Chapter II: Rose Writes to Violet

DEAREST Vi.,

Your letter amused us very much; and we have both for a long while been going to answer it, but have not found time. Don't be angry at our silence.

We left home rather low spirited. Home, indeed, was no longer the happy place it had been, though mama, say what you will, is not to blame for that; but, nevertheless, leaving it made us unhappy. Having grown up into young women without being sent to school, we did not like the idea of going at last.

The snow was falling fast when we arrived; and a dreary January day by no means enlivened our prospects. We looked wistfully out of the carriage-windows, and saw the steady descent of the countless snow-flakes darkening the air, and making the day miserable. Nothing met our eyes but the same endless expanse of snow-covered ground,--cheerless, cold, and desolate--the uncomfort of winter without its picturesqueness. But, cold and cheerless as the day was, it was nothing to the cheerlessness of the frigid politeness and patronizing servility of Miss Smith and Mrs. Wirrelston, our school-mistresses. I am a physiognomist, you know, and from the first moment, I disliked them. Blanche thought them very kind and attentive. I thought them too attentive: the humbugs!

They froze me. I foresaw the mistresses they would make, and that is why I instinctively felt that the miserable day was more genial and clement than they. The snow would cease; in a few hours, gleams of sunshine would make it sparkle; in a few weeks, it would disappear. But the wintry frost of their politeness would deepen and deepen into sterner cold; there was no hope of sunshine under that insincere manner.

I hope you admire that paragraph! But for fear you should imagine I am about to turn authoress, I must let you into the secret: it is an application to my situation of a passage I met with yesterday in a novel one of the girls has smuggled in.

It was about four o'clock when we arrived. We were shown into the school-room, where we found about nine other girls, from twelve to seventeen years old, with whom we soon made acquaintance. We first asked each other's names; then communicated our parentage; then followed questions as to previous schools, and as to what sort of place this was. Accounts varied considerably. Some thought it very well, and liked Mrs. Wirrelston. Some thought it detestable, and detested Mrs. Wirrelston. One and all detested Miss Smith.

The elder girls seemed very nice; but, from always having been at school I suppose, they struck me as excessively ignorant of the world, compared with us, and still more ignorant of books. They were children to us. Our superior knowledge, which was quickly discovered, made us looked up to, and we were assailed with questions. But if we were for a moment looked up to on that account, we speedily lost our supremacy on another. One of the younger girls asked me how much pocket-money we had brought?

"Twenty shillings each."

"Twenty shillings! what only twenty shillings! Why I brought five pounds."

"And I, ten," proudly ejaculated another.

I felt deeply ashamed; the more so as I observed the girls interchange certain looks, which were but too intelligible. Next day we had the mortification of hearing each new comer informed, and in a tone of disgusted astonishment, that "the Vyners had only brought twenty shillings each. Only think!"

I instantly wrote home to papa. But his answer was, that we must learn to be economical, that he was learning it himself, and that mama thinks it highly necessary we should early learn to submit to small privations. I hate economy!

To return to our school, however. The first afternoon was spent in chat and games. Lessons were not to commence till the morrow. And as the morrow was very much like other days, I may sketch our routine. While dressing, we have to learn a verse of scripture out of a book called "Daily Bread." (I got punished the other day for saying it was "very dry bread, too." That odious, little, pimply Miss Pinkerton told Miss Smith of it.) This verse we all repeat one after the other when prayers are finished; and as I seldom know my verse when we come down, I contrive to sit at the end of the table and learn it by hearing all the others say it before me. One of the elder and one of the little girls then collect the bibles and put them away; while the rest of us, rank and file, begin to march, heads up, chests expanded, toes out. This military exercise is not, I believe, to fashion us into a regiment of grenadiers--the Drawing-room Invincibles--because, when I suggested that we ought to have moustachios and muskets, I received a severe reprimand for my levity. Besides, we vary the march with little operations scarcely to be called military: touching, or trying to touch, the floor with the tips of our fingers without bending our knees, making our elbows meet behind our backs, &c. We then go into breakfast, and are allowed to exchange our merciless slaughter of French idiom, for the freely flowing idiom of our mother tongue. I have not had the French mark yet, except for speaking English; my French, I am happy to say, is beyond the criticism of the girls: what _their_ mastery of the language is, you may guess by that! You may also gain a faint idea of it from these specimens. I passed the mark to little Miss Pinkerton only yesterday, because she asked me for my penknife in this elegant style: "_Madle. voulez vous pretez moi votre COUTEAU?_" Whereupon I whipped the mark into her hands with a generous "_Le voilà._" Last week she said, "_Je n'ai pas encore FAIT_;" for "I have not done (finished) yet"--and pointed out to me, "_Comme vous avez mal coupé vos CLOUS_"--meaning, that I had not cut my finger nails well!

