The Carbonels

Mr Harford, not quite accustomed to the popular use of the verb to terrify, began to ask what the child had done to alarm her mother so much and Nancy, understanding him as little, said, “’Tis all along of Dame Verdon, ma’am. She be for to say that the new governess will beat them and send them off to Minsterham, as sure as they’re alive; and I told Bet not to believe no such stuff, but her won’t listen to I—”

Mr Harford was the more mystified. Why should she send them to Minsterham? And what was the child afraid of? Mrs Carbonel had more notion. Minsterham was the assize town, and going thither was a polite form of mentioning the being before a court of justice.

“Elizabeth need have no fears of a prison,” she said. “She is a silly child to be frightened; but when she sees that the other children like school, and that nothing happens to them, she will know better. Don’t beat her, it will only frighten her more.”

“If it is your will, ma’am, I’ll let her off; but I’ll give her the stick another time, as sure as she is alive, the little toad.”

“Hopeful,” said the lady and gentleman to each other, as soon as she was out of sight, and they could laugh.

It was indeed uphill work in every sense that was before Mrs Thorpe, but the effect was visible in much improvement in the general demeanour of the children. A chair was found for her where she sat among them at church, and prevented the outrageous misconduct that the ladies had been unable effectively to check; and the superior readers were gradually acquiring a very cheap form of Prayer-book, with only Matins and Evensong and the Collects, besides the Psalms.

But that the children sat on the chancel steps, and that kneeling in church was unknown to them, never occurred as an irreverence to any of the party, though as Mr Harford read the ante-Communion service from the altar instead of disrobing himself of his surplice in the pulpit just before the sermon, he had to walk through the whole school, making those in his way stand up to let him pass.

The singers, on the establishment of a double service, began to absent themselves at least once on a Sunday, so Mr Harford and the ladies tried to arrange for the singing of the children instead. He had no knowledge of music, which was then thought a rather doubtful accomplishment for a young man, and Mrs Thorpe had, if possible, less, so all that could be done was for Dora to train the children by ear; and she found that their thin, shrill notes were held as painful by all save a few doting mothers, her sisters, and herself. The captain laughed at her, and finally promised her a grinding organ. It came; it could play four tunes, and all the singers were naturally offended. But on the first Sunday there was a great catastrophe, for when once set on it would not stop, but went on playing its four tunes long after the Old Hundredth was finished. Mr Harford waited to begin the Prayer for King George till it had finished, hoping that it would stop, if not at the end of the second tune at least at the fourth; but, behold, it started off with the Old Hundredth again, upon which Captain Carbonel emerged from his pew, and, with the help of Master Pucklechurch, bore it out into the churchyard, where it continued to play till after the service, when there was time to check its pertinacity by adjustment of the machinery. At its best, the singers—even George Hewlett—were much hurt, and the compromise was made that it never should uplift its voice when they were present in full force with bass, flute, and viol, but should only draw forth its four tunes when there were only the children to need the accompaniment.

Even then, Dan Hewlett, who unluckily had the best voice of all, swore that he would never come to church again while “they had that there horgin to buzz away like a big bumbledore;” and he kept his word.

“You see, ma’am, he has his feelings,” said Molly.

He would fain have made all his family join in the secession; but Johnnie would not be kept away from Sunday School; and Molly had heard rumours of penny clubs and of prizes at Christmas so, though the other children were very irregular, she kept them on after a fashion.

Chapter Eleven.

An Unprofitable Crop

“My mother bids me bind my hair.”

    —Old Ballad.

“Oh Mary, Mary, what is to be done about the hair?” cried Sophy, one Sunday after church.

“Isn’t it dreadful?” said Dora. “Those fearful curl-papers sticking out with rolls of old newspapers! I told them it was not fit to be seen last Sunday, but there were even Elizabeth and Jane Hewlett in them to-day.”

“Yes,” said Mary, “they said that mother’s aunt was coming to tea, so she had curled them before they came out. I told them I would excuse it for this once, but that I should send any one home who came such a figure on Sunday.”

