“Yes, Miss Chancellor,” muttered Esther, glancing at her companions.
“And I am quite content to do my duty in that station of life to which — to which I am called,” said Miss Chancellor, adapting the quotation to the lightness of the moment, and taking her stand in readiness for grace, with her eyes held above the board, as though disregard of food were natural in certain conditions.
Lesbia came to the table and looked at its supplies before she bent her head. Meals were a welcome break in her routine and she did not disguise it, thinking it a healthy view of them.
Gwendolen murmured to her neighbour as she took her seat.
“There was an old woman and what do you think?
She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink.”
“What did you say, Gwendolen?”
“I said that — we lived upon nothing but victuals and drink, Miss Firebrace.”
“Well, have some of both, Gwendolen. I am sorry we can offer you nothing else.”
A thin, dark, grey-haired woman at Lesbia’s hand, who was a partner in the school, turned absent, grey eyes on the newcomer.
“Clemence Shelley? Your little cousin, Miss Firebrace?”
“Yes,” said Lesbia, in an audible tone of saying what was of sufficient, but not excessive interest. “Or my little connection by marriage. She is to be in Miss Chancellor’s form and so will be with you for some subjects.”
Miss Laurence smiled at Clemence in automatic, kindly interest, and appeared to sink into abstraction, a state that so often claimed her that it had come almost to be required of her, and tended to be less complete than it seemed.
“I think she is adapting herself easily to her new surroundings,” said another voice, as the third partner smiled at Clemence. “And that is a great art.”
The number of partners in the school was in excess of its resources. It had been necessary to bring it into being, and was still so, to maintain it in this state. Lesbia drew a veil over it, and tended to pass over her partners’ existence, when they were not there to establish it.
Miss Marathon’s upright figure, pronounced nose and prominent, expressionless eyes gave her a somewhat forbidding aspect, that was hardly borne out by her pupils’ demeanour towards her. She sat among them and supervised their needs in a. manner at once precise and kindly, critical and tolerant. Miss Laurence was recognised as too intellectual for tangible affairs, and remained aloof and did nothing, thereby both creating and fulfilling a part. Her pupils regarded her with affection and fear, or merely with the latter. Miss Marathon they regarded with neither, and with no other particular feeling.
Miss Chancellor sat by Miss Laurence, and seemed to identify herself with her aloof attitude, and indeed with any other that she displayed.
“Clemence, do have some victuals and drink,” said Gwendolen. “I hope you do not feel as if every mouthful would choke you. Clemence feels that every mouthful will choke her, Miss Chancellor. And it is not reasonable when she is not taking any mouthfuls.”
“It sounds as if you were right to urge her to modify her course, Gwendolen.”
“All the attention will be for Clemence now, I expect,” said Esther.
“What did you say, Esther?” said Lesbia, in a tone of according interest to everyone’s utterance.
“Nothing, Miss Firebrace.”
“Then it is of no good for us to pursue it. But how you managed to observe something and say nothing, I do not know.”
“An answer unworthy of your years, Esther,” said Miss Chancellor.
“Did you enjoy your holiday, Maud?” said Miss Marathon, going on to safe ground with a safe companion.
“Yes, thank you, Miss Marathon. I have never enjoyed a holiday more. But I find I am glad to get back to work again.”
A sighing sound, as of incredulous consternation, went round the girls, and Lesbia turned her eyes on them.
“Now which of you is acting in accordance with her real convictions? Or is ‘acting’ the right word in another sense? Do you really feel such an objection to being educated, Gwendolen?”
“Yes, Miss Firebrace.”
“Do you, Esther?”
“Well, Miss Firebrace, it is not the pleasantest part of the year, and it is two-thirds of it.”
“And you, Verity?”
“Well, I do not agree that our schooldays are the happiest time of our life, Miss Firebrace. Or anyhow I hope they are not.”
“Neither do I agree, Verity. I hope that will not be the case. I hope there are fuller and more useful — yes, more useful, Verity — times ahead of you, more useful to other people. But the foundations of them have to be laid. I should have thought you were old enough to realise that. We may not always be enough in ourselves to come to our own fulfilment without help.”
“I don’t expect people ever realise that the times they are living are foundations of other times,” said Clemence.
Miss Laurence and Miss Marathon smiled towards her, welcoming her entry into the talk, faintly deprecating any advance upon the freedom of it.
Lesbia remained grave.
“We must beware of presenting ourselves according to some rule of our own, and not in our true colours,” she said, as she rose from her seat. “That is at best a mere lip-service to convention.”
There was silence, and Miss Laurence and Miss Marathon raised their eyes.
“And at its worst a simple acting for effect,” said Lesbia, leaving the table.
Her partners looked at their pupils almost in sympathy for the consequences of their heedlessness.
“So we are under a cloud already,” said Esther. “The storm has rolled up in the first few hours.”
“That is very graphic, Esther,” said Miss Marathon, in an uncertain tone.
“I feel I managed to bring it on you all,” said Maud.
Miss Laurence and Miss Marathon rose and left the room, leaving what was irrepressible to find its outlet.
“No, Maud, you need not feel that,” said Miss Chancellor. “You spoke the truth simply and sincerely, and no one can be asked to regret that.”
“I ask Maud to regret it,” said Gwendolen. “She startled us into betraying ourselves. We could have told Miss Firebrace we were glad to languish in exile.”
“If you did not feel it, Gwendolen, it was better not to say it.”
“It was probably better not to say that,” said Clemence.
“It did not seem so much better,” said Gwendolen.
“We suffered for the faith that was in us,” said Verity.
“And what faith is that, Verity?” said Lesbia’s voice.
There was the slightest pause.
“Faith in the value of freedom, Miss Firebrace.”
“That was ready, Verity,” said Lesbia, in a tone of giving ungrudging approbation where it was merited. “I do not know how far it was the expression of the truth, but I hold to what I say; it was ready.”
Verity suppressed a smile.
“Miss Firebrace felt she had gone rather far,” muttered Esther. “She is trying to retrieve her position.”
Lesbia turned her eyes on Esther, kept them on her for some seconds, and withdrew them without speaking.
“Esther, you and I are the only ones who do not attain any credit,” said Gwendolen.
“Is that so, Gwendolen? Then take some credit for bringing back to us a cheerful face,” said Lesbia, smoothing Gwendolen’s hair, and then turning to Esther with a different expression.
“Are you very tired after your journey, Esther?”
“Yes, Miss Firebrace; I cannot endure travelling.”
“Poor child!” said Lesbia, putting out her hand with a similar purpose, but seeming to reconsider the matter and withdrawing it. “I shall be glad to feel you are in bed. I think you had better go up to Miss Tuke now. Yes, go straight upstairs, Esther. If you are so tired, that is the right course for you.”