"You look lovely even in the gown you have on," said Bessie.
"I don"t know anything about my loveliness, but I know that this gown is absolutely threadbare."
Bessie, sighed despondently. She knew her friend"s resolute temper, and that any offer of clothes or money from her would be worse than useless.
It would make Ida angry.
"What kind of man is your father, darling?" she asked, thoughtfully.
"Very good-natured."
"Ah! Then he will send the five pounds."
"Very weak."
"Ah! Then he may change his mind about it."
"Very poor."
"Then he may not have the money."
"The lot is in the urn of fate, Bess, We must take our chance. I think, somehow, that the money will come. I have asked for it urgently, for I do want to come to Kingthorpe." Bessie kissed her. "Yes, dear, I wish with all my heart to accept your kind mother"s invitation; though I know, in my secret soul, that it is foolishness for me to see the inside of a happy home, to sit beside a hospitable hearth, when it is my mission in life to be a dependent in the house of a stranger. If you had half a dozen small sisters, now, and your people would engage me as a nursery governess--"
"You a nursery governess!" cried Bessie, "you who are at the top of every cla.s.s, and who do everything better than the masters who teach you?"
"Well, if my perfection prove worth seventy pounds a-year when I go out into the world, I shall be satisfied," said Ida.
"What will you buy with your five pounds?" asked Bessie.
"A black cashmere gown, as plain as a nun"s, a straw hat, and as many collars, cuffs, and stockings as I can get for the rest of the money."
Miss Rylance listened, smiling quietly to herself as she bent over her desk. To the mind of an only daughter, who had been brought up in a supremely correct manner, who had had her winter clothes and summer clothes at exactly the right season, and of the best that money could buy, there was a piteous depth of poverty and degradation in Ida Palliser"s position. The girl"s beauty and talents were as nothing when weighed against such sordid surroundings.
The prize-day came, a glorious day at the beginning of August, and the gardens of Mauleverer Manor, the wide reach of blue river, the meadows, the willows, the distant woods, all looked their loveliest, as if Nature was playing into the hands of Miss Pew.
"I am sure you girls ought to be very happy to live in such a place!"
said one of the mothers, as she strolled about the velvet lawn with her daughters, "instead of being mewed up in a dingy London square."
"You wouldn"t say that if you saw the bread and sc.r.a.pe and the sloppy tea we have for breakfast," answered one of the girls.
"It"s all very well for you, who see this wretched hole in the sunshine, and old Pew in her best gown and her company manners. The place is a whited sepulchre. I should like you to have a glimpse behind the scenes, ma."
"Ma" smiled placidly, and turned a deaf ear to these aspersions of the schoolmistress. Her girls looked well fed and healthy. Bread and sc.r.a.pe evidently agreed with them much better than that reckless consumption of b.u.t.ter and marmalade which swelled the housekeeping bills during the holidays.
It was a great day. Miss Pew the elder was splendid in apple-green moire antique; Miss Pew the younger was elegant in pale and flabby raiment of cashmere and crewel-work. The girls were in that simple white muslin of the _jeune Meess Anglaise_, to which they were languishing to bid an eternal adieu. There were a great many pretty girls at Mauleverer Manor, and on this day, when the white-robed girlish forms were flitting to and fro upon the green lawns, in the sweet summer air and sunshine, it seemed as if the old manorial mansion were a bower of beauty. Among the parents of existing pupils who had accepted the Misses Pew"s invitation was Dr.
Rylance, the fashionable physician, whose presence there conferred distinction upon the school. It was Miss Rylance"s last term, and the doctor wished to a.s.sist at those honours which she would doubtless reap as the reward of meritorious studies. He was not blindly devoted to his daughter, but he was convinced that, like every thing else belonging to him, she was of the best quality; and he expected to see her appreciated by the people who had been privileged to educate her.
The distribution of prizes was the great feature of the day. It was to take place at four o"clock, in the ball room, a fine old panelled saloon, in which the only furniture was a pair of grand pianos, somewhat the worse for wear, a table at the end of the room on which the prizes were arranged, and benches covered with crimson cloth for the accommodation of the company.
There was to be a concert before the distribution. Four of the best pianoforte players in the school were to hammer out an intensely noisy version of the overture to _Zampa_, arranged for eight hands on two pianos. The crack singer was to sing "Una voce," and Ida Palliser was to play the "Moonlight Sonata."
Dr. Rylance had come early, on purpose to be present at this ceremonial.
He was the most important guest who had yet arrived, and Miss Pew devoted herself to his entertainment, and went rustling up and down the terrace in front of the ballroom windows in her armour of apple-green moire, listening deferentially to the physician"s remarks.
Dr. Rylance was a large fair-complexioned man, who had been handsome in his youth, and who at seven-and-forty was still remarkably good-looking.
