MANNERS AND CUSTOMS—CLIQUE—THE LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE—OUT VISITING—HOUSE-PRIDE—DRESSMAKING.

Eleanor and I were not always at home. We generally went visiting somewhere, at least once a year.

I think it was good for us. Great as were the advantages of the life I now shared over an existence wasted in a petty round of ignoble gossip and social struggle, it had the drawback of being almost too self-sufficing, perhaps—I am not certain—a little too laborious. I do think, but for me, it must, at any rate, have become the latter. I am so much less industrious, energetic, clever and good in every way than Eleanor, for one thing, that my very idleness holds us back; and I think a taste for gaiety (I simply mean being gay, not balls and parties), and for social pleasure, and for pretty things, and graceful “situations” runs in my veins with my French blood, and helps to break the current of our labours.

We led lives of considerable intellectual activity, constant occupation, and engrossing interest. We were apt to “foy” at our work to the extent of grudging meal-times and sleep. Indeed, at one time a habit obtained with us of leaving the table in turn as we finished our respective meals. One member of the family after another would rise, bend his or her head for a silent “grace,” and depart to the work in hand. I have known the table gradually deserted in this fashion till Mr. Arkwright was left alone. I remember going back one day into the room, and seeing him so. My entrance partially aroused him from a brown study. (He was at all times very “absent”) He rose, said grace aloud for the benefit of the company—which had dispersed—and withdrew to his library. But we abolished this uncivilized custom in conclave, and thenceforth sat our meals out to the end.

So free were we in our isolation upon those Yorkshire moors from the trammels of conventionality (one might almost say, civilization!), that I think we should have come to begrudge the ordinary interchange of the neighbourly courtesies of life, but for occasional lectures from Mrs. Arkwright, and for going out visiting from time to time.

It was not merely that a life of running in and out of other people’s houses, and chatting the same bits of news threadbare with one acquaintance after another, as at Riflebury, would have been unendurable by us. The rare arrival of a visitor from some distant country-house to call at the Vicarage was the signal for every one, who could do so with decency, to escape from the unwelcome interruption. But as we grew older, Mrs. Arkwright would not allow this. The boys, indeed, were hard to coerce; they “bolted” still when the door-bell rang; but domestic authority, which is apt to be magnified on “the girls,” overruled Eleanor and me for our good, and her mother—who reasoned with us far more than she commanded—convinced us of how much selfishness there was in this, as in all acts of discourtesy.

But what do we not owe to her good counsels? In how many evening talks has she not warned us of the follies, affectations, or troubles to which our lives might specially be liable! Against despising interests that are not our own, or graces which we have chosen to neglect, against the danger of satire, against the love or the fear of being thought singular, and, above all, against the petty pride of clique.

“I do not know which is the worst,” I remember her saying, “a religious clique, an intellectual clique, a fashionable clique, a moneyed clique, or a family clique. And I have seen them all.”

“Come, Mother,” said Eleanor, “you cannot persuade us you would not have more sympathy with the intellectual than the moneyed clique, for instance?”

“I should have warmly declared so myself, at one time,” said Mrs. Arkwright, “but I have a vivid remembrance of a man belonging to an artistic clique, to whose house I once went with some friends. My friends were artists also, but their minds were enlarged, instead of being narrowed, by one chief pursuit. Their special art gave them sympathy with all others, as the high cultivation of one virtue is said to bring all the rest in its train. But this man talked the shibboleth of his craft over one’s head to other members of his clique with a defiance of good manners arising more from conceit than from ignorance of the ways of society; and with a transparent intention of being overheard and admired which reminded me of the little self-conscious conceits of children before visitors. He was one of a large family with the same peculiarities, joined to a devout admiration of each other. Indeed, they combined the artistic clique and the family clique in equal proportions. From the conversation at their table you would have imagined that there was but one standard of good for poor humanity, that of one ‘school’ of one art, and absolutely no one who quite came up to it but the brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, or connections by marriage of your host. Now, I honestly assure you that the only other man really like this one that I ever met, was what is called a ‘self-made’ man in a commercial clique. Money was his standard, and he seemed to be as completely unembarrassed as my artist friend by the weight of any other ideas than his own, or by any feeling short of utter satisfaction with himself. Their contempt for the conventionalities of society was about equal. My artist friend had passed a sweeping criticism for my benefit now and then (there could be no conversation where no second opinion was allowed), and it was with perhaps a shade less of condescension—a shade more of friendliness—that my commercial friend once stopped some remarks of mine with the knowing observation, ‘Look here, ma’am. Whenever I hear this, that, and the other bragged about a party, what I always say is this, I don’t want you to tell me what he his, but what he ’as.’”

