it was rather hard work to persuade the old master of st. benedict's that lucy ought to go to newnham. he belonged to the old school—he was almost the last left of that school—that did not believe very much in women. he believed in a girl learning to sew, and to spell, and play a little air on the piano—he was very fond of 'annie laurie,' he could listen to it by the hour; he went so far, indeed, as the three r's in a woman's education—and he stopped there.
he had no sympathy whatever in the movement for the higher education of women—spelt with a big w. he had voted consistently all his life against women being admitted to any of the[pg 35] privileges of the university, against their being allowed to take degrees; he had even voted against their being 'placed.' he regarded every concession made to the weaker sex as a step towards that dreadful time when a female vice-chancellor will confer degrees in the senate house, and a lady d.d. will occupy the university pulpit.
with these views, and with his prejudices growing stronger rather than weaker with the years, it was no wonder that mary rae had great difficulty in reconciling the master to the idea of lucy becoming a student of newnham.
he had to look at the question all round, from every point of view, and he had to talk it over a great many times. sometimes he talked it over with himself after dinner, when he woke up from his nap, or didn't quite wake up; and sometimes he talked it over with his nieces.
'i don't think your father would approve of it, my dear,' he said one day when he was talking 'it' over with lucy. 'he was a plain man, he hadn't the advantages of education that i had; but he had[pg 36] what served him just as well, he had common-sense. he knew what was wanted in a woman. a woman, he used to say, ought to be able to milk, and make butter, and bring up a family. dick's wife could do all these, and her poultry was noted in all the country round.'
lucy sighed. she had no ambition to make butter and bring up a family, and she had a distinct aversion to poultry. she hated cocks and hens and broods of yellow downy chickens. she remembered how they used always to be getting into the vicarage garden and digging up her flower-seeds.
'i am afraid i couldn't get my living by making butter, uncle,' she said meekly, 'or milking cows.'
she never could remember to say 'master,' like everybody else.
'no, my dear, no; i suppose not. some girls have the knack of it, and some women, i've heard my mother say, may churn for hours and the butter will refuse to come. dick's wife, your mother, my dear——'
[pg 37]
'great-grandmother,' murmured lucy almost inaudibly. the master hated to be contradicted, and he was always telling her that these far-off ancestors were her father and mother, this humble ploughman and his homely wife. there had been two generations of culture between, and lucy had quite forgotten, until her uncle reminded her, that her great-grandmother used to carry her eggs and her butter to market. the worst of it was he used to tell everybody it was her mother.
'yes, yes,' the master repeated testily; 'my memory is not what it was. but it does not much matter which. she was a good woman; she did her duty here; she brought up a long family—nine children—and she has gone to her reward. she did not know a word of greek or latin, and she only knew enough mathematics to reckon up the price of eggs; but if she had gone to girton or newnham she could not have done more. she did her duty here; after all, that is the great thing, my dear. there is nothing else that will bring comfort at the last.'
[pg 38]
it was a delightful reflection. it comforted the old scholar who had done his duty in this place for over sixty years, who had done it so well that by common consent men called him master; but it didn't comfort lucy at all. she was quite prepared to do her duty, only she wanted to do it in her own way.
there were other difficulties in the way of lucy going to newnham beside the master's prejudices. there was a dreadful ordeal to be gone through before those sacred portals would be opened to admit her.
there was the entrance examination. the senior tutor was as good as his word; he brought lucy over the very next day, not only the papers set at the last 'previous' examination, but a copy of the last newnham entrance papers. the next examination was to take place in march, and it was now the middle of february, and there were only a few weeks to prepare for it.
lucy looked hurriedly through the papers while the tutor stood by, and he saw her face fall and[pg 39] the pretty april colour, which was lucy's especial charm, go out of her cheeks.
'they are stiffer than you thought,' he said.
he couldn't help putting a little feeling into his voice; he couldn't help being sorry for the girl. he could see she was dreadfully disappointed.
'i did not think they would be so hard,' she said, with something like a sob, and striving to keep back the tears; 'i had no idea that so much was required.'
her voice was scarcely steady, and she finished up with a little wail—she couldn't keep it out of her voice—and she laid the papers down.
'you don't think you can do them?'
'no, i am sure i can't.'
'not if you work hard—very hard?—you have three weeks before you—not if i help you?'
'you! oh, mr. colville!'
the colour leaped back into her face, and her eyes brightened. she was quite trembling with eagerness.
'if you think with three weeks' hard work you can get through, i will help you,' he said.
[pg 40]
it was something new to the senior tutor to have a pupil so eager and willing. the eyes of the undergraduates of st. benedict's were not accustomed to brighten or their cheeks to flush when he proposed to give them a few hours' extra coaching.
'i am sure i can!' she said eagerly; 'and—and you are sure, mr. colville, you will not mind the trouble? i am a very slow learner, but i will do my best, my very best.'
