Produced by Sonya Schermann and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) This ebook was created in honour of Distributed Proofreadersâ 20th Anniversary. Transcriberâs Note When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has been surrounded by _underscores_. Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs=. Some corrections have been made to the printed text. These are listed in a second transcriberâs note at the end of the text. A YELLOW ASTER BY IOTA âAnd if this fought-for climax _is_ ever reached and science, creeping along the path of experiment, so invades the realm of Nature that a blue chrysanthemum or A Yellow Aster can be produced at will, the question still remains, has Nature been made more beautiful thereby?â _IN THREE VOLUMES_ VOL I London 1894 HUTCHINSON & CO. 34 PATERNOSTER ROW PRINTED AT NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND) BY H. C. A. THIEME OF NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND) AND TALBOT HOUSE, ARUNDEL STREET LONDON, W.C. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I. 1 CHAPTER II. 19 CHAPTER III. 27 CHAPTER IV. 37 CHAPTER V. 44 CHAPTER VI. 59 CHAPTER VII. 65 CHAPTER VIII. 87 CHAPTER IX. 100 CHAPTER X. 109 CHAPTER XI. 130 CHAPTER XII. 151 CHAPTER XIII. 159 CHAPTER XIV. 172 CHAPTER XV. 182 CHAPTER XVI. 193 CHAPTER XVII. 203 A YELLOW ASTER. CHAPTER I. THE stable-yard of Waring Park seemed to be slightly off its head on a certain fine afternoon in June. Such an afternoon as it was, so sweet and so soft, so full of fragrant sleepy haze, that any sound louder than the sing-song of a cricket must have distracted any ordinary nerve-possessing mortal. On this particular afternoon however, the sole occupants of the yard were the stable-boys, the groomâs urchin, and the under-gardenerâs lad, and as none of these had yet reached the level of nerves, whilst the blood of all of them throbbed with the greed for illegal sport in every shape, their state of lazy content was in no way upset by a medley of blood-curdling shrieks, squeals, and gobbles that issued from the throats of a little boy and a big turkey which the boy was swinging round and round by the tail, from the vantage ground of a large smooth round stone, with an amount of strength that was preternatural, if one had judged by the mere length of him and had not taken into consideration the enormous development of the impâs legs and arms. The stable-boys grinned, and smoked like furnaces as the show proceeded, and the other two cheered like Trojans, in the cruelty of the natural boy, and it might have gone badly for the turkey, if there had not swooped down upon him and his tormentor, just in the nick of time, a little lean wiry woman, armed with an authority, which even the imp, after one spasmodic struggle, saw best not to gainsay. âMaster Dacre, whatever do you do it for? Do you think the bird has no feelings? There is no sense in such goings-on.â âThere is sense,â spluttered the boy at full speed, âI like beinâ swung and I like swinginâ the turkey, and Iâll learn him to like it too, and if he donât learn that anyway heâll learn something else, which is lifeâs discerpline, which father says Iâm learninâ when you whip me. If I want it, so does the turkey and wuss. I bâlongs to higher orders nor beasts and birds.â Here the grins of the stable-boys broke into hoarse guffaws, and Maryâs ire culminated in a sharp rebuke all round. âGo to your work, you idle fellows. I told your father long ago, Jim, what âud be the latter end of you. As for you, Robert, I could cry when I think of your blessed mother! âAnd what business have you in the yard,â she cried, turning on the two younger sinners. âBe off with you this instant. âTis easy to see none of the men are about. You two, Jim and Robert, youâd be surprised yourselves if you could see what soft idiots you look with them stumps of pipes between your jaws. âLook, Master Dacre, look at the birdâs tail. Havenât you any heart at all? The creature might have been through the furze covertââ âThereâs not a feather broke,â said the boy, after a critical survey, ânot one; I believe that tail were made for swinginâ as much as my arms was.â For an instant words failed Mary and she employed herself hushing the bird into his pen. When she came back, Dacre had disappeared, and the yard seemed to be quite clear of human life, not to be traced even by the smell of shag tobacco. Pursuit was useless, as Mary very well knew, so she returned to her nursery a good deal down at heart, muttering and murmuring as she went. âOh Lord, whatever is to be the end of it all? Learning is the ruin of the whole place, and yet them children is as ignorant as bears, excepting for their queer words and ways. Set them to read a Royal Reader or to tot up a sum, bless you, they couldnât for the life of them. And the tempers of the two,â she went on, putting the cross stitches on a darn, âtheir parents had no hand in them anyway. Where they got âem from the Lord only knows. Tempers, indeed! And from them two blessed babies as bore âem.