For instance, long frocks down to the ankles were still the hamlet wear for girls of all ages, while, in the outer world, the fashion had changed and little girls' frocks were worn extremely short. As Laura was fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to have the reversion of her cousins' wardrobes, she was put into short frocks prematurely. She was a little pleased and proud when she started off for school one morning in a cream cotton frock patterned with red dots that just touched her knees, especially as her mother, at the last moment, had found and ironed out a red hair-ribbon to go with it. But her pride had a fall when she was greeted with laughter and cries of 'Hamfrill!' and 'Longshanks!' and was told seriously by a girl who was usually friendly that she wondered that a nice woman like Laura's mother could allow her to go out like that.
She arrived home that evening a deplorable sight, for she had been tripped up and rolled in the dust and had cried so much that her face was streaked, and her mother—sympathetic for once, although she did not fail to remind her that 'sticks and stones break your bones, but calling names hurts nobody'—set to work upon the short frock and lengthened it sufficiently to reach to the calves of her legs. After which, if she stooped a little when any one looked directly at her, it passed muster.
There was one girl named Ethel Parker who at this time made Laura's life a misery to her. She professed friendship and would call for her every morning. 'So nice of Ethel,' Laura's mother said. Then, as soon as they were out of sight of the windows, she would either betray her to the gang—once by telling them Laura was wearing a red flannel petticoat—or force her to follow her through thorn hedges and over ploughed fields for some supposed short cut, or pull her hair, or wrench her arms, 'to try her strength', as she told her.
At the age of ten she was as tall and much stronger than most girls of fourteen. 'Our young Et's as strong as a young bullifant,' her father would say proudly. She was a fair-haired girl with a round, plump face and greenish eyes, the shape and almost the colour of a gooseberry. She had for cold weather a scarlet cloak, a survival of a fashion of some years before, and in this she must have looked a magnificent specimen of country childhood.
One of her pleasures was to make Laura gaze steadily at her. 'Now, see if you can stare me out,' she would say, and Laura would gaze slavishly into those hard, green eyes until her own fell before them. The penalty for flinching was a pinch.
As they grew older she used less physical violence, though she would still handle Laura pretty roughly under the pretence of play. She was what they called there 'an early-ripe' and, as she grew up, Laura's mother did not like her so much and told Laura to have as little to do with her as possible, adding, 'But don't offend her, mind. You can't afford to offend anybody in a place like this.' Then Ethel went away to a place in service and, a year or two later, Laura also left home and did not expect to see Ethel again.
But, fifteen years after, when living in Bournemouth, Laura, walking on the West Cliff one afternoon, a little out of her usual beat on some errand or other, saw coming towards her a large, fair young woman in a smartly-tailored suit with a toy dog under one arm and a pack of tradesmen's books in her hand. It was Ethel, by that time a cook-housekeeper, and out paying the household accounts and giving the family dog an airing.
She was delighted to see Laura, 'such an old friend and playmate'. What splendid times they had had and what scrapes they had got into together! Ah! There were no days like childhood's days and no friends like the old friends. Didn't Laura think so?
She was so enthusiastic and had so obviously forgotten everything unpleasant in their former association that Laura was almost persuaded that they really had been happy together, and was just going to ask Ethel to come to tea with her when the little dog under her arm began to fidget and she gave him a nip in the neck which quieted him. Laura knew that nip which made his eyes bulge, for she herself had felt it many times, and she knew that, beneath the smart clothes and improved manners, there was still the old Ethel. That was the last Laura ever saw of her; but she heard afterwards that she had married an ex-butler and opened a boarding-house. It is to be hoped that her guests were all people of strong character, for it is easy to imagine weaker ones quailing before those gooseberry eyes if they dared to make a request.
