Unkown - "Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and other Stories"

John Greenleaf Whittier - "Reform and Politics, Part 2, From Vol. VII,"

Edgar Allan Poe - "The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume 5 of the Raven Edition"

John Greenleaf Whittier - "Personal Sketches and Tributes, Part 2, From Volume VI.,"

The Odd Women

G >> George Gissing >> The Odd Women




Rhoda nodded thrice.

'My cousin is a fine specimen of a man, after all, in body and mind.
But what a poor, ineffectual creature compared with _you_, Rhoda! I
don't flatter you, dear. I tell you bluntly of your faults and
extravagances. But I am proud of your magnificent independence,
proud of your pride, dear, and of your stainless heart. Thank Heaven
we are women!'

It was rare indeed for Miss Barfoot to be moved to rhapsody. Again
Rhoda nodded, and then they laughed together, with joyous confidence
in themselves and in their cause.





CHAPTER IX

THE SIMPLE FAITH




Seated in the reading-room of a club to which he had newly procured
admission, Everard Barfoot was glancing over the advertisement
columns of a literary paper. His eye fell on an announcement that
had a personal interest to him, and at once he went to the
writing-table to pen a letter.

'DEAR MICKLETHWAITE,--I am back in England, and ought before this
to have written to you. I see you have just published a book with an
alarming title, "A Treatise on Trilinear Co-ordinates." My hearty
congratulations on the completion of such a labour; were you not the
most disinterested of mortals, I would add a hope that it may
somehow benefit you financially. I presume there _are_ people who
purchase such works. But of course the main point with you is to
have delivered your soul on Trilinear Co-ordinates. Shall I run down
to Sheffield to see you, or is there any chance of the holidays
bringing you this way? I have found a cheap flat, poorly furnished,
in Bayswater; the man who let it to me happens to be an engineer,
and is absent on Italian railway work for a year or so. My stay in
London won't, I think, be for longer than six months, but we must
see each other and talk over old times,' etc.

This he addressed to a school at Sheffield. The answer, directed to
the club, reached him in three days.

'My DEAR BARFOOT,--I also am in London; your letter has been
forwarded from the school, which I quitted last Easter.
Disinterested or not, I am happy to tell you that I have got a
vastly better appointment. Let me know when and where to meet you;
or if you like, come to these lodgings of mine. I don't enter upon
duties till end of October, and am at present revelling in
mathematical freedom. There's a great deal to tell.--Sincerely
yours,

THOMAS MICKLETHWAITE.'

Having no occupation for his morning, Barfoot went at once to the
obscure little street by Primrose Hill where his friend was lodging.
He reached the house about noon, and, as he had anticipated, found
the mathematician deep in study. Micklethwaite was a man of forty,
bent in the shoulders, sallow, but not otherwise of unhealthy
appearance; he had a merry countenance, a great deal of lank,
disorderly hair, and a beard that reached to the middle of his
waistcoat. Everard's acquaintance with him dated from ten years ago,
when Micklethwaite had acted as his private tutor in mathematics.

The room was a musty little back-parlour on the ground floor.

'Quiet, perfectly quiet,' declared its occupant, 'and that's all I
care for. Two other lodgers in the house; but they go to business
every morning at half-past eight, and are in bed by ten at night.
Besides, it's only temporary. I have great things in view--
portentous changes! I'll tell you all about it presently.'

He insisted, first of all, on hearing a full account of Barfoot's
history since they both met. They had corresponded about twice a
year, but Everard was not fond of letter-writing, and on each
occasion gave only the briefest account of himself. In listening,
Micklethwaite assumed extraordinary positions, the result,
presumably, of a need of physical exercise after hours spent over
his work. Now he stretched himself at full length on the edge of his
chair, his arms extended above him; now he drew up his legs, fixed
his feet on the chair, and locked his hands round his knees; thus
perched, he swayed his body backwards and forwards, till it seemed
likely that he would pitch head foremost on to the floor. Barfoot
knew these eccentricities of old, and paid no attention to them.

'And what is the appointment you have got?' he asked at length,
dismissing his own affairs with impatience.

It was that of mathematical lecturer at a London college.

'I shall have a hundred and fifty a year, and be able to take
private pupils. On two hundred, at least, I can count, and there are
possibilities I won't venture to speak of, because it doesn't do to
be too hopeful. Two hundred a year is a great advance for me.'

'Quite enough, I suppose,' said Everard kindly.

'Not--not enough. I must make a little more somehow.'

'Hollo! Why this spirit of avarice all at once?'

