"I see," said Beth. "I spoke to you as one lady might speak to another. I won't again, Miss Bey."
Miss Bey paused once more, with bent brows, to reflect upon this ambiguous announcement; but not being able to make anything of it, she proceeded: "It is a matter of discipline. Without strict discipline an establishment of this size would be in a state of chaos. The girls must respect the teachers, and the younger girls must respect the elder ones. All become elder ones in turn, and are respected."
"Well, I mean to be respected all through," Beth declared, and set her mouth hard on the determination.
At eight o'clock Miss Bey rang a big handbell for prayers, and the whole household, including the servants, came trooping into the hall. The girls sat together in their classes, and, when all were in their places, Miss Clifford came in attended by her maids-of-honour, mounted the reading-desk, and read the little service in a beautiful voice devoutly. Beth softened as she listened, and joined in with all her heart towards the end.
When prayers were over, and the servants had gone downstairs, one of the maids-of-honour set a chair under the domed ceiling in front of the vestibule for Miss Clifford, who went to it from the reading-desk, and sat there. Then the first-class girls rose and left their seats in single file, and each as she passed walked up to Miss Clifford, took the hand which she held out, and curtsied good-night to her. The other classes followed in the same order. Miss Clifford said a word or two to some of the girls, and had a smile for all. When Beth's turn came, she made an awkward curtsey in imitation of the others. Miss Clifford held her hand a moment, and looked up into her face keenly; then smiled, and let her go. Beth felt that there was some special thought behind that smile, and wondered what it was. Miss Clifford made it her duty to know the character, temper, constitution, and capacity of every one of the eighty girls under her, and watched carefully for every change in them. This good-night, which was a dignified and impressive ceremony, gave her an opportunity of inspecting each girl separately every day, and very little escaped her. If a girl looked unhappy, run down, overworked, or otherwise out of sorts, Miss Clifford sent for her next morning to find out what was the matter; and she was scolded, comforted, put on extras, had a tonic to take, or was allowed another hour in bed in the morning, according to the necessities of her case.
The girls who were in certain bedrooms sat up an hour after prayers, and had dry bread and water for supper; they turned to the left and went back to their class-rooms when they had made their curtseys. The others turned to the right and went upstairs. Beth was one of these. She was in No. 6. There were several beds in the room, and beside each bed was a washstand, and a box for clothes. The floor was carpetless. There were white curtains hung on iron rods to be drawn round the beds and the space beside them, so that each girl had perfect privacy to dress and undress. The curtains were all drawn back for air when the girls were ready, but no girl drew her curtain without the permission of the girl next to her. When a bell rang, they all knelt down, and had ten minutes for private prayers night and morning, the bell being rung again when the time was up. The girls had to turn down their beds to air them before they left their rooms in the morning. They had an hour's lessons before breakfast, then prayers. After prayers the monitresses rose from their seats below the reading-desk, and, as they filed out, each in turn reported if any one had spoken or not spoken in the bedrooms. Breakfast consisted of thick bread and butter and tea for the girls, with the addition of an insufficient quantity of fried bacon for the teachers. After breakfast the girls went upstairs again and made their beds in a given time; then all but a few, who were kept in for music, went out into the garden for half-an-hour. Beth had to go out that first morning. The sun was shining, bright drops sparkled on grass and trees, the air was heavy with autumn odours, but fresh and sweet, and the birds chirped blithely. Beth felt like a free creature once more directly she got out, and, throwing up her arms with a great exclamation of relief after the restraint indoors, she ran out on to the wide grass-plot in front of the house at the top of her speed.
"Come back, come back, new girl!" cried the head French mistress, Mademoiselle Duval, the teacher on duty. "You are not allowed to go on the grass, nor must you run in that unseemly way."
"I'm sorry," said Beth. "I didn't know."
She moved off on to the path which overlooked the river, and began to walk soberly up and down, gazing at the water.
"Mademoiselle!" the French mistress screamed again shrilly, "come away from there! The girls are not allowed to walk on that path."
"Oh dear!" said Beth. "Where may I go?"
"Just go where you see the other girls go," Mademoiselle rejoined sharply.
