“Very uncertain indeed, I should think,” said the younger Miss Madder with a sniff.
Mrs. Comber felt their eyes upon her; she knew that they wished to know what she had to say about it all, but she was wise enough to hold her peace.
The other ladies then devoted all their energies upon getting an opinion from Mrs. Comber. During the next quarter of an hour, every lady understanding every other lady, a combined attack was made.
Semi-Chorus a—The question of the umbrella was, of course, a question of order, and, as Mrs. Dormer put it, when a younger master attacks an older one and flings him to the ground, and rubs his hair in the dust and that before a large audience, the whole system of education is in danger; there 's no knowing when things will begin or end, and other masters will be doing dreadful things, and then the prefects, and then other boys, and finally a dreadful picture of the First and Second boys showing what they can do with knives and pistols.
Miss Madder entirely agreed with this, and then enlarged further on the question of property.
Semi-Chorus b—One had one's things—here she was sure Mrs. Comber would agree—and if one didn't keep a tight hold of them in these days, one simply did n 't know where one would be. Of course one umbrella was a small thing; but, after all, it was aggravating on a wet morning not to find it and then to have no excuse whatever offered to one—anyone would be cross about it. And, after all, with some people if you gave them an inch they took an ell, as the saying was, and if one didn't show firmness over a small thing like this, it would only lead to people taking other things without asking until one really did n't know where one was. Of course, it was a pity that Mr. Perrin should have lost his self-control as completely as he appeared to have done, but nevertheless one could quite understand how aggravating it was.
Semi-Chorus a—Mrs. Dormer, continued, keeping order was no light matter, and if those masters who had been in a school for twenty years were to be openly derided before boys and masters, if umbrellas were to be indiscriminately stolen, and if in fact anything was to be done by anybody at any time whatever without by your leave or for your leave, then one might just as well pack up one's boxes and go home; and then what would happen, one would like to know, to our schools, our boys, and finally, with an emphatic rattle of cup and saucer, to our country?
Semi-Chorus b—Enlarged the original issue. It was really rather difficult when a young man had been behaving in this way to congratulate the young lady to whom he had just engaged himself. She was of course perfectly charming, but it was a pity that she should, whilst still so young, be forced to countenance disorder and tumult, because with that kind of beginning there was no telling what married life mightn't develop into.
Semi-Chorus a—Enlarged yet again on this subject and, without mentioning names or being in any way specific, drew a dreadful picture of married lives that had been ruined simply through this question of discipline, and that if the husband were the kind of man who believed in blows and riot and general disturbance, then the wife was in for an exceedingly poor time.
Mrs. Comber had listened to this discussion in perfect silence. It was not her habit to listen to anything in perfect silence, but on the present occasion she continued to enforce in her mind that dark, ominous figure of Mrs. Thompson. Anything that she said would be used against her, and there in the corner, with her thin, white hands folded in her lap, with the black silk of her dress shining in little white lines where the light caught it, was the person who might undo her Freddie entirely. Whatever happened, she must keep silence—she told herself this again and again; but as Mrs. Dormer and Miss Madder continued, she found her anger rising. She fixed her eyes on the sharp, black feathers in Miss Madder's hat and tried to discuss with herself the general expense of the hat and why Miss Madder always wore things that didn't suit her, and whether Miss Madder wouldn't he ever so much better in a nice green grave with daisies and church bells in the distance, but these abstract questions refused to allow themselves to be discussed. She knew as she listened that Isabel, her dear, beloved Isabel, to whom she owed more than anyone in the whole world, was being attacked—cruelly, wickedly attacked.