The prayer at an end, Mr and Mrs Strachey bowed vaguely, in several directions, shook hands with the governesses, and left the room. This was the signal for two of the teachers to advance with open Bibles.
‘Here, little one, have you learned your verse?’ whispered Laura’s pleasant neighbour.
Laura knew nothing of it; but the big girl lent her a Bible, and, since it was not a hard verse, and every girl repeated it, it was quickly learned.
I wisdom dwell with prudence and find out knowledge of witty inventions.
Told off in batches, they filed up the stairs. On the first landing stood Miss Day, watching, with lynx eyes, to see that no books or eatables were smuggled to the bedrooms. In a strident voice, she exhorted the noisy to silence, and the loiterers to haste.
Laura sped to her room. She was fortunate enough to find it still empty. Tossing off her clothes, she gabbled ardently through her own prayers, drew the blankets up over her head, and pretended to be asleep. Soon the lights were out and all was quiet. Then, with her face burrowed deep, so that not a sound could escape, she gave free play to her tears.
VI
My dear mother
I sent you a postcard did you get it. I told you I got here all right and liked it very much. I could not write a long letter before I had no time and we are only allowed to write letters two evenings a week Tuesday and Friday. When we have done our lessons for next day we say please may I write now and Miss Chapman says have you done everything and if we say we have she says yes and if you sit at Miss Days table Miss Day says it. And sometimes we havent but we say so. I sit up by Miss Chapman and she can see everything I do and at tea and dinner and breakfast I sit beside Mrs Gurley. Another girl in my class sits oposite and one sits besides me and we would rather sit some where else. I dont care for Mrs Gurley much she is very fat and never smiles and never listens to what you say unless she scolds you and I think Miss Chapman is afraid of her to. Miss Day is not afraid of anybody. I am in the first class. I am in the College and under that is the school. Only very little girls are in the school they go to bed at half past eight and do their lessons in the dining hall. I do mine in the study and go to bed with the big girls. They wear dresses down to the ground. Lilith Gordon is a girl in my class she is in my room to she is only as old as me and she wears stays and has a beautiful figgure. All the girls wear stays. Please send me some I have no waste. A governess sleeps in our room and she has no teeth. She takes them out every night and puts them in water when the light is out. Lilith Gordon and the other girl say good night to her after she has taken them off then she cant talk propperly and we want to hear her. I think she knows for she is very cross. I dont learn latin yet till I go into the second class my sums are very hard. For supper there is only bread and butter and water if we don’t have cake and jam of our own. Please send me some strawbery jam and another cake. Tell Sarah there are three servants to wait at dinner they have white aprons and a cap on their heads. They say will you take beef miss
I remain
your loving daughter
Laura.
Dear Pin
I am very busy I will write you a letter. You would not like being here I think you should always stop at home you will never get as far as long division. Mrs Gurley is an awful old beast all the girls call her that. You would be frightened of her. In the afternoon after school we walk two and two and you ask a girl to walk with you and if you dont you have to walk with Miss Chapman. Miss Chapman and Miss Day walks behind and they watch to see you dont laugh at boys. Some girls write letters to them and say they will meet them up behind a tree in the corner of the garden a paling is lose and the boys put letters in. I think boys are silly but Maria Morell says they are tip top that means awfuly jolly. She writes a letter to boys every week she takes it to church and drops it coming out and he picks it up and puts an answer through the fence. We put our letters on the mantlepiece in the dining hall and Mrs Gurley or Miss Chapman read the adress to see we dont write to boys. They are shut up she cant read the inside. I hope you dont cry so much at school no one cries. Now Miss Chapman says it is time to stop
I remain
your afectionate sister
Laura.
P. S. I took the red lineing out of my hat.
Warrenega
Sunday.
