DOROTHEA'S FRIENDS
Alma Montague, a wealthy doctor's daughter; Elsie and Minnie Stevenson,
daughters of a Queensland squatter; and Nellie Harden, only child of a
Supreme Court Judge, were Dorothea Bruce's "intimate" friends. Mona
Parbury was her only "bosom" friend. Thus she defined them herself when
speaking of them to members of her family and to the girls themselves,
who were one and all eager to stand a "bosom" friend to pretty Thea
Bruce as they called her.
The difference between an "intimate" friend and a "bosom" friend is too
subtle to be described, but school-girls all the world over, and those
who have left school days just behind them, will know and understand.
Mona Parbury was one week older than Dorothea and one inch (they
measured upon the verandah wall) taller. Her waist was two sizes larger;
her boots and gloves were three. In every way she was cast in a
different mould from Dorothea. She was a heavily built girl, who looked
at sixteen as though her teens were a year or two behind her. Her
features were pronounced--high cheek-bones, square chin, high forehead;
her hair was black and straight and plentiful, and she wore it in a
heavy plait down her back. Her eyes were brown, clear, faithful, good
eyes, and her mouth was distinctly large and ill-shaped.
Such was Mona in the days when Dorothea loved her--in the days when
Dorothea told her all her hopes, and dreams, and often very foolish
thoughts; when she made her the heroine of her stories; and wrote little
poems to her as--"her love"--and little loving letters if the cruel fate
which sometimes hovers over such friendships separated them for half a
day.
We have seen Dorothea before. She was small and fairy-like;
slender-waisted and light in movement. Her hair was golden and curly,
and was usually worn quite loose about her shoulders; her eyes were blue
and sunshiny and lashed by dark curling lashes; her mouth was small and
red, and her complexion delicate pink and white. All of her "intimate"
friends gave her the frankest admiration--they all loved her, and they
were all eager to stand first with her.
But it was Mona who loved her the most. Mona who kept and treasured
every one of the little "private" notes sent to her by Dot. She worked
out all her most troublesome sums, brushed and curled her hair; bore
many of her punishments; brought her numberless fal-lals (keepsakes she
called them); wore a lock of her golden hair in a locket around her
neck, and told her all of her secrets--she had as many as ten a week
sometimes.
Miss Weir, the "principal" of the school, had, many years ago, given to
Dorothea's mother much the same sort of love as Mona Parbury now gave to
Dorothea. And it was owing to this old love that Dorothea was now
admitted on very low terms to the most fashionable school in Sydney.
No one among all the pupils (there were fifteen) knew anything about
poverty--no one but Dorothea. As she once said in a burst of anguish to
her mother--
"They are all rich, every _one_ of them. They live in beautiful houses
and have parlourmaids and housemaids and nursemaids, and kitchenmaids
and cooks and carriages, and as much money to spend as we have to live
on, I believe."
It was very rarely, though, that any of her troubles ruffled her calm
serenity. Dorothea was usually as placid as the placidest baby. She
longed to be rich, and to have pretty things to wear and a handsome
house to live in, but she never talked of her poverty. Instead she
draped its cloven foot gracefully, and turned her back on it--and
_imagined_ she was rich--from Monday till Friday.
She discussed "fashion" and "society" with Alma Montague and Nellie
Harden, and grew quite familiar with the names and doings of the great
society dames. She even learned--at considerable pains--a "society"
tone of voice with a drawl in it and a little lisp.
School life was a great happiness to her--the regular hours, the
beautifully ordered house, the neat table, the daily constitutional, the
morning and evening prayer-time, and the hour in the drawing-room at
night, everything that made life from Monday till Friday.
It was Friday till Monday that was the cross, Friday till Monday, the
days when the cloven foot would not be draped, when the elegancies of
life were left behind in the city, when the twins and the babies were
everywhere, when the meals were often but suddenly thought of snatches
of food.
Sometimes the thought of the looming future--the time when all the days
would be as Friday till Monday, when there would no longer be any school
days to be lived by her--would quite break down her placidity, and make
her feel she could put down her head anywhere and cry.
Yet away they were marching, one by one, all the beautiful school-days,
all the days of discipline and pleasant duty, and the ugly slack days,
when there would be nothing but home with house-work to do, were drawing
near.
