Читать книгу Regiment of Women - Clemence Dane - Страница 6

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Miss Vigers hurried along to the Upper Third class-room. She straightened her jersey, and patted her netted hair as she went, much in the manner of a countryman squaring for a fight, opened the door, after a tap so rudimentary as to be inaudible to those within, and entered aggressively, the light of battle in her eye.

To her amazement and annoyance her entry was entirely unnoticed. The entire class had deserted its desks and was clustered round the rostrum, where Alwynne Durand, looking flushed and excited and prettier than a school-mistress had any business to be, was talking fast and eagerly. She had a little stick in her hand which she was using as a conductor's baton, emphasising with it the points of the story she was evidently telling. A map and some portraits were pinned to the blackboard beside her, and the children's heads were grouped, three and four together, over pictures apparently taken from the open portfolio lying before her on the desk. But their eyes were on Miss Durand, and the varying yet intent attitudes gave the collective effect of an audience at a melodrama. They were obviously and breathlessly interested, and the occasional quick crackle of question and answer merely accentuated the tension. Once, as Alwynne paused a moment, her stick hovering uncertainly over the map, a child, with a little wriggle of impatience, piped up—

"We'll find it afterwards. Oh, go on, Miss Durand! Please, go on!"

And Alwynne, equally absorbed, went on and the class hung upon her words.

The listener was outraged. Children were to be allowed to give orders—to leave their places—to be obviously and hugely enjoying themselves—in school hours—and the whole pack of them due elsewhere! She had never witnessed so disgraceful a scene.

Her dry precision shivered at Alwynne's coruscating adjectives. (It is not to be denied that Alwynne, at that period of her career, was lax and lavish in speech, altogether too fond of conceits and superlatives.) She cut aridly into the lecture.

"Miss Durand! Are you aware of the time?"

Alwynne jumped, and the class jumped with her.

It was curious to watch that which but a moment before had been one absorbed, collective personality suddenly disintegrating into Lotties and Maries and Sylvias, shy, curious, impish or indifferent, after their kind. Miss Vigers's presence intimidated: each peeping personality retired, snail-like, into its schoolgirl shell. With a curious yet distinct consciousness of guilt, they edged away from the two women, huddling sheepishly together, watching and waiting, inimical to the disturber of their enjoyment, but distinctly doubtful as to whether "Daffy," in the encounter that they knew quite well was imminent, would be able to hold her own.

But Miss Durand was self-possessed. She looked down at Miss Vigers from her high seat and gave a natural little laugh.

"Oh, Miss Vigers! How you startled me!"

"I'm sorry. I have been endeavouring to attract your attention for some moments. Are you aware of the time?"

Alwynne glanced at the clock. The hands stood at an impossible hour.

"There!" she remarked penitently, "it's stopped again!"

She smiled at the class, all ears and interest.

"One of you children will just have to remind me. Helen? No, you do the chalks already. Millicent!" She singled out a dreamy child, who was taking surreptitious advantage of the interruption to pore over the pictures that had slid from the desk to the floor of the rostrum.

"Milly! Your head's a sieve too! Will you undertake to remind me? Each time I have to be reminded—in goes a penny to the mission—and each time you forget to remind me, you do the same. It'll do us both good! And if we both forget—the rest of the class must pull us up."

The little girl nodded, serious and important.

Alwynne turned to Henrietta.

"Excuse me, Miss Vigers, were you wanting to speak to me? I'm afraid we're in rather a muddle. Children—pick up those pictures: at least—Helen and Milly! Go back to your desks, the rest of you." And then, to Henrietta again, "I suppose the gong will go in a minute?"

She was being courteous, but she was implying quite clearly that she considered the interruption of her lesson unnecessary.

Henrietta's eyes snapped.

"The twelve-fifteen gong went a long time ago, Miss Durand. It's nearly one. Miss Hartill wishes to know what has happened to her class."

"My hat!" murmured Alwynne, appalled.

It was the most rudimentary murmur—a mere movement of the lips; but Henrietta caught it. Justifiably, she detested slang. She stiffened yet more, but Alwynne was continuing with deprecating gestures.

"This is dreadful! I'm awfully sorry, Miss Vigers, but, you know, we never heard the gong! Not a sound! Are you sure it rang?" (This to Henrietta, who never slackened her supervision of the relays of prefects responsible for the ever-punctual gong. But Alwynne had no eye for detail.) She continued agitatedly, unconscious of offence—

"But of course I must go and explain to Miss Hartill at once. Children—get your things together, and go straight to the Lower Second. I'll come with you. Miss Vigers, I am so sorry—it was entirely my fault, of course, but we none of us heard the gong."

But as she spoke, and the girls, attentive and curious, obediently gathered up their belongings and filed into the passage, the gong, audible enough to any one less absorbed than Alwynne and her class had been, boomed for its last time that morning, the prolonged boom that was the signal for the day-girls to go home. The children dispersed hurriedly, and Alwynne was left alone with Henrietta.

Alwynne was grave—distinctly distressed.

