Claudia's success in the German class was, as Charlotte had expected,
but the first of her triumphs. She had natural abilities of the first
order; she had been excellently and most carefully taught, with the
close individual attention and sympathy which no teacher can give in
such perfection as a parent, rare though the parents may be who are
fitted to teach their own children! And joined to these advantages she
had the most intense desire to learn, not merely from her innate love of
knowledge, but from the even nobler motive of wishing to help her
parents. So that it was not to be wondered at that by the end of the
first week Miss Lloyd, who had been requested by Lady Mildred to let her
know her opinion of her new pupil, sent to Silverthorns a most
satisfactory report. For Miss Lloyd was honest to the backbone.
"Miss Meredon will make good progress, I have not the least doubt," she
wrote; "but it is only fair to say that the credit will be mostly due to
her own application and to the teachers who have already so thoroughly
taught her how to learn."
Lady Mildred showed Claudia the letter.
"It will not make _you_ vain," she said, "for it is your mother it
praises, not you. Miss Lloyd must be a straightforward sort of person;
most schoolmistresses try to make out that their pupils know nothing
when they go to them, and learn everything with them. Does she ever
cross-question you as to who those teachers of yours were?"
"No," said Claudia. "She asked me--or perhaps it was the French
governess--if I had ever been abroad, and I said no, and then I think I
said I had always been taught at home."
"And the other pupils--do they seem inquisitive either?"
Claudia hesitated.
"I don't think they are more so than any girls would be," she said.
"I--I don't tell them anything, and of course they are accustomed to
being very friendly and communicative with each other. I think they are
all nice girls. The one I like the best--she and I do nearly all the
same lessons--is Charlotte Waldron. At least I think I could like her
if I knew her; but--"
"But what? You are not going to begin pestering me to let you make
friends with her--her especially--I told you I don't like her family,"
said Lady Mildred irritably.
"Oh no, aunt, I was only going to say, I don't know that she likes me,"
said Claudia. "She is a very cold girl, except with some few whom she
seems to know well."
"Well, I hope you are cold to her in return," replied her aunt, though
as she glanced at the bright eager face beside her, it was difficult to
associate it with the word.
"I try to do as you wish--as mamma explained," said Claudia gently.
"One thing I am sure of, Aunt Mildred, and that is that they all think
me the very happiest girl in the world. And I almost think I am."
She stooped to kiss Lady Mildred as she spoke, and then ran off.
She had not forgotten to bring her rose-coloured spectacles with her,
that was certain. And it was well for her that it was so. There were
difficulties in her present life that her mother had feared, but that
Claudia herself in her innocence was as yet but very vaguely conscious
of. She was scrupulously anxious to follow her aunt's directions as to
her behaviour to her companions, but to one so open-hearted and genial
it was not easy to be only coldly courteous and always self-restrained.
And the struggle gave her a curious sort of timidity and uncertainty of
manner which was not perhaps without its charm, but made it difficult to
understand her, even for those who cared to exercise any observation and
discrimination.
"How do you like her, Charlotte? I do wish you would tell me?" asked
Gueda Knox one day, about a month after Miss Meredon's advent.
"I don't want to speak about her; I hate gossip," said Charlotte
impatiently.
"I'm not asking you to gossip," Gueda replied. "I really want to know.
I think you might tell me; it can do no harm, as I am going away almost
immediately," for the Knox family, all excepting the vicar himself, were
obliged to spend fully half the year in the south of France for Mrs
Knox's health.
"That's just the worst of it," Charlotte replied impatiently. "If you
hadn't been going away I would not have minded so much, but without you
I shall be thrown more and more with her."
"That of itself is a pretty plain answer to my question," said Gueda
composedly. "Of course it means you dislike her."
"I have neither said nor implied that," said Charlotte. "I suppose it
is wrong to dislike any one whom you really don't know any harm of," she
added.
"But one does so. Everybody in the world dislikes others without real
reason. Don't you remember Dr Fell?" said Gueda.
