A DAY AT SCHOOL.
If Hester Thornton went to sleep that night under a sort of dreamy, hazy
impression that school was a place without a great deal of order, with
many kind and sympathizing faces, and with some not so agreeable; if she
went to sleep under the impression that she had dropped into a sort of
medley, that she had found herself in a vast new world where certain
personages exercised undoubtedly a strong moral influence, but where on
the whole a number of other people did pretty much what they pleased--she
awoke in the morning to find her preconceived ideas scattered to the four
winds.
There was nothing of apparent liberty about the Lavender House
arrangements in the early morning hours. In the first place, it seemed
quite the middle of the night when Hester was awakened by a loud gong,
which clanged through the house and caused her to sit up in bed in a
considerable state of fright and perplexity. A moment or two later a
neatly-dressed maid-servant came into the room with a can of hot water;
she lit a pair of candles on the mantel-piece, and, with the remark that
the second gong would sound in half an hour, and that all the young
ladies would be expected to assemble in the chapel at seven o'clock
precisely, she left the room.
Hester pulled her pretty little gold watch from under her pillow, and saw
with a sigh that it was now half-past six.
"What odious hours they keep in this horrid place!" she said to herself.
"Well, well, I always did know that school would be unendurable."
She waited for five minutes before she got up, and then she dressed
herself languidly, and, if the truth must be told, in a very untidy
fashion. She managed to be dressed by the time the second gong sounded,
but she had only one moment to give to her private prayers. She
reflected, however, that this did not greatly matter as she was going
down to prayers immediately in the chapel.
The service in the chapel the night before had impressed her more deeply
than she cared to own, and she followed her companions down stairs with a
certain feeling of pleasure at the thought of again seeing Mr. Everard
and Mrs. Willis. She wondered if they would take much notice of her this
morning, and she thought it just possible that Mr. Everard, who had
looked at her so compassionately the night before, might be induced, for
the sake of his old friendship with her mother, to take her home with him
to spend the day. She thought she would rather like to spend a day with
Mr. Everard, and she fancied he was the sort of person who would
influence her and help her to be good. Hester fancied that if some very
interesting and quite out of the common person took her in hand, she
might be formed into something extremely noble--noble enough even to
forgive Annie Forest.
The girls all filed into the chapel, which was lighted as brightly and
cheerily as the night before; but Hester found herself placed on a bench
far down in the building. She was no longer in the place of honor by Mrs.
Willis' side. She was one of a number, and no one looked particularly at
her or noticed her in any way. A shy young curate read the morning
prayers; Mr. Everard was not present, and Mrs. Willis, who was, walked
out of the chapel when prayers were over without even glancing in
Hester's direction. This was bad enough for the poor little dreamer of
dreams, but worse was to follow.
Mrs. Willis did not speak to Hester, but she did stop for an instant
beside Annie Forest. Hester saw her lay her white hand on the young
girl's shoulder and whisper for an instant in her ear. Annie's lovely
gypsy face flushed a vivid crimson.
"For your sake, darling," she whispered back; but Hester caught the
words, and was consumed by a fierce jealousy.
The girls went into the school-room, where Mdlle. Perier gave a French
lesson to the upper class. Hester belonged to no class at present, and
could look around her, and have plenty of time to reflect on her own
miseries, and particularly on what she now considered the favoritism
shown by Mrs. Willis.
"Mr. Everard at least will read through that girl," she said to herself;
"he could not possibly endure any one so loud. Yes, I am sure that my
only friend at home, Cecilia Day, would call Annie very loud. I wonder
Mrs. Willis can endure her. Mrs. Willis seems so ladylike herself,
but--Oh, I beg your pardon, what's the matter?"
A very sharp voice had addressed itself to the idle Hester.
"But, mademoiselle, you are doing nothing! This cannot for a moment be
permitted. Pardonnez-moi, you know not the French? Here is a little easy
lesson. Study it, mademoiselle, and do not let your eyes wander a moment
from the page."
Hester favored Mdlle. Perier with a look of lofty contempt, but she
received the well-thumbed lesson-book in absolute silence.
At eight o'clock came breakfast, which was nicely served, and was very
good and abundant. Hester was thoroughly hungry this morning, and did not
feel so shy as the night before. She found herself seated between two
strange girls, who talked to her a little and would have made themselves
friendly had she at all encouraged them to do so. After breakfast came
half an hour's recreation, when, the weather being very bad, the girls
again assembled in the cozy play-room. Hester looked round eagerly for
Cecil Temple, who greeted her with a kind smile, but did not ask her into
her enclosure. Annie Forest was not present, and Hester breathed a sigh
of relief at her absence. The half-hour devoted to recreation proved
rather dull to the newcomer. Hester could not understand her present
world. To the girl who had been brought up practically as an only child
in the warm shelter of a home, the ways and doings of school-girl life
were an absolute enigma.
