CHAPTER V
THE DEVENTER GIRLS
I suppose this is as good a place as any to bring in and explain thedaughters of the house of Deventer. I had known them ever since I couldremember. First as "kids" to be properly despised, then as long-legged,short-skirted, undistinguishable entities, useful at fielding, butremarkably bad at throwing in to the wicket.
During our long stay at the _lycee_ these creatures had been at schoolsof their own. Their hair had gradually darkened and lengthened, so thatit could be more easily tugged. It had been gathered up and arrangedabout their heads at a period which synchronised with the lengthening oftheir skirts, and the complete retirement of the ankles which had oncebeen so freely whacked with hockey sticks and even (I regret to say)kicked at football practice.
There was no great difference in age between the girls. They might havebeen triplets, but denied the accusation fiercely and unanimously, withmore of personal feeling than seemed necessary. Often as court of lastappeal the arbitration of their mother had to be referred to. In hergentle cooing voice she would give the names of the various medical menwho had ushered them into the world. These were settled in variousmineralogical centres.
"There was Doctor Laidlaw of Coatbridge. He was Rhoda Polly's. A finesharp man was Doctor Laidlaw, sandy-whiskered, but given to profaneswearing. Not that he ever swore in _my_ presence, but he had the namefor it among the colliers and ironworkers."
"It's from him," insinuated Hugh, "that Rhoda Polly gets hervocabulary."
"That's as it may be," his mother would reply patiently, her thoughtstravelling before her to pick out number two.
"Let me see. For Hannah I had Doctor Butterworth--Tom Butterworth ofBarrow-in-Furness--and of all the upsetting conceited creatures on thisearth, commend me to Tom. Tom-Show-a-Leg he was called, because he cameto the balls in knee-breeches and silk stockings. But for all that Iwill never deny that he did his duty by Hannah, though at times I had myown adoes to keep Dennis from heaving him out of the window.
"And there was Liz, poor thing. She had to put up with a 'locum' atHerbestal, in Belgium, before your father came here. There was not anEnglish doctor in the place, but it made no great difference, for MadameBatyer was wiser than a whole college of doctors, and I will alwaysthink that beginning to be used to the language so soon has improvedLiz's French accent!"
Obviously it was impossible for me during my salad days to escape fromfalling in love with one or other of these three pretty girls. I solvedthe question by falling in love with all three in turns, the rotation ofcrops being determined chiefly by whose vacations coincided with mine.
This bred no jealousies, for the girls were large-minded, and at thattime a sweetheart more or less had no particular significance for them.
Rhoda Polly was the learned one; she had been to college at Selborne,and still retained in speech and manner something Oxonian and aloof. Butreally she was gentle and humble-minded, eager with sympathy, and onlyshy because afraid of proffering it where it was not wanted. Rhoda Pollywas a creamy blonde with abundant rippling hair, clearly cut smallfeatures, and the most sensitive of mouths. Yet she was full of the mostunselfish courage, ready for long smiling endurances, and with thatunusual feminine silence which enables a woman to keep her griefs toherself and even to deceive others into thinking she has none.
Did anyone want anything, Rhoda Polly would find it. Had two ticketsonly been sent for the theatre, Rhoda Polly would not mind staying athome. Rhoda Polly never minded anything. She did not cry half theafternoon like Hannah over a spoilt dress, nor fall into any of Liz'sminiature rages. She was Rhoda Polly, and everybody depended upon her.The girls confided in her largely, and never expected her to have anysecrets of her own for truck, barter, or exchange.
Hannah had been delicate always--or at least had been so considered byher mother.
Her character had been formed between her mother's favour and her eldersister's habit of giving way rather than face an argument. She was darkand slender, placidly sure of being always right, and of looking best ina large picture hat with a raven plume.
Hannah had been sent to school near Lausanne, which was kept by thedaughter of the famous Froebel, assisted by a relative of the still morefamous Pestalozzi. An English lady was in residence at thePestalozzi-Froebel Institute, to teach the pupils the aristocraticmanners, so rare and necessary an accomplishment in a country where thePresident of the Republic returns from his high office to put on hisgrocer's apron, and goes on weighing out pounds of tea at the counter ofthe old shop which had been his father's before him.
Liz was all dimples and easy manners, the plaything of the house. Sheknew she could do no wrong, so long as she went on opening wide her eyesof myosotis blue, now purring and now scratching like a kitten; shewould often dart away for no reason whatever, only to come back a minuteafter, having apparently forgotten the cause of her brusquedisappearance. She was accordingly a good deal spoilt, not only by theyoung engineers who frequented the Chateau Schneider, but by her parentsand sisters as well.
One of the former, asked the reason of a decided preference for Liz,declared that it was because she could never be mistaken for a Frenchconvent-bred girl. It was pointed out to him that the same might be saidfor the other two, but he stuck to his point. Rhoda Polly with herOxford manner of condescending to undergraduates, and Hannah with thePestalozzi Institute refinements, might speak and look as if they had aduenna hidden in the background, but Liz--never! She was more likely tobox somebody's ears.