The Getting of Wisdom

The four children were lying on the grass.

“… and the Prince went further and further into the forest,” said the elder girl, “till he came to a beautiful glade⁠—a glade, you know, is a place in the forest that is open and green and lovely. And there he saw a lady, a beautiful lady, in a long white dress that hung down to her ankles, with a golden belt and a golden crown. She was lying on the sward⁠—a sward, you know, is grass as smooth as velvet, just like green velvet⁠—and the Prince saw the marks of travel on her garments. The bottom of the lovely silk dress was all dirty⁠—”

“Wondrous Fair, if you don’t mind you’ll make that sheet dirty, too,” said Pin.

“Shut up, will you!” answered her sister who, carried away by her narrative, had approached her boots to some linen that was bleaching.

“Yes, but you know Sarah’ll be awfly cross if she has to wash it again,” said Pin, who was practical.

“You’ll put me out altogether,” cried Laura angrily. “Well, as I said, the edge of her robe was all muddy⁠—no, I don’t think I will say that; it sounds prettier if it’s clean. So it hung in long, straight beautiful folds to her ankles, and the Prince saw two little feet in golden sandals peeping out from under the hem of the silken gown, and⁠—”

On leaving the house she went straight to the flowerbeds: she would give Mother, who liked flowers very well but had no time to gather them, a bouquet the size of a cabbage. Pin and the boys were summoned to help her, and when their hands were full, Laura led the way to a secluded part of the garden on the farther side of the detached brick kitchen. In this strip, which was filled with greenery, little sun fell: two thick fir trees and a monstrous blue-gum stood there; high bushes screened the fence; jessamine climbed the wall of the house and encircled the bedroom windows; and on the damp and shady ground only violets grew. Yet, with the love children bear to the limited and compact, the four had chosen their own little plots here rather than in the big garden at the back of the house; and many were the times they had all begun anew to dig and to rake. But if Laura’s energy did not fizzle out as quickly as usual⁠—she was the model for the rest⁠—Mother was sure to discover that it was too cramped and dark for them in there, and send Sarah to drive them off.

Here, safely screened from sight, Laura sat on a bench and made up her bouquet.

It certainly was an imposing building viewed from within, when the paling-gate had closed behind them. To Laura, who came from a township of one-storied brick or weatherboard houses, it seemed vast in its breadth and height, appalling in its sombre greyness. Between Godmother and Cousin Grace she walked up an asphalted path, and mounted the steps that led to a massive stone portico. The bell Godmother rang made no answering sound, but after a very few seconds the door swung back, and a slender maidservant in cap and apron stood before them. She smiled at them pleasantly, as, in Chinaman-fashion, they crossed the threshold; then, inclining her head at a murmured word from Godmother, she vanished as lightly as she had come, and they sat and looked about them. They were in a plainly furnished but very lofty waiting-room. There were two large windows. The venetian blinds had not been lowered, and the afternoon sun, beating in, displayed a shabby patch on the carpet. It showed up, too, a coating of dust that had gathered on the desk-like, central table. There was the faint, distinctive smell of strange furniture. But what impressed Laura most was the stillness. No street noises pierced the massy walls, but neither did the faintest echo of all that might be taking place in the great building itself reach their ears: they sat aloof, shut off, as it were, from the living world. And this feeling soon grew downright oppressive: it must be like this to be dead, thought Laura to herself; and inconsequently remembered a

Laura had no objection; she had played to people before her fingers were long enough to cover the octave. She took the volume of Thalberg she had brought with her, selected “Home, Sweet Home,” and pranced in.

Her audience kept utter silence; but, had she been a little sharper, she would have grasped that it was the silence of amazement. After the prim sonatinas that had gone before, Thalberg’s florid ornaments had a shameless sound. Her performance, moreover, was a startling one; the forte pedal was held down throughout; the big chords were crashed and banged with all the strength a pair of twelve-year-old arms could put into them; and wrong notes were freely scattered. Still, rhythm and melody were well marked, and there was no mistaking the agility of the small fingers.

Dead silence, too, greeted the conclusion of the piece. Several girls were very red, from trying not to laugh. The Principal tugged at his moustache, in abstracted fashion.

Laura had reached her seat again before Mrs. Strachey said undecidedly: “Thank you, dear. Did you⁠ ⁠… hm⁠ ⁠… learn that piece here?”

Laura saw nothing wrong. “Oh, no, at home,” she answered. “I wouldn’t care to play the things I learn here, to people. They’re so dull.”

A girl emitted a faint squeak. But a half turn of Mrs. Strachey’s head subdued her. “Oh, I hope you will soon get to like classical music also,” said the lady gravely, and in all good faith. “We prefer it, you know, to any other.”

“Well, girls,” began Laura gamely, breathing a little hard. “But, mind, you must never utter a word of what I’m going to tell you. It’s a dead secret, and if you let on⁠—”

“S’ help me God!”

“Ananias and Sapphira!”

“Oh, do hurry up.”

“Well⁠ ⁠… well, he’s just the most⁠—oh, I don’t know how to say it, girls⁠—the most⁠—”

“Just scrumptious, I suppose, eh?”

“Just positively scrumptious, and⁠ ⁠…”

“And what’d he do?”

“And what about his old sketch of a wife?”

“Her? Oh”⁠—and Laura squeezed herself desperately for the details that would not come⁠—“oh, why she’s just a perfect old⁠ ⁠… old cat. And twenty years older than him.”

“What on earth did he marry her for?”

“Guess he’s pretty sick of being tied to an old gin like that?”

“I should say! Perfectly miserable. He can’t think now why he let himself be induced to marry her. He just despises her.”

“Well, why in the name of all that’s holy did he take her?”

Laura cast a mysterious glance round, and lowered her voice. “Well, you see, she had lots of money and he had none. He was ever so poor. And she paid for him to be a clergyman.”

“Go on! As poor as all that?”

“As poor as a church-mouse. But, oh,” she hastened to add, at the visible cooling-off of the four faces, “he comes of a most distinguished family.