All the same, as far as the neighbors were concerned, Miss Sarah Allcock was an error of judgment. She was amazingly neat and trim, she had the true Sanderson refinement of manner and address, she was fond of airing her voice to her charge with all sorts of subtle Mayfair inflections, and she looked away from the neighbors as if they were dirt. As if they were dirt—that was the gravamen of their complaint in the sympathetic ear of Mrs. Bridgit Connor.
Mrs. Bridgit Connor, the greengrocer’s wife, was a widespread lady of Irish descent, of great but fluctuating charm, and unfailing volubility. Her vocabulary was immense, but scorn often taxed it. Her scorn of Miss Allcock taxed it to the breaking point. Born on a bog and descended in the remote past from the kings of the earth, Mrs. Connor had facilities of speech and gesture denied to the common run of her kind. She avenged the slights put by Miss Allcock upon herself and friends by alluding to that lady’s charge in a loud voice whenever opportunity offered as “a by-blow,” or “a no-man’s child.”
When Mary was five there arose the grand question of her education proper. At first a great clash of wills was threatened. Aunt Annie had her views. Aunty Harriet had hers. Eliza, being merely “the mother,” was not allowed to have any. Aunty Harriet thought perhaps the kindergarten. Aunt Annie did not believe in such new-fangled nonsense. Besides no kindergarten would take her.
“Why not?” asked Aunty Harriet. But as she spoke there came a slight flush to the proud face.
“Because they won’t,” said Aunt Annie with stern finality. “All schools of the better sort are very particular.”
Aunty Harriet bit her lip sharply. She retorted, perhaps unwisely, that if they were not very particular they would cease to be schools of the better sort.
“Quite so,” said Aunt Annie.
For the moment it looked as if daggers were going to be drawn. These two were always at the verge of conflict. Both were impatient of any kind of opposition, and in the matter of young Mistress Mary they seldom saw eye to eye. Aunt Annie did not disguise her opinion that Aunty Harriet was inclined to take too much upon herself, and Aunty Harriet had no difficulty in returning the compliment.
But Harriet had great common sense, and she was a woman of action. She was not the one tamely to accept the decree about schools of the better sort, but began to make researches of her own into the subject. She was very hard to please, both in regard to the style of the school and the condition of the scholars, and when at last one had been found which met the case, there arose the difficulties Aunt Annie had predicted. A child of parentage unknown, adopted by the family of a police constable, did not commend herself to the Misses Lippincott of Broadwood House Academy. To Aunty Harriet this seemed a great pity; the school presided over by those ladies was exactly suitable. Its tone was high but not pretentious; the small daughters and the smaller sons of Laxton’s leading tradesmen mingled with those of its professional classes, and its reputation was so good that Aunty Harriet, after a discreet interview with the elder Miss Lippincott, a bishop’s daughter and a university graduate, set her mind upon it.
Howbeit, the austere Miss Lippincott showed no inclination to receive the adopted child of a police constable as a pupil at Broadwood House Academy. This was not conveyed to Miss Harriet Sanderson in so many words, but in the course of the next day she received a letter, delicately-worded, to that effect. However, she did not give in, as smaller and weaker people might have done, but she put her pride in her pocket and, looking the facts in the face, went to take counsel at Bowley.