Chapter Twenty One.
Inspection Day.
“I should put on my best silk this morning, Hazel,” said Mrs Thorne, unrolling the broad white strings of her widow’s cap and rolling them the reverse way to make them lie flat.
“Put on my best silk, dear!” said Hazel, aghast.
“Now, that is what I don’t like in you, Hazel,” cried Mrs Thorne dictatorially. “You profess to be so economical, and grudge every little outlay for the house, but directly I propose to you anything that affects your personal vanity you are up in arms.”
“My dear mother, you mistake me.”
“Oh, dear me, no, Hazel. I may be a poor, suffering, weak woman, but I have not lived to my years through trouble and tribulation without being able to read a young girl’s heart. That silk is old-fashioned now, I know, but it is quite good enough for the purpose, and yet has sufficient tone about it, having been made by a first-class dressmaker, to let the inspector see that you are a lady.”
“My dear mother,” began Hazel.
“Now, don’t interrupt me, Hazel. I do not often interfere, but there are times, as I told Mr Lambent when he called last, when I feel bound to make some little corrections in your ways. You must let Her Majesty’s inspector see that you are a lady, and who knows what may happen! He may be so struck by the fact that he finds a real lady in charge of this school that he will feel bound to make you an offer of marriage. Mr Lambent assured me that he was a very gentlemanly man and tolerably young. By-the-way, Hazel, have you noticed how very kind and attentive Mr Lambent is?”
“Yes, mother. He is very good and considerate, and thanked me yesterday for the efforts I have made with the school.”
“Quite right; so he ought. But as I was saying about Her Majesty’s inspector, you must let him see that you are a lady by birth and education.”
“My dear mother, I think the inspector must find that the majority of schoolmistresses are ladylike, and of course highly educated.”
“I am talking about my daughter,” said Mrs Thorne, who had great difficulty in getting her cap-strings to lie flat. “I wish you to impress upon him, Hazel, that you are a lady; in fact I feel it to be my duty to speak to him myself.”
“My dearest mother!”
“Now, pray do not be so rash and impetuous, my dear,” said the lady, bridling. “The best way would be to ask him to come into the drawing-room and hand him a little refreshment—a glass of wine and a biscuit.”
“But you forget that we are living in a cottage now. The inspector will be staying with Mr Lambent and he will get what refreshment—”
“Hazel, don’t be obstinate. I know what I am saying. Oh no, I don’t forget that I am living in a mean and sordid cottage with contemptible windows,” she cried, with an irritating shake of the head, and a querulous ring in her voice that jarred to Hazel’s heart. “I know that this room is merely what you call a parlour by construction; but the fact of your mother—your mother occupying it, my child, makes it a drawing-room. You will put on your silk dress, Hazel?”
“No, mother; I am going to put on the clean grasscloth,” said Hazel quietly. “The other would be unsuitable for the school, and the dark silk would show the dust and chalk.”
“Was ever woman troubled with such a wilful girl before!” moaned Mrs Thorne. “Oh, dear me!—oh, dea-ar me!”
She declined to be comforted, and Hazel remained obstinate absolutely refusing to go to the school in silk attire, but wearing an extremely simple, closely-fitting, grasscloth dress, with plain white collar and cuffs, and looking dreadful—so Miss Lambent afterwards said to her sister; a prejudiced statement, for if ever there was an exemplification of the proverb regarding the needlessness of foreign ornament it was in Hazel Thorne’s appearance that day.
As a rule she was disposed to be pale, but the excitement consequent upon the important event had brought the colour into her cheeks, and she looked brighter than she had for months.
Mr Chute’s flowers were on the sills of the windows, the room had been well sprinkled and swept, there was not a vestige of a cobweb to be seen, and the girls had assembled in strong force, there having been a theory in the school that an inspection meant tea and cake afterwards, a theory that Feelier Potts, basing her remarks on experience, strongly opposed; but the children mustered all the same, and in many cases suffering a good deal from hair oil, applied so that patches of their foreheads shone and invited comparison with the rest of their faces.
Mr William Forth Burge was one of the first arrivals, and he paused with his sister upon the doorstep, to unfold a clean orange silk handkerchief, and have a loud blow, like a knight of old seizing the bugle at the castle-gate.
“How nice you do look, Bill!” said little Miss Burge, smiling at him tenderly, as she raised her hand to the latch.
“Do I, Betsey! Am I all right! Do I look well!”
“Beautiful!” said Miss Burge enthusiastically. “There ain’t a wrinkle about your back, nor sides, nor nowhere.”
