Sweethearts at Home Part 5

But of course we soon saw how Polly Pretend managed. She pretended. She did not really read the books. She moved back the marker, and, if asked questions, knew all about the chapter. Even if they ticked it in pencil, there was india-rubber in Polly's pocket to rub it out. She played with beads in church--in her m.u.f.f or under her cloak. And when one rolled on the floor, she said it was her collection money. She got another given her too, which was always a halfpenny saved.

At least so thought Polly Pretend. And Hugh John could not make her see it was not the square thing--to buy sweets and thus defraud the Church.

He is awfully armor-plated on what is "the Square Thing," my brother Hugh John.

But Polly Pretend could not or would not see it. I think _could_ not.

For what could be expected of any girl who had such people for parents?

Then I saw clearly how well _we_ were off--whacked sometimes, of course, or Big Growly called upon to erupt (which he does very fierce for five minutes). But not expected to do anything except tell the truth and keep on telling it--not behave like reptiles--and if caught, own up prompt.

Say your prayers when you feel like it. But don't do it just when you know parents and guardians will be coming into your bedroom, as Polly does--so that father or mother will say, "See how sweet and devotional our little girl is!"

And Polly's father and mother thought how good she was, and told all round the countryside what little heathens we were. Not that _we_ cared for that.

But Sir Toady went up-stairs to the lumber-room and got an image of some Chinese dragon which had been stowed away there ever since Uncle Peter had been home the last time. And when Polly Pretend's father and mother came to complain of us, he was down on his knees worshiping this false image on the front lawn! Awful, wasn't it? But all the same it would have made you laugh till you cried if you had seen him doing kow-tow to this false G.o.d--it was only an old cardboard dragon anyway, like what you see on the Shanghai stamps--and smelling the whole neighborhood by burning brown paper joss-sticks before it, with a penny fire-cracker at every finger-length.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DOING KOW-TOW TO THIS FALSE G.o.d"]

He was had up into the study for that, though, because father said he would have no "mockery" about such things. But I don't think he got it very bad, because we all knew by the noise he made that Big Growly wasn't really very mad.

When he is, he goes off and you see no more of him for a long time. He only stops in his den and doesn't growl. That is a good time to keep away and say nothing, till he has done chewing his paws. Only Maid Margaret dare go in then, and even she is wearing out of it--getting too old, I mean.

But about Polly Pretend. Of course she did not pretend to us. First of all, she could not--she knew that it was quite in vain. Children don't try on things with one another. They know they will be seen through.

Generally they can see through Grown-ups too, though, bless you, _They_ never know it.

Oh, poor Polly! I was sorry for Polly. Because she could never be natural, but all the time had got to--what is it the book says?--"a.s.sume a virtue when she had it not."

At school she knew wads of Scripture and all the Kings of Israel and Judah, but never did a French exercise without copying. Then, because her people were rich, and she so good, she got lots of money sent her--so much for telling what her place in cla.s.s was. She told lies about that, and got money for being first when really most of the time she was first at the wrong end.

Now at our school every fortnight the cla.s.s was turned upside down, the top girl being put at the bottom and the wooden spoon at the top, so that the clever ones could work their way up again. And so each alternate Monday Polly Pretend was really top girl for about five minutes. It was on that day she wrote to her parents, and often got a golden sovereign or a Post Office Order sent to her for her wonderful cleverness. So, after all, in a way it was true.

But there was trouble at the end of term--after the examinations, when Polly Pretend always came out the very last.

Because, you see, she had to save money to buy her own prizes, get one of the charwomen to steal the school tickets that they stick in prize-books, and print in her own name in capital letters as "first prize" to show her parents.

Then she had to watch for the School Report, which comes a day or two after, and get it safely from the postman. She burned it, after trying to alter the figures, but, of course, was anxious all the holidays. Also she warned me to say nothing about it when I came to see her.

As if I would! I knew Polly Pretend too well. So I never said a thing about school, for fear Polly had been telling some lie about it, and I should be giving her away. The visit was an unhappy time for all of us--except, that is, for Sir Toady, who invented new and horrible forms of idolatry every other day, and scared the immortal soul out of Polly Pretend by putting on his day-shirt (the spare one) over his clothes, and letting on to be an Evil Spirit which haunted the gooseberry-bushes.

And I will say he did growl most fearfully--especially when he found a good ripe bush. But we knew that was only to keep the rest of us off. So Hugh John chased the Evil Spirit by the sound, and growled too. Because the bush really was a good one--thin-skinned "silver-grays," and quite ripe. I had some.

