I declare my progress with my narrative seems for all the world like
papa carving a pigeon-pie at a picnic: there were the claws sticking out
all in a bunch at the top, as much as to say there were plenty of
pigeons inside; but when he cut into it, there was just the same result
as the readers must find with this work--nothing but disappointing bits
of steak, very hard and tiresome. But I can assure you, like our cook
at home, that all the pigeons were put in, and if you persevere you will
be as successful as papa was at last, though I must own that pigeon is
rather an unsatisfactory thing for a hungry person.
Heigho! what a life did I live at the Cedars: sigh, sigh, sigh, morning,
noon, and night. I don't know what I should have done if it had not
been for the garden, which was very nice, and the gardener always very
civil. The place was well kept up--of course for an advertisement; and
when I was alone in the garden, which was not often, I used to talk to
the old man or one of his underlings, while they told me of their
troubles. It is very singular, but though I thought the place looked
particularly nice, I learnt from the old man that it was like every
garden I had seen before, nothing to what it might be if there were
hands enough to keep it in order. I spoke to papa about that singular
coincidence, and he laughed, and said that it was a problem that had
never yet been solved:--how many men it would take to keep a garden in
thorough order.
There was one spot I always favoured during the early days of my stay.
It was situated on the north side of the house, where there was a dense,
shady horse-chestnut, and beneath it a fountain in the midst of
rockery--a fountain that never played, for the place was too oppressive
and dull; but a few tears would occasionally trickle over the stones,
where the leaves grew long and pallid, and the blossoms of such flowers
as bloomed here were mournful, and sad, and colourless. It seemed just
the spot to sit and sigh as I bent over the ferns growing from between
the lumps of stone; for you never could go, even on the hottest days
without finding some flower or another with a tear in its eye.
I hope no one will laugh at this latter conceit, and call it poetical or
trivial; for if I like to write in a sad strain, and so express my
meaning when I allude to dew-wet petals, where is the harm?
But to descend to everyday life. I talked a great deal just now about
the different visitors we had, and the behaviour of our vicar in the
church; and really it was a very nice little church, though I did not
like the manners of some of the people who frequented it.
Allsham being a small country town, as a matter of course it possessed
several grandees, some among whom figured upon Mrs Blunt's circular;
and it used to be so annoying to see about half-a-dozen of these big
people cluster outside the porch in the churchyard, morning and
afternoon, to converse, apparently, though it always seemed to me that
they stood there to be bowed to by the tradesmen and mechanics. They
never entered the church themselves until the clergyman was in the
reading-desk, and the soft introductory voluntary was being played on
the organ by the Fraulein, who performed in the afternoon, the organist
in the morning. Then the grandees would come marching in slowly and
pompously as a flock of geese one after another into a barn, proceeding
majestically to their pews; when they would look into their hats for a
few moments, seat themselves, and then stare round, as much as to say,
"We are here now. You may begin."
It used to annoy me from its regularity and the noise their boots made
while the clergyman was praying; for they might just as well have come
in a minute sooner; but then it was the custom at Allsham, and I was but
a visitor.
I did not get into any trouble until I had been there a month, when
Madame Blunt must give me an imposition of a hundred lines for laughing
at her, when I'm sure no one could have helped it, try ever so hard. In
the schoolroom there was a large, flat, boarded thing, about a foot
high, all covered with red drugget; and upon this used to stand Mrs
Blunt's table and chair, so that she was a great deal higher than anyone
else, and could easily look over the room. Then so sure as she began to
sit down upon this dais, as she used to call it, there was a great deal
of fuss and arranging of skirts, and settling of herself into her chair,
which she would then give two or three pushes back, and then fidget
forward; and altogether she would make more bother than one feels
disposed to make sometimes upon being asked to play before company, when
the music-stool requires so much arranging.
Now, upon the day in question she had come in with her head all on one
side, and pulling a sad long face, pretending the while to be very
poorly, because she was half-an-hour late, and we had been waiting for
the lesson she was down in the table to give. Then, as we had often had
it before, and knew perfectly well what was coming, she suddenly caught
sight of the clock.
"Dear me, Miss Sloman! Bless my heart, that clock is very much too
fast," she would exclaim. "It cannot be nearly so late as that."
"I think it is quite right, Mrs de Blount," Miss Sloman would say,
twitching her moustache.
"Oh, dear me, no, Miss Sloman; nothing like right. My pendule is quite
different."
Of course we girls nudged one another--that is not a nice word, but
kicked or elbowed seems worse; and then, thinking I did not know, Clara
whispered to me that her ladyship always went on like that when she was
down late of a morning. But I had noticed it several times before;
while there it was, always the same tale, and the silly old ostrich
never once saw that we could see her when she had run her stupid old
head in the sand.