“That’s right!” he exclaimed. “I was rather afraid, for they’re precious tight, Betsey; and the coat feels as if it would give way about the arms.”
“But see how it shows off your figure, Bill dear,” said the little lady; “and you are getting a bit too stout.”
“Ye-es, I s’pose I am; but it don’t matter, Betsey, so long as the ’art’s in the right place. Come along.”
They entered, and their greeting to Hazel was very warm. Soon after there was a buzz of voices heard outside, when the colour disappeared from the cheeks of the young mistress, for she knew that the crucial time had come. There was a sharp tapping at the door directly afterwards, and one of the elder girls went to open it, Hazel continuing her work with the classes, in support of the very old fiction that the inspector would come and take school and scholars quite by surprise.
Then the door was thrown open, and a little scene enacted on the threshold, the ladies drawing back to allow so important a personage as Her Majesty’s inspector to enter first, and Mr Slingsby Barracombe drawing back in turn with the vicar, to allow Miss Lambent and her sister to take precedence.
After a little hesitation, and a few words, the ladies entered, smiling, the gentlemen followed, and Hazel advanced to meet them, when there was the sound of wheels, a carriage stopped, steps were let down, and George Canninge handed out his mother, walked with her to the school, and entered.
Salutations, introductions, and a buzz of conversation followed, during which time Hazel felt in agony. Why had Mr Canninge come? she asked herself. She did not know why, but his presence unnerved her, and she dreaded disgracing herself in his eyes.
“We thought we should like to be present,” said the young squire. “I hope Mr Barracombe will not consider us in the way.”
On the contrary, he was delighted to see present any of the patrons of the school, and said so as soon as he knew the social status of the Canninges; after which he asked to be excused, smiled, bowed, and turned to the task he had in hand. Then George Canninge shook hands warmly “with those dreadfully vulgar folks, the Burges,” as Mrs Canninge said, while she kept an eye upon her son and the schoolmistress in turn.
As a rule the Rev. Henry Lambent was the great man at the schools, but upon this occasion he sank into a very secondary position, following the inspector with a stiff kind of deference, as Mr Slingsby Barracombe raised his glasses to his eyes, balanced them upon his nose, looked at Hazel gravely for a few moments, and then bowed formally without a word, before taking off his glasses and holding them behind him with both hands as if they were hot, while he marched about the school.
National school children are at such times supposed to be all intent upon their lessons, and never to raise their eyes to look at visitors, especially such an awe-inspiring personage as an inspector; but it would be just as reasonable to expect a pinch of steel filings to refrain from turning towards a magnet plunged in their midst. Certainly the girls in Hazel Thorne’s charge followed the inspector, their eyes taking in every movement and Feelier Potts’s malicious features almost involuntarily moulding themselves into an excellent imitation of the peculiarities of his face.
When Mr Barracombe had solemnly walked round the school once, with the Reverend Henry Lambent hat in hand, behind him, and the other visitors forming themselves into a deferential audience, who watched him as if he were going through some wonderful performance, he said, with a loud expiration of his breath—
“Hah!” an ejaculation that might mean anything, and one that committed him to naught.
“Is—ah, this your first class. Miss—ah—ah—”
“Thorne,” said Hazel quietly. “No, sir, this is the second.”
“Thorne, ah—exactly. Yes, I see—ah. Yes, needlework—ah. Stand.”
The girls in the first class stood up smartly, and Feelier Potts’s thimble flew off, went tinkling across the floor, and was flattened beneath one of Ann Straggalls’s big feet.
“Oh, you see if I don’t serve you out for that,” began Feelier loudly, her face scarlet with rage.
“Hush! silence! How dare you, child?”
“Well, but she’s squeedged it flat.”
“Silence, girl!” exclaimed the inspector indignantly. “Back to your place.”
Hazel turned crimson as she hurriedly took Feelier Potts by the arm, and in her excitement and dread of a scene, knowing as she did the fearless nature of the girl, she said softly—
“Be a good girl, Ophelia, and I will give you a new thimble.”
There was quite a sensation during this little episode. Miss Lambent whispering to her sister, who nodded and shook her head, Mrs Canninge looking with raised eyebrows at the first class through her gold-rimmed glasses, and little Miss Burge furiously shaking her fat forefinger at “that naughty child.” There was a hearty laugh on its way to George Canninge’s lips, but, seeing the pain the chatter was causing Hazel, he checked his mirth and remained serious.