'i am sure you will,' he said; and then he noticed that little helpless quivering about her lips that touched him with quite a new sensation. he had never seen mary's lips quiver. 'it will be no trouble,' the tutor said softly in quite a different voice; he even noticed the difference himself, with a strange sense of wonder. 'i shall be very glad to be of use to you.'
he had often been of use to mary. she always consulted him about the college business; she made use of him every day; but his voice had never faltered nor his cheek grown warm when he had[pg 41] offered to help her with the master's correspondence.
lucy began her work the next day. she turned out from the little shabby box she had brought with her to the lodge some well-thumbed old school-books. small as the box was, it contained all her personal belongings, and the books were at the bottom of the box.
like jacob, she had come into a strange land with very little personal impedimenta. it could all, everything, be stuffed into one small box, and the books were at the bottom. the books were shabby, like the box. they had belonged to her father, and she had read them with him.
there were his old virgil and xenophon, and a dilapidated euclid with all the riders missing, and an old-fashioned algebra. there had been newer editions since richard rae had used these in his college days more than twenty years ago. there had been delightful editions full of notes, and directing-posts along the royal road to a classical education; but lucy had been plodding along the old, rough, dusty way.
[pg 42]
the senior tutor smiled as he turned over these old books. they brought back to him the old days twenty years ago, the hopes and dreams of those early days, and the familiar faces. the dreams had been realized—at least, some of them—but the familiar faces had faded with the years, and the hopes—what could a man hope for beyond being master of his college? nevertheless, the senior tutor sighed. the sight of these old books had carried him a long way back.
'i think we can find some newer editions than these,' he said, smiling.
he not only found some newer, but he found the very newest. he found delightful books that smoothed away all the difficulties and made stony places plain. there will be a royal road to learning by-and-by. the road is getting smoother every day, and the way is getting shorter—a short, straight, macadamized road that one can travel over without any jolting or sudden pulls-up.
old scholars who remember the dear old rough road, and the stony ways, and the hills of difficulty[pg 43] they had to climb, sigh when they look back. there is no time now, in these hurrying days, to toil over stones and climb unnecessary heights. the new ways are so much better than the old; but the old men, if they were to begin again, would go the old way, the dear old way, with all its difficulties. they will still tell you the old ways are best.
lucy rae was not a scholar yet, though the desire of her heart was to be one—a perfect hypatia—and the new royal road was exactly what she wanted.
she made such rapid progress by means of these short-cuts and easy paths the senior tutor led her through that she was quite ready for that dreaded entrance examination when it came. she did as well in it as the girls who had been working for it for years.
there was nothing now to prevent her becoming a student of newnham. cousin mary had talked the old master over and smoothed away all the difficulties. she had wrung from him an unwilling[pg 44] consent. the senior tutor had done his part, too, in overcoming the master's prejudices. he had backed mary up in the most loyal manner; no girl could have had better advocates. when the doctor had urged that there had been no precedent in his family of girls construing latin and greek when they ought to be making butter and carrying their eggs to market, the tutor had reminded him that neither had there been a precedent in all the generations of the raes of one of their number being the master of a college.
he, on his part, had set up a precedent, and dick's little daughter was going to set up another—perhaps a more astonishing precedent.
lucy rae went up to newnham the next term. she ought to have waited until october, when the academical year commences, but she was much too anxious to begin at once. she couldn't wait till october.
she had taken a little draught of the divine nectar, and she was thirsting to drink deeply, ever so deeply—deeper than any woman had ever drunk[pg 45] yet. she was going to do very big things, and she couldn't afford to lose a minute. she would gain a whole term's work if she went up now, she would get in ten terms' work instead of nine, like the men, for her tripos. she would get a whole term's start of them.
with this thirst upon her, and this emulation stirring in her heart, lucy packed her little box and carried it up to newnham. she did not exactly carry it in her arms like a housemaid going to a new place. it was not far to carry it, and for the weight of it she might have carried it easily, but girls do not generally go to newnham carrying a bandbox, or a bundle tied up in a coloured pocket-handkerchief, and with two out-at-elbow little brothers lagging behind carrying a shabby box between them. lucy, alas! had not two out-at-elbow little brothers, and she had respect for the feelings of newnham, so she drove up to the door of newe hall in a hansom, with her modest little box on the roof.
she thought it was the happiest, the proudest[pg 46] day of her life, this first day at newnham. she had been looking forward to it for weeks. she had lain awake all the night before picturing what it would be like, and it was not the least like anything she had pictured.
she had pictured sunshine and a blue sky, and the lilacs in the hedge budding, and the daffodils blowing beneath the windows. it was the middle of april, and she had a right to expect these things; it was very little to expect.
it had been raining cheerfully all the morning, and it was raining still when the hansom drew up at the gate of st. benedict's; it couldn't draw up at the door of the lodge, because college lodges are cut off from the outside world by cloistered courts, and even royalty, when it visits the master of a college, has to leave its carriage at the gate and perform the rest of the journey on foot.