Hester had no idea of unbending or of making herself agreeable. The girls
voted her to one another stiff and tiresome, and quickly left her to her
own devices. She looked longingly at Cecil Temple; but Cecil, who could
never be knowingly unkind to any one, was seizing the precious moments to
write a letter to her father, and Hester presently wandered down the room
and tried to take an interest in the little ones. From twelve to fifteen
quite little children were in the school, and Hester wondered with a sort
of vague half-pain if she might see any child among the group the least
like Nan.
"They will like to have me with them," she said to herself. "Poor little
dots, they always like big girls to notice them, and didn't they make a
fuss about Miss Forest last night! Well, Nan is fond enough of me, and
little children find out so quickly what one is really like."
Hester walked boldly into the group. The little dots were all as busy as
bees, were not the least lonely, or the least shy, and very plainly gave
the intruder to understand that they would prefer her room to her
company. Hester was not proud with little children--she loved them
dearly. Some of the smaller ones in question were beautiful little
creatures, and her heart warmed to them for Nan's sake. She could not
stoop to conciliate the older girls, but she could make an effort with
the babies. She knelt on the floor and took up a headless doll.
"I know a little girl who had a doll like that," she said. Here she
paused and several pairs of eyes were fixed on her.
"Poor dolly's b'oke," said the owner of the headless one in a tone of
deep commiseration.
"You _are_ such a breaker, you know, Annie," said Annie's little
five-year-old sister.
"Please tell us about the little girl what had the doll wifout the head,"
she proceeded, glancing at Hester.
"Oh, it was taken to a hospital, and got back its head," said Hester
quite cheerfully; "it became quite well again, and was a more beautiful
doll than ever."
This announcement caused intense wonder and was certainly carrying the
interest of all the little ones. Hester was deciding that the child who
possessed the headless doll _had_ a look of Nan about her dark brown
eyes, when suddenly there was a diversion--the play-room door was opened
noisily, banged-to with a very loud report, and a gay voice sang out:
"The fairy queen has just paid me a visit. Who wants sweeties from the
fairy queen?"
Instantly all the little feet had scrambled to the perpendicular, each
pair of hands was clapped noisily, each little throat shouted a joyful:
"Here comes Annie!"
Annie Forest was surrounded, and Hester knelt alone on the hearth-rug.
She felt herself coloring painfully--she did not fail to observe that two
laughing eyes had fixed themselves with a momentary triumph on her face;
then, snatching up a book, which happened to lie close, she seated
herself with her back to all the girls, and her head bent over the page.
It is quite doubtful whether she saw any of the words, but she was at
least determined not to cry.
The half-hour so wearisome to poor Hester came to an end, and the girls,
conducted by Miss Danesbury, filed into the school-room and took their
places in the different classes.
Work had now begun in serious earnest. The school-room presented an
animated and busy scene. The young faces with their varying expressions
betokened on the whole the preponderance of an earnest spirit.
Discipline, not too severe, reigned triumphant.
Hester was not yet appointed to any place among these busy workers, but
while she stood wondering, a little confused, and half intending to drop
into an empty seat which happened to be close, Miss Danesbury came up to
her.
"Follow me, Miss Thornton," she said, and she conducted the young girl up
the whole length of the great school-room, and pushed aside some baize
curtains which concealed a second smaller room, where Mrs. Willis sat
before a desk.
The head-mistress was no longer dressed in soft pearl-gray and Mechlin
lace. She wore a black silk dress, and her white cap seemed to Hester to
add a severe tone to her features. She neither shook hands with the new
pupil nor kissed her, but said instantly in a bright though authoritative
tone:
"I must now find out as quickly as possible what you know, Hester, in
order to place you in the most suitable class."
Hester was a clever girl, and passed through the ordeal of a rather stiff
examination with considerable ability. Mrs. Willis pronounced her English
and general information quite up to the usual standard for girls of her
age--her French was deficient, but she showed some talent for German.
"On the whole I am pleased with your general intelligence, and I think
you have good capacities, Hester," she said in conclusion. "I shall ask
Miss Good, our very accomplished English teacher, to place you in the
third class. You will have to work very hard, however, at your French, to
maintain your place there. But Mdlle. Perier is kind and painstaking, and
it rests with yourself to quickly acquire a conversational acquaintance
with the language. You are aware that, except during recreation, you are
never allowed to speak in any other tongue. Now, go back to the
school-room, my dear."
