Chapter III: The Happy School-Days

Rose and Blanche remained three years at Mrs. Wirrelston's.

Rose's letter has disclosed to us a sufficiently detailed account of their school existence; but she has omitted one very important point--for the very excellent reason that, at the time she wrote, it had not shown itself. She speaks, indeed, of the surprise and contempt of the girls when they learned how scantily her purse was furnished; but the full effects of that were only developed some time afterwards.

A school is an image of the world in miniature, and represents it, perhaps, in its least amiable aspect. The child is not only father to the man, but the father, before experience has engendered tolerance, before suffering has extended sympathy. The child is horribly selfish, because unreflectingly so. Its base instincts have not been softened or corrected. All its vices are not only unrestrained, but unconcealed. Its egotism and vanity are allowed full play.

Rose's schoolfellows were quite aware of the beauty and mental superiority which distinguished her and Blanche; and envied them for it. But they were also fully aware of the scantiness of their allowance, and the inferiority of their dress; and despised them heartily, undisguisedly. Poverty, which is an inexcusable offence in the great world, becomes a sort of crime at school. The love of tyranny implanted in the human breast, and always flourishing in children, gratified itself by subjecting Rose and Blanche to endless sarcasms on that score. The little irritations which arose, in the natural course of things, between them and their schoolfellows, were sure to instigate some sarcasm on "mean little creatures"--"vulgar things"--"penniless people," &c. It was a safe and ready source of annoyance: a weapon always at hand, adapted to the meanest capacity, and certain to wound.

Beyond the indignities which it drew down upon them, the absence of pocket-money was a serious inconvenience. They had only two shillings a week each as an allowance; out of which they had to find their own pens, pencils, paper, india-rubber, sealing-wax, and trifles--indispensable trifles of that kind; besides having to put sixpence every fortnight into the poor-box. The hardship of this was really terrible. The word may seem a strong one, but if we measure the importance of things by the effects they produce, it will not seem too strong. To men and women, all this inconvenience may seem petty. It was not petty to the unhappy girls: it was the cause of constant humiliation and bitter sorrow.

Parents little imagine the extent of their cruelty, when, to gratify their own ambition, they send children to expensive schools, and refuse to furnish them with the means of being on a footing of equality with their school-fellows. The effects of such conditions are felt throughout the after life. The misery children endure from the taunting superiority of their companions, is only half the evil; the greater half is in the moral effects of such positions.

Upon natures less generous, healthy, and good than those of Rose and Blanche, the evil would have been incalculable. Even upon them, it was not insignificant. It over-developed the spirit of opposition in Rose; it crushed the meek spirit of Blanche. Rose with her vivacity and elasticity could best counteract and forget it; but it sank deeply into the quiet, submissive soul of Blanche, and made her singularly unfitted to cope with the world; as the sequel of this story will show.

I do not wish to exaggerate the influence of this school experience; I am well aware of the ineradicable propensities and dispositions of human beings; but surely it is right to assume that certain dispositions are fostered or misdirected by certain powerful conditions; and no disposition could be otherwise than damaged by being subjected to distressing humiliation from companions, and on grounds over which the victim had no earthly control.

A miserable life Rose and Blanche led. Disliked by Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith, because they learned no extras--that fruitful source of profit--and because they were so ill-dressed as to be "no credit to the establishment;" they were taunted by their school-fellows, because unable to join in any subscription which was set on foot. To any one who knows the female mind, I need not expatiate on the contempt which frowned upon their shabby attire. To be ill dressed; to have none of the novelties; to continue wearing frocks out of the season, and which were out-grown; to be shivering in white muslin in the beginning of December.

Yes, reader, in December; for winter clothing they had none, and their parents were abroad.

Mrs. Vyner's neglect is perhaps excusable when we reflect how young she was, and how unfit for the position she occupied; but the effects of that neglect were very important.

"Poor things!" exclaimed Letitia Hoskins, a citizen's daughter, in all the insolence engendered by consols; "their father can't afford to clothe them."

"Yet why doesn't he send them to a cheaper school?" suggests Amelia Wingfield.

"Vulgar pride. I dare say he's some shop-keeper. He wishes his daughters to be educated with ladies."

