The Carved Lions Part 7

"Come to unpack your things," repeated the governess. "There must be some mistake--that is quite unnecessary. There is no occasion for you to wait," she said to poor Lydia, with a slight gesture towards the door.

Lydia grew very red.

"Miss Geraldine won't know about them all, I'm afraid," she began. "She has not been used to taking the charge of her things yet."

"Then the sooner she learns the better," said Miss Aspinall, and Lydia dared not persist. She turned to me, looking ready to burst out crying again, though, as she had been doing little else for three days, one might have thought her tears were exhausted.

"Good-bye, dear Miss Geraldine," she said, half holding out her arms. I flew into them. I was beginning to feel very strange.

"Good-bye, dear Lydia," I said.

"You will write to me, Miss Geraldine?"

"Of course I will; I know your address," I said. Lydia was going to her own home to work with a dressmaker sister in hopes of coming back to us at the end of the two years.

"Miss Le Marchant" (I think I have never said that our family name was Le Marchant), said a cold voice, "I really cannot wait any longer; you must come upstairs at once to take off your things."

Lydia glanced at me.

"I beg pardon," she said; and then she too was gone.

Long afterwards the poor girl told me that her heart was nearly bursting when she left me, but she had the good sense to say nothing to add to mamma's distress, as she knew that my living at Green Bank was all settled about. She could only hope the other governesses might be kinder than the one she had seen.

Miss Aspinall walked upstairs, telling me to follow her. It was not a very large house, but it was a high one and the stairs were steep. It seemed to me that I had climbed up a long way when at last she opened a door half-way down a dark pa.s.sage.

"This is your room," she said, as she went in.

I followed her eagerly. I don't quite know what I expected. I had not been told if I was to have a room to myself or not. But at first I think I was rather startled to see three beds in a room not much larger than my own one at home--three beds and two wash-hand stands, a large and a small, two chests of drawers, a large and a small also, which were evidently considered to be toilet-tables as well, as each had a looking-gla.s.s, and three chairs.

My eyes wandered round. It was all quite neat, though dull. For the one window looked on to the side-wall of the next-door house, and much light could not have got in at the best of times, added to which, the day was a very gray one. But the impression it made upon me was more that of a tidy and clean servants' room than of one for ladies, even though only little girls.

I stood still and silent.

"This is your bed," said Miss Aspinall next, touching a small white counterpaned iron bedstead in one corner--I was glad it was in a corner.

"The Miss Smiths are your companions. They share the large chest of drawers, and your things will go into the smaller one."

"There won't be nearly room enough," I said quickly. I had yet to learn the habit of not saying out whatever came into my head.

"Nonsense, child," said the governess. "There must be room enough for you if there is room enough for much older and----" she stopped. "At your age many clothes are not requisite. I think, on the whole, it will be better for you not to unpack or arrange your own things. One of the governesses shall do so, and all that you do not actually require must stay in your trunk and be put in the box-room."

I did not pay very much attention to what she said. I don't think I clearly understood it, for, as I have said, in some ways I was rather a slow child. And my thoughts were running more on the Miss Smiths and the rest of my future companions than on my wardrobe. If I had taken in that it was not only my clothes that were in question, but that my little household G.o.ds, my special pet possessions, were not to be left in my own keeping, I would have minded much more.

"Now take off your things at once," said Miss Aspinall. "You must keep on your boots till your shoes are got out, but take care not to stump along the pa.s.sages. Do your hands want washing? No, you have your gloves on. As soon as you are ready, go down two flights of stairs till you come to the pa.s.sage under this on the next floor. The door at the end is the second cla.s.s schoolroom, where you will be shown your place."

Then she went away, leaving me to my own reflections. Not a word of sympathy or encouragement, not a pat on my shoulder as she pa.s.sed me, nor a kindly glance out of her hard eyes. But at the time I scarcely noticed this. My mind was still full of not unpleasant excitement, though I was beginning to feel tired and certainly very confused and bewildered.

I sat down for a moment on the edge of my little bed when Miss Aspinall left me, without hastening to take off my coat and bonnet. We wore bonnets mostly in those days, though hats were beginning to come into fashion for young girls.

