MAB left the others separating on every side towards their homes, and ran back to the schoolhouse, from which the children had all dispersed a little while before. She was full of her errand, in which there was a little sense of mischief as well as of pleasure, the one giving piquancy to the other. No doubt it was quite true that the ladies were not jealous of Mrs. Brown. It was to Mab the most amusing thing in the world that anybody should think so. Florence and Emmy, for instance, jealous—of a woman twice as old as they were, if she were the most beautiful and attractive woman in the world! How absurd it was! Youth has confidence in youth, in a manner as astonishing to the rest of the world as is the futility of that confidence in so many cases. And to a girl of seventeen a woman of forty is so entirely out of any sort of competition with herself that the suggestion is too ridiculous to be taken into the mind at all. Mrs. FitzStephen, perhaps, or Aunt Jane might be jealous of Mrs. Brown, but then they had nothing to do with it: and it was still more absurd to think that these good ladies could have anything in hand that would make it possible for jealousy to come in. All this ran through Mab’s cheerful mind as she went back, not noting the half-alarmed, half-displeased look which Jim threw after her, and his hesitating step in advance, as if he would have gone too. It was an exceedingly good joke to Mab, for though, of course, the ladies were not jealous, they would no doubt be much surprised to see Mrs. Brown appear—surprised, and perhaps not quite pleased. It was not that they habitually looked down upon the schoolmistress—even Mab in her short memory knew of some who had been much petted by the gentry in Watcham. There was one girl, who was delicate, and who was as much thought of as if she had been a princess in disguise, all ‘the best people’ uniting to spoil her, Mab thought, who, being more on this young woman’s level, saw things with a clear eye. But Mrs. Brown was not a favourite though nobody could tell why. She had seen better days, which was nothing against her; but then she had none of that genteel decay about her, which ought to be characteristic of those who had seen better days. She appeared, indeed, to make a joke of it all, rather than to lament her fallen estate. There was always a twinkle in those eyes, which were so bright, so bold, and so all-seeing. Mab had felt, like all the rest, an instinctive revulsion against her. But this had died off in that appreciation of cheerfulness and courage, which was deep in Mab’s nature. To be less well off than you used to be, and yet take it, not with a moan, but with a jest, or even a gibe, laughing at yourself, seemed to Mab a much more attractive thing than the melancholy of decayed gentility; but this was not the aspect in which the other ladies regarded it. They would all have been sorry for Mrs. Brown had she taken her humiliation sadly. What they did not understand was the joke she made of it, which, to them, seemed impudence and defiance. Perhaps, Mab thought to herself in the abundance of her thoughts as she ran along, this feeling on the part of the ladies was what the gentlemen called jealousy. It was not so bad a guess for a little girl.
It may be added here that Lady William had not made acquaintance with the schoolmistress from the fact that Lady William, probably by right of having been herself the Rector’s daughter and born to that work, refused determinedly to have anything to do with the parish. She did not keep Mab back from that inevitable work, but she would not herself take any part. District visiting, schools, mothers’ or girls’ meetings, penny banks, clothing clubs, all the machinery of the parish, Lady William kept religiously apart from them all. She had a recipe for beef tea which was known far and near, the strongest and the most quickly made, everybody knew, that had ever been heard of, and would go to the kitchen and make it herself, if old Anne, who was the sovereign there, was out of the way or out of temper: and puddings came from her house for the sick people which would have tempted an anchorite to eat: and if warm things were wanted for the winter there was no end to the flannel petticoats, the children’s frocks, and the knitted comforters and stockings which Lady William could turn out. But that was all. She said lightly that there were plenty of people to manage the parish, and that it was not her rôle. She took no responsibility, and had not entered the schools since she was Emily Plowden aiding and abetting all manner of little rebellions in a way not at all becoming for the Rector’s daughter. This was one reason she gave for taking no supervision of the schools now. ‘I should always be on the children’s side,’ she said, and thus it happened, which was so strange, that she had never even seen Mrs. Brown.
But Mab knew her very well, and burst into her little house at this hour which was Mrs. Brown’s own hour, in which the parish had no right to interfere with her, with an absence of regard which the girl did not realise, and which no doubt was an unthought-of result of the inferior position in which the schoolmistress was, though quite unintentional on the part of the young intruder. She gave the lightest little tap at the door of Mrs. Brown’s sitting-room, and burst in without waiting for any reply. Mab was, however, a little taken aback when she found Mrs. Brown seated at a little meal, which was not only very agreeable to the smell, but extremely dainty in appearance, much more so, Mab felt instinctively, than any table she was herself accustomed to. Perhaps it was the sight of this, so very different from the usual slovenly repast of the schoolmistresses, which brought Mab up suddenly with a little start, and cry: ‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ which she gave forth in spite of herself.
