Latchkey Ladies by Marjorie Grant

Author:Marjorie Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Handheld Press
Published: 2022-01-01T12:43:21+00:00

11 The First Form

‘“He had a dream that he saw a tree filled with angels”,’ Anne dictated slowly aloud to the First Form, walking round the room to see that pencils were properly held and exercise books in the correct position on the desks. The dozen heads bent laboriously over their task, and then lifted to fix attentive eyes on Anne.

‘“Filled with angels”, comma,’ Anne repeated, ‘“their starry wings tangled among the boughs”.’

‘I think angels is an awful shame. It’s such an awful hard word to spell,’ grumbled a small Scotch voice, and the smallest child in the Form, Lucy Nevil, aged seven, tossed back her long, uncannily heavy black hair and raised a defiant face.

‘Oh, you can spell angels as well as anyone, Lucy,’ Anne said placatingly. Lucy, as clever as paint, and easily the match of girls of ten and eleven in the class, was as prickly as a burr.

‘And think what a lovely dream that was for Blake to have. You’d like to see a great wide-spreading green tree filled with angels, with shimmering, feathery wings, wouldn’t you?’

‘What else would wings be made of but feathers?’ Lucy demanded disagreeably.

‘Skin,’ volunteered a literal child called Edith. ‘Bats’ wings are made of skin.’

‘Angels with skin wings wouldn’t be very pretty! Pooh! I’d rather dream of going in swimming,’ Lucy declared.

‘Sign your names, and Elizabeth may collect the books,’ Anne said hastily, returning to her own seat.

‘It’s me to collect to-day,’ Lucy said, springing up. Elizabeth, a firm, placid child, dealt with her promptly, pressing her back into her place, and seizing her dictation book.

‘I’d be ashamed,’ she remarked in stern rebuke, ‘you’re seven years old, and you act like two!’

She collected the books with neatness and despatch and placed them in a pile on Anne’s desk.

‘In five minutes,’ Anne said, ‘Miss Mollond is coming in to hear you say your Bible verses. I hope you all know them well.’ She ignored a muttered, ‘Oh, blow, I hate the Bible,’ from Lucy, but catching a guilty meaning look passing between the other little girls, she asked, ‘Well, children, is anything wrong?’ and waited expectantly.

The Form fidgeted. Then the literal Edith spoke.

‘There’s something we don’t want to say in our verses.’

‘You astonish me,’ Anne said, wondering for a moment where Paul in her zeal had led them. ‘Can you tell me what it is please, Elizabeth?’

Elizabeth sprang to her feet, her face crimsoning, but meeting Anne’s look with honest eyes.

‘We think it’s an undecent word,’ she said bluntly. ‘At least it’s very funny. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings —”?’ She sat down very red.

‘Dear me, how silly of you,’ Anne said. ‘To begin with, there’s no such thing as an undecent word, Elizabeth, and you are never to think so again. Some words, like some clothes, are unsuitable if you use them in the wrong places. For instance, I don’t say, “Oh, look at all the little sucklings in Kensington Gardens” when I see the babies there in

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