The New Mistress Part 15

"Then I will speak more plainly--we will speak more plainly, Miss Thorne, and tell you that your conduct since you have been here has not been marked by the discretion that should be a decided feature in the acts of a young person in your position."

"Madam, I--!"

"Silence, Miss Thorne!" cried Miss Beatrice; and the young mistress's cheeks were now aflame with indignation. "I will finish, sister Rebecca," she continued. "For your own sake we wish you to be more guarded, and to remember what is expected of a young person in your position. From the very first Sunday that you came. Miss Thorne, we have noted a tendency--innocent enough, no doubt--towards trying to attract the attention of the other s.e.x."

"Indeed, madam--"

"Silence, Miss Thorne, and once more I beg that you will not adopt that haughty tone when addressing the vicar's sisters."

Hazel remained silent, and just at that moment, as ill-luck had it, the door opened and Mr Chute stepped in, saw the ladies, and stepped out again.

"You see," said Miss Beatrice with triumph in her tones, as the sisters exchanged meaning glances, while Hazel maintained an indignant silence, "such things are not seemly in any schoolmistress, and certainly not in the mistress of Plumton All Saints' School."

"There was the gentleman on the first Sunday," said Miss Lambent cutting in so as to preclude her sister speaking; "Mr Chute comes in a great deal too often; we did not at all approve of your conduct when Mr Canninge spoke to you at the school treat; and, taken altogether, my sister and I felt it to be our duty to--"

At that moment there was a sharp tap at the door, and two of the bigger girls rushed to open it, orders being forgotten as "teacher" was so busy, and Feelier Potts triumphed, throwing open the door, and revealing the round, smiling features of Mr William Forth Burge--features which ceased to smile as he realised the fact that the vicar's sisters were there.

"Oh, isn't Miss Burge here?" he said.

"No, sir, plee, sir. Miss Burge goed ever so long ago."

"Oh, thank you. Good-day," said Mr William Forth Burge hastily; then raising his hat he walked on, and the door closed very slowly. Miss Feelier Potts finding an opportunity to make a face at a pa.s.sing boy through the last six inches of slit between door and jamb, to which the young gentleman replied by throwing a stone with a smart rap against the panels.

Miss Lambent's eyes nearly closed, and as the girls buzzed and went on with their lessons, staring hard the while. Hazel Thorne was asking herself whether this would be the last week of her stay in Plumton, for she felt that after this indignity it would be impossible for her to retain her post. Her heart beat fast, her cheeks were alternately white and scarlet with shame and mortification, and her goaded spirit rose as she longed to sharply chastise those who degraded her by their unwomanly charges with their own weapon--the tongue.

But she could not speak--she dared not for fear that the anger and indignation that were choking her should find vent in hysterical sobs and tears.

This she could not bear, for it would have been humiliating herself before her tormentors. No; she felt that they might say what they liked: she would not stoop to answer; and seeing that they had the poor girl at their mercy, the sisters took it in turns to deliver a lecture upon the unseemly behaviour of a young person in her position, exhorting her to remember the greatness of her charge, and the probabilities of the girls taking their cue from their mistress.

Of course, Miss Lambent did not make use of the objectionable theatrical word _cue_--it is doubtful whether she had ever heard it but she managed to express the petty vindictive spite that she felt against the young mistress for her grievous sin in receiving so much attention from Mr William Forth Burge, whose vulgarity she was quite ready to forgive, should he have made her an offer; and Beatrice's eyes flashed as she felt her own pulses thrill with satisfaction at the way in which she was metaphorically trampling under foot this impertinent stranger who had dared to take Mr Canninge's arm.

"And now. Miss Thorne," said Miss Lambent, in conclusion, "we will leave you to think over what we have said, and we trust that it will have due effect."

"Making you see how foolishly you have behaved," put in Miss Beatrice.

"And that you will take it as a warning. Here is a book that we have brought you. Take it, read it and inwardly digest its beautiful teachings. Good morning."

Hazel took the book mechanically, and her eyes lit upon its t.i.tle--"The Dairyman's Daughter." Then she started and coloured painfully again, beneath the searching, triumphant glances of the sisters, who seemed to glory in her humiliation, for once more there was a quiet tap at the door, the latch clicked, and Miss Lambent said to herself, "Another gentleman."

She was quite right. Another gentleman stepped into the school--his mission to see Miss Thorne.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE VICAR'S SYMPTOMS.

