The New Mistress: A Tale

“Strange, Miss Burge!” said Canninge. “May I ask why!”

“Because we’d always heard that you were so proud and ’orty like, sir, when you’re really about the nicest gentleman I ever met.”

“Do you hear that Miss Thorne!” he cried merrily. “There, I shall go home as proud as a peacock. Oh, here’s Mr Burge. What do you think your sister says!”

“That we’re very glad to see you, Mr Canninge, sir; and what will you take!”

“Nothing but courteous words, Mr Burge, after your sister’s compliment. She says that I am really about the nicest gentleman she ever met.”

“And she means it too, sir. She never says anything she does not mean. She’s done nothing but talk ever since about the way you pleased those children, sir, at the feast.”

“Well, poor little things, why shouldn’t we try and give them a treat now and then – a real treat! I like to see them work hard at school, and work hard when they play, not taken out to be marched up and down, and disciplined, and made miserable. Miss Thorne, you must forgive me if I am going against your views.”

“Indeed, you are not,” replied Hazel. “I am very new and inexperienced over teaching, but I thoroughly believe in hearty, wholesome play being a necessary part of a child’s education.”

“Hear, hear! Hee-ar! – hee-ar! – hee-ar!” cried Mr William Forth Burge, beating the drawing-room table loudly with a book.

“I quite agree with Miss Thorne there,” said Canninge; “and as to what I did the other day – well, really, I enjoyed it as much as the children.”

“So did I, Mr Canninge, sir,” cried Burge. “It was a regular treat, sir; and they shall have another and a better feast next year, please God I live.”

“No, no, fair-play’s a jewel, Burge,” said Canninge heartily. “None of your haughty millionaire assumption.”

Burge stared.

“They shall come up to Ardley next time, and I’ll see if I can’t beat you.”

“What! you’ll have the schools up to your place, sir, next year!”

“To be sure I will; and I’ve got an idea in my head that will take the shine out of your treaty for I’ll have a display of fireworks.”

“There, Betsey, I never thought of no fireworks; and we might have had a regular show off. I never thought of them. Oh!”

“You could not have made the children happier, Mr Burge, if you had remembered the fireworks,” said Hazel, coming to the rescue. “They thoroughly enjoyed themselves.”

“Well, I meant ’em to. Miss Thorne; I meant ’em to, indeed.”

“I agree with Miss Thorne,” said Canninge, “and my first step will be to come here for your help.”

“And you shall have it too, sir, hearty; that you shall.”

“You will come and take off your things now, my dear,” said Miss Burge then. “Mr Canninge will excuse us, I’m sure; and, bless me, if here isn’t Mr Lambent coming up the drive.”

George Canninge felt disposed to go, but thought he would stay, and waited; while the bell was heard to clang, the steps of the servant followed, and a short colloquy was heard, resulting in the vicar leaving his card, and turning away.

“Why, he ain’t coming in,” said Mr William Forth Burge, running to the door, and then halfway down the drive.

No; he would not come in, the vicar said quietly. Not to-day. He only wished to know if Miss Burge was well, and he walked away, frowningly thinking of George Canninge’s horse, which he knew well by sight, as the groom was walking it slowly up and down by the entrance to the stable-yard.

He had not seen it till he was close up, and he felt disposed to turn back, but it was too late. He had heard from the servant that Hazel Thorne was present as well, and he parted from the giver of school treats soon afterwards, feeling bitter at heart and low-spirited more than he could account for at the time.

“He wouldn’t come in,” said Mr William Forth Burge, hurrying back into the drawing-room panting and looking warm. “I told him you was here.”

“Busy, perhaps,” said George Canninge quietly, though he told himself directly after that it was an absurd remark, for if the Reverend Henry Lambent had been busy he would not have devoted the day to making calls.

“Well now, you must excuse us, Mr Canninge, for brother will talk to you while we go upstairs.”

“I must ask you to excuse me too,” said George Canninge, rising and thinking of the vicar’s visit, which it was certainly strange should have been paid at the time Miss Thorne was there. “My horse is hot, and I must not leave him any longer. I met Miss Thorne on the way, and the sight of her reminded me of my want of civility in not coming sooner. Now I’ll say good-day. Miss Burge, I shall never forget your compliment.”

