Book I Chapter 6 The Little School-Mothers by L. T. Meade
Beguiled by Promises
There was no doubt that Harriet was clever, but even she felt a little nervous when she went into Ralph’s bedroom to awaken him on Saturday morning.
Ralph had a sweet little room to sleep in. It opened into Miss Ford’s, but the door between the two was shut; for Ralph’s whole endeavour was to be a very manly boy, and manly boys always liked best to sleep alone. He looked very pretty indeed, now, in his sleep, his mop of brown curls pushed back from his forehead, the long black lashes lying like a cloud on his rounded cheeks; his red, red lips slightly parted, a smile on his little face. But Harriet saw no beauty in the sleeping boy.
“Little tiresome thing!” she murmured under her breath. “If it wasn’t for that pony and my determination to win the prize over Robina, wouldn’t I give him a time to-day!”
But the pony was worth winning, and Harriet was clever. She bent down over Ralph, and touched him gently on his arm. He woke with a start, looked at Harriet, coloured brightly, and then said:—
“What’s up?”
“Time for you to rise,” said Harriet. “I am your school-mother for to-day.”
“Oh,” said Ralph. His face turned a little pale, but he did not start.
“You can lie in bed as long as ever you like,” said Harriet; “I don’t care; I’m not going to tell on you; you may be as naughty as you please to-day—you needn’t do any single thing except just what you like.”
“Needn’t I, really?” said the boy.
“Of course, you needn’t,” said Harriet. “Why should you bother to be good?”
“But Father likes me to be good,” said Ralph; “and—and—Mrs Burton does. I love Mrs Burton, don’t you?”
Harriet longed to say “No,” but, shutting up her lips, she nodded her head.
“You are the girl who was so horrid and rude to me the other day,” said Ralph; “you slapped me on my cheek.”
“And you beat me,” said Harriet.
Ralph’s eyes began to twinkle.
“So we’re quits,” said Harriet. “Let’s shake hands; let’s be pals.”
“It’s nice of you to forgive,” said Ralph.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” replied Harriet. “If you but knew me, you’d consider that I am quite the nicest girl in the school.”
“Are you really?”
“Yes; but what do you think, after all, of getting up? I have such a wonderful plan of spending our day together.”
“Have you?” said Ralph.
“A delicious plan; you can’t guess how you will enjoy yourself.”
“Can’t I, really?”
“Hadn’t you better get up. You can wash yourself, you know.”
“Oh, I never washed myself yet,” said Ralph.
“Well, you’ll have to begin some time. I’ll sit and stare out of the window, and you can pop into your tub, and have a good splash; I don’t care a bit if you wet the floor; manly boys can’t be always thinking of those sort of things. Now, then, up you get, and I’ll stare out of the window.”
Harriet suited the action to the word. Ralph saw a long, narrow back and very thin light hair only partly concealing it. He observed that the lanky little figure sat very still. He felt impressed, much more impressed than he had been when kind Frederica and unselfish Patience, and even pretty, pretty Rose Amberley had been his school-mothers. They had been commonplace—quite nice, of course, but nothing special. The lanky person was not commonplace.
He hopped up with a little shout, washed and dressed himself after a fashion, and then went up to Harriet.
“Well, pal,” she said, just glancing at him, “are you ready?”
“Quite,” said Ralph. “I like you to call me your pal. You’re a very big girl compared to me, aren’t you?”
“You’re not a girl at all,” said Harriet; “you’re a very manly boy, and you’re awfully pretty; don’t you know that you are very pretty?”
“No,” said Ralph, turning scarlet, “and boys ought not to be pretty; I hate that.”
“Well, then, you’re handsome. I’ll show you your face in the glass presently. But come down now. I am allowed to do just what I like with you to-day, and we’re going to have such a good time!”
The beginning of the good time consisted in having a real picnic breakfast out of doors. Ralph and Harriet collected twigs and boiled the kettle in one corner of the paddock. It didn’t matter to Harriet that the paddock was rather damp and cold at this hour, and it certainly did not matter to Ralph, who was wildly excited, and quite forgot everything else in the world while he was trying to light the dry wood. Really, Harriet was nice; she did not even mind his having matches.
“They never allowed me to have matches before I came here.”
“You can put them in your pocket, if you like,” said Harriet. “Manly boys like you should not be kept under. You wouldn’t burn yourself on purpose, would you?”
“Of course not.”
“Have you a knife of your own?”
“No; Father says I’m rather young.”
“But you’re not; I’ll give you a knife if you like. I have an old rusty one upstairs with a broken blade. You shall have it.”
