"The Gentlemen, and especially the younger and more tender of the
Pupils, will have the advantage of the constant superintendence and
affectionate care of Miss Zoe Birch, sister of the Principal: whose
dearest aim will be to supply (as far as may be) the absent maternal
friend."--_Prospectus of Rodwell Regis School_.
This is all very fine in the Doctor's circulars, and Miss Zoe Birch--(a
sweet birch blossom it is, fifty-five years old, during two score of
which she has dosed herself with pills; with a nose as red and a face as
sour as a crab-apple)--may do mighty well in a prospectus. But I should
like to know who would take Miss Zoe for a mother, or would have her for
one?
[Illustration: 0042]
The only persons in the house who are not afraid of her are Miss Flora
and I--no, I am afraid of her, though I _do_ know the story about the
French usher in 1830--but all the rest tremble before the woman, from
the Doctor down to poor Francis the knife-boy, and whom she bullies into
his miserable blacking-hole.
The Doctor is a pompous and outwardly severe man--but inwardly weak
and easy: loving a joke and a glass of port wine. I get on with him,
therefore, much better than Mr. Prince, who scorns him for an ass,
and under whose keen eyes the worthy Doctor writhes like a convicted
impostor; and many a sunshiny afternoon would he have said, "Mr. T.,
Sir, shall we try another glass of that yellow sealed wine which you
seem to like?" (and which he likes even better than I do), had not the
old harridan of a Zoe been down upon us, and insisted on turning me
out with her miserable weak coffee. She a mother indeed! A sour milk
generation she would have nursed. She is always croaking, scolding,
bullying,--yowling at the housemaids, snarling at Miss Raby, bowwowing
after the little boys, barking after the big ones. She knows how much
every boy eats to an ounce; and her delight is to ply with fat the
little ones who can't bear it, and with raw meat those who hate
underdone. It was she who caused the Doctor to be eaten out three times;
and nearly created a rebellion in the school because she insisted on his
flogging Goliah Longman.
The only time that woman is happy is when she comes in of a morning to
the little boys' dormitories with a cup of hot Epsom salts, and a sippet
of bread. Boo!--the very notion makes me quiver. She stands over them.
I saw her do it to young Byles only a few days since--and her presence
makes the abomination doubly abominable.
As for attending them in real illness, do you suppose that she would
watch a single night for any one of them? Not she. When poor little
Charley Davison (that child, a lock of whose soft hair I have said how
Miss Raby still keeps) lay ill of scarlet fever in the holidays--for the
Colonel, the father of these boys, was in India--it was Anne Raby who
tended the child, who watched him all through the fever, who never left
him while it lasted, or until she had closed the little eyes that were
never to brighten or moisten more. Anny watched and deplored him, but it
was Miss Birch who wrote the letter announcing his demise, and got the
gold chain and locket which the Colonel ordered as a memento of his
gratitude. It was through a row with Miss Birch that Frank Davison ran
away. I promise you that after he joined his regiment in India, the
Ahmednuggar Irregulars, which his gallant father commands, there came
over no more annual shawls and presents to Dr. and Miss Birch, and that
if she fancied the Colonel was coming home to marry her (on account of
her tenderness to his motherless children, which he was always writing
about), _that_ notion was very soon given up. But these affairs are
of early date, seven years back, and I only heard of them in a very
confused manner from Miss Raby, who was a girl, and had just come to
Rodwell Regis. She is always very much moved when she speaks about those
boys, which is but seldom. I take it the death of the little one still
grieves her tender heart.
Yes, it is Miss Birch, who has turned away seventeen ushers and second
masters in eleven years, and half as many French masters; inconsolable,
I suppose, since the departure of her _favourite_, M. Grinche, with her
gold watch, &c.; but this is only surmise--and what I gather from the
taunts of Miss Rosa when she and her aunt have a tiff at tea.
But besides this, I have another way of keeping her in order.
Whenever she is particularly odious or insolent to Miss Raby, I have but
to introduce raspberry jam into the conversation, and the woman holds
her tongue. She will understand me. I need not say more.
_Note, 12th December_.--I _may_ speak now. I have left the place and
don't mind. I say then at once, and without caring twopence for the
consequences, that I saw this woman, this _mother_ of the boys, _eating
jam with a spoon out of Master Wiggins's trunk in the box-room_; and of
this I am ready to take an affidavit any day.