Chapter Eight.

For a moment the six girls retained their former positions, staring with blank, expressionless faces at the new comer. Then Mary Webster, the eldest of the “Currant Buns,” advanced with outstretched hand, followed by her two younger sisters.

“How do you do?”

“So glad to see you.”

“So glad—”

“Very glad—”

The murmurs died into silence, while Dreda smiled a radiant encouragement.

“Quite well, thank you. But rather cold. May we poke the fire? My feet—”

She tapped expressively on the floor, whereupon Mary Webster poked discreetly at the fire and Susan, the youngest of the sisters, pushed a chair into the cosiest corner. The other three girls had come forward by this time, and introduced themselves in due form.

“How do you do? I’m Barbara Moore. It’s hateful to be a new girl!”

“How do you do? I’m Norah Grey. Sorry you’re cold.”

“How do you do? I’m Nancy. Tell me truthfully—Do you snore?”

Dreda laughed gaily.

“Sometimes—when I lie on my back. I do it on purpose, because you dream such thrilling dreams. And I yell horribly when I come to the bad bits.”

“Something will have to be done!” said Nancy, darkly. She was the girl with the band over her front teeth. It was ugly, but fascinating; one felt constrained to look at it, and looking at it could not help noticing how curved and red were the lips, how darkly lashed the long grey eyes. Nancy was evidently a person to be reckoned with. She sat herself down by the fire, stretched out her feet to the blaze, and appeared to be lost in thought. Dreda longed to talk to her, to inquire what she meant by that mysterious “something,” but the “Currant Buns” were clustering round her, regarding her with anxiously proprietary airs as if, having the honour of a personal acquaintance, it was their due to receive the first attention. Dreda felt quite like a celebrity, on the point of being interviewed by a trio of reporters; but as usual she preferred to play the part of questioner herself.

“Were you doing prep when I came in? What classes are you taking to-day? I feel as if I’ve forgotten everything. One always does in the holidays, doesn’t one? Such a bore having to grind through it all again. Seems such a waste of time.”

“Have you a bad memory? Miss Drake, our English governess, is especially clever at developing the powers of memory. And holiday tasks are so useful, too; don’t you find them so? It is impossible to forget, if one has to study for an elaborate thesis.”

“The—what?” questioned Dreda blankly. “But whoever does study in the holidays? I don’t! If you did, they wouldn’t be holidays. So stupid! Holidays are for rest and fun. Bad enough to have lessons for two-thirds of the year. One’s brain must have some rest!”

She ended on quite an indignant note, and her companions stared at her with a mingling of admiration and dismay. Such a vivid bit of colouring had not been seen for many a long day in that neutral-tinted room. Yellow hair, pink cheeks, red lips, blue dress—she was positively dazzling to behold. The two younger Miss Websters appeared absorbed in admiration, but the eldest and cleverest-looking of the three pursed up her lips with an air of disapproval and said primly:

“It depends upon one’s idea of rest, doesn’t it? Leisure may mean only a time of amusement, but it’s a rather poor conception of the word. The ancient Greeks understood by it a time of congenial work, as distinguished from work which they were obliged to do. Their necessary work was undertaken in order that they might obtain a time of leisure, but when it came, instead of wasting it in foolish and passing amusement, they used it to strengthen their intellect and to store up ennobling thoughts.”

“How did they do that, pray?” Dreda put the question with the air of one launching a poser, but Mary Webster showed no signs of discomfiture.

“They used to meet together in little companies, and discuss the deepest and most important topics of the day—”

“I expect they gossiped horribly!”

“And they watched the dramas—”

“I call that amusement! I wouldn’t mind doing that myself.”

“But the Greek dramas were not light and vapid like modern plays. They dealt with serious subjects, and the audience often used to commit the words to memory as a mental exercise.”

Dreda yawned.

“Ah, well,” she conceded indulgently, “it’s a long while ago! One mustn’t be hard on them, poor dears, for they knew no better. I don’t approve of girls bothering their heads about ancient Greeks. Boys have to, for examinations, but if we want to grow up nice, domesticated women it’s better to learn modern things, and leave those old fusties alone. They do one no good.”