lucy met mr. colville in the cloisters as she was hurrying through, and he put her into the hansom, and he told the man where to drive, and quite a crowd of undergraduates, who had come up early[pg 47] in the term, stood round the gate watching her drive away.
it was quite a new thing, a girl going from st. benedict's to newnham. it was the newest thing under the sun. no daughter, niece or granddaughter of any master of st. benedict's had ever driven from those gates before to newnham.
perhaps when there is a mixed university, and a female president at the lodge, they will not have to go so far; they may find rooms beneath the same roof.
who shall say?
lucy couldn't have driven away with more depressing surroundings. the sky couldn't have been grayer, and the trees were shivering overhead, and the hedges were dripping, and there was a nasty mist settling down over everything. she forgot all about the lilacs and the daffodils she had been picturing as she stood, a forlorn little black figure, in the big, cheerless vestibule of newe hall, paying the driver of the hansom. there was no one at newnham to receive her, no one to show[pg 48] her to her room, only a housemaid, who went away directly she reached the door. she didn't even open the door of the room; she only pointed to it and went away in another direction.
it was a little bare room, it couldn't have been barer. there was a couch that served for a bed, a bureau with some drawers beneath, a table, a couple of chairs, and a thinly disguised washstand with imperfect crockery; and that was all. unless, indeed, a chintz curtain drawn across a corner of the room for hanging gowns behind could be called a wardrobe.
there was no fire, and the barred windows were steaming and blurred with the mist outside, and the raw spring afternoon was closing in.
lucy shivered and looked round the desolate room. she didn't know what she was expected to do next, or how she was to begin this new life. she was a member of the university now, she told herself with bated breath; she was really a female undergraduate, and she had got to begin as undergraduates began.
[pg 49]
should she begin with lighting the fire? while she was debating this point, and drawing off her gloves, a girl came in. she had left the door open so that anyone passing could look in and see her standing there, and the girl passing by looked in and saw her, and something in her attitude touched her, and she came in. perhaps it was her black frock and her white face.
'can i do anything for you?' she said. she didn't throw any sympathy into her voice; they never do at newnham. 'i've got a kettle boiling if you'd like some water, or'—looking round the bare room and seeing that lucy's things were not unpacked—'perhaps you'd rather have some tea.'
'ye—es,' lucy said quite thankfully; 'i would rather have some tea, please.'
'then come into my room.'
lucy followed the girl, a solid-looking girl with no profile to speak of, and a turned-up nose and violent red hair. she had not to follow her far, only across the passage.
[pg 50]
there was a card slipped into a frame in the door of the room, and the name of the occupant was written on it—'stubbs.'
'that's my name,' said the girl, pointing to it; 'maria stubbs—capability stubbs they call me. i suppose you are a fresher?'
'yes,' said lucy, 'i'm a fresher; i've only just come up. my name is rae—lucy rae.'
'not a bad name; but you won't have any use for it here. they'll call you lucifer most likely; they don't call anybody by their right name here.'
maria stubbs' room was unlike most newnham rooms. it was distinctly utilitarian. there was nothing ?sthetic about it. the most prominent thing in it was a bookshelf full of books, and there was a cabinet in one corner with a lot of narrow drawers, which lucy found out after were crammed with specimens. a bright fire was burning in the little tiled grate, and a cloth was spread, and some tea-things were laid on the flap of the bureau, which was let down for the purpose, and there were some cakes in one of the pigeon-holes.
[pg 51]
'take off your hat and sit down,' said maria, drawing a low chair to the fire; 'there's nothing to hurry for, they won't bring in your things for a long time; they never hurry themselves at newnham.'
'i don't think i ought to take off my things until i've seen someone,' said lucy. 'there's miss wrayburne i certainly ought to see. perhaps she doesn't know i'm here.'
the girl laughed—or cackled, rather; there wasn't the least fun in her laugh.
'perhaps not,' she said, as she busied herself about making the tea; 'and i don't think it would make any difference if she did. you don't think the dons are running about the college all day long shaking hands with the girls? you'll see miss wrayburne at the "high" at dinner, and she'll say "how d'ye do?" and smile—she always smiles—and that's all.'
'i didn't know,' lucy said humbly. 'i'm only a fresher, you see; i shall know better soon. but it struck me as a very chilling reception.'
[pg 52]
miss stubbs cackled in her unfeeling way.
'chilling! that's lovely! you've come to the wrong place if you expect any warmth at newnham, or sympathy either. it would be nothing better than a big girls' school if we were always "how-d'ye-doing" and shaking hands with each other—we should get to kissing soon! thank goodness there is no spooning here! we are barely civil to each other; and we make a point of ignoring everybody if we meet 'em out-of-doors. i hope you won't, on the strength of this tea, nod to me if you happen to run against me in the street, because i shan't notice you.'
'no,' said lucy, 'i certainly won't nod to you.' she didn't say it at all humbly, but she drank miss stubbs' tea. it was very good tea for newnham.
