Regiment Of Women Part 31

CHAPTER XVIII

It is not impossible to sympathise with Ahab.

It must have been difficult for him, with his varied possessions, to realise the value to Naboth of his vineyard. He had offered compensation. Naboth would undoubtedly have gained by the exchange.

Ahab, owning half Palestine, must have been genuinely puzzled by this blind attachment to one miserable half-acre. One wonders what would have happened if they had met to talk over the matter. Ahab, convinced of the generosity of his offer, courteously argumentative, carefully repressing his not unnatural impatience, would have contrasted favourably with the peasant, black, fierce, dumb, incapable of explaining himself, conscious only of his own bitter helplessness in the face of oppression and loss.

The Naboth mood is a dangerous one. Fierce emotions, unable to disperse themselves in speech, can turn in again upon the mind that bred them, to work strange havoc. The affair of the attic, outwardly so trivial, shook the child's nature to its foundation. Though one's house be built of cards, it is none the less bedazing to have it knocked about one's ears.

To Louise, the loss of her holy place, but yet more the manner of its loss, was catastrophic. Her nerves, frayed and strained by weeks of overwork and excitement, snapped under the shock. Her sense of proportion failed her. Miss Hartill, the examination, all that made up her life, faded before this monstrous desecration of an ideal. She suffered as Naboth, forgetting also his greater goods of life and kith and kin, suffered before her.

Before she reached the school the violence of her emotion had faded, and she was in the first stage of the inevitable physical reaction. She felt weak and shaken. She was going, she knew, to her examination. She wondered idly why she did not feel nervous. She tried to impress the importance of the occasion upon herself, but her thoughts eluded her--sequence had become impossible. She gave up the attempt, and her mind, released, returned to the scene of the morning in incessant, miserable rehearsal.

Mechanically she made her way into the school by the unfamiliar mistresses' entrance, greeted the little knot of compet.i.tors a.s.sembled in the hall. But if she were introspective and distraught, so were they: her silence was unnoticed.

The nervous minutes pa.s.sed jerkily. Louise thought that the clock must be enjoying himself. He was playing overseer; he wheezed and grunted as her father did at breakfast; had just such a bland, fat face. Her father would be a fat, horrible old man in another ten years. She was glad.

Every one would hate him, then, as she hated him, show it as she dared not do.

Miss Vigers interrupted her meditations; Miss Vigers, utterly unreal in holiday smiles and the first hobble-skirt in which her decent limbs had permitted themselves to be outlined. She marshalled the procession.

The Lower Fifth cla.s.s-room, newly scrubbed and reeking of naphthaline, with naked shelves and treble range of isolated desks, was unfamiliar, curiously disconcerting. Louise, ever perilously susceptible to outward conditions, was dismayed by the lack of atmosphere. She wriggled uneasily in her desk. It was uncomfortable, far too big for her: Agatha's initials, of an inkiness that had defied the charwoman, stared at her from the lid. She was at the back of the room. Between Marion's neat head and the coiffure of the little Jewess, the bored face of the examiner peered and s.h.i.+fted. He was speaking--

"You will find the questions on your desks. Write your names in the top right-hand corner of each page. Full name. Kindly number the sheets. You are allowed two and a half hours."

A pause. Some rustling of papers and the snap and rattle of pencil-boxes. Then the voice of the examiner again--

"You may begin."

Instantly a furious pen-scratching broke the hush. Louise glanced in the direction of the sound, and smiled broadly. Agatha had begun. Miss Hartill would have seen the joke, but the examiner was already absorbed in the book he had taken from his pocket. Louise gazed idly about her.

So this was what the ordeal was like! There were her clean, blank papers on the desk before her, and the printed list of questions. She supposed she had better begin.... But there was plenty of time. She had a curious sense of detachment. Her body surrounded her, rigid, quiescent, dreading exertion. Her mind, on the contrary, was bewilderingly active, consciously alive with thoughts, as she had once, under a microscope, seen a drop of water alive with animalculi: thoughts, however, that had no connection with real life as it at the moment presented itself: thoughts that admitted the fact of the examination with a dreamy impersonality that precluded any idea of partic.i.p.ation. Her mind felt comfortable in its warm bed of motionless flesh, would not disturb its repose for all the ultimate G.o.ds might offer: but was interested nevertheless in its surroundings, gazing out into them with the detached curiosity of an attic-dweller, peering out and down at a dwarfed and distant street. Yet each trivial object on which her eyes alighted gave birth to a train of thought that led separately, yet quite inevitably, to the memories that would shatter her quietude, as conscious and subconscious self struggled for possession of her mind.

