“Now, dear, this is your room. As you have arrived first you can choose your own bed and your own chest of drawers. Ah, that is right, Ellen has unfastened your portmanteau; she will unpack your trunk to-night, and take it to the box-room. Now, dear, smooth your hair and wash your hands. The gong will sound instantly. I will come for you when it does.”
Chapter Four.
Little Drawing-Rooms And Little Tiffs.
Miss Danesbury, true to her word, came to fetch Hester down to tea. They went down some broad carpetless stairs, along a wide stone hall, and then paused for an instant at a half-open door from which a stream of eager voices issued.
“I will introduce you to your school-fellows, and I hope your future friends,” said Miss Danesbury. “After tea you will come with me to see Mrs Willis—she is never in the school-room at tea-time. Mdlle. Perier or Miss Good usually superintends. Now, my dear, come along—why, surely you are not frightened?”
“Oh, please, may I sit near you?” asked Hester.
“No, my love; I take care of the little ones, and they are at a table by themselves. Now, come in at once—the moment you dread will soon be over, and it is nothing, my love—really nothing.”
Nothing! never, as long as Hester lived, did she forget the supreme agony of terror and shyness which came over her as she entered that long, low, brightly-lighted room. The forty pairs of curious eyes which were raised inquisitively to her face became as torturing as forty burning suns. She felt an almost uncontrollable desire to run away and hide—she wondered if she could possibly keep from screaming aloud. In the end she found herself, she scarcely knew how, seated beside a gentle, sweet-mannered girl, and munching bread and butter which tasted drier than sawdust, and occasionally trying to sip something very hot and scalding which she vaguely understood went by the name of tea. The buzzing voices all chattering eagerly in French, and the occasional sharp, high-pitched reprimands coming in peremptory tones from the thin lips of Mdlle. Perier, sounded far off and distant—her head was dizzy, her eyes swam—the tired and shy child endured tortures.