The French teacher, Madame Celeste Bolande, was easily the most interesting of all the teachers. She afforded the girls a vast deal of amusement as well as much annoyance. As a topic of conversation she was inexhaustible. She was truly wonderful to look at but the snapshots that the Miller girls took of her failed to do her justice.
“Doctor Rhodes must have ordered her by mail,” said Cora Doyle, after her first French lesson with the new teacher. “Phew! I’m glad to get outdoors. She was fairly drenched with perfume.”
“Yes,” agreed Debbie Clark. “Doctor Rhodes couldn’t have seen her first or he never would have taken her. What’s that stuff about a pig in a poke? Well, that’s how he got her. I’m sure she isn’t a relative, even by marriage.”
Madame Bolande was really amazing to look at and if the girls spoke of her disrespectfully it was not surprising. No properly brought up little girl could have respected that astonishing lady. Nature had been kind to her; she might have been entirely pleasing to the eye, but for several reasons she was not. She had quantities of black hair, apparently all her own, but it was always greasy and untidy as if it were never washed or brushed or combed. It hung about her face in oily loops that had a way of breaking loose at odd moments, at which times Madame would pin them carelessly in place and go on with the lesson.
Sometimes she wore so-called laced shoes, sometimes buttoned ones. However, most of the time they were neither laced nor buttoned. Whether she wore black stockings with large holes in them or soiled white ones, they were constantly coming down. It was a perpetual joy to the girls to see her reach down, casually, to haul the slipping stocking back into place. As Madame sat at a small table in the center of the class room, with the girls on a long bench against the wall, this amusing operation, though it took place beneath the table, was always plainly visible.
Buttons were missing from her tight-fitting black frock, showing many hued undergarments not supposed to be seen. Bits of ragged petticoats always dangled below the bottom of her skirt. Her neck, her ears and her finger nails were visibly dirty.
Madame’s face, however, was quite a different matter. Her shapely countenance, from ear to ear, from brow to chin, was carefully plastered with powder, her cheeks and lips were rouged and a dab of blue decorated each eyelid. But, with the exception of her rather handsome face, her whole person was woefully neglected.
As a horrible example, Madame proved decidedly useful. No girl could look upon that lady and fail to bathe. No girl could note that lady’s dangling petticoats of green or cerise silk or soiled white cotton with torn lace and fail to fasten her own neat underskirt securely into place. Even Mabel, it was noticed, began at once to take pains to braid her own troublesome locks more tidily.
“It isn’t because she’s poor,” said Henrietta. “I’ve seen lots of poor people right in France and most of them are just as neat as wax; and so clever about making the most of what they have. And it isn’t because she doesn’t have time to mend her clothes or to bathe or wash her hair. She has all her afternoons and evenings, except when she has papers to correct—that doesn’t take so very much of her time.”
“She’s just naturally that way,” said Anne Blodgett, sagely.
“She bathes in perfume,” explained Sallie.
“It’s the one thing she does bathe in,” breathed Anne.
“Well,” laughed Sallie, “she has enough to fill a small bathtub. There are ten bottles on her dresser and you know how horribly she smells of the stuff. Isn’t she just awful! She never makes her bed or hangs up her clothes and she smokes cigarettes—they’re all over the place. She doesn’t even do that like a lady.”
“Oh, she isn’t a lady,” said Henrietta. “Was she here last year?”
“No,” returned Sallie, “she’s as new as you are.”
Henrietta and the French teacher were enemies from the beginning. Henrietta, having lived in France and having had an excellent French governess for a number of years, could chatter in French like a little magpie. Madame chattered too and Henrietta made a discovery. Madame’s French was ungrammatical. Madame was distinctly uneducated and decidedly lower class—no fit instructor for a girls’ school. Yet at first Madame behaved circumspectly; although she told fascinating tales of life in Paris, there was much that she did not tell. She barely hinted at romantic incidents in her own life. Her husband had been a milliner. They had come to the States where after two years death had descended upon her so noble Alphonse, and it had become necessary for Madame to teach “in some pig of a school” in order to earn money so that she might in time return to her so beautiful France.
