Phyllis Bottome

“ She despised Peter, and the worst of it was that Elsie, whom she loved, cared more for this Peter that Onoria despised than she did for Onoria's opinion of him. That was the sting of stings.
Miss Strickland looked facts in the face. If she gave in, Elsie and Peter would come back to her. There would be no bitterness and no reproaches. But there would be one difference, one fatal difference to Onoria's pride: both would know that they had got the better of her. If they wanted something else that Onoria disapproved of their having, they would combine to get it. ”

“ Elsie knew exactly what the sonata sounded like to Miss Strickland; she had the vision of the disciple into the mind of the master. She knew she was inflicting torture upon her ideal human being, but still she inflicted it, having grasped that obedience is better than sacrifice, even the sacrifice of the feelings of the one you are bound to obey. Blandina before the maddened cow in the Colosseum could not have shown a more desperate courage.
At the end Miss Strickland said:
"You cannot like music; it is impossible. What on earth persuaded you to suggest that I should teach you?" ”

“ You cannot get out of dead people's rooms briskly without appearing heartless; besides, he had not the courage.
Peter was not as surprised at Aunt Anne's attitude as Elsie would have been, but he was more frightened. He saw in Aunt Anne's eye that matrimony had fallen upon him like a bolt from the blue.
One cannot put bolts back into the blue when they have fallen, and one could not dislodge the idea of matrimony from Aunt Anne's mind when once it had taken root there. If young people would go to oratorios together, they ought to be married. ”

“ There was a breathless silence before Elsie, with an astonishing spasm of courage, answered:
"I should n't have learned anything from her, please."
"'Could n't' is no doubt what you mean," said Miss Strickland with genial irony. "And 'could n't' will be no doubt the result of trying to learn from me. Not even the cleverest teacher can make a good job with a bad tool. You are a very inefficient little girl. You don't know how to sit on a music-stool or how to hold your hands. Your back is a disgrace, and your fingers are all thumbs. ”

“ Women are the most destructive force in existence, or, I should rather say, weakness. Force is creative and appertains to man. Women are destructive because they have no force; they destroy by the conscious exercise of their weakness."
Then Miss Strickland rang the bell. She felt more natural after this little fling at her old enemy, and she had succeeded in hiding from herself why she had given way to Elsie, who should most certainly have been returned to Miss Saunders.
Even a very dull person may achieve his aim if he has only one aim and devotes his entire attention to it. ”

“ If there was one thing Miss Strickland had always set her face against, it was school-girl devotions. If she had any reason for supposing that any particular girl was guilty of such a sentiment toward herself, she crushed it ruthlessly within the hour of its conception.
But there was something in Elsie's eyes which was different from anything she had seen in the eyes of other girls. It would not be an easy act for a strong swimmer to deprive a drowning man of his straw. ”

“ There are many other things in life."
What Elsie liked best in the world was sitting in Onoria's garden and being told what to think.
Onoria had fewer and fewer objects for her affection. Prendergast had changed from being an elderly and morose pug into being very old, and resentful of all claims upon his attention except in the shape of well-chopped-up food. He liked the results of tenderness without its expression. Peter Gubbins was just as faithful, but if one has been faddy and aggravating as a young man, he will infallibly become eccentric and exasperating when youth has left him. ”

“ They believed all the things Onoria said were not so, and they carried on conversations that were not solely for the sake of conversation. They seemed to wish to attract one another.
Elsie knew that the fault lay in the women, and she would have talked to the young men if they had looked at her, but they did not seem to see that she was there. Onoria explained Elsie's position to her kindly, but firmly.
"You are not a man's woman," she said to her, "and you had better make up your mind to it once and for all. ”

“ Andrews, "young people will be young people, won't they, Mother? And we all know Peter Gubbins about here. Peter Gubbins is as safe as the Bank of England. I don't call fifty old for a man."
"Appearances," said Miss Strickland coldly, "are never safe. I had not intended to mention it, but I see I had better put you in command of all the facts. Peter Gubbins has been in the habit of meeting Elsie at my house, in my absence, without my knowledge or consent." ”

“ It was the truth, and Miss Strickland, with her love of truth, should have recognized it; but she had already recognized a great deal more than it was at all comfortable to recognize. She really could n't go on recognizing things which were so far from sensible, whether they were true or not.
"Well, don't let us have any more nonsense," she said briskly. "Wipe your eyes, and brush, as far as you can, the dust off your frock. You really should not have lain down on boots and shoes; it was most unsuitable. You'd better come and see Miss Bretherton. ”

“ Mr. Gubbins murmured, with a long sigh of regret; "it's not as if your parents cooked for you. If Mrs. Binns has been crossed,—and whenever she sees Onoria she seems to get crossed,—she pours pepper into everything I eat. And, as I 've often told you, I have a very delicate throat."
"What are you two talking about over there in the shrubbery?" shouted Onoria from the window. ”

“ Miss Strickland was continually discovering the deceitfulness of human nature, but she never laid her finger upon its cause. She did not realize that the only way to keep on good terms with an aggressive personality is by the constant practice of evasion.
Miss Onoria Strickland was an exemplary citizen. She had earned her own living with talent and success from the age of twenty-one, and she had been a masterful, but helpful, daughter to her aged parents. ”

“ Oh, I see, worse than rubbish—the usual sonata by that poor Mozart. Mercifully, he is dead!
"Play it, and as I am not dead, pray do not make it any louder than is strictly necessary. Keep your feet off the pedals. Pupils who don't know how to play their notes have an idea that they can fall back on the loud pedal to drown their incompetence. That is not the proper use of pedals. They were never put into a piano to reinforce blunders."
Elsie dropped the sonata on the floor, and, in picking it up, overturned the music-stool.
Miss Strickland longed to slap her. ”

