"My cousin Bob's awfully gone on you."
Laura gaped at Tilly, in crimson disbelief. "But I've never spoken to him!"
"Doesn't count. He's seen you in church."
"Go on!—you're stuffing."
"Word of honour!—And I've promised him to ask aunt if I can bring you with me to lunch next Saturday."
Laura looked forward to this day with mixed feelings. She was flattered at being invited to the big house in town where Tilly's relatives lived; but she felt embarrassed at the prospect, and she had not the least idea what a boy who was "gone" on you would expect you to be or to do. Bob was a beautiful youth of seventeen, tall, and dark, and slender, with milk-white teeth and Spanish eyes; and Laura's mouth dried up when she thought of perhaps having to be sprightly or coquettish with him.
On the eventful morning Tilly came to her room while she was dressing, and eyed her critically.
"Oh, I say, don't put on that brown hat ... for mercy's sake! Bob can't stand brown."
But the brown was Laura's best, and she demurred.
"Oh well, if you don't care to look nice, you know ..."
Of course she did; she was burning to. She even accepted the loan of a sash from her friend, because "Bob loves blue"; and went out feeling odd and unlike herself, in her everyday hat and borrowed plumes.
The Aunt, a pleasant, youthful-looking lady, called for them in a white-hooded wagonette, and set them down at the house with a playful warning.
"Now don't get up to any mischief, you two!"
"No fear!" was Tilly's genial response, as Aunt and cab drove off.
They were going to "do the block", Tilly explained, and would meet Bob there; but they must first make sure that the drive had not disarranged their hair or the position of their hats; and she led the way to her aunt's bedroom.
Laura, though she had her share of natural vanity, was too impatient to do more than cast a perfunctory glance at her reflected self. At this period of her life when a drive in a hired cab was enough of a novelty to give her pleasure, a day such as the one that lay before her filled her with unbounded anticipation.
She fidgeted from one leg to another while she waited. For Tilly was in no hurry to be gone: she prinked and finicked, making lavish use, after the little swing-glass at school, of the big mirror with its movable wings; she examined her teeth, pulled down her under-lids, combed her eyebrows, twisted her neck this way and that, in an endeavour to view her person from every angle; she took liberties with perfumes and brushes: was, in short, blind and deaf to all but the perfecting of herself—this rather mannish little self, which, despite a most womanly plumpness, affected a boyish bonhomie, and emphasised the role by wearing a stiff white collar and cuffs.
Laura was glad when she at last decided that she would "do", and when they stepped out into the radiant autumn morning.
"What a perfectly scrumptious day!"
"Yes, bully.—I say, IS my waist all right?"
"Quite right. And ever so small."
"I know. I gave it an extra pull-in.—Now if only we're lucky enough to get hold of a man or two we know!"
The air, Australian air, met them like a prickling champagne: it was incredibly crisp, pure, buoyant. From the top of the eastern hill the spacious white street sloped speedily down, to run awhile in a hollow, then mount again at the other end. Where the two girls turned into it, it was quiet; but the farther they descended, the fuller it grew—fuller of idlers like themselves, out to see and to be seen.
Laura cocked her chin; she had not had a like sense of freedom since being at school. And besides, was not a boy, a handsome boy, waiting for her, and expecting her? This was the CLOU of the day, the end for which everything was making; yet of such stuff was Laura that she would have felt relieved, could the present moment have been spun out indefinitely. The state of suspense was very pleasant to her.
As for Tilly, that young lady was swinging the shoulders atop of the little waist in a somewhat provocative fashion, only too conscious of the grey-blueness of her fine eyes, and the modish cut of her clothes. She had a knack which seemed to Laura both desirable and unattainable: that of appearing to be engrossed in glib chat with her companion, while in reality she did not hear a word Laura said, and ogled everyone who passed, out of the tail of her eye.
They reached the "block", that strip of Collins Street which forms the fashionable promenade. Here the road was full of cabs and carriages, and there was a great crowd on the pavement. The girls progressed but slowly. People were meeting their friends, shopping, changing books at the library, eating ices at the confectioner's, fruit at the big fruit-shop round the corner. There were a large number of high-collared young dudes, some Trinity and Ormond men with coloured hatbands, ladies with little parcels dangling from their wrists, and countless schoolgirls like themselves. Tilly grew momentarily livelier; her big eyes pounced, hawk-like, on every face she met, and her words to Laura became more disjointed than before. Finally, her efforts were crowned with success: she managed, by dint of glance and smile combined, to unhook a youth of her acquaintance from a group at a doorway, and to attach him to herself.
In high good humour now that her aim was accomplished, she set about the real business of the morning—that of promenading up and down. She had no longer even a feigned interest left for Laura, and the latter walked beside the couple a lame and unnecessary third. Though she kept a keen watch for Bob, she could not discover him, and her time was spent for the most part in dodging people, and in catching up with her companions for it was difficult to walk three abreast in the crowd.
Then she saw him—and with what an unpleasant shock. If only Tilly did not see him, too!
But no such luck was hers. "Look out, there's Bob," nudged Tilly almost at once.
Alas! there was no question of his waiting longingly for her to appear. He was walking with two ladies, and laughing and talking. He raised his hat to his cousin and her friend, but did not disengage himself, and passing them by disappeared in the throng.
Behind her hand Tilly buzzed: "One of those Woodwards is awfully sweet on him. I bet he can't get loose."
