While the class straggled along the verandah at the end of the hour, Inez came up to Laura’s side.
“I say, you shouldn’t have said that about her mother.” She nodded mysteriously.
“Why not?” asked Laura, and coloured at the thought that she had again, without knowing it, been guilty of a faux pas.
Inez looked round to see that Bertha was not within hearing, then put her lips to Laura’s ear.
“She drinks.”
Laura gaped incredulous at the girl, her young eyes full of horror. From actual experience, she hardly knew what drunkenness meant; she had hitherto associated it only with the lowest class of Irish agricultural labourer, or with those dreadful white women who lived, by choice, in Chinese Camps. That there could exist a mother who drank was unthinkable … outside the bounds of nature.
“Oh, how awful!” she gasped, and turned pale with excitement. Inez could not help giggling at the effect produced by her words—the new girl was a “rum stick,” and no mistake—but as Laura’s consternation persisted, she veered about.
“Oh, well, I don’t know for certain if that’s it. But there’s something awfully queer about her.”
“Oh, how do you know?” asked her breathless listener, mastered by a morbid curiosity.
“I’ve been there—at Vaucluse—from a Saturday till Monday. She came in to lunch, and she only talked to herself, not to us. She tried to eat mustard with her pudding too, and her meat was cut up in little pieces for her. I guess if she’d had a knife she’d have cut our throats.”
“Oh!” was all Laura could get out.
“I was so frightened my mother said I shouldn’t go again.”
“Oh, I hope she won’t ask me. What shall I do if she does?”
“Look out, here she comes! Don’t say a word. Bertha’s awfully ashamed of it,” said Inez, and Laura had just time to give a hasty promise.
“Hullo, you two, what are you gassing about?” cried Bertha, and dealt out a couple of her rough and friendly punches. “I say, who’s on for a race up the garden?”
They raced, all three, with flying plaits and curls, much kicking-up of long black legs, and a frank display of frills and tuckers. Laura won; for Inez’s wind gave out halfway, and Bertha was heavy of foot. Leaning against the palings Laura watched the latter come puffing up to join her—Bertha with the shameful secret in the background, of a mother who was not like other mothers.
VIII
Laura had been, for some six weeks or more, a listless and unsuccessful pupil, when one morning she received an invitation from Godmother to spend the coming monthly holiday—from Saturday till Monday—at Prahran. The month before, she had been one of the few girls who had nowhere to go; she had been forced to pretend that she liked staying in, did it in fact by preference. Now her spirits rose.
Marina, Godmother’s younger daughter, from whom Laura inherited her schoolbooks, was to call for her. By a little after nine o’clock on Saturday morning, Laura had finished her weekly mending, tidied her bedroom, and was ready dressed even to her gloves. It was a cool, crisp day; and her heart beat high with expectation.
From the dining-hall, it was not possible to hear the ringing of the front-door bell; but each time either of the maids entered with a summons, Laura half rose from her chair, sure that her turn had come at last. But it was half-past nine, then ten, then half-past; it struck eleven, the best of the day was passing, and still Marina did not come. Only two girls besides herself remained. Then respectively an aunt and a mother were announced, and these two departed. Laura alone was left: she had to bear the disgrace of Miss Day observing: “Well, it looks as if your friends had forgotten all about you, Laura.”
Humiliated beyond measure, Laura had thoughts of tearing off her hat and jacket and declaring that she felt too ill to go out. But at last, when she was almost sick with suspense, Mary put her tidy head in once more.
“Miss Rambotham has been called for.”
Laura was on her feet before the words were spoken. She sped to the reception-room.
Marina, a short, sleek-haired, soberly dressed girl of about twenty, had Godmother’s brisk, matter-of-fact manner.
She offered Laura her cheek to kiss. “Well, I suppose you’re ready now?”
Laura forgave her the past two hours. “Yes, quite, thank you,” she answered.
They went down the asphalted path and through the garden-gate, and turned to walk townwards. For the first time since her arrival Laura was free again—a prisoner at large. Round them stretched the broad white streets of East Melbourne; at their side was the thick, exotic greenery of the Fitzroy Gardens; on the brow of the hill rose the massive proportions of the Roman Catholic Cathedral. Laura could have danced, as she walked at Marina’s side.
After a few queries, however, as to how she liked school and how she was getting on with her lessons, Marina fell to contemplating a strip of paper that she held in her hand. Laura gathered that her companion had combined the task of calling for her with a morning’s shopping, and that she had only worked half through her list of commissions before arriving at the College. At the next corner they got on to the outside car of a cable-tramway, and were carried into town. Here Marina entered a cooperative grocery store, where she was going to give an order for a quarter’s supplies. She was her mother’s housekeeper, and had an
