The Carved Lions

This, I think, was one reason why she approved of Miss Ledbury's school, which, as you will hear, was certainly not conducted in accordance with the modern ideas which even then were beginning to make wise parents ask themselves if it was right to spend ten times as much on their sons' education as on their daughters'.

"Teach a girl to write a good hand, to read aloud so that you can understand what she says, to make a shirt and make a pudding and to add up the butcher's book correctly, and she'll do," Mrs. Selwood used to say.

"And what about accomplishments?" some one might ask.

"She should be able to play a tune on the piano, and to sing a nice English song or two if she has a voice, and maybe to paint a wreath of flowers if her taste lies that way. That sort of thing would do no harm if she doesn't waste time over it," the old lady would allow, with great liberality, thinking over her own youthful acquirements no doubt.

I daresay there was a foundation of solid sense in the first part of her advice. I don't see but that girls nowadays might profit by some of it. And in many cases they do. It is quite in accordance with modern thought to be able to make a good many "puddings," though home-made shirts are not called for. But as far as the "accomplishments" go, I should prefer none to such a smattering of them as our old friend considered more than enough.

So far less thought on Mrs. Selwood's part was bestowed on Geraldine – that is myself, of course – than on Haddon, as regarded the school question. And mamma had to be guided by Mrs. Selwood's advice to a great extent just then. She had so much to do and so little time to do it in, that it would have been impossible for her to go hunting about for a school for me more in accordance with her own ideas. And she knew that personally Miss Ledbury was well worthy of all respect.

She went to see her once or twice to talk about me, and make the best arrangements possible. The first of these visits left a pleasanter impression on her mind than the second. For the first time she saw Miss Ledbury alone, and found her gentle and sympathising, and full of conscientious interest in her pupils, so that it seemed childish to take objection to some of the rules mentioned by the school-mistress which in her heart mamma did not approve of.

One of these was that all the pupils' letters were to be read by one of the teachers, and as to this Miss Ledbury said she could make no exception. Then, again, no story-books were permitted, except such as were read aloud on the sewing afternoons. But if I spent my holidays there, as was only too probable, this rule should be relaxed.

The plan for Sundays, too, struck my mother disagreeably.

"My poor Geraldine," she said to father, when she was telling him all about it, "I don't know how she will stand such a dreary day."

Father suggested that I should be allowed to write my weekly letter to them on Sunday, and mamma said she would see if that could be.

And then father begged her not to look at the dark side of things.

"After all," he said, "Geraldine is very young, and will accommodate herself better than you think to her new circumstances. She will enjoy companions of her own age too. And we know that Miss Ledbury is a good and kind woman – the disadvantages seem trifling, though I should not like to think the child was to be there for longer than these two years."

Mamma gave in to this. Indeed, there seemed nothing else to do. But the second time she went to see Miss Ledbury, the school-mistress introduced her niece – her "right hand," as she called her – a woman of about forty, named Miss Aspinall, who, though only supposed to be second in command, was really the principal authority in the establishment, much more than poor old Miss Ledbury, whose health was failing, realised herself.

Mamma did not take to Miss Aspinall. But it was now far too late to make any change, and she tried to persuade herself that she was nervously fanciful.

And here, perhaps, I had better say distinctly, that Miss Aspinall was not a bad or cruel woman. She was, on the contrary, truly conscientious and perfectly sincere. But she was wanting in all finer feelings and instincts. She had had a hard and unloving childhood, and had almost lost the power of caring much for any one. She loved her aunt after a fashion, but she thought her weak. She was just, or wished to be so, and with some of the older pupils she got on fairly well. But she did not understand children, and took small interest in the younger scholars, beyond seeing that they kept the rules and were not complained of by the under teachers who took charge of them. And as the younger pupils were very seldom boarders it did not very much matter, as they had their own homes and mothers to make them happy once school hours were over.

Mamma did not know that there were scarcely any boarders as young as I, for when she first asked about the other pupils, Miss Ledbury, thinking principally of lessons, said, "oh yes," there was a nice little class just about my age, where I should feel quite at home.

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.

CHAPTER V

AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING

My first sight of Miss Ledbury was a sort of agreeable disappointment. She was not the least like what I had imagined, though till I did see her I do not think I knew that I had imagined anything! She had been much less in my thoughts than her pupils; it was the idea of companions, the charm of being one of a party of other girls, with a place of my own among them, that my fancy had been full of. I don't think I cared very much what the teachers were like.