But the girls were not all like Ethel. Except when in contact with her and others of her kind, many were friendly, and Laura soon found out that her special mission in life was to listen to confidences. 'You are such a quiet little thing,' they would say, 'I know you won't tell anybody'; and, afterwards: 'We've had such a nice talk,' although they had done every bit of the talking themselves, Laura's part in the conversation being limited to 'Yes' and 'No' and other sympathetic monosyllables.
Those girls who had sweethearts would talk about them by the hour. Did Laura not think Alfie good-looking? And he was strong, so strong that his father said he could carry a sack of potatoes that he himself could scarce lift, and his mother said he ate twice as much as his brothers; and, although you might not think it, he could be very agreeable when he chose. Only 'Saturday was a week' he had allowed the speaker to pick up and hold his catapult while he climbed down from a tree; 'that one in the corner of the meadow where the blacksmith's shop is, you know, Laura; there's nobody else in the school could climb it. That'll show you!' The remarkable thing about these love affairs was that the boys involved were usually unaware of them. A girl picked out a boy to be her sweetheart and sang his praises (to Laura, at least) and dreamed about him at night (or so she said) and treasured some worthless article which had belonged to him, and the utmost the boy did in return was to say 'Hullo!' when they met.
Sometimes it was difficult to decide upon a sweetheart. Then an ash leaf with nine leaflets had to be searched for, and, when found, placed in the seeker's bosom with the incantation:
Here's an ash leaf with nine leaves on. Take it and press it to your heart And the first chap you meet'll be your sweetheart. If he's married let him pass by. If he's single, let him draw nigh,
and that usually did the trick, as there was but one side to that bargain.
Confidences about quarrels with other girls were even more frequent. What 'she said' and what 'I said', and how long it was since they had spoken to each other. But nearly every one had something to tell, if only what they had had for dinner on Sunday, or about the new frock they hoped to wear to church on Easter Day. This usually began as a red or blue velvet and ended by being 'that one of our young Nell's, turned and made shorter'. Laura would try to get in a word edgeways here, for she was fond of planning clothes. Her ideal frock at that time was a pale blue silk trimmed with white lace, and she always imagined herself riding in the station fly in it, as one of her aunts had ridden from the station when she came to them on a visit.
These confidences were all very well, if sometimes boring; but there were others which filled Laura's thoughts and weighed heavily upon her. Only one girl in the hamlet had a stepmother, and she was a model stepmother, according to hamlet standards, for she had no children of her own, and did not beat or starve her stepchildren. One of Laura's earliest memories was of the day on which Polly's own mother died. Polly, although a little older than Laura, could not remember so far back, and Laura must have been a very small child at the time. She was standing on the doorstep of her home on a misty morning when she heard a cock crow, very loudly and shrilly, and her mother, standing close behind her, said: 'At the house where that cock is crowing a little girl's mammy has died this morning.'
At the time of the school confidences, Polly was an unattractive-looking little girl, fat and pale, with scanty mouse-coloured hair, and heavy and clumsy in her movements. She breathed very heavily and had a way of getting very close to the person to whom she was talking. Laura almost hated herself for not liking her more; but she was really sorry for her. The stepmother, so fair-spoken to outsiders, was a tyrant indoors, and the stepchildren's lives were made miserable by her nagging. Every day—or every day when Polly could buttonhole Laura—t
here was some fresh story of persecution to be told and listened to. 'I know. I know,' Laura would say sympathetically, meaning that she understood, and Polly would retort, 'No, you don't know. Nobody could but them as has to put up with her,' and Laura would feel that her heart must break with the hopeless misery of it all. Her mother found her crying one day after one of Polly's confidences and demanded to be told the reason. 'Polly's not happy,' was all Laura could say, for she had sworn never to repeat what Polly had told her.
