"Remember, Hazel," said Mrs Thorne, "remember this--we may be reduced
in circumstances; we may have been compelled by misfortune to come down
into this wretched little town, and to live in this miserable, squeezy,
poorly-furnished house or cottage, with the light kept out by the yellow
glass, and scarcely a chimney that does not smoke; we may be compelled
to dress shab--"
"Yes, yes, mother dear--"
"_Bily_," said Mrs Thorne, with indignant emphasis on account of the
interruption, "but remember this, Hazel, you are a lady."
"Forgive me for interrupting you, mother."
"_Mamma_, Hazel," said the lady, drawing herself up with great dignity.
"If we are by a cruel stroke of fate compelled to live in a state of
indigence when pride has made my eldest child refuse the assistance of
my relatives, I still maintain that I have a right to keep up my old and
ladylike title--mamma."
"But, dear, I am only a schoolmistress now--a national schoolmistress,
and it would sound full of foolish assumption if I called you mamma.
And are you not my dear, dear mother! There, there, good-bye, dear,"
cried the speaker, kissing her affectionately; "and mind the dinner is
done, for I shall be,--oh, so hungry."
"As you please, Hazel," said Mrs Thorne, smoothing down her dress, and
looking ill-used. "Let it be mother then. My feelings have to be set
aside as usual. My life is to be one slow glide down a slope of
indignity to the grave. Ah, what have I done to deserve such a fate?"
"Mother, dear mother, pray, pray don't grieve, and I'll strive so hard
to make you and the girls happy. You will soon like this little
cottage; and when we get some more furniture, and some flowers, and a
bird in the window, it will look so bright and cheerful and--there,
there, pray don't cry. I must go; it only wants five minutes to nine,
and I must not be late the first morning."
"I think it disgraceful that, in addition to six days a week, you should
be compelled to go and teach on Sundays as well; and I shall make a
point of speaking to Mr Lambent the first time he calls--that is, if he
should ever condescend to call."
"No, no, pray don't think of such a thing, dear," cried Hazel Thorne
excitedly. "You forget that I have the whole of Saturday, and--there,
there--dear, dear mother, I must go. Good--good-bye."
Hazel Thorne kissed the stiff stately-looking lady in the stiffest of
widow's weeds, and with a bright look and a cheery nod, she hurried out
of the little Gothic schoolhouse, with its prim, narrow lancet windows;
but as she closed the door, the bright look gave place to one of anxious
care, and there was a troubled nervous twitching about her lips that
told of a struggle to master some painful emotion.
She had but a few yards to go, for the new school-buildings at Plumton
All Saints were in one tolerably attractive architectural group, built
upon a piece of land given two years before by Mr William Forth Burge,
a gentleman who had left Plumton All Saints thirty--but it should be
given in his own words, as he made a point of repeating them to every
new-comer:
"Yes, sir; I left Plumton thirty year ago, after being two year with old
Marks the butcher, and went up to London to seek my fortune, and I think
I found it, I did."
Mr William Forth Burge's fortune was made by being a butcher's boy for
some years, and then starting among some new houses near Chelsea on his
own account. Fashion and the speculative builders did the rest. Mr
William Forth Burge's business grew to a tremendous extent, and at
forty-five he sold it and proudly returned to his native place--a
gentleman, he said. Stout, red-faced, very pomatumy about his smooth,
plastered-down dark hair, very much dressed in glossy broadcloth and
white waistcoats, and very much scented with his favourite perfume,
"mill flowers," as he called it.
Mr William Forth Burge left Plumton--"Bill"; he came back writing his
name in full, and everybody followed his example as soon as he had shown
himself at the various land sales and bought pretty largely. For he was
always looking out for "investments," and the local auctioneers
addressed him with great respect as "sir." Why, upon the occasion of
the dinner given at the "George," when he took the chair after the
laying of the first stone of the new school-buildings by Sir Appleton
Burr, the county member, whose name was down for ten pounds, the
Reverend Henry Lambent, the vicar, made his chin sore with his very
stiff cravat, rolling his head to give due emphasis to the very
sermon-like speech, the text of which was that Mr William Forth Burge
was an honour to the place of his birth; and the finale, received with
vociferous cheering and stamping of feet, was the proposal of this
gentleman's health.