Elizabeth and Jane, be it observed, were George Hewlett’s daughters, the most civilised, if the dullest-witted, of the flock. Polly, Betsy, and Judy were the children of Dan Hewlett. As a rule, all the old women of the parish were called Betty, all the middle-aged Lizzie, and the girls Elizabeth.

“It is worse on week-days,” said Dora. “One would think it was a collection of little porcupines!”

“And so dirty,” began Sophy, but she was hushed up, for Edmund was seen approaching, and Mary never allowed him to be worried with the small, fretting details of school life.

It was a time when it was the fashion for young ladies up to their teens to have their hair curled in ringlets round their heads or on their shoulders. Sophy’s hair curled naturally, and had been “turned up” ever since she had come to live at home in the dignity of fourteen, but she and both her sisters wore falls of drooping ringlets in front, and in Mary’s case these had been used to be curled in paper at night, though she would as soon have been seen thus decorated by day as in her night-cap. But there was scarcely another matron in the parish who did not think a fringe of curl-paper the proper mode of disposing of her locks when in morning désabillé, unless she were elderly and wore a front, which could be taken off and put on with the best cap.

Maid-servants wore short curls or smooth folds round side-combs under net caps, and this was the usual trim of the superior kind of women. The working women wore thick muslin white caps, under which, it was to be hoped, their hair was cut short, though often it straggled out in unseemly elf-locks. Married women did not go bareheaded, not even the younger ladies, except in the evening, when, like their maiden sisters, they wore coils of their back hair round huge upright ornamental combs on the summit of their heads.

But the children’s heads were deservedly pain and grief to the Carbonel senses, and Mary was impelled to go and make a speech in school, desiring that no more curl-papers should appear there on Sundays, and recommending that all hair should be kept short, as her own and her sister’s had been, till the fit age for the “turning up” was attained. She called up Susan Pucklechurch and Rachel Mole, who had nice smooth hair neatly parted in the middle, and declared them to be examples of the way that heads ought to appear.

That afternoon the women stood out at their gates. “So the lady told you to take pattern by Widdy Mole’s child, did her?” said Nanny Barton, loud enough for all her neighbours to hear.

“Ay, mother, by Rachel Mole and Susie Pucklechurch.”

“As if I’d go out of my way to follow after a mean creeper and low thing like Widow Mole,” exclaimed Mrs Barton.

“She knows which way her bread is buttered. A-making favourites!” exclaimed Nancy Morris.

“Getting in to work in the garding away from Farmer Goodenough, as her man had worked for for years, ay, and his before un,” chimed in Nanny Barton.

“And if you could see the platefuls and cupfuls as the ladies carries out to her,” added Betsy Seddon. “My word and honour! No wonder she is getting lively enough just to bust some day.”

“That’s the way she comes over them,” said Nanny Barton.

“That’s what them gentlefolks likes, and Bessy Mole she knows it,” observed Nancy Morris; at which they all laughed shrilly.

“As though I’d take pattern by her,” exclaimed Nanny Barton. “I’d liefer take pattern by Softy Sam, or Goodenough’s old scarecrow.”

“Whatever’s that?” demanded Tirzah, coming out of the “Fox and Hounds.” “What have they been after now?”

“Just the lady’s been a preachin’ down at that there school, how that she don’t want no curl-papers there, and that all the poor children’s heads is to be clipped like boys, and setting up that there Rachel Mole’s bowl-dish of a poll to set the fashion.”

“There! As I telled you,” said Tirzah. “That’s the way gentry always goes on if they gets their way.”

“They just hates to see a curl or a bit of ribbon,” added Betsy Seddon.

