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CHAPTER I.

THE PUPIL-TEACHER.

MRS. AND THE MISSES HARPER.

SELECT ESTABLISHMENT

FOR

YOUNG LADIES.

The above, engraved in bold characters on a highly-polished brass plate, may be read on the gate of an imposing mansion situated in the far-spreading suburbs of Riverside, one of the principal mercantile[Pg 2] towns in England. “Harperton” is a solid and secluded residence, standing in its own grounds (of two acres, one perch). It is planned to resemble a country house of some pretensions, but the symmetry of its proportions is spoiled by a long, low building jutting out at the side, that may be taken for anything from a stable to a billiard-room, but is, in fact, the scene of Mrs. Harper’s scholastic labours, erected at her own cost—in other words, the schoolroom. This apartment is illuminated by six windows, the lower halves of which are, of course, of muffled glass. The floor is carpeted here and there, as it were, in squares or plots, and in the midst of each square there is a desk and a comfortable cushioned chair. These indicate the localities of the various classes. The schoolroom walls are covered with maps, book-cases, lists of[Pg 3] rules, and practising hours, and lined with narrow desks and benches. A worn piano, a prim, white-faced clock, and a high wire fender comprise most of the furniture—ornamental and otherwise; unless we include the two young ladies who are sitting at one of the far desks, making the most of their time whilst the boarders are out for their usual walk. One of these damsels has mendaciously pleaded ear-ache in order to escape the hateful daily promenade. The other—that nondescript character, a pupil-teacher—is fulfilling a part of her duties, and diligently darning the “little ones’” stockings, whilst her companion, with both elbows on the desk, and both hands in her ruffled hair, watches her and talks.

“This must be perfectly awful for you, Maddie dear,” she was saying. “Don’t you loathe it all, and wish you could run[Pg 4] away? I should, if I were in your shoes.”

“Run away! What nonsense, Flo! Where could I run to, even supposing such an insane idea had entered my head, which it never has done? You forget that I have no friends in England; and, after all, I am not such an object of pity as you seem to imagine,” darning steadily all the time.

“If you are not, I should like to know who is!” demanded her schoolfellow, emphatically. “You are one day at the top of the tree, the head of the first class, the best pupil Herr Kroot ever had, adored by the Harpies”—here Miss Blewitt alluded to her respected instructress and daughters—“always exquisitely dressed, with heaps of pocket-money, sleeping in the best room, allowed a fire in winter, every extra—claret and coffee—and[Pg 5] I don’t know what! After years and years of this style of thing, and when you are seventeen, and almost finished, your father suddenly stops supplies, you are not paid for for three whole terms, and the hateful Harpies make you into a regular drudge—a pupil-teacher, a nursery governess, a servant! You sleep in the attic with those odious little Smiths—wash, dress, and teach them; you go messages to the shops, and even into Riverside—you, who were never allowed to stir one yard alone; you mend and darn and teach.”

She paused, not from lack of words, but from want of breath.

“And a very good thing that I can do something to pay for my living,” remarked the other, with composure. “If I could not sew and mend and teach, what would become of me, I should be[Pg 6] glad to know? I could scarcely expect the Harpers to go on keeping me at their own expense; and now I take the fifth class, the little ones’ music, and I save a servant for those Indian children, I work for my bread—and I am worth it.”

“I should rather think you were,” rejoined her listener, sarcastically. “You are worth a hundred a year to them as teacher, besides being dressmaker and nursery-maid. It makes me wild—I feel quite crazy—when I see all that they get out of you, early and late, and the shameful way they treat you! Once upon a time you were ‘darling Madeline’—their ‘dear, bright-faced girl,’ their ‘model pupil,’ now you are ‘Madeline West,’ or ‘Miss West,’ and you are ‘slow,’ ‘awkward,’ ‘lazy,’ and ‘impertinent.’ Oh dear me! dear me! sometimes I feel as if[Pg 7] I should like to fly at Miss Selina and bite a piece out of her, I am so savage.”

“I hope to goodness you will restrain your feelings,” said Madeline, with a smile, as she threaded a long needleful of black wool, and commenced on a gaping heel. “The Harpers are only human, after all! It was very hard on them, my father having failed; and all my music-lessons, and painting, and singing, and German, for two terms, had to be paid for out of their own pockets. Signor Squaletti charges half a guinea an hour. Then there were my clothes. I feel hot all over when I remember the quantity of money I laid out, believing that it would be all settled, as usual, by father’s cheque at Christmas. There was that white dress for the breaking-up party——”

“In which you made such an impression on the Wolfertons’ friend, young[Pg 8] Mr. Wynne,” interrupted Florence, with a meaning nudge. “Oh yes, I remember the white dress!”

“Don’t, Flo! Your elbow is like a knife,” expostulated her friend, with some discernible increase of colour. “As to Mr. Wynne, what you say is nonsense, and you know Mrs. Harper forbids us to speak of—of—such things.”

