Ivy Compton-Burnett - Two Worlds and Their Ways

“Yes, thank you, Miss Chancellor. On the whole I am very glad.”

“Are you glad, Miss Chancellor?” said Verity.

“Well, my feelings are mixed, Verity. I cannot quite emulate Maud’s wholeheartedness,” said Miss Chancellor, turning her glasses on Verity in a somehow unsparing manner.

Miss Chancellor had bright, near-set, near-sighted eyes, a bony, irregular nose, with glasses riding uncertainly on it, and a suggestion about her of acting according to her conception of herself. She looked older than her thirty-six years, and seeing the circumstance as the result of weight of personality, was not without satisfaction in it.

“When do we have tea, Miss Chancellor?” said Gwendolen. “I am beginning to think of nothing else.”

“I do not know, Gwendolen. I had not thought. But I suppose at the usual time. You all seem to assign to me a good many provinces that are not mine. And I am far from being a person of general activities like Miss Tuke. I am rather a specialised individual.”

“You have a high opinion of yourself, haven’t you, Miss Chancellor?” said Verity.

“Have I, Verity? I do not know what I said to imply it. And I hope I have no higher a one than is healthy and natural, and gives me a standard to live up to. We are none of us the worse for that. I hope you are not without it yourself, and I should not have said you were.”

“I suppose you think I am a conceited creature.”

“So that was the idea in your mind,” said Miss Chancellor, with a laugh.

“Things are different on the first day,” said Gwendolen. “I wish the bell would go. Don’t you want some tea, Miss Chancellor?”

“Well, I shall be glad of a cup, Gwendolen, now that you speak of it,” said the latter, as though such a desire in herself were dependent on suggestion.

“I shall be glad of a good deal more. I had luncheon early, and I was crying too much to eat.”

“I can hardly imagine it, Gwendolen,” said Miss Chancellor with a smile.

“I am longing for the plain and wholesome school fare.”

“I am not,” said Esther. “I am dreading three months of it. The holidays are hardly long enough to recover.”

Maud looked out of the window, as though a thing better not said were better not heard.

“Are you tired after your journey, Esther?” said Miss Chancellor, as though seeking an excuse for something that needed it.

“Yes, I am rather, Miss Chancellor.”

“Poor Esther, she is easily tired,” said Miss Tuke, her eyes on a garment she was holding up before them.

“Are you tired, Clemence?” said Miss Chancellor.

“No, thank you.”

“Was your journey a long one?”

“No, quite short. Only about an hour.”

“Did your mother bring you?”

“Yes. She has gone back now.”

“Well, well, we can’t keep everyone with us,” said Miss Tuke.

“Especially if you have as many people as Clemence has,” said Gwendolen. “Her mother and her governess brought her, Miss Chancellor. One person was enough to bring the rest of us, and Maud came alone. That shows that Clemence is twice as important as we are.”

“And how many times as important as Maud? Really, Gwendolen, your method of estimating relative importance is an odd one. What do you think of it, Clemence?”

“Well, of course it has not anything in it.”

“It is usual to use people’s names, Clemence, when you are talking to people who are older than you, and who are going to teach you,” said Miss Chancellor, in an even, pleasant tone, that hurried towards the next words. “Is this your first experience of school life?”

“Yes, Miss Chancellor.”

“She will be the youngest in the form, Miss Chancellor,” said Gwendolen, urged to compliment by the reproof. “She is still under fourteen. Don’t you find yourself looking at her hair?”

“Well, if I may make a personal remark, it is very pretty. I hope she will take care of it. Do you manage it yourself, Clemence?”

“I have not done it yet. But I think I could learn. I am supposed to be careless with it.”

“Dear, dear, we must have an end of that,” said Miss Tuke. “What a confession!”

“I am sure you could learn a good many things, Clemence,” said Miss Chancellor.

“Twelve weeks of term!” said Esther, sinking into a chair. “Shall we, any of us, survive?”

“Yes, I think I may say you all will, Esther. Anyhow your having done so several times is a reasonable ground for supposing it. And this happens to be a short term. Christmas is not so far away.”

“Three months to plum pudding,” said Gwendolen, “and I am ravenous already.”

“Really, Gwendolen, the unvarying line of your thought!”

“She is growing, poor child,” said Miss Tuke.

“I wish it was not necessary to be educated. Why is it, Miss Chancellor?”

“Now I do not think you expect that question to be answered, Gwendolen.”

“If it were not, our parents could have the advantage of us. And mine find me a great pleasure. I think being educated is rather selfish.”

“Well, it has that side, Gwendolen,” said Miss Chancellor, in an unbiased tone. “It is true that it has. But the result should give you more for everyone in the end.”

“If we were not being educated, Miss Chancellor would not have to be here — would not be here,” said Esther, rapidly. “She would be as glad as we should.”

“Well, it would have its bright side, Esther,” said Miss Chancellor, in a dispassionate tone. “But there are compensations in every life, if we look for them. I have always found them in mine and been grateful for them.”

“You want compensation for being with us, Miss Chancellor. That is a cruel thing to say to hungry and helpless children,” said Gwendolen. “The tea-bell! The sound that cheers so much that it almost inebriates!”

“That is an individual turn to the expression, Gwendolen,” said Miss Chancellor, turning her instinctive movement to the door into a smiling advance towards her pupil.

“Are you going out, Miss Chancellor?” said Maud, pausing in the doorway.

“Thank you, Maud. I suppose we must obey the summons,” said Miss Chancellor, leading the way with another adjustment of her glasses.

“What would happen to Miss Chancellor’s spectacles, if she did not keep on attending to them?” said Gwendolen.

“They would fall off, Gwendolen,” said Miss Chancellor, turning with some liveliness. “That is what would happen. My nose is the wrong shape for glasses, and my eyes the wrong kind for doing without them. And they are glasses, not spectacles.”

“Would spectacles interfere with your personality?” said Verity.

“Yes, in the sense that most people would see them as you evidently do, Verity.”

“Miss Chancellor is really as eager for food as any of us,” said Esther, in a whisper, or what she intended to be such, breaking off as she observed a modification of Miss Chancellor’s bearing.

The latter paused, threw back her head, and emitted a little peal of mirth.

“Well, really, Esther, what a way of expressing yourself! I hope we all have good appetites, and shall satisfy them to the extent of keeping well and being equal to our work. I never heard that an appetite was a thing to be ashamed of. Indeed, I was taught that that kind of refinement belonged to another sphere.”

“Yes, Miss Chancellor,” muttered Esther, glancing at her companions.

“And I am quite content to do my duty in that station of life to which — to which I am called,” said Miss Chancellor, adapting the quotation to the lightness of the moment, and taking her stand in readiness for grace, with her eyes held above the board, as though disregard of food were natural in certain conditions.