As Mrs. Willis spoke she laid her finger on a little silver gong which
stood by her side.
"One moment, please," said Hester, coloring crimson; "I want to ask you a
question, please."
"Is it about your lessons?"
"No--oh, no; it is----"
"Then pardon me, my dear," uttered the governess; "I sit in my room every
evening from eight to half-past, and I am then at liberty to see a pupil
on any subject which is not trifling. Nothing but lessons are spoken of
in lesson hours, Hester. Ah, here comes Miss Good. Miss Good, I should
wish you to place Hester Thornton in the third class. Her English is up
to the average. I will see Mdlle. Perier about her at twelve o'clock."
Hester followed the English teacher into the great school-room, took her
place in the third class, at the desk which was pointed out to her, was
given a pile of new books, and was asked to attend to the history lesson
which was then going on.
Notwithstanding her confusion, a certain sense of soreness, and some
indignation at what she considered Mrs. Willis' altered manner, she
acquitted herself with considerable spirit, and was pleased to see that
her class companions regarded her with some respect.
An English literature lecture followed the history, and here again Hester
acquitted herself with _éclat_. The subject to-day was "Julius Cæsar,"
and Hester had read Shakespeare's play over many times with her mother.
But when the hour came for foreign languages, her brief triumph ceased.
Lower and lower did she fall in her schoolfellows' estimation as she
stumbled through her truly English-French. Mdlle. Perier, who was a very
fiery little woman, almost screamed at her--the girls colored and nearly
tittered. Hester hoped to recover her lost laurels in German, but by this
time her head ached and she did very little better in the German which
she loved than in the French which she detested. At twelve o'clock she
was relieved to find that school was over for the present, and she heard
the English teacher's voice desiring the girls to go quickly to their
rooms, and to assemble in five minutes' time in the great stone hall,
equipped for their walk.
The walk lasted for a little over an hour, and was a very dreary penance
to poor Hester, as she was neither allowed to run, race, nor talk a word
of English. She sighed heavily once or twice, and several of the girls
who looked at her curiously agreed with Annie Forest that she was
decidedly sulky. The walk was followed by dinner; then came half an hour
of recreation in the delightful play-room, and eager chattering in the
English tongue.
At three o'clock the school assembled once more; but now the studies were
of a less severe character, and Hester spent one of her first happy
half-hours over a drawing lesson. She had a great love for drawing, and
felt some pride in the really beautiful copy which she was making of the
stump of an old gnarled oak-tree. Her dismay, however, was proportionately
great when the drawing-master drew his pencil right across her copy.
"I particularly requested you not to sketch in any of the shadows, Miss
Thornton. Did you not hear me say that my lesson to-day was in outline? I
gave you a shaded piece to copy in outline--did you not understand?"
"This is my first day at school," whispered back poor Hester, speaking in
English in her distress. Whereupon the master smiled, and even forgot to
report her for her transgression of the French tongue.
Hester spent the rest of that afternoon over her music lesson. The
music-master was an irascible little German, but Hester played with some
taste, and was therefore not too severely rapped over the knuckles.
Then came tea and another half-hour of recreation, which was followed by
two silent hours in the school-room, each girl bent busily over her books
in preparation for the next day's work. Hester studied hard, for she had
made up her mind to be the intellectual prodigy of the school. Even on
this first day, miserable as it was, she had won a few plaudits for her
quickness and powers of observation. How much better could she work when
she had really fallen into the tone of the school, and understood the
lessons which she was now so carefully preparing! During her busy day she
had failed to notice one thing: namely, the absence of Annie Forest.
Annie had not been in the school-room, had not been in the play-room; but
now, as the clock struck eight, she entered the school-room with a
listless expression, and took her place in the same class with Hester.
Her eyes were heavy, as if she had been crying, and when a companion
touched her, and gave her a sympathizing glance, she shook her head with
a sorrowful gesture, but did not speak. Glasses of milk and slices of
bread and butter were now handed round to the girls, and Miss Danesbury
asked if any one would like to see Mrs. Willis before prayers. Hester
half sprang to her feet, but then sat down again. Mrs. Willis had annoyed
her by refusing to break her rules and answer her question during lesson
hours. No, the silly child resolved that she would not trouble Mrs.
Willis now.
"No one to-night, then?" said Miss Danesbury, who had noticed Hester's
movement.
Suddenly Annie Forest sprang to her feet.
"I'm going, Miss Danesbury," she said. "You need not show me the way; I
can find it alone."
With her short, curly hair falling about her face, she ran out of the
room.