessing on the step I take—unless it would be too great an excitement for you—though it need not be, for you need not go with me. …

Well, darling, just tell me what you mean and think. But pray, pray, don’t show any of this to anyone. …

God bless and keep my darling Mother.

Farewell, precious.

Your own child,

Sophy.”

“I like the idea of your being confirmed very much,” her Father had written some months before. “God’s blessing be with you. Look to Him and be happy.”

Sophy’s first schoolmistress, Mrs. Teed, took a different view of the matter:

“10th Oct. 1856.

Dearest Sophy,

Your dear Mother tells me you are soon to be confirmed. When I read her letter I thought to myself—Confirmed!—in what?—in following your own foolish ways? There needs no confirmation in that. …

You told me in a letter written to me on my last birthday that you hoped you were one of Christ’s little ones. O dear Sophy, you know better. … I do not say do not deceive yourself, but I say never seek to deceive others,” and so on.

Those who have read with some sympathy the preceding pages may well be inclined to doubt whether Sophy was “seeking to deceive others,” or rather, perhaps, whether deception with her did not more readily take the form of concealing the depth and reality of her religious life. Christ’s lambs have not all been precisely of the type good Mrs. Teed had in mind. The real difficulty, however, is to fit the child into the categories of the pious people among whom she lived, or indeed, into any category at all. For better or for worse, she belonged to another plane of being.

If one were compelled to adopt the system of classification current in those days, one could but fall back with thankfulness on the remembrance of that “hasty image” of the Good Shepherd in the Catacombs,

“And, on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid.”

In any case the stormy chequered school career had now come to a close. “I can’t fancy you, Sophy, with long frocks,” an old school-friend writes, “taller than Hetty, a regular grown-up young lady. Are you transformed yet? Do let me see you first like your own old dear self!”

“Your own old dear self!” One almost weeps to think of all the unnecessary friction and waste of energy in those school days. Those of us who have been teachers know how often the troublesome pupil proves to be the pick of the basket—the keen student and the loyal co-worker: and perhaps more than one headmistress who reads these pages will wish that she had been privileged to have the training of Sophia Jex-Blake. Many admirable women prayed and wept over her in those days, struggled to make her all they thought she ought to be; and, if their perseverance and devotion seemed to be inadequately rewarded, this was due to no fault of theirs. They were what the Society of that day demanded, what Society made them. They were wanting only in what just chanced to be almost the one thing needful—the modern spirit. Rather behind their own day, their lot was to be the trainers of a girl, who—unconsciously to herself—was far in advance of her own day—a girl who would have appreciated to the utmost the free boyish education of our High Schools for girls, and who—had it been her good fortune to have lived under such auspices—might have written a somewhat different page in the book of life.