The mathematician gave a shrill, cackling laugh, and rolled upon his
chair.

'I must have more than two hundred. I should be satisfied with
_three_ hundred, but I'll take as much more as I can get.'

'My revered tutor, this is shameless. I came to pay my respects to a
philosopher, and I find a sordid worldling. Look at me! I am a man
of the largest needs, spiritual and physical, yet I make my pittance
of four hundred and fifty suffice, and never grumble. Perhaps you
aim at an income equal to my own?'

'I do! What's four hundred and fifty? If you were a man of
enterprise you would double or treble it. I put a high value on
money. I wish to be _rich_!'

'You are either mad or are going to get married.'

Micklethwaite cackled louder than ever.

'I am planning a new algebra for school use. If I'm not much
mistaken, I can turn out something that will supplant all the
present books. Think! If Micklethwaite's Algebra got accepted in all
the schools, what would that mean to Mick? Hundreds a year, my
boy--hundreds.'

'I never knew you so indecent.'

'I am renewing my youth. Nay, for the first time I am youthful. I
never had time for it before. At the age of sixteen I began to teach
in a school, and ever since I have pegged away at it, school and
private. Now luck has come to me, and I feel five-and-twenty. When I
was really five-and-twenty, I felt forty.'

'Well, what has that to do with money-making?'

'After Mick's Algebra would follow naturally Mick's Arithmetic,
Mick's Euclid, Mick's Trigonometry. Twenty years hence I should have
an income of thousands--thousands! I would then cease to teach
(resign my professorship--that is to say, for of course I should
be professor), and devote myself to a great work on Probability.
Many a man has begun the best of his life at sixty--the most
enjoyable part of it, I mean.'

Barfoot was perplexed. He knew his friend's turn for humorous
exaggeration, but had never once heard him scheme for material
advancement, and evidently this present talk meant something more
than a jest.

'Am I right or not? You are going to get married?'

Micklethwaite glanced at the door, then said in a tone of caution,--

'I don't care to talk about it here. Let us go somewhere and eat
together. I invite you to have dinner with me--or lunch, as I
suppose you would call it, in your aristocratic language.'

'No, you had better have lunch with me. Come to my club.'

'Confound your impudence! Am I not your father in mathematics?'

'Be so good as to put on a decent pair of trousers, and brush your
hair. Ah, here is your Trilinear production. I'll look over it
whilst you make yourself presentable.'

'There's a bad misprint in the Preface. Let me show you--'

'It's all the same to me, my dear fellow.'

But Micklethwaite was not content until he had indicated the error,
and had talked for five minutes about the absurdities that it
involved.

'How do you suppose I got the thing published?' he then asked. 'Old
Bennet, the Sheffield headmaster, is security for loss if the book
doesn't pay for itself in two years' time. Kind of him, wasn't it?
He pressed the offer upon me, and I think he's prouder of the book
than I am myself. But it's quite remarkable how kind people are when
one is fortunate. I fancy a great deal of nonsense is talked about
the world's enviousness. Now as soon as it got known that I was
coming to this post in London, people behaved to me with surprising
good nature all round. Old Bennet talked in quite an affectionate
strain. "Of course," he said, "I have long known that you ought to
be in a better place than this; your payment is altogether
inadequate; if it had depended upon _me_, I should long ago have
increased it. I truly rejoice that you have found a more fitting
sphere for your remarkable abilities." No; I maintain that the world
is always ready to congratulate you with sincerity, if you will only
give it a chance.'

'Very gracious of you to give it the chance. But, by-the-bye, how
did it come about?'

'Yes, I ought to tell you that. Why, about a year ago, I wrote an
answer to a communication signed by a Big Gun in one of the
scientific papers. It was a question in Probability--you wouldn't
understand it. My answer was printed, and the Big Gun wrote
privately to me--a very flattering letter. That correspondence led
to my appointment; the Big Gun exerted himself on my behalf. The
fact is, the world is bursting with good nature.'

'Obviously. And how long did it take you to write this little book?'

'Oh, only about seven years--the actual composition. I never had
much time to myself, you must remember.'

'You're a good soul, Thomas. Go and equip yourself for civilized
society.'

To the club they repaired on foot. Micklethwaite would talk of
anything but that which his companion most desired to hear.

'There are solemnities in life,' he answered to an impatient
question, 'things that can't be spoken of in the highway. When we
have eaten, let us go to your flat, and there I will tell you
everything.'

