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 today,’ 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 affect 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.’
‘That’s plausible, cousin Mary. But remember that when a man chooses his calling he chooses it for life. A girl cannot but remember that if she marries her calling at once changes. The old business is thrown aside — henceforth profitless.’
‘No. Not henceforth profitless! There’s the very point I insist upon. So far is it from profitless, that it has made her a wholly different woman from what she would otherwise have been. Instead of a moping, mawkish creature, with — in most instances — a very unhealthy mind, she is a complete human being. She stands on an equality with the man. He can’t despise her as he now does.’
‘Very good,’ assented Everard, observing Miss Nunn’s satisfied smile. ‘I like that view very much. But what about the great number of girls who are claimed by domestic duties? Do you abandon them, with a helpless sigh, to be moping and mawkish and unhealthy?’
‘In the first place, there needn’t be a great number of unmarried women claimed by such duties. Most of those you are thinking of are not fulfilling a duty at all; they are only pottering about the house, because they have nothing better to do. And when the whole course of female education is altered; when girls are trained as a matter of course to some definite pursuit; then those who really are obliged to remain at home will do their duty there in quite a different spirit. Home work will be their serious business, instead of a disagreeable drudgery, or a way of getting through the time till marriage offers. I would have no girl, however wealthy her parent, grow up without a profession. There should be no such thing as a class of females vulgarized by the necessity of finding daily amusement.’
‘Nor of males either, of course,’ put in Everard, stroking his beard.
‘Nor of males either, cousin Everard.’
‘You thoroughly approve all this, Miss Nunn?’
‘Oh yes. But I go further. I would have girls taught that marriage is a thing to be avoided rather than hoped for. I would teach them that for the majority of women marriage means disgrace.’
‘Ah! Now do let me understand you. Why does it mean disgrace?’
‘Because the majority of men are without sense of honour. To be bound to them in wedlock is shame and misery.’
Everard’s eyelids drooped, and he did not speak for a moment.
‘And you seriously think, Miss Nunn, that by persuading as many woman as possible to abstain from marriage you will improve the character of men?’
‘I have no hope of sudden results, Mr. Barfoot. I should like to save as many as possible of the women now living from a life of dishonour; but the spirit of our work looks to the future. When all women, high and low alike, are trained to self-respect, then men will regard them in a different light, and marriage may be honourable to both.’
Again Everard was silent, and seemingly impressed.
‘We’ll go on with this discussion another time,’ said Miss Barfoot, with cheerful interruption. ‘Everard, do you know Somerset at all?’
‘Never was in that part of England.’
‘Miss Nunn is going to take her holiday at Cheddar and we have been looking over some photographs of that district taken by her brother.’
From the table she reached a scrapbook, and Everard turned it over with interest. The views were evidently made by an amateur, but in general had no serious faults. Cheddar cliffs were represented in several aspects.
‘I had no idea the scenery was so fine. Cheddar cheese has quite overshadowed the hills in my imagination. This might be a bit of Cumberland, or of the Highlands.’
‘It was my playground when I was a child,’ said Rhoda.
‘You were born at Cheddar?’
‘No; at Axbridge, a little place not far off. But I had an uncle at Cheddar, a farmer, and very often stayed with him. My brother is farming there now.’
‘Axbridge? Here is a view of the market-place. What a delightful old town!’
‘One of the sleepiest spots in England, I should say. The railway goes through it now, but hasn’t made the slightest difference. Nobody pulls down or builds; nobody opens a new shop; nobody thinks of extending his trade. A delicious place!’
‘But surely you find no pleasure in that kind of thing, Miss Nunn?’
‘Oh yes — at holiday time. I shall doze there for a fortnight, and forget all about the “so-called nineteenth century.”’
‘I can hardly believe it. There will be a disgraceful marriage at this beautiful old church, and the sight of it will exasperate you.’
Rhoda laughed gaily.
‘Oh, it will be a marriage of the golden age! Perhaps I shall remember the bride when she was a little girl; and I shall give her a kiss, and pat her on the rosy cheek, and wish her joy. And the bridegroom will be such a good-hearted simpleton, unable to pronounce f and s. I don’t mind that sort of marriage a bit!’
The listeners were both regarding her — Miss Barfoot with an affectionate smile, Everard with a puzzled, searching look, ending in amusement.
‘I must run down into that country some day,’ said the latter.
He did not stay much longer, but left only because he feared to burden the ladies with too much of his company.
Again a week passed, and the same evening found Barfoot approaching the house in Queen’s Road. To his great annoyance he learnt that Miss Barfoot was not at home; she had dined, but afterwards had gone out. He did not venture to ask for Miss Nunn, and was moving disappointedly away, when Rhoda herself, returning from a walk, came up to the door. She offered her hand gravely, but with friendliness.
‘Miss Barfoot, I am sorry to say, has gone to visit one of our girls who is ill. But I think she will very soon be back. Will you come in?’
‘Gladly. I had so counted on an hour’s talk.’
Rhoda led him to the drawing-room, excused herself for a few moments, and came back in her ordinary evening dress. Barfoot noticed that her hair was much more becomingly arranged than when he first saw her; so it had been on the last occasion, but for some reason its appearance attracted his eyes this evening. He scrutinized her, at discreet intervals, from head to foot. To Everard, nothing female was alien; woman, merely a............