CHAPTER III.THE EXAMINATION.
It was Guy who received her, Guy who pointed to a chair, Guy who seemed perfectly at home, and, naturally enough she took him for Dr. Holbrook, wondering who the other black-haired man could be, and if he meant to stay in there all the while. It would be very dreadful if he did, and in her agitation and excitement the cube root was in danger of being altogether forgotten. Half guessing the cause of her uneasiness, and feeling more averse than ever to taking part in the matter, the doctor, after a hasty survey of her person, withdrew into the background, and sat where he could not be seen. This brought the short dress into full view, together with the dainty little foot nervously beating the floor.
“She’s very young,” he thought; “too young, by far;” and Maddy’s chances of success were beginning to decline even before a word had been spoken.
How terribly still it was for the time during whichtelegraphic communications were silently passing between Guy and the doctor, the latter shaking his head decidedly, while the former insisted that he should do his duty. Madeline could almost hear the beatings of her heart, and only by counting and recounting the poplar trees growing across the street could she keep back the tears. What was he waiting for, she wondered, and, at last, summoning all her courage, she lifted her great brown eyes to Guy, and said, pleadingly:
“Would you be so kind, sir, as to begin? I am afraid I shall forget.”
“Yes, certainly,” and electrified by that young, bird-like voice, the sweetest save one he had ever heard, Guy took from the pile of books which the doctor had arranged upon the table, the only one at all appropriate to the occasion, the others being as far beyond what was taught in district schools as his classical education was beyond Madeline’s common one.
When a boy of ten, or thereabouts, Guy had spent a part of a summer with his grandmother in the country, and for a week had attended a district school. But he was so utterly regardless of rules and restrictions, talking aloud and walking about wheneverthe fancy took him, that he was ignominiously dismissed at the end of the week, and that was all the experience he had ever had in the kind of school Madeline was to teach. But even this helped him a little, for remembering that the teacher in Farmingham had commenced her operations by sharpening a lead pencil, so he now sharpened a similar one, determining as far as he could to follow Miss Burr’s example. Maddy counted every fragment as it fell upon the floor, wishing so much that he would commence, and fancying that it would not be half so bad to have him approach her with some one of the terrible dental instruments lying before her, as it was to sit and wait as she was waiting. Had Guy Remington reflected a little, he would never have consented to do the doctor’s work; but, unaccustomed to country usages, especially those pertaining to schools and teachers, he did not consider that it mattered in the least which examined that young girl, Dr. Holbrook or himself. Viewing it somewhat in the light of a joke, he rather enjoyed it; and as the Farmingham teacher had first asked her pupils their names and ages, so he, when the pencil was sharpened sufficiently, startled Madeline by asking her name.
“Madeline Amelia Clyde,” was the meek reply, which Guy recorded with a flourish.
Now, Guy Remington intended no irreverence; indeed, he could not tell what he did intend, or what it was which prompted his next query:
“Who gave you this name?”
Perhaps he fancied himself a boy again in the Sunday-school, and standing before the railing of the altar, where, with others of his age, he had been asked the question propounded to Madeline Clyde, who did not hear the doctor’s smothered laugh as he retreated into the adjoining room.
In all her preconceived ideas of this examination, she had never dreamed of beingcatechised, and with a feeling of terror as she thought of that long answer to the question, “What is thy duty to thy neighbor?” and doubted her ability to repeat it, she said, “My sponsors, in baptism, gave me the first name of Madeline Amelia, sir,” adding, as she caught and misconstrued the strange gleam in the dark eyes bent upon her, “I am afraid I have forgotten some of the catechism; I knew it once, but I did not know it was necessary in order to teach school.”
“Certainly, no; I do not think it is. I beg your pardon,” were Guy Remington’s ejaculatory replies, ashe glanced from Madeline to the open door of the adjoining room, where was visible aslate, on which, in large letters, the amused doctor had written “Blockhead.”
There was something in Madeline’s quiet, womanly, earnest manner which commanded Guy’s respect, or he would have given vent to the laughter which was choking him, and thrown off his disguise. But he could not bear now to undeceive her, and resolutely turning his back upon the doctor, he sat down by the pile of books and commenced the examination in earnest, asking first her age.
“Going on fifteen,” sounded older to Madeline than “fourteen and a half,” so “Going on fifteen,” was her reply, to which Guy responded, “That is very young, Miss Clyde.”
