Читать книгу The Golden Butterfly - Walter Besant - Страница 12

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"I do not know

One of my sex; no woman's face remember

Save, from my glass, mine own."

In the afternoon Phillis, who was "writing up" her diary after the manner of the ancient Aztec, received a visitor. For the first time in her life the girl found herself face to face with—a lady. Men she knew—chiefly men of advanced age; they came to dine with Abraham Dyson. Women-servants she knew, for she had a French maid—imported too young to be mischievous; and there had been a cook at Highgate, with two or three maids. Not one of these virgins possessed the art of reading, or they would never have been engaged by Mr. Dyson. Nor was she encouraged by her guardian to talk with them. Also she knew that in the fulness of time she was to be somehow transferred from the exclusive society of men to that in which the leading part would be taken by ladies—women brought up delicately like herself, but not all, unhappily, on the same sound fundamental principle of oral teaching.

Among the loose odds and ends which remained in Mr. Dyson's portfolios, and where lay all that Joseph Jagenal could ever find to help in completing his great system of education, was the following scrap:—

"Women brought up with women are hindered in their perfect development. Let the girls be separated from the society of their sex, and be educated mostly among men. In this way the receptivity of the feminine mind may be turned to best account in the acquirement of robust masculine ideas. Every girl may become a mother; let her therefore sit among men and listen."

Perhaps this deprivation of the society of her own sex was a greater loss to Phillis than her ignorance of reading. Consider what it entailed. She grew up without the most rudimentary notions of the great art of flirtation; she had never even heard of looking out for an establishment; she had no idea of considering every young man as a possible husband; she had, indeed, no glimmerings, not the faintest streak of dawning twilight in the matter of love; while as for angling, hooking a big fish and landing him, she was no better than a heathen Hottentot. This was the most important loss, but there were others; she knew how to dress, partly by instinct, partly by looking at pictures; but she knew nothing about Making-up. Nature, which gave her the figure of Hebe, made this loss insignificant to her, though it is perhaps the opinion of Mr. Worth that there is no figure so good but Art can improve it. But not to know about Making-up is, for a woman, to lose a large part of useful sympathy for other women.

Again, she knew nothing of the way in which girls pour little confidences, all about trifles, into each other's ears; she had not cultivated that intelligence which girls can only learn from each other, and which enables them to communicate volumes with a half-lifted eyelid; she had a man's way of saying out what she thought, and even, so far as her dogmatic training permitted, of thinking for herself. She did not understand the mystery with which women enwrap themselves, partly working on the imagination of youth, and partly through their love of secluded talk—a remnant of barbaric times, and a proof of the subjection of the sex, the frou-frou of life was lost to her. And being without mystery, with the art of flirtation, with nothing to hide and no object to gain, Phillis was entirely free from the great vice into which women of the weaker nature are apt to fall—she was perfectly and wholly truthful.

And now she was about to make acquaintance for the first time with a lady—one of her own sex and of her own station.

I suppose Phillis must have preserved the characteristic instincts of her womanhood, despite her extraordinary training, because the first thing she observed was that her visitor was dressed in a style quite beyond her power of conception and imperfect taste. So she generalised from an individual case, and jumped at the notion that here was a very superior woman indeed.

The superiority was in the "young person" at Melton and Mowbray's, who designed the dress; but that Phillis did not know.

A more remarkable point with Mrs. Cassilis, Phillis's visitor, than her dress was her face. It was so regular as to be faultless. It might have been modelled, and so have served for a statue. It was also as cold as a face of marble. Men have prayed—men who have fallen into feminine traps—to be delivered from every species of woman except the cold woman; even King Solomon, who had great opportunities, including long life, of studying the sex, mentions her not; and yet I think that she is the worst of all. Lord, give us tender-hearted wives! When we carve our ideal woman in marble, we do not generally choose the wise Minerva nor the chaste Diana, but Venus, soft-eyed, lissom, tender—and generally true.

Mrs. Cassilis called. As she entered the room she saw a tall and beautiful girl, with eyes of a deep brown, who rose to greet her with a little timidity. She was taken by surprise. She expected to find a rough and rather vulgar young woman, of no style and unformed manners. She saw before her a girl whose attitude spoke unmistakably of delicacy and culture. Whatever else Miss Fleming might be, she was clearly a lady. That was immediately apparent, and Mrs. Cassilis was not likely to make a mistake on a point of such vital importance. A young lady of graceful figure, most attractive face, and, which was all the more astonishing, considering her education, perfectly dressed. Phillis, in fact, was attired in the same simple morning costume in which she had taken her early morning walk. On the table before her were her sketch-book and her pencils.

