L. Meade - A Bevy of Girls

The girls stood in a cluster round Miss Aldworth. They surrounded her to right and left, both before and behind. She was a tall, dark-eyed, grave looking girl herself; her age was about twenty. The girls were schoolgirls; they were none of them more than fifteen years of age. They adored Marcia Aldworth; she was the favourite teacher in the school. She was going away to England suddenly, her mother was very ill, and she might not return. The girls all spoke to her in her native tongue. They belonged to several nationalities; some German, some French, some Dutch, some Hungarian; there was a sprinkling of Spanish girls and a good many English. The school was supposed to be conducted on English principles, and the head teacher was an Englishwoman.

There was a distant sound of music in the concert room not far away, but the girls, the principal girls of the school, took no notice of it.

“You will write to us, dear, dear Marcia,” said Gunda Lehman. “I’ll forget all my English and I’ll make all sorts of mistakes. You’ll write to me, and if I send you an English letter you’ll correct it, won’t you, dear, dear Miss?”

Miss Aldworth made the necessary promise, which was echoed from one to another amongst the girls. There was an American girl with a head of tousled hair, very bright china-blue eyes, and a sort of mocking face. She had not spoken at all up to the present, but now she came forward, took Miss Aldworth’s hand, and said:

“I’ll never forget you, and if ever you come to my country be sure you ask for me, Marie M. Belloc. I won’t forget you, and you won’t forget me, will you?”

“No, I won’t forget you, Marie. I’ll ask for you if ever I come to your country.”

Miss Aldworth moved off into the hall. Here the head mistress began to speak to her.

“Move aside, girls,” she said, “move aside. You have said your good-byes. Oh, here are your flowers – ”

A porter appeared with a huge basket of flowers. These were tied up with different coloured ribbons. They were presented by each girl in succession to her favourite English teacher.

“How am I to carry them away with me?” thought poor Miss Aldworth, as she received them; but her eyes filled with tears all the same, and she thanked each loving young personality in the way she knew best.

A few minutes later she found herself alone in the cab which was to bear her to the railway station. Mrs Silchester’s school at Frankfort was left behind; the now silenced voices began to echo in her ears. When she found herself virtually alone in the railway carriage, she arranged her flowers in order, then seated herself in a corner of the carriage and burst into uncontrollable crying. She was going home! Her bright life at the school was over. Her stepmother wanted her; her stepmother was ill. She knew exactly what it all meant. She had resisted several letters which she had received from home lately. They had come from her younger sisters, they had come from her brother; they had come from her father. Still she had rebelled and had struggled to keep away. She sent them half her salary, but it was no use. Her mother wanted her; she must come back.

At last there arrived a more alarming message, a more indignant remonstrance. She could not help herself any longer. It was not as though it were her own mother; it was only her stepmother who wanted her, and she had never been specially good to Marcia, who had always been something of a drudge in the family. Her salary was not half as important as her services. She must come back.

She consulted Mrs Silchester; she even gave her a hint of the truth. Mrs Silchester had hesitated, had longed to advise the girl to remain with them.

“You are the making of the school,” she said. “You keep all those unruly girls in order. They adore you; you teach them English most beautifully, and you are my right hand. Why should you leave me?”

“I suppose it is my duty,” said Marcia. She paused for a minute and looked straight before her. She and Mrs Silchester were in a private sitting room belonging to the latter lady, who glanced firmly at the tall, fine, handsome girl.

“Duty,” she said, “it is a sorry bugbear sometimes, isn’t it?”

“To me it is,” said Marcia. “I have sacrificed all my life to my sense of duty; but perhaps I am mistaken.”

“I do not think so; it seems the only thing to do.”

“Then in that case I will write and say that I will go back at once.”

“I tell you what, my dear, if your mother is better when you return, and you can so arrange matters, I will keep this place open for you. I will get a lady in as a substitute for a short time; I won’t have a permanent teacher, but I will have you back. When you return to England, write to me and tell me if there is any use my pursuing this idea.”

Marcia said firmly:

“I know I shall never be able to return; once I am back I shall have to stay. There is no use in thinking of anything else.”

Now the whole thing was over; the girls had cried and had clung to her, had lavished their love upon her, and the other teachers were sorry, and Mrs Silchester had almost shed tears – she who never cried. But it was over; the wrench had been made, the parting was at an end. Their bright lives would go on; they would still enjoy their fun and their lessons; they could go to the opera, to the theatre; they would still have their little tea parties, and their friends would take them about, and they would have a better time than English girls of their class usually have. They would talk privately to each other just the same as ever, about their future homes, and their probable dots , and of the sort of husbands that had been arranged for them to marry, and how much linen their good mothers were putting away into great linen chests for them to carry away with them. They would talk to each other of all these things, and she, who had been part and parcel of the life, would be out of it. She always would be out of it in the future.

Nevertheless, her sense of duty carried her forward. She felt that under no possibility could she do otherwise. She had a long and rather tiresome journey, and arrived at her destination on the following evening.

Her home was in the North of England, in an outlying suburb of the great bustling town of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Marcia arrived first at the general station; she then took a local train and in about a quarter of an hour she arrived at the suburb where her family resided. There a tall gaunt figure in a long overcoat was pacing up and down the platform. Several other people got out of the train; they were mostly business men, returning from their day’s work. The tall figure did not notice them, but when the girl sprang out of the train the man in the overcoat pulled himself together and came forward with a quickened movement and took both her hands.

“Thank God you have come, Marcia,” he said. “Molly and Ethel and Nesta were all in terror that you would send a wire at the last moment. Horace said he thought you had spunk enough to do your duty, but the rest of us were afraid. You have come, thank God. That’s all right.”

“Yes, father,” she said in a lifeless sort of voice, “I have come. Am I wanted so very badly!”

“Wanted?” he said. “Now let’s see to your luggage; I’ll tell you about that afterwards as we are walking home.”

Marcia produced her ticket, and after a short delay her two modest trunks were secured from the luggage van. A porter was desired to bring them to Number 7 Alison Road as quickly as possible, and the father and daughter left the railway station and turned their steps homeward.

Marcia opened her eyes and shut them again. Then she opened them wide. Was it a dream after all? Had she really been at delightful Frankfort, at the gay school with its gay life not two days ago? And was she now – what she had been doing the greater part of her life – walking by her father’s side, down the well-known road, turning round by the well-known corner, seeing the row of neat, dull, semi-detached houses, the little gardens in front, the little gates that most of them never kept shut, but which clapped and clapped with the wind; the little hall doors, made half of glass, to look artistic, and to let in a little more cold than they would otherwise have done, a picture of the little nail, the dingy linoleum on the floor; the look of the whole place?