IX
SHARLAND COLLEGE
Fenella was nearly fourteen when she went to school. After Mrs. Barbour had seen her into the green horse-omnibus which at that date still rolled sedately westward along the Park paling the poor woman went home and, regarding with a stricken eye the untidy relics of a hurried breakfast, sat down and had a good cry. She would see her daughter again in a few hours, but her instinct told her that the parting was not one to be measured by time or distance.
At school Fenella achieved an instant success. At her lessons she remained a sad dunce, but Sharland College had the modern conception of bodily beauty as a supreme merit, and for its sake and also a little for the amiability that accompanied it, Nelly's shortcomings in algebra and geometry were forgiven and so mitigated by the assistance of plainer and cleverer girls anxious for her friendship as to be scarcely noticeable. She had become a fashion in the school before the end of her second term, and a host of extravagant, flattering nicknames attested this heady popularity. She was "Astarte" and "Principessa" in the higher forms; "Flash" in the gymnasium and swimming bath—a tribute to her bodily agility; "Zenobia" for one winter term, shortened into "Nobs" during a frenzied hockey rally and forthwith abandoned; "Greuzy" in artistic circles; while, oftenest of all and most eloquent of all—for it voiced the sense of a common possession—she was "Our Nelly." I do not know whether it is to her credit or discredit that the intimacy with Miss Rigby came to a sudden and unforced end in her first term. Poor Jasmine was forgotten or remembered only as a rather unhealthy dream. Fenella began even to refer to her flippantly as her "past"; "Ma, has my 'past' got up yet?" she would ask at midday on half-holidays when she came home to change for hockey or tennis and wanted to use the telephone.
It was upon wintry half-holidays that poor Mrs. Barbour felt her desolation most keenly. It did not seem to matter so much when she knew Nelly was working at school. There was a hungry and noisy return at half-past four to be looked forward to, and a whole golden evening during which she might knit and watch the dark head bent above the irksome home task. And in the summer she would not have had the child otherwise employed than in winning roses on lawn or river for the colorless cheeks that she was uneducated enough to think indicated a latent delicacy. But on rainy autumn afternoons, so brief and dark, with the fire burning cosily in the shabby parlor and only a prospect of forty feet of smoky grass, a leprous plaster cupid and the black wall of the mews to entertain herself with, it seemed unjust, even vaguely ominous to her peace, that her nestling preferred to beat her new-fledged wings out in the dark and cold. She never complained, but tried for a while to tempt her child to stay at home with her "favorite" books, her "favorite" armchair, a box of chocolates—poor ineffectual wiles that the short-sighted eyes of youth, set upon the quest of high-spiced pleasure abroad, passed over without seeing. There would be a hasty gobbled luncheon, taken standing, like the last meal in Egypt; a frenzied search behind old magazines that were never read and old music that was never played, for shoes and shin-guards—"Must have my new shin-guards to-day, mummy. Kilburn hack simply rotten—" a kiss, for the chocolates, given on the wing, and Fenella in red tam o' shanter and belted jacket of scarlet pilot cloth was off—through the area and up the steps.
"Expect me when you see me, mummy. I may chew with one of the girls."
She was not a religious woman, but she used to pray about this time, miserably and humbly, for her child's heart to be left to her. And, in the morning, between two mouthfuls of porridge, it was just possible that Fenella might look at her sharply, and say—
"What've you been doing to yourself, mummy? You look like a boiled owl this morning."
Who else was to notice that an old woman's eyes were red?
But there were times, also, which the mother came to look for, as sex stole inexorably upon the slangy, boyish woman-child, when the princess wearied of her kingdom, the tireless wings began to droop, and the fledgling crept under the old sheltering wing for comfort. She would come down after lunch, dressed in her house frock, sit down unexpectedly on her mother's knee, grip the broad shoulders, and held thus at arms' length, gaze at her for minutes together as though with some new knowledge in the steadfast eyes. She would cover her with tender names of disrespect—with cooing infractions of the fifth commandment. "Dear old fathead!" "Dear old stoopid!" "Silly old motherbird!" But she was strangely averse to the caresses with which her mother, always expansive, would have repaid the endearing insults.
"Don't kiss me, donkey," she would cry, breaking away. "Can't you see this is one of my touch-me-notish days? Hook me up the back and send Drucie out for some chocolates. I'm going to stop with you all the afternoon."
"Dearie," said the mother, timidly, one day, "won't the girls miss you and come looking for you?"
Fenella knit her brows, but did not look up from her book.
"Of course they know where you live, don't they, dear?"
"No—yes. Oh! I don't know. Mother, can't you see I'm reading?"
Next Saturday Fenella was "playing away." The mother, still pursuing a train of thought that had not really been interrupted during the week, was wondering whether it would not be possible, by sending Miss Rigby away (she had never cared for the woman), and by moving Lady Anne up one story, to take the whole of the first floor for herself and her child. The girlmusthave somewhere to bring her friends. She stuck her needles into her wool and sought pencil and paper. But the figures that foot it merrily enough when it is a matter of addition, limp wearily and stubbornly when subtraction is in question. She caught her breath at the result of her calculations. And yet—the situation was intolerable.
In the middle of her reverie a gate creaked and slammed. There was a clatter of feet on the steps—a rattle of sticks along the railings—Babel let loose in the area, and, before the woman could give a shape to the panic at her heart, into the big, shabby room, like an ill-trained chorus at a theatre, tumbled a rout of girls—short and tall—dark and fair—all dressed alike in red jackets and caps.
