GARDENING--DRINKINGS--THE MOORS--WADING--BATRACHOSPERMA--THE
CHURCH--LITTLE MARGARET.
Both Eleanor and I were visited that night by dreams of terrible
complications with the authorities at Bush House. It was a curious
relief to us to wake to clear consciences and the absolute control of
our own conduct for the day.
It took me several minutes fairly to wake up and realize my new
position. The window being in the opposite direction (as regarded my
bed) from that of our room at Miss Mulberry's, the light puzzled me, and
I lay blinking stupidly at a spray of ivy that had poked itself through
the window as if for shelter from the sun, which was already blazing
outside. Pincher brought me to my senses by washing my face with his
tongue; which I took all the kindlier of him that he had been, of all
the dear boys, the most doubtful about the calves of my legs the evening
before.
As we dressed, I adopted Eleanor's fashion of doing so on foot, that I
might examine her room. As is the case with the "bowers" of most
English country girls of her class, it was rich in those treasures
which, like the advertised contents of lost pocket-books, are "of no
value to any one but the owner." Prints of sacred subjects in home-made
frames, knick-knacks of motley variety, daguerreotypes and second-rate
photographs of "the boys"--_i. e._ Clement and Jack--at different ages,
and of "the dear boys" also. "All sorts of things!" as I exclaimed
admiringly. But Eleanor threatened at last to fine me if I did not get
dressed instead of staring about me, so we went down-stairs, and had
breakfast with the dogs.
"The boys will be home soon," said Eleanor, as we devoured certain
plates of oatmeal porridge, which Keziah had provided, and which I
tasted then for the first time. "I must get their gardens tidied up
before they come. Shall you mind helping me, Margery?"
The idea delighted me, and after breakfast we tied on our hats, rummaged
out some small tools from the porch, and made our way to the children's
gardens. They were at some little distance from the big flower-garden,
and the path that led to them was heavily shaded by shrubbery on one
side, and on the other by a hedge which, though "quickset" as a
foundation, was now a mass of honeysuckle and everlasting peas. The
scent was delicious.
From this we came out on an open space at the top of the kitchen garden,
where, under a wall overgrown with ivy, lay the children's gardens.
"What a wilderness!" was Eleanor's first exclamation, in a tone of
dismay, and then she added with increased vehemence, "He's taken away
the rhubarb-pot. What will Clement say?"
"What is it, dear?" I asked.
"It's the rhubarb-pot," Eleanor repeated. "You know Clement is always
having new fads every holidays, and he can't bear his things being
disturbed whilst he's at school. But how can I help it if I'm at school
too?"
"Of course you can't," said I, gladly seizing upon the only point in her
story that I could understand, to express my sympathy.
"And he got one of the rhubarb-pots last holidays," Eleanor continued.
"It was rather broken, and Thomas gave in to his having it then, so it's
very mean of him to have moved it now, and I shall tell him so. And
Clement painted church windows on it, and stuck it over a plant of ivy
at the top of the garden. He thought it would force the ivy, and he
expected it would grow big by the time he came home. He wanted it to
hang over the top, and look like a ruin. Oh, he will be so vexed!"
The ivy plant was alive, though the "ruin" had been removed by the
sacrilegious hands of Thomas. I suggested that we should build a ruin of
stones, and train the ivy over that, which idea was well received by
Eleanor; the more so that a broken wall at the top of the croft supplied
materials, and Stonehenge suggested itself as an easy, and certainly
respectable, model.
Meanwhile we decided to "do the weeding first," as being the least
agreeable business, and so set to work; I in a leisurely manner,
befitting the heat of the day, and Eleanor with her usual energy. She
toiled without a pause, and accomplished about treble the result of my
labours. After we had worked for a long time, she sat up, pressing her
hand to her forehead.
"My head quite aches, Margery, and I'm so giddy. It's very odd;
gardening never made me so before I went away."
"You work so at it," said I, "you may well be tired. What makes you work
so at things?"
"I don't know," said Eleanor, laughing. "Cook says I do foy at things
so. But when one once begins, you know----"
"What's _foy_?" I interrupted. "Cook says you foy--what does she mean?"
"Oh, to foy at anything is to slave--to work hard at it. At least, not
merely hard-working, but to go at it very hotly, almost foolishly; in
fact, to foy at it, you know. Clement foys at things too. And then he
gets tired and cross; and so do I, often. What o'clock is it, Margery?"