"No, it isn't that," said Charlotte. "I don't dislike her without
reason. If you weren't going away, Gueda, I don't know that I would
tell you anything. I do dislike her, and my reason is that she is
interfering with me in every way. Why did she come here at all? She is
charming, and rich, and clever--why couldn't she leave us all at peace?
I am perfectly sick of her name--it is nothing but Miss Meredon this,
Miss Meredon that, wherever you go. If you had heard Dr Lewis in the
street yesterday, just raving about her."
"And papa is nearly as bad," said Gueda. "He saw her the other day when
he called to see Miss Lloyd about the confirmation classes. I know how
you must feel, Charlotte. Of course it is much the worst for you,
because you have been so incontestably the head of us all till now. I
can't help feeling it for you, only--"
"Only what?"
"If it is a wrong feeling--if it is--don't be angry, Charlotte--if it is
jealousy," said Gueda.
"I can't help it. I've tried not to dislike her," said Charlotte.
"Have you told your mother?--you say you tell her everything. That must
be awfully nice. I dare scarcely tell mine anything now, she's so ill,"
said Gueda with a sigh.
"Poor Gueda," said Charlotte with quiet sympathy. "Yes, I have talked
about it to mamma; but she thinks it is best not to say much about it to
any one. She says it impresses some kinds of wrong feelings more on our
minds to talk about them. But how can I help it?--every moment it is
something new. Did you bear this morning how mademoiselle went on about
her French accent? And that duet that Mr Finlay will insist on our
learning together! He said, Gueda, that I should take the bass because
it was easier. Fancy that! he said it before her--Mr Finlay, who has
always--"
She stopped.
"Yes, I know," said Gueda. "It is very hard for you, Charlotte."
"No one seems really to understand except Jerry, and now you," said
Charlotte. "I am afraid mamma is rather shocked at me. I suppose
grown-up people don't understand these feelings," she added, little
suspecting that the excess of her mother's sympathy was what made her
shrink from much expression of it, and she sighed deeply. "Why do some
people have _everything_!" she went on, reverting to her old refrain.
"It really does not seem fair. You know, Gueda, that it is a great deal
because we are not rich that I want to get on very well. I may--don't
think me very conceited--but I may be able to write books when I am
grown-up, or to do something of the kind."
"But you are getting on well--as well as you could possibly wish."
Charlotte shook her head.
"The teachers don't all think so _now_" she replied, "and I am losing
heart. Oh, Gueda, _if_ I don't get the German prize!"
"You _must_," said Gueda. "I wish you could like her, Charlotte."
"No, I don't want to like her. I only wish she would go away--or still
more, that she had never come. I don't want to like her and she doesn't
want it either."
Gueda looked rather perplexed.
"There's something in that," she said. "I don't think it's as much your
fault as might seem at first. I can't make her out. She seems good and
_nice_ altogether; but she must be selfish. She does seem so perfectly
delighted when she is praised, and even put before you; and she does not
really try to make friends with us. She might make you like her."
Something was running in Gueda's head about the best way of winning
withheld liking or affection being to put oneself in the way of
receiving a service from the one to be gained over. "If Miss Meredon
cared to do it with Charlotte, she might. Charlotte is so generous: if
she were appealed to by the girl to help her a little, she would respond
at once, I know," thought Gueda.
"No," agreed Charlotte with some satisfaction, "she does not try. I
don't want her to, and I don't try myself. All the same, I am glad she
doesn't."
"Some of the girls say she is affected," said Gueda.
"It doesn't prevent them all from toadying her in a disgusting way,"
said Charlotte, contemptuously.
"Not all of them," said Gueda. "Some of them are nicer than that, and
are too proud to make friends with a girl who never seems able to speak
to any of us naturally. _Some_ think her manners are very
`distinguished,' and what one must expect from Lady Mildred's niece."
"Vulgar snobs!" ejaculated Charlotte.
