Part 5, Chapter XXXIV.
School.
“Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky.”
The bells of Saint Michael’s Church were ringing a joyous peal as Violante set foot in Oxley. There had been a wedding in the morning, and the bells were honouring the bride with a final peal, as the sun sank low in the clear, cold sky and the wintry moon rose white against the rosy sunset. Below, people stamped through the street, and the horses’ hoofs sounded sharply on the hard road. The lamps flashed out one by one, the outlines of the buildings were still visible.
“That is the Bank,” said Flossy, as they drove past.
Violante looked, and saw the handsome white building, already closed for the night, and the dark red house beside it where one light showed in an upstair window. She was too much bewildered to care to speculate about it. They passed out of the town along the road, with its pretty villas with cheerful lights shining from the windows, past the nursery-gardens and scattered cottages, beyond which, the last house in the borough of Oxley, stood Oxley Manor.
“Here we are,” said Flossy, brightly. “We shall be just in time for some tea. Ah, how d’ye do, Anne,” to the servant that opened the door. “Yes; half-a-crown, that’s right. This is Miss Mattei’s luggage. Come in, signorina! Well, Mary, here she is.”
And Violante found herself warmly and kindly greeted and led into a pleasantly-lighted drawing-room, while Miss Venning enquired for her aunt and cousins.
“They are quite well, signora,” said Violante, in her soft, liquid voice. She felt shy, but then she was not expected to do anything but speak when she was spoken to, and, being confiding as well as timid, she warmed at once to a kind word.
“Give them some tea, Clarissa,” said Miss Venning. “They have had a very cold journey, and then Miss Mattei can take off her things before the school tea.”
“We arrived to the sound of wedding bells. For Ada Morrison, I suppose?” said Flossy.
“Yes; it has made quite an auspicious beginning for you, my dear,” to Violante.
“That is pleasant,” said Violante, shyly.
“Yes; a good beginning is half-way to a good ending. So remember that, my dear, in all your work,” said Miss Venning, sonorously.
“Now come with me,” said Florence, “and I will introduce you to Edith Robertson. She teaches the little ones English and drawing and learns the higher branches.”
Whether Violante had much idea of what fruit might grow in this lofty situation may be doubted, but she followed Flossy to a large room, brightly lit with gas, where, what Violante afterwards described to Rosa as “as many girls as there are singers in a chorus,” were enjoying the leisure of recent arrival after the holidays. There was a cry of “Miss Florence, Miss Florence!” and such a confusion of greetings and embraces ensued as made Violante quite dizzy; but presently Florence extricated from the crowd a short, plain, clever-faced girl of nineteen or twenty, introduced her as Miss Robertson, and told her to show Violante her room and to tell her a few of the ways of the house, while she returned to her sisters.
“Well,” she cried, as she came back into the drawing-room and sat down on the rug for a comfortable chat. “Isn’t she a little dear? She cried, and so did her sister, who looks a famous person; but she soon cheered up.”
“And, pray, do you expect her to be of any use?” asked Clarissa. “She looks about as much like a governess as—”
“A public singer,” said Flossy.
“Yes,” said Miss Venning. “Mrs Grey was quite right in saying there was nothing unsuitable in her appearance.”
“Oh, nor in herself,” said Flossy. “She is a mere child, evidently; but, of course, she can speak her own language, and that is all we want. And it will be very interesting to study a mind that has had so different an experience from one’s own.”
“Always presupposing,” said Clarissa, “that she has a mind to study.”
“Now, Clarissa, you know I hate that idea that people must have a certain amount of stereotyped cleverness before they can be supposed to have any characters. No one is commonplace, or like anybody else, if one really understands them. They say even sheep are all different, and I’m sure girls are. The most unexpected developments—”
“Well, Flossy, never mind all that,” said Miss Venning. “You shall do as you like with Miss Mattei, and I daresay you will make something of her.”
“Oh, I feel sure of it. But, now, how is everyone? Is there any news?”
“Yes; Mrs Crichton comes home next week; so I think Freddie will not come back as a boarder.”
“It will be very dull for her at home, poor child,” said Flossy, gravely.
“Well, Mrs Crichton writes, in her usual energetic way, that she thinks it a duty to keep the house as cheerful as possible; and she means to ask a friend Freddie has made at Bournemouth to stay with her. She hopes, too, that Hugh will live at home as usual.”
