The Getting of Wisdom
Page 24
With these and similar promises, the three girls parted. They never met again. For a time, they exchanged letters regularly, many-sheeted letters, full of familiar, personal detail. Then, the detail ceased, the pages grew fewer in number, the time gap longer. Letters, in turn, gave place to mere notes and postcards, scribbled in violent haste, at wide intervals.
And, ultimately, even these ceased; and the great silence of separation was unbroken. Nor were the promises redeemed: there came to Laura neither gifts of books, nor calls to be present at academic robings. Within six months of leaving school, M. P. married and settled down in her native township; and thereafter, she was forced to adjust the rate of her progress to the steps of halting little feet. Cupid went a-governessing, and spent the best years of her life in the obscurity of the bush.
And Laura?…In Laura’s case, no kindly Atropos snipped the thread of her aspirations: these, large, vague, extemporary, one and all achieved fulfilment; then withered off, to make room for more. But this, the future still securely hid from her. She went out from school with the uncomfortable sense of being a square peg, which fitted into none of the round holes of her world; the wisdom she had got, the experience she was the richer by, had, in the process of equipping her for life, merely seemed to disclose her unfitness. She could not then know that, even for the squarest peg, the right hole may ultimately be found; seeming unfitness prove to be only another aspect of a peculiar and special fitness. But of the after years, and what they brought her, it is not the purport of this little book to tell. It is enough to say: many a day came and went before she grasped that, oftentimes, just those mortals who feel cramped and unsure in the conduct of everyday life, will find themselves to rights, with astounding ease, in that freer, more spacious world, where no practical considerations hamper, and where the creatures that inhabit dance to their tune; the world where are stored up men’s best thoughts, and hopes, and fancies; where the shadow is the substance, and the multitude of business pales before the dream.
In the meantime, however, the exodus of the fifty-five turned the College upside-down.
Early the following morning, Laura made her final preparations for departure. This, alas! was not to be on so imposing a scale as the departures of her schoolfellows. They, under special escort, would have a cab apiece, and would drive off, with flying handkerchiefs, and with all their luggage piled in front. Whereas Laura’s box had gone by van; for she and Pin, who was in Melbourne on a visit, were to spend a couple of days at Godmother’s, before starting up-country. Even her farewells, which she had often rehearsed to herself with dramatic emphasis, went off without eclat. Except for Miss Chapman, the governesses were absent when the moment came, and Miss Chapman’s mind was so full of other things, that she went on giving orders, while she was shaking hands.
However, Laura was not destined to leave the walls, within the shadow of which she had learned so much, as tamely as this. There was still a surprise in waiting for her. As she whisked about the corridors, in search of Mrs Gurley, she met two girls, one of whom said: ‘I say, Laura Rambotham, you’re fetched. Your pretty sister’s come for you.’
‘My…who?’ gaped Laura.
‘Your sister. By gum, there’s a nose for you—and those whopping eyes! You’ll have to play second fiddle to that, all your days, my dear!’
On entering the reception room, Laura tried hard to see Pin with the eyes of a stranger. Pin rose from her chair—awkwardly, of course, for there were other people present, and Laura’s violent stare was disconcerting in the extreme: it made Pin believe her hat was crooked, or that she had a black speck on her nose. As for Laura, she could see no great change in her sister; the freckles were certainly paler, and the features were perhaps beginning to emerge a little, from the cushiony fat in which they were bedded; but that was all. Still, if outsiders, girls in particular, were struck by it…
A keener stab than this—really, she did not grudge Pin’s being pretty: it was only the newness of the thing that hurt—a keener stab was it that, though she had ordered Pin repeatedly, and with all the stress she was master of, to come in a wagonette to fetch her, so that she might at least drive away like the other girls; in spite of this, the little nincompoop had, after all, arrived on foot. Godmother had said the idea of driving was stuff and nonsense—a quite unnecessary expense. Pin, of course, had meekly given in, without protest; and, in this way, Laura’s last brave attempt to be comfortably like her companions, came to naught. She went out from school in the same odd and undignified fashion in which she had lived there.
The wrangle caused by Pin’s chicken-heartedness lasted the sisters down the garden path, across the road, and over into the precincts of a large, public park. Only when they were some distance through this, did Laura wake to what was happening to her. Then, it came over her with a rush: she was free, absolutely free; she might do any mortal thing she chose.
As a beginning, she stopped short.
‘Hold on, Pin!…take this!’ she said, giving her sister the heavy leather bag they were carrying in turns to the tramway.
Pin obediently held out her hand, in its little white cotton glove.
‘And my hat.’
‘What are you going to do, Laura?’
‘You’ll see.’
‘You’ll get sunstroke!’
‘Fiddles!—it’s quite shady. Here’re my gloves. Now, Pin, you follow your nose and you’ll find me—where you find me!’
‘Oh, what are you going to do, Laura?’ cried Pin, in anxiety.
‘I’m going to have a good run,’ said Laura; and tightened her hair-ribbon.
‘Oh, but you can’t run in the street! You’re too big! People’ll see you!’
‘Think I care? If you’d been years, only doing what you were allowed to, I guess you’d want to do something you weren’t allowed to, too. Goodbye!’
She was off, had darted away into the leaden heat of the December morning, like an arrow from its bow, her head bent, her arms close to her sides, fleet-footed as a spaniel: Pin was faced by the swift and rhythmic upturning of her heels. There were not many people abroad at this early hour, but the few there were stood still, and looked in amazement after the half-grown girl in white, whose thick black plait of hair sawed up and down as she ran; and a man with mop and bucket, who was washing statues, stopped his job and whistled, and winked at Pin as she passed.
Cross and confused, Pin trudged after her sister, Laura’s hat and gloves in one hand, the leather bag in the other.
Right down the central avenue ran Laura, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, the area of her movements decreasing as she ran, till she appeared to be almost motionless, and not much larger than a figure in the background of a picture. Then came a sudden bend in the long, straight path. She shot round it, and was lost to sight.