Not being a favourite, the French mistress was left to wander about alone. Popular teachers always had some girls hanging on to their arms out in the garden, and sitting with them when they were on duty indoors; but Mademoiselle seldom had a satellite, and never one who was respected. The girls thought her deceitful, and deceit was one of the things not tolerated in the school. Miss Bey was believed to be above deceit of any kind, and was liked and respected accordingly in spite of her angular appearance, sharp manner, the certainty that she was not a lady by birth, and the suspicion that her father kept a shop. The girls had certain simple tests of character and station. They attend more to each other's manners in the matter of nicety at girls' schools than at boys', more's the pity for those who have to live with the boys afterwards. If a new girl drank with her mouth full, ate audibly, took things from the end instead of the side of a spoon, or bit her bread instead of breaking it at dinner, she was set down as nothing much at home, which meant that her people were socially of no importance, not to say common; and if she were not perfectly frank and honest, or if she ever said coarse or indelicate things, she was spoken of contemptuously as a dockyard girl, which meant one of low mind and objectionable manners, who was in a bad set at home and made herself cheap after the manner of a garrison hack, the terms being nearly equivalent. There was no pretence of impossible innocence among the elder girls, but neither was there any impropriety of language or immodesty of conduct. Certain subjects were avoided, and if a girl made any allusion to them by chance, she was promptly silenced; if she recurred to them persistently, she was set down at once as a dockyard girl and an outsider. The consequence of this high standard was an extremely good tone all through the school.
Beth turned into the lime-tree avenue, where she met several sets of girls all walking in rows with their arms round each other. None of them took any notice of her, until she got out on to the drive, where she met Amy Wynne with her children. Amy let go the two she had her arms round, sent them all on, and stopped to speak to Beth.
"Have you no mother?" she asked.
"I have one at home," Beth answered coldly in spite of herself.
"But you know our custom here," Amy rejoined. "The elder girls are mothers to the young ones."
"I know," said Beth, "but I don't want a mother. I should hate to have my thoughts interrupted by a lot of little girls in a row, all cackling together."
"I was going to offer," Amy began, "but, of course, if you are so self-reliant, it would only be an impertinence."
"Oh no!" said Beth, sincerely regretting her own ungraciousness. "It is kind of you, and if it were you alone, I should be glad, but I could not stand the others."
"Well, I hope you won't be lonely," Amy answered, and hurried on after her children.
"Lonely I must be," Beth muttered to herself with sudden foreboding.
When the girls went in, Beth was summoned to the big music-room. "Old Tom" was there with Dr. Centry, who came twice a week to hear the girls play. There were twelve pianos in the room, ten upright and two grand, besides Old Tom's own private grand, all old, hard, and metallic; and twelve girls hammered away on them, all together, at the same piece; but if one made a mistake, Old Tom instantly detected it, and knew which it was.
"Do ye know any music?" she asked Beth in a gruff voice with a rough Scotch accent.
"A little," Beth answered.
"What, for instance?" Old Tom pursued, looking at Beth as if she were a culprit up for judgment.
"Some of Chopin," Beth replied. "I like him best."
Old Tom raised her eyebrows incredulously. "Sit down here and play one of his compositions, if you please – here, at my piano," she said, opening the instrument.
But Beth felt intimidated for once, partly by the offensive manners of the formidable-looking old woman, her bulk and gruffness, but also because Old Tom's doubt of her powers, which she perceived, was shaking her confidence. She sat down at the piano, however, and struck a few notes; then her nerve forsook her.
"I can't play," she said. "I'm nervous."
"Humph!" snarled Old Tom. "I thought that 'ud be your Chopin! Go and learn exercises with the children in Miss Tait's class-room."
Miss Tait, acting on Old Tom's report, put Beth into one of her lower classes, and left her to practise with the beginners. When she had gone, Beth glanced at the exercises, and then began to rattle them off at such a rate that no one in the class could keep up with her. Miss Tait came hurrying back.
"Who is that playing so fast?" she said. "Was it you, Miss Caldwell?"
"Yes," Beth answered.
"Then you must go into a higher class," said Miss Tait.
