AT MISS FENTON'S.
I must have been a very impressionable child; easily swayed by the
opinions of those about me. The idea conveyed to my mind by what I had
heard of Mrs. Hemson was, that she was something of an ogre with claws;
and I can truthfully say, I would almost as soon have been consigned to
the care of an ogre as to hers. I felt so all the while I was going to
her.
Charlotte Delves placed me in the ladies' carriage at Nettleby station
under charge of the guard—just as it had been in coming. And once more
I, poor lonely little girl, was being whirled on a railroad journey.
But ah! with what a sad amount of experience added to my young life!
Two o'clock was striking as the train steamed into Dashleigh station. I
was not sure at first that it was Dashleigh, and in the uncertainty did
not get out. Several people were on the platform, waiting for the
passengers the train might bring. One lady in particular attracted my
notice, a tall, fair, graceful woman, with a sweet countenance. There
was something in her face that put me in mind of mamma. She was looking
attentively at the carriages, one after another, when her eyes caught
mine, and she came to the door.
"I think you must be, Anne," she said, with a bright smile, and sweet
voice of kindness. "Did you not know I should be here? I am Mrs.
Hemson."
That Mrs. Hemson! that the ogre with claws my imagination had painted!
In my astonishment I never spoke or stirred. The guard came up.
"This is Dashleigh," said he to me. "Are you come to receive this young
lady, ma'am?"
Mrs. Hemson did receive me, with a warm embrace. She saw to my luggage,
and then put me in a fly to proceed to her house. A thorough
gentlewoman was she in all ways; a _lady_ in appearance, mind, and
manners. But it seemed to me a great puzzle how she could be so; or,
being so that she could have married a retail tradesman.
Mr. Hemson was a silk-mercer and linendraper. It appeared to me a
large, handsome shop, containing many shopmen and customers. The fly
passed it and stopped at the private door. We went through a wide
passage and up a handsome staircase, into large and well-furnished
sitting-rooms. My impression had been that Mrs. Hemson lived in a
hovel, or, at the best, in some little dark sitting-room behind a shop.
Mrs. Jones, who kept the little shop where mamma used to buy her
things, had only a kitchen behind. Upstairs again were the nursery and
bedrooms, a very large house altogether. There were six children, two
girls who went to school by day, two boys out at boarding-school, and
two little ones in the nursery. In the yard behind were other rooms,
occupied by the young men engaged in the business, with whom Mrs.
Hemson appeared to have nothing whatever to do.
"This is where you will sleep, Anne," she said, opening the door of a
chamber which had two beds in it. "Frances and Mary sleep here, but
they can occupy the same bed while you stay. Make haste and get your
things off, my dear, for the dinner is ready."
I soon went down. There was no one in the drawing-room then, and I was
looking at some of the books on the centre table, when a gentleman
entered: he was tall, bright, handsome; a far more gentlemanly man than
any I had seen at Mr. Edwin Barley's, more so than even George Heneage.
I wondered who he could be.
"My dear little girl, I am glad you have arrived in safety," he said,
cordially taking my hand. "It was a long way for them to send you
alone."
It was Mr. Hemson. How could they have prejudiced me against him? was
the first thought that struck me. I had yet to learn that people in our
Keppe-Carew class of life estimate tradespeople not by themselves but
by their callings. The appearance of Mrs. Hemson had surprised me; how
much more, then, did that of her husband! Mrs. Jones's husband was a
little mean man, who carried out the parcels, and was given, people
said, to cheat. Since Selina mentioned Mr. Hemson's trade to me, I had
associated the two in my mind. Well educated, good and kind, respected
in his native town, and making money fast by fair dealing, Mr. Hemson,
to my ignorance, was a world's wonder.
"Is she not like Ursula, Frederick!" exclaimed Mrs. Hemson, holding up
my chin. "You remember her?"
He looked at me with a smile. "I scarcely remember her. I don't think
Ursula ever had eyes like these. They are worth a king's ransom; and
they are honest and true."
We went into the other room to dinner—a plain dinner of roast veal and
ham, and a damson tart, all nicely cooked and served, with a
well-dressed maid-servant to wait upon us. Altogether the house seemed
thoroughly well conducted; a pleasant, plentiful home, and where they
certainly lived as quiet gentlepeople, not for show, but for comfort.