Eleanor and I laughed merrily at the anecdote, even if we were not quite converted to Mrs. Arkwright’s views. And I must in justice add that every visit which has taken us from home—every fresh experience which has enlarged our knowledge of the world—has confirmed the truth of her sage and practical advice.

If at home we have still inclined to feel it almost a duty to be proud of intellectual tastes, quite a duty to be proud of orthodox opinions, and, at the worst, a very amiable weakness indeed to think that there are no boys like our boys, a wholesome experience of having other people’s tastes and views crammed down our throats has modified our ideas in this respect. A strong dose of eulogistic biography of the brothers of a gushing acquaintance made the names of Clem and Jack sacred to our domestic circle for ever; and what I have endured from a mangy, over-fed, ill-tempered Skye-terrier, who is the idol of a lady of our acquaintance, has led me sometimes to wonder if visitors at the Vicarage are ever oppressed by the dear boys.

I’m afraid it is possible—poor dear things!

I have positively heard people say that Saucebox is ugly, though he has eyes like a bull-frog, and his tongue hangs quite six inches out of his mouth, and—in warm weather or before meals—further still! However, I keep him in very good order, and never allow him to be troublesome to people who do not appreciate him. For I have observed that there are people who (having no children of their own) hold very just and severe views about spoiled boys and girls, but who (having dogs of their own) are much less clear-sighted on the subject of spoiled terriers and Pomeranians. And I do not want to be like that—dear as the dear boys are!

Certainly, seeing all sorts of people with all sorts of peculiarities is often a great help towards trying to get rid of one’s own objectionable ones. But like the sketching, one sometimes gets into despair about it, and though the process of learning an art may be even pleasanter than to feel one’s self a master in it, one cannot say as much for the process of discovering one’s follies. I should like to get rid of them in a lump.

Eleanor said so one day to her mother, but Mrs. Arkwright said: “We may hate ourselves, as you call it, when we come to realize failings we have not recognized before, and feel that there are probably others which we do not yet see as clearly as other people see them, but this kind of impatience for our perfection is not felt by those who love us, I am sure. It is one’s greatest comfort to believe that it is not even felt by God. Just as a mother would not love her child the better for its being turned into a model of perfection by one stroke of magic, but does love it the more dearly every time it tries to be good, so I do hope and believe our Great Father does not wait for us to be good and wise to love us, but loves us, and loves to help us in the very thick of our struggles with folly and sin.”

But I am becoming as discursive as ever! What I want to put down is about our going out visiting. There is really nothing much to say about our life at home. It was very happy, but there were no great events in it, and Eleanor says it will not do for us to “go off at a tangent,” and describe what happened to the boys at school and college; first, because these biographies are merely to be lives of our own selves, for nobody but us two to read when we are both old maids; and secondly, because if we put down everything we had anything to do with in these ten years, it will be so very long before our biographies are finished. We are very anxious to see them done, partly because we are getting rather tired of them, and Jack is becoming suspicious, and partly because we have got an amateur bookbinding press, and we want to bind them.

Well, as I said, we paid visits to relatives of mine, and to old friends of the Arkwrights. My friends invited Eleanor, and Eleanor’s friends invited me. People are very kind; and it was understood that we were happier together.

I was fortunate enough to find myself possessed of some charming cousins living in a cathedral town; and at their house it was a great pleasure to us to visit. The cathedral services gave us great delight; when I think of the expression of Eleanor’s face, I may almost say rapture. Then there was a certain church-bookseller’s shop in the town, which had manifold attractions for us. Every parochial want that print and paper could supply was there met, with a convenience that bordered on luxury. There was a good store, too, of sacred prints, illuminated texts, and oak frames, from which we carried back sundry additions to the garnishing of our room, besides presents for Jack, who was as fond of such things as we were. Parish matters were, naturally, of perennial interest for us in our Vicarage home; but if ever they became a fad, it was about this period.

But it was to a completely new art that this visit finally led us, which I hardly know how to describe, unless as the art of dressmaking and general ornamentation.

