Jewels to Wear
"Torches are made to burn; jewels to wear."--_Shakespeare_
CHAPTER I
"I can't think, Nancy, why you cannot get something useful to occupyyourself with. It seems to me that I have slaved and sacrificed myselfall my life, in every possible direction, simply that you may waste yourwhole time spoiling good paper, scribbling, scribbling, scribbling, frommorning till night, with your fingers inky, and your thoughts in theclouds, and your attention on nothing that I want you to attend to. Idon't call it a good reward to make to me. You will never do any goodwith that ridiculous scribbling--never! When I think of what you_might_ save me, of how you _might_ spare me in my anxious and busylife, it makes me positively ill to think I am your mother. Here have Ibeen thinking of you, Nancy, and working for you, and struggling, andfighting, and slaving for you for twenty years, and now that the timehas come when you might do something for me, you have only one idea inyour head, and that is writing rubbishy stories that nobody will everwant to buy!"
"You have only one idea in your head, and that is writingrubbishy stories that nobody will ever want to buy!"]
The girl thus addressed turned and looked at her mother.
"Mother, dear," she said depreciatingly, "I am sorry that I am not moreuseful. I can't help it. I do think of you, I try to do everything Ican to relieve you, and help you; but these stories will come into myhead. They won't be put out of it. What am I to do?"
"What are you to do?" echoed the mother. "Why, look at that basket ofstockings to darn!"
"I am quite willing to darn them," said Nancy meekly.
"Yes, you are quite willing, I daresay. You are quite willing _when_ Itell you. But you don't seem to see what a burden it is to me to haveto tell you everything as if you were a baby. There are the stockings,and there are you; at your age, you don't surely need me to tell youthat the stockings need mending!"
"I will do them at once," said Nancy. "I will do them this minute."
"Yes, with your thoughts in the clouds, and your mind fixed onscribbling. What, may I ask you, Nancy, do you think you will ever dowith it?"
"I don't know," said Nancy desperately. "Perhaps I may make some moneysome day."
"Never, never! Waste it, you mean. Waste it over pens, ink, paper andtablecloths. There is the tablecloth in your bedroom spotted with inkfrom end to end. It is heart-breaking."
"Well, Mother, what do you wish me to do?" the girl asked indesperation.
"Your plain and simple duty. I would like you to give up all idea ofwasting your time in that way from now on," said the motherdeliberately.
"Won't you even let me write a little to amuse myself in my spare time?"asked the girl piteously.
"Your spare time!" echoed the mother impatiently. "What spare time havepoor people such as we are? What spare time have I? Here are we withthis great boarding-house on our hands, twenty-three boarders to be madecomfortable, kept in good temper, fed, housed, boarded--everything to bedone for them, and I have to do it. Why, in the time that you wasteover those stories, you might make yourself a brilliant pianist, andplay in the evening to them. Then you would be of some use."
"I don't think," said Nancy, "that anything will ever make me abrilliant pianist, Mother. There's no music in me--not of that kind,and I don't think that the boarders would like me half as well if I wentand strummed on the drawing-room piano every evening for an hour or two,I really don't, Mother."
"No, you know better than I do, of course. That is the way with theyoung people of the present day. You are all alike. Ah, it wasdifferent when I was a girl. I would no more have dreamed of defying mymother as you defy me----"
"Mother, I don't defy you," Nancy broke in indignantly. "I never defiedyou in my life. I never thought of such a thing."
"Don't you write stories in defiance of my wishes?" Mrs. Macdonaldasked, dropping the tragedy air, and putting the question in a plain,every-day, businesslike tone.
At this, Nancy Macdonald flushed a deep full red, a blush of shame itwas, or what felt like shame, and as it slowly faded away until her facewas a dull greyish white, all hope for that gift which was as the verymainspring of her life, seemed to shrink and die within her.
"Mother," she said at last, in a firm tone, "I will do what you wish. Iwill give up writing, I promise you, from this time forward, and I willnot write at all while I have any duty left in the day. You will notmind my doing a little when I have seen the after dinner coffee served,will you?"
"That means, I suppose," said Mrs. Macdonald rather tartly, "that youwill sit up half the night ruining your health, spoiling your eyesight,wasting my gas, and making it perfectly impossible that you should getup in good time in the morning."
"Mother," said the girl, in a most piteous tone, "when I am once late inthe morning, I will promise you to give it up altogether, and for ever;more than that I cannot say. As you said just now, it is a hard lifehere, and we have not very much leisure time; but, I implore you, do nottake my one delight and pleasure from me altogether!"
"If you put it in that way," said Mrs. Macdonald rather grudgingly, "ofcourse, we can but try the experiment; but what good, I ask you, Nancy,do you think will ever come of it!"
"I don't know," said Nancy; "I can't say. Other people have madefortunes; other people have done well by writing; why should not I?"
"As if _you_ would ever make a fortune!" said Mrs. Macdonald, with thecontemptuousness of a woman to whom the struggle of life had been hardand to whom pounds, shillings and pence in the very hand were the onlyproofs of reason for what she called "wasting time" over story-writing.
"Well, if not a fortune, at least a comfortable income," said Nancyeagerly; "and if I did, Mother, I should give it all to you!"
"Thank you for nothing, my dear," was the ungracious reply.
