THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

Vol. XX.—No. 1029.]

[Price One Penny.

SEPTEMBER 16, 1899.

[Transcriber’s Note: This Table of Contents was not present in the original.]

ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY. VARIETIES. THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH. THE PLEASURES OF BEE-KEEPING. THREE GIRL-CHUMS, AND THEIR LIFE IN LONDON ROOMS. LETTERS FROM A LAWYER. OUR LILY GARDEN. “UPS AND DOWNS.” SELF-CULTURE FOR GIRLS. SHEILA’S COUSIN EFFIE. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. DIAPER DESIGNS FOR EMBROIDERY.

ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY.

WRITING A NEW STORY FOR “THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER.”

All rights reserved.]

In an age when many books on every sort of subject and vexed question are being daily launched into the world, it is a relief to turn to the pure, wholesome novels of Rosa Nouchette Carey, the popular authoress, who has steadily held her ground with her public since the production of her first book, Nellie’s Memories, composed and related verbally to her sister, while yet in her teens, though not actually written until some few years later.

The youngest girl but one of a family of seven, and in her girlhood delicate in health, which caused her education to be somewhat desultory, Rosa Carey soon displayed an aptitude for composing fiction and little plays which she and her sister acted, one of her chief amusements being to select favourite characters from history and from fiction, and trying to personify them, while her greatest pleasure was to relate short stories to this same younger sister over their needlework. It is a strange fact that, during her simple, happy, uneventful girlhood, chiefly spent in reading, in writing poetry, and in other girlish occupations, Rosa Carey, who was of a somewhat dreamy and romantic disposition, feeling the impossibility of combining her favourite pursuits with a useful domestic life, and discouraged by her failures in this respect, made a deliberate and, as it afterwards proved, a fruitless attempt to quench her longing to write. This unnatural repression, however, of a strong instinct could not be conquered, and after some years she yielded to it.

She was born in London, near old Bow Church, but has no very distinct remembrances of the house and place. Later, the family moved to Hackney, into what was then a veritable country residence, and there many happy years were spent. Her mother was a strict disciplinarian, and very practical and clever, while her father was a man universally beloved and respected, by reason of his singularly amiable character, his integrity, and his many virtues.

The next move was to Hampstead, where the young girl’s schooldays began, and it was then that she met and formed a strong friendship with the late Mathilde Blind, the talented author of The Descent of Man, and translator of Marie Bashkirtseff’s Journal and other works. This attachment, mutually enthusiastic and full of interest, was only interrupted by a divergence of religious opinions. Rosa Carey, adhering to the simple faith of her childhood, could not follow Mathilde Blind, who was educated in the extreme school of modern free-thought, and the friends, with sorrow but with yet unabated affection on each side, drifted apart.

Meanwhile, the large and happy family was being gradually broken up. First the beloved father passed away. On the same day that, three years before, had witnessed his death, their mother, too, was taken to her rest, and shortly after, the two sisters went to Croydon, to superintend their widowed brother’s home. Miss Carey’s real vocation in life seemed to spring up, and the literary work was but fitfully carried on, for, on the marriage of her sister to the Rev. Canon Simpson, vicar of{802} Kirkby Stephen, Westmoreland, and the subsequent death of her brother, the sole charge of the young orphans devolved upon her.

As the years rolled by, circumstances tended to break up that home also. The young people grew up and scattered, and out of Miss Carey’s four charges three are now married. Then, her pleasurable duties being accomplished, the partially disused pen was resumed, and the author found leisure to return to literary pursuits. She has for the last twelve years made her home in the ancient and historic village of Putney, which, although it has lost much of its quaint and picturesque environment since the destruction of the toll-house and the old bridge of 1729, with its twenty narrow openings—erstwhile the delight of artists—has yet a few “bits” left that have escaped the hands of the Philistines.