They lunched joyously. The mathematician drank a bottle of excellent
hock, and did corresponding justice to the dishes. His eyes gleamed
with happiness; again he enlarged upon the benevolence of mankind,
and the admirable ordering of the world. From the club they drove to
Bayswater, and made themselves comfortable in Barfoot's flat, which
was very plainly, but sufficiently, furnished. Micklethwaite, cigar
in mouth, threw his legs over the side of the easy-chair in which he
was sitting.

'Now,' he began gravely, 'I don't mind telling you that your
conjecture was right. I _am_ going to be married.'

'Well,' said the other, 'you have reached the age of discretion. I
must suppose that you know what you are about.'

'Yes, I think I do. The story is unexciting. I am not a romantic
person, nor is my future wife. Now, you must know that when I was
about twenty-three years old I fell in love. You never suspected me
of that, I dare say?'

'Why not?'

'Well, I did fall in love. The lady was a clergyman's daughter at
Hereford, where I had a place in a school; she taught the infants in
an elementary school connected with ours; her age was exactly the
same as my own. Now, the remarkable thing was that she took a liking
for me, and when I was scoundrel enough to tell her of my feeling,
she didn't reject me.'

'Scoundrel enough? Why scoundrel?'

'Why? But I hadn't a penny in the world. I lived at the school, and
received a salary of thirty pounds, half of which had to go towards
the support of my mother. What could possibly have been more
villainous? What earthly prospect was there of my being able to
marry?'

'Well, grant the monstrosity of it.'

'This lady--a very little lower than the angels--declared that
she was content to wait an indefinite time. She believed in me, and
hoped for my future. Her father--the mother was dead--sanctioned
our engagement. She had three sisters, one of them a governess,
another keeping house, and the third a blind girl. Excellent people,
all of them. I was at their house as often as possible, and they
made much of me. It was a pity, you know, for in those few leisure
hours I ought to have been working like a nigger.'

'Plainly you ought.'

'Fortunately, I left Hereford, and went to a school at Gloucester,
where I had thirty-five pounds. How we gloried over that extra five
pounds! But it's no use going on with the story in this way; it
would take me till to-morrow morning. Seven years went by; we were
thirty years old, and no prospect whatever of our engagement coming
to anything. I had worked pretty hard; I had taken my London degree;
but not a penny had I saved, and all I could spare was still needful
to my mother. It struck me all at once that I had no right to
continue the engagement. On my thirtieth birthday I wrote a letter
to Fanny--that is her name--and begged her to be free. Now,
would you have done the same, or not?'

'Really, I am not imaginative enough to put myself in such a
position. It would need a stupendous effort, at all events.'

'But was there anything gross in the proceeding?'

'The lady took it ill?'

'Not in the sense of being offended. But she said it had caused her
much suffering. She begged me to consider _myself_ free. She would
remain Faithful, and if, in time to come, I cared to write to her
again--After all these years, I can't speak of it without
huskiness. It seemed to me that I had behaved more like a scoundrel
than ever. I thought I had better kill myself, and even planned ways
of doing it--I did indeed. But after all we decided that our
engagement should continue.'

'Of course.'

'You think it natural? Well, the engagement has continued till this
day. A month ago I was forty, so that we have waited for seventeen
years.'

Micklethwaite paused on a note of awe.

'Two of Fanny's sisters are dead; they never married. The blind one
Fanny has long supported, and she will come to live with us. Long,
long ago we had both of us given up thought of marriage. I have
never spoken to any one of the engagement; it was something too
absurd, and also too sacred.'

The smile died from Everard's face, and he sat in thought.

'Now, when are _you_ going to marry?' cried Micklethwaite, with a
revival of his cheerfulness.

'Probably never.'

'Then I think you will neglect a grave duty. Yes. It is the duty of
every man, who has sufficient means, to maintain a wife. The life of
unmarried women is a wretched one; every man who is able ought to
save one of them from that fate.'

'I should like my cousin Mary and her female friends to hear you
talk in that way. They would overwhelm you with scorn.'

'Not sincere scorn, is my belief. Of course I have heard of that
kind of woman. Tell me something about them.'

Barfoot was led on to a broad expression of his views.

'I admire your old-fashioned sentiment, Micklethwaite. It sits well
on you, and you're a fine fellow. But I have much more sympathy with
the new idea that women should think Of marriage only as men do--I
mean, not to grow up in the thought that they must marry or be
blighted creatures. My own views are rather extreme, perhaps;
strictly, I don't believe in marriage at all. And I haven't anything
like the respect for women, as women, that you have. You belong to
the Ruskin school; and I--well, perhaps my experience has been
unusual, though I don't think so. You know, by-the-bye, that my
relatives consider me a blackguard?'

