The Getting of Wisdom

by Henry Handel Richardson

  This system of slight and disparagement was similar to what she had been called on to bear, in her first school term; but the effect it had on her was different. Then, in her raw timidity, she had bowed her head beneath it: now, she could not be so lamb-like. In thought, she never ceased to lay half the blame of what had happened on her companions’ shoulders; and she was embittered by their injustice in making her alone responsible, when all she had done was to yield to their craving for romance. She became a rebel, wrapping herself round in the cloak of bitterness which the outcasts of fortune wear, feeding on her hate of those within the pale. Very well then, she said to herself: if her fellows chose to shut her out like this, she would stop outside, and never see eye to eye with them again. And it gave her an unholy pleasure to mock, in secret, at all they set store by.

  Her outward behaviour for many a day was, nonetheless, that of a foot-licker; and by no sign did she indicate what she really was—a very unhappy girl. Like most rebels of her sex, her dearest wish was to re-enter the fold of law and order; and it was to this end she worked, although, wherever she approached it, the place seemed to bristle with spears. But she did not let herself be daunted: she pocketed injuries, pretended not to hear them, played the spaniel to people she despised; and it soon became open talk that, no matter what you said to her, Laura Rambotham would not take offence. You could also rely on her to do a dirty job for you. A horrid little toady, was the verdict; especially of those who had no objection to be toadied to.

  Torn thus, between mutinous sentiments on the one hand, a longing for restitution on the other, Laura grew very sly—a regular little tactician. In these days, she was forever considering what she ought to do, what to leave undone. She learnt to weigh her words before uttering them, instead of blurting out her thoughts in the childish fashion that had exposed her to ridicule; she learnt, too, at last, to keep her real opinions to herself, and to make those she expressed tally with her hearers’. And she was quick to discover that this was a short cut towards regaining her place: to conceal what she truly felt—particularly if her feelings ran counter to those of the majority. For, the longer she was at school, the more insistently the truth was driven home to her, that the majority is always in the right.

  In the shifting of classes that took place at year’s end, she left the three chief witnesses of her disgrace—Tilly, Maria, Kate— behind her. She was again among a new set of girls. But this little piece of luck was outweighed by the fact that, shortly after Christmas, her room was changed for the one occupied by M. P., and M. P.’s best friend.

  So far, Laura had hardly dared to lift her eyes in Mary Pidwall’s presence. For Mary knew not only the sum of her lies, but also held—or so Laura believed—that she came of a thoroughly degenerate family; thanks to Uncle Tom. And the early weeks spent at close quarters with her, bore out these fears. The looks both M. P. and her friend bent on Laura, said as plainly as words: if we are forced to tolerate this obnoxious little insect about us, we can, at least, show it just what a horrid little beast it is. M. P. in particular was adamant, unrelenting; Laura quailed at the sound of her step.

  And yet, she soon felt, rightly enough, it was just in the winning over of this stern, rigid nature, that her hope of salvation lay. If she could once get M. P. on her side, all might yet be well again.

  So she began to lay siege to Mary’s goodwill—to Mary, who took none but the barest notice of her, even in the bedroom ignoring her as if she did not exist, and giving the necessary orders, for she was the eldest of the three, in tones of ice. But it needed a great wariness on Laura’s part. And, in the beginning, she made a mistake. She was a toadeater here, too, seeking to curry favour with M. P., as with the rest, by fawning on her, in a way for which she could afterwards have hit herself. For it did not answer; M. P. had only a double disdain for the cringer, knowing nothing herself of the pitfalls that are in wait for a temperament like Laura’s. Mary’s friendship was extended to none but such as had a lofty moral standard; and truthfulness and honesty were naturally the head virtues on her list. Laura was sharp enough to see that, if she wished to gain ground with M. P., she must make a radical change in her tactics. It was not enough, where Mary was in question, to play the echo. Did she, Laura, state an opinion, she must say what she meant, above all, mean what she said, and stick manfully to it, instead of, at the least hint, being ready to fly over to Mary’s point of view: always though, of course, with the disquieting proviso in the background that her own opinions were such as she ought to have, and not heretical leanings that shocked and dismayed. In which case, there was nothing for it but to go on being mum.

