Six to Sixteen: A Story for Girls

  CHAPTER V.

  A HOME STATION--WHAT MRS. BULLER THOUGHT OF IT--WHAT MAJOR BULLERTHOUGHT OF IT.

  Riflebury, in the south of England--our next station--was a very livelyplace. "There was always something going on." "Somebody was alwaysdropping in." "People called and stayed to lunch in a friendly way.""One was sure of some one at afternoon tea." "What with croquet andarchery in the Gardens, meeting friends on the Esplanade, concerts atthe Rooms, shopping, and changing one's novels at the circulatinglibrary, one really never had a dull hour." So said "everybody;" and oneor two people, including Major Buller, added that "One never had an hourto one's self."

  "If you had any one occupation, you'd know how maddening it is," heexclaimed, one day, in a fit of desperation.

  "Any one occupation!" cried Mrs. Buller, to whom he had spoken. "I'msure, Edward, I'm always busy. I never have a quiet moment from morningto night, it seems to me. But it is so like you men! You can stick toone thing all along, and your meals come to you as if they dropped outof the skies, and your clothes come ready-made from the tailor's (andvery dearly they have to be paid for, too!); and when one is orderingdinner and luncheon, and keeping one's clothes decent, and looking afterthe children and the servants, and taking your card, and contrivingexcuses that are not fibs for you to the people you ought to call on,from week's end to week's end--you say one has no occupation."

  "Well, well, my dear," said the Major, "I know you have all the troubleof the household, but I meant to say that if you had any pursuit, anystudy----"

  "And as to visitors," continued Aunt Theresa, who always pursued her owntrain of ideas, irrespective of replies, "I'm sure society's no pleasureto me; I only call on the people you ought to call on, and keep up a fewacquaintances for the children's sake. You wouldn't have us without afriend in the world when the girls come out; and really, what withregimental duties in the morning, and insects afterwards, Edward, youare so absorbed, that if it wasn't for a lady friend coming in now andthen, I should hardly have a soul to speak to."

  The Major was melted in a moment.

  "I am afraid I am a very inattentive husband," he said. "You mustforgive me, my dear. And this sprained ankle keeping me in makes mecross, too. And I had so reckoned on these days at home to finish mylist of Coleoptera, and get some dissecting and mounting done. Butto-day, Mrs. Minchin brought her work directly after breakfast, and thatempty-headed fellow Elliott dropped in for lunch, and we had callers allthe afternoon, and a _coterie_ for tea, and Mrs. St. John (who seems toget through life somehow without the most indefinite notion of how timepasses) came in just when tea was over, and you had to order a freshsupply when we should have been dressing for dinner, and the dinner wasspoilt by waiting till she discovered that she had no idea (whoever didknow her have an idea?) how late it was, and that Mr. St. John would beso angry. And now you want me to go in a cab to a concert at the Roomsto meet all these people over again!"

  "I'm sure I don't care for Mrs. St. John a bit more than you do," saidMrs. Buller. "And really she does repeat such things sometimes--withoutever looking round to see if the girls are in the room. She told me athing to-day that old Lady Watford had told her."

  "My dear, her ladyship's stories are well known. Cremorne's wife hearsthem from her, and tells them to her husband, and he tells them to theother fellows. I can always hear them if I wish. But I do not care to.But if you don't like Mrs. St. John, Theresa, what on earth made youask her to come and sit with you in the morning?"

  "Well, my dear, what can I do?" said Mrs. Buller. "She's always sayingthat everybody is so unsociable, and that she is so dull, she doesn'tknow what to do with herself, and begging me to take my work and go andsit with her in a morning. How can I go and leave the children and theservants, just at the time of day when everything wants to be set going?So I thought I'd better ask her to come here instead. It's a great bore,but I can keep an eye over the house, and if any one else drops in I canleave them together. It's not me that she wants, it's something to amuseher.

  "You talk about my having nothing to do," Aunt Theresa plaintivelycontinued. "But I'm sure I can hardly sleep at night sometimes forthinking of all I ought to do and haven't done. Mrs. Jerrold, you know,made me promise faithfully when we were coming away to write to herevery mail, and I never find time. Every week, as it comes round, Ithink I will, and can't. I used to think that one good thing aboutcoming home would be the no more writing for the English mail; but theIndian mail is quite as bad. And I'm sure mail-day seems to come roundquicker than any other day of the week. I quite dread Fridays. And thenyour mother and sisters are always saying I never write. And I heardfrom Mrs. Pryce Smith only this morning, telling me I owed her twoletters; and I don't know what to say to her when I do write, for sheknows nobody _here_, and I know nobody _there_. And we've never returnedthe Ridgeways' call, my dear. And we've never called on the Mercerssince we dined there. And Mrs. Kirkshaw is always begging me to driveout and spend the day at the Abbey. I know she is getting offended, I'veput her off so often; and Mrs. Minchin says she is very touchy. And Mrs.Taylor looks quite reproachfully at me because I've not been near theDorcas meetings for so long. But it's all very well for people who haveno children to work at these things. A mother's time is not her own, andcharity begins at home. I'm sure I never seem to be at rest, and yetpeople are never satisfied. Lady Burchett says she's certain I am neverat home, for she always misses me when she calls; and Mrs. Graham says Inever go out, she's sure, for she never meets me anywhere."

  "Isn't all that just what I say?" said Major Buller, laying down hisknife and fork. (The discussion took place at dinner.) "It's the tyrannyof the idle over the busy; and why, in the name of common sense, shouldit be yielded to? Why should friends be obliged, at the peril ofdisparagement of their affection or good manners, to visit each otherwhen they do not want to go--to receive each other when it is notconvenient, and to write to each other when there is nothing to say? Youwomen, my dear, I must say, are more foolish in this respect than men.Men simply won't write long letters to their friends when they'venothing to say, and I don't think their friendships suffer by it. Andthough there are heaps of idle gossiping fellows, as well as ladies withthe same qualities, a man who was busy would never tolerate them to hisown inconvenience, much less invite them to persecute him. We are morestraightforward with each other, and that is, after all, the firmestfoundation for friendship. It is partly a misplaced amiability, a phaseof the unselfishness in which you excel us, and partly also, I think, awant of some measuring quality that makes you women exact unreasonablethings, make impossible promises, and after blandly undertaking amultiplicity of small matters that would tax the method of a man ofbusiness to accomplish punctually, put your whole time at the disposalof every fool who is pleased to waste it."

  "It's all very well talking, Edward," said Aunt Theresa. "But what isone to do?"

  "Make a stand," said the Major. "When you're busy, and can'tconveniently see people, let your servant tell them so in as many words.The friendship that can't survive that is hardly worth keeping, Ithink. Eh, my dear?"

  But I suppose the stand was to be made further on, for Major Buller tookAunt Theresa to the concert at "the Rooms."