CHAPTER VII.
AT SCHOOL.
Meg was going through the ordeal that her friend had set for her, andshe strung herself to endurance. She felt she was tabooed by thesefashionable young ladies, and she fiercely anticipated their neglect.She avoided them; she rejected Ursula's advances with impatience.
For awhile some of the girls felt a temptation to bait this littlebadger, but at last either the freshness or the excitement of the sportdied away. Perhaps, too, a certain amount of fear restrained them. Theslap administered to Laura Harris had made an impression, and it wasconsidered advisable not to goad the "savage" beyond bounds. Meg afterawhile was very much left alone.
She was an outcast, and she felt homesick for the London cage from whichshe had flitted, and which the presence of a friend had cheered. For thefirst time, also, she realized her ignorance, and with resolute heroismshe set herself to learn. She worked with astonishing zeal. At herbooks and lessons Meg did not feel so lonely. At church and in her walksthrough the pleasant country lanes the sense of her absolute isolationwas lifted. In recreation hours she sat apart from her schoolfellows.There was a yew tree on the outskirts of the playground into which sheclimbed to read Goldsmith's "Animated Nature." She began its perusal forthe sake of the donor; then, gradually, this book of wonder fascinatedher. The description it gave of strange, beautiful creatures, of birdsespecially, enthralled her. She gathered from the pages hints offar-away countries that called to her like a voice. This littletown-bred heart was seized with a passionate love of nature and afoolish love of wild flowers. As she formed one of the regiment of girlswho tramped, two and two, through the country lanes, the beauty ofnature seemed to comfort Meg as if the touch of a reassuring hand werelaid upon her heart. She would almost forget, then, that she was anobject of mockery or patronage to her fellows. In the beautiful oldchurch she felt nearly happy. "I am out of school," she would say toherself. The voice of the organ took her immensely. It seemed to be avoice talking to God. She liked the clergyman also. He was an oldgentleman who appeared to her to be endowed with great benevolence. Shethought his sermons marvels of eloquence. When, in answer to her longstare, his eye sometimes rested upon her, she felt immenselydistinguished and honored.
The teachers of Moorhouse were as much puzzled concerning Meg as werethe girls. She knew so much of some subjects and so little of others.Miss Reeves, after a careful examination of the new pupil'sacquirements, declared that Meg might beat the girls of the upper classin knowledge of some parts of history, and in familiarity with some ofShakespeare's plays; while the lower classes might overmaster her in theelements of arithmetic, geography, and other subjects.
Mr. Foster, the arithmetic master, a lank man with a large nose and along neck, who looked like an innocent vulture, and who had never beenknown to give a bad mark, contenting himself with feebly rubbing out themistakes on the slates presented to him, was bewildered by Meg'sabsolute ignorance of the rules of arithmetic, and by her dependenceupon her fingers for counters.
"Miss Beecham is a _table-rase_, as was the great philosopher Descartesbefore he began to observe for the sake of his method," said theprofessor to Miss Reeves, with forefinger uplifted, for Mr. Foster wasproud of making little pedantic jokes.
Madame Vallaria, the middle-aged lady who superintended the music of theestablishment, teaching piano and singing from morning till night, wasdivided between admiration for Meg's correct ear and determination tolearn, and despair over the stiffness of her fingers and her ignoranceof the first elements of music. The signora was hot-tempered; her nerveswere jarred by listening to incessant practice.
"No, no, it is impossible! I will not teach you--I will refuse--I willsay to Miss Reeves that I cannot!" She sometimes exclaimed, addressingMeg: "Your fingers are like the chop sticks the Chinese do use foreating. You thump--thump--thump! I hear it in my sleep. It ever gives methe nightmare." Sometimes Mme. Vallaria relented and with volubleheartiness would exclaim: "Oh, Povera! your leetle heart is set tolearn; you are so courageous; and your ear it is exact, like a machinemade to catch the sounds. Yes, I will teach you--you shall learn ityet--the piano--never fear!"