“He will not be an element of cheerfulness,” said Clarissa. “I met him riding yesterday, and I never saw so gloomy a face.”
“And Arthur?” said Flossy.
“I don’t think his plans are settled yet; but Mrs Crichton says he writes cheerfully.”
“I don’t think much of those cheerful letters,” said Flossy, sadly. “What can he say? How will one ever go to Redhurst? Ah, there’s a ring! That’s the Pembertons, no doubt. I must get ready for tea.”
At six o’clock Violante found herself sitting at tea in a large, cheerful room, and gradually took courage to make her observations on the new scene before her. She was placed among the elder girls, who were exceedingly polite to her, for Flossy’s genial influence told in the tone of the school; but she felt more attracted towards a row of long-haired lesser ones, for whom Miss Robertson was making tea. “I should like to do that,” she thought; “I hope they will love me.” There was a grand French governess, who looked formidable; and who, to tell the truth, was the only person of whom Miss Florence stood in awe, and who regarded her merely as a big girl and not as a theorist in education. There was also a younger and quieter-looking German, and about thirty pupils. There was a good deal of conversation, and plenty to eat. Violante occupied at night the same room with Miss Robertson, a pleasant one enough. Her companion pretended not to notice the tears which the longing for Rosa’s good nights could not fail to bring. She had seen a good many school-girls cry, since she had been sent to an orphanage for clergymen’s daughters at eight years old; and she thought everyone ought to appreciate their good luck in being at Oxley Manor—certainly a little ignorant foreigner, who was, besides, too old and too tall to be legitimately homesick. She must learn not to be a helpless child. But Violante’s beauty and fascinating sweetness were a magic armour with which to face this new world. Everyone, even her stern young judge, was kindly disposed towards her and ready to make allowance for her ignorance and helplessness.
Miss Venning, however much licence she might allow to Florence, was very really the mistress of her school. The girls, Flossy included, read the Bible to her every morning—a ceremony almost as alarming to Violante as standing up to sing. When this was over Miss Venning called her, and said:
“Now, my dear, tell me what you can do?”
“I cannot do anything, signora. I am very stupid,” faltered Violante. “I will try.”
“What have you learnt?”
“English. I know English, and just a little French and music.”
“Have you read much of your own literature—Dante or Tasso?”
“No, signora.”
“Read me a piece of this,” said Miss Venning, putting a volume of Italian poetry into her hands that she might judge of her accent. Frightened as Violante was, and little as she had responded to her long technical training, she declaimed the verses in a very much more vigorous style than Miss Venning expected.
“That is very well,” she said. “You must read Italian with Miss Florence, and help her to teach her class.”
“Signora,” said Violante, emboldened by the praise, “I can knit and sew and embroider. I could teach these to the young ladies.”
“And you shall,” said Flossy, who was standing close by. “Sister, we’ll make needlework popular.”
“They are very pleasant occupations,” said Miss Venning. “Now, let me hear you play; for it will be part of your duty to overlook the little girls at their music.”
Violante played very prettily, though her fingers had comparatively been little cultivated; but she refused even to attempt to sing, flushing and trembling in a way quite inexplicable, if the Miss Vennings had known nothing of her former history.
“Well, my dear,” said Miss Venning, “you have a great deal to learn, and a little to teach. We will do our best to make you happy among us, and you on your part will, no doubt, be industrious and obedient.”
“Yes, signora,” said Violante, a good deal impressed by the profundity of Miss Venning’s manners.
“And one thing I wish you to notice. As you make friends with your companions, do not make the details of your former life a matter of conversation. You have no need to be ashamed of it; but it would excite great curiosity, and you might be questioned in a way you would not like.”
“It is only silly girls who wish to talk,” said Violante, quoting a sentiment of Rosa’s, and looking slightly hurt.
“Then do you be wise,” said Miss Venning, rather amused. “Now go to your lessons.”
