John Strange Winter

“ And out of this conversation there arose in Regina Whittaker’s mind an idea that, after all, another decade had gone by, and she was still wasting her life.
“I asked myself a question at twenty,” her thoughts ran. “I asked it again at thirty, and now I have touched my fortieth birthday, here I am asking it yet once more. I have fulfilled the functions of wife and mother, and nothing else. Yet I am an extraordinary woman, far out of the common in intelligence, brain power, logic, and in all mental attributes. It only shows me that the time is not yet ripe for woman to become the equal of man. ”

“ We have had a great time, haven’t we, Julia?”
“A great time,” said Julia. “I like a little supper after a theatre, it always seems so dull, bundling out and scrambling off to one’s train. And how long have you been home, daddy?”
“Oh, ever so long; I got home before ten. And what theatre did you go to?”
Regina explained, and Alfred mixed her a little whisky-and-soda, and Julia said she would go to bed, for she was dead beat, and so on; and still Regina said nothing beyond throwing out a feeler in order that her husband might confide anything to her if he wished to do so. ”

“ We are quite able to fight our own battles at school—we don’t want Miss Drummond, or anybody else, to think that we come peaching to you telling you everything. We tell you because we are fond of you and you ask, and—and—we don’t like to lie to you.” She stammered a little, because on occasion no one could tell a prettier lie than Julia Whittaker. “In fact,” ended Julia, “our lives wouldn’t be worth living if it was known that we came peaching home.”
“It is your duty to tell me everything,” said Regina. ”

“ It happened one afternoon that the two girls were having tea and muffins in their own sitting-room. It was just before Easter, that week when the tide of suburban entertaining lulls a little, and the two were sitting by a blazing fire in big wicker chairs drawn close up to the fender, the low Moorish tea-table conveniently placed between them.
“Maudie,” said Julia, suddenly, “I think we shall have to pull up.”
“Pull up! why?” Maudie’s tone was blank, for she herself had a particular reason for not wanting to pull up in any shape or form just then.
“We’re getting too cheap,” said Julia. ”

“ She asked the question wistfully, as if the issue of life and death hung upon his reply.
“As a matter of fact,” said Alfred Whittaker, promptly, “I think you are the least altered of any woman I ever knew in my life. I see other women going to pieces in the most extraordinary manner. Now, Mrs. Chamberlain came into the office this morning. My goodness, what a wreck! Yellow as a guinea, her face lined all over—she made me think of a mummy.”
“Yet she is younger than I am,” said Regina. ”

“ It is most important,” Madame exclaimed, with quite a tragic air.
“It will come,” said Regina, waving her substantial hand with a vast gesture, as if good taste in dressing was likely to drop from the clouds, “it will come. I never worry about things that are not essential.”
“But it is essential for a young lady—a demoiselle—it is—it is for her life.”
Poor Madame de la Barre! She tried very hard indeed to explain that the many purchases made by the young ladies were not such as should have been made by young girls not yet entered into the great world. ”

“ So presently Regina found herself sitting in a hansom with Julia beside her.
“I say, mother,” said Julia, as the cab started from the doorway, “that was a little awkward, wasn’t it? And how silly of Maudie! I really thought she had more sense.”
“Not one word of this to your father,” said Mrs. Whittaker in the same tone of fierce repression. “You children are quite mistaken, I understand it perfectly. You will not speak to your father of our having seen him? He would not be able to explain the circumstances to you.”
“Oh, certainly, not if you don’t wish it, darling. ”

“ With masculine pride Alfred snipped the string, undid the wrappings and brought to view the cardboard box that Regina had expected. Within were more wrappings of tissue paper, and these undone disclosed a large tippet or stole and a big muff of the order usually called “granny,” made of the finest dark sables.
“Alfred!” cried Regina, all in a flutter.
“Ah, I thought you’d say that. No question of handing them over to the girls, eh?”
“I should think not indeed. Why, darling boy, you must have given a fortune for them.” ”

“ CHAPTER IX THE GIRLS’ DOMAIN We learn most through our mistakes.
You know what the British workman is. Believe me, that the particular specimen of the British workman who haunts Northampton Park has no fewer sins than his fellow who inhabits the heart of London. The days dragged on, dragged on, dragged on. Oh, that lovely sitting-room of Maudie and Julia Whittaker’s imagination, day by day it seemed as if it was receding further and further into the Never-Never-Land. ”

“ But I should be more satisfied if you went to a heart specialist. Who is Dr. Money-Berry? What’s his line?”
“He is a specialist,” said Regina, with an air, “on all matters connected with the internal organs above the belt, and those bound in the chains of fatty degeneration of the heart, he sets free. To those whose food does not digest properly, he seems able to give a new digestion. I have full faith in his integrity and his skill, and I beg, dear Alfred, that you will not worry yourself. I am quite a new woman, regenerated, rejuvenated.” ”