The girls stared at her in stunned surprise. Agnes, the second Webster, dropped her chin to an abnormal length; the youngest, Susan, bit nervously at her lips; Mary cleared her throat and showed signs of returning to the attack, but Dreda was already tired of the subject, and made a diversion by leaping from her seat and approaching the table where piles of blue-covered exercise books were neatly arranged at intervals of about a yard apart.

“Let me look at your books, and see what you are doing! I didn’t bring any books till I saw what you used. I expect they will be the same. All school books are. I’ve got the ones Rowena used.” She broke off, staring with dismay at the underlined questions which met her eye in one of Agnes’s neatly written books:

“Characterise the work of Praxiteles, comparing it with that of Phidias.”

“Describe the Caryatids of the Erectheum.”

“More Greeks! How awful! You seem saturated in Greece.” She threw down the book impatiently and took up another. “Write a short essay on Chaucer (I know Chaucer!) and his times (When did he live? Ages ago, I know, for he couldn’t spell), dwelling on (1) the state of society as shown by the attitude of Wycliffe to the Pope, and the higher clergy; (2) the peasants’ revolt”—Dreda looked round with horrified eyes. “What a thing! Do you often have essays like that? Your governess must be a man in disguise!”

“She is exceedingly clever and well read, and a most interesting and original teacher.”

“Humph!—I prefer the old school! Our governess gives us essays on Spring, and Happiness, and quotations from poetry. They are far better, for if you don’t know anything, you can make it up. You know the sort of thing. ‘One has often felt—’ ‘Should we not all—’ ‘At this season of the year our hearts overflow—’ I assure you I have often sat down not knowing what on earth I was going to say, and have written pages! That’s far better for you than learning dull facts about people who were dead and buried hundreds of years ago, because it exercises your imagination and resource, and they are so useful for a woman. Now, just suppose you were married, and a lot of dull people were coming to dinner—it would help you awfully if you’d been trained to make conversation out of nothing! And supposing you suddenly found that there was nothing to eat, and you had to make a dinner out of scraps—what would be most useful to you then, Greek history or a good, resourceful brain?”

Mary and Agnes stared aghast, but the sound of a snigger came from the fireplace where Susan stood meekly in the background, and a moment later a ringing laugh drew all eyes to the doorway where stood a tall, bright-haired girl, whose white teeth gleamed pleasantly through her parted lips.

“Bravo!” she cried gaily. “Bravo, my new pupil! Very adroitly argued. But suppose now that one of your dull diners happened to be an enthusiast about Greece, and that its glories were the only subject on which he was prepared to talk! Suppose he spoke of the ‘Caryatids,’ for example, and you had no idea what the word meant—how would you keep up your share of the conversation?”

“Quite easily. I’d say—‘Really! How very interesting! Pray do go on!’ Then he’d be charmed. People always are charmed to go on talking,” declared Dreda smiling back with the utmost frankness into the face of this bright, friendly stranger.

So this was the English governess of whose cleverness and accomplishments she had heard so much! She looked quite young—ridiculously young; not many years older than Rowena herself. Dreda had expected to see an elderly, spectacled dame, thin and spare, with scant locks dragged tightly back from her face. In the dark depression of her spirits she had thought it possible that she might even wear knitted mittens, and have cotton wool in her ears. Never for a moment had it occurred to her that an accomplished finishing governess could be young and pretty!

To judge from Miss Drake’s expression she was experiencing very much the same pleasure in the sight of her new pupil, for her eyes brightened visibly as she looked Dreda up and down, down and up, with a keen, intent scrutiny. She laughed as she heard the girl’s answer, and replied easily:

“That’s quite true, Etheldreda. I am myself! That’s one of the reasons which induced me to work—for unless one is contented to play the part of hearer through life, it really is worth the trouble to store up a little general knowledge, so that one may talk as interestingly as possible. Lessons may seem dull and unnecessary at the time, but they are useful afterwards! Now, girls, take your places! Etheldreda shall sit here on my left, and I will read over the syllabus for this term’s study, and draw out a timetable. As we come to each fresh subject I will show you our books, Etheldreda, and we will see if they are the same as those which you have been using, and how far you have progressed. I expect we shall be able to work along together, even if there is a little space to be gulfed on either side.”

“Please!” cried the new pupil earnestly, “don’t call me Etheldreda. Nobody ever does except when I’m in disgrace, and it’s so long and proper. I’m always Dreda at home.”

