I knew what that meant. It had been hinted at on several occasions
since the birthday party. I was to go to Torribridge to live with Uncle
Simeon.
I disliked Uncle Simeon, and did not want to leave my Grandmother. On
the other hand I longed to see the world, and to get away from Aunt
Jael. I must show her how glad I was at the prospect.
"You mean you're going to write to him about my going to live there?"
I said it in a cool pleased fashion, then at once regretted I had
done so, for I knew Aunt Jael well enough to see that the pain the
punishment she proposed would cause me was a more important thing than
saving me from baneful Lawn influence; if I showed her too plainly I
was glad to go to Torribridge, which on the whole I fancied I was, she
might cancel the plan without more ado.
So I repeated: "You mean you're going to write to him about my going to
live there?"--but this time my voice had a note of mournfulness; Aunt
Jael sat up and stared. She failed to see through me, however; could
not probe the depths of my cunning, as I the depths of her ill-will.
Grandmother comforted me: "'Twill be a change, my dear. Your Aunt and I
think 'twill be a good and useful change for you. Your Aunt Martha will
teach you many new things. Don't 'ee be tearful, my child: the Lord
will watch over you."
Two days later Uncle Simeon arrived to take me. Pasty faced,
white-livered, cringing little wretch, with his honeyed smile and
honey-coloured hair. He sniffed as always.
"Good day, dear Miss Vickary. Good morning, dear Mrs. Lee. You too,
dear little one. One is well pleased to see all one's kinsfolk looking
so well in mind and body, well pleased indeed! One scarce knows how to
express oneself. But one can give thanks, ah yes, one can give thanks."
We sat down to dinner. Food punctuated but did not check his flow of
eloquence. He got the food on to his fork, but did not lift it. Instead
he ducked his head and snatched, tearing the food from the fork as a
wolf warm flesh from a bone. His eyes glistened as Mrs. Cheese placed a
steaming mutton-pie before Aunt Jael.
"Your daughter, dear Mrs. Lee? Yes, dear Martha was well, when one left
her this morning, and--D. V.--still is. She sends her fond greeting
to you both. One took leave of her with a heavy heart, though 'tis
only for a day, for one's love is so jealous, one's absences so rare.
One took the eleven o'clock railway-train from Torribridge.... There
were two ladies in the compartment with one. One was glad, ay glad
indeed, to observe that ere the train started, they both whipped out
their Bibles. One entered into earnest conversation with them. One was
overjoyed, if surprised, to find that, although they were Baptists,
they were good Christians."
"There are many such," interposed my Grandmother. "Don't 'ee be narrow,
Simeon Greeber."
"Maybe, maybe, dear Mrs. Lee. God gives grace in unlikely places.
Be that as it may, however, at Instow both ladies got out, and a
gentleman entered the carriage, a man of means from his appearance,
one would say. One remembered that he was but a sinner. One remembered
the heavenly injunction: In season and out of season. One spoke a
quiet word to him as to the Gospel plan. One was polite, if earnest.
Alas, the poor sinner answered roughly. The Devil spoke in him. He
used an evil word one's modesty forbids one to repeat. But in the
Lord's service one must endure much. One suffered, but one forgave.
Tonight he will be remembered in one's prayers. One was pained, hurt,
wounded, grieved--but angry,--no! Anger is not the sin which doth
most easily beset one." (What was? I wondered. Gluttony perhaps, I
thought, as I watched his staccato snatches at a big second helping of
the mutton-pie.) "One looked again at the face of the handsome sinner
opposite. A voice spoke within one: 'Be not weary in well doing,' but
a second effort at godly conversation yielded, alas, no better result.
One had done one's duty, and for the rest of the journey one reflected
on the different Eternities facing the poor sinner's soul and one's
own. The railway train reached Tawborough in the Lord's good time,
and here one is, rejoiced to see all one's dear relatives ... rejoiced
indeed...."
The moment Mrs. Cheese had cleared away the table-cloth, Aunt Jael was
curt: "To business, to business!" And to me, "You're not wanted. Make
yourself scarce."
I went upstairs to the spare bedroom, meaning to sit on a settee by the
window and daydream away the time. I opened the window. The dining-room
downstairs must have been open too, for I could hear Aunt Jael's voice
booming away. "Eight shillings" and "Child" I heard. I should never
have tried to overhear, but now I found I could hear without trying--by
the window here, whither I had come quite by accident. I could not
help hearing if I tried--perhaps I had been _led_ to the window-seat
by the Lord, perhaps it was providential, perhaps I _ought_ to listen.
