An Unsocial Socialist

G >> George Bernard Shaw >> An Unsocial Socialist


Mrs. Jansenius read as follows:

"Alton College, Lyvern.

"To Mrs. Wylie, Acacia Lodge, Chiswick.

"Dear Madam: I write with great regret to request that you will at once
withdraw Miss Wylie from Alton College. In an establishment like
this, where restraint upon the liberty of the students is reduced to a
minimum, it is necessary that the small degree of subordination which
is absolutely indispensable be acquiesced in by all without complaint
or delay. Miss Wylie has failed to comply with this condition. She has
declared her wish to leave, and has assumed an attitude towards myself
and my colleagues which we cannot, consistently with our duty to
ourselves and her fellow students, pass over. If Miss Wylie has any
cause to complain of her treatment here, or of the step which she has
compelled us to take, she will doubtless make it known to you.

"Perhaps you will be so good as to communicate with Miss Wylie's
guardian, Mr. Jansenius, with whom I shall be happy to make an equitable
arrangement respecting the fees which have been paid in advance for the
current term.

"I am, dear madam,

"Yours faithfully,

"Maria Wilson."

"A nice young lady, that!" said Mrs. Jansenius.

"I do not understand this," said Mr. Jansenius, reddening as he took in
the purport of his son-in-law's letter. "I will not submit to it. What
does it mean, Ruth?"

"I don't know. Sidney is mad, I think; and his honeymoon has brought
his madness out. But you must not let him throw Henrietta on my hands
again."

"Mad! Does he think he can shirk his responsibility to his wife because
she is my daughter? Does he think, because his mother's father was a
baronet, that he can put Henrietta aside the moment her society palls on
him?"

"Oh, it's nothing of that sort. He never thought of us. But I will
make him think of us," said Mr. Jansenius, raising his voice in great
agitation. "He shall answer for it."

Just then Henrietta returned, and saw her father moving excitedly to
and fro, repeating, "He shall answer to me for this. He shall answer for
it."

Mrs. Jansenius frowned at her daughter to remain silent, and said
soothingly, "Don't lose your temper, John."

"But I will lose my temper. Insolent hound! Damned scoundrel!"

"He is not," whimpered Henrietta, sitting down and taking out her
handkerchief.

"Oh, come, come!" said Mrs. Jansenius peremptorily, "we have had enough
crying. Let us have no more of it."

Henrietta sprang up in a passion. "I will say and do as I please," she
exclaimed. "I am a married woman, and I will receive no orders. And I
will have my husband back again, no matter what he does to hide himself.
Papa, won't you make him come back to me? I am dying. Promise that you
will make him come back."

And, throwing herself upon her father's bosom, she postponed further
discussion by going into hysterics, and startling the household by her
screams.



CHAPTER III

One of the professors at Alton College was a Mrs. Miller, an
old-fashioned schoolmistress who did not believe in Miss Wilson's system
of government by moral force, and carried it out under protest. Though
not ill-natured, she was narrow-minded enough to be in some degree
contemptible, and was consequently prone to suspect others of despising
her. She suspected Agatha in particular, and treated her with disdainful
curtness in such intercourse as they had--it was fortunately little.
Agatha was not hurt by this, for Mrs. Miller was an unsympathetic woman,
who made no friends among the girls, and satisfied her affectionate
impulses by petting a large cat named Gracchus, but generally called
Bacchus by an endearing modification of the harsh initial consonant.

One evening Mrs. Miller, seated with Miss Wilson in the study,
correcting examination papers, heard in the distance a cry like that
of a cat in distress. She ran to the door and listened. Presently there
arose a prolonged wail, slurring up through two octaves, and subsiding
again. It was a true feline screech, impossible to localize; but it
was interrupted by a sob, a snarl, a fierce spitting, and a scuffling,
coming unmistakably from a room on the floor beneath, in which, at that
hour, the older girls assembled for study.

"My poor Gracchy!" exclaimed Mrs. Miller, running downstairs as fast as
she could. She found the room unusually quiet. Every girl was deep in
study except Miss Carpenter, who, pretending to pick up a fallen
book, was purple with suppressed laughter and the congestion caused by
stooping.

"Where is Miss Ward?" demanded Mrs. Miller.

"Miss Ward has gone for some astronomical diagrams in which we are
interested," said Agatha, looking up gravely. Just then Miss Ward,
diagrams in hand, entered.

"Has that cat been in here?" she said, not seeing Mrs. Miller, and
speaking in a tone expressive of antipathy to Gracchus.

