The Daughters of Danaus Part 4

Algitha's eyes glittered, and her colour rose.

"I am not going to be hawked about the county till I am disposed of. It does not console me in the least, that _all_ the foxes are without tails," she went on, taking short cuts to her meaning, in her excitement. "I am going to London with Mrs. Trevelyan, to help her in her work."

"By _Jove_!" exclaimed Fred. Ernest whistled. Austin stared, with open mouth.

Having recovered from the first shock of surprise, the family plied their sister with questions. She said that she had long been thinking of accepting the post offered her by Mrs. Trevelyan last year, and now she was resolved. The work was really wise, useful work among the poor, which Algitha felt she could do well. At home, there was nothing that she did that the housekeeper could not do better. She felt herself fretting and growing irritable, for mere want of some active employment.

This was utterly absurd, in an overworked world. Hadria had her music and her study, at any rate, but Algitha had nothing that seemed worth doing; she did not care to paint indifferently on china; she was a mere enc.u.mbrance--a destroyer, as Hadria put it--while there was so much, so very much, that waited to be done. The younger sister made no comment.

"Next time I meet Harold Wilkins," said Fred, drawing a long breath, "I will tell him that if a girl does not marry, she can devote herself to the poor."

"Or that she can remain to be the family consolation, eh, Hadria? By Jove, what a row there will be!"

The notion of Hadria in the capacity of the family consolation, created a shout of laughter. It had always been her function to upset foregone conclusions, overturn orthodox views, and generally disturb the conformity of the family att.i.tude. Now the sedate and established qualities would be expected of her. Hadria must be the stay and hope of the house!

Fred continued to chuckle, at intervals, over the idea.

"It _does_ seem to indicate rather a broken-down family!" said Ernest.

"I wish one of you boys would undertake the position instead of laughing at _me_," exclaimed Hadria in mock resentment. "I wish _you_ would go to eternal tennis-parties, and pay calls, and bills, and write notes, and do little useless necessary things, more or less all day. I wish _you_ had before you the choice between that existence and the career of Mrs.

Gordon, with the sole chance of escape from either fate, in ruthlessly trampling upon the bleeding hearts of two beloved parents!"

"Thank you kindly," said Fred, "but we infinitely prefer to laugh at you."

"Man's eternal reply to woman, admirably paraphrased!" commented Hadria.

Everyone was anxious to know when Algitha intended to go to London.

n.o.body doubted for a moment that she would hold to her purpose; as Fred said, she was so "beastly obstinate."

Algitha had not fixed any time. It would depend on her mother. She wished to make things as little painful as possible. That it was her duty to spare her pain altogether by remaining at home, Algitha refused to admit. She and Hadria had thought out the question from all sides.

The work she was going to do was useful, but she did not justify herself on that ground. She claimed the right to her life and her liberty, apart from what she intended to do with either. She owed it to her own conscience alone to make good use of her liberty. "I don't want to pose as a philanthropist," she added, "though I honestly do desire to be of service. I want to spread my wings. And why should I not? n.o.body turns pale when Ernest wants to spread _his_. How do I know what life is like, or how best to use it, if I remain satisfied with my present ignorance?

How can I even appreciate what I possess, if I have nothing to compare it with? Of course, the truly nice and womanly thing to do, is to remain at home, waiting to be married. I have elected to be _un_womanly."

"I wonder how all this will turn out," said Ernest, "whether you won't regret it some day when it is too late."

"Don't people _always_ regret what they do--some day?" asked Hadria.

"Perhaps so, especially if they do it sooner than other people."

"When are you going to make the announcement at head quarters?" asked Fred.

There was a pause. The colour had left Algitha's cheeks. She answered at length with an effort--

"I shall speak to mother to-day."

CHAPTER IV.

Mrs. Fullerton had gone to the study, to consult with her husband on some matter of domestic importance. It was a long, low-pitched room, situated in the part of the house that stood at right angles to the central block, with long, narrow windows looking on to a rough orchard.

A few old portraits, very yellow and somewhat grotesque, hung on the walls; a wood fire burnt on the hob-grate, and beside it stood a vast arm chair, considerably worn, with depressions shewing where its owner had been leaning his head, day after day, when he smoked his pipe, or took his after-dinner nap. The bookshelves were stocked with scientific works, and some volumes on philosophy of a materialistic character. With the exception of Robert Burns, not one poet was represented.

The owner of the house sat before a big writing-table, which was covered with papers. His face was that of a hard thinker; the head was fine in form, the forehead broad and high; the features regular, almost severe.

The severity was softened by a genial expression. Mrs. Fullerton, though also obviously above the average of humanity, shewed signs of incomplete development. The shape of the head and brow promised many faculties that the expression of the face did not encourage one to expect. She was finely built; and carried herself with dignity. When her daughters accompanied her on a round of calls in the neighbourhood, they expressed a certain quality in her appearance, in rough and ready terms: "Other married women always look such fools beside mother!"

