Back Aa

Regiment of Women

<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> Louise spent her Easter holidays among her lesson books. Miss Hartill and Miss Durand were in Italy, all responsibilities put aside for four blessed weeks, but for Louise there could be no relaxation. The examinations were to take place a few days before the summer term began, and their imminence overshadowed her. Useless for Miss Durand to extract a promise to rest, to be lazy, to forget all about lessons. Louise promised readily and broke her promise half-an-hour after she had waved the train out of the station. Impossible to keep away from one's History and Latin and Mathematics with examinations three weeks ahead. Miss Durand might preach; her overtaxed brain cry pax; her cramped body ache for exercise; but Louise knew herself forced to ignore all protests. She would rest when the examinations were over. Till then—revision, repetition—repetition, revision—with as little time as might be grudged to eating and sleeping and duty walks with Mrs. Denny. There was no time to lose. The nights swallowed up the days all too swiftly. Yet, waking one morning with a start to realise that the day of days had dawned at last, she found it incredible. The morning was exactly like other mornings, with the sun streaming blindingly in upon her, because she had forgotten, as usual, to drawn her blind at night, her head already aching a little, hot and heavy from uneasy sleep. All night long her brain had been alert, restless, beyond control. All night long it had tugged and fretted, like a leashed dog, at the surface slumber that tethered it. She felt confused, burdened with a half-consciousness of vivid, forgotten dreams.[159] She dressed abstractedly, lesson books propped against her looking-glass, and wedged between soap-dish and pitcher. For the hundredth time she conned the technicalities of her work, and making no slips, grew more cheerful for it had been the letter, not the spirit, that had troubled her—little matters of rules and exceptions, of dates and derivations, that would surely trip her up. But she was feeling sure of herself at last, and thrilling as she was with nervous excitement, could yet be glad that the great day had dawned, and ready to laugh at all her previous despondencies. Things were turning out better than she had expected. There was bracing comfort in beginning with her own subject—Miss Hartill's own subject. She could have no fears for herself in the Literature examination. French in the afternoon, that was less pleasant. But she would manage—must, literally. "Miss Hartill expects——" She laughed. She supposed the sailors felt just the same about Nelson as she did about Miss Hartill. She wondered if Lady Hamilton had minded his only having one eye and one arm? Suppose Miss Hartill had only one eye and one arm? Oh! If anything happened to Miss Hartill...! She shivered at the idea and instantly witnessed, with all imaginable detail, the wreck of the train as it entered Utterbridge station, and she herself rescuing Miss Hartill, armless and blind, from the blazing carriage. She had her on the sofa, five years later, in the prettiest of invalid gowns, contentedly reliant on her former pupil. And Louise, blissfully happy, was her hands and feet and eyes, her nurse, her servant, her—(hastily Louise deprived her alike of income and friends) her bread-winner and companion. Here her French Grammar, slithering over the soap to the floor, woke her from that delicious reverie. She picked it up, and applied herself for a while to its dazing infinitives. But teeth-brushing is a rhythmic process: her thoughts wandered again perforce. She had got to be first.... Miss Hartill would be so pleased.... It would be heavenly to please Miss Hartill again as she used[160] to do.... Nothing had been the same since Cynthia came.... She flushed to the eyes at the recollection of her last unlucky visit——"You needn't come again unless you can be more amusing. You might at least be natural...." Yet Miss Hartill had been so kind at the last ... had waved to her from the train.... The postman's knock startled her, disturbed her meditations anew. Letters! Was it possible? Would Miss Hartill have remembered? Have sent her, perhaps, a postcard? Stranger things had been. She had for weeks envisaged the possibility. She finished her dressing and tore downstairs. The maid was hovering over the breakfast-table. "Are there any letters, Baxter? Are there any letters?" But she had already caught sight of a foreign postcard on her plate, a postcard with an unfamiliar stamp. She scurried round the table, her heart thumping. But the big, adventurous handwriting was hatefully familiar. The postcard was from Miss Durand. She waited a moment, her