This dreadful assertion made Joyce gasp with horror. Not take any trouble about education!—which was the only thing in all the world to take trouble about. But she did not trust herself to say anything, and indeed Mrs. Sitwell did not leave her time.
‘But they shall be comfortable and have things as nice as possible while they are babies,’ cried the parson’s wife; ‘and when I found out that I could do this, I was as pleased as Punch. One goes upon rules, you know—it is not all guess-work; and my opinion is, there is a great deal in it. Austin says that supposing these people had everything in their favour, no bad influences or anything of that kind, then what I find in their faces would be true. Let me see, now. Let me read yours. You have a great deal that is very nice in you, dear. You are of a most generous disposition. You would give anything in the world that you had to give. But you are apt to get frightened, and not to follow it out. And you are musical—I can see it in your eyes.’
‘Indeed, I don’t know anything at all about music.’
‘That has nothing to do with it,’ said Mrs. Sitwell. ‘You would have been if you had known. And you are very sensitive, dear. You put meanings upon what people say, and take offence, or the reverse, when none is meant. You are full of imagination; but you haven’t much courage. You love people very much, or you dislike them very much. You are devoted to them, or else you can’t endure them.’
‘I don’t think I ever do that,’ said Joyce sedately, taking it all with great gravity.
‘Oh, of course you have been modified by education, as Austin says. Nobody is just as nature made them; but that is what you would be if you had been left alone, you know. I’ll write it all out for you when I have a little time. Give me back Ethelinda and No. 310. I have a kind of idea these two simpletons are going to be married, and they want each to know a little more of the other—that is, you know, they want the prophet to agree with them; and say this is the sweetest girl that ever was—and that is the nicest man. And you may be sure that the better you speak of any one, the more you will agree with what they think of themselves. When you say they are musical and intellectual, and all that, they think how wonderful that you should understand them so well! though they may be the stupidest of people that ever were seen.’
‘But——’ Joyce said, with timidity.
‘I don’t want any buts. You would never let any one do anything if you were to carry a “but” with you everywhere. If you heard me say to Sir Sam the soap-boiler what excellent taste he had, and how beautiful his house was, you would think it was wrong perhaps, and put in that “but” of yours. But why? Gillow, who did it all, is supposed to have excellent taste, and poor dear Sir Sam thinks it perfection. And it pleases him to be told so. Why shouldn’t I please him? If I were of his way of thinking, I would admire it too; and don’t you see, when you sympathise with a man, and want to please him, you are of his way of thinking—for the moment,’ the little lady added. ‘Now just wait a minute till I finish off my people,’ she said.
Joyce sat in a bewilderment which had become almost perennial in her mind, and watched the woman of business before her. Mrs. Sitwell took up photograph after photograph, examining each with every appearance of the most conscientious care. She would put down the little portrait, and write a few sentences, looking at it from time to time as a painter might look at his model,—then pausing, biting her lips as if some contradictory feature puzzled her, would take it up again and follow its lines, sometimes with the end of her pen, sometimes with the point of her finger, knitting her brows in the deepest deliberation. ‘I wish people wouldn’t be so much alike,’ she said. ‘I wish they wouldn’t all show the same traits of character. I can’t make all the ladies affectionate and musical, and all the men determined and plucky, can I?—but that’s what they expect, you know. Now here’s one,’ she cried, selecting a photograph, ‘upon whom I shall wreak my rage. She shall be everything she wouldn’t like to be; that will make the others laugh who have got off so much better. I’ll put it as nicely as I can, but she won’t like it. Listen!—“The brows denote much temper, verging upon the sullen, against which I warn Arabella to be on her guard. There is a tendency to envy in the lines of the nose; the thinness of the lips shows an inclination to the use of language which might develop into scolding in later life. The eyes show insensibility to love, which might make her very cruel to her admirers if she has any. Arabella ought to take great care to obtain a proper command of herself, so as to keep these dangerous qualities under. There is a strength in all the lines, which probably will assure her success if she tries; but she will have much to struggle against. There is something in the form of her chin which I suspect to mean love of money, if not avarice; and there seem some traces of greed about the mouth, but of these last I am not quite sure.” There! what do you think of that as a foil? It will make the others more delighted than ever with their own good qualities.’
‘And do you see all that in the face?’