What I did see was a very small, fragile-looking old lady, with quite white hair, a black or purple – I am not sure which, anyway it was dark – silk dress, and a soft fawn-coloured cashmere shawl. She had a white lace cap, tied with ribbons under her chin, and black lace mittens. Looking back now, I cannot picture her in any other dress. I cannot remember ever seeing her with a bonnet on, and yet she must have worn one, as she went to church regularly. Her face was small and still pretty, and the eyes were naturally sweet, sometimes they had a twinkle of humour in them, sometimes they looked almost hard. The truth was that she was a gentle, kind-hearted person by nature, but a narrow life and education had stunted her power of sympathy, and she thought it wrong to give way to feeling. She was conscious of what she believed to be weakness in herself, and was always trying to be firm and determined. And since her niece had come to live with her, this put-on sternness had increased.

Yet I was never really afraid of Miss Ledbury, though I never – well, perhaps that is rather too strong – almost never, I should say, felt at ease with her.

I was, I suppose, a very shy child, but till now the circumstances of my life had not brought this out.

This first time of seeing my future school-mistress I liked her very much. There was indeed something very attractive about her – something almost "fairy-godmother-like" which took my fancy.

We did not stay long. Miss Ledbury was not without tact, and she saw that the mention of the approaching parting, the settling the day and hour at which I was to come to Green Bank to stay, were very, very trying to mamma. And I almost think her misunderstanding of me began from that first interview. In her heart I fancy she was shocked at my coolness, for she did not know, or if she ever had known, she had forgotten, much about children – their queer contradictory ways of taking things, how completely they are sometimes the victims of their imagination, how little they realise anything they have had no experience of.

All that the old lady did not understand in me, she put down to my being spoilt and selfish. She even, I believe, thought me forward.

Still, she spoke kindly – said she hoped I should soon feel at home at Green Bank, and try to get on well with my lessons, so that when my dear mamma returned she would be astonished at the progress I had made.

I did not quite understand what she said – the word "progress" puzzled me. I wondered if it had anything to do with the pilgrim's progress, and I was half inclined to ask if it had, and to tell her that I had read the history of Christian and his family quite through, two or three times. But mamma had already got up to go, so I only said "Yes" rather vaguely, and Miss Ledbury kissed me somewhat coldly.

As soon as we found ourselves outside in the street again, mamma made some little remark. She wanted to find out what kind of impression had been left on me, though she would not have considered it right to ask me straight out what I thought of the lady who was going to be my superior – in a sense to fill a parent's place to me.

And I remember replying that I thought Miss Ledbury must be very, very old – nearly a hundred, I should think.

"Oh dear no, not nearly as old as that," mamma said quickly. "You must not say anything like that, Geraldine. It would offend her. She cannot be more than sixty."

I opened my eyes. I thought it would be very nice to be a hundred.

But before I had time to say more, my attention was distracted. For just at that moment, turning a corner, we almost ran into the procession I was so eager to join – Miss Ledbury's girls, returning two and two from their morning constitutional.

I felt my cheeks grow red with excitement. I stared at them, and some of them, I think, looked at me. Mamma looked at them too, but instead of getting red, her face grew pale.

They passed so quickly, that I was only able to glance at two or three of the twenty or thirty faces. I looked at the smallest of the train with the most interest, though one older face at the very end caught my attention almost without my knowing it.

When they had passed I turned to mamma.

"Did you see that little girl with the rosy cheeks, mamma? The one with a red feather in her hat. Doesn't she look nice?"

"She looked a good-humoured little person," said mamma. In her heart she thought the rosy-faced child rather common-looking and far too showily dressed, but that was not unusual among the rich Mexington people, and she would not have said anything like that to me. "I did notice one very sweet face," she went on, "I mean the young lady at the end – one of the governesses no doubt."

I had, as I said, noticed her too, and mamma's words impressed it upon me. Mamma seemed quite cheered by this passing glimpse, and she went on speaking.

"She must be one of the younger teachers, I should think. I hope you may be in her class. You must tell me if you are when you write to me, and tell me her name."

I promised I would.

The next two or three days I have no clear remembrance of at all. They seemed all bustle and confusion – though through everything I recollect mamma's pale drawn face, and the set look of Haddie's mouth. He was so determined not to break down. Of father we saw very little – he was terribly busy. But when he was at home, he seemed to be always whistling, or humming a tune, or making jokes.