Dear Faustina

Chapter I

' Tears !' The accent with which this monosyllable is uttered, though tempered with leniency, is undoubtedly one of reproach. The person to whom it is addressed recognizes it as such, and, though it has not at once a quite drying effect upon her, yet it is in a voice of indis tinct apology that she proffers her excuse. ' I do not think I am much of a cryer ; you have never seen me cry before.' ' Why do I see you cry now ?' The reproacher and reproached are both feminine, the superiority in years lying with the former, in comeliness with the latter. ' Is not it allowable, or at least excusable, at such a crisis in my life ?' But her tone is deferential, and her moist square of cambric — she has very nice pocket handkerchiefs — slides back into her pocket. ' I could not bear you to spoil your eyes by crying, even if there were cause ; and there is none.' The elder girl has sat down by her voung friend, and is speaking in that tone of pas sionate caressinoness which used to belong to Love, but which female friendship has lately stolen from his quiver. ' It is very dear of you to mind about my eyes ' — gratefully. 'As Mme. de Sevigne said to Mine, de Grignan 'J'ai mal a votre poitrine," so I can say, "J'ai mal a vos yeux." 'Thank you very much.' ' And you are dimming and reddeninothem ' — with a fond inspection — ' for abso lutely no reason.' ' Ah, there we must differ.' ' In my opinion, so far from having cause for tears, you have every reason for doing the other thing.' For laughing ?' Yes.' ' For laughing because my dear, kind old father is dead ?' ' The edge of that loss is blunted by six months.

You are not crying for him.' ' Because my home is broken up, then ?' Because I see my sister drifting away from me? Because my future is chaotic? No, dear Faustina ' — wiping furtively away one more water-drop — ' it is only your loving wish to comfort me that could make you support such a paradox.' ' I would perjure myself pretty freely with that object, I own ; but in this case there is no need — the break-up of your home is indispensable to your mental development. As long as your father's rdgime lasted you were like an oak in a flower-pot ; sooner or later the pot must have cracked.' Althea — for that is her name — shakes her head. ' He had the limitations, and perhaps a few of the prejudices, of his date ; but ' — her voice slightly quivering — ' I was very, very happy with him.' At the small break in her speech, indi cating the depth and sincerity of her regret for the departed Philistine, Faustina feelingly presses her hand, and deems it judicious to pass on to a branch of the subject on which she may feel herself on firmer ground. ' As to your sister drifting away from you, it was in the nature of things that she should.

"Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" as your fine old Book says.' It is needless to state that Miss Faustina is an Agnostic, but, considerable as are the strides made under her auspices by her pupil in the new path, she can never hear without a wince her Mentor's condescending patronage, ' as an interesting collection of archaic literary documents,' ofthe Holy Scriptures. ' We used to agree as well as most sisters in the old days,' she rejoins regretfully. ' Since my father's death — since Clare's en gagement — subjects of difference seem to have sprung up between us. There are some topics on which there is no use pre tending that we think alike.' ' Your humble servant, for instance ?' — with a smile. Althea's silence may perhaps be taken for an assent to this query, or perhaps may be due merely to the preoccupation with which her own memory is pursuing the history of the family dissensions. ' Though we were not alike in our natures, we were very much at one in many of our opinions, in our complete want of sympathy with all my mother's methods, in our indignation at the way in which she tried to ride roughshod over my father's wishes.' ' She did not succeed ' — rather dryly. ' No, because his nature was too strong a one ; but now that the check of his firm hand is removed, I dread to think what eccen tricities she may run into !' She breaks off as if the subject were too painful a one to bear further pursuing.

There is a silence. ' We agreed so perfectly in our dislike of the type of mother's friends — I mean Clare and I did. It seems incredible now, but how I dreaded your coming !' Faustina smiles. ' It did not require a conjurer to discover that. No, darling, do not look pained ; I intended no reproach ; and we have changed all that ' — with a hand-pressure. ' It seems so ungrateful, looking back, to think how I disliked you all through that first visit ; how I misjudged your views, and disbelieved in your aspirations, and hated your short hair parted on one side. Even now' — hesitatingly — 'I rather regret that your example induced mother to adopt the same style of hairdressing.' ' It may have been my example ; it cer tainly wras not my precept.' ' If it had not been for my father's death, and your extraordinary and most unex pected sympathy and kindness to me at the time and afterwards, I dare say we might never have been drawn together.

