Two Worlds and Their Ways (11 page)

“Well, I don't know who it was. They both came with me.”

“Then did not they both have to go?”

“Miss Petticott went early to the station to do some shopping on the way. But she may have come back to go with my mother. I said good-bye to them both in the drawing-room.”

“Did you cry?” said Gwendolen.

“Well, perhaps I did a little,” said Clemence, glad to be released from the effort of invention, though she had found it lighter than she could have hoped.

“Poor Clemence!” said four voices, though Esther's was a little distraught.

“How old are you?” said Gwendolen. “I should think you are about fourteen.”

“I shall be fourteen in about two months, I think,” said Clemence, unused to the school custom of exact estimation of age.

There was some mirth.

“Are you not sure, Clemence?” said Maud, with a note of admonition.

“Yes, I suppose I am; I had not thought much about it. I shall be fourteen on November the twelfth.”

“What a dull sort of day for a birthday!” said Esther.

“Well, Clemence had not much choice in the matter,” said Maud.

“I had none that I remember,” said Clemence.

“You will be the youngest in the form,” said Gwendolen. “You sound as if you would be that. We are all fifteen except Maud, who is sixteen and a half. I was the youngest before you came; I was fifteen yesterday. You have ousted me from my place.”

“Have you a very good brain? I suppose you have,” said Esther, in a resigned tone.

“I don't know why I should be different from the rest of you.”

“The relation of a headmistress would hardly be quite the same,” said Verity, her tone not disguising the ambiguity in her words.

“I fail to see why, Verity,” said Maud.

“I wish my head was as large as yours, if it would mean I had a better brain,” said Gwendolen. “But I should cover it with my hair.”

“Why do you have your hair like that?” said Esther.

“Clemence might ask us all that question, Esther,” said Maud.

“No, she might not. She is the only one who wears it in an odd way.”

“Oh, I don't know; I had not thought about it,” said Clemence. “I do not do it myself. Does it matter how I have it? I suppose I shall have to manage it now.”

“The matron can do it for you, if you tell her how. I don't see how she could know.”

“If Clemence understands the theory of the matter, she can soon put it into practice,” said Maud.

“Well, is that better?” said Clemence, pulling at her hair with both hands, as though in the recklessness of indifference.

“You do look nice, Clemence,” said three voices, as all the girls but Maud linked arms and regarded the new comer.

“Let us go upstairs and see Miss Tuke unpack for her, and look at her clothes,” said Gwendolen, leading the line to the door.

“Come along, Clemence,” said Verity, stretching out an arm from its end. “Don't stand and look like a person apart.”

“This is our usual way of progressing, Clemence,” said Maud, allowing herself to be attached to the line, as though having no wish to hold aloof from anything that was not wrong.

“Miss Tuke, Clemence Shelley refuses to walk upstairs with us,” said Gwendolen, entering the dormitory with her usual vigorous tread. “Do you like us to be treated with contempt?”

The matron was a pale, preoccupied woman, who seemed to defy description by having so little to be described, whose age could have been placed between thirty and fifty-eight. She was standing, in complete personal neatness but with a dishevelled air, in a room containing five beds and the corresponding pieces of furniture, and a medley of rods and curtains that seemed designed to undo the effect at a moment's notice.

“Now what is this? No nonsense at this stage of the term,” she said, coming forward and kissing Clemence with an affection that had the merit of being spontaneous. “And what are you all doing upstairs at this hour?”

“We want to see you unpack Clemence's clothes. We take a great interest in her, though she takes none in us. I am afraid she has a cold heart. But have you ever seen hair like hers, Miss Tuke?”

“Yes, it is very pretty; we must take care of it,” said Miss Tuke, almost looking at Clemence's head.

“Is that her box?” said Verity, with a return to her faintly mocking tone.

“Now what do you think it would be? A very good old box it is. I wish things were made as well in these days. I expect it has many associations, hasn't it, Clemence?”

“I don't know. It just came from the boxroom. There are a lot of old things up there.”