Mr Barracombe seemed to be in doubt as to whether he ought not to expel Feelier Potts there and then, and as she resumed her place he frowned at her severely, the culprit looking up at him with a most mild and innocent aspect, till he turned his gaze upon another pupil, when Feelier began nodding at Ann Straggalls and uttering whispered menaces of what she would do as soon as they were out of school.
Then all eyes were turned to the inspector, who unfolded some printed blue papers, and after coughing to clear his voice, searched in his waistcoat pocket, and brought out a gold pencil-case, which required a good deal of screwing about before it would condescend to mark. Having pinched his nose between his glasses, he commenced examining the needlework, of which he was evidently a good judge, and doubtless knew the difference between hemming, stitching, tacking, herring-boning, and the other mysterious processes by which cloth, calico, and other woven fabrics are held together.
Then there was an entry made upon the blue paper, and the inspector looked severely through his glasses at Ann Straggalls.
“Can you tell me, my good girl, how many yards of long-cloth would be required for a full-sized shirt?”
Ann Straggalls allowed her jaw to drop and stood staring hard at the querist for a few moments, and then, like that certain man in the scriptural battle, she drew a bow at a venture, but she failed to hit the useful under garment in question, for she eagerly replied “twelve.”
“Next girl,” said the inspector.
“Eight.”
“Next girl.”
“Sixteen.”
“Next.”
“Twenty.”
“Next. How many yards of long-cloth would be required for a full-sized shirt?”
The next was Feelier Potts, whose eyes were twinkling as she answered—
“Mother always makes father’s of calico.”
“Very good, my girl; then tell me how many yards it would take.”
“Night shirt or day shirt?” cried Feelier sharply.
“Day shirt,” replied the inspector severely; and George Canninge became red in the face as the disposition to laugh grew stronger.
“Wouldn’t take half so much to make one for my brother Tom as it would for—”
“Silence!” exclaimed the inspector, and Feelier Potts pretended to look very much alarmed, drawing her eyes together towards her nose and nearly making Ann Straggalls titter as the inspector stooped for a fresh entry.
Hazel’s attention was here taken up by another class, for, being left unattended, the girls began to grow restive.
“Now,” said the inspector, “I will ask you another question, my good girls. Can any one tell me what proportion the gusset bears to the whole shirt? The girl who knows put out her hand.”
Miss Rebecca had been hoping that Mr Slingsby Barracombe would enter upon some other branch of education; but he clung to the needlework, and smiled approvingly as half-a-dozen, and then two more hands were thrust out.
“Well,” he said, “suppose you tell me.”
“Three yards,” said the first girl.
“You do not apprehend my question, my good child,” said the inspector blandly. “I asked what proportion the gusset bore to the whole of the shirt.”
“Please, sir, I know, sir,” said Feelier Potts, who was standing with her hand pointing straight at the visitor.
“Then tell us,” said the inspector, smiling.
“Four yards!” cried Feelier triumphantly.
“I said what proportion, my good girl; do you not know what I mean by proportion?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, what!”
“Rule o’ three sums, same as boys learn.”
“Tut-tut-tut! this is very sad,” said the inspector, shaking his head, a motion that seemed to be infectious, for it was taken up by Miss Rebecca, communicated to Miss Beatrice, and then caught up by little Miss Burge, whose head-shaking was, however, meant to be in sympathy with Hazel.
“I wish he’d let me ask the girls some queshtuns, Betsey,” whispered Mr William Forth Burge, as he saw the inspector’s pencil going; “I could make them answer better than that.”
But the visitor had no intention of choosing a deputy, and he went on asking several more questions of a similar class, relating to cutting out and making up, not one of which produced a satisfactory answer; and the vicar looked very grave as he saw entries that he knew to be unfavourable made with the gold pencil-case.
Then the girls had to read, and got on better; but as soon as the inspector began to ask scriptural questions the class appeared to have run wild, and the answers were of the most astonishing nature. Simple matters of knowledge that they knew perfectly the day before, seemed to have passed entirely out of the girls’ minds, and they guessed and answered at random. Sometimes a correct reply was given, but whenever it came to the turn of Feelier Potts, if she did happen to know, she managed to pervert the answer.
She told the inspector in the most unblushing manner that during the plagues of Egypt the children of Israel suffered from fleas, and had rice in all their four quarters. Corrected upon this, she asserted that these same people crossed the Red Sea on a dry day. The class was asked why Moses struck the rock, and Feelier whispered an answer to Ann Straggalls, who eagerly replied—“Because it was naughty.” Due to the same mischief-loving brain, another girl asserted that the ark of the covenant contained Shem, Ham, and Japhet; that it was a pillar of salt that went before the wanderers in the desert; and that it was the manna that was swallowed up during the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
Taken altogether, the children did not shine in Scripture history.