He had fine teeth, good hair, full blue eyes, capable of the hardest, coldest stare that ever looked out of a human countenance. Mr. Darwin has told us that the eyes do not smile, that the radiance we fancy we see in the eye itself is only produced by certain contractions of the muscles surrounding it. a.s.suredly there was no smile in the eyes of Dr. Rylance.
His smile, which was bland and frequent, gave only a vague impression of white teeth and brown whiskers. He had a fine figure, and was proud of his erect carriage. He dressed carefully and well, and was as particular as Brummel about his laundress. His manners were considered pleasing by the people who liked him; while those who disliked him accused him of an undue estimate of his own merits, and a tendency to depreciate the rest of humanity. His practice was rather select than extensive, for Dr.
Rylance was a specialist. He had won his reputation as an adviser in cases of mental disease; and as, happily, mental diseases are less common than bodily ailments, Dr. Rylance had not the continuous work of a Gull or a Jenner. His speciality paid him remarkably well. His cases hung long on hand, and when he had a patient of wealth and standing Dr. Rylance knew how to keep him. His treatment was soothing and palliative, as befitted an enlightened age. In an age of scepticism no one could expect Dr. Rylance to work miraculous cures. It is in no wise to his discredit to say that he was more successful in sustaining and comforting the patient"s friends than in curing the patient.
This was Laurence Rylance, a man who had begun life in a very humble way, had raised himself by his own efforts, if not to the top of the medical tree, certainly to a very comfortable and remunerative perch among its upper branches; a man thoroughly satisfied with himself and with what destiny had done for him; a man who, to be a new Caesar, would hardly have foregone the privilege of being Laurence Rylance.
"My daughter has done well during this last term, I hope, Miss Pew?" he said, interrogatively, but rather as if the question were needless, as he walked beside the rustling moire.
"She has earned my entire approval," replied Miss Pew, in her oiliest accents. "She has application." Dr. Rylance nodded a.s.sentingly. "She has a charming deportment. I know of no girl in the school more thoroughly ladylike. I have never seen her with a collar put on crookedly, or with rough hair. She is a pattern to many of my girls."
"That is all gratifying to my pride as a father; but I hope she has made progress in her studies."
Miss Pew coughed gently behind a mittened hand.
"She has not made quite so great an advance as I should have wished. She has talent, no doubt; but it is hardly of a kind that comes into play among other girls. In after-life, perhaps, there may be development. I am sorry to say she is not in our roll-call of honour to-day. She has won no prize."
"Perhaps she may have hardly thought it worth her while to compete," said Dr. Rylance, hurt in his own individual pride by the idea that his daughter had missed distinction, just as he would have been hurt if anybody had called one of his pictures a copy, or made light of his blue china. "With the Rylances it has always been Caesar or nothing."
"I regret to say that my three most important prizes have been won by a young woman whom I cannot esteem," said Miss Pew, bristling in her panoply of apple-green, at the thought of Ida Palliser"s insolence. "I hope I shall ever be just, at whatever sacrifice of personal feeling. I shall to-day bestow the first prize for modern languages, for music, and for English history and literature, upon a young person of whose moral character I have a very low opinion."
"And pray who is this young lady?" asked Dr. Rylance.
"Miss Palliser, the daughter of a half-pay officer residing in the neighbourhood of Dieppe--for very good reasons, no doubt.
"Palliser; yes, I have heard my daughter talk of her. An insolent, ill-bred girl. I have been taught to consider her somewhat a disgrace to your excellent and well-managed school."
"Her deportment is certainly deplorable," admitted Miss Pew; "but the girl has remarkable talents."
More visitors were arriving from this time forward, until everyone was seated in the ball-room. Miss Pew was engaged in receiving people, and ushering them to their seats, always a.s.sisted by Miss Dulcibella--an image of limp gracefulness--and the three governesses--all as stiff as perambulating black-boards. Dr. Rylance strolled by himself for a little while, sniffed at the great ivory cup of a magnolia, gazed dreamily at the river--shining yonder across intervening gardens and meadows--and ultimately found his daughter.
"I am sorry to find you are not to be honoured with a prize, Ranie," he said, smiling at her gently.
In no relation of life had he been so nearly perfect as in his conduct as a father. Were he ever so disappointed in his daughter, he could not bring himself to be angry with her.
"I have not tried for prizes, papa. Why should I compete with such a girl as Ida Palliser, who is to get her living as a governess, and who knows that success at school is a matter of life and death with her?"
"Do you not think it might have been worth your while to work as hard as Miss Palliser, for the mere honour and glory of being first in your school?"
"Did you ever work for mere honour and glory, papa?" asked Urania, with her unpleasant little air of cynicism.
"Well, my love, I confess there has been generally a promise of solid pudding in the background. Pray, who is this Miss Palliser, whom I hear of at every turn, and whom n.o.body seems to like?"
"There you are mistaken, papa. Miss Palliser has her worshippers, though she is the most disagreeable girl in the school. That silly little Bessie raves about her, and has actually induced Mrs. Wendover to invite her to The Knoll!"