Mrs. Cassilis was dressed, for her part, in robes which it had taken the highest talent of Regent Street to produce. Her age was about thirty. Her cold face shone for a moment with the wintery light of a forced smile, but her eyes did not soften, as she took Phillis's hand.

Phillis's pulse beat a little faster, in spite of her courage.

Art face to face with Nature. The girl just as she left her nunnery, ignorant of mankind, before the perfect woman of the world. They looked curiously in each other's eyes. Now the first lesson taught by the world is the way to dissemble. Mrs. Cassilis said to herself, "Here is a splendid girl. She is not what I expected to see. This is a girl to cultivate and bring out—a girl to do one credit." But she said aloud—

"Miss Fleming? I am sure it is. You are exactly the sort of a girl I expected."

Then she sat down and looked at her comfortably.

"I am the wife of your late guardian's nephew—Mr. Gabriel Cassilis. You have never met him yet; but I hope you will very soon make his acquaintance."

"Thank you," said Phillis simply.

"We used to think, until Mr. Dyson died and his preposterous will was read, that his eccentric behaviour was partly your fault. But when we found that he had left you nothing, of course we felt that we had done you an involuntary wrong. And the will was made when you were a mere child, and could have no voice or wish in the matter."

"I had plenty of money," said Phillis; "why should poor Mr. Dyson want to leave me any more?"

Quite untaught. As if any one could have too much money!

"Forty thousand pounds a year! and all going to Female education. Not respectable Female education. If it had been left to Girton College, or even to finding bread-and-butter, with the Catechism and Contentment, for charity girls in poke bonnets, it would have been less dreadful. But to bring up young ladies as you were brought up, my poor Miss Fleming——"

"Am I not respectable?" asked Phillis, as humbly as a West Indian nigger before emancipation asking if he was not a man and a brother.

"My dear child, I hear you cannot even read and write."

"That is quite true."

"But everybody learns to read and write. All the Sunday school children even know how to read and write."

"Perhaps that is a misfortune for the Sunday school children," Phillis calmly observed; "it would very likely be better for the Sunday school children were they taught more useful things." Here Phillis was plagiarising—using Mr. Dyson's own words.

"At least every one in society knows them. Miss Fleming, I am ten years older than you, and, if you will only trust me, I will give you such advice and assistance as I can."

"You are very kind," said Phillis, with a little distrust, of which she was ashamed. "I know that I must be very ignorant, because I have already seen so much, that I never suspected before. If you will only tell me of my deficiencies I will try to repair them. And I can learn reading and writing any time, you know, if it is at all necessary."

"Then let us consider. My poor girl, I fear you have to learn the very rudiments of society. Of course you are quite ignorant of things that people talk about. Books are out of the question. Music and concerts; art and pictures; china—perhaps Mr. Dyson collected?"

"No."

"A pity. China would be a great help; the opera and theatres; balls and dancing; the rink——"

"What is the rink?" asked Phillis.

"The latest addition to the arts of flirtation and killing time. Perhaps you can fall back upon Church matters. Are you a Ritualist?"

"What is that?"

"My dear girl"—Mrs. Cassilis looked unutterable horror as a thought struck her—"did you actually never go to church?"

"No. Mr. Dyson used to read prayers every day. Why should people go to church when they pray?"

"Why? why? Because people in society all go; because you must set an example to the lower orders. Dear me! It is very shocking! and girls are all expected to take such an interest in religion. But the first thing is to learn reading."

She had been carrying a little box in her hands all this time, which she now placed on the table and opened. It contained small wooden squares, with gaudy pictures pasted on them.

"This is a Pictorial Alphabet: an introduction to all education. Let me show you how to use it. What is this?"

She held up one square.

"It is a very bad picture, abominably coloured, of a hatchet or a kitchen chopper."

"An axe, my dear—A, x, e. The initial letter A is below in its two forms. And this?"

"That is worse. I suppose it is meant for a cow. What a cow!"

"Bull, my dear—B, u, l, l, bull. The initial B is below."

"And is this," asked Phillis, with great contempt, "the way to learn reading? A kitchen chopper stands for A, and a cow with her legs out of drawing stands for B. Unless I can draw my cows for myself, Mrs. Cassilis, I shall not try to learn reading."

