But this did not exempt her from unhappiness on Cynthia's account. She had a clear vision of a via media that should not entail mathematics and classics, but should comprise more than the three R's. It made her miserable to see Cynthy's fearlessness on her pony; she would ride to hounds and break her neck; she would sprain her ankle when jumping and be crippled for life; and when she had learnt dancing who in the world was to chaperon her to balls? The Admiral was too headstrong; she would be a tomboy after all, and set every social rule at defiance and chaperon herself! The skipping-rope was all very well; she liked to see her spring up and down the length of the corridors on a wet day, and it was really pretty to watch the Admiral teach her bowls, but was a girl ever taught to fence? He would be teaching her the tactics of naval warfare next. Why was he crazy for her to be a fine-looking woman? she had never been so. Just so; and she was delicate. Well, perhaps he was right. But she sighed and was sure he was wrong.
It was when Cynthia was nine years old that Mrs. Marlowe found a strong-willed ally. Mrs. Tremenheere, the wife of the Dean of Wonston, had girls of her own and very clear ideas of the via media in which health and education go hand in hand. She had the audacity to tilt with the Admiral on the subject. They were equally self-opinionated, but he was not only obliged to defer to her as the lady, but she could produce her own daughters as proofs of her common sense. She also derided the possibility of health of body being compatible with mental ignorance in nineteenth-century England, and commiserated the masters who were to 'finish' unprepared ground. The Admiral, who had long secretly felt himself in a dilemma, listened and yielded. For her own sake Cynthy must not be a dunce. Mrs. Tremenheere undertook to find a governess, and she found Mrs. Hennifer.
After this every one had an uneasy time at Lafer Hall until Mrs. Hennifer arrived. The Admiral had yielded, but he was not at all sure that Mrs. Tremenheere knew what sort of a governess he wanted.
'She may have got us something Jesuitical, Juliana,' he said. 'I know Mrs. Tremenheere pretty well, she's a worldly woman and a schemer. She's done well for her girls so far, and she'll marry 'em well; and there's Anthony, you know, her only boy, and depend upon it she'll want a masterpiece for him; and she knows, every one does, that Cynthy's an heiress. Very nice to land Anthony at Lafer Hall, eh? Now what I say is, she may be sending us a creature of her own.'
'Oh Simon, and Cynthy only nine years old!'
'Well, well, I don't say she is, but she's a schemer, depend upon it she is, Juliana. She'd twist you round her little finger, and maybe she's twisted me too, God knows.'
But Mrs. Hennifer was not a 'creature,' and when the Admiral found that she had never seen Mrs. Tremenheere until she was introduced to her in Mrs. Marlowe's drawing-room, his qualms were set at rest. It was soon evident too that Cynthia's happiness was doubled. Forces in her that had been running to waste were now directed into wholesome grooves of work. Her spirit and enterprise devoted themselves to becoming as clever as Theo and Julia Tremenheere. She still romped with the Admiral, and then she rushed into the schoolroom, sat down, threw back her golden hair, planted her elbows on the table, and mastered her difficulties in grammar and arithmetic. As she could not help laughing when the Admiral would walk past the window, looking forlorn and signalling to her to be quick, she remonstrated and said if he still would do it she must change her seat. To change her seat, she added, would be a great trouble, for it did help her to look at the sky. Her fervent seriousness quite abashed him, and he resisted the inclination to laugh at her quaintness. He did not understand, but Mrs. Hennifer did and gave her a book called Look up, or Girls and Flowers. Mrs. Hennifer had a wonderful knack at choosing pretty books, and sometimes when they read them aloud together Cynthia found that they brought tears to those keen eyes.
'My darling Mrs. Henny,' she said once, 'don't cry. It's only a story, and a very very little bit of the story too.'
She did not know, and Mrs. Hennifer prayed she never would, that the 'very very little bit' is often that round which the whole of life centres, tinging its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, thenceforth. Nor would this be sad if it were realisable at the time. But it is afterwards, by added experience and unexpected sequence, that the incident becomes the event.
One day when Cynthia was no longer a child the Admiral happened to join his wife and Mrs. Hennifer on the terrace. Beyond the broad reach of gravel and the stone balustrades in whose vases geraniums glowed, the ground fell abruptly into the finely-wooded undulations of the park. A group of red deer lay in the shadow of a line of chestnuts which swept a slope, at whose base the lake gleamed. In the distance, over the dark shoulders of the woods, Wonston was visible. Its red tiles and yellow gables lay in a haze of smoke, above which rose the Minster towers. Admiral Marlowe was Lord of the Manor as far as they could see in every direction.