Clare, nodding and laughing, handed her over to the maid, and went home, not ill-pleased with her Christmas either. She thought of the child as she walked down the snowy, star-lighted streets, and wondered whimsically what she was doing at the moment. Would she say her prayers on her way to bed still, or had Clare's little, calculated shrug stopped that sort of thing for many a long day? She rather thought so. She shook off her uneasy sense of compunction and laughed aloud. The cold night air was like wine to her. After all, for an insignificant spinster, she had a fair share of power—real power—not the mere authority of kings and policemen. Her mind, not her office, ruled a hundred other minds, and in one heart, at least, a shrug of her shoulders had toppled God off His throne; and the vacant seat was hers, to fill or flout as she chose.
CHAPTER XIII
With the opening of the spring term began the final and most arduous preparations for the Easter examinations.
The school had been endowed, some years before, under the will of a former pupil, with a scholarship, a valuable one, ensuring not only the freedom of the school, but substantial help in the subsequent college career, that the winning of it entailed.
The rules were strict. The papers were set and corrected by persons chosen by the trustees of the bequest. The scholarship was open to the school, but no girl over seventeen might enter: and though an unsuccessful candidate might compete a second time, she must gain a percentage of marks in the first attempt. Total failure debarred her from making a second. This last rule limited in effect, the entries to members of the Sixths and Fifths, for the scholarship was too valuable for a chance of it to be risked through insufficient training. The standard, too, was high, and the rules so strictly enforced that withheld the grant if it were not attained, that Miss Marsham was accustomed to make special arrangements for those competing. They were called the "Scholarship Class," and had certain privileges and a great amount of extra work. To most of them the particular privilege that compensated for six months' drudgery was the fact that they were almost entirely under Miss Hartill's supervision. She considered their training her special task and spared neither time nor pains. She loved the business. She understood the art of rousing their excitement, pitting ambition against ambition. She worked them like slaves, weeding out remorselessly the useless members. Theoretically all had the right to enter; but none remained against Miss Hartill's wishes.
In spite of the work, the members of the Scholarship Class had an envied position in the school. Clare saw to that. Without attackable bias, she differentiated subtly between them and the majority. Each of the group was given to understand, without words, impalpably, yet very definitely, that if Miss Hartill, the inexorable, could have a preference, one had but to look in the glass to find it; and that to outstrip the rest of the class, to be listed an easy first, would be the most exquisite justification that preference could have. And as the type of girl who succumbed the most surely to Clare's witchcraft was also usually of the type to whom intellectual work was in itself attractive, it was not surprising if her favourite class were a hot-bed of emulation and enthusiasm—enthusiasm that was justified of its origin, for not even Henrietta Vigers denied that Clare contributed her full share to the earning of the scholarship, Miss Marsham, towards the end of the spring, was wont to declare, with her usual kindly concern, that she was thankful that the examination was not an annual affair.... Their good Miss Hartill was too anxious, too conscientious.... Miss Marsham must really forbid her to make herself ill. And, indeed, when the class was a large one, Clare was as reckless of her own strength as of that of her pupils, and suffered more from its expenditure. Where they were responsible, each for herself, Clare toiled early and late for them all. She fed them, moreover, from her own resources of energy, was entirely willing to devitalise herself on their behalf. The strain once over, she appeared slack, gaunt, debilitated. She had, however, her own methods of recuperation. Her ends gained, she could take back what she had given—take back more than ever she had given. Moreover, the supply of child-life never slackened. Old scholars might go—but ever the new ones came. Was it not Clare who gave the school its latter-day reputation? By the end of the summer term Clare would be once more in excellent condition.
When the promotion of Louise to the Upper School had first been mooted, Miss Hartill had not forgotten that the scholarship examination was once more drawing near. She saw no reason why Louise should not compete. That Louise, the whilom dullard of the Third, the youngest girl in the Upper School, should snatch the prize from the expectants of the Sixths and Fifths, would be an effective retort on Clare's critics, would redound very pleasantly to Clare's credit.
If she let the opportunity pass, Louise must wait two years: at thirteen it would be a triumph for Louise and Clare; at fifteen there would be nothing notable in her success. And the baby herself would be delighted. Clare was already sufficiently taken with Louise to enjoy the anticipation of her delight.