“Dreda, then! It is more get-at-able. Well, now, Dreda, take a pen and write down our syllabus in this book. I like my pupils to have a clear idea of the work ahead.”

Dreda settled herself complacently to the task, but as she wrote her face grew ever longer and longer. What subjects were there which she was supposed to study? Political economy—she had not the vaguest idea of what it meant! Physiology—that was something horrid about one’s body, which ought properly to be left to nurses and doctors! Zoology—animals! She knew everything that she wanted to know about animals already; how to feed and tend them, and make them tame and friendly. She could not love them half so much if she were obliged to worry herself learning stupid names half a yard long, which no ordinary human creature understood! Latin—Algebra—Astronomy. She glanced round the table and beheld Mary and Agnes and Susan scribbling away with unruffled composure. No sign of alarm could be traced on their calm, bun-like countenances, the longest words flowed from their pens as if such a thing as difficulty in spelling did not exist. Dreda looked for a moment over Mary’s shoulder, and beheld her writing a diphthong without so much as turning a hair.

A chilly feeling crept up her spine; her heart seemed to stop beating, then at the next moment thudded violently against her side. She was not going to be at the top of the class; she was to be at the bottom! Instead of leading the van, and victoriously trailing the Currant Buns in her wake, the Currant Buns would have to trail her; and a heavy, unenlightened load she would be! A stormy prospect lay ahead; straits of difficulty; seas of depression; oceans of humiliation. Pride, and pride alone, prevented Dreda from laying down her head on the dingy brown tablecloth and bursting into tears. Alas, alas! for the happy, easy days of History, Geography, and Arithmetic, with the old-fashioned Spider. Alas for the finishing joys of Madame Clerc’s select academy, where the young ladies were taken about to see the sights of Paris, with no other restriction on their pleasure seeking but that on one and all occasions they should amuse themselves in French!

It grew wearisome to make ever the same reply to Miss Drake’s question. “No, she had never studied that subject.”

“No, she had never seen this book.” Mary stared unblushingly with her little dark eyes. Agnes dropped her chin until it looked twice its natural length, Susan flicked over the pages of her exercises and appeared absorbed in their contents. Nancy smiled a furtive smile.

“No,” cried Dreda desperately. “No, I know nothing about it! I—I have been educated on quite different lines—I think I had better go on as I have begun. I don’t want to keep back the whole class. Let the others go on as usual, and leave me out. I can join in for the ordinary subjects.”

“Nonsense, Dreda. Nothing of the sort. We take up each subject afresh at the beginning of the term, and if you work hard you will be able to manage quite well. It is better to make a little push to keep in this form than to go into a lower one with younger girls, and less interesting work. I am not unreasonable. I shall not expect miracles; do your best, and we’ll help you on. I think you had better have a special coach to whom you can apply if you want help or explanation in your preparation. Now which of you girls would like to be Dreda’s coach, and spare her a little time when it is needed?”

There was a simultaneous rustle of assent, but two voices spoke first, breaking the silence at identically the same moment.

“I!” cried Susan.

“Me!” cried Nancy.

Miss Drake smiled. “Oh, Nancy, Nancy!” she cried gaily; “a nice person you would be to coach another! Better give a little more attention to your own grammar, my dear. Very well, Susan, that is settled. You shall be Dreda’s coach!”

Dreda and Susan looked at each other across the table in silence. Susan saw flushed cheeks and eyes suspiciously bright. Dreda stared in amazement, asking herself how it could be that anyone so much like the two elder sisters could at the same time be so diametrically different. Mary and Agnes were unusually plain, heavy-looking girls, but in Susan’s face there was at this moment, a light of sympathy which made it strangely attractive. She possessed the family features, the family eyes, but Nature had evidently been prejudiced on her behalf and had given with a more generous hand. An extra shade of darkness on the eyebrows, an extra dip to the nose, a tiny curl to the lips, a tilt of the chin—these were trifles in themselves, but what an amazing improvement when taken in bulk! Dreda gazed and gazed, and as she did so there came to her one of those delightful experiences which most of us encounter once or twice as we go through life. As she met this strange girl’s glance, a thrill of recognition ran through her veins; a voice in her heart cried, “My Friend!” and she knew just as surely as if she had been told in words that at the same moment Susan’s heart had sounded the same glad welcome.

She said: “Thank you, Susan,” in a voice unusually subdued, and bit her lips to keep back the tears.