He was a very modest, mild man, this donor of a piece of land of the
value of some three hundred and fifty pounds to the parish; and though
an ex-butcher, had probably never slain innocent lamb, let alone sheep
or ox, in his life. When he rose to respond he broke forth into a
profuse perspiration--a more profuse perspiration than usual; and his
application of a fiery orange silk handkerchief to his face, neck, and
hands, almost suggested that its contact with his skin would scorch him,
or at least make him hiss, what time he told people that he left Plumton
thirty year ago, after being two year with old Marks the butcher, etc.,
and then went on to speak of himself as if he were an oyster, for every
few moments he announced to his fellow-townsmen that he was a native,
and that he was proud of being a native, and that he did not see how a
native could better show his love for his native place than by giving
his native place a piece of ground for the erection of the new schools;
and so on, and so on.
Of course, Sir Appleton Burr, M.P., said that it was a charmingly
_naive_ piece of autobiography, and that Plumton All Saints ought to be
very proud of such a man, and no doubt Plumton was proud of him, for
where was the need of grammar to a man with fifty thousand pounds;
especially as Mr William Forth Burge, besides having no grammar, had no
pride.
In due time, the money was found, with the help of a grant from the
Committee of Council on Education, the schools being meanwhile erected--
a long red-brick semi-Gothic central building, with houses for the
schoolmaster and mistress at either end, each standing in its neat
garden, the central school building being so arranged that, by drawing
up and pushing down sash-hung shutters, the boys and girls' schools
could be thrown into one, as was always the case on Sundays.
Just as Hazel Thorne left her gate to walk thirty yards to that leading
to the girls' entrance, Mr Samuel Chute, master of the boys' school,
left his door to walk thirty yards to the gate leading to the boys'
entrance, but did not stop there, for he came right on, raising his hat,
and displaying a broad white lumpy forehead, backed by fair hair that
seemed to have been sown upon his head and come up in a sturdy crop,
some portions being more vigorous than others, and standing up in tufts
behind the lumps about his forehead; doubtless these latter being kindly
arrangements made by nature to allow room for brain projections,
consequent upon over-study.
Mr Samuel Chute smiled, and said that it was a very fine morning, a
fact that Hazel Thorne acknowledged, as the schoolmaster replaced his
hat.
"The handle of the door goes very stiffly," he said, still smiling
rather feebly, for he was annoyed with himself for not having offered to
shake hands, and it was too late now. "I thought I'd come and open it
for you."
Hazel thanked him. The heavy latch was twisted up by an awkward ring
like a young door-knocker, and went _click_! and was let down again, and
went _clack_! Then the new schoolmistress bowed and entered, and Mr
Samuel Chute went back to his own entrance, looking puzzled, his
forehead full of wrinkles, and so preoccupied that he nearly ran up
against Mr William Forth Burge, whom he might have smelt if he had not
seen, as he came to the school as usual on Sunday mornings to take his
class, and impart useful and religious instruction to the twelve biggest
boys.
There was a mist before Hazel Thorne's eyes as she entered the large
schoolroom, with its so-called gallery and rows of desks down the side,
all supported upon iron pedestals like iron bars with cricks in their
backs. All about the floor were semicircles marked out by shiny
brass-headed nails, as if the boards had been decorated by a mad
undertaker after the fashion of a coffin-lid, while between the windows,
and in every other vacant place, were hung large drawing copies of a
zoological character, embracing the affectionate boa-constrictor, the
crafty crocodile, and the playful squirrel, all of which woodcuts had
issued from the Sanctuary at Westminster, probably with the idea that
some child in Plumton schools might develop into a female Landseer.
This being Sunday, Hazel Thorne's duties were light, and after Mr
Samuel Chute had rapped upon his desk, and read prayers for the benefit
of both schools, the new mistress had little to do beyond
superintending, and trying to make herself at home.
