A Day’s Time-Table by E. S. Elliott
Chapter 3
“I journey forth today,
A track unknown to explore,
A sacred path revealed to faith
Of works ‘prepared before.’
Linked to occasion’s call,
Her heaven-taught eye shall see
With claims entwined, in toil enshrined,
A secret ‘Unto Me!’”
Lois, as she prepared to enter the dining-room, gathered her next direction from the words, “Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” “He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks.” “Why, this will make every meal an ordinance,” she thought, “a channel of blessing, an act of communion with my King!”
Her father’s customary, “The Lord be praised for all His mercies!” went up from her heart as so real an act of homage, gratitude, recognition of bounteous giving, that the ordinary table-furnishing appeared transformed into direct manna-like provision. “’Meats sanctified by the Word of God, and by prayer’ – what does it mean?” she thought. “Does it mean this loving thanksgiving, this sense of tender supply, this glad taking of the needful store from His hand as a pledge of His individual care? Why, a meal like this is sacramental – like what the disciples must have known by the lake, when their Lord invited them to share food prepared by His own hands! How could I ever have gone through ‘saying grace’ as a religious form and little more?”
The ordinary breakfast program was not departed from on the morning in question. Mr. Emerson, though often given to professional meditations, was yet not sufficiently absorbed by his own thoughts to be unaware of what was passing around him, or, when occasion presented itself, to withhold from his intrenchment of personal preoccupation a sally of humor or of mischievous assault, varied often by a word of condensed advice which Lois was wont to call “Liebig-essence of wisdom.”
Mrs. Emerson, from behind the cups and saucers, drank her tea perplexedly, and ruminated aloud concerning the contents of sundry letters which, addressed to herself and other members of the family, were, in the customary breakfast parliament of the day, considered and discussed. Like many other mothers of children arrived at years of discretion – which she was in the habit of translating to herself as indiscretion – she found herself regarding, with questionable acceptation only, a transition era from the irresponsible absolutism which had characterized her earlier domestic administration to that of a necessary but reluctant recognition of constitutional, if filially dependent, freedom on the part of her daughters.
“On the part of her daughters,” we write advisedly; for, from earliest years, a difference of code with regard to “the boys” had so openly been acted out that the sisters had, in nursery days, learned to regard the appropriation of the upper and favorite stratum of rice-pudding to their brothers’ use as a matter of course, just as, in later years, the privilege of playing Hugh’s and Wilmot’s accompaniments at sight was represented as the ultimate reward for an interminable course of scales and exercises. In Mr. Emerson’s nature there was a loyal upholding of their mother’s position, blended with an occasionally evinced comprehension of “daughters’ rights” – half chivalrous, half fatherly – on which Lois, especially, had learned to lean with growing reliance.
“How is everything to be fitted in?” exclaimed Emma, recurring, on the morning in question, to an open letter. “Fanny wants this pattern matched at once. It is for Daisy, which of course means ‘urgent,’ ‘no delay’ ; and Daisy is to wear the frock on the 12th, which means five days hence; and ‘if the cashmere can be matched near at hand, I shall be so grateful to you, dear Emma; or if you are too much engaged, perhaps Gertrude,’ etc., etc. How is Daisy’s pattern to be worked in with my South Kensington class, with going to luncheon, in Julia’s company, at Lady Welwyn’s afterward, and with the afternoon drive to Harrow in their carriage, which will allow only of my getting back in time for dinner?”
“Gertrude is going with me this morning to Hampstead,” rejoined Mrs. Emerson. “I promised your aunt long ago, and she unexpectedly claims us today. And on the top of all, here comes a note from Miss Marx, that worthy little woman whom we met last year at Buxton, reminding me of my invitation to her to rest here some day on her way through town, and saying that, if she does not hear to the contrary – somehow her letter has been delayed two or three days in the post – she will come today for luncheon. -Lois, you will have to entertain her, and to say that I could not disappoint your aunt.”