Oh, but you were kind!' — her eyes filling. ' There is no question of kindness w here one loves.' A short pause. ' If there were anything settled as to my future,' resumes the younger girl presently, ' whatever it might be, I hope I should be able to make up my mind to it ; but though it is six months since dear father's death, mother has as yet given no indication of what plans she has formed for us.' ' No indication ?' — lifting her eyebrows. ' Well, no doubt that is the wrong word to use ; of course, one can see in what direction her bent lies. But I do not quite under stand how that is to be combined with form ing a home for her children.' ' Perhaps that does not enter into her scheme.' ' Do you mean ' — her eyes opening wide, as if this idea, presented for the first time, had something scaring in it — ' that she means to turn us adrift ?' ' You are all pretty well full-fledged ; I see no great kindness in keeping well - grown young birds in a nest too small for them.' Then, as the novelty of the idea, too new as yet to take any of the pleasant colouring conveyed by her friend's tone, keeps Althea silent, she goes on : ' Clara has turned, or is turning, herself out.

Your brothers, with their embryo pro fessions, are hovering on the very edge. Fanny, though her wingfeathers may not be quite grown, will very soon be fit to fly.' ' Fanny is only seventeen.' ' Oh, there is no cause of fear for Fanny,' with vague indifference. 'And I — I am certainly quite full-fledged, but I should be glad to have some idea ' — with a slight return of unsteadiness in the voice — ' in what direction my first flight is to be made.' ' Can you have any doubt upon that head ?' That some affectionate reproach is meant to be conveyed by the question is plain from the speaker's manner, but Althea is too preoccupied to observe it. ' I think that mother must have made up her mind — must have some proposal to make to us, or some ultimatum to convey — by the gravity with which she asked us all to meet her in the library at four o'clock.' ' It is nearly that now, isn't it ?' ' I can't tell you with what vague and yet strongdread I look forward to her announce ment.

I have tried to face every possible contingency, and yet ' She breaks off. ' Tell me ' — with lenient indulgence, as to a sick child — ' a few of the bugbears you have conjured up. I am not at all afraid of not being able to lay them.' ' There is not time,' with a feverish glance clockwards ; ' and it would not be worth while, as we shall so soon know the worst.' ' Still, it might ease your heart a little.' ' Though you say that I have outgrown her — and perhaps in some ways I have, thanks to you ' — gratefully — ' yet I shall miss Clare dreadfully when we are virtually tete-a-tete — mother and I ; for the boys will be, of course, away, and Fanny is too young and unformed to count much. I fear that the radical discrepancies between all our tastes and feelings will come out terribly strong.

I do not think it can be quite our fault, but we have none of us ever been able to get near mother.' ' She ought never to have married,' replies Faustina gravely ; ' that was the root-mistake of her life, as it has been of so many millions of other women. Now that she has regained the use of her wings — my dear, do not look hurt ; I am only putting the state of the case before you from her point of view — it remains to be seen to what point of the compass she will fly.' ' And shall I have to fly with her ?' rejoins Althea, with a disconsolate intonation. 'Ah, there is the clock striking ! Do not let us be a minute late !'— seizing the hand of her friend and pulling her towards the door. As they hurry down the stairs, Faustina Bateson and Miss Althea Vane meet the other members of the latter's family, all with equal haste converging to the rendezvous.

Apparently all are as anxious as herself to learn their destiny. Of the two boys who, with the superior speed of longer legs, pass them on an upper landing, one goes by them without notice. The other, and younger, essays a trifling schoolboy pinch on his sister. Of the two girls, who also emerge from upper chambers, the taller and maturer half holds out her hand, as if encouragingly, to Althea, but, seeing her fingers already possessed by Faustina, drops it quickly. As they reach the door of the library Faustina pauses. ' Had not I better leave you here, darling ? This is a purely family matter ' — offering to loosen her clasp. 'No, oh no ; come with me ! I shall want you to give me courage.' They follow the others, already seating themselves on chairs set in a row as if for family prayers, though Mrs. Vane would have scorned the simile.

