I found the winter term at "The Hollies" differed in many respects from the summer one. We no longer drank the waters at the pretty little well, and I greatly missed the morning run over the fields. It was now too cold to study in our bedrooms, and evening preparation was held in the school-room under the strict eyes of Miss Percy. When the weather permitted we played hockey, but there were many days when it was considered too wet for us to go out, and we were obliged to take what exercises we could in the play-room. A new feature of our school-life with which we had not hitherto been acquainted consisted of the Saturday receptions, which were held during the winter evenings to supply the place of the weekly cricket matches we had enjoyed in the summer-time. It was part of Mrs. Marshall's system to form our manners and fit us for good society, therefore these "At Homes" were very solemn affairs, conducted with all the ceremony of a genuine party, though none of the enjoyment. At half-past six o'clock, attired in white frocks and our best hair-ribbons, we were received in state in the drawing-room, each girl being duly announced in her turn by the parlour-maid. How I have shivered with nervousness when "Miss Philippa Seaton" was called out, and I was bound to advance with becoming grace, and shake hands elegantly with Mrs. Marshall, her critical eye upon my demeanour, and her censorious tongue ready with comment if my unlucky elbows protruded, or my hand did not give the exact warmth of pressure required!
When we were all seated, Mrs. Marshall would start a general conversation upon some topic, notice of which had been given out previously, and we were each supposed to come primed with some intelligent remarks upon it. It was horribly difficult to think of anything new and original to say, especially as your best ideas were liable to be anticipated by someone else airing them first, leaving you racking your brains for any observation to contribute, however stale and commonplace. I remember upon one occasion the subject was botany. Most of the girls said something pretty about flowers and gardens. Janet quoted Wordsworth, and Cathy scored by mentioning exogens and endogens with an air of much knowledge. Mrs. Marshall at length turned to me.
"Cannot you give a fresh direction to the conversation, Philippa?" she asked. "We have spoken so much already of blossoms in spring-time, of pressed wild-flowers, hot-houses, and the beauties of Kew Gardens. It is surely possible to treat the subject from a different stand-point."
There seemed to be nothing left. The topic, to my mind, was plainly exhausted, but I was bound to hazard some remark. In my desperation I ventured:
"Botany Bay is a place in New South Wales where criminals used to be sent. Many of the principal families of Australia are descended from them."
A shudder ran through the room. Though I did not know it at the time, Mrs. Marshall had been born in Australia, and I could not have uttered a more deliberate insult. She flushed a little, and glanced at me keenly. I think she either realized my complete ignorance, or thought it wiser to ignore the allusion.
"Not quite to the point, my dear," she replied with dignity. "It is well to keep strictly to our subject. I had thought you would have been ready with some remark upon the orchids of your South American forests, or the orange plantations which I have heard you mention. But here comes the coffee. Doris, it is your turn to pour out to-night!"
To hand and receive the cups prettily, and to sit drinking them in graceful attitudes, was part of our evening discipline; and to us a very severe one, for Mrs. Marshall was hard to satisfy, and to clink your tea-spoon or to flop into a chair was a desperate offence. She herself was a tall, elegant woman, erect and stately, with a habit of swimming into the room, and a measured way of speaking, as if each word had been prepared beforehand. The abrupt school-girl type of conversation she would not tolerate, and our sentences must be as carefully chosen as her own. A girl who had spoken slang in her presence would, I believe, almost have been threatened with expulsion. I sometimes think her training made our manners too studied and artificial, but her system was a reaction against the free-and-easy and often ungracious style which was current in many other large schools of the day. After coffee, Mrs. Marshall would ask for a little music, and we were obliged to take it in turns to play, the lot falling to each girl about once a month. How I hated the pieces which I solemnly practised for these weekly evenings, and in what an agony of nervousness my trembling fingers stumbled through the performance! If I could have bidden the company leave the room, I think I might have acquitted myself better, but to discourse sweet strains with Mrs. Marshall's eye upon me, my music-mistress sitting close by, and an audience of critical school-mates listening, was an ordeal from which many a girl might shrink. The programme was varied by a few songs and recitations, and at half past-eight we all filed out, each in her turn saying good-bye, and thanking Mrs. Marshall for a pleasant evening, a courtesy which I always felt to be most insincere, since I was sure that neither she nor ourselves had enjoyed it in the least.
At the end of the term a large conversazione was held, to which many friends interested in the school were invited, and when we were expected to put into practice those lessons in manners and deportment which were drilled into us during the Saturday evening "At Homes". We tried our honest best to be pleasant little hostesses, and the visitors were indulgent, but I often think we must have afforded them much amusement by our "improving conversation".
"It always makes me feel so bad, I want to scream, or do something outlandishly improper," said Janet. "Mrs. Marshall set me to talk to old Canon Wavertree, and I simply longed to ask him if his waistcoat buttoned at the back, and whether he could fasten the middle button himself, and how he managed to shave into the creases of such a very double chin. Instead of that, I had to look polite and proper while he talked about butter-making. It was such an absurd subject for him to choose, and the worst of it was I thought he said 'batter', instead of 'butter', and so we got completely at cross purposes. I declared we always put eggs in it at home, and he seemed to think I was half an idiot!"