The Daughters of Danaus Part 49

"I wonder," she said after a long silence, "why it is that when we _know_ for dead certain, we call it faith."

"Because, I suppose, our certainty is certainty only for ourselves. If you have found some such conviction to guide you in this wild world, you are very fortunate. We need all our courage and our strength----"

"And just a little more," Hadria added.

"Yes; sometimes just a little more, to save us from its worst pitfalls."

It struck both Hadria and her sister that the Professor was looking very ill and worn this evening.

"You are always giving help and sympathy to others, and you never get any yourself!" Hadria exclaimed.

But the Professor laughed, and a.s.serted that he was being spoilt at Craddock Dene. They had risen, and were strolling down the yew avenue. A little star had twinkled out.

"I am very glad to have Professor Fortescue's opinion of your composition, Hadria. I was talking to him about you, and he quite agrees with me."

"What? that I ought to----?"

"That you ought not to go on as you are going on at present."

"But that is so vague."

"I suppose you have long ago tried all the devices of self-discipline?"

said the Professor. "There are ways, of course, of arming oneself against minor difficulties, of living within a sort of citadel.

Naturally much force has to go in keeping up the defences, but it is better than having none to keep up."

Hadria gave a quiet smile. "There is not a method, mental or other, that I have not tried, and tried hard. If it had not been for the sternest self-discipline, my mind at this moment, would be so honeycombed with small pre-occupations (pleasant and otherwise), that it would be incapable of consecutive ideas of any kind. As it is, I feel a miserable number of holes here"--she touched her brow--"a loss of absorbing power, at times, and a mental slackness that is really alarming. What remains of me has been dragged ash.o.r.e as from a wreck, amidst a rush of wind and wave. But just now, thanks greatly to your sympathy and Algitha's, I seem restored to myself. I can never describe the rapture of that sensation to one who has never felt himself sinking down and down into darkness, to a dim h.e.l.l, where the doom is a slow decay instead of the fiery pains of burning."

"This is all wrong, wrong!" cried the Professor anxiously.

"Ah! but I feel now, such certainty, such courage. It seems as if Fate were giving me one more chance. I have often run very close to making a definite decision--to dare everything rather than await this fool's disaster. But then comes that everlasting feminine humility, sneaking up with its simper: 'Is not this presumptuous, selfish, mistaken, wrong?

What business have _you_, one out of so many, to break roughly through the delicate web that has been spun for your kindly detention?' Of course my retort is: 'What business have they to spin the web?' But one can never get up a real sense of injured innocence. It is always the spiders who seem injured and innocent. However, this time I am going to try, though the heavens fall!"

A figure appeared, in the dusk, at the further end of the avenue. It proved to be Miss Du Prel, who had come to find Hadria. Henriette had arrived unexpectedly by the late afternoon train, and Valeria had volunteered to announce her arrival to her sister-in-law.

"Ah!" exclaimed Hadria, "heaven helps him who helps himself! This will fit in neatly with my plans."

CHAPTER x.x.x.

Valeria Du Prel, finding that Miss Temperley proposed a visit of some length, returned to town by the early morning train.

"Valeria, do you know anyone in Paris to whom you could give me a letter of introduction?" Hadria asked, at the last moment, when there was just time to write the letter, and no more.

"Are you going to Paris?" Valeria asked, startled.

"Please write the letter and I will tell you some day what I want it for."

"Nothing very mad, I hope?"

"No, only a little--judiciously mad."

"Well, there is Madame Bertaux, in the Avenue Kleber, but her you know already. Let me see. Oh yes, Madame Vauchelet, a charming woman; very kind and very fond of young people. She is about sixty; a widow; her husband was in the diplomatic service."

Valeria made these hurried comments while writing the letter.

"She is musical too, and will introduce you, perhaps, to the great Joubert, and others of that set. You will like her, I am sure. She is one of the truly good people of this world. If you really are going to Paris, I shall feel happier if I know that Madame Vauchelet is your friend."

Sophia's successor announced that the pony-cart was at the door.

Miss Du Prel looked rather anxiously at Hadria and her sister-in-law, as they stood on the steps to bid her good-bye. There was a look of elation mixed with devilry, in Hadria's face. The two figures turned and entered the house together, as the pony-cart pa.s.sed through the gate.

Hadria always gave Miss Temperley much opportunity for the employment of tact, finding this tact more elucidating than otherwise to the designs that it was intended to conceal; it affected them in the manner of a magnifying-gla.s.s. About a couple of years ago, the death of her mother had thrown Henriette on her own resources, and set free a large amount of energy that craved a legitimate outlet. The family with whom she was now living in London, not being related to her, offered but limited opportunities.

Henriette's eye was fixed, with increasing fondness, upon the Red House.

_There_ lay the callow brood marked out by Nature and man, for her ministrations. With infinite adroitness, Miss Temperley questioned her sister-in-law, by inference and suggestion, about the affairs of the household. Hadria evaded the attempt, but rejoiced, for reasons of her own, that it was made. She began to find the occupation diverting, and characteristically did not hesitate to allow her critic to form most alarming conclusions as to the state of matters at the Red House. She was pensive, and mild, and a little surprised when Miss Temperley, with a suppressed gasp, urged that the question was deeply serious. It amused Hadria to reproduce, for Henriette's benefit, the theories regarding the treatment and training of children that she had found current among the mothers of the district.

Madame Bertaux happened to call during the afternoon, and that outspoken lady scoffed openly at these theories, declaring that women made idiots of themselves on behalf of their children, whom they preposterously ill-used with unflagging devotion.

"The moral training of young minds is such a problem," said Henriette, after the visitor had left, "it must cause you many an anxious thought."

Hadria arranged herself comfortably among cus.h.i.+ons, and let every muscle relax.

"The boys are so young yet," she said drowsily. "I have no doubt that will all come, later on."

"But, my dear Hadria, unless they are trained now----"

"Oh, there is plenty of time!"

"Do you mean to say----?"

"Only what other people say. Nothing in the least original, I a.s.sure you. I see the folly and the inconvenience of that now. I have consulted h.o.a.ry experience. I have sat reverently at the feet of old nurses. I have talked with mothers in the spirit of a disciple, and I have learnt, oh, so much!"

"Mothers are most anxious about the moral training of their little ones," said Henriette, in some bewilderment.

"Of course, but they don't worry about it so early. One can't expect accomplished morality from poor little dots of five and six. The charm of infancy would be gone."

Miss Temperley explained, remonstrated. Hadria was limp, docile, unemphatic. Perhaps Henriette was right, she didn't know. A sense of honour? (Hadria suppressed a smile.) Could one, after all, expect of six what one did not always get at six and twenty? Morals altogether seemed a good deal to ask of irresponsible youth. Henriette could not overrate the importance of early familiarity with the difference between right and wrong. Certainly it was important, but Hadria shrank from an extreme view. One must not rush into it without careful thought.

"But meanwhile the children are growing up!" cried Henriette, in despair.

Hadria had not found that experienced mothers laid much stress on that fact. Besides, there was considerable difficulty in the matter.

Henriette did not see it. The difference between right and wrong could easily be taught to a child.

Perhaps so, but it seemed to be thought expedient to defer the lesson till the distant future; at least, if one might judge from the literature especially designed for growing minds, wherein clever villainy was exalted, and deeds of ferocious cruelty and revenge occurred as a daily commonplace among heroes. The same policy was indicated by the practice of allowing children to become familiar with the sight of slaughter, and of violence of every kind towards animals, from earliest infancy. Hadria concluded from all this, that it was thought wise to postpone the moral training of the young till a more convenient season.