Part 8 (2/2)
LIKE A BEAN-STALK--A SHORT STORY.
It had always been an uncontested fact in the Watson family that Bridget was plain. Even when she was a round toddling thing of five years old, with bright eyes and thick brown curls, aunts and other relations had often said in her presence:
”Bridget is a dear little girl, but she will grow up plain.”
Plain! Bridget was quite used to the sound of the word, and did not mind it at all, though she was conscious that it meant something to be regretted, because people always said ”but” before it. ”A good child, but plain.”
”A sweet-tempered little thing, but plain.”
However, it did not interfere with any pleasure or advantage that Bridget could see. She could run faster than most of her brothers and sisters, who were _not_ plain but pretty; she could climb a tree very well indeed, with her stout little legs, and she could say a great many verses of poetry by heart. Besides, she felt sure that Toto the black poodle, and Samson the great cat, and all the other pets, loved her as well as the rest, and perhaps even better. So she did not mind being plain at all, until she was about thirteen years old and the new governess came.
Now about this time Bridget, who had hitherto been a compact st.u.r.dy child, short for her age, began to grow in the most alarming manner; the ”Bean-stalk,” her brothers called her, and one really could almost believe she had shot up in a night, the growth was so sudden. Her arms and legs seemed to be everywhere, always sprawling about in a spider-like manner in unexpected places, so that she very often either swept things off the table or tripped somebody up. Her mother looking round on the children at their dinner hour would say:
”My _dear_ Bridget, I believe you have grown an inch since yesterday!
How very short those sleeves are for you!” and then there was a general chuckle at the poor ”Bean-stalk.”
Then visitors would come, and Bridget with the others would be sent for to the drawing-room; entering in gawky misery she well knew what sentence would first strike her ear, and would try furtively to shelter herself in the background. No use!
”My dear Mrs Watson,” the lady would cry, with an expression of amused pity on her face, ”how your daughter Bridget has grown! Why, she is as tall as my girl of eighteen;” etcetera, etcetera.
Bridget got tired of it at last, and she very much dreaded the arrival of the new governess, because she felt sure that she should be so ”bullied,” as the boys said, about her height and awkwardness. She would cheerfully have sacrificed several inches of her arms and legs to be comfortably short, but this could not be managed, so she must make the best of it.
Miss Tasker arrived. Bobbie saw her first, from an advantageous post he had taken up for the purpose amongst the boughs of a large beech-tree in front of the house.
He saw her cab drive up with boxes on the top, and Toto dancing round and round it on the tips of his toes barking loudly, which I am sorry to say was his reprehensible manner of receiving strangers. Bobbie parted the boughs a little more. It was a situation full of interest. Would she be frightened of Toto? He felt a good deal depended on this as a sign of her future behaviour.
It appeared, however, that Miss Tasker was not afraid of dogs, for a tall thin figure presently descended from the cab in the midst of Toto's wildest demonstrations. Bobbie felt an increased respect for the new governess, but meanwhile the ”others” must at once be told the result of his observations, and as she entered the house he slipped down from his perch and scudded quickly away to find them.
From this time Bridget's troubles increased tenfold; Miss Tasker had severe views about deportment, and besides this her attention was specially directed by Mrs Watson to Bridget's awkwardness.
”I am particularly anxious,” she said, ”about my daughter Bridget, and other lessons are really not of so much importance just now as that she should learn to hold herself properly. As it is, she is so clumsy in her movements that I almost tremble to see her enter the room.”
Poor Bridget! Her usual manner of entering a room was with her head eagerly thrust forward, and her long arms swinging; that was when she was quite comfortable and unselfconscious, but all this must be changed now, and to achieve this Miss Tasker devised an ingenious method of torture, which was practised every morning. It was this. Lessons began at ten o'clock, at which time the children were expected to a.s.semble in the school-room, but now, instead of running in any how, they had to go through the following scene.
Miss Tasker sat at her desk ready to receive each pupil with a gracious smile and bow; then one by one they entered with a solemn bow or curtsy and said, ”Good morning, Miss Tasker.”
”I call it humbug,” remarked the outspoken Bobbie, ”as if we hadn't seen her once already at breakfast-time.”
How Bridget hated this ordeal!
To know that Miss Tasker was waiting there ready to fix a keen grey eye on her deficiencies, and that she would probably say when the curtsy was done:
”Once again, Bridget, and remember to _round_ the elbows.”
How to round your elbows when they naturally stuck out like knitting-pins, Bridget could not conceive, and I am afraid that, pushed to desperation, she soon left off even trying, and so became more awkward than ever.
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