Mr. Hemson went downstairs after dinner, and we returned to the
drawing-room.
"Anne," Mrs. Hemson said, smiling at me, "you have appeared all amaze
since you came into the house. What is the reason?"
I coloured very much; but she pressed the question.
"It is—a better house than I expected, ma'am."
"What! did they prejudice you against me?" she laughed. "Did your mamma
do that?"
"Mamma told me nothing. It was my Aunt Selina. She said you had raised
a barrier between—between——"
"Between myself and the Carews," she interrupted, filling up the pause.
"They say I lost caste in marrying Mr. Hemson. And so I did. But—do you
like him, Anne?"
"Very, very much. He seems quite a gentleman."
"He is a gentleman in all respects save one; but that is one which
people cannot get over, rendering it impossible for them to meet him as
an equal. Anne, when I became acquainted with Mr. Hemson, I did not
know he was in trade. Not that he intentionally deceived me, you must
understand; he is a man of nice honour, incapable of deceit; but it
fell out so. We were in a strange place, both far away from home, and
what our relative position might be at home never happened to be
alluded to by either of us. By the time I heard who and what he was, a
silk-mercer and linendraper, I had learnt to value him above all else
in the world. After that, he asked me to be his wife."
"And you agreed?"
"My dear, I first of all sat down and counted the cost. Before giving
my answer, I calculated which I could best give up, my position in
society as a gentlewoman and a gentleman's daughter of long pedigree,
or Frederick Hemson. I knew that constant slights—not intentional ones,
but what I should feel as such—would be my portion if I married him;
that I should descend for ever in the scale of society—must leap the
great gulf which separates the gentlewoman from the tradesman's wife.
But I believed that I should find my compensation in him: and I tried
it. I have never repented the step; I find more certainly, year by
year, that if I threw away the shadow, I grasped the substance."
"Oh, but surely you are still a gentlewoman!"
"My dear, such is not my position: I have put myself beyond the pale of
what the world calls society. But I counted all that beforehand, I tell
you, and I put it from me bravely. I weighed the cost well; it has not
been more than I bargained for."
"But indeed you are a gentlewoman," I said, earnestly, the tears rising
to my eyes at what I thought injustice; "I can see you are."
"Granted, Anne. But what if others do not accord me the place? I cannot
visit gentlepeople or be visited by them. I am the wife of Mr. Hemson,
a retail trader. This is a cathedral town, too; and, in such, the
distinctions of society are bowed to in an ultra degree."
"But is it right?"
"Quite right; perfectly right; as you will find when you are older. If
you have been gathering from my words that I rebel at existing things,
you are in error. The world would not get along without its social
distinctive marks, though France once had a try at it."
"Yes, I know."
"I repeat, that I sat down and counted _the cost_; and I grow more
willing to pay it year by year. But, Anne dear." and she laid her hand
impressively on my arm, "I would not recommend my plan of action to
others. It has answered in my case, for Mr. Hemson is a man in a
thousand; and I have dug a grave and buried my pride; but in nine cases
out of ten it would bring unhappiness, repentance, bickering. Nothing
can be more productive of misery generally, than an unequal marriage."
I did not quite understand. She had said that she was paying off the
cost year by year.
"Yes, Anne. One part of the cost must always remain——a weighty incubus.
It is not only that I have put myself beyond the pale of my own sphere,
but I have entailed it on my children. My girls must grow up in the
state to which they are born: let them be ever so refined, ever so well
educated, a barrier lies across their path: in visiting, they must be
confined to their father's class; they can never expect to be sought in
marriage by gentlemen. Wealthy tradespeople, professional men, they may
stand a chance of; but gentlemen, in the strict sense of the term,
never."
"Will they feel it?"
"No, oh no. That part of the cost is alone mine. I have taken care not
to bring them up to views above their father's station. There are
moments when I wish I had never had children. We cannot put away our
prejudices entirely, we Keppe-Carews, you see, Anne," she added, with a
light laugh.
"I don't think anybody can," I said, with a wise shake of the head.
"And now, Anne—to change the subject—what were the details of that
dreadful tragedy at Mr. Edwin Barley's?"
