The Fortunes Of Philippa Part 11

"I can't help it--I can't, indeed!" I confided to Cathy after one of these outbreaks. "My head feels so chock full of facts I sometimes think it won't hold any more. When I look at my book the letters seem to dance before my eyes, and I mix up mathematics with history and want to talk German in the French cla.s.s."

"Tell Mrs. Marshall, and ask her to knock something off," suggested Cathy.

"No, no! She would only say the cla.s.s was too difficult for me, and send me down, and unless I can stay up here with you and Janet life simply isn't worth living. Never mind, I'll manage to worry on somehow, if only Miss Percy would let me alone!"

Unfortunately that was exactly what Miss Percy would not do. She had taken it into her head that I was hysterical, and that my whims and fancies must not on any account be humoured. I dare say she thought she was only doing her duty, but she harried me continually. An untied hair-ribbon, a blot on my exercise, an ink-stain on my finger, or an awkward att.i.tude in cla.s.s, were occasions for instant and severe fault-finding. No doubt they were all little defects which called for amendment, but she made the mistake of dealing with them too hardly. I believe, if people would only realize it, that overwork and ill-health are often responsible for many tiresome habits in growing girls. It was certainly so in my case; I sat crooked because my back ached, I lolled on my desk because I was really tired, I fidgeted from sheer nervousness when I felt Miss Percy's eye upon me, and when, having brought down all the vials of her wrath upon my head, I ended by bursting into tears, it was hard to be accused of temper or sullenness when I felt I would have given the whole world for a kind word.

I think we all suffered much from the deadly sameness of our life. In the summer-time we were allowed a considerable amount of leisure, which we spent in the garden at croquet, tennis, or archery, but during the winter months the play hours were greatly curtailed and extra cla.s.ses added, while the only exercise we took was a short daily "crocodile"

walk, with hockey for an hour on Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days. Girls who are not boarders do not feel this lack of variety. The walk to and from school, and, above all, the different subjects which are discussed at home, make a change of thought and a wholesome break; but the monotony of spending week after week meeting no one except teachers and companions, discussing nothing but school topics, never seeing a newspaper or a magazine or hearing what is going on in the outside world, is apt to have a rather depressing influence upon some dispositions. The teachers, seeing us all day long, were inclined to worry too much over our small faults, while we on our side, having little else to distract our minds, were wont to magnify our woes out of all just proportion. Miss Percy's nagging only seemed to make my faults the worse.

"I never seem able to please her," I grumbled one day at breakfast-time.

"If I say my lessons correctly she tells me I'm twitching my hands or wrinkling my forehead; and then if I try to think about my hands and my forehead the lessons go right out of my mind, so I'm wrong either way.

It seems no use trying."

"She's horribly mean," sighed Janet, who suffered at times herself. "My exercise was quite right yesterday, but she made me copy it all out again, just because I had four mistakes in spelling. It was really too bad."

"I could forgive her the exercises," said Millicent, "if she'd only make stronger coffee. This cup of mine is simply dish-water. I wish Mrs.

Marshall would come down again at breakfast-time, it used to be ever so much better when she poured out."

"Let us get up a round robin and beg her to come!" laughed Cathy. "We could say we'd missed her charming conversation."

"Quietly! Quietly!" said Miss Percy from the other end of the table, for Cathy had raised her voice above the low undertone in which we had been speaking.

"We might ask her to give 'coffee' as the next conversation topic," said Janet, "and then Millicent could announce that she liked it strong, as her intelligent remark."

"It's the chicory I object to," said Millicent; "I loathe the smell of it. I'm sure it oughtn't to have any in. Ought it, Phil?"

"Certainly not," I replied. "I wish you could have tasted the coffee we used to have at San Carlos. You'd never forget it. It came from our own plantations, and Pedro used to roast it and grind it just before he poured the water on. I've often watched him make it. That was really worth calling coffee."

"Pity we can't import him over here to give the cook a lesson," said Janet. "But I expect there's something in the quality, and how much you put in the pot. Will you have another cup, Milly?"

"No, thank you! One is enough of this brew. Here comes the bread-and-b.u.t.ter plate. I hope it'll all be finished before it comes to me, for I don't want any more."

Among many rules at The Hollies there was a law that nothing must be left upon the table, and the bread-and-b.u.t.ter was always severely pa.s.sed round till the plate was empty. On this particular day I was not hungry, and when the last piece was offered to me I promptly declined it. Cathy quickly and quietly handed it on to Janet, who was in the very act of taking it when Miss Percy's voice bade her pause.

"Did I notice you refuse that piece of bread-and-b.u.t.ter, Philippa Seaton?" she asked.

"Yes, Miss Percy," I replied.

"And why?"

"I'm not hungry," I said nervously.

"But you know the rule?"

"I suppose I do."

"Then why did you not take it?"

"I've had enough, Miss Percy," I blurted out. "I simply can't eat any more!"

She looked at me with infinite scorn.

