"No infidel trash."
"?" A slight bow, vaguely affirmative.
"Always plenty of what she doesn't like": Aunt Jael's ideal of education. "Make it a task, sir, make it a task. Plenty of scales, chromatics, or whatever 'tis."
"Very well, Mademoiselle."
Monsieur Petrowski obeyed reasonably well, but he forgot to break my will, and I suspect much of the music I learned of open infidelity. My talent and taste developed, and by eighteen years of age I played the piano better than (say) ninety-five embryo governesses out of a hundred. I loved Chopin best.
With French I made equal progress. Here again Aunt Jael appointed herself the intermediary of the Stranger's bounty. She selected to instruct me Miss le Mesurier. This lady was half French by parentage, had lived abroad the best part of her life, and had now come back to spend her declining old-maidhood in her native town, and keep house for her bachelor brother Doctor le Mesurier,—the same who had attended my mother when I was born. She became a regular member of our Meeting. Aunt Jael's instructions were explicit. "Make the work a task, a trial, a tribulation. Pander not to her pleasure loving tastes. No romances for her study, no trash, no infidel works." These restrictions, gladly acquiesced in by my teacher (who about this time followed my example and took up her Cross in public) cut out all fiction, plays and poetry; leaving us with the devotional writings of French Protestants, and history; the former of an epic dullness, the latter an imperishable fountain of excitement and romance. We read a Monsieur Michelet's History of the Revolution. My appetite for history grew as it was fed.
For my third accomplishment, my instructor was neither Pole nor French, but red-faced broad-breeched Mr. Samuel Prickett of Prickett's "Mews" (sic). In this quarter even Aunt Jael jibbed at bestowing admonitions, nor were they needed. It was a trial and tribulation for me after her heart. No sooner did I approach the fragrant riding-school and behold the feats I should have to emulate than I found myself in a shocking condition of fear, while for the first few minutes in the saddle I was verily purged with terror—in the good (and accurate) old Bible sense of the word. I would hunch my back, my limbs would grow rigid with funk, and when Mr. Samuel Prickett for the first time tickled Rose Queen into the gentlest of trots I clung with frenzy to the scanty mane of that poor mare. The first time she galloped I screamed aloud, rolled incontinently out of the saddle, and clung for dear life to her neck. Every Tuesday and Friday I approached the mews with set teeth and inward prayer for courage, with a supreme "Help me O God!" as I put my foot into the stirrup; after a year or two of prayer and perseverance I was a fair if never a fearless horsewoman. (Even at the beginning there was this set-off to fear: pride.) I knew that my riding-habit became me; if a few of the bolder spirits on the Lawn mocked and jeered, I inwardly mocked and jeered back because I knew that really they were impressed: their sneers were but a natural tribute to their jealousy of me and respect for themselves. More than the costume, the fact of riding gave me a delicious sense of importance. It may be argued that the connection between horsemanship and aristocracy is merely the result of distant historical origins, far-away reflection of a world where the knight alone went horseback and the common man trudged humbly through the centuries. All I am sure of is this: that in the country lanes I felt myself a very fine young lady, i. e. at such moments as I did not feel a shocking coward. In the middle of pleasant reviews as to the lordliness of riding a horse, I would be seized with a pained and concentrated interest in my reins, a perspiring anxiety not to lose the stirrups, a most unaristocratic readiness to snatch the mane. (Pride qualified by fear: man's natural state.)
The aim of all these proceedings was to obtain, by the Stranger's help, a governess' post in a good family. Meagre and melancholy ambition this would seem to worldly spirits nowadays. To me the prospect was fame, freedom, adventure, la Vie!
Lord Tawborough I rarely saw. Grandmother stood out against Aunt Jael in refusing to let me stay at Woolthy Hall. I wrote him a report of progress every three months, a soulless jellyfish document, heavily censored by both Grandmother and Great-Aunt. The former always said I was not grateful enough, the latter that I was not humble enough. The final product was an unpleasing mixture of grovelling gratitude, hateful humility, and perfect grammar. My Grandmother persisted in her old plan of keeping me meek and lowly by never speaking well of me to my face, nor allowing any word of praise to escape her lips, yet I know she was proud of such progress as I made alike in these special pursuits and at the Misses Primps'. I read often in her eyes how deeply she felt it that I had not chosen the Better Way, and I realized how unselfish was her interest in my progress.
I began to appreciate my Grandmother's unselfishness at its true worth. In it lay all her charm, her goodness, her difference from other people. It was through her that I first came to see that unselfishness is the one virtue, as it was Aunt Jael who helped to teach me that selfishness is the one vice. I would think out every evil act I could imagine and find that at bottom it was Self. I would think out every good deed and discover that its essence was always unselfishness. In one of those flashes in which I saw and felt things I had before only vaguely believed, I grasped the meaning of the Cross. I saw suddenly how utterly selfish I was myself, full of hopes for myself, weaving futures for myself; always self, self, self; and a voice inside me asked: "Now what hopes has Grandmother for herself?" and though I was alone I coloured at the sudden discovery of self-accused shame. "She has nothing; the one great hope left to her was you, and you have disappointed her." I began to understand the sorrow and loneliness of an old woman's lot, the vacancy, the lack of hope and lookings-forward. No doubt when Grandmother had been a little girl she too had said to herself: "Wait, Hannah, wait till you're grown up; then things will be happier. Wait for love, marriage; then you will be happy." Married love faded, husband died. "There are your children." But the children went away; Christian into a consumptive's grave, Martha unhappily wed, Rachel slowly tortured to death. Hope still ahead: "You will find comfort in your children's children." What comfort did they hold for her: Albert!—and Mary who had betrayed the last great hope. What had my Grandmother to live for? The daily round of Aunt Jael's nagging: old age with sorrow behind and only Heaven ahead.