CHAPTER XVIII
Mademoiselle
|
“Parlez-vous français, Mademoiselle? She opened the window, and out she fell. And what happened next I’ve never heard tell, Parlez-vous français, Mademoiselle?” |
chanted Raymonde, dancing into the dormitory and plumping down on Fauvette’s bed amid a pile of chiffons, muslins, and other flimsy articles of wearing apparel. “Why, what’s the matter, child? Whence this spread-out? You look weepy! Packing to go home? Mother ill? Or are you expelled?”
“Neither,” gulped Fauvette with a watery smile. “It’s only her—Mademoiselle! She’s turned all my drawers out on to the floor, and says I’ve got to tidy them. She lectured me hard in French. I couldn’t understand half of what she said, but I knew she was scolding. And I’ve to sort all these things out, and put them neatly away, and mend up everything that needs mending before this evening, or else she’ll tell the Bumble to come and look at them, and I shall get ‘sadly lacking in order’ down in my report again. It’s too bad!”
“It’s positively brutal of Mademoiselle!” said Raymonde reflectively. “If it had been Gibbie, now, it would have been no surprise to me. Don’t 217 cry, you little silly! You look like a weeping cherub on a monument! Shovel your clothes back again into your drawers, and put a tidy top layer. That’s what I always do!”
“So do I,” wailed Fauvette. “But it won’t work this time. Mademoiselle was really cross, and I could see she means to come to-night, and hold what she calls ‘une inspection’. She said something about making me an example. Why, if she wants an example, need she choose me?”
“It’s certainly breaking a butterfly,” agreed Raymonde. “I’m afraid there’s something seriously wrong with Mademoiselle. She’s completely altered this last week. She never used to worry about things, and she’s suddenly turned as fussy as Gibbie.”
Raymonde was not the only one who had noticed the change in the French mistress. It was apparent to everybody. Her entire character seemed suddenly to have altered. Whereas beforetime she had been easygoing, slack, and ready to shut eyes and ears to school-girl failings, she was now keenly vigilant and highly exacting. In classes and at music lessons she demanded the utmost attention, and no longer passed over mistakes, or allowed a bad accent. She prohibited the use of the English tongue altogether during meals, and insisted upon her pupils conversing in French, requiring each one to come to table primed with a suitable remark in that language. The number of fines which she inflicted was so heavy that the missionary box filled with a rapidity more gratifying to the local secretary of the society than to the contributors. The girls were considerably puzzled at this change 218 of face on the part of Mademoiselle, but Morvyth and Katherine gave it as their opinion that Miss Beasley lay at the back of it.
“The Bumble’s probably had a talk with her, and told her she must buck up or go!” suggested the former. “I’m sure she always thought Mademoiselle a slacker—which she certainly was! Possibly she’s given her till the end of the term to show what she’s capable of, and if she doesn’t come up to the mark, we shall start next term with a new French governess.”