'That affair you told me about some years ago?'

'Chiefly that. I have a good mind to tell you the true story; I
didn't care to at the time. I accepted the charge of black-guardism;
it didn't matter much. My cousin will never forgive me, though she
has an air of friendliness once more. And I suspect she had told her
friend Miss Nunn all about me. Perhaps to put Miss Nunn on her
guard--Heaven knows!'

He laughed merrily.

'Miss Nunn, I dare say, needs no protection against you.'

'I had an odd thought whilst I was there.' Everard leaned his head
back, and half closed his eyes. 'Miss Nunn, I warrant, considers
herself proof against any kind of wooing. She is one of the grandly
severe women; a terror, I imagine, to any young girl at their place
who betrays weak thoughts of matrimony. Now, it's rather a
temptation to a man of my kind. There would be something piquant in
making vigorous love to Miss Nunn, just to prove her sincerity.'

Micklethwaite shook his head.

'Unworthy of you, Barfoot. Of course you couldn't really do such a
thing.'

'But such women really challenge one. If she were rich, I think I
could do it without scruple.'

'You seem to be taking it for granted,' said the mathematician,
smiling, 'that this lady would--would respond to your lovemaking.'

'I confess to you that women have spoilt me. And I am rather
resentful when any one cries out against me for lack of respect to
womanhood. I have been the victim of this groundless veneration for
females. Now you shall hear the story; and bear in mind that you are
the only person to whom I have ever told it. I never tried to defend
myself when I was vilified on all hands. Probably the attempt would
have been useless; and then it would certainly have increased the
odium in which I stood. I think I'll tell cousin Mary the truth some
day; it would be good for her.'

The listener looked uneasy, but curious.

'Well now, I was staying in the summer with some friends of ours at
a little place called Upchurch, on a branch line from Oxford. The
people were well-to-do--Goodall their name--and went in for
philanthropy. Mrs. Goodall always had a lot of Upchurch girls about
her, educated and not; her idea was to civilize one class by means
of the other, and to give a new spirit to both. My cousin Mary was
staying at the house whilst I was there. She had more reasonable
views than Mrs. Goodall, but took a great interest in what was going
on.

'Now one of the girls in process of spiritualization was called Amy
Drake. In the ordinary course of things I shouldn't have met her,
but she served in a shop where I went two or three times to get a
newspaper; we talked a little--with absolute propriety on my part,
I assure you--and she knew that I was a friend of the Goodalls.
The girl had no parents, and she was on the point of going to London
to live with a married sister.

'It happened that by the very train which took me back to London,
when my visit was over, this girl also travelled, and alone. I saw
her at Upchurch Station, but we didn't speak, and I got into a
smoking carriage. We had to change at Oxford, and there, as I walked
about the platform, Amy put herself in my way, so that I was obliged
to begin talking with her. This behaviour rather surprised me. I
wondered what Mrs. Goodall would think of it. But perhaps it was a
sign of innocent freedom in the intercourse of men and women. At all
events, Amy managed to get me into the same carriage with herself,
and on the way to London we were alone. You foresee the end of it.
At Paddington Station the girl and I went off together, and she
didn't get to her sister's till the evening.

'Of course I take it for granted that you believe my account of the
matter. Miss Drake was by no means the spiritual young person that
Mrs. Goodall thought her, or hoped to make her; plainly, she was a
reprobate of experience. This, you will say, doesn't alter the fact
that I also behaved like a reprobate. No; from the moralist's point
of view I was to blame. But I had no moral pretentions, and it was
too much to expect that I should rebuke the young woman and preach
her a sermon. You admit that, I dare say?'

The mathematician, frowning uncomfortably, gave a nod of assent.

'Amy was not only a reprobate, but a rascal. She betrayed me to the
people at Upchurch, and, I am quite sure, meant from the first to do
so. Imagine the outcry. I had committed a monstrous crime--had led
astray an innocent maiden, had outraged hospitality--and so on. In
Amy's case there were awkward results. Of course I must marry the
girl forthwith. But of course I was determined to do no such thing.
For the reasons I have explained, I let the storm break upon me. I
had been a fool, to be sure, and couldn't help myself. No one would
have believed my plea--no one would have allowed that the truth
was an excuse. I was abused on all hands. And when, shortly after,
my father made his will and died, doubtless he cut me off with my
small annuity on this very account. My cousin Mary got a good deal
of the money that would otherwise have been mine. The old man had
been on rather better terms with me just before that; in a will that
he destroyed I believe he had treated me handsomely.'

