St. Catherine's Mansion, the Royal Service School for Officers'
Daughters, had not been built for the purpose, but bought, otherwise
it would have been as ugly to look at as it was dreary to live in. As
it was, however, the house was beautiful, and so also were the grounds
about it, and the views of the river, the bridge with its many arches,
and the grey town climbing up from it to the height above.
Beth was still standing at the top of the steps under the great
portico, where her mother had left her, contemplating the river, which
was the first that had flowed into her experience.
"Come, come, my dear, come in!" some one behind her exclaimed
impatiently. "You're not allowed to stand there."
Beth turned and saw a thin, dry, middle-aged woman, with keen dark
eyes and a sharp manner, standing in the doorway behind her, with a
gentler-looking lady, who said, "It is a new girl, Miss Bey. I expect
she is all bewildered."
"No, I am not at all bewildered, thank you," Beth answered in her easy
way. As she spoke she saw two grown-up girls in the hall exchange
glances and smile, and wondered what unusual thing she had done.
"Then you had better come at once," Miss Bey rejoined drily, "and let
me see what you can do. Please to remember in future that the girls
are not allowed to come to this door."
She led the way as she spoke, and Beth followed her across the hall,
up a broad flight of steps opposite the entrance, down a wide corridor
to the right, and then to the right again, into a narrow class-room,
and through that again into another inner room.
"These are the fifth and sixth rooms," Miss Bey remarked,--"fifth and
sixth classes."
They were furnished with long bare tables, forms, hard wooden chairs,
a cupboard, and a set of pigeon-holes. Miss Bey sat down at the end of
the table in the "sixth," with her back to the window, and made Beth
sit on her left. There were some books, a large slate, a slate pencil,
and damp sponge on the table.
"What arithmetic have you done?" Miss Bey began.
"I've scrambled through the first four rules," Beth answered.
"Set yourself a sum in each, and do it," Miss Bey said sharply, taking
a piece of knitting from a bag she held on her arm, and beginning to
knit in a determined manner, as if she were working against time.
Beth took up the slate and pencil, and began; but the sharp
click-click of the needles worried her, and her brain was so busy
studying Miss Bey she could not concentrate her mind upon the sums.
Miss Bey waited without a word, but Beth was conscious of her keen
eyes fixed upon her from time to time, and knew what she meant.
"I'm hurrying all I can," she said at last.
"You'll have to hurry more than you can, then, in class," Miss Bey
remarked, "if this is your ordinary rate of work."
When the sums were done, she took the slate and glanced over them.
"They are every one wrong," she said; "but I see you know how to work
them. Now clean the slate, and do some dictation."
She took up a book when Beth was ready, and began to read aloud from
it. Beth became so interested in the subject that she forgot the
dictation, and burst out at last, "Well, I never knew that before."
"You are doing dictation now," Miss Bey observed severely.
"All right, go on," Beth cheerfully rejoined.
Miss Bey did not go on, however, and on looking up to see what was the
matter, Beth found her gazing at her with bent brows.
"May I ask what your name is?" Miss Bey inquired.
"Beth Caldwell."
"Then allow me to inform you, Miss Beth Caldwell, that 'all right, go
on,' is not the proper way to address the head-mistress of the Royal
Service School for Officers' Daughters."
"Thank you for telling me," Beth answered. "You see I don't know these
things. I always say that to mamma."
"Have you ever been to school before?" Miss Bey asked.
"No," Beth answered.
"Oh!" Miss Bey ejaculated, with peculiar meaning. "Then you will have
a great deal to learn."
"I suppose so," Beth rejoined. "But that's what I came for, you
know--to learn. It's high time I began!"
She fixed her big eyes on the blank wall opposite, and there was a
sorrowful expression in them. Miss Bey noted the expression, and
nodded her head several times, but there was no relaxation of her
peremptory manner when she spoke again.
"Go on, my dear," she said. "If I give as much time to the others as
you are taking, I shall not get through the new girls to-night."
