“Bless you, no! It’s quite natural. You are that sort, my dear, and I should not have believed you if you had said anything else. You’ll marry, of course, and I’ll come and visit you in the holidays, and you’ll say to ‘Him,’ ‘What a terrible old maid Thomasina has grown!’ and I’ll say to myself, ‘Poor, dear old Dorothy, she is painfully domestic!’ and we will both pity each other, and congratulate ourselves on our own escape. We have different vocations, you and I, and it would be folly to try to go the same way.”
“You are happy creatures it you are allowed to go your own way,” said Bertha sadly. “I’m not, and that’s just the trouble. I’m not a star, like Tom, but I love work, and want to do some good with my education. I should be simply miserable settling down at home with no occupation but to pay calls, or do poker work and sewing; yet that’s what my parents expect me to do. They are rich, and can’t understand why I should want to work when there is no necessity. I may persuade them to send me abroad for a year or so for languages and music, but even then I should be only twenty, and I can’t settle down to vegetate at twenty. It’s unreasonable to send a girl to a school where she is kept on the alert, body and mind, every hour of the day, and then expect her to be content to browse for the rest of her life! Now, what ought one to do in my position? I want one thing; they want another. Whose duty is it to give way?”
She looked at Tom as she spoke, but Tom swung her feet to and fro, and went on munching plum-cake and staring into space with imperturbable unconsciousness. Bertha called her sharply to attention.
“Tom! answer, can’t you? I was speaking to you.”
“Rather not, my dear. Ask someone else; some wise old Solomon who has had experience.”
“No, thank you. I know beforehand what he would say. ‘Submission, my child, submission! Parents always know best. Young people are always obstinate and hot-headed. Be ruled! Be guided! In time to come you will see’—Yah!” cried Bertha, with a sudden outburst of irritation. “I’m sick of it! I’ve had it dinned into my ears all my life, and I want to hear someone appreciate the other side for a change. I’m young; I’ve got all my life to live. If I were a boy I should be allowed to choose. Surely! surely, I ought to have some say in my own affairs! Don’t shirk now, Tom, but speak out and say what you think. If you are going to be a Principal you ought to be able to give advice, and I really do need it!”
“Ye–es!” said Tom slowly. “But you needn’t have given me such a poser to start with. It’s a problem my dear, that has puzzled many a girl before you, and many a parent, too. The worst of it is that there is so much to be said on both sides. I could make out an excellent brief for each; and, while I think of it, it wouldn’t be half a bad subject to discuss some day at our Debating Society: ‘To what extent is a girl justified in deciding on her own career, in opposition to the wishes of her parents?’ Make a note of that someone, will you? It will come in usefully. I’m thankful to say my old dad and I see eye to eye about my future, but if he didn’t—it would be trying! I hate to see girls disloyal to their parents, and if the ‘revolt of the daughters’ were the only outcome of higher education I should say the sooner we got back to deportment and the use of the globes the better for all concerned. But it wasn’t all peace and concord even in the old days. Don’t tell me that half a dozen daughters sat at home making bead mats in the front parlour, and never had ructions with their parents or themselves! They quarrelled like cats, my dears, take my word for it, and were ever so much less happy and devoted than girls are now, going away to do their work, and coming home with all sorts of interesting little bits of news to add to the general store. It’s impossible to lay down the law on such a question, for every case is different from another, but I think a great deal depends on the work waiting at home. If a girl is an only daughter, or the only strong or unmarried one, there is no getting away from it that her place is with her parents. We don’t want to be like the girl in Punch, who said, ‘My father has gout, and my mother is crippled, and it is so dull at home that I am going to be a nurse in a hospital!’ That won’t do! If you have a duty staring you in the face you are a coward it you run away from it. An only daughter ought to stay at home; but when there are two or three, it’s different. It doesn’t take three girls to arrange flowers, and write notes, and pay calls, and sew for bazaars; and where there is a restless one among them, who longs to do something serious with her time, I—I think the parents should give way! As you say, we have to live our own lives, and, as boys are allowed to choose, I think we should have the same liberty. I don’t know how large your family is, Bertha, or—”
“Three sisters at home. One engaged, but the other two not likely to be, so far as I can see, and Mother quite well, and brisk, and active!”
“Well, don’t worry! Don’t force things, or get cross, and they’ll give in yet, you’ll see. Put your view of the case before them, and see if you cannot meet each other somehow. If they find that you are quiet and reasonable they will be far more inclined to take you seriously, and believe that you know your own mind. That’s all the advice I can give you, my dear, and I’m afraid it’s not what you wanted. Perhaps someone else can speak a word in season!”
“Well, I side with the parents, for if the rich are going to work, what is to become of the poor ones like me, who are obliged to earn their living?” cried Kathleen, eagerly. “Now, if Bertha and I competed for an appointment, she could afford to take less salary, and so, of course—”