The Getting of Wisdom. Henry Handel Richardson

Laura found herself in a very large brightly lighted room, where the boarders sat at two long tables with their books before them. Every head was raised at her entrance. In great embarrassment, she threaded her way to the more authoritative-looking of the governesses in charge, and proffered her request. It was not understood, and she had to repeat it.

      "I'm sure I don't know," said Miss Day in her turn: she had stiff, black, wavy hair, a vivid colour, and a big, thick nose which made her profile resemble that of a horse. "Can't you twiddle your thumbs for a bit?—Oh well, if you're so desperately anxious for an occupation, you'd better ask Miss Chapman."

      The girls in the immediate neighbourhood laughed noiselessly, in a bounden-duty kind of way, at their superior's pleasantry, and Laura, feeling as though she had been hit, crossed to the other table. Miss Chapman, the head governess, was neither so hard-looking nor so brilliant as Miss Day. She even eyed Laura somewhat uneasily, meanwhile toying with a long gold chain, after the manner of the Lady Superintendent.

      "Didn't Mrs. Gurley tell you what to do?" she queried. "I should think it likely she would. Oh well, if she didn't, I suppose you'd better bring your things downstairs. Yes … and ask Miss Zielinski to give you a shelf."

      Miss Zielinski—she was the governess in the dining-hall—said: "Oh, very well," in the rather whiny voice that seemed natural to her, and went on reading.

      "Please, I don't think I know my way," ventured Laura.

      "Follow your nose and you'll find it!" said Miss Zielinski without looking up, and was forthwith wrapt in her novel again.

      Once more Laura climbed the wide staircase: it was but dimly lighted, and the passages were in darkness. After a few false moves she found her room, saw that her box had been taken away, her books left lying [P.51] on a chair. But instead of picking them up, she threw herself on her bed and buried her face in the pillow. She did not dare to cry, for fear of making her eyes red, but she hugged the cool linen to her cheeks.

      "I hate them all," she said passionately, speaking aloud to herself. "Oh, HOW I hate them!"—and wild schemes of vengeance flashed through her young mind. She did not even halt at poison or the knife: a big cake, sent by Mother, of which she invited all alike to partake, and into which she inserted a fatal poison, so that the whole school died like rabbits; or a nightly stabbing, a creeping from bed to bed in the dark, her penknife open in her hand …

      But she had not lain thus for more than a very few minutes when steps came along the passage; and she had only just time to spring to her feet before one of the little girls appeared at the door.

      "You're to come down at once."

      "Don't you know you're not ALLOWED to stay upstairs?" asked Miss Zielinski crossly. "What were you doing?" And as Laura did not reply: "What was she doing, Jessie?"

      "I don't know," said the child. "She was just standing there." And all the little girls laughed, after the manner of their elders.

      Before Laura had finished arranging her belongings on the shelves that were assigned to her, some of the older girls began to drop in from the study. One unceremoniously turned over her books, which were lying on the table.

      "Let's see what the kid's got."

      Now Laura was proud of her collection: it really made a great show; for a daughter of Godmother's had once attended the College, and her equipment had been handed down to Laura.

      "Why, you don't mean to say a kid like you's in the Second Principia already?" said a big girl, and held up, incredulously, Smith's black and red boards. "Wherever did YOU learn Latin?"

      In the reediest of voices Laura was forced to confess that she had never learnt Latin at all.

      The girl eyed her in dubious amaze, then burst out laughing. "Oh, I say!" she called to a friend. "Here's a rum go. Here's this kid brings the Second Principia with her and doesn't know the First."

      Several others crowded round; and all found this divergence from the norm, from the traditional method of purchasing each book new and as it was needed, highly ridiculous. Laura, on her knees before her shelf, pretended to be busy; but she could not see what she was doing, for the mist that gathered in her eyes.

      Just at this moment, however, in marched Maria Morell. "Here, I say, stop that!" she cried. "You're teasing that kid again. I won't have it. Here, come on, Kid—Laura Tweedledum come and sit by me for supper."

      For the second time, Laura was thankful to the fat girl. But as ill-luck would have it, Miss Chapman chanced to let her eyes stray in their direction; and having fingered her chain indecisively for a little, said: "It seems a pity, doesn't it, Miss Day, that that nice little girl should get in with that vulgar set?"

      Miss Chapman liked to have her opinions confirmed. But this was a weakness Miss Day did not pamper; herself strong-minded, she could afford to disregard Miss Chapman's foibles. So she went on with her book, and ignored the question. But Miss Zielinski, who lost no opportunity of making herself agreeable to those over her, said with foreign emphasis: "Yes, indeed it does."

      So Laura was summoned and made to sit down at the end of the room, close to the governesses and beside the very big girls—girls of eighteen and nineteen, who seemed older still to her, with their figures, and waists, and skirts that touched the ground.

      Instinctively she felt that they resented her proximity. The biggest of all, a pleasant-faced girl with a kind smile, said on seeing her downcast air: "Poor little thing! Never mind." But when they talked among themselves they lowered their voices and cast stealthy glances at her, to see if she were listening.

      Supper over, three chairs were set out in an exposed position; the big bell in the passage was lightly touched; everyone fetched a hymn-book, one with music in it being handed to Miss Chapman at the piano. The door opened to admit first Mrs. Gurley, then the Principal and his wife—a tall, fair gentleman in a long coat, and a sweet-faced lady, who wore a rose in her velvet dress.

      "Let us sing in the hundred and fifty-seventh hymn," said the gentleman, who had a Grecian profile and a drooping, sandy moustache; and when Miss Chapman had played through the tune, the fifty-five, the governesses, the lady and gentleman rose to their feet and sang, with halting emphasis, of the Redeemer and His mercy, to Miss Chapman's accompaniment, which was as indecisive as her manner, the left hand dragging lamely along after the right.

      "Let us read in the third chapter of the Second Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians."

      Everyone laid her hymn-book on the table and sat down to listen to Paul's words, which the sandy gentleman read to a continual nervous movement of the left leg.

      "Let us pray."

      Obeying the word, the fifty-five rose, faced about, and knelt to their chairs. It was an extempore prayer, and a long one, and Laura did not hear much of it; for the two big girls on her right kept up throughout a running conversation. Also, when it was about half over she was startled to hear Miss Zielinski say, in a shrill whisper: "Heavens! There's that mouse again," and audibly draw her skirts round her. Even Miss Chapman, praying to her piano-chair some distance off, had heard, and turned her head to frown rebuke.

      The prayer at an end, Mr. and Mrs. Strachey bowed vaguely in several directions, shook hands with the governesses, and left the room. This was the signal for two of the teachers to advance with open Bibles.

      "Here, little one, have you learned your verse?" whispered Laura's pleasant neighbour.

      Laura knew nothing of it; but the big girl lent her a Bible, and, since it was not a hard verse and every girl repeated it, it was quickly learned.

      I WISDOM DWELL WITH PRUDENCE AND FIND OUT KNOWLEDGE OF WITTY INVENTIONS.

      Told off in batches, they filed up the stairs. On the first landing stood Miss Day, watching with lynx-eyes to see that no books or eatables were smuggled to the bedrooms. In a strident voice she exhorted the noisy to silence, and the loiterers to haste.

      Laura sped to her room. She was fortunate enough to find it still empty. Tossing off