Beth finished her dictation.
"What a hand!" Miss Bey exclaimed. "Wherever did you learn to write
like that?"
"I taught myself to write small on purpose," Beth replied. "You can
get so much more on to the paper."
"You had better have taught yourself to spell, then," Miss Bey
rejoined. "There are four mistakes in this one passage."
Beth balanced her pencil on her finger with an air of indifference.
She was wondering how it was that the head-mistress of the Royal
Service School for Officers' Daughters used the word "wherever" as the
vulgar do.
The examination concluded with some questions in history and
geography, which Beth answered more or less incorrectly.
"I shall put you here in the sixth," Miss Bey informed her; "but
rather for your size than for your acquirements. There is a delicate
girl, much smaller than you are, in the first."
"Then I'd rather be myself, tall and strong, in the sixth," Beth
rejoined. "If I don't catch her up, at all events I shall have more
pleasure in life, and that's something."
Again Miss Bey gazed at her; but she was too much taken aback by
Beth's readiness to correct her on the instant, although it was an
unaccustomed and a monstrous thing for a girl to address a mistress in
an easy conversational way, let alone differ from her.
She took Beth to the great class-room where the seventh and eighth
worked, and the fifth and sixth joined them for recreation and
preparation, and where also the Bible lessons were given by Miss
Clifford to the whole school.
There were a good many girls of various ages in the room, who all
looked up.
"This is a new girl," Miss Bey said, addressing them generally,--"Miss
Beth Caldwell. Please to show her where to go and what to do."
She glanced round keenly as she spoke, then left the room; and at the
same time a thin, sharp-looking little girl with short hair rose from
the table at which she was sitting and went up to Beth.
"I'm head of the fifth," she said. "Has Bey been examining you? What
class did she put you in?"
"The sixth," Beth said.
"I should have thought you'd have been in the third at least," the
head of the fifth piped, "you're so big. Here are some sixth
girls--Jessie Baker, Ina Formby, Rosa Bird."
The sixth girls were sitting at a round table, with their little desks
before them, writing letters. One of them pulled out a chair for Beth.
They had just returned from the holidays, and were in various stages
of home-sickness--some of them crying, and the rest depressed; but
they welcomed Beth kindly, as one of themselves, and inspected her
with interest.
"You can write a private letter to-day, you know," Rosa Bird said to
Beth.
"What is a private letter?" Beth asked.
"One to your mother, you know, that isn't read. You seal it up
yourself. Public letters have to be sent in open to Miss Clifford. One
week you write a public letter, and the next a private one. Hello!
here's Amy Wynne!"
A dark girl of about eighteen had entered by a door at the farther end
of the room, and was received with acclamation, being evidently
popular. Beth, who was still in her mask of calm indifference, looked
coldly on, but in herself she determined to be received like that some
day.
Most of the girls in the room jumped up, and Amy Wynne kissed one
after the other, and then shook hands with Beth.
"Are all my children back?" she asked.
"I don't know," Rosa Bird rejoined, glancing round. "They are not all
here."
"That's one of the mothers," Rosa explained to Beth when Amy Wynne had
gone again. "The first-class girls are mothers to us. You walk with
your mother in the garden, and sit with her on half-holidays, and
she's awfully good to you. I advise you to be one of Amy Wynne's
children if you can." She was interrupted by the loud ringing of a
bell in the hall. "That's for tea," Rosa added. "Come, and I'll show
you the way."
The big dining-room was downstairs in the basement, next the kitchen.