Agatha started and drew up her ankles, as if fearful of having them
bitten. Then, looking apprehensively under the desk, she replied, "There
is no cat here, Miss Ward."

"There is one somewhere; I heard it," said Miss Ward carelessly,
unrolling her diagrams, which she began to explain without further
parley. Mrs. Miller, anxious for her pet, hastened to seek it elsewhere.
In the hall she met one of the housemaids.

"Susan," she said, "have you seen Gracchus?"

"He's asleep on the hearthrug in your room, ma'am. But I heard him
crying down here a moment ago. I feel sure that another cat has got in,
and that they are fighting."

Susan smiled compassionately. "Lor' bless you, ma'am," she said, "that
was Miss Wylie. It's a sort of play-acting that she goes through. There
is the bee on the window-pane, and the soldier up the chimley, and the
cat under the dresser. She does them all like life."

"The soldier in the chimney!" repeated Mrs. Miller, shocked.

"Yes, ma'am. Like as it were a follower that had hid there when he heard
the mistress coming."

Mrs. Miller's face set determinedly. She returned to the study and
related what had just occurred, adding some sarcastic comments on the
efficacy of moral force in maintaining collegiate discipline. Miss
Wilson looked grave; considered for some time; and at last said: "I must
think over this. Would you mind leaving it in my hands for the present?"

Mrs. Miller said that she did not care in whose hands it remained
provided her own were washed of it, and resumed her work at the papers.
Miss Wilson then, wishing to be alone, went into the empty classroom at
the other side of the landing. She took the Fault Book from its shelf
and sat down before it. Its record closed with the announcement, in
Agatha's handwriting:

"Miss Wilson has called me impertinent, and has written to my uncle that
I have refused to obey the rules. I was not impertinent; and I never
refused to obey the rules. So much for Moral Force!"

Miss Wilson rose vigorously, exclaiming: "I will soon let her
know whether--" She checked herself, and looked round hastily,
superstitiously fancying that Agatha might have stolen into the room
unobserved. Reassured that she was alone, she examined her conscience as
to whether she had done wrong in calling Agatha impertinent, justifying
herself by the reflection that Agatha had, in fact, been impertinent.
Yet she recollected that she had refused to admit this plea on a recent
occasion when Jane Carpenter had advanced it in extenuation of having
called a fellow-student a liar. Had she then been unjust to Jane, or
inconsiderate to Agatha?

Her casuistry was interrupted by some one softly whistling a theme from
the overture to Masaniello, popular at the college in the form of an
arrangement for six pianofortes and twelve hands. There was only one
student unladylike and musical enough to whistle; and Miss Wilson was
ashamed to find herself growing nervous at the prospect of an encounter
with Agatha, who entered whistling sweetly, but with a lugubrious
countenance. When she saw in whose presence she stood, she begged pardon
politely, and was about to withdraw, when Miss Wilson, summoning all her
Judgment and tact, and hoping that they would--contrary to their custom
in emergencies--respond to the summons, said:

"Agatha, come here. I want to speak to you."

Agatha closed her lips, drew in a long breath through her nostrils, and
marched to within a few feet of Miss Wilson, where she halted with her
hands clasped before her.

"Sit down."

Agatha sat down with a single movement, like a doll.

"I don't understand that, Agatha," said Miss Wilson, pointing to the
entry in the Recording Angel. "What does it mean?"

"I am unfairly treated," said Agatha, with signs of agitation.

"In what way?"

"In every way. I am expected to be something more than mortal. Everyone
else is encouraged to complain, and to be weak and silly. But I must
have no feeling. I must be always in the right. Everyone else may be
home-sick, or huffed, or in low spirits. I must have no nerves, and must
keep others laughing all day long. Everyone else may sulk when a word
of reproach is addressed to them, and may make the professors afraid to
find fault with them. I have to bear with the insults of teachers who
have less self-control than I, a girl of seventeen! and must coax
them out of the difficulties they make for themselves by their own ill
temper."

"But, Agatha--"

"Oh, I know I am talking nonsense, Miss Wilson; but can you expect me to
be always sensible--to be infallible?"

"Yes, Agatha; I do not think it is too much to expect you to be always
sensible; and--"

"Then you have neither sense nor sympathy yourself," said Agatha.

There was an awful pause. Neither could have told how long it lasted.
Then Agatha, feeling that she must do or say something desperate, or
else fly, made a distracted gesture and ran out of the room.

She rejoined her companions in the great hall of the mansion, where
they were assembled after study for "recreation," a noisy process which
always set in spontaneously when the professors withdrew. She usually
sat with her two favorite associates on a high window seat near the
hearth. That place was now occupied by a little girl with flaxen hair,
whom Agatha, regardless of moral force, lifted by the shoulders and
deposited on the floor. Then she sat down and said:

"Oh, such a piece of news!"