She stared at the intent backs of her neighbours. One by one they hunched forward, as each in turn settled to work. Louise considered them critically. What ugly things backs were! It was funny, but girls with dark skirts always pinned them to their blouses with white safety-pins, and _vice versa_. It made them look skewered.... Yet Miss Durand had said that backs were the most expressive part of the whole body.... That was the day they had seen the Watts pictures. But then the draperies of the great white figure in "Love and Death" were not fastened up in the middle with safety-pins.... That had been a wonderful picture.... She knew how the boy felt, how he fought.... How long had he been able to hold the door? she wondered. Characteristically, she never questioned the ultimate defeat. It was terrible to be so weak.... But the Death was beautiful.... pitying.... One wouldn't hate it while one resisted it, as one hated Mamma.... Mamma, forcing her way into an attic.... Louise writhed as she thought of it.

The girl in front of her coughed, a hasty, grudging cough, recovered herself, and bent again to her work. Louise was amused. What a hurry she was in! What a hurry every one was in! How hot Marion's cheeks were! And Agatha.... Agatha was up to her wrists in ink.... Like the women in the French Revolution.... Though that was blood, of course.... They were steeped in gore.... It would be fascinating to write a story about the knitting women ... click--click--clicking--like a lot of pens sc.r.a.ping.... What were they all scribbling like that for? Of course, it was the examination.... There was a paper on her own desk too.... How funny!

"Distinguish between Sh.e.l.ley the poet, and Sh.e.l.ley the politician.

Ill.u.s.trate your meaning by quotations."

Sh.e.l.ley? The name was familiar.... She sells sea-sh.e.l.ls....

"Give a short account of the life of Shakespeare."

He had a wife, hadn't he? A narrow, grudging woman, who couldn't understand him.... A woman like Mamma.... Mamma, who was turning out the attic and laughing at Louise.... Not that that mattered--but to clear the attic--to take away Mother's things.... What would Mother do--little, darling Mother...? It was holidays.... Mother would know....

Mother would be there, waiting for Louise. A hideous picture rose up in Louise's mind. With photographic clearness she saw the attic and the faint shadow of her mother wavering from visibility to nothingness as the sunlight caught and lost her impalpable outlines: there was a sound of footsteps--Louise heard it: the faint thing held out sweet arms and Louise strained towards them; but the door opened, and Mrs. Denny and the maids came in. Mamma pointed, while the maids laughed and took their brooms and chased the forlorn appearance, and it fled before them about the room, cowering, afraid, calling in its whisper to Louise. But the maids closed in, and swept that shrinking nothingness into the dark corner behind the old trunk: but when they had moved the trunk, there was nothing to be seen but a delicate cobweb or two. So they swept it into the dustpan and settled down to the scrubbing of the floor.

The picture faded. Louise crouched over her desk, her head in her hands.

About her the pens scratched rhythmically.

For a s.p.a.ce she existed merely. She could not have told how long it was before thoughts began once more to drift across the blankness of her mind like the first imperceptible flakes that herald a fall of snow.

She moved stiffly in her seat. The thoughts came thicker--thoughts of her mother still, of the dream presence that she would not feel again.... Never again? There was the Last Judgment, of course.... She would see her then.... And who knew when the Judgment would come.... In a thousand years? In the next five seconds? She counted slowly, holding her breath: "One--two--three--four--five----" and stared out expectantly into s.p.a.ce through the lashes of her dropped lids.

All about her sat forms, bowed like her own, scarcely moving. Of course, of course--she nodded to herself--satisfied with her own acuteness.

Obviously, the Last Judgment.... They were all waiting for G.o.d.... He hadn't arrived yet, it seemed.... Well, one might look about a little first.... How queer Heaven smelt! The heart of Louise leapt within her.... Now was the opportunity to find Mother.... Mother would be somewhere among the dead.... But they all had ugly backs.... But Mother.... Of course Mother would be standing on that high platform place like a throne.... It was her place.... She always stood there....

