‘It was still a brave thing to do,’ Mary Hebden replied.
‘My father says,’ said Mary Hayley, ‘the German was eaten by blacks, and a good thing, too, if he was going to find land for a lot of other Germans.’
‘Listen, Mary,’ said Mary Cox, ‘could you make us a parcel with some little cakes and things? If you are really going.’
‘That would be stealing,’ Mary Hebden replied.
‘But you can steal from your cousin,’ said Mary Hayley. ‘Just a few cakes. And us living on boiled mutton.’
‘I will see, then.’
‘How will you go?’ asked Mary Cox.
‘In a hired carriage, with Miss Trevelyan.’
‘Oooohhh!’ moaned those who were less fortunate.
‘You awful thing!’ cried Mary Cox.
‘I will tell you something,’ said Mary Hayley.
‘What?’
‘Miss Trevelyan let me brush her hair.’
‘I do not believe it. When?’
‘The night I was so bilious, because I was nervous, because Mamma had left for Home.’
‘It was the treacle toffee that Maud Sinclair made.’
‘Any way,’ continued Mary Hayley, ‘Miss Trevelyan took me into her room, and let me brush her hair. It was so lovely. It was all cut off once, but grew again, thicker than before.’
‘I heard my aunts talking, and there is something funny about Miss Trevelyan.’
‘Oh, that! It is all nonsense. I thought: if only I could snip a little bit of hair. Her back was turned, of course. But I did not have the courage.’
‘Look, there she is!’ Mary Hebden pointed.
‘Where?’
They were turning and burning in the secret laurels. Then they shook out their week-day pinafores, and raced.
‘I will beat you,’ Mary Hayley squealed.
‘Gels!’ called the elder Miss Linsley, who was chafing her cold hands upon the hot veranda. ‘It is never too early to practise self-control.’
Older girls, or more practised young ladies, were walking and talking, and frowning at the dust that the three Marys had kicked up. Anything more graceful than the older girls could only have broken; the laws of nature would have seen to it. Their porcelain necks were perfect, and their long, cool hands always smelled of soap. Deftly they carried large, clean books in the crooks of their arms, against their brittle waists, albums of pieces for piano and harp, histories of England, botanies, sheaves of porous drawing-paper. On Friday evenings they studied deportment.
‘Who will control Mary Hayley?’ Lizzie Ebsworth frowned.
‘I was under the impression,’ Nelly Hookham began, lowering her voice on account of the seriousness of what she was about to communicate, ‘I was always under the impression that the Hayleys were Roman Catholics.’
And she looked over her shoulder.
‘Oh, dear, no,’ said Maud Sinclair, who was plain and kind. ‘My aunts know them. The Hayleys are all right.’
‘This one, of course, is encouraged by Miss Trevelyan,’ said Nelly Hookham.
‘Yes,’ said Lizzie. ‘There she is.’
The three girls stood watching, their necks turned beautifully.
‘Poor thing,’ said Maud Sinclair.
‘Why?’
‘Well, you know,’ said Nelly Hookham.
‘But do we know?’ asked Lizzie Ebsworth.
‘She has had a hard time,’ Maud Sinclair said.
‘She is horrid,’ said Lizzie. ‘She is sarcastic in mathematics.’
‘She is certainly rather peculiar,’ sighed Nelly.
‘She is a dear, really,’ said Maud.
‘I would not dare speak to her about anything of interest,’ said Nelly. ‘I would be terrified, in fact, to speak to her about anything that was not strictly necessary.’
‘Certainly she is sometimes severe,’ Maud allowed. ‘But, poor thing, I expect it is because she is disappointed.’
Lizzie Ebsworth was embarrassed. She laughed.
‘How old do you suppose she is?’
‘Twenty-six.’
‘At least.’
Silence fell.
‘Do you know,’ said Lizzie, ‘I have received a letter from Mary Hebden’s eldest brother, whom I met at the Pringles’ last winter.’
‘Oh, Lizzie, you did not tell us!’
‘What colour is he?’
Lizzie was carefully breaking a twig.
‘I do not think one would say he is any particular colour,’ she replied, after some consideration.
‘I like reddish men,’ Nelly Hookham confessed too quickly, and blushed.
‘Oh, no.’
‘Well, I mean, not so much red,’ she protested, ‘as a kind of warm chestnut.’
She blushed even deeper.
‘I know what Nelly means,’ Maud said, thoughtfully. ‘I can think of several reddish men. Poor Ralph Angus, for instance.’
‘He was my cousin,’ said Nelly, and rearranged her books.
The others were sympathetically shocked.
‘So tragic,’ said Lizzie, who was used to accompany her mother on morning calls. ‘And such a valuable property.’
‘My father is of the opinion that they have discovered a paradise somewhere in the middle of the Continent, and cannot bear to return. But that is only a theory, of course,’ said Maud.
‘I do not think that Ralph would be so lacking in human instincts,’ Nelly blurted.
‘But the German.’
The leaves of the laurels were shaking and quaking. Then the bushes erupted, and a little girl staggered out, dressed in a serviceable stuff, of the same colour as the foliage. It was not what one would have chosen for a child.
‘Why, it is Mercy,’ they said.
Maud put down her books, and prepared to eat her up.
Mercy screamed.
‘Have you no kisses for me?’ Maud asked.
‘No,’ Mercy screamed.
‘Then what will you give me?’
‘Nothing.’ Mercy laughed.
‘If you are so unkind, I shall take this,’ Maud teased, touching a marble that the little girl was carrying. This also was green.
‘No.’
She would guard what she had.
‘At least you must talk to us nicely,’ Nelly coaxed the silence.
‘Who is your mamma?’ Lizzie asked.
The big girls waited. It was their favourite game.
‘Laura.’
‘Laura? Who is Laura?’
‘Miss Trevelyan.’
‘Miss?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Oh, Lizzie!’ Maud cried.
Mercy laughed.
‘And your father?’ asked Nelly.
‘I have no father,’ said Mercy.
‘Oh, dear!’
The big girls were giggling. Their white necks were strewn with the strawberries of their pleasure and shame.
‘What is this?’ Maud asked.
‘That is a marble that my granny gave me.’
It was, in fact, a marble from Mrs Bonner’s solitaire board.
‘You have a granny, then,’ said Maud.
‘She is almost fully equipped, you see,’ Lizzie giggled.
It was killing. If they had not loved the little girl, it would have been different, of course. Any further expression of their love was prevented, however, by Miss Trevelyan herself, who had begun to shake the hand-bell.
Then the big girls gathered their spotless books, touched their sleek hair, looked down their immaculate fronts, and resumed their rehearsal for life in the walk towards the house. How important their hips were, and their long necks, and their rather pale wrists.
Miss Trevelyan returned the bell to the place where it always stood.
At the Misses Linsleys’ Academy for Young Ladies, at which she had been employed as a resident mistress for almost two years, Miss Trevelyan was held in universal respect. If she was too diffident to distribute her affections prodigally, especially amongst the cold and proud, those affections did exist, and were constantly being discovered by some blundering innocent. So she was loved in certain quarters. When she was disliked, it was almost always by those to whom justice appeared unjust, and there were the ones, besides, who feared and hated whatever they did not understand.