THE RISE AND FALL OF AN AMATEUR EXAMINER.
The Nabobs is, I suppose, one of the best girls' schools in England. Anyhow it is perhaps the most exclusive unless you have money enough. But, as the prospectus says, "it commands an extensive view of the English Channel," and I suppose these things have to be paid for. At all events there is no doubt that the principal, Miss Penn-Cushing, has her heart in her work and is a splendid disciplinarian, and so I sent my niece Mollie there to be finished (her mother being in India).
I have an idea at times that it is Mollie who will finish Miss Penn-Cushing, but I try to preserve a benevolent neutrality combined with a regular supply of food parcels to my niece.
Miss Penn-Cushing is LL.A. of one University and LL.B. of another, and, I think, LL.C. of a third, so that she ought to be more than a match for six Mollies.
I have always had the impression that Miss Penn-Cushing regarded me as a humble entomological specimen until the other day when she paid me a staggering compliment. She herself teaches all the English literature in her academy, and each class in turn goes up to her room to receive its daily dose. Mollie says that when she grows up she is going to give up English literature for ever and read something interesting.
I am glad that the revered Principal is never present to hear Mollie's blasphemies, at which I as an uncle have to shudder. Since the publication of The Cambridge History of English Literature Miss Penn-Cushing has been steadily absorbing it, to help her in her daily task, and has apparently reached the chapter in which is suitably acknowledged the debt of English literature to Punch.
So at least I judge, for she gave the girls a long serious talk on humour in literature, how to detect it and what should be done about it. One rather sensitive child began to cry, but Mollie, who has never kept a secret in her life and in fact loves to drag her uncle's skeletons out of cupboards, blurted out, "Uncle writes for Punch!"
I was somewhat alarmed when I heard of this, for I did not know how Miss Penn-Cushing, who keeps all the girls' uncles in order, might take it. My fears were groundless, perhaps stupid, for the immediate result was an invitation to examine Mollie's form in literature at the forthcoming Christmas examination. I felt uplifted in spirit; I felt that people were beginning to understand me. I even entertained an hallucination that perhaps Mollie might now treat my intellect with respect and stop calling me "Old dear." Three inches taller I sat down to my desk and, thanking Miss Penn-Cushing for the honour paid me, I promised I would do my best, although it would be my first appearance in the rôle.
I determined, however, not to allow this distinction to make me overbearing to my inferiors at our next speech-day. I would be affable to ordinary uncles, common parents and guardians of the other girls, but I would lead the conversation artfully on to other literary critics and examiners of the past. As a preparation I read up Matthew Arnold.
It is not easy to be an examiner, I found. I would rather write ten leading articles than one examination-paper. It appeared that I had to set themes for essays as well as questions in literature. We never learnt literature when I was young and I didn't know you could, but I borrowed a text-book from Mollie and did my best.
The result was a crushing letter from the lady principal. She said that "The Ten Points of a good Doll" seemed a preposterous subject for senior students of literature to write about, and "My Favourite Elopement in Fiction" would be outside the purview of any of her girls. She would substitute instead (with my permission), "The Debt of Literature (as well as Science) to Darwin" and "My Favourite Piece of Epic Poetry." In fine, if I did not really mind, she would herself set all the questions and I should examine the answers. She thought that the more fructiferous course.
Farmer. "Eh, Lucy, these moving stairs do be vine things vor saving volk's time."
How to mark was my chief difficulty. How many marks should one give a darling with brown eyes and a musical laugh (Mollie has brought her to tea often) who signs herself "Norah O'Brien," and winds up delightful irrelevances about Darwin and her abhorrence of reptiles with a personal appeal to the examiner. I do not know what other examiners do in such cases. It was a beautifully worded and most respectful appeal. I decided to give her forty for Norah and forty for O'Brien. Both names have always appealed to me.
This made it necessary for me to give eighty marks to her sister Kathleen, who wrote really an excellent essay on a subject we had stupidly forgotten to set. It was an excellent subject, and she has even browner eyes than Norah, but as an examiner one must be rigid and impartial.
Eunice came next. This name recalled dear memories of the past and of what might have been. But as an examiner I could not let old dreams weigh down my impartial scales, so I refused to give her more than eighty. Finally, for they are really charming girls and know far more about literature than I do, I gave eighty to everybody except Mollie, and for being Mollie I gave her eighty-two.
I forgot. There was one perfectly horrid little girl called Katie de Pinnock. She never shared her chocolates with anyone; the fact was notorious. She wrote in a copperplate hand sentiments like these: "Milton awes me; Shelley thrills me; Blake, the prophet of self-sacrifice, is ever my consolation and my guide. I ask for nothing beyond." I gave her nineteen.
And now comes the tragedy. Miss Penn-Cushing's letter of thanks was icy. She feared I had been "a thought nepotic," and (with my permission) she would revise my marks.
She dealt me the final blow at our Speech-Day. "I have decided," she gave out, "to award the first prize in Literature to Miss Katie de Pinnock. I am sure, though, that you will not be surprised to hear that Mr. Marcus O'Reilly, our examiner, was so impressed with the literary excellence of all your papers that he has presented the whole class with consolation prizes. We tender him our heartiest thanks."