A HARD TIME
"I have not that alacrity of spirit
Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have."
Time seemed to pass very rapidly away, and I could scarcely realize it
when I found I had been more than a year at The Hollies. I was now a
tall girl of thirteen, with a considerable idea of the dignity of my
age, and much resented anyone alluding to me as "a child". My aunt
thought me greatly improved, and spoke in warm praise of Mrs. Marshall's
system of education; while as for me, my life at San Carlos seemed such
a past tale that it was difficult to believe I had ever been the forlorn
little stranger who had landed in England with so many doubts and fears
only three years ago. You must not think, however, that I had entirely
forgotten my home and the dear old friends of my childhood. I still sent
warm messages to Juanita and Tasso and the other members of our
household, though I could no longer speak their language; and I liked to
hear accounts of them in my father's letters, while I believe on their
part they all looked forward to seeing their little signorina one day in
their midst again. It was perhaps only natural after all that my new
life should in some measure erase the old one from my mind; it was what
my father had desired, and if I were beginning to think that England was
far more to me than the country I had left, he would be the first to
rejoice over my altered views. So far from feeling any danger of my
affection for him being weakened, he knew that my change of opinions
only tightened the bond between us, since the older and wiser I grew, so
much the more would I be able to appreciate him and enjoy his
companionship when we should meet again.
I was now in the third form at school, as I had been moved up with
Blanche, Janet, and Cathy, and found myself the youngest in a class
which had a reputation both for quick wits and hard work. Miss Percy was
our teacher, and, though in many respects an excellent one, she was a
woman of narrow sympathies and strict discipline; very different from
kindly Miss Buller, who had always tried to make the rough paths of
learning as smooth as possible for our stumbling feet. Another
disagreeable point of my promotion was that I had Ernestine Salt for a
class-mate, and however much I might dislike her I must perforce be
thrown continually into her society. As you may imagine, she did not
welcome my advent, giving me to understand that she considered me an
intruder among girls who were all older than myself, and that my
advancement was only due to Mrs. Marshall's partiality. Lucy had
remained behind in the upper fourth. Never a very clever girl, she had
little ambition, and was quite content if she could scrape along without
incurring any specially severe reproof from her teachers. Though I loved
her as my cousin, I felt she occupied quite a different place in my
heart from my darling Cathy. It is perhaps only possible to have one
very dearest friend, and while Cathy seemed to win all my love and
admiration, and to appeal to everything that was highest and best in me,
Lucy's tastes were based so much on the lines of Aunt Agatha that I
found we had little in common. I saw less of her now than ever, for,
Mary having come to The Hollies this term, Mrs. Marshall had arranged
for the sisters to sleep together, while to my great delight I was
allowed to share a vacant bedroom with Cathy. We moved our household
gods into our new quarters with much noise and chattering. My case of
South American butterflies was accorded the place of honour over the
chimney-piece, together with the portrait of my father; the brush which
Cathy had won at the Everton Meet hung proudly over her wash-stand; my
views of San Carlos were distributed about the walls; while photos of
Marshlands and the Winstanley family in every conceivable position
adorned our chests-of-drawers and dressing-table.
"I feel as if we were relations now you have come to share my room,"
said Cathy. "I've always longed for a younger sister, so I'm going to
adopt you, Philippa dear, and try to believe that you're really and
truly mine. You haven't any mother of your own, so I shall put _my_
mother's photo in the middle of the dressing-table that she may belong
to us both. She has always called you her second little daughter."
I found the work in my new class taxed my exertions to the uttermost.
Mrs. Marshall had a very high standard as to what should be required
from girls of our age, and it was only with the greatest difficulty I
was able to keep up to it. Without Cathy's help I must most certainly
have failed. She was a true friend in need. She would patiently go over
my preparation with me, explaining difficult rules, repeating dates and
vocabularies again and again to fix them in my memory, or showing me so
clearly and concisely the reasons for the various problems in
mathematics, that I felt I could learn more easily from her than from
our teachers. My one haunting fear was that Mrs. Marshall should
consider me below the level of the class and should send me down again
into the fourth, for to be thus banished from Cathy seemed the worst
that fate could hold in store for me. Never very robust I worked far
beyond my strength, and the continual strain began at last to tell upon
my health. I grew thin and pale, I was troubled with a perpetual
headache, and I sometimes indulged in unreasonable fits of crying, which
incurred the severe reproof of Miss Percy, who had no sympathy with
"nerves".
