about, and feelingstrange and uncomfortable, as I did, made matters ever so much worse.
We were all in the schoolroom; and first one and then anotherstiff-backed, new-smelling book was pushed before me, and the odour ofthem made me feel quite wretched, it was so different to what of late Ihad been accustomed. For don't, pray, think I dislike the smell of anew book--oh, no, not at all, I delight in it; but then it must be fromMudie's, or Smith's, or the Saint James's Square place, while as forthese new books--one was that nasty, stupid old Miss Mangnall's"Questions," and another was Fenwick de Porquet's this, and anotherFenwick de Porquet's that, and, soon after, Noehden's German Grammar,thrust before me with a grin by the Fraulein. At last, as if to driveme quite mad, as a very culmination of my miseries, I was set, withClara Fitzacre and five more girls, to write an essay on "The tendenciestowards folly of the present age."
"What shall I say about it, ma'am?" I said to Miss Furness, who gave methe paper.
"Say?" she exclaimed, as if quite astonished at such a question. "Why,give your own opinions upon the subject."
"Oh, shouldn't I like to write an essay, and give my own opinions uponyou," I said to myself; while there I sat with the sheets of paperbefore me, biting and indenting the penholder, without the slightestidea how to begin.
I did think once of dividing the subject into three parts or heads, likeMr Saint Purre did his sermons; but there, nearly everybody I haveheard in public does that, so it must be right. So I was almostdetermined to begin with a firstly, and then go on to a secondly, andthen a thirdly; and when I felt quite determined, I wrote down thetitle, and under it "firstly." I allowed the whole of the first pagefor that head, put "secondly" at the beginning of the second page, and"thirdly" upon the next, which I meant to be the longest.
Then I turned back, and wondered what I had better say, and whethereither of the girls would do it for me if I offered her a shilling.
"What shall I say next," I asked myself, and then corrected my question;for it ought to have been, "What shall I say first?" And then Iexclaimed under my breath, "A nasty, stupid, spiteful old thing, to setme this to do, on purpose to annoy me!" just as I looked on one side andfound the girl next me was nearly at the bottom of her sheet of paper,while I could do nothing but tap my white teeth with my pen.
I looked on the other side, where sat Miss Patty Smith, glaring horriblydown at her blank paper, nibbling the end of her pen, and smellingdreadfully of peppermint; and her forehead was all wrinkled up, as ifthe big atlas were upon her head, and squeezing down the skin.
Just then I caught Clara's eye--for she was busy making a great deal offuss with her blotting-paper, as if she had quite ended her task--when,upon seeing my miserable, hopeless look, she came round and sat down byme.
"Never mind the essay," she whispered; "say you had the headache. Idare say it will be correct, won't it? For it always used to give methe headache when I first came."
"Oh, yes," I said, with truth, "my head aches horribly."
"Of course it does, dear," said Clara; "so leave that rubbish. It willbe dancing in about five minutes."
"I say," drawled Miss Smith to Clara, "what's tendencies towards folly?I'm sure I don't know."
"Patty Smith's," said Clara, in a sharp voice; and the great fat, stupidthing sat there, glaring at her with her big, round eyes, as much as tosay, "What do you mean?"
Sure enough, five minutes had not elapsed before we were summoned to ourplaces in the room devoted to dancing and calisthenic exercises; and, asa matter of course, I was all in a flutter to see the French dancingmaster, who would be, I felt sure, a noble-looking refugee--a count indisguise--and I felt quite ready to let him make a favourableimpression; for one cannot help sympathising with political exiles,since one has had a Louis Napoleon here in difficulties. But there, Ideclare it was too bad; and I looked across at Clara, who had slipped onfirst, and was holding her handkerchief to her mouth to keep fromlaughing as she watched my astonished looks; for you never did see sucha droll little man, and I felt ready to cry with vexation at the wholeplace.
There he stood--Monsieur de Kittville--the thinnest, funniest little manI ever saw off the stage. He seemed to have been made on purpose totake up as little room as possible in the world and he looked so drolland squeezy, one could not feel cross long in his presence. If I hadnot been in such terribly low spirits, I'm sure I must have laughedaloud at the funny, capering little fellow, as he skipped about, nowhere and now there--going through all the figures, and stopping everynow and then to scrape through the tune upon his little fiddle.
