CHAPTER VII
July 1st.
She has been now over five weeks under my roof, and I have put
off the evil day of explaining her to Judith; and Judith returns
to-morrow.
I know it is odd for a philosophic bachelor to maintain in his
establishment a young and detached female of prepossessing
appearance. For the oddity I care not two pins. _Io son' io_.
But the question that exercises me occasionally is: In what
category are my relations with Carlotta to be classified? I do
not regard her as a daughter; still less as a sister: not even as
a deceased wife's sister. For a secretary she is too abysmally
ignorant, too grotesquely incapable. What she knows would be
made to kick the beam against the erudition of a guinea-pig. Yet
she must be classified somehow. I must allude to her as
something. At present she fills the place in the house of a
pretty (and expensive) Persian cat; and like a cat she has made
herself serenely at home.
A governess, a fat-checked girl, who I am afraid takes too
humorous a view of the position, comes of mornings to instruct
Carlotta in the rudiments of education. When engaging Miss
Griggs, I told her she must be patient, firm and, above all,
strong-minded. She replied that she made a professional
specialty of these qualities, one of her present pupils being a
young lady of the Alhambra ballet who desires the particular
shade of cultivation that will match a new brougham. She teaches
Carlotta to spell, to hold a knife and fork, and corrects such
erroneous opinions as that the sky is an inverted bowl over a
nice flat earth, and that the sun, moon, and stars are a sort of
electric light installation, put into the cosmos to illuminate
Alexandretta and the Regent's Park. Her religious instruction I
myself shall attend to, when she is sufficiently advanced to
understand my teaching. At present she is a Mohammedan, if she
is anything, and believes firmly in Allah. I consider that a
working Theism is quite enough for a young woman in her position
to go on with. In the afternoon she walks out with Antoinette.
Once she stole forth by herself, enjoyed herself hugely for a
short time, got lost, and was brought back thoroughly frightened
by a policeman. I wonder what the policeman thought of her? The
rest of the day she looks at picture-books and works embroidery.
She is making an elaborate bed-spread which will give her
harmless occupation for a couple of years.
For an hour every evening, when I am at home, she comes into the
drawing-room and drinks coffee with me and listens to my
improving conversation. I take this opportunity to rebuke her
for faults committed during the day, or to commend her for
especial good behaviour. I also supplement the instruction in
things in general that is given her by the excellent Miss Griggs.
Oddly enough I am beginning to look forward to these evening
hours. She is so docile, so good-humoured, so spontaneous. If
she has a pain in her stomach, she says so with the most engaging
frankness. Sometimes I think of her only, in Pasquale's words,
as a bundle of fascination, and forget that she has no soul.
Nearly always, however, something happens to remind me. She
loves me to tell her stories. The other night I solemnly related
the history of Cinderella. She was enchanted. It gave me the
idea of setting her to read "Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare." I
was turning this over in my mind while she chewed the cud of her
enjoyment, when she suddenly asked whether I would like to hear a
Turkish story. She knew lots of nice, funny stories. I bade her
proceed. She curled herself up in her favourite attitude on the
sofa and began.
I did not allow her to finish that tale. Had I done so, I should
have been a monster of depravity. Compared with it the worst of
Scheherazade's, in Burton's translation, were milk and water for
a nunnery. She seemed nonplussed when I told her to stop.
"Are oriental ladies in the habit of telling such stories?" I
asked.
"Why, yes," she replied with a candid air of astonishment. "It
is a funny story."
"There is nothing funny whatever in it," said I. "A girl like
you oughtn't to know of the existence of such things."
"Why not?" asked Carlotta.