"I cannot tell them," I answered, with a rushing colour, remembering
Mr. Edwin Barley's caution as to secrecy. Mrs. Hemson misunderstood the
refusal.
"Poor child! I suppose they kept particulars from you: and it was right
to do so. Could they not save Selina?"
"No—for she died. Mr. Edwin Barley says he knows she was treated
wrongly."
"Ill-fated Selina! Were you with her when she died, Anne?"
"I was with her the night before. We thought she was getting better,
and she thought it. She had forgotten all about the warning, saying it
must be a dream."
"About the what?" interrupted Mrs. Hemson.
"While Selina was ill, she saw mamma. She said the Keppe-Carews always
had these warnings."
"Child, be silent!" imperatively spoke Mrs. Hemson. "How could they
think of imbuing you with their superstitions. It is all fancy."
"Mamma had the same warning, Mrs. Hemson. She said papa called her."
"Be quiet, I say, child!" she repeated, in a tone of emotion. "These
subjects are totally unfit for you. Mind, Anne, that you do not allude
to them before my little girls; and forget them yourself."
"They do not frighten me. But I should not speak of them to any one but
you, Mrs. Hemson."
"Frances and Mary will be home from school at five, and be delighted to
make acquaintance with you. You are going to school yourself next week.
Have you heard that?"
"To a school in Dashleigh?"
"In the suburbs. The trustees have at length decided it, and I shall be
at hand, in case of your illness, or anything of that sort. Had your
Aunt Selina lived, you would have been placed at Nettleby."
"Where am I to spend the holidays?"
"At school. It is to Miss Fenton's that you are going."
"Is that where Frances and Mary go?"
"No," she answered, a smile crossing her lips. "They would not be
admitted to Miss Fenton's."
"But why?"
"Because she professes to take none but gentlemen's daughters. My
daughters, especially with their father living in the same town, would
not do at any price. It will be a condescension," she laughed, "that
Miss Fenton allows you to dine with us once in a while."
"Perhaps she will not take me," I breathlessly said.
"My dear, she will be only too glad to do so. You are the daughter of
Colonel Hereford, the granddaughter of Carew of Keppe-Carew."
And in spite of the lost caste of Mrs. Hemson, in spite of the shop
below, I never spent a happier week than the one I spent with her.
And now came school life; school life that was to continue without
intermission, and did continue, until I was eighteen years of age. Part
of these coming years were spent at Miss Fenton's; the rest (as I found
afterwards) at a school in France. It is very much the custom to cry
down French scholastic establishments, to contrast them unfavourably
with English ones. They may deserve the censure; I do not know; but I
can truthfully say that so far as my experience goes, the balance is on
the other side.
Miss Fenton's was a "Select Establishment," styling itself a
first-class one. I have often wondered whether those less select, less
expensive, were not more liberal in their arrangements. Fourteen was
the number of girls professed to be taken, but never once, during my
stay, was the school quite full. It had a name; and there lay the
secret of its success. The teaching was good; the girls were brought on
well: but for the comforts! You shall hear of them. And I declare that
I transcribe each account faithfully.
There were nine pupils at the time I entered: I made the tenth. Miss
Fenton, an English teacher, a French teacher who taught German also,
and several day-masters, instructed us. Miss Fenton herself took
nothing, that I saw, but the music; she was about five-and-thirty,
tall, thin, and very prim.
"You will be well off there, my dear, in regard to living," Mrs. Hemson
had said to me. "Miss Fenton tells me her pupils are treated most
liberally; and that she keeps an excellent table. Indeed she ought to
do so, considering her terms."
Of course I thought I _should_ be treated liberally, and enjoy the
benefits of the excellent table.
We got there just before tea time, six o'clock. Mrs. Hemson, acting for
my trustees had made the negotiations with Miss Fenton; of course she
took me to school, stayed a few minutes with Miss Fenton, and then left
me. When my things were off, and I was back in the drawing-room, Miss
Fenton rang the bell.
"You shall join the young ladies at once," she said to me; "they are
about to take tea. You have never been to school before, I think."
"No, ma'am. Mamma instructed me."
"Have the young ladies gone into the refectory?" Miss Fenton inquired,
when a maid-servant appeared.
"I suppose so, ma'am," was the answer. "The bell has been rung for
them."
