"You won't tell tales, will you, Patty?" said Clara.
"No," said Patty, sleepily; "I never do, do I? But I shall, though,"
with a grin lighting up her fat face--"I shall, though, if you don't do
the exercise for me that horrid Frenchman has left. I can't do it, and
I sha'n't, and I won't, so now then."
And then the great, stupid thing made a grimace like a rude child.
It was enough to make one slap her, to hear such language; for I'm sure
Monsieur de Tiraille was so quiet and gentlemanly, and--and--well, he
was not handsome, but with such eyes. I can't find a word to describe
them, for picturesque won't do. And then, too, he spoke such excellent
English.
I suppose I must have looked quite angrily at Patty, for just then Clara
pinched my arm.
"I thought so," said she, laughing; "you won't make me jealous, dear,
about the Signor, now, will you, you dear, handsome girl? I declare I
was quite frightened about you at first."
"Don't talk such nonsense," I said, though I could not help feeling
flattered. "Whatever can you mean?"
"Oh, nothing at all," said Clara, laughing. "You can't know what I
mean. But come and sit down here, the seat is dry now. Are not flowers
sweet after the rain?"
So we went and sat down under the hawthorn; and then Clara, who had been
at the Cedars two years, began to talk about Monsieur Achille, who was
also a refugee, and who was obliged to stay over here on account of the
French President; and a great deal more she told me, but I could not pay
much attention, for my thoughts would keep carrying me away, so that I
was constantly going over the French lesson again and again, and
thinking of how stupid I must have looked, and all on in that way, when
it did not matter the least bit in the world; and so I kept telling
myself.
"There!" exclaimed Clara, all at once; "I never did know so tiresome a
girl. Isn't she, Patty, tiresome beyond all reason?"
But Patty was picking and eating the sour gooseberries--a nasty pig!--
and took not the slightest notice of the question.
"It is tiresome," said Clara again; "for I've been talking to you for
the last half-hour, about what I am sure you would have liked to know,
and I don't believe that you heard hardly a word; for you kept on saying
`um!' and `ah,' and `yes'; and now there's the tea-bell ringing. But I
am glad that you have come, for I did want a companion so badly. Patty
is so big and so stupid; and all the other girls seem to pair off when
they sleep in the same rooms. And, besides, when we are both thinking--
that is, both--both--you know. There, don't look like that! How droll
it is of you to pretend to be so innocent, when you know all the while
what I mean!"
I could not help laughing and squeezing Clara's hand as I went in; for
somehow I did not feel quite so dumpy and low-spirited as I did a few
hours before; and, as I sat over the thick bread-and-butter they gave
us--though we were what, in more common schools, they would have called
parlour boarders--I began to have a good look about me, and to take a
little more notice of both pupils and teachers, giving an eye, too, at
Mrs Fortesquieu de Blount.
Only to think of the artfulness of that woman, giving herself such a
grand name, and the stupidity of people themselves to be so taken in.
But so it was; for I feel sure it was nothing else but the "Fortesquieu
de Blount" which made mamma decide upon sending me to the Cedars. And
there I sat, wondering how it would be possible for me to manage to get
through a whole year, when I declare if I did not begin to sigh
terribly. It was the coming back to all this sort of thing, after
fancying it was quite done with; while the being marched out two and
two, as we had been that day, all round the town and along the best
walks, for a perambulating advertisement of the Cedars, Allsham, was
terrible to me. It seemed so like making a little girl of me once more,
when I was so old that I could feel a red spot burning in each cheek
when I went out; and I told Clara of them, but she said they were caused
by pasty wasters and French lessons, and not by annoyance; while, when I
looked angrily round at her, she laughed.
It would not have mattered so much if the teachers had been nice,
pleasant, lady-like bodies, and would have been friendly and kind; but
they would not, for the sole aim of their lives seemed to be to make the
pupils uncomfortable, and find fault; and the longer I was there the
more I found this out, which was, as a matter of course, only natural.
If we were out walking--now we were walking too fast, so that the
younger pupils could not keep up with us; or else we were said to crawl
so that they were treading on our heels; and do what we would, try how
we would, at home or abroad, we were constantly wrong. Then over the
lessons they were always snapping and catching us up and worrying, till
it was quite miserable. As to that Miss Furness, I believe honestly
that nothing annoyed her more than a lesson being said perfectly, and so
depriving her of the chance of finding fault.
Now pray why is it that people engaged in teaching must always be sour
and disappointed-looking, and ready to treat those who are their pupils
as if they were so many enemies? I suppose that it is caused by the
great pressure of knowledge leaving room for nothing mild and amiable.
Of course Patty Smith was very stupid; but it was enough to make the
poor, fat, pudgy thing ten times more stupid to hear how they scolded
her for not doing her exercises. I declare it was quite a charity to do
them for her, as it was not in her nature to have done them herself.
There she would sit, with her forehead all wrinkled up, and her thick
brows quarrelling, while her poor eyes were nearly shut; and I'm sure
her understanding was quite shut up, so that nothing could go either in
or out.
Oh! I used to be so vexed, and could at any time have pulled off that
horrid Mrs Blunt's best cap when she used to bring in her visitors, and
then parade them through the place, displaying us all, and calling up
first one and then another, as if to show off what papa would call our
points.