The library is a good-sized room — for London a large one — dark with the books that climb the walls to the ceiling, with the dusk of the eighteenth century wainscot and doors, and with the habitual sombreness of a back look-out. The books are for the most part old — obviously the accumulations of respectable generations — but the litter that covers the large writing table is as obviously new : reports, schedules, books of reference, type-written letters, Socialist journals. At this table is seated a lady, who, as soon as her ear tells her by the cessation of any rustling or footsteps that her audience are arrived, and awaiting her, rises, and, turning slowly round, faces them. Were it not for a slight condescension in the matter of petticoats, it would not be obvious to a stranger that it is not a slender man who is preparing to address the little group, so austerely masculine is the just-gray-touched thick short hair parted on one side, the coat, the tie, the waistcoat.

This widow might at a pinch, and behind a table which would conceal the degradation of the female skirt, well pass for a little widower. She stands for a second silent, not collecting herself, or seeking womanly words or modes of ex pression, since, when it does come, her speech flows with perfect round fluency, but calmly eyeing the row of young people before her. Her hands are lightly clasped in front of her ; nor does she need to eke out her easy oratory by any of the awkward and anguished gestures with which the ordinary Anglo- Saxon, when forced on to his unwilling legs, tries to ease the birth-pangs of his still-born fancy. Still quietly meeting her hearers' anxious eyes with her own cool, steely-gray ones, she begins : ' I have asked you to meet me here to-day because I thought it simpler to tell you all collectively what otherwise I should have to communicate to each separately.

This day is a day of crisis in all our lives.' She pauses a moment ; evidently from no difficulty in proceeding, but with a calculated intention of letting these few preparatory words have time to sink into the soil of her hearers' minds. ' You have known — dimly, perhaps, and vaguely, for I have never explained them categorically to you, knowing with what an absolute want of sympathy they would have been met — the aims and aspirations of my life, and how entirely they have hitherto been frustrated by ' — a slight and telling hiatus — ' circumstances.' Althea has put up her handkerchief to her mouth. A sob is rising in her throat at this, to all her children, very apparent allusion to their father. ' The time is now come when I am at liberty to obey the call which has for many years been ringing in my ears !' Another effective pause. ' To some of you, perhaps ' — her eye rests for an instant doubt fully on Althea — ' may have come a glimmer of comprehension of what my enforced disre garding of that call has cost me, but on this branch of the subject it is needless to dwell.

I have only briefly to indicate to you my scheme for the future.' A tiny rustle of ex pectation, a caught-in breath, tell with what eager attention the little audience is listening. 'It is probably unknown to you all ' — an irrepressible, though very slight and governed, intonation, as of contempt — ' that within the last few months a band of women thinkers and workers has collected together, and formed itself into a society, whose object and aim is " the redressing of the balance," the balance as between man and woman, as between rich and poor, as between the treader-down and the trodden.' She is not looking at her children now, but out into the unseen future of battle with a lightening eye. ' You may object ' — with a calling back of her attention to the row of forgotten faces before her — ' that in such a society there is nothing novel ; that a hundred such have, within the last few years of awakeninoout of sleep, sprung into being ; and I am quite ■7 willing to grant it.

That which differentiates this society from all others is, firstly, that it applies itself, not to any one branch of the subject, but to the whole colossal body of it, to the redressing of the balance as between every wronger and every wronged, in each stratum of society, in each nationality, and in every quarter of the globe ; and, secondly — which is perhaps a necessary corollary — that it demands, and will take nothing less, the whole being, the entire life, with no reservations — the soul, body, heart, and energies of each of its members. I — and it is with a deep sense of pride, and a trembling consciousness of the responsibility attached to so great an office, that I make the state ment — have been offered the presidency of this society.' She stops, not because her theme or her breath is exhausted, but as if to give time and opportunity for any challenge of, or objection to, her purpose that may be a offered.

None such comes. It is received in total silence — without even the faint ex pectant rustle that had accompanied her opening sentences. She proceeds : ' It must be apparent to the meanest capacity ' — each of the speaker's five sons and daughters has the impression that the superlative adjective is applied with a special sense of its fitness to him or her self — ' that the carrying out of such a scheme as I have sketched is incompatible with the cares and duties of family life. For those cares, those duties, I have never been endowed with any special aptitudes. Yet to those cares, those duties, has been already sacrificed what must prove far more than half of an existence, destined, as I think — though here you will probably, nay, certainly, not be in accord with me — to higher and broader uses.' Once again her lifted eye lightens, and for a second a well-checked yet visible emotion hinders her clear and ready utterance. ' During the past years many women might have ordered dinners and arranged social engagements better than I ; few — compara tively few — women have, as I believe, ever been so penetrated with the pity of humanity !' Her voice sinks a little, weighed down by no counterfeit feeling, but in the next sentence rises again alertly, as if borne up wards on glad wings. ' The course of time, the chain of cir cumstances, have enabled me at length to throw the reins on the neck of that pity !

