Miss Wewitz shrieked involuntarily at the sight of the catastrophe—Miss Chutney shrieked sympathetically—and Mrs. Wewitz, who came rushing from the housekeeper’s room—and the servants, who came hurrying from the kitchen—all shrieked, they hardly knew why or wherefore, but principally because they heard the others shriek.
Then came all the Frenchmen, tearing down the stairs—two and three at a time—some with their hair in paper, and a silk handkerchief thrown hastily over their heads—others with the curling-tongs still in their hands, and half their locks curled, and the other half hanging in matted hanks about their faces—while others had one of their moustachios and whiskers bright red, and the other jet black—others, again, were in their paper collars, and others in embroidered slippers and no socks.
When Miss Wewitz saw the human avalanche descending from the first landing, she uttered a piercing “Oh!” and, suddenly closing the door, turned the key, so that she and Chutney at least might be safe. Then she threw herself into the fauteuil, and buried her face in her handkerchief—first tittering and then sobbing, and ultimately screaming, and pattering her feet upon the carpet like two drum-sticks doing the “roll” upon a drum.
The alarmed Chutney threw herself upon her neck, and begged her not to “give way” so, for that she’d be sure to make herself ill—and that her eyes would be red and swollen for hours afterwards.
“Indeed! indeed! Miss Wewitz, if you’ll only believe—it was no fault of mine—indeed—and indeed it wasn’t.”
Miss Wewitz “came to” for a moment, and exclaimed—“Oh, you bad, bad, base girl—after all the attention I’ve paid to your morals, too! How you dare stand there and say such a thing, and not expect the floor to open under you, is a mystery to me! Oh, you wicked, wicked story, you! Where do you expect to go to, Miss? But you’ll write out the first chapter of Telemachus before you have any supper to-night—and it’s that cold rice-pudding that you’re remarkably fond of.”
Then Miss Chutney, in her turn, gave vent to her feelings. “I’m sure, ma’am, it wasn’t my fault,” sobbed the girl—“it was you yourself that would lock him in the room with me, though I begged of you not to lock the door—but you would do it, and what could I do?”
“Do!” retorted the angry Miss Wewitz—“Do!” (and this she pitched at least two octaves higher)—“you could have screamed, couldn’t you—or you could have pulled the bell—or even broken the windows,—it wouldn’t have mattered to you, they would have all gone down in the bill, you know. Don’t you think I would have raised the whole house, and the whole neighbourhood, indeed, if I had been, in your place. I’d have torn all the beard off the creature’s face by handfuls, that I would;—but you, of course, must hide the wretch away from your best friends, and pretend you had been looking out for the Great Bear—the Great Bear, you might well say, indeed—and the impudent monkey, too. But you’ll bring a scandal upon my school, you will—you wicked, wicked girl.”
“Well, I don’t care how much I’m punished for it, Miss Wewitz—but I’m not to blame. If you were to stop my puddings for the whole of next “half,” it wouldn’t make me think otherwise. I didn’t want to be shut up with the man, but you would do it.”
“How dare you say I did it, Miss,” asked the schoolmistress, in her most authoritative manner, “when I didn’t?”