Chapter 2 A School Teacher
"Just think, Auntie!" Barbara announced. "From this day forth, I am a school-teacher!"
Mrs. Josephine pursed her lips and surveyed her niece critically over her teacup.
"Hummph. I hope you will keep your wits about you, Barbara," she said.
"Oh, I will," Barbara said gravely. "You needn't worry about me, Auntie. Being sixteen has sobered me considerably, I do assure you."
"Hummph," was all Mrs. Josephine would say. She was worried. Barbara, with her shining eyes and flushed face, did not exactly present a picture of sobriety.
In spite of shining eyes and flushed face, when Barbara began the walk to school after breakfast, she was incredibly nervous. It was all very well to avow that you would make good, that you would create small geniuses of your pupils, that you would leave a shining imprint of yourself in the hearts of your scholars, etc, etc, but actually carrying out your noble intentions was quite a different thing.
Suppose the pupils didn't like her? Just the other day, Mrs. Jessie Spencer had told that if she didn't rule with an "iron hand" then the pupils would "torment her life out." Now, Barbara didn't intend to use an "iron hand." But suppose that Mrs. Jessie was right?
"I'll be calm, and kind, yet firm and capable," she said out loud, trying to assure herself. Dear Miss Shirley, when she had taught Barbara at Avonlea School, had been just that – and so understanding, so lovely about Barbara's scatter-brained ways! Instead of being cross at Barbara's coming in late to school, she had talked to her at recess and had helped her come up with ways to avoid being late.
She hoped she could be just like Miss Shirley.
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Barbara stood before the whitewashed, low-eaved schoolhouse and took a deep breath. Then she went up the steps. And caught the heel of one shoe in a crack on the very last. Barbara stumbled as she tugged the shoe out, flinging out her arms, and so, made a staggered, drunken entrance into the school-room.
Feeling her face burn crimson, as she heard low sniggers around the room, she straightened, and drew herself up to her full height. The room fell silent.
Barbara shakily hung up her coat and hat, and then turned to face the class. About thirty boys and girls sat there, fifteen pairs of laughter-filled, blue, brown, grey and green eyes. Barbara tried to speak, and found her voice hoarse. This would not do at all!
"You may take your Testaments," she finally said, softly, and then sat down with a bump.
Oh, what a horrid entrance that had been! She had meant to walk in so gracefully, and now this! They must all think her so silly. She looked up, and, as all the pupils were engaged in opening their desks and getting out their Testaments, took the opportunity to see how many she knew from her own schooldays. Most of the primer class she knew, with the exception of two or three new children. Her old class-mates were gone, most of them having attended Queen's like her, and some, like her friend Annetta, having decided not to study for the Entrance, had chosen to finish their education.
But she knew quite a few of the older children, the ones that had been two or three years younger than her. Davy and Dora Keith were there, Milty Boulter, the three Cottons, Clarice Almira Donnell. The sight of these familiar faces was cheering to her, and when she next spoke, she was able to do so without her voice choking.
The morning flew by quite uneventfully. The children were not the holy terrors that Mrs. Jessie had pictured them to be, indeed, they were quite well behaved. Charlie Thompson, an impish seven-year-old with a pointed, freckled little face pulled Kathleen James' chair from under her when she tried to sit down, and she sat down rather hard upon the wooden floor, but Barbara made Charlie apologise to Kathleen and do an extra sum, which he did quite cheerfully. Otherwise the morning was passing quite easily, and Barbara congratulated herself on being able to handle school rather well.
But then.
About a half hour before recess, the door of the schoolhouse opened, and a girl came in. No, she did not merely come in; she glided in, skimming across the floor as if she were a swan.
The girl was tall, like Barbara, but unlike Barbara, held herself with such a distinct air of grace and poise that she looked quite out of place in that ordinary brown schoolroom. She was very fair, with pale gold curls about her shoulders, and very large blue eyes with very long lashes. She was dressed in pale pink gingham; gingham though it was, she wore it as a queen might wear the purple.
The room fell silent, and there was a pause of a few moments, before Barbara managed to say, lamely, "Your name please? And why are you so late to school?"
"My name," the girl said, in light, refined, well-bred tones, "Is Matilda Rosing. Due to circumstances that were beyond my control, I am late."
Barbara could find nothing to say to this. Perhaps there was a reason that she would rather not talk of in front of the class?
"Well, Matilda, sit down," she said finally, "You may take that seat by the window, there, beside Nelly."
Matilda Rosing looked at Nelly Thompson, chubby and plain, dressed in rather shabby brown gingham, and her eyes seemed to bore into her. Poor Nelly looked rather frightened.
Matilda turned back to Barbara.
"I can't sit there," she said in the same, polite, pretty tone as before.
"Why not?" Barbara asked, slightly bewildered.
"Because," said Matilda, "I am a Rosing."
Barbara stared at her. Girls whispered. Boys sniggered.
"I cannot allow myself," Matilda continued, "As a Rosing, to be tainted by associating with a girl of inferior birth."
Nelly now looked mortified, and tears came into her eyes. The girls now looked indignant, the boys astonished.
Barbara found her voice.
"Matilda," she said, trying to sound calm, and kind, yet firm and capable, "Rosing, or not, you must sit next to Nelly. Please apologise to her for your rudeness, and take your seat."
"But I can't," Matilda said, politely.
Barbara began to feel helpless in the face of this beautiful, graceful girl with the disdainful face. But she WAS the teacher, after all. Still, she could not whip her…she could never whip anybody. Miss Shirley had never whipped anyone except Anthony Pye, and that was with good reason. What would she do?
The whole class was watching, waiting, wondering what she would say.
Barbara looked again at Matilda. There was a gleam of triumph in her blue eyes, although her face remained smooth and distant.
"Matilda," Barbara said, quietly, "If you will not deign to sit next to Nelly, then you may stand next to the door and study from there until recess. The fourth class is studying page two of their spelling." The class now looked at Matilda.
"Very well," Matilda said, sneeringly polite this time. She floated gracefully to the door.
Barbara resumed hearing the primer class read, but she was unhappy, and felt somewhat unsatisfied with her punishing of Matilda. There she stood – proud, beautiful, poised, with her spelling in her white hands. Barbara knew that there was no humiliation or regret in that figure.
"I can see that I am going to have to win her over," she sighed to herself.
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Just want to thank rubygillis, r6144, EmilyoftheTansyPatch, and Smoltenica, for being so splendiferous as to review.
Please keep doing so!
Silver Stockings
P.S To rubygillis, there will be a romance later on in the story, but not just yet.