lips parted vacantly, as was her fashion when controlling emotion; waited till the maid had gone. Then she crumpled and tore the thin cardboard in her hand and flung it at last on the floor, in a passion of disappointment. "She might have written!" cried Louise. "Oh, she might have written! It wouldn't have hurt her—a postcard." Presently a thought struck her. She groped under the table for the torn scraps of paper and spread them in her lap, piecing them eagerly, laboriously. Miss Hartill might have written on Miss Durand's postcard. She had the oblong fitted together at last and read the scrawl with impatient eagerness. Miss Durand was just sending her a line to wish her all imaginable luck. She and Miss Hartill were having a glorious time. They were sitting at that moment where she had made a cross on the[161] picture postcard. She wished Louise could be with them to see the wonderful view over the valley and with good wishes from them both, was her Alwynne Durand.... Louise's eyes softened—"from them both." That was something! Miss Hartill had sent her a message. She sighed as she wrapped the scraps carefully in her handkerchief. Life was queer.... Here was Miss Durand, so kind, so friendly always—yet her kindness brought no pleasure.... And Miss Hartill, who could open heaven with a word—was not half so kind as Miss Durand. Louise marvelled that Miss Hartill could be so miserly. She was sure that if she, Louise, could make people utterly happy by kind looks and kind words, stray messages and occasional postcards, that she would be only too glad to be allowed to do it. To possess the power of giving happiness.... And with no more trouble to yourself than the writing of a postcard! Queer that Miss Hartill did not realise what her mere existence meant to people.... She couldn't realise it, of course ... that was it.... She thought so little about herself.... It was her own beautiful selflessness that made her seem, occasionally, hard—unkind even.... She didn't realise what she meant to people.... If she had, she would have written.... Of course she would have written ... just a word ... on Daffy's postcard.... Louise sighed again. One didn't ask much.... But it seemed the more humble one grew—the less one asked—the more unlikely people were to throw one even that little.... At any rate there was the examination to tackle.... If she did well—! She lost herself again in speculations as to the form Miss Hartill's approval might take. The family trooped in to breakfast as the brisk maid dumped a steaming dishful of liver and bacon upon the table. Louise occupied her place and began to spread her bread-and-butter, avoiding her father's eye. But, as she foresaw, she was not permitted to escape.[162] Mr. Denny pounced upon the butter-dish. "Not with bacon," he remarked, with reproachful satisfaction, and removed it. Louise said nothing. She was careful not to look at her parent, for she knew that her expression was not permissible. His harmless tyrannies irritated her as invariably as her tricks of personality grated upon him. She thought him smug and petty, and despised him for his submissive attitude to her step-mother. His noisy interferences with her personal habits she thought intolerable, though she had learned to endure them stolidly. But most of all, she hated to see his fat, pudgy hands touching her food. She was accustomed to cut bread for the family. No one guessed why she had arrogated to herself that duty. And he, good man, would look at his daughter occasionally, and wonder why she was so unlike his satisfactory sons and their capable mother: would be vaguely annoyed by her silences, and by a certain expression that reminded him uncomfortably of his first "fine-lady" wife; would have an emotion of disquieted responsibility; would hesitate: would end by presenting his daughter with a five-shilling-piece, or be delivered from a dawning sense of responsibility by crumbs on the carpet, the muddy boots of a son and heir, or, as in the present instance, an unjustifiable predilection for butter. "Bread with your meat," he said firmly and handed her a full plate. Then he watched her with interest. His conception of the duties of fatherhood was realised in seeing that his children slightly over-ate themselves at every meal. He did as he would be done by. Louise picked up knife and fork unwillingly. She was dry-mouthed with excitement and the beginnings of a headache, and the liberal portion of hot, rich food sickened her. But anything was better than a fuss. She sliced idly at the slab of liver. Opportunity beckoned Mr. Denny.