“ In a place like Little Ticklington, full of marriageable women, it was a very important asset. It played the part of a chaperon. No one could expect to marry a man whose heart was as steadily and obviously broken as Peter's.
It had never occurred to Peter to marry any one but Onoria. He had a pleasant income for a single man, reinforced by certain small checks for his articles. He would never have confessed it even to himself, but he knew he was a great deal better off as he was. There was nothing in Elsie Andrews to lead him to change this opinion. ”

“ It is the least successful of the vices, for by its nature it implies that you find yourself less attractive than somebody else, and you are aware that in the exercise of it you become still less attractive. Fortunately, righteous indignation often looks very like it.
Miss Onoria Strickland never dreamed that she suffered from jealousy. She considered it a slave vice confined to women and exceptionally feeble men. She was taken completely by surprise when Peter Gubbins and Elsie Andrews conspired behind her back to make a fool of her. ”

“ No one could have had a fuller life; she managed her parents, did the household accounts, worked in the garden, or took Prendergast for a walk. Prendergast was a pug-dog of a self-centered and exacting nature. He had been given to Mr. and Mrs. Strickland by an old friend of that name, and though Onoria had protested against the use of a surname for a pet dog as unsuitable and even ridiculous, her father and mother had querulously insisted that they wanted to call the pug "Prendergast" as a last tribute to their deceased friend ”

“ When Onoria became due, Peter hurried out of the window into the garden, and crossed by the wall into his own domain. On Onoria's arrival she found Elsie, punctual and passive, waiting for her usual rites upon the piano.
Ostriches would have known better than Peter and Elsie. When they plunge their heads into the sand to escape an enemy they do not sing Scotch dialect songs with voices like a damaged kettle. Peter's voice carried, and on one still day it reached Onoria, coming up the road. ”

“ Short of an unfavorable interposition on the part of Providence, they were safe; but those who rely upon Providence to remain inactive in their favor should not tempt it by displaying any activity of their own. Miss Bretherton, without consulting Onoria beforehand, arranged for her to take six pupils to "The Messiah," whether she liked it or not.
Forty girls, in white dresses with blue sashes, upon one side, and forty men, in a variety of semi-evening clothes, upon the other, had scarcely sung through the first chorus before Elsie and Peter became aware of Onoria's eyes. ”

“ She taught them music and singing with bitterness and with boredom for over twenty years, and she taught them exceedingly well. There is an excellent poem which asserts that "He who only rules by terror does a grievous wrong," and there is no doubt a good deal to be said for this theory. All Onoria's pupils would have agreed to it with rapture; still, one does not go down the path of least resistance often if one finds lions in the way. Even girls have the sense to make unusual efforts to avoid unusual inconveniences, and Miss Strickland's temper, when roused, was an unusual inconvenience. ”

“ He raced from the cathedral to the station as a man flees from a burning building, his one idea being not to be caught by Onoria. Even if he had envisaged Onoria's face at one end of the race and matrimony at the other, it is probable that he would have continued running in the direction of matrimony. The true coward can see only one danger at a time, and falls light-heartedly into any other which lies in the opposite direction. It says a great deal for Peter Gubbins's heart that even in that awful moment of panic he dragged Elsie after him. ”

“ Elsie pleaded. "I'm quite happy now; only I don't want to see any one else. You see, nobody else matters."
Miss Strickland hesitated. Head mistresses always matter. Still, she had pressed the point about Elsie's playing, and it has proved a mistake. Onoria made a point of learning from her mistakes when she saw them. Perhaps it was better to waive the point. The child looked dreadful. She could make excuses for her to Miss Bretherton, and excuses are tidier and more malleable than tear-stained little girls. ”

“ Peter wished with a burning longing that he could deposit Elsie in the cloak-room at Paddington Station, even if it involved his paying twopence a day for her forever.
After the tooth episode, it was wonderful how Elsie cheered up. She had found in Mr. Gubbins a prop and stay, and that was all she wanted. A flower grows without the support of a stick, but its carriage depends on being tied to it.
Elsie held her head up, and her mind, which was always practical, turned to Aunt Anne at Clapham. ”

“ One was that they should not go back to Little Ticklington on any account, and the other that the marriage should take place as quietly as possible without wedding guests. They might have relatives, but not friends. It was all terribly uncertain and disintegrating, but it was not as terrible as having to face Onoria.
Peter proposed to Elsie quite easily. He simply said:
"On the whole, I think the best way out for both of us is to be married. For a long time I have been feeling Little Ticklington too restricted for me mentally. One needs to be nearer the great pulse of life. ”

“ It was quite open to her to hit him and it would serve Peter right; but Miss Strickland was a just woman. She reminded herself that the soul that sinneth it shall die. She opened the door, and Samson flew past her and consumed loudly and without hesitation Prendergast's neglected dinner. Prendergast had not wanted his dinner, and he did not want it now, but still less did he wish to see a low cat indulging itself with his sacred rites. There had always been a state of armed neutrality between the two animals. Neither was strong enough wholly to destroy the other, so they wisely avoided combat ”

“ Elsie explained as she turned around slowly on her music-stool, "was the way I had meant to play it."
PART II AT first Onoria Strickland undertook Elsie Andrews as a conscientious educator undertakes bad material, but as the years passed and Elsie's affection stood solidly across Onoria's pathway as immovable as granite, she began to find in Elsie strange and exotic virtues.
"That girl," she would announce, "has the mind of the fourteenth century, mature and adventurous. She will do something one day. She is not like modern girls; she has character. ”