“Which it was not a compliment at all, sir, but just what I honestly thought,” replied Miss Burge, shaking hands.

“Then I shall esteem the remark all the more,” he said, smiling, and delighting the little lady by his frankness and hearty way. Then, turning to where Hazel was standing:

“Good-day, Miss Thorne,” he said; and there was something so frank and matter-of-fact in the way in which he shook hands that Hazel’s eyes brightened; and he went away, mounting at the door, and walking his horse down to the gate, with stout Mr William Forth Burge holding on by the mane, and talking loudly the while.

George Canninge’s replies sounded manly and ready enough, but all the time he was thinking of Hazel Thorne’s sweet ingenuous smile, and he rode away at a brisk canter, as if he meant to go over Samuel Chute, seeing only that there was some one by the side of the road, for he was picturing that smile, and more than once he repeated to himself the words:

“Only a schoolmistress!”

Then, after a pause, as he was well clear of the town:

“Well, what of that? It is a most worthy pursuit and she is a thorough lady in every word and look.”

Chapter Twenty.

The Coming Struggle

Was there ever a young schoolmaster or mistress yet who did not view with a strange feeling of tribulation the coming of inspection day, when that awful being, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools for such and such a district, is expected down to make his report and add to or deduct so many pounds sterling from the teacher’s pay?

Of course we do these things better now; but there have been cases where the appointment of school inspector has been given to a gentleman who owed his elevation, not to the fact that he was a thorough scholar, a man who had always taken great interest in the education of the masses, a student of school management, a man of quick intellect apt to seize upon the latent points, ready to suggest, to qualify, and help the master or mistress upon whose teaching for the past year he was about to report, gifted with the brain-power that would enable him to appreciate the difficulties of the task, and ready to see that the boys and girls of Pudley Claypole really had not the quickness of the gamins and gamines of Little Sharp Street, Whitechapel Road – but to the accident of his having friends, if not at Court, at all events with some high official – his sisters, his cousins, or his aunts – then in power.

Now, no one could have found fault with the gentlemanly demeanour of Mr Slingsby Barracombe. Miss Lambent said it was a pleasure to have him at the vicarage, and quite made a break in the dulness of their life, for he discoursed of society in town, his high connections, the state of the country; and he could sip tea and talk family matters with the vicarage ladies like a woman. He was a man of excellent presence: his hair very slightly touched with grey, and in that stage when, as he parted it down the middle, you could not decidedly have said whether it was a very broad parting or a suggestion of growing bald.

Sometimes your school inspector is a reverend M.A. Mr Slingsby Barracombe was not, but he dressed as much like a clergyman as he could, and his clothes were all made by one of the first clerical tailors in town.

Mr Barracombe’s uncle’s wife’s sister had married a gentleman whose brother was in the Ministry; and, somehow, Mr Slingsby Barracombe was named as likely to obtain the appointment of Inspector of Schools, did obtain it and went on afterwards merrily inspecting and reporting for his district after a fashion for which he ought to have had a patent, since it was essentially his own.

“You will endeavour to have as large an attendance as you can. Miss Thorne,” said the vicar. “Her Majesty’s inspector will be here on Thursday, and I shall feel it deeply if you do not receive a highly commendatory report.”

“We hope – my sister and I – Miss Thorne,” said Miss Lambent with asperity, “that the girls will acquit themselves well. Some of their needlework has of late been terribly full of gobble stitches.”

“And so disgustingly grubby,” put in Miss Beatrice.

“That it has not been fit to be seen. Pray – pray – I implore you. Miss Thorne – pray be more energetic with the girls.”

“Don’t you bother yourself, my dear,” said Miss Burge. “My brother says he hopes the girls will all show up well, for your sake as well as the school’s; but don’t you bother yourself, my dear. You’ve just worked like a slave and done no end. Now let it all slide. If the girls answer well, they do; if they don’t answer well, they don’t. ’Taint your fault, so don’t you worry. We’re both coming to the inspection, and my brother says if there’s any nonsense and fault-finding with the inspector he shall give him a bit of his mind. He don’t believe in inspectors, don’t Bill. He says there was never any inspectors in his time that he knows of, and if all the boys turn out as well as he did, there won’t be much to grumble about; so don’t you fidget, but take it as coolly as you can.”

