But their walks together were not a success. There was only one crossing, but Shamrock always contrived to negotiate it as badly as possible under an advancing tram, thus causing the driver to shout angrily at Lydia. He would simulate sudden, delighted recognitions of invalid old ladies in bath-chairs, and hurl himself upon them with extravagant demonstrations, until the bath-chair men, to most of whom he was only too well known, would seize him by the scruff of the neck and hurl him away.
Finally, as he never entered the house when Lydia did, but invariably contrived to give her the slip and extended the excursion by himself, Aunt Beryl no longer allowed her to take him out. Lydia was sorry, but she made no lamentations. If one lived with people, it was always better to conform to their wishes, she had long ago discovered. Her innate philosophy waxed with the disproportionate rapidity sometimes seen in children who are dependent on other than their natural surroundings, for a home.
Crudely put, she conformed to each environment in which she found herself, but—and in this, Lydia, without knowing it, was exceptional—she never lost a particle of her own strong individuality. She merely waited, quite unconsciously, for an opportunity when it might expediently be set free.
With Aunt Beryl she was a docile, rather silent little girl. Aunt Beryl gave her lessons every morning from “Little Arthur”, and set her arithmetic problems of which Lydia knew very well that she did not herself know the workings, and to which she merely looked up the answers in a key, and also made her practise scales upon the piano in the drawing-room.
“It will make your fingers nice and supple, even if one or two of the keys won’t sound,” said Aunt Beryl. “I’ll write a note to the piano tuner next week.”
But she never did.
Lydia thought gloomily that she was learning even less now than in the old days in London, when her mother had, at least, taught her scraps of French, and given her innumerable books to read. Aunt Beryl declared that Lydia could go on with French by herself, and a French grammar was bought.
“I’ll hear you say your verbs,” said Aunt Beryl, harassed, “but I’ve forgotten my accent long ago.”
As for books, there were none in the Regency Terrace house. When Aunt Beryl wanted to read, she had recourse to Weldon’s Fashion Journal, or to an occasional Home Chat. Grandpapa had the daily paper read to him, but her aunt once told Lydia that “Grandpapa used to be a great reader, but he can’t see now without glasses, and he won’t use them. So he never reads.”
Uncle George, indeed, often brought home a book from the Public Library in the evenings, but he did not offer to lend them to Lydia, neither did such titles attract her as “Goodman’s Applied Mechanics,” or somebody else’s “Theory of Heat, Light, and Sound”. Aunt Beryl, however, was kind, and when Lydia had once said that she liked reading, she promised her a story-book for Christmas. It was then October.