Miss Clifford dined in the next room attended by her maids of honour
(the two girls at the top of the first class for the time being) and
the rest of the class except the girls at the bottom, who were
degraded to the second-class table in the big dining-room. Here each
two classes had a separate table, at either end of which a teacher sat
on a Windsor chair. The girls had nothing but hard benches without
backs to sit on. Miss Bey, the housekeeper Miss Winch, and the head
music-mistress, irreverently called Old Tom by the girls, sat at a
separate table, where, at dinner-time, they did all the carving, and
snatched what little dinner they could get in the intervals, patiently
and foolishly regardless of their own digestions. For tea there were
great dishes of thick bread and butter on all the tables, which the
girls began to hand round as soon as grace had been said. Each class
had a big basin of brown sugar to put in the tea, which gave it a
coarse flavour. The first cup was not so bad, but the second was
nothing but hot water poured through the teapot. It was not etiquette
to take more than two. When the girls were ready for a second, they
put pieces of bread in their saucers that they might know their own
again, and passed the cups up to the teacher who poured out tea. If
any girl suspected that the cup returned to her was not her own, she
would not touch the tea. When the meal was over, one of the girls took
the sugar-basin, beat down the sugar in it flat and hard with the
spoon, did a design on the top, and put it away.
"What's that for?" Beth asked.
"That's so that we shall know our own again," Rosa answered. "But it
never lasts the proper time."
"What do you do when it's done?" said Beth.
"Do without," was the laconic rejoinder.
All the girls were talking at once.
"What a racket!" Beth exclaimed.
"It'll be quiet enough to-morrow," Rosa replied. "The first class
talks at table in Miss Clifford's room, but we are not allowed to
speak a word here, except to the teachers, nor in the bedrooms either,
once work begins. Do you see that great fat old thing at the
mistress's table? That's Old Tom, the head music-mistress. She is a
greedy old cat! She likes eating! You can see it by the way she gloats
over things, and she's quite put out if she doesn't get exactly what
she wants. Fancy caring! It's just like a man; and that's why she's
called Old Tom."
"Not that she's fastidious!" said Agnes Stewart, a tall slender girl
with short crisp black hair and grey-green eyes, who was sitting
opposite to Beth. "I believe she likes mutton."
"Oh, she's horrid enough for anything!" the girl next her exclaimed
with an expression of disgust.
Some of the girls ate their thick bread and butter unconcernedly,
others were choked with tears, and could not touch it. Most of the
tearful ones were new girls, and the old ones were kind to them; the
teachers, too, were sympathetic, and did their best to cheer them.
After tea they all returned to their class-rooms. Beth went and stood
in one of the great windows looking out on to the grounds, the river,
the old arched bridge, and the grey houses of the town climbing up the
hill among the autumn-tinted trees. All the windows were shut, and she
began to feel suffocated for want of fresh air, and bewildered by the
clatter of voices. If only she could get out into the garden! The door
at the end of the room, which led into the first and second, was open.
She went through. But before she was half across the room, one of the
elder girls exclaimed roughly, "Hello! what are you doing here?"
"It's a new girl, Inkie," another put in.
"Well, the sooner she learns she has no business here the better,"
Inkie rejoined.
Beth thought her exceedingly rude, and passed on into the vestibule
unconcernedly.
"Well, that's cool cheek!" Inkie exclaimed.
"Hie--you--new girl! come back here directly, and go round the other
way, just to teach you manners."
Beth turned back with flaming cheeks, looked at her hard a moment.
"That for _your_ manners!" she said, snapping her fingers at her.
Amy Wynne rose from her seat and went up to Beth. "You must learn at
once, Miss Caldwell," she said, "that you will not be allowed to speak
to the elder girls like that."
"Then the elder girls had better learn at once," said Beth defiantly,
"that they will not be allowed to speak to me as your Inkie-person did
just now. You'll not teach me manners by being rude to me; and if any
girl in the school is ever rude to me again, I'll box her ears. Now, I
apologise for coming through your room, but you should keep the door
shut."
When she had spoken, she returned to the big class-room deliberately,
and crossed it to the other door. As she did so, she noticed that a
strange hush had fallen upon the girls, and they were all looking at
her curiously. She went into the hall, and was passing the vestibule
door, when Miss Bey, who was sitting just inside knitting, stopped
her.