"Desire Miss Linthorn to step hither."
Miss Linthorn appeared, a scholar of fifteen or sixteen, very upright.
She made a deep curtsey as she entered. "Take this young lady and
introduce her," said Miss Fenton. "Her name is Hereford."
We went through some spacious, well-carpeted passages; their corners
displaying a chaste statue, or a large plant in beautiful bloom; and
thence into some shabby passages, uncarpeted. Nothing could be more
magnificent (in a moderate, middle-class point of view) than the show
part, the _company_ part of Miss Fenton's house; nothing much more
meagre than the rest.
A long, bare deal table, with the tea-tray at the top; two plates of
thick bread-and-butter, _very_ thick, and one plate of thinner; the
English teacher pouring out the tea, the French one seated by her side,
and eight girls lower down, that was what I saw on entering a room that
looked cold and comfortless.
Miss Linthorn, leaving me just inside the door, walked up to the
teachers and spoke.
"Miss Hereford."
"I heard there was a new girl coming in to-day," interrupted a young
lady, lifting her head, and speaking in a rude, free tone. "What's the
name, Linthorn?"
"Will you have the goodness to behave as a lady—if you can, Miss
Glynn?" interrupted the English teacher, whose name was Dale. "That
will be your place, Miss Hereford," she added, to me, indicating the
end of the form on the left side, below the rest. "Have you taken tea?"
"No, ma'am."
"Qu'elles sont impolies, ces filles Anglaises!" said Mademoiselle
Leduc, the French teacher, with a frowning glance at Miss Glynn for her
especial benefit.
"It is the nature of school girls to be so, Mademoiselle," pertly
responded Miss Glynn. "And I beg to remind you that we are not under
your charge when we are out of school in the evening; therefore,
whether we are 'impolies' or 'polies,' it is no affair of yours."
Mademoiselle Leduc only half comprehended the words; it was as well she
did not. Miss Dale administered a sharp reprimand, and passed me my
tea. I stirred it, tasted it, and stirred it again.
"Don't you like it?" asked a laughing girl next to me; Clara Webb, they
called her.
I did not like it at all, and would rather have had milk and water. So
far as flavour went, it might have been hot water coloured, was
sweetened with brown sugar, and contained about a teaspoonful of milk.
I never had any better tea, night or morning, so long as I remained:
but school girls get used to these things. The teachers had a little
black teapot to themselves, and their tea looked good. The plate of
thin bread-and-butter was for them.
A very handsome girl of seventeen, with haughty eyes and still more
haughty tones, craned her neck forward and stared at me. Some of the
rest followed her example.
"That child has nothing to eat," she observed. "Why don't you hand the
bread-and-butter to her, Webb?"
Clara Webb presented the plate to me. It was so thick, the bread, that
I hesitated to take it, and the butter was scraped upon it in a
niggardly fashion; but for my experience at Miss Fenton's I should
never have thought it possible for butter to have been spread so thin.
The others were eating it with all the appetite of hunger. The slice
was too thick to bite conveniently, so I had to manage as well as I
could, listening—how could I avoid it?—to a conversation the girls
began among themselves in an undertone. To hear them call each other by
the surname alone had a strange sound. It was the custom of the school.
The teachers were talking together, taking no notice of the girls.
"Hereford? Hereford?" debated the handsome girl, and I found her name
was Tayler. "I wonder where she comes from?"
"I know who I saw her with last Sunday, when I was spending the day at
home. The Hemsons."
"What Hemsons? Who are they?"
"Hemsons the linendrapers."
"Hemsons the linendrapers!" echoed an indignant voice, whilst I felt my
own face turn to a glowing crimson. "What absurd nonsense you are
talking, Glynn!"
"I tell you I did. I knew her face again the moment Linthorn brought
her in. She came to church with them, and sat in their pew."
"I don't believe it," coldly exclaimed an exceedingly ugly girl, with a
prominent mouth. "As if Miss Fenton would admit that class of people!
Glynn is playing upon our credulity; just as she did, do you remember,
about that affair of the prizes. We want some more bread-and-butter,
Miss Dale—may we ring?"
"Yes, if you do want it," replied Miss Dale, turning her face from
Mademoiselle to speak.
