When it was rumoured amongst the mistresses that Beth was to leave
that term, Old Tom put her on to play first piano in the first-class
solo, and to lead the treble in the second-class duet at the
examination.
"For I rather like ye, Miss Beth Caldwell," she said. "You're not a
sycophant, whatever else ye are. They've not been able to do much wi'
ye in regard to yer work in the rest of the school, but ye've done
well under me, and I'll let ye have yer chance to distinguish yerself
before ye go."
"Oh, but do you think I can do it?" Beth exclaimed.
"Ye can do anything ye set yerself to do, Beth Caldwell," Old Tom
shouted at her.
Beth set herself accordingly, and when the day came she led the solo
and duet with the precision of a musical box, but with such an
expenditure of nerve-power that she was prostrated by the effort. She
was considered quite a musician at St. Catherine's, but by this time
the dire method of teaching had had its effect. Her confidence and her
memory for music were gone, the beauty of her touch spoilt, and the
further development of her talent effectually checked.
She did not go home for the holidays. Miss Clifford had advised, Lady
Benyon approved, and Mrs. Caldwell decided, that she should be sent
direct to a finishing school in London, and when St. Catherine's broke
up, Miss Bey, who happened to be going that way, good-naturedly
undertook to see Beth safely to her destination.
Miss Clifford held Beth's hand long, and gazed into her face earnestly
when she took leave of her. "I shall hear of you again," she said,
"and I pray God it may be good news; but it depends upon yourself,
Beth. We are free agents. Good-bye, my dear child, and God bless you."
Beth had been eighteen intolerable months at the school, and had been
exceedingly miserable most of the time, yet she left it with tears in
her eyes, melted and surprised by the kindest farewells from every
one. It had never dawned upon her until that moment that she was
really very much liked.
Her new school was a large house in a long wide street of houses, all
exactly alike. When she arrived with Miss Bey, they were shown into a
deliciously cool shady drawing-room, charmingly furnished, and the
effect upon Beth, after the graceless bareness of St. Catherine's, was
altogether reassuring.
In front of the fireplace, which was hidden by ferns and flowering
plants, a slender girl, with thick dark hair down her back, was lying
on the white woolly hearthrug, reading. She got up to greet the
visitors without embarrassment, still holding her book in her hand.
"Miss Blackburne will be here directly," she said. "Will you sit
down?" Then there was a little pause, which Miss Bey broke by asking
in her magisterial way, "What is that you are reading, my dear?"
"The Idylls of the King," the girl answered.
Miss Bey's nostrils flapped.
"Is it not rather advanced for you, my dear?" she said. "We do not
allow it at all, even to our first-class girls."
"Oh, Miss Blackburne likes us to read it," was the easy answer. "She
says that Tennyson and all the good modern writers are a part of our
education."
"Thank goodness!" Beth ejaculated fervently. "At St. Catherine's our
minds were starved on books suited to the capacity of infants and
imbeciles."
"I should think, Beth, you are hardly old enough or educated enough to
be a judge of literature as yet," Miss Bey said severely.
"Nor do I pretend to be a judge. How can I know anything of literature
when literature is unknown at St. Catherine's? But I should think
babes and sucklings would be wise enough to object to the silly trash
we had instead of literature."
Beth spoke emphatically, shaking herself free of the restrictions of
the Royal Service School for Officers' Daughters once for all.
Miss Blackburne came in while she was speaking, and smiled.
"I like to hear a girl express an opinion," she said. "She may be
quite wrong, but she must have some mind if she attempts to think for
herself at all; and mind is material to work upon."
"I'm afraid _I_ haven't much mind," Beth said, sighing, "or manner
either."
Miss Blackburne smiled again, and looked at Miss Bey; but Miss Bey
supported Beth in her self-depreciation by preserving an ominous
silence.
"This is one of your new school-fellows," Miss Blackburne said to
Beth; "let me introduce you to each other. Clara Herring, Beth
Caldwell."
When Miss Bey took her leave, Miss Blackburne left the room with her,
and immediately afterwards another girl came in, clapping her hands.
"Oh, I say!" she exclaimed, "Signor Caponi _is_ a dear! He has the
nicest chocolate eyes, and he says my Italian is wonderful! Now I've
done all my work for to-day."
"Have you?" said Beth. "Why, it isn't five o'clock yet!"
"Miss Blackburne won't let us work long hours," the girl rejoined.
"She says it destroys our freshness. But let us know each other's
names. I am Geraldine Tressillion. Good name for a novel, isn't it?"
and she clapped her little white hands and laughed again.
"That's just what you're made to be--the heroine of a novel," Clara
Herring observed, looking at her admiringly. "I always think of you
when I come across a gay one, with golden hair and blue eyes."
"I have my good points, I know," Geraldine rejoined. "But how about my
hips? Too high, alas!"
"Oh, that won't show much while you're slight," said Clara, looking at
her critically.