"I can't help it--I can't, indeed!" I confided to Cathy after one of
these outbreaks. "My head feels so chock full of facts I sometimes think
it won't hold any more. When I look at my book the letters seem to dance
before my eyes, and I mix up mathematics with history and want to talk
German in the French class."
"Tell Mrs. Marshall, and ask her to knock something off," suggested
Cathy.
"No, no! She would only say the class was too difficult for me, and send
me down, and unless I can stay up here with you and Janet life simply
isn't worth living. Never mind, I'll manage to worry on somehow, if only
Miss Percy would let me alone!"
Unfortunately that was exactly what Miss Percy would not do. She had
taken it into her head that I was hysterical, and that my whims and
fancies must not on any account be humoured. I dare say she thought she
was only doing her duty, but she harried me continually. An untied
hair-ribbon, a blot on my exercise, an ink-stain on my finger, or an
awkward attitude in class, were occasions for instant and severe
fault-finding. No doubt they were all little defects which called for
amendment, but she made the mistake of dealing with them too hardly. I
believe, if people would only realize it, that overwork and ill-health
are often responsible for many tiresome habits in growing girls. It was
certainly so in my case; I sat crooked because my back ached, I lolled
on my desk because I was really tired, I fidgeted from sheer nervousness
when I felt Miss Percy's eye upon me, and when, having brought down all
the vials of her wrath upon my head, I ended by bursting into tears, it
was hard to be accused of temper or sullenness when I felt I would have
given the whole world for a kind word.
I think we all suffered much from the deadly sameness of our life. In
the summer-time we were allowed a considerable amount of leisure, which
we spent in the garden at croquet, tennis, or archery, but during the
winter months the play hours were greatly curtailed and extra classes
added, while the only exercise we took was a short daily "crocodile"
walk, with hockey for an hour on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Girls who are
not boarders do not feel this lack of variety. The walk to and from
school, and, above all, the different subjects which are discussed at
home, make a change of thought and a wholesome break; but the monotony
of spending week after week meeting no one except teachers and
companions, discussing nothing but school topics, never seeing a
newspaper or a magazine or hearing what is going on in the outside
world, is apt to have a rather depressing influence upon some
dispositions. The teachers, seeing us all day long, were inclined to
worry too much over our small faults, while we on our side, having
little else to distract our minds, were wont to magnify our woes out of
all just proportion. Miss Percy's nagging only seemed to make my faults
the worse.
"I never seem able to please her," I grumbled one day at breakfast-time.
"If I say my lessons correctly she tells me I'm twitching my hands or
wrinkling my forehead; and then if I try to think about my hands and my
forehead the lessons go right out of my mind, so I'm wrong either way.
It seems no use trying."
"She's horribly mean," sighed Janet, who suffered at times herself. "My
exercise was quite right yesterday, but she made me copy it all out
again, just because I had four mistakes in spelling. It was really too
bad."
"I could forgive her the exercises," said Millicent, "if she'd only make
stronger coffee. This cup of mine is simply dish-water. I wish Mrs.
Marshall would come down again at breakfast-time, it used to be ever so
much better when she poured out."
"Let us get up a round robin and beg her to come!" laughed Cathy. "We
could say we'd missed her charming conversation."
"Quietly! Quietly!" said Miss Percy from the other end of the table, for
Cathy had raised her voice above the low undertone in which we had been
speaking.
"We might ask her to give 'coffee' as the next conversation topic," said
Janet, "and then Millicent could announce that she liked it strong, as
her intelligent remark."
"It's the chicory I object to," said Millicent; "I loathe the smell of
it. I'm sure it oughtn't to have any in. Ought it, Phil?"
"Certainly not," I replied. "I wish you could have tasted the coffee we
used to have at San Carlos. You'd never forget it. It came from our own
plantations, and Pedro used to roast it and grind it just before he
poured the water on. I've often watched him make it. That was really
worth calling coffee."
"Pity we can't import him over here to give the cook a lesson," said
Janet. "But I expect there's something in the quality, and how much you
put in the pot. Will you have another cup, Milly?"
"No, thank you! One is enough of this brew. Here comes the
bread-and-butter plate. I hope it'll all be finished before it comes to
me, for I don't want any more."
