She looked still graver at this. I fancy she saw that what I said was true. I was growing dulled and stupefied, as it were, for want of any one to sympathise with me or draw me out, though I did not know quite how to put this in words. As I have said before, I was not a child with much power of expression.

Miss Fenmore kissed me, but she sighed as she did so.

"I wish----" she began, but then she stopped. "When I come back after Easter," she said more cheerfully, "I hope I may somehow manage to see more of you, dear Geraldine."

"Thank you," I answered. I daresay my voice did not sound as if I did thank her or as if I cared, though in my heart I was pleased, and often thought of what she had said during the holidays, which I found even duller than the Christmas ones had been.

They came to an end at last, however, but among the returning governesses and pupils there was no Miss Fenmore. Nor did Myra Raby come again to the cla.s.ses she used to attend. I wondered to myself why it was so, but for some time I knew nothing about Miss Fenmore, and in the queer silent way which was becoming my habit I did not ask. At last one day a new governess made her appearance, and then I overheard some of the girls saying she was to take Miss Fenmore's place. A sort of choke came into my throat, and for the first time I realised that I _had_ been looking forward to the pretty young governess's return.

I do not remember anything special happening for some time after that. I suppose Easter must have been early that year, for when the events occurred which I am now going to relate, it was still cold and wintry weather--very rainy at least, and Mexington was always terribly gloomy in rainy weather. It seems a long stretch to look back upon--those weeks of the greatest loneliness I had yet known--but in reality I do not think it could have been more than three or four.

I continued to work steadily--even hard--at my lessons. I knew that it would please mamma, and I had a vague feeling that somehow my getting on fast might shorten the time of our separation, though I could not have said why. I was really interested in some of my lessons, and anxious to do well even in those I did not like. But I was not quick or clever, and often, very often, my hesitation in expressing myself made me seem far less intelligent than I actually was. Still I generally got good marks, especially for _written_ tasks, for the teachers, though hard and strict, were not unprincipled. They did not like me, but they were fair on the whole, I think.

Unluckily, however, about this time I got a bad cold. I was not seriously ill, but it hung about me for some time and made me feel very dull and stupid. I think, too, it must have made me a little deaf, though I did not know it at the time. I began to get on less well at lessons, very often making mistakes and replying at random, for which I was scolded as if I did it out of carelessness.

And though I tried more and more to prepare my lessons perfectly, things grew worse and worse.

At last one day they came to a point. I forget what the lesson was, and it does not matter, but every time a question came to me I answered wrongly. Once or twice I did not hear, and when I said so, Miss Broom, whose cla.s.s it was, was angry, and said I was talking nonsense. It ended in my bursting into tears, which I had never done before in public since I had been at Green Bank.

Miss Broom was very annoyed. She said a great deal to me which between my tears and my deafness I did not hear, and at last she must have ordered me to go up to my room, for her tone grew more and more angry.

"Do you mean to defy me?" she said, so loud that I heard her plainly.

I stared, and I do not know what would have happened if Harriet Smith, who was near me, had not started up in her good-natured way.

"She doesn't hear; she's crying so," she said. "Gerry, dear, Miss Broom says you're to go up to your room."

I was nothing loth. I got up from my seat and made my way more by feeling than seeing--so blinded was I by crying--to the door, and upstairs.

Arrived there, I flung myself on to the end of my bed. It was cold, and outside it was raining, raining--it seems to me now that it never left off raining at Mexington that spring; the sky, if I had looked out of the window, was one dull gray sheet. But I seemed to care for nothing--just at first the comfort of being able to cry with no one to look at me was all I wanted. So I lay there sobbing, though not loudly.

After some little time had pa.s.sed the downstairs bell rang--it was afternoon, and the bell meant, I knew, preparation for tea. So I was not very surprised when the door opened and Emma and Harriet came in--they were both kind, Harriet especially, though her kindness was chiefly shown by loud abuse of Miss Broom.

"You'd better take care, Harry," said her sister at last, "or you'll be getting into disgrace yourself, which certainly won't do Gerry any good.

Do be quick and make yourself tidy, the tea-bell will be ringing in a moment. Hadn't you better wash your face and brush your hair, Gerry--you do look such a figure."

"I can't go down unless Miss Broom says I may," I replied, "and I don't want any tea," though in my heart I knew I was feeling hungry. Much crying often makes children hungry; they are not like grown-up people.

"Oh, nonsense," said Emma. "You'd feel ever so much better if you had some tea. What _I_ think you're so silly for is _minding_--why need you care what that old Broom says? She daren't beat you or starve you, and once you're at home again you can snap your fingers at school and governesses and----"

Here Harriet said something to her sister in a low voice which I did not hear. It made Emma stop.

