Janet Willoughby sent Claire a picture postcard, all white snow and
strong shadow, and dazzling blue sky, and little black figures
pirouetting on one leg with the other raised perilously in the rear.
"This is me!" was written across the most agile of the number, while a
scrawling line across the top ran, "Happy New Year! Returning on
Tuesday. Hope to see you soon." Tuesday was the day on which school
re-opened; but Janet's holiday was year long, not a short four weeks.
Cecil moaned loudly, but Claire was tired of aimless days, and welcomed
the return to work. She determined to throw her whole heart into her
task, and work as no junior French mistress had ever worked before; she
determined never to lose patience, never to grow cross, never to indulge
in a sarcastic word, always to be a model of tact and forbearance. She
determined to wield such an ennobling influence over the girls in her
form-room that they should take fire from her example, and go forth into
the world perfect, high-souled women who should leaven the race. She
determined also to be the life and soul of the staff-room--the general
peace-maker, confidante, and consoler, beloved by one and all. She
determined to seize tactfully upon every occasion of serving the Head,
and acting as a buffer between her and disagreeables of every kind. She
arranged a touching scene wherein Miss Farnborough, retiring from work
and being asked by the Committee to name a worthy successor, pronounced
unhesitatingly, "Claire Gifford; she is but young, but her wisdom and
diplomacy are beyond all praise." She saw herself Head of Saint
Cuthbert's, raised to the highest step of her scholastic ladder, but
somehow the climax was not so exhilarating as the climb itself. To be
head mistress was, no doubt, a fine achievement, but it left her cold.
Inside Saint Cuthbert's all was life and bustle. Girls streaming along
the corridors, in and out of every room; girls of all ages and sizes and
shapes, but all to-day bearing an appearance of happiness and animation.
Bright-coloured blouses shone forth in their first splendour; hair-
ribbons stood out stiff and straight; many of the girls carried bunches
of flowers to present to the special mistress for whom they cherished
the fashionable "G.P." (grand passion) so characteristic of school
life.
Flora had a bunch of early daffodils for Claire. Another girl presented
a pot of Roman hyacinths for the decoration of the form-room, a third a
tiny bottle of scent; three separate donors supplied buttonholes of
violets. The atmosphere was full of kindness and affection. Girls
encountering each other would fall into each other's arms with
exclamations of ecstatic affection. "Oh, you precious lamb!"
"My angel child!"
"You dear, old, darling duck!" Claire heard a squat, ugly girl with
spectacles and a turned-up nose addressed as "a princely pet" by an
ardent adorer of fourteen. The mistresses came in for their own share
of adulation--"Darling Miss Gifford, I _do_ adore you!"
"Miss Gifford, darling, you are prettier than ever!"
"Oh, Miss _Gifford_, I was _dying_ to see you!"
The morning flew past, and lunch-time brought the gathering of
mistresses in staff-room. Mademoiselle's greetings were politely
detached, Fraulein was kindly and discursive, Sophie's smile was as
bright as ever, but she did not look well.
"Oh, I'm all right! It's nothing. Only this horrid old pain!" she said
cheerfully. Into her glass of water she dropped three tabloids of
aspirin. Every one had been away for a longer or shorter time, visiting
relatives and friends; they compared experiences; some had enjoyed
themselves, some had not; but they all agreed that they were refreshed
by the change.
"And where have _you_ been?" asked the drawing mistress of Claire, and
exclaimed in surprise at hearing that she had remained in town. "Dear
me, I wish I had known! I've been back a fortnight. We might have done
something together. Weren't you _dull_?" asked the drawing mistress,
staring with curious eyes.
"Very!" answered poor Claire, and for a moment struggled with a horrible
inclination to cry.
After lunch Miss Bates took her cup of coffee to Claire's side, and made
an obvious attempt to be pleasant.
"I feel quite remorseful to think of your holidays. It's astonishing
how little we mistresses know of each other out of school hours. The
first school I was in--a much smaller one by the sea,--we were so
friendly and jolly, just like sisters, but in the big towns every one
seems detached. It's hard on the new-comers. I don't know _what_ I
should have done if I hadn't a brother's house to go to on Sundays and
holiday afternoons. Except through him, I haven't made a single friend.
At the other place people used to ask us out, and we had quite a good
time; but in town people are engrossed in their own affairs. They
haven't time to go outside."
"I wonder you ever left that school! What made you want to change?"
"Oh, well! London was a lure. Most people want to come to London, and
I had my brother. Do tell me, another time, if you are not going away.
It worries me to think of you being alone. How did you come to get this
post, if you have no connections in town?"
"Miss Farnborough came to stay in Brussels, in the _pension_ which my
mother and I had made headquarters for some time. She offered me the
post."