'Well, well,' said Micklethwaite, 'every one knows there are
detestable women to be found. But you oughtn't to let this affect
your view of women in general. What became of the girl?'

'I made her a small allowance for a year and a half. Then her child
died, and the allowance ceased. I know nothing more of her. Probably
she has inveigled some one into marriage.'

'Well, Barfoot,' said the other, rolling about in his chair, 'my
Opinion remains the same. You are in debt to some worthy woman to
the extent of half your income. Be quick and find her. It will be
better for you.'

'And do you suppose,' asked Everard, with a smile of indulgence,
'that I could marry on four hundred and fifty a year.

'Heavens! Why not?'

'Quite impossible. A wife _might_ be acceptable to me; but marriage
with poverty--I know myself and the world too well for that.'

'Poverty!' screamed the mathematician. 'Four hundred and fifty
pounds!'

'Grinding poverty--for married people.'

Micklethwaite burst into indignant eloquence, and Everard sat
listening with the restrained smile on his lips.





CHAPTER X

FIRST PRINCIPLES




Having allowed exactly a week to go by, Everard Barfoot made use of
his cousin's permission, and called upon her at nine in the evening.
Miss Barfoot's dinner-hour was seven o'clock; she and Rhoda, when
alone, rarely sat for more than half an hour at table, and in this
summer season they often went out together at sunset to enjoy a walk
along the river. This evening they had returned only a few minutes
before Everard's ring sounded at the door. Miss Barfoot (they were
just entering the library) looked at her friend and smiled.

'I shouldn't wonder if that is the young man. Very flattering if he
has come again so soon.'

The visitor was in mirthful humour, and met with a reception of
corresponding tone. He remarked at once that Miss Nunn had a much
pleasanter aspect than a week ago; her smile was ready and
agreeable; she sat in a sociable attitude and answered a jesting
triviality with indulgence.

'One of my reasons for coming to-day,' said Everard, 'was to tell
you a remarkable story. It connects'--he addressed his cousin--
'with our talk about the matrimonial disasters of those two friends
of mine. Do you remember the name of Micklethwaite--a man who used
to cram me with mathematics? I thought you would. He is on the point
of marrying, and his engagement has lasted just seventeen years.'

'The wisest of your friends, I should say.'

'An excellent fellow. He is forty, and the lady the same. An
astonishing case of constancy.'

'And how is it likely to turn out?'

'I can't predict, as the lady is unknown to me. But,' he added with
facetious gravity, 'I think it likely that they are tolerably well
acquainted with each other. Nothing but sheer poverty has kept them
apart. Pathetic, don't you think? I have a theory that when an
engagement has lasted ten years, with constancy on both sides, and
poverty still prevents marriage, the State ought to make provision
for a man in some way, according to his social standing. When one
thinks of it, a whole socialistic system lies in that suggestion.'

'If,' remarked Rhoda, 'it were first provided that no marriage
should take place until _after_ a ten years' engagement.'

'Yes,' Barfoot assented, in his smoothest and most graceful tone.
'That completes the system. Unless you like to add that no
engagement is permitted except between people who have passed a
certain examination; equivalent, let us say, to that which confers a
university degree.'

'Admirable. And no marriage, except where both, for the whole
decennium, have earned their living by work that the State
recognizes.'

'How would that effect Mr. Micklethwaite's betrothed?' asked Miss
Barfoot.

'I believe she has supported herself all along by teaching.'

'Of course!' exclaimed the other impatiently. 'And more likely than
not, with loathing of her occupation. The usual kind of drudgery,
was it?'

'After all, there must be some one to teach children to read and
write.'

'Yes; but people who are thoroughly well trained for the task, and
who take a pleasure in it. This lady may be an exception; but I
picture her as having spent a lifetime of uncongenial toil, longing
miserably for the day when poor Mr. Micklethwaite was able to offer
her a home. That's the ordinary teacher-woman, and we must abolish
her altogether.'

'How are you to do that?' inquired Everard suavely. 'The average man
labours that he may be able to marry, and the average woman
certainly has the same end in view. Are female teachers to be vowed
to celibacy?'

'Nothing of the kind. But girls are to be brought up to a calling in
life, just as men are. It's because they have no calling that, when
need comes, they all offer themselves as teachers. They undertake
one of the most difficult and arduous pursuits as if it were as
simple as washing up dishes. We can't earn money in any other way,
but we can teach children! A man only becomes a schoolmaster or
tutor when he has gone through laborious preparation--anything but
wise or adequate, of course, but still conscious preparation; and
only a very few men, comparatively, choose that line of work. Women
must have just as wide a choice.'

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