"Mais--mais--de grâce! ça ne finira jamais--jamais, s'il faut répondre à
tes sottises, Marie. Recommençons."
Mademoiselle, golden top-knot shining and shaking, blue eyes rolling
between black lashes.
"De ta tige détachée,
Pauvre feuille dessechée"--
Détachée--desséchée. They didn't rhyme. Their not rhyming irritated her
distress.
She hated the schoolroom: the ochreish wall-paper, the light soiled by
the brown wire gauze; the cramped classes, the faint odour of girl's
skin; girl's talk in the bedroom when you undressed.
The queer she-things had a wonderful, mysterious life you couldn't touch.
Clara, when she walked with you, smiling with her black-treacle eyes and
bad teeth, glad to be talked to. Clara in bed. You bathed her forehead
with eau-de-cologne, and she lay there, happy, glad of her headache that
made them sorry for her. Clara, waiting for you at the foot of the
stairs, looking with dog's eyes, imploring. "Will you walk with me?" "I
can't. I'm going with Lucy." She turned her wounded dog's eyes and slunk
away, beaten, humble, to walk with the little ones.
Lucy Elliott in the bathing machine, slipping from the cloak of the
towel, slender and straight; sea water gluing red weeds of hair to her
white skin. Sweet eyes looking towards you in the evening at sewing-time.
"Will you sit with me at sewing?"
"I'm sitting with Rose Godwin."
Sudden sweetness; sudden trouble; grey eyes dark and angry behind sudden
tears. She wouldn't look at you; wouldn't tell you what you had done.
Rose Godwin, strong and clever; fourteen; head of the school. Honey-white
Roman face; brown-black hair that smelt like Brazilian nuts. Rose Godwin
walking with you in the garden.
"You must behave like other people if you expect them to like you."
"I don't expect them. How do I behave?"
"It isn't exactly behaving. It's more the way you talk and look at
people. As if you saw slap through them. Or else as if you didn't see
them at all. That's worse. People don't like it."
"Anything else?"
"Yes. It was cheeky of you to tell Mademoiselle that those French verses
didn't rhyme."
"But they didn't."
"Who cares?"
"I care. I care frightfully."
"There you go. That's exactly what I mean," Rose said. "Who cares if you
care? And there's another thing. You're worrying Miss Lambert. This
school of hers has got a name for sound religious teaching. You may not
like sound religious teaching, but she's got fifteen of us to look after
besides you. If you want to be an atheist, go and be it by yourself."
"I'm not an atheist."
"Well, whatever silly thing you are. You mustn't talk about it to the
girls. It isn't fair," Rose said.
"All right. I won't."
"On your honour?"
"On my honour."