â She lifted her head and glanced out of the window. âLook at âem,â she whispered, âhand in hand up and down the drive, talking mathymatics, Iâll be bound,â and Maryâs eyes returned to her basket a trifle moist. She had nursed Mrs. Waring and Mrs. Waringâs children, and she was a good soul with a deal of sentiment about her. As it happened, Mr. and Mrs. Waring were not discussing mathematics. They were just then deeply and solemnly exercised in their minds as to the exact date of a skeleton recently unearthed from some red sandstone in the neighbourhood. They had dismissed the carriage at the hall gates, and were now hot in argument concerning the bones, each holding diametrically opposed views on the subject, and struggling hard to prove his or her side. Now and again the husbandâs voice rose to a pretty high pitch, and his fine mouth was touched with a sneer, and the wifeâs eyes flashed and flamed and shot out indignant wrath. Her hat had fallen off far down the drive, and her rings of yellow fluffy hair fell wildly over her forehead, one small hand was clenched in eager protest, but the other was clasped tight in her husbandâs. They always went like this, these two; they had got into the foolish way very early in their acquaintance and had never been able to get out of it. Suddenly some common hypothesis struck them both at once, and Mrs. Waring cried out with a gasp, âIf we can prove it, I am right.â âYes, if you can prove it, darling, thatâs the point, and I hope that you never will. Have you any idea, dear love, what the proving of this will undo, what it must upset?â âI think I have,â she said slowly, her blue eyes gleaming eagerly, âbut it seems to me whenever a great hubbub is made about the upsetting of some theory, that it generally ends in being much ado about nothing, and that the new thing that springs from the ashes of the old dead, is infinitely more beautiful than ever its predecessor was, for it is one step nearer the truth.â âDearest, we must end our talk,â groaned Mr. Waring, peering with terrified looks through his eyeglasses. âHere is Gwen, most slightly clad and of a bright blue tint, pursued by Mary. I fear very much that story of Boadicea you told her has instigated her to this action. I think, dearest, I will go to the study and work out this question of date.â Mr. Waring turned nervously and made a gentle effort to disengage his hand from his wifeâs, but she clutched him firmly. âHenry,â she cried, âyou would not desert me?â âOh, my dear,â he gasped, âwhat can I do? The child must be cleansed and, I presume, punished. I can be of no use,â and he still showed signs of flight, but the horror-stricken eyes of his wife, fixed pleadingly on him, made him waver and wait. By a superhuman effort Mary got up first. âOh, maâam,â she shrieked in tones that went through Mrs. Waringâs head, âOh, maâam, look at her! I found her with nothing on but this rag and some leaves, painted blue, and varnishedâvarnished, sir, eating acorns outside of the orchard fence. Itâs common indecency, maâam, and if itâs to continue I canâtââ By this time Gwen had arrived, desperately blown, but overflowing with words; rather an advantage under the circumstances, for her parents had not one between them. âMother, I were a woaded Briton and blue all over. Mag Dow did me behind and I done the front, and it arenât common naked if queens done it like you said. She did, Mary, say it Thursday when she begun the history course. Dacre was to be a woaded king too, but he were a beast and wouldnât do nothing but swing turkeys for discerpline.â âMary, I think perhaps you should give Miss Gwen a bath, and then we will consider what further course to take.â Mrs. Waring caught her skirts nervously and drew a step nearer to her husband. âA bath, maâam! Donât you see sheâs painted and varnished, no waterâll touch that, maâam, turpentine it must be and cart grease, not to say paraffin,âand, maâam, the indecency!â âPlease, Mary,â implored the tortured woman, âoh, please take her away and put the cart grease onâandâthe other things, and we can then talk over the rest.â Here the light of a sudden inspiration leapt into her face, and she turned to her husband. âHenry,â she said solemnly, âdo you not think that Gwen should go to bed? She seems to me,â she continued, taking a critical survey of the blue-daubed figure, âshe seems to me a little old for such very peculiar adaptations of history.â âTo bed,â remarked the husband infinitely relieved. It seemed quite a happy solution to the whole question, and must fulfil every purpose,âbe Gwenâs Nemesis, a salve to Maryâs hurt morality, and a merciful deliverance to all others concerned. âYes, a very sensible suggestion of yours, dearest. I consider that it would be a most salutary measure to send Gwen to bed.â âIndeed, sir,â remarked Mary, without a particle of the satisfaction that might have been expected from her, âMiss Gwen will be fit for no other place by the time Iâve done with her, what with the paraffin and the scrubbing and her skin that tender. Oh come, Miss, come away,â she cried grimly, laying hold of Gwen. âGrace, my darling,â said Mr. Waring, passing his free hand wearily over his brow, âsuch scenes as these are indeed upsetting. I am quite unable to take up the thread of our discourse.â âI feel as you do, Henry,â said his wife sadly, âwe seem to have so very little time to ourselves.â âDo you think, Grace, we should procure a tutor for those children? Let me see, how old are they?â âI have their ages down somewhere in my tablets,â said Mrs. Waring rummaging in her pocket, and producing a little book of ivory tablets. She consulted it anxiously. âJust fancy!â she exclaimed with astonished eyes, âDacre will be seven in AprilâI had no idea he was so oldâand I see Gwen is just twelve months younger.â âI think their physical powers are now fairly developedâindeed, I am of opinion that the boyâs development will continue to be mainly physical; he will, I fear, run much to cricket and other brutal sports. But no doubt he has some small amount of brain power that should be made the most of. We must now get someone who will undertake this business for us, dear love.â âAh,â said his wife plaintively, âthe feeding and physical care of children seems a terrible responsibility; it weighs upon my life. But the development of their intellectual powers!