At meals, we are permitted to speak like Christians. After breakfast we have half an hour's recreation. We play, or read, or work, or, twining an arm round our confidant's waist, interchange confidences respecting the loves we have had, and the husbands we intend to have. Then come lessons. There are five pianos--and five unhappy girls are always practising on them. We arrange our lessons so as to take the pianos in turns, and by this means, we all get our practice, and the thumping never ceases. What a life those pianos lead! How I wish Miss Smith were one of them!

The drawing-master comes at eleven. We don't learn. Papa allows no extras, except dancing,--he says they're "so foolish." I am sorry we don't learn, for Mr. Hibbert, our master, is a perfect duck!--such a nice face, with glossy hair, turned into a sweet little curl on his forehead; large whiskers, rosy complexion, and we all say he is consumptive. Then he draws so well--so boldly! His strokes are as straight, and as broad and black as--I haven't got a simile, But you should see the copies he sets; boats on the sea-shore, turned on their sides, with handsome fishermen standing by, occupied with their nets, and pretty, fat children dotting the sands; or nice little cottages, with smoke (so natural!) coming from the chimneys, and large trees by them, and a dog or a cow, or else a splendid castle, with turrets, and drawbridges, and knights in armour on horseback. Mr. Hibbert ought to be an academician!*

* This last sentence makes me suspect that the whole paragraph is a bit of the saucy Rose's irony, and that she is quizzing the admiration of her schoolfellows for Mr. Hibbert. But school girls have such strange idols, that she may be serious here.--_Author's Note_.

At twelve, when the weather permits, we go out for a walk. In formidable files of twos and twos, we gravely tread the esplanade and _circumambient_ streets (isn't that a nice word?--I got it from Miss Smith). We there see withered old Indians, invalids in chairs, wheeled about in search of Hygeia, dowagers, and some officers, with such moustachios--the darlings! We quiz the passers-by, and sometimes discuss their attractions. Some of the men look so _impudent_! And one always blows a kiss to us as we pass--that is, he blows it to me. I'm sure he's a rake.

At half-past two, we dress for dinner. At three, we dine. The food is plain, but good, and abundant. After dinner we have more lessons, till six. Then tea; then we amuse ourselves, if we have learned all our lessons and tasks, either with books or fancy-work. At eight, to bed.

All the days are like this, except Sunday; and oh! what a dreary day is Sunday! What with twice church, Collects to learn, explanations of the Psalms and Catechism, our day is pretty well occupied. We take no walk--we are allowed no recreation. "Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress," and a few religious tales, are the only things allowed to those who have said Collect and Catechism, and have time to spare. I hate Bunyan!

But this is not all. If any one has had the three bad marks during the week, the punishment is to sit in the corner all Sunday, and learn a sermon: she is not allowed to speak all day, except to the governesses. Miss Smith has more than once punished me in that way, and you may imagine how it increases my love for her!

Well, after this long dreary day, comes evening lecture. Oh, Vi.! if anything could make school more odious than it is, that evening lecture would be the thing! Picture to yourself eighteen weary girls, after a day's absence from any recreation, having swallowed their tea, and then forced to sit in the school-room on hard benches, without backs, in prim silence, awaiting the arrival of the Rev. Josiah Dutton, who sometimes keeps us waiting for at least an hour. We are not allowed to speak. We are not allowed to read. We sit there in silent expectation; which a figuratively historical pen would liken (by way of a new simile) to the senators of Rome awaiting the Gauls. We sit and look at the candles, look at the ceiling, look at the governesses, and look at each other. At last the door opens, and the reverend Dutton appears. He takes his place at a desk, and begins in a droning voice, meant to be impressive, a lecture or sermon which we do not attend to. I sit opposite to him, and am forced to keep my eyes fixed upon him, because I know Miss Smith's are fixed upon me. There I sit, my back aching from want of support, my eyes drawing straws in the candles, till I feel as if I should grow blind, weaned with the unvaried occupation of the day, and still more wearied by the effort to keep up my attention to what I cannot interest myself in, what indeed, for the most part, I cannot comprehend.

There, my dear Vi., you have a return for your long letter, and an encouragement to write again. I'm literally at the end of my paper, for this is the last sheet I have in the world. Blanche is to write to you to-morrow.

P.S.--Unless you have an opportunity of getting your letter delivered by private hand, mind what you say! All ours are opened. This will be put in the post, in London, by one of my companions, who goes there for a couple of days; otherwise, I dare not have sent it.