Settling the Account (21 page)

‘Mrs Sanderson was always getting me to show
the other girls,’ Susannah said. ‘She said I had the best
deportment of any pupil she’d ever had. I was
much
better
than Constance.’

‘How can I make her do it, though?’ Lizzie
asked. ‘I can’t be looking at her all the time to see if she’s
walking properly.’

Susannah sighed. ‘I’m afraid it’s too late
to do much about her. She’ll never be really elegant in her
movements, you have to start training a girl earlier than twelve
for that. But you can certainly improve on her—oh, do sit down,
Maud, I can’t bear to see you pulling those faces any longer.’
Maudie collapsed heavily into her chair with an exaggerated sigh of
relief.

‘A backboard would be ideal,’ Susannah said,
warming to her subject. ‘I don’t suppose you know what that is—it’s
a stiff board you fasten to the girl with a sort of harness, so
that she can’t help but stand up straight. Daily practice with a
backboard would do wonders for her posture. You’d have no chance of
finding one of those in Ruatane, I’m afraid.’

‘I was thinking of putting her in stays
early,’ Lizzie said, ignoring the affronted look Maudie shot at
her. ‘Would that do the trick?’

‘Not really. Stays wouldn’t cure her of
being round-shouldered. In fact, I’d advise against putting her in
them till you’ve sorted out her posture. No, what you should do is
make her walk with a book on her head.’

‘Eh? How will that help?’

‘You can’t keep a book on your head without
standing perfectly straight and gliding. Yes, you make her practise
that every day until she can walk… oh, say up and down your passage
twice each way without dropping the book.’

‘Right, we’ll do that,’ Lizzie said,
relieved to have found something well within her resources. ‘Now,
what else would she learn at this school?’

‘The sort of things that help a girl mix in
cultivated society.’ Lizzie waited for Susannah to elaborate.
‘Dancing, of course—’

‘There isn’t much dancing goes on around
here,’ Lizzie said thoughtfully. ‘They don’t even seem to have the
hay dance any more most years. If they have one next year I might
let her go to it as long as there’s someone there to keep a good
eye on her.’

‘Singing, too. A young lady ought to be able
to entertain when she’s in company.’

‘You do singing at school, don’t you,
Maudie?’

‘Yes,’ Maudie agreed cautiously.

‘That’s all right, then. She can sing. What
else?’

‘French. Cultivated people can always speak
a little French. It’s such an elegant language.’

This came as something of a shock to Lizzie,
who had never found any shortcomings in English when she wanted to
express herself. She quickly rejected the idea as useless.

‘Well, no one around here speaks any
French—except you, of course. And maybe Lily, though I can’t say
she’s ever mentioned it. So there’s no need for Maudie to talk it.
Anyway, she’s got enough to say for herself in one language without
learning another one—especially when I wouldn’t know what she was
saying in it.’

‘Yes, it would probably be wasted on her. If
you really want her to mix in polite company she should learn an
instrument, you realise.’

‘A what?’

‘A piano, of course. She should be able to
play.’

‘Oh,’ Lizzie said, taken aback. ‘Is that
really important?’

‘It certainly is,’ Susannah said. ‘No girl
could be considered at all cultured without that.’

‘We haven’t got a piano, Ma,’ Maudie said,
the look of triumph in her face goading Lizzie into more enthusiasm
than she might otherwise have felt towards the idea.

‘Then maybe we’ll just have to get one,’ she
snapped. ‘Yes,’ she said, enjoying the startled expressions Maudie
and Susannah both wore, ‘I remember your pa saying years and years
ago that he’d like to buy a piano. Now might be just the right
time.’

‘Your husband must be doing well if he can
contemplate that sort of purchase,’ Susannah said. Lizzie could not
decide if disbelief or grudging admiration was uppermost in her
reaction.

‘He is,’ Lizzie said. ‘He’s doing very well.
And he’ll like the idea of getting a piano—I expect he’ll see about
ordering one right away. Does it take long to learn it?’

‘To become proficient, yes. It takes
years.’

‘Well, she mightn’t have to be really good
at it. Just so as she can play a few nice songs, that should do the
trick.’ Lizzie was warming rapidly to the idea; playing the piano
was such an unusual skill amongst the people of her acquaintance
that she was quite certain it would set Maudie apart from the other
girls of Ruatane. ‘Do you think she’d be able to pick it up by
herself?’

