The Independence of Claire Part 7

"Exciting things cost money, and, as a rule, when you have paid up the various extras, there's no money to spare. I stay in bed till ten o'clock on Sat.u.r.day, and then get up and wash blouses, and do my mending, and have a nap after lunch, and if it's summer, go and sit on a penny chair in the park, or take a walk over Hampstead Heath. In the evening I read a novel and have a hot bath. Once in a blue moon I have an extravagant bout, and lunch in a restaurant, and go to an entertainment--but I'm sorry afterwards when I count the cost. On Sunday I go to church, and wish some one would ask me to tea. They don't, you know. They may do once or twice, when you first come up, but you can never ask them back, and your clothes get shabby, and you know nothing about their interests, so they think you a bore, and quietly let you drop."

A smothered exclamation burst from Claire's lips; with a sudden, swirling movement she leapt up, and fell on her knees before Miss Rhodes's chair, her hands clasping its arms, her flushed face upturned with a desperate eagerness.

"Miss Rhodes! we are going to live together here, we are going to share the same room, and the same meals. Would you--if any one offered you a million pounds, would you agree to poison me slowly, day by day, dropping little drops of poison into everything I ate and everything I drank, while you sat by and watched me grow weaker and weaker till I _died_?"

"Good heavens, girl--are you mad! What in the world are you raving about?"

Miss Rhodes had grown quite red. She was indignant; she was also more than a little scared. The girl's sudden change of mood was startling in itself, and she looked so tense, so overwhelmingly in earnest. What could she mean? Was it possible that she was a little--_touched_?

"I suppose you don't realise it, but it's insulting even to put such a question."

"But you _are_ doing it! It's just exactly what you are beginning already. Ever since I arrived you've been poisoning me drop by drop.

Poisoning my _mind_! I am at the beginning of my work, and you've been discouraging me, frightening me, painting it all black. Every word that you've said has been a drop of poison to kill hope and courage and confidence--and oh, don't do it! don't go on! I may be young and foolish, and full of ridiculous ideas, but let me keep them as long as I can! If all that you say is true, they will be knocked out of me soon enough, and I--I've never had to work before, or been alone, and--and it's only two days since my mother left me to go to India--all that long way--and left me behind! It's hard enough to go on being alone, and believing it's all going to be _couleur de rose_, but it will be fifty times harder if I don't. Please--please don't make it any worse!"

With the last words tears came with a rush, the tears that had been resolutely restrained throughout the strain of the last week. Claire dropped her head on the nearest resting-place she could find, which happened to be Miss Rhodes's blue serge lap, and felt the quick pressure of a hand over the glossy coils.

"Poor little girl!" said the English mistress softly. "Poor little girl! I'm sorry! I'm a beast! Take no notice of me. I'm a sour, disagreeable old thing. It was more than half jealousy, dear, because you looked so pretty and spry, so like what I used to look myself. The life's all right, if you keep well, and don't worry too much ahead.

There, don't cry! I loathe tears! You will yourself, when you have to deal with silly, hysterical girls. Come, I'll promise I won't poison you any more--at least, I'll do my best; but I've a grumbling nature, and you'd better realise it, once for all, and take no notice. We'll get on all right. I like you. I'm glad you came. My good girl, if you don't stop, I'll shake you till you do!"

Claire sat back on her heels, mopped her eyes, and gave a strangled laugh.

"I hate crying myself, but I'll begin again on the faintest provocation.

It's always like that with me. I hardly ever cry, but when I once begin--"

Miss Rhodes rose with an air of determination.

"We'd better go out. I am free till lunch-time. I'll take you round and show you the neighbourhood, and the usual places of call. It will save time another day. Anything you want to buy?"

Claire mopped away another tear.

"C-certainly," she said feebly. "A c-offee machine."

CHAPTER SIX.

THE INVITATION.

The next morning Claire was introduced to the scene of her new labours, and was agreeably impressed with its outside appearance. Saint Cuthbert's High School was situated in a handsome thoroughfare, and had originally been a large private house, to which long wings had been added to right and left. On each side and across the road were handsome private houses standing in their own grounds, owned by tenants who regarded the High School with lively detestation, and would have borne up with equanimity had an earthquake swallowed it root and branch.