This was a drop of comfort. But as, at the next encounter, he still did not offer to join them—could it, indeed, be expected that he would prefer her company to that of the pretty, grown-up girls he was with?—as he again sidled past, Tilly, who had given him one of her most vivacious sparkles, turned and shot a glance at Laura's face.
"For pity's sake, look a little more amiable, or he won't come at all."
Laura felt more like crying; her sunshine was intercepted, her good spirits were quenched; had she had her will, she would have turned tail and gone straight back to school. She had not wanted Bob, had never asked him to be 'gone' on her, and if she had now to fish for him, into the bargain...However there was no help for it; the thing had to be gone through with; and, since Tilly seemed disposed to lay the blame of his lukewarmness at her door, Laura glued her mouth, the next time Bob hove in sight, into a feeble smile.
Soon afterwards he came up to them. His cousin had an arch greeting in readiness.
"Well, you've been doing a pretty mash, you have!" she cried, and jogged him with her elbow. "No wonder you'd no eyes for poor us. What price Miss Woodward's gloves this morning!"—at which Bob laughed, looked sly, and tapped his breast pocket.
It was time to be moving homewards. Tilly and her beau led the way. "For we know you two would rather be alone. Now, Bob, not too many sheep's-eyes, please!"
Bob smiled, and let fly a wicked glance at Laura from under his dark lashes. Dropping behind, they began to mount the hill. Now was the moment, felt Laura, to say something very witty, or pert, or clever; and a little pulse in her throat beat hard, as she furiously racked her brains. Oh, for just a morsel of Tilly's loose-tonguedness! One after the other she considered and dismissed: the pleasant coolness of the morning, the crowded condition of the street, even the fact of the next day being Sunday—ears and cheeks on fire, meanwhile, at her own slow-wittedness. And Bob smiled. She almost hated him for that smile. It was so assured, and withal so disturbing. Seen close at hand his teeth were whiter, his eyes browner than she had believed. His upper lip, too, was quite dark; and he fingered it incessantly, as he waited for her to make the onslaught.
But he waited in vain; and when they had walked a whole street-block in this mute fashion, it was he who broke the silence.
"Ripping girls, those Woodwards," he said, and seemed to be remembering their charms.
"Yes, they looked very nice," said Laura in a small voice, and was extremely conscious of her own thirteen years.
"Simply stunning! Though May's so slender—May's the pretty one—and has such a jolly figure ... I believe I could span her waist with my two hands ... her service is just A1—at tennis I mean."
"Is it really?" said Laura wanly, and felt unutterably depressed at the turn the conversation was taking.—Her own waist was coarse, her knowledge of tennis of the slightest.
"Ra-THER! Overhand, with a cut on it—she plays with a 14-oz. racquet. And she has a back drive, too, by Jove, that—you play, of course?"
"Oh, yes." Laura spoke up manfully; but prayed that he would not press his inquiries further. At this juncture his attention was diverted by the passing of a fine tandem; and as soon as he brought it back to her again, she said: 'You're at Trinity, aren't you?'—which was finesse; for she knew he wasn't.
"Well, yes ... all but," answered Bob well pleased. "I start in this winter."
"How nice!"
There was another pause; then she blurted out: "We church girls always wear Trinity colours at the boat-race."
She hoped from her heart, this might lead him to say that he would look out for her there; but he did nothing of the kind. His answer was to the effect that this year they jolly well expected to knock Ormond into a cocked hat.
Lunch threatened to be formidable. To begin with, Laura, whose natural, easy frankness had by this time all but been successfully educated out of her, Laura was never shyer with strangers than at a meal, where every word you said could be listened to by a tableful of people. Then, too, her vis-a-vis was a small sharp child of five or six, called Thumbby, or Thumbkin, who only removed her bead-like eyes from Laura's face to be saucy to her father. And, what was worse, the Uncle turned out to be a type that struck instant terror into Laura: a full-fledged male tease.—He was, besides, very hairy of face, and preternaturally solemn.
No sooner had he drawn in his chair to the table than he began. Lifting his head and thrusting out his chin, he sniffed the air in all directions with a moving nose—just as a cat does. Everyone looked at him in surprise. Tilly, who sat next him, went pink.
"What is it, dear?" his wife at last inquired in a gentle voice; for it was evident that he was not going to stop till asked why he did it.
"Mos' extraor'nary smell!" he replied. "Mother, d'you know, I could take my appledavy some one has been using my scent."
"Nonsense, Tom."
"Silly pa!" said the little girl.
Ramming his knuckles into his eyes, he pretended to cry at his daughter's rebuke; then bore down on Laura.
"D'you know, Miss Ra ... Ra ... Rambotham"—he made as if he could not get her name out—"d'you know that I'm a great man for scent? Fact. I take a bath in it every morning."
Laura smiled uncertainly, fixed always by the child.
"Fact, I assure you. Over the tummy, up to the chin.—Now, who's been at it? For it's my opinion I shan't have enough left to shampoo my eyebrows.—Bob, is it you?"
"Don't be an ass, pater."
"Cut me some bread, Bob, please," said Tilly hastily.
"Mos' extraor'nary thing!" persisted the Uncle. "Or—good Lord, mother, can it be my monthly attack of D.T.'s beginning already? They're not due, you know, till next week, Monday, five o'clock."
"Dear, DON'T be so silly. Besides it's my scent, not yours. And anyone is welcome to it."
"Well, well, let's call in the cats!—By the way, Miss Ra ... Ra ... Rambotham, are you aware that this son of mine is a professed lady-killer?"
Laura and Bob went different shades of crimson.
"Why has she got so red?" the child asked her mother, in an audible whisper.