"You can draw, then?"

"I draw a little," said Phillis. "Not so well, of course, as girls brought up respectably."

"Pardon me, my dear Miss Fleming, if I say that sarcasm is not considered good style. It fails to attract."

Good style, thought Phillis, means talking so as to attract.

"Do let me draw you," said Phillis. Her temper was not faultless, and it was rising by degrees, so that she wanted the relief of silence. "Do let me draw you as you sit there."

She did not wait for permission, but sketched in a few moments a profile portrait of her visitor, in which somehow the face, perfectly rendered in its coldness and strength, was without the look which its owner always thought was there—the look which invites sympathy. The real unsympathetic nature, caught in a moment by some subtle artist's touch, was there instead. Mrs. Cassilis looked at it, and an angry flush crossed her face, which Phillis, wondering why, noted.

"You caricature extremely well. I congratulate you on that power, but it is a dangerous accomplishment—even more dangerous than the practice of sarcasm. The girl who indulges in the latter at most fails to attract; but the caricaturist repels."

"Oh!" said Phillis, innocent of any attempt to caricature, but trying to assimilate this strange dogmatic teaching.

"We must always remember that the most useful weapons in a girl's hands are those of submission, faith and reverence. Men hate—they hate and detest—women who think for themselves. They positively loathe the woman who dares turn them into ridicule."

She looked as if she could be one of the few who possess that daring.

"Fortunately," she went on, "such women are rare. Even among the strong-minded crew, the shrieking sisterhood, most of them are obliged to worship some man or other of their own school."

"I don't understand. Pardon me, Mrs. Cassilis, that I am so stupid. I say what I think, and you tell me I am sarcastic."

"Girls in society never say what they think. They assent, or at best ask a question timidly."

"And I make a little pencil sketch of you, and you tell me I am a caricaturist."

"Girls who can draw must draw in the conventional manner recognised by society. They do not draw likenesses; they copy flowers, and sometimes draw angels and crosses. To please men they draw soldiers and horses."

"But why cannot girls draw what they please? And why must they try to attract?"

Mrs. Cassilis looked at this most innocent of girls with misgiving. Could she be so ignorant as she seemed, or was she pretending.

"Why? Phillis Fleming, only ask me that question again in six months' time if you dare."

Phillis shook her head; she was clearly out of her depth.

"Have you any other accomplishments?"

"I am afraid not. I can play a little. Mr. Dyson liked my playing; but it is all from memory and from ear."

"Will you, if you do not mind, play something to me?"

Victoria Cassilis cared no more for music than the deaf adder which hath no understanding. By dint of much teaching, however, she had learned to execute creditably. The playing of Phillis, sweet, spontaneous, and full of feeling, had no power to touch her heart.

"Ye-yes," she said, "that is the sort of playing which some young men like: not those young men from Oxford who 'follow' Art, and pretend to understand good music. You may see them asleep at afternoon recitals. You must play at small parties only, Phillis. Can you sing?"

"I sing as I play," said Phillis, rising and shutting the piano. "That is only, I suppose, for small parties." The colour came into her cheeks, and her brown eyes brightened. She was accustomed to think that her playing gave pleasure. Then she reproached herself for ingratitude, and she asked pardon. "I am cross with myself for being so deficient. Pray forgive me, Mrs. Cassilis. It is very kind of you to take all this trouble."

"My dear, you are a hundred times better than I expected."

Phillis remembered what she had said ten minutes before, but was silent.

"A hundred times better. Can you dance, my dear?"

"No. Antoinette tells me how she used to dance with the villagers when she was a little girl at Yport."

"That can be easily learned. Do you ride?"

At any other time Phillis would have replied in the affirmative. Now she only asserted a certain power of sticking on, acquired on pony-back and in a paddock. Mrs. Cassilis sighed.

"After all, a few lessons will give you a becoming seat. Nothing so useful as clever horsemanship. But how shall we disguise the fact that you cannot read or write?"

"I shall not try to disguise it," Phillis cried, jealous of Mr. Dyson's good name.

"Well, my dear, we come now to the most important question of all. Where do you get your dresses?"

"O Mrs. Cassilis! do not say that my dresses are calculated to repel!" cried poor Phillis, her spirit quite broken by this time. "Antoinette and I made this one between us. Sometimes I ordered them at Highgate, but I like my own best."