"Cannot eat any more! Then you _must_ have been greedy if you find it absolutely impossible to finish even this little piece. I will not urge you after such a plea, but I think you may well be ashamed of your excuse."

I felt keenly the injustice of the suggestion, but I was powerless to retort. It was but a sample of her methods of training us, and to have "answered back" would have been an offence liable to be visited with heavy punishment. So far from over-eating myself I had generally little appet.i.te for breakfast, and made the merest apology for a meal. As a result of this, by eleven-o'clock recreation I would find I was wildly hungry, but as we had no lunch at The Hollies I was obliged to wait until the one-o'clock dinner, by which time I was almost faint for want of food. How often have I evaded Miss Percy's sharp eye, and, dodging down the back-staircase, have begged a piece of bread or a hot potato from the sympathetic cook, to be eaten surrept.i.tiously behind my pocket-handkerchief in the playground! I have even bribed the housemaid to buy me biscuits and smuggle them into my locker, incurring thereby both the risk of her dismissal and my own disgrace, for it was one of the strictest rules of the school that the girls should obtain no private supplies.

It is, I suppose, almost impossible for any mistress, however conscientious, to give to forty different pupils the same care and attention as they would receive at home. I am sure Mrs. Marshall thought she took every precaution to secure our health, and if I had been definitely ill or in pain she would have been kindness itself; but it is so difficult sometimes to tell whether a girl is really ailing or only shirking her work, that unless we complained of special symptoms no notice was taken of our general condition, so my pale cheeks and increased la.s.situde pa.s.sed without comment. I felt the meaning of the old adage: "A sound mind in a sound body". I found myself worrying most absurdly over trifles which would not have distressed me to nearly such an extent if I had been able to distract my thoughts. After all, school is one's little world, and a bad mark, an unjust reproof, or a quarrel with a companion at the time, seem as overwhelming troubles as any we may encounter in after-life.

Matters went on from bad to worse. In my struggles to keep up to the standard of my cla.s.s I began the foolish habit of smuggling my books into my bedroom, that I might take a last glance at my lessons before I got into bed, and I would lie repeating French verbs or German grammatical rules to myself long after the gas in the pa.s.sage had been turned out. It was but a natural consequence that I could not sleep.

Night after night I have tossed and turned, trying first one side of my pillow and then the other to cool my burning head, counting the strokes as the clock struck midnight, and feeling as if the dead silence of the house grew almost unbearable. There is perhaps nothing so lonely as to lie awake while others sleep; the darkness of the room oppressed me, it was terrible to open my eyes and see nothing but blackness around me, out of which my imagination would conjure up ghostly figures stealing around my bed. Had I dared I would have begged for a night-light, but I knew full well that such fancies would meet with scant sympathy at Miss Percy's ears. The sound of Cathy's quiet breathing made me feel as though she were miles away, but I was not selfish enough to wake her up to console me in my misery, and after tossing about for hours I would at last fall asleep, to find the unwelcome bell ringing in my ears before I seemed out of my first troubled dream.

I woke up one morning, after a restless night such as this, feeling limp and irritable, and very unable to cope with the world in general. There was a tiresome rule at The Hollies that before we left our rooms we must take each sheet and blanket separately off our beds, fold them, and place them in a neat pile upon a chair.

"It's a stupid custom," said Cathy, grumbling for the hundredth time as she struggled to get the four corners of her coverlet even. "I can't imagine why we shouldn't turn the clothes over the end of the bed as we do at home. They would air just as well, or better. There's the bell ringing now, and I haven't my collar on! Be quick, Phil, let me help you to tie your hair. We must simply fly or we shall both be late."

I had absolutely no time to arrange my bed. I seized the sheets and blankets all together, and, rolling them in one untidy bundle, I flung them upon a chair. I did not even look to see if the room were in order, but, b.u.t.toning my dress as I went, I tore down the pa.s.sage, just in time to slip into the dining-room behind Cathy, as Mrs. Marshall opened the Bible to read prayers. We began lessons immediately after breakfast. The whole school a.s.sembled first in the large cla.s.s-room for call-over, and I had taken my place and was arranging my books in order, giving a last desperate glance at the dates in my history and the troublesome genealogy of the House of Stuart. We rose and curtsied when Miss Percy entered, and she bowed and wished us good-morning, in accordance with the formal etiquette which we practised at The Hollies, but instead of seating herself as usual, she placed a few things which I could not see upon the chair, and advanced a little forward with an air of more than usual gravity upon her face.

"Philippa Seaton," she said impressively, "I feel that I have borne long enough with your careless and shiftless ways. For some time now I have made every effort to help you to cure yourself of many bad habits, but instead of seeing any improvement it appears to me that you allow yourself to neglect even the ordinary rules of the school. This morning I visited your bedroom. I found your bed-clothes in utter confusion upon a chair, your nail-brush evidently unused, your comb left full of hairs upon the dressing-table, a pair of boots, a slipper, and a shoe-horn lying upon the floor, while this bag full of cotton reels was flung under your wash-stand. I am determined that for once I will teach you a lesson, and I shall pin these articles on to your back, in the hope that by showing your disgrace to the whole school I may help you to remember to be more neat and orderly in the future. Come here!"