To this Nancy made no answer. She carried the big basket of stockingsto the window, and sat down in the cold winter light to do such repairsas were necessary. Poor child! It was a hard fate for her. She was theeldest of a family of five, all dependent on the exertions of herwidowed mother in keeping afloat the big boarding-house by which theylived. For a boarding-house, be it ever so liberally managed, be thereceipts ever so generous, is but a sordid abode, especially to thosewho have the trouble and care of managing it; and to an eldest daughter,and one who stands between the anxious mother and the younger children,who mostly resemble young rooks with mouths chronically open, such alife appears perhaps more sordid than it does to any one else.
To Nancy Macdonald, with her mind full of visionary beauty, and livingdaily in a world of her own--not a world of boarding-houses--the lifethey lived seemed even more sordid, more trivial, more petty, than itwas in reality. Her wants were not many; she was never inclined to railat fate because she had not been born with a silver spoon in her mouth,not at all. But if only she could have a quiet home, with an assuredincome, just sufficient to cover their modest wants, to provide goodwholesome food, to buy boots and shoes for the little ones, to pay thewages of a good servant, to take those lines of anxious care from hermother's forehead, so that she could employ her leisure in cultivatingher Art--she always called it her Art, poor child!--she would have beenperfectly happy, or she _thought_ she would have been perfectly happy,which, in the main, amounted to the same thing. As she sat in the coldlight of that winter's afternoon, darning, as if for dear life, thegreat pile of stockings which were her portion, she soon drifted awayfrom the tall Bloomsbury dwelling into a bright, brilliant land ofromance, where there were no troubles, no cares, where nothing wassordid, and everything was bright and rosy, and even troubles andworries might have been adequately described as "double water gilt."
Young writers do indulge in these blessed dreams of fancy, and Nancy,remember, was only twenty. Her heroines were always lovely, alwaysextravagantly rich or picturesquely poor; her heroes were all lithe andlong, and most of them had tawny moustaches, and violet eyes like agirl's. They were all
guardsmen or noblemen. They knew not the want ofmoney; if they were _called_ poor, they went everywhere in hansoms, andhad valets and gambling debts. It was an ideal world, and NancyMacdonald was very happy in it.
From that time forward a new life began for the girl. The householdcertainly went more smoothly, because of that promise to her mother; andMrs. Macdonald's sharp tongue whetted itself on other grievances morefrequently than on that old one about Nancy's scribbling propensities.It was irritating to Nancy, of course, to hear her mother continuallynagging about something or other; but then, as she reminded herself veryoften during the day, her mother had great anxieties and grievousworries. She was a sort of double-distilled Martha, "careful andtroubled," not about many things, but about everything--everything thatdid happen, or might happen, even what could happen under givencircumstances which might and probably never would occur. Still, it wasnot so trying to bear when the shafts of sarcasm and complaining wereaimed at others instead of herself, and to do Nancy strict justice, shedid try honestly to do the work which lay to her hand.
In the midst of the multitudinous cares of the large household it mustbe owned that the girl's writing suffered. It is all very well for agirl in fiction to do scullery work all day long, and write thebrilliant novel of a season in odd moments, in a cold and cheerlessbedroom, but in real life it is very different. Nancy Macdonald gaveher attention to stockings and table-linen, and shopping and orderingand dusting; to keeping boarders in good temper, and making herselfgenerally useful; to superintending the education and manners of thelittle ones, to smoothing down the rough edges of her mother's chronicasperity--in short, to being a real help; but her much loved workpractically went to the wall. She dreamed a good deal while she wasdoing other things, but mere dreaming is not of much help towards makingname or fortune; work is the only road which leads to either. Still,you cannot do your duty without improving your character, and NancyMacdonald's character was strengthening and softening every day. Sheworked a little at night, but often she was far too tired and weary toattempt it. Very often when she did so, she found that the words wouldnot run, the incidents would not connect themselves, and frequently thather eyes would not keep open; and then I am obliged to say that it wasnot an uncommon thing for Nancy Macdonald to get into bed and cryherself to sleep.
Still, her character was strengthening. With every day that went by shelearnt more of the power of endurance; she became more patient, morefixed in her ideas; the goal of her desires was set more immediately infront of her. It was less visionary, but it was infinitely moresubstantial. In a desultory kind of a way she still worked, still wroteof lords and ladies whom she did not know in the flesh, still drewpictures of guardsmen with longer legs and tawnier moustaches even thanbefore. She spent the whole of her pocket-money (which, by the bye,consisted of certain perquisites in the house, the medicine bottles andthe dripping forming her chief sources of income) on manuscript paper,and was sometimes hard pushed to pay the postage on the mysteriouspackages which she smuggled into the post-office, and to provide thestamps for paying the return fare of these children of her fancy. Poorthings, they always required it. No enterprising editors wanted thelong-legged guardsmen, their blue eyes and tawny moustachesnotwithstanding. Nobody had a welcome for the lovely ladies, who wereall dressed by Worth, though they never seemed to have heard of such aperson as Felix. The disappointments of their continued return werevery bitter to her; yet, at heart, Nancy Macdonald was a true artist,and had all the true artist's pluck and perseverance, so that she neverthought of giving up her work. It was only that she had not yet foundher _metier_.