Mrs. Cassilis put up a pair of double eye-glasses, because they were now arrived at a really critical stage of the catechism. There was something in the simple dress which forced her admiration. It was quite plain, and, compared with her own, as a daisy is to a dahlia.

"It is a very nice dress," she said critically. "Whether it is your figure, or your own taste, or material, I do not know; but you are dressed perfectly, Miss Fleming. No young lady could dress better."

Women meet on the common ground of dress. Phillis blushed with pleasure. At all events, she and her critic had something on which they could agree.

"I will come to-morrow morning, and we will examine your wardrobe together, if you will allow me; and then we will go to Melton & Mowbray's. And I will write to Mr. Jagenal, asking him to bring you to dinner in the evening, if you will come."

"I should like it very much," said Phillis. "But you have made me a little afraid."

"You need not be afraid at all. And it will be a very small party. Two or three friends of my husband's, and two men who have just come home and published a book, which is said to be clever. One is a brother of Lord Isleworth, Mr. Ronald Dunquerque, and the other is a Captain Ladds. You have only to listen and look interested."

"Then I will come. And it is very kind of you, Mrs. Cassilis, especially since you do not like me."

That was quite true, but not a customary thing to be said. Phillis perceived dislike in the tones of her visitor's voice, in her eyes, in her manner. Did Mrs. Cassilis dislike her for her fresh and unsophisticated nature, or for her beauty, or for the attractiveness which breathed from every untaught look and gesture of the girl? Swedenborg taught that the lower nature cannot love the nobler; that the highest heavens are open to all who like to go there, but the atmosphere is found congenial to very few.

"Not like you!" Mrs. Cassilis, hardly conscious of any dislike, answered after her kind. "My dear, I hope we shall like each other very much. Do not let fancies get into your pretty head. I shall try to be your friend, if you will let me."

Again the wintry smile upon the lips, and the lifting of the cold eyes, which smiled not.

But Phillis was deceived by the warmth of the words. She took her visitor's hand and kissed it. The act was a homage to the woman of superior knowledge.

"Oh yes," she murmured, "if you only will."

"I shall call you Phillis. My name is Victoria."

"And you will tell me more about girls in society."

"I will show you girls in society, which is a great deal better for you," said Mrs. Cassilis.

"I looked at the girls I saw yesterday as we drove through the streets. Some of them were walking like this." She had been standing during most of this conversation, and now she began walking across the room in that ungraceful pose of the body which was more affected last year than at present. Ladies do occasionally have intervals of lunacy in the matter of taste, but if you give them time they come round again. Even crinolines went out at last, after the beauty of a whole generation had been spoiled by them. "Then there were others, who walked like this." She laid her head on one side, and affected a languid air, which I have myself remarked as being prevalent in the High Street of Islington. Now the way from Highgate to Carnarvon Square lies through that thoroughfare. "Then there were the boys. I never dreamed of such a lot of boys. And they were all whistling. This was the tune."

She threw her head back, and began to whistle the popular song of last spring. You know what it was. It came between the favourite air from the Fille de Madame Angot and that other sweet melody, "Tommy, make room for your Uncle," and was called "Hold the Fort." It refreshed the souls of Revivalists in Her Majesty's Theatre, and of all the street-boys in this great Babylon.

Mrs. Cassilis positively shrieked:

"My dear, dear DEAR girl," she cried, "you MUST not whistle!"

"Is it wrong to whistle?"

"Not morally wrong, I suppose. Girls never do anything morally wrong. But it is far worse, Phillis, far worse; it is unspeakably vulgar."

"Oh," said Phillis, "I am so sorry!"

"And, my dear, one thing more. Do not cultivate the power of mimicry, which you undoubtedly possess. Men are afraid of young ladies who can imitate them. For actresses, authors, artists, and common people of that sort, of course it does not matter. But for us it is different. And now, Phillis, I must leave you till to-morrow. I have great hopes of you. You have an excellent figure, a very pretty and attractive face, winning eyes, and a taste in dress which only wants cultivation. And that we will begin to-morrow at Melton and Mowbray's."

"Oh yes," said Phillis, clapping her hands, "that will be delightful! I have never seen a shop yet."

"She has—never—seen—a Shop!" cried Mrs. Cassilis. "Child, it is hard indeed to realise your Awful condition of mind. That a girl of nineteen should be able to say that she has never seen a Shop! My dear, your education has been absolutely unchristian. And poor Mr. Dyson, I fear, cut off suddenly in his sins, without the chance of repentance."