Chapter Two.

A Sunday Walk.

Florrie was troubled with no aspirations and with very few ideas. She was just like a young animal, and enjoyed her life much in the same way and with as little regard to consequences. When she and her little sisters came out of the great cemetery gates into a broad, cheerful, suburban road, the children ran on, afraid of being late. Florrie caught up, as she had expressed it, with Carrie Jones and Ada Price, also in the full glory of their new summer things, and both eagerly looking out for her. For Florrie was bigger, smarter, and more daring than any of them; she was the ringleader in their jokes, and bore the brunt of the scrapes consequent upon them; she was therefore a favourite companion. The three girls hurried along the sunny road, chattering and laughing, with their heads full of their new clothes, their friends, and themselves, so that there was not an atom of room left for the Bible lesson which they were about to receive. They came with a rush and a bounce into the parish room, where their class was held, just as the door was unfastened after the opening hymn, found their places with a scuffle and a titter, pulled some Bibles towards them, and looked all round to greet their special acquaintances, as the teacher began her lesson.

Florrie Whittaker did not behave worse than several others of the young, noisy, irrepressible creatures who sat round the table; but there was so much of her in every way that the teacher never lost the sense of her existence through the whole lesson. Miss Mordaunt was a clever, sensible lady, not very young, nor with any irresistible power of commanding attention, but quite capable of keeping her class together, and of repressing inordinately bad conduct. Sometimes her lessons were interesting and impressive, and, as she was human, sometimes they were rather dull; but the girls liked her as well as they liked anyone, and if they had been aware that they wanted a friend would have expected her to prove a kind one. But they were mostly young and well-to-do, with life in every limb and every feeling; and the Bible class was a very trifling incident to them.

Florrie felt quite good-naturedly towards her, but she did like to make the other girls laugh, and to know that she could upset nearly all of them if she liked. She was not clever enough to care with her mind for the history of Saint Paul, and she was no more open to any spiritual impression than the table at which she sat, new gloves to button and new hats to compare effectually occupying her attention. She jumped up when her class was over, a little more full of spirits for the slight restraint, and rushed out in a hurry with Carrie and Ada, that they might be round on the other side when the boys’ class came out, and see who was there.

It was general curiosity on Florrie’s part, and the desire to do what was disapproved of; her family were above the class who were likely to “walk with” anyone at fifteen, and she only hurried along giggling and whispering towards the riverside.

A pretty, sleepy, flat-country river ran through the meadows that lay round about Rapley, and the towing-path beside it was a favourite Sunday walk, and in its quieter regions was the resort of engaged couples, and of quiet families walking out with their babies in their perambulators. But the stretch of river between the suburban region where the cemetery lay and the church of Saint Jude, in the district of which it was included, was near the lower parts of the town, and on Sundays was full of roughs, and idle lads on the way to become roughs. No girls who were careful of their conduct and wished to keep out of noisy company would have gone there in the afternoon. Florrie Whittaker and her two friends knew quite well that they had no business to be in that direction; but a feint of pursuit from some of the lads as they hung about the classroom door sent them scurrying and looking behind them down the street, and they soon found themselves, in all their conspicuous finery, walking along the towing-path by the river. It was a shabby region; new and yet dirty little houses bordered it, their back yards and back gardens, each one less ornamental than the last, stretching down to the path, between which and the river were a few pollard willows. On the other side spread out a low-lying marshy region, which was generally flooded in the winter. A small public-house ended the row of houses where a swing gate led into the fields beyond.

“I say,” said Carrie, “we didn’t ought to have come down here. Mother ’ll give it me when I get back.”

“No more we’d ought,” said Ada. “If Miss Simpson were to hear of it, she’d say I was letting down the school. Come through the gate and across the fields, Florrie; this ain’t nice at all.”

“I don’t care,” said Florrie, stimulated by sundry remarks caught in passing; “we can take care on ourselves. I ain’t a-going to speak to anyone; but I’ll walk here as long as I like. Oh my! what fun it’d be if your governess did catch you, Ada!”

“You wouldn’t think it fun if Mrs Lee was to catch you,” said Ada.

“Oh my! shouldn’t I though?” said Florrie, with her beaming face all in a twinkle. “I’d like to see her coming through the gate. There’s a boat on the river; let’s stop and see it go by.”

“Don’t, Florrie Whittaker,” said Carrie. “There’s Liza Mason and Polly Grant, and I ain’t a-going to be seen with they.”

“Well, I am then,” said Florrie, delighted at teasing her friends, and quite indifferent to the fact that the two girls who joined them were of a much rougher, lower stamp than themselves—girls whose Sunday finery consisted of an artificial flower to enliven their weekday dirt, and who, poor things, were little general drudges in places which no respectable girl would take. Liza and Polly were nothing loth, when Florrie chose to acknowledge an old Sunday school fellowship in mischief by stopping to speak. Liza was saucy, and called out loudly that she thought they’d all be too proud to take any notice.

“Not I,” said Florrie. “I don’t care for no one. You come into our shop, Liza, any day, and I’ll show you all the best things in it.”

“That you won’t,” said one of a group of the Sunday school lads who had followed. “I’d dare you to do that—you’d be afraid.”

“I dare,” said Florrie. “You come in with an errand and see. I dare do anything I’ve a mind to; I don’t care for no one!”

“Florence Whittaker,” said Ada Price, the pupil-teacher getting the better of the mischievous, idle girl in her, “I’ll never walk with you again, you’re too bad—and—oh my, come on, for there is your Mrs Lee coming through the gate. Florrie, Florrie! She’ll see you in another minute!”

Ada and Carrie were indifferently behaved and common-minded girls, but they were not without some sense. A moderate amount of misbehaviour at, and on the road to and from their Sunday class was their way of enjoying their rather scanty bit of freedom; but risking their weekday