Читать книгу New Amazonia: A Foretaste of the Future - Mrs. George Corbett - Страница 6

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After dinner was over the students indulged in conversation. I discovered afterwards that music usually formed a prominent feature in after dinner amusements, but to-day the Honourable Augustus and myself afforded sufficient food for pastime. We were, however, not exactly mobbed, though our audience was a large one in every sense of the word. One thing puzzled me exceedingly. When I spoke awhile ago of being “English,” my interrogators seemed thoroughly mystified, and yet they were speaking my native tongue in all its insular purity. Evidently there was a good deal to explain on all sides.

Augustus Fitz-Musicus had by this time got over his chagrin, and was, I could tell, even congratulating himself in a mild sort of way over the fact that he was proving a much greater source of attraction than I was. He was receiving the attentions of this bevy of big beauties with such a ridiculous air of conceited nonchalance, that I was provoked to laughter, in spite of my polite attempt to restrain my mirth.

Myra comprehended the cause of my amusement, and whispered, “I see, little lady, that the male biped is the same all the world over—a conglomeration of conceit and arrogance. Your little man looks too funny for anything, and yet I will warrant that he thinks himself capable of captivating one half of us. What is he thought of in your country?”

But to this question I was unable to give a satisfactory answer, as I could only say that I was perfectly ignorant of everything connected with the Honourable Augustus, never having seen him in my life until to-day.

This reply amazed Myra and others who heard it, but further interrogations on her part were stopped for a little while by the advent of the Lady Principal and two of the professors, who wished to speak with me and to know how I came to be here.

The young students respectfully made way for them, and I confess that my sensations on beholding them approached something very near akin to awe. The Lady Principal, especially, was a being to be remembered. In height she was somewhat superior to the others. Her features were so perfect in outline and expression that I think Minerva must have looked like this woman did. There was not one among all these women who did not look the embodiment of health. Principal Helen Grey did more than this; she seemed to me to be the goddess of health herself, and to be capable of endowing others with this most to be prized earthly blessing.

She sat down beside me, and gently asked me who I was, and how I happened to be here. My answer to the effect that I did not know how I had got here was evidently a tax on her credulity, but she was too well bred to do aught but listen quietly while I continued my explanations.

I told of my perusal of certain magazines, and how my feelings had been strongly excited upon one subject, until I must have gone to sleep while thinking of it. Then I described my awaking amid strange surroundings, and that I supposed the Honourable Fitz-Musicus had been transported hither also. My account of our first interview with each other provoked amusement, and every face around me rippled with smiles.

After a few moment’s musing, Principal Grey asked me what I meant by saying that a certain article deprecated the introduction of Women’s Suffrage into my country. “Do you mean to say,” she asked, “that men are the only voters in your country?”

“Yes,” I replied, “and men are not the only obstacle to woman’s advancement in England. Only a small minority of women dare avow their real opinions on this very subject. More stupid and less enlightened females hurl all sorts of contemptible reproaches at them for presuming to endeavour to better the condition of their sex. All the laws of my country have been made by men, and they are all made in the interests of men. It is only a few years since it was possible for a married woman to hold property in her own right. She might earn, or in any other way acquire, a large fortune. Her husband could take and squander every penny of it, without the least fear of being taxed with having done more than he had a perfect right to do.” “Your England, as you call it, must be a strange country,” said Principal Grey. “But I cannot quite make out where it is. I am not considered ignorant in matters appertaining to history and geography, but I am unable to locate this England of yours. Once upon a time, a matter of a thousand years ago, the neighbouring island, which is now called Teuto-Scotland, was called Albion, and later on England, but we have always understood ourselves to be the only race living which is at all representative of England and the ancient English.”

“And what country is this?” I enquired in my turn, marvelling much to hear this giantess speak of “the ancient English.”