Violante dropped into the routine of her new life with surprising quickness. She did not dislike it; but, as she wrote to Rosa: “There is so much that I do not understand.” She found herself, of course, very ignorant; but either her teachers found teaching her a pleasant task, or she had exaggerated her own dulness, for no one gave her up as hopeless. She even managed to exercise a sort of control on the few occasions when she was forced to assume authority. The little girls delighted in her, and her greatest pleasure was to do their hair for them, make them pretty things, teach them fancy-work, and be generally a slave to them. She was willing to assume any amount of the playtime responsibility generally considered so irksome, and, as Clarissa observed, would have been “all nursery, and no governess,” instead of sharing the prevailing tendency in the opposite direction. The elder ones were very fond of her, but, though she responded quickly to kindness, she did not bestow any depth of affection on anyone but Miss Florence, whom she regarded as a superior being. Flossy was a perpetual wonder to her. Rosa had been a fairly efficient and conscientious teacher; but, assuredly, she had not found it her greatest delight, nor rattled away even to such an uncomprehending listener as Violante of classes and examinations and the principles of education. She had not taken so vivid an interest in each one of her pupils, nor been so anxious to extend her sphere of labour, that she could scarcely, as Flossy’s sisters said, see a girl passing in the street without wanting to teach her, and had always a plea for extending some of the advantages of Oxley Manor “just this once” to some poor little outsider who stood just “next” in the social scale to those who already enjoyed them. And she could do so many things herself. The girls said Miss Florence was writing a book, and she certainly drew nearly as well as the master. She could make her dresses, too, not quite so well as the dressmaker, and was much prouder of them than of the drawing or the book either. Enthusiasm is infectious. Violante caught the prevailing tone and worshipped Miss Florence with innocent ardour. It was a somewhat dangerous atmosphere for Flossy, but she was more wrapped up in her occupations than in herself; she heartily loved her admiring pupils, and had her own enthusiasms in other directions.
There were two schoolrooms at Oxley Manor; and in the larger one, in the dusky firelight of a Saturday afternoon, the two young “pupil teachers,” for which simple name Flossy was wont to contend, sat learning some French poetry. Violante did not like learning her lessons, it reminded her too much of learning her parts; but, then, as she reflected, it did not matter nearly so much if she could not say them. She sat on a stool in a corner by the mantelpiece, her face framed in its softly-curling locks, in shadow, and the firelight dancing on her book and on her childish, delicate hands—hands that looked fit only to cling and caress, belying their fair share of deftness and skill. Miss Robertson sat on a chair, and held her book before her eyes, for she was short-sighted. She had chilblains, and occasionally rubbed her fingers. Her companion’s idleness was quite an interruption to her; she felt obliged to keep her in order.
“You don’t seem to get on with your poetry, signorina,” she said, giving the title which attached to Violante as a sort of Christian name.
“No, it is hard.”
“One must give one’s mind to it. I don’t think you take a sufficiently serious view of life, signorina.”
“A serious view?” repeated Violante.
“Well, of work, you know. Look at Miss Florence. What do you suppose makes her so energetic and useful?”
“I suppose,” said Violante, “that she is like my father, and has enthusiasm. And, perhaps, she has not much else to think of. She is very happy.”
“Do you mean that no one should work at what they don’t like?”
“Oh, yes; but it is much harder, especially when there is so much besides,” said Violante. She did not mean to turn the tables on her companion, but merely to state simple fact.
“I don’t see,” said Miss Robertson, “what can be more important than getting ready to earn one’s living.”
“Yes—we must do that—if we can,” said Violante.
“I assure you,” said Miss Robertson, “things would be very different here if it weren’t for Florence Venning. I’ve been at other schools and I know. You and I would not have such good times without her.”
“Oh, she is good and beautiful!” cried Violante. “I would learn lessons all day to please her. Where is she now?”
“She is gone to Redhurst?” said Edith, gravely.
“Redhurst?”
“Yes. Have none of the girls told you about poor Mysie Crofton?”
“No, who is she?”
“She used to come here to school, and—it happened last summer before I came; but they often talk of it—she was drowned.”
“Oh, how sad! Did she fall into the water?”
“She was going to be married, and her lover and his cousin were shooting, and they saw her standing on the lock, and Mr Crichton—”
“Who?”
“Mr Hugh Crichton. He lives at Redhurst, don’t you know? She was going to marry his cousin, Mr Spencer. Well, they were shooting, and—it was very awful—but Mr Crichton’s gun frightened her, and she fell into the water and was drowned.”