‘Why should you beg my pardon?’ said Mrs. Brown. She had what seemed a little silver dish before her—some dainty little twists and loaves of French bread—a cover on her table of exquisite linen, white and fresh. Mab knew how it feels when the table-cloth is not in its first freshness when any one comes, and how frequently that little domestic incident happens; but Mrs. Brown’s table-cloth shone like white satin, and was fresh in all its folds. ‘Why should you beg my pardon?’ she said. ‘Do you think I do not know, Miss Pakenham, that I belong to the parish, body and soul? I must eat, to be sure, in order to live, but I ought to know better than to expect that I am to eat undisturbed.’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ said Mab again, crimson with shame; ‘it was so silly of me not to think: but as it is so early——’
‘I must take my food when the children do so,’ said the schoolmistress; ‘pray sit down. I am not much of a sight when I feed, but still——’
‘I hope you don’t think I came on purpose to disturb you at your—lunch,’ said Mab. To the schoolmistress of the old régime she would have said dinner. ‘I came—to ask you if you wouldn’t say something—I mean recite something, or act something, at the entertainment to-night. We all think you would do it much better than any one here.’
‘Do what? How kind of you—almost as if I were on an equality: though, perhaps it is because of some one having failed that the schoolmistress may come in? Who has failed, Miss Pakenham, at the eleventh hour? I see, of course, that in these circumstances to apply to a dependent was the only way.’
‘Mrs. Brown,’ said Mab, ‘I have always thought you were a lady; but if you are so ready to think that we are not ladies, I shan’t think so any more.’
‘Well said!’ said the schoolmistress, laying down her fork. ‘Will you have a little of my ragout? I have taught my little maid to make it, and I think it’s very successful. I am fond of good cooking—that is one of the remnants, though, perhaps, at your age you will not think it a very romantic one—of my better days.’
‘I should have thought,’ said Mab, ‘if you were like most of the people who have seen better days, that you would not have cared what you eat.’
‘Ah, yes!’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘that is very true: but I am not like most of those people. I am not so sure that I regret my better days—or that if I liked I might not have them back.’
‘Then in the name of wonder,’ said Mab, ‘why do you stay here?—don’t they often drive you half-mad, those little things that never will learn to spell, and that can’t remember anything if you were to say it to them twenty times in an hour? I would not be a schoolmistress a moment longer than I could help it, if it were me.’
‘Then let us hope it will never be you,’ said Mrs. Brown. ‘The little girls are not alone in driving one half-mad, as you say. There are hundreds of things in the world that would drive you much madder if you knew them as I do.’
‘I suppose you have known—all kinds of things?’ said Mab, looking with curiosity at her companion, whose eyes were full of knowledge too strange for the little girl. Mab had forgotten all about her object in coming, in the interest with which she looked at this curious human creature, who was like an undiscovered country, a world unrealised to her young imagination. She felt like an explorer coasting about in a little skiff to discover unknown headlands and bays of some quaint island far at sea.
‘Yes, I have known a good many kinds of things,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘things that would make the hair of the ladies in Watcham stand on end. I have been in a great many places—and, I am sorry to say, in a great many wrong places. I am not, to tell the truth, a sort of a woman for you to associate with, my dear young lady. You ought to draw your petticoats close round you in case they should touch anything of mine.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Mat, greatly startled.
‘No; I did not suppose you would. You would be a capital confessor, for that reason; for I might pour all my sins into an innocent little ear like yours, and you would never understand them. Will you really refuse my ragout? It is very good, I assure you. Then have one of those pommes au sucre; I rather pride myself on them.’
‘They are like apples of gold,’ said Mab, who was so young that a sweetmeat was a great temptation to her.
‘I wish they were in a dish of silver—for your sake; but here is a little Dresden plate, which is quite as pretty. And there is a little pot of cream. This is friendly, now, and gives me pleasure. Your cousin, Mr. Jim——’
‘Do you know Jim?’ cried Mab, looking up from her apple, which was very good, with great surprise.
‘Ah, I have known a great many people,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘your father among others, and old Lord John, who died the other day. You never saw your uncle John? Well, you had no great loss; but his money will do you just as much good as if he had been the greatest hero in the world.’
‘I do not know what you mean about my uncle John and money. Do you mean to say that you knew my father?’
‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘they have not told you—and I don’t doubt that was wise enough until all is settled. It was the right thing not to do.’
‘Did you know my father, Mrs. Brown?’
‘My dear, I told you I have known all sorts of people. I knew them all, more or less, in Paris. There was always plenty going on; and I love to be where a great many things are going on. I will tell you how I know your cousin Jim. I am in a very frank humour to-day—in a coming on mood like Rosalind. I had met him in Oxford, when I was not as I am now, at a very gay, noisy party indeed, where I was with some people—whom I would not name in your hearing. I spoke to him here out of prudence, thinking he might say to his father, the Rector, or his mother, the Rectoress—I have seen that woman before, and she is not fit to have charge of your school. So for a selfish motive I made friends with him. It took away his breath at first; but he is a lamb, poor innocent, like yourself, and was very sorry to think I should have so come down in the world.’
‘Mrs. Brown!’ cried Mab. She was put at a dreadful disadvantage by that apple, which was very good, especially with the little pot of cream poured over it in the most lavish hospitable way. When you have once accepted such a thing, and are in the middle of it with the spoon in your hand, and the sweetness melting in your mouth, it is very difficult to express your consternation, or indignation, or dismay.
