Madame Broadbent, holding by the copy-slip axiom, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” preserved her dignity and that of her high office by avoiding personal contact with her pupils, save at stated hours. Her assistant-governesses were at their posts from nine until twelve, from two until four; but Madame herself only sailed into the long room from the house-door across the entry at eleven o’clock to receive reports, inspect work, dispense rewards, or administer reproof and chastisement. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” had not been abolished from the educational code fifty-five years back.
The double shock her importance had received at the theatre sent her home to quarrel with her supper; and as a meal dispatched in an ill-humour does not easily digest, Othello and the Castle Spectre haunted her pillow, and broke her rest with nightmares.
She rose late, and stepped into her schoolroom later than usual, to visit her accumulation of disagreeables on minor delinquents, as well as on the primary offenders.
Let us be just: Madame Broadbent had gracious smiles and approving words to dispense to the ultra-good, and their very rarity made them valuable. But if she rewarded any that day, it was only that severity might stand out in contrast. Little hearts beat, little fingers plied industrious needles, little eyes bent over work, when Madame’s step was heard in the entry; but when her august presence fairly filled the room, every little damsel rose simultaneously, and saluted her entrance with a low, formal, deferential curtsey.
Two rooms had evidently been thrown into one to give required space, the back portion being curiously lit by a narrow small-paned window extending along the side, high above the rows of racks and pegs. It was the writing end of the room. Madame Broadbent occupied a seat in the front portion, almost opposite to the door; and as she marched towards it with more than ordinary loftiness, and beat her fan on her table with one peremptory tap, instead of a short rapid quiver, to enforce her command, “Attention, ladies!” the very youngest of those ladies could interpret the signs portentously. Lucky was the young lady whose work passed muster that morning; so many were condemned to stocks, backboard, columns of spelling, recitations from the “Speaker” and Thomson’s “Seasons,” lengths of open hem, back-stitching, or seaming!
At length Madame Broadbent, having dismissed ordinary business, rapped her fan upon the table, and in a sharp peremptory tone called “Miss Ashton!”—and Miss Ashton, who had been expecting the summons all the morning, came forward at her bidding, but not with the ordinary alacrity of pupilage. She had left her childhood (I had almost said her girlhood) behind her, in the box-lobby of the Theatre Royal.
“Miss Brookes!” cried the same sharp voice; and with a painful start the little girl who had committed such a terrible breach of decorum before a whole theatre as to utter her impromptu commentary on the tragedian’s art, rose, trembled, burst into tears, but was too agitated to obey with sufficient promptitude. Her seat was on a low front form. Madame took a step forward, stretched out her arm, and dragged the child by the ear to the side of Augusta, then gave her a smart cuff as an admonition to more prompt obedience another time.
Then with another rap of her fan on the table, which set all hearts palpitating, she began an inflated harangue to the mite of a child and the budding woman, in which she reproached them both with bringing disgrace on the “Academy,” hitherto so irreproachable. The one had drawn the attention of a whole theatre to her ill-breeding and want of proper training; the other by “boldness of look and manner had licensed the free speech of loose men;” and, as if that were not enough, had “been the cause of an unpardonable insult to herself.” She, Madame Broadbent, so highly honoured and respected by the chief people in the town, to be called “Mother Broadbent!”—it was an outrage not to be endured!
Her temper interrupted her oration; she shook Augusta violently, and condemned her to remain in school until she had learned one of Mrs. Chapone’s letters by heart. Then she darted on the smaller Miss as the primary cause of all, shook her till the little teeth chattered, and dragged her by the lobe of the ear towards a dark closet, set apart for heinous offenders.
Something akin to rebellion had been growing in Augusta’s breast all the morning. She was a girl of quick impulses and sympathies, and was not only struck by the disproportion of punishment meted out, but by the terror on the little one’s face. She threw herself in their path, and to the utter astonishment alike of pupils and teachers laid hold of the child to release her, exclaiming as she did so, “You shall not lock her in the dark! you will kill her with fright, you cruel Madame Broadbent!”