"I must go and explain to Miss Hartill at once," she repeated, making for the door.

"You needn't trouble yourself," Henrietta called after her. "Miss Hartill went home half-an-hour-ago."

The irrepressible note of gratification in her voice startled Alwynne. She turned and faced her.

"I don't understand! You said she was waiting."

"When I left her, she had been waiting over half-an-hour. She told me that she should do so no longer. Miss Hartill is not accustomed to be kept waiting while the junior mistresses amuse themselves."

Alwynne raised her eyebrows and regarded her carefully.

"Did Miss Hartill ask you to tell me that? Are you her messenger?" she asked blandly.

The last sentence had enlightened her, at any rate, as to Miss Vigers's personal attitude to herself. She was perfectly aware that she had been guilty of gross carelessness; that, if Miss Hartill chose, she could make it a serious matter for her; but for the moment her apprehensive regrets, as well as her profound sense of the apology due to the formidable Miss Hartill, were shrivelled in the white heat of her anger at the tone Henrietta Vigers was permitting herself. She was as much hurt as horrified by the revelation of an antipathy she had been unconscious of exciting; it was her first experience of gratuitous ill-will. She rebelled hotly, incapable of analysing her emotion, indifferent to the probable consequences of a defiance of the older woman, but passionately resolved that she would not allow any one alive to be rude to her.

And Henrietta, amazed at the veiled rebuke of her manner, also lost her temper.

"Miss Hartill and I were overwhelmed by such an occurrence. Do you realise what you are doing, Miss Durand? You keep the children away from their lesson—you alter the school time-table to suit your convenience—without a remark, or warning, or apology."

"I've told you already that I didn't hear the gong," interrupted Alwynne, between courtesy and impatience. She was trying hard to control herself.

"That is nonsense. Everybody hears the gong. You didn't choose to hear it, I suppose. Anyhow, I feel it my duty to tell you that such behaviour will not be tolerated, Miss Durand, in this, or any school. It is not your place to make innovations. I was horrified just now when I came in. The class-room littered about with pictures and papers—the children not in their places—allowed to interrupt and argue. I never heard of such a thing."

Alwynne's chin went up.

"Excuse me, Miss Vigers, but I hardly see that it is your business to criticise my way of teaching."

"I am speaking to you for your own good," said Henrietta.

"That is kind of you; but if you speak to me in such a tone, you cannot expect me to listen."

Henrietta hesitated.

"Miss Durand, you are new to the school——"

"That gives you no right to be rude to me!"

Henrietta took a step towards her.

"Rude? And you? I consider you insolent. Ever since you came to the school you have been impossible. You go your own way, teach in your own way——"

"I do as I'm told," said Alwynne sharply.

"In your own way. You neither ask nor take advice——"

"At any rate, Miss Marsham is satisfied with me—she told me so last week." She felt it undignified to be justifying herself, but she feared that silent contempt would be lost on Miss Vigers. Also, such an attitude was not easy to Alwynne; she had a tongue; when she was angry, the brutal effectiveness of Billingsgate must always tempt her.

Henrietta countered coldly—

"I am sorry that I shall be obliged to undeceive her; that is, unless you apologise——"

"To Miss Hartill? Certainly! I intend to. I hope I know when I'm in the wrong."

"To me——"

"To you?" cried Alwynne, with a little high-pitched laugh. "If you tell me what for?"

"In Miss Marsham's absence I take her place," began Henrietta.

"Miss Hartill, I was told, did that."

"You are mistaken. The younger mistresses come to me for orders."

"I shall be the exception, then. I am not a housemaid. Will you let me get to my desk, please, Miss Vigers? I want my books."

She brushed past Henrietta, cheeks flaming, chin in air, and opened her desk.

The secretary, for all her anger, hesitated uncertainly. She was unused to opposition, and had been accustomed to allow herself a greater licence of speech than she knew. Alwynne's instant resentment, for all its crude young insolence, was, she realised, to some extent justified. She had, she knew, exceeded her powers, but she had not stopped to consider whether Alwynne would know that she had done so, or, knowing, have the courage to act upon that knowledge. She had been staggered by the girl's swift counter-attack and was soon wishing that she had left her alone; but she had gone too far to retreat with dignity; also, she had by no means regained control of her temper.

"I can only report you to Miss Marsham," she remarked lamely, to Alwynne's back.

Alwynne turned.

"You needn't trouble. If Miss Hartill doesn't, I shall go to her myself."

"You?" said Henrietta uneasily.

"Why," cried Alwynne, flaming out at her, "d'you think I'm afraid of you? D'you think I am going to stand this sort of thing? I know I was careless, and I'm sorry. I'm going straight down to Miss Hartill to tell her so. And if she slangs me—it's all right. And if Miss Marsham slangs me—it's all right. She's the head of the school. But I won't be slanged by you. You are rude and interfering and I shall tell Miss Marsham so."

Shaking with indignation she slammed down the lid of her desk: and with her head held high, and a dignity that a friendly word would have dissolved into tears, walked out of the class-room.