A Traveller in Little Things

by W. H. Hudson

XIX

ON CROMER BEACH

It is true that when little girls become self-conscious they lose their charm, or the best part of it; they are at their best as a rule from five to seven, after which begins a slow, almost imperceptible decline (or evolution, if you like) until the change is complete. The charm in decline was not good enough for Lewis Carroll; the successive little favourites, we learn, were always dropped at about ten. That was the limit. Perhaps he perceived, with a rare kind of spiritual sagacity resembling that of certain animals with regard to approaching weather-changes, that something had come into their heart, or would shortly come, which would make them no longer precious to him. But that which had made them precious was not far to seek: he would find it elsewhere, and could afford to dismiss his Alice for the time being from his heart and life, and even from his memory, without a qualm.

To my seven-years' rule there are, however, many exceptions—little girls who keep the child's charm in spite of the changes which years and a newly developing sense can bring to them. I have met with some rare instances of the child being as much to us at ten as at five.

One instance which I have in my mind just now is of a little girl of nine, or perhaps nearly ten, and it seemed to me in this case that this new sense, the very quality which is the spoiler of the child-charm, may sometimes have the effect of enhancing it or revealing it in a new and more beautiful aspect.

I met her at Cromer, where she was one of a small group of five visitors; three ladies, one old, the others middle-aged, and a middle-aged gentleman. He and one of the two younger ladies were perhaps her parents, and the elderly lady her grandmother. What and who these people were I never heard, nor did I enquire; but the child attracted me, and in a funny way we became acquainted, and though we never exchanged more than a dozen words, I felt that we were quite intimate and very dear friends.

The little group of grown-ups and the child were always together on the front, where I was accustomed to see them sitting or slowly walking up and down, always deep in conversation and very serious, always regarding the more or less gaudily attired females on the parade with an expression of repulsion. They were old-fashioned in dress and appearance, invariably in black—black silk and black broadcloth. I concluded that they were serious people, that they had inherited and faithfully kept a religion, or religious temper, which has long been outlived by the world in general—a puritanism or Evangelicalism dating back to the far days of Wilberforce and Hannah More and the ancient Sacred order of Claphamites.

And the child was serious with them and kept pace with them with slow staid steps. But she was beautiful, and under the mask and mantle which had been imposed on her had a shining child's soul. Her large eyes were blue, the rare blue of a perfect summer's day. There was no need to ask her where she had got that colour; undoubtedly in heaven "as she came through." The features were perfect, and she pale, or so it had seemed to me at first, but when viewing her more closely I saw that colour was an important element in her loveliness—a colour so delicate that I fell to comparing her flower-like face with this or that particular flower. I had thought of her as a snowdrop at first, then a windflower, the March anemone, with its touch of crimson, then various white, ivory, and cream-coloured blossoms with a faintly-seen pink blush to them.

Her dress, except the stocking, was not black; it was grey or dove-colour, and over it a cream or pale-fawn-coloured cloak with hood, which with its lace border seemed just the right setting for the delicate puritan face. She walked in silence while they talked and talked, ever in grave subdued tones. Indeed it would not have been seemly for her to open her lips in such company. I called her Priscilla, but she was also like Milton's pensive nun, devout and pure, only her looks were not commercing with the skies; they were generally cast down, although it is probable that they did occasionally venture to glance at the groups of merry pink-legged children romping with the waves below.

I had seen her three or four or more times on the front before we became acquainted; and she too had noticed me, just raising her blue eyes to mine when we passed one another, with a shy sweet look of recognition in them—a questioning look; so that we were not exactly strangers. Then, one morning, I sat on the front when the black-clothed group came by, deep in serious talk as usual, the silent child with them, and after a turn or two they sat down beside me. The tide was at its full and children were coming down to their old joyous pastime of paddling. They were a merry company. After watching them I glanced at my little neighbour and caught her eyes, and she knew what the question in my mind was—Why are not you with them? And she was pleased and troubled at the same time, and her face was all at once in a glow of beautiful colour; it was the colour of the almond blossom;—her sister flower on this occasion.