Monflathers, bringing up the rear, approached her, when she
curtseyed and presented her little packet; on receipt whereof Miss
Monflathers commanded that the line should halt.
'You're the wax-work child, are you not?' said Miss Monflathers.
'Yes, ma'am,' replied Nell, colouring deeply, for the young ladies
had collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes
were fixed.
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'And don't you think you must be a very wicked little child,' said
Miss Monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no
opportunity of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of the
young ladies, 'to be a wax-work child at all?'
Poor Nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not
knowing what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than
before.
'Don't you know,' said Miss Monflathers, 'that it's very naughty
and unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and
benignantly transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused
from their dormant state through the medium of cultivation?'
The two teachers murmured their respectful approval of this
home-thrust, and looked at Nell as though they would have said that
there indeed Miss Monflathers had hit her very hard. Then they
smiled and glanced at Miss Monflathers, and then, their eyes
meeting, they exchanged looks which plainly said that each
considered herself smiler in ordinary to Miss Monflathers, and
regarded the other as having no right to smile, and that her so
doing was an act of presumption and impertinence.
'Don't you feel how naughty it is of you,' resumed Miss
Monflathers, 'to be a wax-work child, when you might have the proud
consciousness of assisting, to the extent of your infant powers,
the manufactures of your country; of improving your mind by the
constant contemplation of the steam-engine; and of earning a
comfortable and independent subsistence of from two-and-ninepence
to three shillings per week? Don't you know that the harder you
are at work, the happier you are?'
'"How doth the little--"' murmured one of the teachers, in
quotation from Doctor Watts.
'Eh?' said Miss Monflathers, turning smartly round. 'Who said
that?'
Of course the teacher who had not said it, indicated the rival who
had, whom Miss Monflathers frowningly requested to hold her peace;
by that means throwing the informing teacher into raptures of joy.
'The little busy bee,' said Miss Monflathers, drawing herself up,
'is applicable only to genteel children.
"In books, or work, or healthful play"
is quite right as far as they are concerned; and the work means
painting on velvet, fancy needle-work, or embroidery. In such
cases as these,' pointing to Nell, with her parasol, 'and in the
case of all poor people's children, we should read it thus:
"In work, work, work. In work alway
Let my first years be past,
That I may give for ev'ry day
Some good account at last."'
A deep hum of applause rose not only from the two teachers, but
from all the pupils, who were equally astonished to hear Miss
Monflathers improvising after this brilliant style; for although
she had been long known as a politician, she had never appeared
before as an original poet. Just then somebody happened to
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discover that Nell was crying, and all eyes were again turned
towards her.
There were indeed tears in her eyes, and drawing out her
handkerchief to brush them away, she happened to let it fall.
Before she could stoop to pick it up, one young lady of about
fifteen or sixteen, who had been standing a little apart from the
others, as though she had no recognised place among them, sprang
forward and put it in her hand. She was gliding timidly away
again, when she was arrested by the governess.
'It was Miss Edwards who did that, I KNOW,' said Miss Monflathers
predictively. 'Now I am sure that was Miss Edwards.'
It was Miss Edwards, and everybody said it was Miss Edwards, and
Miss Edwards herself admitted that it was.
'Is it not,' said Miss Monflathers, putting down her parasol to
take a severer view of the offender, 'a most remarkable thing, Miss
Edwards, that you have an attachment to the lower classes which
always draws you to their sides; or, rather, is it not a most
extraordinary thing that all I say and do will not wean you from
propensities which your original station in life have unhappily
rendered habitual to you, you extremely vulgar-minded girl?'
'I really intended no harm, ma'am,' said a sweet voice. 'It was a
momentary impulse, indeed.'
'An impulse!' repeated Miss Monflathers scornfully. 'I wonder that
you presume to speak of impulses to me'--both the teachers assented--
'I am astonished'--both the teachers were astonished--'I suppose
it is an impulse which induces you to take the part of every
grovelling and debased person that comes in your way'--both the
teachers supposed so too.
'But I would have you know, Miss Edwards,' resumed the governess in
a tone of increased severity, 'that you cannot be permitted--if it
be only for the sake of preserving a proper example and decorum in
this establishment--that you cannot be permitted, and that you
shall not be permitted, to fly in the face of your superiors in
this exceedingly gross manner. If you have no reason to feel a
becoming pride before wax-work children, there are young ladies
here who have, and you must either defer to those young ladies or
leave the establishment, Miss Edwards.'
