"Yes," said Barbara, gazing with adoring eyes.
"She"s going away next week. There"s another coming. I can do sums, can you?"
"Yes," again from Barbara.
"I can do up to twice-sixty-three. I"m nine. Miss Marsh says I"m clever."
"I"m seven," said Barbara.
"I could read when I was seven--long, long words. Can you read?"
At this moment there arrived the green-hatted Miss Marsh, a plump, optimistic person, to whom Miss Letts was gloomily patronising. Miss Letts always distrusted stoutness in another; it looked like deliberate insult. Mary Adams was conveyed away; Barbara was bereft of her glory.
But, rather, on that instant that Mary Adams vanished did she become glorified. Barbara had been too absurdly agitated to transform on to the mirror of her brain Mary"s appearance. In all the dim-coloured splendour of flame and mist was Mary now enwrapped, with every step that Barbara took towards her home did the splendour grow.
III
Then followed an invitation to tea from Mary"s mother. Barbara, preparing for the event, suffered her hair to be brushed, choked with strange half-sweet, half-terrible suffocation that comes from antic.i.p.ated glories: half-sweet because things will, at their worst, be wonderful; half-terrible because we know that they will not be so good as we hope.
Barbara, washed paler than ever, in a white frock with pink bows, was conducted by Miss Letts. She choked with terror in the strange hall, where she was received with great splendour by Mary. The schoolroom was large and fine and bright, finer far than Barbara"s room, swamped by the waters of religion and politics. Barbara could only gulp and gulp, and feel still at her throat that half-sweet, half-terrible suffocation.
Within her little body her heart, so huge and violent, was pounding.
"A very nice room indeed," said Miss Letts, more friendly now to the optimist because she was leaving in a day or two, and could not, therefore, at the moment be considered a success. Her failure balanced her plumpness.
Here, at any rate, was the beginning of a great friendship between Barbara Flint and Mary Adams. The character of Mary Adams was admittedly a difficult one to explore; her mother, a cloud of nurses and a company of governesses had been baffled completely by its dark caverns and recesses. One clue, beyond question, was selfishness; but this quality, by the very obviousness of it, may tempt us to believe that that is all.
It may account, when we are displeased, for so much. It accounted for a great deal with Mary--but not all. She had, I believe, a quite genuine affection for Barbara, nothing very disturbing, that could rival the question as to whether she would receive a second helping of pudding or no, or whether she looked better in blue or pink. Nevertheless, the affection was there. During several months she considered Barbara more than she had ever considered any one in her life before. At that first tea party she was aware, perhaps, that Barbara"s proffered devotion was for complete and absolute self-sacrifice, something that her vanity would not often find to feed it. There was, too, no question of comparison between them.
Even when Barbara grew to be nine she would be a poor thing beside the l.u.s.ty self-confidence of Mary Adams--and this was quite as it should be.
All that Barbara wanted was some one upon whom she might pour her devotion, and one of the things that Mary wanted was some one who would spend it upon her. But there stirred, nevertheless, some breath of emotion across that stagnant little pool, Mary"s heart. She was moved, perhaps, by pity for Barbara"s amazing simplicities, moved also by curiosity as to how far Barbara"s devotion to her would go, moved even by some sense of distrust of her own self-satisfaction. She did, indeed, admire any one who could realise, as completely as did Barbara, the greatness of Mary Adams.
It may seem strange to us, and almost terrible, that a small child of seven can feel anything as devastating as this pa.s.sion of Barbara. But Barbara was made to be swept by storms stronger than she could control, and Mary Adams was the first storm of her life. They spent now a great deal of their time together. Mrs. Adams, who was beginning to find Mary more than she could control, hailed the gentle Barbara with joy; she welcomed also perhaps a certain note of rather haughty protection which Mary seemed to be developing.
During the hours when Barbara was alone she thought of the many things that she would say to her friend when they met, and then at the meeting could say nothing. Mary talked or she did not talk according to her mood, but she soon made it very plain that there was only one way of looking at everything inside and outside the earth, and that was Mary"s way. Barbara had no affection, but a certain blind terror for G.o.d. It was precisely as though some one were standing with a hammer behind a tree, and were waiting to hit you on the back of your head at the first opportunity. But G.o.d was not, on the whole, of much importance; her Friend was the great problem, and before many days were pa.s.sed Mary was told all about him.
"He used to come often and often. He"d be there just where you wanted him--when the light was out or anything. And he _was_ nice." Barbara sighed.
Mary stared at her, seeming in the first full sweep of confidence, to be almost alarmed.
"You don"t mean----?" She stopped, then cried, "Why, you silly, you believe in ghosts!"
"No, I don"t," said Barbara, not far from tears.
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don"t."
"Of course you do, you silly."
"No, I don"t. He--he"s real."
"Well," Mary said, with a final toss of the head, "if you go seeing ghosts like that you can"t have me for your friend, Barbara Flint--you can choose, that"s all."
Barbara was aghast. Such a catastrophe had never been contemplated. Lose Mary? Sooner life itself. She resolved, sorrowfully, to say no more about her Friend. But here occurred a strange thing. It was as though Mary felt that over this one matter Barbara had eluded her; she returned to it again and again, always with contemptuous but inquisitive allusion.
"Did he come last night, Barbara?"
"No."
"P"r"aps he did, only you were asleep."
"No, he didn"t."
"You don"t believe he"ll come ever any more, do you? Now that I"ve said he isn"t there really?"
"Yes, I do."
"Very well, then, I won"t see you to-morrow--not at all--not all day--I won"t."
These crises tore Barbara"s spirit. Seven is not an age that can reason with life"s difficulties, and Barbara had, in this business, no reasoning powers at all. She would die for Mary; she could not deny her Friend. What was she to do? And yet--just at this moment when, of all others, it was important that he should come to her and confirm his reality--he made no sign. Not only did he make no sign, but he seemed to withdraw, silently and surely, all his supports. Barbara discovered that the company of Mary Adams did in very truth make everything that was not sure and certain absurd and impossible. There was visible no longer, as there had been before, that country wherein anything was possible, where wonderful things had occurred and where wonderful things would surely occur again.
"You"re pretending," said Mary Adams sharply when Barbara ventured some possibly extravagant version of some ordinary occurrence, or suggested that events, rich and wonderful, had occurred during the night.
"Nonsense," said Mary sharply.
She said "nonsense" as though it were the very foundation of her creed of life--as, indeed, to the end of her days, it was. What, then, was Barbara to do? Her friend would not come, although pa.s.sionately she begged and begged and begged that he would. Mary Adams was there every day, sharp, and shining, and resolved, demanding the whole of Barbara Flint, body and soul--nothing was to be kept from her, nothing. What was Barbara Flint to do?
She denied her Friend, denied that earlier world, denied her dreams and her hopes. She cried a good deal, was very lonely in the dark. Mary Adams, as was her way, having won her victory, pa.s.sed on to win another.
IV
Mary began, now, to find Barbara rather tiresome. Having forced her to renounce her G.o.ds, she now despised her for so easy a renunciation.
Every day did she force Barbara through her act of denial, and the Inquisition of Spain held, in all its records, nothing more cruel.
"Did he come last night?"
"No."
"He"ll never come again, will he?"
"No."
"Wasn"t it silly of you to make up stories like that?"
"Oh, Mary--yes."
"There aren"t ghosts, nor fairies, nor giants, nor wizards, nor Santa Claus?"