“Thanks aw-filly!” said Ralph. “But, perhaps,” he added, after a minute’s pause. “I had best not have it, for Father would not like me to.”
“Oh, please yourself,” said Harriet. “Have you had enough breakfast?”
“Yes, thank you awfully, and it was so good. I suppose,” added Ralph, a little timidly, “we’d best begin my lessons now. I hate reading to myself, but I suppose I must learn.”
“You needn’t learn from me,” said Harriet. “I’m not going to give you any lessons.”
“Oh—but—oughtn’t you to?”
“Whether I ought to or not, I don’t mean to,” said Harriet. “Now, look here, what shall we do with ourselves?”
“I don’t know,” said Ralph, who was so excited and interested that he leaned up against Harriet, who would have given worlds to push him away, but did not dare.
“You’re very nice, really, truly,” he said, and he touched her lank hair with his little brown hand.
“Yes, am I not nice?” said Harriet, smiling at him. “Now, if you were to choose me for your school-mother, you would have a jolly time.”
“Am I to choose who I like?” said Ralph.
“Of course, you are. We are all trying our hands on you; but you are to make your own choice. Didn’t the other girls tell you?”
“No.”
“Do you like being with the others?”
“They were very kind,” said Ralph.
“Did you have a picnic breakfast with them?”
“Oh, no.”
“If I were your school-mother,” said Harriet, after a pause, “we would have one every day, and—and—no lessons; and you might play with matches, and you might have a pop-gun, and there’s something else we would do.”
“Oh, what is it?”
“We’d go and see the gipsies.”
“But I am frightened of gipsies,” said Ralph. As he spoke he pressed a little nearer to Harriet. “Are there gipsies about?”
“There are some gipsies living two fields off—you look almost like a gipsy boy yourself, you are so dark. There are a lot of little brown babies rolling about on the grass, and big brown men, and big brown women, and there are dogs, and a donkey, and an old horse; but the most wonderful thing of all is the house on wheels.”
“The house on wheels?” said Ralph.
“Yes, the old horse draws it, and the gipsies live inside; oh, it is wonderful!”
“Aren’t gipsies very wicked people?”
“Wicked?” said Harriet. “They’re the most lovely people in all the world. I can’t take you to see them to-day, but if I were your school-mother, we would manage to slip off and have a good time with them. They love little brown boys like you, and you would love them. Oh, you don’t know what a gipsy is! Frightened of them, are you? Well, I’ll tell you a story of what they did for me when I ran away once and stayed with them for a whole night. I never had such a good time in all my life.”
Harriet made up a story out of her head. It is true she had once been for a very frightened half-hour with some gipsies on the common nearest to her father’s house; but that time now was changed into something quite fairy-like.
Ralph listened with his eyes shining, his lips apart, and his breath coming fast.
“Oh, I didn’t know they were like that,” he said. “Let us go now, now; don’t put it off, please; let’s come this very instant-minute.”
“No,” said Harriet firmly. “I could not possibly take you to-day. But I will manage it if you choose me for your school-mother. Of course, you won’t choose me. I know who you’ll choose.”
“Who?” asked Ralph.
“That Robina girl.”
“Who?” asked Ralph.
“Oh, that creature who came for you and Curly Pate when you were sent for, to say good-bye to your father.”
“Is she Robina?” asked Ralph. “Oh, I like her so much!”
“That is because you don’t know her. Shall I tell you some things about her?”
“Would it be right?” asked Ralph.
“You needn’t listen if you don’t like,” replied Harriet. “You can go to the other side of the paddock. I am going to say them aloud, whether you listen or not.”
Harriet instantly crossed her hands on her lap, and began saying in a chanting tone:—
“Robina was so naughty at home, and made such a dreadful noise in the room with her poor sick mother that she had to be sent away. She was sent here to this school, and since she came all the rest of us are dreadfully unhappy, for, although she looks kind, she is not a bit kind; she is the sort of girl who doesn’t obey. She was sent away from home because she was so disobedient—”
“Oh, don’t!” said Ralph suddenly.
“Why—what is the matter?” said Harriet. “Were you listening?”
“I couldn’t help myself; you spoke so loud. I didn’t want to, but you did speak very loud. Why do you say those horrid things about her?”
“They are true,” said Harriet. “I don’t mean to be unkind to her. I wouldn’t be unkind to anybody, but, at the same time, I want to warn you in case you are taken in by her ways and choose her as your school-mother.”
Ralph was quite silent. After a minute he said in an altered voice:
“Let’s do something now—what shall we?”
