Chapter IV: Mother and Daughter

SCENE.--DARKGLADE VICARAGE DRAWING-ROOM.

MRS. M. So, my dear, you think it impossible to be happy here?

C. Little Mamsey, why _WILL_ you never understand? It is not a question of happiness, but of duty to myself.

MRS. M. And that is--

C. Not to throw away all my chances of self-improvement by burrowing into this hole.

MRS. M. Oh, my dear, I don't like to hear you call it so.

C. Yes, I know you care for it. You were bred up here, and know nothing better, poor old Mamsey, and pottering suits you exactly; but it is too much to ask me to sacrifice my wider fields of culture and usefulness.

MRS. M. Grandpapa would enjoy nothing so much as reading with you. He said so.

C. Oxford half a century old and wearing off ever since. No, I thank you! Besides, it is not only physical science, but art.

MRS. M. There's the School of Art at Holbrook.

C. My dear mother, I am far past country schools of art!

MRS. M. It is not as if you intended to take up art as a profession.

C. Mother! will nothing ever make you understand? Nothing ought to be half-studied, merely to pass away the time as an _ACCOMPLISHMENT_ (UTTERED WITH INFINITE SCORN, ACCENTUATED ON THE SECOND SYLLABLE), just to do things to sell at bazaars. No! Art with me means work worthy of exhibition, with a market-price, and founded on a thorough knowledge of the secrets of the human frame.

MRS. M. Those classes! I don't like all I hear of them, or their attendants.

C. If you _WILL_ listen to all the gossip of all the old women of both sexes, I can't help it! Can't you trust to innocence and earnestness?

MRS. M. I wish it was the Art College at Wimbledon. Then I should be quite comfortable about you.

C. Have not we gone into all that already? You know I must go to the fountain-head, and not be put off with mere feminine, lady-like studies! Pah! Besides, in lodgings I can be useful. I shall give two evenings in the week to the East End, to the Society for the Diversion and Civilisation of the Poor.

MRS. M. Surely there is room for usefulness here! Think of the children! And for diversion and civilisation, how glad we should be of your fresh life and brightness among poor people!

C. Such poor! Why, even if grandpapa would let me give a lecture on geology, or a reading from Dickens, old Prudence Blake would go about saying it hadn't done nothing for her poor soul.

MRS. M. Grandpapa wanted last winter to have penny readings, only there was nobody to do it. He would give you full scope for that, or for lectures.

C. Yes; about vaccination and fresh air! or a reading of John Gilpin or the Pied Piper. Mamsey, you know a model parish stifles me. I can't stand your prim school-children, drilled in the Catechism, and your old women who get out the Bible and the clean apron when they see you a quarter of a mile off. Free air and open minds for me! No, I won't have you sighing, mother. You have returned to your native element, and you must let me return to mine.

MRS. M. Very well, my dear. Perhaps a year or two of study in town may be due to you, though this is a great disappointment to grandpapa and me. I know Mrs. Payne will make a pleasant and safe home for you, if you must be boarded.

C. Too late for that. I always meant to be with Betty Thurston at Mrs. Kaye's. In fact, I have written to engage my room. So there's an end of it. Come, come, don't look vexed. It is better to make an end of it at once. There are things that one must decide for oneself.