"Where are you going, Miss Caldwell?" she asked in her sharp way.
"Upstairs," Beth answered.
"You speak shortly, Miss Caldwell. It would have been more polite to
have mentioned my name."
"I beg your pardon, Miss Bey," Beth rejoined.
Miss Bey bowed with a severe smile in acknowledgment of the apology.
"What do you want upstairs?" she asked.
"To be alone," Beth answered. "I can't stand the noise."
"You must stand the noise," said Miss Bey. "Girls are not allowed to
go upstairs without some very good reason; and they must always ask
permission--politely--from the teacher on duty. I am the teacher on
duty at this moment. If you had gone upstairs without permission, I
should have given you a bad mark."
Beth looked longingly at the hall door, which had glass panels in the
upper part, through which she could see the river and the trees. "What
a prison this is!" she exclaimed.
Miss Bey had had great experience of girls, and her sharp manner,
which was mainly acquired in the effort to maintain discipline,
somewhat belied her kindly nature.
"You can bring a chair from the hall, and sit here beside me, if you
like," she said to Beth.
"Thank you," Beth answered. "This _is_ better," she said when she was
seated. "May I talk to you?"
"Yes, certainly," said Miss Bey.
There was a great conservatory behind them as they sat looking into
the hall; on their left was the third and fourth class-room, on their
right the first and second; the doors of both stood open.
"Did you hear the row I had in there just now?" Beth asked, nodding
towards the first and second.
"I did," said Miss Bey. "But you mustn't say 'row,' it is vulgar."
"Difficulty, then," Beth rejoined. "But what did you think of it?"
Miss Bey reflected. The question as Beth put it was not easy to
answer. "I thought you were both very much in the wrong," she said at
last.
"Well, that is fair, at all events," Beth observed with approval. "I
don't mean to break any of your rules when I know what they are, and I
bet you I won't have a bad mark, if there's any way to help it, the
whole time I am at school; but I'm not going to be sat upon by
anybody."
Miss Bey pursed up her mouth and knitted emphatically. She was
accustomed to naughty girls, but the most troublesome stood in awe of
the teachers.
"My dear," she said, after a little pause, "I honour your good
resolutions; but I must request you not to say 'I'll bet,' or talk
about 'being sat upon.' Both expressions are distinctly unladylike. I
must also tell you that at school the teachers are not on the same
level as the girls; they are in authority, you see."
"I see," said Beth. "I spoke to you as one lady might speak to
another. I won't again, Miss Bey."
Miss Bey paused once more, with bent brows, to reflect upon this
ambiguous announcement; but not being able to make anything of it, she
proceeded: "It is a matter of discipline. Without strict discipline an
establishment of this size would be in a state of chaos. The girls
must respect the teachers, and the younger girls must respect the
elder ones. All become elder ones in turn, and are respected."
"Well, _I_ mean to be respected all through," Beth declared, and set
her mouth hard on the determination.
At eight o'clock Miss Bey rang a big handbell for prayers, and the
whole household, including the servants, came trooping into the hall.
The girls sat together in their classes, and, when all were in their
places, Miss Clifford came in attended by her maids-of-honour, mounted
the reading-desk, and read the little service in a beautiful voice
devoutly. Beth softened as she listened, and joined in with all her
heart towards the end.
When prayers were over, and the servants had gone downstairs, one of
the maids-of-honour set a chair under the domed ceiling in front of
the vestibule for Miss Clifford, who went to it from the reading-desk,
and sat there. Then the first-class girls rose and left their seats in
single file, and each as she passed walked up to Miss Clifford, took
the hand which she held out, and curtsied good-night to her. The other
classes followed in the same order. Miss Clifford said a word or two
to some of the girls, and had a smile for all. When Beth's turn came,
she made an awkward curtsey in imitation of the others. Miss Clifford
held her hand a moment, and looked up into her face keenly; then
smiled, and let her go. Beth felt that there was some special thought
behind that smile, and wondered what it was. Miss Clifford made it her
duty to know the character, temper, constitution, and capacity of
every one of the eighty girls under her, and watched carefully for
every change in them. This good-night, which was a dignified and
impressive ceremony, gave her an opportunity of inspecting each girl
separately every day, and very little escaped her. If a girl looked
unhappy, run down, overworked, or otherwise out of sorts, Miss
Clifford sent for her next morning to find out what was the matter;
and she was scolded, comforted, put on extras, had a tonic to take, or
was allowed another hour in bed in the morning, according to the
necessities of her case.
