MISS REEVES' ESTABLISHMENT FOR YOUNG LADIES.
Moorhouse was a red brick mansion of Elizabethan architecture, standing on the outskirts of the old-fashioned town of Greyling, nestling under a misty embattlement of distant downs. Tracts of ferny solitudes and clumps of woodland lay beyond, cloven by the long straight road that led Londonward. It was difficult to imagine that such rural peacefulness could be found at thirty miles distance from the big metropolis.
Moorhouse was a boarding-school for young ladies. It had gained a high reputation under the direction of its present head-mistress, Miss Reeves, a middle-aged lady of dignified appearance.
It was to Moorhouse Mr. Fullbloom was taking Meg. The child had never gone on a railway journey. The shriek and whistle of the engine as the train dashed along startled her. She felt whirled forward as by a demoniac force, and the pant of the engine seemed to her like the audible heart-beat of some dread monster. She sat rigid and silent in the corner by the window as she passed out of the station across the bridge-spanned river, past squalid streets and roofs crowding below. At last she emerged into more airy and peaceful surroundings. The speed and pant still filled the limpid daylight with terror; but Meg fought against her unstrung nerves and compelled herself to look out of the window. She was passing through a pageantry of meadows lying in the mild sunshine of the March afternoon; of cows grazing, of a pallid golden light in the sky, veiled with fleecy purple clouds. She heard the passing chirp of birds; she caught glimpses of leafless woods spreading a tracery of boughs against the brightness of the sky. There were banks flickering with suggestions of primroses under the hedges; undulating greenswards losing themselves in blue distances. Through the terror of that ride the influence of nature brought comfort to her heart. An exhilarating sense that she was traveling to a better land overcame fear. A house in the distance, perched on a height, with the sunlight on its windows, appeared to her a type of that school to which she was journeying; a sort of magic academy where she would grow worthy of becoming Mr. Standish's friend.
Mr. Fullbloom coughed and Meg turned her head. She caught the amused glance of her traveling companion fixed upon her. The solicitor had been dividing his attention between his paper and the child by his side. Meg had been unconscious of his investigation.
"Reach the school soon now," said the lawyer with his accustomed airy nod.
"I am glad of it," replied Meg.
"Want to be a learned little lady, eh?"
"Yes, that is just what I want to be," Meg answered in an eager tone; "learned as a lady."
"Well, so you will be—excellent school that of Miss Reeves—learn to dance, play the piano, to speak French, German—any amount of accomplishments. Bless me, there will be no talking to you in a year or two. Have to study hard, though."
Meg nodded in token of her readiness to face any amount of study.
"Don't forget your name—Beecham—it is not Browne. Madam was not your mother, or for the matter of that any relation," said the lawyer.
"I knew she was not my mother," said Meg in a low voice.
"No, indeed; light and darkness could not be more unlike."
"You knew my mother?" cried Meg, a flush kindling her cheeks.
"I knew her a little," replied the lawyer guardedly. "You are like her about the mouth and eyes."
"I am not a bit like her," Meg answered in a tone of offense. "She was beautiful—like an angel."
"Yes, she was beautiful," acquiesced Mr. Fullbloom.
Meg looked at the lawyer with a new expression. A halo surrounded his brow, for he had seen her mother.
"Did the old gentleman I saw to-day know her too?" she asked softly.
The lawyer put up his finger and wagged his head.
"Little girls must not ask questions. They must be seen, not heard," he replied, taking up his paper and growing absorbed in its contents.
He did not speak again until the train shortly after stopped at Greyling station.
Before long they had reached Moorhouse, and the door had opened for Meg. As she passed through the portal of the red brick mansion she felt as if she stood upon the threshold of a sanctuary. This sense deepened when, a few moments later, she was confronted by a majestic lady, whom the lawyer introduced to her as Miss Reeves, who looked at her kindly and scrutinizingly. After a low-voiced colloquy with Mr. Fullbloom at the other end of the room, Miss Reeves took her by the hand, saying:
"Your guardian has confided you to my care. I hope, my dear child, that we may both learn soon to love and trust each other."
Meg took with confidence the extended hand. Shortly after, Mr. Fullbloom bade her an airy farewell, and she followed Miss Reeves into a room where a meal was going on.
"Miss Grantley and Madame Vallaria," said the head-mistress addressing the two ladies sitting at either end of the table, "let me introduce to you a new pupil, and to you, young ladies, a new school-fellow—Miss Margaret Beecham. Ursula Grey, let her sit beside you; look after her, she is a stranger."
The room swam around Meg as she took her seat near a girl with a pleasant rosy face and bright eyes shining behind a pair of clever-looking spectacles. The child fancied she detected muffled exclamations, and that on all sides a stare was turned upon her which was not friendly.
The young ladies appeared to her beautifully dressed. They wore pretty brooches and necklaces of colored beads; their shining hair fell about their necks, and they had delicate bits of lace round their throats and wrists. One girl appeared to Meg so beautiful that she forgot everything in the delight of looking at her.
She was roused by a nudge of the elbow.
"Miss Grantley is speaking to you," said her spectacled neighbor. The young lady's lips were quivering with restrained smiles.
