Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Seed Time/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
But she may learn; and happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn."
Breakfast is over, and the monotonous burden of our sins sung into our ears, from the saying of amen at prayers, to the last drop in the governor's coffee-cup, is over. It has been very bad, but in listening to his fulminations we have been let off the active misery of conversation; and on the whole, for we are very hardened sinners, we almost prefer this breakfast to our usual ones. He is standing in the hall now, brushing his hat, and the sound sends a thrill of delight through our bodies; we know the full import of it so well though we hear it so much, much too rarely. Up the carriage-drive comes the sharp trot of a horse's hoofs; it is the dog-cart that is going to take him to the station. Simpkins carries out his travelling-bag (the old varlet is as pleased in his heart as we are, he too will get a little holiday), and we all go into the hall and make a frosty peck, one by one, at the governor's face, occasionally hitting his nose or eyebrow by mistake. He eyes us keenly to see if he can detect any indecent joy upon our faces, but they are perfectly blank and stolid, to such abhorred hypocrisy have we already brought our innocent, indeterminate, pink-and-white features. He kisses mother (how droll it seems to see him making a peck at anybody!) and now he is in the dog-cart, he is starting, he is giving a sharp look at our assembled countenances, he is off, and has turned the corner of the drive. Still there is unbroken silence; then as the last sound of the wheels dies away in the distance, the delight that has been running riot within us, breaks forth in exclamations, laughter, leaps, dances, whoops, and (on my part at least) rolls of bliss. When they have subsided a little—"Children," says mamma, "I have something to tell you."
“Won't it keep, mother, dear?" asks Alice, "till some day when we are not quite so happy? We don't get many treats; had we not better have them one at a time?"
"It will keep," says mamma smiling; "but I must tell you now. We are going away."
Going away! We know the sound of these words well enough as applied to the governor, but as applied to ourselves they have a strange, unusual flavour—a romantic freshness that breathes of distant lands, gorgeous cities, and unknown, mysterious pleasures. Not one of us has ever been away from home in all our lives, save Jack.
"Where, mamma?" we ask after a pause; it takes a little while to get used to the idea that we are going away without requiring any further knowledge on the subject.
"To the sea!" The answer strikes us dumb again. Have we not longed ourselves sick for a sight of it? Have we not splashed ourselves from head to foot over a dirty pond in trying to make real waves with stout sticks?
"When, mamma, when?"
"Early next week. Your papa has heard of a house that will suit us."
So soon! it takes our breath away. "And is he coming too? I ask anxiously.
"Not for a fortnight?" We draw a deep sigh of satisfaction.
"What strolls we will have!" says Alice. "And donkey rides!" and shrimps!" "and peace!" "and cuttle-fish tooth-powder!" "No walks!" "or punishments!" "No one to call us dummies!" "or make us talk!" "or send us to bed!"
"Come along, Dolly," says Alan the solemn-faced. "I'm going to begin packing up."
Jack and I go out into the garden and discuss our plans—what beasts are to go with us, what to be left behind. Paul Pry must come, of course, and the raven and the canaries, and Pepper, the tail-less. Dorley, must take care of the rabbits; and as to the fowls, they have lately misbehaved themselves so perseveringly that it would cause us no great sorrow if, on our return, we found papa had made a holocaust of the whole lot. Possibly the amazing news puts out of our heads our several intentions of evil-doing; at any rate we get into no mischief to-day, and merely walk about, laugh, talk, and stretch, not only in the school-room, but about the house, just as if we were used to doing it every day of our lives.
The governor comes back a trifle sweeter than he went. For once business does not seem to have rubbed him the wrong way; and somehow the few days slip away, and the golden morning of our departure arrives.
