The girls stood in a cluster round Miss Aldworth. They surrounded her
to right and left, both before and behind. She was a tall, dark-eyed,
grave looking girl herself; her age was about twenty. The girls were
schoolgirls; they were none of them more than fifteen years of age.
They adored Marcia Aldworth; she was the favourite teacher in the
school. She was going away to England suddenly, her mother was very
ill, and she might not return. The girls all spoke to her in her native
tongue. They belonged to several nationalities; some German, some
French, some Dutch, some Hungarian; there was a sprinkling of Spanish
girls and a good many English. The school was supposed to be conducted
on English principles, and the head teacher was an Englishwoman.
There was a distant sound of music in the concert room not far away, but
the girls, the principal girls of the school, took no notice of it.
"You will write to us, dear, dear Marcia," said Gunda Lehman. "I'll
forget all my English and I'll make all sorts of mistakes. You'll write
to me, and if I send you an English letter you'll correct it, won't you,
dear, dear Miss?"
Miss Aldworth made the necessary promise, which was echoed from one to
another amongst the girls. There was an American girl with a head of
tousled hair, very bright china-blue eyes, and a sort of mocking face.
She had not spoken at all up to the present, but now she came forward,
took Miss Aldworth's hand, and said:
"I'll never forget you, and if ever you come to my country be sure you
ask for me, Marie M. Belloc. I won't forget you, and you won't forget
me, will you?"
"No, I won't forget you, Marie. I'll ask for you if ever I come to your
country."
Miss Aldworth moved off into the hall. Here the head mistress began to
speak to her.
"Move aside, girls," she said, "move aside. You have said your
good-byes. Oh, here are your flowers--"
A porter appeared with a huge basket of flowers. These were tied up
with different coloured ribbons. They were presented by each girl in
succession to her favourite English teacher.
"How am I to carry them away with me?" thought poor Miss Aldworth, as
she received them; but her eyes filled with tears all the same, and she
thanked each loving young personality in the way she knew best.
A few minutes later she found herself alone in the cab which was to bear
her to the railway station. Mrs Silchester's school at Frankfort was
left behind; the now silenced voices began to echo in her ears. When
she found herself virtually alone in the railway carriage, she arranged
her flowers in order, then seated herself in a corner of the carriage
and burst into uncontrollable crying. She was going home! Her bright
life at the school was over. Her stepmother wanted her; her stepmother
was ill. She knew exactly what it all meant. She had resisted several
letters which she had received from home lately. They had come from her
younger sisters, they had come from her brother; they had come from her
father. Still she had rebelled and had struggled to keep away. She
sent them half her salary, but it was no use. Her mother wanted her;
she must come back.
At last there arrived a more alarming message, a more indignant
remonstrance. She could not help herself any longer. It was not as
though it were her own mother; it was only her stepmother who wanted
her, and she had never been specially good to Marcia, who had always
been something of a drudge in the family. Her salary was not half as
important as her services. She must come back.
She consulted Mrs Silchester; she even gave her a hint of the truth.
Mrs Silchester had hesitated, had longed to advise the girl to remain
with them.
"You are the making of the school," she said. "You keep all those
unruly girls in order. They adore you; you teach them English most
beautifully, and you are my right hand. Why should you leave me?"
"I suppose it is my duty," said Marcia. She paused for a minute and
looked straight before her. She and Mrs Silchester were in a private
sitting room belonging to the latter lady, who glanced firmly at the
tall, fine, handsome girl.
"Duty," she said, "it is a sorry bugbear sometimes, isn't it?"
"To me it is," said Marcia. "I have sacrificed all my life to my sense
of duty; but perhaps I am mistaken."
"I do not think so; it seems the only thing to do."
"Then in that case I will write and say that I will go back at once."
"I tell you what, my dear, if your mother is better when you return, and
you can so arrange matters, I will keep this place open for you. I will
get a lady in as a substitute for a short time; I won't have a permanent
teacher, but I will have you back. When you return to England, write to
me and tell me if there is any use my pursuing this idea."
Marcia said firmly:
"I know I shall never be able to return; once I am back I shall have to
stay. There is no use in thinking of anything else."
Now the whole thing was over; the girls had cried and had clung to her,
had lavished their love upon her, and the other teachers were sorry, and
Mrs Silchester had almost shed tears--she who never cried. But it was
over; the wrench had been made, the parting was at an end. Their bright
lives would go on; they would still enjoy their fun and their lessons;
they could go to the opera, to the theatre; they would still have their
little tea parties, and their friends would take them about, and they
would have a better time than English girls of their class usually have.
They would talk privately to each other just the same as ever, about
their future homes, and their probable _dots_, and of the sort of
husbands that had been arranged for them to marry, and how much linen
their good mothers were putting away into great linen chests for them to
carry away with them. They would talk to each other of all these
things, and she, who had been part and parcel of the life, would be out
of it. She always would be out of it in the future.
Nevertheless, her sense of duty carried her forward. She felt that
under no possibility could she do otherwise. She had a long and rather
tiresome journey, and arrived at her destination on the following
evening.
Her home was in the North of England, in an outlying suburb of the great
bustling town of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Marcia arrived first at the general
station; she then took a local train and in about a quarter of an hour
she arrived at the suburb where her family resided. There a tall gaunt
figure in a long overcoat was pacing up and down the platform. Several
other people got out of the train; they were mostly business men,
returning from their day's work. The tall figure did not notice them,
but when the girl sprang out of the train the man in the overcoat pulled
himself together and came forward with a quickened movement and took
both her hands.
"Thank God you have come, Marcia," he said. "Molly and Ethel and Nesta
were all in terror that you would send a wire at the last moment.
Horace said he thought you had spunk enough to do your duty, but the
rest of us were afraid. You have come, thank God. That's all right."