"Well, I'll make haste and marry me before I'm afflicted with flesh,
as I'm sure to become. For I deny myself nothing--I live to eat,"
Geraldine rattled on cheerfully. "One can't get very fat before one
comes out; and I hate a thin dowager. I'm engaged already, you know,
but I don't like the man much--don't like him at all, in fact; and my
sister says I can do better. She's been married a year, and has a
baby. She told me all about it. Mamma imagines we're all innocent. A
lady implored her to tell my sister things before she married, but she
said she really could not speak to an innocent girl on such a subject.
I don't believe she was ever so innocent herself. A grown girl can't
be innocent unless she's a fool; but anyway, it's the right pose to
pretend. You've got to play the silly fool to please a man; then he
feels superior."
"But it's hypocritical," said Beth.
"Yes, my dear. But you must be hypocritical if you want to be a man's
ideal of a woman. You must know nothing, do nothing, see nothing, but
just what suits his pleasure and convenience; and in order to answer
to his requirements you must be either a hypocrite, or a blind worm
without eyes or intelligence. Men don't like innocence because it's
holy, but because it whets their appetites, my sister says, and if
they're deceived it serves them right. They work the world for their
own pleasure, not ours; and we must look out for ourselves. If we want
money, liberty, devotion, admiration, and any other luxury, we must
pretend. Don't you see?"
"I don't know," Beth rejoined. "But, personally, I shall never pretend
anything."
"Then you will suffer for your sincerity," Geraldine rejoined.
Beth shrugged her shoulders. The turn the conversation had taken was
distasteful to her, and she would not pursue it.
There was a pause, then Clara observed sententiously:
"Innocence is not impossible, Geraldine. Surely Adelaide is innocent
enough."
"I said innocence and intelligence were incompatible," Geraldine
answered. "You don't call Adelaide intelligent, do you?"
"Who is Adelaide?" Beth asked.
"The daughter of a Roman Catholic peer," Geraldine replied. "She is
eighteen, and her mind is absolutely undeveloped. We think she's in
training for a convent, and that's why they don't let her learn much.
Miss Ella Blackburne is a Roman Catholic, and so also is Adelaide's
maid; They trot her round to all the observances of her Church
regularly, and in the intervals she plays with the kitten. I don't
know why she should have been sent here at all, for this is a regular
forcing-house for the marriage market. Miss Blackburne expects all her
girls to marry well, and they generally do. I should think, Miss Beth,
she will be able to make something of you with those eyes!"
"Look at its neck and shoulders, too, and the way its head is set on
them!" Clara exclaimed.
"Not to mention its hands and its complexion!" Geraldine supplemented.
"But its voice alone--_soft, gentle, and low_--would get it into the
peerage!"
Beth, unused to be appraised in this way, blushed and smiled, rather
pleased, but confused.
"How many girls are there here?" she asked, to change the subject.
"Six boarders till you came, but now we are seven," Clara answered.
"There are some day-girls too, but they are children, and don't count.
The greatest pickle in the school is the daughter of an Archbishop--at
least, she has been the greatest pickle so far--we don't know you as
yet, however. But we have heard things!"
"Come and see my room," Geraldine interrupted. "And perhaps you'd like
to see your own. It's next to mine."
"Are you allowed to go up and down stairs just as you like?" Beth
asked in surprise.
"Why, of course!" Geraldine cried. "You can go where you like and sit
where you like when you've done your work. We're not in prison!"
Beth had a dainty little room, hung with white curtains, all to
herself. Her heart expanded when she saw it. The delightful appearance
of her new surroundings had already begun to have the happiest effect
upon her mind.
When Geraldine took her into her own room she drew a yellow book from
under a quantity of linen in a drawer. "It's a French novel," she
said. "Miss Blackburne wouldn't let me read it for worlds if she knew,
so you mustn't tell. I'll lend it to you if you like."
"I couldn't read it if I would; I don't know enough," Beth said.
"Oh, you'll soon learn; and I'll tell you all there is in it. I say,
what size is your waist? Mine is only seventeen inches; but I laced
till I got shingles to reduce it to that. I know a doctor who says
small waists are neither healthy nor beautiful; but then they're the
fashion, and men are such awful fools about fashion. They sneer at a
healthy figure, and saddle themselves every day with ailing wives, all
deformed, because they're accustomed to see women so; and then they
call _us_ silly! My husband won't think _me_ silly once I get command
of his money, whatever else he may think me. Till then--!" she made a
pretty gesture with her hands and laughed--Beth observing her the
while with deep attention as a new specimen.