"Betsey, stop a moment, I have something to ask you!" suddenly called
out one dressed in mourning, leaping over the form and darting after
the maid, who had come in and was departing with the plate in her hand.
A whispered colloquy ensued at the door, half in, half out of it; close
to me, who was seated near it.
"I say, Betsey! Do you know who the new pupil is?"
"Not exactly, Miss. Mrs. Hemson brought her!"
"Mrs. Hemson! There! Glynn said so! Are you sure?"
"I am quite sure, Miss Thorpe. Mrs. Hemson has been here several times
this last week or two; I knew it was about a new pupil. And when she
brought her to-night, she gave me half a crown, and told me to be kind
to her. A nice lady is Mrs. Hemson as ever I spoke to."
"I daresay she may be, for her station," spoke Miss Thorpe, going back
to her seat with a stalk.
"I say, girls—I have been asking Betsey—come close." And they all
huddled their heads together. "I thought I'd ask Betsey: she says she
does come from the Hemsons. Did you ever know such a shame?"
"It _can't be_, you know," cried the one with the large mouth. "Miss
Fenton would not dare to do it. Would my papa, a prebendary of the
Cathedral, allow me to be placed where I could be associated with
tradespeople?"
"Ask Betsey for yourselves," retorted Miss Thorpe. "She says it was
Mrs. Hemson who brought her to school."
"Nonsense about asking Betsey," said Nancy Tayler; "ask herself. Come
here, child," she added, in a louder tone, beckoning to me.
I went humbly up, behind the form, feeling very humble indeed just
then. They were nearly all older than I, and I began again to think it
must be something sadly lowering to be connected with the Hemsons.
"Are you related to Hemsons, the shopkeepers?"
"Yes. To Mrs. Hemson. Mamma was——"
"Oh, there, that will do," she unceremoniously interposed, with a
scornful gesture. "Go back to your seat, and don't sit too close to
Miss Webb; she's a gentleman's daughter."
My readers, you may be slow to believe this, but I can only say it
occurred exactly as written. I returned to my seat, a terrible feeling
of mortification having passed over my young life.
They never spoke to me again that evening. There was no supper, and at
half-past eight we went up to bed; three smallish beds were in the room
where I was to sleep, and one large one with curtains round it. The
large one was Miss Dale's, and two of us, I found, shared each of the
smaller ones; my bedfellow was Clara Webb. She was a good-humoured
girl, more careless upon the point of 'family' than most of the rest
seemed to be, and did not openly rebel at having to sleep with me. Miss
Dale came up for the candle after we were in bed.
The bell rang at half-past six in the morning, our signal for getting
up: we had to be down by seven. There were studies till eight, and then
breakfast—the same wretched tea, and the same coarse bread-and-butter.
At half-past eight Miss Fenton read prayers; and at nine the school
business commenced.
At ten Mademoiselle was assembling her German class. Seven only of the
pupils learnt it. I rose and went up with them: and was rewarded with a
stare.
"What will be the use of German to _her?_" rudely cried Miss Peacock, a
tall, stout girl, directing to me all the scorn of which a look is
capable. "I should not fancy Miss Hereford is to learn German,
Mademoiselle Leduc. It may be as well to inquire."
Mademoiselle Leduc looked at me, hesitated, and then put the question
to Miss Fenton, her imperfect English sounding through the room.
"Dis new young lady, is she to learn de German, madam?"
Miss Fenton directed her eyes towards us.
"Miss Hereford? Yes. Miss Hereford is to learn everything taught in my
establishment."
"Oh!" said Nancy Tayler, _sotto voce_. "Are you to be a governess,
pray, Miss Hereford?"
A moment's hesitation between pride and truth, and then, with a blush
of shame in my cheeks _for_ the hesitation, came the brave answer.
"I am to be a governess; mamma gave the directions in her will. What
fortune she left is to be expended upon my education, and she said
there might be no better path of life open to me."
"That's candid, at any rate," cried Miss Peacock. And so I began
German.