“Or to see one have a bit of pleasure,” added Nancy Morris. “Pucklechurches and Mole, they never durst send their poor children to the fair—”

“And to hear the lady run out agin’ me for just having a drop of beer,” exclaimed Nanny Barton. “Nothing warn’t bad enough for me! As if she hadn’t her wine and all the rest of it, and a poor woman mayn’t touch one draught, if it is ever so—”

“Well, you know, Nan, you’d had a bit more than enough,” said Tirzah.

“Well, and what call to that was hern or yourn?” cried Nancy, facing upon her.

“A pretty job I had to get you home that night,” said Tirzah; and they all laughed. “And you wouldn’t be here now if Tom Postboy hadn’t pulled up his horses in time.”

“And was it for her to cast up to me if I was a bit overtaken?” demanded Nanny.

It may be supposed that after such a conversation as this there was not much chance of the bowl-dish setting the fashion. There was not the same ill-temper and jealousy of Susan Pucklechurch being held up as an example, for her family were the natural hangers-on of Greenhow, and were, besides, always neater and better dressed than the others; but Mrs Mole was even poorer than themselves, and had worked with them, even while “keeping herself to herself,” a great offence in their eyes. Thus nobody was inclined to follow the clipped fashion, except one or two meeker women, who had scarcely seen that their girls’ hair was getting beyond bounds. It is to be remembered that seventy years ago, long hair could hardly be kept in respectable trim by busy mothers working in the fields, and with much less power of getting brushes and combs than at present; so that the crops were almost the only means of securing cleanliness and tidiness, and were worn also by all the little daughters of such gentry as did not care for fashion, nor for making them sleep on a ring of lumps as big as walnuts. So that Mrs Carbonel and her sisters really wished for what was wholesome and proper when they tried to make the children conform to their rules, if the women could only have seen it so, instead of resenting the interference.

Sunday brought George Hewlett’s two girls with their hair fastened up in womanly guise, and their cousins becurled as before; but there was nothing particularly untidy, and Mary held her peace.

However, the war was not over, and one day, when, after a short absence, Dora and Sophy went into the school, they found five or six girls bristling with twists of old newspapers, and others in a still more objectionable condition, with wild unkempt hair about their necks, and the half-dozen really neat ones were on the form around Mrs Thorpe, who proceeded to tell Dora that she was quite in despair, the more she spoke to the girls about tidy heads, the worse they were, and she was really afraid to let her own children or the clean ones sit near the dirty ones.

Dora’s spirit was roused. “Very well,” she said, “Mrs Carbonel and I will not be disobeyed. Come here, Lizzie Barton. Your head is disgraceful. Lend me your scissors, Mrs Thorpe.”

Lizzie Barton began to cry, with her knuckles in her eyes, and would not stir; but Dora was resolute. One child made a rush for the door; but Dora desired Sophy to stand by the door and bar the passage, and called Mrs Thorpe to hold Lizzie Barton, who certainly was a spectacle, with half-a-dozen horns twisted out of old advertisement papers, but the rest of her hair flying in disgusting elf-locks. She was cowed, however, into standing quiet, till her appendages had been sheared off by the determined scissors. “There, I am sure you must be much more comfortable,” Dora assured her. “Get your mother to wash your head, and you will look so nice to-morrow. Now then, Betsy Hewlett.”

Betsy cried, but submitted; but the next victim, Sally French, howled and fought, and said, “Mammy would not have it done.” But Dora sternly answered, “Then she should keep your head fit to be seen.” And Mrs Thorpe held down her hands, with whispers of “Now, my dear, don’t.”

And so it went on through nineteen girls, the boys sniggering all the time. Some cried and struggled, but latterly they felt it was their fate, and resisted no longer. Even Mary Cox, who had a curly head by nature, stood still to be clipped. Dora’s hands were in a dreadful state, and her mind began to quail a little; but, having once started, she felt bound to go on and complete her work, and when she finally dismissed the school, there was a very undesirable heap of locks, brown, black, and carroty, interspersed with curl-papers, on the floor. The girls looked, to her mind, far better, and Mrs Thorpe, a little doubtful, gave her a basin of water to wash her hands.