The Reverend Henry Lambent was born when his mother was in very bad health, and the consequence was that he had to be brought up "by hand,"

which in those days meant by spoon, and, as the reader is most probably in utter ignorance of the process, it shall be described, as even the wisest may have something to learn, and there is always a possibility that information, however small, may some day be of service.

In bringing up by hand--i.e. by spoon--take a moderate portion of rusks, tops and bottoms, nursery biscuits, captain's biscuits, or similar highly-baked farinaceous preparation, boil soft, add milk and sugar to suit baby's taste--for babies have taste, and can appreciate sweets and show disgust at bitters as well as the best of us--then mix and beat to the consistency of cream, and by testing on the lips get it to the right heat--just moderately warm. Next, take the baby, lay it softly upon its back; coo, simmer, and talk soft broken English to it while a diaper bib is placed neatly beneath its chin, tightly, so as to confine the arms and fists as well; then take the preparation, about half a small teaspoonful at a time, make believe to eat it yourself by putting it in your mouth, and taking it out again, so as to be certain that it will not burn, and then apply it to the baby's lips.

[_Note_.--This placing in the feeder's own mouth has been objected to on the plea that it will drive an observant baby frantic, making it imagine that it is about to be robbed of its rights; but the plan is to be commended on the ground of safety.]

Do not be in a hurry, nor yet be appalled at the difficulty and slowness of the operation, for as a rule seven-eighths of the preparation gets spread over baby's cheeks and chin, portions even reaching to the wrinkles of the neck; for here is where a clever feeder shines in the deft management of the spoon, which is inserted here, drawn there, and all with the delicacy of a barber with a keen razor, till every moist portion has been sc.r.a.ped away, and has disappeared through the little pink b.u.t.tonhole-like apology for a gate which leads to the road to digestion. Keep up the cooing and repeat.

This is the genuine old-fashioned way, dating from a very early year after the world's creation. In fact, it seems evident from the discovery of bone spoons, roughly fashioned, in caverns, that some of the cave-dwellers practised it, the preparation used for nurturing the very early baby being most probably marrow out of an auroch's leg-bone, or, maybe, the brains of the megatherium, which may account for the wisdom that has come down from our ancestors, who knew everything, while we are ignorant in the extreme.

Now we have changed all that, as the French say, and the very modern babe is supplied with somebody's patent infants' food, out of which everything noxious has been eliminated. Such preparations are advertised by the dozen, and when cooked there is no more old-fashioned spoon, but the food is placed in a peculiarly shaped bottle fitted with hose and branch like a small fire-engine, from the indiarubber tube of which baby imbibes health very seldom. For what with neglect in cleaning the apparatus, putrescent particles of milk, fermenting yeasty paste, and the like, the infant becomes an infant prodigy if it manages to escape the many disorders incidental to early childhood, and can be exhibited as a specimen brought up by the bottle, which slays as many as that effected by people of larger growth.

No unwashed feeding-bottle slew the Reverend Henry Lambent, for your modern hookah-pattern food imbiber had not been invented when he was born. He was reared as aforesaid, honestly by hand, but his nurse must have made a mistake in the packets from which she obtained his supplies, and in place of biscuit, ground arrowroot, or semolina, have gone in the dark and used the starch with an effect that lasted even unto manhood.

Stiffness is a mild way of expressing the rigidity of the Vicar's person. Rude boys made remarks about him, suggesting that he had swallowed the poker, that he was as stiff as a yard of pump-water, and the like. Certainly he seemed to have come of an extremely stiff-necked generation, as he stalked--he never used to walk--down the High Street towards the schools.

The Reverend Henry Lambent had been taking seidlitz powders every morning since the school feast. Not that he had feasted and made himself ill, for his refreshment on that day had consisted of one cup of tea and a slice of bread-and-b.u.t.ter--that was all at the feast; but since then he had been nervous, hot-blooded, and strange. He had had symptoms of the ailment before the day of the school-treat, but they had been more mild; now they had a.s.sumed an aggravated form, and the seidlitz powders brought him no relief.

And yet he had tried them well, telling himself that he was only a little feverish, and had been studying a little too hard. He had taken a seidlitz powder according to the direction for use as printed upon the square, flat box--that is to say, he had mixed the contents of the blue paper in a tumbler of cold spring water, waited till it dissolved, then emptied in the contents of the white paper, stirred, and drunk while in a state of effervescence. He had dissolved the contents of the blue paper in one gla.s.s of water and the contents of the white paper in another gla.s.s of water, poured one into the other, and drunk while in a state of effervescence. He had dissolved the contents of the papers again separately, and drunk first one and then the other, allowing the effervescence to take place _not_ in the tumbler. Still he was no better, and he almost felt tempted to follow the example of the Eastern potentate who took the whole of the contents of the blue papers first, and then swallowed the contents of all the white papers afterwards; but history tells that this monarch did not feel any better after the dose, so that the Reverend Henry Lambent was not encouraged to proceed.