Slates were passed round with a good deal of clatter, and then a question was propounded.
“How many pounds of butter at one-and-fourpence per pound can I buy for eight shillings?”
Ann Straggalls, after a great deal of staring at the ceiling and biting at her pencil, proved it to be forty. Feelier Potts rapidly dashed the pencil to her slate, screwed up her forehead, and made some figures, finishing off by carefully watching that no other girl should see, and smiling triumphantly at those who had not finished; but when it came to show slates, Feelier displayed a large pound with the figure 2 following certain other figures, which did not show how she had arrived at this result.
“This is very sad,” said the inspector. “My good children, you cannot properly apprehend my questions. Do you know what I mean by ‘apprehend’?”
Out flew Feelier Potts’s hand like a semaphore, and she pointed straight at the top button of the inspector’s waistcoat.
“I—ah, don’t think, my good child, that you know,” said the inspector. “You answer at random.”
“No, sir, plee, sir; I know, sir.”
“Know what? What did I ask?”
“Plee, sir, what ‘apprehend’ means. I know, sir.”
“Good girl; quite right,” said the inspector, smiling, “Tell us, then, what ‘apprehend’ means.”
“Policeman taking up tipsy man,” cried Feelier excitedly.
George Canninge could not resist this, but burst out into a hearty roar of laughter, and then turned his back, for Feelier Potts was at once struck with the idea that she had said something good, and joined in the mirth, till she caught the inspector’s eye glaring at her balefully, when the laughter froze stiff and she began to squint so horribly that Mr Slingsby Barracombe turned away in disgust to say to the vicar—
“Most extraordinary child this!”
George Canninge’s laughter came to an end also very suddenly, for, as he stood wiping his eyes, he found that Hazel Thorne was looking in his direction with so much pain and annoyance expressed in her countenance that he bit his lips, and his eyes said plainly, if she could have read the glance, “Pray forgive me; it was very foolish.”
Just then the inspector took out another sheet of paper, and moved on to a different class, that which Hazel had been keeping in order, and here, in due rotation, he tried the children in the various subjects they had been learning with a most melancholy effect. The timid children he seemed to freeze; others he puzzled by his peculiar way of asking questions; while, again, others he made stare at him in a way that plainly indicated that they did not understand a word he said.
Mr Barracombe, however, paid little heed to this, but went on putting queries, and making notes most industriously, while the sisters stood tightening their lips, till George Canninge came and joined them, when Beatrice, who had been growing more and more acid every minute, began to beam once more, and made remarks to him about the school.
“I am so sorry that the children are answering in this absurd way. I take great interest in the schools, and come down and teach, so that it seems like a reflection upon me.”
“They don’t understand him,” said George Canninge impatiently.
“I’m afraid they do,” replied Beatrice quickly, for she could not resist the temptation to say something unpleasant, “but they are so backward.” She meant to have said “badly taught,” but hesitated at the last moment.
“Well, what can you expect?” said Canninge. “The inspector asks too much of children of their class. Why, they could not answer his questions in a first-class school.”
“But this is a first-class school, Mr Canninge,” cried Rebecca sharply.
“Hush, dear; Mr Barracombe is asking the second class some geography questions;” and as they listened they caught the end of an inquiry about the Ouse—its source, tributaries course, and the chief towns upon its banks.
“Well, hang me if I could tell him,” said Canninge; “and I shall be surprised if the children do.”
He was not surprised, for no satisfactory answer came. The children told the inspector the capital of England readily enough, and the names of the principal rivers; but his way was so strange to them that for the most part the little things did not comprehend his questions, and Hazel’s heart sank as she sighed for the apparent density that had fallen upon the different classes.
Everything went badly: the writing from dictation was terrible, and the sentences made of the words read out by the inspector were horribly void of meaning. The Reverend Henry Lambent’s face grew more troubled, the ladies whispered together, and the buzz of the school seemed to Hazel to make her dizzy, as she strove hard, with her nerves strained by excitement, to keep the different classes in order, while every time she thought of the ordeal that had to come, she turned sick with misery, and longed for the end of the day.
“I should like to punch his ’ead, Betsey,” whispered Mr William Forth Burge at last. “What’s the good of asking them children a queshtun like that! They can’t make out a word he says.”
“Hush! Don’t interfere, Bill. It might make Miss Thorne more nervous. Pore dear, she do look bad.”
