Regiment Of Women Part 21

She was quite aware that it would entail special efforts on her own part, as well as on the child's, and that she had a large cla.s.s already on her hands, and in need of coaching. But there was always Alwynne.

Alwynne was so reliable; she could safely leave Louise's routine work in Alwynne's hands. It remained to consult Louise and incidentally the parent Dennys.

Louise was awestruck, overwhelmed by the honour of being allowed to compete, absurdly and touchingly delighted. No doubt as to Louise's sentiments. No doubt as to the sincerity of her efforts. No doubt, until the spring term began, of the certainty of her success.

The spring term opened with Clare in Miss Marsham's carved seat at morning prayers. The school had grown accustomed to its head-mistress's occasional absence. Miss Marsham, who had for some time felt the strain of school routine too much for her advanced years, was only able to sustain the fiction of her unimpaired powers by taking holidays, as a morphineuse takes her drug, in ever-increasing doses. She was confident in the discretion alike of Clare Hartill and Henrietta Vigers, and, indeed, but for their efficiency, the school would have suffered more quickly than it actually did. Nevertheless, the absence of supreme authority had, though but slightly, the usual disintegrating effect.

There was always, naturally, an increase of friction between the two women, especially when the absence of the directress occurred at the beginning of a term. There would be the usual agitations--problems of housing and cla.s.sification. There would arrive parents to be interviewed and impressed, new girls to be gracefully and graciously welcomed. Clare (to whom Henrietta, for all her hostility, invariably turned in emergencies), showing delicately yet unmistakably that she considered herself unwarrantably hampered in her own work, would submit to being on show with an air of bored acquiescence, tempered with modest surprise at the necessity for her presence. It was sufficiently irritating to Henrietta, under strict, if indirect, orders to leave the decorative side of the vice-regency to her rival. She was quite aware of Clare's greater effectiveness. She did not believe that it weighed with Miss Marsham against her own solid qualities. She affected to despise it. Yet despising, she envied.

She was unjust to Clare, however, in believing the latter's reluctance entirely a.s.sumed. Clare enjoyed ruffling the susceptibilities of Henrietta, but she was none the less genuinely annoyed at being even partially withdrawn from her cla.s.ses and was relieved when, at the end of a fortnight, Miss Marsham returned to her post. Clare had been forced to neglect her special work. Cla.s.ses had been curtailed and interrupted, the many extra lessons postponed or turned over to Alwynne, whom more than any other mistress she had trained and could trust.

It was Alwynne who, reporting to her at the end of the first fortnight, had made her more than ever eager to be rid of her deputyship.

There were new girls in the Fifth in whom Alwynne was interested. One, at least, she prophesied, would be found to have stuff in her. It was a pity she was not in the Scholarship Cla.s.s.... She was too good for the Lower Fifth.... Alwynne supposed it would be quite impossible to let her enter?

"At this time of day? Impossible! Do you realise that we've only another three months?"

"I don't suppose she'd want to, anyhow," said Alwynne. "She's a quaint person! Talk about independence! She informed me to-day that she shouldn't stay longer than half-term, unless she liked us."

"Oho! Young America!" Clare was alert. "I didn't know you referred to Cynthia Griffiths. I interviewed the parents last week. Immensely rich!

She was demure enough, but I gathered even then that she ruled the roost. Her mother was quite tearful--implored me to keep her happy for three months anyhow, while they both indulged in a rest cure abroad. She seemed doubtful of our capacities. But she was not explicit."

"Cynthia is. I've heard the whole story while I tried to find out how much she knew. She's a new type. Her French and her German are perfect--and her clothes. Her bedroom is a pig-sty and she gets up when she chooses. I gather that she has reduced Miss Vigers to a nervous wreck already. Thank goodness I'm a visiting mistress! I wonder what the girls will make of her!"

"Or she of them."

"That won't be the question," surmised Alwynne shrewdly. "Clare, she has five schools behind her, American and foreign--and she's fifteen! We are an incident. I know. There were two Americans at my school."

"It remains to be seen." Clare's eyes narrowed. "Well, what else?"

Alwynne fidgeted.

"I'm glad you're taking over everything again. I prefer my small kids."

"Why?"

"Easier to understand--and manage."

Clare looked amused.

"Been getting into difficulties? Who's the problem? Agatha?"

"That wind-bag! She only needs p.r.i.c.king to collapse," said Alwynne contemptuously. Then, with a frown: "I wish poor little Mademoiselle Charette would realise it. Have you ever seen a Lower Fifth French lesson? But, of course, you haven't. It's a farce."

Clare frowned.

"If she can't keep order----"

"She can teach anyhow," said Alwynne quickly. "I was at the other end of the room once, working. I listened a little. It's only Agatha.

Mademoiselle can tackle the others. She's effective in a delicate way; but senseless, noisy rotting--it breaks her up. She loses her temper. Of course, it's funny to watch. But I hate that sort of thing. I did when I was a schoolgirl even, didn't you?"

"I don't remember." But in the back of Clare's mind was a cla.s.s-room and herself, contemptuously impertinent to a certain ineffective Miss Loveday.

Alwynne continued, frowning--

"Anyhow, I wish you'd do something."

Clare yawned.

"One mustn't interfere with other departments--unasked."

"Well, I ask you." Alwynne was in earnest.

"Why?"

"I want you to."

"Why?"

Alwynne blushed.

"Why this championship? I didn't know you and Mademoiselle Charette were such intimates?"

"It's just because we aren't. I like her, but----"

"But what?"

"Well--we had a row. You see--You won't tell, Clare?"

Clare smiled.

"She doesn't like you," blurted out Alwynne indignantly. "And I just want to show her how altogether wrong----"

"What a crime! How did you find it out?" Clare was amused.

"She was telling me about Agatha. And I said--why on earth didn't she complain to you? And she said--nothing on earth would induce her to. I said--I was sure you would be only too glad for her to ask you. And she said----" Alwynne paused dramatically: "She said--she hadn't the faintest doubt you would, and that I was a charming child, but that she happened to understand you. Then we had a row of course."

Clare pealed with laughter.

"She's quite right, Alwynne. You are a charming child. So that is Mademoiselle Charette, is it? And I never guessed." She mused, a curious little smile on her lips.

"She's a dear, really," said Alwynne apologetically. "Only she's what Mrs. Marpler calls ''aughty.' I can't think why her knife's into you."

"Suppose----" Clare's eyes lit up, she showed the tip of her tongue--sure sign of mischief afloat. "Suppose I pull it out? What do you bet me, Alwynne?"

Alwynne laughed.

"I wish you would. I don't like it when people don't appreciate you.

Anyhow, I wish you'd settle Agatha. You know, it's not doing the scholarship French any good. The cla.s.s slacks. Mademoiselle is worried, I know."

Clare was serious at once.