Besides, Mrs. Cheese did it: I caught her red-handed listening outside
the door one day when Aunt Jael and Grandmother were discussing a
rise in her wages. And eavesdropping was not a _sin_. There was no
commandment, "Thou shalt not eavesdrop"--Our Lord had never forbidden
it--there was nothing in the Word against it. And what harm would be
done? As they were discussing my future, I should know soon enough in
any case what they decided, so why not know at once?... No deceivers in
the world are so easily deceived as self-deceivers. I leaned right out
of the window.
"Agreed then, Simeon Greeber. You will take her for twelve months,
treat her as your own boy, and have the same lessons taught her by
Martha. And eight shillings a week for the board."
"Eight shillings?" queried a treacly voice, yet pained as well as
treacly. "_Eight_ shillings?" It is impossible to describe the sweet
sad stress he laid on the numeral, or the wealth of poignant sentiment
that stress conveyed. Not of greed or graspingness, oh dear no! Rather
of pained sorrow at the greed and graspingness of Aunt Jael. "Eight?
One fears 'twill be difficult. If it were _nine_, one might hope, one
might struggle, one might endeavour--"
"Stuff and nonsense. A child of nine years old, eating little; and your
table don't _groan_ with good things. Eight is enough and to spare.
Not one ha'penny-piece more. Yea or nay?"
A pause, ere Christian meekness gave in to unchristian ultimatum.
"Well then, dear Miss Vickary, one will try, one will hope--"
"Call the child," she cut him short.
I fled from the window guiltily. "Yes, Grandmother, I'm coming," I
called back.
Uncle Simeon stayed the night: my last at Tawborough. Grandmother was
kind. I did not know how I loved her till I felt I was going to lose
her. This was my first big step in life. I was losing my old moorings,
and sailing off to a new world. My mouth was dry, as it is when the
heart is sick and apprehensive. Aunt Jael was adamant against my
spending even occasional Lord's Days at Tawborough. I was to visit Bear
Lawn but once during the year, though 'twas but nine miles away. There
was no appeal against this: Aunt Jael had decided it.
Grandmother came to my bedroom. We read the twenty-third psalm
together. Then she prayed for me, and we sang an old hymn together. At
"Good-night, my dearie" I clung to her more than usual.
"There's only you in the world that really likes me."
"No, my dear, there is your good aunt. And there is God. Don't 'ee say
nobody loves you when _He_ is there. Don't 'ee think all the time of
yourself. Think of making others happy. There'll be your little cousin
Albert to befriend. Your Aunt Martha is kind, and will treat you well.
That is why I'm letting 'ee go. Your Uncle Simeon too--"
"_He's_ not kind," daringly.
"Hush, my dear, don't 'ee say so. He's a godly man, and fears the Lord
exceedingly. He will treat you in a Christian way. And God will always
be near you. Pray to Him every night, read in His word, sing to Him a
joyful song of praise. Never forget that threefold duty and joy. Never
forget, my dear. You will promise your Grandmother?"
"Yes, Grandmother, but 'twill be lonely."
"Your mother--my little Rachel--had worse trials than you, please God,
will ever know; yet she praised God always. Will you be brave like her?"
"Yes, Grandmother," huskily, and I kissed her twice.
Next day, after an early dinner, we left Bear Lawn. I had a grim
godspeed from the old armchair.
"No highty-tighty, no monkey tricks, no stubborn ways. Fear the Lord
at all times,"--and a swift formal peck which was not swift enough to
conceal perhaps a faint tinge of regret.
* * * * * * *
We left by rail. Uncle Simeon read his Bible the whole way to
Torribridge, and never spoke a word. It was only my second journey by
railway, and I had enough to interest me in looking out of the window.
The country-side was bright with spring. Little did I foresee the
different circumstances of my return journey.
I well remember our arrival. There was a tea-supper on the table, so
meagre that my heart sank at the outset. There was my Aunt Martha.
She seemed like a weak tired edition of my Grandmother. She looked
miserable and underfed; I soon came to know that she was both. I
regarded Albert, a dull heavy-faced boy with a big mouth and thick lips.
The latter soon opened. "Don't stare, _you_! Father, she's staring at
me."
"It's not true. I'm not staring. I was just looking at him."