âI wish the time for it had kept off just a little longer, until we were farther on in our last, our best work. And if,â she said wearily, âyou think the brain power of Dacre, at least, is so insignificant, the task becomes Herculean.â âWe must consult the rector, dear.â âI feel in some way we must have failed in our duty. The grammar that child spoke was appalling, as was also the intonation of her words. I wonder how this has come to pass? I should have thought her mere heredity would have saved us this.â Mrs. Waring sighed heavily, fate seemed against her, even heredity was playing her false. âIt is shocking, dear, but accountable,â said her husband soothingly, âyou are disturbed, and forget how widely modified heredity becomes by conditions. If I recollect aright Gwen mentioned oneâMagâhâm, Dow. Children are imitative creatures. And now, with regard to another matter. I think, dear love, it were wiser if you discontinued that proposed course of history. The imagination of our daughter Gwen must not be fostered until it has a sounder intellectual basis to work up from.â âVery well, dear,â and Mrs. Waring sighed a sigh of relief. No one but herself knew the horrible embarrassment of having those two children sitting opposite to her and glaring all over her, while she discoursed to them on the customs of the early Britons, and it was only a consuming sense of duty that had seized on her, and forced her to the task. CHAPTER II. NOT only the entire county of ââshire but even the whole University of Cambridge had been thrown into quite a whirl of emotion by the marriage of Henry Waring and Grace Selwyn, the most unexpected ever concocted in heaven or on earth. A Senior Wrangler and a Fellow of his college, who at twenty-six, eats, drinks, and sleeps mathematics, besides being possessed of other devouring passions for certain of the minor sciences, does not seem a very fit subject for matrimony with its petty follies and cares. If one is, besides, the son of a cynic and a bookworm, who loathed and eschewed the sex with bitter reason, and whose own practical knowledge had been gained chiefly through the classics and the bedmakers, the one of which appeals but little to oneâs sense of propriety, the other still less to oneâs fleshly sense, the prospect of a domestic and patriarchal career must seem as remote as it is undesirable. And yet Henry Waring found himself, to his constant and increasing bewilderment, embarked on one almost before he altogether knew where he was. The year previous to his marriage he had suffered a good deal from ennui. A favourite theory in geology over which he had peered himself half blind, was suddenly exploded without hope of reconstruction. He felt rather lost and _distrait_, and cast about for some tangible solid brainwork. But to pass the time until the fresh inspiration came on, he took to propounding stray problems, andâthrough the pressâlaunching them broadcast over the land. Strange to say, he got answers, and by the score. A good many more âmute inglorious Solonsâ infest our villages than we have any notion of. Mr. Waring groaned in spirit and mourned over the depravity of the race as he read their epistles, and drew farther back than ever into his shell. If the average man and woman without the academical walls resembled these productions, the less one had to do with them the better, he very reasonably reflected. After this had been going on for the space of three months, he came, one morning, down to breakfast. He felt very sick at heart; his pupils seemed so amazingly full of enthusiasm for minor concerns, and so absolutely lacking in it for the one thing needful, that he was cut to the quick and moved to much gentle wrath. And then these letters! They were fast becoming his Nemesis. He ate his breakfast and watched with unwonted pleasure some dust motes dancing in a sunbeam, and raising his eyes to follow them, they unconsciously strayed farther out into the college quad, where the dew was still sparkling on every grass blade, and shimmering on every flower. Mr. Waring felt quite cheerful and revived as he pushed away his plate and cup and began to open his letters. Letter after letter was laid down, a spasm of pain passing each time across his face, and more than once an audible groan escaped him. At last he picked up a letter gingerly, as he handled all this variety of correspondenceâthe village mathematician being an unclean beastâbut this letter seemed somehow different, he turned it over with growing interest, and even took the pains to examine the postmark, then he opened it and found a quite different production from any he had yet received. First on opening it a curious indefinite scent struck on his nostrils. He sniffed it up perplexedly; some queer old memories began to stir in him, and he paused a moment to try and classify them, but he could not, so he set himself to examine the contents of the missive. The answer given to his problem was accurate and the accompanying remarks clear, strong, and to the point, written in a womanâs hand and signed with a womanâs name, âGrace Selwynâ. That letter was answered before the breakfast things were cleared away, and certain fresh problems enclosed which were not sent in any other direction. Many letters went and came after that, containing problems and their answers, the answers always full of that strange, vague, delicious scent, which seemed to waft itself through the study and to remain there, caught with the dust motes in the sunbeam. A longing and a yearning for those little notes began to take possession of Henry Waring and to disturb his mind. Old memories of the time when he wore