"I wish there were only two beds, not three," I said to myself. "And I would like the little girl with the rosy face to sleep in my room. I wonder if she's Miss Smith perhaps. I wonder if there's several little girls as little as me. I'd like to know all their names, so as to write and tell them to mamma and Haddie."

The inclination to cry had left me--fortunately in some ways, though perhaps if I had made my _debut_ in the schoolroom looking very woe-begone and tearful I should have made a better impression. My future companions would have felt sorry for me. As it was, when I had taken off my things I made my way downstairs as I had been directed, and opening the schoolroom door--I remember wondering to myself what second cla.s.s schoolroom could mean: would it have long seats all round, something like a second-cla.s.s railway carriage?--walked in coolly enough.

The room felt airless and close, though it was a cold day. And at the first glance it seemed to me perfectly full of people--girls--women indeed in my eyes many of them were, they were so much bigger and older than I--in every direction, more than I could count. And the hum of voices was very confusing, the _hums_ I should say, for there were two or three different sets of reading aloud, or lessons repeating, going on at once.

I stood just inside the door. Two or three heads were turned in my direction at the sound I made in opening it, but quickly bent over their books again, and for some moments no one paid any attention to me. Then suddenly a governess happened to catch sight of me. It was the same sweet-faced girl whom mamma had noticed at the end of the long file in the street.

She looked at me once, then seemed at a loss, then she looked at me again, and at last said something to the girl beside her, and getting up from her seat went to the end of the room, and spoke to a small elderly woman in a brown stuff dress, who was evidently another governess.

This person--I suppose I should say lady--turned round and stared at me.

Then she said something to the younger governess, nothing very pleasant, I fancy, for the sweet-looking one--I had better call her by her name, which was Miss Fenmore--went back to her place with a heightened colour.

You may ask how I can remember all these little particulars so exactly.

Perhaps I do not quite do so, but still, all that happened just then made a very strong impression on me, and I have thought it over so much and so often, especially since I have had children of my own, that it is difficult to tell quite precisely how much is real memory, how much the after knowledge of how things must have been, to influence myself and others as they did. And later, too, I talked them over with those who were older than I at the time, and could understand more.

So there I stood, a very perplexed little person, though still more perplexed than distressed or disappointed, by the door. Now and then some head was turned to look at me with a sort of stealthy curiosity, but there was no kindness in any of the glances, and the young governess kept her eyes turned away. I was not a pretty child. My hair was straight and not noticeable in any way, and it was tightly plaited, as was the fashion, _unless_ a child's hair was thick enough to make pretty ringlets. My face was rather thin and pale, and there was nothing of dimpling childish loveliness about me. I was rather near-sighted too, and I daresay that often gave me a worried, perhaps a fretful expression.

After all, I did not have to wait very long. The elderly governess finished the page she was reading aloud--she may have been dictating to her pupils, I cannot say--and came towards me.

"Did Miss Aspinall send you here?" she said abruptly.

I looked up at her. She seemed to me no better than our cook, and not half so good-natured.

"Yes," I said.

"Yes," she repeated, as if she was very shocked. "Yes _who_, if you please? Yes, Miss ----?"

"Yes, Miss," I said in a matter-of-fact way.

"What manners! Fie!" said Miss ----; afterwards I found her name was Broom. "I think indeed it was quite time for you to come to school. If you cannot say my name, you can at least say ma'am."

I stared up at her. I think my trick of staring must have been rather provoking, and perhaps even must have seemed rude, though it arose entirely from my not understanding.

"I don't know your name, Miss--ma'am," I said. I spoke clearly. I was not frightened. And a t.i.tter went round the forms. Miss Broom was angry at being put in the wrong.

"Miss Aspinall sent you to my cla.s.s, _Miss Broom's_ cla.s.s," she said.

"No, ma'am--Miss Broom--she didn't."

The governess thought I meant to be impertinent--impertinent, poor me!

And with no very gentle hand, she half led, half pushed me towards her end of the room, where there was a vacant place on one of the forms.

"Silence, young ladies," she said, for some whispering was taking place.

"Go on with your copying out."

And then she turned to me with a book.

"Let me hear how you can read," she said.