The Lark Read online

  When the war ended Jane was nineteen. She felt incredibly grown up. For two years she and Lucilla had devoted the whole of their fortnightly letters to their trustee – now their guardian – to entreaties to be allowed to leave school.

  ‘And he never takes the least notice,’ Jane said to Lucilla on the first day of the summer holidays; ‘he just sends boxes of chocs., and bottles of scent, and embroidered handkerchiefs, and books and things, and tells us to be good girls and complete our studies and fit ourselves for the battle of life. Not much battle, thank goodness! I heard the Head once asking Miss Graves, in that “life is real, life is earnest” voice of hers, what she thought was the most beautiful thing in the world. And Gravy said, “The most beautiful thing in the world? A small but settled income, I think. And no work.” The Head was sick.’

  ‘I don’t mind work so much,’ said Lucilla, going on with her knitting, ‘so long as you don’t have to do the sort of work other people say you must. If I had to do this I should hate it.’ She heaved up the lumpish grey mass on her lap. ‘As it is, I like it.’

  ‘I don’t like anything here,’ said Jane; ‘we’re wasting our youth – our precious, golden, unreturning youth. I want to do things and see the world.’

  ‘Please, miss,’ said a maid at the door, ‘the post is in, and you’re both to go and see Her. I hope it ain’t bad trouble,’ she added sympathetically; ‘and afterwards, if there’s anything I can do … There’s something up, miss. There was a letter for you, and she kep’ it back at breakfast – and one for you, miss, too. It isn’t safe to let ’em write by post, it really isn’t.’

  ‘To let who write, Gladys?’

  ‘The young men as you walks out with,’ Gladys explained kindly. ‘At least, of course you young ladies don’t walk out, being kept alive in a cage, so to speak, but I expect it’s the same at heart. I gets the confectioner’s girl to take in my letters,’ she added with simple pride. ‘It’s best to be on the safe side in a house full of old cats like this here. Is he dark or fair, miss – yours I mean?’ she suddenly asked Jane.

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Your young man.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jane. ‘I haven’t got a young man yet.’

  ‘Then the letter can’t be from him,’ said Gladys, with irresistible logic.

  ‘No, it certainly can’t. But it might be from somebody else. In fact it must. I wonder how long she means to keep us in suspense? When are we to go and see her? After dinner?’

  ‘Oh no. She is looking forward to the blow-up she’s getting ready for you to give her an appetite for dinner. Do you know, miss, I shouldn’t wonder if it was a nonny-mous letter from a true friend, or “one who has only seen you in church but wants to know you better”, or “a respectable admirer who picked up your umbrella”. Thursday week as you got off the tram. Oh, I saw him, miss. It was my afternoon out.’

  ‘I always enjoy your conversation, Gladys,’ said Lucilla gravely, ‘but have you no work to do this morning?’

  ‘Oh, very well’; the round, pink face of Gladys clouded over, and she tossed her head. ‘Just as you please, miss, I’m sure. I can take a hint as well as anybody. I never intrude and I never say a word more than needful. If my room’s preferred to my company I never linger. But oh, I say, miss, have either of you noticed the new baker’s boy? He’s just like a picture, blue eyes and golden curls, six feet high and four medals, and he can talk French. He says lots of it. I don’t know exactly what it means, but he has such expressing eyes.’

  ‘Gladys, begone!’ cried Jane; ‘but before you go just tell us when we’re to go to the Head.’

  ‘I’ve told you a dozen times, if once,’ said Gladys reproachfully, ‘that you’re not to lose a moment. I shouldn’t even wait to comb my hair or powder my nose if I was you, miss. She’s waiting for you in her own room, and I was to tell you to go down at once. And my advice is, you go and get it over. Because why …’

  They found the Headmistress in her sitting-room – the room so well adapted to the beguiling of parents, the room so tasteful and yet so learned-looking – books, flowers, autotypes from Watts and Burne-Jones, busts of Mozart and Socrates; ‘all kinds of cultivated tastes catered for,’ as Jane used to say.