"Oh, CHUCK it, pater!" murmured Bob in disgust.
"Fact, I assure you. Put not your trust in Robert! He's always on with the new love before he's off with the old. You ask him whose glove he's still cherishing in the pocket next his heart."
Bob pushed his plate from him and, for a moment, seemed about to leave the table. Laura could not lift her eyes. Tilly chewed in angry silence.
Here, however, the child made a diversion.
"You're a lady-kilda yourself, pa."
"Me, Thumbkin?—Mother, d'you hear that?—Then it's the whiskers, Thumbby. Ladies love whiskers—or a fine drooping moustache, like my son Bob's." He sang: "'Oh, oh, the ladies loved him so!'"
"Tom, dear, DO be quiet."
"Tom, Tom, the piper's son!" chirped Thumbby.
"Well, well, let's call in the cats!"—which appeared to be his way of changing the subject.
It seemed, after this, as though the remainder of lunch might pass off without further hitch. Then however and all of a sudden, while he was peeling an apple, this dreadful man said, as though to himself: "Ra ... Ra ... Rambotham. Now where have I heard that name?"
"Wa ... Wa ... Wamboffam!" mocked Thumbkin.
"Monkey, if you're so sharp you'll cut yourself!—Young lady, do you happen to come from Warrenega?" he asked Laura, when Thumbkin's excited chirrup of: "I'll cut YOU, pa, into little bits!" had died away.
Ready to sink through the floor, Laura replied that she did.
"Then I've the pleasure of knowing your mother.—Tall dark woman, isn't she?"
Under the table, Laura locked the palms of her hands and stemmed her feet against the floor. Was here, now, before them all, and Bob in particular, the shameful secret of the embroidery to come to light? She could hardly force her lips to frame an answer.
Her confusion was too patent to be overlooked. Above her lowered head, signs passed between husband and wife, and soon afterwards the family rose from the table.
But Tilly was so obviously sulky that the tense could not let her escape him thus.
He cried: "For God's sake, Tilly, stand still! What on earth have you got on your back?"
Tilly came from up-country and her thoughts leapt fearfully to scorpions and tarantulas. Affrighted, she tried to peer over her shoulder, and gave a preliminary shriek. "Gracious!—whatever is it?"
"Hold on!" He approached her with the tongs; the next moment to ejaculate: "Begad, it's not a growth, it's a bustle!" and as he spoke he tweaked the place where a bustle used to be worn.
Even Bob had to join in the ensuing boohoo, which went on and on till Laura thought the Uncle would fall down in a fit. Then for the third time he invited those present to join him in summoning the cats, murmured something about "humping his bluey", and went out into the hall, where they heard him swinging Thumbby "round the world".
It was all the Aunt could do to mollify Tilly, who was enraged to the point of tears. "I've never worn a bustle in my life! Uncle's a perfect FOOL! I've never met such a fool as he is!"
Still boiling, she disappeared to nurse her ruffled temper in private; and she remained absent from the room for over half an hour. During this time Laura and Bob were alone together. But even less than before came of their intercourse: Bob, still smarting from his father's banter, was inclined to be stand-offish, as though afraid Laura might take liberties with him after having been made to look so small; Laura, rendered thoroughly unsure to begin with, by the jocular tone of the luncheon-table, had not recovered from the shock of hearing her parentage so bluffly disclosed. And since, at this time, her idea of the art of conversation was to make jerky little remarks which led nowhere, or to put still more jerky questions, Bob was soon stifling yawns, and not with the best success. He infected Laura; and there the two of them sat, doing their best to appear unconscious of the terrible spasms which, every few seconds, distorted their faces. At last Bob could stand it no longer and bolted from the room.
Laura was alone, and seemed to be forgotten The minutes ticked by, and no one came—or no one but a little grey kitten, which arrived as if from nowhere, with a hop and a skip. She coaxed the creature to her lap, where it joined head to tail and went to sleep. And there she sat, in the gloomy, overfilled drawing-room, and stroked the kitten, which neither cracked stupid jokes nor required her to strain her wits to make conversation.
When at length Tilly came back, she expressed a rather acid surprise at Bob's absence, and went to look for him; Laura heard them whispering and laughing in the passage. On their return to the drawing-room it had been decided that the three of them should go for a walk. As the sky was overcast and the girls had no umbrellas, Bob carried a big one belonging to the Uncle. Tilly called this a "family umbrella"; and the jokes that were extracted from the pair of words lasted the walkers on the whole of their outward way; lasted so long that Laura, who was speedily finished with her contribution, grew quite stupefied with listening to the other two.
Collins Street was now as empty as a bush road. The young people went into Bourke Street, where, for want of something better to do, they entered the Eastern Market and strolled about inside. The noise that rose from the livestock, on ground floor and upper storey, was ear-splitting: pigs grunted; cocks crowed, turkeys gobbled, parrots shrieked; while rough human voices echoed and re-echoed under the lofty roof. There was a smell, too, an extraordinary smell, composed of all the individual smells of all these living things: of fruit and vegetables, fresh and decayed; of flowers, and butter, and grain; of meat, and fish, and strong cheeses; of sawdust sprinkled with water, and freshly wet pavements—one great complicated smell, the piquancy of which made Laura sniff like a spaniel. But after a very few minutes Tilly, whose temper was still short, called it a "vile stink" and clapped her handkerchief to her nose, and so they hurried out, past many enticing little side booths hidden in dark corners on the ground floor, such as a woman without legs, a double-headed calf, and the like.