I am always being caught up by her questions. I tried to
explain; but it was difficult. If I had told her that a maiden's
mind ought to be as pure as the dewy rose she would not have
understood me. Probably she would have thought me a fool. And
indeed I am inclined to question whether it is an advantage to a
maiden's after career to be dewy-roselike in her
unsophistication. In order to play tunes indifferently well on
the piano she undergoes the weary training of many years; but she
is called upon to display the somewhat more important
accomplishment of bringing children into the world without an
hour's educational preparation. The difficulty is, where to draw
the line between this dewy, but often disastrous, ignorance and
Carlotta's knowledge. I find it a most delicate and embarrassing
problem. In fact, the problems connected with this young woman
seem endless. Yet they do not disturb me as much as I had
anticipated. I really believe I should miss my pretty Persian
cat. A man must be devoid of all aesthetic sense to deny that
she is delightful to look at.
And she has a thousand innocent coquetries and cajoling ways.
She has a manner of holding chocolate creams to her white teeth
and talking to you at the same time which is peculiarly
fascinating. And she must have some sense. To-night she asked
me what I was writing. I replied, "A History of the Morals of
the Renaissance."
"What are morals and what is the Renaissance?" asked Carlotta.
When you come to think of it, it is a profound question, which
philosophers and historians have wasted vain lives in trying to
answer. I perceive that I too must try to answer it with a
certain amount of definition. I have spent the evening
remodelling my Introduction, so as to define the two terms
axiomatically with my subsequent argument, and I find it greatly
improved. Now this is due to Carlotta.
The quantity of chocolate creams the child eats cannot be good
for her digestion. I must see to this.
July 2d.
A telegram from Judith to say she postpones her return to Monday.
I have been longing to see the dear woman again, and I am greatly
disappointed. At the same time it is a respite from an
explanation that grows more difficult every day. I hate myself
for the sense of relief.
This morning came an evening dress for Carlotta which has taken a
month in the making. This, I am given to understand, is
delirious speed for a London dress-maker. To celebrate the
occasion I engaged a box at the Empire for this evening and
invited her to dine with me. I sent a note of invitation round
to Mrs. McMurray.
Carlotta did not come down at half-past seven. We waited. At
last Mrs. McMurray went up to the room and presently returned
shepherding a shy, blushing, awkward, piteous young person who
had evidently been crying. My friend signed to me to take no
notice. I attributed the child's lack of gaiety to the ordeal
of sitting for the first time in her life at a civilised
dinner-table. She scarcely spoke and scarcely ate. I complimented
her on her appearance and she looked beseechingly at me, as if I
were scolding her. After dinner Mrs. McMurray told me the reason
of her distress. She had found Carlotta in tears. Never could she
face me in that low cut evening bodice. It outraged her modesty.
It could not be the practice of European women to bare themselves
so immodestly before men. It was only the evidence of her
visitor's own plump neck and shoulders that convinced her, and
she suffered herself to be led downstairs in an agony of self-
consciousness.
When we entered the box at the Empire, a troupe of female
acrobats were doing their turn. Carlotta uttered a gasp of
dismay, blushed burning red, and shrank back to the door. There
is no pretence about Carlotta. She was shocked to the roots of
her being.
"They are naked!" she said, quiveringly.
"For heaven's sake, explain," said I to Mrs. McMurray, and I beat
a hasty retreat to the promenade.
When I returned, Carlotta had been soothed down. She was
watching some performing dogs with intense wonderment and
delight. For the rest of the evening she sat spell-bound. The
exiguity of costume in the ballet caused her indeed to glance in
a frightened sort of way at Mrs. McMurray, who reassured her with
a friendly smile, but the music and the maze of motion and the
dazzle of colour soon held her senses captive, and when the
curtain came down she sighed like one awaking from a dream.
As we drove home, she asked me:
"Is it like that all day long? Oh, please to let me live there!"
A nice English girl of eighteen would not flaunt unconcerned
about my drawing-room in a shameless dressing-gown, and crinkle
up her toes in front of me; still less would she tell me
outrageous stories; but she will wear low-necked dresses and gaze
at ladies in tights without the ghost of an immodest thought. I
was right when I told Carlotta England was Alexandretta upside-
down. What is immoral here is moral there, and vice-versa.
There is no such thing as absolute morality. I am very glad this
has happened. It shows me that Carlotta is not devoid of the
better kind of feminine instincts.