My dear Laura
We were very glad to get your letters which came this morning. Your postcard written the day after you arrived at the College told us little or nothing. However Godmother was good enough to write us an account of your arrival so that we were not quite without news of you. I hope you remembered to thank her for driving in all that way to meet you and take you to school which was very good of her. I am glad to hear you are settling down and feeling happy and I hope you will work hard and distinguish yourself so that I may be proud of you. But there are several things in your letters I do not like. Did you really think I shouldnt read what you wrote to Pin. You are a very foolish girl if you did. Pin the silly child tried to hide it away because she knew it would make me cross but I insisted on her showing it to me and I am ashamed of you for writing such nonsense to her. Maria Morell must be a very vulgar minded girl to use the expressions she does. I hope my little girl will try to only associate with nice minded girls. I didnt send you to school to get nasty ideas put into your head but to learn your lessons well and get on. If you write such vulgar silly things again I shall complain to Mrs Gurley or Mr Strachey about the tone of the College and what goes on behind their backs. I think it is very rude of you too to call Mrs Gurley names. Also about the poor governess who has to wear false teeth. Wait till all your own teeth are gone and then see how you will like it. I do want you to have nice feelings and not grow rough and rude. There is evidently a very bad tone among some of the girls and you must be careful in choosing your friends. I am sorry to hear you are only in the lowest class. It would have pleased me better if you had got into the second but I always told you you were lazy about your sums—you can do them well enough if you like. You dont need stays. I have never worn them myself and I dont intend you to either. Your own muscles are quite strong enough to bear the weight of your back. Bread and water is not much of a supper for you to go to bed on. I will send you another cake soon and some jam and I hope you will share it with the other girls. Now try and be sensible and industrious and make nice friends and then I shant have to scold you
your loving mother
J. T. R.
P. S. Another thing in your letter I dont like. You say you tell your governess you have finished your lessons when you have not done so. That is telling an untruth and I hope you are not going to be led away by the examples of bad girls. I have always brought you children up to be straightforward and I am astonished at you beginning fibbing as soon as you get away from home. Fibbing soon leads to something worse.
P. P. S. You must have written your letter in a great hurry for your spelling is anything but perfect. You are a very naughty girl to meddle with your hat. Pin has written a letter which I enclose though her spelling is worse than ever.
Daer Laura
mother says you are a verry sily girl to rite such sily letters I think you are sily to I shood be fritened of Mrs Girly I dont want to go to Skool I wood rather stop with mother and be a cumfert to her I think it is nauty to drop letters in Cherch and verry sily to write to Boys boys are so sily Sarah sends her luv she says she wood not ware a cap on her hed not for annything she says She wood just as soon ware a ring thrugh her nose.
I remain
your luving sister
Pin.
Dear mother
please, please dont write to Mrs Gurley about the Tone in the College or not to Mr Strachey either. I will never be so silly again. I am sorry my letters were so silly I wont do it again. Please dont write to them about it. I dont go much with Maria Morell now I think she is vulger to. I know two nice girls now in my own class their names are Inez and Bertha they are very nice and not at all vulger. Maria Mor
ell is fat and has a red face she is much older than me and I dont care for her now. Please dont write to Mrs Gurley I will never call her names again. I had to write my letter quickly because when I have done my lessons it is nearly time for supper. I am sorry my spelling was wrong I will take more pains next time I will learn hard and get on and soon I will be in the second class. I did not mean I said I had done my lessons when I had not done them the other girls say it and I think it is very wrong of them. Plese dont write to Mrs Gurley I will try and be good and sensible and not do it again if you only wont write
I remain
your afectionate daughter
Laura.
P. S. I can do my sums better now.
Warrenega
My dear Laura
My letter evidently gave you a good fright and I am not sorry to hear it for I think you deserved it for being such a foolish girl. I hope you will keep your promise and not do it again. Of course I dont mean that you are not to tell me everything that happens at school but I want you to only have nice thoughts and feelings and grow into a wise and sensible girl. I am not going to write a long letter today. This is only a line to comfort and let you know that I shall not write to Mrs Gurley or Mr Strachey as long as I see that you are being a good girl and getting on well with your lessons. I do want you to remember that you are a lady though you are poor and must behave in a ladylike way. You dont tell me what the food at the College is like and whether you have blankets enough on your bed at night. Do try and remember to answer the questions I ask you. Sarah is busy washing today and the children are helping her by sitting with their arms in the tubs. I am to tell you from Pin that Maggy is moulting badly and has not eaten much since you left which is just three weeks today
your loving
Mother.