I pulled out my souvenir watch and answered, "Just eleven."
"We ought to have some 'drinkings,' we've worked so hard," said Eleanor,
laughing again. "Haymakers, and people like that, always have drinkings
at eleven, you know, and dinner at one, and tea at four or five, and
supper at eight. Ah! there goes Thomas. Thomas!"
Thomas came up, and Eleanor (discreetly postponing the subject of the
rhubarb-pot for the present) sent a pleading message to cook, which
resulted in her sending us two bottles of ginger-beer and several slices
of thick bread-and-butter. The dear boys, who had been very sensibly
snoozing in the shade, divined by some instinct the arrival of our
lunch-basket, and were kind enough to share the bread-and-butter with
us.
"Drinkings" over, we set to work again.
I was surprised to observe that there were four box-edged beds, but as
Eleanor said nothing about it, I made no remark. Perhaps it belonged to
some dead brother or sister.
As the weeds were cleared away, one plant after another became
apparent. I called Eleanor's attention to all that I found, and she
seemed to welcome them as old friends.
"Oh, that's the grey primrose; I'm so glad! And there are Jack's
hepaticas; they look like old rubbish. Don't dig deep into Jack's
garden, please, for he's always getting plants and bulbs given him by
people in the village, and he sticks everything in, so his garden really
is crammed full; and you're sure to dig into tulips, or crocuses, or
lilies, or something valuable."
"Doesn't Clement get things given him?" said I.
"Oh, he has plenty of plants," said Eleanor, "but then he's always
making great plans about his garden; and the first step towards his
improvements is always to clear out all the old things, and make what he
calls 'a clean sweep of the rubbish.'"
By the time that the "twelve o'clock bell" rang from the church-tower
below, the heat was so great that we gathered up our tools and went
home.
In the afternoon Eleanor said, "Were you ever on the moors? Did you ever
wade? Do you care about water-weeds? Did you ever eat bilberries, or
carberries?--but they're not ripe yet. Shall we go and get some
Batrachosperma, and paddle a bit, and give the dear boys a bathe?"
"Delightful!" said I; "but do you go out alone?"
"What should we take anybody with us for?" said Eleanor, opening her
eyes.
I could not say. But as we dressed I said, "I'm so glad you don't wear
veils. Matilda and I used to have to wear veils to take care of our
complexion."
Eschewing veils and every unnecessary encumbrance, we set forth,
followed by the dogs. I had taken off my crinoline, because Eleanor said
we might have to climb some walls, and I had borrowed a pair of her
boots, because my own were so uncomfortable from being high-heeled and
narrow-soled. They were too thin for stony roads also, and, though they
were prettily ornamented, they pinched my feet.
We went upwards from the Vicarage along hot roads bordered by stone
walls. At last we turned and began to go downwards, and as we stood on
the top of the steep hill we were about to descend, Eleanor, with some
pride in her tone, asked me what I thought of the view.
It was very beautiful. The slopes of the purple hills were grand. I saw
"moors" now.
"The best part of it is the air, though," she said.
The air was, in fact, wind; but of a dry, soft, exhilarating kind. It
seemed to get into our heads, and we joined hands and ran wildly down
the steep hill together.
"What fun!" Eleanor cried, as we paused to gain breath at the bottom.
"Now you've come there'll be four of us to run downhill. We shall nearly
stretch across the road."
At last we came to a stone bridge which spanned the river. It was not a
very wide stream, and it was so broken with grey boulders, and clumps of
rushes and overhanging ferns, that one only caught sight of the water
here and there, in tiny torrents and lakes among the weeds.
My delight was boundless. I can neither forget nor describe those first
experiences of real country life, when Eleanor and I rambled about
together. I think she was at least as happy as I, and from time to time
we both wished with all our hearts that "the other girls" could be there
too. The least wisely managed of respectable schools has this good
point, that it enlarges one's sympathies and friendships!
We wandered some little way up the Ewden, as Eleanor called the river,
and then, coming to a clear, running bit of stream, with a big grey
boulder on the bank hard by to leave our shoes and stockings on, we took
these off, and also our hats, and, kilting up our petticoats, plunged
bravely into the stream.
"Wet your head!" shouted Eleanor; and following her example, as well as
I could for laughing, and for the needful efforts to keep my feet, I
dabbled my head liberally with water scooped up in the palms of my
hands.
