The Getting of Wisdom

by Henry Handel Richardson

It was a bookless house—like most Australian houses of its kind: in Marina's bedroom alone stood a small bookcase containing school and Sunday school prizes. Laura was very fond of reading, and as she dressed that morning had cast longing looks at these volumes, had evenly shyly fingered the glass doors. But they were locked. Breakfast over, she approached Marina on the subject. The latter produced the key, but only after some haggling, for her idea of books was to keep the gilt on their covers untarnished.

"Well, at any rate it must be a Sunday book," she said ungraciously.

She drew out THE GIANT CITIES OF BASHAN AND SYRIA'S HOLY PLACES, and with this Laura retired to the drawing-room, where Godmother was already settled for the day, with a suitable magazine. When the bells began to clang the young people, primly hatted, their prayer-books in their hands, walked to the neighbouring church. There Laura sat once more between the boys, Marina and Georgy stationed like sentinels at the ends of the pew, ready to pounce down on their brothers if necessary, to confiscate animals and eatables, or to rap impish knuckles with a Bible. It was a spacious church; the pew was in a side aisle; one could see neither reading-desk nor pulpit; and the words of the sermon seemed to come from a great way off.

After dinner, Laura and the boys were dispatched to the garden, to stroll about in Sunday fashion. Here no elder person being present, the natural feelings of the trio came out: the distaste of a quiet little girl for rough boys and their pranks; the resentful indignation of the boys at having their steps dogged by a sneak and a tell-tale. As soon as they had rounded the tennis-court and were out of sight of the house, Erwin and Marmaduke clambered over the palings and dropped into the street, vowing a mysterious vengeance on Laura if she went indoors without them. The child sat down on the edge of the lawn under a mulberry tree and propped her chin on her hands. She was too timid to return to the house and brave things out; she was also afraid of some one coming into the garden and finding her alone, and of her then being forced to "tell"; for most of all she feared the boys, and their vague, rude threats. So she sat and waited ... and waited. The shadows on the grass changed their shapes before her eyes; distant chapel-bells tinkled their quarter of an hour and were still again; the blighting torpor of a Sunday afternoon lay over the world. Would to-morrow ever come? She counted on her fingers the hours that had still to crawl by before she could get back to school—counted twice over to be sure of them—and all but yawned her head off, with ennui. But time passed, and passed, and nothing happened. She was on the verge of tears, when two black heads bobbed up above the fence, the boys scrambled over, red and breathless, and hurried her into tea.

She wakened next morning at daybreak, so eager was she to set out. But Marina had a hundred and one odd jobs to do before she was ready to start, and it struck half-past nine as the two of them neared the College. Child-like, Laura felt no special gratitude for the heavy pot of mulberry jam Marina bore on her arm; but at sight of the stern, grey, stone building she could have danced with joy; and on the front door swinging to behind her, she drew a deep sigh of relief.

IX.

From this moment on—the moment when Mary the maid's pleasant smile saluted her—Laura's opinion of life at school suffered a change. She was glad to be back—that was the first point: just as an adventurous sheep is glad to regain the cover of the flock. Learning might be hard; the governesses mercilessly secure in their own wisdom; but here she was at least a person of some consequence, instead of as at Godmother's a mere negligible null.

Of her unlucky essay at holiday-making she wrote home guardedly: the most tell-tale sentence in her letter was that in which she said she would rather not go to Godmother's again in the meantime. But there was such a lack of warmth in her account of the visit that mother made this, together with the above remark, the text for a scolding.

"YOU'RE A VERY UNGRATEFUL GIRL," she wrote, "TO FORGET ALL GODMOTHER HAS DONE FOR YOU. IF IT HADN'T BEEN FOR HER SUPPLYING YOU WITH BOOKS AND THINGS I COULDN'T HAVE SENT YOU TO SCHOOL AT ALL. AND I HOPE WHEN YOU GROW UP YOU'LL BE AS MUCH OF A HELP TO ME AS MARINA IS TO HER MOTHER. I'D MUCH RATHER HAVE YOU GOOD AND USEFUL THAN CLEVER AND I THINK FOR A CHILD OF YOUR AGE YOU SEE THINGS WITH VERY SHARP UNKIND EYES. TRY AND ONLY THINK NICE THINGS ABOUT PEOPLE AND NOT BE ALWAYS SPYING OUT THEIR FAULTS. THEN YOU'LL HAVE PLENTY OF FRIENDS AND BE LIKED WHEREVER YOU GO."