CHAPTER XIII.
AT SCHOOL--THE LILAC-BUSH--BRIDGET'S POSIES--SUMMER--HEALTH.
We knew when it was summer at Bush House, because there was a lilac-treeby the gate, which had one large bunch of flowers on it in the summerwhen Eleanor and I and Matilda were at school there. As we left thehouse in double file to take our daily exercise on the high-road, thegirls would bob their heads to catch a whiff of the scent as theypassed, or to let the cool fragrant flowers brush their foreheads. Onthis point Madame, our French governess, remonstrated in vain. We tookturns for the side next to the lilac, and sniffed away as long as therewas anything to smell. Even when the delicate colour began to turnbrown, and the fragrance vanished, we were loth to believe that theblossoms were fading.
"I think I have got a cold in my head," said Matilda, who had plungedher nose into the cluster one day in vain.
"You have a cough, ma foi! Mademoiselle Buller," replied Madame, whoseemed to labour under the idea that Matilda rather enjoyed thisprivilege. But I had tried the lilac-bush myself with no bettersuccess.
"I think," I whispered to Eleanor, in English, "that we have smelt itall up."
"Parlez-vous francais, mesdemoiselles!" cried Madame, and we filed outinto the dusty street, at the corner of which sat another of our visibletokens of the coming of the season of flowers; a dirty, shrivelled oldIrishwoman, full of benedictions and beggary, who, all through thesummer, sold "posies" to the passers-by. We school-girls were goodcustomers to her. We were all more or less sentimental, more or lesshomesick, and had more or less of that susceptibility to the influenceof scents which may, some day, be the basis of a new school of medicine.One girl had cultivated pinks and _Roses de Meaux_ in her own garden "athome," and Bridget was soon wise enough to discover that a nosegaycomposed of these materials was an irresistible temptation to thatparticular customer. Another had a craving for the sight and smell ofsouthernwood (or "old man," as Eleanor called it), and preferred it incombination with bachelor's buttons.
"There was an old woman 'at home' whom we used to go to tea with when wewere children--my brother and I," she said; "there were such big bunchesof southernwood by her cottage. And bachelor's buttons all round thegarden."
The brother was dead, I knew, and there were two flattened "buttons" anda bit of withered "old man" gummed into her Bible. "Picked the last daywe were out together. Before he was taken ill with scarlet fever," shetold me. She had the boy's portrait in a standing frame, and, littlespace as we had in our bedrooms, the other girls piled their brushes andribbon-boxes on one side of the looking-glass as best they could, andleft the rest of the dressing-table sacred to his picture, and to theBible, and the jar of Bridget's flowers, which stood before the likenessas if it had been that of a patron saint.
For my own part I was very ignorant of the names and properties ofEnglish flowers. I knew some by sight, from Adelaide St. Quentin'sbouquets, and from my great-grandfather's sketches; and I knew the namesof others of which Adolphe had given me plants, and of which I was gladto see the flower. As I had plenty of pocket-money I was a liberalcustomer, and I made old Bridget tell me the names of the flowers in herbunches. I have since found out that whenever she was at fault shecomposed a name upon the spot, with the ready wit and desire to pleasecharacteristic of her nation. These names were chiefly connected withthe Blessed Virgin and the saints.
"The Lord blesh ye, my dear," she would say; "that's 'Mary's flower';"or, "Sure it's the 'Blessed Virgin's spinning-wheel,' and a pretty nametoo!"
A bitter-smelling herb which she commended to me as "Saints' Savory," Iafterwards learned to be tansy.
The youngest of us, a small, silent little orphan, had bought no posytill one day she quietly observed, "If you could get me a peony, I wouldbuy it."
The peony was procured; so large, so round, and so red, that some oneunfeelingly suggested that it should be cut up for pickled cabbage. Thelittle miss walked home with it in her hand, looking at it assentimentally as if it had been a forget-me-not. As we had beenhard-hearted enough to laugh at it, we never learned the history whichmade it dear.
Madame would certainly never have allowed us to break our ranks, andchaffer with Bridget, but that some one had been lucky enough to thinkof giving her bouquets.
Madame liked flowers--as ornaments--and was sentimental herself, after afashion, a sentimentality of appearances. She liked a bright spot ofcolour on her sombre dresses too, and she was economical; for every daythat she had a bright bouquet a day's wear and tear was saved to herneck-ribbons. She pinned the bright flowers by her very clean collar,and not very clean throat, and permitted us to supply ourselves alsofrom Bridget's basket.
