The Daughters of Danaus. Mona Caird

The Daughters of Danaus - Mona Caird


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the dulness of her life, and never longed to go about and see people and things, we were much mistaken. But she had renounced everything she cared for, from her girlhood—she was scarcely older than I when her sacrifices began—and now her children gave no consideration to her; they were ready to scatter themselves hither and thither without a thought of her, or her wishes. They even talked scoffingly of the kind of life that she had led for them—for them, she repeated bitterly.”

      Hadria’s face had clouded.

      “Truly parents must have a bad time of it!” she exclaimed, “but does it really console them that their children should have a bad time of it too?”

      Algitha was trembling and very pale.

      “Mother says I shall ruin my life by this fad. What real good am I going to do? She says it is absurd the way we talk of things we know nothing about.”

      “But she won’t let us know about things; one must talk about something!” cried Hadria with a dispirited laugh.

      “She says she has experience of life, and we are ignorant of it. I reminded her that our ignorance was not exactly our fault.”

      “Ah! precisely. Parents throw their children’s ignorance in their teeth, having taken precious good care to prevent their knowing anything. I can’t understand parents; they must have been young themselves once. Yet they seem to have forgotten all about it. They keep us hoodwinked and infantile, and then launch us headlong into life, with all its problems to meet, and all momentous decisions made for us, past hope of undoing.” Hadria rose restlessly in her excitement. “Surely no creature was ever dealt with so insanely as the well-brought-up girl! Surely no well-wisher so sincere as the average parent ever ill-treated his charge so preposterously.”

      Again there was a long silence, filled with painful thought. “One begins to understand a little, why women do things that one despises, and why the proudest of them so often submit to absolute indignity. You remember when Mrs. Arbuthnot and——”

      “Ah, don’t!” cried Algitha, flushing. “Nothing ought to induce a woman to endure that.”

      “H’m——I suspect the world that we know nothing about, Algitha, has ways and means of applying the pressure such as you and I scarcely dream of.” Hadria spoke with half-closed eyes that seemed to see deep and far. “I have read and heard things that have almost taken my breath away! I feel as if I could kill every man who acquiesces in the present order of things. It is an insult to every woman alive!”

      In Hadria’s room that night, Algitha finally decided to delay her going for another six months, hoping by that time that her mother would have grown used to the idea, and less opposed to it. Mr. Fullerton dismissed it, as obviously absurd. But this high-handed treatment roused all the determination that Algitha had inherited from her father. The six months had to be extended, in order to procure funds. Algitha had a small income of her own, left her by her godmother, Miss Fortescue. She put aside this, for her purpose. Further delay, through Mrs. Trevelyan, brought the season round again to autumn, before Algitha was able to make her final preparations for departure.

      “Do try and reconcile them to the idea,” she said to her sister, as they stood on the platform of Ballochcoil station, very white and wretched-looking.

      “It breaks my heart to see father look so fixed and angry, and mother so miserable. I am not going away for ever. Dear me, a day’s journey will bring me back, at any time.”

      “I’ll do my best,” said Hadria, “here’s your train; what a clumsy instrument of fate it does look!”

      There was not much time for farewells. In a few minutes the train was steaming out of the station. A solitary figure stood on the platform, watching the monster curving and diminishing along the line, with its white smoke soaring merrily into the air, in great rolling masses, that melted, as if by some incantation, from thick, snow-like whiteness to rapid annihilation.

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      AS Hadria drove over the winding upland road back to her home, her thoughts followed her sister into her new existence, and then turned wistfully backwards to the days that had been marked off into the past by Algitha’s departure. How bright and eager and hopeful they had all been, how full of enthusiasm and generous ambitions! Even as they talked of battle, they stretched forth their hands for the crown of victory.

      At the last meeting of the Preposterous Society, Ernest had repeated a poem of his favourite Emerson, called Days, and the poem, which was familiar to Hadria, sounded in her memory, as the pony trotted merrily along the well-known homeward way.

      “Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,

       Muffled and dumb, like barefoot Dervishes,

       And marching single in an endless file,

       Bring diadems and faggots in their hands.

       To each they offer gifts after his will,

       Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.

       I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,

       Forgot my morning wishes, hastily

       Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day

       Turned and departed silent. I, too late,

       Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.”

      In spite of Hadria’s memorable lecture of a year ago, it was still the orthodox creed of the Society, that Circumstance is the handmaid of the Will; that one can demand of one’s days “bread, kingdoms, stars, or sky,” and that the Days will obediently produce the objects desired. If one has but the spirit that can soar high enough to really be resolved upon stars, or the ambition sufficiently vaulting to be determined on kingdoms, then—so ran the dogma—stars and kingdoms would be forthcoming, though obstacles were never so determined. No member except Hadria had ever dreamt of insinuating that one might have a very pronounced taste for stars and kingdoms—nay, a taste so dominant that life would be worthless unless they were achieved—yet might be forced, by the might of events, to forego them. Hadria’s own heresy had been of the head rather than of the heart. But to-day, feeling began to share the scepticism of the intellect.

      What if one’s stars and kingdoms lay on the further side of a crime or a cruelty?

      What then was left but to gather up one’s herbs and apples, and bear, as best one might, the scorn of the unjust Days?

      Hadria cast about in her mind for a method of utilizing to the best advantage possible, the means at her disposal: to force circumstance to yield a harvest to her will. To be the family consolation meant no light task, for Mrs. Fullerton was exacting by nature: she had given much, and she expected much in return. Her logic was somewhat faulty, but that could not be gracefully pointed out to her by her daughter. Having allowed her own abilities to decay, Mrs. Fullerton had developed an extraordinary power of interfering with the employment of the abilities of others. Hadria had rather underrated than exaggerated this difficulty. Her mother would keep her for hours, discussing a trivial point of domestic business, giving elaborate directions about it, only to do it herself in the end. She spent her whole life in trifles of this kind, or over social matters. Everything was done cumbrously, with an incredible amount of toil and consideration, and without any noticeable results. Hadria, fighting against a multitude of harassing little difficulties, struggled to turn the long winter months to some use. But Mrs. Fullerton broke the good serviceable time into jagged fragments.

      “I really can’t see,” said the mother, when the daughter proposed to set apart certain hours for household duties, and to have other portions of the day to herself, “I really can’t see why a girl’s little occupations should be treated with so much consideration. However, I have no wish for grudging assistance.”

      Hadria’s temper was far indeed from perfect,


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