Outside it had begun to rain; they turned into a Waxworks Exhibition. This was a poor show, and they were merely killing time when the announcement caught their eye that a certain room was open to "Married People Only". The quips and jokes this gave rise to again were as unending as those about the umbrella; and Laura grew so tired of them, and of pretending to find them funny, that her temper also began to give way; and she eased her feelings by making the nippy mental note on her companions, that jokes were evidently "in the blood".
When they emerged, it was time for the girls to return to school. They took a hansom, Bob accompanying them. As they drove, Laura sitting sandwiched between the other two, it came over her with a rush what a miserable failure the day had been. A minute before, her spirits had given a faint flicker, for Bob had laid his arm along the back of the seat. Then she saw that he had done this just to pull at the little curls that grew on Tilly's neck. She was glad when the cab drew up, when Tilly ostentatiously took the fat half-crown from her purse, and Bob left them at the gate with a: "Well, so long, ladies!"
The boarders spent the evening in sewing garments for charity. Laura had been at work for weeks on a coarse, red flannel petticoat, and as a rule was under constant reprimand for her idleness. On this night, having separated herself from Tilly, she sat down beside a girl with a very long plait of hair and small, narrow eyes, who went by the name of "Chinky". Chinky was always making up to her, and could be relied on to cover her silence. Laura sewed away, with bent head and pursed lips, and was so engrossed that the sole rebuke she incurred had to do with her diligence.
Miss Chapman exclaimed in horror at her stiffly outstretched arm.
"How CAN you be so vulgar, Laura? To sew with a thread as long as that!"
For days Laura avoided even thinking of this unlucky visit. Privately, she informed herself that Tilly's wealthy relations were a "rude, stupid lot"; and, stuffing her fingers in her ears, memorised pages with a dispatch that deadened thought.
When, however, the first smart had passed and she was able to go back on what had happened, a soreness at her own failure was the abiding result: and this, though Tilly mercifully spared her the "dull as ditchwater", that was Bob's final verdict.—But the fact that the invitation was not repeated told Laura enough.
Her hurt was not relieved by the knowledge that she had done nothing to deserve it. For she had never asked for Bob's notice or admiration, had never thought of him but as a handsome cousin of Tilly's who sat in a distant pew at St Stephen's-on-the-Hill; and the circumstance that, because he had singled her out approvingly, she was expected to worm herself into his favour, seemed to her of a monstrous injustice. But, all the same, had she possessed the power to captivate him, she would cheerfully have put her pride in her pocket. For, having once seen him close at hand, she knew how desirable he was. Having been the object of glances from those liquid eyes, of smiles from those blanched-almond teeth, she found it hard to dismiss them from her mind. How the other girls would have boasted of it, had they been chosen by such a one as Bob!—they who, for the most part, were satisfied with blotchy-faced, red-handed youths, whose lean wrists dangled from their retreating sleeves. But then, too, they would have known how to keep him. Oh, those lucky other girls!
"I say, Chinky, what do you do when a boy's gone on you?"
She would have shrunk from putting an open question of this kind to her intimates; but Chinky, could be trusted. For she garnered the few words Laura vouchsafed her, as gratefully as Lazarus his crumbs; and a mark of confidence, such as this, would sustain her for days.
But she had no information to give.
"Me? ... why, nothing. Boys are dirty, horrid, conceited creatures."
In her heart Laura was at one with this judgment; but it was not to the point.
"Yes, but s'pose one was awfully sweet on you and you rather liked him?"
"Catch me! If one came bothering round me, I'd do this" and she set her ten outstretched fingers to her nose and waggled them.
And yet Chinky was rather pretty, in her way.
Maria Morell, cautiously tapped, threw back her head and roared with laughter.
"Bless its little heart! Does it want to know?—say, Laura, who's your mash?"
"No one," answered Laura stoutly. "I only asked. For I guess you KNOW, Maria."
"By gosh, you bet I do!" cried Maria, italicising the words in her vehemence. "Well, look here, Kiddy, if a chap's sweet on me I let him be sweet, my dear, and that's all—till he's run to barley-sugar. What I don't let him savvy is, whether I care a twopenny damn for him. Soon as you do that, it's all up. Just let him hang round, and throw sheep's-eyes, till he's as soft as a jellyfish, and when he's right down ripe, roaring mad, go off and pretend to do a mash with some one else. That's the way to glue him, chicken."
"But you don't have anything of him that way," objected Laura.
Maria laughed herself red in the face. "What'n earth more d'you want? Why, he'll pester you with letters, world without end, and look as black as your shoe if you so much as wink at another boy. As for a kiss, if he gets a chance of one he'll take it you can bet your bottom dollar on that."
"But you never get to know him!"
"Oh, hang it, Laura, but you ARE rich! What d'you think one has a boy for, I'd like to know. To parlezvous about old Shepherd's sermons? You loony, it's only for getting lollies, and letters, and the whole dashed fun of the thing. If you go about too much with one, you soon have to fake an interest in his rotten old affairs. Or else just hold your tongue and let him blow. And that's dull work. D'you think it ever comes up a fellow's back to talk to you about your new Sunday hat! If it does, you can teach your grandmother to suck eggs."
But, despite this wisdom, Laura could not determine how Maria would have acted had she stood in her shoes.
And then, too, the elder girl had said nothing about another side of the question, had not touched on the sighs and simpers, the winged glances, and drooped, provocative lids—all the thousand and one fooleries, in short, which Laura saw her and others employ. There was a regular machinery of invitation and encouragement to be set in motion: for, before it was safe to ignore a wooer and let him dangle, as Maria advised, you had first to make quite sure he wished to nibble your bait.—And it was just in this elementary science that Laura broke down.