"Yes, father," she said in a lifeless sort of voice, "I have come. Am I
wanted so very badly!"
"Wanted?" he said. "Now let's see to your luggage; I'll tell you about
that afterwards as we are walking home."
Marcia produced her ticket, and after a short delay her two modest
trunks were secured from the luggage van. A porter was desired to bring
them to Number 7 Alison Road as quickly as possible, and the father and
daughter left the railway station and turned their steps homeward.
Marcia opened her eyes and shut them again. Then she opened them wide.
Was it a dream after all? Had she really been at delightful Frankfort,
at the gay school with its gay life not two days ago? And was she now--
what she had been doing the greater part of her life--walking by her
father's side, down the well-known road, turning round by the well-known
corner, seeing the row of neat, dull, semi-detached houses, the little
gardens in front, the little gates that most of them never kept shut,
but which clapped and clapped with the wind; the little hall doors, made
half of glass, to look artistic, and to let in a little more cold than
they would otherwise have done, a picture of the little nail, the dingy
linoleum on the floor; the look of the whole place?
By-and-by they reached their own gate; of course it needed mending.
"Oh, father," Marcia could not help saying, "you ought to see to that."
"Yes, but Molly has put it off week after week. She said you'd do it
when you came home."
"I'll manage it. But how is mother? Is she very bad?"
"She is worse than usual; she requires more care, constant attention.
There was no one else who would suit," he added. "Come along now, I'll
tell you all presently."
"You don't want me to see her to-night, do you?"
"Not unless you wish to. She is upstairs."
"Does she know I have come?"
"Yes, she knows; at least she hopes with the rest of us that you have
come. You had better run in and see her for a few minutes; you needn't
begin your duties until to-morrow."
"Thank God for that reprieve," thought Marcia.
The next instant there was a loud clamour in the hall, and three
exceedingly pretty girls, varying in age from fourteen to eighteen,
bustled out and surrounded Marcia.
"You have come! What an old dear you are! Now you'll tell us all about
Germany. Oh, isn't it fun!"
Nesta's voice was the most ringing. She was the youngest of the girls,
and her hair was not yet put up. She was wearing it in a long plait
down her back. It curled gracefully round her pretty temples. She had
sweet blue eyes and a caressing manner; she was rather untidy in her
dress, but there was a little attempt at finery about her. The other
two sisters were more commonplace. Molly was very round and fat, with
rosy cheeks, small, dark eyes and a good-humoured mouth, a gay laugh and
a somewhat tiresome habit of giggling on the smallest provocation.
Ethel was the exact counterpart of Molly, but not quite so good-looking.
These three girls were Marcia's step-sisters.
In the distance there appeared the towering form of a young man with
very broad shoulders, and a resolute face. He was Marcia's own brother.
She gave one really glad cry when she saw him, and flung herself into
his arms.
"Good old girl! I said you'd have the spunk to do your duty," he
whispered in her ear, and he patted her on the shoulder.
She felt a strange sense of comfort; she had hardly thought of him
during the journey; once he had been all in all to her, but
circumstances had divided them. He had been angry with her, and she had
felt his anger very much. He had preached duty to her until she was
sick of the word and hated the subject. She had rejected his advice.
Now he was here, and he approved of her, so things would not be quite so
bad. His love was worth that of a hundred schoolgirls.
"Oh, yes, yes," she whispered back, and he saw the pent-up emotion in
her at once.
"Marcia, come upstairs," said Nesta. "I want to see you. You needn't
go to Mummy yet. She said you weren't to be worried. Mummy is too
delighted for anything. We have put a new dressing gown on her, and she
looks so smart, and we've tidied up the room."
"Of course," said Ethel, "we've, tidied up the room."
"We have," said Molly, "and we've put a white coverlet over the bed, and
Mummy looks ever so pleased. She says you'll read to her for hours and
hours."
"Of course you will, Marcia," said Nesta. "It does so tire my throat
when I read aloud for a long time."
"And mine!" said Molly.
"And mine!" said Ethel.
"You know Ethel and Molly are out now," said Nesta. "They're asked a
good deal to tea parties and dances."
"Yes, we are," said Molly; "we're going to a dance to-morrow night."
"Yes, yes!" said Ethel, skipping about. "I want to show you our
dresses."
"They made them themselves," said Nesta.
"We did; we did, wasn't it clever of us?" said the other two, speaking
almost in a breath.
"They're awfully fashionable looking," went on Nesta--"the dresses I
mean."
Molly giggled in her commonplace way. Ethel did not giggle, but she
laughed. Nesta squeezed Marcia's arm.
"You dear darling, what a tower of strength you are," she said. "We
thought of course you wouldn't come."
"We thought you'd be much too selfish," said Molly.
"Yes, we did truly," said Ethel.
"We were certain you wouldn't do it," said Nesta. "We said: `She'll
have to give up, and why should she give up?' That's what we said; but
Horace said you'd do it, if it was put to you strongly."
"Put to me strongly?" said Marcia. "Oh, girls, I have had a long,
tiring journey, and my head aches. Is this my room? Would you think me
frightfully unkind if I asked you for a jug of hot water, and to let me
be alone for ten minutes?"
"Oh dear, dear, but don't you want us three in the room with you? We
have such a lot to tell you."
"Darlings, you shall come in afterwards. I just want ten minutes to
rest and to be quiet."
"Girls, come downstairs at once," said Horace from below.
The girls hurried off, glancing behind them, nodding to Marcia, kissing
their hands to her, giggling, bubbling over with irrepressible mirth.
Oh, it did not matter to them; their prison doors were open wide.
"So," thought Marcia, "they are going to put it all on me in the future,
even Horace. Oh, how can I bear it?"