  She ventured, moreover, little unobtrusive services, to which she thought neither of the girls could take exception; such as making their beds for them in the morning, and staying up last at night, to put out the gas. And once, she overheard the friend, who was called Cupid, say: ‘You know, M. P., she’s not a bad little stick, after all.’ But then Cupid was easy-going, and inclined to be original.

  Mary answered: ‘She’s no doubt beginning to see she can’t lie to us. But she’s a very double-faced child.’

  It was also with an eye to M. P.’s approval that Laura threw herself, with renewed zeal, upon her work. And in those classes that called only for the exercise of her memory, she soon sat high. The reason why she could not mount still higher was, that M. P. occupied the top place, and was not to be moved, even had Laura dreamed of attempting it.

  And at length, after three months of unremitting exertion— in the course of which, because she had little peeps of what looked like success, the rebel in her went to sleep again—at length Laura had her reward. One Sunday morning, M. P. asked her to be her partner on the walk to church. This was as if a great poet should bend from his throne to take a young brother-singer by the hand; and, in her headlong fashion, Laura all but fell at the elder girl’s feet. From this day forward, she out-heroded Herod in her efforts to make of herself exactly what Mary thought she ought to be.

  Deep within her, nonetheless, there lurked a feeling which sometimes made as if to raise its head: a feeling that she did not really like M. P., or admire her, or respect her; one which, had it come quite to life, would have kicked against Mary’s authority, been contemptuous of her unimaginative way of seeing and saying things, on the alert to remind its owner that her way, too, had a right to existence. But it was not strong enough to make itself heard, or rather, Laura refused to hear it, and turned a deaf ear, whenever it tried to hint at its presence. For Mr Worldly-Wiseman was her model just now.

  Whereas Cupid—there was something in Cupid that was congenial to her. A plain girl, with irregular features—how she had come by her nickname no one knew—Cupid was three years older than Laura, and one of the few in the school who loved reading for its own sake. In a manner, she was cleverer even than M. P.; but it was not a schoolbooky way, and hence was not thought much of. However, Laura felt drawn to her at once— even though Cupid treated her as quite a little girl—and they sometimes got as far as talking of books they had read. From this whiff of her, Laura was sure that Cupid would have had more understanding than M. P. for her want of veracity; for Cupid had a kind of a daredevil mind in a hidebound character, and was often very bold of speech.

  Yet it was not Cupid’s good opinion she worked for, with might and main.

  The rate of her upward progress in Mary’s estimation might be gauged by the fact that the day came when the elder girl spoke openly to her of her crime. At the first merciless words, Laura winced hotly, both at and for the tactlessness of which Mary was guilty. But, the first shameful stab over, she felt the better of it; yes, it was a relief to speak to someone of what she had borne alone for so long. To speak of it, and even to argue round it a little; for, like most miscreants, Laura soon acquired a taste for dwelling on her deed. And Mary, being entirely without humour, and also unversed in dealing with criminals, did not divine that this was just a form of self-indulgence. It was Cupid who said: ‘Look
here, Infant, you’ll be getting cocky about what you did, if you don’t look out!’

  Mary would not allow that a single one of Laura’s excuses held water.

  ‘That’s the sheerest nonsense. You don’t seem to realise that you tried to defame another person’s moral character,’ she said, in the assured, superior way that so impressed Laura. And this aspect of the case, which had never once occurred to her, left Laura open-mouthed; and yet a little doubtful: Mr Shepherd was surely too far above her, and too safely ensconced in holiness, to be injured by anything she might say. But the idea gave her food for thought; and she even tentatively developed her story along these unfamiliar lines, just to see how it might have turned out.

  One night, as they were undressing for bed, Mary spoke, with the same fireless depreciation, of the behaviour of a classmate, which had been brought to her notice that day. This girl was said to have nefariously ‘copied’ from another, in the course of a written examination; and, as Prefect of her class, Mary was bound to track the evil down. ‘I shall make them both show me their papers, as soon as they get them back; and then, if I find proof of what’s being said, I must tackle her. Just as I tackled you, Laura.’

  Laura flushed. ‘Oh, M. P., I’ve never “copied” in my life!’ she cried.

