PATCHWORK PIECES

Otago Witness, Issue 3954, 24 December 1929, Page 7

PATCHWORK PIECES

By

Eileen Service.

(Special for the Otago Witness.) CX X XIV.—M R S MEAGRE. At their aunt’s home at the seaside, where the children sometimes spent their Christmas holidays, was Airs Meagre, who reigned in the kitchen and generally fulfilled the duties of a housekeeper. Tn appearance she w’as like her name, small, gaunt, and scraggy, with plenty of skin and plenty of bones, hut little flesh. She wore dark dresses with tightly-collared necks, ami aprons which, no matter how bard she worked, never seemed to become soiled. Her face was mournful, with a drooping mouth, and she had hair so thin and tidy that it seemed to have been painted upon her head with a grey brush streaked with white.

All day’ long the children played on the beach or in the garden. From the veranda, you could hear them calling to each other, and now and then descry a print frock or a sunburnt head as one of them flashed back to the house for something forgotten. But when it rained they had to stay indoors, and then even their long-suffering aunt was inclined to see too much of them. It was on such days that Mrs Meagre came into her own.

“ Give them to me, ma'am,” she would say to their aunt, much as if she were speaking of an armful of kittens which had all at once grown too lively to hold. “ I’ll fix them.” And she would push them before her into the kitchen and close the door. “ There,” she would order, her tone grim and unbending, “ sit there, and don’t move till I come to you.” She would go away leaving the six of them seated on the low’ form against the window, and return with baskets of peas or gooseberries which had to be prepared for cooking. These she would distribute among them so that no child had more than the others, and bid them, in the same severe voice, to give their minds to the task, please, and not to spill any rubbish on the floor. “ Me,” she would add, “ I’m going to be here at the table doing a bit of baking. And if you don’t speak a word or disturb me in my work, perhaps I’ll tell you some more about the Harveys.” The tone she would use might, to the uninitiated, have made her words appear in the nature of a threat. But the sextet in the kitchen would not think so. They would glance at each other from suddenly sparkling eyes, and. with difficulty, repress a coo of satisfaction. Then, like model creatures, they would bend to their baskets, ami so await the moment when Mrs Meagre would begin.

The Harveys were a family for whom Mrs Meagre had once been nurse, and who, to the children on the form, were almost fabulous. True, they were normal boys and girls, and had lived only a decade or so before; but there was something unreal and “ fairy-tale-ish ” about them which made Mrs Meagre’s news that they’ were now grown-up with families of their own seem all but a falsehood. Miranda the tomboy carrying a baby? Charles the lawless the head of a house? Isohel the unruly presiding over a tea table? Bernard the warlike earning money for a wife by’ office-work? It seemed incredible, and, moreover, not to be tolerated. Such adults had no place in the imagination; it was only the young Harveys who could be accepted with faith. But these were accepted with so very much faith in that they’ were as living as Peter Pan and Wendy, as go< d to be imitated as the heroes of “ Treasure Island ” or the heroines of the “ Idylls of the King.’’ “ Young people ought to be good,” Mrs Meagre would commence, and her eyes would be prim over the edges of her spectacles, her mouth pursed into a button of distaste. “ Running about the house and shouting and giving ladies a headache is no way to behave. Young people should be meek and quiet, and obey their elders. Those that don’t obey come to grief —like Miss Miranda, for instance.”

There would be a pause while she went to the oven or saw that the fire was burning properly, during which time the six on the form would nod their heads gleefully’ and make little moves of expectation behind her back Then she would return and relate the story of Miss Miranda's disobedience even though, as an object lesson, it was applicable to none of her audience, who were suffering rather from faults of noisiness than from refusal to do as thev were told.

“Miss Miranda was a very disobedient girl. She was told that she was not to bathe in the sea on Sunday, but to keep on the road and walk like a lady; and she disobeyed. She went out of the bouse with her prayer book in her hand, and seemed to be doing as she ought; but she had her bathing suit secreted about her person, and when she was out of sight of the house she ran down to the beach and bathed. All the church hells were ringing, and everyone thought she was on her way’ to worship. But instead she was in the water, like a heathen.

“ But wickedness lias its own reward. When she came home, Miss Miranda was as deaf as a post; and when she went to the doctor he said— ‘ Sea-water in the ears,’ and sb let everybody know what had happened. To disobey is very, very wrong. Young people should always do as they are bidden. It’s a wonder Miss

Miranda was not deaf for ever. But Providence pardoned her.” “Was Charles ever disobedient?” one of the six would ask, immediately resuming her work so that Mrs Meagre should not be distracted. And for answer would follow’ another cautionary tale even more lurid than the last. The disobedience of Miranda might have been bad, but that of Charles was worse, while how to describe the disobedience of Isohel or Bernard was something almost too great to be attempted. Disobedience! And its punishment! Airs Meagre would sigh with horror. As for what would have happened had Providence not had a particularly’ lenient attitude towards the Harveys, none of the children listening could fathom. “ They did have some narrow escapes!” somebody would remark: “Nearly deaf for life, nearly' frozen to death, nearly lost above the snow line, nearly put into gaol. Goodness, vfhat a time they had!” I here would be silence until somebody else would dare to utter what all the rest were thinking. I wish I had been a Harvey.” At this Mrs .Meagre would look full of reproach. Wish to be a Harvey when they were such naughty’ children! Wish to be a Harvey’ when they were always doing wrong! She would frown and cluck with her tongue, her head shaking disapprovingly. Wish to be a Harvey” What next?

But, if the rain was not yet over, she would retire for a moment ami come back bearing an old portmanteau, and from it she would retrieve certain treasures which had once belonged to the Harveys themselves: Miranda's socks, discarded when she “went into” stockings; Charles’s first school cap, thought to be lost, but found later in the drainpipe; Isohel’s drawings—she was always one to make pictures; and the sword Bernard made from a piece of tin and was forbidden to carry’ because of the power it had to make him want to poke people. She would lift them out and exhibit them while the children clustered round, and over each article she would have a reminiscence to tell until the whole room was thrilling with past episodes. Mish to be a Harvey?” she would echo at the last, as she packed the portmanteau away. “No, my dears. Wish to be good. Do not wish anything else.” But when the sky’ was clear and the children were free to go outside again, she would walk beside them to the door. “What are you going to plav?” she would ask. “ At Harveys!” the answer would invariably come. And she would smile, so somehow' she was not Airs Aleagre anv longer, but somebody who loved all ‘children, but naughty children best of all.