Among many rules at The Hollies there was a law that nothing must be
left upon the table, and the bread-and-butter was always severely passed
round till the plate was empty. On this particular day I was not hungry,
and when the last piece was offered to me I promptly declined it. Cathy
quickly and quietly handed it on to Janet, who was in the very act of
taking it when Miss Percy's voice bade her pause.
"Did I notice you refuse that piece of bread-and-butter, Philippa
Seaton?" she asked.
"Yes, Miss Percy," I replied.
"And why?"
"I'm not hungry," I said nervously.
"But you know the rule?"
"I suppose I do."
"Then why did you not take it?"
"I've had enough, Miss Percy," I blurted out. "I simply can't eat any
more!"
She looked at me with infinite scorn.
"Cannot eat any more! Then you _must_ have been greedy if you find it
absolutely impossible to finish even this little piece. I will not urge
you after such a plea, but I think you may well be ashamed of your
excuse."
I felt keenly the injustice of the suggestion, but I was powerless to
retort. It was but a sample of her methods of training us, and to have
"answered back" would have been an offence liable to be visited with
heavy punishment. So far from over-eating myself I had generally little
appetite for breakfast, and made the merest apology for a meal. As a
result of this, by eleven-o'clock recreation I would find I was wildly
hungry, but as we had no lunch at The Hollies I was obliged to wait
until the one-o'clock dinner, by which time I was almost faint for want
of food. How often have I evaded Miss Percy's sharp eye, and, dodging
down the back-staircase, have begged a piece of bread or a hot potato
from the sympathetic cook, to be eaten surreptitiously behind my
pocket-handkerchief in the playground! I have even bribed the housemaid
to buy me biscuits and smuggle them into my locker, incurring thereby
both the risk of her dismissal and my own disgrace, for it was one of
the strictest rules of the school that the girls should obtain no
private supplies.
It is, I suppose, almost impossible for any mistress, however
conscientious, to give to forty different pupils the same care and
attention as they would receive at home. I am sure Mrs. Marshall
thought she took every precaution to secure our health, and if I had
been definitely ill or in pain she would have been kindness itself; but
it is so difficult sometimes to tell whether a girl is really ailing or
only shirking her work, that unless we complained of special symptoms no
notice was taken of our general condition, so my pale cheeks and
increased lassitude passed without comment. I felt the meaning of the
old adage: "A sound mind in a sound body". I found myself worrying most
absurdly over trifles which would not have distressed me to nearly such
an extent if I had been able to distract my thoughts. After all, school
is one's little world, and a bad mark, an unjust reproof, or a quarrel
with a companion at the time, seem as overwhelming troubles as any we
may encounter in after-life.
Matters went on from bad to worse. In my struggles to keep up to the
standard of my class I began the foolish habit of smuggling my books
into my bedroom, that I might take a last glance at my lessons before I
got into bed, and I would lie repeating French verbs or German
grammatical rules to myself long after the gas in the passage had been
turned out. It was but a natural consequence that I could not sleep.
Night after night I have tossed and turned, trying first one side of my
pillow and then the other to cool my burning head, counting the strokes
as the clock struck midnight, and feeling as if the dead silence of the
house grew almost unbearable. There is perhaps nothing so lonely as to
lie awake while others sleep; the darkness of the room oppressed me, it
was terrible to open my eyes and see nothing but blackness around me,
out of which my imagination would conjure up ghostly figures stealing
around my bed. Had I dared I would have begged for a night-light, but I
knew full well that such fancies would meet with scant sympathy at Miss
Percy's ears. The sound of Cathy's quiet breathing made me feel as
though she were miles away, but I was not selfish enough to wake her up
to console me in my misery, and after tossing about for hours I would at
last fall asleep, to find the unwelcome bell ringing in my ears before I
seemed out of my first troubled dream.
I woke up one morning, after a restless night such as this, feeling limp
and irritable, and very unable to cope with the world in general. There
was a tiresome rule at The Hollies that before we left our rooms we
must take each sheet and blanket separately off our beds, fold them,
and place them in a neat pile upon a chair.