No trammelling lesser duty any longer hinders me ; and since, as I have pointed out to you, the major part of my life has been, in respect to what is its main import, already wasted, you will readily comprehend that I have no time to lose. I am resolved ' — clasping her hands tightly together — 'to set sail at once upon that noble voyage which, but for the clogging, petty impediments of domestic life, I should have em barked upon twenty-five years ago.' Her lips close, and her eyes meet in calm and determined challenge those of her hearers. To that challenge not one of those hearers rises, though it is plain that each of them accepts it in a different way. The elder son throughout the interview has kept his eyes resolutely fixed on the carpet, as if by no other method could he enough convey his utter disapproval of, and protest against, the whole proceeding.

The younger is looking at his mother with a puzzled, schoolboy stare ; Clare is turning her engagement-ring round upon her finger, as if only by holding on tight to the happy fact that it symbolizes can she endure the painfulness of the present ordeal. Althea has snatched her hand from Faustina's strenuous clasp to hide the cruel quiver that is convulsing all her lower face, and Fanny is undisguisedly whimpering. Seeing that the pause which she has made in order to give her audience an opportunity for question or objection is not likely to be used for that purpose, Mrs. Vane presently resumes : ' During the years of our reciprocal rela tions I have done my duty by you according to my lights. If I have lavished fewer caresses upon you than other mothers, I have laboured harder than most to impart to you that habit of mind, that mode of re garding life, which are more valuable than any endearments.

That I have failed to inoculate you with my ideas is due partly to a fundamental difference in nature between us, but chiefly to the existence of a strongly antagonistic influence entirely outweighing and rendering nugatory mine. That influence no longer exists ' — a slight, decorous lower ing of her voice notifies, if any such notifi cation were needed, that the allusion is once again to her late husband — ' but its effect remains. I would fain have led all or any of you in the path I purpose to tread — the only path that seems to me to be really worth treading — but since this was not to be, our ways must part. The life which I have bound myself to lead is one that will not admit of a settled home. It will entail much moving from place to place, much public speaking ' — a slight writhe on the part of the down-faced elder son — ' an entire freedom from the ties of family life.

Those ties I have, as I believe, now a full right to resign. Three of you, Edward, Clare, and Althea, are of age, and therefore legally competent to the conduct of your own affairs. Fanny and Thomas are still minors, and, since your father died intestate, you are aware that their guardianship devolved on me. That guardianship I have determined to resign to their eldest brother. He, with the pro fessional aid of Mr. Wills, will be able to arrange their future in a manner much more consonant to the collective wishes of their family than I could do. I have only to add that I hope we shall part with reciprocal goodwill ' — there is, or Althea fancies it, a very faint human quiver in the metallic voice at the utterance of the wish — ' as those who respect each other's aims, even while unable to share them.

I earnestly hope that you will all prosper in your several roads. Clare has chosen the beaten track, the well-worn track of man's hewers of wood and drawers of water. Althea has not yet made that elec tion. Perhaps she never will ' — with a slender tinge of hope in the intonation. ' If she does not, if the progress of time, and the development of mind and heart that it brings, lead her to feel the pity of humanity more strongly within her than the desire for selfish, individual happiness, I need not say with what welcome we shall receive her into our ranks. I need not detain you any longer.' She bows her head slightly, and turns again to her loaded writing-table as they file out.

Chapter II

The young people troop up to the drawing room silently together. Faustina enters it with them, perhaps concluding legitimately that Althea's invitation to support her in the crucial interview extends to the discussion that is to follow it ; perhaps guided by a curiosity stronger than her manners. It looks at first as if that curiosity were likely to pass unsatisfied, since for some moments none of the repudiated family seem capable of expressing, or, at all events, inclined to express, their opinions upon the just past interview. It is the youngest who at last breaks the spell. Thomas, the Etonian, speaks : ' So she has chucked us all !' The elder son has been leaning his elbow on the mantel-piece, with his back to his kindred. ' Our mother has, at all events, the merit of dotting her i's and crossing her t's.' As he speaks he wheels round, and dis covers the fact, before unsuspected by him, of the presence of Miss Bateson.