Madame Bolande knew that Henrietta was aware of all her shortcomings as a teacher; for Henrietta frequently pointed out Madame’s sometimes laughable errors. Naturally, the Frenchwoman both hated and feared “That so bad Mees Henrietta,” and that young person was quite unable to respect her teacher; so there were lively sessions in class when mocking Henrietta goaded Madame so nearly to frenzy that Madame fairly shrieked with rage. All this resulted in exceedingly bad marks for Henrietta, who really deserved good ones for her French and very bad ones for her conduct; but Madame did not discriminate. She gave her the very blackest marks she could fish from the depths of her ink bottle.
Miss Woodruff, on the other hand, bathed frequently in real water, wore her smooth hair in the neatest of knobs and was undoubtedly a well educated woman; and, in some ways, an excellent teacher. She taught English and mathematics, for instance, in a way to inspire respect for her deep knowledge; but her manner of doing it was frequently unpleasant. The girls frankly hated her at times because she heaped ridicule upon them when they failed. She was often cold and cuttingly sarcastic when a little sympathy would perhaps have accomplished more.
Day after day, Bettie, who was stupid anyway in mathematics, quailed under the large lady’s biting sarcasm and grew more and more confused as to numbers; until, as she put it afterwards, she didn’t know whether she was shingling a ceiling or plastering a roof with nineteen quarts of ice cream picked from twenty-seven apple trees, at three cents a yard.
Maude Wilder, who liked Bettie, and who had suffered considerably on her own account, eyed Miss Woodruff balefully and plotted revenge.
The girls loved Maude. She wasn’t a pretty girl, but her pale brown eyes with amber lights in them twinkled delightfully and the corners of her mouth crinkled easily into whimsical smiles. Almost anything amused Maude and she was quite apt to become amused at the wrong moment. Also she was able to amuse other persons.
The pupils at Highland Hall were supposed to respond to roll call each morning with a French phrase—a different one each day. Miss Woodruff stood at her desk on the platform, listening intently; while all the pupils sat demurely at their desks, also listening.
Maude had one phrase—and only one. She made it do the work of a great many. With a twinkle in her eye, day after day, Maude folded her hands demurely and responded blandly: “Nous avons des raisins blancs et noirs mais pas de cerises.” (We have white and black grapes but no cherries.)
“But, Maude,” Miss Woodruff would say, “that is very good but I shall expect a different phrase tomorrow. You’ve used that one long enough.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Maude would reply, meekly.
But the next morning, to the unfailing delight of all the pupils, this incorrigible young imp would respond seriously and even more blandly with the same timeworn and utterly foolish phrase.
If Maude ever learned another word of French no one ever discovered it. Indeed, Maude was so busy being funny that she had little time for study.
It was Maude, too, who daily stole a pie from the pantry window sill under the front porch. Maude having discovered a hole in the lattice work near the steps, crawled in one day to investigate. She found numerous pies cooling on the broad sill. She ate one hurriedly and it made her ill. One pie, a large pie at that, was plainly too much for one girl. After that she always took a companion under the porch with her and generously divided the stolen pie. Sometimes the companion was Henrietta; sometimes it was Marjory, once it was Bettie—but Bettie’s conscience troubled her and she wouldn’t go again. Unhappily, the only time that one could be sure of capturing a pie was during the morning recess, a matter of only fifteen minutes. As the pies were always red hot at that time it required courage to bolt them. The mince pies were especially trying, for there is nothing much hotter than a hot raisin.
Maude never was discovered; but long afterwards the girls wondered if she hadn’t made some secret arrangement with the cook. She was quite capable of it for Maude was nothing if not resourceful. And the cook was a good natured person.