He was not seriously bad, and yet he was, if this paradoxical statement can be accepted. He was mentally ill for the first time in his life of the complaint from which he suffered, and he was trying hard to make himself believe that his ailment was bodily and of a nervo-febrile cast.

The Reverend Henry Lambent's attack came on with the visible appearance of a face before his eyes. If he sat down to read, it gazed up at him from the book, like a beautiful ill.u.s.tration that filled every page. He turned over, and it was there; he turned over again, and it was still there. Leaf after leaf did he keep turning, and it was always before him.

He set to work at his next week's sermons, and the ma.n.u.script paper became ill.u.s.trated as well with the same sweet pensive face, and when he read prayers morning and evening, it seemed to him that he was making supplication for that face alone. He preached on Sundays, and the congregation seemed to consist of one--the owner of that face, and to her he addressed himself morning and afternoon. If he sat and thought it was of that face; if he went out for a const.i.tutional, that face was with him; and when at least a dozen times he set off, as he felt in duty bound, to visit the schools, he turned off in another direction--he dared not go for fear of meeting the owner of that face.

At meal-times, when he ate but little, it seemed to be that face that was opposite to him, instead of the thin, handsome features of his sister Rebecca; and if he turned his gaze to the right there was the face again instead of the pale, refined, high-bred Beatrice. He went to bed, and lay turning from side to side, with that countenance photographed upon his brain, and when at last toward morning he fell asleep, it was to dream always of that pensive countenance.

The Reverend Henry Lambent grew alarmed. He could not understand it.

He had never given much thought to such a matter as marriage on his own account. He knew that people were married, because he had joined them together scores of times, and he knew that generally people were well-dressed, looked very weak and foolish, and that the bride shed tears and wrote her name worse than ever she had written it before. But that had nothing to do with him. He stood on a cold, stony pedestal, which raised him high above such human weaknesses--weaknesses that belonged to his people, not to him.

At last he told himself that it was his duty to resist temptation, and that by resistance it would be overcome. He realised that his ailment was really mental, and after severe examination determined to quell it by bold endeavour, for the more he fled from the cause the worse he seemed to be. It was absurd! It was ridiculous! It was a kind of madness, he told himself; and again he walked over to the schools, determined to be firm and severe. Then he told himself this feeling of enchantment would pa.s.s away, for he should see Hazel Thorne as she really was, and not through the _couleur de rose_ gla.s.ses of his imagination.

He started then, and walked stiffly and severely down to the schools, his chin in the air and a condescending bow ready for any one who would touch his hat; but instead of going, as he had intended, straight to the girls, he turned in and surprised Mr Chute reading a novel at his desk while the boys were going on not quite in accordance with a clerical idea of discipline.

The result was a severe snubbing to Mr Chute, and the vicar stalked across the floor to go into the girls' school; but just then he heard a sweetly modulated voice singing the first bars of a simple school ballad, and he stopped to listen.

He had heard the song hundreds of times, but it had never sounded like that before, and he stood as if riveted to the spot as the sweet, dear voice gained strength, and he knew now that just at the back of Mr Chute's desk one of the shutters had been left slightly open, so that if he pleased that gentleman could peer into the girls' school.

The vicar did not know how it was, but an angry pang shot through him, and a longing came over him to send Mr Chute far away and take his place, teaching the boys, and--keeping that shutter slightly down-- listening always to the singing of that sweet, simple lay.

And then he stood and listened, and the boys involuntarily listened too, while their master failed to urge them on, as he too stood and forgot all but the fact that was being lyrically told of how--

"Down in a green and shady bed, A modest violet grew; Its stalk was bent, it hung its head As if to hide from view."

And, as they both listened, the Reverend Henry Lambent and Samuel Chute felt that Hazel Thorne was in some way identified with that modest violet hiding from view down in shady Plumton All Saints, diffusing a sweet perfume of good works, as the song went on to tell in a way that went straight to both their hearts.

Then their eyes met.

Directly after the sweet tones ceased, and the tune was commenced again in chorus by the singing cla.s.s, the modest violet now becoming identified with the strident voice of Miss Feelier Potts who absolutely yelled.