A few days before the day—the day of separation for us all—mamma took me to see Miss Ledbury. She thought I would feel rather less strange if I had been there once, and had seen the lady who was to be my school-mistress.
I knew the house—Green Bank, it was called—by sight. It was a little farther out of the town than ours, and had a melancholy bit of garden in front, and a sort of playground at the back. It was not a large house—indeed, it was not really large enough for the number of people living in it—twenty to thirty boarders, and a number of day-scholars, who of course helped to fill the schoolrooms and to make them hot and airless, four resident teachers, and four or five servants. But in those days people did not think nearly as much as now about ventilation and lots of fresh air, and perfectly pure water, and all such things, which we now know to be quite as important to our health as food and clothes.
Mamma rang the bell. Everything about Green Bank was neat and orderly, prim, if not grim. So was the maid-servant who opened the door, and in answer to mamma's inquiry for Miss Ledbury, showed us into the drawing-room, a square moderate-sized-room, at the right hand of the passage.
I can remember the look of that room even now, perfectly. It was painfully neat, not exactly ugly, for most of the furniture was of the spindle-legged quaint kind, to which everybody now gives the general name of "Queen Anne." There were a few books set out on the round table, there was a cottage piano at one side, there were some faint water-colours on the wall, and a rather nice clock on the white marble mantelpiece, the effect of which was spoilt by a pair of huge "lustres," as they were called, at each side of it. The carpet was very ugly, large and sprawly in pattern, and so was the hearth-rug. They were the newest things in the room, and greatly admired by Miss Ledbury and her niece, who were full of the bad taste of the day in furniture, and would gladly have turned out all the delicate spidery-looking tables and chairs to make way for heavy and cumbersome sofas and ottomans, but for the question of expense, and perhaps for the sake of old association on the elder lady's part.
There was no fire, though it was November, and mamma shivered a little as she sat down, possibly, however not altogether from cold. It was between twelve and one in the morning—that was the hour at which Miss Ledbury asked parents to call.
Afterwards, when I got to know the rules of the house, I found that the drawing-room fire was never lighted except on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, or on some very special occasion.
I stood beside mamma. Somehow I did not feel inclined to sit down. I was full of a strange kind of excitement, half pleasant, half frightening. I think the second half prevailed as the moments went on. Mamma did not speak, but I felt her hand clasping my shoulder.
Then at last the door opened.