"What can you expect?" said Gueda. "Perhaps she is really more shy than
anything else, and yet I hardly think so. Now and then she seems as if
she was ready to burst out laughing, and as eager to chatter and talk
nonsense as any of us. And sometimes she has a very curious look in her
face, as if she were almost asking pardon of us all. And oh, Charlotte,
how pretty she is!"
"You needn't repeat that. I hear it about fifty times an hour. And she
certainly does not look as if she were asking pardon of me every time
she is put before me," said Charlotte. "Now do let us talk of something
else, Gueda. Don't spoil the last few days before you go."
And Claudia, in blissful ignorance of all the discussion she evoked, was
just then writing home one of her happy, almost triumphant letters,
telling of new laurels gained and satisfactory opinions everywhere. She
spoke warmly of Lady Mildred's kindness, and kept silence on her
strangely trying temper, as well as on the difficulties she was growing
more conscious of in her school-life.
"It would be wrong, distinctly wrong," she said to herself, "to complain
of Aunt Mildred. So there, I have no choice. But about school--I
wonder if mamma could say anything to help me? No, I am afraid not. I
must just not mind if I am disliked."
So she told of nothing but of good. Still Mrs Meredon, being a
remarkably clever and acute woman,--a woman too of somewhat more
determined and less emotional calibre than Charlotte's gentle,
sympathising mother,--read between the lines of her daughter's letter
and saw some rocks ahead.
"She is determined to make the best of everything, and that is only
right," she said to herself. "But she is too one-sided in her way of
looking at things just now. I must warn her."
And this letter brought in return some counsel to Claudia, which she had
afterwards even fuller reason to appreciate.
There happened one morning to be an unusually difficult exercise to do
for the French teacher. It related to some of the rules of grammar
which it was evident the pupils had not thoroughly taken in.
"Mademoiselle" explained them again more fully and clearly, but at the
end of her dissertation she looked round the circle of faces, with their
varying expressions of intelligence, indifference, or bewilderment, and
sighed.
"I don't believe you understand yet, young ladies," she said. "One or
two of you may do so perhaps--Miss Meredon?"--and a smile from Claudia
confirmed her hopefulness in that quarter,--"Miss Waldron?" but
Charlotte's face was resolutely bent upon her exercise-book. "She does
not understand, and she is too proud to own it," thought the governess,
who, like some others of the teachers, was rather in awe of Charlotte.
"Ah, well!--Miss Knox, you Fanny, and Isabel, I am almost sure--" she
went on aloud.
"Oh, yes, indeed we understand quite well, even though we can't quite
say it," said Isabel Lewis hastily. Anything to have done with the
lesson and poor conscientious "mademoiselle," who was so "tiresome"
to-day. "You'll see, mademoiselle, we shall do it all right when it
comes up again in our exercises."
"I am glad to hear it," the French teacher replied in a peculiar tone.
"You shall then give me the gratification you promise me without delay.
For the next lesson you shall translate into French the following
passage in English which I shall now dictate to you."
And she proceeded to read aloud a passage of English especially composed
to test the pupil's comprehension of the knotty point.
Isabel made a grimace, but wrote it off readily enough. It was never
her way to anticipate troubles. Who knew what might happen before the
next lesson? She might discover some unanswerable reason for coaxing a
holiday out of "papa"; she _might_ have one of the convenient colds
which were not much of a penance; the skies might fall! And she only
laughed when her companions reproached her for having brought this extra
piece of work upon them.
It was really a difficult exercise. It took all Claudia's thorough
knowledge of the rules to complete it correctly; and Charlotte, whose
advantages of training in modern languages had been fewer, found herself
in one or two details hopelessly baffled. But she kept this to herself;
she did her best, and trusted there was not much wrong. Where was the
use of speaking about it? There was no one who could help her. Mrs
Waldron's French was a long ago story; as to her companions, she was
pretty sure that, with one exception, they were far more in the dark
than herself. But it was new and painful to her to feel misgivings, and
the very afternoon on which the exercises had to be given in she sat,
her book open before her, trying to see what were her mistakes, and
hoping to be able even then to correct them. She was so absorbed that
she did not hear herself sigh, nor a light step approaching her in her
corner.