“I don’t know as I shan’t interfere,” whispered back the great man of Plumton. “I consider that I’ve got a bit of a voice in this school, and I don’t see no fun in this chap going away saying that everything’s wrong when I know it ain’t. How can he tell, just coming strange among the bairns, and asking a few queshtuns anyhow like! If they don’t answer ’em he sets it down they can’t, when I know all the time they can.”
“But you’ll make it worse for Miss Thorne,” whispered little Miss Burge; “and she’s worried to death as it is.”
“Well, I don’t want to do that,” he said sulkily; and he held his tongue whilst class after class was examined, even those children who were tried in catechism mixing the answers up in the most absurd way, or staring helplessly in the speaker’s face.
“I don’t care,” whispered Mr William Forth Burge at last; “he don’t know how to ask queshtuns, and for two pins I’d tell him so; now then.”
“Oh don’t, Bill dear; it would not be gentlemanly. Pray do be quiet.”
“Look here, then; if Lambent asks me up to dinner to meet that chap, I shan’t go.”
“Hush, Bill! She’s going to give the girls, a hobject lesson.”
For the crucial time had come, and about forty of the elder girls had been faced and marched into the gallery to sit opposite their teacher, while the visitors rearranged themselves—the Misses Lambent with an air of long-suffering, the vicar with an air of intense trouble upon his face, while Mrs Canninge looked vexed, and the Burges disappointed and cross.
The inspector seated himself at one of the desks and commenced a fresh sheet of paper, while, saving the subdued buzz in the various classes, a painful stillness was in the room, and Hazel felt her heart throb heavily, and plainly heard its beats.
She took a simple subject, and began in a low, trembling voice, which sounded pained and husky, while the intensity of her nervousness was patent to all present; but after she had been going on for a minute or two, to her great relief George Canninge rose and left the schoolroom.
The girls were beginning to answer better now, and Hazel felt her courage rise a little; but her heart sank and she began to tremble again as she heard the door open once more, a step crossing the floor, and coming to where she was speaking. The next moment George Canninge said—
“One moment, Miss Thorne. You are hoarse and tired.”
As he spoke there was the pleasant gurgle of cold water being poured into a glass, and Beatrice turned pale with the rush of blood to her heart as she saw the young squire thoughtfully hand the glass to Hazel, who took it, giving him a grateful glance as she did so, and then drank the refreshing fluid with avidity.
“I will take the glass,” he said in the most quiet, matter-of-fact way; and then Hazel felt as if a new spirit had been sent into her veins. It was so gentle and thoughtful an act, coming as it did when she was faint and sick with the heat and agitation; and, turning to her classes, she felt a strength within her that seemed to her astonishing.
She went on with the lesson, and her faltering voice grew stronger, her questions clearer and more incisive; she described and painted in vivid colours to the children the object she had made the theme of her lesson; and in another few moments as if by a sympathetic touch, the children were en rapport with her; their young cheeks flushed, their eyes were full of eagerness, and there was an excited burst of answers every time she spoke, clearer and brighter and plainer. Word-painting in the simplest and cleverest touches, simplicity and yet vivid colouring. The teacher had forgotten self, the nervousness had gone, and a quarter of an hour passed rapidly by as Hazel, in her ambition to prove that the children over whom she had worked so hard were not the dunces they had seemed, explained her subject, making it geographical, historical, and orthographical as well, till when at last, after an admirable finish, she stood there flushed, her eyes brightened and turned to the inspector as if to ask for further commands, Mr William Forth Burge “forgot himself”—so Miss Lambent afterwards put it—for he burst out with a hearty—
“Brayvo! brayvo! brayvo!” clapping his hands loudly; and this infected George Canninge, who joined in the applause.
“A capital lesson,” he said aloud; “a capital lesson, indeed.”
Mr Lambent smiled, and bowed to Hazel, saying softly—
“Very good indeed.”
“Ah—yes,” said the inspector, rising; “I must say—a very good lesson. Miss Thorne; and I hope by the time I come again I may find the girls considerably advanced. At present—I will say no more. Good morning.”
There was a polite procession formed, and the visitors slowly passed through the door, the gentlemen seeing the ladies off first, but not until little Miss Burge had trotted back to whisper to Hazel—
“You did it beautiful, my dear,” and then hurried away.
Hazel hardly grasped her words, for George Canninge had turned to bow as he went out, and the glance he then gave set her trembling as she stood with one hand resting upon the desk; for it seemed to her that every one must have seen that look, and she began to ask herself if she was mad to let that man’s presence fill her with thoughts that seemed to agitate her strangely.