Anne Hereford. Mrs. Henry Wood
you would have been placed at Nettleby."
"Where am I to spend the holidays?"
"At school. It is to Miss Fenton's that you are going."
"Is that where Frances and Mary go?"
"No," she answered, a smile crossing her lips. "They would not be admitted to Miss Fenton's."
"But why?"
"Because she professes to take none but gentlemen's daughters. My daughters, especially with their father living in the same town, would not do at any price. It will be a condescension," she laughed, "that Miss Fenton allows you to dine with us once in a while."
"Perhaps she will not take me," I breathlessly said.
"My dear, she will be only too glad to do so. You are the daughter of Colonel Hereford, the granddaughter of Carew of Keppe-Carew."
And in spite of the lost caste of Mrs. Hemson, in spite of the shop below, I never spent a happier week than the one I spent with her.
And now came school life; school life that was to continue without intermission, and did continue, until I was eighteen years of age. Part of these coming years were spent at Miss Fenton's; the rest (as I found afterwards) at a school in France. It is very much the custom to cry down French scholastic establishments, to contrast them unfavourably with English ones. They may deserve the censure; I do not know; but I can truthfully say that so far as my experience goes, the balance is on the other side.
Miss Fenton's was a "Select Establishment," styling itself a first-class one. I have often wondered whether those less select, less expensive, were not more liberal in their arrangements. Fourteen was the number of girls professed to be taken, but never once, during my stay, was the school quite full. It had a name; and there lay the secret of its success. The teaching was good; the girls were brought on well: but for the comforts! You shall hear of them. And I declare that I transcribe each account faithfully.
There were nine pupils at the time I entered: I made the tenth. Miss Fenton, an English teacher, a French teacher who taught German also, and several day-masters, instructed us. Miss Fenton herself took nothing, that I saw, but the music; she was about five-and-thirty, tall, thin, and very prim.
"You will be well off there, my dear, in regard to living," Mrs. Hemson had said to me. "Miss Fenton tells me her pupils are treated most liberally; and that she keeps an excellent table. Indeed she ought to do so, considering her terms."
Of course I thought I should be treated liberally, and enjoy the benefits of the excellent table.
We got there just before tea time, six o'clock. Mrs. Hemson, acting for my trustees had made the negotiations with Miss Fenton; of course she took me to school, stayed a few minutes with Miss Fenton, and then left me. When my things were off, and I was back in the drawing-room, Miss Fenton rang the bell.
"You shall join the young ladies at once," she said to me; "they are about to take tea. You have never been to school before, I think."
"No, ma'am. Mamma instructed me."
"Have the young ladies gone into the refectory?" Miss Fenton inquired, when a maid-servant appeared.
"I suppose so, ma'am," was the answer. "The bell has been rung for them."
"Desire Miss Linthorn to step hither."
Miss Linthorn appeared, a scholar of fifteen or sixteen, very upright. She made a deep curtsey as she entered. "Take this young lady and introduce her," said Miss Fenton. "Her name is Hereford."
We went through some spacious, well-carpeted passages; their corners displaying a chaste statue, or a large plant in beautiful bloom; and thence into some shabby passages, uncarpeted. Nothing could be more magnificent (in a moderate, middle-class point of view) than the show part, the company part of Miss Fenton's house; nothing much more meagre than the rest.
A long, bare deal table, with the tea-tray at the top; two plates of thick bread-and-butter, very thick, and one plate of thinner; the English teacher pouring out the tea, the French one seated by her side, and eight girls lower down, that was what I saw on entering a room that looked cold and comfortless.
Miss Linthorn, leaving me just inside the door, walked up to the teachers and spoke.
"Miss Hereford."
"I heard there was a new girl coming in to-day," interrupted a young lady, lifting her head, and speaking in a rude, free tone. "What's the name, Linthorn?"
"Will you have the goodness to behave as a lady--if you can, Miss Glynn?" interrupted the English teacher, whose name was Dale. "That will be your place, Miss Hereford," she added, to me, indicating the end of the form on the left side, below the rest. "Have you taken tea?"
"No, ma'am."
"Qu'elles sont impolies, ces filles Anglaises!" said Mademoiselle Leduc, the French teacher, with a frowning glance at Miss Glynn for her especial benefit.
"It is the nature of school girls to be so, Mademoiselle," pertly responded Miss Glynn. "And I beg to remind you that we are not under your charge when we are out of school in the evening; therefore, whether we are 'impolies' or 'polies,' it is no affair of yours."
Mademoiselle Leduc only half comprehended the words; it was as well she did not. Miss Dale administered a sharp reprimand, and passed me my tea. I stirred it, tasted it, and stirred it again.
"Don't you like it?" asked a laughing girl next to me; Clara Webb, they called her.
I did not like it at all, and would rather have had milk and water. So far as flavour went, it might have been hot water coloured, was sweetened with brown sugar, and contained about a teaspoonful of milk. I never had any better tea, night or morning, so long as I remained: but school girls get used to these things. The teachers had a little black teapot to themselves, and their tea looked good. The plate of thin bread-and-butter was for them.
A very handsome girl of seventeen, with haughty eyes and still more haughty tones, craned her neck forward and stared at me. Some of the rest followed her example.
"That child has nothing to eat," she observed. "Why don't you hand the bread-and-butter to her, Webb?"
Clara Webb presented the plate to me. It was so thick, the bread, that I hesitated to take it, and the butter was scraped upon it in a niggardly fashion; but for my experience at Miss Fenton's I should never have thought it possible for butter to have been spread so thin. The others were eating it with all the appetite of hunger. The slice was too thick to bite conveniently, so I had to manage as well as I could, listening--how could I avoid it?--to a conversation the girls began among themselves in an undertone. To hear them call each other by the surname alone had a strange sound. It was the custom of the school. The teachers were talking together, taking no notice of the girls.
"Hereford? Hereford?" debated the handsome girl, and I found her name was Tayler. "I wonder where she comes from?"
"I know who I saw her with last Sunday, when I was spending the day at home. The Hemsons."
"What Hemsons? Who are they?"
"Hemsons the linendrapers."
"Hemsons the linendrapers!" echoed an indignant voice, whilst I felt my own face turn to a glowing crimson. "What absurd nonsense you are talking, Glynn!"
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