frocks and toddled, began to haunt him, and his work was no longer done by reflex action. He consulted a doctor, but as he only confided half his symptoms to that scientific person, quite suppressing the letters, the doctor felt rather out of it and prescribed quinine, which had no effect whatsoever. One morning the yearning for a letter grew suddenly quite overmastering; and none came. This was the climax. By a sudden impulse which he never succeeded in explaining to himself on any satisfactory grounds, Mr. Waring went to his bedroom, knelt down by his big chest of drawers, and proceeded to pack a little valise with every article he did not want, leaving out all those he did. Then he stepped into a cab and made for the station. Towards the close of the day he presented himself at the door of a queer old red-brick manor house in Kent owned by a Colonel Selwyn and his wife, and asked simply for âMiss Grace Selwynâ. In three months from that day the two came down the path hand in hand and stepped out together on lifeâs journey, and six months later through the death of a cousin, Waring Park fell to them and made up for the loss of the Fellowship. CHAPTER III. THE very day after Gwenâs flight into history Mr. and Mrs. Waring walked up to the Rectory and got through their talk with the master of it. They might not have been altogether so prompt, being still absorbed body and soul in the skeleton, but that, not only was Gwen suffering tortures from the state of her skin through the combined action of paint, paraffin, and other ungents, but into the bargain she had caught a bad and a quite abnormally noisy cold, which kept her presence _en evidence_ by fits and starts whenever she broke loose from the nursery, and which was a weapon judiciously wielded by Mary to keep her parents well up to the mark. They had delivered themselves to Mr. Fellowes, and were now walking down the Rectory drive, both looking a little pained. Mr. Waringâs disengaged hand was pressed to his forehead and his brows were knit, and Mrs. Waring looked as if she were engaged in a silent struggle against disturbing thoughts. The air was still and soft, and some stray stars had already taken possession of the evening sky, where the little streaks of rose, left by the sun, looked quite out of place, and felt it too, seemingly, for they were creeping behind the hills with a soft little shiver of dismay, like a timid guest who suddenly discovers that every soul but himself has left. The silence and the calm helped Mr. and Mrs. Waring, who were both trying to throw off the consideration of minor matters and to return to that of vital affairs. Generally so easy, like the slipping back of a pair of seals into the water after a rugged land journey, to-night this seemed a strangely hard task to tackle. They often seemed to receive the same impression at the same moment, and something or other in the bright glow of the Rectory study and in the perfectly at-home and at-ease air of a pair of twins that the Rectorâs wife had temporary charge of, and had brought in to say good-night, had given them a little jar which would keep on quivering. These were not sufficiently tangible sensations for discussion, there seemed nothing in them that these two persons could seize upon and argue from to any purpose, so they were struggling to put them behind them. Mr. Waring succeeded, his wife was not so fortunate. The vague feeling was quite like a Jack-in-the-box for sudden appearances during the next few days, and whenever it sprang up, a little ache followed hot on the heels of it. At last she made a supreme effort to regain her reason, and remarked with rather deceptive cheerfulness, âI think, dearest, we may now dismiss this matter from our minds. I am quite willing to trust it in Mr. Fellowesâ hands, as I presume you are. You do feel perfect confidence in him?â she questioned a little anxiously, as Mr. Waring did not speak for a moment. âDarling, yes!â he said with a start, âin this matter certainly yes, this is quite within his _rÃ´le_, I do not think we could find a wiser helper or counsellor. And he is so thoroughly a gentleman, he so kindly waived his theological objections when he found that on this part of the question we had both arrived at a fixed conclusion. Yes, in the choice of a tutor we could desire no better adviser. At the moment you spoke I was speculating upon Fellowes from another point of view; I am really quite astonished that a man so advanced in some phases of thought should be so limited soâalmost retrogradeâin others, and above all, so strangely content with his life, with hardly a moment in it for undisturbed reflection, and no moment at all for any attempt at valuable work. I cannot imagine either where he finds companionship.â He paused to sigh. âWe have so little time, love, to give to him, time is so very much to us. Our other neighbours seem to hunt when they do not fish and fish when they do not hunt, they can have neither time nor strength left for intellectual culture. Then Mr. and Mrs. Fellows have, I believe, duties; they sit on Boards and Councils and no doubt follow other pursuits of like order, but as companions, naturally they must be impossible. Then as to his wife, she is a comely personâshe is, is she not, dearest? I am so very poor a judgeâbut I do not perceive any glimmerings of thought in her. You can better judge of her, dear, have you ever discovered any?â Mrs. Waring considered for a moment then she shook her head. âI do not think I have expected any,â she said, âso indeed I have hardly looked. I have only thought of her kindness, and of her knowledge of children and their feeding. I am very fond of her and so very grateful, but I have never once really talked to her.