Looking round her, she saw mainly experts. To take the example nearest at hand: there was Monsieur Legros, the French master; well, Maria could twist him round her little finger. She only needed to pout her thick, red lips, or to give a coquettish twist to her plump figure, or to ogle him with her fine, bold, blue eyes, and the difficult questions in the lesson were sure to pass her by.—Once she had even got ten extra marks added to an examination paper, in this easy fashion. Whereas, did she, Laura, try to imitate Maria, venture to pout or to smirk, it was ten to one she would be rebuked for impertinence. No, she got on best with the women-teachers, to whom red lips and a full bust meant nothing; while the most elderly masters could not be relied on to be wholly impartial, where a pair of magnificent eyes was concerned. Even Mr. Strachey, the unapproachable, had been known, on running full tilt into a pretty girl's arms in an unlit passage, to be laughingly confused.
Laura was not, of course, the sole outsider in these things; sprinkled through the College were various others, older, too, than she, who by reason of demureness of temperament, or immersion in their work, stood aloof. But they were lost in the majority, and, as it chanced, none of them belonged to Laura's circle. Except Chinky—and Chinky did not count. So, half-fascinated, half-repelled, Laura set to studying her friends with renewed zeal. She could not help admiring their proficiency in the art of pleasing, even though she felt a little abashed by the open pride they took in their growing charms. There was Bertha, for instance, Bertha who had one of the nicest minds of them all; and yet how frankly gratified she was, by the visible rounding of her arms and the curving of her bust. She spoke of it to Laura with a kind of awe; and her voice seemed to give hints of a coming mystery. Tilly, on the other hand, lived to reduce her waist-measure: she was always sucking at lemons, and she put up with the pains of indigestion as well as a red tip to her nose; for no success in school meant as much to Tilly as the fact that she had managed to compress herself a further quarter of an inch, no praise on the part of her teachers equalled the compliments this earned her from dressmaker and tailor. As for Inez, who had not only a pretty face but was graceful and slender-limbed as a greyhound, Inez no longer needed to worry over artificial charms, or to dwell self-consciously on her development; serious admirers were not lacking, and with one of these, a young man some eight years older than herself, she had had for the past three months a sort of understanding. For her, as for so many others, the time she had still to spend at school was as purgatory before paradise. To top all, one of the day-scholars in Laura's class was actually engaged to be married; and in no boy-and-girl fashion, but to a doctor who lived and practised in Emerald Hill: he might sometimes be seen, from a peephole under the stairs, waiting to escort her home from school. This fiancee was looked up to by the class with tremendous reverence, as one set apart, oiled and anointed. You really could not treat her as a comrade her, who had reached the goal. For this WAS the goal; and the thoughts of all were fixed, with an intentness that varied only in degree, on the great consummation which, as planned in these young minds, should come to pass without fail directly the college-doors closed behind them.—And here again Laura was a heretic. For she could not contemplate the future that was to be hers when she had finished her education, but with a feeling of awe: it was still so distant as to be one dense blue haze; it was so vast, that thinking of it took your breath away: there was room in it for the most wonderful miracles that had ever happened; it might contain anything—from golden slippers to a Jacob's ladder, by means of which you would scale the skies; and with these marvellous perhapses awaiting you, it was impossible to limit your hopes to one single event, which, though it saved you from derision, would put an end, for ever, to all possible, exciting contingencies.
These thoughts came and went. In the meantime, despite her ape-like study of her companions, she remained where the other sex was concerned a disheartening failure. A further incident drove this home anew.
One Saturday afternoon, those boarders who had not been invited out were taken to see a cricket-match. They were a mere handful, eight or nine at most, and Miss Snodgrass alone was in charge. All her friends [P.154] being away that day, Laura had to bring up the rear with the governess and one of the little girls. Though their walk led them through pleasant parks, she was glad when it was over; for she did not enjoy Miss Snodgrass's company. She was no match for this crisply sarcastic governess, and had to be the whole time on her guard. For Miss Snodgrass was not only a great talker, but had also a very inquiring mind, and seemed always trying to ferret out just those things you did not care to tell—such as the size of your home, or the social position you occupied in the township where you lived.
Arrived at the cricket ground, they climbed the Grand Stand and sat down in one of the back rows, to the rear of the other spectators. Before them sloped a steep bank of hats gaily-flowered and ribbon-banded hats—of light and dark shoulders, of alert, boyish profiles and pale, pretty faces—a representative gathering of young Australia, bathed in the brilliant March light.
Laura's seat was between her two companions, and it was here the malheur occurred. During an interval in the game, one of the girls asked the governess's leave to speak to her cousin; and thereupon a shy lad was the target for twenty eyes. He was accompanied by a friend, who, in waiting, sat down just behind Laura. This boy was addressed by Miss Snodgrass; but he answered awkwardly, and after a pause, Laura felt herself nudged.
"You can speak to him, Laura," whispered Miss Snodgrass.—She evidently thought Laura waited only for permission, to burst in.
Laura had already fancied that the boy looked at her with interest. This was not improbable; for she had her best hat on, which made her eyes seem very dark—"like sloes," Chinky said, though neither of them had any clear idea what a sloe was.
Still, a prompting to speech invariably tied her tongue. She half turned, and stole an uneasy peep at the lad. He might be a year older than herself; he had a frank, sunburnt face, blue eyes, and almost white flaxen hair. She took heart of grace.
