“How can you if you’re not here?” asked Leppie.
Pin, however, who believed in ghosts and apparitions with all her fearful little heart, promised tremulously never, never to forget; but Laura was not satisfied until each of them in turn had repeated, in a low voice, with the appropriate gestures, the sacred secret, and forbidden formula:
Is my finger wet?
Is my finger dry?
God’ll strike me dead,
If I tell a lie.
Then Sarah’s voice was heard calling, and the boys went out into the road to watch for the coach. Laura’s dressing proved a lengthy business, and was accomplished amid bustle, and scolding, and little peacemaking words from Pin; for in her hurry that morning Laura had forgotten to put on the clean linen Mother had laid beside the bed, and consequently had now to strip to the skin.
The boys announced the coming of the coach with shrill cries, and simultaneously the rumble of wheels was heard. Sarah came from the kitchen drying her hands, and Pin began to cry.
“Now, shut up, res’vor!” said Sarah roughly: her own eyes were moist. “You don’t see Miss Laura be such a silly-billy. Anyone ’ud think you was goin’, not ’er.”
The ramshackle old vehicle, one of Cobb’s Royal Mail Coaches, big-bodied, lumbering, scarlet, pulled by two stout horses, drew up before the door, and the driver climbed down from his seat.
“Now good day to you, ma’am, good day, miss”—this to Sarah who, picking up the box, handed it to him to be strapped on under the apron. “Well, well, and so the little girl’s goin’ to school, is she? My, but time flies! Well do I remember the day ma’am, when I drove you all across for the first time. These children wasn’t big enough then to git up and down be thimselves. Now I warrant you they can—just look at ’em, will you?—But my! Ain’t you ashamed of yourself”—he spoke to Pin—“pipin’ your eye like that? Why, you’ll flood the road if you don’t hould on. Yes, yes, ma’am, bless you, I’ll look after her, and put her inter the train wid me own han’s. Don’t you be oneasy. The Lord he cares for the widder and the orphun, and if He don’t, why Patrick O’Donnell does.”
This was O’Donnell’s standing joke; he uttered it with a loud chuckle. While speaking he had let down the steps and helped the three children up—they were to ride with Laura to the outskirts of the township. The little boys giggled excitedly at his assertion that the horses would not be equal to the weight. Only Pin wept on, in undiminished grief.
“Now, Miss Laura.”
“Now, Laura. Goodbye, darling. And do try and be good. And be sure you write once a week. And tell me everything. Whether you are happy—and if you get enough to eat—and if you have enough blankets on your bed. And remember always to change your boots if you get your feet wet. And don’t lean out of the window in the train.”
For some time past Laura had had need of all her self-control, not to cry before the children. As the hour drew near it had grown harder and harder; while dressing, she had resorted to counting the number of times the profile of a Roman emperor appeared in the flowers on the wallpaper. Now the worst moment of all was come—the moment of goodbye. She did not look at Pin, but she heard her tireless, snuffly weeping, and set her own lips tight.
“Yes, mother … no, mother,” she answered shortly, “I’ll be all right. Goodbye.” She could not, however, restrain a kind of dry sob, which jumped up her throat.
When she was in the coach Sarah, whom she had forgotten, climbed up to kiss her; and there was some joking between O’Donnell and the servant while the steps were being folded and put away. Laura did not smile; her thin little face was very pale. Mother’s heart went out to her in a pity which she did not know how to express.
“Don’t forget your sandwiches. And when you’re alone, feel in the pocket of your ulster and you’ll find something nice. Goodbye, darling.”
“Goodbye … goodbye.”
The driver had mounted to his seat, he unwound the reins cried “Get up!” to the two burly horses, the vehicle was set in motion and trundled down the main street. Until it turned the corner by the Shire Gardens, Laura let her handkerchief fly from the window. Sarah waved hers; then wiped her eyes and lustily blew her nose. Mother only sighed.
“It was all she could do to keep up,” she said as much to herself as to Sarah. “I do hope she’ll be all right. She seems such a child to be sending off like this. Yet what else could I do? To a State School, I’ve always said it, my children shall never go—not if I have to beg the money to send them elsewhere.”
But she sighed again, in spite of the energy of her words, and stood gazing at the place where the coach had disappeared. She was still a comparatively young woman, and straight of body; but trouble, poverty and night-watches had scored many lines on her forehead.
“Don’t you worry,” said Sarah. “Miss Laura’ll be all right. She’s just a bit too clever—brains for two, that’s what it is. An’ children will grow up an’ get big … an’ change their feathers.” She spoke absently, drawing her metaphor from a brood of chickens which had strayed across the road, and was now trying to mount the wooden verandah—“Shooh! Get away with you!”
“I know that. But Laura—The other children have never given me a moment’s worry. But Laura’s different. I seem to get less and less able to manage her. If only her father had been alive to help!”
“I’m sure no father livin’ could do more than you for those blessed children,”
