Confessions of a Young Lady: Her Doings and Misdoings

In the first place I had to go without Philip. He was to have gone with me. And, of course, I had looked forward to our journey together in the train. But, at the last moment, he telegraphed to say that business detained him in town; would I go down without him, and he would join us on the morrow. I went without him. And, on the whole, I think I bore up very well. Especially considering that, just as the train was starting from Paddington, a woman got into my carriage with two dogs, a parrot in a huge cage, bundles of golf clubs, hockey clubs, tennis rackets, fishing rods, and goodness only knows what besides; her belongings filled the whole of her own side of the compartment, and most of mine. The last of them was being hustled in as the train was actually moving. As she was depositing them anywhere, and anyhow-I never saw anyone treat her belongings with scantier ceremony-she observed, -

"I cut that rather fine. Don't believe in getting to the station before the train is ready to start-but that was a bit of a shave."

It was a "bit of a shave"; the marvel was that she succeeded in catching the train at all. I-disliking to be bustled-had been there a good twenty minutes before it started, so-although she might not have been aware of it-there was a flavour of something about her remark which was very nearly personal.

It was only after we had gone some distance that the dogs appeared-not a little to my amazement. One of them-which came out of a brown leather hand-bag-was one of those long-bodied, short-legged creatures, which always look as if they were deformed. The other, a small black animal with curly hair, she took out of the pocket of the capacious coat which she was wearing. Directly she placed it on the floor of the carriage it flew at me, as if filled with a frenzied desire to tear me to pieces. While it was doing its best to bark itself hoarse, its owner removed a green cover from the parrot's cage; whereupon the bird inside commenced to make a noise upon its own account, as if with the express intention of urging that sooty fragment to wilder exertions. That compartment was like a miniature pandemonium.

"Don't let them worry you," remarked the mistress of the travelling menagerie.

But as she made not the slightest attempt to stop their worrying me, I did not quite understand what she expected I was going to do. When the black dog got the hem of my skirt into its mouth, and began to pull at it with its tiny teeth, I did remonstrate.

"I am afraid your dog will tear my dress."

"Not she! It's only her fun; she won't hurt you."

I was not afraid of the creature hurting me; but my skirt. The mistress's calmness was sublime. Suffering her minute quadruped to follow-without the smallest effort to control it! – its own quaint devices, she was serenely attaching a new tip to a billiard cue which she had taken out of a metal case. As if she felt that her proceedings might impress me with a sense of strangeness, she proffered what she perhaps meant to be an explanation.

"Always tip my own cue. I've got a cement which sticks; and I like my tip to be just so. If you want to be sure of your cue, tip it yourself."

Presently my liliputian assailant passed from unreasonable antagonism to a warmth of friendship which was almost equally disconcerting. Springing-after one or two failures, on to the carriage seat, it deposited itself in the centre of my lap-nearly knocking my book out of my hands; and, without a with-your-leave, or by-your-leave, but with the most take-it-for-granted air imaginable, prepared for slumber. Perceiving which, the short-legged dog descending, in its turn, to the floor of the carriage, began to prowl round and round me, sniffing at my skirts in a manner which almost suggested that there was something about me which was not altogether nice. All of a sudden the parrot, which had been taking an unconcealed interest in the proceedings, discovered a surprising, and, hitherto, wholly unsuspected capacity for speech.

"Don't be a fool!" he said.

Whether the advice was addressed to me, or to the short-legged dog, I could not say. But it was so unexpected, and was uttered with so much clearness-and was such an extremely uncivil thing to utter-that I quite jumped in my seat. The lady with the billiard cue made a comment of her own.

"That bird's a magnificent talker; and that's his favourite remark."

It proved to be. I do not know how many times that parrot advised somebody not to be a fool before we reached our journey's end; but the advice was repeated at intervals of certainly less than two minutes. And as the creature kept its eyes fixed intently on me, there was a suggestiveness in its bearing as to the direction for which its "favourite remark" was intended, which was in the highest degree unflattering.

When we stopped at my station a girl coming up to the carriage door began showering welcomes on my companion and her creatures with a degree of fluency which pointed to an intimate acquaintance with all of them.

