Alwynne, drumming with her fingers on the window-sill, as she stood by
Louise's desk, was distinctly annoyed. Louise, for the first time since
she had known her, was late. It was, indeed, not one of her assigned
classes; but she and Louise had found their hours together so
insufficient for all the work that they were trying to make good, that
Alwynne had good-naturedly arranged to give her a daily extra lesson. It
bit into Alwynne's meagre free time; but she was fond of Louise; proud
of her, too; and there was Clare! Clare was so anxious for Louise's
success. Clare had been so pleased with the plan....
Perhaps it was natural that Alwynne, as she made the arrangement, forgot
to consult Elsbeth. She told her about it afterwards, and Elsbeth
praised her for her unselfishness, and was anxious lest she should be
overtired. She did not remind Alwynne that she was alone all day; that
she had been accustomed to look forward to the gay tea-hour, when
Alwynne returned, full of news and nonsense. She resigned herself
cheerfully to a solitary meal, and to keeping the muffins hot against
Alwynne's uncertain home-coming.
The extra lessons had been a real boon to Louise, and she had grown
attached to Alwynne and intimate with her. Alwynne's elder-sisterly
attitude to the children she taught, although it horrified the older
women, was seldom abused; it merely made her the recipient of quaint
confidences, and gave her an insight into the characters of her pupils
that was invaluable to girls and governess alike. To developing girls a
confidante is a necessity. The present boarding-school system of
education ousts the mother from that, her natural position; renders her,
to the daughter steeped in an alien atmosphere, an outsider, lacking
all understanding. Invaluable years pass before the artificial gulf that
boarding-school creates between them, is spanned. And the substitute for
the only form of sympathy and interest that is entirely untainted by
selfish impulses is usually the chance acquaintance, the neighbour of
desk and bedroom; occasionally, very occasionally, for the girl's
feverish admiration usually precludes sane acquaintanceship, a mistress
of more than average insight. Such a mistress, Alwynne, in spite of, or
perhaps because of, her youthful indiscretions of manner, was in a fair
way to become.
And of all the children who had opened their affairs to her, none had
experienced more completely the tonic effect of a kind heart and a sense
of humour, than Louise.
She would come to her lesson, overtired from the strain of the morning
classes, over-stimulated from the contact with Clare, over-hopeful or
utterly depressed, as the mood took her. Alwynne's cheerful interest was
balm to the child's overwrought nerves. Alwynne let her spend a quarter
of an hour or more in confiding the worries and excitements of the day,
after which, Louise, curiously revived, contrived to get through an
amazing amount of work. There was no doubt as to Louise's capacity for
advanced work, but her state of mind affected her output; she was, as
Alwynne once phrased it to Clare, "like a violin--you had to tune her up
before she was fit for use." And Alwynne's "tuning" had done more than
she or Clare or even Louise herself had guessed, towards her success in
her new class.
Bit by bit, Alwynne had heard all about Louise; the details of her
meagre home-life; her attitude to the busy world of school, that
frightened while it attracted her; her difficulties with her fellows;
her delight in her work. Finally, there was Clare. Louise was very shy
about Clare; inclined to scent mockery, to be on the defensive; but
Alwynne's own matter-of-fact enthusiasm had its effect. Also Alwynne's
interest, though it invited, never demanded confidences. It took Louise
some time to realise that it arose from simple friendliness of soul;
that there was neither curiosity nor pedagogic zeal behind it; that,
though she was teased and laughed at, she was respected, and, out of
school hours, treated as an equal; that she and her schoolgirl secrets
were safe with Miss Durand. It was, indeed, in the light of after
events, pathetic that Louise, dazzled by Clare's will-o'-the-wisp
brilliance, never realised how close to her for a season the friend, the
elder sister she had longed for, really stood. With the egoism of a
child, and a child in love, she was humbly and passionately grateful for
Clare's least sign of interest, yet accepted all the many little
kindnesses that Alwynne showed her, as a matter of course. She scarcely
realised, absorbed as she was in Clare, that she was even fond of Miss
Durand, yet she relied on her implicitly: and Alwynne, innocent of the
jealous, acquisitive impulse that tainted Clare's intercourse with any
girl who caught her fancy, was not at all disturbed or hurt by Louise's
attitude. She looked after the child as she would have looked after a
starving cat or a fugitive emperor, if they had come her way, as a
matter of course, and as instinctively as she ate her dinner.