"Come, there, no answerings back in this house, learn that once for
all." There was still a good deal of honey about Uncle Simeon's, still
small voice, but it was flavoured with aloes now and other bitter
things, whose presence he had kept hidden at Bear Lawn. The honeyed
whine was now very near a snarl, as he showed his shiny white teeth
and repeated, "Once for all." The Tawborough mask was being put aside
already.
A clock outside struck the hour. I looked at the time-piece, which
registered eight o'clock. So did he.
"She knows her bedroom, Martha? Yes. At eight she goes to bed, and
eight in the morning we take our humble breakfast. Come now, to bed!"
I was faced with the Good-night difficulty. Albert I ignored, and
he me. Aunt Martha was plain sailing. She looked kind, if weak and
blurred. We kissed each other listlessly on the cheek. But from Uncle
Simeon I shrank instinctively as I came near him. He saw my feelings,
I saw he hated me for them, he saw that I felt his hate. That refusal
to kiss was a silent declaration of inevitable war.
He took the offensive that very night, as the clock hands showed next
morning.
I went upstairs with my candle, and sat down on a chair in the middle
of the room. There was an unused smell about everything which seemed to
add to my homesickness and sense of lost bearings. Bear Lawn had never
been a gay and festive place, but it was home, and here in the dreary
room the first-night-away-from-home feeling overcame me badly with all
its disconsolate accompaniments of damp eyes and dry throat. The old
injustice burned in my heart, the old bitterness came back. Why had I
had to leave my Grandmother, the only one in the world who cared for
me? Why was there nobody who loved me even more than that, in whose
bosom I could hide my face and cry, whose love to me was wonderful? Why
had the Lord left me no Mother who would have loved me best of all?
The same old questions reduced me to the same old tears ... I pulled
myself together and remembered my three-fold duty: to say my prayers,
to read my psalm, to sing my hymn. I decided, with a true Saint's whim,
to choose my nightly psalm by opening my Bible at random--I could gauge
the whereabouts of the Psalms well enough, if only by the used look
on the edge--and reading always the first psalm that caught my eye.
Whether the Lord guided me to a choice of His own, or whether it was
that my Bible opened naturally at so familiar a place, I do not know:
anyway, there before me was the dirty, well-loved, well-thumbed page
(page 537 I remember), and in the middle of it, plastered around with
affectionate red crayon, stood my favourite 137th Psalm. I read aloud:
_By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we
remembered Zion._
At once the appropriateness of the words came to me. Never had I felt
till now what I had been told a hundred times, that the Bible was
written for _me_. Here was a psalm which expressed my identical sorrow:
_We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof._
_For there they that carried us away captive required of us
a song; and they that wasted as required of us mirth, saying,_
_Sing us one of the songs of Zion._
_How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?_
I finished the psalm and then tried to sing my hymn as I had promised
my Grandmother, but I could not. My heart and my voice failed me: _How
could I sing the Lord's song in a strange land?_
I awoke next morning, refreshed, to see the bright sun shining in. I
did not know the time, as nobody had called me, and I had no watch.
Just as I had finished dressing, a clock outside struck, the same
clock as the night before. I counted; one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven--on the eighth stroke I went downstairs. I'll be punctual,
I said to myself. Uncle Simeon, Aunt Martha and Albert were already at
the table. I looked at the timepiece; it marked nearly a quarter after
the hour! Yet last evening it had tallied with the chime outside. Aunt
Martha and I exchanged a brief matutinal peck; I found it easier, after
the first effort the night before, to keep away from Uncle Simeon.
"Good morning, Uncle," was all I said.
"Good morning," he replied, with a new touch of spite and venom in his
whispering honeyed voice. "Not a good start, young woman. One said
eight punctual for breakfast. 'Tis now fourteen minutes past."
"I came down the second the clock outside struck the hour. Last night
it was the same time exactly. One of them must have gone wrong all of a
sudden, or been altered perhaps."
"Altered? So you hint that this clock has been deliberately changed?"
(I never thought of this till he suggested it, but then I knew; his
shifty eyes betrayed him.) "One is not used to that sort of hint, and
one has a way of dealing with it, a certain way."
I began my bowl of porridge. Meanwhile Uncle Simeon and Albert were
beginning their eggs, and as soon as I had emptied my porringer, I
looked around for mine. There was no egg within sight. I waited; none
appeared. I plucked up my courage to ask.
"When is my egg coming, Aunt Martha?" There was a dead silence. Aunt
Martha went red in the face, and looked uncomfortable. Uncle Simeon
broke the silence. He looked hard at me, though never into my eyes.
