“Possibly,” said the girl, carelessly, as the flash died out of her eyes, her lids drooped, and she let her gaze wander to the window.
“I can scarcely tell you how grieved – how hurt we feel,” continued Miss Twettenham, “to find that a young lady who has for so many years enjoyed the – the care, the instruction, the direction of our establishment, should have set so terrible an example to her fellow-pupils.”
The girl shrugged her shoulders again slightly, and her face assumed a more indifferent air.
“The time that you have to stay here, Miss Perowne, is very short,” continued the speaker; “but while you do stay it will be under rigid supervision. You may now retire to your room.”
The girl turned away, and was walking straight out of the room, but years of lessons in deportment asserted themselves, and from sheer habit she turned by the door to make a stately courtesy, frowning and biting her lip directly after as if from annoyance, and passing out with the grace and proud carriage of an Eastern queen.
“Stop, Miss Stuart,” said Miss Twettenham, as Helen Perowne’s companion was about to follow. “I wish to say a few words to you before you go – not words of anger, my dear child, for the only pain we have suffered through you is in hearing the news that you are so soon to go.”
“Oh, Miss Twettenham,” exclaimed the girl, hurrying to take the extended hands of the schoolmistress, but to find herself pressed to the old lady’s heart, an embrace which she received in turn from Miss Julia and Miss Maria.
“We have long felt that it must soon come, my dear,” chirped Miss Maria.
“Yes, dear,” said Miss Julia, in a prattling way. “You’ve done scolding now, sister, have you not?”
“Yes,” said Miss Twettenham; “but I wish to speak seriously for a minute or two, and the present seems a favourable opportunity for Grey Stuart to hear.”
The younger sisters placed the fair young girl in a chair between them, and each held a hand, while Miss Twettenham drew herself up stiffly, hemmed twice, and began:
“My dear Miss Stuart – I – I – Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me!”
The poor old lady burst into a violent fit of sobbing as she rose from her seat, for nature was stronger than the stiff varnish of art with which she was encrusted; and holding her handkerchief to her eyes, she crossed the little space between them, and sank down upon her knees before Grey Stuart, passing her arms round her and drawing her to her breast.
For a few minutes nothing was heard in the stiff old-fashioned drawing-room but suppressed sobs, for the younger sisters wept in concert, and the moist contagion extended to Grey Stuart, whose tears fell fast.
There was no buckram stiffness in Miss Twettenham’s words when she spoke again, but a very tender, affectionate shake in her voice.
“It is very weak and foolish, my dear,” she said, “but we were all very much upset; for there is something so shocking in seeing one so young and beautiful as Helen Perowne deliberately defy the best of advice, and persist in going on in her own wilful way. We are schoolmistresses, my dear Grey, and I know we are very formal and stiff; but though we have never been married ladies to have little children of our own, I am sure we have grown to love those placed in our care, so that often and often, when some pupil has been taken away to go to those far-off burning lands, it has been to us like losing a child.”
“Yes – yes,” sobbed the younger sisters in concert.
“And now, my dear Grey, I think I can speak a little more firmly. You are a woman grown now, my dear, and I hope feel with us in our trouble.”
“Indeed – indeed I do!” exclaimed Grey, eagerly.
“I know you do, my darling, so now listen. You know how sweet a jewel is a woman’s modesty, and how great a safeguard is her innocency? I need say little to you of yourself, now that you are going far across the sea; but we, my sisters and I, pray earnestly for your help in trying to exercise some influence over Helen’s future. You will be together, and I know what your example will be; but still I shudder as I think of what her future is to be, out there at some station where ladies are so few that they all get married as soon as they go out.”
This was rather an incongruous ending to Miss Twettenham’s speech, but the old lady’s eyes bespoke her trouble, and she went on:
“It seems to me, my dear, that, with her love of admiration, she will be like a firebrand in the camp, and I shudder when I think of what Mr Perowne will say, when I’m sure, sisters, we have striven our very best.”
“Indeed, indeed we have.”
“Then we can do no more,” sighed Miss Twettenham, who now smiled in a very pleasant, motherly way. “There, Grey, my dear, I am not going to cross-examine you about this naughty child, and we will say no more now. Some tender young plants grow as they are trained, and some persist in growing wild. I tremble for our handsome pupil, and shall often wonder in the future how she fares, but promise me that you will be to her the best of friends.”
“Indeed I will,” said Grey earnestly.
“It will be a thankless office,” said Miss Julia.
“And cause you many a heartache, Grey Stuart,” said Miss Maria.
“Yes, but Grey Stuart will not pay heed to that when she knows it is her duty,” said Miss Twettenham, smiling. “Leave us now, my dear; we must have a quiet talk about Helen, and our arrangements while she stays. Good-bye, my child.”
The good-bye on the old lady’s lips was a genuine God be with you, and an affectionate kiss touched Grey Stuart’s cheek, as she left the room, fluttered and in trouble about her schoolfellow, as the prophetic words of her teachers kept repeating themselves in her ears.
Volume One – Chapter Four.
Dr Bolter’s Question
“Dr Bolter, ma’am,” said the elderly manservant, seeking Miss Twettenham the next afternoon, as she was sunning herself in a favourite corner of the garden, where a large heavily-backed rustic seat stood against the red-brick wall.
The pupils were out walking with her two sisters – all save Helen Perowne and Grey Stuart, who were prisoners; and Miss Twettenham was just wondering how it was that a little tuft of green, velvety moss should have fallen from the wall upon her cap, when the old serving-man came up.
“Dr Bolter! Dear me! So soon!” exclaimed the old lady, glancing at Helen Perowne, book in hand, walking up and down the lawn, while Grey Stuart was at some little distance, tying up the blossoms of a flower.
Miss Twettenham entered the drawing-room, and then stood gazing in wonder at the little plump, brisk-looking man, with a rosy face, in spite of the deep bronze to which it was burned by exposure to the sun and air.
He was evidently about seven or eight and forty, but full of life and energy; a couple of clear grey eyes looking out from beneath a pair of rather shaggy eyebrows – for his face was better supplied with hirsute appendages than his head – a large portion of which was very white and smooth, seeming to be polished to the highest pitch, and contrasting strangely with his sunbrowned face.
As Miss Twettenham entered, the little doctor was going on tiptoe, with open hands, towards the window, where he dexterously caught a large fly, and after placing it conveniently between the finger and thumb of his left hand, he drew a lens from his waistcoat pocket, and began examining his prize.
“Hum! Yes,” he said, in a low, thoughtful tone, “decided similarity in the trunk. Eyes rather larger. Intersection of – I beg your pardon! Miss Twettenham?”
The lady bowed, and looked rather dignified. Catching flies and examining them in her drawing-room by means of a lens was an unusual proceeding, especially when there were so many much worthier objects for examination in the shape of pupils’ drawings and needlework about the place.
Miss Twettenham softened though directly, for the manners of