The girls who were in certain bedrooms sat up an hour after prayers,
and had dry bread and water for supper; they turned to the left and
went back to their class-rooms when they had made their curtseys. The
others turned to the right and went upstairs. Beth was one of these.
She was in No. 6. There were several beds in the room, and beside each
bed was a washstand, and a box for clothes. The floor was carpetless.
There were white curtains hung on iron rods to be drawn round the beds
and the space beside them, so that each girl had perfect privacy to
dress and undress. The curtains were all drawn back for air when the
girls were ready, but no girl drew her curtain without the permission
of the girl next to her. When a bell rang, they all knelt down, and
had ten minutes for private prayers night and morning, the bell being
rung again when the time was up. The girls had to turn down their beds
to air them before they left their rooms in the morning. They had an
hour's lessons before breakfast, then prayers. After prayers the
monitresses rose from their seats below the reading-desk, and, as they
filed out, each in turn reported if any one had spoken or not spoken
in the bedrooms. Breakfast consisted of thick bread and butter and tea
for the girls, with the addition of an insufficient quantity of fried
bacon for the teachers. After breakfast the girls went upstairs again
and made their beds in a given time; then all but a few, who were kept
in for music, went out into the garden for half-an-hour. Beth had to
go out that first morning. The sun was shining, bright drops sparkled
on grass and trees, the air was heavy with autumn odours, but fresh
and sweet, and the birds chirped blithely. Beth felt like a free
creature once more directly she got out, and, throwing up her arms
with a great exclamation of relief after the restraint indoors, she
ran out on to the wide grass-plot in front of the house at the top of
her speed.
"Come back, come back, new girl!" cried the head French mistress,
Mademoiselle Duval, the teacher on duty. "You are not allowed to go on
the grass, nor must you run in that unseemly way."
"I'm sorry," said Beth. "I didn't know."
She moved off on to the path which overlooked the river, and began to
walk soberly up and down, gazing at the water.
"Mademoiselle!" the French mistress screamed again shrilly, "come away
from there! The girls are not allowed to walk on that path."
"Oh dear!" said Beth. "Where may I go?"
"Just go where you see the other girls go," Mademoiselle rejoined
sharply.
Not being a favourite, the French mistress was left to wander about
alone. Popular teachers always had some girls hanging on to their arms
out in the garden, and sitting with them when they were on duty
indoors; but Mademoiselle seldom had a satellite, and never one who
was respected. The girls thought her deceitful, and deceit was one of
the things not tolerated in the school. Miss Bey was believed to be
above deceit of any kind, and was liked and respected accordingly in
spite of her angular appearance, sharp manner, the certainty that she
was not a lady by birth, and the suspicion that her father kept a
shop. The girls had certain simple tests of character and station.
They attend more to each other's manners in the matter of nicety at
girls' schools than at boys', more's the pity for those who have to
live with the boys afterwards. If a new girl drank with her mouth
full, ate audibly, took things from the end instead of the side of a
spoon, or bit her bread instead of breaking it at dinner, she was set
down as nothing much at home, which meant that her people were
socially of no importance, not to say common; and if she were not
perfectly frank and honest, or if she ever said coarse or indelicate
things, she was spoken of contemptuously as a dockyard girl, which
meant one of low mind and objectionable manners, who was in a bad set
at home and made herself cheap after the manner of a garrison hack,
the terms being nearly equivalent. There was no pretence of impossible
innocence among the elder girls, but neither was there any impropriety
of language or immodesty of conduct. Certain subjects were avoided,
and if a girl made any allusion to them by chance, she was promptly
silenced; if she recurred to them persistently, she was set down at
once as a dockyard girl and an outsider. The consequence of this high
standard was an extremely good tone all through the school.
