Margot Asquith, an Autobiography Part 11

I had been well grounded by a series of short-stayed governesses in the Druids and woad, in Alfred and the cakes, Romulus and Remus and Bruce and the spider. I could speak French well and German a little; and I knew a great deal of every kind of literature from Tristram Shandy and The Antiquary to Under Two Flags and The Grammarian's Funeral; but the governesses had been failures and, when Lucy married, my mother decided that Laura and I should go to school.

Mademoiselle de Mennecy--a Frenchwoman of ill-temper and a lively mind--had opened a hyper-refined seminary in Gloucester Crescent, where she undertook to "finish" twelve young ladies. My father had a horror of girls' schools (and if he could "get through"--to use the orthodox expression of the spookists--he would find all his opinions on this subject more than justified by the manners, morals and learning of the young ladies of the present day) but as it was a question of only a few months he waived his objection.

No. 7 Gloucester Crescent looked down on the Great Western Railway; the lowing of cows, the bleating of sheep and sudden shrill whistles and other odd sounds kept me awake, and my bed rocked and trembled as the vigorous trains pa.s.sed at uncertain intervals all through the night. This, combined with sticky food, was more than Laura could bear and she had no difficulty in persuading my papa that if she were to stay longer than one week her health would certainly suffer. I was much upset when she left me, but faintly consoled by receiving permission to ride in the Row three times a week; Mlle. de Mennecy thought my beautiful hack gave prestige to her front door and raised no objections.

Sitting alone in the horsehair schoolroom, with a French patent- leather Bible in my hands, surrounded by eleven young ladies, made my heart sink. "Et le roi David deplut a l' Eternel," I heard in a broad Scotch accent; and for the first time I looked closely at my stable companions.

Mlle. de Mennecy allowed no one to argue with her; and our first little brush took place after she informed me of this fact.

"But in that case, mademoiselle," said I, "how are any of us to learn anything? I don't know how much the others know, but I know nothing except what I've read; so, unless I ask questions, how am I to learn?"

MLLE. DE MENNECY: "Je ne vous ai jamais defendu de me questionner; vous n'ecoutez pas, mademoiselle. J'ai dit qu'il ne fallait pas discuter avec moi."

MARGOT (keenly): "But, mademoiselle, discussion is the only way of making lessons interesting."

MLLE. DE MENNECY (with violence): "Voulez-vous vous taire?"

To talk to a girl of nearly seventeen in this way was so unintelligent that I made up my mind I would waste neither time nor affection on her.

None of the girls were particularly clever, but we all liked each other and for the first time--and I may safely say the last--I was looked upon as a kind of heroine. It came about in this way: Mlle.

de Mennecy was never wrong. To quote Miss Fowler's admirable saying a propos of her father, "She always let us have her own way." If the bottle of ink was upset, or the back of a book burst, she never waited to find out who had done it, but in a torrent of words crashed into the first girl she suspected, her face becoming a silly mauve and her bust heaving with pa.s.sion. This made me so indignant that, one day when the ink was spilt and Mlle. de Mennecy as usual scolded the wrong girl, I determined I would stand it no longer. Meeting the victim of Mademoiselle's temper in the pa.s.sage, I said to her:

"But why didn't you say you hadn't done it, a.s.s!"

GIRL (catching her sob): "What was the good! She never listens; and I would only have had to tell her who really spilt the ink."

This did seem a little awkward, so I said to her:

"That would never have done! Very well, then, I will go and put the thing right for you, but tell the girls they must back me.

She's a senseless woman and I can't think why you are all so frightened of her."

GIRL: "It's all very well for you! Madmozell is a howling sn.o.b, you should have heard her on you before you came! She said your father would very likely be made a peer and your sister Laura marry Sir Charles Dilke." (The thought of this overrated man marrying Laura was almost more than I could bear, but curiosity kept me silent, and she continued.) "You see, she is far nicer to you than to us, because she is afraid you may leave her."

Not having thought of this before, I said:

"Is that really true? What a horrible woman! Well, I had better go and square it up; but will you all back me? Now don't go fretting on and making yourself miserable."

GIRL: "I don't so much mind what you call her flux-de-bouche scolding, but, when she flounced out of the room, she said I was not to go home this Sat.u.r.day."

MARGOT: "Oh, that'll be all right. Just you go off." (Exit girl, drying her eyes.)

