As she sat in the deserted class-room, her neat packet of sandwiches untasted in the satchel at her elbow, she re-lived that golden hour, dwelling on its incidents as a miser counts money. There was the stormy beginning; Agatha's mockery; her own raging helplessness; Clare's entrance; the exquisite thrill she had felt at her touch, that was not only gratitude for championship.... Never before had Clare been so near to her, so gentle, so protecting.... And afterwards, facing Louise at the foot of the table, how beautiful she had been.... Yet some of the girls could not see it.... They were fools.... Her head had been framed in the small, square window, so darkened and cobwebbed by crimson vines that only the merest blur of white clouds and blue hills was visible.... She had worn a gown of duller blue that lay in stiff folds: the bowl of Christmas roses, that mirrored themselves on the dark, polished table, had hidden the papers and the smeared ink-pot. Suddenly Louise remembered some austere Dutch Madonnas over whom delightful, but erratic Miss Durand had lingered, on their last visit to a picture gallery. She called them beautiful. Louise, with fascinated eyes sidling past a wallful of riotous Rubens, to fix on the soap and gentian of a Sasseferato, had wondered if Miss Durand were trying to be funny. She remembered, too, how some of the younger girls, comparing favourites, had called Miss Hartill ugly. She had raged loyally—yet, secretly, all but agreed. With her child's love of pink and white prettiness she had had no eyes for Clare's irregular features. But to-day something in Clare's pose had recalled the Dutch pictures, and in a flash she had understood, and wondered at her blindness. Miss Durand was right: the drawn, grey faces and rigid outlines had beauty, had charm—the charm of her stern smile.... The saints were hedged with lilies, and she, too, had had white flowers before her, that filled the air with the smell of the marvellous Roman church at Westminster.... The painted ladies were Madonnas—mothers—and Miss Hartill, too, had worn for a moment their protective look, half fierce, half tender....
Why was it? What has made her so kind? Not only to-day, but always? The girls feared her, some of them; those that she did not like talked of her temper and her tongue; Rose Levy hated her; even Agatha and Marion, and all of them, were a little frightened, though they adored.... Louise was never frightened.... How could one be frightened of one so kind and wonderful? She could say what she liked to Miss Hartill, and be sure that she would understand.... It was like being in the attic, talking aloud.... Mother would have been like that.... If it could be....
Louise, her chin in her doubled fists, launched out upon her sea of make-believe.
If it could be.... If it were possible, that Mother—not Mamma, cheery, obtuse Mamma of nursery and parlour—but Mother, the shadow of the attic—had come back? All things are possible to him that believeth: and Mr. Chesterton had said there was no real reason why tulips should not grow on oaks.... Heaps of people—all India—believed in reincarnation, and there was The Gateless Barrier and The Dead Leman for proof.... Might it not be?
The idea was intoxicating. She did not actually believe in it, but she played with it, wistfully, letting her imagination run riot. She wove fantastic variations on the themes "why not," "perhaps," "who knows."
She was but thirteen and very lonely.
She was in far too exalted a mood to have an appetite for her sandwiches, or time for the books beside her. She was due for extra work with Alwynne at three, and the intervening hour should have been used for preparation. Wasting her time meant sitting up at night, as Louise was well aware, and a tussle with Mrs. Denny, concerned for the waste of gas. But for all that, she would not and could not rouse herself from the trance of pleasure that was upon her. Her mind was contemplating Clare as a mystic contemplates his divinity; rapt in an ecstasy of adoration, oblivious alike of place and time. She did not hear the luncheon gong, or the gong for afternoon school, or a door, opening and shutting behind her. Yet it did not startle her, when, turning dreamily to tap on her shoulder, she found herself facing Miss Hartill herself. Miss Hartill should have left the school before lunch, she knew, but it was all in order. What could surprise one on this miraculous day? She did not even rise, as etiquette demanded; but she smiled up at Clare with an expression of welcoming delight that disarmed comment.
Clare, too, could ignore conventions. She was merely touched and amused by the child's expression.
"Well, Louise? Very busy?"
Louise glanced vaguely at her books.