“Yes, but Mr. Green did not mind. He’s the committee-man. He knew how young I was. He did not care,” Madeline said, eagerly, her great brown eyes growing large with the look of fear which came so suddenly into them.
Guy noticed the eyes then, and thought them very bright and handsome for brown, but not as handsome as if they had been blue, for Lucy Atherstone’s were blue; and as he thought of her he wasglad she was not obliged to sit there in that doctor’s office, and be questioned by him or any other man. “Of course, of course,” he said, “if your employers are satisfied it is nothing to me, only I had associated teaching with women much older than yourself. What is logic, Miss Clyde?”
The abruptness with which he put the question startled Madeline to such a degree that she could not positively tell whether she had ever heard that word before, much less could she recall its meaning, and so she answered frankly, “I don’t know.”
A girl who did not know what logic was did not know much, in Guy’s estimation, but it would not do to stop here, and so he asked her next how many cases there were in Latin!
Maddy felt the hot blood tingling to her very finger tips, for the examination had taken a course widely different from her ideas of what it would probably be. She had never looked inside a Latin grammar, and again her truthful “I don’t know, sir,” fell on Guy’s ear, but this time there was a half despairing tone in the young voice, usually so hopeful.
“Perhaps then you can conjugate the verbamo,”Guy said, his manner indicating the doubt he was beginning to feel as to her qualifications.
Maddy knew whatconjugatemeant, but that verbamo, what could it mean? and had she ever heard it before? Mr. Remington was waiting for her, shemustsay something, and with a gasp she began: “I amo, thou amoest, he amoes. Plural: We amo, ye or you amo, they amo.”
Guy looked at her aghast for a single moment, and then a comical smile broke all over his face, telling poor Maddy plainer than words could have done, that she had made a most ridiculous mistake.
“Oh, sir,” she cried, her eyes wearing the look of the frightened hare, “it is not right. I don’t know what it means. Tell me, teach me. What doesamomean?”
To most men it would not have seemed a very disagreeable task, teaching young Madeline Clyde whatamomeant, and some such idea flitted across Guy’s mind, as he thought how pretty and bright was the eager face upturned to his, the pure white forehead, suffused with a faint flush, the cheeks a crimson hue, and the pale lips parted slightly as Maddy appealed to him for the definition ofamo.
“It is a Latin verb, and means tolove,” Guy said,with an emphasis on the last word, which would have made Maddy blush had she been less anxious and frightened.
Thus far she had answered nothing correctly, and feeling puzzled to know how to proceed, Guy stepped into the adjoining room to consult with the doctor, but he was gone. So returning again to Madeline, Guy resumed the examination by asking her how “minusintominuscould produceplus.”
Again Maddy was at fault, and her low-spoken “I don’t know” sounded like a wail of despair. Did she know anything? Guy wondered, and feeling some curiosity now to ascertain that fact, he plied her with questions philosophical, questions algebraical, and questions geometrical, until in an agony of distress Maddy raised her hands deprecatingly, as if she would ward off any similar questions, and sobbed out:
“Oh, sir, no more of this. It makes my head so dizzy. They don’t teach that in common schools. Ask me something I do know.”
Suddenly it occurred to Guy that he had gone entirely wrong, and mentally cursing himself for the blockhead the doctor had called him, he asked, kindly:
“What do they teach? Perhaps you can enlighten me?”
“Geography, arithmetic, grammar, history, and spelling-book,” Madeline replied, untying and throwing off her bonnet, in the vain hope that it might bring relief to her poor, giddy head, which throbbed so fearfully that all her ideas seemed for the time to have left her.
This was a natural consequence of the high excitement under which she was laboring, and so, when Guy did ask her concerning the books designated, she answered but little better than before, and he was wondering what he should do next, when the doctor’s welcome step was heard, and leaving Madeline again, he repaired to the next room to report his ill success.
“She does not seem to know anything. The veriest child ought to do better than she has done. Why, she has scarcely answered half a dozen questions correctly.”
This was what poor Maddy heard, though it was spoken in a low whisper; but every word was distinctly understood, and burned into her heart’s core, drying her tears and hardening her into a block of marble. She knew that Guy had not done her justice, and this helped to increase the torpor stealing overher. Still she did not lose a syllable of what was said in the back office, and her lip curled scornfully when she heard Guy remark, “I pity her; she is so young, and evidently takes it so hard. Maybe she’s as good as they average. Suppose we give her the certificate, anyway?”