  The Head was not looking pleased. She held in her hand three letters, and said, ‘Be seated,’ without looking at her pupils. Then she tapped one of the letters, the open one, on the neat fumed-oak writing-table before her, looked out of her window, and asked:

  ‘Had you any idea of this?’

  ‘What?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Of what,’ corrected the Head mechanically. ‘Perhaps you had better read your letters.’ She handed a square, hand-made envelope to each. There was the sound of torn and rustling paper. The canary in the window rustled sympathetically among his sand and groundsel.

  ‘Well?’ said the Head. ‘I suppose your letter contains the same news as mine?’

  ‘I suppose so, Miss James,’ said Jane. ‘Mine – but you’d better read it, perhaps.’

  Miss James read it, aloud.

  ‘Dear Jane,

  ‘Please take the 12 o’clock train to London on Wednesday. You will be met at Paddington. I have made all arrangements for you and enclose notes for expenses.

  ‘I am writing to Miss James, and no doubt she will be willing to accept a term’s fees instead of a term’s notice. Bring all your luggage. You will not return to school.

  ‘Yours very truly,

  ‘Arthur Panton.’

  ‘Mine’s the same,’ said Lucilla.

  ‘And you had no idea of this?’

  ‘No,’ said both the girls.

  ‘It is very sudden,’ said the Head. ‘I feel it very much.’

  ‘Cheap!’ said the canary.

  ‘We should have had to leave some time,’ said Lucilla.

  ‘You are now,’ began Miss James, leaning back comfortably, ‘going out into the world. You will no longer have the guiding hand, the mature mind, the affectionate heart of your teachers to rely on. You will be free …’

  ‘Sweet, sweet, sweet!’ said the canary.

  ‘… from all the restraints of school. Let it be your care …’ Miss James went on. And we need not follow her further. Every girl who has left school knows exactly what she said. The last words were all that mattered.

  ‘The matron will pack your boxes to-day. You had better assist her. And never forget in the rush of the battle of life that you are St Olave’s girls. Let that thought be your shield and your banner. Be proud of the school, and let all your actions be such as shall make the school proud of you.’

  ‘Yes, Miss James,’ said the two girls meekly.

  Outside her door they fell into each other’s arms, breathless with whispered ecstasies.

  ‘How quite too perfectly ripping!’ said Jane.

  ‘To-morrow!’ said Lucilla. ‘It’s like something in a book – a bolt from the blue.’

  ‘A bolt from the blue-stockings,’ said Jane. ‘Come away, or she’ll catch us.’

  ‘I feel as if someone had left me a fortune …’

  ‘I feel as if I were going to elope.’

  It was not till most of their books and work and little possessions had been collected and set ready for the packing that they were sufficiently sobered to question the future.

  ‘I wonder where we’re going to live, though?’ Lucilla said over the pile of books she was carrying.

  ‘What does that matter,’ said Jane, ‘so long as it’s not here? When persons escape from the Bastille they never ask where they’re going to live. With him, perhaps. Keep his house and entertain his clients. I say, Lucilla, let’s keep a salon, and make dear Guardian’s invitations the most sought after in London.’

  ‘I don’t think!’ said Lucilla. ‘I expect he’s engaged a tabby to chaperone us. I hope she’s an engaging tabby.’

  ‘Oh, don’t let’s bother,’ said Jane, turning a drawer full of ribbons and gloves on to the floor. ‘Help me to sort thes
e. I nearly cried yesterday when all the other girls kept going away in cab after cab – to say nothing of the motors – and we left behind, and dear Emmie in Norway on her wedding tour and nobody to lend us a helping hand. And now ours very truly, Arthur Panton, has turned up trumps. May the choicest blessings – Look out, those chocs. are sticky. Don’t let them loose among my collars!’

  Glad as wild birds released from their cage, the cousins parted from Miss James. Their faces were serious and respectful, but each heart danced like the sea on a breezy sunny morning. The world was before them: school was behind. They were travelling to London alone – no chaperone; they were no longer schoolgirls, they were young women. The matron saw them off at the station – a kind, stupid woman, but not stupid enough for it to be necessary for them to maintain the serious and respectful mask before her.