The dis pleased surprise which that discovery en genders in his already gloomy young eye must be patent enough to its object. But she finds it convenient not to see it, and sits tight until a stronger, yet gentler, lever dislodges her. 'If,' says Clare, speaking for the first time, ' we have to discuss mother's actions, and I do not see how it is to be avoided, I think it ought to be quite among ourselves.' The voice is very gentle, but there can be no mistake as to the intended application of the words ; and a slight colour comes into Faustina's handsome olive cheek. ' The house is to be cleared of strangers,' she says, rising and moving to the door, with a half-laugh ; ' I am sorry that I am thought to come under that head.' A deeper stain than that which had only just tinged her friend's face dyes Althea's. ' You might have let her stay ; she is quite like one of us.' Clare does not retort, but emphatic dis claimers come from the masculine members of the family — 'Speak for yourself!' and ' I cannot say that I regard her in that light.' As for Fanny, her mood is still watery, and, like Clymene, the tenderest-spirited of Keats' Titans, she ' sobs among her tangled hair.' ' I was afraid that there was some un pleasant surprise in store for us ; but I did not expect quite such a clean sweep,' says Clare, moved, but not disordered like her junior. ' Fanny dear, do stop crying !

We must make the best of it.' ' It is all very well for you to talk,' replies Fanny, attempting no compliance with her sister's request, ' who have nothing to make the best of! — good husband, nice house, waiting for you. But what is to become of Althea and me ?' ' As to Althea, that is her own affair,' says the elder brother, with a noticeable dryness in his tone. ' But as far as you are con cerned, Fanny, you need not be afraid but that you will be looked after.' The latter clause is very kindly spoken, albeit a dash of new young authority tinges the vexation of his voice. Nearly all men feel kindly towards Fanny, who is a very pleasant little object to the eye, and who possesses the gift — more valuable to a woman than any wisdom of her own — of making every man she speaks to feel wise.

She now puts out her hand confidingly to Edward, and says : ' But I cannot go and live with you at Christ Church !' The schoolboy gives a chuckle, presum ably at the idea of his sister in cap and gown ; but the feeling of the little assembly is so distinctly anti-mirthful that he gets red and strangles it. In all their minds, with the exception, perhaps, of the boy, is oppressively present the memory of that day, six months ago, when Edward had been wired for from Oxford, and Thomas from Eton, and they had all — coming straight from their father's death-bed — assembled in this very room. The only difference seems to be that then the blinds had been drawn down, and that now they are drawn up ; but so dark is the London day that the change in this respect is not very perceptible.

The likeness forces a few low, moved words from Clare : ' Oh, how he would have hated it !' For the last hour Althea had at intervals been struggling with almost uncheckable sobs ; but the sight of Fanny's facile tears seems to have dried her deeper-fountained ones, and she gives in answer only a little melancholy nod of assent. ' If she would but have waited a little — waited till these two young ones were grown up,' says Edward, turning round again to resume his former position facing the fire, with his elbow on the mantel-piece, as if not wishing his family to suspect how much Clare's putting into words his own regrets has upset him. ' She would have lost six years,' says Althea, speaking for the first time. ' We must try to look at things from her point of view ; as she said, she has no time to lose.' ' It depends upon what one's definition of lost time is,' rejoins he coldly. 'Yours and mine would probably differ.' His tone — for they had once been allies — stings her into another painful flush. ' As you know, I have never had any sympathy with mother's views.

Until to day ' But he interrupts her impatiently, as if advocacy, however slight, of their parent's extravagances is more than, in the present state of his temper and feelings, he can bear. ' It is not of much use discussing her views or our opinions of them, which are sure to be pretty well at variance.' ' Whatever happens, do not let us squabble among ourselves !' cries Clare, laying one hand on Althea's shoulder, and holding out the other pacifyingly in the direction — since he is too far off to be reached by touch — of Edward. ' We may differ — I am afraid that there is no help for that — but there is no earthly reason why we should not all be friends. ' 'I am afraid that there is every reason,' returns the young man, with stubborn bitterness. ' Elements of dissension besides those with which Nature has endowed us have been imported into the family by one of us, but it is no use discussing that subject now ; it would be mere waste of time.