“Suppose we have to read the word aloud?”
“Then you will do so without giggling or exchanging glances,” said Miss James, to the discomfort of her hearers, who recognised in her some power of divining their nature. “And in ordinary conversation you will not mention it. You are on your honour not to do so. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Miss James.”
“And now here are the rules of the school,” said Miss James, with the faint sigh of one approaching the last and most arduous stage. “Here is the printed list on the wall. Now can you all read?”
“Yes, Miss James.”
“You need not say it too easily. I have often met boys who apparently could not. This is an important thing,” said Miss James, who had disposed of such matters as could be settled through the medium of honour. “Will you read the first rule, Bacon?”
“‘Rise on hearing the first bell.’ How do we know it is the first?”
“Well, you can count as far as one, can you not?”
“Yes. But we might be asleep when it went. Miss James.”
“The bell would wake you. That is its purpose. Read the second rule, Shelley.”
“‘Leave the dormitory on second bell, and descend in silence to classroom.’”
“And the third, Sturgeon.”
“Observe silence in passages and on stairs.’ Suppose we observe a noise, Miss James?”
“You do not know that use of the word?” said Miss James, in a tone that mingled kindliness, suspicion and resignation, in case any of these qualities was called for. “It just means ‘keep’. You can remember that.”
“‘Observe silence in dormitory after lights are out,’” read Holland. “‘and when visiting dormitory during day. Observe punctuality at meals.’ Suppose we do forget what the word, ‘observe’, means?”
Miss James took a pencil and altered the word to ‘keep’, and on second thoughts produced a pen and traced it where it occurred.
“Keep punctuality at meals?” said Holland, as if to himself.
“It is an old use of the word. You would not know it,” said Miss James, going to the door. “Now, if you want me, you know where I am. Remember all I have said.”
“If we do not want her, we forget where she is,” said Holland.
“As is true in many cases,” said Bacon.
“Not a bad old dame,” said Sturgeon.
“She might be better-favoured,” said Bacon.
“If she was, she would not be here,” said Holland. “There would be a risk of the masters’ falling in love with her.”
“She would not be chosen for — for what must not be said,” said Sturgeon.
“You are breaking your promise,” said Bacon.
“He is not. He did not say the word,” said Holland.
“And we did not really give the promise.”
“We did in effect. There is a point beyond which we do not go. Now I am going to open my playbox.”
“The size of mine is in keeping with myself,” said Sturgeon, getting over what had to come.
“You are of a wizened stature,” said Bacon. “Perhaps you will grow up a dwarf.”
“Then you could earn your living in a show,” said Holland. “Indeed, you might have to. I don’t think a dwarf would be employed in ordinary ways.”
“Should I be paid enough for that?”
“You would not want much,” said Bacon. “You would not have family expenses. No one would marry a dwarf.”
“Dwarfs sometimes marry each other,” said Sturgeon. “Sometimes their children are dwarfs, and sometimes not. It happens in the big circuses, and I might succeed in my profession.”
“And what profession is that?” said Miss James, returning with the air of one who had expected to do. so. “When you cannot remember a simple thing for a few minutes!”
“A dwarf in a fair, Miss James.”
“Well, what extraordinary characters you think of! First a — and then a dwarf, first one thing and then another. And did I, or did I not, tell you to read the rules, and hear you reading them?”
“Yes, you did, Miss James.”
“And did you read the one about keeping silence in the dormitories during the day? Or did you miss that one out?”
“No, Miss James. But that was visiting the dormitory,” said Bacon. “We are unpacking in this one and settling down.”
Miss James again produced her pen, made an alteration on the list, and turned on her way. A bell rang as she reached the door, and she looked at the four boys engaged with their boxes.
“What sound was that?”
“A bell, Miss James.”
“And what bell would it be at this hour?”
“A bell for tea?” said Sturgeon, in a dubious tone.
“And did you miss this rule out?” said Miss James, tapping her pen against the list. “Will you please read it again, all together?”
“‘Observe punctuality at meals.’”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
Four pairs of eyes met hers and sought each other.
“Ought we to go down?” said Holland, in a tone of hazarding a just possible suggestion.
“Perhaps our tea will be brought up to us on our first night,” said Sturgeon.
“Go down, all of you, and let me have no more nonsense,” said Miss James, tapping her pen on his head and almost smiling. “You will miss grace now. You can say your grace to yourselves. You all know a grace, don’t you?”
“Yes, Miss James.”
“Then mind you do not forget to say it. And talk among yourselves and not to the other boys. That leads to trouble.”
The boys went down and followed a hum of voices to the dining-room. An elder boy leaned from his seat and pointed them to their place. They took their seats and turned their eyes on the table.
“If we were made truly thankful, we might get on better,” said Sturgeon, with no thought of attending further than this to Miss James’s injunction.
“They should have warned us that the school was for coarse feeders,” said Bacon. “Perhaps that is true of all schools. Only coarse feeders can be educated.”
“What is this, boys?” said Miss James, coming late to her place, with her habitual, hurried disregard of her own comfort. “What is this I hear about coarse feeders? It does not sound a polite way to talk. I hope you can all behave properly at table. Is no one going to pass anything to me?”
The boys, who had assumed that Miss James arranged matters for herself in arranging all things, handed plates with signs of discomposure.
“Miss James also feeds coarsely,” muttered Sturgeon.
“I beg your pardon, Sturgeon?” said Miss James, in a new tone.
“I said — I only said,” said Sturgeon, realising the interpretation put upon his words; “we were talking about the food, not about the people who ate it.”
“Oh, I see. That explains it. But I hope you were not finding fault with the food put before you. We eat what is provided for us, without discussion or criticism. Did you all remember your grace?” Her tone suggested that such an observance might have ensured subsequent propriety.
“No, Miss James,” said Bacon.
“Did you actually forget it?”
“No, Miss James,” said Holland, feeling that Sturgeon’s allusion saved them from this.
“Then what was your reason for not saying it?”
“I don’t know, Miss James.”
“Now I think I can tell you,” said Miss James, leaning back and surveying the faces turned towards her. “I think it was that you felt a little ashamed of saying it in front of everyone, of standing to your colours in public. And as that is not a feeling to be proud of, you will not yield to it another time. Are you going to leave that butter on your plate, Sturgeon? Is it not wholesome food?”
“Yes. No, Miss James. It is the fat on the top of the potted meat.”