"Meant for governesses, I shouldn't wonder."

"Most likely, poor things!"

In vain did Rose and Blanche repeatedly answer such assertions, by declaring their father's family was one of the most ancient in England (Miss Hoskins gave an exasperating chuckle of ridicule at that), and was worth twelve thousand a year. A derisive shout was the only answer. The girls _would_ not have believed it, however credible; and it was on the face of it a very incredible statement, coming from girls who, as Letty Hoskins once observed, "had the meanness to come there with a sovereign each, and one pot of bears' grease between them. Girls who were never dressed half so genteelly as her mama's maid."

"And learn no extras," added little Miss Pinkerton, with a toss of her head. "When I told Rose that I had got on so well with my drawing (especially the _shading_!) that Mr. Hibbert said I might soon begin drawing with _Creoles_, she burst out laughing, and said she had never heard of that branch of the art before. Fancy a girl of nineteen never having heard of drawing with Creoles!"

"With _crayons_, I suppose you mean," suggested Amelia Wingfield, contemptuously.

"Well, it's all the same; she had never heard of it."

Rose was witty enough to take fearful reprisals on those who offended her; but, although she thus avenged herself, she was always sure to be worsted in the war of words. Nothing she could say cut so deep as the most stupid reflection on her dress or poverty. No sarcasm she could frame told like the old--but never too old--reference to governesses. Nevertheless, her vivacity and humour in some measure softened the ill impression created by her poverty. She amused the girls so much, that they never allowed their insolence to be more than a passing thing. Often would she make the whole school merry with some exquisitely ludicrous parody of Mrs. Wirrelston or Miss Smith. The latter was her especial butt. She revelled in quizzing her. She knew well enough that the laughers, with the treachery of children, first enjoyed the joke, and then repeated it to Miss Smith, to enjoy the joker's punishment, and to curry favour with the governess. No matter; Rose knew she was sure to be betrayed, yet her daring animal spirits were constantly inciting her to make fun of her ridiculous mistress.

Miss Smith was a starch virago. Bred to the profession of governess, she had considerable acquirements--of which she was very vain--and great sense of the "responsibility" of her situation, which showed itself in a morbid watchfulness over the "morals of her young charges." Her modesty was delicate and easily alarmed; nothing, for instance, would induce her to mention sparrows before gentlemen--those birds having rather a libertine reputation in natural history--she called them "little warblers." Again: the word _belly_ was carefully erased from Goldsmith's History of England, and _stomach_ substituted in the margin. Rose once pointed this out to the girl standing next to her at class, and was duly punished for her "impropriety."

Miss Smith was not handsome. Her complexion was of a bilious brown, mottled with pimples. Her nose was thin and pointed; the nostrils pinched up, as if she were always smelling her own breath, and that breath stronger but not sweeter than the rose. Her lips thin and colourless. Her figure tall and fleshless. There was a rigidity and primness in her whole appearance, which lent itself but too easily to caricature; and Rose, whose good nature would have spared a kinder person, had no remorse in ridiculing the ungenerous mistress, who visited upon her and her sister the sins of their father.

On the day selected for our glimpse into this school, Rose was shivering over a long task, which had been given her for the following audacity. Miss Smith had been "reviling in good set terms" the character of Meredith Vyner. Rose's blood had mounted to her cheek, but she was silent, conscious that any retort would only indulge her mistress, by showing that the abuse of her father was a sore subject. She affected to have lost her copy of Goldsmith, and to be in great concern about it. As it was only a common schoolbook, bound in mottled calf, Miss Pinkerton could not understand her anxiety about it, sarcastically adding, "_My_ papa doesn't care how many books I have. He can afford it." "Oh, it isn't the book," replied Rose confidentially, "it's the _binding_! Real _Smithskin_!"

Blanche and Miss Pinkerton both laughed; and the latter immediately informed Miss Smith of the joke, and of Blanche's participation. For this offence they were both punished; but the name remained: to this day the mottled calf binding is by the girls called Smithskin.