[163] "Don't play with your food," said the father sharply. She ate a few mouthfuls, conscious of his supervision. Satisfied, he turned at last to his own breakfast. There was a peaceful interval. The children talked among themselves. Mrs. Denny, hidden behind her tea-cosy, was exclusively concerned with the table manners of the youngest boy. The moment was propitious. Softly Louise rose and slipped to the sideboard. Her plate once hidden behind the biscuit-tin.... Mr. Denny looked up. He was ever miraculously alert at breakfast. "More bacon, Louise?" "No, thank you, Father," said Louise fervently. "Have you finished your plate?" "Yes, Father." Her brothers gave tongue joyously. "Oh-h! You whopper!" "Oh, Father, she hasn't!" "Mother, did you hear? Louise says she's finished her bacon. She hasn't." "Not near!" "Not half!" "Not a quarter!" "Well—of all the whopping lies!" Mr. Denny sprang up, his eyes glistening. He, too, enjoyed a scene. The plate was retrieved from its hiding-place and its guilty burden laid bare. "Emma, do you see this? Emma! Leave that child alone and attend to me! Flagrant! Flagrant disobedience! Louise, I told you to eat it. Turning up your nose at good food! There's many a child would be thankful—Emma! Am I to be disobeyed by my own children? And a lie into the bargain! If that is the way you are taught at your fine school, I'll take you away. Disgraceful! Eat it up now. Emma! Are you or are you not going to back me up? Is all that food to be wasted?"[164] Mrs. Denny's calm eyes surveyed the excited table. "Don't fuss, Edwin. Louise, eat up your bacon." "I can't," said Louise sullenly. "Then you shouldn't have taken so much." "I didn't. It was Father——" "Eat it up at once," said Mrs. Denny peremptorily, as the baby cast his spoon upon the carpet. The tone of her voice ended the discussion. Mr. Denny watched his daughter triumphantly, as she toiled over her task, called her attention to a piece of bacon she had left on the edge of her plate, and when she had finished told her she was a good girl and that it would do her good. After which he gave her a shilling. "I don't want it," muttered Louise. "You don't want it?" repeated Mr. Denny incredulously. Louise looked at him. There was a world of uncomprehending contempt in the eyes of father and child alike, though the father's were amused, where the child's were bitter. Mr. Denny laughed jollily. "I say, kids! Hear that? Your sister here hasn't any use for a shilling. Bet you haven't either! Eh? I don't think!" Ensued clamour, with jostling and laughter and clutching of coins, from which the head of the house retired to his chair by the fire, chuckling and content. He enjoyed distributing largesse, especially where there was no great need for it, though he was liberal enough to famous charities. He never gave to beggars, on principle. Louise slipped out of the room under cover of the noise, and was dressed and departing when her step-mother called her back. "Louise! You stay to lunch to-day, don't you?" "At school? Oh no, Mamma. Holidays, you know! They only open a class-room for the exam." "The fifty-pound job, eh?" Her father eyed her over[165] the top of his paper approvingly. For once his daughter was showing a proper spirit. "Go in and win, my girl! I've given you the best education money could buy. If you don't get it, you jolly well ought to. Fifty quid, eh? I wasn't given the chance of earning fifty quid when I was thirteen. Shop-boy, I was. Started as shop-boy like me father before me." His wife cut in sharply. "Isn't there an afternoon examination? I understood——" "Yes, Mamma. But no dinners. It's all shut." Mrs. Denny frowned. "It's annoying. I wanted you out of the way. Nurse is taking the children for an outing. I've enough to do without providing lunches—you must take some sandwiches—spring cleaning—maids all busy——" "I'd rather take sandwiches!" Louise's face brightened. "I thought the cleaning was over—not a comfortable room in the house for the last fortnight." Mr. Denny was testy. His wife answered them thickly, her mouth full of pins as she adjusted her dusting apron. "Very well! Ask cook to—no, she's upstairs. Cut them yourself. There's plenty of liver. Perfectly absurd! Do you want the house a foot deep in dust? You leave the household arrangements to me! The top-floor hasn't been done for years—not thoroughly." "The top floor? Not the attics?" said Louise. "Yes! I'm re-arranging the rooms. John's getting too big for the nursery. He needs a room to himself. I'm putting him in cook's old room." Louise paused, the slice of bread half cut. "Where's cook going?" said her father. She awaited the answer, a fear catching at her breath. "Oh, in the lumber-room," said Mrs. Denny easily. "It only wants papering. A nice, big room! A sloping roof,[166] of course. But with her wages, if she can't put up with a sloping roof—! But it'll take some clearing! You wouldn't believe what an