"Hollo, Pat, so you've come! – Hollo, Tar!" – this was to the small black animal. "Hollo, Stumps!" – this was to the short-legged dog. "Hollo, Lord Chesterfield!" – this was to that excessively rude parrot, who promptly acknowledged the greeting by rejoining, -

"Don't be a fool!"

Then, seeing that I was only waiting for the removal of some of the impedimenta to enable me to get out, the girl exclaimed, -

"Are you Molly Boyes?" I admitted that I was. "I'm Bertha Sanford-awfully glad to see you. This is Miss Patricia Reeves- commonly known as Pat. Great luck your coming down together in the same compartment; you'll be as intimate as if you'd known each other for years."

I was not so sure of that. More-I doubted if Miss Patricia Reeves and I ever should be intimate, as I understood intimacy. Still worse, I was disposed to be dubious if Miss Reeves's bosom friend could ever be mine.

A pony phaeton was waiting outside the station, with another girl in it. This proved to be Margaret Sanford. She welcomed "Pat" and "Pat's" etceteras with as much effusion as her sister had done. There was a discussion as to what was to happen. Since the phaeton would hold at most three, somebody would have to walk. Miss Reeves insisted on being the someone; she and Bertha immediately set off at what struck me as being a good five miles an hour. Until then I had supposed myself to be no bad pedestrian for a mere girl; but when I saw the style in which those two were covering the ground I was glad that I had been permitted to ride.

Not that the ride was one of unalloyed bliss. The journey down from town had not been all that I had hoped that it would be; how different it would have been if Philip had been my companion instead of Miss Reeves. And, somehow, the discovery that she was bound for the same destination as I was; and was-plainly-an old and intimate friend, jarred. I do not believe that I am hard to get on with; no one has ever given me any reason to suppose it. And yet, all at once, the fact that the Sanford atmosphere was one in which Miss Reeves was thoroughly at home seemed to hint, with distressing significance, that it was one in which I distinctly should not shine.

The impression heightened as Margaret drove me along. She conversed on matters of which I, for the most part, knew little, and, up to that moment, had cared less. She talked of golf, inquiring, in an offhand sort of way, what my "handicap" was; evidently taking it for granted that, in common with the rest of the world, I had a "handicap." I do not know what I answered; because, as it happened, not only was I without that plainly desirable appurtenance, but I did not even know what she meant. Hitherto golf had not come into my life at all. But fortunately, she chattered on at such a rate that she was able to pay no attention to what I said; so that it did not matter what I answered. It appeared that she had recently been playing a "tie" or a "match" or a "game" or a "round" or a "skittle," or something-I do not know which it was, but I am almost certain it was one or the other-with a Mrs Chuckit-I am sure of the name, because it was such an odd one-in which, it seemed, she had met with an unparalleled series of disasters. From what I could gather she had been "stymied" and "bunkered" and "up" and "down" and "holed" and "foozled" and "skied" and "approached" and "driven," and all sorts of dreadful things. At least, I believe they were dreadful things; and, indeed, from the emphatic way in which she spoke of them, I am convinced they were. One thing of which she told me I am sure must have been painful. She said that she got into a hedge-a "beast of a hedge" she called it; though how, or why, she got into it she did not explain; and that no sooner did she get out of it-"which took some doing" – so it shows it must have been painful-than back she went-"bang into the middle" of it again-which seemed such a singular thing for anyone to do that, had she not been speaking with such earnestness, and such vigour, I should almost have suspected her of a desire to take advantage of my innocence. Then, she admitted, she had lost her temper-which was not to be wondered at. If anyone had thrown me, or "got" me into a hedge, anyhow, I should have lost mine right straight off. The moral of it seemed to be that "the last hole cost her seventeen," though seventeen what-whether pounds or shillings-she did not mention; nor what manner of hole it could have been that she should have been so set on getting it at apparently any price. It was all double Dutch to me. But she rattled on at such a rate that I hoped to be able to conceal my ignorance; for I felt that if she discovered it, I should drop in her estimation like the mercury in the thermometer which is transferred from hot water into cold.

