A Bevy of Girls

by L. T. Meade

“Oh, don’t,” said Nesta. “How can you? It seems so cruel.”

“Crool?” said Mrs Hogg; “crool to smack yer own children? Why, don’t Bible Solomon say, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’? There’s no spoiling of my children in this house. Put back that fish, you greedy boy. Ain’t it got to do for Missie’s dinner and supper, as well as for her breakfast; you put it back this blessed minute.”

Nesta felt a sudden sense of dismay. To be obliged to eat red herring as her sole sustenance for one whole day did seem dreadful, but she reflected that anything was better than her father’s and brother’s wrath, and the sneers of her two sisters, and better than Marcia’s gracious, and yet most intolerable forgiveness. Nesta was not at all sorry yet, for what she had done, but she was sorry for the sense of discomfort which now surrounded her. She had borne with her supper, which consisted of porridge and milk, the night before, but her breakfast was by no means to her taste. When the boys had gone to Sunday school, she said almost timidly:

“If I can’t help you in any way can’t I go out?”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake do, my dear. I don’t want to see you except when you want to see me. You’re welcome to half my bed, although I was half perished in the night, for you would take all the clothes and wrap yourself in them. I’ve got rheumatics in my back, and I could have cried out with the pain. You’re a selfish young miss, I take it.”

Nesta was accustomed to home truths, but Mrs Hogg’s home truths hurt her more than most. She felt something like tears burning at the back of her eyes.

“Perhaps I am,” she said. “I know I’m not at all happy.”

She went out of the house, and wandered down the summer road. Soon she got into an enchanting lane where wild flowers of all sorts grew in wild profusion. Here also was a distant, a very distant glimpse of the blue, blue sea. She was glad to be away from it; she was glad, of course, to be here. She had not an idea what would become of her in the end. She felt as though all her life had suddenly been drawn up short, as though the thread of her existence had been snapped. It was her own doing; she had done it herself.

She heard the church bells ringing in the distance, but she knew it was impossible for her to go to church. She began to wonder what they were doing at home, and to wonder what the Griffiths were doing. She found she did not like to think either of her home or of the Griffiths. What could she do when her eight and sixpence was gone? Mrs Hogg was not at all an affectionate woman; she would exact her pence to the uttermost farthing. Nesta felt that if she were to live on red herrings for a week, she would feel very thin at the end of it. She detested red herrings She sincerely hoped there would be a variety in the Hogg menu. But Mrs Hogg’s emphatic statement did not seem to point that way. At least for to-day she was to be supported on butterless bread and red herrings.

Still she wandered on, the country air fanning her cheeks. There was peace everywhere except in her own troubled heart. As yet she was not at all sorry, there was only sorrow for herself, she was not sorry for the pain she was giving others. Had the temptation come to her again she would have succumbed.