  ‘I wish we’d seen Gladys to say good-bye,’ they said. ‘You might give her this for us.’ They pressed half-crowns on the matron. ‘Poor old Gladys, she –’

  They were getting into the train, when a clatter of clumsy feet made them turn. It was Gladys, but panting and almost in tears.

  ‘Thought I’d missed it,’ she exclaimed, thrusting a large box into the carriage. ‘It’s a parting present, miss. For both of you.’

  ‘We shall prize it for ever, whatever it is,’ said Lucilla.

  ‘I got it from me brother,’ said Gladys, ‘that’s why I’m so late. It’s just like him to live the other end of the town. I do wish you wasn’t going! I don’t know whatever I shall do now you’ve gone. For of all the old –’

  ‘Shish!’ said Jane.

  ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Blake – I didn’t see you were there. Oh, good-bye, Miss Jane dear, and you too, Miss Lucy, I’m sure! Good-bye!’

  Miss Blake pulled her back. A porter banged the door and the train moved off.

  They waved hands from the window till the station was out of sight. Then, withdrawing their heads from the window, they stumbled over Gladys’s present.

  ‘Let’s see what it is,’ said Jane.

  It was a fine black rabbit in a home-made hutch, not new.

  ‘Well, perhaps it’s lucky,’ said Jane; ‘like black cats, you know. We’ll call it Othello. Poor old Gladys!’

  It was a delicious journey. The wildest speculations concerning their future brightened every mile of it. At Paddington they were met by a sour-looking man who announced himself as Mr Panton’s head clerk.

  ‘But how do you know it’s us?’ Jane asked.

  ‘I’ve been shown your photos,’ he said. ‘This way to the car.’

  It was a beautiful car. Behind it stood a taxi for their luggage.

  ‘I feel like a duchess,’ said Jane in the car.

  ‘Your hat’s all on one side,’ said Lucilla beside her.

  ‘That will be all then?’ said the clerk at the window. ‘This is the address,’ and he thrust a paper at them. ‘The man knows where to go. And this,’ he said finally, dropping something cold into Lucilla’s hand, ‘is the key. Drive on!’

  And the car slid out of the station.

  ‘The key! Whatever of?’ Lucilla asked.

  ‘Heaven alone knows. Perhaps we are being kidnapped. Oh, Lucy, how frightfully exciting.’

  ‘But what’s it the key of?’

  ‘A house. Unless it’s the key of a mausoleum, like Emmeline’s great aunt battered at the door of.’

  ‘But why a key? Oh, Jane, suppose that dusty person at the station didn’t really recognise us? Suppose he thought we were somebody else, and this is somebody else’s key? Or suppose we’re really being kidnapped? Held for ransom, you know, till our guardian shells out. The key – it’s so heavy; it might be the key of a church.’

  ‘Whatever else it is, it’s the key of our future. Don’t let’s get fluttered, Lucy, like two silly schoolgirls. Where’s the paper with the address on it?’

  They found it on the floor among their rugs and bags and umbrellas. Lucilla unfolded it.

  ‘What does it say?’ Jane asked.

  It said ‘Hope Cottage’, adding the names of a road and a suburb.

  ‘There,’ said Jane, ‘that’s all serene. It’s Guardy’s handwriting right enough. It’s not a bad hand. Curious we’ve never seen him. He had very good taste in chocs. and books. I daresay he’s quite a decent sort. I wonder if he’ll let us travel by ourselves? Abroad, I mean?’

  ‘Italy,’ said Lucilla.

  ‘Egypt,’ said Jane.

  ‘Greece.’

  ‘Mexico.’

  ‘Spain.’

  ‘Samoa.’

  ‘But about this key!’ Lucilla began again, but Jane stopped her with a squeak of triumph.

  ‘I know! This car is for us, and this is the key of the garage. How unspeakably splendid! Our guardian is one in a million! I wonder how much money Aunt Lucilla did leave us? It must be an awful lot if it runs to a car like this.’

