by Joan Smith
“We are learning all about architecture,” Alice boasted wildly. “See what we have been doing, Mama. And it is freehand too. No rulers were allowed.”
“How nice! Look, Lady Roberts, Alice has done a drawing of St. George’s, in Hanover Square,” the proud mother said, passing the sketch along.
“That is not St. George’s, Mama,” Dorothy corrected at once. “That is an Ionic column you are looking at. St. George’s has Corinthian columns.”
“Why, there is no difference, my dear. They are all classical columns, but some are fancier than others.”
“Oh Mama! Miss Fenwick says only an ignoramus doesn’t know the difference. The Corinthian is much more ornate. It has the acanthus leaves on the capital. The top part is called the capital.”
Lady Synge smiled proudly at this display of erudition and bad manners on the part of her daughter, but Lord Philmot was frowning heavily. “What has Miss Fenwick to say about a young girl being rude to her mother?” he asked.
“Miss Fenwick was about to demand an apology!” I said, directing a fierce eye at Dottie.
“Why, what is the matter? What have I done?” Dottie demanded. “You said I was an ignoramus, Miss Fenwick. You know you did.”
She had me over a barrel there, for I had said just that, to awaken her a little to her sublime ignorance. “Do as you’re told, Dorothy. Apologize to your mother,” I said firmly.
“I’m sorry, Mama, but it is shocking that you don’t know anything about columns,” Dorothy said. She meant no harm really, but the incident brought home Pope’s old familiar line, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
Dottie’s blunder robbed the meeting of any charm it might have possessed. Their fairly decent sketches were not enough to cover this horrible lapse into rudeness. Everyone in the room was uncomfortable except Lady Synge, who never seemed to care for anything but showing her friends how clever her Miss Fenwick was. "Only fancy my girls knowing all about architecture,” was her satisfied remark.
“Three columns do not a temple make,” Philmot pointed out. “There is more to architecture than that.”
“You may be sure she has taught them everything,” his sister replied.
“Everything she knows at least,” he said, in a deceptively polite tone.
Like myself, his sister ignored him. “They are studying Shakespeare too, Lady Roberts. Hamlet they have been reading. ‘To be or not to be.’ Have I got that right, Miss Fenwick?”
“If you have not, you may rest assured Miss Fenwick will correct you,” he told her.
I smiled and told her it was correct, feeling like the worst sort of fool, but not fool enough to be in any doubt as to Philmot’s baiting me. Nor was he done with me yet. There was a glint of mischief in his eyes. “What has your analysis of Hamlet brought to light?” he enquired.
“Nothing new. It is too well known and studied to be a mystery, but such a standard classic ought to be a part of any educated person’s background. His weakness of character, his vacillation, good intentions hampered by lack of fortitude are what we are working on—a sort of character study.”
“You would not approve of vacillation, I assume?” he asked.
“One ought always to be ready to do his duty, without hesitation.”
“Even when it involves murder?” he pressed on.
“It was the course Shakespeare outlined as the proper one. I feel personally Hamlet might have been satisfied with a lesser revenge. There is a violence I cannot condone in much of Shakespeare, but still his writing is so great that we forgive him his plots. We shall do Coriolanus next, to compare a man of determined action and fortitude with Hamlet.”
“His determination did not prevent him from being talked out of destroying Rome by a bunch of women, if memory serves,” Philmot pointed out.
“He was not obstinate, to be sure. There is nothing admirable in mindless obstinacy.”
“I think he was well served to be murdered for his weakness.”
“You thought Hamlet should stick at one murder, and Coriolanus should sack a whole city! That indicates a strange discrepancy in your thinking, my lord. Perhaps you are not thinking at al1, but only arguing.”
“She has got you there, Phil,” his sister interrupted, with a show of impatience. A little revealing of my cleverness was all that was required. I took the hint and hustled the girls back upstairs, to ring a peel over Dottie. But really it was shocking that a lady in such a high position should not know a Doric column from a Corinthian.
By the end of the week, we were become bored with architecture, and turned our attention to matters of manners, philosophy and health. We went to Synge’s library and retrieved from dim corners such volumes as I considered useful and instructive—some essays by Hannah More, Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women, the sermons of John Donne, and a book on anatomy.
Everything was in a confused jumble in that library, unsorted according to subject matter and untouched by either human hand or a goose wing duster for some months, to judge by the patina of dust the books bore. Dottie, intending no humor I assure you, informed me they were carefully sorted, with all the same color books on the same shelf! She was right too. I was not on the lookout for this unexpected trick of aesthetics in a library.
I had in mind a particular book with a gray cover, and with the key to the filing system now in hand, 1 went to that area. Dr. Ward’s Collected Essays on the Human Species was there waiting for me. The Duchess of Tavistock had a copy, and had shown it to me once, mentioning it as being unexceptionable. I took it to my own room for perusal later, and found it enormously interesting, full of useful hints to ward off colds and infection. I do not refer to such superstitious rubbish as hanging a garlic about the neck, or placing a roasted onion in the ear, you understand. As long ago as 1797, Dr. Ward was advocating a scientific approach, emphasizing greater cleanliness and a careful control of diet, along with regular exercise. We really must get more exercise. It was the convenience of the tilbury that robbed us of the pleasure of walking.
