“Does your mother mind his living here?” said Esther.
“Well, I do not suppose she would choose it. She has been very good about it. I think my father is grateful to her.”
“She must like having his gratitude,” said Gwendolen. “I think it would be an ample reward. He was an angel with us, and with the boys, and with the matrons, and a different sort of angel with each. How nice the other matron is! I like matrons much better than other people.”
Miss Petticott’s figure was seen advancing across the grass.
“Now it is sad to interrupt your walk and talk, but tea has to be early because of the trains.”
The girls turned at once, attached Miss Petticott to their line with an ease than ranked her with the matrons, and proceeded towards the house; and she accompanied them with a springy step that was the result of the latter’s companionship.
“It is pleasant to eat for so much of the day,” said Gwendolen, as they came to the table. “At school we have such long breaks from food.”
“Well, really, Gwendolen, what impression will you give?” said Miss Chancellor, who herself gave one of unwittingly finding herself where she was.
“I hope you did not catch cold in the park,” said Maria. “I saw you from the window and wished you would run about. Perhaps you kept each other warm.”
“We always go about linked up like that, Lady Shelley,” said Gwendolen, “even at school, where the staircase is not wide enough to allow of it. I do not know how we manage.”
“I have never quite solved the problem, Gwendolen,” said Miss Chancellor.
“I wondered how it was done, when I first got to school,” said Clemence. “I was at the end of the line and wondered what would happen to me. But nothing did.”
“Clemence despises the school ways,” said Verity, causing Maria to turn fond eyes on her daughter. “She has asked us here today with contempt in her heart.”
“You should not speak true words in jest,” said Esther.
“Verity is rather speaking untrue words in earnest,” said Maud. “And that she clearly should not do.”
“I wish I had taught in a girls’ school instead of a boys’,” said Oliver. “It would have done much more for me.”
“Why do you not try the experiment?” said Miss Chancellor. “You could come to us as a visiting master.”
“If I could not be at prayers, and jostle people in the passage, and hear housemaids sing on the stairs, I should not count it.”
“I am afraid you could not fulfil that programme at our school, Mr. Shelley.”
“Well, naturally, I was not thinking of any other.”
“Suppose all these were my grandchildren.” said Mr. Firebrace, looking round. “I might have had as many.”
“Then I am sure Maria would let you have them all here,” said Oliver. “But do not speak to wound me, Grandpa. I have tried to be enough for you.”
“Would you like to have me for a grandfather, my dear?” said Mr. Firebrace to Gwendolen.
“Well, I don’t much like having people for grandfathers. I have two for them, and they say I am brought up in the modern way.”
“They ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
“It is me they are ashamed of, and it is embarrassing to cause shame. I do not mind feeling it. One has to get used to that.”
“These are three good boys, Miss James,” said Oliver. “I think I remember them.”
“You remember Sturgeon,” said Bacon, “because you asked him about the potted meat.”
“I remembered the potted meat, and wondered what reminded me of it, and found it was Sturgeon. Do you remember the potted meat, Miss James?”
“No, it is the kind of thing one forgets, Mr. Shelley.”
“And you remember Holland,” said Bacon, “because you asked him about his music.”
“And I remember you. You are the boy who tends upwards. How I have proved my social memory! It is a thing one should always possess. I think I am really at the mercy of it.”
“Do you all enjoy your school life?” said Maria, to the girls.
“It is not the life that I mind, as much as the advantages,” said Gwendolen. “I do find those a great strain.”
“I enjoy it to the full, Lady Shelley, and do so consciously,” said Maud. “I realise that it will not last for ever.”
“I wish I could,” said Verity. “Some things seem never to come true. I envy Maud her simple faith.”
“Do you think I am depriving Clemence of something she ought to have?”
“I expect you are,” said Gwendolen. “People ought to have advantages. They are like plain, wholesome food, and not too much excitement. It is the duty of parents to attend to it.”
“What do you think, Miss Chancellor, if I have not asked you before? Anyhow I ask you again.”
“Well, Gwendolen and I are not often of one mind. I usually find myself correcting her views. But this time I am of her opinion, though I should not express it quite in her way.”
“Do you think I am thinking of myself and not of Clemence?”
“No one who knows you even as well as I do, could think that, Lady Shelley. Thinking of yourself has not played a large part in your life.”
“I am thinking of Clemence and of myself as well,” said Sir Roderick. “Why should not we both be considered? Answer me that, Miss Chancellor. I mean, do you not see it as a reasonable view?”
“In the matter of education the young person claims the thought, Sir Roderick. Her future is involved, as the older person’s is not.”
“But my present is involved, and there is nothing else for me. And Clemence does not want to leave her father.”
“I shall break down in the train,” said Gwendolen, “because it is all so sad.”
“Well, it is no good to think that life can always be as we would choose it, Gwendolen.”
“Talking of trains,” said Maria, rising, “I fear the moment has come to consider them. I could not face Miss Firebrace if you missed yours.”
“Does not Aunt Lesbia conduct her own party?” said Oliver.
“I am going later, Oliver,” said Lesbia, holding her eyes from this group.
“I should be reluctant to encounter her myself, Lady Shelley, at the head of a line of bestranded charges,” said Miss Chancellor. “Now we all want to thank you for quite a memorable day.”
“I have liked everything better than anything else,” said Gwendolen. “I have not considered anyone but myself, and I have not eaten a single wholesome thing.”
“Thank you so much for a day of so many pleasures,” said Maud, suggesting that other tastes had been met.
“If school life were often like this,” said Verity, “we should not long for it to be over.”
“One of its advantages is its opportunities for making friends,” said Miss Chancellor. “To-day has been an illustration of it.”
“Why do you not come to the school functions with your mother, Clemence?” said Esther, awkwardly keeping her eyes from Maria. “Then we should see you both.”
“I have a message from Miss, Laurence for you, Clemence,” said Miss Chancellor, slightly lowering her tones. “Quite a deep little message, that I hope you will carry with you into your life. She says she will think of you as rising on stepping-stones, of which one may perhaps be said to be laid by herself. Will you remember that, and let me tell her that you will?”
“Yes,” said Clemence, seeing through Miss Chancellor’s eyes a living thread spring up in the mesh of her future.
“Why, this is not a member of the party, is it?” said Sir Roderick, failing to recognise Miss Tuke in her outdoor clothes. “Why, yes, of course, the matron; that is the most important work of all. Now do not catch cold, Miss Tuke; we want you to take care of yourself as well as other people.” He adjusted Miss Tuke’s coat and fastened the collar.