“I say, how are you getting on!” said Mr Chute, popping his head in at the door. “Can’t stop, because I expect Lambent; and if I do come in, it will be cats. You know.”

“Cats? I know?” said Hazel, staring at the lumpy front of Mr Chute, and noticing that his hair seemed to have come up more than ever.

“Yes, of course – cats! I mean Becky and Beatrice – Rebel and Tricksy. I call them the cats. Don’t tell ’em I called ’em so; but I’m not a bit afraid of that. Don’t feel nervous about the inspection, do you?”

“I do feel a little nervous Mr Chute.”

“So does my mother. She’s in a regular fidget for fear I shouldn’t do well; but as I said to her, what does it matter? When a man has done his best with his school, why, he can’t do any better, can he?”

“No; certainly not,” replied Hazel, for Mr Chute was gazing at her in his peculiarly irritating way, his head a little on one side and his nose pointing, as if he meant to have an answer out of her if it was not soon forthcoming.

“I think my boys are all well up, and if they don’t answer sharp they’ve got me to deal with afterwards, and they’ll hear of it, I can tell ’em. But don’t you mind. Old Barracombe isn’t much account. He always asks the same questions – a lot he has got off by heart, I believe. I always call him the expector, because he expects answers to questions he couldn’t answer for himself.”

“I hope the children will acquit themselves well,” said Hazel. “Oh, I don’t think I shall bother myself much about it. I shall take precious good care that they have clean hands and faces, that’s about all.”

Just then Mr Chute popped back outside the door, as if he were part of a pantomime trick, and Hazel breathed more freely, thinking he had gone; but he popped in again, smiling and imitating his visitee more and more by assuming to take her into his confidence, and treating her as if she were combining with him in his petty little bits of deception.

“There’s nobody coming. I looked right up the street, and I could have seen that stalking post Lambent if he had been a mile off.”

If Hazel had asked him if he could see the Misses Lambent he would have been happy; but she did not, though Mr Chute waited with a smile upon his face but a goodly store of bitterness in his heart, for he kept on thinking of George Canninge, and that gentleman who came down upon the first Sunday and caused him such a pang.

Hazel, however, did not speak. She stood there, not caring to be rude, but longing to ask him to go, and with that peculiar itching attacking her fingers which made her wish to lift the Testament she had in her hand to well box his too prominent ears.

Just then Mr Chute popped out again, and once more Hazel’s heart gave a throb of relief, for it was troubled now by the idea that Mr Chute was growing attached to her, and there was something so horrible as well as ludicrous in this, that she shrank from him whenever he appeared. But Mr Chute was not gone; he came back directly with a great bunch of flowers grasped in his two hands and held up to his breast and over which he smiled blandly.

“They’re not much of flowers for you to receive. Miss Hazel, but I thought you’d like a few to put in water —and you might like to accept them for my sake.”

Mr Samuel Chute did not say those last words, though it formed part of the speech he had written out when he planned making that offering of flowers, and promised the boys who had gardens at home a penny apiece for a bunch, which bunches had been rearranged by him into a whole, and carefully tied up with string.

The bunch was laid down outside the door when he first entered, and at last brought in and held as has been stated.

Hazel felt ready to laugh, for there was a smirk upon Mr Chute’s face, and a peculiar look that reminded her of a French peasant in an opera she had once seen, as he stood presenting a large bunch of flowers to the lady of his love. There was a wonderful resemblance to the scene, which was continued upon the stage by the lady boxing the peasant’s ears and making him drop the huge bouquet which she immediately kicked, so that it came undone, and the flowers were scattered round.

Of course this did not take place in the real scene, for, after the first sensation relating to mirth, Hazel felt so troubled that she was ready to run away into the cottage to avoid her persecutor.

For was there ever a young lady yet who could avoid looking upon an offering of flowers as having a special meaning? The pleasant fancy of the language of flowers is sentimental enough to appeal to every one who is young; and here was Mr Chute presenting her with his first bouquet, a very different affair, so she thought, to the bunches of beautiful roses brought from time to time by Miss Burge.

“Just a few flowers out of our garden, my dear,” the little lady said, without any allusion to the fact that her brother had selected every rose himself, cutting them with his own penknife, and afterwards carefully removing every spine from the stems.

