In its primitive essentials, however, the comic-opera life was not impossible to the man of few material demands: he slept in a comfortable bed, his bath was filled in the mornings, wholesome food, not too fantastic, was set before him. The austere and practical Phoebe saw to these important matters. It was in the embroidery of life that the irresponsible grotesque entered. It took many weeks to persuade Miss Lindon that it was not her duty, if he was out of an evening, to wait up until his return. It was for her to look after his well-being. Before going to bed he might want hot cocoa, or bread and milk, or a cheery chat. How could he, in loneliness, procure these comforts at three o'clock in the morning? It was no trouble at all to her to sit up, she pleaded. When Dandy was ill, she had sat up whole nights together. John prayed to Heaven to deliver him from illness. Another feature of the masculine existence that passed her understanding was the systematic untidiness of the library. Books, papers, pipes, pens, paper-clips, and what not seemed to have been poured out of a sack, and then kicked in detail to any chance part of the room. When she restored order out of chaos, and sat with a complacent smile amid her prim gimcrackeries, John would be dancing about in a foaming frenzy. Where were his long envelopes? Where had that dear magpie of a woman secreted them? Her ingenuity in finding hiding-places amounted to genius. Then in impatient wrath he would take out drawers and empty their contents on the floor until the missing objects came to light. Miss Lindon sighed when she tidied up after him, not at the work to do all over again, but at the baffling mystery of man.
For a long time Unity regarded the feckless lady with some suspicion, sniffed at her, so to speak, like a dog confronted with a strange order of being. For the first time in her young life she had met an elder in only nominal authority over her. Of Phoebe, stern and Calvinistic, with soul-searching eye, who by some social topsyturvydom was put into subjection under her, she lived in mortal terror; but for “Aunt Gladys” she had a wondering contempt.
“Unity,” said Miss Lindon one morning, in the early days, “when you've finished writing your copy for your guardian, you had better learn a chapter. Bring me your Bible, and I 'll find one. In my time all young ladies learned chapters,”—so do orphans still in convents, until orphans hate chapters with bitter hatred; but this the good lady did not know,—“and then you might, like a dear girl, run off the hems of the new sheets on the sewing-machine.”
“I dunno 'ow to work a sewing-machine.”
“Then tell Phoebe to give you a lesson at once. It's a most useful accomplishment. You have such a tremendous lot to learn, my dear. There's the piano and French, and embroidery and drawing, and nowadays I suppose young ladies must learn politics. Perhaps you had better begin. There 's a leading article on free trade—or the Young Turks, I forget which—in the 'Daily Telegraph.' I'm sure it must be very clever. You had better take away the paper and read it carefully,”—she handed the paper to the bewildered child,—“and when you 've read it, come and tell me all about it. It will save me the trouble of going through it, and so both of us will be benefited. And, Unity dear,” she added as the girl was leaving the drawing-room, “it's such a beautiful day, so in an hour's time be ready to come out with me. We 'll take the omnibus to the Marble Arch and walk in the park.”
Unity went into the dining-room, where in working-hours she was supposed to have her being, and stared at her avalanche of duties: her copy and the one or two easy lessons set by John; the chapter of the Bible; the instruction on the sewing-machine, involving the tackling of a busy and irritable Phoebe; the long column of print in the newspaper; and the preparation of herself for walking abroad—all to be accomplished within the space of one hour. For the first time in her life she encountered orders which had not the doomful backing of the world authorities.
The copy and the lessons for her guardian were, however, matters of high import. They filled her hour. At the end of it she put on her hat. A ride in an omnibus was still novelty enough to be a high adventure. On the way to the Marble Arch, Miss Lindon in her amiable way asked how she had spent her morning, and hoped that she had not been getting into mischief. Of Bible chapter, sewing-machine, or leader on free trade (or Young Turks) she appeared to have remembered nothing. The result of this flabbiness of command was lamentable. The next time Miss Lindon dismissed her to the execution of certain behests, Unity, after closing the door behind her, stuck out her tongue. It was ungenteel, it was ungrateful, it was un-anything-you-like, but the act gave her a thrill of joy, a new sensation. It was the first definite assertion of her individuality. The red tongue thus vulgarly flaunted was a banner of revolt against the world authorities.
It was a long time before she could accustom herself to taking her meals at the table with Miss Lindon and her guardian. Such table manners as had been inculcated at the orphanage had been lost in Smith Street, and the chief point of orphanage etiquette was not to throw food about, a useless injunction, for obvious reasons. Accordingly, despite her probationary period at the Channel House, Unity regarded the shining knives and forks and china and glass with malevolent dislike. The restrictions on so simple a matter as filling herself with nourishment were maddening in their complexity. Why could n't she bite into her hunk of bread instead of breaking off a mouthful? Why could n't she take up her fish in her fingers? Why could n't she spit out bones without the futile intermediary of the fork? Why could n't she wipe the gravy from her plate with soft crumb? Why could n't she use her knife for the consumption of apple tart? And how difficult the art of mastication with closed lips! She did not revolt. She humbly tried to follow the never-ending instructions; but their multiplicity confused her, making her shy and painfully nervous. Drink had a devilish habit of going the wrong way. It never went the wrong way with her two companions. Unity wondered why.
Then at the table sat her guardian, gloomy, preoccupied, Olympian in the eyes of the child; and Aunt Gladys, weaving corrections, polite instructions, reminiscences, and irrelevant information into an inextricable tangle of verbiage; while Phoebe hovered about, fixing her always, no matter what she was doing, with a relentless, glassy eye which no solecism escaped.
There were also a myriad other external matters which caused her great perplexity—the correct use of a handkerchief (one's sleeve was so much handier when one's nose watered), a tooth-brush, nail-scissors. The last she could not understand. Why, then, did God give people teeth to bite with? The question of speech presented extraordinary difficulties. It was months before her ear could even distinguish between O and aow, between a and i, between ou and ah; and the mysteries of the aspirate became a terror. She grew afraid to speak. Thus her progress in the graces of polite society was but slow.