Viewed from inside, the building was less attractive, pa.s.sages and cla.s.s-rooms alike having the air of bleak austerity which seems inseparable from such buildings; but when nine o'clock struck, and the flood of young life went trooping up the stairways and flowed into the separate rooms, the sense of bareness was replaced by one of tingling vitality.

As is usual on an opening day, every girl was at her best and brightest, decked in a new blouse, with pigtails fastened by crisp new ribbons, and good resolutions wound up to fever point. To find a new French mistress in the shape of a pretty well-dressed girl, who was English at one moment, and at the next even Frenchier than Mademoiselle, was an unexpected joy, and Claire found the battery of admiring young eyes an embarra.s.sing if stimulating experience.

Following Miss Farnborough's advice, she spent the first day's lessons in questioning the different cla.s.ses as to their past work, and so turned the hour into an impromptu conversation cla.s.s. The ugly English accents made her wince, and she winced a second time as she realised the unpleasant fact that just as her pupils would have to prepare for her, so would she be obliged to prepare for them! Forgotten rules of grammar must be looked up and memorised, for French was so much her mother tongue that she would find it difficult to explain distinctions which came as a matter of course. That meant more work at night, more infringement of holiday hours.

The girls themselves were for the most part agreeable and well-mannered.

The majority were the daughters of professional men, and of gentle- folks of limited means; but there was also a sprinkling of the daughters of better-cla.s.s artisans, who paid High School fees at a cost of much self-denial in order to train their girls for teachers' posts in the future. Here and there an awkward, badly-dressed child was plainly of a still lower cla.s.s. These were the free "places"--clever children who had obtained scholarships from primary schools, and were undergoing the ordeal of being snubbed by their new school-mates as a consequence of their success.

From the teacher's point of view these clever children were a welcome stimulus, but cla.s.s feeling is still too strong in England to make them acceptable to their companions.

At lunch-time the fifteen mistresses a.s.sembled in the Staff-Room, a dull apartment far too small for the purpose, a common fault in High Schools, where the different governing bodies are apt to spare no expense in providing for the comfort of the scholar, but grudge the slightest expenditure for the benefit of those who teach.

Fifteen mistresses sat round the table eating roast lamb and boiled cabbage, followed by rhubarb pie and rice pudding, and Claire, looking from one to the other, acknowledged the truth of Miss Rhodes's a.s.sertion that they were all of a type. She herself was the only one of the number who had any pretensions to roundness of outline, all the rest were thin to angularity, half the number wore pince-nez or spectacles, and all had the same strained pucker round the eyes. Each one wore a blue serge skirt and a white blouse, and carried herself with an air of dogmatic a.s.surance, as who should say: "I know better than any one else, and when I speak let no dog bark!" The German mistress was the veteran of the party and was probably a good forty-five. Miss Bryce, the Froebel mistress, paired with Claire herself for the place of junior.

Miss Blake, the Gym. mistress, was a graceful girl with an air of delicacy which did not seem in accord with her profession. Miss Rose, the Art mistress, was plain with a squat, awkward figure.

Rising from the table, Claire caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the strip of mirror over the chimney-piece, and at the sight a little thrill, half-painful, half-pleasant, pa.s.sed through her veins. The soft bloom of her complexion, the dainty finish of her dress, differentiated her almost painfully from her companions, and she felt a pang of dread lest that difference should ever grow less. While she affected to read one of the magazines which lay on a side table, she was really occupied making a number of vehement resolutions: Never to slack in her care of her personal appearance; never to give up brushing her hair at night; never to wear a flannel blouse; never to give up manicuring her hands; never, no, never to allow herself to grow short-sighted, and be obliged to submit to specs!