Miss Carey’s pretty red-brick house of the Queen Anne style of architecture, and into which she has only more recently moved, is situated near the bend of the road. A broad gravelled path, running the whole length of the house in front, is bordered with shrubs and flowering plants. The spacious hall opens on the right and front into the chief living-rooms, the long French windows of which lead into the conservatory. One of the great attractions of the commodious and artistic residence is the pleasant garden at the back, at once the pride and delight of the author, where countless blackbirds, thrushes, and other singing-birds, are wont to congregate, and where in summer, under the gigantic chestnut tree with its widely-spreading branches, she and her home-mates spend many a happy hour. The home party consists likewise of her widowed sister, Mrs. Simpson, and of her friend, Helen Marion Burnside, the well-known poet and author of The Deaf Girl Next Door, and of a lately-published volume entitled Driftweed.

The drawing-room is bright and cheerful with its wide, lofty window, and pretty side windows, its parquet floor liberally strewn with Persian rugs, and its cosy corner hung with Oriental tapestries. Miss Carey’s own study is upstairs, half-way up the wide staircase, and overlooks the garden. There is an oak knee-hole writing-table, with raised blotting-pad. On one side well-filled bookcases, here a low spring couch, there lounging-chairs, big and little, and a cabinet covered with photographs, together with vases of flowers, and many little odds and ends of china. The whole is restful to the eye, thoroughly comfortable and attractive. Amid these peaceful surroundings Miss Carey writes her novels. She recalls to mind a little anecdote connected with her earliest effort—Nellie’s Memories. With no introduction, and quite unacquainted then with any publishers, she took the MSS., with much trepidation, to Mr. Tinsley, who refused to read it. This was a great disappointment, and some months later, she mentioned the matter to Mrs. Westerton, of Westerton’s Library. This

kindly woman volunteered to induce him to change his mind, and did so with such good effect that, on hearing at a wedding-party the reader’s opinion was distinctly favourable, she hastened away from the festive gathering to impart the good news to the young author, a kindness that Miss Carey declares she “shall always remember with gratitude, and the very dress that the good-natured messenger wore on the occasion is stamped upon her recollection for evermore.”

This pretty domestic story of English home-life found favour with the public from the outset. It became widely known, and has been constantly republished up to the present date. The girl-author’s name and fame were made at once, at which no one seemed surprised but she. Old and young alike “took to” the charming tale, free from any dramatic incidents or mystery, owing to the unflagging interest, and the high tone of the work, not to speak of the striking individuality of the characters. Wee Wifie followed, and the author, who alone pronounced it to be a failure, actually refused at first to allow it to be brought out again when demanded lately, as she feared it might not add to her literary reputation, but upon being pressed, she re-wrote and lengthened it, without, however, altering the plot, and it has passed into a new edition.

Among her succeeding novels, which are too well known to need more than a passing comment, may be noted Barbara Heathcote’s Trial, Robert Ord’s Atonement, Wooed and Married, Heriot’s Choice, and Mary St. John. Ever anxious to do good and not harm, and to write books that any mother can give her girls to read, Rosa Carey’s works are characterised by a tendency to elevate to lofty aspirations, to noble ideas, and to purity of thought. During her residence at Putney she has also written Lover or Friend, Only the Governess, The Search for Basil Lyndhurst, Sir Godfrey’s Grand-daughters, The Old, Old Story, The Mistress of Brae Farm, and Other People’s Lives—a collection of short stories—while her latest book is entitled Mollie’s Prince. In The Girl’s Own Paper her short stories, which run serially for six months, are well known and eagerly looked for. In these, alike as in her longer works, the descriptive power, the fertility of resource and originality, prove that unceasing interest can be maintained while dwelling in a thoroughly healthy literary

atmosphere. The first chapters of a new story will appear in our next monthly part.

It is clearly noticeable that while some of Rosa Carey’s earlier books indicate a tone of sadness running through them—a circumstance that she is somewhat inclined to regret, but they were tinged with many years of sorrow—the healing hand of time has done its merciful work, and she now writes in a more cheerful vein. Nor is there wanting a strong sense of quiet fun and humour which especially permeates her delightful novel Not Like Other Girls, a book that should surely stimulate many young women to follow the example of the three plucky heroines therein depicted with so much spirit.

