The Carved Lions Part 6

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 circ.u.mstances 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-G.o.dmother-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 const.i.tutional.

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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sing glimpse, and she went on speaking.

"She must be one of the younger teachers, I should think. I hope you may be in her cla.s.s. 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.

"How pleased father seems to be about going so far away," I said once to Haddie. But he did not answer.

He--Haddie--was to go a part of the way in the same train as father and mamma. They were to start on the Thursday, and I was taken to Green Bank on Wednesday morning. Father took me--and Lydia. I was such a little girl that mamma thought Lydia should go with me to unpack and arrange my things, and she never thought that any one could object to this. For she had never been at school herself, and did not know much about school ways. I think the first beginning of my troubles and disappointments was about Lydia.

Father and I were shown into the drawing-room. But when the door opened this time, it was not to admit gentle old Miss Ledbury. Instead of her in came a tall, thin woman, dressed in gray--she had black hair done rather tightly, and a black lace bow on the top of her head.

Father was standing looking out of the window, and I beside him holding his hand. I was not crying. I had had one sudden convulsive fit of sobs early that morning when mamma came for a moment into my room, and for the first time it _really_ came over me that I was leaving her. But she almost prayed me to try not to cry, and the feeling that I was helping her, joined to the excitement I was in, made it not so very difficult to keep quiet. I do not even think my eyes were red.

Father turned at the sound of the door opening.

"Miss Ledbury," he began.

"Not Miss Ledbury. I am Miss Aspinall, her _niece_," said the lady; she was not pleased at the mistake.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said poor father. "I understood----"

"Miss Ledbury is not very well this morning," said Miss Aspinall. "She deputed me to express her regrets."

"Oh certainly," said father. "This is my little daughter--you have seen her before, I suppose?"

"No," said the lady, holding out her hand. "How do you do, my dear?"

I did not speak. I stared up at her, I felt so confused and strange. I scarcely heard what father went on to say--some simple messages from mamma about my writing to them, and so on, and the dates of the mails, the exact address, etc., etc., to all of which Miss Aspinall listened with a slight bend of her head or a stiff "indeed," or "just so."

This was not encouraging. I am afraid even father's buoyant spirits went down: I think he had had some idea that if he came himself he would be able to make friends with my school-mistress and be able to ensure her special friendliness. But it was clear that nothing of this kind was to be done with the niece.

So he said at last,

"Well, I think that is all. Good-bye, my little woman, then. Good-bye, my darling. She will be a good girl, I am sure, Miss Aspinall; she has been a dear good child at home."

His voice was on the point of breaking, but the governess stood there stonily. His praise of me was not the way to win her favour. I do believe she would have liked me better if he had said I had been so naughty and troublesome at home that he trusted the discipline of school would do me good. And when I glanced up at Miss Aspinall's face, something seemed to choke down the sob which was beginning again to rise in my throat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "GOOD-BYE!"]

"Good-bye, my own little girl," said father. One more kiss and he was gone.

My luggage was in the hall--which was really a pa.s.sage scarcely deserving the more important name--and beside it stood Lydia. Miss Aspinall looked at her coldly.

"Who----" she began, when I interrupted her.

"It's Lydia," I said. "She's come to unpack my things. Mamma sent her."