A Traveller in Little Things Part 8

"I can tell you about that," she returned, not in the least resenting my personal remarks. "It is because I've had ringworms. My head is shaved and I'm not allowed to go to school."

"Well," I said, "all these unpleasant experiences--ringworm, shaved head, freckles, and expulsion from school as an undesirable person--do not appear to have depressed you much. You appear quite happy."

She laughed good-humouredly, then looked up out of her blue eyes as if asking what more I had to say.

Just then a small girl about thirteen years old pa.s.sed us--a child with a thin anxious face burnt by the sun to a dark brown, and deep-set, dark blue, penetrating eyes. It was a face to startle one; and as she went by she stared intently at the little freckled girl.

Then I, to keep the talk going, said I could guess the sort of life that child led.

"What sort of life does she lead?" asked Freckles.

She was, I said, a child from some small farm in the neighbourhood, and had a very hard life, and was obliged to do a great deal more work indoors and out than was quite good for her at her tender age. "But I wonder why she stared at you?" I concluded.

"Did she stare at me!--Why did she stare?"

"I suppose it was because she saw you, a mite of a child, with a nightcap on her head, standing here at the door of the inn talking to a stranger just like some old woman."

She laughed again, and said it was funny for a child of five to be called an old woman. Then, with a sudden change to gravity, she a.s.sured me that I had been quite right in what I had said about that little girl. She lived with her parents on a small farm, where no maid was kept, and the little girl did as much work or more than any maid. She had to take the cows to pasture and bring them back; she worked in the fields and helped in the cooking and was.h.i.+ng, and came every day to the town with a basket of b.u.t.ter, and eggs, which she had to deliver at a number of houses. Sometimes she came twice in a day, usually in a pony- cart, but when the pony was wanted by her father she had to come on foot with the basket, and the farm was three miles out. On Sunday she didn't come, but had a good deal to do at home.

"Ah, poor little slave! No wonder she gazed at you as she did;--she was thinking how sweet your life must be with people to love and care for you and no hard work to do."

"And was that what made her stare at me, and not because I had a nightcap on and was like an old woman talking to a stranger?" This without a smile.

"No doubt. But you seem to know a great deal about her. Now I wonder if you can tell me something about this beautiful young lady with an umbrella coming towards us? I should much like to know who she is--and I should like to call on her."

"Yes, I can tell you all about her. She is Miss Eva Langton, and lives at the White House. You follow the street till you get out of the town where there is a pond at this end of the common, and just a little the other side of the pond there are big trees, and behind the trees a white gate. That's the gate of the White House, only you can't see it because the trees are in the way. Are you going to call on her?"

I explained that I did not know her, and though I wished I did because she was so pretty, it would not perhaps be quite right to go to her house to see her.

"I'm sorry you're not going to call, she's such a nice young lady.

Everybody likes her." And then, after a few moments, she looked up with a smile, and said, "Is there anything else I can tell you about the people of the town? There's a man going by in the rain with a lot of planks on his head--would you like to know who he is and all about him?"

"Oh yes, certainly," I replied. "But of course I don't care so much about him as I do about that little brown girl from the farm, and the nice Miss Langton from the White House. But it's really very pleasant to listen to you whatever you talk about. I really think you one of the most charming little girls I have ever met, and I wonder what you will be like in another five years. I think I must come and see for myself."

"Oh, will you come back in five years? Just to see me! My hair will be grown then and I won't have a nightcap on, and I'll try to wash off the freckles before you come."

"No, don't," I said. "I had forgotten all about them--I think they are very nice."

She laughed, then looking up a little archly, said: "You are saying all that just for fun, are you not?"

"Oh no, nothing of the sort. Just look at me, and say if you do not believe what I tell you."

"Yes, I do," she answered frankly enough, looking full in my eyes with a great seriousness in her own.

That sudden seriousness and steady gaze; that simple, frank declaration! Would five years leave her in that stage? I fancy not, for at ten she would be self-conscious, and the loss would be greater than the gain. No, I would not come back in five years to see what she was like.