Friday
My dear mother
I was so glad to get your letter I am so glad you will not write to Mrs Gurley this time and I will promise to be very good and try to remember everything you tell me. I am sorry I forgot to answer the questions I have four blankets on my bed and it is enough. The food is very nice for dinner for tea we have to eat a lot of bread and butter I dont care for bread much. Sometimes we have jam but we are not allowed to eat butter and jam together. A lot of girls get up at six and go down to practice they dont dress and have their bath they just put on their dressing gowns on top of their night gowns. I dont go down now till seven I make my own bed. We have prayers in the morning and the evening and prayers again when the day scholers come. I do my sums better now I think I shall soon be in the second class. Pins spelling was dreadful and she is nearly nine now and is such a baby the girls would laugh at her
I remain
your afectionate daughter
Laura.
P. S. I parsed a long sentence without any mistakes.
VII
The mornings were beginning to grow dark and chilly: fires were laid overnight in the outer classrooms; and the junior governess who was on early duty, having pealed the six o’clock bell, flitted, like a grey wraith, from room to room, and from one gas jet to another, among stretched, sleeping forms. And the few minutes’ grace at an end, it was a cold, unwilling pack that threw off coverlets and jumped out of bed, to tie on petticoats, and snuggle into dressing-gowns and shawls; for the first approach of cooler weather was keenly felt, after the summer heat. The governess blew on speedily chilblained fingers, as she made her round of the verandahs, to see that each of the twenty pianos was rightly occupied; and, as winter crept on, its chief outward sign an occasional thin white spread of frost, which vanished before the mighty sun of ten o’clock, she sometimes took the occupancy for granted, and skipped an exposed room.
At eight, the boarders assembled in the dining hall for prayers and breakfast. After this meal, it was Mrs Gurley’s custom to drink a glass of hot water. While she sipped, she gave audience, meting out rebukes, and crushing complaints—were any bold enough to offer them—standing erect behind her chair at the head of the table, supported by one or more of the staff. To suit the season, she was draped in a shawl of crimson wool, which reached to the flounce of her skirt, and was borne by her portly shoulders with the grace of a past day. Beneath the shawl, her dresses were built, year in, year out, on the same plan: cut in one piece, buttoning right down the front, they fitted her like an eelskin, rigidly outlining her majestic proportions, and always short enough to show a pair of surprisingly small, well-shod feet. Thus she stood, sipping her water, and boring with her hard, unflagging eye, every girl that presented herself to it. Most shrank noiselessly away as soon as breakfast was over; for, unless one was very firm indeed in the conviction of one’s own innocence, to be beneath this eye was apt to induce a disagreeable sense of guilt. In the case of Mrs Gurley, familiarity had never been known to breed contempt. She was possessed of what was little short of genius, for ruling through fear; and no more fitting overseer could have been set at the head of these half-hundred girls, of all ages and degrees: gentle and common; ruly and unruly; children hardly out of the nursery, and girls well over the brink of womanhood, whose ripe, bursting forms told their own tale; the daughters of poor ministers, at reduced fees; and the spoilt heiresses of wealthy woolbrokers and squatters, whose dowries would mount to many thousands of pounds. Mrs Gurley was equal to them all.