"When is your egg coming? It is _not_ coming. In one's house little
girls are not pampered. They do not live on rich, unhealthy foods, nor
wear sumptuous apparel. They do not lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch
themselves upon their couches until a late hour, nor eat the lambs out
of the flock, nor the calves out of the midst of the stall. They do not
live in kings' houses; they live at Number One the Quay, Torribridge;
under this Christian, if humble, roof. They eat humble Christian fare,
and thank our Lord for it in a humble Christian way. If a fine generous
bowl of porridge does not suffice, there is always plenty of good,
plain bread. Your Aunt will give you as many crusts as you can wisely
eat."
So I was to be starved, and preached at in my starvation! He was going
to make sure of his eight shillings' worth. I felt red with anger, but
held my tongue, schooled to silence by ten years of Aunt Jael. Aunt
Martha looked ashamed of his meanness, but was far too weak to fight
it. What will she ever had was stamped out of her on her wedding-day,
poor wretch. Albert, dull, greedy little beast, gloated coarsely over
my discomfiture, his tongue (all yellow with egg) hanging out of his
mouth. Uncle Simeon tried to disguise his triumph under his usual
loathsome mask of meekness, or perhaps he felt that he had gone too far
too soon.
"Come, come! One is forgiving, one can be generous, merciful," and
handed me the little top of his egg slit off by his breakfast knife.
This was adding insult to injury. Tears of anger stood in my eyes, but
I managed to get out a calm "No, thank you," which enabled him to write
to my Grandmother, I afterwards found, that "the little one refuses
even part of an egg for her breakfast."
After breakfast came prayers. He whined where Aunt Jael thundered.
Then came lessons with Albert and Aunt Martha. The former was stupid
to a degree; the latter was very interesting to me, after my years
of Miss Glory, especially in the French, to which I took at once.
Dinner consisted of an interminable grace, three times as long as
Grandmother's longest, and a tiny portion of hash. For "afters" there
was a roly-poly pudding, quite plain, with no lovely hot jam worked
in between the folds. Uncle Simeon and Albert had cold raspberry
jam with theirs, out of a jar on the table. Aunt Martha and I did
not. Manifestly the womenfolk at Number One the Quay did not live in
Kings' houses, if the males did. Uncle Simeon was the King and Albert
the King's son. My slice, the nasty dry bit at the end, was not four
mouthfuls. He served everything.
After dinner Albert and I were sent out for a walk together.
"Where are we going to?" I asked.
"Where I like," was the reply, in a sulky voice, ruder than he dared
use before his father. "And look here you, learn at the start, when you
go walks with me you'll do what I tell you. And if you see me doing
aught as I choose to, and there's any sneaking--I've got a fist you
know."
The little brute lowered. I wondered what the dark things he hinted
at might be; pitch-and-toss with boon companions of a like age, I
afterwards discovered. Anyway, his hand too was against me: I was
a young Hagar. For tea I had a bit of plain bread and a mug of
hot milk and water, though Uncle Simeon and Albert had butter and
whortleberry jam with their bread, and tea to drink. Afterwards I
worked at the morning's lessons, sums and grammar and _je donne, tu
donnes, il donne_. Then knitting--grey woollen socks for Brethren
missionaries--evening prayers--my own bedside devotions--and bed.
All days were much like the first one, when not worse. It was the
most miserable period of my life. Soon the daily round at Bear Lawn
became almost cheerful in my memory. I was wretchedly underfed; though
I sometimes lost appetite, and could not even eat the scanty fare he
allowed me. When I left food on my plate, unlike Aunt Jael he did not
force me. Rather he made it a good excuse for saying I had more to
eat than I needed. My morning porridge was what I liked best, and one
day I said so. "Ah, gluttony!" he cried, and snatched my porringer,
pouring off the milk and scraping the brown sugar on to his own plate;
"Whosoever lusteth after her victuals, the same is lost. Ah, to make
one's belly one's God, 'tis a sin before the Most High!"
A starvation day in the attic was a favourite punishment, as it
combined economy with cruelty. At times I should have fainted away
half-famished but for what Aunt Martha privily conveyed me.
Three evil passions, I soon found, held pride of place in Uncle Simeon;
meanness, greed and cruelty. Sometimes, if at a meal-time Aunt Martha
went into the kitchen for a moment, he would get up with a cat-like
speed, scrape all the butter off her slice of bread-and-butter, and
spread it on his own piece. Aunt Martha said nothing, to such depths of
fear and obedience can women sink; though she flushed the first time
she saw that _I_ saw this husbandly deed. He was too mean to keep a
servant; helped once a week by a charwoman, a tall funereal Exclusive
Sister named Miss Woe. Aunt Martha did all the work of a house twice
the size of Bear Lawn.