She was thinking of Louise, as she sat waiting, and a little curious as
to what the child would say to her. She had heard all about the Browning
lesson, at lunch, from Rose Levy, whose veiled, epigrammatic malice was
usually amusing. Agatha had been on her other side, and she had
anticipated equally amusing protests and contradictions and a highly
coloured and totally different version. But Agatha had been unusually
subdued that morning. Both had made it apparent, however, that Clare had
been more than a little pleased with Louise.
But, however triumphant Louise's morning might have been, she had no
business to be late now. What did she mean by keeping her waiting? Twice
had Alwynne been down to the preparation room, searching for her: she
did not mean to be impertinent of course, but it was, at least, casual.
Alwynne, with easy, evanescent indignation, resolved to give Louise a
taste of her tongue.
Here the child herself burst in upon her meditations, flushed to her
glowing eyes, that were bright as if with drugs, excited as Alwynne had
never yet guessed that she could be, charged with some indefinable
quality as a live wire is charged with electricity. She stammered her
apologies mechanically, sure of pardon, and, the formality complied
with, was eager, touchingly eager for questions and the relief of
communication.
But Alwynne, at nineteen, could not be expected to forego a legitimate
grievance.
She read Louise a little lecture on punctuality and politeness, and
settled at once to the work in hand. She said, with intention, that they
must not waste any more time.
Louise submitted with her usual meekness, and did, Alwynne could see, do
her utmost to apply herself to her work. But her answers were
ludicrously vague and _mal à propos_, and she met Alwynne's comments,
momentarily sharper, with an abstracted smile.
Suddenly Alwynne lost patience with her.
"I don't know what's the matter with you to-day, Louise," she said
sharply. "I don't believe you've taken in a word of what I've said. If
you can't take a little more trouble, I'd better go home."
Louise, obviously and pathetically jerked back to consciousness from
some dreamer's Paradise, looked up at her with scared, apologetic eyes.
The radiance dimmed slowly from her face. She made no answer, only to
put up her hand to her head, with a queer little gesture of
helplessness.
"What's the matter with you?" demanded Alwynne, but already more gently.
Her anger was always fleeting as a puff of smoke.
But Louise merely shrugged her shoulders and looked vaguely at her
again. Then she returned to her work.
Alwynne, walking up and down the room watched her intently as she bent
over the Latin grammar. She was wrinkling her brows over a piece of
prose that she had already construed at the previous lesson, and with an
ease that had astonished Alwynne. She looked bewildered and put her hand
to her head again. Her efforts to recall her wandering thoughts were
patent and almost physical in their intensity; her small hand hovered,
contracting and relaxing, like a baby catching at butterflies.
Alwynne was puzzled by her. The child was sincere: but obviously
something momentous had happened, and was still occupying her, to the
exclusion of all else. Alwynne wished that she had been less hasty: she
felt that she should not have checked her.
She stood a moment beside her, reading what she had written. It was
scarcely legible, and made no sense. She put a hand on her shoulder--
"Louise, you are writing nonsense. What is it? Tell me what the matter
is?"
Louise laid down her pen, gave her a quick, shy smile, hesitated
uncertainly, then, to Alwynne's dismay, collapsed on the low desk in a
fit of wild, hysterical crying.
Alwynne always shed the mistress in emergency.
She whipped her arms about the child, and, sitting down, gathered her
into her lap. She felt how the little, thin body was wrenched and shaken
by the sobs it did not attempt to control, but she said nothing, only
held it comfortingly tight.
Slowly the paroxysm subsided, and the words came, jerky, fragmentary,
faint. Alwynne bent close to catch them.
Louise was so sorry ... she was all right now ... Miss Durand must think
her crazy. No--no--nothing wrong ... it was the other way round ... she
was so happy that it frightened her ... she was madly happy ... she had
been in heaven all day ... it was too wonderful to tell any one
about ... even Miss Durand.... Miss Hartill--no one could ever know what
Miss Hartill was.... She had been so good to her--so wonderful.... She
had made Louise so happy that she was frightened ... she couldn't
believe it was possible to be so madly happy.... That was all.... Yes,
it had made her cry--the pure happiness.... Wasn't it silly? Only she
was so dreadfully tired.... It had hurt her head trying to do the
Latin--because she was so tired.... Yes, she had had headaches
lately.... But she didn't care--it was worth it, to please Miss
Hartill.... It was queer that being so happy should make her want to
cry; it was comical, wasn't it?