Now, truth to tell, the Hampstead expedition was just then much on Mrs. Emerson’s mind. “Of all the days in the week,” she had said to her husband, before breakfast, “your sister has fixed on the most inconvenient; but Gertrude shall not lose it if I am tired out before dinner. Those Miss Veres and their brother, whom we so liked, and who traveled with them when they took Gertrude to Switzerland, are to be at luncheon. He has just got that living near Hereford – a very good one – and you know what Bishop Bernard said of him to you. He has written privately to Frances to say how much he wished us to know about it, and she has inclosed his note. And – well, if I get a headache to the end of the week for my pains, Gertie shall have her walk in the garden, and your sister and I can have our quiet chat on the terrace. I consider that she has acted most kindly in the matter.”
Perhaps it was a consciousness of extra loyalty to her daughter’s interests, and of special devotion to her family in general, which, working by contradiction, found vent in a somewhat vexed expostulation against circumstances on the part of the lady of the house.
“It is tiresome of that Miss Marx,” she continued, in half-soliloquy, “to happen upon today, and people coming to dinner in the evening! I had thought that, as there would be no one but Lois at home for luncheon, just a tray with some slices of cold beef and a custard would be enough. There is plenty of cake and preserve if she likes. Harman will be put out. I suppose one couldn’t telegraph and ask her to come tomorrow?”
“Shall I write the telegram, mother?” interposed her son. ”’Much regret. Limited liability luncheon only. Lois, cold beef, and a custard at home. Postpone visit.’”
“It’s all very well for you boys, “ retorted his mother, “with your regular work, and with nothing to do but eat your dinners, which other people have to order. However, Lois must make our excuses, though she happens to be the only one that did not meet her. -I suppose you haven’t anything special today, Lois?- It was through trying that prescription for rheumatism which Miss Marx took such trouble to get for me that I became so much worse after Buxton; but she was so good-natured about it-”
“That you could not do less than prescribe luncheon in return,” interposed Mr. Emerson. – “Lois, mind that you place the matter properly before her from that point of view.”
“It’s always the way in London,” continued his wife, shaking the teapot in such fashion as to extract the latent virtue from the tea-leaves, and during the process becoming a little mixed in her pronouns: “invite some one in a general way, when they are coming through town, and just when you have a make-up luncheon, or want to get out, there’s a double knock, and she assures you they couldn’t pass through and not take advantage of your kind invitation. Happily, Harman has the sense to know that the knock means custard pudding, or an omelet got up in a hurry, and does what’s right.”
“I wish it hadn’t been my day for South Kensington,” interposed Emma, pleasantly; “then I could have helped.”
“And how are you going to South Kensington?” asked her mother, reverting, as the result of a sudden annoyance on one ground, to an unpremeditated contradictoriness on another, the underlying connection being known to herself alone, “On a busy day like this, where am I to find servants to go about with the young ladies, if they take it into their heads to travel to the other end of the City?”
Now Mrs. Emerson held strongly conservative, and not wholly unjustifiable, theories as to the impropriety of her daughters going about unattended in London. Though from stress of circumstances, and in a deteriorated social age, these were, of necessity, occasionally relaxed, it was understood that they were still represented by unrepealed laws in an unwritten statute-book, to be, when occasion demanded, referred to as evidence in matters of family decision. At this point, therefore, a virtuous stand for principle presented a convenient outlet for unspoken protest against the morning’s embarrassments, and Miss Marx’s visit in particular.
“But, dear mother, I have gone to that painting-class all the winter,” replied Emma, apologetically. “You and father consented willingly to my joining Julia Welwyn, and have been ever so pleased about my getting on so well.”
“Yes, it was all very well before Wilmot went abroad,” was the rejoinder, “when his way was the same as yours, and he saw you nearly to the door, and safe with the Welwyns. But that does not answer my question, Emma. How are you going today?”
“Why, mother dear, just as usual. The omnibus from Miller Street brings me-”
“The omnibus!” ejaculated Mrs. Emerson, with sudden dismay. “I wonder what your grandfather would have thought if your aunts and I had been seen going about alone in a London omnibus, or anywhere in London without a livery-footman behind us!”
“But, mother, we are not important young ladies like the Miss De Bressays of Rockstone,” replied Emma, with politic docility; “and you could not spare Bingham to go with me in the omnibus today.”