"Oh, well, I can't help it," she said, or something of that kind. "It doesn't do any good to cry like that, whatever troubles you have," she went on.

I got up slowly and tried to wash away some of the traces of my tears by plunging my face in cold water. Then Harriet helped me to smooth my hair and make myself look neat. Emma's words had had the effect of making me resolve to cry no more if I could help it. And a moment or two later I was glad I had followed her advice, for one of the elder girls came to our room with a message to say that I was to go down to tea, and after tea I was to stay behind in the dining-room as Miss Aspinall wished to speak to me.

"Very well," I said. But the moment the other girl had gone both Emma and Harriet began again.

"That horrid old Broom," said Harriet, "just fancy her complaining to Miss Aspinall."

And "Promise me, Gerry," said Emma, "not to mind what she says, and whatever you do, don't cry. There's nothing vexes old Broom so much as seeing we don't care--mean old cat."

I could scarcely help laughing, my spirits had got up a little--that is to say, I felt more angry than sad now. I felt as if I really did _not_ much care what was said to me.

And I drank my tea and ate my slices of thick bread and b.u.t.ter with a good appet.i.te, though I saw Miss Broom watching me from her end of the table; and when I had finished I felt, as Emma had said I should, "ever so much better"--that is to say, no longer in the least inclined to cry.

Nor did I feel nervous or frightened when Miss Aspinall--all the others having gone--seated herself in front of me and began her talk. It began quite differently from what I had expected. She was a good woman, and not nearly so bad-tempered as Miss Broom, though hard and cold, and I am sure she meant to do me good. She talked about how changed I had been of late, my lessons so much less well done, and how careless and inattentive I seemed. There was some truth in it. I knew my lessons had not been so well done, but I also knew I had not been careless or inattentive.

"And worst of all," continued the governess, "you have got into such a habit of making excuses that it really amounts to telling untruths.

Several times, Miss Broom tells me, you have done a wrong lesson or not done one at all, and you have maintained to her that you had not been told what you _had_ been told--there was something about your French poetry yesterday, which you _must_ have known you were to learn. Miss Broom says you positively denied it."

I was getting very angry now--I had wanted to say I was sorry about my lessons, but now that I was accused of not speaking the truth I felt nothing but anger.

"I never tell stories," I said very loudly; "and if Miss Broom says I do, I'll write to mamma and tell her. I _won't_ stay here if you say such things to me."

Miss Aspinall was quite startled; she had never seen me in a pa.s.sion before, for I was usually considered in the school as sulky rather than violent-tempered. For a moment or two she stared, too astonished to speak. Then,

"Go back to your room," she said. "I am sorry to say I must lay this before Miss Ledbury."

I got up from my seat--Miss Aspinall had not kept me standing--and went upstairs again to my room, where I stayed for the rest of the evening, my supper--a cup of milk and a piece of dry bread--being brought me by a servant, and with it a message that I was to undress and go to bed, which I was not sorry to do.

I lay there, not asleep, and still burning with indignation, when Harriet came up to bed. She had not been told not to speak to me, very likely the teachers thought I would be asleep, and she was very curious to know what had pa.s.sed. I told her all. She was very sympathising, but at the same time she thought it a pity I had lost my temper with Miss Aspinall.

"I don't know how you'll get on now," she said, "with both her and Miss Broom so against you. You should just not have minded--like Emma said."

"Not mind her saying I told stories!" I burst out. Harriet did not seem to think there was anything specially annoying in that. "Well," I went on, "_I_ mind it, whether you do or not. And I'm _going_ to mind it. I shall write to mamma and tell her I can't stay here any more, and I'm sure when she hears it she'll do _something_. She won't let me stay here. Or--or--perhaps father will fix to come home again and not stay as long as two years there."

"I don't think he'll do that," said Harriet mysteriously.

"What do you mean? What do you know about it?" I asked, for something in her voice struck me.

"Oh, nothing--I shouldn't have said it--it was only something I heard,"

she replied, looking rather confused.

"Something you heard," I repeated, starting up in bed and catching hold of her. "Then you _must_ tell me. Do you mean there's been letters or news about father and mamma that I don't know about?"

"No, no," said Harriet. "Of course not."

"Then what do you mean? You shall tell me--if you don't," I went on, more and more excitedly, "I'll--" I hesitated--"I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll go straight downstairs, just as I am, in my nightgown, to Miss Ledbury herself, and tell her what you've said. I don't care if she beats me, I don't care what she does, but I _will_ know."

Harriet tried to pull herself away.

"What a horrid temper you're getting, Gerry," she said complainingly.

"Just when I hurried up to bed as quick as I could to talk to you. It's nothing, I tell you--only something I heard at home, and Emma said I wasn't ever to tell it you."

I clutched her more firmly.

"You shall tell me, or I'll do what I said."