â âI thought soâit is strangeâstrange. However, I am most thankful this business is done, we may now be able to begin those papers to-nightâI look forward with much pleasure to them. Curious what very opposed views we take on this subjectâhâm, I fancy I am right, dear.â Mrs. Waring thought not, and signified the fact by a very decided shake of her sweet golden locks, that looked more like spun silver in the moonâs rays. They had now reached the great flight of steps that flanked either side of the entrance door. When they got to the top, by one accord they paused, and leant over the castellated ivy-clad wall that protected the platform of granite slabs connecting the two flights of steps, and gazed out into the evening, but a sudden horrible sound made Mrs. Waring jump nervously, then quiver from head to foot, and caused her husbandâs brows to contract as sharply as if there had been a spring in them. It turned out to be Gwen scraping an old violin and coughing frightfully all down the corridor. âDearest, do you think we should summon Dr. Guy?â said Mr. Waring when they had somewhat recovered. âOh no, love, Mary assures me there is no danger whatever, she calls that dreadful noise âa simple stomach coughâ.â âIn that case we must request Mary to keep her in the nursery, such noises are most upsetting. Pray be as quick as you can, my darling, we might get to work at once. But surely it is not the gong I hear?â âLove, I fear it is only too true,â cried Mrs. Waring in trembling distress. âI had no idea of the lateness of the hour, and oh, Henry, we were late again yesterday and the servants were quite upset. Oh, you will be quick with your dressing, will you not?â Then with one last little hand-squeeze she fled to her room with a terrified glance into the solemn face of a hurt-looking footman. CHAPTER IV. WHEN he had bidden farewell to the Warings in his porch and watched them curiously till a clump of firs hid them from him, Mr. Fellowes went back to his study with a very curious assortment of expressions on his face; there was a good deal of amusement there, a decided touch of sadness, much doubt, and some dismay. He had, however, little time to reduce this confusion to order; an impatient tap at the door was followed by the entrance of a bright eager little woman, in a long trailing garment of a curious combination of heliotrope and pale yellow. âJohn, are you ready for me? May I hear all of it?â she demanded, putting her little hand on his big ones. âI feel in rather a yeasty condition at this minute, but Iâll subside shortly, no doubt. Will you be able to hold out a little longer?â âHavenât I borne it for two mortal hours and twenty minutes? Were they talking all the time? I was in an awful fright it was something I mustnât hear. Two scientists in trouble about their souls, perhaps?â âFortunately I can divulge all I know, but you neednât be flippant. Itâs all very funny, but itâs just as woefully sad. What on earth are you at?â âPinning up my skirts, the fire would ruin this colour in a night. Do you like my gown?â âI do, but whether the parish will, is another question.â âOh, never mind the parish, Iâll teach it; you have no idea how easy it is to get round people if you know the track. Is that yeast risen high enough or has it gone sad? Remember I have held out a frightful time.â âHold out another five minutes while I write a note, I must catch this post.â When Mr. Fellowes brought his little seventeen-years old wife home to the respectable parish of Waring, just four years before this time, it was the generally received opinion of most competent judges that he had a good deal to answer for. To begin with, she was American, that fact in itself was quite without precedent. The entire clerical annals of the diocese did not furnish a like example. This, to any right-minded judgment, was as much as an insult to the parishioners, who were in consequence put to much trouble and inconvenience in rubbing up their imaginations to tackle the case, having no previous experience to go upon. A deceased Colonel, of whom they knew a great deal too much, and a living peer, of whom on the contrary, they knew a great deal too little, both inhabitants of the county, had indeed married Americans, the results in the one case being disastrous; of the other they possessed no proven data, but they were at least at liberty to draw their own conclusions. But for a parson to do this thing! It was unheard-of, and partook of the nature of a scandal. Then Mrs. Fellowes was pretty and gay, and it must be confessed _chic_. They could have put up with the prettiness and even the brightness,âthey were used to certain varieties of both these things in their own girls,âbut the _chicness_!âthat was the quality their souls struck against, it seemed expressly to have been sent by Satan himself âto buffet them withalâ. And the girlâs dress for a clergymanâs wife, was simply audacious! And yet when a large and representative female conclave had met and dissected her âthingsâ over half a dozen teas, they were forced to the conclusion that she had not a complex or expensive article in her whole wardrobe. âSo much the worse,â Lady Mary, the leader of the parish _ton_, remarked, and with some reason too, âit shows that it is not the clothes that stamp the girl, it is the girl who stamps the clothes. There is something fundamentally wrong there.