Part 8 (1/2)

”Such carelessness! You girls would forget your heads if they weren't screwed on,” retorted the governess, in the dry, violent manner that made her universally disliked.

Thankful to escape with this, Laura picked out her book and hurried from the room.

But the thoughts of the group had been drawn to her.

”The greatest little oddity we've had here for some time,” p.r.o.nounced Miss Day, pouting her full bust in decisive fas.h.i.+on.

”She is, indeed,” agreed Miss Zielinski.

”I don't know what sort of a place she comes from, I'm sure,” continued the former: ”but it must be the end of creation. She's utterly no idea of what's what, and as for her clothes they're fit for a Punch and Judy show.”

”She's had no training either--stupid, I call her,” chimed in one of the younger governesses, whose name was Miss Snodgra.s.s. ”She doesn't know the simplest things, and her spelling is awful. And yet, do you know, at history the other day, she wanted to hold forth about how London looked in Elizabeth's reign--when she didn't know a single one of the dates!”

”She can say some poetry,” said Miss Zielinski. ”And she's read Scott.”

One and all shook their heads at this, and Mrs. Gurley went on shaking hers and smiling grimly. ”Ah! the way gels are brought up nowadays,”

she said. ”There was no such thing in my time. We were made to learn what would be of some use and help to us afterwards.”

Elderly Miss Chapman twiddled her chain. ”I hope I did right Mrs.

Gurley. She had one week's early practice, but she looked so white all day after it that I haven't put her down for it again. I hope I did right?”

”Oh, well, we don't want to have them ill, you know,” replied Mrs.

Gurley, in the rather irresponsive tone she adopted towards Miss Chapman. ”As long as it isn't mere laziness.”

”I don't think she's lazy,” said Miss Chapman. ”At least she takes great pains with her lessons at night.”

This was true. Laura tried her utmost, with an industry born of despair. For the comforting a.s.surance of speedy promotion, which she had given Mother, had no root in fact. These early weeks only served to reduce, bit by bit, her belief in her own knowledge. How slender this was, and of how little use to her in her new state, she did not dare to confess even to herself. Her disillusionment had begun the day after her arrival, when Dr Pughson, the Headmaster, to whom she had gone to be examined in arithmetic, flung up hands of comical dismay at her befogged attempts to solve the mysteries of long division. An upper cla.s.s was taking a lesson in Euclid, and in the intervals between her mazy reckonings she had stolen glances at the master. A tiny little nose was as if squashed flat on his face, above a grotesquely expressive mouth, which displayed every one of a splendid set of teeth.

He had small, short-sighted, red-rimmed eyes, and curly hair which did not stop growing at his ears, but went on curling, closely cropped, down the sides of his face. He taught at the top of his voice, thumped the blackboard with a pointer, was biting at the expense of a pupil who confused the angle BFC with the angle BFG, a moment later to volley forth a broad Irish joke which convulsed the cla.s.s. He bewitched Laura; she forgot her sums in the delight of watching him; and this made her learning seem a little scantier than it actually was; for she had to wind up in a great hurry. He pounced down upon her; the cla.s.s laughed anew at his playful horror; and yet again at the remark that it was evident she had never had many pennies to spend, or she would know better what to do with the figures that represented them.--In these words Laura scented a reference to Mother's small income, and grew as red as fire.

In the lowest cla.s.s in the College she sat bottom, for a week or more: what she did know, she knew in such an awkward form that she might as well have known nothing. And after a few efforts to better her condition she grew cautious, and hesitated discreetly before returning one of those ingenuous answers which, in the beginning, had made her the merry-andrew of the cla.s.s. She could for instance, read a French story-book without skipping very many words; but she had never heard a syllable of the language spoken, and her first attempts at p.r.o.nunciation caused even Miss Zielinski to sit back in her chair and laugh till the tears ran down her face. History Laura knew in a vague, pictorial way: she and Pin had enacted many a striking scene in the garden--such as ”Not Angles but Angels,” or, did the pump-drain overflow, Canute and his silly courtiers--and she also had out-of-the-way sc.r.a.ps of information about the characters of some of the monarchs, or, as the governess had complained, about the state of London at a certain period; but she had never troubled her head with dates. Now they rose before her, a hard, dry, black line from 1066 on, accompanied, not only by the kings who were the cause of them, but by dull laws, and their duller repeals. Her lessons in English alone gave her a mild pleasure; she enjoyed taking a sentence to pieces to see how it was made. She was fond of words, too, for their own sake, and once, when Miss Snodgra.s.s had occasion to use the term ”eleemosynary”, Laura was so enchanted by it that she sought to share her enthusiasm with her neighbour. This girl, a fat little Jewess, went crimson, from trying to stifle her laughter.

”What IS the matter with you girls down there?” cried Miss Snodgra.s.s.

”Carrie Isaacs, what are you laughing like that for?”

”It's Laura Rambotham, Miss Snodgra.s.s. She's so funny,” spluttered the girl.

”What are you doing, Laura?”

Laura did not answer. The girl spoke for her.

”She said--hee, hee!--she said it was blue.”

”Blue? What's blue?” snapped Miss Snodgra.s.s.

”That word. She said it was so beautiful ... and that it was blue.”

”I didn't. Grey-blue, I said,” murmured Laura her cheeks aflame.

The cla.s.s rocked; even Miss Snodgra.s.s herself had to join in the laugh while she hushed and reproved. And sometimes after this, when a particularly long or odd word occurred in the lesson, she would turn to Laura and say jocosely: ”Now, Laura, come on, tell us what colour that is. Red and yellow, don't you think?”