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.