Beth turned into the lime-tree avenue, where she met several sets of
girls all walking in rows with their arms round each other. None of
them took any notice of her, until she got out on to the drive, where
she met Amy Wynne with her children. Amy let go the two she had her
arms round, sent them all on, and stopped to speak to Beth.
"Have you no mother?" she asked.
"I have one at home," Beth answered coldly in spite of herself.
"But you know our custom here," Amy rejoined. "The elder girls are
mothers to the young ones."
"I know," said Beth, "but I don't want a mother. I should hate to have
my thoughts interrupted by a lot of little girls in a row, all
cackling together."
"I was going to offer," Amy began, "but, of course, if you are so
self-reliant, it would only be an impertinence."
"Oh no!" said Beth, sincerely regretting her own ungraciousness. "It
is kind of you, and if it were you alone, I should be glad, but I
could not stand the others."
"Well, I hope you won't be lonely," Amy answered, and hurried on after
her children.
"Lonely I must be," Beth muttered to herself with sudden foreboding.
When the girls went in, Beth was summoned to the big music-room. "Old
Tom" was there with Dr. Centry, who came twice a week to hear the
girls play. There were twelve pianos in the room, ten upright and two
grand, besides Old Tom's own private grand, all old, hard, and
metallic; and twelve girls hammered away on them, all together, at the
same piece; but if one made a mistake, Old Tom instantly detected it,
and knew which it was.
"Do ye know any music?" she asked Beth in a gruff voice with a rough
Scotch accent.
"A little," Beth answered.
"What, for instance?" Old Tom pursued, looking at Beth as if she were
a culprit up for judgment.
"Some of Chopin," Beth replied. "I like him best."
Old Tom raised her eyebrows incredulously. "Sit down here and play one
of his compositions, if you please--here, at my piano," she said,
opening the instrument.
But Beth felt intimidated for once, partly by the offensive manners of
the formidable-looking old woman, her bulk and gruffness, but also
because Old Tom's doubt of her powers, which she perceived, was
shaking her confidence. She sat down at the piano, however, and struck
a few notes; then her nerve forsook her.
"I can't play," she said. "I'm nervous."
"Humph!" snarled Old Tom. "I thought that 'ud be your Chopin! Go and
learn exercises with the children in Miss Tait's class-room."
Miss Tait, acting on Old Tom's report, put Beth into one of her lower
classes, and left her to practise with the beginners. When she had
gone, Beth glanced at the exercises, and then began to rattle them off
at such a rate that no one in the class could keep up with her. Miss
Tait came hurrying back.
"Who is that playing so fast?" she said. "Was it you, Miss Caldwell?"
"Yes," Beth answered.
"Then you must go into a higher class," said Miss Tait.
But the same thing happened in every class until at last Beth had run
up through them all, as up a flight of stairs, into Old Tom's first.
Her piano in the first, when the whole class was present and she had
no choice, was a hard old instrument, usually avoided because it was
the nearest to the table at which Old Tom sat (when she did not walk
about) during a lesson. The first time Beth took her place at it, the
other girls were only beginning to assemble, and Old Tom was not in
the room. A great teasing of instruments, as Old Tom called it, was
going on. A new piece was to be taken that morning, and each girl
began to try it as soon as she sat down, so that they were all at
different passages. They stopped, however, and looked up when Beth
appeared.
"That's your piano," the head girl said.
"I hope you'll like it!" one of the others added sarcastically.
"Oh, but I'm glad to be here!" said Beth, striking a few firm chords.
"Now I feel like Chopin," and she burst out into one of his most
brilliant waltzes triumphantly.