"Oh!" I cried, "how strong the water is, and how deliciously cold it is!
And oh, look at the little fishes! They're all round my feet. And oh,
Eleanor, call the dogs, they're knocking me down! How hard the stones
are, and oh, how slippery!"
I fell against a convenient boulder, and Eleanor turned back, the dogs
raging and splashing around her.
"I hope you're not treading on the Batrachosperma?" she said, anxiously.
"What is it?" I cried.
"It's what I've chiefly come in for," said she. "I want some to lay out.
It's a water-weed; a fresh-water alga, you know, like seaweed, only a
fresh-water plant. I'm looking for the stone it grew near. Oh, that's it
you're on! Climb up on to it out of the way, Margery dear. It's rather a
rare kind of weed, and I don't want it to be spoiled. Call the dogs,
please. Oh, look at all the bits they've broken off!"
Eleanor dodged and darted to catch certain fragments of dark-looking
stuff that were being whirled away. With much difficulty she caught two
or three, and laid one of them in my hand. But I was not prepared for
the fact that it felt like a bit of jelly, and it slipped through my
fingers before I had time to examine the beauty of the jointed branches
pointed out by Eleanor, and in a moment more it was hopelessly lost. We
put what we had got into some dock-leaves for safety, and having waded
back to our stockings, we put on our hats and walked barefoot for a few
yards through the heather, to dry our feet, after which we resumed our
boots and stockings and set off homewards.
"We'll go by the lower road," said Eleanor, "and look at the church."
For some time after Eleanor had passed in through the rickety gates of
the south porch, I lingered amongst the gravestones, reading their
quaint inscriptions. Quaint both in matter and in the manner of rhyme
and spelling. As I also drew towards the porch, I looked up to see if I
could tell the time by the dial above it. I could not, nor (in spite of
my brief learning in Dr. Russell's grammar) could I interpret the Latin
motto, "_Fugit Hora. Ora_"--"The hour flies. Pray."
As I came slowly and softly up the aisle, I fancied Eleanor was
kneeling, but a strange British shame of prayer made her start to her
feet and kept me from kneeling also; though the peculiar peace and
devout solemnity which seemed to be the very breath of that ancient
House of God made me long to do something more expressive of my feelings
than stand and stare.
There was no handsome church at Riflebury; the one the Bullers
"attended" when we were at the seaside was new, and not beautiful. The
one Miss Mulberry took us to was older, but uglier. I had never seen one
of these old parish churches. This cathedral among the moors, with its
massive masonry, its dark oak carving, its fragments of gorgeous glass,
its ghostly hatchments and banners, and its aisles paved with the
tombstones of the dead, was a new revelation.
I was silent awhile in very awe. I think it was a bird beginning to
chirp in the roof which made me dare to speak, and then I whispered,
"How quiet it is in here, and how cool!"
I had hardly uttered the words when a flash of lightning made me start
and cry out. A heavy peal of thunder followed very quickly.
"Don't be frightened, Margery dear," said Eleanor; "we have very heavy
storms here, and we had better go home. But I am so glad you admire our
dear old church. There was one very hot Sunday last summer, when a
thunderstorm came on during Evening Prayer. I was sitting in the choir,
where I could see the storm through the south transept door, and the
great stones in the transept arches. It was so cool in here, and all
along I kept thinking of 'a refuge from the storm, a shadow in the
heat,' and 'a great rock in a weary land.'"
As we sat together at tea that evening, Eleanor went back to the subject
of the church. I made some remark about the gravestones in the aisles,
and she said, "Next time we go in, I want to show you one of them in the
chancel."
"Who is buried there?" I asked.
"My grandfather, he was vicar, you know, and my aunt, who was sixteen.
(My father has got the white gloves and wreath that were hung in the
church for her. They always used to do that for unmarried girls.) And my
sister; my only sister--little Margaret."
I could not say anything to poor Eleanor. I stroked her head softly and
kissed it.
"One thing that made me take to you," she went on, "was your name being
Margaret. I used to think she might have been like you. I have so wished
I had a sister. The boys are very dear, you know; but still boys think
about themselves, of course, and their own affairs. One has more to run
after them, you know. Not that any boys could be better than ours,
but--anyway, Margery darling, I wish you weren't here just on a visit,
but were going to stop here always, and be my sister!"
"So do I!" I cried. "Oh! so very much, Eleanor!"