  And all the time the car was worming its swift, gliding way through strange crowded streets, between unfamiliar rows of gloomy houses and brilliant shops. It crossed the Thames, and the roads became sordid. It left the sordidness behind and passed among villas whose gardens grew larger as they slipped past. Then came trees – fields – more villas.

  ‘It’s almost real country,’ said Lucilla. ‘I hope Hope Cottage is bowered in roses and jasmine. It must be a big cottage to have a garage.’

  ‘I should like it thatched,’ said Jane, ‘but I suppose that’s too much to expect.’

  More big gardens – a road that was almost a lane, with fields on one side and cabbage-fields on the other – some half-built houses – some trees – another cabbage-field – and then suddenly the motor stopped, purring, before a little yellow brick house as square as the rabbit-hutch itself and almost as small.

  The chauffeur got down and opened the door. He had quite a nice face, Lucilla thought.

  ‘This is Hope Cottage,’ he said. And, indeed, a black description on its white gate said so in plain capitals.

  They gathered their belongings together and got out. The chauffeur unlatched the gate for them, and they passed up a tiled path to a narrow green door.

  ‘Oh, Jane, this can’t be right!’ Lucilla whispered.

  ‘Where’s the key?’ said Jane.

  A large key-hole invited it. It turned easily, and the door opening showed a vision of a narrow carpeted passage and steeply-rising stairs.

  ‘Good afternoon, miss,’ said the chauffeur; ‘the taxi is paid for.’

  ‘But here – I say, stop a minute!’ said Lucilla.

  ‘Sorry – another appointment,’ he said. ‘You’ll find it’s quite all right. This is Hope Cottage,’ and he turned to his machine still pulsing loudly.

  ‘No, you don’t!’ cried Jane, and, springing to the gate, caught him by the arm. A look of positive terror came over his face.

  ‘My dear young lady,’ he said, ‘surely you won’t detain me by force?’

  ‘Yes, I will,’ said Jane. ‘You can’t go off and leave us like this.’

  ‘Mr Panton told me to bring you here, miss. I assure you it’s all quite as he arranged. You need be under no apprehension.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said shortly. ‘But I’m not going to let you go till you’ve helped to get the boxes in. How on earth do you suppose that taxi man’s going to get all those boxes up these stairs? Or do you expect us to do it?’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I never thought of that. Of course I will,’ and he turned to the waiting taxi and began to haul at a suit-case.

  ‘You must take them all upstairs. There’s no room in this passage for luggage.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said the chauffeur; ‘please don’t worry. I’ll manage everything.’

  He did. When motor and taxi had died away into silence Jane said:

  ‘That chauffeur was a gentleman. Did you notice his voice? And towards the end he quite forgot to call us “miss”. I thought he had an awfully nice face, didn’t you?’


  ‘We’ve got something to think of besides chauffeurs’ faces,’ said Lucilla. ‘There are no shops for miles, I expect, and I’m absolutely starving.’

  ‘Perhaps there’s something to eat in the house.’

  ‘Not likely,’ said Lucilla.

  ‘Well, let’s look over the house. It’s no use standing in the passage all night saying how hungry you are,’ said Jane impatiently.

  There were two little sitting-rooms, one on each side of the front door. The first was furnished primly in Middle-Victorian walnut and faded satin. It had a piano with a fluted yellow silk front, and glass lustres to the mantelpiece. A vase of roses stood on a table in the window.

  ‘Nothing to eat here!’ said Lucilla bitterly.

  But Jane had opened the door of the other room.

  ‘Oh, Lucy!’ she called. ‘Come here!’

  The second room was a little dining-room, with mahogany chiffonier and maple-framed engravings of the Monarch of the Glen, the Maid of Saragossa, and Bolton Abbey in the olden time. In the middle of the room stood a table – almost it seemed to beckon, with its white cloth, its gleams of silver and glass.

  ‘Cold chicken!’ said Lucilla. ‘Salad – raspberries – tea-things – milk – bread, butter, jam – everything! Oh, and cream! Oh, Jane!’