amount of rubbish has collected." "It's not rubbish," said Louise. Her voice was low with passion. "It's not rubbish! You shan't touch it." Mrs. Denny spun round amazedly: Her step-daughter, the loaf clutched to her breast with an unconscious gesture, the big knife gleaming, was a tragi-comic figure. "What on earth——?" she began. Louise leaned forward, hot-eyed. "Mamma! You won't! You can't! You mustn't! Father, don't let her! That's Mother's room! If you put cook in Mother's room——" She choked. A priestess defending her altars could have used her accents. Mr. Denny put down his paper. "What's the matter with the girl?" he demanded. Mrs. Denny shrugged her shoulders. "I've no idea! I don't know what she means. Put down that knife; Louise—you'll cut yourself. And mind your own business, please." "You don't understand!" Louise fought for calmness, for words that should enlighten and persuade. "I didn't mean to interfere. But the big attic! Mamma! Father! That's my room. I always go there—do my lessons there—I love it! You don't know how I love it. You see——" She paused helplessly. "But you've got the nursery to sit in," said Mrs. Denny, equally helpless. "I'm sorry, Louise, if you've taken a fancy to the room—but I want it for cook." Louise made her way to the hearth and stood between the pair. "Mamma—please! Please! Please! There's the other attic for cook—not this one!" "Now be quiet, Louise!" Mrs. Denny was getting impatient. Suddenly Louise lost grip of herself. "It's not right! It's not right! You've got all the[167] house! Every room is yours and you grudge me that one! Nobody's ever wanted it but me! It's mine! You've got your lovely rooms—drawing-room, and dining-room, and morning-room, and bedroom, and summerhouse, and the boys have got the nursery and the maids have got the kitchen, and yet you won't let me have the attic! It's not fair! It's mean! Why can't cook have the other attic? Not this one! Not this one!" "But why? Why?" Mrs. Denny was more bewildered than angry. She looked down at her step-daughter as a St. Bernard looks at an aggressive kitten. Desperately Louise tore off her veils. "Because of Mother. Can't you understand? All her things are there. She's there! So I've always played up there. Oh, won't you understand?" Mrs. Denny flushed. "You talk a lot of nonsense, Louise. Finish your sandwiches. You'll be late." "Then you will leave it, as it is?" "Certainly not. I told you—I need it for cook." Louise turned to her father with a frenzied gesture. "Father! Don't let her! Don't let her touch it! Oh, how can you let her touch it?" Mr. Denny put down his paper, staring from one to the other. "Emma? What's she driving at?" "To control the household, apparently. She's a very impertinent child," said Mrs. Denny impatiently. "Father! I'm not! I don't! Father! I only want her to leave my attic alone! Father——" "Don't worry your father now," began Mrs. Denny. "He's my father! I can speak to him if I choose," cried Louise shrilly. "Now then, now then!" reasoned Mr. Denny heavily. "Can't have you rude to your mother, you know." Louise gave herself up to her passion. "She's not my mother! I call her Mamma! She's not[168] my mother! Mother wouldn't be so cruel! To take away all I've got like that. Her books are there! Her things! It's always been our room—hers and mine! And to take it away! To put cook—it's horrible! It's wicked! It's stealing! I hate her! I hate you—all of you! I'll never forget—never—never—never!" She stopped abruptly on a high note, stared blindly at the outraged countenances that opposed her, and fled from the room. They listened to the clatter of umbrellas in the hall stand, to the furious hands fumbling for mackintosh and satchel, to the bang of the hall door. Mr. Denny whistled. "Hot stuff! What? I never knew she had it in her." There was a curious element of approval in his tone. He respected volubility. His wife frowned; then, she, too, began to laugh. She was as incapable as he of imagining the state of nerves that could lead, in Louise, to such an outburst. To speak one's mind, noisily and emphatically, was a daily occurrence for her. Silence was stupidity, and meekness irritating. This "row" was unusual because Louise had taken part in it, but she certainly thought no worse of her step-daughter on that account. The child should be sent to bed early as a punishment, she decided, but good-humouredly enough. She was too thick-skinned to be pricked by Louise's repudiation. She dismissed it as "temper." Its underlying criticism of her character escaped her utterly. By the time the attic was cleared and the paperhanger at work, she had forgotten the matter. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [169] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.