That was the end of our talk. She looked towards the wet street and her face changed, and with a glad cry she darted out. The rain was over, and a big man in a grey tweed coat was coming across the road to our side. She met him half-way, and bending down he picked her up and set her on his shoulder and marched with her into the house.

There were others, it seemed, who were able to appreciate her bright mind and could forget all about her freckles and her nightcap.

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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 pa.s.sed 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.

A day or two later we were more fortunate. I went before breakfast to the beach and was surprised to find her there watching the tide coming in; in a moment of extreme indulgence her mother, or her people, had allowed her to run down to look at the sea for a minute by herself. She was standing on the s.h.i.+ngle, watching the green waves break frothily at her feet, her pale face transfigured with a gladness which seemed almost unearthly. Even then in that emotional moment the face kept its tender flower-like character; I could only compare it to the sweet-pea blossom, ivory white or delicate pink; that Psyche-like flower with wings upraised to fly, and expression of infantile innocence and fairy- like joy in life.

I walked down to her and we then exchanged our few and only words. How beautiful the sea was, and how delightful to watch the waves coming in!

I remarked. She smiled and replied that it was very, very beautiful.

Then a bigger wave came and compelled us to step hurriedly back to save our feet from a wetting, and we laughed together. Just at that spot there was a small rock on which I stepped and asked her to give me her hand, so that we could stand together and let the next wave rush by without wetting us. "Oh, do you think I may?" she said, almost frightened at such an adventure. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she put her hand in mine, and we stood on the little fragment of rock, and she watched the water rush up and surround us and break on the beach with a fearful joy. And after that wonderful experience she had to leave me; she had only been allowed out by herself for five minutes, she said, and so, after a grateful smile, she hurried back.

Our next encounter was on the parade, where she appeared as usual with her people, and nothing beyond one swift glance of recognition and greeting could pa.s.s between us. But it was a quite wonderful glance she gave me, it said so much:--that we had a great secret between us and were friends and comrades for ever. It would take half a page to tell all that was conveyed in that glance. "I'm so glad to see you," it said, "I was beginning to fear you had gone away. And now how unfortunate that you see me with my people and we cannot speak! They wouldn't understand. How could they, since they don't belong to our world and know what we know? If I were to explain that we are different from them, that we want to play together on the beach and watch the waves and paddle and build castles, they would say, 'Oh yes, that's all very well, but--' I shouldn't know what they meant by that, should you?

I do hope we'll meet again some day and stand once more hand in hand on the beach--don't you?"

And with that she pa.s.sed on and was gone, and I saw her no more.

Perhaps that glance which said so much had been observed, and she had been hurriedly removed to some place of safety at a great distance. But though I never saw her again, never again stood hand in hand with her on the beach and never shall, I have her picture to keep in all its flowery freshness and beauty, the most delicate and lovely perhaps of all the pictures I possess of the little girls I have met.

XX

DIMPLES

It is not pleasant when you have had your say, made your point to your own satisfaction, and gone cheerfully on to some fresh subject, to be a.s.sailed with the suspicion that your interlocutor is saying mentally: All very well--very pretty talk, no doubt, but you haven't convinced me, and I even doubt that you have succeeded in convincing yourself!

For example, a reader of the foregoing notes may say: "If you really find all this beauty and charm and fascination you tell us in some little girls, you must love them. You can't admire and take delight in them as you can in a piece of furniture, or tapestry, or a picture or statue or a stone of great brilliancy and purity of colour, or in any beautiful inanimate object, without that emotion coming in to make itself part of and one with your admiration. You can't, simply because a child is a human being, and we do not want to lose sight of the being we love. So long as the love lasts, the eye would follow its steps because--we are what we are, and a mere image in the mind doesn't satisfy the heart. Love is never satisfied, and asks not for less and less each day but for more--always for more. Then, too, love is credulous; it believes and imagines all things and, like all emotions, it pushes reason and experience aside and sticks to the belief that these beautiful qualities cannot die and leave nothing behind: they are not on the surface only; they have their sweet permanent roots in the very heart and centre of being."