'Polly not happy? I dare say not,' said her mother dryly. 'None of us can be happy all the time; but your being unhappy as well doesn't seem to me to improve matters. It's no good, my girl, you've got to learn you can't take other people's troubles' upon you. Do anything you can to help them, by all means, but their troubles are their own and they've got to bear them. You'll have troubles of your own before you have done, and perhaps by that time Polly'll be at the top of the tree of happiness. We all have our turn, and it only weakens us when our turn comes to have always been grieving about things we couldn't help. So, now, dry your eyes and come in and lay the table for tea and don't let me catch you crying again.' But Laura only thought her mother heartless and continued to grieve, until one day it suddenly struck her that it was only when she was alone with herself that Polly was miserable. When in company with the other girls she forgot her troubles and was as cheerful as her nature permitted, and, from that time, she took care to be less often alone with Polly.
No country child could be unhappy for long together. There were happy hours spent blackberrying, or picking bluebells or cowslips with a friend, or sitting in the long meadow grass making daisy or buttercup chains to be worn on the hair as a crown or as necklaces or girdles. When Laura was too old (according to others) to wear these herself, they could still be made for one of the younger children, who would stand, like a little statue, to be hung from head to foot with flowers, including anklets and earrings.
Sliding on the ice in winter was another joy. Not on the big slide, which was as smooth as glass and reached the whole length of the pond. That was for the strong, fighting spirits who could keep up the pace, and when tripped up themselves would be up in a moment and tripping up the tripper. Edmund was soon one of the leaders there, but Laura preferred some small private slide made by herself and a few friends and as near the bank as possible. How the cheeks glowed and the whole body tingled with warmth and excitement in the frosty air! And what fun it was to pretend that the arms stretched out for balance were wings and that the slider was a swallow!
Not such fun for Laura was the time when the ice gave way under her, and she found herself suddenly plunged into icy water. This was not the big pond, but a small, deep pool to which she and two other small girls had gone without asking permission at home. When they saw Laura drowning, as they thought, her companions ran off screaming for help, and Laura, left alone, was in danger of being sucked down under the ice; but she was near the bank and managed to grasp the branch of a bush and pull herself out before she realized her danger.
As she walked home across the fields her wet clothes froze upon her, and when she arrived dripping on the doorstep her mother was so cross that smacks, as well as hot bricks in bed, were administered to warm her. The wetting did her no harm. She did not even have a cold afterwards, although her mother had prophesied pneumonia. Another instance, she was told, of the wicked flourishing like a green bay-tree.
XXIV Laura Looks On
Occasionally, during school hours, something exciting would happen. Once a year the German band came and the children were marched out into the playground to listen. The bandsmen gave of their best at the school, for the mistress not only put a whole shilling in the collecting cap, but gave it with smiles and thanks and told the children to clap, and they clapped heartily, as they would have clapped anything which brought them out into the sunshine for a few minutes. When their shilling programme was finished, before playing 'God Save the Queen,' the leader asked in his broken English if there was anything special 'the gracious lady' would like them to play. 'Home, Sweet Home' was the usual choice, but, one year, the mistress asked for 'When the Dewy Light was Fading', a Sankey and Moody hymn which had just then taken the neighbourhood by storm. When the musician shook his head and said, 'Sorry, not know,' his reputation went down considerably.
Once a grand funeral procession passed and the mistress told the children they might go out and watch it. It might be their last opportunity of seeing such a procession, she said, for times were changing and such deep, very deep mourning was becoming out of date.
It was the time of year when the buttercups were out on the road-margins and the hedges were white with may, and between them, at a snail's pace, came swaying a huge black hearse, draped with black velvet and surmounted at the four corners with bunches of black ostrich plumes. It was drawn by four coal-black horses with long, flowing tails, and driven and attended by undertaker's men with melancholy faces and with long black crape streamers floating from their top hats. Behind it came carriage after carriage of mourners, spaced out to make the procession as long as possible, and every carriage was drawn by its own black horse.