Miss Carpenter opened her eyes eagerly. Gertrude Lindsay affected
indifference.

"Someone is going to be expelled," said Agatha.

"Expelled! Who?"

"You will know soon enough, Jane," replied Agatha, suddenly grave. "It
is someone who made an impudent entry in the Recording Angel."

Fear stole upon Jane, and she became very red. "Agatha," she said, "it
was you who told me what to write. You know you did, and you can't deny
it."

"I can't deny it, can't I? I am ready to swear that I never dictated a
word to you in my life."

"Gertrude knows you did," exclaimed Jane, appalled, and almost in tears.

"There," said Agatha, petting her as if she were a vast baby. "It shall
not be expelled, so it shan't. Have you seen the Recording Angel lately,
either of you?"

"Not since our last entry," said Gertrude.

"Chips," said Agatha, calling to the flaxen-haired child, "go upstairs
to No. 6, and, if Miss Wilson isn't there, fetch me the Recording
Angel."

The little girl grumbled inarticulately and did not stir.

"Chips," resumed Agatha, "did you ever wish that you had never been
born?"

"Why don't you go yourself?" said the child pettishly, but evidently
alarmed.

"Because," continued Agatha, ignoring the question, "you shall wish
yourself dead and buried under the blackest flag in the coal cellar if
you don't bring me the book before I count sixteen. One--two--"

"Go at once and do as you are told, you disagreeable little thing," said
Gertrude sharply. "How dare you be so disobliging?"

"--nine--ten--eleven--" pursued Agatha.

The child quailed, went out, and presently returned, hugging the
Recording Angel in her arms.

"You are a good little darling--when your better qualities are
brought out by a judicious application of moral force," said Agatha,
good-humoredly. "Remind me to save the raisins out of my pudding for you
to-morrow. Now, Jane, you shall see the entry for which the best-hearted
girl in the college is to be expelled. Voila!"

The two girls read and were awestruck; Jane opening her mouth and
gasping, Gertrude closing hers and looking very serious.

"Do you mean to say that you had the dreadful cheek to let the Lady
Abbess see that?" said Jane.

"Pooh! she would have forgiven that. You should have heard what I said
to her! She fainted three times."

"That's a story," said Gertrude gravely.

"I beg your pardon," said Agatha, swiftly grasping Gertrude's knee.

"Nothing," cried Gertrude, flinching hysterically. "Don't, Agatha."

"How many times did Miss Wilson faint?"

"Three times. I will scream, Agatha; I will indeed."

"Three times, as you say. And I wonder that a girl brought up as
you have been, by moral force, should be capable of repeating such
a falsehood. But we had an awful row, really and truly. She lost her
temper. Fortunately, I never lose mine."

"Well, I'm browed!" exclaimed Jane incredulously. "I like that."

"For a girl of county family, you are inexcusably vulgar, Jane. I don't
know what I said; but she will never forgive me for profaning her pet
book. I shall be expelled as certainly as I am sitting here."

"And do you mean to say that you are going away?" said Jane, faltering
as she began to realize the consequences.

"I do. And what is to become of you when I am not here to get you out
of your scrapes, or of Gertrude without me to check her inveterate
snobbishness, is more than I can foresee."

"I am not snobbish," said Gertrude, "although I do not choose to make
friends with everyone. But I never objected to you, Agatha."

"No; I should like to catch you at it. Hallo, Jane!" (who had suddenly
burst into tears): "what's the matter? I trust you are not permitting
yourself to take the liberty of crying for me."

"Indeed," sobbed Jane indignantly, "I know that I am a f--fool for my
pains. You have no heart."

"You certainly are a f--fool, as you aptly express it," said Agatha,
passing her arm round Jane, and disregarding an angry attempt to shake
it off; "but if I had any heart it would be touched by this proof of
your attachment."

"I never said you had no heart," protested Jane; "but I hate when you
speak like a book."

"You hate when I speak like a book, do you? My dear, silly old Jane! I
shall miss you greatly."

"Yes, I dare say," said Jane, with tearful sarcasm. "At least my snoring
will never keep you awake again."

"You don't snore, Jane. We have been in a conspiracy to make you believe
that you do, that's all. Isn't it good of me to tell you?"

Jane was overcome by this revelation. After a long pause, she said with
deep conviction, "I always knew that I didn't. Oh, the way you kept it
up! I solemnly declare that from this time forth I will believe nobody."

