Chapter V: Education

Whether Mrs. Tremenheere had any foundation of justice in the theory which made her take her boy’s education in hand instead of her girl’s, I cannot venture to say; but in the meantime the poor children had a troubled interval to go through. She devoted herself to Eddy, walking with him, superintending his lessons, doing everything the most anxious care could do. The toys she bought him, the books she accumulated, the common people with children whose acquaintance she permitted herself to make on her boy’s account, that he might have some one to play with, are not to be described. And she had a tutor for him, who came daily and drove him quickly along the stony ways of learning, and took him out for walks upon the Downs, and told his mother he was one of the brightest of boys, not convincing her much, though he pleased her by so saying. She had settled herself in Brighton with the express idea that it would be good for him and cheerful, and I cannot tell with what anxiety, poor soul, she watched over him, straining every faculty to amuse and cheer him. But the more she devoted herself to Eddy the paler and quieter he grew. He became as mild as a little invalid, and weak, though there was nothing the matter with him. He clung to his mother, as sick children do, stealing his hand into her’s when he walked with her, pressing close up to her when she talked to any one, never leaving her when he could help it, he who had been so little amenable to female government in those old days at home. She perceived it and yet she did not perceive it, as people do who resolutely shut their eyes and will not see; and it was again her friend Elinor who first really called her attention to the state of affairs, which had then lasted more than a year.

“Do you remember telling me your ideas about men training girls and women boys?” said Elinor. Eddy was in the room with them as usual. It was a warm day in the early spring, and the boy sat half out in the balcony, with a book over which he pored. He heard what they were saying, and yet did not hear, in his abstracted way.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, raising herself up. “What then? You have seen my Vera, Elinor!”

“I have seen her; but that is not what I was thinking of.”

“What were you thinking of? Her letters are full of bright spirits, and amusing, as she always was. Is her father not doing his duty to her? Tell me, tell me, Nelly!”

“She is very well--quite well. I was not thinking of anything so far off.”

Mrs. Tremenheere sat upright on her chair, very upright, grasping as it were instinctively for her weapons of defence. “You are thinking of me?”

Elinor stretched out her oratorical right hand. “Look at that child, Ada! is that a good specimen of a woman’s training? You are bringing him up entirely as you would bring up a girl. Look at the color of his hands--are these like a boy’s hands? Look at his quiet timid way. You are ruining him, both health and spirit. I don’t know what you mean by it; while Vera, whom you could have managed----”

“Nelly, you have heard something about my child.”

She began to tremble, she who was so firm and steady. Somehow any mistakes she herself might have made seemed so trivial, so easily rectified, in comparison with the mistakes that might be made on the other side.

“It is not Vera,” said Elinor. “Vera is running wild; she is growing a romp and a tomboy; but that is less harm. Her health will not suffer, nor her mind much, at her age. But, Ada, look there! Is that pale, still child, poring over his book, the sort of creature you wish your son to be? You are bringing him up like a girl, not like a boy.”

“I thought you and your friends maintained that there should be no difference between girls and boys,” said Mrs. Tremenheere, with a faint smile. She had received the arrow into her very heart; but she did not mean to show it now, however it might affect her afterwards. She was too proud all at once to own herself in the wrong.

“You need not sneer about my friends,” said Miss Meadows, warmly. “I thought, too, that you had been one of them, that you had yourself shown some interest in such questions. I don’t care whether I am consistent or not, any more than I care whether you are angry or not. Girls and boys may be the same in the abstract, and it may be good for girls perhaps to have more of a boy’s training; but for a boy to be thrown back into the domestic bondage which I hope we shall break for girls, is monstrous--it is a disgrace--it is against nature.”

“Do you wish me to quarrel with you, Nelly?”

“I don’t care whether you quarrel or not,” cried the orator, with a large gesture of indifference. “Quarrel as you like, so long as you open your eyes and see what you are doing to that boy.”

After this there was a long pause. Elinor, somewhat agitated by her own boldness, sat still and began to work with great but fatal ardor at a piece of embroidery she found on the table, and to which she did untold damage. She was so carried away by her feelings that she did not perceive that her friend had left the room. But when Mrs. Tremenheere came down-stairs again, though there were traces of emotion about her face she was as friendly as ever. She had put on her hat, and invited Elinor to come out for a walk.

“Eddy, I see the Troutbeck boys going out to play cricket,” she said, “could not you join them?”

A flash of boyish triumph came into Eddy’s still eyes.

“Cricket, mamma! What can you be thinking of? There is no cricket at this time of the year.”

“What does it matter for the name? They are going to play at something.”

“Jumping, perhaps, or football. Some people still play football at this season; or hare and hounds.”

“What does it matter which it is? but it does matter that you should play and get a little color in your cheeks.”

“They are jumping,” said Eddy, from the window, with a sparkle of energy, “but then there is a lot of them,” he added, falling back, “they won’t want me.”