She found eventually that Geraldine was not at all a bad girl, or in
the least inclined to be vicious, her conversation notwithstanding;
she was merely a shrewd one learning how to protect herself in that
state of life to which she was destined. If a woman is to make her way
in society and keep straight, she must have wits and knowledge of a
special kind. There is probably no more delightful, high-minded,
charming-mannered, honourable and trustworthy woman in the world than
a well-bred Englishwoman; but, on the other hand, there can be nothing
more vulgar-minded, coarse, and despicable than women of fashion tend
to become. There is no meanness nor shabbiness, not to mention fraud,
that they will not stoop to when it suits themselves, from tricking a
tradesman and sweating a servant, to neglecting their children,
deceiving their husbands, and slandering their friends. They are sheep
running hither and thither in servile imitation of each other, without
an original thought amongst them; the froth of society, with the
natural tendency of froth to rise to the surface and thence be swept
aside; mere bubbles, that shine a moment and then burst. It is fashion
that unsexes women and unmakes men. To be in the world of fashion and
of it, is to degenerate; but to be in it and not of it, to know it and
remain untainted, despising all it has to give, makes towards solid
advance. There are some ugly stages to be gone through, however,
before the advancement is pronounced.
The six girls at Miss Blackburne's were all daughters of people of
position, all enjoying the same advantages and under the same
influences; but three of them were already shaping themselves into
women of fashion, while the other three were tending as inevitably to
develop into women of fine character and cultivated mind. Beth was
attracted to all such women, and recognised their worth, often long
before they appreciated her at all. She was seventh among the girls,
her place being in the middle, as it were, with three on either side
of her, teaching her all they could, as was inevitable. In association
with the budding women of fashion, she lost the first fine delicacy of
maiden modesty of mind; but the example of the young gentlewomen, on
the other hand, confirmed her taste and settled her convictions. The
ladies who kept the school were high-minded themselves and exemplary
in every possible way, and if they did not make all their pupils
equally so, it was because factors go to the formation of character
with which, for want of knowledge, no one can reckon at present. The
influence of these ladies upon Beth was altogether benign. She was in
a new world with them--a world of ease and refinement, of polished
manners, of kindly consideration, where, instead of being harried by
nagging rules, stultified by every kind of restraint, and lowered in
her own estimation for want of proper respect and encouragement, she
was allowed as much liberty as she would have had in a well-ordered
home, and found herself and her abilities of special interest to each
of her teachers. Instead of being an item, a part of a huge piece of
machinery to be strictly kept in the particular place assigned to her,
whether it were adapted to the needs of her nature or not, for fear of
putting the whole mechanism out of order, her present and future being
less considered than the smooth working of the machine--she was a girl
again with some character of her own to be formed and developed. Here,
too, she was put upon her honour to do all that was expected of her,
and the immediate consequence of this in her case was the most
scrupulous exactness. She attached herself to Miss Ella, attracted
first of all by the fact that she was a Roman Catholic. How she could
be one was a mystery Beth longed to solve; but Miss Ella did not
consider it loyal to Protestant parents to influence their daughters
at school, and would give her no help in this. In every other respect,
however, Beth found her exceedingly kind and sympathetic, a serene,
strong woman, who began to curb the exuberance of Beth's naughtiness
from the first, and to direct the energy of which it was the outcome
into profitable channels.
There was no monotony in Miss Blackburne's establishment. The girls
were taken in turns to operas, concerts, picture-galleries, and every
kind of exhibition that might help to cultivate their minds. To be
able to discuss such things was a part of their education. They were
expected to describe all they saw, fluently and pleasantly, but
without criticism enough to require thought and provoke argument,
which is apt to be tedious; and thus was formed the habit of chatting
in the genial light frothy way which does duty for conversation in
society. Geraldine had not exaggerated when she called Miss
Blackburne's school a forcing house for the marriage market. At that
time marriage was the only career open to a gentlewoman, and the
object of her education was to make her attractive. The theory then
was that solid acquirements were beyond the physical strength of
girls, besides being unnecessary. Showy accomplishments, therefore,
were all that was aimed at; but they had to be thorough. Music,
singing, drawing, dancing, French, German, Italian--whatever it might
be; the girl who was learning it had the greatest attention from her
master or mistress during the lesson; she was made to do it as much by
the will of the teacher as by her own intelligence. This was the first
experience of thorough teaching Beth had ever had, and she enjoyed
it, and would have worked harder to profit by it than Miss Blackburne
would allow. As it was, she made great progress with her work, while
all the time the more informal but most valuable part of her
education, which was directed to the strengthening of every womanly
attribute, went on steadily under the influence of Miss Ella.
It would have been well for Beth if she had been left at Miss
Blackburne's for the next three years; but just when the rebellious
beating of her wings against the bars had ceased, and they had folded
themselves contentedly behind her for awhile; just when the wild
flights of her imagination were giving way to wholesome habits of
thought, and her own vain dreams were being dissipated by the honest
ambition to accomplish something actual--she was summoned away. Her
sister Mildred had died suddenly of meningitis, and the immediate
effect of the shock on Mrs. Caldwell, who had dearly loved her eldest
daughter, was a kindlier feeling for Beth, and a wish to have her at
home--for a time at all events. And Beth went willingly under the
circumstances. She sympathised deeply with her mother, and was full of
grief herself for her sister, to whom she had been tenderly attached
although they had seen so little of each other. Beth was not yet
sixteen, and this was the third blow that death had dealt her.