"I s'pose you often come here?" she ventured at last.
"You bet!" said the boy; but kept his eyes where they were on the pitch.
"Cricket's a lovely game ... don't you think so?"
Now he looked at her; but doubtfully, from the height of his fourteen male years; and did not reply.
"Do you play?"
This was a false move, she felt it at once. Her question seemed to offend him. "Should rather think I did!" he answered with a haughty air.
Weakly she hastened to retract her words. "Oh, I meant much—if you played much?"
"Comes to the same thing I guess," said the boy—he had not yet reached the age of obligatory politeness.
"It must be splendid"—here she faltered—"fun."
But the boy's thoughts had wandered: he was making signs to a friend down in the front of the Stand.—Miss Snodgrass seemed to repress a smile.
Here, however, the little girl at Laura's side chimed in. "I think cricket's awful rot," she announced, in a cheepy voice.
Now what was it, Laura asked herself, in these words, or in the tone in which they were said, that at once riveted the boy's attention. For he laughed quite briskly as he asked; "What's a kid like you know about it?"
"Jus' as much as I want to. An' my sister says so 's well."
"Get along with you! Who's your sister?"
"Ooh!—wouldn't you like to know? You've never seen her in Scots' Church on Sundays I s'pose—oh, no!"
"By jingo!—I should say I have. An' you, too. You're the little sister of that daisy with the simply ripping hair."
The little girl actually made a grimace at him, screwing up her nose. "Yes, you can be civil now, can't you?"
"My aunt, but she's a tip-topper—your sister!"
"You go to Scots' Church then, do you?" hazarded Laura, in an attempt to re-enter the conversation.
"Think I could have seen her if I didn't?" retorted the boy, in the tone of: "What a fool question!" He also seemed to have been on the point of adding: "Goose," or "Sillybones."
The little girl giggled. "She's church"—by which she meant episcopalian.
"Yes, but I don't care a bit which I go to," Laura hastened to explain, fearful lest she should be accounted a snob by this dissenter. The boy, however, was so faintly interested in her theological wobblings that, even as she spoke, he had risen from his seat; and the next moment without another word he went away.—This time Miss Snodgrass laughed outright.
Laura stared, with blurred eyes, at the white-clad forms that began to dot the green again. Her lids smarted. She did not dare to put up her fingers to squeeze the gathering tears away, and just as she was wondering what she should do if one was inconsiderate enough to roll down her cheek, she heard a voice behind her.
"I say, Laura ... Laura!"—and there was Chinky, in her best white hat.
"I'm sitting with my aunt just a few rows down; but I couldn't make you look. Can I come in next to you for a minute?"
"If you like," said Laura and, because she had to sniff a little, very coldly: Chinky had no doubt also been a witness of her failure.
The girl squeezed past and shared her seat. "I don't take up much room."
Laura feigned to be engrossed in the game. But presently she felt her bare wrist touched, and Chinky said in her ear: "What pretty hands you've got, Laura!"
She buried them in her dress, at this. She found it in the worst possible taste of Chinky to try to console her.
"Wouldn't you like to wear a ring on one of them?"
"No, thanks," said Laura, in the same repellent way.
"Truly? I'd love to give you one."
"You? Where would YOU get it?"
"Would you wear it, if I did?"
"Let me see it first," was Laura's graceless reply, as she returned to her stony contemplation of the great sunlit expanse.
She was sure Miss Snodgrass, on getting home, would laugh with the other governesses over what had occurred—if not with some of the girls. The story would leak out and come to Tilly's ears; and Tilly would despise her more than she did already. So would all the rest. She was branded, as it was, for not having a single string to her bow. Now, it had become plain to her that she could never hope for one; for, when it came to holding a boy's attention for five brief minutes, she could be put in the shade by a child of eight years old.
Since, however, it seemed that some one had to be loved if you were to be able to hold up your head with the rest, then it was easier, infinitely easier, to love the curate. With the curate, no personal contact was necessary—and that was more than could be said even of the music-masters. In regard to them, pressures of the hand, as well as countless nothings, were expected and enacted, in the bi-weekly reports you rendered to those of your friends who followed the case. Whereas for the curate it was possible to simulate immense ardour, without needing either to humble your pride or call invention to your aid: the worship took place from afar. The curate was, moreover, no unworthy object; indeed he was quite attractive, in a lean, ascetic fashion, with his spiritual blue eyes, and the plain gold cross that dangled from his black watch-ribbon—though, it must be admitted, when he preached, and grew greatly in earnest, his mouth had a way of opening as if it meant to swallow the church—and Laura was by no means his sole admirer. Several of her friends had a fancy for him, especially as his wife, who was much older than he, was a thin, elderly lady with a tired face.
And now, by her own experience, Laura was led to the following discovery: that, if you imagine a thing with sufficient force, you can induce your imagining to become reality. By dint of pretending that it was so, she gradually worked herself up into an attack of love, which was genuine enough to make her redden when Mr. Shepherd was spoken of, and to enjoy being teased about him. And since, at any rate when in church, she was a sincerely religious little girl, and one to whom—notwithstanding her protested indifference to forms of worship—such emotional accessories as flowers, and music, and highly coloured vestments made a strong appeal, her feelings for Mr. Shepherd were soon mystically jumbled up with her piety: the eastward slant for the Creed, and the Salutation at the Sacred Name, seemed not alone homage due to the Deity, but also a kind of minor homage offered to and accepted by Mr. Shepherd; the school-pew being so near the chancel that it was not difficult to believe yourself the recipient of personal notice.