It was near the breaking up, and the elder girls, with the horrible servility of children of both sexes when at school, had set on foot a subscription to present Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith with some token of their regard. Miss Hoskins had put her name down for thirty shillings. Others had subscribed a pound, and others ten shillings; even the younger girls had put down five shillings each. When the list was brought to Rose and Blanche, they said they had no money.

"Of course not," said Miss Hoskins; "what's the use of asking them? You will ask the servants next."

Blanche raised her mild face, and said,--

"I would subscribe if I could; but how is it possible? You girls come to school with ten pounds or more in your pockets, and you have other presents besides. Papa refuses to allow us pocket-money--says we can have no use for it."

"All that is true," added Rose; "but if we had money I would not subscribe. I have no regard for them, and the only token I would offer them is a copy of 'Temper,' bound in Smithskin."

"Oh!" ejaculated several, pretending to be very much shocked.

"Or 'Don Juan,'" pursued Rose, "binding ditto. I'm sure Miss Smith reads it, because it's called improper."

The girls were so much shocked at this that they moved away; but they did not dare repeat it, so fearful did it seem!

Mrs. Wirrelston entered. Anger darkened her brow, though she endeavoured to be calm and dignified. They all read what was underneath that calmness, and awaited in silence till she should speak. She held in her hand an open letter, which she passed to Miss Smith, who, having read it, looked starcher and more bilious than ever.

The letter was from Meredith Vyner to his children, and this was the postscript:--

"As you are to leave school at Christmas, mind you don't forget to bring away with you your spoons and forks."

It was the custom at Mrs. Wirrelston's, as at most schools, to exact from each pupil, that she should bring her own silver spoons and fork, also her sheets and towels; a very satisfactory arrangement, which saved the school-mistress from an expense, and, as the pupils always left them behind, was the foundation of a respectable stock of plate when the mistress should retire into private life. But the enormity of a pupil taking away her own spoons and fork, had hitherto been unheard of; and the _meanness_ of a parent who could remind his children of their property, appeared to Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith something exceeding even what they had anticipated from Meredith Vyner. And yet they had formed an exalted view of his capacity in that way, from the odious criticisms which he permitted himself on certain charges in the half-yearly accounts--charges which had always been admitted by the parents of other pupils, and which, if difficult to justify, no man of "common liberality" would question. This "tradesmanlike spirit" of examining accounts had greatly irritated the two ladies, and they paid off, in ill treatment to Rose and Blanche, the annoyance caused by their father's pedantic accuracy.

The way in which this postscript was received may be readily imagined. It was the climax of a series of insults. 'One would imagine that Mrs. Wirrelston and Miss Smith wanted to _keep_ the paltry spoons--which were very light after all. As if it were the custom at that establishment to retain the young ladies' property.'

"But be careful, young ladies," said Mrs. Wirrelston, with great sarcasm in her tone; "be careful that the Misses Vyner leave nothing behind them. It might be awkward. We might be called upon. Everything is of some value. Be sure that the ends of their lead pencils are packed up."

"Yes," interposed Miss Smith, "and don't forget their curl papers. The Misses Vyner will certainly like to pack up their curl papers."

Blanche, unable to endure these unjust taunts, burst into tears. But Rose, greatly incensed, said--

"All that should be said to papa, not to us; since he is to blame, if there _is_ any blame."

"You are insolent. Go to your room, Miss Vyner!" exclaimed Mrs. Wirrelston.

Miss Smith lifted up her eyes in amazement at such audacity.

"I do not see," pursued the undaunted Rose, "why we are to be taunted, because papa wishes to see his own property."

"You don't see, you impertinent girl!"

"No, I do not, unless our taking home our own spoons should be a ruinous precedent."

The sarcasm cut deeply. Both mistresses were roused to vehemence by it; and, vowing that such insolence was altogether insupportable, ordered her boxes to be packed up, and expelled her that very afternoon.

Rose was by no means affected at the expulsion; but poor Blanche, who was now left alone to bear the spite and malice of two mistresses for three weeks longer, greatly felt the loss of her sister's company, the more so because the other girls, at all times distant, had now sided with their mistresses, and actually refused to associate in any way with her.

But the three weeks passed. Breaking up arrived. It is needless to say how many prizes were adjudged to Blanche Vyner at the distribution. She only thought of the joy of being once more at home.