“ Julia went on, when they had somewhat recovered themselves, “in short, you and I have got to consider, first and foremost, what we can do to be original. We are not beauties, although mother, poor dear lady, persists that we have inherited an amount of beauty which is absolutely fatal. Dress us in an ordinary manner and we should look horrid. If we want to be any good in the world at all, we must do something a bit out of the common.”
“Follow in our mother’s footsteps?” said Maudie. ”

“ If you bring girls up, dear lady, to run quite wild, do you not think that you do away with their domesticity, that most precious quality of all women?”
“I am only too anxious to do away with their domesticity,” said Mrs. Whittaker, quietly but very firmly. “You see, Mrs. M’Quade, I am no ordinary woman myself. I have had the education of a man. I have a man’s brain. ”

“ The Marksby girls were quiet and singularly unassuming, and as Maudie Whittaker grew older she was attracted, perhaps because of Julia’s excessive energy, by quietness rather than the reverse, and was indeed herself a girl of singularly few words. But if the Marksby girls were quiet, then young Harry Marksby did not share their nature. He was himself the gayest of the gay, one who, a century ago, would have been called an “agreeable rattle;” indeed he was a young man who prided himself on stirring things up. ”

“ Julia went on.
“Whichever you like.”
“Your club is such a long way,” said Julia, with a [Pg 230] faint accent of disparagement in her tones; “to my mind that is the worst of professional clubs; they’re always so ultra-professional that one can’t find a corner for anything at all fashionable. Suppose you come and lunch with me, mother dear? If you are giving up your societies why don’t you join a good West-End club? You’d find it so useful, living out as far as we do.” ”

“ Now I come to look at you again,” said Julia, with her head on one side, “I think I do like you better like this. It is more important looking; it seems to make your head more of a size with the rest of you. I like you in black—you know, mother, you never wear black. Do you mind if I try it on?”
“Why of course not.” It was with pride that Regina stood by and saw her daughter poise the beautiful black toque upon her own abundant locks.
“Oh yes, it’s a ravishing hat,” Julia declared. “I think I must go and see your Madame Clementine. You won’t mind?—Ah, there is daddy coming.” ”

“ Whittaker,” he said. “I must be off home, because I’ve got to be up awfully early in the morning. I made half-a-dozen business appointments for to-morrow ever so early, before I knew that Maudie and I would quite come to an understanding to-night. May I come to-morrow evening?”
“You may come whenever you like,” said Regina. “You had better begin, Harry, as you mean to go on. I have no son of my own, and the young men who take my girls away from me must not think they are going to rob me of my daughters—on the contrary, they must make me forget that I never had sons.” ”

“ One should never try to dress one’s hair in a new fashion without shaking off as much as possible the old way.”
So Regina’s hair was washed and dried, and then came the great question of what style of hair-dressing she should adopt.
“I would like you not to look in the glass,” said Madame Florence, as the little lady had asked Regina to call her. “I should like you to see the finished picture of yourself without your seeing the process. So often what comes to one as a surprise is so much better than what comes gradually.” ”

“ Will anyone ever put you in charge of a high school? Will anyone give you a responsible post in any of the spheres where women can prove that they are the equals, and more than the equals, of men? It is very doubtful. You know much, but you have no influence. Ten years ago to-day, Regina Brown, you told yourself that your mode of existence was a waste of life. Well, you are wasting your life still. The best thing you can do, Regina Brown, is to get yourself married. ”

“ I have always tried so to bring up my girls as to make them thoroughly original in every possible way. They are not quite like other children. They are children as much out of the ordinary as their mother was before them; convention has no part, and shall have no part in their lives whatsoever. Indeed, I may say that conventions is one of the greatest bugbears of my existence.”
“But we must have conventions,” said the doctor’s wife.
“Must we?” said Mrs. Whittaker, with a superior smile. “Ah, I see that you and I, dear Mrs. M’Quade, must agree to differ. Let me give you some tea. ”

“ CHAPTER XXI DEAR DIEPPE
There is occasionally a time in our life which proves a veritable oasis in a desert of doubt and suspicion.
During the month which they spent in the fascinating little town on the northern coast, Regina lived a very dolce far niente kind of life. Her anxieties as to the hussy were, for a time, lulled to sleep. They stayed at a comfortable hotel on the front, had rooms overlooking that wonderful stretch of sea which is one of the great charms of Dieppe, and they did themselves remarkably well; that is to say, they went without nothing that would give them pleasure. ”

“ I hate clubs where they have lectures and debates and other beastly things that they never have in men’s clubs. Now there’s the Kaiserin, that would suit you very well: handsome clubhouse, excellent cooking arrangements, spacious entertaining-room which you can hire and have all to yourself, every necessity and comfort to make a club thoroughly comfy—in fact, a second home without any bother.”
“But how do you know?” said Regina in a curiously small voice.
[Pg 231]
“Oh, I know several women who belong to the Kaiserin,” Julia answered carelessly. “What are you going to do to-day, dearest? ”