The Getting of Wisdom Part 15

"Let's look it up then." Under cover of the prayer Tilly sought it out, and together they bent their heads over it.

On this occasion, Tilly was more knowing than Laura; but on this alone; for when Laura once grasped what they were driving at, she was as nimble-witted as any.

Only a day or two later it was she who, in face of Kate and Maria, invited Tilly to turn up chapter and verse.

Both the elder girls burst out laughing.

"By dad!" cried Kate Horner, and smacked her thigh. "This kid knows a thing or two."

"You bet! I told you she wasn't born yesterday."--And Maria laid her arm round Laura's shoulders.

Thus was Laura encouraged, put on her mettle; and soon there was no more audacious Bible-reader in the cla.s.s than she.

The girls were thrown thus upon the Book of Books for their contraband knowledge, since it was the only frankly outspoken piece of literature allowed within the College walls: the cla.s.sics studied were rigidly expurgated; the school library was kept so dull that no one over the age of ten much cared to borrow a volume from it. And, by fair means or unfair, it was necessary to obtain information on matters of s.e.x; for girls most of whom were well across the threshold of womanhood the subject had an invincible fascination.

Such knowledge as they possessed was a strange jumble, picked up at random: in one direction they were well primed; in another, supremely ignorant. Thus, though they received lectures on what was called "Physiology", and for these were required to commit to memory the name of every bone and artery in the body, yet all that related to a woman's special organs and chief natural function was studiously ignored. The subject being thus chastely shrouded in mystery, they were thrown back on guesswork and speculation--with the quaintest results. The fancies woven by quite big girls, for instance, round the physical feat of bringing a child into the world, would have supplied material for a volume of fairytales. On many a summer evening at this time, in a nook of the garden, heads of all shades might have been seen pressed as close together as a cl.u.s.ter of settled bees; and like the humming of bees, too, were the busy whisperings and subdued buzzes of laughter that accompanied this hot discussion of the "how"--as a living answer to which, each of them would probably some day walk the world.

Innumerable theories were afloat, one more fantastic than another; and the wilder the conjecture, the greater was the respect and applause it gained.

On the other hand, of less profitable information they had ama.s.sed a goodly store. Girls who came from up-country could tell a lively tale of the artless habits of the blacks; others, who were at home in mining towns, described the doings in Chinese camps--those unavoidable concomitants of gold-grubbing settlements; rhymes circulated that would have staggered a back-blocker; while the governesses were without exception, young and old, kindly and unkindly, laid under such flamboyant suspicions as the poor ladies had, for certain, never heard breathed--since their own impudent schooldays.

This dabbling in the illicit--it had little in common with the opener grime of the ordinary schoolboy--did not even widen the outlook of these girls. For it was something to hush up and keep hidden away, to have qualms, even among themselves, about knowing; and, like all knowledge that fungus-like shrinks from the sun, it was stunted and unlovely. Their minds were warped by it, their vision was distorted: viewed through its lens, the most natural human relations appeared unnatural. Thus, not the primmest patterns of family life could hope for mercy in their eyes; over the family, too, man, as read by these young rigorists, was held to leave his serpent's trail of desire.

For out of it all rose the vague, crude picture of woman as the prey of man. Man was animal, a composite of l.u.s.t and cruelty, with no aim but that of brutally taking his pleasure: something monstrous, yet to be adored; annihilating, yet to be sought after; something to flee and, at the same time, to entice, with every art at one's disposal.

As long as it was solely a question of clandestine knowledge and ingenious surmisings, Laura went merrily with the rest: here no barrier shut her off from her companions. Always a very inquisitive little girl, she was now agog to learn new lore. Her mind, in this direction, was like a clean but highly sensitised plate. And partly because of her previous entire ignorance, partly because of her extreme receptiveness, she soon outstripped her comrades, and before long, was one of the most skilful improvisers of the group: a dexterous theorist: a wicked little adept at innuendo.

But that was all; a step farther, and she ran her head against a stone wall. For the invisible yeast that brought this ferment of natural curiosity to pa.s.s, was the girls' intense interest in the opposite s.e.x: a penned-up interest that clamoured for an outlet; an interest which, in the life of these prospective mothers, had already usurped the main place. Laura, on the other hand, had so far had scant experience of boys of a desirable age, nor any liking for such as she had known; indeed she still held to her childish opinion that they were "silly"--f.e.c.kless creatures, in spite of their greater strength and size--or downright disagreeable and antagonistic, like G.o.dmother's Erwin and Marmaduke. No breath of their possible dangerous fascination had hitherto reached her. Hence, an experience that came her way, at the beginning of the autumn was of the nature of an awakening.

XIV.

"My cousin Bob's awfully gone on you."

Laura gaped at Tilly, in crimson disbelief. "But I've never spoken to him!"

"Doesn't count. He's seen you in church."

"Go on!--you're stuffing."

"Word of honour!--And I've promised him to ask aunt if I can bring you with me to lunch next Sat.u.r.day."