Then Dr. Holbrook spoke, but to poor, bewildered Maddy his words were all a riddle. It was nothing tohim, whether she knew anything or not,—who washethat he should be dictating thus? There seemed to be a difference of opinion between the young men, Guy insisting that out of pity she should not be rejected; and the doctor demurring on the ground that he ought to be more strict, especially with thefirstone. As usual, Guy overruled, and seating himself at the table, the doctor was just commencing, “I hereby certify——” while Guy was bending over him, when the latter was startled by a hand laid firmly on his arm, and, turning quickly, he confronted Madeline Clyde, who, with her short hair pushed back from her blue-veined forehead, her face as pale as ashes, save where a round spot of purplish red burned upon her cheeks, and her eyes gleaming like coals of fire, stood before him.
“He need not write that,” she said, huskily, pointingto the doctor. “It would be a lie, and I could not take it. You do not think me qualified. I heard you say so. I do not want to be pitied. I do not want a certificate because I am so young, and you think I’ll feel badly. I do not want——”
Here her voice failed her, her bosom heaved, and the choking sobs came thick and fast, but still she shed no tear, and in her bright, dry eyes there was a look which made both those young men turn away involuntarily. Once Guy tried to excuse her failure, saying she no doubt was frightened. She would probably do better again, and might as well accept the certificate; but Madeline still said no, so decidedly that further remonstrance was useless. “She would not take what she had no right to,” she said, “but if they pleased she would wait there in the back office until her grandfather came back; it would not be long, and she should not trouble them.”
Guy brought her the easy-chair from the front room and placed it for her by the window. With a faint smile she thanked him and said: “You are very kind,” but the smile hurt Guy cruelly, it was so sad, so full of unintentional reproach, while the eyes she lifted to his looked so grieved and weary that he insensibly murmured to himself, “Poor child!” as heleft her, and with the doctor repaired to the house, where Agnes was impatiently waiting for them, and where, in the light badinage which followed, they forgot poor little Maddy.
It was the first keen disappointment she had ever known, and it crushed her as completely as many an older person has been crushed by heavier calamities.
“Disgraced forever and ever,” she kept repeating to herself, as she tried to shake off the horrid nightmare stealing over her. “How can I hold up my head again at home, where nobody will understand just how it was, except grandpa and grandma? The people will say I do not know anything, and Ido! Ido! Oh, grandpa, I can’t earn that thirty-six dollars now. I most wish I was dead, and I am—I am dying. Somebody—come—quick!”
There was a low cry for help, succeeded by a fall, and while in Mrs. Conner’s parlor Guy Remington and Dr. Holbrook were chatting gayly with Agnes, Madeline was lying upon the office floor, white and insensible.
Little Jessie Remington, tired of sitting still and listening to what her mamma and Mrs. Conner were saying, had strayed off into the garden, and after filling her hands with daffodils and early violets,made her way at last to the office, the door of which was partially open. Peering curiously in she saw the crumpled bonnet, with its ribbons of blue, and attracted by this advanced into the room, until she came where Madeline was lying. With a feeling that something was wrong, Jessie bent over the girl, asking if she were asleep, while she lifted the long, fringed lashes drooping on the colorless cheek. The dull, dead expression of the eyes sent a chill through Jessie’s heart, and hurrying to the house she cried, “Oh, brother Guy, somebody’s dead in the office, and her bonnet is all jammed!”
Scarcely were the words uttered before Guy and the doctor both were with Madeline, the former holding her in his arms, while he smoothed the short hair, thinking how soft and luxuriant it was, and how fair was the face which never moved a muscle beneath his scrutiny. The doctor was wholly self-possessed; Maddy had no terrors for him now. She needed his services, and he rendered them willingly, applying restoratives which soon brought back signs of life in the rigid form. With a shiver and a moan Madeline whispered, “Oh, grandma, I’m so tired, and so sorry, but I could not help it. I forgot everything.”