“It must be more than a hundred years old,” said Maud.

“Then the associations are other people's rather than Clemence's,” said Gwendolen. “Perhaps her family had boxes before our families existed.”

“We have an old box at home that was made in the reign of Charles the Second,” said Miss Tuke, not feeling it necessary to enlarge on this light on her lineage.

“What are those things?” said Esther, indicating some linen in Miss Tuke's hands. “Underclothes?”

“Now what do you think they would be,” said Miss Tuke, shaking them out.

“I don't know,” said Verity, in a low tone, as though good manners deterred her from going further.

“Little window-curtains,” said Esther, in a tone of suggestion. “The kind that hang by those windows that open like doors.”

“I fail to see any resemblance, Esther,” said Maud.

“It must be a lot of trouble to press and iron them like that,” said Esther, in a manner of making some atonement.

“I don't think anyone would do it for me.”

“Who does it for you, Clemence?” said Verity, with the idle note that seldom veiled her mind.

“I do not know. I suppose someone must do it.”

“Indeed someone must. That is quite true,” said Miss Tuke.

“Don't you really know?” said Gwendolen.

“Now why should she?” said Miss Tuke.

“She must know, of course,” said Esther.

“I don't think I do. Perhaps it is Adela. Or perhaps they are done in the village.”

“Well, why should we want to know?” said Verity, giving a yawn, or causing herself to give one.

“I cannot tell you,” said Clemence, “but you evidently do want to. I have never wanted to know so much about anyone as you want to know about me.”

“That is right, Clemence. Show spirit,” said Miss Tuke, putting some pins into her mouth with no further apparent purpose for them.

“Why do people eat pins?” said Gwendolen. “No wonder children swallow them, with the example always before their eyes. Do they taste nice, Miss Tuke?”

“I have not three hands,” said the latter, continuing to use the two she had.

“I hope they are wholesome,” said Gwendolen. “Dressmakers have a habit of eating them.”

“Hasn't she any dresses?” said Esther to Miss Tuke.

“Now what do you suppose? You might as well ask if she has any shoes.”

“Well, has she? I don't see any. Have you, Clemence?”

“I expect they were put in, those I am supposed to have here.”

“Don't you have all your things here?”

“Oh, I don't know. No, I don't suppose quite all of them. This is only school, after all.”

“So it is Clemence,” said Miss Tuke, in a tone of absent but warm approval.

“I have things bought for me especially for school, that I should not have, if I were at home,” said Esther, covering with rapid lightness what seemed to be an extreme admission.

“I have one or two things kept at home, that are supposed to be too good to wear here,” said Gwendolen. “They are just stored up and go out of fashion, and they are the things that suit me best.”

“Dear, dear, that is the way of the world,” said Miss Tuke.

“I wear all my things both at home and at school, or I should not have enough,” said Verity, lifting her shoulders.

“Fortunate people that you are, to have everything arranged for you!” said Miss Tuke.

“What do you do, Maud?” said Verity.

“I had not thought, Verity. I may not always do the same thing. Is it such an interesting subject?”

“Yes, of course it is,” said Gwendolen. “It throws light into all sorts of shadowy corners. I am fascinated by it.”

“We must learn to look things in the face,” said Verity. “We are the future women of England.”

“Now what nonsense next?” said Miss Tuke.

“Well, what is the subject?” said a rather deep, dry voice. “It seems to be one of great interest.”

“It is of the greatest interest, Miss Chancellor,” said Gwendolen, turning at once to the door. “Clemence Shelley does not bring her clothes to school because they are too good to wear amongst people like us. What do you think of it?”

“I do not think of it at all, Gwendolen. The clothes are not my province,” said the new-comer, adjusting her glasses in a manner that suggested others, as she regarded the scene with steady, moderate interest. “So this is Clemence Shelley? How do you do, Clemence?”

“Quite well, thank you,” murmured Verity, as though this would be Clemence's natural rejoinder.

Miss Chancellor appeared not to hear, and continued with her eyes on the latter.