The different mistresses seemed to be on friendly terms, but there was an absence of the camaraderie which comes from living under the same roof. School was a common possession, but home hours were spent apart, except when, as in Claire's own case, two mistresses shared the same rooms, and it followed as a matter of course that personal interests were divided. To-day the conversation was less scholastic than usual, the intervening holidays forming a topic of interest. The Art mistress had been on a bicycle sketching tour with a friend; the German mistress had taken a cheap trip home; Miss Blake announced that all her money had gone on "hateful ma.s.sage," and the faces of her listeners sobered as they listened, for Sophy Blake, who led the exercises with such verve and go, had of late complained of rheumatic pains, and her companions heard of her symptoms with dread. What would become of Sophy if those pains increased? One after another the mistresses drifted over to where Claire sat turning the pages of her magazine, and exchanged a few fragments of conversation, and then the great bell clanged again, and afternoon school began.

The first half-hour of afternoon school proved the most trying of the day. Claire was tired after the exertions of the morning, and a very pa.s.sion for sleep consumed her being. She fought against it with all her might, but the yawns would come; she fought against the yawns, and the tears flowed. To her horror the infection spread, and the girls began to yawn in their turn, with long, uncontrolled gapes. It was a junior cla.s.s, and the new mistress shrewdly suspected that the infection was welcomed as an agreeable interlude. It was obvious that she could not afford to reject that cup of coffee. Good or bad it must be drunk!

Rich or poor that penny must be dedicated to the task of vitalising that first hour of sleepiness.

At the end of six weeks Claire felt as though she had been a High School-mistress all her life. The regular methodical days, in which every hour was mapped out, had a deadening effect on one who had been used to constant variety, and except for a difference in the arrangement of cla.s.ses there seemed no distinction between one and the other. She was a machine wound up to work steadily from Monday morning until Friday night, and absurdly ready to run down when the time was over.

Every morning after breakfast she started forth with Miss Rhodes, by foot if the weather were fine, by Tube if wet; every mid-day she dined in the Staff-Room with the fifteen other mistresses, and gulped down a cup of chicory coffee. At four o'clock the mistresses met once more for tea, a free meal this time, supplemented by an occasional cake which one of the fifteen provided for the general good. At five she and her table companion returned to their rooms, and rested an hour before taking the evening meal.

Claire was sufficiently French to be intolerant of badly cooked food, and instead of resigning herself to eat and grumble, after the usual habit of lodging-house dwellers, resolutely set to work to improve the situation. The coffee machine had now a chafing-dish as companion, and it was a delightful change of work to set the two machines to work to provide a dainty meal.

"High Tea" consisted as a rule of coffee and some light dish, the materials for which were purchased on the way home. On hungry days, when work had been unusually trying, the butcher supplied cutlets, which were grilled with tomatoes, or an occasional quarter of a pound of mushrooms: on economical days the humble kipper--legendary food of all spinsters in lodgings!--was transformed into quite a smart and restaurant-ey dish, separated from its bones, pounded with b.u.t.ter and flavouring, and served in neat little mounds on the top of hot b.u.t.tered toast. Moreover, Claire was a proficient in the making of omelettes, and it was astonishing how large and tempting a dish could be compounded of two eggs, and the minutest sc.r.a.p of ham left over from the morning's breakfast!

"Every luxury of the season, with the smell thrown in! In _nice_ cooking the smell is almost the best part. All the cedars in Lebanon wouldn't smell as good at this moment as this nice ham-ey coffee-y frizzle," Claire declared one Friday evening as she served the meal on red-hot plates, and glowed with delight at her own sleight of hand.

"Don't you admire eggs for looking so small, when they possess such powers of expansion? All the result of beating. Might make a simile out of that, mightn't you?"

"Might, but won't," the English teacher replied, sipping luxuriously at her coffee. "I'm not a teacher any more at this moment. I'm a gourmand, pure and simple, and I'll stay a gourmand straight on till this omelette is finished. When all trades fail, you might go out as a missioner to women living in diggings, and teach them how to prepare their meals, and sell chafing-dishes by instalment payments at the door, as the touts sell sewing machines to the maids. It would be a n.o.ble vocation!"