Well, according to rule, she came in, found fault with the clock, but
took care not to have it altered to match her gimcrack French affair in
her bedroom, which she always called her pendule. Then she climbed on
to the dais; and, as usual, she must be very particular about the
arrangement of the folds of her satin dress, which was one of the
company or parent-seeing robes, now taken into everyday use.
"Look out," whispered Clara to me.
"What for?" I said, in the same low tone.
But instead of answering she pretended to be puzzled with something in
her lesson, and got up to go and ask Miss Furness what it meant.
All this while Mrs Blunt was getting up and sitting down, and rustling
about like an old hen in a dust-bath, to get herself in position; when
quite suddenly there was a sharp scream and a crash; and, on jumping up,
I could see the lady principal upon the floor behind the dais where she
had pulled over the table, and the ink was trickling down upon her neck.
Of course, any lady in her senses would have got up directly, and tried
to repair the mischief; but not she: for there she lay groaning as if in
terrible pain, as Miss Furness and Miss Sloman, one at either hand, were
trying to raise her, the Fraulein the while dragging off the table, and
exclaiming in German; but not the slightest impression was made upon the
recumbent mass--which seems to me the neatest way of saying "lying-down
lump."
Clara ran out of the room, holding her handkerchief to her mouth, but
pretending all the while to be frightened out of her wits; and then what
a fuss there was getting the fallen one into her seat again--but not on
the dais--bathing her face, chafing her hands, sprinkling her with _Eau
de Cologne_, holding salts to her nose; and it was just as she was
groaning the loudest and sighing her worst that Clara came back, and
began to look in her droll, comical way at me.
I had not seen through the trick at first; but all at once I recalled
that wicked girl's "Look out!" when it flashed through my mind in an
instant that she had moved back the chair and table upon the dais, so
that at the first good push back of her chair the poor woman fell down;
and so, what with the thoughts of the wicked trick, and Mrs Blunt's
long-drawn face, and Clara's droll eyes peering at me so saucily, I
could not help it, but burst out into a loud laugh.
Talk of smelling-salts, and bathing, and chafing, why, they were as
nothing in comparison with that laugh. Poor Mrs Blunt! I dare say she
did hurt herself, for she was stout and heavy; but she was well again in
an instant, and looked at me in a horribly furious manner. But I did
not care--not a bit; and I could not help it, for it was not my fault I
could see though, that she thought that it was, as she burst out,--
"Miss Bozerne!"
"Such unladylike behaviour," chimed in Miss Furness.
"So cruel!" exclaimed Miss Sloman.
"Ach ten!" ejaculated the Fraulein; while I caught sight of Miss Murray
looking quite pained at me.
"I did not think that a young lady in my establishment would have been
guilty of such atrocious conduct," exclaimed Mrs Blunt furiously.
"No, indeed," said Miss Furness.
"Something entirely new," exclaimed Miss Sloman, tossing her pretty
head.
And there stood poor Miss Bozerne--poor me--feeling so red and ear
tingling; for though I said that I did not care, I did, and very much
too; but nothing should have made me confess that I knew the cause of
the accident; and though all the while I was sure that dreadful Mrs
Blunt thought I had moved her chair, I bore it, determined not to betray
Clara, little thinking the while that the time would come when, upon a
much more serious occasion, I should be dependent upon her generosity.
But it really did seem too bad of the tiresome thing, who was holding
down her head, and thoroughly enjoying the whole scene; and no doubt it
was excellent fun for her, but it was very hard upon poor me.
"Leave the room, Miss Bozerne, and retire to your dormitory," exclaimed
Mrs Blunt at last, in a very awful tone of voice, and putting on every
scrap of dignity she could command.
I felt just as if I should have liked to have said "I won't;" but I
controlled myself, and, making a sweeping curtsey, I went out, feeling
very spiteful. And then, when I was upstairs and had received my
hundred-line French imposition, I commenced work by writing a cross
letter to mamma, and telling her that I would not stay in the nasty
school any longer; and declaring that if she did not come soon and fetch
me, I should run away.
But though it was a very smartly-written, satirical letter, I tore it up
afterwards; for something seemed to whisper to me that--that--well,
that--But if those who have read so far into my confessions will have
patience, and quietly keep on reading leaf after leaf, trying the while
to sympathise with me, no doubt they will form a judgment for themselves
of the reason which prevented me from sending the letter to mamma, and
made me try to put up with the miseries of that select establishment for
young ladies--the Cedars, Allsham.