Six to Sixteen Part 13

Madame was indefatigable, and in her own way as conscientious as Miss Mulberry herself. But Madame was not just, and she was not truthful. She had--either no sense at all, or--a quite different sense from ours of honour and uprightness. Perhaps the latter, for she seemed to break promises, tell lies, open letters, pry into drawers and boxes, and listen at keyholes from the highest sense of duty. And, which was even worse for us, she had no belief whatever in the trustworthiness of her pupils.

Miss Mulberry felt it to be her duty towards our parents and guardians to keep us under constant supervision; but Madame watched and worried us, I am convinced, in the persuasion that we were certain to get into mischief if we had the chance, and equally certain to do so deceitfully.

She gave us full credit (I never could trace that she saw any discredit in deceit) for slyness in evading her authority, but flattered herself that her own superior slyness would maintain it in spite of us.

It vexed us all, but there were times when it irritated Eleanor almost to frenzy. She would have been in disgrace oftener and more seriously on the subject, but that Madame was a little afraid of her, and was, I think, not a little fond of her.

Madame was a clever woman, and a good teacher. She was sharp-witted, ready of tongue, and indefatigably industrious herself; and slow, stupid, or lazy girls found no mercy at her hands.

Eleanor's unusual abilities, the extent of her knowledge and reading on general subjects, the rapidity with which she picked up conversational French and wielded it in discussions with Madame, and finally her industry and perseverance, won Madame's admiration and good-will. I think she almost believed that Mademoiselle Arkwright's word was to be relied upon.

Eleanor never toadied her, which I fear we others (we were so utterly at her mercy!) did sometimes; a.s.suming an interest we did not feel in her dissertations on the greatness of France and the character of her especial idol, the first Napoleon.

If Madame respected Eleanor, we school-girls almost revered her. "She talks so splendidly," Lucy said one day.

Not that the rest of us were by any means dumb. The fact that English was forbidden did not silence us, and on Sunday when (to Madame's undisguised chagrin) Miss Mulberry allowed us to speak English, we chattered like sparrows during an anthem. But Eleanor introduced a kind of talk which was new to most of us.

We could all chatter of people and places, and what was said on this occasion or what happened on another. We had one good mimic (Emma), and two or three of us were smart in description. We were observant of details and appearances, and we could one and all "natter" over our small grievances without wearying of the subject, and without ever speculating on their causes, or devising remedies for them.

But, with Eleanor, facts served more as points to talk from, than as talk in themselves. Through her influence the Why and How of things began to steal into our conversation. We had more discussion and less gossip, and found it better fun.

"One never tells you anything without your beginning to argue about it,"

said one of the girls to her one day.

"I'm very sorry," said poor Eleanor.

"You're very clever, you mean," said Emma. "What a lawyer you'd have made, Eleanor! While we growl at the Toad's tyranny, you make a case out of it."

(I regret to have to confess that, owing to a peculiarity of complexion, Madame was familiarly known to us, behind her back, as the Toad.)

"Well, I don't know," said Eleanor, puckering her brows and nursing her knees, as we all sat or lounged on the school-room floor, during the after-dinner recreation minutes, in various awkward but restful att.i.tudes; "I can growl as well as anybody, but I never feel satisfied with bewailing over and over again that black's black. One wants to find out why it's black, and if anything would make it white. Besides, I think perhaps when one looks into one's grievances, one sees excuses for people--there are two sides to every question."

"There'll be one, two, three," said Emma, looking slowly round and counting the party with a comical imitation of Eleanor's thoughtful air--"there'll be fifteen sides to every question by the time we've all learnt to talk like you, my dear."

Eleanor burst out laughing, and we most of us joined her to such good purpose, that Madame overheard us, and thought it prudent to break up our sitting, though we had only had a short twelve minutes' rest.

Eleanor not only set the fas.h.i.+on of a more reasonable style of chat in our brief holiday hours, but she was apt to make lessons the subject of discussions which were at first resented by the other girls.

"I can't think," she began one day (it was a favourite way with her of opening a discussion)--"I can't think what makes Mr. Henley always make us put the shadows in in cobalt. Some shadows are light blue certainly, I think, especially on these white roads, but I don't think they are always; not in Yorks.h.i.+re, at any rate. However, as far as that goes, he paints his things all in the same colours, whatever they're meant for; the Bay of Naples or the coast of Northumberland. By the bye, I know that I've heard that the shadows on the snow in Canada are really blue--bright blue."

"You're blue, deep blue," said Emma. "How you can talk shop out of lesson hours, Eleanor, I can't conceive. You began on grammar the other day, by way of enlivening our ten minutes' rest."

"I'm very sorry," said Eleanor: "I'm fond of drawing, you know."

"Oh, do let her talk, Emma!" cried Peony. "I do so like to hear her. Why are the shadows on the snow blue, Eleanor?"

"I can't think," said Eleanor, "unless it has something to do with reflection from the sky."

Eleanor was not always discreet enough to keep her opinion of Mr.

Henley's style to herself and us. She was a very clever girl, and, like other very young people, her cleverness was apt to be aggressive; scorned compromises, and was not always sufficiently respectful towards the powers that be.

