Part 5 (1/2)

She told it quietly, but she did not try not to cry--the tears just came trickling down her face, and she wiped them away now and then. I think the letting them come made her able to speak more calmly.

And I listened. I was very sorry for her, very _very_ sorry. But you may think it strange--I have often looked back upon it with wonder myself, though I now feel as if I understood the causes of it better--when I tell you that I was _not_ fearfully upset or distressed myself. I did not feel inclined to cry, _except_ out of pity for mamma. And I listened with the most intense interest, and even curiosity. I was all wound up by excitement, for this was the first great event I had ever known, the first change in my quiet child-life.

And my excitement grew even greater when mamma came to the subject of what was decided about us children.

”Haddie of course must go to school,” she said; ”to a larger and better school--Mrs. Selwood speaks of Rugby, if it can be managed. He will be happy there, every one says. But about you, my Geraldine.”

”Oh, mamma,” I interrupted, ”do let me go to school too. I have always wanted to go, you know, and except for being away from you, I would far rather be a boarder. It's really being at school then. I know they rather look down upon day-scholars--Haddie says so.”

Mamma looked at me gravely. Perhaps she was just a little disappointed, even though on the other hand she may have felt relieved too, at my taking the idea of this separation, which to her over-rode _everything_, which made the next two years a black cloud to her, so very philosophically. But she sighed. I fancy a suspicion of the truth came to her almost at once and added to her anxiety--the truth that I did not the least realise what was before me.

”We _are_ thinking of sending you to school, my child,” she said quietly, ”and of course it must be as a boarder. Mrs. Selwood advises Miss Ledbury's school here. She has known the old lady long and has a very high opinion of her, and it is not very far from Fernley in case Miss Ledbury wished to consult Mrs. Selwood about you in any way, or in case you were ill.”

”I am very glad,” I said. ”I should like to go to Miss Ledbury's.”

My fancy had been tickled by seeing the girls at her school walking out two and two in orthodox fas.h.i.+on. I thought it must be delightful to march along in a row like that, and to have a partner of your own size to talk to as much as you liked.

Mamma said no more just then. I think she felt at a loss what to say.

She was afraid of making me unnecessarily unhappy, and on the other hand she dreaded my finding the reality all the worse when I came to contrast it with my rose-coloured visions.

She consulted father, and he decided that it was best to leave me to myself and my own thoughts.

”She is a very young child still,” he said to mamma. (All this of course I was told afterwards.) ”It is quite possible that she will _not_ suffer from the separation as we have feared. It may be much easier for her than if she had been two or three years older.”

Haddie had no illusions. From the very first he took it all in, and that very bitterly. But he was, as I have said, a very good boy, and a boy with a great deal of resolution and firmness. He said nothing to discourage me. Mamma told him how surprised she was at my way of taking it, and he agreed with father that perhaps I would not be really unhappy.

And I do think that my chief unhappiness during the next few weeks came from the sight of dear mamma's pale, worn face, which she could not hide, try as she might to be bright and cheerful.

There was of course a great deal of bustle and preparation, and all children enjoy that, I fancy. Even Haddie was interested about his school outfit. He was to go to a preparatory school at Rugby till he could get into the big school. And as far as school went, he told me he was sure he would like it very well, it was only the--but there he stopped.

”The what?” I asked.

”Oh, the being all separated,” he said gruffly.

”But you'd have had to go away to a big school some day,” I reminded him. ”You didn't want always to go to a day-school.”

”No,” he allowed, ”but it's the holidays.”

The holidays! I had not thought about that part of it.

”Oh, I daresay something nice will be settled for the holidays,” I said lightly.

In one way Haddie was very lucky. Mrs. Selwood had undertaken the whole charge of his education for the two years our parents were to be away.

And after that ”we shall see,” she said.

She had great ideas about the necessity of giving a boy the very best schooling possible, but she had not at all the same opinion about _girls'_ education. She was a clever woman in some ways, but very old-fas.h.i.+oned. Her own upbringing had been at a time when _very_ little learning was considered needful or even advisable for our s.e.x. And as she had good practical capacities, and had managed her own affairs sensibly, she always held herself up both in her own mind and to others as a specimen of an _un_learned lady who had got on far better than if she had had all the ”'ologies,” as she called them, at her fingers'

ends.

This, I think, was one reason why she approved of Miss Ledbury's school, which, as you will hear, was certainly not conducted in accordance with the modern ideas which even then were beginning to make wise parents ask themselves if it was right to spend ten times as much on their sons'