Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Seed Time/Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI.
Ophelia.—Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so."
"Come and pray! come and pray!" ring the sweet bells through the hushed peace of the sabbath morning; and obedient to the call we rise up, and, ascending to the higher regions, proceed to cloak and bonnet ourselves after our school-girl lights and abilities. There must be a little fashion wandering about the world somewhere, but it has not yet found its way to Charteris; only in one respect do we follow the mode, and that is by wearing spoon bonnets. Very fresh and fair look some of the faces inside those absurd monstrosities, but unlovely folk are not improved by their shape, and of those hapless latter virgins I am one. I would not mind if the tiresome thing would keep straight; but it will not, and I usually reach church looking as though I had had a fight on the way and come off second best. I am in short frocks still, so that from a distance I look all legs and bonnet—"like a wind-mill," as one of my friends kindly remarked the other day.
We are out in the road now, winding along it, like a dingy riband, and as we pass the parsonage, Mr. Vasher comes out, fresh, perfectly dressed, with a delicate button-hole in his coat; altogether a pleasant and refreshing sight among this regiment of indifferently clothed young women. He scans our ranks as carelessly as though we were a show of azaleas or roses (not that we are those pretty flowers by any means—far more dandelions than beauty-blossoms grow in our parterre), and does not discover me; apparently my bonnet is as good a disguise as an entirely new body. He has passed us all, with his long, quick step, before we have turned in at the churchyard. I wonder why a black coat on any man's back who is not fifty sends such a twitter of excitement through a girls' school? A few years hence and a hundred men would not cause the excitement that a single one does now in the breast of a school-girl. And now we are in church; anon Mr. Frere is in his place, and "Dearly beloved" is half through, when a prodigious clatter outside makes all eyes turn to the door. A hand with arm coated in grey and scarlet livery opens it, and a tall, fair, majestic woman sails in and rustles up the aisle, her bracelets clanking, her dress trailing behind her, looking uncommonly like a ship in full sail. Miss Fleming follows. She does not rustle and she does not clank; she sweeps noiselessly along in her cool white dress, and she is in white from head to foot. The very church seems the brighter for her coming, as she kneels against the carven oak; she looks as sinless, and fair, and adorable as Marguerite may have looked before Faust came, and yet—and yet—I wonder why with this lovely bit of porcelain I am always thinking of the outside, never of the nature and inner life! For the best of reasons: save for beauty her face is the merest blank; if she has a soul she keeps it mighty well hid, but in the teeth of such perfection who would ask anything more? No sensible man or woman. It is a pity to look at the mother and daughter side by side. Will the lovely red and white of the girl's cheek strengthen into the fixed colour that the other wears? Will the dainty contour of brow, lip, and chin in the daughter's face become thickened, even lost in time, as in the mother's case? They are so alike in features, colouring, and proportion, that the doubt is natural. Paul Vasher sits in the chancel opposite me, the Flemings a little below in the body of the church; once he turns his head and their eyes meet, and are held fast and long. It is a difficult look to read, but though no change passes over his face, it
Good sooth she is the queen of curds and cream."
Now the Benediction is spoken, and we rise and go our ways, standing aside in the road as Lady Flytton's carriage goes by. The girls are buzzing in low tones of the stranger, of her beauty, her bonnet, her gown; she has even astonished them into forgetting Mr. Vasher. We have dinner, that liberal meal at Charteris, that does not stand godmother to resurrection pies, cold remains, and potato puddings, or any other abomination. Our parents pay for us to be well fed, and we are; therefore the school prospers. We are in the first class-room now, and—oh, wonder!—I am actually seated in the midst of the potent Buffs: for so the six head girls of the school are called, who wield an authority in the school second only to that of Miss Tyburn. By no virtue of my own am I here, but Kate Lishaw, the head of them, has been pleased to take some small notice of me; therefore am I sitting cheek by jowl with my betters.
"Girls," says Kate, resting her charming, dark-eyed, mignonne face on her clasped hands, "I have some news; we are going to have a party."
"Not really?" "How I hate them!" "A lot of trouble for nothing!" "We shall get some supper, though!" "And there will be at least one man!" "He won't be asked." These ejaculations burst out on all sides, I alone holding my tongue, for as yet a party at Charteris is a thing heard of but never seen by me.