â This being put in the form of an axiom spread widely, and carried much weight. This was four years ago, however, and things had changed a good deal. Mrs. Fellowesâ husband was no fool, he knew what he was about when he brought home, as the finish to the one long holiday of his life, the little New England girl to be his helpmate. CHAPTER V. âNOW, Ruth,â said Mr. Fellowes when he had finished and despatched his note, and, lighting a cigarette, settled himself in his armchair opposite to her, âIâll yield you up all I know. It was the queerest interview I ever had with that queer pair.âYou neednât wriggle with anticipation, my dear, no human creature could reproduce the scene with any justice to himself or to his subject.âWaring had most palpably put on for the occasion a brisk man-of-the-world air that was superb, but his wife seemed dreamier than ever, and limper, and her hat looked rather askew.â âIt always does, but do go on.â âDirectly you give me a chance, dear. Waring opened the campaign with a little small talk as he always does, but it was quite off-hand and reckless to-day. He had hardly set his gentle tap fairly flowing however, when his wife suddenly woke up and chipped in with quite phenomenal clearness and precision, ââDear Henry, suppose we state the object of our call, we can converse afterwards.â âThen it all came out. First one stated a fact or a theory then the other had his innings. It was hard enough to follow the two and to watch them at the same time; one never likes to miss the moment when they clasp hands again and the little looks they cast on each other in the process. It appears the pair meditate a definite experiment on those wretched children, and want my help in securing a bear-leader for the task.â âGood gracious!â gasped Mrs. Fellowes. âGo on,â she commanded grimly, âwhat is it?â âOn no account whatever is either to be sent to school or allowed to hold intercourse with other children; no woman is to have any hand in their tuition; naturally, cricket, football, and every other boyish sport is to be carefully excluded from the curriculum, and all Christian teaching is to be utterly tabooed.â âMercy on us!â âThe facts of the Old Testament are to be imparted to them with other ancient history, and they are to be well instructed in the natural sciences. By these means they will learn to know God in His Worksâwith a capital âWââMrs. Waring observed this solemnly to her husband for my benefit. âExactly, my darling,â he replied, with a most surprising alacrityâthey had rehearsed this point, those two babies.âWhen the children are launched into their teens and have presumably arrived at an age of more or less discretion, the Bible and any other existing evidences of Christianity obtainable, are to be formally presented to them. The imps may then receive these or reject them according to their particular turn of mind, but in no case are they to be biased. âThe parents have seemingly occupied themselves a good deal with this part of the experiment and regard this presentation of a choice of beliefs as a sort of function on which they mean to take exhaustive observation.â The rector paused to roll another cigarette; when he had finished and lighted it, he went on. âRuth, you are an intelligent woman and wonât misjudge me when I say, that this experiment in itself seems to be a reasonable one. âThis Bible-reading question is an awful one,â he went on, musing aloud, âwe all have had, every decent English man, woman, and child of us has had the Bible religiously drilled into him from the time of consciousness till whatever time he can manage to read it for himself, then he is exhorted to carry on the exercise independently, and a good percentage of people do; youâd be astonished at the number of people who never miss reading their Bible every day of their lives, and perhaps more astonished still if you were to know the amazingly small effect it has on the lives of these people. Even from an intellectual point of view, it is incredible to me how little the average human being has grasped the heritage he possesses in this book. âI was speaking to a girl the other dayâby far the most intelligent one I know in these regionsâshe was talking to me with perfect unrestraint and frankness about all sorts of things. She told me she could see no beauty whatsoever in the Bible, and that she had never been able to derive an atom of encouragement or assurance from anything in it. If it did not bore, it upset her, and made belief harder. It had become a mere patter to her by vile reading and intonation, and the remarkable turns of thought given to it by many minds insulted her reason. Even the poetry of the diction had been spoilt for her and seemed, she said, to reek of half-fledged curates.âUnder some conditions this experiment of the Warings might prove a success.â âOh, but with that mother!â âAh, yes, that alters the whole aspect of affairs! If you could only have heard the passionless, analytical style in which Waring and his wife discussed the matter and speculated on the issue, which they think will be more typical in Gwen than in Dacre, his brute strength being, in their opinion, his strong point, and his theological side hardly worth considering. They throw it in, however, âcareless likeâ as, if the experiment is to be tried, it is just as easy to try it on two as on one.â âMercy on us,â again said Mrs. Fellowes, clattering the fire-irons viciously. âBy the way, Waring amused me intensely by one revelation he made, he could hardly get it out, and I saw him fling a pathetically-deprecating glance at his wife and give her hand a squeeze before he began. He felt he had to account for the luckless Dacreâs strength of legs, of which he seems to have as poor an opinion as the Psalmist, he feared I might fall into the error of casting the blame on him or his wife, so he determined I should know the real cause. âYou will hardly believe me,â he observed, âwhen I tell you that my wife with her refined intellectuality is the outcome of long generations of soldiers and ofâahem,âfamous duellists, and I fear our son, Dacre, is a very clearly-defined specimen of throwing-back.