"I should put on my best silk this morning, Hazel," said Mrs Thorne,
unrolling the broad white strings of her widow's cap and rolling them
the reverse way to make them lie flat.
"Put on my best silk, dear!" said Hazel, aghast.
"Now, that is what I don't like in you, Hazel," cried Mrs Thorne
dictatorially. "You profess to be so economical, and grudge every
little outlay for the house, but directly I propose to you anything that
affects your personal vanity you are up in arms."
"My dear mother, you mistake me."
"Oh, dear me, no, Hazel. I may be a poor, suffering, weak woman, but I
have not lived to my years through trouble and tribulation without being
able to read a young girl's heart. That silk is old-fashioned now, I
know, but it is quite good enough for the purpose, and yet has
sufficient tone about it, having been made by a first-class dressmaker,
to let the inspector see that you are a lady."
"My dear mother," began Hazel.
"Now, don't interrupt me, Hazel. I do not often interfere, but there
are times, as I told Mr Lambent when he called last, when I feel bound
to make some little corrections in your ways. You must let Her
Majesty's inspector see that you are a lady, and who knows what may
happen! He may be so struck by the fact that he finds a real lady in
charge of this school that he will feel bound to make you an offer of
marriage. Mr Lambent assured me that he was a very gentlemanly man and
tolerably young. By-the-way, Hazel, have you noticed how very kind and
attentive Mr Lambent is?"
"Yes, mother. He is very good and considerate, and thanked me yesterday
for the efforts I have made with the school."
"Quite right; so he ought. But as I was saying about Her Majesty's
inspector, you must let him see that you are a lady by birth and
education."
"My dear mother, I think the inspector must find that the majority of
schoolmistresses are ladylike, and of course highly educated."
"I am talking about my daughter," said Mrs Thorne, who had great
difficulty in getting her cap-strings to lie flat. "I wish you to
impress upon him, Hazel, that you are a lady; in fact I feel it to be my
duty to speak to him myself."
"My dearest mother!"
"Now, pray do not be so rash and impetuous, my dear," said the lady,
bridling. "The best way would be to ask him to come into the
drawing-room and hand him a little refreshment--a glass of wine and a
biscuit."
"But you forget that we are living in a cottage now. The inspector will
be staying with Mr Lambent and he will get what refreshment--"
"Hazel, don't be obstinate. I know what I am saying. Oh no, I don't
forget that I am living in a mean and sordid cottage with contemptible
windows," she cried, with an irritating shake of the head, and a
querulous ring in her voice that jarred to Hazel's heart. "I know that
this room is merely what you call a parlour by construction; but the
fact of your mother--_your_ mother occupying it, my child, makes it a
drawing-room. You will put on your silk dress, Hazel?"
"No, mother; I am going to put on the clean grasscloth," said Hazel
quietly. "The other would be unsuitable for the school, and the dark
silk would show the dust and chalk."
"Was ever woman troubled with such a wilful girl before!" moaned Mrs
Thorne. "Oh, dear me!--oh, _dea_-ar me!"
She declined to be comforted, and Hazel remained obstinate absolutely
refusing to go to the school in silk attire, but wearing an extremely
simple, closely-fitting, grasscloth dress, with plain white collar and
cuffs, and looking dreadful--so Miss Lambent afterwards said to her
sister; a prejudiced statement, for if ever there was an exemplification
of the proverb regarding the needlessness of foreign ornament it was in
Hazel Thorne's appearance that day.
As a rule she was disposed to be pale, but the excitement consequent
upon the important event had brought the colour into her cheeks, and she
looked brighter than she had for months.
Mr Chute's flowers were on the sills of the windows, the room had been
well sprinkled and swept, there was not a vestige of a cobweb to be
seen, and the girls had assembled in strong force, there having been a
theory in the school that an inspection meant tea and cake afterwards, a
theory that Feelier Potts, basing her remarks on experience, strongly
opposed; but the children mustered all the same, and in many cases
suffering a good deal from hair oil, applied so that patches of their
foreheads shone and invited comparison with the rest of their faces.
Mr William Forth Burge was one of the first arrivals, and he paused
with his sister upon the doorstep, to unfold a clean orange silk
handkerchief, and have a loud blow, like a knight of old seizing the
bugle at the castle-gate.
"How nice you do look, Bill!" said little Miss Burge, smiling at him
tenderly, as she raised her hand to the latch.
"Do I, Betsey! Am I all right! Do I look well!"
"Beautiful!" said Miss Burge enthusiastically. "There ain't a wrinkle
about your back, nor sides, nor nowhere."
"That's right!" he exclaimed. "I was rather afraid, for they're
precious tight, Betsey; and the coat feels as if it would give way about
the arms."
"But see how it shows off your figure, Bill dear," said the little lady;
"and you are getting a bit too stout."
"Ye-es, I s'pose I am; but it don't matter, Betsey, so long as the
'art's in the right place. Come along."
They entered, and their greeting to Hazel was very warm. Soon after
there was a buzz of voices heard outside, when the colour disappeared
from the cheeks of the young mistress, for she knew that the crucial
time had come. There was a sharp tapping at the door directly
afterwards, and one of the elder girls went to open it, Hazel continuing
her work with the classes, in support of the very old fiction that the
inspector would come and take school and scholars quite by surprise.