‘Certainly not! She’d need a proper
teacher.’

‘Hmm. I don’t suppose you could…’ Lizzie
said, doubting the merits of the idea even as she spoke.

‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly take on teaching
piano,’ Susannah said quickly. ‘It’s so long since I had the chance
to play myself. Anyway, I simply haven’t the time.’

‘Never mind, I’ll get Lily to teach her,’
Lizzie said. ‘I know she can play, she’s mentioned it from time to
time. And she used to be a teacher, so teaching piano’ll be no
trouble to her. She won’t be able to start for a while, she’s a bit
poorly just now.’

‘Yes, the poor woman,’ Susannah said.

‘By the time this piano arrives she should
be feeling brighter. It’ll be really nice, having songs around the
piano,’ Lizzie said, forgetting for a moment the main object of
acquiring the instrument. ‘You and Uncle Jack will have to come
down and join in,’ she added, expansive in her gratitude.

‘Perhaps I will,’ Susannah allowed. ‘I can’t
speak for your Uncle, he’s never shown any leanings toward culture.
How I did use to love musical soirées.’

‘What are they?’ Lizzie asked. ‘I’ll get
Frank to buy a piano, but I don’t know if he’ll want to get those
what you said.’

‘You don’t buy soirées,’ Susannah said,
pursing her lips. ‘It means evening. It’s French, you see, that’s
why it sounds so elegant. S-o-i-r-e-e, soirée. A soirée is a social
gathering, when you have a few selected people around for the
evening to share some cultured conversation and enjoy pleasant
music together.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ Lizzie said. ‘Now
that’s a good excuse to ask people out—the sort of people I want
Maudie to mix with. Soyrees, that’s what we’ll have.’

‘Soirées,’ Susannah corrected.

‘Yes, soyrees. Afternoons might suit better
than evenings, though, especially in winter. People don’t always
want to be out late at night.’

‘Then they won’t be soirées, will they?’
Susannah pointed out.

‘That won’t matter. Like I said, no one
around here except you and Lily can talk French, so no one’s going
to worry about that. I’ll have to start thinking of some people to
ask.’

Maudie managed to keep silent until she and
Lizzie were out of sight of Jack’s house on their way home, when
she turned a resentful face on her mother.

‘That was awful. You and Aunt Susannah
talking about me like that. And her bossing me around—“Walk up and
down, turn around, stand still”. And saying I walk funny! I don’t
want to walk like her. She walks like she’s got no legs.’

‘That’s how ladies walk. You’re going to
learn to be a lady,’ Lizzie said.

‘I don’t want to! And I don’t want to learn
how to play a stupid piano, either. I’m going to tell Pa I don’t
want to. I bet he won’t make me.’

‘There’s no use taking that tone with me, my
girl. And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you playing up for me—in
front of Aunt Susannah, of all people! I warned you there’d be
trouble if you didn’t behave yourself, didn’t I?’

Maudie glowered at her. ‘I don’t care.’

‘I’ll see that you care about it when we get
home. I’ll have to hunt some books out, too, for you to practise
that special walking with.’

‘I’m not going to do that,’ Maudie said
mutinously.

‘Oh, yes you are. You’re going to practise
that every day till you’ve got it right.’

‘I’m not,’ Maudie insisted. ‘I’m not going
to walk around with books on my head. I’d feel really dopey.’

‘You’ll be in trouble if you don’t do as
you’re told, Edith Maud.’

‘I don’t care. I’m already in trouble, so
you keep saying.’

‘That’s no reason to make it worse, is
it?’

‘I’ve only got one backside,’ Maudie
muttered. ‘I don’t see how you can fit any more hidings onto
it.’

‘You’ll find out if you’re not careful. I
don’t know what’s got into you today! Honestly, you’re getting just
like your Grandpa, always wanting to have your own way. It’s all
for your good, you know—I’m only thinking of you.’

‘You are not!’ Maudie said indignantly.
‘How’s it meant to be for my good, doing all those awful things to
me?

‘Awful things, indeed! What’s so awful, for
goodness sake?’