By this time Mrs. Conner and Agnes had come into the office, asking in much surprise who the stranger was, and what was the cause of her illness. As if there had been a previous understanding between them, the doctor and Guy were silent with regard to the recent farce enacted between them, and simply said it was some one who had come for medical advice, and it was possible she was in the habit of fainting; many people were. Very daintily, Agnes held back the skirt of her rich silk as if fearful that it might come in contact with Madeline’s plain delaine; then, as the scene was not very interesting, she returned to the house, bidding Jessie do the same. But Jessie refused, choosing to stay by Madeline, who by this time had been placed upon the comfortable lounge, where she preferred to remain rather than be taken to the house, as Guy proposed.
“I’m better now, much better,” she said. “Leave me, please. I’d rather be alone.”
So they left her with Jessie, who, fascinated by the sweet young face, knelt by the lounge, and, laying her curly head caressingly against Madeline’s arm, aid to her, “Poor girl, you’re sick, and I’m so sorry. What makes you sick?”
There was genuine sympathy in that little voice,and with a cry as of sudden pain, Maddy clasped the child in her arms and burst into a wild fit of weeping, which did her a great deal of good. Forgetting that Jessie could not understand, and feeling it a relief to tell her grief to some one, she said, in reply to Jessie’s repeated inquiries as to what was the matter, “I did not get a certificate, and I wanted it so much, for we are poor, and our house is mortgaged, and I was going to help grandpa pay it; and now I never can, and the house must be sold.”
“It’s dreadful to be poor!” sighed little Jessie, as her fingers threaded the soft, nut-brown hair resting in her lap, where Maddy had laid her aching head.
Maddy did not know who this beautiful child was, but her sympathy was very sweet, and they talked together confidingly, as children will, until Mrs. Agnes’ voice was heard calling to her little girl that it was time to go.
“I love you, Maddy, and I mean to tell brother Guy all about it,” Jessie said, as she wound her arms round Madeline’s neck and kissed her at parting.
It never occurred to Maddy to ask her name, she felt so stupefied and bewildered, and with a responsive kiss she sent her away. Then leaning her head upon the table, she forgot everything but her ownwretchedness, and so did not see the gayly-dressed, haughty-looking lady who swept past the door, accompanied by Guy and Dr. Holbrook. Neither did she hear, or notice, if she did, the hum of their voices, as they talked together for a moment, Agnes asking the doctor very prettily to come up to Aikenside while she was there, and enliven her a little. Engaged young men like Guy were so stupid, she said, as with a merry laugh she sprang into the carriage; and, bowing gracefully to the doctor, was driven rapidly toward Aikenside.
Rather slowly the doctor returned to the office, and after fidgeting for a time among the powders and phials, summoned courage to ask Madeline how she felt, and if any of the fainting symptoms had returned.
“No, sir,” was all the reply she gave him, never lifting up her head, or even thinking which of the two young men it was speaking to her.
There was a call just then for Dr. Holbrook; and leaving his office in charge of Tom, he went away, feeling slightly uncomfortable whenever he thought of the girl, to whom he knew that justice had not been done.
“I half wish I had examined her myself,” he said.“Of course she was excited, and could not answer; beside, hanged if I don’t believe it was all humbug tormenting her with Greek and Latin and logic. Guy is such a stupid; I’ll question her myself when I get back, and if she’ll possibly pass, give her the certificate. Poor child! how white she was, and what a queer look there was in those great eyes, when she said, ‘I shall not take it.’”
Never in his life before had Dr. Holbrook been as much interested in any woman who was not sick as he was in Madeline, and determining to make his call on Mrs. Briggs as brief as possible, he alighted at her gate, and knocked impatiently at her door. He found her pretty sick, while both her children needed a prescription, and he was detained so long that his heart misgave him on his homeward route, lest Maddy should be gone, and with her the chance to remedy the wrong he might have done her.
Maddy was gone, and the wheel-ruts of the square-boxed wagon were fresh before the door when he came back. Grandpa Markham had returned, and Madeline, who recognized old Sorrel’s step, had gathered her shawl around her, and gone sadly out to meet him. One look at her face was sufficient.
“You failed, Maddy?” the old man said, fixingabout her feet the warm buffalo robe, for the night wind was blowing cool.
“Yes, grandpa, I failed.”
They were out of the village and more than a mile on their way home before Madeline found voice to say so much, and they were nearer home by half a mile before the old man answered back:
“And, Maddy, I failed, too.”