I remember how, as autumn began, and leaf after leaf fluttered down from the trees in our little garden, I watched them fall with a heavier heart, for they had known my mother, and now they, too, were deserting me.
This morbid state of mind had lasted quite long enough when my uncle, who was my guardian, saw fit to put a summary end to it by sending me to school forthwith; he would have softened the change for me by taking me to his own home first, but there was illness of some sort there, and this was out of the question.
I was neither sorry nor glad when I heard of it, for all places were the same to me just then; only, as the time drew near, I began to regard the future with a growing dread.
The school was at some distance from London, and my uncle took me down by rail; but the only fact I remember connected with the journey is that there was a boy in the carriage with us who cracked walnuts all the way, and I wondered if he was going to school too, and concluded that he was not, or he would hardly eat quite so many walnuts.
Later we were pa.s.sing through some wrought-iron gates, and down an avenue of young chestnuts, which made a gorgeous autumn canopy of scarlet, amber, and orange, up to a fine old red-brick house, with a high-pitched roof, and a cupola in which a big bell hung, tinted a warm gold by the afternoon sun.
This was my school, and it did not look so very-terrible after all.
There was a big bow-window by the pillared portico, and, looking timidly in, I saw a girl of about my own age sitting there, absorbed in the book she was reading, her long brown hair drooping over her cheek and the hand on which it rested.
She glanced up at the sound of the door-bell, and I felt her eyes examining me seriously and critically, and then I forgot everything but the fact that I was about to be introduced to my future schoolmaster, the Rev. Basil Dering.
This was less of an ordeal than I had expected; he had a strong, ma.s.sively-cut, leonine face, free and abundant white hair, streaked with dark grey, but there was a kind light in his eyes as I looked up at them, and the firm mouth could smile, I found, pleasantly enough.
Mrs. Dering seemed younger, and was handsome, with a certain stateliness and decision of manner which put me less at my ease, and I was relieved to be told I might say good-bye to my uncle, and wander about the grounds as I liked.
I was not surprised to pa.s.s through an empty schoolroom, and to descend by some steep stairs to a deserted playground, for we had been already told that the Michaelmas holidays were not over, and that the boys would not return for some days to come.
It gave me a kind of satisfaction to think of my resemblance, just then, to my favourite David Copperfield, but I was to have a far pleasanter companion than poor lugubrious, flute-tootling Mr. Mell, for as I paced the damp paths paved with a mosaic of russet and yellow leaves, I heard light footsteps behind me, and turned to find myself face to face with the girl I had seen at the window.
She stood there breathless for an instant, for she had hurried to overtake me, and against a background of crimson creepers I saw the brilliant face, with its soft but fearless brown eyes, small straight nose, spirited mouth, and crisp wavy golden-brown hair, which I see now almost as distinctly as I write.
"You"re the new boy," she said at length. "I"ve come out to make you feel more at home. I suppose you don"t feel _quite_ at home just yet?"
"Not quite, thank you," I said, lifting my cap with ceremony, for I had been taught to be particular about my manners; "I have never been to school before, you see, Miss Dering."
I think she was a little puzzled by so much politeness. "I know," she said softly; "mother told me about it, and I"m very sorry. And I"m called Marjory, generally. Shall you like school, do you think?"
"I might," said I, "if--if it wasn"t for the boys!"
"Boys aren"t bad," she said; "ours are rather nice, I think. But perhaps you don"t know many?"
"I know one," I replied.
"How old is _he_?" she wished to know.
"Not very old--about three, I think," I said. I had never wished till then that my only male acquaintance had been of less tender years, but I felt now that he was rather small, and saw that Marjory was of the same opinion.
"Why, he"s only a baby!" she said; "I thought you meant a _real_ boy.
And is that all the boys you know? Are you fond of games?"
"Some games--very," said I.
"What"s your favourite game?" she demanded.
"Bezique," I answered, "or draughts."
"I meant _out_door games; draughts are indoor games--_is_ indoor games, I mean--no, _are_ an indoor game--and _that_ doesn"t sound grammar! But haven"t you ever played cricket? Not ever, really? I like it dreadfully myself, only I"m not allowed to play with the boys, and I"m sure I can bat well enough for the second eleven--Cartwright said I could last term--and I can bowl round-hand, and it"s all no use, just because I was born a girl! Wouldn"t you like a game at something? They haven"t taken in the croquet hoops yet; shall we play at that?"