Suddenly, however, she began to ask me questions which sent cold shivers up and down my back. What cleeks had I got? whose "mashie" did I use? did I care for a "heelless" cleek?

I fumbled with the inquiries somehow, until she put one which I had to answer.

"Do you do much with a brassey spoon?"

She looked at me with her grey eyes which made me feel as if I was in the witness-box and she was cross-examiner. I did not do much with a "brassey spoon." Indeed, I did nothing. I had no idea what anyone could do. In fact, until that second I had not been aware that spoons were ever made of brass. And, anyhow, what part spoons of any kind played in the game of golf I had not the dimmest notion. But I was not going to give myself away at a single bound; I was not quite so simple as that. So I thought for a moment; then I answered-

"I suppose that I do about as much as other people."

As a non-committal sort of answer I thought it rather neat; but I was not so clear in my own mind as I should have liked to have been as to what was the impression which it made upon Margaret. She looked at me in a way which made me wonder if she suspected.

Luckily, before she was able to corner me again, we came to the house. In the hall a lady met us whose likeness to Philip was so great that it affected me with something like a shock; she was his replica in petticoats. In his clothes she might easily have passed as his elder brother. It was Mrs Sanford. She took both my hands in hers-standing in front of her relatively I was a mere mite-and looked me up and down.

"There isn't much of you, and you're ridiculously young."

"The first fault I am afraid is incurable. But the second I can grow out of. Many people do."

She laughed, and took me in her arms, literally lifted me off my feet-and kissed me. It was humiliating, but I did not seem to mind it from her. I had a sort of feeling she was nice. As I looked at her I understood how it was that she had two such athletic daughters. Philip had never struck me as being particularly athletic, though he was so big and broad. But as I talked to his mother I began to realise with a sinking heart how little I knew of him after all.

I cannot say that when I got into my bedroom I felt very ecstatic. Without an unusual degree of exertion I could have cried; but, thank goodness, I had sense enough not to do that.

When I went down to tea I found that Bertha and Miss Reeves had arrived-and the luggage, and the creatures. The Sanfords had creatures of their own; dogs and birds galore. Among the latter was one which I afterwards learnt was a jay. It made the most ridiculous noises, so that I felt that Lord Chesterfield was justified in fixing it with his stony gaze; and in observing, with serious and ceaseless reiteration-

"Don't be a fool!"

The conversation immediately got into channels which I would much rather it had kept out of. Bertha began it.

"Molly, you've just come in time. There's going to be a sing-song on the island to-night, and as I'm getting up the programme I hope you'll turn out to be a gem of the first water. What'll you do?" I did not know what a "sing-song" was. Bertha explained. "A sing-song? Oh, a kind of a sort of a concert-informal, free-and-easy, don't you know. All the river people turn up on the island-they bring their own illuminations-then some of us do things to amuse them. Will you give us a banjo solo?"

"I'm afraid I don't play the banjo."

"Not play the banjo? I thought everyone could make a row on the banjo. Can't you play it enough to accompany your own singing?"

"I'm afraid I don't sing."

"Don't sing? Then what do you do?"

"I bar recitations"; this was Miss Reeves.

"I don't care what you bar," retorted Bertha. "I'm going to recite: at least, I'm going to do a sort of a sketch with George Willis."

"I don't call that reciting."

"It wouldn't make any difference if you did."

I was rapidly beginning to learn that these people had a candid way of addressing each other which, to a stranger, was a little alarming.

"The question is, Molly, what shall I put you down for? Will you give us a dance?"

"A dance? I don't know what you mean."

"A cake-walk, or a skirt-twirl, or a few steps-anything."

"Do you mean, will I dance, all by myself, in front of a lot of strangers?"

"Yes, why not? Everybody does if they can."

"I cannot, thank you."

"Then what can you do?"

"I have no parlour tricks."

"No-what?"

"I have no parlour tricks."

I ought to have been warned by the tone in which Bertha put her inquiry; but I did not notice it until it was too late. Directly I had repeated my assertion I realised that I had said something which it would perhaps have been better left unsaid. They all exchanged glances in that exasperating way which some people have when they wish to telegraph to each other something which is not precisely flattering to you. Miss Reeves laughed outright; Bertha drummed with her fingers on her knee; Margaret observed me with her keen grey eyes; while Mrs Sanford spoke.