And they did.

Mrs. Fullerton wore her fine black hair brushed neatly over her forehead; her eyes were large, and keen in expression. The mouth shewed determination. It was easy to see that this lady had unbounded belief in her husband's wisdom, except in social matters, for which he cared nothing. On that point she had to keep her ambitions to herself. In questions of philosophy, she had imbibed his tenets unmodified, and though she went regularly every Sunday to the close little Scottish church at Ballochcoil, she had no more respect than her husband had, for the doctrines that were preached there.

"No doubt it is all superst.i.tion and nonsense," she used to say, "but in this country, one can't afford to fly in the face of prejudice. It would seriously tell against the girls."

"Well, have your own way," Mr. Fullerton would reply, "but I can't see the use of always bothering about what people will think. What more do the girls want than a good home and plenty of lawn-tennis? They'll get husbands fast enough, without your asphyxiating yourself every Sunday in their interests."

In her youth, Mrs. Fullerton had shewn signs of qualities which had since been submerged. Her husband had influenced her development profoundly, to the apparent stifling of every native tendency. A few volumes of poetry, and other works of imagination, bore testimony to the lost sides of her nature.

Mr. Fullerton thought imagination "all nonsense," and his wife had no doubt he was right, though there was something to be said for one or two of the poets. The buried impulses had broken out, like a half-smothered flame, in her children, especially in her younger daughter. Singularly enough, the mother regarded these qualities, partly inherited from herself, as erratic and annoying. The memory of her own youth taught her no sympathy.

It was a benumbed sort of life that she led, in her picturesque old home, whose charm she perceived but dimly with the remnants of her lost apt.i.tudes.

"Picturesque!" Mr. Fullerton used to cry with a snort; "why not say 'unhealthy' and be done with it?"

From these native elements of character, modified in so singular a fas.h.i.+on in the mother's life, the children of this pair had drawn certain of their peculiarities. The inborn strength and authenticity of the parents had trans.m.u.ted itself, in the younger generation, to a spirit of free enquiry, and an audacity of thought which boded ill for Mrs. Fullerton's ambitions. The talent in her daughters, from which she had hoped so much, seemed likely to prove a most dangerous obstacle to their success. Why was it that clever people were never sensible?

The gong sounded for luncheon. Austin put his head in at the door of the study, to ask if his father would shew him a drop of ditch-water through the microscope, in the afternoon.

"If you will provide the ditch-water, I will provide the microscope,"

promised Mr. Fullerton genially.

Luncheon, usually a merry meal at Dunaghee, pa.s.sed off silently. There was a sense of oppression in the air. Algitha and her sister made spasmodic remarks, and there were long pauses. The conversation was chiefly sustained by the parents and the ever-talkative Fred.

The latter had some anecdotes to tell of the ravages made by wasps.

"If Buchanan would only adopt my plan of destroying them," said Mr.

Fullerton, "we should soon get rid of the pest."

"It's some chemical, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Fullerton.

"Oh, no; that's no use at all! Wasps positively enjoy chemicals. What you do is this----." And then followed a long and minute explanation of his plan, which had the merit of extreme originality.

Mr. Fullerton had his own particular way of doing everything, a piece of presumption which was naturally resented, with proper spirit, by his neighbours. He found it an expensive luxury. In the management of the estate, he had outraged the feelings of every landlord and land-agent within a radius of many miles, but he gained the affection of his tenants, and this he seemed to value more than the approval of his fellow-proprietors. In theory, he stuck out for his privileges; in practice, he was the friend and brother of the poorest on the estate. In his mode of farming he was as eccentric as in his method of management.

He had taken Croachmore into his own hands, and this devoted farm had become the subject of a series of drastic scientific experiments, to the great grief and indignation of his bailiff.

Mrs. Fullerton believed implicitly in the value of these experiments, and so long as her husband tried science only on the farm she had no misgivings; but, alas, he had lately taken shares in some company, that was to revolutionize agriculture through an ingenious contrivance for collecting nitrogen from the atmosphere. Mr. Fullerton was confident that the new method was to be a gigantic success. But on this point, his wife uneasily shook her head. She had even tried to persuade Mr.

Fullerton to rid himself of his liability. It was so great, she argued, and why should one be made anxious? But her husband a.s.sured her that she didn't understand anything about it; women ought not to meddle in business matters; it was a stupendous discovery, sure to make the fortunes of the original shareholders.

"When once the prejudice against a new thing has been got over," said the man of science, "you will see----the thing will go like wild-fire."

Many years afterwards, these words were remembered by Mrs. Fullerton, and she bitterly regretted that she had not urged the matter more strenuously.