In the attic we found a dusty old skeleton to transport to the study room. Dottie, so full of life, called it Hector. The servants were frightened to enter the room with Hector hanging there, his bones rattling in the wind and his lower jaw clicking. Before long, we could name all Hector's various parts—over two hundred of them, though of course the ribs and so on made it unnecessary to actually remember two hundred new words. Lady Synge continued enchanted.
"So odd to think of all those bones inside of a body,” she said. “Of course, where else would they be?”
“On the outside on animals below the vertebrates on the zoological scale,” I told her. She laughed gaily, and complimented me on my humor! She supplied many an unintentional laugh herself, though I was careful not to betray my amusement before Dottie.
Our newly discovered book gave us names, pictures and descriptions of the functions of muscles and organs (male, female, and mutual). We went into this subject in great detail, for it proved to fascinate my charges quite as much as it fascinated me. I half wished I might have been a doctor. The heart, liver, lungs—all became familiar to us. Alice, being close to that age where she might soon make a match, took a keen interest in the reproductive organs. It seemed foolishly prudish to act as though these organs held any different quality than the others. God put them in us and on us for man’s well-being and for the race’s continuance.
There was one drawing showing a foetus growing right inside a human body that caught her attention, for it was a thing that, while known in a sort of vague way, had never been at all clear to either of the girls. Dottie thought that in some undefined manner the baby’s head was inside the mother’s head, the arms inside her arms, and so on, the whole to be assembled like a carriage just before or after or during labor.
“How uncomfortable it must be, all curled up in a ball for years,” she said. “It is a wonder it can ever
unwind.”
“Not fo
r years, Dottie, for nine months—actually ten lunar months of twenty-eight days each. And of course it is not a whole body at first.”
“How is it possible for it to come out, all in one piece? It is too big,” she went on.
The diagram was consulted, causing some consternation I must admit to teacher as well as student.
“It’s impossible,” Dottie declared at last.
“It must be extremely difficult, but it cannot be impossible. We are all here, each of us born in this manner,” I assured them. “I’ll try to find someone to talk to us about it. Someone who has had a child.”
Upon consideration, this no longer struck me as a good idea. Such mothers as I had heard discuss the subject vied with one another to make it as gruesome as possible. There was no point in alarming the girls.
The next question was the one I was dreading. “How did it get in in the first place?” Dottie asked bluntly.
“It grew from a seed,” I told her matter-of-factly.
“Where did the seed come from?”
“From the father,” I replied, closing up the book rather quickly. I would have told the whole, but was afraid Lady Synge would not approve totally of this aspect of their modern education, for while she professed to be in favor of modernity, she was actually of the old school who spoke of the stork having visited a family. I did not remove the book from the schoolroom. It was there for the girls to examine at their leisure if they wished.
“I know it has something to do with kissing,” Dottie told me.
“Yes, as gathering apples has something to do with a pie coming out of the oven.”
Next day the book was gone. I observed the two sisters to have a peculiar interest in it. It would be seen in one of their rooms, then the other. When finally it got back to my hands, it fell open automatically at that section dealing with reproduction. I think they must, between the two of them, have discovered the awful truth. They did not mention it to me again, nor did I raise the point. We had plenty of other matters to explore.
Chapter Seven
Strangely enough, it was about a different area of learning than the anatomy lesson that I was called on the carpet. I believe it was Philmot who was accountable for it. He called from time to time to take the girls riding in the park on their new mounts he had given them. I was invited to join them, but with no mount and no skill in that field, I politely declined.
After having established that I was to be totally in control of Dottie’s days, I found it actually a relief to be rid of her for a few hours twice a week, and soothed my conscience with the thought that physical exercise was nearly as important as mental activity. Mens sana in corpore sano was a motto I had lettered in Gothic script and kept hung in the classroom. It must have been during one of the rides that Dottie spoke to him of our reading Mary Wollstonecraft.
Such was the man’s ignorance that he misconstrued the matter entirely, having apparently learned from one of his literary friends that Mrs. Wollstonecraft had been wed to William Godwin, the dissenting minister turned atheist philosopher of anarchy. Such was his interfering nature that he ran to his sister to report what he had discovered, in lieu of speaking to me on the matter. I was a summoned to the saloon.
As it happened, I had that day elected to wear an even more modish outfit than usual, and I did not usually dress like a governess. What I had on my back was a pale mauve serge suit, ornamented at the neck with a lace jabot and a cairngorm pin with an amethyst. I planned to take Dottie to a painting exhibition later on, and was dressed for this exalted outing, where one was apt to meet friends. Debbie and Jack, for instance, might very well be there, for while Debbie would have been happy to live in a stable, Jack was somewhat artistic.
“Miss Fenwick, what a smart suit!” was Lady Synge’s surprised comment when I entered.
“Thank you.” I nodded to acknowledge Philmot’s presence, then said, “You wish to see me, Ma’am?”
“To be sure, I do. That is—Philmot thinks..." She looked to him for help. I looked the same place, expecting trouble.