"Isn't that one of those things, Molly, which one would rather have expressed differently? Because, hereabouts, we rather pride ourselves on our capacity for what you call 'parlour tricks'; and were not even aware that they were 'parlour tricks' in the opprobrious sense which you seem to suggest. I have always myself tried to acquire a smattering of as many of what, I fancied, were the minor accomplishments, as I could; and I have always endeavoured, sometimes at the cost of a good deal of money, to induce my girls to acquire them too. I have never felt that a woman was any the worse for being able to do things for the amusement-if not for the edification-of her friends."

I had not been so snubbed since I had been long-frocked, and to think that it should have been by Philip's mother! I fancy that I blushed in a perfectly preposterous manner, and I know that I went hot and cold all over, and I tried to wriggle out of the mess into which I had got myself.

"I only wish I could do things, but I can't. I never have been among clever people, and I'm so dreadfully stupid. Hasn't Philip told you?"

"Philip has told us nothing, except-you know what. But Philip himself is a past-master of all sorts of parlour tricks. Don't you know so much of him as that?"

Of course I did. I resented the suggestion that I did not. I was commencing to get almost cross with Philip's mother. I was perfectly aware that there was nothing which Philip could not do, and do well, better than anyone else. But it had not occurred to me that therefore his relations, and even his acquaintances, were all-round experts also. And I was not by any means sure that I appreciated the fact now-if it was a fact. It was not pleasant to feel that in what were here plainly regarded as essentials, I should show to such hideous disadvantage. I should practically be out of everything, and no girl likes to be that, especially when her lover's about. Before long Philip would be comparing me to everybody else, and thinking nothing of me at all.

It is possible that my doleful visage-I am convinced that it had become doleful-moved Margaret to sympathy. Anyhow she all at once jumped up and, I have no doubt with the best will in the world by way of making things easier for me promptly proceeded to make them worse.

"Come along, Molly, let's have some tennis. Run upstairs and put your shoes on."

"My shoes? What shoes?"

"Why, your tennis shoes."

"My tennis shoes? I-I'm afraid I haven't brought any tennis shoes."

"Not brought any tennis shoes? But, of course, you do play tennis?"

The question was put in such a way as to infer that if I did not, then I must be a sorry specimen of humanity indeed. But, as it happened, I did play tennis, at least, after a fashion. We had what was called a tennis lawn at home, the condition of which may be deduced from the fact that I had never imagined that it would be inadvisable to play on it in hobnailed boots if anyone so desired.

"Of course I play; but-I haven't brought any particular shoes. Won't these do?"

I protruded one of those which I had on. Margaret could not have seemed more startled if I had shown her a bare foot.

"Those! why, they've got heels."

Miss Reeves went a good deal further.

"And such heels! My dear girl" – fancy her calling me her "dear girl," such impertinence! – "sane people don't wear those royal roads to deformity nowadays-they wear shoes like these."

She displayed a pair of huge, square-toed, shapeless, heelless, thick-soled monstrosities, into which nothing would ever have induced me to put my feet. I said so plainly.

"Then I'm glad that I am not sane. Sooner than wear things like that, I'd go about in my stockings. I don't believe that mine are royal, or any other, roads to deformity, they fit me beautifully; but, at anyrate, yours are deformities ready-made."

I did not intend to allow myself to be snubbed by Miss Reeves without a struggle. She was no relative of Philip's. But she might just as well have been; because, with one accord, they all proceeded to take her part.

"My dear Molly," said Margaret, speaking as if hers were the last words which could be said, "you are wrong. In shoes like yours you're a prisoner. You mayn't be conscious of it; and you won't be till you try others. Then you'll find out, and you'll be sorry that you didn't find out before. I want to be mistress of my feet; I don't want to be their servant. I wear shoes like Pat, and nothing would induce me to wear any other kind-I know better."

"And I," echoed her mother and sister.