We dined at two; and I don't suppose but that every girl was terribly
hungry. I know I was. With a scanty eight-o'clock breakfast, children
ought not to wait until two for the next meal. We had to dress for
dinner, which was laid in Miss Fenton's dining-room, not in the bare
place called the refectory; Miss Fenton dining with us and carving. It
was handsomely laid. A good deal of silver was on the table, with
napkins and finger-glasses; indeed, the style and serving were
superior. Two servants waited: Betsey and another. The meat was roast
beef—a part of beef I had never seen; it seemed a large lump of meat
and no bone. Very acceptable looked it to us hungry school girls. We
shall have plenty now, I thought.
My plate came to me at last; _such_ a little mite of meat, and three
large potatoes! I could well have put the whole piece of meat in my
mouth at once. Did Miss Fenton fancy I disliked meat? But upon looking
at the other plates, I saw they were no better supplied than mine was;
plenty of potatoes, but an apology for meat.
"Would we take more?" Miss Fenton asked, when we had despatched it. And
the question was invariably put by her every day; we as invariably
answered "Yes." The servants took our plates up, and brought them back.
I do not believe that the whole meat combined, supplied to all the
plates in that second serving, would have weighed two ounces. Potatoes
again we had, much as we liked, and then came a baked rice pudding.
Miss Fenton boasted of her plentiful table. That there was a plentiful
dinner always placed on the table was indisputable, _but we did not get
enough of it_; we were starved in the sight of plenty. I have seen a
leg of mutton leave the table (nay, the joints always so left the
table), when two hearty eaters might well have eaten all there was cut
of it, and upon that the whole thirteen had dined! I, a woman grown
now, have seen much of this stingy, deceitful habit of carving, not
only in schools, but in some private families. "We keep a plentiful
table," many, who have to do with the young will say. "Yes," I think to
myself, "but do those you profess to feed get helped to enough of it?"
Sometimes often indeed, two dishes were on the table; we were asked
which we would take, but never partook of both. The scanty breakfast,
this dinner, and the tea I have described, were all the meals we had;
and this was a "select," "first-class" establishment, where the terms
charged were high. Miss Fenton took her supper at eight, alone, and the
teachers supped at nine in the refectory; rumours were abroad in the
school, that these suppers, or at least Miss Fenton's, were sumptuous
meals. I know we often smelt savoury cooking at bedtime. Sometimes we
had pudding before meat, often we had cold meat, sometimes hashed,
often meat pies, with a very thick crust over and under. I do not fancy
Miss Fenton's butcher's bill could have been a heavy one. Altogether,
it recurs to me now like a fraud: a fraud upon the parents, a cruel
wrong upon the children. A child who is not well nourished, will not
possess too much of rude health and strength in after-life.
That was an unhappy day to me! How I was despised, slighted, scorned, I
cannot adequately describe. It became so palpable as to attract the
attention of the teachers, and in the evening they inquired into the
cause. Mademoiselle Leduc could not by any force of reasoning be
brought to comprehend it; she was unable to understand why I was not as
good as the rest, and why they should not deem me so; things are
estimated so differently in France from what they are in England.
"Bah!" said she, slightingly, giving up as useless the trying to
comprehend, "elles sont folles, ces demoiselles."
Miss Dale held a colloquy with one or two of the elder girls, and then
called me up. She began asking me questions about my studies, what
mamma had taught me, how far I was advanced, all in a kind, gentle way;
and she parted my hair on my forehead, and looked into my eyes.
"Your mamma was Mrs. Hemson's sister," she said, presently.
"Not her sister, ma'am; her cousin."
"Her cousin, was it?" she resumed after a pause. "What was your papa? I
heard Miss Fenton say you were an orphan."
"Papa?"
"I mean, in what position?—was he in trade?"
"He was an officer in Her Majesty's service. Colonel Hereford."
"Colonel Hereford?" she returned, looking at me as though she wondered
whether I was in error. "Are you sure?"
"Quite sure, Miss Dale. Mamma was Miss Carew of Keppe-Carew."
"Miss Carew of Keppe-Carew!" she exclaimed, with a little scream of
surprise; for the Keppe-Carews were of note in the world.
"Mrs. Hemson was a Keppe-Carew also," I continued. "She forfeited her
position to marry Mr. Hemson; and she says she has not repented it."
Miss Dale paused; said she remembered to have heard the noise it made
when a Miss Carew, of Keppe-Carew, quitted her home for a tradesman's;
but had never known that it related to Mrs. Hemson.