The coach stands at the door. It is going to take us all the way, and we are packed within it close as herrings, happy as lords; every nook and corner inside and out is brimmingly full; where a body is not squeezed in, a hamper or a parcel is, and how we shall ever be got out again is something of a mystery. We have smuggled all our little private belongings in safely. Under my petticoats lurk the birds and Paul Pry, who, with the sense of a Christian, utters not a sound, raps out not a single oath; a large basket of quarantines hides its modest head under mother's legs; the young ones firmly grasp spades and buckets as though they expected to find the sea upon the road; Amberley embraces five distinct bundles, bandboxes, and bags; the babies, set bolt up on end, utter fat little chirps of satisfaction. On the doorstep stands the governor, to whom we have just said good-bye with a freedom and affability that I think astonishes him as much as it does ourselves; for once in his presence our voices come honestly forth; for once we kiss him, and I at least feel that I love him. And now the last forgotten parasol is handed in, the last servant has climbed with many a creak to her place on the roof, the coachman cracks his whip. "Chirrup, chirrup," go the canaries. "Hip, hip, hur-r-r-ah!" goes Paul Pry. "Bow-wow!' barks Pepper, wriggling her head out between Jack's legs.
"Oh!" says Dolly, with a deep sigh.
"Balmy!" I ejaculate, pushing my hat to the back of my head; and away we go, nodding and smiling, and saying good-bye, good-bye! to the little gentleman on the door-steps, who somehow looks quite insignificant and a little forlorn now that he is not the centre of a dozen duteous white slaves.
"We are off!" says Alice.
"We are dreadfully hungry!" sigh Dolly and Alan, pointing their prophetic noses at a bulging hamper that obtrudes its portly body in an uncomfortable way between nurse and Balaam's Ass, the under nursemaid. It is only eight o'clock, and we had breakfast at seven, and it is rather early to be setting out; but when everybody is so anxious to start, so ready to go, why should there be any unnecessary tarrying? Yoicks! away we go, along the dewy, bloomy lanes, between the fresh, green hedgerows, with the early breath of the morning blowing coolly in on our happy, eager faces; past the staring, silent cows, and the dull labourers who, poor souls, are going about their work just as on any other day, who are not tasting our first delicious, strange draught of "going away!" We feel like pilgrims setting out for an unknown land; we do not know what is before us, whether of sweet or sour, but that it will be something very different from anything we have ever known before, we are perfectly certain, and that is enough for us. Jack pooh-poohs our transports, and pretends to have seen everything that we observe before, which is not right of him, for I know he goes to school in quite an opposite direction, and by train; whereas travelling by coach is a very different and far more knowledgeable thing.
We keep our eyes very widely open all the way, and observe with interest how the country changes as we near the coast, and how blue the cottage children's eyes are, as though a bit of the sea had got into them and stayed there. Happy folks are always hungry, and by ten o'clock we are clamouring to attack the hamper; at two we are dying of want, and finish it up; at four we pounce upon the quarantines (which were to last us a week, Dorley said), and eat them all too—every one. We get rather fagged the latter part of the way; our bodies are stiff and tired, and we cannot stretch them. By degrees one voice ceases, then another; one of the babies cries; Paul Pry makes remarks that he should not before the children. We look very different to the noisy, bustling, smiling people who started a few hours ago.
By-and-by we are startled out of our apathy by a shout without of "The sea! the sea!" and we leap up to the sight of a broad, boundless expanse of deepest, darkest blue, that thrills us through and through, and holds us spell-bound with a breathless delight and strong awe. How our souls seem drawn towards it, though our bodies remain in the coach! Presently (I do not know how it happens, we are standing before it, gazing almost deliriously at the glittering, belted-in treasure. When the first shock is over how we stretch out our arms to it, as though we would clasp its beauty in our embrace! How we stoop and dabble our fingers in the strange, salt liquid! How we stand watching the waves lapping softly over each other with no fuss or hurry, or effort, rather as though they were in play not earnest, but, as we quickly find, impelled by an on-coming strength that makes the babyish ripples resistless as fate, inexorable as death! We gather trails of brown seaweed, and when our hands are full, cast them away for others. We are distracted by the abundant riches of the feast set out before us; something new, unimagined, and wonderful meets our eyes at every step. Into my heart comes a dim ache that is not keen pleasure or satiety, but a passionate regret that my soul is not bigger, grander, capable of holding more of the great tide of rapture that sweeps through me in such a mighty flood. When Amberley comes for us, I turn away as one in a dream; from a long way off I seem to hear her exclamation at our condition; though, indeed, I am well aware that we are as forlorn, dirty, dripping little wretches as any to be found in the kingdom, all save Alice, over whom untidiness and dirt hold no power.