This young lady, being motherless and poor, was apprenticed at the
school--taught for nothing--teaching others what she learnt, for
nothing--boarded for nothing--lodged for nothing--and set down
and rated as something immeasurably less than nothing, by all the
dwellers in the house. The servant-maids felt her inferiority, for
they were better treated; free to come and go, and regarded in
their stations with much more respect. The teachers were
infinitely superior, for they had paid to go to school in their
time, and were paid now. The pupils cared little for a companion
who had no grand stories to tell about home; no friends to come
with post-horses, and be received in all humility, with cake and
wine, by the governess; no deferential servant to attend and bear
her home for the holidays; nothing genteel to talk about, and
nothing to display. But why was Miss Monflathers always vexed and
irritated with the poor apprentice--how did that come to pass?
Why, the gayest feather in Miss Monflathers's cap, and the
brightest glory of Miss Monflathers's school, was a baronet's
daughter--the real live daughter of a real live baronet--who, by
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some extraordinary reversal of the Laws of Nature, was not only
plain in features but dull in intellect, while the poor apprentice
had both a ready wit, and a handsome face and figure. It seems
incredible. Here was Miss Edwards, who only paid a small premium
which had been spent long ago, every day outshining and excelling
the baronet's daughter, who learned all the extras (or was taught
them all) and whose half-yearly bill came to double that of any
other young lady's in the school, making no account of the honour
and reputation of her pupilage. Therefore, and because she was a
dependent, Miss Monflathers had a great dislike to Miss Edwards,
and was spiteful to her, and aggravated by her, and, when she had
compassion on little Nell, verbally fell upon and maltreated her as
we have already seen.
'You will not take the air to-day, Miss Edwards,' said Miss
Monflathers. 'Have the goodness to retire to your own room, and
not to leave it without permission.'
The poor girl was moving hastily away, when she was suddenly, in
nautical phrase, 'brought to' by a subdued shriek from Miss
Monflathers.
'She has passed me without any salute!' cried the governess,
raising her eyes to the sky. 'She has actually passed me without
the slightest acknowledgment of my presence!'
The young lady turned and curtsied. Nell could see that she raised
her dark eyes to the face of her superior, and that their
expression, and that of her whole attitude for the instant, was one
of mute but most touching appeal against this ungenerous usage.
Miss Monflathers only tossed her head in reply, and the great gate
closed upon a bursting heart.
'As for you, you wicked child,' said Miss Monflathers, turning to
Nell, 'tell your mistress that if she presumes to take the liberty
of sending to me any more, I will write to the legislative
authorities and have her put in the stocks, or compelled to do
penance in a white sheet; and you may depend upon it that you shall
certainly experience the treadmill if you dare to come here again.
Now ladies, on.'
The procession filed off, two and two, with the books and parasols,
and Miss Monflathers, calling the Baronet's daughter to walk with
her and smooth her ruffled feelings, discarded the two teachers--
who by this time had exchanged their smiles for looks of sympathy--
and left them to bring up the rear, and hate each other a little
more for being obliged to walk together.
CHAPTER 32
Mrs Jarley's wrath on first learning that she had been threatened
with the indignity of Stocks and Penance, passed all description.
The genuine and only Jarley exposed to public scorn, jeered by
children, and flouted by beadles! The delight of the Nobility and
Gentry shorn of a bonnet which a Lady Mayoress might have sighed to
wear, and arrayed in a white sheet as a spectacle of mortification
and humility! And Miss Monflathers, the audacious creature who
presumed, even in the dimmest and remotest distance of her
imagination, to conjure up the degrading picture, 'I am a'most
inclined,' said Mrs Jarley, bursting with the fulness of her anger
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and the weakness of her means of revenge, 'to turn atheist when I
think of it!'
But instead of adopting this course of retaliation, Mrs Jarley, on
second thoughts, brought out the suspicious bottle, and ordering
glasses to be set forth upon her favourite drum, and sinking into
a chair behind it, called her satellites about her, and to them
several times recounted, word for word, the affronts she had
received. This done, she begged them in a kind of deep despair to
drink; then laughed, then cried, then took a little sip herself,
then laughed and cried again, and took a little more; and so, by
degrees, the worthy lady went on, increasing in smiles and
decreasing in tears, until at last she could not laugh enough at
Miss Monflathers, who, from being an object of dire vexation,
became one of sheer ridicule and absurdity.