Cruelty came nearest to his heart. He flogged me brutally. The first
time the trouble began over a letter, a few days only after I arrived
at Torribridge. He came into the dining-room, sniffing spitefully. I
knew something was afoot by the look of mean anticipated triumph in his
eyes. He held out a letter for my inspection, placing his thumb over
the name of the person to whom it was addressed. I could read "1, The
Quay, Torribridge"; the handwriting was my Grandmother's.
"_'Tis_ a letter from my Grandmother," I cried, "a letter for me."
"A letter from your dear Grannie, true, true; but who said it was for
you? Who said that? ha! ha!"
"It is, I know it is. Give it me, please."
Sniffing and sneering, he handed it across. There was "Miss Mary Lee"
true enough; but the envelope had been opened.
"_'Tis_ mine then; who opened it?"
"Who opened it? One who will open every letter that comes if one
chooses, in accordance with your dear Great-Aunt's wishes."
"It's not true. I'm ten years old. Can't I open my own letters from my
own Grandmother? She's my only friend in the world. It's not true."
"Have a care what you say, young miss, have a care. There is another
little friend for you in the drawing-room. You shall be introduced at
once."
I followed him upstairs, rabbit-like, not knowing what to expect. He
locked the door. "Here is the Little Friend," he said, fetching from a
corner a ribbed yellow cane. He gave me a cruel thrashing, clawing my
left shoulder and whirling me round and round. The room was enormous;
a spacious thrashing place. He hurt me as much as Aunt Jael on a
field-day with the ship's rope, but I bawled less; no pain could draw
from me the shrieks I knew he longed to hear.
Never more than four or five days passed without his thrashing me. I
could review impartially the modes and methods of the two tyrants I
knew: Aunt Jael with her stout thorned stick, Uncle Simeon with his
lithe ribbed cane. Aunt Jael dealt hard brutal blows, Uncle Simeon sly
mean strokes. She hit and banged and bruised. He swished and stung
and cut. Hers was the Thud and his the Whirr. Both of them would have
been prosecuted nowadays; there was no N.S.P.C.C. then to violate the
sacred right of the individual to maltreat his human chattels. Both
Great-Aunt and Uncle always left me bruised, and sometimes-bleeding.
Yet of the two I dreaded his canings more; because he seemed so much
the viler. Not that the dust of the Torribridge beatings formed as
it were a halo round the Tawborough ones, not that Aunt Jael's grim
masterpieces were becoming a winsome memory, not that a safe distance
lent any enchantment to my mental view of her strong right arm. But
with a child's instinctive perspicuity, I felt, though I could not
have put my feelings into words, that there was some notion with my
Great-Aunt beyond mere brutality; some sense of duty, of loyalty to her
own Draconian creed. Her Proverbs counselled her thus. Chasten thy son
while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying--little
she spared for mine;--I found it needed loud houseful of crying for
briefest moment of sparing. He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but
he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes--then indeed was her love for
me exceeding great, out-measuring far the love of Paris for Helen for
whose sake terrific war was made and Ilion's plains shook with thunder
of armed hosts and Troy town fell, or King Solomon's for his Beloved
in the garden of lilies and pomegranates. She thought she was doing her
duty.
I knew that Uncle Simeon had no such excuse, and that he was something
much worse than Aunt Jael: a coward. He was craven, creeping, caddish.
He liked to flog me because I was weak and small and defenceless. His
pale face sweated, his eyes lit up with a loathsome triumph, his lips
were wet with joy. His cold clammy hands--like wet claws--gripped my
shoulder. As evil breeds always evil, his hate bred hate in me: a
physical, unhealthy hate I feel to this day, though he is long since
gone to his judgment.
I had no friend, no affection, to protect me from this creature or
compensate me for his presence. Aunt Martha, in whom her mother's
gentleness ran to feebleness, was sometimes petulant, often kind (if
she dared), and always null. With Albert, except on walks, I had little
to do. Sometimes he bullied me, or spat or cursed at me, when there was
nobody about. At times he was bearable, because too idle to be anything
else. I missed my Grandmother terribly, whom I saw through this dark
atmosphere as a very angel of kindness.