She found that there were four classes in her side of the Sunday-school,
each with its own teacher, certain ladies coming regularly from the
town, chief of whom were the Misses Lambent--Beatrice and Rebecca, the
former a pale, handsome, but rather sinister lady of seven or
eight-and-twenty, the latter a pale, unhandsome, and very sinister lady
of seven or eight-and-thirty, both elegantly dressed, and ready to
receive the new mistress with a cold and distant bow that spoke volumes,
and was as repellant as hailstones before they have touched the earth.
For the Misses Lambent were the vicar's sisters, and taught in the
Sunday-school from a sense of duty. Hazel Thorne was ready to forget
that she was a lady by birth and education. The Misses Lambent were
not; and besides, it was two minutes past nine when Hazel entered the
room. It was five minutes to nine when they rustled in with their
stiffest mien and downcast eyes.
But they always displayed humility, even when they snubbed the girls of
their classes--a humility which prompted them to give up the first class
to Miss Burge--christened Betsey, a name of which she was not in the
least ashamed, and which, like her brother with his William Forth, she
wrote in full.
The third and fourth class girls had an enmity against those of the
first for no other reason than that they were under Miss Burge, who
heard them say their catechism, and read, and asked questions afterwards
out of a little book which she kept half hidden beneath her silk
_visite_; for pleasant, little, homely, round-faced Miss Burge could
hardly have invented a question of an original character to save her
life. One thing, however, was patent, and that was that the first class
was so far a model of good behaviour that the girls did not titter very
much, nor yet pinch one another, or dig elbows into each other's ribs
more than might be expected from young ladies of their station; while
they never by any chance made faces at "teacher" when her back was
turned, a practice that seemed to afford great pleasure to the young
ladies who were submitted to a sort of cold shower-bath, iced with
awkward texts by the Misses Lambent, in classes third and fourth.
The second class was taken by another maiden lady--Miss Penstemon,
sister of Doctor Penstemon, M.D., F.R.C.S., of the High Street. She was
thinner and more graceful than the Misses Lambent, and possibly much
older; but that was her secret and one which she never divulged.
The Misses Lambent, as before mentioned, bowed with dignity and grave
condescension to the new mistress; and, taking her cue from the vicar's
sisters. Miss Penstemon bowed also, plunging her hand afterwards into
her black bag for her smelling-bottle, for she thought the room was
rather close.
The bottle she brought out, however, she thrust back hastily, and gave a
quick glance round to see if she had been observed; for, instead of its
containing a piece of sponge saturated with the colourless fluid
labelled in her brother's surgery, "Liq. Amm.," and afterwards scented
with a few drops of an essential oil, the little stoppered bottle bore a
label with the enigmatical word "Puls." thereon, and its contents were
apparently a number of little sugar pills.
For be it known that Maria Penstemon had a will of her own, and a strong
tendency to foster crotchets. The present crotchet was homoeopathy,
which, without expressing any belief for or against, the doctor had
forbidden her to practise.
"No, 'Ria," he said, "if you want to go doctoring, doctor the people
with your moral medicines. It won't do for you to be physicking one way
and me another, so let it alone."
But Miss Penstemon refused to submit to coercion, and insisted in secret
upon following her path while the doctor went his, Maria's being the
homoeopath, while the doctor's was, of course, the allopath; and he was
a long time finding out that his sister surreptitiously "exhibited"
pilules, for she never did any harm.
Hazel Thorne met with a different reception, however, from downright
Miss Burge, who rose from her seat, looked red and "flustered," as she
called it, smiled, and shook hands.
"I'm very, very glad to know you, my dear," she said warmly, "and I hope
you'll come and see me often as soon as you get shaken down."
Shaken down! The words jarred upon the young mistress, who felt that
she could never become intimate with Miss Burge, whom she left to her
class, and then busied herself with the attendance register and various
other little matters connected with her duties. Once she stole a glance
across at the boys' school, to become aware of the fact that Mr Chute
was watching her attentively, so was Mr William Forth Burge; and, to
make matters worse, half the boys in the classes were following their
teachers' eyes, so that it was with something like a feeling of relief
that Hazel saw that the clock pointed to half-past ten, the time for
closing for the morning, and marshalling the girls in order for walking
two-and-two as far as the church.