Then the door was thrown open, and a little scene enacted on the
threshold, the ladies drawing back to allow so important a personage as
Her Majesty's inspector to enter first, and Mr Slingsby Barracombe
drawing back in turn with the vicar, to allow Miss Lambent and her
sister to take precedence.
After a little hesitation, and a few words, the ladies entered, smiling,
the gentlemen followed, and Hazel advanced to meet them, when there was
the sound of wheels, a carriage stopped, steps were let down, and George
Canninge handed out his mother, walked with her to the school, and
entered.
Salutations, introductions, and a buzz of conversation followed, during
which time Hazel felt in agony. Why had Mr Canninge come? she asked
herself. She did not know why, but his presence unnerved her, and she
dreaded disgracing herself in his eyes.
"We thought we should like to be present," said the young squire. "I
hope Mr Barracombe will not consider us in the way."
On the contrary, he was delighted to see present any of the patrons of
the school, and said so as soon as he knew the social status of the
Canninges; after which he asked to be excused, smiled, bowed, and turned
to the task he had in hand. Then George Canninge shook hands warmly
"with those dreadfully vulgar folks, the Burges," as Mrs Canninge said,
while she kept an eye upon her son and the schoolmistress in turn.
As a rule the Rev Henry Lambent was the great man at the schools, but
upon this occasion he sank into a very secondary position, following the
inspector with a stiff kind of deference, as Mr Slingsby Barracombe
raised his glasses to his eyes, balanced them upon his nose, looked at
Hazel gravely for a few moments, and then bowed formally without a word,
before taking off his glasses and holding them behind him with both
hands as if they were hot, while he marched about the school.
National school children are at such times supposed to be all intent
upon their lessons, and never to raise their eyes to look at visitors,
especially such an awe-inspiring personage as an inspector; but it would
be just as reasonable to expect a pinch of steel filings to refrain from
turning towards a magnet plunged in their midst. Certainly the girls in
Hazel Thorne's charge followed the inspector, their eyes taking in every
movement and Feelier Potts's malicious features almost involuntarily
moulding themselves into an excellent imitation of the peculiarities of
his face.
When Mr Barracombe had solemnly walked round the school once, with the
Reverend Henry Lambent hat in hand, behind him, and the other visitors
forming themselves into a deferential audience, who watched him as if he
were going through some wonderful performance, he said, with a loud
expiration of his breath--
"Hah!" an ejaculation that might mean anything, and one that committed
him to naught.
"Is--ah, this your first class. Miss--ah--ah--"
"Thorne," said Hazel quietly. "No, sir, this is the second."
"Thorne, ah--exactly. Yes, I see--ah. Yes, needlework--ah. Stand."
The girls in the first class stood up smartly, and Feelier Potts's
thimble flew off, went tinkling across the floor, and was flattened
beneath one of Ann Straggalls's big feet.
"Oh, you see if I don't serve you out for that," began Feelier loudly,
her face scarlet with rage.
"Hush! silence! How dare you, child?"
"Well, but she's squeedged it flat."
"Silence, girl!" exclaimed the inspector indignantly. "Back to your
place."
Hazel turned crimson as she hurriedly took Feelier Potts by the arm, and
in her excitement and dread of a scene, knowing as she did the fearless
nature of the girl, she said softly--
"Be a good girl, Ophelia, and I will give you a new thimble."
There was quite a sensation during this little episode. Miss Lambent
whispering to her sister, who nodded and shook her head, Mrs Canninge
looking with raised eyebrows at the first class through her gold-rimmed
glasses, and little Miss Burge furiously shaking her fat forefinger at
"that naughty child." There was a hearty laugh on its way to George
Canninge's lips, but, seeing the pain the chatter was causing Hazel, he
checked his mirth and remained serious.
Mr Barracombe seemed to be in doubt as to whether he ought not to expel
Feelier Potts there and then, and as she resumed her place he frowned at
her severely, the culprit looking up at him with a most mild and
innocent aspect, till he turned his gaze upon another pupil, when
Feelier began nodding at Ann Straggalls and uttering whispered menaces
of what she would do as soon as they were out of school.
Then all eyes were turned to the inspector, who unfolded some printed
blue papers, and after coughing to clear his voice, searched in his
waistcoat pocket, and brought out a gold pencil-case, which required a
good deal of screwing about before it would condescend to mark. Having
pinched his nose between his glasses, he commenced examining the
needlework, of which he was evidently a good judge, and doubtless knew
the difference between hemming, stitching, tacking, herring-boning, and
the other mysterious processes by which cloth, calico, and other woven
fabrics are held together.
Then there was an entry made upon the blue paper, and the inspector
looked severely through his glasses at Ann Straggalls.
"Can you tell me, my good girl, how many yards of long-cloth would be
required for a full-sized shirt?"
Ann Straggalls allowed her jaw to drop and stood staring hard at the
querist for a few moments, and then, like that certain man in the
scriptural battle, she drew a bow at a venture, but she failed to hit
the useful under garment in question, for she eagerly replied "twelve."
"Next girl," said the inspector.
"Eight."
"Next girl."
"Sixteen."
"Next."
"Twenty."
"Next. How many yards of long-cloth would be required for a full-sized
shirt?"