“What does Lord Philmot think?” I prompted gently.
At a commanding stare from her brother, she finally spit it out. “It is about your teaching the girls philosophy,” she began hesitantly. “That Godwin woman...”
“Yes, and what about it?”
“We are not at all sure... That is, Philmot thinks she is not quite the thing, Miss Fenwick.”
“Is Lord Philmot familiar with the essay we read?” I asked, with a surprised glance in his direction.
“No, with her history,” he shot back, very quickly.
“We are not studying her personal history, Sir, but only her famous essay on education.”
“We know what sort of a reputation she has, without having read the essay,” he assured me.
“It comes as news to me if literature can be judged without having read it.”
“She was an adulteress, a mother out of wedlock, and when eventually she married, she chose for husband an announced atheist and anarchist. Is this what you wish your daughters to be learning?” he demanded, turning from myself to his sister.
“Indeed it is not!” she exclaimed, her cheeks blanching.
“If you are to bar books because of the author’s character you might as well forget about literature. Seal up your library shelves. Shakespeare must go, likewise Byron, along with about ninety percent of the Latins and Greeks. You will end up with the sporting magazines and Hannah More,” I told her, ignoring her mentor.
“Yes, but—but are you a friend, an acquaintance of Mr. Godwin and his family?” she asked. This, I deduced, was at the bottom of her concern, and not that I had read Mary Wollstonecraft to the girls.
“I have never met the man!”
“You don’t approve of his theories?”
“Lady Synge, my father is a Dean! How should I condone atheism? Certainly I am not a follower of Godwin. I think his theories not only foolish but dangerous in the extreme."
“Philmot mentioned as well that Godwin is associated with—free love,” she said, to get the whole unpleasant business over with at once.
“Your brother is more familiar with Godwin’s theories than I. I do not follow his writings, I confess. What I have heard of them finds no favor with me. You need not fear I am subverting your daughters’ ideas. A lady either marries or she remains a respectable spinster. Those are the options open. I recommend no other course. Naturally most young ladies choose matrimony.”
“Well, Phil, you have worried me half to death for nothing,” she said, turning with a vastly relieved sigh to tap her brother with her fan.
“Just what is it in Mrs. Godwin’s essay you feel worth teaching, if not her philosophy?” he enquired,
with a look of frustration that I had outwitted him.
“That women have brains, milord, and ought to use them upon occasion. ‘I wish to see women reasonable creatures’ is the way it is expressed in the essay. Can you disagree with so humble a wish?”
“Not in the least. I have often wished the same thing, but doubt if reading an essay will accomplish it,” he answered dampingly.
“Do stop being satirical, Philmot,” his sister chided. “You know perfectly well Miss Fenwick is not only reasonable, but clever. Very clever indeed.”
“Of that there can be no doubt. She was clever enough to secure an excellent position for herself in any case,” he replied.
My employer had the sensitivity to blush for her brother’s lack of manners, but had not, I regret to relate, the gumption to call him to account. Much as I longed to do it, I could not push incivility so far. I could give it a little nudge, however, and did so, with the greatest pleasure. “I trust she is likewise clever enough to fill that position to her employer’s satisfaction. If you have no complaints, Ma’am, I shall return to my duties.
Before she could agree, Philmot spoke up again. I think he had come there for no other reason than to make mischief. “After you have taught the
m what facts you know, you must try if you can inculcate a few manners into their heads. It was embarrassing to see Dot behave like a hoyden in front of Lady Roberts the other day. I hope you chastised her severely, Miss Fenwick.”
“I did.”
“As manners form so small a part of your curriculum, may we know what studies you have included in their stead?”
"Besides philosophy, we are presently studying anatomy, health…”
“They can name every bone in the body, Phil, and know just what it looks like and is used for,” his sister smiled.
“How useful! If they fail to nab a husband due to their poor manners, they can always turn sawbones. But it is marriage you train them for, is it not, Ma’am?”
“My aim is to teach them to be reasonable creatures. If their reason leads them to marriage, then they will be ready to assume their duties.”
“They will know enough to avoid buying a Bodley Range in any case,” he told me, with a mocking smile.
“Of course they will marry!” Lady Synge said angrily.
“If Miss Fenwick succeeds in leading them down the path of sweet reason, I expect they shall. Any reasonable woman would, naturally, be married as soon as possible.”
This last speech, accompanied as it was by the boldest smirk ever to darken a man’s face, was intended as a snipe at my state of single blessedness. Had Lady Synge not been with us, he would have heard a tirade to make his ears sting, but as she was, he could only hear my philosophy in the most polite terms possible.
“Marriage does not agree with all women, Sir. As the institution is presently constituted, it places them at a disadvantage. They are placed in a position inferior to their husbands, legally inferior with regard to their rights, properties, and monies.”
“They must be protected,” he explained, resorting to the oldest lie in law.
"Children and mental defectives must be protected,” I objected, “not rational, adult human beings. If a lady does not marry, this protection is not considered necessary. Do you think the law is implying something, Lord Philmot? To wit, that a lady is weak-minded to have entered into matrimony.”