The Golden Calf | Page 2

Cobb, who
was short, plump, and ruddy, a picture of rude health and unrefined
good looks--a girl who bore 'beer' written in unmistakable characters
across her forehead, Miss Rylance had observed to her own particular
circle. 'I will say that for the old lady,' added Miss Cobb, 'she never
cottons to stuckupishness.'
Vulgarity of speech is the peculiar delight of a schoolgirl off duty. She
spends so much of her life under the all-pervading eye of authority, she
is so drilled, and lectured, and ruled and regulated, that, when the eye
of authority is off her, she seems naturally to degenerate into licence.
No speech so interwoven with slang as the speech of a
schoolgirl--except that of a schoolboy.

There came a sudden hush upon the class-room after Miss Rylance had
departed on her errand. It was a sultry afternoon in late June, and the
four rows of girls seated at the two long desks in the long bare room,
with its four tall windows facing a hot blue sky, felt almost as
exhausted by the heat as if they had been placed under an air-pump.
Miss Pew had a horror of draughts, so the upper sashes were only
lowered a couple of inches, to let out the used atmosphere. There was
no chance of a gentle west wind blowing in to ruffle the loose hair upon
the foreheads of those weary students.
Thursday afternoons were devoted to the study of German. The
sandy-haired young woman at the end of the room furthest from Miss
Pew's throne was Fräulein Wolf, from Frankfort, and it was Fräulein
Wolf's mission to go on eternally explaining the difficulties of her
native language to the pupils at Mauleverer Manor, and to correct those
interesting exercises of Ollendorff's which ascend from the primitive
simplicity of golden candlesticks and bakers' dogs, to the loftiest
themes in romantic literature.
For five minutes there was no sound save the scratching of pens, and
the placid voice of the Fräulein demonstrating to Miss Mullins that in
an exercise of twenty lines, ten words out of every twenty were wrong,
and then the door was opened suddenly--not at all in the manner so
carefully instilled by the teacher of deportment. It was flung back,
rather, as if with an angry hand, and a young woman, taller than the
generality of her sex, walked quickly up the room to Miss Pew's desk,
and stood before that bar of justice, with head erect, and dark flashing
eyes, the incarnation of defiance.
_'Was für ein Mädchen.'_ muttered the Fräulein, blinking at that distant
figure, with her pale gray-green eyes.
Miss Pew pretended not to see the challenge in the girl's angry eyes.
She turned to her subordinate, Miss Pillby, the useful drudge who did a
little indifferent teaching in English grammar and geography, looked
after the younger girls' wardrobes, and toadied the mistress of the
house.

'Miss Pillby, will you be kind enough to show Ida Palliser the state of
her desk?' asked Miss Pew, with awe-inspiring politeness.
'She needn't do anything of the kind, 'said Ida coolly. 'I know the state
of my desk quite as well as she does. I daresay it's untidy. I haven't had
time to put things straight.'
'Untidy!' exclaimed Miss Pew, in her appalling baritone; 'untidy is not
the word. It's degrading. Miss Pillby, be good enough to call over the
various articles which you have found in Ida Palliser's desk.'
Miss Pillby rose to do her employer's bidding. She was a dull piece of
human machinery to which the idea of resistance to authority was
impossible. There was no dirty work she would not have done meekly,
willingly even, at Miss Pew's bidding. The girls were never tired of
expatiating upon Miss Pillby's meanness; but the lady herself did not
even know that she was mean. She had been born so.
She went to the locker, lifted the wooden lid, and proceeded in a flat,
drawling voice to call over the items which she found in that receptacle.
'A novel, "The Children of the Abbey," without a cover.'
'Ah!' sighed Miss Pew.
'One stocking with a rusty darning-needle sticking in it. Five apples,
two mouldy. A square of hardbake. An old neck-ribbon. An odd cuff.
Seven letters. A knife, with the blade broken. A bundle of
pen-and-ink--well, I suppose they are meant for sketches.'
'Hand them over to me,' commanded Miss Pew.
She had seen some of Ida Palliser's pen-and-ink sketches before
to-day--had seen herself represented in every ridiculous guise and
attitude by that young person's facile pen. Her large cheeks reddened in
anticipation of her pupil's insolence. She took the sheaf of crumpled
paper and thrust it hastily into her pocket.

A ripple of laughter swept over Miss Palliser's resolute face; but she
said not a word.
'Half