Her taste for drawing was known, and Madame taunted her one day with having a reputation for talent in this line, when her water-colour copies were not so effective as Lucy's; simply, I believe, with the wish to stimulate her to excel. I am sure Madame much preferred Eleanor to Lucy, as a matter of liking.

"Behold, Mademoiselle!" said she, holding up one of Lucy's latest copies, just glorified with a wide aureole of white cardboard "mounting"; "what do you think of this?"

"It is very like Mr. Henley's," said Eleanor warmly. "Lucy has taken great pains, I'm sure. It's quite as good as the copy, I think."

"But what do you think of it?" said Madame impatiently; she was too quick-witted to be easily "put off." "Is it not beautiful?"

"It is very smart, very gay," said Eleanor, who began to lose her temper. "All Mr. Henley's sketches are gay. The thatch on the house reminds me of the 'ends' of Berlin wool that are kept, after a big piece of work, for kettle-holders. The yellow tree and the blue tree are very pretty: there always is a yellow tree and a blue tree in Mr. Henley's sketches. I don't know what kind of trees they are. I never do. The trunks are pink, but that doesn't help one, for the markings on them are always the same."

Eleanor's French was quite good enough to give this speech its full weight, as Madame's kindling eyes testified. She flung the drawing from her, and was bursting forth into reply, when, by good luck, Miss Mulberry called for her so impatiently that she was obliged to leave the room.

I had been repeating a lesson to Miss Ellen Mulberry, who lay on a couch near the window, but we had both paused involuntarily to listen to Eleanor and Madame.

Miss Ellen was very good. She was also very gentle, and timid to nervousness. But from her couch she saw a good deal of the daily life of the school, and often understood matters better than those who were in the thick of it, I think.

When Madame had left the room, she called Eleanor to her, and in an almost trembling voice said:

"My dear, do you think you are quite right to speak so to Madame about that drawing?"

"I am very sorry, Miss Ellen," said Eleanor; "but it's what I think, and she asked me what I thought."

"You are very clever, my dear," said Miss Ellen, "and no one knows better than yourself that there are more ways than one of expressing one's opinion."

"Indeed," Eleanor broke in, "I don't want to be rude. I'm sorry I did speak so pertly. But oh, Miss Ellen, I wish you could see the trees my mother draws! How can I say I like those things of Mr. Henley's? Like green seaweeds on the end of a pink hay-fork! And we've lots of old etchings at home, with such trees in them! Like--well, like nothing but real trees and photographs."

Miss Ellen took Eleanor's hand and drew her towards her.

"My dear," said she, "you have plenty of sense; and have evidently used it to appreciate what your dear mother has shown and taught to you. Use it now, my dear, to ask yourself if it is reasonable to expect that men who could draw like the old masters would teach in ordinary girls'

schools, or, if they would, that school-mistresses could afford to pay them properly without a much greater charge to the parents of pupils than they would be willing to bear. You have had great advantages at home, and have learnt enough to make you able to say very smart things; but fault-finding is an easy trade, my dear, and it would be wiser as well as kinder to see what good you can get from poor Mr. Henley's lessons, as to the use of the brush and colours, instead of neglecting your drawing because you don't like his style, which, after all, you needn't copy when you sketch from nature yourself. I will tell you, dear child, that my sister and I have talked this matter over before. Clever young people are apt to think that their stupid elders have never perceived what their brilliant young wits can put straight with half-a-dozen words. But I used to draw a little myself," continued Miss Ellen very modestly, "and I have never liked Mr. Henley's style. But he is such a very good old man, and so poor, that my sister has shrunk from changing. Still, of course our pupils are the first consideration, and we should have had another master if a much better one could have been got. But Mr. Markham, who is the only other one within reach, is not so painstaking and patient with his pupils as Mr. Henley; and though his style is rather better, it is not so very superior as to lead us, on the whole, to turn poor Mr. Henley away for him. As to Madame," said Miss Ellen, in conclusion, "she was quite right, my dear, to contrast your negligence with Lucy's industry, and your smart speech was not in good taste towards her, because you know that she knows nothing of drawing, and could not dispute the point with you. There she comes," added Miss Ellen rather nervously. She was afraid of Madame.

"I'll go and beg her pardon, dear Miss Ellen," said Eleanor penitently, and rus.h.i.+ng out of the room, she met Madame in the pa.s.sage, and we heard her pouring forth a torrent of apology and self-accusation in a style peculiar to herself. If in her youth and cleverness she was at times a little sharp-tongued and self-opinionated, the vehemence of her self-reproaches when she saw herself in fault was always a joke with those who knew her.

"Eleanor's confessions are only to be matched by her favourite Jeremy Taylor's," said Jack one day.

"She's just as b.u.mptious next time, all the same," said Clement. He had been disputing with Eleanor, and the generous grace of meeting an apology half-way was no part of his character.

He had an arbitrary disposition, in which Eleanor to some extent shared.

He controlled it to fairness in discussions with men, but with men only.

With Eleanor, who persisted in thinking for herself, and was not slow to express her thoughts, he had many hot disputes, in which he often seemed unable to be fair, and did not always trouble himself to be reasonable.

By his own account he "detested girls with opinions." Abroad he was politely contemptuous of feminine ideas; at home he was apt to be rudely so.

But this was only one, and a later development of many-sided Clement.

And the subject is a digression, and has no business here.