"Oh, they won't savvy."
But Laura's eyes were saucers of curiosity, for Tilly, who kept her
long lashes lowered, had given her a furious nudge. With a wink and a
beck to each other, the bigger girls got up and went away.
"I say, what did you poke me so hard for?" inquired Laura as she and
Tilly followed in their wake, at the clanging of the public prayer-bell.
"You soft, didn't you hear what she said?"
"Of course I did"--and Laura repeated the reference.
"Let's look it up then." Under cover of the prayer Tilly sought it out,
and together they bent their heads over it.
On this occasion, Tilly was more knowing than Laura; but on this alone;
for when Laura once grasped what they were driving at, she was as
nimble-witted as any.
Only a day or two later it was she who, in face of Kate and Maria,
invited Tilly to turn up chapter and verse.
Both the elder girls burst out laughing.
"By dad!" cried Kate Horner, and smacked her thigh. "This kid knows a
thing or two."
"You bet! I told you she wasn't born yesterday."--And Maria laid her
arm round Laura's shoulders.
Thus was Laura encouraged, put on her mettle; and soon there was no
more audacious Bible-reader in the class than she.
The girls were thrown thus upon the Book of Books for their contraband
knowledge, since it was the only frankly outspoken piece of literature
allowed within the College walls: the classics studied were rigidly
expurgated; the school library was kept so dull that no one over the
age of ten much cared to borrow a volume from it. And, by fair means or
unfair, it was necessary to obtain information on matters of sex; for
girls most of whom were well across the threshold of womanhood the
subject had an invincible fascination.
Such knowledge as they possessed was a strange jumble, picked up at
random: in one direction they were well primed; in another, supremely
ignorant. Thus, though they received lectures on what was called
"Physiology", and for these were required to commit to memory the name
of every bone and artery in the body, yet all that related to a woman's
special organs and chief natural function was studiously ignored. The
subject being thus chastely shrouded in mystery, they were thrown back
on guesswork and speculation--with the quaintest results. The fancies
woven by quite big girls, for instance, round the physical feat of
bringing a child into the world, would have supplied material for a
volume of fairytales. On many a summer evening at this time, in a nook
of the garden, heads of all shades might have been seen pressed as
close together as a cluster of settled bees; and like the humming of
bees, too, were the busy whisperings and subdued buzzes of laughter
that accompanied this hot discussion of the "how"--as a living answer
to which, each of them would probably some day walk the world.
Innumerable theories were afloat, one more fantastic than another; and
the wilder the conjecture, the greater was the respect and applause it
gained.
On the other hand, of less profitable information they had amassed a
goodly store. Girls who came from up-country could tell a lively tale
of the artless habits of the blacks; others, who were at home in mining
towns, described the doings in Chinese camps--those unavoidable
concomitants of gold-grubbing settlements; rhymes circulated that would
have staggered a back-blocker; while the governesses were without
exception, young and old, kindly and unkindly, laid under such
flamboyant suspicions as the poor ladies had, for certain, never heard
breathed--since their own impudent schooldays.
This dabbling in the illicit--it had little in common with the opener
grime of the ordinary schoolboy--did not even widen the outlook of
these girls. For it was something to hush up and keep hidden away, to
have qualms, even among themselves, about knowing; and, like all
knowledge that fungus-like shrinks from the sun, it was stunted and
unlovely. Their minds were warped by it, their vision was distorted:
viewed through its lens, the most natural human relations appeared
unnatural. Thus, not the primmest patterns of family life could hope
for mercy in their eyes; over the family, too, man, as read by these
young rigorists, was held to leave his serpent's trail of desire.
For out of it all rose the vague, crude picture of woman as the prey of
man. Man was animal, a composite of lust and cruelty, with no aim but
that of brutally taking his pleasure: something monstrous, yet to be
adored; annihilating, yet to be sought after; something to flee and, at
the same time, to entice, with every art at one's disposal.
As long as it was solely a question of clandestine knowledge and
ingenious surmisings, Laura went merrily with the rest: here no barrier
shut her off from her companions. Always a very inquisitive little
girl, she was now agog to learn new lore. Her mind, in this direction,
was like a clean but highly sensitised plate. And partly because of her
previous entire ignorance, partly because of her extreme receptiveness,
she soon outstripped her comrades, and before long, was one of the most
skilful improvisers of the group: a dexterous theorist: a wicked little
adept at innuendo.
But that was all; a step farther, and she ran her head against a stone
wall. For the invisible yeast that brought this ferment of natural
curiosity to pass, was the girls' intense interest in the opposite sex:
a penned-up interest that clamoured for an outlet; an interest which,
in the life of these prospective mothers, had already usurped the main
place. Laura, on the other hand, had so far had scant experience of
boys of a desirable age, nor any liking for such as she had known;
indeed she still held to her childish opinion that they were
"silly"--feckless creatures, in spite of their greater strength and
size--or downright disagreeable and antagonistic, like Godmother's
Erwin and Marmaduke. No breath of their possible dangerous fascination
had hitherto reached her. Hence, an experience that came her way, at
the beginning of the autumn was of the nature of an awakening.