Or did she? Was there not some one else? very like her ... with eyes ...

and a smile ... whom Louise knew so well? Wasn't it Mother? With patient deliberation she strove to disentangle the two personalities, that combined and divided and blurred again into one. There was Mother--and the Other--one was shape and one was shadow--but which was real? There was Mother--and the Other--who was Mother? No, who was--who was--The Other was not Mother--but if not, who?--who?--who?--

A chorus of angels took up the chant: Who? who? who? They had flat, faint voices, that gritted and whispered, like pens pa.s.sing over paper.

Who? who? who?

The answer came thundering back out of infinite s.p.a.ce in the awaited voice of G.o.d....

"You have ten minutes more."

Louise gave a faint gasp. Reality enveloped her once more, licking up her illusion as instantly and fiercely as an unnoticed candle will shrivel up a woman's muslins. She stood naked amid the ashes of her dreams.

She glanced wildly about her. The girls at her elbows were furiously at work. The little examiner had put away his book and was staring at her.

Her eyes fell. Before her lay foolscap, fair and blank, save for her name in the corner, and a close-printed paper that she did not recognise, clamouring for information anent Sh.e.l.ley, and Carlyle, and the Mermaid Tavern. Because, of course, she was at the Literature examination, and there were ten minutes more.

And she had written nothing.

An instant she sat appalled. Then she s.n.a.t.c.hed up her pen and wrote....

Her pen fled across the paper at Tam o' Shanter speed, leaving its trail of shapeless, delirious sentences. She never paused to consider--she wrote. She knew only that she had ten--twelve--fifteen questions to answer, and ten minutes in which to do it. Ten minutes for a two and a half hours' paper! No matter--if one stopped to think.... Hurry! hurry!

Sh.e.l.ley was born in 1792--he was the son of Sir Timothy Sh.e.l.ley, of Field Place, near Horsham----

When the examiner collected the papers, she had written exactly two pages.

CHAPTER XIX

The examination had taken place early in May, but the summer term was nearly over before news of the results arrived. When it came, it made but a small sensation. The school had tired of waiting. Not only was its own more intimate examination drawing near, but its many heads were filled, to the exclusion of all else, with the excitements and rivalries of the summer theatricals.

The school play was an inst.i.tution. Of late years--ever since she had joined the staff indeed--it had grown into an annual personal triumph for Miss Hartill.

Clare was blessed--cursed--with that sixth sense, the _sens du theatre_.

Her own nature was, in essence, theatrical; her frigid and fastidious reserve warring incessantly with her irrepressible love of the scene for its own sake. She was aware of the trait and humiliated by its presence in her character. Usually she would curb her inclination with a severity that was in itself histrionic: at times she indulged it with voluptuous recklessness.

As a girl, the stage had appealed to her strongly; but her excessive squeamishness, with her acute sense of personal, bodily dignity, closed it to her as a career. Also her love of power. Though she knew little of stage life she had sufficient intuition to gauge correctly what she might become. Successful necessarily--dominant never. And she required a dais. But the compelling woman, she knew, is successful through her combination of intellectual strength with s.e.xual charm. She must not scruple to use all the weapons at her service. Clare had told herself that there were some weapons to which she would never condescend. If sting had lain in the fact that, though she would, they were not hers to use, she did not acknowledge it, even to herself. Resolutely she put from her the idea of fostering a useless talent; and the desire to exploit it, save surrept.i.tiously in social intercourse, dulled as she grew older.

Nevertheless, the yearly plays were to Clare a source of excitement and gratification. She alone was responsible for the production. In five successful years they had become an event, a festival--not only to the school, but to the entire neighbourhood. Two, and then three public performances were given each summer, and the proceeds benefited the school charities. _As You Like It_, _Twelfth Night_, _Verona_, and _The Merchant of Venice_, followed upon the _Midsummer Night's Dream_, and exhausted the list of entirely suitable plays; but after some hesitation, Clare had devised for her next venture scenes from _King John_. Several forms were studying the period, the Sixths and Fifths were reading the play, politically also it was apropos. (Clare had ever sound reasons to gild her decisions.) Privately she had been slightly embarra.s.sed by the fact that the cla.s.ses she supervised had that year proved themselves unusually poor in dramatic ability. She could depend, indeed, on a score of keen and capable children, but in Louise Denny alone had she glimpsed an actress who could do her credit. The child's physique precluded her from roles that, otherwise, she could easily have filled, but as Prince Arthur, she could be made the central, unforgettable figure of an otherwise trite performance. "_King John_,"

quoth Clare; "decidedly, the very play." And _King John_ was chosen.