Violante sat in the shadow. Her dead silence might have come from her interest in the story.
“That’s not the worst. They say Arthur Spencer told him not to fire—and he did—”
“Was he jealous?” suddenly cried Violante.
“Good gracious, signorina! What a horrid—what a ridiculous idea! How foreign! Of course not. He didn’t mean to hurt her. He was half mad with grief. I’m sure now he looks as if he couldn’t smile—and Mr Spencer has been abroad ever since it happened—last August.”
Violante sat in her corner, her heart beating, shivering, her face burning. “He is near—” Then that wild foolish thought of the poor foreign opera-taught girl gave place to a pang of shame, and then, “He is unhappy.” She had forgotten herself—forgotten where she was; when Miss Florence came slowly into the room in her hat and jacket. She came and knelt down by the fire, looking much graver than usual.
“Frederica comes to school on Monday,” she said, in rather a strained voice.
“How were they, Miss Florence?” asked Edith.
“Oh, I don’t know. Mrs Crichton is very well. They are hardly settled.”
“I was telling signorina,” said Miss Robertson.
Flossy looked at Violante.
“Why, you have frightened her!” she said, “with our sad story.”
Violante could not speak; but something in Flossy’s trembling lips spoke to her heart. She pressed up close to her and hid her face on her shoulder.
“Why, my dear child, how you tremble!” cried Flossy, touched by the action and by the sympathy, as she thought it. “Hush, we have almost left off crying for her!”
“I never thought it would make you hysterical,” said Miss Robertson, rather severely.
“Let her alone,” said Florence, for all her tenderest strings were still quivering with the renewal of old associations, and somehow this girl, who cried for her dear Mysie, spoke to her heart as no one had done since Mysie’s star had set. Violante clung closer and closer, conscious of nothing but a sense of help and fellowship in the stormy sea that, had suddenly burst in on her. She had lost all sense of concealment, she forgot that Flossy did not know her secret; she was only silent because no words adequate to her bewildered horror suggested themselves. At last she half sobbed out:
“And he killed her—killed her?”
“Oh, no; you must not say that,” said Flossy. “It was a very sad accident, but poor Hugh could not help it, and Arthur never blamed him. She was so good, so sweet. But you must not cry, dear; why are you so startled?” she added, becoming aware that Violante’s agitation was excessive, though, on the score of her Italian actress-ship, she was not prepared to consider it unnatural.
Violante was slowly coming to herself. She sat up and pushed back her hair; while things began to arrange themselves in her mind. Hugh Crichton lived close at hand; she might see him, and he had been in a great storm of trouble—was that why she had heard nothing of him? Then Signor Arthur—she remembered how James Crichton had told Rosa that his cousin’s love was dead. Here was something she could say.
“Signora, I met Signor Arthur Spencer in Italy at Caletto. That was partly—” She stumbled over the truth so like a lie; but Flossy broke in—
“Saw Arthur? Did you? Oh, tell me—how was he—what did he look like?”
“He was very sad—I knew that, though he used to come and talk and laugh with us. He was travelling. And when I knew we were coming to England I asked him what English girls were like? And, oh, Miss Florence, I knew he spoke of one he loved who was dead. But he told me to be brave. He is so!”
It did not strike Flossy at the moment to be surprised at Violante’s interest in Arthur and his story; the subject was too interesting to herself, but the fact dropped into her mind and was recalled in the future. Now she asked a few more questions about him, and in return told Violante a little of the circumstances of his trouble, till they were obliged to separate to dress for tea. Violante crept away to her room, and as she stood by herself in the dark she felt that she had in a manner deceived Miss Florence. “But,” thought she—“he shall say first he knows me—if he will. When shall I see him? How shall I see him? Oh, never—shut up here! Hugo—ah, Hugo mio!”
Yet she felt full of expectation, full of something like hope. “I will tell Rosa if I see Signor Arthur,” she thought; “but if I tell her who is near she will be angry and foolish and take me away. It will not hurt me.”
So, to excuse herself to her own conscience for thus concealing so important a fact from her sister, she found heart to go through her work as usual, teaching and learning, with one question ever before her, one expectation filling her life. She could tell Rosa when she could talk to her, she thought; but a letter would give a false impression, and make her sister anxious to no purpose.