“I know that Mrs. Harper was most uneasy in her mind when she saw him dancing four times with you running—yes, dance after dance—and she came up and introduced him to Julia Flowers’ two red-haired sisters, and said that gentlemen were so scarce, and her girls were not out, and all that sort of rubbish; and she sent him down to supper with old Mrs. Browne, and she sent you to bed because you looked pale! Oh yes, I saw it all—all. I saw that Mr. Wynne[Pg 9] never danced again, but stood with his back to the wall for the rest of the evening, looking as cross as two sticks. Very likely he would never have given you a thought, if you had not been so plainly and openly banished: absence makes the heart grow fonder! Mrs. Harper put the idea into his head by making such a stupid fuss—and she has only herself to thank. He sent you those flowers, he came to our church, and Miss Selina took it all to herself—the ridiculous old cat! As if he would look at her! She closed on the flowers: much good may they do her!”

“Now, Flo, how do you know that they were not for her?” asked her companion with a smile. “But, don’t let us talk about them. It is an old story.”

“But I will talk about them,” persisted[Pg 10] Flo, angrily. “I’ll talk about your nice green tailor-made, and your winter coat trimmed with fur, and your opera cloak, and your white dress—the white dress, which they took away from you!”

“Well, they had paid for them, you see,” rejoined Madeline quietly. “I am glad they did take them—I owe them the less.”

“Thank goodness your gloves and boots were too small,” continued Flo, in a tone of fervent congratulation, “otherwise they would have gone also. They are rather different from the Harpers’ chaussure, which is of the canal-boat type and size. Now I know what pedestrians mean when they talk of ‘covering’ miles of ground.”

“Well, my dear excited Flo, they did not make their own feet,” said the other coolly.

[Pg 11]

“How philosophical you are becoming! Quite an old head on young shoulders! Who made their tempers, I should be glad to know?—or their tongues? Thank goodness, this is my last half! Good-bye to early rising, lectures, scoldings, resurrection pies, milk and water, and rice puddings. Good-bye to Harperton—penitentiary and prison. Good-bye to Harpies, and hurrah for home!”—throwing, as she spoke, a dictionary up to the ceiling; failing to catch which, it fell open, face downwards, with a bang.

“That is May’s dictionary, Flo,” remonstrated the other. “You will not improve its poor back.”

“If you stay here long, Madeline, you will certainly become just as preaching and particular as one of the Harpies themselves. You are tremendously sobered as it is. Who would think, to[Pg 12] look at you darning away so industriously, that this time last year you were the queen and moving spirit of the school; always getting up charades, dances, and concerts, and carrying your point on every question, and figuratively snapping your fingers at the Harpies if they interfered with your schemes—which, to do them justice, was very seldom! Ah! my poor Maddie, since then what a change has come o’er the spirit of your dream! It is terrible. If you had always been a pupil-teacher it would be another matter, or if you had gone to another school, where no one knew that you had fallen from your high estate; but here, the scene of your triumphs, to make the descent to the very foot of the ladder, is—is frightful. I often wonder how you can bear it so well.”

“I often wonder too,” said Madeline[Pg 13] shortly, winking her tears back with a great effort. “You are not going the best way to work to help me to endure my lot, Flo, raking up all these things. Bad or good, I must submit. I have no alternative—nowhere to go, until my father comes home. The best thing I can do is to be patient, and try and repay the Harpers for some of the money they have expended on me.”

“Repay them!” echoed Miss Blewitt, scornfully. “They made a very good thing out of you for nine years—large profits and quick returns. Now, although your father has not sent his usual remittance—is not that the word?—and they have heard that he is in business difficulties, yet I think they might have given you a little more law—a longer day. They might have exercised some patience. You have not heard of your father for[Pg 14] more than a year, have you?” she added bluntly.

“No, not for sixteen months,” answered the pupil-teacher.

“But even if he were dead,” proceeded Flo, with a fine disregard of her friend’s feelings, and an open defiance of the laws of good breeding, such as is occasionally to be found in girls of her age, “you could not honestly pretend to be very much cut up! You have not seen him since you were a small child. You left Australia when you were seven years old. He is a stranger to you.”

“A stranger, certainly, in one way; but still he is my father, and I have a presentiment that we shall meet again, and before long,” rolling up a pair of stockings as she spoke, and averting her eyes from her outspoken schoolfellow.

[Pg 15]

“Pooh! I don’t believe in presentiments. I had a presentiment that father was going to give me a cart and cob last holidays, and it ended in smoke. If your father had been in the land of the living, surely you would have heard. I know I am saying this very baldly and plainly, but there is no use in beating about the bush—is there? You must face the position sooner or later.”

“You mean the position of being an orphan?” said Madeline, tremulously. “But I refuse to accept that until I have not one grain of hope left. It is easy for you, who have your father and mother and five brothers at home, to talk in this way. Remember, I have only one relation in the world, and when I lose him I lose all.”