Part 1 (2/2)

By the time that Mary was seven years old, that is in the autumn of 1858, it was decided that she should go as a boarder to Miss Anne Clough's school at Ambleside, or rather at Eller How on the slopes of Wansfell behind the town. Here she spent two years and more--happy on the whole, often naughty and wilful, but usually held in awe by Miss Clough's stately presence and power of commanding her small flock.

There was only one other boarder besides Mary, a girl named Sophie Bellasis, whose recollections of those days were preserved and given to the world long afterwards by her husband, the late Mr. T. C. Down, in an article published by the _Cornhill Magazine_.[2] Miss Bellasis'

impressions of the queer little girl, Mary Arnold, who was her fellow-boarder, make so vivid a picture that I may perhaps be forgiven for reproducing them here:

”Mary had a very decided character of her own, as well as a pretty vivid imagination, for the odd things she used to say, merely on the spur of the moment, would quite stagger me sometimes. Once when we were going along the pa.s.sage upstairs leading to the schoolroom, she stopped at one of the gratings where the hot air came up from the furnace, with holes in the pattern about the size of a s.h.i.+lling, and told me that she knew a little boy whose head was so small that he could put it through one of those holes: and after we had gone to bed she would tell me the oddest stories in a whisper, because it was against the rules to talk. I think now that her fancy used to run riot with her, and, of course, she had to give vent to it in any way that suggested itself. But I implicitly believed whatever she chose to tell me, so that you see we both enjoyed ourselves. Her energy and high spirits were something wonderful; out of doors she was never still, but always running or jumping or playing, and she invariably tired me out at this sort of thing. Still, nothing came amiss to her in the way of amus.e.m.e.nt; anything that entered her head would answer the purpose, and she was never at a loss. I recollect she had a lovely doll, which her aunt, Mrs. Forster, had given her, all made of wax. Once she was annoyed with this doll for some reason or other and broke it up into little bits. We put the bits into little saucepans, and melted them over one of the gratings I told you of. Sometimes w.i.l.l.y Dolly (that was the name we had for the general factotum) would let the fire go down, and then the gratings were cold, and at other times he would have a roaring fire, and then they would be so hot that you couldn't touch them. So we melted the wax and moulded it into dolls' puddings, and that was the last of her wax doll!

”One day we were over at Fox How, which was a pretty house, with a wide lawn and garden. One side of it was covered with a handsome Virginia creeper, which was thought a great deal of, and, of course, was not intended to be meddled with. Suddenly it occurred to Mary that it would be first-rate fun to pick 'all those red leaves,' and I obediently went and helped her. We cleared a great bare s.p.a.ce all along the wall as high as we could reach, but from what Miss Arnold said when she came out and discovered what was done, I gathered that she was not so pleased with our work as we were ourselves.”

It was during these years, from six to nine, that the foundation was laid of that pa.s.sionate adoration for the fells, with their streams, bogs and stone walls, which became one of Mary's most intimate possessions and never deserted her in after years. In her _Recollections_ she describes a walk up the valley to Sweden Bridge with her father and Arthur Clough, the two men safely engaged in grown-up talk while she, happy and alone, danced on in front or lingered behind, all eyes and ears for the stream, the birds and the wind. It was a walk of which she soon knew every inch, just as she knew every inch of the Fox How garden, and I believe that the sights and sounds of that rough northern valley came to be woven in with the very texture of her soul.

They appealed to something primitive and deep-down in her little heart, some power that remained with her through life and that, as she once said to me, ”stands more rubs than anything else in our equipment.”

Then, when she was only nine and a half, she was transferred to a school at s.h.i.+ffnal in Shrops.h.i.+re, kept by a certain Miss Davies, whose sister happened to be an old friend of Tom Arnold's and offered now to undertake little Mary's maintenance if she were sent to this ”Rock Terrace School for Young Ladies.” But the change seemed to call out all the demon in Mary's composition; she fought blindly against the restrictions and rules of this new community, felt herself at enmity with all the world and broke out ever and anon in storms of pa.s.sion. In the first chapter of _Marcella_ it is all described--the ”sulks, quarrels and revolts” of Marcie Boyce (_alias_ Mary Arnold), the getting up at half-past six on dark winter mornings, the cold ablutions and dreary meals, and the occasional days in bed with senna-tea and gruel when Miss Davies (at her wits' end, poor lady!) would try the method of seclusion as a cure for Mary's tantrums. The poor little thing suffered cruelly from headaches and bad colds, and laboured too under a sore sense of poverty and disadvantage as compared with the other girls; she was, in fact, paid for at a lower rate than most of the other boarders, and was not allowed to forget it. Often she writes home to beg for stamps, and once she says to her father: ”Do send me some more money. It was so tantalizing this morning, a woman came to the door with twopenny baskets, so nice, and many of the other girls got them and I couldn't.” Another time she begs him to send her the threepence that she has ”earned,” by writing out some lists of names for him. But on Sat.u.r.days she had one joy, fiercely looked forward to all the week; a ”cake-woman” came to the school, and by h.o.a.rding up her tiny weekly allowance she was able--usually--to buy a three-cornered jam puff. To a rather starved and very lonely little girl of nine or ten this was--she often said to us afterwards--the purest consolation of the week.