It passed slowly between the rows of open-mouthed, wondering children. There was plenty of time to look at it; but to Laura it did not seem real. Against the earth's spring loveliness the heavy black procession looked dream-like, like a great black shadow, Laura thought. And, in spite of the lavish display of mourning, it did not touch her as the country funerals did with their farm-wagon hearse and few poor, walking mourners crying into their handkerchiefs.
But she was so much impressed that she unintentionally started a rumour by saying that she thought such a grand funeral must be that of an earl. There was an aged nobleman living in the neighbourhood whose time must soon come in the course of Nature, and her 'an earl' became 'the earl' before it had been many times repeated. Fortunately for Laura, the schoolmistress heard this and corrected it by telling the children that it was the funeral of a farmer whose family had formerly lived in the parish and had a family burying place in the churchyard. Such a man would now be carried to his last resting-place in one of his own farm wagons and be followed by his near relatives in a couple of cars.
Then there was the day of the General Election, when little school work was done because the children could hear bands of voters passing beneath the school windows and shouts of 'Maclean! Maclean for Freedom! Maclean! Maclean! He be the boy for the farm labourer!' and they wished their schoolroom had been chosen for the polling station instead of the schoolroom in the next village. There was an uneasy feeling, too, because they knew their fathers were voting Liberal, and the mistress was wearing a bright blue rosette, the Conservative colour, which proclaimed her one with the Rectory and the Manor House, and against the villagers. The children were forbidden to wear the deep crimson which stood for the Liberal cause, but most of them carried a scrap of red in their pockets to wear going home and two or three of the more daring girls sported a red hair ribbon. The mistress was at liberty, too, to look out of the window, which they were not, and she made the most of this advantage, tiptoeing to open or shut it or arrange the blind whenever voices were heard. On one of these occasions she looked round at her scholars and said: 'Here, now, are two respectable men going quietly to vote; and as you may guess they are voting for law and order. It's a pity more in this parish are not like Mr. Price and Mr. Hickman' (the parson's factotum and the squire's gardener). At that, faces flared up and mouths grew sulky-looking, for the more intelligent took it as a reflection on their own fathers; but all such resentment was wiped out when she said at three o'clock: 'I think we had better dismiss now. You had better get home early, as it is Election Day.' Although it was a pity she added 'there may be drunken men about'.
But the most memorable day for Laura was that on which the Bishop came to consecrate an extension of the churchyard and walked round it in his big lawn sleeves, with a cross carried before him and a book in his hands, and the cl
ergy of the district following. The schoolchildren, wearing their best clothes, were drawn up to watch. 'It makes a nice change from school,' somebody said, but to Laura the ceremony was but a prelude.
For some reason she had lingered after the other children had gone home, and the schoolmistress, who, after all, had not been invited to the Rectory to tea as she had hoped, took her round the church and told her all she knew of its history and architecture, then took her home to tea.
A small, two-roomed cottage adjoining the school was provided for the schoolmistress, and this the school managers had furnished in the manner, they thought suitable for one of her degree. 'Very comfortable,' they had stated in their advertisement; but to a new tenant it must have looked bare. The downstairs room had a deal table for meals, four cane-bottomed chairs of the type until recently seen in bedrooms, a white marble-topped sideboard stood for luxury and a wicker armchair by the hearth for comfort. The tiled floor was partly covered with brown matting.
But Miss Shepherd was 'artistic' and by the time Laura saw the room a transformation had taken place. A green art serge cloth with bobble fringe hid the nakedness of the deal centre table; the backs of the cane chairs were draped with white crocheted lace, tied with blue bows, and the wicker chair was cushioned and antimacassared. The walls were so crowded with pictures, photographs, Japanese fans, wool-work letter-racks, hanging pincushions, and other trophies of the present tenant's skill that, as the children used to say: 'You couldn't so much as stick a pin in.'
'Don't you think I've made it nice and cosy, dear?' said Miss Shepherd, after Laura had been shown and duly admired each specimen of her handiwork, and Laura agreed heartily, for it seemed to her the very height of elegance.
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