"It's a stupid custom," said Cathy, grumbling for the hundredth time as
she struggled to get the four corners of her coverlet even. "I can't
imagine why we shouldn't turn the clothes over the end of the bed as we
do at home. They would air just as well, or better. There's the bell
ringing now, and I haven't my collar on! Be quick, Phil, let me help you
to tie your hair. We must simply fly or we shall both be late."
I had absolutely no time to arrange my bed. I seized the sheets and
blankets all together, and, rolling them in one untidy bundle, I flung
them upon a chair. I did not even look to see if the room were in order,
but, buttoning my dress as I went, I tore down the passage, just in time
to slip into the dining-room behind Cathy, as Mrs. Marshall opened the
Bible to read prayers. We began lessons immediately after breakfast. The
whole school assembled first in the large class-room for call-over, and
I had taken my place and was arranging my books in order, giving a last
desperate glance at the dates in my history and the troublesome
genealogy of the House of Stuart. We rose and curtsied when Miss Percy
entered, and she bowed and wished us good-morning, in accordance with
the formal etiquette which we practised at The Hollies, but instead of
seating herself as usual, she placed a few things which I could not see
upon the chair, and advanced a little forward with an air of more than
usual gravity upon her face.
"Philippa Seaton," she said impressively, "I feel that I have borne long
enough with your careless and shiftless ways. For some time now I have
made every effort to help you to cure yourself of many bad habits, but
instead of seeing any improvement it appears to me that you allow
yourself to neglect even the ordinary rules of the school. This morning
I visited your bedroom. I found your bed-clothes in utter confusion upon
a chair, your nail-brush evidently unused, your comb left full of hairs
upon the dressing-table, a pair of boots, a slipper, and a shoe-horn
lying upon the floor, while this bag full of cotton reels was flung
under your wash-stand. I am determined that for once I will teach you a
lesson, and I shall pin these articles on to your back, in the hope that
by showing your disgrace to the whole school I may help you to remember
to be more neat and orderly in the future. Come here!"
In much fear and trembling I approached her. She turned to the chair,
where (it would have been ludicrous if it had not all been so horribly
solemn) my comb, my boots, my slipper, my shoe-horn, and my bag of
cottons lay piled in a tragic little heap. She fastened them securely on
to my dress with safety-pins, till I looked like a gipsy pedlar or an
old clotheswoman, and bade me return to my place. Burning with
indignation I sat down. All my pride was wounded and the tears came
swimming into my eyes. I felt she had no right to treat me thus. There
were certain fair and recognized penalties for neglected duties at which
I should not have rebelled, but to be made a laughing-stock for the
whole school was out of all proportion to my offence. I could see the
amused smile with which Ernestine Salt nudged her companion, and knew
how unmercifully she would tease me afterwards, and the thought that I
must spend the entire morning with these absurd things dangling on my
back was almost more than my spirit could brook. I gulped back my tears
sufficiently to answer "present" when my name was called, and sat,
fighting with my face and trying not to feel that every girl in the room
was looking at me. There was a slight tug at my dress behind, and Cathy
cautiously thrust a tiny scrap of paper into my hand. I managed to read
it unobserved: "She's the hatefullest thing that ever was," it ran. "But
never mind; don't let her think you care." I scrunched up the paper and
held up my head. After all, why should I care? I had committed no very
desperate sin, and I knew that nearly everyone must be secretly in
sympathy with me. I would brave it out, and show Miss Percy that though
she might inflict any punishment she chose she was not able to crush my
spirit entirely. As to Ernestine Salt, I would defy her, sneer as she
might. It was unfortunate for me that my first lesson of the day should
be with Miss Percy. With the wretched boots and bobbins sticking into me
whenever I attempted to lean back in my seat, I felt in anything but a
docile or tractable frame of mind, and, though she certainly would not
have allowed it, I do not think she herself was in the best of tempers.
She corrected Janet sharply for stooping, reduced Millicent to the very
verge of tears, and even found fault with Cathy's beautifully neat and
tidy exercise. We were learning the geography of India, a large map of
which hung over the black-board, and in the course of the lesson we were
each required in turn to indicate the positions of certain rivers and
cities of the Punjaub. I was sitting in class next to Ernestine Salt,
and as I rose hastily up to step forward and take the pointer, she
suddenly put out her foot, as if by chance, exactly at the moment when I
passed her. I tripped, made a desperate effort to save myself, caught
wildly at the easel, and fell, sending black-board, map, pegs, pointer,
and all with a horrible crash on to the floor.