But there were some compensations even in these unlovely surroundings.

The nice old German governess, Fraulein Gerecke, was always kind to her, and tried in little un.o.btrusive ways to ease the lot which Mary found so hard to bear. Once she made for her, surrept.i.tiously, a white muslin frock with blue ribbons and laid it on her bed in time for some little function of the school for which Mary had received no ”party frock” from home. A gush of hot tears was the response, tears partly of grat.i.tude, partly of soreness at the need for it; but the muslin frock was worn nevertheless, and entered from that moment into the substance of the day-dreams and stories that she was for ever telling herself. Any child who has a faculty for it will understand how great a consolation were these self-told stories, in which she rioted especially on days of senna-tea and gruel. Tales of the Princess of Wales and how she, Mary, herself succeeded in stopping her runaway horses, with the divinity's pale agitation and grat.i.tude, filled the long hours, and the muslin frock usually came into the story when Mary made her trembling appearance ”by command” at the palace afterwards. Gradually, too, these tales came to weave themselves round more accessible mortals, for Mary's heart and affections were waking up and she did not escape, any more than the modern schoolgirl, her share of ”adorations.” At twelve years old she fell headlong in love with the Vicar of s.h.i.+ffnal and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Cunliffe; going to church--especially in the evenings, when the Vicar preached--became a romance; seeing Mrs. Cunliffe pa.s.s by in her pony-carriage lent a radiance to the day. The Vicar's wife, a gentle Evangelical, felt genuinely drawn towards the untamed little being and did her best to guide the wayward footsteps, while Mary on her side wrote poems to her idol, keeping them fortunately locked within her desk, and let her fancy run from ecstasy to ecstasy in the dreams that she wove around her. What ”dauntless child” among us does not know these splendours, and the transforming effect that they have upon the p.r.i.c.kly hide of youth? Little Mary Arnold was destined to leave her mark upon the world, partly by power of brain, but more by sheer power of love, and the first human beings to unlock the unguessed stores of it within her were these two kindly Evangelicals.

Still, the demon was not quite exorcised, and ”Aunt Fan” still found Mary something of a handful when she stayed at Fox How, though now in a different way.

”She seems to me very much wanting in _humility_,” she writes in January, 1864, ”which, with the knowledge she must have of her own abilities, is not perhaps wonderful, but it is ungraceful to hear her expressing strong opinions and holding her own, against elder people, without certainly much sense of reverence. One thing, however I will mention to show her desire to conquer herself. She had no gloves to go to Ellergreen, and I objected to buying her kid, but got her such as I wear myself, very nice cloth. She vowed and protested she couldn't and shouldn't wear them, so I said I should not make her, but if she wanted kid, she must buy them with her own money. I talked quietly to her about it and said how pleased I should be if she conquered this whim, and when she came to say good-bye to me before starting for Ellergreen her last words were--'I am going to put on the gloves, Auntie!'--and she has worn them ever since, though I must say with some grumblings!”

She stayed for four years at Miss Davies's, during which time her parents moved (in 1862) from Dublin to Birmingham, where Tom Arnold was offered work under Newman at the Oratory School. The change brought a small increase in salary, but not enough to cover the needs of the still growing family, and if it had not been for the help freely given during these years by W. E. Forster, the struggling pair must almost have gone down under their difficulties. One result of the change was that the elder boys, Willie and Theodore, were themselves sent to the Oratory School, and the thought of Arnold of Rugby's grandsons being pupils of Newman gave rise to bitter reflections at Fox How. ”I was very glad to hear of w.i.l.l.y's having done so well in the examination of his cla.s.s,”

wrote Julia to her husband from the family home, ”although I must confess the thought of _our son_ being examined by Dr. Newman had carried a pang to my heart. Your mother I found felt it in the same way; she said (when I read out to her that part of your letter) with her eyes full of tears, 'Oh! to think of _his_ grandson, _dearest Tom's son_, being examined by Dr. Newman!'” Still, Julia was emphatically of opinion that if priests were to have a hand in their education at all, she would rather it were English than Irish priests.[3]