“This country is New Amazonia. A long time ago it was called Erin by some, but Ireland was the name it was best known by. It used to be the scene of perpetual strife and warfare. Our archives tell us that it was subjugated by the warlike English, and that it suffered for centuries from want and oppression. The land was appropriated by English mercenaries, who exacted enormous rents, which they spent anywhere but in Ireland. Famines, attempted revolutions and conspiracies, unjust repressive laws, and all sorts of calamities are said to have ruined and depopulated the country until the wars arose which resulted in our coming here. But as all is so strange here to you, you shall, if you care about it, be taken out this evening, and then you will be better able to judge what sort of people we are. Meanwhile, our duties must be attended to. Hilda, be good enough to take this woman to your room, until we can make other arrangements, and—oh dear, there is the little gentleman! What shall we do with him?”

The Honourable Augustus was being conducted through the principal reception rooms of the college, for such the building was, and the question of his ultimate disposal could be discussed without the embarrassment which his presence might perhaps have entailed.

“Suppose we request Mr. Medlock to take him until he decides what his future arrangements will be?” suggested Professor Wise, a lady who had hitherto taken no part in the conversation. “It would never do to let him sleep in the college for a night! The poor little thing’s character would be irretrievably compromised.”

“Of course it would,” agreed Principal Grey, and she set about making the necessary arrangements forthwith, while I, wondering if I had been asleep for five or six centuries, followed Hilda to the upper story in which her sleeping room was situated. But long before I reached it I felt tired to death. The marble stairs were exceedingly massive, and were apparently interminable, while the beautiful banister rails were too large for me to grasp them with my hand, and thus help myself up. I was at last compelled to sit down exhausted, feeling that not one more step could I mount.

Hilda looked at me in astonishment, as I sat panting with my unwonted exertions. “Is it possible,” she cried, “that the walk up these few steps has exhausted you? You must be ill, or is it the fault of the queer clothes that you wear that you are incapable of taking exercise? But whichever way it is, you cannot sit here, so be kind enough to excuse me.”

The next moment I was lifted up as if I were a child, and Hilda ran nimbly up another long flight of steps with me, finally depositing me in a room that was very handsomely furnished, though most of the articles in it were of a style the like whereof I had never seen before. Seeing that I had apparently been Rip-van-Winkelized for about six hundred years, this is not at all surprising.

But I could not help noticing a piano, which was the facsimile of one which was in my own possession before I fell asleep. In fact, I had an idea that it was the very same piano, though how it got here I could not imagine. Hilda saw me looking at it, and did not remove my mystification by remarking, “Yes, it is a curious old thing, isn’t it, and in excellent preservation, I believe. We have several more of them in the capital, all formerly owned by Englishwomen who originally settled in Dublin after the wars.”

“Then is this Dublin?” I asked. “If so, I am not so very far from home, after all.”

“This place used to be called Dublin in the time of the ancient Irish, but when the country was turned over to what was then contemptuously called ‘petticoat government,’ nearly all place-names were changed, and the names of famous women applied to them. Thus we have Fawcetville, Beecherstown, Weldonia, Besantsville, Jarrettburn, and hundreds of other names, the etymological origin of which is easily traceable. In fact, it is one of our laws that no town or village shall receive a name which does not commemorate some woman who has done all she could to advance the interests of her sex.”

Our conversation lasted awhile longer, but Hilda had her studies to attend to, and after reaching several books from a bookshelf for me to amuse myself with during her absence, she left me for awhile to my own devices promising to do all she could to make my visit a pleasant one.

There were many things here to arouse my curiosity, but I was most anxious to see if the books were printed in a style which I could understand, as I hoped to gain a great deal of information relative to the strange land in which I found myself, through no effort of will on my own part.

Fortunately I found the type and paper very beautiful, and with the exception that the spelling was considerably more phonetic than that in vogue with us, I found very little difference between our language as at present printed, and as exponed in the pages of “The History of Amazonia,” which was the first book I opened.

I must have spent at least two hours in close reading, and if anyone would like to know the results of my investigations in posthumous history, she or he will find them recorded in the next chapter.