Two Worlds and Their Ways (15 page)

Miss Laurence's manner hardly altered to Clemence; she gave her the benefit of an obvious doubt; and the latter came to believe she had not been doubted. The placing of an open book inside her desk became a practice, and several times obtained her an increase of credit. Esther suspected her methods, but nothing was said, though there were whispers within her hearing. She hardly realised their menace, took the reluctance to speak as a sign of uncertainty rather than discomfiture. One day the whispers took a more open form. Lesbia commented on the standard of the class, and mentioned Clemence, who was now at its head. When she had gone, Esther spoke in a casual manner.

“Do you like to be first in the form, Clemence?”

“Well, it is as good as any other place.”

“It must be better than that to you, or you would not take so much trouble to get to it.”

“Clemence only does what we all do, Esther,” said Maud, who had missed the whispers and was at pains to show no chagrin. “We all like the first place better than any other.”

“I should not like it, if I were Clemence.”

“Nonsense, Esther, of course you would.”

“I should be too little at home in it to be comfortable,” said Gwendolen. “And if my parents saw it on my report, the shock might outweigh the pleasure.”

“Try it, Gwendolen, and see if that is the case.”

“I don't see why you should not say what you mean, Esther,” said Verity, drawing with a pencil on her desk.

“Oh, I can't go any further. I don't know what words to use. It is not fair to have to find them.”

“What is it all about?” said Gwendolen, opening her eyes.

“Nothing at all, Gwendolen, I should say,” said Maud.

“Things are not often about nothing,” said Esther. “There is no smoke without flame.”

“No, Esther, but there may be a good deal of smoke with very little flame,” said Lesbia, at the door. “We should be prepared for that, as life goes by. It may lead to broader judgment.”

“Words may give rise to thoughts, as well as thoughts to words,” said Clemence.

Lesbia rested her eyes on her and passed on her way.

Esther said no more at the time, felt she might get into personal disrepute, and things went on until the examinations.

Then Clemence resorted to her method when answering a paper, arrested the eyes of Esther, Verity and Maud, and the resulting tension brought the mistress from her desk, and the matter into the open. The book was confiscated and the examination proceeded, Esther working with an easier heart and Clemence with a heavier one, Maud with an air of keeping aloof, and Verity and Gwendolen with covert communication, as the latter sought explanation and was accorded it. At the end of the hour the mistress collected the papers with a single glance at Clemence, and the girls hardly waited for the door to close before they formed a group.

“Clemence, you cannot go on like this,” said Verity. “No one will speak to you or know you. And there is no meaning in that kind of success.”

“It is worse than none,” said Esther. “It can't give you any satisfaction.”

“Why do you need to do it?” said Gwendolen. “Don't you do well enough without it?”

“That is what I should have thought,” said Esther. “If I were as clever as she is, I am sure I should be content.”

“Why stand there like a molten image for us all to worship, Maud?” said Verity. “There is nothing to be proud of in not saying what is in your mind.”

“I have nothing to say, Verity. I could not help what I saw.”

“And could the rest of us help it? You talk as if being mute about it would make any difference.”

“I made no such implication, Verity. But I sometimes think that talk about a thing does have its own effect. And so I would choose to be silent.”

“Well, it is nothing to do with us,” said Verity. “It will be carried to the ears of authority, and there it can rest.”

“It will hardly do that,” said Esther. “Or Clemence will be fortunate if it does. But she is a fortunate person, and I daresay it will.”

“If it does, you should let it do so,” said Maud.

“Why should I interfere with it any more than you? You talk as if I were the guilty person. All I did, was to see first what all of you came to see afterwards. Somebody had to be first; somebody always has to. We can't all be equally blunt.”