There they were, all three displaying-with actual gusto! – shoes which were facsimiles of those worn by Miss Reeves. They were probably the productions of the same expert in ugliness.

"You won't be able to do anything really comfortably till you wear them too; then you'll tell yourself what a goose you were not to have gone in for them ages ago. But you'll find Philip'll soon win you into the ways of wisdom."

Philip would? I should like to see Philip even dare to try. If I could not wear-without argument-shoes to please myself, then-

I imagine that Margaret perceived, from the expression of my countenance, that she had gone a little too far; because she said, in quite a different tone of voice, -

"Never mind about shoes! play in those you have on, and I'll tell Jackson to give the lawn an extra roll in the morning."

If I had been wise I should have taken the reference to Jackson as a hint, and slipped out of playing. But my back was a wee bit up, and I was a little off my balance, so I played. Of course I made a frightful spectacle of myself. It did make me so wild.

Bertha and Margaret said they would play Miss Reeves and me, which I did not like, to begin with. Under the circumstances, I felt that one of them might have offered to take me as a partner. They might have seen that I was commencing to regard Miss Reeves as if she were covered with prickles. Besides which, considering what I imagined I had come there for, and the position which I was shortly to occupy in the family, it did seem to me that they ought not to have paired me with a stranger. But as they evidently preferred to play together, they plainly did not think it worth their while to study my tastes for a moment. So I was as sugary to Miss Reeves as I could be.

"I am afraid you have a very bad partner," I observed.

"I don't mind," she was kind enough to reply. "I expect you're one of those dark horses who're better than they choose to make out."

I tried to be, but I failed ignominiously. I do declare that I am not always so bad as I was then. But, as I have said, I was a little off my balance; and all I could do was make an idiot of myself. Bertha served first; my partner suggested I should take her service. I took it, or rather, I didn't take it. She sent the balls so fast that I could scarcely see them; and then there was such a twist on them, or whatever you call the thing, that I could not have hit them anyhow. I did not hit them, not one.

"What horrid balls," I murmured, when Bertha had made an end.

"You seem to find them so."

My partner spoke with such excessive dryness that I could have hit her with my racket. When it came to her turn to serve she asked me a question.

"Won't you stand up to the net and kill their returns?"

No, I would not stand up to the net and kill their returns. I did not know what she meant, but I knew that I would not do it. And I did not. She herself played as if she had been doing nothing else all her life but play lawn-tennis. She was all over the place at once. I was only in her way, and she treated me as if I was only in her way. I had to dodge when I saw her coming, or she would have sent me flying-more than once she nearly did. It was a painful fiasco, so far as I was concerned; I have a dim suspicion that we scored nothing. When the game was finished she looked me up and down.

"Bit off your game, aren't you?"

"I'm afraid I am," I muttered.

I was too cast down to do anything else but mutter. There was a look in her eyes which, unless I was mistaken, meant temper. And she was such a very stalwart person that I had a horrible feeling that, unless I was very careful, she might make nothing of shaking me.

"Perhaps you're stronger in singles; I should like to play you a single; will you?"

"Thank you, some-some other time."

"Shall we say to-morrow?"

We did not say to-morrow. I would not have said to-morrow for a good deal. Margaret came to my rescue.

"You play Bertha. Molly and I'll look on."

We looked on, while they performed prodigies. I had never before seen such playing. The idea of my associating myself with them was preposterous. As we watched, Margaret was not so loquacious as I should have desired. In her silence I seemed to read disapprobation of the exhibition of incompetence which I had given. Moreover, when she did speak, her remarks took the form of criticisms of the play, approving this stroke, condemning that, with a degree of severity which made me wince. It was impossible to sit beside her for many seconds without realising that she regarded lawn-tennis with a seriousness of which-in that connection-I had never dreamed. Obviously, with her, it was one of the serious things of life.

Suddenly she hit upon a theme which was not much more palatable to me than lawn-tennis had been, in such company.

"Let's play ping-pong, you and me?"

"Ping-pong?" My heart sank afresh. It seemed in that house, that games were in the air. "Wouldn't you rather sit here and watch them playing tennis. I like to watch them."