Mr. Eyre, the shy and eminent professor who came down twice a week fromLondon to take classes of history and English literature of younger andelder pupils, would alternately pass from delight to annoyance at Meg'sanswers. Her indifference to dates appeared to him a sort of moraldeficiency--it amounted to contempt. Her power of realizing historicalfacts and characters in which she took an interest was vivid, as if shehad been a spectator of the events described, and had a personalacquaintance with the actors therein. He vowed she spoke of Julius Caesaras if she knew him, and of his murder as if it had happened yesterdayand was the subject of a leader in this morning's _Times_. He wasappalled and puzzled, he exhorted, he raged; but his eye restedexpectantly upon Meg when her companions floundered behind, and thedullness of the class was relieved for him by the audacity of heranswers.
"You ought to go up to London to see the coronation," he said to her oneday when the theme of the lesson was Queen Elizabeth's reign, and Megsurpassed herself in the brilliancy of her descriptive replies and theastounding incorrectness of her dates.
"What coronation?" asked Meg.
"That of Queen Elizabeth."
"But she is dead and buried in Westminster Abbey," Meg rejoined blankly,being dismally dense in apprehending a joke.
"Is she?" replied Mr. Eyre with feigned astonishment, and as was hiswont when he bantered his pupils, he set about biting what remained ofhis nails and scribbled the lessons to be learned in the following week.
"Let her go on! She will go forever and ever backward till she isstopped by the pyramid of Ghizeh!" he remarked another day as Meg placedthe date of Cromwell a century too early, and was sending it backanother hundred years when she found she was wrong.
Miss Grantley, the English and geography teacher to the younger class,was antagonistically chilly in her treatment of Meg. The child felt shewas disliked, and with that precise and unsympathetic teacher herdeficiencies came out flagrantly. Signora Vallaria's voluble wailings,Dr. Grey's jokes, did not dispirit Meg as did Miss Grantley's frostycensoriousness.
Meg was solitary, and in her solitude she grew defiant and repellent.Her heart suffered from the atmosphere of repression. As far as outwardappearances went she resembled her comrades; she was dressed like herfellow-pupils, her wardrobe having been replenished under Miss Reeves'direction; but inwardly she was not of them. She sat among them like anowl among sparrows.
She observed them. As she had watched the hubbub of the lodging-house,so she now watched the routine of the school. The girls of the firstclass, tall, elegantly dressed, appeared to her like young goddesses.
Some of those nodded to her kindly as they passed, and she returned thesalute awkwardly without a smile.
Among the girls who had tormented her on her first night, a group,headed by Miss Rosamond Pinkett, the cold-eyed, straight-backed,Roman-nosed young lady, kept up an aggressive attitude. It stillappeared to Miss Pinkett that a degradation had been inflicted on theschool by the introduction of the "savage," and she ignored Meg withcontemptuous coldness. This young lady's bosom friend, GwendolineLister, the beauty of the school, had a nature addicted to romance. Hermind was like a story-book in which every page contained a thrillingincident of which she was usually the heroine.
The sudden appearance of Meg, in a costume that suggested the dress of apoor tradesman's child, her fierce refusal to betray anything concerningher antecedents except the reiteration that her mother was a lady, firedthe beauty's fancy. Meg, she imagined, was the scion of a noble family,stolen by gypsies, found at last, and sent here to be educated.
"Daughter of a ballet-dancer, my dear, you mean," Miss Pinkett said withan icy sniff. "That ridiculous drawing speaks volumes."
The drawing to which Miss Pinkett alluded, and from which the Beauty hadevolved her romance, was an attempt made by Meg to repeat from memorythat dear fashion plate, wh
ich she had given away.
She had rudely drawn a small-mouthed, large-eyed face, the head wreathedwith roses, the dress covered with roses. Underneath she had written inRoman characters, "My mother." This drawing had been found inGoldsmith's "Animated Nature," taken out by prying fingers, and had beenpassed from hand to hand. Where others had found food for mockery, MissLister had found food for her imagination.