In much fear and trembling I approached her. She turned to the chair, where (it would have been ludicrous if it had not all been so horribly solemn) my comb, my boots, my slipper, my shoe-horn, and my bag of cottons lay piled in a tragic little heap. She fastened them securely on to my dress with safety-pins, till I looked like a gipsy pedlar or an old clotheswoman, and bade me return to my place. Burning with indignation I sat down. All my pride was wounded and the tears came swimming into my eyes. I felt she had no right to treat me thus. There were certain fair and recognized penalties for neglected duties at which I should not have rebelled, but to be made a laughing-stock for the whole school was out of all proportion to my offence. I could see the amused smile with which Ernestine Salt nudged her companion, and knew how unmercifully she would tease me afterwards, and the thought that I must spend the entire morning with these absurd things dangling on my back was almost more than my spirit could brook. I gulped back my tears sufficiently to answer "present" when my name was called, and sat, fighting with my face and trying not to feel that every girl in the room was looking at me. There was a slight tug at my dress behind, and Cathy cautiously thrust a tiny sc.r.a.p of paper into my hand. I managed to read it un.o.bserved: "She's the hatefullest thing that ever was," it ran. "But never mind; don't let her think you care." I scrunched up the paper and held up my head. After all, why should I care? I had committed no very desperate sin, and I knew that nearly everyone must be secretly in sympathy with me. I would brave it out, and show Miss Percy that though she might inflict any punishment she chose she was not able to crush my spirit entirely. As to Ernestine Salt, I would defy her, sneer as she might. It was unfortunate for me that my first lesson of the day should be with Miss Percy. With the wretched boots and bobbins sticking into me whenever I attempted to lean back in my seat, I felt in anything but a docile or tractable frame of mind, and, though she certainly would not have allowed it, I do not think she herself was in the best of tempers.

She corrected Janet sharply for stooping, reduced Millicent to the very verge of tears, and even found fault with Cathy's beautifully neat and tidy exercise. We were learning the geography of India, a large map of which hung over the black-board, and in the course of the lesson we were each required in turn to indicate the positions of certain rivers and cities of the Punjaub. I was sitting in cla.s.s next to Ernestine Salt, and as I rose hastily up to step forward and take the pointer, she suddenly put out her foot, as if by chance, exactly at the moment when I pa.s.sed her. I tripped, made a desperate effort to save myself, caught wildly at the easel, and fell, sending black-board, map, pegs, pointer, and all with a horrible crash on to the floor.

There was dead silence in the room as I picked myself up. Miss Percy raised the fallen easel and the torn map, and looked at me with white lips.

"What is the meaning of this, Philippa Seaton?" she asked.

"I couldn't help it," I answered, rather sullenly I am afraid. "I--I believe I tripped."

"No other girl has tripped. You are either irredeemably awkward or have caused this accident by deliberate intention. I very much fear it is the latter."

"You've no right to say so!" I burst out defiantly, roused out of all discipline by her tone. "I've told you I couldn't help it, and if you can't believe my word I should like you to take me to Mrs. Marshall."

"You shall certainly go to Mrs. Marshall when she is at liberty,"

replied Miss Percy in freezing tones. "But in the meantime I am not going to interrupt the lesson on your behalf. You will stand there by the door, holding the broken pointer in your hand, till the cla.s.s is over."

I do not think Miss Percy was altogether happy at that moment, but I am sure she was not so miserable as I. I knew well I had done wrong to answer her so rudely, and the sense of my own shortcomings, added to the feeling of hot wrath against her injustice and unkindness, made it the most horribly difficult thing in the world to stand there, the target for all eyes. My head ached as if it would burst, and I rested my weary weight first on one foot and then on another. Each minute felt hours to me as the lesson slowly dragged along. I pressed my trembling hands together, and tried with a desperate effort to keep my eyes steadily fixed on the clock over the chimney-piece; but somehow the figures all seemed at once to be mixed together, the room swam before me in a kind of blur, I heard Miss Percy's voice as if it were a very long way off asking me something I could not hear, and then all was utter darkness.

When I came to myself I was lying on the sofa in the library. Mrs.

Marshall was bending over me, bathing my head with eau de Cologne, and Miss Buller was fanning me with a palm-leaf screen.

"Are you better, my dear?" asked Mrs. Marshall anxiously. "Don't try to get up. Drink this gla.s.s of water and lie down again."

"What happened?" I asked. "How did I come here?"

"You fainted in the cla.s.s-room, but you must not talk about it now. I wish you to rest for a while, and then Miss Buller shall bring you some beef-tea."

"I don't want any, thank you!" I said, trying to raise myself a little, but my head swam so strangely and I felt so giddy and queer that I was glad to sink back again upon the sofa cushions.