She began to laugh as she spoke, with tears brimming over her lashes,
and for a few moments was inclined to be hysterical again.
But Alwynne's firm grasp and calm voice was too much for Louise's will,
weakened by emotion and fatigue; she was soon coaxed and hushed into
quiet again, and after lying passively for a while in Alwynne's arms,
fell into the sudden light sleep of utter exhaustion.
Alwynne, rocking her gently, sat on in the darkening room, without a
thought of the passage of time; puzzling over the problem in her arms.
She was too ignorant and inexperienced to understand Louise's outburst,
or to realise the dangerous strain that the child's sensibilities were
undergoing but the touch of the little figure, clinging, nestling to
her, stirred her. She was vaguely aware that something--somehow--was
amiss. Innocently she rejoiced that Clare was being kind to Louise, that
the child was so happy and content; but the complaint of fatigue, the
frequent headaches, troubled her. She would speak to Elsbeth.... Perhaps
the child needed a tonic? Elsbeth would know....
She glanced down. How different people looked asleep.... She had never
before realised how young Louise was. What was she? Thirteen? But what a
baby she looked, with her thin, child's shape and small, clutching
hands.... It was the long-lashed lids that did it, hiding the beautiful
eyes that were so much older, as she saw now, than the rest of Louise.
With her soul asleep, Louise looked ten, and a frail little ghost of
ten, at that.
Alwynne frowned. She supposed Clare Hartill realised how young Louise
was, was right in allowing her to work so hard? But Clare knew all about
girls, and what did she, Alwynne, know? After all Louise had never
flagged before.... It was probably the usual end of term fatigue--and of
course it was necessarily an unusually stiff three months for her....
She needed a holiday.... Next term would come more easily to her, poor
little impetuous Louise.... Alwynne realised that she was growing fond
of the child.
Suddenly she heard footsteps in the corridor, and her own name in
Clare's impatient accents. Louise, too, roused at the sound, and,
jerking herself upright, slid from Alwynne's lap to her feet, as the
door opened and the light was switched on with a snap. Clare stood in
the doorway.
Serenely Alwynne rose, smoothing the creases in her dress, while with
the other hand she steadied Louise, swaying and blinking in the strong
light. Clare's sharp eyes appreciated her calm no less than the
tear-stains on Louise's cheek; she guessed distortedly at the situation.
She bit her lip. She found nothing to be annoyed at, yet she was not
pleased.
"Alwynne! I've been hunting for you high and low. I thought you were
coming home to tea with me."
Alwynne beamed at her.
"Of course! And do you know, I forgot to tell Elsbeth. Isn't it
disgraceful? But I'm coming."
She turned to Louise.
"My dear, run along home, and get to bed early; you look dreadfully
tired. Doesn't she, Miss Hartill?"
But Clare was already in the passage.
Alwynne hurried after her, with a last cheerful nod, and Louise heard
the echo of their footsteps die away in the distance.
Still dazed and heavy with sleep, her thoughts obscured and chaotic,
she sat down again stupidly at her desk in the alcove of the window. She
leaned her forehead against the cold pane and looked out.
It was a wild night. The wind soughed and shrieked in the bare trees:
the rain tore past in gusts; the lamp-post at the corner was mirrored in
the wet pavement, like a moon on an oily sea.
Louise pushed open the casement. The wind lulled as she did so, and she
lent out. The air, at least, was mild, and a faint back-wash of rain
sprayed soothingly upon her hot cheeks and swollen eyes.
Slowly her thoughts shaped themselves. So the day was over--the happiest
day she had ever had.... She thought God was very wonderful to have made
such a woman as Miss Hartill. She sent Him a hasty little prayer of
thanks. But she had been very foolish that afternoon.... She could not
understand it now.... She hoped Miss Durand would not tell Miss
Hartill.... Miss Hartill had been in a great hurry! Was that why she had
not said good-night to her? But such a little word. She wondered why
Miss Hartill had not said good-night to her....
The front door below the window creaked and opened. Louise peered
downwards. Miss Durand and Miss Hartill came down the steps sheltering
under one umbrella, talking. Their voices floated up.
"I hope you don't spoil her, Alwynne? Yes, I know----" Alwynne was
murmuring friendly adjectives. "But a mistress is in a peculiar
position. You should not let yourself be too familiar----" A gust of
wind and rain whirling down the road bore away the rest of the sentence.
Louise shut the window. She shivered a little as she gathered up her
books.
Her happiest day was over.