“Bingham go with you – with you in the bus!” ejaculated her mother, with a strong accentuation of the plebian monosyllable. “Emma, you ought to be ashamed!”
“But, mother, I have gone in that invaluable carriage and pair with your knowledge over and over again!”
“Never, with my knowledge, by yourself,” was the reply, Mrs. Emerson conveniently ignoring, with no intentional disregard of truth, a course of precedent for which her daughter might have produced abundant family affidavits- “never without Wilmot or somebody with you. At all events, Emma, I am not going to argue. I disapprove of it, and that’s enough.”
“Why, mother,” interposed Hugh, “you are not worthy of being, so to speak, parent-once-removed to Lois’s invaluable formula, which makes it easy for our most hyper-refined visitors to find their way at a low figure to the neighboring sign of the Raven, and thence to our door. ‘Are you great enough not to mind going in an omnibus?’ meets every case.”
“It’s all very well for you, Hugh,” again observed his mother, whose organ of locality was of minus proportions. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t go that way to your law place, and take Emma yourself.”
“But, my dear mother, you don’t take South Kensington on your way from Regent’s Park to Chancery Lane!” remonstrated Hugh. “Delighted as I should be to escort Emma, I am afraid that my law-lessons would be put off until very late in the day.”
“Emma is so careless about herself,” still protested her mother. “I saw her only two days ago going out in the bitter east wind without an extra wrap, and she has never really got over the influenza. Going in and out of an omnibus, and then the drafts at that South Kensington Museum – she will be thrown back just to where she was before, and then there will be all the nursing over again!”
“Well, mother dear, if you disapprove-”
“I do disapprove,” interposed Mrs. Emerson, who had ascended, by a combination of outward argument and inward vindication of motive, to the particular platform of self-assertion on principle from which her children knew that too abrupt a capitulation was not to be expected.
“Well, if you really disapprove, I shall just have time to telegraph to the Welwyns, and tell them not to expect me,” was Emma’s dutiful reply. – “Hugh, you have telegraph forms in the next room. – You see, I couldn’t let them wait for me, as of course they would offer the place in the carriage to some one else. – Just get me one, Hugh dear; mother knows I wouldn’t go on any account if she didn’t like it. Then I can see to Fanny’s pattern.”
Now if there was one friendship which, in her heart of hearts, Mrs. Emerson prized for her daughter, and respecting which she built more castles in the air than any other, it was that of the Welwyn family; while, on the other hand, she felt it due to her parental relationship to maintain the position arrived at with possibly indiscreet energy, but from which she found it difficult to retreat.
“Don’t you think, my dear, that, as Emma joined the class with your consent, it might be better not to make a break in the course?” interposed Mr. Emerson, with an exercise of quiet camaraderie with his daughter, for which, with legal acuteness, he had bided his time. “If Hugh or I were to see her off in a cab, and if she – be sure you are very particular about that, Emma” – and her father’s voice assumed a judicial tone which brought so mischievous a twinkle into Emma’s eyes that it was only by severe self-restraint that a responsive signal from his own was withheld – “if she is very particular about wrapping up warmly – you have warm clothes, Emma?”
“Oh yes, my sealskin jacket, father, which mother gave me at Christmas. Such a beauty! And, if that is not enough, I have shawls and-”
“The thermometer stands at 70 degrees this morning,” interposed Hugh, “and will be at 75 degrees in an hour or two.”
“Well, if Emma is very careful, do not you think, my dear, that you might consent? You see, the engagements were made with our knowledge, and we could hardly draw back.”
“As for a cab,” half soliloquized Mrs. Emerson, who, bravely, and with a view to the ultimate good of her family, fought off every unnecessary expense in minor matters – those, most especially, which might have contributed to her own comfort- “as for a cab all the way, my strong feeling is that a girl is far more protected in a public conveyance than in a cab, with you don’t know what sort of a man driving her. But what will you say to the Welwyns, Emma, if they ask you how you came?”
“Well, I can say I drove, mother,” was the reply, “which will be strictly true, and will meet all difficulties. Julia Welwyn ‘drives’ to the class just in the same fashion, and will fully understand.”