And at last she could bear the thought of it by herself no longer.
It was early evening, and she was on the schoolroom verandah, watching
the young moon rise over a distant chimney. Every moment she expected
the prayer-bell to ring, and meanwhile, as it was not ringing, she
filled up the time by counting how many more evening prayer-bells would
ring before the end of term.
She counted on her fingers, out aloud, and found there were just
twenty-nine--twenty-nine without Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays.
Twenty-nine days, and then came the end of term, and the end of her
school-days.
It would then be Betty's turn--larrikin Betty's! The moon sailed over
the chimney, and Dot put her head down on the verandah railing and began
to cry. She did not cry in the vigorous whole-hearted way in which Betty
cried, but she sighed heavily, and sobbed gently, and allowed two or
three tears to run down her cheek before she brought out her dainty
handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.
And at that precise moment Mona was crossing the schoolroom floor, and
she saw her darling Thea in tears! She was not given to light impulsive
movements at all, but this time she really did _spring_ forward and
kneel at Dot's side.
"Dear, darling Thea!" she whispered, "what is the matter? Miss Cowdell
has been bullying you for the silly old French? That's it, isn't it
dear?"
"Oh, no!" said Dot hopelessly, "nothing _half_ as small as that."
"You've lost the new sleeve-links Alma gave you? Never mind--there are
plenty more. Not that? What then? Tell your own Mona--tell your own old
Mona."
Two more tears ran down Dot's cheeks.
"It's--it's nearly the end of term," she said.
Mona nodded.
"And I'm going to leave school," she said.
Again Mona nodded and waited.
"I've to go home," said Dot, and she put her head down on Mona's
shoulder heavily.
"I've to go home too," said Mona, and she sighed, "right away to the
Richmond river, where you girls never come."
"My home," said Dot, "is like a little plain, hedged round with prickly
pear, and put on the top of a mountain. No one ever comes in, and we
never go out."
"Poor little Thea," said Mona.
"And we're very poor," went on Dorothea with strange recklessness; "we
ought to be rich, but we're not, and the house is full of children, and
there's never any peace from morning till night."
Mona grew crimson. She wanted to say something very much, and she lacked
the courage. Instead she asked how old were the children, as if she did
not know!
"There's Betty," said Dot, "she's to come here when I leave, and she
won't enjoy it a bit--she's such a romp--and there's Cyril, they're both
about twelve. And there's Nancy, she's six, and the baby."
"I wish," said Mona, "I _wish_ they belonged to me."
"How can I practise with them everywhere about. How can I read, how can
I paint even, write my book, do anything, with them everywhere?" asked
Dot dismally. "They just fill the house."
Again Mona stumbled to what she wanted to say, and stopped. Dot would
say she was "lecturing." It would never do.
"You're rich," said pretty Dot pouting; "you can have everything you
want, do anything, go anywhere."
A few puckers got into Mona's high forehead.
"Once," she said, "I had four sisters, all younger than myself, and they
all died. I told you, didn't I?"
"But it's long ago," said Dot. "Three years ago since the baby died. You
must have forgotten."
"I'd promised my mother, when she was dying, to be a mother to them.
Father and aunt _made_ me go to school, and all the time I was counting
on when I should leave, and be an elder sister."
Dot opened her eyes very wide.
"Why did you want to be an elder sister?" she asked.
Mona still looked red and ashamed.
"You should read _The Flower of the Family_," she said, and "_The Eldest
of Seven, Holding in Trust_. You'd know then."
Dorothea had read the last, and she began to see and understand.
"You've got your mother and sisters," said Mona shyly.
And then for the first time it occurred to Dorothea that she herself was
an elder sister, that she was the eldest of five, and that infinite
possibilities lay before her.
"There's only my father and my aunt and brother when _I_ go home," said
Mona. "And I've only twenty-nine days, too, and then, oh! Thea darling,
I have to lose you."
"We'll write twice a week always," whispered Dot, twining her arms round
her friend's waist.
"And always be each other's bosom friend," said Mona.
Then the prayer-bell rang, and the four intimate friends scanned Thea
closely, seeing that she had been crying, and feeling angry with "that"
Mona Parbury for letting her.