Part 12 (1/2)
”It isn't really so bad, Laura,” pleaded Pin. ”It'll look darker, I'm sure, if you've got it on--and if you don't go out in the sun.”
”You haven't got to wear it. It was piggish of you, Pin, perfectly piggis.h.!.+ You MIGHT have watched what she was buying.”
”I did, Laura!” a.s.severated Pin, on the brink of tears. ”There was a nice dark brown and I said take that, you would like it better, and she said hold your tongue, and did I think she was going to dress you as if you were your own grandmother.”
This dress hung for weeks in the most private corner of Laura's school wardrobe. Her companions had all returned with new outfits, and on the first a.s.semblage for church there was a great mustering of one another, both by girls and teachers. Laura was the only one to descend in the dress she had worn throughout the winter. Her heart was sore with bitterness, and when the handful of Episcopalians were marching to St Stephen's-on-the-Hill, she strove to soothe her own wound.
”I can't think why my dress hasn't come,” she said gratuitously, out of this hurt, with an oblique glance to see how her partner took the remark: it was the good-natured Maria Morell, who was resplendent in velvet and feathers. ”I expect that stupid dressmaker couldn't get it done in time. I've waited for it all the week.”
”What a sell!” said Maria, but with mediocre interest; for she had c.o.c.ked her eye at a harmless-looking youth, who was doing his best not to blush on pa.s.sing the line of girls.--”I say, do look at that toff making eyes. Isn't he a nanny-goat.”
On several subsequent Sundays, Laura fingered, in an agony of indecision, the pleasing stuff of the dress, and ruefully considered its modish cut. Once, no one being present, she even took it out of the wardrobe. But the merciless spring suns.h.i.+ne seemed to make the purple shoot fire, to let loose a host of other colours it in as well, and, with a shudder, she re-hung it on its peg.
But the evil day came. After a holiday at G.o.dmother's, she received a hot letter from Mother. G.o.dmother had complained of her looking ”dowdy”, and Mother was exceedingly cross. Laura was ordered to spend the coming Sat.u.r.day as well at Prahran, and in her new dress, under penalty of a correspondence with Mrs. Gurley. There was no going against an order of this kind, and with death at her heart Laura prepared to obey. On the fatal morning she dawdled as long as possible over her mending, thus postponing dressing to go out till the others had vacated the bedroom; where, in order not to be forced to see herself, she kept her eyes half shut, and turned the looking-gla.s.s hind-before. Although it was a warm day, she hung a cloak over her shoulders. But her arms peeped out of the loose sleeves, and at least a foot of skirt was visible. As she walked along the corridor and down the stairs, she seemed to smudge the place with colour, and, directly she entered the dining-hall, comet-like she drew all eyes upon her.
Astonished t.i.tterings followed in her wake; even the teachers goggled her, afterwards to put their heads together. In the reception-room Marina remarked at once: ”Hullo!--is THIS the new dress your mother wrote us about?”
Outside, things were no better; the very tram-conductors were fascinated by it; and every pa.s.ser-by was a fresh object of dread: Laura waited, her heart a-thump, for the moment when he should raise his eyes and, with a start of attention, become aware of the screaming colour. At G.o.dmother's all the faces disapproved: Georgina said, ”What a guy!” when she thought Laura was out of earshot; but the boys stated their opinion openly as soon as they had her to themselves.
”Oh, golly! Like a parrot--ain't she?”
”This way to the purple parrot--this way! Step up, ladies and gentlemen! A penny the whole show!”
That evening, she tore the dress from her back and, hanging it up inside the cloak, vowed that, come what might, she would never put it on again. A day or two later, on unexpectedly entering her bedroom, she found Lilith Gordon and another girl at her wardrobe. They grew very red, and hurried giggling from the room, but Laura had seen what they were looking at. After this, she tied the dress up with string and brown paper and hid it in a drawer, under her nightgowns. When she went home at Christmas it went with her, still in the parcel, and then there was a stormy scene. But Laura was stubborn: rather than wear the dress, she would not go back to the College at all. Mother's heart had been softened by the prizes; Laura seized the occasion, and extracted a promise that she should be allowed in future to choose her own frocks.-- And so the purple dress was pa.s.sed on to Pin, who detested it with equal heartiness, but, living under Mother's eye, had not the spirit to fight against it.
”Got anything new in the way of clothes?” asked Lilith Gordon as she and Laura undressed for bed a night or two after their return.
”Yes, one,” said Laura shortly.--For she thought Lilith winked at the third girl, a publican's daughter from Clunes.
”Another like the last? Or have you gone in for yellow ochre this time?”
Laura flamed in silence.
”Great Scott, what a colour that was! Fit for an Easter Fair--Miss Day said so.”
”It wasn't mine,” retorted Laura pa.s.sionately. ”It ... it belonged to a girl I knew who died--and her mother gave it to me as a remembrance of her--but I didn't care for it.”
”I shouldn't think you did.--But I say, does your mother let you wear other people's clothes? What a rummy thing to do!”
She went out of the room--no doubt to spread this piece of gossip further. Laura looked daggers after her. She was angry enough with Lilith for having goaded her to the lie, but much angrier with herself for its blundering ineffectualness. It was not likely she had been believed, and if she were, well, it made matters worse instead of better: people would conclude that she lived on charity. Always when unexpectedly required to stand on the defensive, she said or did something foolish. That morning, for instance, a similar thing had happened--it had rankled all day in her mind. On looking through the was.h.i.+ng, Miss Day had exclaimed in horror at the way in which her stockings were mended.
”Whoever did it? They've been done since you left here. I would never have pa.s.sed such dams.”
Laura crimsoned. ”Those? Oh, an old nurse we've got at home. We've had her for years and years--but her eyesight's going now.”
Miss Day sniffed audibly. ”So I should think. To cobble like that!”
They were Mother's dams, hastily made, late at night, and with all Mother's genial impatience at useful sewing as opposed to beautiful.
Laura's intention had been to s.h.i.+eld Mother from criticism, as well as to spare Miss Day's feelings. But to have done it so clumsily as this!