CHAPTER I.
“What a thing friendship is, world without end!”—Browning.
Yes, Linnæa March was the dunce of the school. She was neither pretty nor attractive, nor did she seem to wish to be either. Nobody understood Linnæa. She made friends with no one, and no one made friends with her. Even the teachers said she was a girl nothing could be done with, and concluded to leave her alone.
One new governess, Miss Golding, had brought a look of interest to the girl’s face over a story of Indian life, and had determined to follow up her advantage and make friends with this solitary pupil; but her next advance had been met with such decided coldness that Miss Golding went over to the opinion of the other teachers, that “it was best to leave Linnæa March alone.”
The truth of the matter was that Linnæa had overheard a remark from the lips of the wit of the school—“Golding is trying to cultivate the March hare. Don’t you wish she may succeed?” This name had been given her by the same girl, Marion Edwards, very soon after she came to school. Marion was not a girl who actually meant to be unkind, but she had a ready tongue, and, when she saw a chance to make a witty remark, did not trouble herself to consider anyone’s feelings.
How cruel schoolgirls are to each other without knowing it! And these were not hard-hearted girls—some of them developed into the very sweetest and best of women. Had they known or thought what a lonely life Linnæa had had, they might have taken more trouble to approach her; but it was the fashion of the school to shun her, and she certainly gave no one any encouragement to do otherwise.
No one came into Linnæa’s cubicle to discuss some little bit of gossip before going to bed; no one gave a playful tap on the wooden partition, which divided her room from the next, as was done to everyone else now and then. Friends kissed each other when they met in the morning; no one dreamed of kissing Linnæa, unless it was the governesses, who did it to all as a matter of form.
Did she miss it, do you ask?
She said vehemently to herself over and over again that she did not—she loved none of them, and wanted nobody’s love. Nobody knew it, nobody suspected it, but—ah, what a wealth of love lay dormant in that lonely heart!—what a hungering after affection that seemed doomed to be for ever denied!
She nursed and fostered an intense love for the mother she had never seen, unless in babyhood. She had been born in India, where her parents still were, and her mother had been so ill for a long time after the birth that it had been deemed wise to send the delicate baby of eighteen months home to England to be brought up by a maiden aunt, as, in any case, she must very soon, like all Anglo-Indian children, leave the trying climate. Thus Linnæa could not remember the face of her mother, but she cherished a photograph of her, and her letters were the bright spots in an otherwise colourless life.
Miss March had no love for the child committed to her care, and made no pretence of any. Her comfort and training were strictly looked after—no suspicion of neglect could be breathed—but the love which is necessary to the happiness of a child’s life was a-wanting.
“Such a very unattractive child!” Miss March described her to her acquaintances, even at times in the presence of the little girl, so that she grew up with the idea firmly rooted in her mind that she was plain, stupid, and that no one cared for her. Companions she had none—in fact, was not allowed to have—for her aunt could not tolerate any noise or disorder in her well-regulated house. Mrs. Sedley, the Rector’s wife, had invited the solitary child to come and have a romp with her lively boys and girls; but the invitation had been refused, because Miss March could not think of having them at her house in return.
Mrs. Sedley’s motherly heart was glad when she heard it had been decided that Linnæa should go to a boarding school. “She will have companions now, poor child; and lead a much brighter life than she has led here.” But the life she led now was little if any brighter than the other had been.
The first morning after her arrival in school Linnæa was introduced to her companions by Miss Elder, the principal.
“This is a new companion for you—Linnæa March. I hope you will all be friendly to her as she is a stranger yet.”
Plainly dressed to severity, her face more forbidding than usual from the fact that she felt shy but would not show it, Linnæa sat on a chair near the door, and the other girls did their duty by staring at her unmercifully.
One governess was in the room and, unfortunately, not a very judicious one. After a few minutes had passed, she looked over at the newcomer and said—
“Now, little girl, don’t look so sulky. You must put on a nice pleasant face, so that your companions will like you.”
It was an unhappy remark. Some of the more forward girls tittered, and the forlorn, lonely child felt even more isolated and friendless than she had felt in her aunt’s house.
“Come away over here,” said the governess again, “and tell us how old you are and where you come from.”
“From the Ark, I should guess!” whispered one girl, who was supposed to be witty by some—herself in particular.
Linnæa was forthwith subjected to a string of small questions, which she answered mostly in monosyllables. The whispered remark had been overheard by the sensitive child, and her heart had begun to harden towards girls and governess alike.
Some of the pupils made advances at first, but Linnæa met them all with a suspicion and distrust that chilled and disappointed. Therefore, incredible as it may seem, at the age of sixteen, and after seven years at Meldon Hall, Linnæa March was utterly without a friend in the school.