Meanwhile, the shortcomings of the school at s.h.i.+ffnal were becoming evident to Mary's mother, and in the winter of 1864-5 she succeeded in arranging that the child should be sent instead to another near Clifton, kept by a certain Miss May, which was smaller and also more expensive than Miss Davies's. Heaven knows how the payments were managed, but the change answered extremely well, for after the first term Mary settled down in complete happiness and soon developed such a devotion to Miss May as made short work of her remaining tendencies to temper and ”contrariness.” Miss May must have been exactly the type of schoolmistress that Mary needed at this stage--kind and large-hearted, with the understanding necessary to win the confidence of such an uncommon little creature--so that it was not long before the child's mind began to expand in every direction. Long afterwards she was wont to say that the actual knowledge she acquired at school was worth next to nothing--that she learnt no subject thoroughly and left school without any ”edged tools.” But certainly by the time she was twelve she could write a French letter such as not many of us could produce with all our advantages, while the drawing and music that she learnt at school encouraged certain natural talents in her that were to give her some of the purest joys of her after-life. Still, no doubt her mind received no systematic training, and at Miss Davies's I believe that _Mangnall's Questions_ were still the common textbook! Though she learnt a little German and Latin she always said that she had them to do all over again when she needed them later for her work, while Greek, which became the joy and consolation of her later years, was entirely a ”grown-up”

acquisition. But whatever the imperfections of her nine years of school, better times were at hand both for Mary and her mother.

Whether it was that after two or three years of the Birmingham Oratory, Tom Arnold's political radicalism (always a st.u.r.dy growth) began to make him uneasy at the proceedings of Pio Nono--for 1864 was the year of the Encyclical--or whether it was more particularly the Mortara case, as he says in his autobiography,[4] at any rate his feeling towards the Catholic Church had grown distinctly cool by the end of that year, and he was meditating leaving the Oratory. Gradually the rumour spread among his friends that Tom Arnold was turning against Rome, and in June, 1865, a paragraph to this effect appeared in the papers. Little Mary, now a girl of fourteen, heard the news while she was at Miss May's, and wrote in ecstasy to her mother:

”My precious Mother, I have indeed seen the paragraphs about Papa.

The L's showed them me on Sat.u.r.day. You can imagine the excitement I was in on Sat.u.r.day night, not knowing whether it was true or not.

Your letter confirmed it this morning and Miss May, seeing I suppose that I looked rather faint, sent me on a pretended errand for her notebook to escape the breakfast-table. My darling Mother, how thankful you must be! One feels as if one could do nothing but thank Him.”

Her father's change opened indeed a new and happier chapter in their lives, for it opened the road to Oxford. He had been seriously facing the possibility of a second emigration, this time to Queensland, and had been making inquiries about official work there, but his own inclinations--and, of course, Julia's too--were in favour of trying to make a living at Oxford by the taking of pupils. His old friends there encouraged him, and by the autumn of 1865 they were established in a house in St. Giles's and the venture had begun. Mary wrote in delight that winter to her dear Mrs. Cunliffe:

”Do you know that we are now living at Oxford? My father takes pupils and has a history lectures.h.i.+p. We are happier there than we have ever been before, I think. My father revels in the libraries, and so do I when I am at home.”

A fragment of diary written in the Christmas holidays of 1865-6 reveals how much she enjoyed being taken for a grown-up young lady by Oxford friends. ”Went to St. Mary Magdalen's in the morning and heard a droll sermon on Convictional Sin. Met Sir Benjamin [Brodie] coming home. Miss Arnold at home supposed to be seventeen, and Mary Arnold at school known to be fourteen are two very different things.” She is absorbed in _Essays in Criticism_, but can still criticize the critic. ”Read Uncle Matt's Essay on Pagan and Mediaeval Religious Sentiment. Compares the religious feeling of Pompeii and Theocritus with the religious feeling of St. Francis and the German Reformation. Contrasts the religion of sorrow as he is pleased to call Christianity with the religion of sense, giving to the former for the sake of propriety a slight pre-eminence over the latter.” She does not like the famous _Preface_ at all. ”The _Preface_ is rich and has the fault which the author professes to avoid, that of being amusing. As for the seductiveness of Oxford, its moonlight charms and Romeo and Juliet character, I think Uncle Matt is slightly inclined to ride the high horse whenever he approaches the subject.”

As the eldest of eight children she led a very strenuous life at home, helping to teach the little ones and ever striving to avoid a clash between her mother's temper and her own. The entries in the diary are often sadly self-accusing: ”These last three days I have not served Christ at all. It has been nothing but self from beginning to end.

Prayer seems a task and it seems as if G.o.d would not receive me.”

But after another year and a half at Miss May's school these difficulties vanished, and by the time that she came to live at home altogether, in the summer of 1867, the rough edges had smoothed themselves away in marvellous fas.h.i.+on. She was sixteen, and the world was before her--the world of Oxford, which in spite of her criticisms of the _Preface_ was indeed _her_ world. Her father seemed content with his teaching work, and was planning the building of a larger house. She set to work to be happy, and so indeed did her mother--happy in a great reprieve, and in the reviving hopes of prosperity. But now and then Julia would stop suddenly in her household tasks, hearing ominous sounds from Tom's study. Was it the chanting of a Latin prayer? She put the fear behind her and pa.s.sed on.

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