“Nonsense--go!” said his mother, peremptorily.

He got up from his book with reluctance. He did care for the jumping, but was it worth while to disturb himself for that, or anything else? He was quite comfortable and interested in his story. The two ladies stood still and watched him creeping away, languid and indifferent. For the first time Mrs. Tremenheere noticed the change in the boy. A great wrinkle of anxiety came into her forehead. “Nelly, I am very much obliged to you,” she cried. “What shall I do?”

Miss Meadows glowed and expanded with the sense of victory. “Ada,” she said, “it is not many people who have the sense to see where they have been wrong. I always said you were no ordinary woman. Send him to school, my dear--send him to school; let him be among other boys; try him with wholesome neglect; and come off to Italy with me.”

Mrs. Tremenheere listened very seriously till Elinor came to her last clause, then she laughed, though her face was still clouded. “Come and walk,” she said.

In the meantime things were going on very differently, and yet with much the same result, at Hyde Park Square. Mr. Tremenheere was very kind to Vera when she came immediately under his notice. He still allowed her to pour out his tea for him in the morning while he read his newspaper, and had her down-stairs to amuse him after dinner, when now and then he dined at home. But in a very short time after his wife left him, this ceased to be his ordinary custom. He got over the scandal much better than he had hoped. It had taken place when Society was out of town, and therefore had passed comparatively without notice; and without much difficulty he fell back into his bachelor habits. He had suffered more at the moment than she did, but he did not suffer very much after it was over, and when the secondary consequences he feared proved in great part illusory. He had liked his old life, with all its varieties and comforts, and now, notwithstanding the interval of ten years which he had spent in trying to learn how to be happy otherwise, he took it up again with unfeigned pleasure. Now and then a few men dined with him at home, and then Vera would come down in her best frock, and chatter to them, and do the honors with childish excitement, her eyes blazing with the novelty and pride of her position. Mr. Tremenheere had been considerably startled, it is not to be denied, by her talk on several of these occasions, and one morning he remonstrated gently.

“When there is company, as the servants say, a little girl of your age should be very quiet, Vera. It is not to you, my dear, that my friends look for amusement. You must be quiet and good, and answer when people speak to you.”

“Why, papa, they all like to talk to me best,” said Vera, tossing her little head. “They all laugh and say I am clever. Why shouldn’t I talk? I am very fond of talking. I talk to everybody, and that is why people like me, and say I am not at all proud.”

“What sort of people do you talk to?” said her father, half alarmed, half amused.

“Oh, all sorts of people; not only gentlemen, papa. When Nurse goes to see her friends I go with her, and they all say it is nice of me not to be proud. They are going to have a party in the kitchen to-night. It is such fun. They have tea, and then they dance, and then they have supper, and Nurse says if I am good I may stay to supper this time.”

“This time!” said Mr. Tremenheere, with horror; “have you gone to anything of the sort before?”

“Oh yes, papa, several! I went with Nurse to the servants’ party next door; but oh,” said Vera, suddenly, “I am afraid I ought not have talked of it. I don’t think they like the masters to know.”

Mr. Tremenheere rose and walked about the room in great agitation. Here was an unlooked-for disclosure. For a moment he was quite appalled by the discovery he had made. “Vera,” he said in a voice which trembled, “you must promise not to go to this affair to-night.”

“Papa! not to go!” cried Vera, the corners of her mouth dropping; “oh, you can’t mean it! you can’t mean it! It is such a nice party, papa, and they take such care of me. I sit next to Nurse or the cook always, and I dance with the nicest people only. There was once somebody quite as nicely dressed as you, and with beautiful diamond studs, and who could speak French and do all sorts of things. Papa, you can’t mean it. Nurse says it is the only party I ever have, and that it would be cruel to send me to bed.”

“The only party you ever have! I thought you went out a great deal, and had a great many parties?”

“Yes, baby parties; I don’t care for them,” said Vera, with serene fatuity, looking her father in the face, and holding up her little head.

After this a storm arose. Mr. Tremenheere sent for his three principal functionaries, Jervis, the cook, and the nurse, and demanded to know how they dared to take Miss Vera to their d---- parties. He was not a man who interfered much in his household, and when he did so he was usually calm and polite, a thing which the domestics understood much less and resented much more deeply than the chance blasphemy, which they forgave easily. Jervis stammered out excuses, and apologies, and protestations. “As I was always against it, and knew it wasn’t no place for Miss Vera.” Nurse retired in floods of tears, which threatened every moment to become hysterics, and cook, who was hot-tempered, threw up her place. Vera, very red and very angry, darted in front of the accused to defend them. “Papa! when it was I who told you! They will never trust me any more; they will think I am a traitor and betrayed them! Papa, you are not to scold them, when it is all my fault!”