"It is even so, my brethren," continues Kate, "and the edict has gone forth that our quarterly, low-necked, manless, partnerless, full dress ball is to take place on Thursday week. But do not be down-hearted, my friends, about this impending festivity. There is an unusual and beautiful halo of novelty, for at it will probably be present—a man! None of your miserable old rectors, or half-penny hobbledehoys, but a downright well-dressed, presentable man. There is no knowing to whom he may throw his pocket-handkerchief; therefore my advice to all and sundry is, curl up your hair, starch up your skirts, put on your most ravishing ogle, your finest languish, and—every man for himself, and devil take the hindmost."
"Only he cannot dance with more than a quarter of us," says Laura Fielding, a languid beauty of the Lydia Languish type, who is ripe for flirtation, but doomed to bread and butter.
"I have thought of that," says Kate. "We will have a lottery with fifteen prizes, and whoever draws one shall pin it to the front of her dress, and walk up to Mr. Vasher, and making a curtsey, say, 'My dance, I think?' and lead him away."
"I wonder what he would be doing all that time?" says Belle Linden. "He does not look like a man who would be made to do anything he does not choose."
"So much the better," says Dora. "I don't fancy the coup d'œil of our assembled charms will have the same effect upon him that they had on that little man who came to our last with Mr. Russell and who gave one look at our hungry and awaiting ranks, and ran."
"Where did he go?" I ask, opening my eyes.
"Nobody knows. Of one thing only are we certain, he never came back."
"Perhaps Mr. Vasher will not come," says Kate. "Men like girls, you know, but, I fancy, in moderation. He does not look like an universal lover of womankind—we want a diffusive man."
"If he does not come," says Belle, "to view our forlorn and piteous gambols, then all spring and verve will depart therefrom, and we shall be like apple tart without the apples."
"If he only knew," says Emma, "that every petticoat, skirt, and tucker in this establishment will be washed to his glory, he could not choose but come. He could not be man born of woman without feeling touched."
"Helen Adair, you shrimp! you have spoken to him, have you not?" asks Laura. "Is he made of gentle stuff, or likely to kick over the traces?"
"I don't know," I say, laughing. "Shall I ask him when I see him?"
"Do," says Kate, impressively, laying her hand on my head. "Go down on your knees to him, and refuse to get up again until he says he will come! There will be a ragged look about us all if he does not!"
A bell ringing in the distance calls us together like a flock of sheep, to go out for a walk.
It is Wednesday afternoon, and we are all, great and small, upstairs unearthing our evening dresses, and fishing up boots, gloves, and other minor appendages. To me this party is a new experience. Never have I been to anything that bore the most ghostly resemblance to one; therefore my festive garment is not, like that belonging to some of my less fortunate school-mates, grown too short, too tight, or too narrow. Nevertheless, it is not much to boast of, being a species of Phoenix, revived from the ashes of one of mother's dead and gone tails. It is rusty, it is musty, it is villainously bare of ornament and green of hue, but it comes decently down to my heels, and does not refuse to meet over my chest—a piece of good luck on which I may congratulate myself, seeing that on all sides I hear the popping of hooks, and bursting of buttons, as "bodies," after undue pressure, fly off at a tangent, and gape widely when they should close; while petticoats, that ought modestly to touch the ground, display ankles that refuse to blush unseen———
The woes of one girl in particular might draw tears from a stone. Poor Emma's existence is one long struggle to get into her frocks; for Providence, who ever loves to serve mankind nasty tricks, has predisposed her to fat, with an ever-increasing solidity that sets dressmakers at defiance. Not that this fact in itself calls for pity; for are not the fat ones of the earth the happiest, the cheerfullest, the best-tempered people living? The sting of it lies in this, that Emma has a stepmother who objects to new dresses on principle, and will allow no more than a certain number a year, and has decreed that when she has had those let out to their extremest limits, if they will not accommodate themselves to her form, then her form must be brought down to the size of her gown. So, when poor Emma shows signs of over-growing she is put on Banting, and made to eat the things that she hates and leave untouched those that she loves, and, over and above, to skip for an hour before breakfast every morning. The latter in hot weather is trying, but, nevertheless, she works her stepmother's will; and though her life is a burden to her, by degrees her fat diminishes, and she comes down to the size of her garments. If this is not a practical example of the triumph of mind over matter then where shall one be found? Just now she is in the increasing stage, and efforts that would not disgrace a blacksmith are being made to "fasten" her low blue and white silk frock; but, alas! until Emma has returned to Banting the glories of that frock are not for her.