At home during the winter holidays, his name chanced to cross her lips. Straightway it occurred to Mother that he was the nephew of an old friend whom she had long lost sight of letters passed between Warrenega and Melbourne, and shortly after her return to the College Laura learnt that she was to spend the coming monthly holiday at Mr. Shepherd's house.
In the agitated frame of mind this threw her into, she did not know whether to be glad or sorry. Her feelings had, of late, got into such a rapt and pious muddle that it seemed a little like being asked out to meet God. On the other hand, she could not but see that the circumstance would raise her standing at school, immeasurably. And this it did. As soon as the first shock had passed she communicated the fact freely, and was shrewd enough not to relate how the invitation had come about, allowing it to be put down, as her friends were but too ready to do, to the effect produced on the minister by her silent adoration.
The Church girls were wild with envy. Laura was dragged up the garden with an arm thrust through each of hers. Mr. Shepherd's holy calling and spiritual appearance stood him in small stead here; and the blackest interpretation was put on the matter of the visit.
"Nice things you'll be up to, the pair of you—oh, my aunt!" ejaculated Maria.
"I think it's beastly risky her going at all," filled in Kate Horner, gobbling a little; for her upper lip overhung the lower. "These saints are oftenest bad 'uns."
"Yes, and with an Aunt Sally like that for a wife.—Now look here, Kiddy, just you watch you're not left alone with him in the dark."
"And mind, you've got to tell us everything—every blessed thing!"
Laura was called for, on Saturday morning, by the maiden sister of her divinity. Miss Isabella Shepherd was a fair, short, pleasant young woman, with a nervous, kindly smile, and a congenital inability to look you in the face when speaking to you; so that the impression she made was that of a perpetual friendliness, directed, however, not at you, but at the inanimate objects around you. Laura was so tickled by this peculiarity, which she spied the moment she entered the waiting-room, that at first she could take in nothing else. Afterwards, when the novelty had worn off, she subjected her companion to a closer scrutiny, and from the height of thirteen years had soon taxed her with being a frumpish old maid; the valiant but feeble efforts Miss Isabella made to entertain her, as they walked along, only strengthening her in this opinion.
Not very far from the College they entered a small, two-storied stone house, which but for an iron railing and a shrub or two gave right on the street.
"Will you come up to the study?" said Miss Isabella, smiling warmly, and ogling the door-mat. "I'm sure Robby would like to see you at once."
Robby? Her saint called Robby?—Laura blushed.
But at the head of the stairs they were brought up short by Mrs. Shepherd, who, policeman-like, raised a warning hand.
"Hssh ... ssh ... sh!" she breathed, and simultaneously half-closed her eyes, as if imitating slumber. "Robby has just lain down for a few minutes. How are you, dear?"—in a whisper. "I'm so pleased to see you."
She looked even more faded than in church. But she was very kind, and in the bedroom insisted on getting out a clean towel for Laura.
"Now we'll go down.—It's only lunch to-day, for Robby has a confirmation-class immediately afterwards, and doesn't care to eat much."
They descended to the dining-room, but though the meal was served, did not take their seats: they stood about, in a kind of anxious silence. This lasted for several minutes; then, heavy footsteps were heard trampling overhead: these persisted, but did not seem to advance, and at length there was a loud, impatient shout of: "Maisie!"
Both ladies were perceptibly flurried. "He can't find something," said Miss Isabella in a stage-whisper; while Mrs. Shepherd, taking the front of her dress in both hands, set out for the stairs with the short, clumsy jerks which, in a woman, pass for running.
A minute or two later the origin of the fluster came in, looking, it must be confessed, not much more amiable than his voice had been: he was extremely pale, too, his blue eyes had hollow rings round them, and there were tired wrinkles on his forehead. However he offered Laura a friendly hand which she took with her soul in her eyes.
"Well, and so this is the young lady fresh from the halls of learning, is it?" he asked, after a mumbled grace, as he carved a rather naked mutton-bone: the knife caught in the bone; he wrenched it free with an ill-natured tweak. "And what do they teach you at college, miss, eh?" he went on. "French? ... Greek? ... Latin? How goes it? INFANDUM, REGINA, JUBES RENOVARE DOLOREM—isn't that the way of it? And then ... let me see! It's so long since I went to school, you know."
"TROJANAS UT OPES ET LAMENTABILE REGNUM ERUERINT DANAI," said Laura, almost blind with pride and pleasure.
"Well, well, well!" he exclaimed, in what seemed tremendous surprise; but, even as she spoke, his thoughts were swept away; for he had taken up a mustard-pot and found it empty. "Yes, yes, here we are again! Not a scrap of mustard on the table. "—His voice was angrily resigned.
"With MUTTON, Robby dear?" ventured Mrs. Shepherd, with the utmost humbleness.
"With mutton if I choose!" he retorted violently. "WILL you, Maisie, be kind enough to allow me to know my own tastes best, and not dictate to me what I shall eat?"
But Mrs. Shepherd, murmuring: "Oh dear! it's that dreadful girl," had already made a timid spring at the bell.
"Poor Robby ... so rushed again!" said Isabella in a reproachful tone.
"And while she's here she may bring the water and the glasses as well," snarled the master of the house, who had run a flaming eye over the table.
"Tch, tch, tch!" said Mrs. Shepherd, with so little spirit that Laura felt quite sorry for her.
"REALLY, Maisie!" said Miss Isabella. "And when the poor boy's so rushed, too."