‘And my opinion is,’ said the schoolmistress, ‘that he can be stopped and brought back, if anybody will take the trouble—judiciously—not in the driving and nagging way. I’m glad to see the curate has stepped in, though he is no friend of mine. Well! but you would like to hear a little more of my history. Do you know what a Bohemian is? You must have seen the word in books. Well, then, I was a Bohemian born. We were both so; but the other, who was the great lady, settled, as great ladies do, and had her irregularities about her, in her own kingdom, don’t you know; but I went out to seek mine. I never did very much harm, however, or I would not talk to a little girl like you about it. I looked on at other people’s fun, and that was fun enough for me. There is always mud about it in the end, and it sticks. I like best to look on——’
Mab had finished her apple by dint of taking large mouthfuls. She had felt that it would be something dreadful, ungrateful, uncivil beyond description to put it down and run away. So, though she was much troubled, she only hurried the more over the consumption of what was on her plate. When it was finished she put down the plate, thankful to have it over, yet feeling that even now she could not be so beggarly as to jump up at once and go away. ‘I wish,’ she said, faltering, ‘please, Mrs. Brown—that you would not tell me any more——’
‘Oh, don’t be afraid,’ cried Mrs. Brown, with a laugh; ‘I shall not bring a blush upon that cheek. I have always been in mischief, but I have not done much harm. I go wherever the whim takes me. I am sometimes in the heart of the demi-monde—though you don’t know where that is—and sometimes in a great lady’s boudoir, and sometimes in a girls’ school. You may wonder how I got here; but my certificates were perfectly good, and no one had a word to say against me. The demi-monde, you know, either in London or Paris, has no connection with Watcham School.’
‘Oh, I wish you would not tell me any more—please don’t tell me any more!’ cried Mab, rising up (though still deeply sensible that it was too abrupt after the apple), ‘for,’ she added, in her trouble, ‘I don’t know at all what you mean.’
‘But my dear young lady,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘you have neither told me how you liked my apple, nor what you wanted me to do.’
‘Oh,’ cried Mab, arrested and feeling all the weight of that sin against the hospitality she had accepted. Her honest little face grew crimson-red, and her eyes sank for the moment before those bold and keen ones that seemed to read her very soul. ‘The apple was very nice, thank you,’ she said, faltering, ‘I—never tasted any like it: but—mother will be waiting for me for her dinner—I—think I must go.’
‘Tell me first,’ said Mrs. Brown, ‘what you wanted me to do.’
Mab had very seldom been silenced or daunted in her life, or kept from saying out what was in her mind. For once she had been overcome—chiefly by the apple and its effects, the sense of familiarity and obligation thus brought into her embarrassed mind—but such an embarrassment could not last, nor was she cowed except for a moment by Mrs. Brown’s personality—potent though it was.
‘I wish,’ she cried, ‘you had not told me these things. You put a weight upon my mind, for, of course, I cannot tell them to anybody, and I shall have to carry them all about as if they were secrets of mine. It was not just or fair to tell me—when I can’t tell them again or free myself from knowing, or forget for a long time what you have said. And as for what we wanted you to do—it was when we thought you were only Mrs. Brown, a lady that was poor, and obliged to put up with the school to get her living. Which did not matter to anybody—but now—now——’
‘You are disappointed in me,’ said Mrs. Brown. ‘You think I am not a lady, or obliged to get my living—and you think you had better say no more about it. You are quite right, for I should not have done it whatever you had said to me. I have a great curiosity, however, I confess, to know what it was to be.’
‘Please!’ said Mab, ‘of course I know you are a lady, but it is all different; they thought you might have done—Lady Macbeth—or something. But all that doesn’t matter now.’
‘Lady Macbeth—or something. What other thing did their wisdom think could go beside Lady Macbeth? No, my dear Miss Pakenham, I will not do Lady Macbeth—or anything. Tell the ladies I make my courtesy down to the ground,’ she did so as she spoke with the greatest gravity, while Mab followed her every movement fascinated, ‘for their kindness and for their thought that I was good enough to exhibit myself among them. You know now that I am not good enough. I am not a decayed gentlewoman that has known better days; but don’t hesitate on my account to clear your bosom of that perilous stuff. Tell it out, my dear, run home and tell it all to my lady, your mamma.’
She stopped short suddenly, but as if she would have said a great deal more. Mab seemed to stop short, too, in the hot tide of her interest as the schoolmistress paused. It was as if some swift career and progress of horse or man had been drawn up and cut short in their midst. Mab’s breath, which she had held in the great fever of her interest, burst from her with a kind of gasp. She seemed to herself to have been stopped short on the edge of some precipice.
‘Did you know,’ she said, hesitating, and thinking over every word, ‘my—mother—too?’
Mrs. Brown apparently did not expect this question. She stared at her for a moment, and then burst into an uneasy laugh and turned away.
‘Sarah, Sarah,’ she cried, clapping her hands, ‘it is almost time for school; come and clear these things away.’