Presently Stephen must go off to her tea, leaving the two grown-up children together; secretly divining that neither of them would miss her—not even her father.
Arrived in the nursery she would probably be cross, because her heart felt very empty and tearful; or because, having looked at herself in the glass, she had decided that she loathed her abundant long hair. Snatching at a slice of thick bread and butter, she would upset the milk jug, or break a new teacup, or smear the front of her dress with her fingers, to the fury of Mrs. Bingham. If she spoke at such times it was usually to threaten: “I shall cut all my hair off, you see if I don’t!” or, “I hate this white dress and I’m going to burn it—it makes me feel idiotic!” But once launched she would dig up the grievances of months, going back to the time of the would-be young Nelson, loudly complaining that being a girl spoilt everything—even Nelson. The rest of the evening would be spent in grumbling, because one does grumble when one is unhappy—at least one does grumble when one is seven—later on it may seem rather useless.
At last the hour of the bath would arrive, and still grumbling, Stephen must submit to Mrs. Bingham, fidgeting under the nurse’s rough fingers like a dog in the hands of a trimmer. There she would stand pretending to shiver, a strong little figure, narrow-hipped and wide-shouldered; her flanks as wiry and thin as a greyhound’s and even more ceaselessly restless.
“God doesn’t use soap!” she might suddenly remark.
At which Mrs. Bingham must smile, none too kindly: “Maybe not, Miss Stephen—He don’t ’ave to wash you; if He did He’d need plenty of soap, I’ll be bound!”
The bath over, and Stephen garbed in her nightgown, a long pause would ensue, known as: “Waiting for Mother,” and if mother, for some reason, did not happen to arrive, the pause could be spun out for quite twenty minutes, or for half an hour even, if luck was with Stephen, and the nursery clock not too precise and old-maidish.
“Now come on, say your prayers;” Mrs. Bingham would order, “and you’d better ask the dear Lord to forgive you—impious I calls it, and you a young lady! Carrying on because you can’t be a boy!”
Stephen would kneel by the side of the bed, but in such moods as these her prayers would sound angry. The nurse would protest: “Not so loud, Miss Stephen! Pray slower, and don’t shout at the Lord, He won’t like it!”
But Stephen would continue to shout at the Lord in a kind of impotent defiance.
IV
I
The sorrows of childhood are mercifully passing, for it is only when maturity has rendered soil mellow that grief will root very deeply. Stephen’s grief for Collins, in spite of its violence, or perhaps because of that very violence, wore itself out like a passing tempest and was all but spent by the autumn. By Christmas, the gusts when they came were quite gentle, rousing nothing more disturbing than a faint melancholy—by Christmas it required quite an effort of will to recapture the charm of Collins.
Stephen was nonplussed and rather uneasy; to have loved so greatly and now to forget! It made her feel childish and horribly silly, as though she had cried over cutting her finger. As on all grave occasions, she considered the Lord, remembering His love for miserable sinners:
“Teach me to love Collins Your way,” prayed Stephen, trying hard to squeeze out some tears in the process, “teach me to love her ’cause she’s mean and unkind and won’t be a proper sinner that repenteth.” But the tears would not come, nor was prayer what it had been; it lacked something—she no longer sweated when she prayed.
Then an awful thing happened, the maid’s image was fading, and try as she would Stephen could not recall certain passing expressions that had erstwhile allured her. Now she could not see Collins’ face at all clearly even if she willed very hard in the dark. Thoroughly disgruntled, she bethought her of books, books of fairy tales, hitherto not much in favour, especially of those that treated of spells, incantations and other unlawful proceedings. She even requested the surprised Mrs. Bingham to read from the Bible:
“You know where,” coaxed Stephen, “it’s the place they were reading in church last Sunday, about Saul and a witch with a name like Edna—the place where she makes some person come up, ’cause the king had forgotten what he looked like.”
But if prayer had failed Stephen, her spells also failed her; indeed they behaved as spells do when said backwards, making her see, not the person she wished to, but a creature entirely different. For Collins now had a most serious rival, one who had lately appeared at the stables. He was not possessed of a real housemaid’s knee, but instead, of four deeply thrilling brown legs—he was two up on legs, and one up on a tail, which was rather unfair on Collins! That Christmas, when Stephen was eight years old, Sir Philip had bought her a hefty bay pony; she was learning to ride him, could ride him already, being naturally skilful and fearless. There had been quite a heated discussion with Anna, because Stephen had insisted on riding astride. In this she had shown herself very refractory, falling off every time she tried the sidesaddle—quite obvious, of course,