A less pleasant sign of summer than the lilac-blossom or Bridget'sflower-basket was the heat. It was hot in the dusty, draughty streets ofthe little town. The empty bedrooms at Bush House were like ovens, andthe well-filled school-room was much worse. Madame would never hear anycomplaints of the heat from me or from Matilda. Summer at Bush House, inthe nature of things, could be nothing to summer in India, to which wewere accustomed. It was useless to point out that in India the rooms inwhich we lived were large, well shaded, and ventilated by constantcurrents of fresh air. Also that there, our heaviest meal, our longestwalk, and our hardest work were not all crowded into the hottest hoursof the day.
"England is at no time so warm as India," said Madame.
"I suppose we are not as hot as the cook," suggested little "Peony" aswe now called her, one very hot day, when we sat languidly strugglingthrough our work in the stifling atmosphere of the school-room. "Ithought of her to-day when I looked at that great fat leg of roastmutton. We're better off than she is."
"And she's better off than if she were in the Black Hole of Calcutta;but that doesn't make either her or us cool," said Emma Lascelles, anelder girl. "Don't preach, Peony; lessons are bad enough in this heat."
"I shan't eat any dinner to-morrow, I think," said Eleanor; "I cannotkeep awake after it this weather, so it's no use."
"I wish I were back at Miss Martin's for the summer," said another girl.
We knew to what this referred, and Madame being by a rare chance absent,we pressed for an account, in English, of Miss Martin's arrangements inthe hot weather. "Miss Martin's" was a school at which this girl hadbeen before she came to Bush House.
"I can't think why on earth you left her," said Eleanor.
"Well, this is nearer home for one thing, and the masters are betterhere, certainly. But she did take such care of us. It wasn't everlastingbackaches, and headaches, and coughs, and pains in your side all along.And when the weather got hot (and it was a very warm summer when I wasthere), and she found we got sleepy at work after dinner, and hadheadaches in the afternoon, she said she thought we had better have ascrap meal in the middle of the day, and dine in the cool of theevening; and so we used to have cold rice-pudding or thickbread-and-butter, such as we should have had for tea, or anything therewas, and tumblers of water, at one, and at half-past five we used towash and dress; and then at six, just when we were getting done up withthe heat and work, and yet cool enough to eat, we had dinner. I can tellyou a good fat roast leg of mutton looked all right then! It cured allour headaches, and we worked twice as well, both at midday work and atgetting lessons ready for next day after dinner. I know----"
"Tais-toi, Lucy!" hissed Peony through her teeth. "Madame!"
"Donnez-moi cette grammaire, Marguerite, s'il vous plait," said Lucy, asMadame entered.
And I gave her the grammar, and we set to work again, full of envy forthe domestic arrangements of Miss Martin's establishment during the dogdays.
If there is a point on which Eleanor and I are quite agreed, among themany points we discuss and do not always agree upon, it is that of theneed for a higher education for women. But ill as I think our sexprovided for in this respect, and highly as I value good teaching, Iwould rather send a growing girl to a Miss Martin, even for fewer"educational advantages," and let her start in life with a sound,healthy co
nstitution and a reasonable set of nerves, than have her headcrammed and her health neglected under "the first masters," and so goodan overseer as "Madame" to boot. For Madame certainly made us work, andwas herself indefatigable.
The reckless imprudence of most girls in matters of health isproverbial, the wisdom of young matrons in this respect is not beyondreproach, and the lore which long and painful experience has given toolder women is apt, like other lessons from that stern teacher, to cometoo late. It should at least avail to benefit their daughters, were itnot that custom prescribes that they also should be kept in the darktill instructed in turn by the lamentable results of their ignorance,too often only when these are past repair.
Whether, though there are many things that women have no knowledge of,and many more of which their knowledge is superficial, their lack oflearning on these points being erudition compared with their crassignorance of the laws of health, the matter is again one of education;or whether it is an unfortunate development of a confusion betweenignorance and innocence, and of mistaken notions of delicacy, who shallsay? Unhappily, a studied ignorance of the ills that flesh is heir to isapt to bring them in double force about one's ears, and this kind ofdelicate-mindedness to bring delicacy of body in its train. Where itguides the counsels of those in charge of numbers of young people (as inMiss Mulberry's case), it is apt to result in the delicacy (more orless permanent) of several bodies.
But I am forgetting that I am not "preaching" to Eleanor by the kitchenfire, but writing my autobiography. I am forgetting, also, that I havenot yet said who Miss Mulberry was.