“Of course,” conceded Mrs. Emerson, “of course, if your father doesn’t object, I have nothing to say; but knowing, Henry, how particular you are about the girls-”
“Well, then, Emma, be grateful to your mother for her care over you, and be sure you remember your seal,” concluded her father, with a delicate undertone of successful championship in his voice which was fully appreciated.
“Certainly, father, unless – unless, mother dear, you wouldn’t mind lending me, instead, that lovely white gossamer shawl – the lacy one, I mean – which Aunt Orford sent you. It would just suit for a carriage-drive on this summery day. I would promise not to forget to put in on.”
“And don’t forget to bring it back,” was the final vindication of a slowly dying cause, as the little passage of arms had its conclusion on the side issue, and as Mrs. Emerson reminded herself how well the shawl in question would suit Emma’s tasteful dress and fair complexion; “and if you must go in that vehicle, you had better get Hugh to see you off.”
“But what about Fanny’s pattern?” interposed Gertrude. “Does everyone realize that from the Allingford point of view no other engagement can for a moment come into competition with Daisy’s frock?”
“I beg your pardon, Lois! Let me carve for you,” said Hugh, as his elder sister crossed to the sideboard. She declined his offer. There was an instant for the secret inspection of the concealed time-table, and the words shone to view: “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” “Even Christ pleased not Himself.”
Plans of her own had certainly been shaping themselves pleasantly in her imagination. Every one would be out. She would have a quiet morning for that private Greek Testament study, in which, with occasional help from her father and brother, and as the result of much steady work, she was at last consciously noting progress. And then there was that unexpected opening for magazine writing, whereby, with the highest object steadily in view, she was beginning to realize the possibility of new interests in a life shut out from most active pursuits. But with an unaccustomed tenderness Lois had found herself that morning regarding the members of the home circle. The faithful parents, to whom so deep a reverence was due; the brother and sisters, each with an individual claim on her sympathies – all seemed today to be reallied to her in a fresh sacredness of relationship, while, as the result of admission, as never before, into confidences of heaven, she was conscious of a glowingly enhanced perception of home and family obligations.
“Leave the pattern to me, Gertie,” she said, brightly. “It need not be a very complicated affair, and I may not have to make a very far search. I can take a cab if it is not to be had near home. I know that Fanny wouldn’t trust me for dress purchases as she would you or Emma; but, after all, matching cashmere requires less genius than trimmings.”
“And then you will get yourself tired before the evening, Lois,” interposed Mrs. Emerson, a real concern lest her daughter should be overdone translating itself into a sort of reproach-in-advance tone and manner which were wont to jar sensitively on the recipient. “There will be the flowers to arrange in the drawing room – your Aunt Orford promised to send me a supply – and Miss Marx; and just when the young ladies of the family ought to be helping to receive visitors, I shall be told that Miss Emerson is lying down and must rest.”
“But what else is to be done, dear mother?” was Lois’s gentle reply. “I will promise to be very prudent; but, if Fanny’s cashmere must go by the country post, and if everyone else is to be engaged-”
“Well, it won’t be my fault if I am left alone this evening, just when the people are beginning to come,” interrupted her mother, crushing in her eggshell with a vehemence indistinctly representing the difficulties of her position.- “Do make haste and ring for prayers, Hugh. The marketmen will be calling, and everything will be put out.”
“Lois must follow the example of the performer in the out-West American concert-room,” suggested Mr. Emerson, emerging from a private meditation- “the musician who, in condign fear of what might result from any disapproval on the part of his audience, wore the label on his back, ‘Gentlemen are requested not to fire on the performer, as he is doing his level best.’”
“I am sure Lois is doing her ‘level best’ for the whole family!” laughed Gertrude, “and we shall all fire off our thanks at the performer – label or no – when we come back. It seems as if things were reversed, and as if she were acting Cinderella for us all, while Emma and I are doing the selfish elder-sister business, and taking all the pleasure. – Don’t tire yourself, Lo dear,” she said, good-naturedly, as later, her sister saw to it that her dress did not trail, and escorted her and their mother to the door with bright farewells. “You have the pattern, haven’t you? There are ever so many shades of that blue, you know, and it must be an exact match.”
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