Clemence was not a fortunate person and the matter did not rest. It developed with a simple directness that seemed inconsistent with the complexity of life. She was summoned to the presence of the three headmistresses, and found them in open conclave concerning herself. The directness of their outlook and the experience behind it came home to her and pointed to a simple ruthlessness of fate. Miss Marathon was looking harassed and distressed and was lost in the situation. Miss Laurence stood with her elbow on a bookcase and an air of being present only in the flesh. Lesbia spoke with a compassion in her sternness, that defined and enhanced the occasion.

“Now, Clemence, I ask you to give me your own account of this matter. You know what it is; and I shall not tell you or expect you to ask. Give me your account in your own words and in your own way. Take your time and do justice to yourself.”

“Oh, do you mean that book inside my desk?”

“Yes, Clemence, I do mean that. And you know I do,” said Lesbia, keeping her eyes on Clemence's face.

“I often put an open book just inside my desk, to look at at the last. I find it is a great help. Things get pushed to the back of my mind and it brings them to the foreground. Then I find I know them quite well. Of course, if you did not know them, it would be no good. And I opened the desk to settle the things inside. It was too full and I could not write on it. And I saw the book, of course; I could not help it. But it did not make any difference; it was not open at any place that helped.”

“It was open at a place that bore on the question that Clemence was answering at the time,” said Miss Marathon, with obvious reluctance to say what must be said.

“Yes, Clemence, we know you put open books inside your desk,” said Lesbia, revealing that Miss Laurence did not live apart from the world. “But do you think it is a good thing to do? To help yourself in a way the others would not? Do you think it is free from an attempt to give a false impression?”

“No, I suppose it is not; of course it is not. But people often do look at things at the last. It is the kind of wrong impression that everyone gives.”

“And it is looking at a book during an examination, that is the case in point. We see how one thing leads to another. What do you think of that, Clemence? What have you to say about it?”

“I saw the book by accident when I opened the desk. I did not think what I was doing.”

“No, I believe you did not think; I am prepared to believe you did not. Had you done so, you would hardly
have ventured on a thing that involved so much risk. But think now, Clemence; you are old enough to think. Does it seem to you that putting open books inside your desk, and looking at them during an examination, is conduct worthy of yourself, of your parents, of anyone to do with you?”

“No, Miss Firebrace, but I did not plan to do that. I just saw the book when I lifted the lid of the desk. It was not anything more than that. It did not mean anything.”

“It seems there have been other incidents of the same kind,” said Miss Marathon, still with the obvious effort. “I do not see that we can leave them out of account, in justice to the other girls. It seems they have borne a good deal. If Clemence had not been popular, I do not know what would have been the result.”

Miss Laurence raised her eyes and threw them over Clemence's face.

“They tried not to make more of it than they were obliged,” said Miss Marathon, in a tone of indulgent affection. “I do not say there has not been jealousy of Clemence; I have noticed it in Esther more than once. But they spoke of her cleverness and said that she seemed the last person to have to do such things.” Miss Marathon smiled at Clemence and smiled in recollection of her other pupils, and seemed to recall herself from feelings of general appreciation. “Indeed, it was only Esther and Verity who said anything. Maud is quite aloof and Gwendolen hardly seemed to realise that anything had happened.” Here Miss Laurence turned her eyes about with a smile, as though seeking Gwendolen, to bestow it upon her. “But we must recognise that in a sense a charge is brought against Clemence, and that we cannot see it as without foundation. And there will be a reference in Clemence's report to the matter. We cannot avoid that.”

Clemence lifted her eyes in incredulous consternation. Surely human beings could not have such power over each other and wield it thus without thought or mercy. She shrank from betraying her fear of her home, her fear of her
parents, her fear of the trust and hope that had cradled her, but could only grasp at the chance of averting an ordeal that was too great.

“Need we trouble people at home with what happens at school?” she said, in a voice that carried sufficient, but not excessive urgency. “The point of school is that it takes such things off them. They mean to entrust them to other people.”

