a tree, or in a human face. And perhaps the others afterwards discovered this and more, far more than I did (because Marcella Martin became an artist). But at that time we gabbled continuously and extravagantly, not about these things but about ourselves and our likes and dislikes, about the “thrilling” or the “loathsome” hockey, the heavenly swimming, the school play, the bread puddings, our friends and their brothers, a new dress and “what Marion said. My dear, it was a scream!” – these were the things which mattered so much then, and which are now almost forgotten, while what remains clearer and more lasting even than the cheerful reality of old Mrs. Richards beaming anxiously behind a large brown teapot, is a still reflection of mountains in a round mirror.
It was at the end of my last term at Mrs. Richards’ that I saw Hetty Dorval again.
Three of us were in the town, choosing a good-bye present for old Mrs. Richards. As we leaned over the counter, I looked up, and there, across the large jewellery store, was Hetty. She was as beautiful there as when, in Lytton, no one had challenged comparison, and she made everyone else in the shop appear ordinary. She held up a string of pearls and looked at them, intent, her pretty head tilted connoisseur-wise. Mrs. Broom stood beside her. Hetty turned to Mrs. Broom and spoke. I could almost hear her tone, cajoling, “Mouse,
which
would you have if you were me?” I looked away from her in something like panic. I did not want, now, to be enthralled by or involved with Hetty again. Neither, didI imagine, would Hetty welcome a school girl in a navy blue uniform. Mouse certainly would not. So I turned my back on where they stood, and bent over the counter once more. I felt a little shamefaced and agitated.
Mother had been very clever about Hetty. Mother was no psychologist by the book, but she had a good working knowledge of human beings. Instead of keeping the Hetty episode as a dark corner of my young life, Hetty was trotted out into the open, but only when it seemed natural. “You mustn’t mind, Frankie, but Father and I always call her The Menace, because she was, you know.” Mother had never seen Hetty, and I could not bring myself to try, and to fail, to describe what Hetty looked like, and the feeling that she gave people. I should have sounded silly.
The importance and excitement of my last week at school vanished and never returned, with the news that Ernestine had been drowned in trying to save her dog. When we are young we have, by nature, no concern with permanent change or with death. Life is forever. Then suddenly comes the moment when death makes the entrance into experience, very simply, inexorably; our awareness is enlarged and we move forward with dismay into the common lot, and the bright innocent sureness of permanency has left us. There had never been a time when I could not remember my almost daily companion Ernestine; she was my very particular friend and I was hers, and nearly all our fun (and that was nearly all our life) had been together. And now Ernestine, not I, had waded regardless into the dull swirling shallows of the Fraser River and got caught in the current, and was gone. I was aghast at the mysterious ceasing-to-be of Ernestine, and in a new awe of her. On the journey home I had always watched with happy rising excitement for the first small bunch of sage growingbeside the railroad track (“There it is!”) which signified the change in vegetation, the beginning of the sage-brush country, Lytton, and home. But now I was only gloomily aware of it and of the slowing up of the train at Lytton station, which looked surprisingly the same as before. But Mother and Father were waiting there. I saw Mother’s raised face and her bright eyes searching the windows with the comfort of a familiar and loving look. – Do you not know it, that look? – We drove away across the Bridge and along the dusty hairpin road, home.
Perhaps it was
It was at the end of my last term at Mrs. Richards’ that I saw Hetty Dorval again.
Three of us were in the town, choosing a good-bye present for old Mrs. Richards. As we leaned over the counter, I looked up, and there, across the large jewellery store, was Hetty. She was as beautiful there as when, in Lytton, no one had challenged comparison, and she made everyone else in the shop appear ordinary. She held up a string of pearls and looked at them, intent, her pretty head tilted connoisseur-wise. Mrs. Broom stood beside her. Hetty turned to Mrs. Broom and spoke. I could almost hear her tone, cajoling, “Mouse,
which
would you have if you were me?” I looked away from her in something like panic. I did not want, now, to be enthralled by or involved with Hetty again. Neither, didI imagine, would Hetty welcome a school girl in a navy blue uniform. Mouse certainly would not. So I turned my back on where they stood, and bent over the counter once more. I felt a little shamefaced and agitated.
Mother had been very clever about Hetty. Mother was no psychologist by the book, but she had a good working knowledge of human beings. Instead of keeping the Hetty episode as a dark corner of my young life, Hetty was trotted out into the open, but only when it seemed natural. “You mustn’t mind, Frankie, but Father and I always call her The Menace, because she was, you know.” Mother had never seen Hetty, and I could not bring myself to try, and to fail, to describe what Hetty looked like, and the feeling that she gave people. I should have sounded silly.
The importance and excitement of my last week at school vanished and never returned, with the news that Ernestine had been drowned in trying to save her dog. When we are young we have, by nature, no concern with permanent change or with death. Life is forever. Then suddenly comes the moment when death makes the entrance into experience, very simply, inexorably; our awareness is enlarged and we move forward with dismay into the common lot, and the bright innocent sureness of permanency has left us. There had never been a time when I could not remember my almost daily companion Ernestine; she was my very particular friend and I was hers, and nearly all our fun (and that was nearly all our life) had been together. And now Ernestine, not I, had waded regardless into the dull swirling shallows of the Fraser River and got caught in the current, and was gone. I was aghast at the mysterious ceasing-to-be of Ernestine, and in a new awe of her. On the journey home I had always watched with happy rising excitement for the first small bunch of sage growingbeside the railroad track (“There it is!”) which signified the change in vegetation, the beginning of the sage-brush country, Lytton, and home. But now I was only gloomily aware of it and of the slowing up of the train at Lytton station, which looked surprisingly the same as before. But Mother and Father were waiting there. I saw Mother’s raised face and her bright eyes searching the windows with the comfort of a familiar and loving look. – Do you not know it, that look? – We drove away across the Bridge and along the dusty hairpin road, home.
Perhaps it was
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