It had never occurred to me that Mlle. de Mennecy was a sn.o.b: this knowledge was a great weapon in my hands and I determined upon my plan of action. I hunted about in my room till I found one of my linen overalls, heavily stained with dolly dyes. After putting it on, I went and knocked at Mlle. de Mennecy's door and opening it said:

"Mademoiselle, I'm afraid you'll be very angry, but it was I who spilt the ink and burst the back of your dictionary. I ought to have told you at once, I know, but I never thought any girl would be such an image as to let you scold her without telling you she had not done it." Seeing a look of suspicion on her sunless face, I added nonchalantly, "Of course, if you think my conduct sets a bad example in your school, I can easily go!"

I observed her eyelids flicker and I said:

"I think, before you scolded Sarah, you might have heard what she had to say."

MLLE. DE MENNECY: "Ce que vous dites me choque profondement; il m'est difficile de croire que vous avez fait une pareille lachete, mademoiselle!"

MARGOT (protesting with indignation): "Hardly lachete, Mademoiselle! I only knew a few moments ago that you had been so amazingly unjust. Directly I heard it, I came to you; but as I said before, I am quite prepared to leave."

MLLE. DE MENNECY (feeling her way to a change of front): "Sarah s'est conduite si heroiquement que pour le moment je n'insiste plus. Je vous felicite, mademoiselle, sur votre franchise; vous pouvez rejoindre vos camarades."

The Lord had delivered her into my hands.

One afternoon, when our instructress had gone to hear Princess Christian open a bazaar, I was smoking a cigarette on the schoolroom balcony which overlooked the railway line.

It was a beautiful evening, and a wave of depression came over me.

Our prettiest pupil, Ethel Brydson, said to me:

"Time is up! We had better go in and do our preparation. There would be the devil to pay if you were caught with that cigarette."

I leant over the balcony blowing smoke into the air in a vain attempt to make rings, but, failing, kissed my hand to the sky and with a parting gesture cursed the school and expressed a vivid desire to go home and leave Gloucester Crescent for ever.

ETHEL (pulling my dress): "Good gracious, Margot! Stop kissing your hand! Don't you see that man?"

I looked down and to my intense amus.e.m.e.nt saw an engine-driver leaning over the side of his tender, kissing his hand to me. I strained over the balcony and kissed both mine back to him, after which I returned to the school-room.

Our piano was placed in the window and, the next morning, while Ethel was arranging her music preparatory to practising, it appeared my friend the engine-driver began kissing his hand to her. It was eight o'clock and Mlle. de Mennecy was pinning on her twists in the window.

I had finished my toilette and was sitting in the reading-room, learning the pa.s.sage chosen by our elocution master for the final compet.i.tion in recitation.

My fingers were in my ears and I was murmuring in dramatic tones:

"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears, I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. ..."

The girls came in and out, but I never noticed them; and when the breakfast bell rang, I shoved the book into my desk and ran downstairs to breakfast. I observed that Ethel's place was empty; none of the girls looked at me, but munched their bread and sipped their tepid tea while Mademoiselle made a few frigid general remarks and, after saying a French grace, left the room.

"Well," said I, "what's the row?"

Silence.

MARGOT (looking from face to face): "Ah! The mot d'ordre is that you are not to speak to me. Is that the idea?"

Silence.

MARGOT (vehemently, with bitterness): "This is exactly what I thought would happen at a girls' school--that I should find myself boycotted and betrayed."

FIRST GIRL (bursting out): "Oh, Margot, it's not that at all! It's because Ethel won't betray you that we are all to be punished to- day!"

MARGOT: "What! Collective punishment? And I am the only one to get off? How priceless! Well, I must say this is Mlle. de Mennecy's first act of justice. I've been so often punished for all of you that I'm sure you won't mind standing me this little outing! Where is Ethel? Why don't you answer? (Very slowly) Oh, all right! I have done with you! And I shall leave this very day, so help me G.o.d!"

On hearing that Mlle. de Mennecy had dismissed Ethel on the spot because the engine-driver had kissed his hand to her, I went immediately and told her the whole story; all she answered was that I was such a liar she did not believe a word I said.

I a.s.sured her that I was painfully truthful by nature, but her circular and senseless punishments had so frightened the girls that lying had become the custom of the place and I felt in honour bound to take my turn in the lies and the punishments. After which I left the room and the school.

On my arrival in Grosvenor Square I told my parents that I must go home to Glen, as I felt suffocated by the pettiness and conventionality of my late experience. The moderate teaching and general atmosphere of Gloucester Crescent had depressed me, and London feels airless when one is out of spirits: in any case it can never be quite a home to any one born in Scotland.