'For which of us is best off, I wonder,' quoth Mrs Jarley, 'she or
me! It's only talking, when all is said and done, and if she talks
of me in the stocks, why I can talk of her in the stocks, which is
a good deal funnier if we come to that. Lord, what does it matter,
after all!'
Having arrived at this comfortable frame of mind (to which she had
been greatly assisted by certain short interjectional remarks of
the philosophical George), Mrs Jarley consoled Nell with many kind
words, and requested as a personal favour that whenever she thought
of Miss Monflathers, she would do nothing else but laugh at her,
all the days of her life.
So ended Mrs Jarley's wrath, which subsided long before the going
down of the sun. Nell's anxieties, however, were of a deeper kind,
and the checks they imposed upon her cheerfulness were not so
easily removed.
That evening, as she had dreaded, her grandfather stole away, and
did not come back until the night was far spent. Worn out as she
was, and fatigued in mind and body, she sat up alone, counting the
minutes, until he returned--penniless, broken-spirited, and
wretched, but still hotly bent upon his infatuation.
'Get me money,' he said wildly, as they parted for the night. 'I
must have money, Nell. It shall be paid thee back with gallant
interest one day, but all the money that comes into thy hands, must
be mine--not for myself, but to use for thee. Remember, Nell, to
use for thee!'
What could the child do with the knowledge she had, but give him
every penny that came into her hands, lest he should be tempted on
to rob their benefactress? If she told the truth (so thought the
child) he would be treated as a madman; if she did not supply him
with money, he would supply himself; supplying him, she fed the
fire that burnt him up, and put him perhaps beyond recovery.
Distracted by these thoughts, borne down by the weight of the
sorrow which she dared not tell, tortured by a crowd of
apprehensions whenever the old man was absent, and dreading alike
his stay and his return, the colour forsook her cheek, her eye grew
dim, and her heart was oppressed and heavy. All her old sorrows
had come back upon her, augmented by new fears and doubts; by day
they were ever present to her mind; by night they hovered round her
pillow, and haunted her in dreams.
It was natural that, in the midst of her affliction, she should
often revert to that sweet young lady of whom she had only caught
a hasty glance, but whose sympathy, expressed in one slight brief
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action, dwelt in her memory like the kindnesses of years. She
would often think, if she had such a friend as that to whom to tell
her griefs, how much lighter her heart would be--that if she were
but free to hear that voice, she would be happier. Then she would
wish that she were something better, that she were not quite so
poor and humble, t
hat she dared address her without fearing a
repulse; and then feel that there was an immeasurable distance
between them, and have no hope that the young lady thought of her
any more.
It was now holiday-time at the schools, and the young ladies had
gone home, and Miss Monflathers was reported to be flourishing in
London, and damaging the hearts of middle-aged gentlemen, but
nobody said anything about Miss Edwards, whether she had gone home,
or whether she had any home to go to, whether she was still at the
school, or anything about her. But one evening, as Nell was
returning from a lonely walk, she happened to pass the inn where
the stage-coaches stopped, just as one drove up, and there was the
beautiful girl she so well remembered, pressing forward to embrace
a young child whom they were helping down from the roof.
Well, this was her sister, her little sister, much younger than
Nell, whom she had not seen (so the story went afterwards) for five
years, and to bring whom to that place on a short visit, she had
been saving her poor means all that time. Nell felt as if her
heart would break when she saw them meet. They went a little apart
from the knot of people who had congregated about the coach, and
fell upon each other's neck, and sobbed, and wept with joy. Their
plain and simple dress, the distance which the child had come
alone, their agitation and delight, and the tears they shed, would
have told their history by themselves.
They became a little more composed in a short time, and went away,
not so much hand in hand as clinging to each other. 'Are you sure
you're happy, sister?' said the child as they passed where Nell was
standing. 'Quite happy now,' she answered. 'But always?' said the
child. 'Ah, sister, why do you turn away your face?'
Nell could not help following at a little distance. They went to
the house of an old nurse, where the elder sister had engaged a
bed-room for the child. 'I shall come to you early every morning,'
she said, 'and we can be together all the day.-'-'Why not at
night-time too? Dear sister, would they be angry with you for
that?'
Why were the eyes of little Nell wet, that night, with tears like
those of the two sisters? Why did she bear a grateful heart
because they had met, and feel it pain to think that they would
shortly part? Let us not believe that any selfish reference--
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