There was dead silence in the room as I picked myself up. Miss Percy
raised the fallen easel and the torn map, and looked at me with white
lips.
"What is the meaning of this, Philippa Seaton?" she asked.
"I couldn't help it," I answered, rather sullenly I am afraid. "I--I
believe I tripped."
"No other girl has tripped. You are either irredeemably awkward or have
caused this accident by deliberate intention. I very much fear it is the
latter."
"You've no right to say so!" I burst out defiantly, roused out of all
discipline by her tone. "I've told you I couldn't help it, and if you
can't believe my word I should like you to take me to Mrs. Marshall."
"You shall certainly go to Mrs. Marshall when she is at liberty,"
replied Miss Percy in freezing tones. "But in the meantime I am not
going to interrupt the lesson on your behalf. You will stand there by
the door, holding the broken pointer in your hand, till the class is
over."
I do not think Miss Percy was altogether happy at that moment, but I am
sure she was not so miserable as I. I knew well I had done wrong to
answer her so rudely, and the sense of my own shortcomings, added to the
feeling of hot wrath against her injustice and unkindness, made it the
most horribly difficult thing in the world to stand there, the target
for all eyes. My head ached as if it would burst, and I rested my weary
weight first on one foot and then on another. Each minute felt hours to
me as the lesson slowly dragged along. I pressed my trembling hands
together, and tried with a desperate effort to keep my eyes steadily
fixed on the clock over the chimney-piece; but somehow the figures all
seemed at once to be mixed together, the room swam before me in a kind
of blur, I heard Miss Percy's voice as if it were a very long way off
asking me something I could not hear, and then all was utter darkness.
When I came to myself I was lying on the sofa in the library. Mrs.
Marshall was bending over me, bathing my head with eau de Cologne, and
Miss Buller was fanning me with a palm-leaf screen.
"Are you better, my dear?" asked Mrs. Marshall anxiously. "Don't try to
get up. Drink this glass of water and lie down again."
"What happened?" I asked. "How did I come here?"
"You fainted in the class-room, but you must not talk about it now. I
wish you to rest for a while, and then Miss Buller shall bring you some
beef-tea."
"I don't want any, thank you!" I said, trying to raise myself a little,
but my head swam so strangely and I felt so giddy and queer that I was
glad to sink back again upon the sofa cushions.
"I think we had better put you to bed," said Mrs. Marshall, adding in an
undertone to Miss Buller: "If she is not better by this evening, I shall
certainly send for the doctor."
I was not better by the evening; my hands were burning hot, and my head
felt so unusually light that I could scarcely recognize the many people
who seemed to come in and out of my room. I knew that when I asked for
water Miss Buller was always ready with the glass in her hand, I thought
once that Cathy was sobbing quietly behind the curtain of my bed, and I
am certain that Mrs. Marshall never left me all night.
"It is a decided case of nervous breakdown, due to overwork," I heard
the doctor saying. "You must keep her very quiet, and I will see her
again in the morning."
There were no more lessons for me that term. As soon as I was well
enough to travel Aunt Agatha took me herself for a fortnight to
Brighton, where the restful uneventful days and the invigorating
sea-breezes soon brought back the roses to my cheeks, and gave me
untroubled sleep and peaceful dreams at night. I think this episode, and
something which the doctor had said, must have caused Mrs. Marshall
seriously to reconsider the rules of the school and the hours of our
work. She was a sensible woman, most conscientious over our well-being,
and ever ready to adopt new ideas if she believed them to be better than
the old ones. When I returned to school at the beginning of the next
term, I found that our time-table was completely changed. The hours of
work were considerably relaxed, and instead of the stupid walks up and
down the high-road, we were taken almost daily rambles over the hills or
in the beautiful woods by the river. Miss Percy had mysteriously
disappeared, and her place was filled by a new teacher who was fond of
natural history, and who encouraged us to find specimens of stones,
leaves, or flowers, explaining them with so much enthusiasm that the
stupidest girl could not fail to be interested. The new scheme answered
well; the extra time given to outdoor recreation was not wasted, for we
went back to our books with fresh zeal; and I think we really got
through as much work as we had done before, if not in the actual number
of pages learnt, at any rate in the amount we remembered afterwards.