Old Tom had come in while she was speaking, but Beth did not see her.
Old Tom waited till she had done.
"Oh, so now ye feel like Chopin, Miss Caldwell," she jeered. "And it
appears ye are not above shamming nervous when it suits ye to mak'
yerself interesting. I shall remember that."
Old Tom taught by a series of jeers and insults. If a girl were poor,
she never failed to remind her of the fact. "But, indeed, ye're
beggars all," was her favourite summing up when they stumbled at
troublesome passages. Most of the girls cowered under her insults, but
Beth looked her straight in the face at this second encounter, and at
the third her spirit rose and she argued the point. Old Tom tried to
shout her down, but Beth left her seat, and suggested that they should
go and get Miss Clifford to decide between them. Then Old Tom
subsided, and from that time she and Beth were on amicable terms.
Beth had an excellent musical memory when she went to school, but she
lost it entirely whilst she was there, and the delicacy of her touch
as well; both being destroyed, as she supposed, by the system of
practising with so many others at a time, which made it impossible for
her to feel what she was playing or put any individuality of
expression into it.
On that opening day, Beth had to go from the music-room to her first
English lesson in the sixth. All the girls sat round the long narrow
table, Miss Smallwood, the mistress, being at the end, with her back
to the window. The lesson was "Guy," a collection of questions and
answers, used also by the first-class girls, only that they were
farther on in the book. Who was William the Conqueror? When did he
arrive? What did he do on landing? and so on. Beth, at the bottom of
the class on Miss Smallwood's right, was in a good position to ask
questions herself. She could have told the whole history of William
the Conqueror in her own language after once reading it over; but the
answers to the questions had to be learnt by heart and repeated in the
exact language of the book, and in the struggle to be word-perfect
enough to keep up with the class, the significance of what she was
saying was lost upon her. It was her mother's system exactly, and Beth
was disappointed, having hoped for something different These pillules
of knowledge only exasperated her; she wanted enough to enable her to
grasp the whole situation.
"What is the use of learning these little bits by heart about William
the Conqueror and the battle of Hastings, and all that, Miss
Smallwood?" she exclaimed one day.
"It is a part of your education, Beth," Miss Smallwood answered
precisely.
"I know," Beth grumbled, "but couldn't one read about it, and get on a
little quicker? I want to know what he did when he got here."
"Why, my dear child, how can you be so stupid? You have just said he
fought the battle of Hastings."
"Yes, but what did the battle of Hastings do?" Beth persisted, making
a hard but ineffectual effort to express herself.
"Oh, now, Beth, you are silly!" Miss Smallwood rejoined impatiently,
and all the girls grinned in agreement. But it was not Beth who was
silly. Miss Smallwood had had nothing herself but the trumpery
education provided everywhere at that time for girls by the part of
humanity which laid undisputed claim to a superior sense of justice,
and it had not carried her far enough to enable her to grasp any more
comprehensive result of the battle of Hastings than was given in the
simple philosophy of Guy. Most of the girls at the Royal Service
School would have to work for themselves, and teaching was almost the
only occupation open to them, yet such education as they received,
consisting as it did of mere rudiments, was an insult to the high
average of intelligence that obtained amongst them. They were not
taught one thing thoroughly, not even their own language, and remained
handicapped to the end of their lives for want of a grounding in
grammar. When you find a woman's diction at fault, never gird at her
for want of intelligence, but at those in authority over her in her
youth, who thought anything in the way of education good enough for a
girl. Even the teachers at St. Catherine's, some of them, wrote in
reply to invitations, "I shall have much pleasure in accepting." The
girls might be there eight years, but were never taught French enough
in the time either to read or speak it correctly. Their music was an
offence to the ear, and their drawings to the eye. History was given
to them in outlines only, which isolated kings and their ministers,
showing little or nothing of their influence on the times they lived
in, and ignoring the condition of the people, who were merely
introduced as a background to some telling incident in the career of a
picturesque personage; and everything else was taught in the same
superficial way--except religion. But the fact that the religious
education was good in Beth's time was an accident due to Miss
Clifford's character and capacity, and therefore no credit to the
governors of the school, who did not know that she was specially
qualified in that respect when they made her Lady Principal. She was
a high-minded woman, Low Church, of great force of character and
exemplary piety, and her spirit pervaded the whole school. She gave
the Bible lessons herself in the form of lectures which dealt largely
with the conduct of life; and as she had the power to make her subject
interesting, and the faith which carries conviction, both girls and
mistresses profited greatly by her teaching. Many of them became
deeply religious under her, and most of them had phases of piety;
whilst there were very few who did not leave the school with yearnings
at least towards honour and uprightness, which were formed by time and
experience into steady principles.
