When the key was turned in her box Rhoda heaved a sigh of satisfaction in the confidence that not one of the two hundred girls could possess a better equipment than her own. Then she looked round her dismantled room, and felt a pang of depression. It looked so dead—as if its owner had already departed, and left it to its fate. The wardrobe door swung apart and revealed the empty pegs; the drawers were pulled open and showed piles of torn-up letters; the carpet was strewn with pins. All the treasured ornaments had been stored away, and the ugly ones looked uglier than ever, as if infected by the general dejection. In story-books girls were wont to bid a sentimental adieu to their maiden bowers before leaving for a new sphere, but Rhoda did not feel in the least inclined to be sentimental; she took to her heels instead and ran downstairs, only too glad to escape from her dreary surroundings, and presently she and her mother were driving towards the station on the first stage of the eventful journey.
The village women stood at the doors of their cottages to put their aprons to their eyes, and murmur, “Ay, poor dear!” as she drove past; little Tommy Banks threw a nosegay of marigolds through the carriage window, and waddled away, scarlet with confusion; and there was quite a gathering of friends on the platform.
Ella had brought a box of home-made Fuller’s sweets from herself and a dainty copy of The Christian Year as the Vicar’s farewell offering; Mrs Ross had a stack of magazines for reading on the journey, and little Miss Jones, who owed all the comforts of life to Mrs Chester’s friendship, presented the most elaborate “housewife,” stocked with every necessary which it seemed probable that a girl at school would not require. It was all most touching and gratifying. Even the station-master came up to express his good wishes, and the one-eyed porter blurted out, “Glad to see you back, Miss!” as if it were impossible to suppress his feelings a moment longer.
Rhoda felt an insight into the feelings of Royalty as she stood at the window of the carriage, graciously smiling and bowing so long as she remained in sight, and when this excitement was over, another appeared to take its place. Mrs Chester was discovered to be crying in quite uncontrolled fashion, and at the sight of her tears Rhoda put on her severest air.
“Mother! What are you doing? You must not cry! Please remember that in half an hour we shall be at Euston, and meet the school. I should never get over it if the girls saw my mother with a red face!”
Mrs Chester mopped her eyes obediently, and made a valiant effort to regain her composure. For herself, poor dear, she cared little about appearances, but Rhoda had already exhibited an intense anxiety that she should make a good impression on the minds of her future school-fellows. Each separate article of clothing had been passed in review, while the bonnet had been changed three times over before the critic was satisfied. It would never do to spoil an effect which had been achieved with so much trouble; so the unselfish creature gulped down her tears, and tried to talk cheerfully on impersonal topics, keeping her eyes fixed on the landscape the while, lest the sight of her child might prove too much for her resolution.
Rhoda was immaculate in blue serge coat and skirt, and sailor hat with a band of school colours. Nothing could have been simpler; but there are ranks in even the simplest garments, and she was agreeably conscious that her coat was not as other coats, neither was her skirt as other skirts. The hand of the Regent Street tailor was seen in both, and there was a new arrangement of pleats at the back which ought in itself to secure the admiration of the school! She was all complacency until Euston was reached, when the first glimpse at a group of “Hurst” girls smote her to earth. She had sewn the band on her hat upside down, putting the wide stripe next the brim, which should by rights have been the place of the narrow! To the cold, adult mind such a discovery might seem of trifling importance, but to the embryo school-girl it was fraught with agonising humiliation. It looked so ignorant, so stupid; it marked one so hopelessly as a recruit; Rhoda’s cheeks burned crimson; she looked searchingly round to see if by chance any other strangeling had fallen into the same error, but, so far as bands were concerned, she was solitary among the throng.
A governess, seeing the two figures standing apart from the rest, came forward and welcomed Rhoda with a few kindly words, but she was too busy to spare time for more than a greeting. Fresh girls kept arriving with every moment—a crowd of brisk, alert, bustling young creatures, skurrying along bags in hand, and bright eyes glancing to right and left. At every step forward there would come a fresh recognition, a nod of the head, a wave of the hand, a quick “Halloa!” more eloquent than elegant. Rhoda felt a spasm of loneliness at the realisation that no greeting waited for herself, and at the strangeness of the many faces. She looked critically around and came to the most unfavourable conclusions.
“I don’t like that one—she’s a fright! I hate that one—she’s so affected. Those two look common; I won’t have anything to do with them. The big one with spectacles looks horribly learned. The one with the violin has a most unmusical face. She looks fit for stratagems if you like! The little one in brown is a cunning fox, I can see it in her eyes. Of all the plain, uninteresting, stodgy set of girls—”
There was a movement inside the saloon carriage opposite, and a large mamma clad in black, with a profusion of bugles, stepped on to the platform and marched stolidly away. She steered a course clear of the crowd of girls, the ends of her mantle floating behind her, like a brig in full sail before the breeze, while her poor little daughter hung out of the doorway gazing after her, sobbing bitterly, and mouthing in pathetic, helpless misery.