Laura looked forward to this day with mixed feelings. She was flattered at being invited to the big house in town where Tilly's relatives lived; but she felt embarra.s.sed at the prospect, and she had not the least idea what a boy who was "gone" on you would expect you to be or to do. Bob was a beautiful youth of seventeen, tall, and dark, and slender, with milk-white teeth and Spanish eyes; and Laura's mouth dried up when she thought of perhaps having to be sprightly or coquettish with him.

On the eventful morning Tilly came to her room while she was dressing, and eyed her critically.

"Oh, I say, don't put on that brown hat ... for mercy's sake! Bob can't stand brown."

But the brown was Laura's best, and she demurred.

"Oh well, if you don't care to look nice, you know ..."

Of course she did; she was burning to. She even accepted the loan of a sash from her friend, because "Bob loves blue"; and went out feeling odd and unlike herself, in her everyday hat and borrowed plumes.

The Aunt, a pleasant, youthful-looking lady, called for them in a white-hooded wagonette, and set them down at the house with a playful warning.

"Now don't get up to any mischief, you two!"

"No fear!" was Tilly's genial response, as Aunt and cab drove off.

They were going to "do the block", Tilly explained, and would meet Bob there; but they must first make sure that the drive had not disarranged their hair or the position of their hats; and she led the way to her aunt's bedroom.

Laura, though she had her share of natural vanity, was too impatient to do more than cast a perfunctory glance at her reflected self. At this period of her life when a drive in a hired cab was enough of a novelty to give her pleasure, a day such as the one that lay before her filled her with unbounded antic.i.p.ation.

She fidgeted from one leg to another while she waited. For Tilly was in no hurry to be gone: she prinked and finicked, making lavish use, after the little swing-gla.s.s at school, of the big mirror with its movable wings; she examined her teeth, pulled down her under-lids, combed her eyebrows, twisted her neck this way and that, in an endeavour to view her person from every angle; she took liberties with perfumes and brushes: was, in short, blind and deaf to all but the perfecting of herself--this rather mannish little self, which, despite a most womanly plumpness, affected a boyish bonhomie, and emphasised the role by wearing a stiff white collar and cuffs.

Laura was glad when she at last decided that she would "do", and when they stepped out into the radiant autumn morning.

"What a perfectly scrumptious day!"

"Yes, bully.--I say, IS my waist all right?"

"Quite right. And ever so small."

"I know. I gave it an extra pull-in.--Now if only we're lucky enough to get hold of a man or two we know!"

The air, Australian air, met them like a p.r.i.c.kling champagne: it was incredibly crisp, pure, buoyant. From the top of the eastern hill the s.p.a.cious white street sloped speedily down, to run awhile in a hollow, then mount again at the other end. Where the two girls turned into it, it was quiet; but the farther they descended, the fuller it grew--fuller of idlers like themselves, out to see and to be seen.

Laura c.o.c.ked her chin; she had not had a like sense of freedom since being at school. And besides, was not a boy, a handsome boy, waiting for her, and expecting her? This was the CLOU of the day, the end for which everything was making; yet of such stuff was Laura that she would have felt relieved, could the present moment have been spun out indefinitely. The state of suspense was very pleasant to her.

As for Tilly, that young lady was swinging the shoulders atop of the little waist in a somewhat provocative fashion, only too conscious of the grey-blueness of her fine eyes, and the modish cut of her clothes.

She had a knack which seemed to Laura both desirable and unattainable: that of appearing to be engrossed in glib chat with her companion, while in reality she did not hear a word Laura said, and ogled everyone who pa.s.sed, out of the tail of her eye.

They reached the "block", that strip of Collins Street which forms the fashionable promenade. Here the road was full of cabs and carriages, and there was a great crowd on the pavement. The girls progressed but slowly. People were meeting their friends, shopping, changing books at the library, eating ices at the confectioner's, fruit at the big fruit-shop round the corner. There were a large number of high-collared young dudes, some Trinity and Ormond men with coloured hatbands, ladies with little parcels dangling from their wrists, and countless schoolgirls like themselves. Tilly grew momentarily livelier; her big eyes pounced, hawk-like, on every face she met, and her words to Laura became more disjointed than before. Finally, her efforts were crowned with success: she managed, by dint of glance and smile combined, to unhook a youth of her acquaintance from a group at a doorway, and to attach him to herself.

In high good humour now that her aim was accomplished, she set about the real business of the morning--that of promenading up and down. She had no longer even a feigned interest left for Laura, and the latter walked beside the couple a lame and unnecessary third. Though she kept a keen watch for Bob, she could not discover him, and her time was spent for the most part in dodging people, and in catching up with her companions for it was difficult to walk three abreast in the crowd.

Then she saw him--and with what an unpleasant shock. If only Tilly did not see him, too!

But no such luck was hers. "Look out, there's Bob," nudged Tilly almost at once.

Alas! there was no question of his waiting longingly for her to appear.

He was walking with two ladies, and laughing and talking. He raised his hat to his cousin and her friend, but did not disengage himself, and pa.s.sing them by disappeared in the throng.

Behind her hand Tilly buzzed: "One of those Woodwards is awfully sweet on him. I bet he can't get loose."