The neighbourhood abounded with pretty clerical and country homes, where my cousins were intimate; each one, so it seemed to Eleanor and me, prettier than the last: sunshiny and homelike, with irregular comfortable furniture, dainty with chintz, or dark with aged oak, each room more tastefully besprinkled than the rest with old china, new books, music, sketches, needlework, and flowers.

“Do you know, Eleanor,” said I, when we were dressing for dinner one evening before a toilette-table that had been tastefully adorned for our use by the daughters of the house, “I wonder if Yorkshire women are as ‘house-proud’ as they call themselves? I think our villagers are, in the important points of cleanliness and solid comfort, and of course we are at the Vicarage as to that—Keziah keeps us all like copper kettles; but don’t you think we might have a little more house-pride about tasteful pretty refinements? It perhaps is rather a waste of time arranging all these vases and baskets of flowers every day, but they are very nice to look at, and I think it civilizes one.”

“You’re not to blame,” said Eleanor decisively. “You’re south-country to the backbone, and French on the top. It is we hard north-country folk, we business people, who neglect to cultivate ‘the beautiful.’ We’re quite wrong. But I think the beautiful is revenged on us,” added she with one of her quick, bright looks, “by withdrawing itself. There’s nothing comparable for ugliness to the people of a manufacturing town.”

My mind was running on certain very ingenious and tasteful methods of hanging nosegays on the wall.

“Those baskets with ferns and flowers in, against the wall, were lovely, weren’t they?” said I. “Do you think we shall ever be able to think of such pretty things?”

“We’re not fools,” said Eleanor briefly. “We shall do it when we set our minds to it. Meantime, we must make notes of whatever strikes us.”

“There are plenty of jolly, old-fashioned flowers in the garden at home,” said I. It was a polite way of expressing my inward regret that we had no tropical orchids or strange stove-plants. And Eleanor danced round me, and improvised a song beginning:

From the better adornment of the Vicarage to the better adornment of ourselves was a short stride. Most of the young ladies in these country homes were very prettily dressed. Not À la Mrs. Perowne. Not in that milliner’s handbook style dear to “Promenades” and places of public resort; but more daintily, and with more attention to the prettiest and most convenient of the prevailing fashions than Eleanor’s and my costumes displayed.

The toilettes of one young lady in particular won our admiration; and when we learned that her pretty things were made by herself, an overwhelming ambition seized upon us to learn to do the same.

“Women ought to know about all house matters,” said Eleanor, puckering her brow to a gloomy extent. “Dressmaking, cookery, and all that sort of thing; and we know nothing about any of them. I was thinking only last night, in bed, that if I were cast away on a desert island, and had to make a dress out of an old sail, I shouldn’t have the ghost of an idea where to begin.”

“I should,” said I. “I should sew it up like a sack, make three holes for my head and arms, and tie it round my waist with ship’s rope. I could manage Robinson Crusoe dresses; it’s the civilized ones that will be too much for me, I’m afraid.”

“I believe the sail would go twice as far if we could gore it,” said Eleanor, laughing. “But there’s no waste like the wastefulness of ignorance; and oh, Margery, it’s the gores I’m afraid of! If skirts were only made the old-fashioned way, like a flannel petticoat! So many pieces all alike—run them together—hem the bottom—gather the top—and there you are, with everything straightforward but the pocket.”

To our surprise we found that our new fad was a sore subject with Mrs. Arkwright. She reproached herself bitterly with having given Eleanor so little training in domestic arts. But she had been brought up by a learned uncle, who considered needlework a waste of time, and she knew as little about gores as we did. She had also, unfortunately, known or heard of some excellent mother who had trained nine daughters to such perfection of domestic capabilities that it was boasted that they could never in after-life employ a workwoman or domestic who would know more of her business than her employer. And this good lady was a standing trouble to poor Mrs. Arkwright’s conscience.

Her self-reproaches were needless. General training is perhaps quite as good as (if not better than) special, even for special ends. In giving us a higher education, in teaching us to use our eyes, our wits, and our common-sense, she had put all meaner arts within our grasp when need should urge, and opportunity serve.

“Aunt Theresa was always dressmaking,” I said to Eleanor; “but I don’t remember anything that would help us. I was so young, you know. And when one is young one is so stupid, one really resists information.”

I was to have another chance, however, of gleaning hints from Aunt Theresa.