Life was even now more monotonous than at Bear Lawn, except for the
daily walks: there were no changes, no variety, no visitors. Once
indeed Mr. Nicodemus Shufflebottom, who had been ministering on Lord's
Day to the Torribridge Exclusive Saints, and had missed the last
conveyance back to Tawborough, was reluctantly put up for the night
by Uncle Simeon. The ill-concealed tortures the latter endured at
beholding the egg and bacon Aunt Martha had the temerity to put before
Mr. Nicodemus for his breakfast, was a delight that stands fresh in my
memory today.
On Sundays the week's monotony was hardly broken by the Meeting, a
dull funereal affair, with none of the godly enthusiasm of our Great
Meeting. Some ten dull or consumptive-looking creatures attended. Uncle
Simeon was the one High Priest: he did fifty per cent of the praying,
seventy-five per cent of the exposition, chose and called out almost
all the hymns, and always took and "apportioned" the offertory. Nobody
else counted for anything. I can just recall one Brother Atonement
Gelder, who sniffled richly throughout the service in away that
reminded me of oysters. I see, vaguely, a Brother Berry; and, more
vaguely, a Brother Smith. They are shadows; the Meeting never filled
a place in my life as at Tawborough. I remember more clearly Uncle
Simeon's long sticky half-whispered supplications to the Lord, and one
particular hymn we droned out every Lord's Day:
_Come to the ark! come to the ark!_
Oh come, oh come away!
The pestilence walks forth by night
The arrow flies by day.
_Come to the ark!_ the waters rise,
The seas their billows rear:
While darkness gathers o'er the skies
Behold a refuge near.
_Come to the ark!_ all--all that weep
Beneath the sense of sin;
Without, deep calleth unto deep,
But all is peace within.
_Come to the ark!_ ere yet the flood
Your lingering steps oppose!
Come, for the door which open stood,
Is now about to close.
Most of the hymns were in the old London Hymn Book we used at
Tawborough, so I could join in the singing from the very first. It
pained me to hear the thin peevish rendering the Torribridge Exclusives
gave of _He sitteth o'er the water-floods_, or their pale piping of
Brother Briggs' stentorian favourite _I hear the Accuser Roar_. Aunt
Martha and I squeaked feebly, Brother Atonement Gelder sniffled in
tune, and Uncle Simeon whispered the words to himself with his eye
in godly thankfulness turned heavenward. We stood up for the hymns;
it is the only Meeting--but one--at which I have known this done. We
worshipped in a dark stuffy little room behind a baker's shop. Aunt
Martha scarcely spoke to the other Saints or they to her.
My one idea was to get back to Bear Lawn. Aunt Jael said I was
to live here for at least one year, and for three if it proved
satisfactory--satisfactory to her. I was to have one holiday in
Tawborough each year; but not till the first year was out. Grandmother
had said she would come over sometimes; I knew that Uncle Simeon was
not eager to have her and would find excuses for delaying her visits.
Could I abide it for a year? Fear and ill-usage and hunger were
worrying me into a state of all-the-time nervousness and wretchedness
beyond what I had ever experienced. How could I tell Grandmother this,
and how much I wanted to come back to her? He read all my letters, and
I knew she would disapprove if I tried to write without his knowing.
What should I do? Counting the days and crossing them off each night
on the wall-almanac in my bedroom might help to make them pass more
quickly.
After all Aunt Jael was no magnet drawing me back to Tawborough. If
life was worse here with him, it was bad enough there with her. Life
was a wretched business altogether. Still, Uncle Simeon was worse than
Aunt Jael, and if the walks and fresh air I got here compensated for
the better food at Bear Lawn, my Grandmother weighed down the balance
overwhelmingly in favour of the latter. I _must_ get back. But how? I
was ignorant and inexperienced beyond belief. I first thought of just
leaving the house one day, and running back to Tawborough. I could
manage the nine miles from one door to the other,--but the doors! I
already felt Uncle Simeon's claws dragging me in as I sought to cross
his threshold, and Aunt Jael's heavy hand on my shoulder at the other
end if ever I should reach it. If I dared to run away, even if not sent
back to worse days here, I could see a bad time of punishment and wrath
ahead at Bear Lawn. It would be jumping out of the frying-pan into the
fire, bandying myself between the thorned stick and the ribbed cane,
escaping from unhappiness to unhappiness. It was hell here, and near it
there--hell everywhere. If my face was as disagreeable as my heart was
bitter and wretched, I must have looked a dismal little fright. Albert
assured me that I did.