Meg had come on the scene as Miss Pinkett was in the act of examiningthe sketch. With a cry she had snatched it out of the enemy's grasp,and, tearing it to bits, she had flung herself from the presence of thegirls.
Ursula continued the defense of the stranger, and made advances to Meg,which the child persistently refused.
"Why won't you take my sweets?" Ursula asked once in a piqued tone.
"I don't want them," said Meg with jerky abruptness.
"Why? Is it because you have none to give in return?" demanded Ursulabluntly.
"I don't want them--that is all!" answered Meg.
"It is pride--nothing but pride!" said Ursula, turning away with adispleased gleam of her spectacles.
A few days later an incident happened which showed that Meg was not allindifferent to kindness. The spring had come and decked with lavishwaste of blossoms disgraced corners as well as more favored places. Ithad rimmed with a fringe of velvet wallflower the top of the arid gardenwall. The orange and brown blooms spread in the sunlight, swayed in thebreeze, attracted the murmuring bees, and sang the praise of spring indelicate wafts of perfume.
"How delicious those wallflowers smell," said Ursula, sniffing the airwith head thrown back. "It is a shame they should be unpluckable. I wishI had a handful."
Meg heard the wish as she sat perched on the yew tree. When Ursulaturned away she abandoned her leafy throne, and swung herself from oneof the branches on to the trellis that covered the wall. It was a highwall, but she climbed it with the precision of a woodland animal, heregrasping the trellis, there planting her foot on some bit of projectingmasonry. "You'll fall!" cried a chorus of voices. "To climb that wall isabsolutely forbidden, Miss Beecham," called out Miss Pinkett's voice. "Iwill go and tell Miss Grantley," cried Laura Harris, setting off at arun. Meg, undismayed by warnings and threats, pursued her quest.
A moment later Ursula felt a gentle touch on the elbow, and a fragrantbunch of brown blossoms was thrust into her hand.
"Meg, you did not!" she cried with amazed spectacles, gazing at thechild, who bore marks of her recent encounter with the perils of thewall.
Meg nodded.
Ursula buried her nose into the flowers with a hesitating expression asMiss Grantley came up, followed by girls.
"Miss Beecham, go indoors at once! You shall stay in this afternoon forthis unlady-like and disobedient conduct. Ursula, those flowers must begiven up!"
MEG PULLS THE FORBIDDEN FLOWERS.--Page 94.]
Meg went indoors without a murmur, and zealously devoted herself to thetask set her as expiation of her offense. She took pleasure in itsdifficulty. She was glad the day was so beautiful, that the room wasfull of sunshine, and the wandering puffs of wind brought in messagesfrom the odorous sweetness of the day. She was proud of being punishedfor Ursula's sake. It seemed to put her on a more equal footing, as ifrepaying her for past kindness.
Another incident that followed shortly after the wall-climbing episodeproved that Meg's sense of loyalty survived amid the withering influenceof loveless criticisms around her.
Miss Gwendoline Lister, because of her beauty, was a personality in theschool. She suffered the penalties of celebrity. Stories were currentconcerning her. One averred that she had been found dissolved in tearson the discovery of a freckle upon her nose. Another rumor was currentthat the Beauty spent the afternoon of wet half-holidays locked up inthe room she and Miss Pinkett shared in common arranging and dressingher hair in various fashions, enhancing her charms with rouge andpowder, and trying on her ball dress.
Perhaps this report arose from the fact of a rouge pot having been foundin the school. Some averred it was the property of Miss Lister, othersdeclared its contents had been used by the young ladies who had takenpart in a theatrical entertainment given on the occasion of breaking upfor the holidays.
Meg, in her isolation, took no interest in the "rouge pot controversy."One afternoon, to her surprise, she was beckoned by Miss Pinkett intothe room shared by her and Gwendoline.