They were of all ages from twelve to sixteen. Some had the promise of beauty in a few years to come—some were only comely with the freshness of youth and health, but from one and all, in spite of strident voice, awkwardness of gesture, and self-consciousness of regard, there radiated that evanescent and mournful charm which is possessed by any bevy of girl comrades that touches childhood at its one extreme and womanhood at the other. With a comprehensive sweep of her arm Fenella introduced her rabble court.
"Ma—these are the girls! Girls—this is ma! Hurry up and get us something to eat. We've been playing at Blackheath, and they only gave us one biscuit each with tea. And, look here, girls," turning from her mother's dazed face upon the brawling team, "if you make a row and upset our lodgers, you'll" (impressively) "never—come—here—again!"
Fenella's popularity not only survived this shameful exposure, but followed her into the Christmas holidays. The most delightful of all missives began to lie, three and four at a time, on the breakfast table by her plate, "begging the pleasure." Mrs. Barbour, who did a considerable amount of good by stealth, had arrested a thirsty genius on a downward course from the Bond Street ateliers to Marylebone Workhouse, and, with this strange being, who wore a palpable transformation, smelt of brandy, and called her "Modder-moselle," Nelly spent many a fruitful morning, pinning, fitting, and cutting, while the machine whirred and bumped on a table near by. She tasted for the first time the delights of the waxed floor, the heavy golden air, the cadenced wind—all the witchery of dance-land. Sleek "freshers" with lacquered heads, "down for the short—" pink, alert subalterns on Christmas furlough from Chatham and Aldershot, with funny cropped moustaches like a toothbrush—delightful middies in uniform, with cracking voices, wrote her name stiffly and illegibly on their programmes or, if they were very smart, on an immaculate shirt cuff. She danced with the verve of one exercising a fine natural gift, but hated "sitting out," and acquired a distracting habit of wandering on her partner's arm, along corridors and up stairs, through palms and around screens, in search of friends similarly coupled. She called this the "visiting figure," but, oh! the despair of inflammable youth, its head full of incoherent adoration, to which darkness and solitude would have given such burning words. This little unchaperoned girl, with her perilously attractive beauty, discovered endless address and resource in keeping male fervor at a distance. The following conversation is on record, heard from palm-filled obscurity:
"Look here, Bobby! I'm sitting with you in the dark, 'cos you said the light hurt your bad eye; but if youpawyou'll have two bad eyes to look after 'stead of one."
Toward the end of her third year at Sharland College Lady Anne received a letter from Miss Garrett, of which the following was part:
"... About Fenella Barbour. No. I haven't forgotten the promise I made you to let you know if the girl showed marked ability in any one direction. Strangely enough, Madame de Rudder, of Hanover Street, our dancing and calisthenic mistress, called upon me about her only yesterday. She tells me the child shows a talent for bodily movement (she calls it 'genius': poor abused word!) such as she never marked in a girl before. She is revising some old dances,PavanesandCorantos, for private house parties, and wants Fenella to join a quartette she is making up. Remembering what you told me, I mentioned (guardedly) the expense of dresses, etc., but she would not hear of the girl's incurring any outlay. Not only this. She says that if Fenella could come, even two days a week, as assistant at Hanover Street, she could have her tuition free and, in time, be employed regularly, at very good pay: much better than we can afford our own under-mistresses, who are all graduates, as you know."It seems to me, dear Anne, that amétieroffers here: not a very exalted one, it is true, but in the only line for which the girl has shown any talent at all. Will you, if you think fit, speak to the mother before I do anything further and ascertain her views. I have met Mrs. Barbour. She is a puzzling and, I should say, rather foolish woman, who evidently married far above her class."The idea, if followed out, will of course abridge Fenella's school career, or even terminate it; but, to tell you the truth, dear Anne, although I am fond of the child, I am only half sorry for this. Don't misunderstand me. The girl is as good as gold, and I know (who should judge better) has a soul like crystal. But her influence among us has been an unsettling one."... I picked out the much beloved 'Collywobble' in the Country-house Supplement from among the Sea grave, with dear Lady Anne 'up.' What a pretty beast it is!"
"... About Fenella Barbour. No. I haven't forgotten the promise I made you to let you know if the girl showed marked ability in any one direction. Strangely enough, Madame de Rudder, of Hanover Street, our dancing and calisthenic mistress, called upon me about her only yesterday. She tells me the child shows a talent for bodily movement (she calls it 'genius': poor abused word!) such as she never marked in a girl before. She is revising some old dances,PavanesandCorantos, for private house parties, and wants Fenella to join a quartette she is making up. Remembering what you told me, I mentioned (guardedly) the expense of dresses, etc., but she would not hear of the girl's incurring any outlay. Not only this. She says that if Fenella could come, even two days a week, as assistant at Hanover Street, she could have her tuition free and, in time, be employed regularly, at very good pay: much better than we can afford our own under-mistresses, who are all graduates, as you know.
"It seems to me, dear Anne, that amétieroffers here: not a very exalted one, it is true, but in the only line for which the girl has shown any talent at all. Will you, if you think fit, speak to the mother before I do anything further and ascertain her views. I have met Mrs. Barbour. She is a puzzling and, I should say, rather foolish woman, who evidently married far above her class.
"The idea, if followed out, will of course abridge Fenella's school career, or even terminate it; but, to tell you the truth, dear Anne, although I am fond of the child, I am only half sorry for this. Don't misunderstand me. The girl is as good as gold, and I know (who should judge better) has a soul like crystal. But her influence among us has been an unsettling one.
"... I picked out the much beloved 'Collywobble' in the Country-house Supplement from among the Sea grave, with dear Lady Anne 'up.' What a pretty beast it is!"
Fenella was seventeen when she left school. She thought life a great joke, she had not said a prayer for two years, and the saddest sight she had seen was a fallen sparrow (counted, but number unrecorded) on the path in Holland Walk.