But again I had to confess my ignorance of what was then the popular garden game.
"What do you generally do to amuse yourself, then?" she inquired.
"I read, generally, or paint texts or outlines. Sometimes"--(I thought this accomplishment would surely appeal to her)--"sometimes I do woolwork!"
"I don"t think I would tell the boys that," she advised rather gravely; she evidently considered me a very desperate case. "It"s such a pity, your not knowing any games. Suppose I taught you croquet, now? It would be something to go on with, and you"ll soon learn if you pay attention and do exactly what I tell you."
I submitted myself meekly to her direction, and Marjory enjoyed her office of instructress for a time, until my extreme slowness wore out her patience, and she began to make little murmurs of disgust, for which she invariably apologised. "That"s enough for to-day!" she said at last, "I"ll take you again to-morrow. But you really must try and pick up games, Cameron, or you"ll never be liked. Let me see, I wonder if there"s time to teach you a little football. I think I could do that."
Before she could make any further arrangements the tea-bell rang, but when I lay down that night in my strange cold bed, hemmed round by other beds, which were only less formidable than if they had been occupied, I did not feel so friendless as I might have done, and dreamed all night that Marjory was teaching me something I understood to be cricket, which, however, was more like a bloated kind of backgammon.
The next day Marjory was allowed to go out walking with me, and I came home feeling that I had known her for quite a long time, while her manner to me had acquired a tone even more protecting than before, and she began to betray an anxiety as to my school prospects which filled me with uneasiness.
"I am so afraid the boys won"t like the way you talk," she said on one occasion.
"I used to be told I spoke very correctly," I said, verdantly enough.
"But not like boys talk. You see, Cameron, I ought to know, with such a lot of them about. I tell you what I could do, though--I could teach you most of their words--only I must run and ask mother first if I may.
Teaching slang isn"t the same as using it on my own account, is it?"
Marjory darted off impulsively to ask leave, to return presently with a slow step and downcast face. "I mayn"t," she announced. "Mother says "Certainly not," so there"s an end of that! Still, I think myself it"s a decided pity."
And more than once that day she would observe, as if to herself, "I do wish they had let him come to school in different collars!"
I knew that these remarks, and others of a similar tendency, were prompted by her interest in my welfare, and I admired her too heartily already to be offended by them: still, I cannot say they added to my peace of mind.
And on the last evening of the holidays she said "Good-night" to me with some solemnity. "Everything will be different after this," she said; "I shan"t be able to see nearly so much of you, because I"m not allowed to be much with the boys. But I shall be looking after you all the time, Cameron, and seeing how you get on. And oh! I do hope you will try to be a popular kind of boy!"
I"m afraid I must own that this desire of Marjory"s was not realised. I do not know that I tried to be--and I certainly was not--a popular boy.
The other boys, I now know, were by no means bad specimens of the English schoolboy, as will be evident when I state that, for a time, my deep mourning was held by them to give me a claim to their forbearance.
But I had an unfortunate tendency to sudden floods of tears (apparently for no cause whatever, really from some secret spring of a.s.sociation, such as I remember was touched when I first found myself learning Latin from the same primer over which my mother and I had puzzled together), and these outbursts at first aroused my companions" contempt, and finally their open ridicule.
I could not conceal my shrinking dislike to their society, which was not calculated to make them more favourably disposed towards me; while my tastes, my expressions, my ways of looking at things, were all at total variance with their own standards.
The general disapproval might well have shown itself in a harsher manner than that of merely ignoring my existence--and it says much for the tone of the school that it did not; unfortunately, I felt their indifference almost as keenly as I had dreaded their notice.
From my masters I met with more favour, for I had been thoroughly well grounded, and found, besides, a temporary distraction in my school-work; but this was hardly likely to render me more beloved by my fellows, and so it came to pa.s.s that every day saw my isolation more complete.
Something, however, made me anxious to hide this from Marjory"s eyes, and whenever she happened to be looking on at us in the school grounds or the playing fields, I made dismal attempts to appear on terms of equality with the rest, and would hang about a group with as much pretence of belonging to it as I thought at all prudent.
If she had had more opportunities of questioning me, she would have found me out long before; as it was, the only occasion on which we were near one another was at the weekly drawing lesson, when, although she drew less and talked more than the Professor quite approved of, she was obliged to restrict herself to a conversation which did not admit of confidences.