"I was a stranger to Dashleigh until I came here as teacher," she
observed, beckoning up the two young ladies, Miss Tayler and Miss
Peacock.
"When next you young ladies take a prejudice against a new pupil, it
may be as well to make sure first of all of your grounds," she said to
them, her tone sarcastic. "You have been sending this child to
'Coventry' on the score of her not being your equal in point of family;
let me tell you there's not one of you in the whole school whose family
is fit to tie the shoes of hers. She is the daughter of Colonel
Hereford, and of Miss Carew of Keppe-Carew."
They looked blank. Some of the other girls raised their heads to
listen. Miss Peacock and one or two more—as I found afterwards—were but
the daughters of merchants; others of professional men.
"She is related to the Hemsons," spoke Miss Peacock, defiantly. "She
has acknowledged that she is."
"If she were related to a chimney-sweep, that does not take from her
own proper position," returned Miss Dale, angrily. "Because a member of
the Keppe-Carew family chose to forfeit her rank and sacrifice herself
for Mr. Hemson, is Miss Hereford to be made answerable for it? Go away,
you silly girls, and don't expose yourselves again."
The explanation had its weight in the school, and the tide set in for
me as strenuously as it had been against me. The avowal that I was to
be a governess appeared to be ignored or disbelieved, and the elder
girls begun a system of patronage.
"How much money have you brought, little Anne Hereford?"
I exhibited my purse and its three half-crowns, all the money Mrs.
Hemson had allowed me to bring.
"Seven and sixpence! That's not much. I suppose you would wish to act
in accordance with the custom of the school?"
I intimated that I of course should—if I knew what that was.
"Well, the rule is for a new girl to give a feast to the rest. We have
it in the bedroom after Dale has been for the candle. Ten shillings has
been the sum usually spent—but I suppose your three half-crowns must be
made sufficient; you are but a little one."
I wished to myself that they had left me one of the half-crowns, but
could not for the world have said it. I wrote out a list of the
articles suggested, and gave the money to one of the servants, Betsey,
to procure them; doing all this according to directions. Cold beef and
ham from the eating-house, rolls and butter, penny pork pies, small
German sausages, jam tarts, and a bottle of raisin wine comprised the
list.
Betsey smuggled the things in, and conveyed them to the play-room.
Strict orders meanwhile being given to me to say that I brought them to
school in my box, should the affair, by mischance, be found out. It
would be so cruel to get Betsey turned out of her place, they observed;
but they had held many such treats, and never been found out yet.
Miss Dale came as usual for the candle that night, and took it. For a
few minutes we lay still as mice, and then sprang up and admitted the
rest from their bedroom. Half a dozen wax tapers were lighted,
abstracted from the girls' private writing-desks, and half a dozen more
were in readiness to be lighted, should the first not hold out. And the
feast began.
"Now, Anne Hereford, it's your treat, so of course you are the one to
wait upon us. You must go to the decanter for water when we want it,
and listen at the door against eavesdroppers, and deal out the rolls.
By the way, how many knives have come up? Look, Peacock."
"There's only one. One knife and two plates. Well, we'll make the
counterpane or our hands do for plates."
"Our hands will be best, and then we can lick up the crumbs. Is the
corkscrew there? Who'll draw the cork of the wine?"
"Hush! don't talk so loud; they are hardly at supper yet downstairs,"
interposed Miss Tayler, who was the oldest girl in the school. "Now,
mind! we'll have no dispute about what shall be eaten first, as we had
last time; it shall be served regularly. Beef and ham to begin with:
pork pies and sausages next; jam tarts last; rolls and butter ad
libitum; water with the feast, and the wine to finish up with. That's
the order of the day, and if any girl's not satisfied with it, she can
retire to bed, which will leave the more for us who are. You see that
washhand-stand, little Hereford? Take the water-bottles there, and pour
out as we want it; and put a taper near, or you may be giving yourself
a bath. Now then, I'll be carver."
She cut the ham into ten portions, the beef likewise, and told me to
give round a roll. Then the rolls were cut open and buttered, various
devices being improvised for the latter necessity, by those who could
not wait their turn for the knife; tooth-brush handles prevailing, and
fingers not being altogether absent. Next came the delightful business
of eating.
