Patrick White - Voss

She blushed even deeper.

‘I know what Nelly means,’ Maud said, thoughtfully. ‘I can think of several reddish men. Poor Ralph Angus, for instance.’

‘He was my cousin,’ said Nelly, and rearranged her books.

The others were sympathetically shocked.

‘So tragic,’ said Lizzie, who was used to accompany her mother on morning calls. ‘And such a valuable property.’

‘My father is of the opinion that they have discovered a paradise somewhere in the middle of the Continent, and cannot bear to return. But that is only a theory, of course,’ said Maud.

‘I do not think that Ralph would be so lacking in human instincts,’ Nelly blurted.

‘But the German.’

The leaves of the laurels were shaking and quaking. Then the bushes erupted, and a little girl staggered out, dressed in a serviceable stuff, of the same colour as the foliage. It was not what one would have chosen for a child.

‘Why, it is Mercy,’ they said.

Maud put down her books, and prepared to eat her up.

Mercy screamed.

‘Have you no kisses for me?’ Maud asked.

‘No,’ Mercy screamed.

‘Then what will you give me?’

‘Nothing.’ Mercy laughed.

‘If you are so unkind, I shall take this,’ Maud teased, touching a marble that the little girl was carrying. This also was green.

‘No.’

She would guard what she had.

‘At least you must talk to us nicely,’ Nelly coaxed the silence.

‘Who is your mamma?’ Lizzie asked.

The big girls waited. It was their favourite game.

‘Laura.’

‘Laura? Who is Laura?’

‘Miss Trevelyan.’

‘Miss?’ Lizzie asked.

‘Oh, Lizzie!’ Maud cried.

Mercy laughed.

‘And your father?’ asked Nelly.

‘I have no father,’ said Mercy.

‘Oh, dear!’

The big girls were giggling. Their white necks were strewn with the strawberries of their pleasure and shame.

‘What is this?’ Maud asked.

‘That is a marble that my granny gave me.’

It was, in fact, a marble from Mrs Bonner’s solitaire board.

‘You have a granny, then,’ said Maud.

‘She is almost fully equipped, you see,’ Lizzie giggled.

It was killing. If they had not loved the little girl, it would have been different, of course. Any further expression of their love was prevented, however, by Miss Trevelyan herself, who had begun to shake the hand-bell.

Then the big girls gathered their spotless books, touched their sleek hair, looked down their immaculate fronts, and resumed their rehearsal for life in the walk towards the house. How important their hips were, and their long necks, and their rather pale wrists.

Miss Trevelyan returned the bell to the place where it always stood.

At the Misses Linsleys’ Academy for Young Ladies, at which she had been employed as a resident mistress for almost two years, Miss Trevelyan was held in universal respect. If she was too diffident to distribute her affections prodigally, especially amongst the cold and proud, those affections did exist, and were constantly being discovered by some blundering innocent. So she was loved in certain quarters. When she was disliked, it was almost always by those to whom justice appeared unjust, and there were the ones, besides, who feared and hated whatever they did not understand.

Nobody misunderstood Laura Trevelyan better than Mrs Bonner, and her niece’s decision to accept employment as a school mistress, after her miraculous recovery from that strange illness, might have caused the aunt endless concern, even bitter resentment, if she had thought more deeply about it, but Mrs Bonner was most fortunate in that she was able to banish thought almost completely from her head.

Upon Laura’s first announcing her decision, it must be admitted she sustained a shock.

‘People will laugh at us,’ she declared.

There is no more grievous prospect for persons of distinction; but upon investigating the nature of the Misses Linsleys’ venture, and discovering that its aim was to provide for a mere handful of girls, of the best landed class, the refinements of a home in a scholastic atmosphere, Mrs Bonner’s resistance virtually collapsed, and if she continued to grumble, it was only on principle.

‘It is the kind of step a distressed gentlewoman is forced into taking,’ she felt compelled to say, ‘or some poor immigrant girl without connexions in the Colony.’

‘It is surprising to me,’ said the merchant, starting on a high note, because sometimes in conversation with his niece the breath would begin to flutter in his chest, ‘it is surprising that you have never contemplated matrimony, Laura. There is many a young fellow in the country would jump at the opportunity of union with such a respectable firm.’

‘I do not doubt it,’ said Laura, ‘but I would not care to be the reason for anybody’s marrying a store.’

‘It would be in the nature of a double investment,’ the uncle answered gallantly.

‘Mr Bonner,’ protested his wife, ‘I am prepared to believe bluntness a virtue in business, but in the family circle it is not nice.’

Laura laughed, and said:

‘If its motive is kindness, then it is indeed a virtue. My dear, good Uncle, I shall remember that virtue whenever I am entangled in arithmetic with a dozen inky little girls.’

‘Arithmetic!’ Mrs Bonner exclaimed. ‘Although I was born with a head for figures, I always hold that no lady can honestly profess mathematics. It is a man’s subject, and Miss Linsley would do well to call in some gentlemanly man. A thorough grounding is all-important in arithmetic.’

‘It is one of the subjects Miss Linsley informs me I shall be expected to teach,’ Laura said, and added: ‘Why should I not exercise my wits? They are all I brought into the country when I came here a poor immigrant. Yes, Uncle, your kindness apart, that is all I was. And now it is my hope to give the country something in return.’

‘My dear,’ Mrs Bonner laughed, and she was still a pretty girl, ‘you were always so earnest.’

‘The country,’ Mr Bonner began, ‘I am always the first to do my duty by the country.’

‘Indeed,’ said Mrs Bonner, ‘we are all a sacrifice to that, what with the servant question, and the climate, which is so ruinous to anyone’s complexion.’

‘I am inclined to be sallow,’ Laura admitted, and stood up.

‘And what of your duty to your family?’ Mr Bonner asked.

‘I was never yours,’ Laura told the unhappy truth, ‘except at moments, and by accident.’

‘I do sometimes wonder what is not by moments and accident,’ Mrs Bonner said, and sighed.

‘Oh, let us not talk of matters that are beyond our powers of control,’ Laura begged, and went out into the garden.

There her sensibilities were whipped by such a gritty wind that they became partly numbed.

Yet, there were many smiling days, including that on which she left her uncle’s house, with a few books, and such clothes as were suitable and necessary, packed in two trunks. If her possessions were meagre, so she had chosen.

‘Like some foolish nun,’ were Mrs Bonner’s last words.

But Laura was, and continued, content. The vows were rigorous that she imposed upon herself, to the exclusion of all personal life, certainly of introspection, however great her longing for those delights of hell. The gaunt man, her husband, would not tempt her in. If he still possessed her in her sleep, those who were most refreshed by the fruits of that passion were, with herself, unconscious of the source.

Miss Linsley did once stir, and remark to her younger sister, Hester:

‘I am sensible of the enthusiasm this young woman has breathed into the life of the school, and grateful for the devotion which inspires her efforts, but do you consider it desirable that she should single out individual girls and read poetry with them in her bedroom?’