But you should have seen poor Polly. She was frightened till she nearly told the truth. I can't say more than that. Almost--but not quite. I do believe that she would have gone and confessed the most innocent of her lies to her parents, if it had not been for that young Imp, Sir Toady, who laughed out loud, and jumped up and down in the shirt like a white Jack-in-the-Box.

But perhaps it was as well that she did not. For they were just the sort of people not to understand that Polly's lies had mostly been their own fault. But of course, as you may imagine, it was only putting off the day of reckoning.

It was in holiday-time--midsummer--when school-mistresses are just like other folk; only, if anything, a trifle nicer.

Now the head of our school, Miss Gray, came to Romano, which is the name of the town where Polly Pretend lived. And Miss Gray thought it would be a nice thing to call upon the mother of her pupil. Perhaps she might be able to give Mrs. Pretend a hint or two which would keep Polly from entirely wasting her time next term at Olympia.

Oh, Miss Gray meant it just as kindly as she could, and that's saying a good deal. She is a nice chicky-biddy, fussy, motherly sort of thing, and wears the nicest satiny gowns at dinner-parties. It was the last thing in the world she would have thought of, to give Polly Pretend away--even to her parents.

But it happened that on this day the Pretends had gone for a motor-ride.

And as it was hot, Miss Gray said that she would be glad to wait a few minutes in the drawing-room. Because, you see, Mrs. Pretend was expected in every minute. The maid knew her business, of course; there was no "pretend" about her. She brought a cup of tea, and left Miss Gray to do--what do you think?--look over the books on the table.

At first Miss Gray thought that something had suddenly gone wrong with her eyes. She opened a fine Macaulay, and saw "First Prize for History, Presented to Miss P. Pretend." Next came "Special Prize for Good Conduct--Miss P. Pretend."

There was a whole table covered with them, laid out in the center of the room, and more stuck in decorative oaken shelves, of fine old oak, made by the village handy-man.

Then Miss Gray understood, and her feelings were too much for her. But even then she did not give Polly away. You see, Miss Gray was a pretty good sort--that is, a good sort, and a pretty one too--which is the best sort of all, Hugh John says.

So she just rang the bell, and told the maid that she could not wait any longer to see Mrs. Pretend, but that she would write.

And she did. It was a little letter just saying that circ.u.mstances over which she had no control, etc., had caused such a pressure upon Olympia College that she was sorry there would not be a vacancy for Polly that year.

Well, you can fancy--Polly's mother and father were very angry. So much so that they determined to start off at once to call on the heads of the college and complain.

But Polly herself, as soon as she had heard from Ellen, the housemaid, what had happened, and how Miss Gray had been twenty minutes in the drawing-room, and gone away leaving her tea hardly "sipped," knew at once what was the matter.

So she dissuaded her father and mother from going to Olympia College.

She was not appreciated, she said. She had always known it. Even Miss Gray was jealous of her. And her mother said to her father, "I do not wonder at it, dear. It is all the effect of our too careful bringing up of Polly. Truly we may say with the Psalmist--

"'Than all her teachers now she has More understanding far!'"

And in a way, do you know, she had. And it was the training that did it.

But later on, Dear Diary, I shall write more about Polly Pretend, when she got a governess. For then she pretended and the governess pretended, and instead of getting out of the habit, as Hugh John says, seven Pretending Devils worse than the first entered into her.

But of that another time.

V

PRINCIPIA

_June continued, but nearer the end, and hotter._

Polly Pretend's governess, after she could not be received at Olympia, was Miss Principia Crow. She had more than three miles of testimonials, if all had been written out in a line in text hand and measured.

The only curious thing was that the dates of all these were old, and Miss Principia was still fairly young. Also, she admitted having changed her name "for family reasons."

But she seemed just the sort of person for Polly Pretend. She did not know much arithmetic--just enough to cheat at tennis. She had certificates that reached as far as "trig"--the wonderful science which makes the boys stamp and throw their books about the room when they have to study it.

Now Pa and Ma Pretend had taken a great deal of trouble in providing a suitable companion for Polly, and in a way they had managed all right.

Miss Crow pretended to teach, and Polly pretended to learn, and one knew as much about the matter as the other.

Miss Crow pa.s.sed the time in telling Polly how many people had been in love with her, and the hopes she had of as many more. Polly begged the loan of a pier-gla.s.s from her mother, and thought, as she pretended before it, smiling at herself and sweeping imaginary trains, how soon her turn would come to have scores of lovers all willing and anxious to drown themselves for her sake, like Miss Principia Crow.

Fragments of conversation were sometimes caught by Mamma Pretend, and she thought to herself, "What strange authors they do set young people to study now-a-days! When I was a girl we had _Magnall's Questions_ and _Little Arthur's History of England_!"