â Poor Mrs. Waring! she felt her ancestry keenly and got as red as a rose during the confession.â âGoodness gracious me! What a woman! what a pair! What in the name of goodness brought the two together and made them marry each other and produce children. If I were Providence and had that on my mind, Iâd never look up again.â âMy dear child!â âJohn, in the present state of my feelings, brought on by you yourself recollect, you must forget your sacerdotal character and only remember my state of original sin. Why should two beautiful childrenâs lives be spoilt for the vagaries of a pair who never had any right to bear children? Think of Gwenâs sad old face full of the trouble of all ages, think of her naughtiness with that horrible unique sort of infernal touch about it; that painting herself blue is the most childish escapade I remember. âI was at Mrs. Doyleâs yesterday and she was telling me a lot about Mrs. Waring before we came. After Dacreâs birth, she said it was absolutely ghastly to see her with the child, she was terrified to hold it, and trembled like a leaf whenever she absolutely had to. Poor Mrs. Doyle, she got quite irritated and excited about one thing; it seems she could not nurse her own children at all, and that Mrs. Waring was a capital mother from that point of view, and Mrs. Doyle seemingly could not see at all why an unnatural little bundle of scientific data should score off her, a good wholesome creature made for a mother, in this manner.â âIt was certainly too bad, and one would never have expected it of Mrs. Waring,â said the rector laughing. âOh, and whenever Mary brought either of the babies to her or she met them in the corridors or about the grounds, Mrs. Doyle says her one request was that Mary should take the creature away and give it food, it looked faint! They were both huge, flourishing, healthy babies, I hear.â âRuth,â said Mr. Fellowes suddenly, âI wish those people would keep away from church.â âYou are shedding your sacerdotal character with a vengeance! What do you mean?â âYou have no idea how they distract me, sitting there together with their eyes far away and their ears sealed, except at the odd times they give those spasmodic simultaneous starts, and twist their thoughts back for the minute to whatâs going on.â âBut, John, for the sake of the parishââ âIf the parish canât keep up to its ordinary pretty low water-mark without this prick to its piety it must be in a poor state, and even more of a discredit to me than I imagine. They are far too good to be asked to play this weekly farce for the parishâs sake. It was Hopkins, not I, who insisted upon this church-going and of course they gave in in their gracious simple way; and now, not even a water spout would stop them from coming, they are so concerned for my feelings. What a pair of unconscious Christians they are to be sure! One sees it cropping up in all directions.â âI wish it would appear anyway in the management of their children, I donât see many traces of it there. When is this wretched experiment to be set going?â asked Mrs. Fellowes. âAs soon as I can procure a suitable person to conduct it. I think I know a fellow who might do.â âWhat business have they with children, those two?â cried Mrs. Fellowes with a little spasm of pain twisting about her mouth. âI donât believe those children ever got properly hugged in all their lives by that inhuman little mother of theirs. And oh, Gwenâs dress! That is awful!â âAh, yes, that makes the whole affair very much sadder! Donât you think dinner is ready? Yes, those children have a great deal to fight against, it isnât their ancestors alone that will handicap them, poor little beggars.â âCartloads of saints for ancestors wouldnât be worth a rap to them with an eerie little creature like that for a mother,â said Mrs. Fellowes hotly, in the pretty lazy drawl into which her touch of twang had developed itself. âI pity that wretched coming tutor.â She let her skirts drop and gave them a dexterous kick as she went out, to give them the correct âhangâ. CHAPTER VI. THERE was no time lost in setting the experiment going, and it was soon in full swing. Its birth pangs were awful, and embraced in their throes a great number of persons. The parentsâ sufferings were so complex and so quite peculiar to themselves that it is impossible to expound them to an unsympathizing public. The tortures that couple endured during the first few months after the initial stage of intellectual development had been instituted and was being dealt with, were severe, but they were in no wise connected with their childrenâs anguish at the sudden and unexpected onslaught on their higher parts. _Their_ misery arose chiefly from the jarring and inconveniently close contact with tutors, whom, in their unconscious Christian way, they found it their duty to admit for some part of every day into the edge of their lives. This was a terrible discipline, more especially as during these times the unhappy instructors also thought it their duty to ease off their slough of learning and to expand their social parts, and thus the manufacture of small talk became a daily necessity in the lives of the distracted pair. They had both taken infinite pains to provide silent entertainment for their guestsâor rather succession of guestsâin the tutoring line. The standard scientists were first tried, and these seeming to have but little effect, a whole cartload of mixed literature, including all the rag-tag and bobtail of