"Well, and what do you think of it all?" said Agatha, transferring her
attention to Gertrude, who was very grave.

"I think--I am now speaking seriously, Agatha--I think you are in the
wrong."

"Why do you think that, pray?" demanded Agatha, a little roused.

"You must be, or Miss Wilson would not be angry with you. Of course,
according to your own account, you are always in the right, and everyone
else is always wrong; but you shouldn't have written that in the book.
You know I speak as your friend."

"And pray what does your wretched little soul know of my motives and
feelings?"

"It is easy enough to understand you," retorted Gertrude, nettled.
"Self-conceit is not so uncommon that one need be at a loss to recognize
it. And mind, Agatha Wylie," she continued, as if goaded by some
unbearable reminiscence, "if you are really going, I don't care whether
we part friends or not. I have not forgotten the day when you called me
a spiteful cat."

"I have repented," said Agatha, unmoved. "One day I sat down and watched
Bacchus seated on the hearthrug, with his moony eyes looking into space
so thoughtfully and patiently that I apologized for comparing you to
him. If I were to call him a spiteful cat he would only not believe me."

"Because he is a cat," said Jane, with the giggle which was seldom far
behind her tears.

"No; but because he is not spiteful. Gertrude keeps a recording angel
inside her little head, and it is so full of other people's faults,
written in large hand and read through a magnifying glass, that there is
no room to enter her own."

"You are very poetic," said Gertrude; "but I understand what you mean,
and shall not forget it."

"You ungrateful wretch," exclaimed Agatha, turning upon her so suddenly
and imperiously that she involuntarily shrank aside: "how often, when
you have tried to be insolent and false with me, have I not driven away
your bad angel--by tickling you? Had you a friend in the college, except
half-a-dozen toadies, until I came? And now, because I have sometimes,
for your own good, shown you your faults, you bear malice against me,
and say that you don't care whether we part friends or not!"

"I didn't say so."

"Oh, Gertrude, you know you did," said Jane.

"You seem to think that I have no conscience," said Gertrude
querulously.

"I wish you hadn't," said Agatha. "Look at me! I have no conscience, and
see how much pleasanter I am!"

"You care for no one but yourself," said Gertrude. "You never think that
other people have feelings too. No one ever considers me."

"Oh, I like to hear you talk," cried Jane ironically. "You are
considered a great deal more than is good for you; and the more you are
considered the more you want to be considered."

"As if," declaimed Agatha theatrically, "increase of appetite did grow
by what it fed on. Shakespeare!"

"Bother Shakespeare," said Jane, impetuously, "--old fool that expects
credit for saying things that everybody knows! But if you complain
of not being considered, Gertrude, how would you like to be me, whom
everybody sets down as a fool? But I am not such a fool as--"

"As you look," interposed Agatha. "I have told you so scores of times,
Jane; and I am glad that you have adopted my opinion at last. Which
would you rather be, a greater fool than y--"

"Oh, shut up," said Jane, impatiently; "you have asked me that twice
this week already."

The three were silent for some seconds after this: Agatha meditating,
Gertrude moody, Jane vacant and restless. At last Agatha said:

"And are you two also smarting under a sense of the inconsiderateness
and selfishness of the rest of the world--both misunderstood--everything
expected from you, and no allowances made for you?"

"I don't know what you mean by both of us," said Gertrude coldly.

"Neither do I," said Jane angrily. "That is just the way people treat
me. You may laugh, Agatha; and she may turn up her nose as much as she
likes; you know it's true. But the idea of Gertrude wanting to make out
that she isn't considered is nothing but sentimentality, and vanity, and
nonsense."

"You are exceedingly rude, Miss Carpenter," said Gertrude.

"My manners are as good as yours, and perhaps better," retorted Jane.
"My family is as good, anyhow."

"Children, children," said Agatha, admonitorily, "do not forget that you
are sworn friends."

"We didn't swear," said Jane. "We were to have been three sworn friends,
and Gertrude and I were willing, but you wouldn't swear, and so the
bargain was cried off."

"Just so," said Agatha; "and the result is that I spend all my time in
keeping peace between you. And now, to go back to our subject, may I ask
whether it has ever occurred to you that no one ever considers me?"

"I suppose you think that very funny. You take good care to make
yourself considered," sneered Jane.

"You cannot say that I do not consider you," said Gertrude
reproachfully.

"Not when I tickle you, dear."

"I consider you, and I am not ticklesome," said Jane tenderly.

"Indeed! Let me try," said Agatha, slipping her arm about Jane's ample
waist, and eliciting a piercing combination of laugh and scream from
her.