“I think you are the only addition to my form this term.”

“Are you not sure?” said Esther.

“No, I am not sure, Esther. I only know that there is one extra name on my list, and that it is probably that of Clemence,” said Miss Chancellor, on her way to Miss Tuke as the centre-point of the group. “How are you, Miss Tuke? I hope you are rested after the holidays. You set us an example by being at work so soon.”

“Other people's work cannot begin until some of mine is done,” said Miss Tuke, taking the pins from her mouth in rapid succession.

“How do you do, Maud?” said Miss Chancellor, on an equal and cordial note. “Can you say that you are glad to be back at work again?”

“Yes, thank you, Miss Chancellor. On the whole I am very glad.”

“Are you glad, Miss Chancellor?” said Verity.

“Well, my feelings are mixed, Verity. I cannot quite emulate Maud's wholeheartedness,” said Miss Chancellor, turning her glasses on Verity in a somehow unsparing manner.

Miss Chancellor had bright, near-set, near-sighted eyes, a bony, irregular nose, with glasses riding uncertainly on it, and a suggestion about her of acting according to her conception of herself. She looked older than her thirty-six years, and seeing the circumstance as the result of weight of personality, was not without satisfaction in it.

“When do we have tea, Miss Chancellor?” said Gwendolen. “I am beginning to think of nothing else.”

“I do not know, Gwendolen. I had not thought. But I suppose at the usual time. You all seem to assign to me a good many provinces that are not mine. And I am far from being a person of general activities like Miss Tuke. I am rather a specialised individual.”

“You have a high opinion of yourself, haven't you, Miss Chancellor?” said Verity.

“Have I, Verity? I do not know what I said to imply it. And I hope I have no higher a one than is healthy and natural, and gives me a standard to live up to. We are none of us the worse for that. I hope you are not without it yourself, and I should not have said you were.”

“I suppose you think I am a conceited creature.”

“So that was the idea in your mind,” said Miss Chancellor, with a laugh.

“Things are different on the first day,” said Gwendolen. “I wish the bell would go. Don't you want some tea, Miss Chancellor?”

“Well, I shall be glad of a cup, Gwendolen, now that you
speak of it,” said the latter, as though such a desire in herself were dependent on suggestion.

“I shall be glad of a good deal more. I had luncheon early, and I was crying too much to eat.”

“I can hardly imagine it, Gwendolen,” said Miss Chancellor with a smile.

“I am longing for the plain and wholesome school fare.”

“I am not,” said Esther. “I am dreading three months of it. The holidays are hardly long enough to recover.”

Maud looked out of the window, as though a thing better not said were better not heard.

“Are you tired after your journey, Esther?” said Miss Chancellor, as though seeking an excuse for something that needed it.

“Yes, I am rather, Miss Chancellor.”

“Poor Esther, she is easily tired,” said Miss Tuke, her eyes on a garment she was holding up before them.

“Are you tired, Clemence?” said Miss Chancellor.

“No, thank you.”

“Was your journey a long one?”

“No, quite short. Only about an hour.”

“Did your mother bring you?”

“Yes. She has gone back now.”

“Well, well, we can't keep everyone with us,” said Miss Tuke.

“Especially if you have as many people as Clemence has,” said Gwendolen. “Her mother and her governess brought her, Miss Chancellor. One person was enough to bring the rest of us, and Maud came alone. That shows that Clemence is twice as important as we are.”

“And how many times as important as Maud? Really, Gwendolen, your method of estimating relative importance is an odd one. What do you think of it, Clemence?”

“Well, of course it has not anything in it.”

“It is usual to use people's names, Clemence, when you are talking to people who are older than you, and who are going to teach you,” said Miss Chancellor, in an even,
pleasant tone, that hurried towards the next words. “Is this your first experience of school life?”

“Yes, Miss Chancellor.”

“She will be the youngest in the form, Miss Chancellor,” said Gwendolen, urged to compliment by the reproof. “She is still under fourteen. Don't you find yourself looking at her hair?”