But the same thing happened in every class until at last Beth had run up through them all, as up a flight of stairs, into Old Tom's first. Her piano in the first, when the whole class was present and she had no choice, was a hard old instrument, usually avoided because it was the nearest to the table at which Old Tom sat (when she did not walk about) during a lesson. The first time Beth took her place at it, the other girls were only beginning to assemble, and Old Tom was not in the room. A great teasing of instruments, as Old Tom called it, was going on. A new piece was to be taken that morning, and each girl began to try it as soon as she sat down, so that they were all at different passages. They stopped, however, and looked up when Beth appeared.
"That's your piano," the head girl said.
"I hope you'll like it!" one of the others added sarcastically.
"Oh, but I'm glad to be here!" said Beth, striking a few firm chords. "Now I feel like Chopin," and she burst out into one of his most brilliant waltzes triumphantly.
Old Tom had come in while she was speaking, but Beth did not see her. Old Tom waited till she had done.
"Oh, so now ye feel like Chopin, Miss Caldwell," she jeered. "And it appears ye are not above shamming nervous when it suits ye to mak' yerself interesting. I shall remember that."
Old Tom taught by a series of jeers and insults. If a girl were poor, she never failed to remind her of the fact. "But, indeed, ye're beggars all," was her favourite summing up when they stumbled at troublesome passages. Most of the girls cowered under her insults, but Beth looked her straight in the face at this second encounter, and at the third her spirit rose and she argued the point. Old Tom tried to shout her down, but Beth left her seat, and suggested that they should go and get Miss Clifford to decide between them. Then Old Tom subsided, and from that time she and Beth were on amicable terms.
Beth had an excellent musical memory when she went to school, but she lost it entirely whilst she was there, and the delicacy of her touch as well; both being destroyed, as she supposed, by the system of practising with so many others at a time, which made it impossible for her to feel what she was playing or put any individuality of expression into it.
On that opening day, Beth had to go from the music-room to her first English lesson in the sixth. All the girls sat round the long narrow table, Miss Smallwood, the mistress, being at the end, with her back to the window. The lesson was "Guy," a collection of questions and answers, used also by the first-class girls, only that they were farther on in the book. Who was William the Conqueror? When did he arrive? What did he do on landing? and so on. Beth, at the bottom of the class on Miss Smallwood's right, was in a good position to ask questions herself. She could have told the whole history of William the Conqueror in her own language after once reading it over; but the answers to the questions had to be learnt by heart and repeated in the exact language of the book, and in the struggle to be word-perfect enough to keep up with the class, the significance of what she was saying was lost upon her. It was her mother's system exactly, and Beth was disappointed, having hoped for something different These pillules of knowledge only exasperated her; she wanted enough to enable her to grasp the whole situation.
"What is the use of learning these little bits by heart about William the Conqueror and the battle of Hastings, and all that, Miss Smallwood?" she exclaimed one day.
"It is a part of your education, Beth," Miss Smallwood answered precisely.
"I know," Beth grumbled, "but couldn't one read about it, and get on a little quicker? I want to know what he did when he got here."
"Why, my dear child, how can you be so stupid? You have just said he fought the battle of Hastings."
"Yes, but what did the battle of Hastings do?" Beth persisted, making a hard but ineffectual effort to express herself.