This guerilla warfare continued throughout luncheon, and left Laura wondering why, considering the dearth of time, and the distress of the ladies at each fresh contretemps, they did not jump up and fetch the missing articles themselves—as Mother would have done—instead of each time ringing the bell and waiting for the appearance of the saucy, unwilling servant. As it turned out, however, their behaviour had a pedagogic basis. It seemed that they hoped, by constantly summoning the maid, to sharpen her memory. But Mrs. Shepherd was also implicated in the method; and this was the reason why Isabella—as she afterwards explained to Laura—never offered her a thimbleful of help.
"My sister-in-law is nothing of a manager," she said. "But we still trust she will improve in time, if she always has her attention drawn to her forgetfulness—at least Robby does; I'm afraid I have rather [P.165] given her up. But Robby's patience is angelic." And Laura was of the same opinion, since the couple had been married for more than seven years.
The moment the meal, which lasted a quarter of an hour, was over, Mr. Shepherd clapped on his shovel-hat and started, with long strides, for his class, Mrs. Shepherd, who had not been quite ready, scuttling along a hundred yards behind him, with quick, fussy steps, and bonnet an awry.
Laura and Isabella stood at the gate.
"I ought really to have gone, too," said Isabella, and smiled at the gutter. "But as you are here, Robby said I had better stay at home to-day.—Now what would you like to do?"
This opened up a dazzling prospect, with the whole of Melbourne before one. But Laura was too polite to pretend anything but indifference.
"Well, perhaps you wouldn't mind staying in then? I want so much to copy out Robby's sermon. I always do it, you know, for he can't read his own writing. But he won't expect it to-day and he'll be so pleased."
It was a cool, quiet little house, with the slightly unused smell in the rooms that betokens a lack of children. Laura did not dislike the quiet, and sat contentedly in the front parlour till evening fell. Not, however, that she was really within hundreds of miles of Melbourne; for the wonderful book that she held on her knee was called KING SOLOMON'S MINES, and her eyes never rose from the pages.
Supper, when it came, was as scrappy and as hurried as lunch had been: a class of working-men was momently expected, and Robby had just time to gulp down a cup of tea. Nor could he converse; for he was obliged to spare his throat.
Afterwards the three of them sat listening to the loud talking overhead. This came down distinctly through the thin ceiling, and Mr. Shepherd's voice—it went on and on—sounded, at such close quarters, both harsh and rasping. Mrs. Shepherd was mending a stole; Isabella stooped over the sermon, which she was writing like copperplate. Laura sat in a corner with her hands before her: she had finished her book, but her eyes were still visionary. When any of the three spoke, it was in a low tone.
Towards nine o'clock Mrs. Shepherd fetched a little saucepan, filled it with milk, and set it on the hob; and after this she hovered undecidedly between door and fireplace, like a distracted moth.
"Now do try to get it right to-night, Maisie," admonished Isabella; and, turning her face, if not her glance, to Laura, she explained: "It must boil, but not have a scrap of skin on it, or Robby won't look at it."
Presently the working-men were heard pounding down the stairs, and thereupon Maisie vanished from the room.
The next day Laura attended morning and evening service at St Stephen's-on-the-Hill, and in the afternoon made one of Isabella's class at Sunday school.
That morning she had wakened, in what seemed to be the middle of the night, to find Isabella dressing by the light of a single candle.
"Don't you get up," said the latter. "We're all going to early service, and I just want to make Robby some bread and milk beforehand. He would rather communicate fasting, but he has to have something, for he doesn't get home till dinner-time."
When midday came, Robby was very fractious. The mutton-bone—no cooking was done—was harder than ever to carve with decency; and poor Mrs. Shepherd, for sheer fidgetiness, could hardly swallow a bite.
But at nine o'clock that evening, when the labours of the day were behind him, he was persuaded to lie down on the sofa and drink a glass of port. At his head sat Mrs. Shepherd, holding the wine and some biscuits; at his feet Isabella, stroking his soles. The stimulant revived him; he grew quite mellow, and presently, taking his wife's hand, he held it in his—and Laura felt sure that all his querulousness was forgiven him for the sake of this moment. Then, finding a willing listener in the black-eyed little girl who sat before him, he began to talk, to relate his travels, giving, in particular, a vivid account of some months he had once spent in Japan. Laura, who liked nothing better than travelling at second hand—since any other way was out of the question—Laura spent a delightful hour, and said so.
"Yes, Robby quite surpassed himself to-night, I thought," said Isabella as she let down her hair. "I never heard anyone who could talk as well as he does when he likes.—Can you keep a secret, Laura? We are sure, Maisie and I, that Robby will be a Bishop some day. And he means to be, himself.—But don't say a word about it; he won't have it mentioned out of the house.—And meanwhile he's working as hard as he can, and we're saving every penny, to let him take his next degree."
"I do hope you'll come again," she said the following morning, as they walked back to the College. "I don't mind telling you now, I felt quite nervous when Robby said we were to ask you. I've had no experience of little girls. But you haven't been the least trouble—not a bit. And I'm sure it was good for Robby having something young about the house. So mind you write and tell us when you have another holiday"—and Isabella's smile beamed out once more, none the less kindly because it was caught, on its way to Laura, by the gate they were passing through.
Laura, whose mind was set on a good, satisfying slab of cake, promised to do this, although her feelings had suffered so great a change that she was not sure whether she would keep her word. She was pulled two ways: on the one side was the remembrance of Mr. Shepherd hacking cantankerously at the bare mutton-bone; on the other, the cherry-blossom and the mousmes of Japan.