"Some water, little Hereford."
I obeyed, though it was just as I was about to take the first bite of
the feast. Laying down my share on the counterpane, I brought the
tumbler of water.
"And now, Hereford, you must listen at the door."
"If you please, may I take this with me?" for I had once more caught up
the tantalizing supper.
"Of course you can, little stupid!"
I went to the door, the beef and ham doubled up in one hand, the
buttered roll in the other, and there eat and listened. The scene would
have made a good picture. The distant bed on which the eatables were
flung, and on which the tapers in their little bronze stands rested,
and the girls in their night-gowns gathered round, half lounging on it,
talking eagerly, eating ravenously, enjoying themselves thoroughly; I
shivering at the door, delighted with the feast, but half-terrified
lest interruption should come from below. That unlucky door had no
fastening to it, so that any one could come, as the girls expressed it,
bolt in. Some time previously there had been a disturbance, because the
girls one night locked out Miss Dale, upon which Miss Fenton had
carried away the key.
"Our beef and ham's gone, Anne Hereford. Is your?"
It was Georgina Digges who spoke, and she half-turned round to do so,
for she was leaning forward on the bed with her back to me. I was about
to answer, when there came a shrill scream from one of the others, a
scream of terror. It was followed by another and another, until they
were all screaming together, and I darted in alarm to the bed. Georgina
Digges, in turning round, had let her night-gown sleeve touch one of
the wax tapers, and set it on fire.
Oh, then was confusion! the shrieks rising and the flames with them.
With a presence of mind perfectly astonishing in one so young, Nancy
Tyler tore up the bedside carpet and flung it round her.
"Throw her down, throw her down! it is the only chance!" Nancy screamed
to the rest, and there she was on the ground by the time those
downstairs had rushed up. Some smothered more carpet on her, some threw
a blanket, and the cook further poured out all the water from the
washhand jugs.
"Who is it?" demanded Miss Fenton, speaking and looking more dead than
alive.
None of us answered; we were too much terrified; but Miss Dale, who had
been taking hurried note of our faces, said it must be Georgina Diggs:
her face was the only one missing.
I wonder what Miss Fenton thought when she saw the items of the feast
as they lay on the bed! The scanty remains of the beef and ham, the
buttered rolls half eaten, others ready to butter, the pork pies, the
German sausages, the jam tarts, and the bottle of wine. Did a thought
cross her that if the girls had been allowed better dinners, they might
have been less eager for stolen suppers? She had probably been
disturbed at her good supper, for a table napkin was tucked before her,
underneath the string of her silk apron.
"You deceitful, rebellious girls!" exclaimed Miss Fenton. "Who has been
the ringleader in this?"
A pause, and then a voice spoke from amidst the huddled group of
girls—_whose_ voice I did not know then and have never known to this
day.
"The new girl, Anne Hereford. She brought the things to school in her
box."
Miss Fenton looked round for me: I was standing quite at the back. I
had not courage to contradict the words. But just then a commotion
arose from the group which stood round the burnt girl, and Miss Fenton
turned to it in her sickening fear.
The doctors came, and we were consigned to bed, Georgina Digges being
taken into another room. Happily, she was found not to be dangerously
burnt, badly on the arm and shoulder, but no further.
Of course there was a great trouble in the morning. Mrs. Hemson was
sent for and to her I told the truth, which I had not dared to tell to
Miss Fenton. The two ladies had afterwards an interview alone, in which
I felt sure Mrs. Hemson repeated every word I had spoken. Nothing more
was said to me. Miss Fenton made a speech in the school, beginning with
a reproach at their taking a young child's money from her, and going on
to the enormity of our offence in "sitting up at night to gormandize"
(apologizing for the broad word), which she forbad absolutely for the
future.
Thus the affair ended. Georgina Digges recovered, and joined us in the
school-room: and she was not taken away, though we had thought she
would be. But, in spite of the accident and Miss Fenton's prohibition,
the feasts at night did go on, as often as a new girl came to be made
to furnish one, or when the school subscribed a shilling each, and
constituted it a joint affair. _One_ little wax taper did duty in
future, and that was placed on the mantelpiece, out of harm's way.
And that is all I shall have to say of my school-life in England.