But it would have been a shame to laugh, for he was so good and patient;and I know he could feel how some of the girls made fun of him, thoughhe bore it all amiably and never said a word.
I know he must have thought me terribly stupid, for there was not onegirl so awkward, and grumpy, and clumsy over the lesson. But think,although it was done kindly enough, what did I want with being pushedhere, and poked there, and shouted at and called after in bad English,when I had been used to float round and round brilliantly-lighted roomsin dreamy waltzes and polkas, till day-break? And I declare the verythoughts of such scenes at a time like this were quite maddening.
Finished! I felt as if I should be regularly finished long before theyear had expired; and, after the short season of gaiety I had enjoyed inLondon, I would far rather have gone back to Guisnes and spent my dayswith dear old Soeur Charite in the convent. After all, I fancy papa wasright when he said it was only a quiet advertising dodge--he will saysuch vulgar things, that he picks up in the City--and that it was not agenuine convent at all. I mean one of those places we used to readabout, where they built the sisters up in walls, and all that sort ofthing. But there: things do grow so dreadfully matter-of-fact, and so Ifound it; for here was I feeling, not so dreadfully young, but sohorribly old, to be back at school.
The place seemed so stupid; the lessons seemed stupid; girls, teachers,everything seemed stupid. There were regular times for this, andregular times for that, and one could not do a single thing as oneliked. If I went upstairs to brush my hair, and sat down before theglass, there would be a horrible, cracked voice crying, "Miss Bozerne,young ladies are not allowed in the dormitories out of hours;" and thenI had to go down.
For the old wretch hated me because I was young and handsome, I am sure.Yes: I was handsome then, I believe; before all these terrible troublescame upon me, and made me look so old--ah! so old. And, oh! it wasdreadful, having one's time turned into a yard measure, and doled out toone in quarter-inches for this and half-inches for that, and not have asingle scrap to do just what one liked with. Perhaps I could have borneit the better if I had not been used to do just as I liked at home. Formamma very seldom interfered; and I'm sure I was as good as could bealways, till they nearly drove me out of my mind with this horribleschool.
For it was a school, and nothing else but a school; and as they allill-used me, and trod upon me like a worm in the path, why, of course Iturned and annoyed them all I could at the Cedars, and persisted incalling it school. Finishing establishment--pah! Young ladies,indeed--fah! Why, didn't I get to know about Miss Hicks being thegrocer's daughter, and being paid for in sugar? And wasn't Patty Smiththe butcher's girl? Why, she really smelt of meat, and her hair alwayslooked like that of those horrible butcher-boys in London, who neverwear caps, but make their heads so shiny and matty with fat. Patty wasjust like them; and I declare the nasty thing might have eaten pomatum,she used such a quantity. Why, she used to leave the marks of her headright through her nightcap on to the pillow; and I once had the nastything put on my bed by mistake, when if it didn't smell like the crustof Mrs Blunt's apple-dumplings, and set me against them more than ever.
Dear, sensitive reader, did you ever eat finishing establishment"_poudings aux pommes_" as Mrs Blunt used to call them?--that is to sayschool apple-dumplings, or as we used to call them "pasty wasters." Ifyou never did, never do; for they are horrible. Ours used to be nasty,wet, slimy,
splashy things, that slipped about in the great blue dish.And one did slide right off once on to the cloth, when the servant wasputting it upon the table; and then the horrible thing collapsed in amost disgusting way, and had to be scraped up with a spoon. Ugh! such amess! I declare I felt as if I was one of a herd of little pigs, aboutto be fed; and I told Clara so, when she burst out laughing, and MissFurness ordered her to leave the table. If they would only have boiledthe dreadful dumplings in basins, it would not have mattered so much;but I could see plainly enough that they were only tied up loosely incloths, so that the water came in to make them wet and pappy; while theywere always made in a hurry, and the crust would be in one