Maudie gave her a look heavy with reproach.
‘You want to make me walk stupid—and you’d like to send me away to
a horrible school, ’cept you know Pa wouldn’t make me—and you want
to make me wear stays, and Aunt Susannah said to put me in a
harness, and–and–and,’ she ran out of breath, then took a deep gulp
to finish her tirade on, ‘and you want me to learn the
piano
.’ She dug in her heels to give her frustration
tangible expression. The startled horse pricked its ears forward
and broke into a canter.

Lizzie made no attempt to catch up with her
errant daughter. The baby snuggled against her made it impossible
to ride faster than a walking pace, even if she had been inclined
towards racing.

As Lizzie expected, Maudie’s burst of energy
did not last long. She slumped in the saddle, and the horse slowed
to an amble so sluggish that the steady plod of Lizzie’s mount soon
caught it up. Maudie had let the reins go slack; it was only her
horse’s eagerness to get home that kept it moving at all.

‘Wish I could go back to school next year,’
Maudie said morosely as they neared the schoolhouse.

‘Don’t talk rot,’ Lizzie said. ‘You must
have asked me a dozen times this year if you could leave
school.’

‘That’s ’cause I’m sick of doing all those
stupid sums and things. And having to do homework all the time,
too. If you’re going to make me do all those awful things I might
as well stay at school.’

‘I’ve had just about enough of your moaning
for one day,’ Lizzie said in mounting irritation. ‘After nagging
and nagging to leave school, now you reckon you want to stay there.
Well, you can’t and that’s that. It won’t hurt you to help me
around the house a bit more, anyway.’

‘That’s all you want me for. Scrubbing
floors and washing clothes and looking after babies. Ugh!’

‘What’s wrong with looking after babies? I’d
like to know what more useful work a girl could do.’

‘It’s not fair,’ Maudie complained. She gave
the reins a half-hearted flick; the horse ignored her. ‘Miss
Metcalf makes me do homework, then you make me look after babies.
I’m sick of being bossed around all the time. Why don’t I ever get
any fun?’

‘It’s for your own good, my girl. I’m going
to a lot of trouble over this, you know—and your father’s going to
pay a lot of money for this piano, too—and it’s all for your sake.
Now, you should—’

‘I don’t
want
to learn the piano,’
Maudie interrupted. ‘I just want to… oh, I don’t know,’ she said,
tears of frustration welling up in her eyes. ‘I just wish you’d
leave me alone.’

Lizzie was not one to be easily moved by
tears, especially when she could see they were more a result of
annoyance than unhappiness. But it was time to use a little
subtlety, since further threats were likely to rouse her daughter
to fresh heights of obstinacy.

‘Well, Miss Sulks, what do you want, then?
If it’s so awful at home, what would you do about it if you had the
chance?’

Maudie looked up suspiciously. ‘How do you
mean?’

‘If you could do whatever you want—and I’m
not saying you can, mind you—what would you do? Well?’

‘I don’t know… I… I’d just like to please
myself for a change. Instead of having people boss me around all
day,’ she added, giving Lizzie a sidelong glance.

‘And how would you do that?’ Lizzie pressed.
‘Since I’m not about to let you run my house for me, how do you
think you’d be able to get your own way like you seem to want?’

‘I suppose…’ Maudie grasped at an elusive
notion. ‘I’d like my own place,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes, my own
place,’ she repeated. ‘Then
I
could say how things were
going to be, ’stead of just doing what you say all the time. That’d
be good,’ she said, her eyes bright.

‘Now you’re starting to use your head a bit,
instead of just whinging all the time. And how do you think you’re
going to get this place of your own?’

‘Well, I suppose… I suppose I’ll get
married,’ Maudie said, looking mildly surprised at the
realisation.

‘I certainly hope you will. I don’t intend
to have you on my hands all your life. Right, then, when the time
comes to try and find some man who’ll put up with a sulky little
miss like you—and don’t get too carried away about it, either,
you’re only twelve, so you’ve got a few years to go yet—what sort
of man would you like to marry? Well? A
prominent
man like
your pa, or maybe someone like Maisie’s father?’

‘Ugh! I wouldn’t marry one of the Feenans! I
want a nice house and pretty clothes and things.’

‘I thought you weren’t very interested in
clothes.’

‘I would be if I could choose them for
myself instead of just what you say I have to wear. I’m going to
have all sorts of nice things when I get married.’

Lizzie pounced. ‘And what makes you think
you can afford to be fussy? Why should the sort of man who’s got a
flash house—or at least got the money to buy one—ask you to marry
him?’