What should she do? She did not want Chute’s flowers, but if she refused them the act would be looked upon almost as an insult, and it was not in Hazel’s nature to willingly give pain. So she rather weakly took them, thanked the donor, and he went away smiling, after giving her a look that seemed, according to his ideas, to tell her that his heart was hers for ever, and that he was her most abject slave.

Hazel saw the glance, and thought that Mr Chute looked rather silly; but directly after repented bitterly of what she had done, and wished that she had firmly refused the gift.

“And yet what nonsense!” she reasoned. “Why should I look upon a present of a few flowers as having any particular meaning? They are to decorate the school for the inspection, and I will take them in that light.”

Acting upon this, she quietly called up Feelier Potts and another of the elder girls who were whispering together, evidently about the the gift, sent them to the cottage for some basins and jugs, and bade them divide the flowers and put some in water in each window, a proceeding afterwards dimly visible to Mr Chute, who did not feel at all pleased.

Chapter Twenty One.

Inspection Day

“I should put on my best silk this morning, Hazel,” said Mrs Thorne, unrolling the broad white strings of her widow’s cap and rolling them the reverse way to make them lie flat.

“Put on my best silk, dear!” said Hazel, aghast.

“Now, that is what I don’t like in you, Hazel,” cried Mrs Thorne dictatorially. “You profess to be so economical, and grudge every little outlay for the house, but directly I propose to you anything that affects your personal vanity you are up in arms.”

“My dear mother, you mistake me.”

“Oh, dear me, no, Hazel. I may be a poor, suffering, weak woman, but I have not lived to my years through trouble and tribulation without being able to read a young girl’s heart. That silk is old-fashioned now, I know, but it is quite good enough for the purpose, and yet has sufficient tone about it, having been made by a first-class dressmaker, to let the inspector see that you are a lady.”

“My dear mother,” began Hazel.

“Now, don’t interrupt me, Hazel. I do not often interfere, but there are times, as I told Mr Lambent when he called last, when I feel bound to make some little corrections in your ways. You must let Her Majesty’s inspector see that you are a lady, and who knows what may happen! He may be so struck by the fact that he finds a real lady in charge of this school that he will feel bound to make you an offer of marriage. Mr Lambent assured me that he was a very gentlemanly man and tolerably young. By-the-way, Hazel, have you noticed how very kind and attentive Mr Lambent is?”

“Yes, mother. He is very good and considerate, and thanked me yesterday for the efforts I have made with the school.”

“Quite right; so he ought. But as I was saying about Her Majesty’s inspector, you must let him see that you are a lady by birth and education.”

“My dear mother, I think the inspector must find that the majority of schoolmistresses are ladylike, and of course highly educated.”

“I am talking about my daughter,” said Mrs Thorne, who had great difficulty in getting her cap-strings to lie flat. “I wish you to impress upon him, Hazel, that you are a lady; in fact I feel it to be my duty to speak to him myself.”

“My dearest mother!”

“Now, pray do not be so rash and impetuous, my dear,” said the lady, bridling. “The best way would be to ask him to come into the drawing-room and hand him a little refreshment – a glass of wine and a biscuit.”

“But you forget that we are living in a cottage now. The inspector will be staying with Mr Lambent and he will get what refreshment – ”

“Hazel, don’t be obstinate. I know what I am saying. Oh no, I don’t forget that I am living in a mean and sordid cottage with contemptible windows,” she cried, with an irritating shake of the head, and a querulous ring in her voice that jarred to Hazel’s heart. “I know that this room is merely what you call a parlour by construction; but the fact of your mother —your mother occupying it, my child, makes it a drawing-room. You will put on your silk dress, Hazel?”

“No, mother; I am going to put on the clean grasscloth,” said Hazel quietly. “The other would be unsuitable for the school, and the dark silk would show the dust and chalk.”

“Was ever woman troubled with such a wilful girl before!” moaned Mrs Thorne. “Oh, dear me! – oh, dea-ar me!”

She declined to be comforted, and Hazel remained obstinate absolutely refusing to go to the school in silk attire, but wearing an extremely simple, closely-fitting, grasscloth dress, with plain white collar and cuffs, and looking dreadful – so Miss Lambent afterwards said to her sister; a prejudiced statement, for if ever there was an exemplification of the proverb regarding the needlessness of foreign ornament it was in Hazel Thorne’s appearance that day.

