“BUT you are a very foolish, thoughtless, provoking little puss; there can’t be any mistake about it,” said I.
“Nothing of the sort, godmamma,” said Sara, “such a quantity of time was always taken up with that hair of mine; it had to be brushed out at night, however sleepy I was, and it had to be done I don’t know how many times a day. Think of wasting hours of one’s time upon one’s hair!”
“But, my dear child, you have too much time on your hands. Do you ever do anything in the world, you velvet kitten,” said I.
“If it was anybody else but you, I should be angry, godmamma,” said Sara; “but, indeed, I have tried a quantity of things. As for working, you know I won’t work—I tell everybody{24} so plainly. What’s the good of it? I hate crochet and cushions and footstools. If I had some little children to keep all tidy, there would be some good in it; or if papa was poor I might mend his stockings—but I won’t work now, whatever anybody says.”
“I don’t see any reason why you should not keep some little children tidy, or mend papa’s stockings either, if you would like it,” said I.
“If I would like it!” cried Sara, in high wrath and indignation, “as if that was why I should do it! I don’t think there can be anything more dreadful in life than always having to do just what one likes. Now, look here, godmamma; suppose I was to mend papa’s stockings because I liked it,—oh, how Mary would giggle and laugh and rejoice over me! She has to do it, and doesn’t like it a bit, you may be sure. And suppose I were making frocks for poor children, like the Dorcas society, wouldn’t all the sensible people be on me to say how very much better it would be to have poor women make them and pay them for their work? I could only do what it’s other people’s business to do. I have got no business. The best thing wanted of me is just to sit idle from morning to night and read novels; and nobody understands me either, not even my dear old godmamma, which is hardest of all.”
“But, Sara, if you chose, you could do good; the best thing of all to do—you could——”
“Oh stop, stop, godmamma! I can’t do good. I don’t want to do good. I hate going about and talking to people; and besides, they are all, every one of them,” said Sara, with tears, half of vexation and half of sorrow, sparkling in her eyes, “a great deal better than me.”
I had not a single word to say against this; for indeed, though I said it, because of course it was the right thing to say, I can’t undertake, upon my honour, that I thought a spoiled child like Sara Cresswell was the kind of creature to be much comfort to poor men or poor women labouring hard in the sorrows of this life.
“I went once with Miss Fielding from the Rectory. There was one house,” said Sara, speaking low and getting red, “where they hadn’t so much to live on for the whole year through as papa had to pay for my dressmaker’s bill. He had just been worrying me about it that morning, so I remember. But they weren’t miserable! no more than you are, godmamma! not one half, nor a quarter, nor a hundredth part so miserable as I am! And the woman looked so cheerful and{25} right with the baby in her arms, and all the cleaning to do—I cried and ran off home when I got out of that house. I was ashamed, just dead ashamed, godmamma, and nothing else.—Doing good!—oh!—I think if I were the little girl, coming in to hold the baby, and help to clean, I might get some good myself. But then nobody will understand me whatever I say. I don’t want to invent things to ‘employ my time.’ Employing one’s time is about as bad as improving one’s mind. I want to have something real to do, something that has to be done and nobody but me to do it; and I don’t mind in the least whether I should like it or not.”
“Well, dear,” said I, “you’re not nineteen yet; plenty of time. I dare say you’ll have your hard work some day or other, and won’t like it any more than the rest of us. Have patience, it will all come in time.”
“Then, I suppose,” said Sara, with a little toss of her provoking little head, “I had better just go to sleep till that time comes.”
“Well, my love, papa would save a good deal, no doubt, if there were no dressmaker’s bills. You inconsistent little witch! Here you tell me how disgusted you are with being a rich man’s daughter and having nothing to do, yet you cut off your hair to save time, and go on quite composedly spending as much as would keep a poor family—and more than one poor family, I suspect—on your dressmaker’s bill. Little Sara, what do you mean?”
“The two things have no connection,” said Sara, tossing her head again; “I never pretended that I wanted to save papa’s money. What’s the good of it? I like pretty things to wear, and I don’t care the very least in the world how much money papa has in the bank, or wherever he keeps it. He told me once it was my own means I was wasting, for, of course, it would be all mine when he died,” she went on, her eyes twinkling with proud tears and wounded feeling; “as if that made any difference! But I’ll tell you what, godmamma. If he was to portion out all the money to ourselves and so many other people, just enough to live upon, you’d see how happy I should be in muslin frocks. I know I should! and keep everything so snug and nice at home.”
“Oh, you deluded little child!” said I; “don’t you know there’s ever so much nasty work to do, before everything can be nice as we always have it? Should you like to be a housemaid with your little velvet paws, you foolish little kitten? You don’t know what you’re saying.”{26}
“But I do, though—and I could scratch too,” said the wild little puss, with a glance out of her black eyes which confounded me. I thought the child had gone out of her wits altogether. No wonder her poor father called her contrairy, poor hapless man.
This conversation took place after dinner, when we two went back to the drawing-room. Mr. Cresswell had returned to Chester in his brougham, and Sarah had gone out all by herself for her drive. Perhaps little Sara, after being so aggravated at dinner, would not have gone with my sister even had she been asked; but her godmamma did not ask her. Dear, dear, what a very strange world this is! Poor Sarah chose to go out alone, driving drearily through the winterly trees and hedges; she chose always to turn aside from the village, which might have been a little cheerful, and she never dreamt of calling anywhere, poor soul! I have lived a quiet life enough, but I could not get on without a smile here and a word there, and the sight of my fellow-creatures at least. However, I have no call to censure neighbours, much less my sister. This is how Sara Cresswell and I had time for our long conversation. I broke it off short now, thinking it was about time for Sarah to come in.
“Now little Sara,” said I, “we’ll drop the question what you’re to do as a general question just now; but your godmamma will be in directly. What shall you do while you’re here? Should you like to come and set my papers straight? It’s nice, tiresome, sickening work. It always gives me a headache, but I can’t trust a servant to do it. I think it’s the very work for you.”
“But, dear godmamma, here’s a novel,” said Sara, who was sunk deep in an easy-chair, and had not the very slightest intention of obeying me, “just the very one I wanted, and I see by the first chapter that Emily is my own very favourite heroine. I’ll do it to-morrow, please—to-morrow morning, not to-day.”
“But it must be done to-day.”
“Oh, must! why must? You have only to do what you please—you are not obliged to keep time like a dressmaker or a clerk,” said Sara, reading all the while.
“Oh, you child!” said I; “suppose papa’s dinner was waiting, or his stockings to mend, would you let them stand till you had finished your novel? Oh, you deluded little thing, is that the good workwoman you would be?”
Before I had finished speaking Sara had started like a little{27} sprite out of her chair, tossed the novel into the corner of a distant sofa, and went off like the wind to the library, where I did my business and kept my papers. I had to hurry after her as quickly as I could. A pretty job she would have made of it, had she done it alone!