Harriet suggested that they should visit the farmyard at the back of the house and coax Jim, the groom, to let them ride on some of the horses. This, of course, was most fascinating, and no sooner had it been thought of than it was done. The ride was followed by something still more exciting. Jim was going to drive to the nearest town with the spring cart, and he offered to take the two children with him.
Harriet no sooner heard this proposal than she accepted it, and she and Ralph had a glorious drive to town. There she spent sixpence—all the money she possessed—on different sweetmeats.
“I wish I had some more,” she said. “I’d give you all my money—I would, indeed!”
“There are quite enough sweeties there,” said Ralph; “but if you really want to buy other things, Harriet, I have got money.”
“Have you? Let’s see what you’ve got,” said Harriet.
Ralph put his hand into his breeches pocket, and took out a handful of coppers, a shilling, and two sixpences.
“Here’s lots,” he said. “Isn’t it lots, Harriet?”
“Yes,” said Harriet, looking at it greedily. “We might buy a picnic tea for ourselves out of that.”
“Oh! might we?” said Ralph. “How per-fect-ly bee-tttiful!”
The picnic tea was purchased; it was not wholesome. The children went back. Ralph and Harriet had their dinner all alone, for during the trial day the arrangement was that the rest of the school children were not to interfere. Afterwards, they had their picnic tea out of doors, and after that was over, Harriet again spoke of the gipsies, and the delight of knowing them, and the certain fact that they would give them tea, or, perhaps, dinner, in the wonderful house on wheels, and the still more certain fact that Ralph would not be a true boy until he had visited the gipsies with Harriet.
On the whole, Harriet considered that her trial day was a success. It was an untidy, flushed, and not a healthy little boy who crept rather late into bed that night, and whom Harriet undressed without troubling herself whether he was washed too carefully or his hair brushed or not. Even to his cry that he had just a weeny, teeny pain, and that he did not feel quite quite well, she made no response. But when she was bidding him good-night, she said:—
“Remember the gipsies, and I am the sort of girl who always keeps her word.”
“Good-night, dear, dear Harriet!” said the little fellow. “I have had quite a lovely day!”
After Harriet went away, it was some time before Ralph fell asleep. Of course, he was a manly boy, and he did not mind a bit being alone, and it was nice, very nice, to have a little room all to himself. But, notwithstanding his bravery, and his fixed determination not to be lonely without Father, and never to cry even the smallest tear, there was an ache in his heart. He kept on thinking so much of his school-mother that he could not sleep. The girls in the school were very nice. Rose had been sweet to him, so had Frederica, so had Patience, and his school-mother of the past day—oh, she had been the most exciting of all. She was not a bit a pretty girl—in his heart of hearts he thought her rather ugly; but she had done things none of the others had done. She had given him adventures—that breakfast out of doors, a box of matches to keep in his own pocket; that ride on Firefly’s back—Firefly was a very spirited pony—and the girl had looked on admiringly while Ralph kept his seat; and then the drive to town, and the spending of all Harriet’s money on sweetmeats and of all Ralph’s money on a picnic tea. Oh, yes; he had had a good day, very good, and there had been no lessons.
Ralph could not honestly say that he loved lessons. He used to pretend he did, for he hated to grumble about things, and manly boys learned things—at least, so his father used to say. Manly boys always knew how to read, and they spelt words properly, and they wrote neat, good hands, and they learned, too, how to add up long, terrible rows of figures. All these things were necessary if a boy was to be manly and wise. Ralph knew perfectly well that he must go through with these unpleasant things. Nevertheless, he had to own that he did not like them. This school-mother, if he were to select her, would not be very particular about his reading aloud, and spelling properly, and working at his sums. Oh, no, he would have a good time with her; matches in his pocket, knives to play with—although his father did not like him to have knives—and, above all things, such a wonderful, glorious hope was held out to him! They would go away together, he and his school-mother, to see the gipsies. They would climb up the steps into that house on wheels; and, perhaps—perhaps—it would move, and they would feel it moving, and the brown babies would roll about on the grass at his feet, and the brown men and women would talk to him.
Harriet had spoken much to him about the delights of gipsy life. Ralph felt that he would give a great deal to taste it for himself. He tossed from side to side of his little bed, and presently he sat up, his cheeks flushed, his hair tumbled. “What would Father say to all this? Father liked boys to do lessons, and to lead orderly lives, and—”
“Oh, Father!” sobbed the child. He could not help crying just a little bit. He wanted his father more than anything in all the world just then; yes, although his heart was full of Harriet and her proposal to visit the gipsies.