  ‘Probably not. But those things all belong in the same box: lying, and “copying”, and stealing.’

  ‘You never will believe me when I say I didn’t know anything about that horrid Chinky. I only told a few crams—that was quite different.’

  ‘I think it’s most unfortunate, Laura, that you persist in clinging to that idea.’

  Here M. P. was forced to pause, for she had put a lock of hair between her teeth, while she did something to a plait at the back. As soon as she could speak again, she went on: ‘You and your few crams! Have you ever thought, pray, what a state of things it would be, if we all went about telling falsehoods, and saying it didn’t matter, they were just a few little fibs? What are you laughing at?’

  ‘I’m not laughing. I mean…I just smiled. I was only thinking how funny it would be—Sandy, and old Gurley, and Jim Chapman, all going round making up things that had never happened.’

  ‘You’ve a queer notion of what’s funny. Have you utterly no respect in you for the truth?’

  ‘Yes, of course I have. But, I say’—Laura, who always slipped quickly out of her clothes, was sitting in her nightgown on the edge of the bed, hugging her knees. ‘I say, M. P., if everybody told stories, and everybody knew everybody else was telling them, then truth wouldn’t be any good any more, at all, would it? If nobody used it?’

  ‘What rubbish you do talk!’ said Mary serenely, as she shook her toothbrush onto a towel and rubbed it dry.

  ‘As if truth were a soap!’ remarked Cupid, who was already in bed, reading Nana, and trying to smoke a cigarette under the blankets.

  ‘You can’t do away with truth, child.’

  ‘But why not? Who says so? It isn’t a law.’

  ‘Don’t try to be so sharp, Laura.’

  ‘I don’t meant to, M. P.—But what is truth, anyhow?’ asked Laura.

  ‘The Bible is truth. Can you do away with the Bible, pray?’

  ‘Of course not. But M. P.…the Bible isn’t quite all truth, you know. My father——’ here she broke off, in some confusion, remembering Uncle Tom.

  ‘Well, what about him? You don’t want to say, I hope, that he didn’t believe in the Bible?’

  Laura drove back the: ‘Of course not!’ that was all but over her lips. ‘Well, not exactly,’ she said, and grew very red. ‘But you know, M. P., whales don’t have big enough throats ever to have swallowed Jonah.’

  ‘Little girls shouldn’t talk about what they don’t understand. The Bible is God’s Word; and God is Truth.’

  ‘You’re a silly Infant,’ threw in Cupid, coughing as she spoke. ‘Truth has got to be—and honesty, too. If it didn’t exist, there couldn’t be any state, or laws, or any social life. It’s one of the things that make men different from animals, and the people who boss us know pretty well what they’re about, you bet, when they punish the ruffians who don’t practise it.’

  ‘Yes, now, that I see!’ agreed Laura eagerly. ‘Then truth’s a useful thing. Oh, and that’s probably what it means, too, when you say: Honesty is the best Policy.’

  ‘I never heard such a child,’ said M. P., shocked. ‘Cupid, you really shouldn’t put such things into her head. You’re downright immoral, Laura.’

  ‘Oh, how can you say such a horrid thing!’

  ‘Well, your ideas are simply dreadful. You ought to try your hardest to improve them.’

  ‘I do, M. P., really I do.’

  ‘You don’t succeed! I think there must be a screw loose in you somewhere.’

  ‘Anyhow, I vote we adjourn this meeting,’ said Cupid, recovering from a fresh cough and splutter. ‘Or old Gurley’ll be coming in to put me on a mustard plaster. As for you, Infant, you take the advice of a chap who has seen life, and keep your ideas to yourself: they’re too crude for this elegant world.’

  ‘Right you are!’ said Laura cheerfully.

  She was waiting by the gas jet till M. P. had folded her last garment, and she shuffled her bare feet, one over the other, as she stood; for it was a cold night. The light out, she hopped into bed in the dark.

  XXI

  But the true seal was set on her regeneration when she was invited to join the boarders’ Literary Society; of which Cupid and Mary were the leading spirits. This carried her back, at one stroke, into the full swing of school life. For everybody who was anybody belonged to the society. And, despite her friendship with the head of her class, Laura still knew what it was to get the cold shoulder.