Beth persisted in roaming the garden alone. She loved to hover about a
large fountain there, with a deep wide basin round it, in which
gold-fish swam and water-lilies grew. She used to go and hang over it,
peering into the water, or, when the fountain played, she would loiter
near, delighting in the sound of it, the splash and murmur.
One of the windows of Miss Clifford's sitting-room overlooked this
part of the garden, and Beth noticed the old lady once or twice
standing in the window, but it did not occur to her that she was
watching her. One day, however, Miss Clifford sent a maid-of-honour to
fetch her; and Beth went in, wondering what she had done, but asked no
questions; calm indifference was still her pose.
Miss Clifford dismissed the maid-of-honour. She was sitting in her own
special easy-chair, and Beth stood before her.
"My dear child," she said to Beth, "why are you always alone? Are the
girls not kind to you?"
"Oh yes, thank you," Beth answered, "they are quite kind."
"Then why are you always alone?"
"I like it best."
"Are you sure," said Miss Clifford, "that the others do not shun you
for some reason or other?"
"One of them wished to be my mother," Beth rejoined, "but I did not
care about it."
"But you cannot be happy always alone like that," Miss Clifford
observed.
Beth was silent.
Miss Clifford looked at her earnestly for a little, then she shook her
head.
"I tell you what I will do if you like, Miss Clifford," Beth said upon
reflection. "I will form a family of my own."
Miss Clifford smiled. "Ah! I see you are ambitious," she said, "but,
my dear child, a sixth girl can't expect to have that kind of
influence."
"It is not ambition," Beth answered, "for I shall feel it no
distinction, only a great bother. Nevertheless, I will do it to show
you that I am not shunned; and to please you, as you do not like me to
wander alone."
A week or two later Beth appeared in the garden with six of the worst
girls in the school clinging to her, fascinated by her marvellous
talk.
Miss Clifford sent for her again. "I am sorry to see you in such
company," she said. "Those girls are all older than you are, and they
will lead you into mischief."
"On the contrary, Miss Clifford," Beth replied, "I shall keep them out
of mischief. Not one of them has had a bad mark this week."
Then Miss Clifford sent for Miss Smallwood, the mistress of the sixth.
"What do you make of Beth Caldwell?" she asked.
"I can't make anything of her," Miss Smallwood answered. "I think she
tries, but she does not seem able to keep up with the other girls at
all. She seldom knows a lesson or does a sum correctly. I sometimes
think she ought to be in the eighth. But then occasionally she shows a
knowledge far beyond her years; not a knowledge of school work, but of
books and life."
"How about her themes?"
"I don't know what to think of them; they are too good. But she
declares emphatically that she does them all out of her own head."
"What sort of temper has she?"
"Queer, like everything else about her. Not unamiable, you know, but
irritable at times, and she has days of deep depression, and moments
of extreme elation."
"Ah!" Miss Clifford ejaculated, and then reflected a little. "Well, be
patient with her," she said at last. "If she hasn't exceptional
ability of some kind, I am no judge of girls; but she is evidently
unaccustomed to school work, and is suffering from the routine and
restraint, after being allowed to run wild. She should have been sent
here years ago."