The vicar of Allsham used to be the principal and most constant visitor;
and he always made a point of taking great interest in everything, and
talking to us, asking us Scripture questions; coming on a Monday--a
dreadful old creature--so as to ask us about the sermon which he
preached on the previous morning. They were all such terrible sermons
that no one could understand--all about heresies, and ites, and saints
with hard names; and he had a bad habit of seeing how many parentheses
he could put inside one another, like the lemons from the bazaars, till
you were really quite lost, and did not know which was the original, or
what it all meant; and I'm sure sometimes he did not know where he had
got to, and that was why he stopped for quite two minutes blowing his
nose so loudly. I'm afraid I told him very, very wicked stories
sometimes when he questioned me; while if he asked me once whether I had
been confirmed, he asked me twenty times.
I'm sure I was not so very wicked before I went down to Allsham; but I
quite shudder now when I think of what a wretch I grew, nicknaming
people and making fun of serious subjects; and oh, dear! I'm afraid to
talk about them almost.
The vicar sat in his pew in the nave in the afternoon, and let the
curate do all the service; and I used to feel as if I could box his
ears, for he would stand at the end of his seat, half facing round, and
then, in his little, fat, round, important way, go on gabbling through
the service, as if he wasn't satisfied with the way the curate was
reading it, and must take it all out of his mouth. He upset the poor
young man terribly, and the clerk too; so that the three of them used to
tie the service up in a knot, or make a clumsy trio of it, with the
school children tripping up their heels by way of chorus.
Then, too, the old gentleman would be so loud, and would not mind his
points, and would read the responses in the same fierce, defiant way in
which he said the Creed in the morning, just as if he was determined
that everybody should hear how he believed. And when the curate was
preaching, he has folded his arms and stared at the poor young fellow,
now shaking his head, and now blowing his nose; while the curate would
turn hot, and keep looking down at him as much as to say, "May I advance
that?" or "Won't that do, sir?" till it was quite pitiful.
The vicar used to bring his two daughters with him to the Cedars, to
pat, and condescend, and patronise, and advise: two dreadful creatures
that Clara called the giraffes, they were so tall and thin, and
hook-nosed, and quite a pair in appearance. They dressed exactly alike,
in white crape long shawls and lace bonnets in summer; and hooked on to
their father, one on each arm, as the fat, red-faced, little old
gentleman used to come up the gravel walk, he was just like a chubby old
angel, with a pair of tall, scraggy, half-open wings.
But though the two old frights were so much alike in appearance, they
never agreed upon any point; and the parishioners had a sad time of it
with first one and then the other. They were always leaving books for
the poor people's reading, and both had their peculiar ideas upon the
subject of what was suitable. They considered that they knew exactly
what every one ought to read, and what every one else ought to read was
just the very reverse of what they ought to read themselves. But there,
they do not stand alone in that way, as publishers well know when they
bring out so many works of a kind that they are sure customers will
buy--not to read, but to give away--very good books, of course.
It was all very well to call them the giraffes, and that did very well
for their height; but as soon as I found out how one was all for one
way, and the other immediately opposed to her sister, declaring she was
all wrong, I christened them--the Doxies--Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy. It
was very dreadful--wasn't it?--and unladylike, and so on; but it did
seem to fit, and all the girls took it up and enjoyed it; only that
odious Celia Blang must tell Miss Furness, and Miss Furness must tell
Mrs Blunt, and then of course there was a terrible hubbub, and I was
told that it was profane in one sense, bad taste in another, and
disgusting language in another; for the word "doxy" was one that no lady
should ever bring her lips to utter. When if I did not make worse of
it--I mean in my own conscience--by telling a most outrageous story, and
saying I was sorry, when I wasn't a bit.
Oh, the visitors! I was sick of them; for it was just as if we girls
were kept to show. I used to call the place Mrs Blunt's Menagerie, and
got into a scrape about that; for everything I said was carried to the
principal--not that I cared, only it made me tell those stories, and say
I was sorry when I was not.
The curate and his poor unfortunate wife came sometimes. A
curious-looking couple they were, too, who seemed as if they had found
matrimony a mistake, and did not approve of it; for they always talked
in a quiet, subdued way, and walked as far apart from one another as
they could.
The curate had not much to say for himself; but he made the best he
could of it, and stretched his words out a tremendous length, saying
pa-a-ast and la-a-ast; so that when he said the word everlasting in the
service, it was perfectly terrible, and you stared at him in dismay, as
if there really never would be an end to it.
We used to ask one another, when he had gone, what he had been talking
about; but we never knew--only one had two or three long-stretched-out
words here, and a few more there. But it did not matter; and I think we
liked him better than his master, the vicar. As for his wife, she had a
little lesson by heart, and she said it every time she came, with a
sickly smile, as she smoothed one side at a time of her golden locks,
which always looked rough; and hers were really golden locks--about
eight-carat gold, I should say, like Patty Smith's trumpery locket; for
they showed the red coppery alloy very strongly--too strongly for my
taste, which favours pale gold.
Pray do not for a moment imagine that I mean any vulgar play upon words,
and am alluding to any vegetable in connection with the redness of the
Mrs Curate's hair; for she was a very decent sort of woman, if she
would not always have asked me how I was, and how was mamma, and how was
papa, and how I liked Allsham, and whether I did not think Mrs de
Blount a pattern of deportment. And then, as a matter of course, I was
obliged to tell another story; so what good could come to me from the
visits of our vicar and his followers?