  But this was to some extent her own fault. At the present stage of her career, she was an extraordinarily prickly child, and, even to her two sponsors, did not at times present a very amiable outside: like a hedgehog, she was ever ready to shoot out her spines. With regard, that is, to her veracity. She had been so badly grazed in her recent encounter that she was now constantly seeing doubt, where no doubt was; and this wakeful attitude of suspicion towards others did not make for brotherly love. The amenity of her manners suffered, too; though she kept to her original programme of not saying all she thought, yet what she was forced to say, she blurted out in such a precise and blunt fashion, that it made a disagreeable impression. At the same time, a growing pedantry in trifles warped both her imagination and her sympathies: under the aegis of M. P., she rapidly learned to be the latter’s rival in an adherence to bald fact, and in her contumely for such as departed from it. Indeed, before the year spent in Mary’s company was out, Laura was well on the way towards becoming one of those uncomfortable people, who, concerned only for their own salvation, fire the truth at you on every occasion, without regard for your tender places. So she remained but scantly popular.

  Hence, her admission to the Literary Society augured well.

  Her chief qualifications for membership were that she could make verses and was also very fond of reading. At school, however, this taste had been quiescent; for books were few. Still, she had read whatever she could lay hands on, and for the past half-year or more, she had been like a little pig in a clover field. Since Christmas, she was one of the few permitted to do morning practice on the grand piano in Mrs Strachey’s drawing room— an honour, it is true, not overmuch valued by its recipients, for Mrs Gurley’s bedroom lay just above, and that lady could swoop down on whoever was weak enough to take a little rest. But Laura snapped her fingers at such a flimsy objection; for this was the wonderful room, round the walls of which low, open bookshelves ran; and she was soon bold enough, on entering, hastily to select a book to read while she played, always on the alert to pop it behind her music, should anyone come into the room.

  For months, she browsed unchecked. As her choice had to be made with extreme celerity, and from those shelves nearest the piano, it was in the nature of things that i
t was not invariably a happy one. For some time, she had but moderate luck, and sampled queer foods. To these must be reckoned a translation of Faust, which she read through, to the end of the First Part, at least, with a kind of dreary wonder why such a dull thing should be great. For her next repast, she sought hard, and it was in the course of this rummage that she had the strangest find of all. Running her practised eye over the length of a shelf close at hand, she hit on a slim, blue volume, the title of which at once arrested her attention. For, notwithstanding her fourteen years, and her dabblings in Richardson and Scott, Laura’s liking for a real child’s book was as strong as it had ever been; and A Doll’s House seemed to promise good things. Deftly extracting the volume, she struck up her scales, and began to read.

  This was the day on which, after breakfast, Mrs Gurley pulverised her with the remark: ‘A new, and, I must say, extremely interesting, fashion of playing scales, Laura Rambotham! To hold, the forte pedal down, from beginning, to end!’

  Laura was unconscious of having sinned in this way. But it might quite well be so. For she had spent a topsy-turvy, though highly engrossing hour. In place of the children’s story she anticipated, she had found herself, on opening the book, confronted by the queerest stuff she had ever seen in print. From the very first sentence on. To begin with, it was a play—and Laura had never had a modern prose play in her hand before—and then, it was all about the oddest, yet the most commonplace people. It seemed to her amazingly unreal—how these people, for instance, spoke and behaved—she had never known anyone like them; and yet again, so true in the way it dragged in everyday happenings, so petty in its rendering of petty things, that it bewildered and repelled her: why, someone might just as well write a book about Mother or Sarah! Her young, romantic soul rose in arms against this, its first bluff contact with realism, against such a dispiriting sobriety of outlook. Something within her wanted to cry out in protest, as she read—for read she did, on three successive days, with an interest she could not explain. And that was not all. It was worse, that the people in this book—the extraordinary person who was married and had children, and yet ate biscuits out of a bag and said she didn’t; the man who called her his lark and his squirrel—as if any man ever did call his wife such names!—all these people seemed eternally to be meaning something different from what they said; something that was forever eluding her. It was most irritating. There was, moreover, no mention of a doll’s house, in the whole three acts.