Consultations, serious and profound as those held with a court dressmaker over a London beauty's first Drawing-room, are going on in all directions; barèges, grenadines, and muslins being the aristocratic subjects under discussion. It seems a great waste of good starch and time, so much preparation, so little to gain by it. But though no strangers worth mentioning will be present to appraise all this bravery at its true worth, will it not be something for Rose Mary with her superior flounces to cut out Anna Maria with her scanty ones, and are not the merits of the rival beauties of the school on these occasions of dress parade afterwards discussed as fully and exhaustively as any Almack beauty, by any group of beaux and wits at White's? Hence these puckered brows and weighty discussions.
I hang up my black bombazine to try and get some of the creases out; then I dig out a pair of very large, very baggy old white kid boots, at least four sizes too big for me—family heirlooms that were originally worn (I think) by my grandmother, then by mother, now by me, and will be handed down in turn to future generations. They are as yellow as autumn leaves; surely their complexion might be improved? Not unlikely! So might my own, so might the bombazine, by upsetting a pot of ink over it. It would then at least be black but I am not going to take the trouble.
I put my bat under my arm and go downstairs with a pleased smile on my face, for am I not going to clean it, and is not this duty a real labour of love with me? But half-way down I meet a servant, who says—
"If you please, miss, you may put on your hat and go over to the parsonage, Miss Tyburn says."
I put away my bat and fetch my hat, nothing loth, and set out immediately. Arrived at the house, I find no one visible, but after some search discover Mr. Vasher in the orchard, swinging in a hammock under an apple tree. Very cool and lazy and comfortable he looks, with the September sun glinting through the green leaves, and on the sides of the rosy apples that hang over his head; though I fancy a smart shower of them upon his face would scarcely improve the flavour of his "Balzac." He looks rather astonished as my head suddenly appears at his elbow, and lays down his book.
"How do you do?" I say quickly. "Do not try to shake hands, you will only tumble out; I have come to ask you something very particular."
"Well, what is it?"
"You like to do kind things, do you not? You like to please people?"
"That depends on who they are."
"Oh, these are rather nice," I say, nodding; "they can't help being only girls, you know."
"Oh, girls!" says Mr. Vasher; "and how can I please them?"
"We are going to have a party," I say, seriously, "and you are going to be invited, and the Buffs were talking about it on Sunday, taking it as a matter of course that you would come; but somehow I felt in my bones that it was not the sort of thing you would care about, and I made up my mind to ask you to come as a great favour to us all."
"And why did you think I should not come?" he asks, amusedly.
"Because," I say confidentially, "I know that, as a rule, men do not care for girls in a lump; they do not mind a few, but they can't stand fifty."
"Only fifty? I thought I saw over a hundred on Sunday."
"Oh, no!" I say, laughing; "do not make us out worse than we are. And so—and so I thought I would just tell you how anxious we are for you to come, because I thought that, however much you disliked the idea, you would come as a matter of duty."
"You must think me a good-tempered sort of fellow," says Mr. Vasher, scrambling out of his hammock somewhat inelegantly (the handsomest man alive could hardly perform that feat gracefully); "before I promise, tell me what my duties will be."
"There will be fifty girls," I say, walking by his side, "without teachers, and you will have them all to yourself to pick and choose from, and you need not hurry yourself in the least about a partner, or be afraid of any one saying No, for you will be the only young man there."
"Delightful privilege!" says my companion.
"You will not be expected to dance with us all," I say reassuringly; "not more than fifteen at most! The other girls dance with each other."
"And what are you going to do?"
"I never dance," I say, shaking my head; "I have never learnt, and it is better not to make a spectacle of myself."
"Then you will not dance with me?"
"Oh no!" I say, "I could not think of such a thing. Even if I knew how, I should be ashamed to deprive the other girls of you; I see you sometimes, you know, and they do not, and they would think it so mean of me!"