Claire smirked complacently. "I flatter myself I _have_ made a difference to your material comfort! Poor we may be, but we do have nice, dainty little meals, and there's no reason why every able-bodied woman shouldn't have them at the same cost. I've just remembered another nice dish. We'll have it to-morrow night." She paused, and a wistful look came into her eyes, for the next day was Sat.u.r.day, and it was on holiday afternoons that the feeling of loneliness grew most acute. School life was monotonous, but it was never lonely; from morning to night one lived in a crowd, and already each cla.s.s had furnished youthful adorers eager to sit at the feet of the pretty new mistress, and bring her offerings of chocolates and flowers; for five long days there was always a crowd, always a hum and babble of voices, but at the end of the week came a dead calm.

On the first Sat.u.r.day of the term Miss Farnborough had invited the new French mistress to tea, and had been all that was friendly and encouraging; but since that time no word had pa.s.sed between them that was not strictly concerned with the work in hand, and Claire realised that as one out of sixteen mistresses she could not hope for frequent invitations.

On one Sunday the Gym. mistress had offered her company for a walk, and there the list of hospitalities ceased. No invitations came from that friend of Mrs Fanshawe's who was so fond of girls who were working for themselves. Claire had hardly expected it, but she was disappointed all the same. A longing was growing within her to sit again in a pretty, daintily-appointed room, and talk about something else than time-tables, and irregular verbs, and the a.s.sociation of a.s.sistant Mistresses which, amalgamated with the a.s.sociation of a.s.sistant Masters and the Teachers'

Guild, were labouring to obtain a settled scale of salaries, and that great safeguard, desired above all others, a pension on retirement!

On this particular Friday evening the longing was so strong that she had deliberately gone out of her way to try to gain an invitation by walking home with a certain Flora Ross in the sixth form, who was the most ardent of her admirers. Flora lived in a cheerful-looking house about a quarter of a mile from the school, and every morning hung over the gate waiting for the chance occasions when her beloved Miss Gifford approached alone, and she could have the felicity of accompanying her for the rest of the way. On these occasions she invariably turned to wave her hand to a plump, smiling mother who stood at a bay window waving in return. An upper window was barred with bra.s.s rods, against which two little flaxen heads bobbed up and down. Both the house and its inmates had a cheerful wholesome air, which made a strong appeal to the heart of the lonely girl, and this Friday afternoon, meeting Flora waiting in the corridor, she had accepted her companionship on the way home with a lurking hope that when the green gate was reached, she would be invited to come inside.

Alas! no such thought seemed to enter Flora's brain. She gazed adoringly into Claire's face and hung breathlessly on her words, but for all her adoration there was a gulf between. Claire was the sweetest and duckiest of mistresses, but she _was_ a mistress, a being shut off from the ordinary interests of life. When Flora said, "Isn't it jolly, we are going to have a musical party to-morrow! We have such lovely parties, and mother always lets me sit up!" she might have been speaking to a creature without ears, for all the consciousness she exhibited that Claire might possibly wish to take part in the fray. When the green gate was reached, the plump mamma was seen standing outside the drawing- room window and recognising the ident.i.ty of her daughter's companion, she bent her head in a courteous bow, but she made no attempt to approach the gate.

"See you on Monday!" cried Flora fondly, then the gate clicked, and Claire walked along the road with her head held high, and two red spots burning on either cheek. That evening for the first time she felt a disinclination to change into the pretty summer frock which she had chosen as a compromise for evening dress; that evening for the first time the inner voice whispered to her as it had done to so many before her: "What's the good? n.o.body sees you! n.o.body cares."

Miss Rhodes finished her share of the omelette, turned on to bread and jam, and cast a glance of inquiry at her companion, who had relapsed into unusual silence.

"Anything wrong?"

"Yes, I think so. Usual symptoms, I suppose. I want to wear all my best clothes and go out to do something gay and exciting, Cecil!" The English teacher's name being Rhodes, it was obvious that she should be addressed as Cecil, especially as her parents had been misguided enough to give her the unsuitably gentle name of Mary. "Cecil, do none of the parents _ever_ ask us out?"

"Why should they?"

"Why shouldn't they? If we are good enough to teach their children, we are good enough for them. If they are interested in their children's welfare, they ought to make a point of knowing us to see what kind of influence we use."