One admitted she went up twice a year, but pleaded, in extenuation, that she had a sister in service at Highbury, and invariably brought home enough small suits and dresses to enable her eight children to attract a fair amount of attention at the Congregational Chapel. Conversation went on to safer grounds.
“All finished?” asked the shortest of the three London children presently. The ladies sniffed and declined to answer. “’Cos if so, perhaps you won’t mind if we say a word. We don’t come here for a week’s ’oliday to please ourselves; we don’t come down here for the benefit of our ’ealth; we come down so as to brighten you up a bit, and give you a chance of—”
“Mixing with intelligent people.”
“Be quiet!” she ordered to her companions. “Leave it to me.” She addressed the women again. “To give you a chance of seeing what a lot of pudden-headed fools you are.”
The passengers, trembling with annoyance, whispered a recommendation that no notice should be taken of these remarks; the brown-faced woman could not, however, refrain from hinting at a course of procedure which would be adopted were the child one of hers.
“The idea is this,” went on the short girl, with the patient air of endeavouring to make a complicated matter clear to defective intellects. “You dawdle about every day of your lives, seeing nothing, ’earing nothing, doing nothing. You very seldom speak, and when you do you talk in such a peculiar style that you can’t possibly understand one another. So the County Council comes to us and it says, ‘Miss Parkes,’ or whatever our name happens to be, ‘sorry to trouble, but you’ll shortly be taking your ’olidays, and will you be so kind and so obliging as to go down to such-and-such a place, and do all you can to liven it up. It’s asking you a great deal,’ says the County Council, ‘but the Fund is very keen about it, and if you can spare the time, and if you’ve got the willingness, why,’ says the County Council, ‘we shall look on it as a great favour!’”
“‘And make it worth your while,’” suggested her companions.
“I’ll biff you two,” she threatened, “if you can’t keep quiet when I’m talking!”
“The daringness of the child!” exclaimed the rest of the compartment, amazedly and heatedly. “Don’t believe there’s a single word of truth in what she says! The trollops!”
“Facts are facts,” she said, smoothing her brief skirt, “and it’s very little use pretending you can get away from them. It’s no pleasure to me to have to tell you all this, but it’s only right you should know. As for us finding any satisfaction coming to these ’eaven-forsaken places—”