While never exactly forming plots, when Miss Carey is about to begin a story, she thinks of one character, and works around that, meditating well the while over the others to be introduced. Then she starts writing, and soon gets so completely to live in and with her creations, that she feels a sense of loss and blank when the book is coming to an end, and while she has to wait until another grows in her mind. But, after all, her writing—the real work of her life—has often to be made a secondary consideration, for in her strong sense of family duty and devotion, and being the pivot round which its many members turn in sorrow or in sickness, the most important professional work is apt to be laid aside if she can do aught to comfort or to relieve them.

Nor have her sympathies been exclusively limited to her own people. Ever fond of girls, and keenly interested in their welfare, Miss Carey conducted for many years a weekly class that had been formed in connection with the Fulham Sunday School for young girls and servants over fifteen years of age, many of whom have had good reason to remember with gratitude the kindly encouragement and the wise counsel bestowed upon them by the gentle and sympathetic author, Rosa Nouchette Carey.

Helen C. Black.

VARIETIES.

Mansions.

Death the Gate of Life.—Plato, the great Athenian philosopher, who was born 427 years before Christ, recognised the doctrine that death is but the gate of life. “My body,” he says, “must descend to the place ordained, but my soul will not descend. Being a thing immortal it will ascend on high, where it will enter a heavenly abode. Death does not differ at all from life.”

Useless Trouble.

Women in Burma.—In Burma women are probably more free and happy than they are anywhere else in the world. Though Burma is bounded on one side by China, where women are held in contempt, and on the other by India, where they are kept in the strictest seclusion, Burmese women have achieved for themselves, and have been permitted by the men to attain, a freedom of life and action that has no parallel amongst Oriental peoples. Perhaps the secret lies in the fact that the Burmese woman is active and industrious, whilst the Burmese man is indolent and often a recluse.

She knew Nothing of Cycles.

Here is a story for cyclists. At a party on the Scottish Border last autumn, to which many guests rode on their cycles, the hostess made elaborate arrangements for the care of the machines, and a system of ticketing similar to that in use at hotel cloak-rooms was adopted, each cyclist being provided with a check ticket.

The housekeeper was entrusted with the care of the machines and the issuing of the tickets, and as they arrived the machines were carefully stored and labelled so that there should be no difficulty when they were required again.

But the housekeeper was not a cyclist and did not understand the mysteries of the pneumatic tyre. She pinned the labels on to the front tyres of the machines, where they could best be seen, and took good care that the pins were stuck well into the tyres.

The language that was heard when the guests came to take their machines away, was, as may well be supposed, more emphatic than polite.

{803}

THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

By ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object in Life,” etc.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE NEWS THAT CAME AT LAST.

rs. Bray’s end did not prove so imminent as her faithful Rachel had feared. She lingered on, though still unable to leave Bath for return to her desolated home. So Florence Brand came back to London, but she and Jem still often took “a week’s end” to run westward and visit the old lady. They never offered to take Lucy with them, and if “Jem” could not go Florence went alone. As for Lucy, she often yearned for those associations with her old easy girlish life which she would have found in Mrs. Bray’s presence. Such associations help to uphold our sense of identity, and often comfort us by revealing our own growth. They keep us tender, too, and tolerant, reviving the consciousness of what we were ourselves before we learned bitter lessons which may not yet have come to others. Also they strengthen us by revealing that not even to regain our old careless joys could we willingly be again our old careless selves. It is the “look backward” which best spurs us to go forward.

But Lucy could not afford any “unnecessaries” of leisure or railway travel. She turned at once to her life of steady labour, knowing that she must be henceforth a working woman, not for any temporary exigency, but as part of the natural and persistent order of things.

Even thus she had problems to solve. Her earned income, more or less uncertain, was not adequate for the reliable upkeep of the home of her married life. Nor could the demands upon it grow less, since Hugh’s education and start in life had to be taken into account.

Lucy could not yet give up all hope of her husband’s return. But her sweet, sane nature speedily realised that whatever hopes she might secretly cherish, she must nevertheless act as though Charlie had indeed “sailed for that other shore” whence he “could not come back to her.”

