miss west, i will thank you to see that the school-books and the school-work are in their proper places, and the school-room locked for the holidays."
the speaker, miss sandys, was the proprietor of carter hill school, and miss west was the governess. the season was christmas, and the children, without an exception, had departed rejoicing.
with a sense of liberty as keen as the children's, but with a glee of a decidedly soberer kind, miss west executed the commission, and then took her place beside her superior at the parlour-fire.
miss sandys was quite an elderly woman. she was over fifty, and had grown grey in the service. her features, even in her prime, had been gaunt, like the rest of her person. but she had mellowed with age, and had become what the germans call charakteristisch, and what we may term original and sagacious. she dressed well—[page 338]that is, soberly and substantially—in soft wools or strong silks, as she possibly did not find it easy to do in her youth. she was stately, if somewhat stiff, in her deportment. at present she felt intoxicated at the prospect of enjoying for ten days the irresponsibility of private life.
miss west had not by any means attained the indian summer of miss sandys; she was still in the more trying transition stage. in spite of the shady hollows in the cheeks, and the haggard lines about the mouth, she was a young woman yet. indeed, had it not been for those hollows and lines, she would have been pretty—as she was when the clear cheeks had no wanness in their paleness, but were round and soft; when the straight mouth pouted ever so little, and the sharp eyes were bright, and the fine dark hair was profuse instead of scanty. but she laid no claim to prettiness now, and dressed as plainly as feminine propriety would allow.
as she sat in the linen and drugget-covered parlour, which was a drawing-room when in full-dress, she could not help a half-conscious restraint creeping over her. but this was not because miss sandys was an ogress, rather because she herself had grown semi-professional even in holiday trim. she looked into the compressed fire in the high, old-fashioned grate, and wondered how she would pass the coming idle week. she had spent a good many idle weeks at carter hill before; but they always came upon her afresh with a sense of strangeness, bringing at the same time a tide of old associations.
miss sandys was a blunt woman by nature, and it was only by great effort that she had become fine-edged. so [page 339]she said to miss west, with a sort of naïve abruptness, "i'll tell you what, miss west, we'll have cake to tea, because there are only you and i, and it is the first night of the holidays; and we'll have a strong cup, since we have all the teapot to ourselves. i think i shall try my hand this week at some of my old tea-cakes and pies and things which my mother taught me to bake. i am going to have my cousin jamie and his wife here. he is a rough sailor, and his conversation does not suit before the girls. she was only a small farmer's daughter, and cannot behave prettily at all. but they are worthy people, and are the nearest relations i have left in the world. perhaps i'll take you to see them in the summer, miss west. ah, dear! it is liberty-hall at my cousin jamie's little place. peggy's haven, he calls it, after his old ship and his old wife. but it is a fine change for me, though it would not do for the young people to hear about it—you understand, miss west."
miss west understood, and she readily acquiesced in the prospect of meeting captain and mrs. berwick. she was even flattered by it. the right chord of genuine nobility was in her, though she was reported to be satirical. it was true that she was slightly disposed to make abrupt, ironical speeches, the practice being one of her few small privileges. but she felt that miss sandys' confidence was honourable alike to giver and receiver, and that the terms on which she lived with her employer did no discredit to either. the fact was that miss west returned thanks for these same terms in the middle of her confession of errors every day of her life.
[page 340]accordingly miss west drank the strong tea, and did her best to relish the little blocks of cake, though they were slightly stale; and not the less did she enjoy them that she settled in her private mind to propose buttered toast next time, and to prepare it herself. she listened and replied to miss sandys' conversation, which did not now run so much on school incidents as on affairs in general. miss sandys' talk was shrewd and sensible at all times, and not without interest and amusement, especially when it diverged, at this point and that, to her own experience, and to the customs and opinions of her youth, when faded miss west was a baby.
christmas brought holidays to miss sandys' school, but christmas eve was, in other respects, very unmarked. it would have been dull, almost grim, to english notions. there was no christmas tree, no waits, no decorating of the church for the morrow. still, it was the end of the year—the period, by universal consent, dedicated to goodwill and rejoicing all over the world—the old "daft days" even of sober, austere scotland. jenny and menie, in the kitchen, were looking forward to that handsel monday which is the whit monday of country servants, and the family gathering of the peasantry in scotland. first footing and new year's gifts were lighting up the servant girls' imaginations. the former may be safely looked upon as over with miss sandys and miss west, but they were not without visions of new year's gifts—the useful, considerate new year's gifts of mature years. miss west was at this moment knitting an exquisitely fine, yet warm, veil which she had begun two months ago, and which she [page 341]had good hopes of completing within the next few days. miss sandys had a guess that this veil was for her velvet bonnet, and looked at it admiringly as a grand panacea for her spring face-ache.
in the course of the evening miss sandys, after a fit of absence of mind, suddenly asked miss west's name.
on the spur of the moment, she answered, with surprise, "why, miss west, to be sure. what do you mean, miss sandys?" then she reflected, laughed, and owned that she had almost forgotten that she had a christian name. but she had certainly got one, and it was magdalene, or madge, or maddie; once it was mad; and as she said mad she laughed a second time, to conceal a break in her voice.
miss sandys smiled awkwardly and guiltily, and observed quickly, "my christian name is christian. did you know that, miss west? oh, i forgot; you must have seen it marked on the table and bed linen."
"mine is to be read on my pocket-handkerchiefs. our christian names preserved on table-cloths and pocket-handkerchiefs!—droll, isn't it, miss sandys?"
"of course they are in our books and letters," corrected matter-of-fact miss sandys. "i dare say they are in a couple of family bibles, too (at least, i can speak for one), and in the records of births and baptisms in session books, if these are not destroyed by damp and rats; and since names are recorded in heaven," miss sandys was drawn on to ramble, "surely our christian names are there, my dear."
miss west knew as well as if she had been told it, that [page 342]miss sandys was about to bestow on her a present with which her christian name was to be connected. miss sandys' eyes had failed through long looking over lessons, and she no longer did any handiwork, save coarse knitting, hemming, and darning. but she had a fuller purse than her companion, and shops, even metropolitan shops, were to be reached by letter from carter hill.
in addition to the strong tea and the cake, miss sandys further treated miss west to a supper of such dainties as toasted cheese and edinburgh ale. there were prayers—they seemed quite family prayers—with only the four worshippers to join in them. then there was a shake of the hands, and miss west lit her candle, retired, and shut herself up in her own little room. its daily aspect was so unchanged, that it appeared when she entered it as though the holidays had not come, and that it must still be the ordinary bustling school life.
she sat down, though there was no fire, and thought a little, till she fell on her knees and prayed in low murmurs that god would enable her to bear this season, which made her heavy, sick, and faint with associations, and that he would render her contented with many undeserved blessings, and resigned to many natural penalties which he ordained. next, with strange inconsistency to all but the hearer of prayer and the framer of the wayward human heart, she besought to be forgiven and delivered from levity and folly—to be kept humble and mindful of death. "it is ill tearing up weeds by the roots," she said to herself plainly, when she had risen from her knees, "and i am vain and volatile, and i like to mystify and tease my neighbour to this day."