In a very short time, there was no more persistent shrinker from the ice of this gaze than little Laura. In the presence of Mrs Gurley, the child had a difficulty in getting her breath. Her first week of school life had been one unbroken succession of snubs and reprimands. For this, the undue familiarity of her manner was to blame: she was all too slow to grasp—being of an impulsive disposition, and not naturally shy—that it was indecorous to accost Mrs Gurley off-hand, to treat her, indeed, in any way as if she were an ordinary mortal. The climax had come one morning—it still made Laura’s cheeks burn, to remember it. She had not been able to master her French lesson for that day, and, seeing Mrs Gurley chatting to a governess, had gone thoughtlessly up to her and tapped her on the arm.
‘Mrs Gurley, please, do you think it would matter very much, if I only took half this verb today? It’s coudre, and means to sew, you know, and it’s so hard. I don’t seem able to get it into my head.’
Before the words were out of her mouth, she saw that she had made a terrible mistake. Mrs Gurley’s face, which had been smiling, froze to stone. She looked at her arm as though the hand had bitten her, and Laura’s sudden shrinking did not move her, to whom seldom anyone addressed a word unbidden.
‘How dare you interrupt me!—when I am speaking!’—she hissed; punctuating her words with the ominous headshakes and pauses. ‘The first thing, miss, for you to do, will be, to take a course of lessons, in manners. Your present ones, may have done well enough, in the outhouse, to which you have evidently, belonged. They will not do, here, in the company, of your betters.’
Above the child’s head, the two ladies smiled significantly at each other, assured that, after this, there would be no further want of respect; but Laura did not see them. The iron of the thrust went deep down into her soul: no one had ever yet cast a slur upon her home. Retreating to a lavatory, she cried herself nearly sick, making her eyes so red that she was late for prayers in trying to wash them white. Since that day, she had never, of her own free will, approached Mrs Gurley again, and had even avoided those places where she was likely to be found. This was why, one morning, some three weeks later, on discovering that she had forgotten one of her lesson books, she hesitated long before re-entering the dining hall. The governesses still clustered round their chief, and the pupils were not expected to return. But it was past nine o’clock: in a minute the public prayer bell would ring, which united boarders, several hundred day scholars, resident and visiting teachers, in the largest classroom; and Laura did not know her English lesson. So she stole in, cautiously dodging behind the group, in a twitter lest the dreaded eyes should turn her way.
It was Miss Day who spied her a
nd demanded an explanation.
‘Such carelessness! You girls would forget your heads, if they weren’t screwed on,’ retorted the governess, in the dry, violent manner that made her universally disliked.
Thankful to escape with this, Laura picked out her book and hurried from the room.
But the thoughts of the group had been drawn to her.
‘The greatest little oddity we’ve had here for some time!’ pronounced Miss Day, pouting her full bust in decisive fashion.
‘She is, indeed,’ agreed Miss Zielinski.
‘I don’t know what sort of a place she comes from, I’m sure,’ continued the former; ‘but it must be the end of creation. She’s utterly no idea of what’s what, and as for her clothes, they’re fit for a Punch and Judy show.’
‘She’s had no training either—stupid, I call her,’ chimed in one of the younger governesses, whose name was Miss Snodgrass. ‘She doesn’t know the simplest things, and her spelling is awful. And yet, do you know, at history the other day, she wanted to hold forth about how London looked in Elizabeth’s reign—when she didn’t know a single one of the dates!’
‘She can say some poetry,’ said Miss Zielinski. ‘And she’s read Scott.’
One and all shook their heads at this, and Mrs Gurley went on shaking hers and smiling grimly.
‘Ah, the way gels are brought up, nowadays!’ she said. ‘There was no such thing in my time. We were made to learn what would be of some use and help to us afterwards.’
Elderly Miss Chapman twiddled her chain. ‘I hope I did right, Mrs Gurley. She had one week’s early practice, but she looked so white all day after it that I haven’t put her down for it again. I hope I did right?’
‘Oh, well, we don’t want to have them ill, you know,’ replied Mrs Gurley, in the rather irresponsive tone she adopted towards Miss Chapman. ‘As long as it isn’t mere laziness.’
The Getting of Wisdom Page 7