In a very short time, there was no more persistent shrinker from the ice of this gaze than little Laura. In the presence of Mrs. Gurley the child had a difficulty in getting her breath. Her first week of school life had been one unbroken succession of snubs and reprimands. For this, the undue familiarity of her manner was to blame: she was all too slow to grasp—being of an impulsive disposition and not naturally shy—that it was indecorous to accost Mrs. Gurley offhand, to treat her, indeed, in any way as if she were an ordinary mortal. The climax had come one morning—it still made Laura’s cheeks burn to remember it. She had not been able to master her French lesson for that day, and seeing Mrs. Gurley chatting to a governess had gone thoughtlessly up to her and tapped her on the arm.
“Mrs. Gurley, please, do you think it would matter very much if I only took half this verb today? It’s coudre, and means to sew, you know, and it’s so hard. I don’t seem to be able to get it into my head.”
Before the words were out of her mouth, she saw that she had made a terrible mistake. Mrs. Gurley’s face, which had been smiling, froze to stone. She looked at her arm as though the hand had bitten her, and Laura’s sudden shrinking did not move her, to whom seldom anyone addressed a word unbidden.
“How dare you interrupt me—when I am speaking!”—she hissed, punctuating her words with the ominous head-shakes and pauses. “The first thing, miss, for you to do, will be, to take a course of lessons, in manners. Your present ones, may have done well enough, in the outhouse, to which you have evidently belonged. They will not do, here, in the company of your betters.”
Above the child’s head the two ladies smiled significantly at each other, assured that, after this, there would be no further want of respect; but Laura did not see them. The iron of the thrust went deep down into her soul: no one had ever yet cast a slur upon her home. Retreating to a lavatory she cried herself nearly sick, making her eyes so red that she was late for prayers in trying to wash them white. Since that day, she had never of her own free will approached Mrs. Gurley again, and even avoided those places where she was likely to be found. This was why one morning, some three weeks later, on discovering that she had forgotten one of her lesson-books, she hesitated long before re-entering the dining-hall. The governesses still clustered round their chief, and the pupils were not expected to return. But it was past nine o’clock; in a minute the public prayer-bell would ring, which united boarders, several hundred day-scholars, resident and visiting teachers in the largest classroom; and Laura did not know her English lesson. So she stole in, cautiously dodging behind the group, in a twitter lest the dreaded eyes should turn her way.
It was Miss Day who spied her and demanded an explanation.
“Such carelessness! You girls would forget your heads if they weren’t screwed on,” retorted the governess, in the dry, violent manner that made her universally disliked.
Thankful to escape with this, Laura picked out her book and hurried from the room.
But the thoughts of the group had been drawn to her.
“The greatest little oddity we’ve had here for some time,” pronounced Miss Day, pouting her full bust in decisive fashion.
“She is, indeed,” agreed Miss Zielinski.
“I don’t know what sort of a place she comes from, I’m sure,” continued the former; “but it must be the end of creation. She’s utterly no idea of what’s what, and as for her clothes they’re fit for a Punch and Judy show.”
“She’s had no training either—stupid, I call her,” chimed in one of the younger governesses, whose name was Miss Snodgrass. “She doesn’t know the simplest things, and her spelling is awful. And yet, do you know, at history the other day, she wanted to hold forth about how London looked in Elizabeth’s reign—when she didn’t know a single one of the dates!”
“She can say some poetry,” said Miss Zielinski. “And she’s read Scott.”
One and all shook their heads at this, and Mrs. Gurley went on shaking hers and smiling grimly. “Ah! the way gels are brought up nowadays,” she said. “There was no such thing in my time. We were made to learn what would be of some use and help to us afterwards.”
Elderly Miss Chapman twiddled her chain. “I hope I did right Mrs. Gurley. She had one week’s early practice, but she looked so white all day after it that I haven’t put her down for it again. I hope I did right?”
“Oh, well, we don’t want to have them ill, you know,” replied Mrs. Gurley, in the rather irresponsive tone she adopted towards Miss Chapman. “As long as it isn’t mere laziness.”
“I don’t think she’s lazy,” said Miss Chapman. “At least she takes great pains with her lessons at night.”
This was true. Laura tried her utmost, with an industry born of despair. For the comforting assurance of speedy promotion, which she had given Mother, had no root in fact. These early weeks only served to reduce, bit by bit, her belief in her own knowledge. How slender this was, and of how little use to her in her new state, she did not dare to confess even to herself. Her disillusionment had begun the day after her arrival, when Dr. Pughson, the Headmaster, to whom she had gone to be examined in arithmetic, flung up hands of comical dismay at her befogged attempts to solve the mysteries of long division.