"Miss Beecham, will you take a glass of milk or a cup of cocoa?" said the lady at the head of the table.
Meg looked blankly in the direction of the speaker.
"Is not your name Beecham?" said this lady with a shade of annoyance in her voice.
Meg shook her head in the negative; then suddenly remembering the warning she had received not to forget:
"Yes—Beecham—that's my name," she said hurriedly, with the vivid nod that usually accompanied her assertions.
A titter went round the table.
"Hush!" said Miss Grantley severely.
Meg sat stiff and upright.
"Will you have milk or cocoa?" repeated Miss Grantley.
"Cocoa," blurted out Meg with monosyllabic brevity, in her confusion forgetting her manners.
She was intensely aware of the nudgings going on around her; of subdued fits of laughter shaking some of the young ladies; of the surprised stare of others. She caught Miss Grantley's cold glance.
Meg seized with both hands the cup passed on to her and hurriedly gulped down some of its contents.
As she put it down she again encountered shocked and amazed glances. An embarrassed misgiving fell upon her. Breaking her bread into small morsels she slowly munched, gazing down into her plate.
When she became aware of a general pushing back of chairs and of rising about her, Meg stood up. She knew the teacher was saying grace. Her spectacled neighbor then nodded.
"Come along," she said, and Meg followed.
The girls were pouring into another room. They at once surrounded Meg. The whispers became audible.
"Who is she?"
"Who brought her?"
"Where did she come from?"
To Meg's surprise, one of the girls approached her and said with familiar cordiality:
"What is your name—your real name, I mean?"
"My real name?" repeated Meg. She was standing inflexibly upright near a table.
"The name you were called by before to-day?" said her interrogator.
"You did not recognize your name when you were called Beecham—what is your real name?" said another.
Meg did not answer for a moment. She remembered her promise to the mysterious white-haired stranger. Then she said huskily:
"What does it signify what name I had before?"
Again she paused.
"Then you had another name?" said the pretty girl in a thin, high voice. "How very romantic!"
"Don't tease her—what does it signify?" put in Ursula.
"What does it signify?" was repeated all round in what Meg fancied a not unkindly tone. She took courage.
"What is in a name?" demanded one of the girls.
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet would it not?" said another.
"Yes," said Meg, bewildered.
"Where did you live!" questioned one.
Meg remained mute. Again her promise to the mysterious stranger sealed her lips.
"Up a tree," suggested one.
"Second branch," said another with a laugh.
"Letters to you came addressed 'Miss What's-her-name, second branch, fourth tree, on the right side of the road,'" cried a third.
This description of Meg's late abode was greeted by peals of laughter.
"Visitors climbed up," suggested another.
"Why do you say those things?" asked Meg, looking round on the laughing faces. "I am come here to learn lessons—to grow up to be a lady. That's what I come for."
"A lady!" echoed all around her.
"A lady is born a lady," said a tall girl who had not spoken hitherto. She had a high nose and a voice of ice.
"My mother was a lady," said Meg.
"Your mother!" was echoed all around.
Meg did not answer; words seemed to tremble on her lips as she gazed on her tormentors.
"Is your dress her taste?" asked one.
"Did she teach you to say 'Cocoa' like that, without saying 'if you please'?" asked another, mimicking Meg's answer to Miss Grantley.
"My mother taught me nothing—she is dead," said Meg slowly.
There was a pause.
Then the tormentors began again.
"Are you sure you would know a lady if you saw one?"
"Would you call the grocer's wife a lady because she wears a silk dress?" demanded the Roman-nosed young lady in her chilly voice.
"No," said Meg with concentration.
"Does a lady go about playing the street-organ?" asked a fat, stupid-faced girl.
"No," again said Meg fiercely. Then addressing the assembly generally, but looking especially at the high-nosed young lady, she went on: "Why do you want to know all those things about me? It's idle curiosity—that's what I call it. And if my dress is ugly, what is that to you? I come here to learn lessons and to be a lady."
"But do you know what it is to be a lady?" replied the girl.
"One is born, not made a lady," said another.
"If," said Meg, trembling with energy, looking round on her persecutors, "to be a born lady makes one laugh at another because she's badly dressed, and to mock her because she's not got fine manners, then to be a born lady is to be vulgar and cruel—that's what I think."
For a moment there was silence; then the stupid-looking girl, coming close to Meg and thrusting her face near hers, said in a jeering drawl:
"I saw you and your mother selling matches in Bond Street last Easter holidays. Your mother had a red handkerchief round her head and a monkey under her arm."
"That is a falsehood!" said Meg. Up flashed the little brown hand and came down with a slap on the dull, mocking face.
There was a hubbub.
Cries of "She's a savage!" "A gypsy!"
"We will tell Miss Reeves," was vociferated on all sides.
Above the tumult rose the voice of Ursula:
"You deserved that slap, Laura Harris. Miss Beecham had told us her mother was dead. She has been teased too much."
A bell sounded and the head-mistress, followed by the other teachers and the servants, entered the room.
"Silence, young ladies," said Miss Reeves.
Prayer-time had come at Moorhouse.