The Beauty was standing near the dressing-table, a radiant visionclothed in white, with hair unbound, wreathed with roses, and with rosesin the bodice of her dress.
For a moment Meg remained struck dumb with admiration, then came asudden revolution. In her wide experience of life in the boarding-houseshe had known an obscure member of the theatrical profession. Thislittle slip of the foot lights, who spent her life in alternate squalorand fairy-like splendor, had on one or two occasions dressed herself upfor Meg's benefit. The child had grown to know cheeks bedabbled withpaint and eyes outlined with bismuth. The face of Miss Lister broughtback this acquaintance of bygone times.
"Well, what do I look like?" said Gwendoline, with her head cocked onone side and her finger-tips caressing the roses in her bodice. "Youknow, little monkey, you are not to tell."
Miss Pinkett watched the effect on Meg with cold curiosity.
"You look much prettier as you are every day," said Meg.
"Do I look like your mother?"
"My mother!" repeated the child, and she began to tremble.
"I copied the portrait you drew, roses and all," said the Beauty.
"My mother never painted her cheeks; she never put black under her eyes.You are like a Christy minstrel painted pink and white--that's what youare like!" said Meg, with the concentration of fury in her voice. Sheturned, unlocked the door, and slammed it behind her.
As she emerged out of the room the dressing bell for tea rang, and sheencountered a group of girls waiting outside. They cried breathlessly:
"What are they doing inside?"
"Is not Gwendoline dressing up? Does she rouge her cheeks?"
"I saw a bit of a white dress."
"I did--I did! Tell us, Meg--Meg!"
But Meg did not answer. She tore along the passage and up the stairstill she came to a solitary attic. She flung herself down on the floorand hammered the insensate boards with her fists. In her untamed heartshe would have wished to wipe the insult from her mother's memory bythus maltreating the painted cheeks of Miss Lister.
When the tea bell rang Meg went downstairs.
"Where are Miss Pinkett and Miss Lister?" asked Miss Reeves, after shehad said grace, glancing down the table.
"They have not come down yet from their room, madam," said the attendingparlor-maid.
"Miss Lister is dressing up. Miss Beecham was there--she knows," saidLaura Harris, who might be relied upon for giving information on thedoings of the other girls.
"Miss Beecham knows!" repeated some other voices.
"Miss Lister puts paint on her cheeks," resumed Laura, growing moreexplicit.
"I hope not!" said Miss Reeves, with an anxious brow, and her eye restedupon Meg.
"I heard it said before by Miss Reeves' young laidees," put in SignoraVallaria, rolling her dark eyes. "Tell, my leetle Meg, what they weredoing, the silly young laidees, when they call you in?"
At this moment Miss Pinkett and Gwendoline entered. The Beauty's facewas shining with soap.
"What were you doing in your room, young ladies?" asked Miss Reevesgravely.
"I suppose, madam, Miss Beecham has been telling," replied Miss Pinkett.
"No, we are waiting for her answer to the question I have just put toyou."
Meg was conscious of every eye being turned upon her--Miss Reevessternly questioning, Miss Pinkett coldly supercilious, Gwendoline, withpursed lips, imploring. She stood up, her little red lips closedtightly, her heart fiercely divided between a desire for vengeance and asense of loyalty. After a pause she said:
"They called me into the room to ma
ke fun of a portrait of my motherwhich I had drawn."
A murmur of comical disappointment from the girls round the table, anexpression of relief on the faces of the two culprits, greeted thisanswer.
"It was such an absurd portrait, madam," said Miss Pinkett in anexplanatory tone; "a lady suffering from the mumps wearing a wreath ofroses."
A titter went round the table.
"Hush!" said Miss Reeves seriously. "It is unkind to laugh at the child.Sit down, young ladies."
"It was awfully good of you, Meg, not to tell about me," said Gwendolinethat evening, when she got Meg alone. "I am awfully obliged. I am sorryI offended you. Will you forgive me?"
"No!" said Meg emphatically, turning her back upon the Beauty andwalking stiffly away.