"Miss Waldron," said a voice she knew well, with an inflection of
timidity which, till recently, happy, hearty Claudia's tones had never
known, "please forgive me for asking you if you are puzzled about that
exercise. I found it very difficult, but ma--I was rather severely
drilled in those rules, and I _think_ I have got it right."
"Indeed!" said Charlotte coldly.
"It is the last phrase that is so particularly worrying, is it not?--of
course it is made to be so. Many French girls themselves would not know
how to put it perfectly."
Now it was this last phrase that to Charlotte had been a veritable ass's
bridge. And besides her ambition, she had the purer motive of a
student's real interest in thoroughly comprehending the working of the
rule. As Claudia spoke she half unconsciously relaxed a little in her
stiff, stand-off manner.
"Yes," she said more frankly, "it is the last part that I cannot satisfy
myself about."
"Would you let me?--oh, please do," said Claudia, her face flushing, her
voice literally trembling with eagerness. "Might I just explain to you
how I have said it to myself?" and without waiting for Charlotte's
half-hesitating reply, she ran on. In a few clear, terse sentences she
put it before her listener, as all mademoiselle's long explanations or
the involved language of the grammar had failed to do. Charlotte forgot
herself and her prejudices in real admiration and satisfaction.
"I see," she exclaimed delightedly. "Miss Meredon, you have a real
genius for teaching."
"Do you really think so?" Claudia replied joyously. "And you are such
a good judge. Oh, if you only--" but she checked herself sharply. "You
do work so well and so hard, Miss Waldron."
"Yes," said Charlotte, with a slight return of the cold moodiness which
Claudia had rarely seen behind, "I don't spare myself. I care for
nothing on earth so much as for getting on well with my lessons."
There was an intensity in her tone which almost startled Claudia. At
the same time it touched a sympathetic chord.
"Oh, do you really feel so?" she exclaimed impulsively. "I think I can
understand it. You have probably some very great motive as well as love
of learning. Are you perhaps looking forward to making some use of your
education, of all you are learning, before long--to help your parents,
perhaps?" Charlotte grew crimson.
"Do you mean to say, am I being educated to be a governess?" she said
haughtily. "No, Miss Meredon, I am not I think before you make such
remarks you might be at the trouble to understand whom you are talking
to, though you seem to think yourself of a perfectly different world
from every one about you. But even in _our_ world there are such things
as well-educated ladies who are not governesses, though the idea may be
a new one to you."
Claudia's face grew pale with distress. She clasped her hands together,
while her eyes filled with tears.
"Oh, dear, what have I done? How clumsy and rude I have been--just when
I did so want to be the opposite," for her poor little overture to
Charlotte had been made in deference to a suggestion of her mother's,
that without infringing Lady Mildred's rules, she might surely find some
small opportunities of showing kindliness and sympathy to her
companions. "I can only say I did not--oh, _indeed_ I did not mean to
offend you."
"You have found us all sufficiently well-bred to ask _you_ no questions,
as you evidently wished to be considered a person apart; and I can't
therefore see that you, on your side, can expect any confidences,"
Charlotte said icily.
"No, no, of course not," said Claudia nervously. "But, Miss Waldron,
you are forgetting--are you not going to correct that last paragraph?"
for Charlotte was bundling up her books and preparing to stalk off with
what she considered great dignity.
"Certainly not. I am not going to do anything so dishonourable as to
correct my exercises by yours," said Charlotte.
"Oh, it would not be that--you know it would not be that," said Claudia
sadly. "I know what is honourable and what is not so, though you will
not allow that I am nice in any way, now that I have offended you. I
only explained the rule to you as mademoiselle had already done. You
have not seen my exercise--you don't know what I have put."
But it was in vain. And the result, as might have been expected, was
that Claudia's exercise was the only correct one, and that Charlotte
received for the first time a sharp reprimand from the French teacher
for inattention and indifference. And for the first time the praises
that were lavished upon herself gave Claudia no pleasure, but instead,
real pain and distress.