CHAPTER XVIII.
BOYS AND GIRLS.
There is yet a more critical time for the parents, I think, than even the schoolroom time, and that is, first of all, when the boys go off to school; and, secondly, when we have to realise that the small nursery toddlers are grown up, and really as capable of taking care of themselves as we are ourselves. Let me speak of the boys first, as, after all, that terrible wrench is the worst experience of all, and one, I hope most truly and sincerely, which will be saved for future mothers, and that before many years have passed; for I maintain, and always shall maintain most strenuously, that there never was a worse system of education than the general education that present-day lads must go through, or be entirely different to the rest of the male sex, though even that would be a good thing in my eyes, for I cannot allow that the male half of the world is so good or so perfect at present that it cannot be improved, neither can I allow that the result of education as at present given is in any way as perfect as it might be; and as an example of what I mean it would be well to consider, I think, why the return of the boys from school is as the letting loose of a horde of barbarians on a peaceful land; and why, after the first week at all events, the urchins cease to be regarded as returned angels, and one and all are spoken of as ‘those dreadful boys.’
As an example of what I mean, I may speak of one household where the girls are gently ruled and delicately brought up by their dead mother’s bridesmaid, who gave up her own one chance of wedded happiness because of her most romantic attachment to her girlhood friend, and who, when father and mother died within a few years of each other, leaving a young and turbulent household to ‘Aunt Mary and Providence,’ came to live among the children, loving them all, but instinctively looking upon the boys as just one remove from wild animals.
At least the preparations for their return from Rugby would suggest as much, for in the big country-house drawing-room the beautiful Indian carpet is rolled up and replaced by a time-worn drugget, the little brother’s best hat and coat are relegated from the hall to Aunt Mary’s own room, covers are put on everything that can be covered, and lace curtains are moved; and, in fact, when prepared for the holidays, the whole house appears as if ready to stand a heavy and protracted siege.
Even the garden and greenhouses are rigorously locked; wire shades and iron hurdles protect tender seedlings and grass edges; the head gardener wears a countenance of mingled dread and determination; and in the stables nothing is left get-at-able save the boys’ own ponies, a venerable ‘four-wheel,’ and sundry odds and ends of ancient harness, which no one could hurt because its condition is quite hopeless already.
And in a town house, when the holidays are within appreciable distance, over and over again have I not seen similar preparations, though on a smaller scale? Have I not noted how nurse puts away the children’s best toys; how the girls in the schoolroom, aided by their agitated governess, conceal all their beloved possessions, and train their pets to ‘lie low,’ as ‘Brer Fox’ would say? Does not Paterfamilias rehearse a long code of laws, all to be enforced, he says, the moment the boys come home? And is not Materfamilias, after all, the only creature in the whole establishment who has not one arrière pensèe, and who finds nothing in the least to spoil the rapture of the return of those who have never for one moment been out of her thoughts since the last time she saw them off, through her tears, on their return to Dr. Swishey’s academy for young gentlemen?
Ah, the boys little know what they cause that tender soul to suffer when an extra hour’s cricket excuses them for forgetting their weekly letter home; how the omission makes her turn pale when a sudden ring at the bell comes, lest it should be a telegram summoning her to the bedside of the dear things, who are most likely rioting in the playground at the very moment; and how she is only withheld by dread of ridicule and the largeness of the railway fare from rushing off at once to see for herself that all is well; and she has to content herself with writing a loving letter of expostulation, doubtless characterised as ‘a jaw,’ and thrown aside half read through.
And when they are at home under her own roof she naturally looks forward to peace, at all events, and safety from dreads and fears such as these; but, poor soul, she soon finds out her mistake.
Her days are spent in wondering where the boys have gone to, in painfully concealing the marks of their ravages in library and staircase and hall from the paternal eye, and in propitiating the outraged schoolroom and nursery establishments, who do not see, as she does, that the fact of its being holiday time accounts for all, and that all should be forgiven those who are only at home for so short a period in the year.
But even mother begins to tire of acting as a buffer between her sons and her husband and the other members of the family. And by the time cook has given warning—heedless that she is the only woman who can cook the dinner to suit the master—because Reggie will melt lead in her spoons or playfully drop gunpowder in the fire, or because some pounds of butter mysteriously disappeared and followers were hinted at—though the state of her saucepans and George’s trouser pockets pointed out that toffee, not the policeman, was at the bottom of the loss—Materfamilias finds herself wondering how Dr. Swishey manages to look so well at the end of the term, and begins to think that perhaps after all she will not be quite as sorry as usual when the cab comes round and the boys go off, leaving her free to go out to dinner without dreading to see flames issuing out of the drawing-room windows when the carriage turns the corner of the Square on her return home, or fearing a summons from the festive board to bid her go back at once because one or other of the boys has done something dreadful either to himself or some other member of the family.