St. Peter's Finger

You know. Keen on poetry and afraid of a hard ball, rotten little ass. Although, of course,” she added magnaminously, with a large, sporting gesture which just escaped burning a hole in the car’s upholstery, “that sort can’t help it. That’s my experience. Calling them funks doesn’t help. They only turn sulky on you. Teaching P.T. is no joke, you know, what with them and their sickening parents.”

Mrs. Bradley sympathized.

“My name’s Bonnet, by the way. Dulcie Theodora Bonnet. May have heard of me—I don’t know. I row, you know.”

“George,” said Mrs. Bradley, again speaking out of the window, “Miss Bonnet rows.”

“Oxford or Cambridge, madam?”

“Oh, club eight, club eight,” said Miss Bonnet, answering the question herself a little testily. “Naiads.”

“I place the young lady now, madam,” said George. “She rowed at number five in the Naiad eight which took first place by four and a half lengths in the women’s European championships, inter-club, last year. Later in the season Leander offered the ladies a six-lengths’ start over three-quarters of a mile, but the ladies said they would start level or not at all.”

“And did they start level?” Mrs. Bradley enquired.

“No,” replied Miss Bonnet, annoyed. “I should have been Henleying this year,” she added moodily. She got out of the car, tossing away her cigarette which George automatically stamped on. “Well, I’ll look forward to seeing you again. That’s an intelligent man of yours,” she added, in a very much lower tone. “By the way, don’t tell them up at the convent that I’ve said a word to you against poor little Ursula Doyle. They don’t want to have the suicide theory elaborated, naturally. A thing like that hasn’t done the place any good, as you can imagine.” She got into her own car. “Still, it’s straining at a gnat to pretend that she didn’t when she did!”

Yelling the last words violently across the space between the cars, she drove off bumpily and at a tremendous rate.

“What did you make of Miss Bonnet, George?” asked Mrs. Bradley, motioning him to take his seat at the wheel.

“I think the convent must be broadminded, madam.” He climbed into the drivers’s seat, and gave an object lesson (unfortunately missed by Miss Bonnet, who had provoked it), in driving off along a bumpy moorland road. Before they had gone very far, however, a small car swept past on two wheels, screeched itself to a rocketing halt about thirty yards ahead, and then, as though as an afterthought, shot out a red warning arrow in lieu of the driver’s hand.

George pulled up, with delicate preciseness, just a yard behind, got out and walked forward slowly. Miss Bonnet, for it was she, got out of her car and met him.

“Ah, there you are,” she said. “I just came back to say don’t take too much notice of Mother Francis, that’s the headmistress, you know. She’s just the slightest bit prejudiced. Quite a dear, of course—they all are, bless their hearts!—but, well, call it prejudice. That’s the kindest way to think of it, I suppose.”

“I will inform my employer, miss, of your observations.”

Before he had a chance to do this, Mrs. Bradley herself came up to them.

“I was saying,” said Miss Bonnet, “that you don’t want to take too much notice of Mother Francis, the headmistress. Quite a darling, of course, but—well, better call it prejudice, as I said to your man.”

“But am I likely to encounter Mother Francis?” Mrs. Bradley enquired.

“You may not, of course. Oh, well, perhaps you won’t. But, remember, she doesn’t approve of me, and if she mentions me at all—I mean, I’m not touchy—”

“I understand,” said Mrs. Bradley. “You are not sensitive, but, all the same, you don’t care to be misunderstood. Nobody does, of course. It is a common human desire to be praised above one’s deserts.”

“Not that I’ve ever met the person yet who understood me,” Miss Bonnet interpolated swiftly, not pleased with Mrs. Bradley’s observation. “Take some of the parents, now. Quite bloody. Oh, well, you don’t want to hear.”

“And do you like teaching, Miss Bonnet?” Mrs. Bradley enquired with naive, disconcerting directness.

“I—yes, of course. It’s a bit of a strain at times, but it’s necessary work, don’t you think? And that gives one a feeling of—well, being necessary, and having a little niche,” Miss Bonnet, somewhat incoherently, replied.

“Like a saint,” Mrs. Bradley suggested.

“Oh, I don’t know. I was quite a devil at school. When I think of the things we got up to, these present-day kids seem soft. Not, of course, that there was any harm in me. Just full of spirits, that’s all.”

“Interesting,” said Mrs. Bradley, in a thoroughly damping tone. Miss Bonnet looked at her watch, which was barred all across its face to preserve the glass when she was playing games, and announced that she must simply fly.

Off she tore again. Mrs. Bradley, watching the disappearing dust, smiled grimly at George and observed:

“The plot thickens, George, don’t you think?”

“Modern young ladies are usually up to snuff, madam.”

“It struck you that way, did it? As a race, George, I don’t think I like the athletic female young. I suppose she is quite as healthy and strong as she looks?”

“Not much doubt of it, madam, I should say.”

“Um, well, I hope you’re right. An oarswoman, too, you say.”

“Quite a famous young lady, madam, in her way, but hampered rather unfairly by lack of funds. It takes a good bit to grease the wheels in amateur sport to-day, madam.”

“Yes, I expect so. Back to Kelsorrow, George. I’m going to call on the Gas Company.”