When I was sixteen my governess got married and daddy said it was a good opportunity for me to go to school for a bit. I was therefore sent to the one in London where Monica was. The head mistress was a friend of Aunt Amelia. I suppose that's why my prickles were always out and my old Adam gave me such a lot of trouble.
There was that last unfortunate Sunday, for instance. It was the 27th April, and Monica and I awoke at four o'clock. We peeped out of the bedroom window just as the dawn was coming. The London garden had all the glamour of the woods at home, and there in the half light we could see the six or seven trees with bluebells growing round—a mist of blue, enchanting, adorable, divine. The scent blew across the grass and the birds called us. We slipped downstairs and ran over the delicious cool lawn into that lovely blue light at the foot of the trees. We gathered handfuls of blossoms and ferns all drowned with dew. We went quite mad with the call of the spring, and danced, for I thought I heard distant music. It may have been only a blackbird; could it have been the pipes of Pan? Anything was possible that morning. We got back, as we thought unseen, stole some scones and milk, and as we tumbled into bed again Monica swore she heard the cuckoo, but I'm certain it was only the clock on the stairs, because this 'Bird' ooed before it cucked!
Then the same day I behaved badly in church. Of course, the general behaviour of the sons and daughters of the clergy is always more unseemly than that of other people's children. Daddy says it's because they're so frightfully handicapped in having the clergy for their fathers.
But that day two such absurd things happened. I believe even St Paul with his love of decency and order would have been obliged to smile, while Peter, of course, would have giggled. Monica passed me a bit of paper shortly after we arrived, on which was written the mystic message: 'Eyes right. Psalm 57, verse 5. She will remember.' I looked to the right, and seated in the pew immediately in front of us was a spinster of uncertain age in a smart blue toque, in the hollow crown of which lay a complete set of false teeth with an unholy smile still lingering about them. I suppose the poor dear had put them on her hat to remind her to put them in her mouth. I collapsed into weak giggles, which increased when I looked up the Psalm we were about to sing, which contained the verse: 'Whose teeth are spears and arrows.' I am afraid I must confess I didn't attempt to follow the service, I simply lived for verse 5. Sure enough, as Monica had predicted, 'she remembered.' She was singing away lustily, 'And I lie even among the children of men that are set on fire whose——' then a violent start, a wild clutch at the toque, and a dash down the aisle. The churchwarden, who thought she was ill, followed her into the porch with a glass of water.
I could see Monica's shoulders shaking though her face was preternaturally solemn. I felt quite ill with suppressed laughter. I tried to remember all the things I had been taught to think about in church, but I was in that weak state I couldn't stop giggling. The next Psalm began with the question: 'Are your minds set upon righteousness, O ye congregation.' I felt neither Monica nor I could answer in the affirmative.
After a while my eyes stopped running and I was able to attend a little better. Then we had the second lesson. It was Acts xxvii, all about the shipwreck of St Paul. I noticed poor old Admiral Stopford, who is a bit weak in the head, was getting very fidgety. His nurse whispered to him once or twice, but in vain, for when the vicar read how they cast the cargo over to lighten the ship he suddenly got up and said loudly,—
'Never ought to have been necessary, bad navigation, bad navigation.'
His nurse hurried him out, purple in the face, and Monica and I followed. I felt if I couldn't laugh aloud I should spontaneously combust. We found a flat tombstone in a secluded part of the churchyard on which we sat and rocked.
On arriving back at the house there was a most frightful row because one of the neighbours had telephoned to say that he had seen us in the garden in the early morning. The head mistress said we had brought disgrace on the school and that I was the chief offender. She telegraphed to father,—
'Seriously worried about your daughter come the first thing on Monday.'