"Sh--sh," whispered Gertrude quickly. "Don't you see the Lady Abbess?"

Miss Wilson had just entered the room. Agatha, without appearing to be
aware of her presence, stealthily withdrew her arm, and said aloud:

"How can you make such a noise, Jane? You will disturb the whole house."

Jane reddened with indignation, but had to remain silent, for the eyes
of the principal were upon her. Miss Wilson had her bonnet on. She
announced that she was going to walk to Lyvern, the nearest village. Did
any of the sixth form young ladies wish to accompany her?

Agatha jumped from her seat at once, and Jane smothered a laugh.

"Miss Wilson said the sixth form, Miss Wylie," said Miss Ward, who had
entered also. "You are not in the sixth form."

"No," said Agatha sweetly, "but I want to go, if I may."

Miss Wilson looked round. The sixth form consisted of four studious
young ladies, whose goal in life for the present was an examination by
one of the Universities, or, as the college phrase was, "the Cambridge
Local." None of them responded.

"Fifth form, then," said Miss Wilson.

Jane, Gertrude, and four others rose and stood with Agatha.

"Very well," said Miss Wilson. "Do not be long dressing."

They left the room quietly, and dashed at the staircase the moment they
were out of sight. Agatha, though void of emulation for the Cambridge
Local, always competed with ardor for the honor of being first up or
down stairs.

They soon returned, clad for walking, and left the college in
procession, two by two, Jane and Agatha leading, Gertrude and Miss
Wilson coming last. The road to Lyvern lay through acres of pasture
land, formerly arable, now abandoned to cattle, which made more money
for the landlord than the men whom they had displaced. Miss Wilson's
young ladies, being instructed in economics, knew that this proved that
the land was being used to produce what was most wanted from it; and if
all the advantage went to the landlord, that was but natural, as he was
the chief gentleman in the neighborhood. Still the arrangement had its
disagreeable side; for it involved a great many cows, which made them
afraid to cross the fields; a great many tramps, who made them afraid to
walk the roads; and a scarcity of gentlemen subjects for the maiden art
of fascination.

The sky was cloudy. Agatha, reckless of dusty stockings, waded through
the heaps of fallen leaves with the delight of a child paddling in the
sea; Gertrude picked her steps carefully, and the rest tramped along,
chatting subduedly, occasionally making some scientific or philosophical
remark in a louder tone, in order that Miss Wilson might overhear
and give them due credit. Save a herdsman, who seemed to have caught
something of the nature and expression of the beasts he tended, they
met no one until they approached the village, where, on the brow of an
acclivity, masculine humanity appeared in the shape of two curates: one
tall, thin, close-shaven, with a book under his arm, and his neck craned
forward; the other middle-sized, robust, upright, and aggressive, with
short black whiskers, and an air of protest against such notions as that
a clergyman may not marry, hunt, play cricket, or share the sports
of honest laymen. The shaven one was Mr. Josephs, his companion Mr.
Fairholme. Obvious scriptural perversions of this brace of names had
been introduced by Agatha.

"Here come Pharaoh and Joseph," she said to Jane. "Joseph will blush
when you look at him. Pharaoh won't blush until he passes Gertrude, so
we shall lose that."

"Josephs, indeed!" said Jane scornfully.

"He loves you, Jane. Thin persons like a fine armful of a woman.
Pharaoh, who is a cad, likes blue blood on the same principle of the
attraction of opposites. That is why he is captivated by Gertrude's
aristocratic air."

"If he only knew how she despises him!"

"He is too vain to suspect it. Besides, Gertrude despises everyone,
even us. Or, rather, she doesn't despise anyone in particular, but is
contemptuous by nature, just as you are stout."

"Me! I had rather be stout than stuck-up. Ought we to bow?"

"I will, certainly. I want to make Pharoah blush, if I can."

The two parsons had been simulating an interest in the cloudy firmament
as an excuse for not looking at the girls until close at hand. Jane sent
an eyeflash at Josephs with a skill which proved her favorite assertion
that she was not so stupid as people thought. He blushed and took off
his soft, low-crowned felt hat. Fairholme saluted very solemnly, for
Agatha bowed to him with marked seriousness. But when his gravity and
his stiff silk hat were at their highest point she darted a mocking
smile at him, and he too blushed, all the deeper because he was enraged
with himself for doing so.

"Did you ever see such a pair of fools?" whispered Jane, giggling.

"They cannot help their sex. They say women are fools, and so they are;
but thank Heaven they are not quite so bad as men! I should like to look
back and see Pharaoh passing Gertrude; but if he saw me he would think I
was admiring him; and he is conceited enough already without that."