Yet these secret hopes made it very hard to contemplate the surrender of the home Charlie and she had made together—the sale of the leasehold, the dispersion and shrinkage of the household gods. These seemed almost sacred now when they might be all that remained of the old life.

The Brands warmly advocated giving up the house and selling off the furniture.

“It may not bring in much,” Florence said airily, “but what it does Jem will get well invested in some paying concern. Then you and the boy can board with somebody. You may do that moderately enough, for people who are glad to take boarders can often be screwed down to low terms. Then apart from that definite outlay, you’ll have whatever you can earn for yourself, and you’ll have no more worry with housekeeping. Many would envy such a lot. You see there are compensations in all things.”

Then it struck Florence that Lucy’s hesitancy might arise from reluctance to give up all hope of Charlie’s return, so she added hastily—

“And if what we all hope for should really happen, why, you would still have your capital, and you could buy another leasehold and get new furniture; it would just make a lovely new beginning!”

Lucy shook her head.

“I don’t want to do this if I can find some other way,” she said. “No other house could be to us what this one is, nor any new furniture that which Charlie and I bought bit by bit in our courting days. Practically speaking, too, breakings-up and sales, and buyings again, all mean loss in cash as well as in feelings.”

“Then, too, if you and the boy were boarding,” Florence went on hurriedly, “your wants would be drawn within narrow and defined limits, so that if there was any sort of misfortune, it would not be difficult for us to help you. We are not really rich, Lucy. We live as we do and spend as we do only that we may go on getting more. That is the way with one-half of the people in society. It’s trying. It tells upon Jem, it’s that which makes him take so much wine,” she whispered. “I should not like my family to heap any burdens on Jem.”

“I shall not do that, Florence,” replied Lucy, cool and quiet now, where once she would have been indignant and stung. “I shall certainly not allow myself to get into debt. I will look well ahead. If we have to go to the workhouse, I will make our own arrangements for going there!”

Other people took counsel with Lucy in a far different spirit. Miss Latimer said Lucy might rely on her remaining with her as long as they could possibly share a common home. That added her little income to the household funds. “Little indeed,” she said, but Lucy answered—

“Every little helps. And the greatest help is in the knowledge that one does not bear one’s burden alone.”

“Ay, two are better than one,” rejoined the old governess, “and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

“I’d like to be the third cord, but I’m only a bit of twine,” said Tom.

Another and stouter strand was soon to be woven into the household coil for that “long pull and strong pull” which Lucy was determined to make. The death of his old landlord had broken up the house where Mr. Somerset had hitherto lived. Diffidently, as if he were asking a great favour, he inquired if Lucy could entertain the idea of allowing him to rent her first floor, for which he was willing to pay a rent which at once made a substantial addition to the household finance.

As for poor Tom Black, he was distressed to think how small his payments were. “If he went away,” he said, “somebody more profitable might occupy his place.” Lucy had to reassure him by her own words and by the sight of Hugh’s tears at the bare thought of “Tom’s going away.”

Three months later Tom got a rise in his salary, and then he insisted on raising his monthly board fee. Lucy was slightly reluctant and almost aggrieved, but when she saw the lad’s face beaming with the power of his new prosperity, she let him have his own way in the matter.

So life settled down. Florence resented that her sister had chosen “to turn into a lodging-house keeper.” Lucy marvelled to note how strangely it “comes natural” to some women to belittle and contemn those ways of honest industry which lie nearest to woman’s true nature—housekeeping, house-serving, the care of the aged, and the young, and the solitary. And, oh, the pity of it! if such belittlement and contempt tend to relegate these high womanly functions only to unworthy “eye-servants”!

Months passed, yet the silence of the seas remained unbroken. Now and then Lucy and the captain’s wife wrote and asked how each fared. There came no day when either drew a line across life and forbade that hope should cross it. They did not put on widow’s mourning, yet when Lucy had to buy a new dress or ribbon, Miss Latimer noticed that she bought it of black or of soberest grey.