“Take Miss Vera up-stairs,” said Mr. Tremenheere to the housemaid, who, stood by. “Go at once without a word,” he cried, and very reluctantly the child, still hot and red with excitement, was forced to obey. Vera was shut up all day, and overwhelmed by reproaches from the nurse. “You see what comes of it with your tongue, Miss,” cried this weeping sufferer. “Can’t you never hold your tongue, as I’m a telling of you, night and day? Them as can’t hold their tongues should never be let into secrets, and it’s all over Miss Vera, I can tell you, between you and me. No more parties in this house, nor no other house; no more cakes as I asked cook to make for you--no more nice suppers. After this you’ll go to bed at eight o’clock regular, as you used to in your mamma’s time, and when you feel to want something nice you needn’t look to me. And here’s poor cook losing her good place along of your chatter!” she added, discharging this last arrow with full confidence in its effect. There was no party in the house that night; but nobody informed Vera of this fact, which might have been partially consolatory. She was put to bed, and left there in solitude to cry her eyes out, no one coming near her. “Oh, mamma, mamma!” cried poor little Vera, forlorn in the darkness. Her mother was miles off, and could not hear; her father was at his club; the servants were having an indignation supper down-stairs, four stories off, and there was nobody to say a word of consolation to the poor little abandoned girl.

However, after these very different scenes, both husband and wife set themselves to think on the subject, as Mrs. Tremenheere had predicted. “He shall not say that the boy is ruined by a woman’s training,” she said to herself; and “She shall not taunt me that I have not been able to look after the girl,” said Mr. Tremenheere. This delightful spirit of opposition worked strongly in concert with other feelings more laudable, for indeed both parents were fond of their children, in their different ways. Mrs. Tremenheere’s part was the easiest of the two, and she took her steps promptly. The very next day after that revelation had been made to her, she went off to one of the great public schools and put Eddy’s name down, and began herself to look for a house in the neighborhood, for she did not mean to throw the boy off entirely, as her childless friend thought right and expedient. Before Easter, at which time Eddy began his school-life, she had found the house she wanted, a villa on a hillside, which was not high indeed, but which had all the advantages of much greater height, since it looked over a great plain of rich cultivated country, fields, and hedges, and fine trees, and red farmhouses, with here and there a great mansion gleaming away into the far distance, till it got indistinct like the sea, and almost as suggestive. Here she settled and furnished her house, which was agreeable work, and tossed the pale boy into the sea of life and youth close by--where he soon ceased to be pale.

Mr. Tremenheere, poor man, had a more difficult task. The first thing he did was to reflect bitterly upon his wife’s abandonment of her natural duty. “It is just like a woman,” he said to himself through his teeth. “They profess to love their children beyond everything, and yet they will give up their children rather than give in or own themselves wrong.” But this reflection, though it was in its way satisfactory, did not help him to the solution of his problem. How was he to bring up his daughter? In his perplexity he betook himself wisely to a friend who was a clergyman, and had to do with all kind of educational and benevolent institutions. “I suppose I want a governess,” he said. “She must be old to avoid scandal, and well educated and so forth, but chiefly she must be a dragon--recollect this. She must never relax, night or day. I will have my girl well looked after; that is one thing I am determined on. A woman who will suspect everything, believe nothing, and keep an eye upon her for ever.”

“Surely this is going too far. It is against the spirit of the time. Everything tends to emancipate women, Tremenheere, not to make slaves of them.”

“I hate the spirit of the time,” he said. “I hate your enlightened women, that know the world as well as we do. I want my girl to be of the old type. I want her to be seen and not heard, like our grandmothers. And therefore I want a dragon for her governess--a woman that will allow nothing out of the regulation in point of propriety--an iceberg, a machine, whatever you please, but one that will guard the child, and watch her and make her incapable of mischief. Now, if you have any regard for me, bestir yourself and find out what I want.”

“I have her,” said the clergyman, sighing. “So few people want dragons nowadays that I feared she would have to fall back upon the Home, poor lady. But, as that is what you want--only I don’t think you’ll find it successful with a high-spirited child like Vera.”

“Vera’s high spirits must come down,” said her father. “I want a soft, submissive, yielding girl, and not a self-opinionated being that will set up for a mind of her own. What do they want with minds of their own?”

“Tremenheere, you speak like a Turk.”

“Perhaps I feel like one,” he said, dismissing the subject with a forced laugh. And this was how he found his way out of the dilemma. Miss Campbell arrived at the end of the week, a tall, severe Scotswoman, with a large nose and high cheekbones. She was over fifty, and she had been trained in the belief that young ladies ought to be kept in absolute subjection. A girl who had no will but that of her parents, and who consulted her mother with her eyes before she took a piece of bread and butter, was Miss Campbell’s ideal; she was exactly the kind of person to satisfy Mr. Tremenheere.

Thus father and mother entered at the same time into the right way, or into what they thought to be the right way; and the two experiments of education began.