"Oh, now, Beth, you are silly!" Miss Smallwood rejoined impatiently, and all the girls grinned in agreement. But it was not Beth who was silly. Miss Smallwood had had nothing herself but the trumpery education provided everywhere at that time for girls by the part of humanity which laid undisputed claim to a superior sense of justice, and it had not carried her far enough to enable her to grasp any more comprehensive result of the battle of Hastings than was given in the simple philosophy of Guy. Most of the girls at the Royal Service School would have to work for themselves, and teaching was almost the only occupation open to them, yet such education as they received, consisting as it did of mere rudiments, was an insult to the high average of intelligence that obtained amongst them. They were not taught one thing thoroughly, not even their own language, and remained handicapped to the end of their lives for want of a grounding in grammar. When you find a woman's diction at fault, never gird at her for want of intelligence, but at those in authority over her in her youth, who thought anything in the way of education good enough for a girl. Even the teachers at St. Catherine's, some of them, wrote in reply to invitations, "I shall have much pleasure in accepting." The girls might be there eight years, but were never taught French enough in the time either to read or speak it correctly. Their music was an offence to the ear, and their drawings to the eye. History was given to them in outlines only, which isolated kings and their ministers, showing little or nothing of their influence on the times they lived in, and ignoring the condition of the people, who were merely introduced as a background to some telling incident in the career of a picturesque personage; and everything else was taught in the same superficial way – except religion. But the fact that the religious education was good in Beth's time was an accident due to Miss Clifford's character and capacity, and therefore no credit to the governors of the school, who did not know that she was specially qualified in that respect when they made her Lady Principal. She was a high-minded woman, Low Church, of great force of character and exemplary piety, and her spirit pervaded the whole school. She gave the Bible lessons herself in the form of lectures which dealt largely with the conduct of life; and as she had the power to make her subject interesting, and the faith which carries conviction, both girls and mistresses profited greatly by her teaching. Many of them became deeply religious under her, and most of them had phases of piety; whilst there were very few who did not leave the school with yearnings at least towards honour and uprightness, which were formed by time and experience into steady principles.
Beth persisted in roaming the garden alone. She loved to hover about a large fountain there, with a deep wide basin round it, in which gold-fish swam and water-lilies grew. She used to go and hang over it, peering into the water, or, when the fountain played, she would loiter near, delighting in the sound of it, the splash and murmur.
One of the windows of Miss Clifford's sitting-room overlooked this part of the garden, and Beth noticed the old lady once or twice standing in the window, but it did not occur to her that she was watching her. One day, however, Miss Clifford sent a maid-of-honour to fetch her; and Beth went in, wondering what she had done, but asked no questions; calm indifference was still her pose.
Miss Clifford dismissed the maid-of-honour. She was sitting in her own special easy-chair, and Beth stood before her.
"My dear child," she said to Beth, "why are you always alone? Are the girls not kind to you?"
"Oh yes, thank you," Beth answered, "they are quite kind."
"Then why are you always alone?"
"I like it best."
"Are you sure," said Miss Clifford, "that the others do not shun you for some reason or other?"
"One of them wished to be my mother," Beth rejoined, "but I did not care about it."
"But you cannot be happy always alone like that," Miss Clifford observed.
Beth was silent.
Miss Clifford looked at her earnestly for a little, then she shook her head.
"I tell you what I will do if you like, Miss Clifford," Beth said upon reflection. "I will form a family of my own."
Miss Clifford smiled. "Ah! I see you are ambitious," she said, "but, my dear child, a sixth girl can't expect to have that kind of influence."
"It is not ambition," Beth answered, "for I shall feel it no distinction, only a great bother. Nevertheless, I will do it to show you that I am not shunned; and to please you, as you do not like me to wander alone."
A week or two later Beth appeared in the garden with six of the worst girls in the school clinging to her, fascinated by her marvellous talk.
Miss Clifford sent for her again. "I am sorry to see you in such company," she said. "Those girls are all older than you are, and they will lead you into mischief."
"On the contrary, Miss Clifford," Beth replied, "I shall keep them out of mischief. Not one of them has had a bad mark this week."
Then Miss Clifford sent for Miss Smallwood, the mistress of the sixth. "What do you make of Beth Caldwell?" she asked.
"I can't make anything of her," Miss Smallwood answered. "I think she tries, but she does not seem able to keep up with the other girls at all. She seldom knows a lesson or does a sum correctly. I sometimes think she ought to be in the eighth. But then occasionally she shows a knowledge far beyond her years; not a knowledge of school work, but of books and life."
"How about her themes?"
"I don't know what to think of them; they are too good. But she declares emphatically that she does them all out of her own head."
"What sort of temper has she?"
"Queer, like everything else about her. Not unamiable, you know, but irritable at times, and she has days of deep depression, and moments of extreme elation."
"Ah!" Miss Clifford ejaculated, and then reflected a little. "Well, be patient with her," she said at last. "If she hasn't exceptional ability of some kind, I am no judge of girls; but she is evidently unaccustomed to school work, and is suffering from the routine and restraint, after being allowed to run wild. She should have been sent here years ago."