As we go inland my senses seem to come back to me, and I hail with delight the jolly, red-brick face of our new abode, which appears to smile jovially upon us and bid us kindly welcome. Inside it is in a most immoral, delicious state of topsy-turvydom—luggage, servants, children, and animals, all mixed up in most admired disorder; babies crying, small fry falling downstairs, servants rifling half-filled boxes, canaries shrieking for water and groundsel, Paul Pry cursing his fate with peculiar bitterness and intensity from his perch on Minerva's head, to which he has evidently betaken himself for safety. It is a fine hurly-burly, and if papa could only walk in and see it all, his appearance would put the finishing stroke to the scene and make it Bedlam.
We sit down to a nondescript meal, but can scarcely eat for talking. A thousand tongues would not express the half that we feel; and oh! how bald the words are that language provides for expressing a great delight. Deeply impressed as Jack is, he can find no words whereby to convey his admiration of the ocean than by those of "jolly" and "stunning."
It is too late to go out again this evening, so we go to bed that we may be able to rise with the first streak of daylight on the morrow. Sleep binds me so safely though, that on Jack's calling me, I am scandalized to find it as late as six. What a lot of time we have wasted already!
In half an hour we are out on the beach and among the rocks, making queer discoveries; for instance, that shrimps and crabs do not grow scarlet but drab; also that the saying, "stick like a limpet," has a sound, healthy truth of its own that many proverbs have not; also that the seaweed-covered rocks have a remarkable knack of slipping away from our feet, compelling us to turn somersaults more rapid than elegant. We hunt for and find delicate shells, curious rose-hued freaks of Neptune, and we muse over them, marvelling in what sea-palace the carver lurks who casts up to us such dainty and mysterious shapes. We hold the bigger ones to our ears, and listen intently to the faint murmur that must, we think, so exactly represent the shoaling noise the sea makes at a great distance. We have listened to the same murmur before at Silverbridge, and nurse always told us it was the sea that we heard.
After breakfast we accompany Amberley and our sisters in a sober trot through the one long street that forms the town of Periwinkle, and sit down on the shingle where, apparently, the beauty and fashion (!) of the place do congregate, for no other purpose than to watch the rows of fat and lean kine who are taking their daily dip in the sea hard by, bobbing up and down in the sun like seals, with snaky locks of hair clinging round their cheeks, and tight, sticky bathing-gowns that most lavishly display their charms, or the lack of them.
Jack and I have a hot dispute as to whether a very lean woman or a very fat one looks worst in the water. I say the former, he says the latter, and implores me on no account to submit my person to the public gaze without at least six thick bathing-gowns put on, like an old clothesman's hats, one above the other.
They are a gruesome spectacle, these fat matrons and lean old maids; even the young girls, who might be good-looking if their faces were dry, have an unsavoury appearance, for salt water seems to have an ugly knack of washing out shams, stripping off borrowed charms, and leaving the original visage clear and visible. Aphrodite herself must have found it rather a hard matter to look as handsome under the circumstances as she did. It must be on the principle that there is always something pleasing to us in the misfortunes of our friends that makes these people flock to see their acquaintances au naturel, sans crinoline, sans bustle, sans pads, sans everything, save their own unembellished bodies and countenances. I wish the performers would go through their paces with a little more vigour and spirit, take a good sousing header into space, and look as if they liked it, instead of taking a dip as though they were going to be hanged; coming up, not smiling, but with shut eyes and screwed-up nose and mouth, sputtering, coughing, gasping, groaning, and holding on to the rope as though they were being shipwrecked. Others do not go so far as the heroism of dipping; they hug the shore and sit basely down on the sand, letting the water ripple over them by degrees. For decency's sake one could wish the process were less gradual. Others again shiver on the steps of the machine, and are afraid to venture in at all.
Now and then a daring young woman creates enormous excitement by lowering herself carefully into the water, and, bringing her pink toes to the surface in the first position staring up unwinkingly at Father Sol. Gallant creature! the pint or so of salt water that she swallows is but a slight set-off against the glory she achieves, and the admiration her prowess evokes from the lookers-on.