As a rule she was disposed to be pale, but the excitement consequent upon the important event had brought the colour into her cheeks, and she looked brighter than she had for months.

Mr Chute’s flowers were on the sills of the windows, the room had been well sprinkled and swept, there was not a vestige of a cobweb to be seen, and the girls had assembled in strong force, there having been a theory in the school that an inspection meant tea and cake afterwards, a theory that Feelier Potts, basing her remarks on experience, strongly opposed; but the children mustered all the same, and in many cases suffering a good deal from hair oil, applied so that patches of their foreheads shone and invited comparison with the rest of their faces.

Mr William Forth Burge was one of the first arrivals, and he paused with his sister upon the doorstep, to unfold a clean orange silk handkerchief, and have a loud blow, like a knight of old seizing the bugle at the castle-gate.

“How nice you do look, Bill!” said little Miss Burge, smiling at him tenderly, as she raised her hand to the latch.

“Do I, Betsey! Am I all right! Do I look well!”

“Beautiful!” said Miss Burge enthusiastically. “There ain’t a wrinkle about your back, nor sides, nor nowhere.”

“That’s right!” he exclaimed. “I was rather afraid, for they’re precious tight, Betsey; and the coat feels as if it would give way about the arms.”

“But see how it shows off your figure, Bill dear,” said the little lady; “and you are getting a bit too stout.”

“Ye-es, I s’pose I am; but it don’t matter, Betsey, so long as the ’art’s in the right place. Come along.”

They entered, and their greeting to Hazel was very warm. Soon after there was a buzz of voices heard outside, when the colour disappeared from the cheeks of the young mistress, for she knew that the crucial time had come. There was a sharp tapping at the door directly afterwards, and one of the elder girls went to open it, Hazel continuing her work with the classes, in support of the very old fiction that the inspector would come and take school and scholars quite by surprise.

Then the door was thrown open, and a little scene enacted on the threshold, the ladies drawing back to allow so important a personage as Her Majesty’s inspector to enter first, and Mr Slingsby Barracombe drawing back in turn with the vicar, to allow Miss Lambent and her sister to take precedence.

After a little hesitation, and a few words, the ladies entered, smiling, the gentlemen followed, and Hazel advanced to meet them, when there was the sound of wheels, a carriage stopped, steps were let down, and George Canninge handed out his mother, walked with her to the school, and entered.

Salutations, introductions, and a buzz of conversation followed, during which time Hazel felt in agony. Why had Mr Canninge come? she asked herself. She did not know why, but his presence unnerved her, and she dreaded disgracing herself in his eyes.

“We thought we should like to be present,” said the young squire. “I hope Mr Barracombe will not consider us in the way.”

On the contrary, he was delighted to see present any of the patrons of the school, and said so as soon as he knew the social status of the Canninges; after which he asked to be excused, smiled, bowed, and turned to the task he had in hand. Then George Canninge shook hands warmly “with those dreadfully vulgar folks, the Burges,” as Mrs Canninge said, while she kept an eye upon her son and the schoolmistress in turn.

As a rule the Rev. Henry Lambent was the great man at the schools, but upon this occasion he sank into a very secondary position, following the inspector with a stiff kind of deference, as Mr Slingsby Barracombe raised his glasses to his eyes, balanced them upon his nose, looked at Hazel gravely for a few moments, and then bowed formally without a word, before taking off his glasses and holding them behind him with both hands as if they were hot, while he marched about the school.

National school children are at such times supposed to be all intent upon their lessons, and never to raise their eyes to look at visitors, especially such an awe-inspiring personage as an inspector; but it would be just as reasonable to expect a pinch of steel filings to refrain from turning towards a magnet plunged in their midst. Certainly the girls in Hazel Thorne’s charge followed the inspector, their eyes taking in every movement and Feelier Potts’s malicious features almost involuntarily moulding themselves into an excellent imitation of the peculiarities of his face.

When Mr Barracombe had solemnly walked round the school once, with the Reverend Henry Lambent hat in hand, behind him, and the other visitors forming themselves into a deferential audience, who watched him as if he were going through some wonderful performance, he said, with a loud expiration of his breath —