The Mark Of Cain. Lang Andrew

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СКАЧАТЬ looked quite brilliant, warm, and comfortable, even in the eager and the nipping air of Miss Marlett’s shuddering establishment, and by the frosty light of a single candle. This young lady was tall and firmly fashioned; a nut-brown maid, with a ruddy glow on her cheeks, with glossy hair rolled up in a big tight knot, and with à smile (which knew when it was well off) always faithful to her lips. These features, it is superfluous to say in speaking of a heroine, “were rather too large for regular beauty.” She was perfectly ready to face the enemy (in which light she humorously regarded her mistress) when the loud cracked bell jangled at seven o’clock exactly, and the drowsy girls came trooping from the dormitories down into the wintry class-rooms.

      Arithmetical diversions, in a cold chamber, were the intellectual treat which awaited Margaret and her companions. Arithmetic and slates! Does anyone remember – can anyone forget – how horribly distasteful a slate can be when the icy fingers of youth have to clasp that cold educational formation (Silurian, I believe), and to fumble with the greasy slate-pencil? With her Colenso in her lap, Margaret Shields grappled for some time with the mysteries of Tare and Tret. “Tare an’ ‘ouns, I call it,” whispered Janey Harman, who had taken, in the holidays, a “course” of Lever’s Irish novels. Margaret did not make very satisfactory progress with her commercial calculations. After hopelessly befogging herself, she turned to that portion of Colenso’s engaging work which is most palpitating with actuality:

      “If ten Surrey laborers, in mowing a field of forty acres, drink twenty-three quarts of beer, how much cider will thirteen Devonshire laborers consume in building a stone wall of thirteen roods four poles in length, and four feet six in height?”

      This problem, also, proved too severe for Margaret’s mathematical endowments, and (it is extraordinary how childish the very greatest girls can be) she was playing at “oughts and crosses” with Janey Harman when the arithmetic master came round. He sat down, not unwillingly, beside Miss Shields, erased, without comment, the sportive diagrams, and set himself vigorously to elucidate (by “the low cunning of algebra”) the difficult sum from Colenso.

      “You see, it is like this,” he said, mumbling rapidly, and scribbling a series of figures and letters which the pupil was expected to follow with intelligent interest. But the rapidity of the processes quite dazed Margaret: a result not unusual when the teacher understands his topic so well, and so much as a matter of course that he cannot make allowance for the benighted darkness of the learner.

      “Ninety-five firkins fourteen gallons three quarts. You see, it’s quite simple,” said Mr. Cleghorn, the arithmetic master.

      “Oh, thank you; I see,” said Margaret, with the kind readiness of woman, who would profess to “see” the Secret of Hegel, or the inmost heart of the Binomial Theorem, or the nature of the duties of cover-point, or the latest hypothesis about the frieze of the Parthenon, rather than be troubled with prolonged explanations, which the expositor, after all, might find it inconvenient to give.

      Arithmetic and algebra were not this scholar’s forte; and no young lady in Miss Marlett’s establishment was so hungry, or so glad when eight o’clock struck and the bell rang for breakfast, as Margaret Shields.

      Breakfast at Miss Marlett’s was not a convivial meal. There was a long narrow table, with cross-tables at each end, these high seats, or dais, being occupied by Miss Marlett and the governesses. At intervals down the table were stacked huge piles of bread and butter – of extremely thick bread and surprisingly thin butter – each slice being divided into four portions. The rest of the banquet consisted solely of tea. Whether this regimen was enough to support growing girls, who had risen at seven, till dinnertime at half-past one, is a problem which, perhaps, the inexperienced intellect of man can scarcely approach with confidence. But, if girls do not always learn as much at school as could be desired, intellectually speaking, it is certain that they have every chance of acquiring Spartan habits, and of becoming accustomed (if familiarity really breeds contempt) to despise hunger and cold. Not that Miss Marlett’s establishment was a Dothegirls Hall, nor a school much more scantily equipped with luxuries than others. But the human race has still to learn that girls need good meals just as much as, or more than, persons of maturer years. Boys are no better off at many places; but boys have opportunities of adding bloaters and chops to their breakfasts, which would be considered horribly indelicate and insubordinate conduct in girls.

      “Est ce que vous aimez les tartines à l’Anglaise,” said Janey Harman to Margaret.

      “Ce que j’aime dans la tartine, c’est la simplicité prime-sautière da sa nature,” answered Miss Shields.

      It was one of the charms of the “matinal meal” (as the author of “Guy Livingstone” calls breakfast) that the young ladies were all compelled to talk French (and such French!) during this period of refreshment.

      “Toutes choses, la cuisine exceptée, sont Françaises, dans cet établissement peu recréatif,” went on Janey, speaking low and fast.

      “Je déteste le Français,” Margaret answered, “mais je le préfère infiniment à l’Allemand.”

      “Comment accentuez, vous le mot préfère, Marguerite?” asked Miss Marlett, who had heard the word, and who neglected no chance of conveying instruction.

      “Oh, two accents – one this way, and the other that,” answered Margaret, caught unawares. She certainly did not reply in the most correct terminology.

      “Vous allez perdre dix marks,” remarked the schoolmistress, if incorrectly, perhaps not too severely. But perhaps it is not easy to say, off-hand, what word Miss Marlett ought to have employed for “marks.”

      “Voici les lettres qui arrivent,” whispered Janey to Margaret, as the post-bag was brought in and deposited before Miss Marlett, who opened it with a key and withdrew the contents.

      This was a trying moment for the young ladies. Miss Marlett first sorted out all the letters for the girls, which came, indubitably and unmistakably, from fathers and mothers. Then she picked out the other letters, those directed to young ladies whom she thought she could trust, and handed them over in honorable silence. These maidens were regarded with envy by the others. Among them was not Miss Harman, whose letters Miss Marlett always deliberately opened and read before delivering them.

      “Il y a une lettre pour moi, et elle va la lire,” said poor Janey to her friend, who, for her part, never received any letters, save a few, at stated intervals, from Maitland. These Miss Shields used to carry about in her pocket without opening them till they were all crumply at the edges. Then she hastily mastered their contents, and made answer in the briefest and most decorous manner.

      “Qui est votre correspondent?” Margaret asked. We are not defending her French.

      “C’est le pauvre Harry Wyville,” answered Janey. “Il est sous-lieutenant dans les Berkshires à Aldershot Pourquoi ne doit il pas écrire à moi, il est comme on diroit, mon frère.”

      “Est il votre parent?”

      “Non, pas du tout, mais je l’ai connu pour des ans. Oh, pour des ans! Voici, elle à deux dépêches télégraphiques,” Janey added, observing two orange colored envelopes which had come in the mail-bag with the letters.

      As this moment Miss Marlett finished the fraternal epistle of Lieutenant Wyville, which she folded up with a frown and returned to the envelope.

      “Jeanne je veux vous parler à part, après, dans mon boudoir,” remarked Miss Marlett severely; and Miss Herman, becoming a little blanched, displayed no further appetite for tartines, nor for French conversation.

      Indeed, to see another, and a much older lady, СКАЧАТЬ