“There are things that they would wish to know. They will not see it as a trouble,” said Miss Marathon, taking the words at their surface meaning. “We cannot leave them ignorant of anything that comes so near to them. They would see it as failing in the trust.”

There was a pause, and Clemence broke out, as if on an impulse.

“Miss Marathon, they are both so worried by the troubles of the house and place, and all the general anxieties. It seems hard that they should not have freedom from these other things. It was to be their reward for giving us up.”

“Yes, it does. But there are exceptions to every rule,” said Miss Marathon, in a sympathetic, almost social tone. “This is, perhaps, the exception that proves this one.”

Lesbia's eyes were also on Clemence, seeing more than Miss Marathon's, divining a shade of Clemence's feeling; and what Clemence saw as relentless and shallow penetration, struck her pride and gave her a calm front. She made no further protest, and left her judges to conduct their case, experiencing a faint sense of triumph, as their resource failed.

“Well, the holidays are upon us,” said Miss Marathon, in a more cheerful tone, as though seeing some solution in a fact that for her pupil certainly carried none. “And we shall start afresh next term and forget this has ever happened. I am sure nothing will occur to remind us of it. And the girls have agreed not to speak of the matter, Clemence. Miss Chancellor does not know and we hope never will. We can spare you that and spare her the disappointment the rest of
us have felt.” She smiled and almost bowed towards Clemence in reference to the compliment in her words.

Clemence felt the irony of sparing Miss Chancellor and sacrificing her parents, of saving the easy disappointment and causing the hard one; but supposed it escaped her judges in their simplicity and ignorance. She wondered they had gone so far in life, saw herself as inevitably going further, pictured her mother's joy in her advance, and fell with a shock to the certain truth.

“And we must make clear, Clemence,” said Lesbia, maintaining the note that had been relinquished by her partner, “that if anything of the kind should happen again, the excuse of not thinking, or of acting on the spur of the moment, will not hold. We accept it this once, believing it to be the true one, but things would take on a different complexion a second time.”

Clemence made no acknowledgment of an acceptance that went so short a way, and Miss Laurence seemed to divine her thought, and turned as if to speak, sent a ray of hope through her heart, and was silent.

“Oh, there will be no second time, I am sure,” said Miss Marathon.

“I hope we shall be able to be sure, as time goes by,” said Lesbia; “and I will say, Clemence, that I believe we shall.”

Clemence returned to her companions, careless of the ordeal in view of the greater ones ahead. They gathered about her, too curious to hold aloof, not unfriendly in the face of the reckoning that had come.

“What did they say?” said Esther.

“Oh, just the ordinary things that would be said by any-one.”

“How many of them were there?” said Verity.

“All three, but Miss Laurence did not say anything.”

“Didn't she speak at all?” said Gwendolen.

“Not a word; she might have been struck dumb.”

“She is angry with us all,” said Esther. “More than she is with Clemence.”

“Miss Chancellor is not to know about it,” said Verity. “Did they say that?”

“Something was said. I am sure I do not care if she knows or not.”

“I hardly think that can be the case, Clemence,” said Maud. “It is clearly better both for you and for her that she should not know.”

“Oh, what difference does it make?” said Clemence, feeling that to the main and desperate truth it made none.

“Will your people at home know?” said Esther.

“Yes, I suppose so. There was some talk of something on the report, or I think there was. But home is not like school.”

“I should have thought it was a good deal worse in some ways.”

“Well, homes differ, Esther,” said Maud. “Clemence knows her own.”

“Won't your parents really mind?” said Gwendolen. “Mine would care very much about a thing like that.”

“Well, I don't think they trouble much about things at school. They don't seem to think they are very important, somehow. And I am sure they are not.”

“I should have thought certain things were equally important everywhere,” said Maud.

“Why did they send you to school, if they felt like that?” said Gwendolen.

“Oh, well, I suppose we all have to be educated somehow. And I daresay they would not have done it, if Miss Firebrace had not suggested it, and carried it through.”