”By the way, I found out why Rebecca Dew cried. It seems there had been a domestic convulsion. Dusty Miller had 'misbehaved again' and Rebecca Dew told Aunt Kate she would really have to do something about That Cat. He was wearing her to a fiddle-string.
It was the third time in a year and she knew he did it on purpose.
And Aunt Kate said that if Rebecca Dew would always let the cat out when he meowed there would be no danger of his misbehaving.
”'Well, this IS the last straw,' said Rebecca Dew.
”Consequently, tears!
”The Pringle situation grows a little more acute every week.
Something very impertinent was written across one of my books yesterday and Homer Pringle turned handsprings all the way down the aisle when leaving school. Also, I got an anonymous letter recently full of nasty innuendoes. Somehow, I don't blame Jen for either the book or the letter. Imp as she is, there are things she wouldn't stoop to. Rebecca Dew is furious and I shudder to think what she would do to the Pringles if she had them in her power.
Nero's wish isn't to be compared to it. I really don't blame her, for there are times when I feel myself that I could cheerfully hand any and all of the Pringles a poisoned philter of Borgia brewing.
”I don't think I've told you much about the other teachers. There are two, you know ... the Vice-principal, Katherine Brooke of the Junior Room, and George MacKay of the Prep. Of George I have little to say. He is a shy, good-natured lad of twenty, with a slight, delicious Highland accent suggestive of low shielings and misty islands ... his grandfather 'was Isle of Skye' ... and does very well with the Preps. So far as I know him I like him.
But I'm afraid I'm going to have a hard time liking Katherine Brooke.
”Katherine is a girl of, I think, about twenty-eight, though she looks thirty-five. I have been told she cherished hopes of promotion to the Principalship and I suppose she resents my getting it, especially when I am considerably her junior. She is a good teacher ... a bit of a martinet ... but she is not popular with any one. And doesn't worry over it! She doesn't seem to have any friends or relations and boards in a gloomy-looking house on grubby little Temple Street. She dresses very dowdily, never goes out socially and is said to be 'mean.' She is very sarcastic and her pupils dread her biting remarks. I am told that her way of raising her thick black eyebrows and drawling at them reduces them to a pulp. I wish I could work it on the Pringles. But I really shouldn't like to govern by fear as she does. I want my pupils to love me.
”In spite of the fact that she has apparently no trouble in making them toe the line she is constantly sending some of them up to me ... especially Pringles. I know she does it purposely and I feel miserably certain that she exults in my difficulties and would be glad to see me worsted.
”Rebecca Dew says that no one can make friends with her. The widows have invited her several times to Sunday supper ... the dear souls are always doing that for lonely people, and always have the most delicious chicken salad for them ... but she never came.
So they have given it up because, as Aunt Kate says, 'there are limits.'
”There are rumors that she is very clever and can sing and recite ... 'elocute,' a la Rebecca Dew ... but will not do either.
Aunt Chatty once asked her to recite at a church supper.
”'We thought she refused very ungraciously,' said Aunt Kate.
”'Just growled,' said Rebecca Dew.
”Katherine has a deep throaty voice ... almost a man's voice ... and it does sound like a growl when she isn't in good humor.
”She isn't pretty but she might make more of herself. She is dark and swarthy, with magnificent black hair always dragged back from her high forehead and coiled in a clumsy knot at the base of her neck. Her eyes don't match her hair, being a clear, light amber under her black brows. She has ears she needn't be ashamed to show and the most beautiful hands I've ever seen. Also, she has a well- cut mouth. But she dresses terribly. Seems to have a positive genius for getting the colors and lines she should not wear. Dull dark greens and drab grays, when she is too sallow for greens and grays, and stripes which make her tall, lean figure even taller and leaner. And her clothes always look as if she'd slept in them.
”Her manner is very repellent ... as Rebecca Dew would say, she always has a chip on her shoulder. Every time I pass her on the stairs I feel that she is thinking horrid things about me. Every time I speak to her she makes me feel I've said the wrong thing.
And yet I'm very sorry for her ... though I know she would resent my pity furiously. And I can't do anything to help her because she doesn't want to be helped. She is really hateful to me. One day, when we three teachers were all in the staff room, I did something which, it seems, transgressed one of the unwritten laws of the school, and Katherine said cuttingly, 'Perhaps you think YOU are above rules, Miss Shirley.' At another time, when I was suggesting some changes which I thought would be for the good of the school, she said with a scornful smile, 'I'm not interested in fairy tales.' Once, when I said some nice things about her work and methods, she said, 'And what is to be the pill in all this jam?'
”But the thing that annoyed me most ... well, one day when I happened to pick up a book of hers in the staff room and glanced at the flyleaf I said,
”'I'm glad you spell your name with a K. Katherine is so much more alluring than Catherine, just as K is ever so much gypsier a letter than smug C.'
”She made no response, but the next note she sent up was signed 'Catherine Brooke'!
”I sneezed all the way home.
”I really would give up trying to be friends with her if I hadn't a queer, unaccountable feeling that under all her bruskness and aloofness she is actually starved for companionship.
”Altogether, what with Katherine's antagonism and the Pringle attitude, I don't know just what I'd do if it wasn't for dear Rebecca Dew and your letters ... and little Elizabeth.
”Because I've got acquainted with little Elizabeth. And she is a darling.
”Three nights ago I took the glass of milk to the wall door and little Elizabeth herself was there to get it instead of the Woman, her head just coming above the solid part of the door, so that her face was framed in the ivy. She is small, pale, golden and wistful. Her eyes, looking at me through the autumn twilight, are large and golden-hazel. Her silver-gold hair was parted in the middle, sleeked plainly down over her head with a circular comb, and fell in waves on her shoulders. She wore a pale blue gingham dress and the expression of a princess of elf-land. She had what Rebecca Dew calls 'a delicate air,' and gave me the impression of a child who was more or less undernourished ... not in body, but in soul. More of a moonbeam than a sunbeam.
”'And this is Elizabeth?' I said.
”'Not tonight,' she answered gravely. 'This is my night for being Betty because I love everything in the world tonight. I was Elizabeth last night and tomorrow night I'll prob'ly be Beth.
It all depends on how I feel.'
”There was the touch of the kindred spirit for you. I thrilled to it at once.
”'How very nice to have a name you can change so easily and still feel it's your own.'
”Little Elizabeth nodded.
”'I can make so many names out of it. Elsie and Betty and Bess and Elisa and Lisbeth and Beth ... but not Lizzie. I never can feel like Lizzie.'
”'Who could?' I said.
”'Do you think it silly of me, Miss Shirley? Grandmother and the Woman do.'
”'Not silly at all ... very wise and very delightful,' I said.
”Little Elizabeth made saucer eyes at me over the rim of her glass.
I felt that I was being weighed in some secret spiritual balance and presently I realized thankfully that I had not been found wanting. For little Elizabeth asked a favor of me ... and little Elizabeth does not ask favors of people she does not like.