fiction the bookseller wanted to get off his hands, was imported and spread about enticingly; theology and ethics were also given a show, till at last all the tables at one side of the room were spotted with slate, yellow, and dull blues and browns, and every form of journal from the _Times_ to the _Police News_ was scattered broadcast over the place, all with a view to lay hold on the tutorial mind and keep it independent of its entertainers. Directly the tutor for the time being, entered at his appointed hour, they rose simultaneously from their work, as if the same spring moved them, hurried towards him with outstretched hands, sat down side by side facing him, and broke into conversation, which if gaspy, and at times inconsequent, from the sudden upheaval of waves of thought in one or other of them, was kept up with gallant relentlessness till the period of detention was at an end. As soon as the clock announced this event, they broke off suddenly with a click, and the tutor was, so to speak, shot out, and the rent he had made in the lives of his entertainers was patched up as well as might be for that day. But during the entire first course of those tutors, Mr. and Mrs. Waring felt always as if they were suffering from ragged edges. As for Gwen and Dacre, their first taste of reclamation from the savage state, was bitter, sudden, and condign. Civilization seems the last thing in the world capable of soothing the savage breast, especially if the savage who owns it is young and in rude health. Then Mary suffered. It was a hard blow to find her fledglings torn from her in one fell stroke, and only allowed to return at odd moments for repairs to skin and clothes. Poor Mrs. Fellowes fretted herself into a regular feverish attack. As for the tutors themselves, the less said of their sufferings the better. Three succumbed to them in four months. The one that followed, a most excellent person and cut out for a family man, broke off his engagement for fear of consequences, his slight substratum of scientific knowledge having got so much stirred up while at Waring Park, that he grew bewildered. If such results as he had to deal with, he reflected, were to be seen in the green tree what might not come to pass in the dry? And he was well aware of the cloudy ancestry of his lady-love, and on his own side had not very much to boast of. It was unfortunate. But it certainly did seem sacrilegious impertinence in him to attempt what his betters had so egregiously failed in. CHAPTER VII. MANY tutors had come and gone, and much had been endured both from the childrenâs point of view and from that of the instructors. But time went on unheeding, and Gwen and Dacre were lying under an old cherry-tree in the orchard one day late in August. The sun shone aslant through the crimson-tinted leaves above them, and threw flickering rosy shadows across the faces of the two as they lay there in the cool grass, with wisps of fern under their heads for pillows. Dacre, however, seemed to benefit but little from this arrangement; his head was oftener off its support than on; he twisted and turned and wriggled and plunged, even his toes moved visibly through his thick boots. He was supposed to be reading, and kept up the pretence from time to time, but the words conveyed no sense to his restless eyes, that moved as if they were on wires. Now and again he got irritated and threw the book down with a snort. The sister and brother spent much of their time together nowadays; fate had perhaps quite as much to do with this close companionship as inclination, the groomâs boy and his like, except at stolen moments, being for Dacre things of the past. This and various other reforms had been brought about by Mr. Fellowes and one tutor of an exceptionally strong mind. While Dacre wriggled, his sister lay quite still on her back with her legs stretched out, and with a considerable reach of stocking visible between the edge of her frock and her shoes. She had one arm curled round her neck with the sharp elbow stuck out uncompromisingly in Dacreâs direction. It was useful as a buffer and saved her many a lunge. The other hand held a book, a queer old edition of Elia, which she was deeply sunk in until she fell to watching Dacre with a look of curious mockery on her red curled lips. âIâd give my eyes to go to school!â burst out the boy after an interval of comparative silence. Mutterings never counted in Dacre. âSo you have said six times this afternoon, not to mention the mutters,â said the girl, âwhat do you want to go to school for?â âYou know without any telling.â âI want to hear again.â âTo jeer at a fellow, I suppose?â âI wonât jeer, and I might help you,â she said with a laugh. He looked at her face dubiously, it was inscrutable enough, but the mockery had left her lips. âI want to go, I hate to be here, Greggs is a big enough fool but not quite so much as the others, he ainât all bad, Iâll say that. But whatâs he to other boys and cricket and football and larksâoh, you know!â âI wonder why on earth they let you read _Tom Brown_ when such heaps of books are forbidden,â said Gwen reflectively. âThey have brought all this on themselves,â she added, knitting her brows in the exact manner of her mother. âWe have to bear what we earn, we hear that often enough, I donât see why they shouldnât apply it to themselves. Dacre, youâre an awful ass, if I wanted all those things I should have had them long ago.â âAll very well to say that,â grunted the boy, âIâd like to know how.â âIâll tell you,âIâd worry till I got them.â âI worry pretty
{'title': 'A Yellow Aster, Volume 1 (of 3) by Mrs. Mannington Caffyn', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}