“I shall be delighted to accept it, dear Lewis, since you wish it as well as myself; I long to know more of that sweet Annie.”
“You will be disappointed if you expect to find Miss Grant unusually clever,” returned Lewis moodily. “She has good natural abilities, but nothing more, neither has she been accustomed to live amongst intellectual people; she is by no means your equal in point of talent.”
Rose looked surprised at this depreciatory speech; she considered Annie so fascinating that she did not imagine it in man’s nature to criticise her unfavourably, and that Lewis, of all people, should do so was very incomprehensible. She only replied, however, “Miss Grant is much more accomplished than I am, at all events; she sketches like an artist, plays with great taste and execution, and sings most sweetly. I do not think it by any means an advantage to a woman to be unusually clever: it tends to force her out of her proper sphere, and to urge her to a degree of publicity repugnant to all the better instincts of her nature.”
“I quite agree with you,” rejoined Lewis cordially. “A woman should have a quick, vigorous intellect, to enable her to perceive and appreciate the good, the true, and the beautiful, but nothing beyond. With a single exception, dear Rose, I consider literary women complete anomalies, things to wonder at and to pity; depend upon it, few women who devote their lives to literature are really happy.”
As Lewis ceased speaking Rose sat for some moments pondering the truth of the opinions which he, in common with many of the best and wisest of his sex, held on this subject. At length she said, “I agree, and yet I differ with you. Surely a fine mind is one of the noblest gifts God can bestow upon His creature, because,” she added reverently, “the higher the intellect the nearer it must approach to His own perfect wisdom; therefore talent ought to be a boon to woman as well as to man; but is it not in the application of that talent that the mischief lies? If the consciousness of mental superiority unfits a woman for the performance of her natural duties, instead of enabling her to fulfil them more thoroughly, the fault rests not in the gift, which is in itself a privilege, but in the misapplication of it by the person on whom it is bestowed. Retirement is a woman’s natural position, and anything which leads her to forsake it tends to unsex and deteriorate her. I do not say that it must necessarily do so; if, for instance, some pious motive, such as a desire to assist her family, actuates her, she often appears to be protected from the dangers which surround the path which she has chosen, but that these dangers are great and many it is vain to deny.”
“My opinion is,” rejoined Lewis, “that amongst either men or women those only should write books who, from some cause or other, are so thoroughly imbued with their subject that utterance becomes as it were a necessity; then, and then only, do they produce anything great and good. The strongest argument I know against women writing is that they never appear to exceed pleasing mediocrity. You have no female Shakespeare or Milton—even Byron and Scott are unapproached by the bravest of your literary Amazons. Certainly women should not write and having uttered this opinion much as if he would have liked to alter the ‘should’ into ‘shall,’ and to be made autocrat of England till he had purged the land from blue-stockings.” Lewis took his hat and departed, leaving that “talented authoress,” his sister, to chew the cud of his encouraging observations as best she might.
The practical result of this conversation was that Rose spent a week in Park Crescent, and thus the occurrences thereof fell out. Miss Livingstone first catechised, then patronised the young tutor’s sister. The General also tried a pompously condescending system, but Rose’s sweetness subdued the old soldier; and ere the week had passed he became devoted to her, and in his stately fashion loved her only a little less than his own daughter. And Annie—she first began by being afraid of her new acquaintance because she was an authoress; then she discovered that she was not so alarming-, after all; next it occurred to her that she was very sensible; afterwards that she was very affectionate, which went a great way with Annie; and finally, that she was quite perfect, and exactly the friend she had been all her life pining for. From the moment she discovered this, which was once upon a time when Rose, carried away by the heat of congenial conversation, began to talk about her brother, she delighted to lay bare her pure, girlish heart to her new-found friend. And what does the reader suppose it contained? Any very mysterious secret, any dire and soul-harrowing episode, as became the heart of a heroine? Alas, for poor, degenerate Annie! there were no such interesting contents in her warm little bosom, only much simplicity, sundry good resolutions containing the germs of future self-discipline, great natural amiability, a ready appreciation of all that was excellent in art or nature, and an open and unbounded admiration of, and respect for, the character of Lewis; so open indeed that Rose thankfully acknowledged to her secret soul that one alarming possibility which had lately occurred to and haunted her—viz., that Annie and Lewis were falling in love with each other—could have no foundation in fact. The only drawback to Rose’s pleasure in her visit was, strange to say, the behaviour of her brother. His manner when alone with her—and the delicate tact of Annie Grant afforded them many opportunities for a tête-à-tête—was wayward and fitful in the extreme. Sometimes, but very seldom, he appeared low and out of spirits; at others he was cold and sarcastic, or even perverse and unjust; and though these fits were invariably followed by expressions of the most affectionate regard towards Rose herself, yet the idea with which they impressed her was that his mind was ill at ease, and that for some reason which he studiously concealed, he was unhappy. The week passed away like a dream, and Annie, as she parted from her new friend, felt as if some being of a superior order, endowed with power to make and to keep her good, were leaving her again to fight single-handed with the trials and temptations of life.
Frere had been despatched by his scientific superiors to inspect certain organic remains which had come to light during the formation of a railroad cutting in the north of Ireland; which remains, assuming to be the vertebræ and shin bone of an utter impossibility (the comparative-anatomical sketch, which Frere designed on the ex pede Herculem principle, represented the lamented deceased as a species of winged hippopotamus, with a bird’s head, a crocodile’s tail, and something resembling an inverted umbrella round its camelopard-like neck, forming a whole more picturesque than probable), excited the deepest interest in the world of science, which lasted till, unluckily, one of the workmen, striking his pick-axe against a partially imbedded bone, found that the Rumpaddyostodon (for so had Frere’s chef already named it) was composed of Irish oak.
Ere Frere returned from this expedition Mrs. Arundel and Rose had quitted London, a fact which annoyed that gentleman more than he could reasonably account for. Having, however, recovered from his strange fit of shyness, he wrote Rose a long account of his adventures, winding up by originating a pressing invitation to himself to spend a fortnight with them during the vacation, which invitation he not only accepted most graciously, but with the utmost benevolence volunteered to prolong to three weeks, if he could possibly manage it.
Lewis, shortly after the departure of his mother and sister, received what Annie termed “marching orders”—viz., an intimation that on a certain day and hour he and his pupil were to hold themselves in readiness to start for Broadhurst, it being one of the General’s pet idiosyncrasies to manage his family movements saltatim, by jerks, as it were, which disagreeable habit he had acquired during his campaigning days, when the exigencies of military service necessitated such abrupt proceedings. The consequence of this particular exercise of discipline was that Lewis received the following note on the evening before their departure:—