Jack and I soon weary of looking at this raree-show; and having promised Amberley not to drown ourselves, not to get into a boat without a boatman and with a large hole in the bottom, not to sit upon a rock until the tide surrounds and flows over us, not to climb to the highest pinnacle of the cliff with the express intention of toppling over it to the rocks below, we take our departure, and speed the morning hours well enough.
Oh! the sea is a rare playfellow, for, unlike many a human one, he never wearies you! Each day he wears some new aspect, compels from us fresh wonder, admiration, and fear. He is terrible in his angry splendour of wind-tossed, thundering breakers, when his surface is all deep-green valleys and towering, snowy-crested mountain tops. He is soft, tender, caressing as a summer breeze, with his shoaling, rippling murmur and lazy, creeping wavelets. Sometimes he is sulky, not angry, that is when the sun has hidden his face; then he catches the reflection of the sky and is sad-coloured and dull. Another day he will lie calm as a lake, like a great monster soundly asleep, and we do not love his monotonous peace: dearer far is he to us when he stirs and flashes and quivers in the sun, his kingly breast sown with millions upon millions of sparkling diamonds. He gives no sign of the dark secrets he hides away so deep, so deep; of the water-slain bodies that lie below with the swish! swish! of his green waters, swirling over their pale, drowned faces, of the souls that trusted themselves to his smiling mien and silvern whispers, and whom he has drawn down, down! to the sea-chambers, of whose treasures we can but dimly guess from the rainbow-tinted shells and bloomy seaweed that are now and again washed up to us from their depths.
Hath not the sea its cities and towns and gardens and dwelling-houses? Do not flowers as lovely, as glowing, as fragrant grow in those silent gardens as any the dry land affords? They must have rare jewels down there; pearls such as no mortal empress ever wore; precious stones, common as pebbles on the shore; rare and costly gewgaws, plentiful as the sand, with goodly store of gold and silver, rifled from the gallant ships laden with splendid store of merchandize brought from foreign lands. Oh! it must be a rich land, and might be a fair land, if that great and countless army of the dead did not claim it so urgently for its own.
We have not been in Periwinkle a week; we have not learned one-half his moods, one-half his secrets, when something happens—something that sends me shuddering away from him inland, and makes me hate the sound of his voice and the dazzle of his brow.
Jack and I are standing on the beach one morning, watching a haul of mackerel in. The men have been pulling for hours. "It is strangely heavy," they mutter: "the net will break;" but by-and-by it comes safely in, and we all gather round to where it lies on the edge of the sand, with the waves rippling gently up to it. At first I see nothing but a glittering, brilliant, opal-tinted mass of glistening fish, which sparkle and scintillate in the sun, as they leap to and fro in their restless, unknown agony; then I make out a strange, dark, shapeless mass beneath them, that is—what? A dead man, with horribly discoloured face, and wide, staring eyes, looking out with dull and awful meaning from among the quivering, leaping fish for which the net was cast, and which has brought in this. A woman thrust her way through the crowd and falls on her knees beside the net. "My lad!" she says, "my lad!" . . . He went out alone in his boat a week ago, and did not return; but she said she knew that he would come back, and she has been watching for him night and day. . . .
"Come away," I say to Jack dizzily; and we go away, away inland, and it is many a long day before I love the treacherous sea again and can forget.
We do not see much of Alice and Milly, who prefer the town and the shingle to the rocks and the caves; and it sometimes strikes Jack and me as odd that, when we do come across our sisters, all the black, grey, and blue coats belonging to the youth abiding in and sojourning at Periwinkle should be in their immediate neighbourhood. But then Alice is so lovely; who can help liking to look at her? The very girls turn and stare at her with that grudging, unwilling, breathless interest, that I am already learning to know is the highest compliment one woman can pay another, and which I shall never, never wring from any of my own sex. I may even fall to the degradation of being called "nice looking" by them.
Alice looks demure as a nun; and how can the pretty soul help it if rude men will stare at and follow her about? All I know is I love to look at what is pleasant to the eye; and if I had been born comely should have carried about a pocket-mirror with me, and refreshed my eyes with a sight of my charms every five minutes, while nobody would ever have admired me half as heartily and appreciatingly as I should have admired myself.