A TUG OF WAR AND A FLAG OF TRUCE.

When Miss Gray got up next morning, she found her way to the schoolroom, and met not only her future pupils, but Miss Prior, at her former post, awaiting her successor.

Jane Prior always looked particularly well the first thing in the morning. Her style of dress, with its straight lines, comparative scantiness of detail, and absence of superfluity, while it was in danger of looking stiff and hard in a light evening gown, harmonised much better with the thick, dark woollen stuff or the plain uncompromising calico which was in use for morning wear in winter or in summer. All that was clear and open in her face seemed to belong by right to the dawn of day. The searching light revealed nothing that was meant to be hidden away and cunningly concealed. All was frank and above-board, from the freckles on the broad forehead to the lock which, obeying a vagrant inclination known in local phrase as ‘a cow-fleck,’ would never comb smoothly back with the rest of Jane Prior’s hair, but always kept springing forward and swinging across a corner of her forehead, disturbing the orderly arrangement of her head. As yet, there was not a faded hue or a haggard line in the face. Such would be long in stealing away the vigorous prime of an earnest, calm nature, strong in itself, amply supplied with interests which were largely impersonal, and with honourable work which was its own reward.

Miss Gray was clad fittingly in grey--one of the colours made for her. Competent critics on old masterpieces of art have often expressed the effect graphically. Grey toned down and brought out her carnations in the most masterly manner. It is not every woman whom grey becomes, as it is not every woman who, even when young, looks well before breakfast. It is not a bad sign when she stands the last test. Miss Gray surmounted it as triumphantly as Jane Prior did. Jane was a fine-looking girl; Miss Gray was more, she verged on a beautiful young woman. It was not merely her handsome features and rosy bloom which led to this conclusion; her face was sweet with heart and bright with mind.

The three small Woods sat solemnly in a row at one of the desks in the old-fashioned, slightly-battered schoolroom. The children were like culprits about to be presented to their executioner. Yet they were neither badly endowed nor badly disposed. True, little Alice, all over pink in her confusion, was apt to be desperately engrossed with dolls. But lint-topped Tom was a boy of quite average understanding, as exhibited in his habits. He had only to be taken and examined on the contents of the innumerable boxes--ranging from pill to band-boxes--which were the desire of his heart at the present stage of his existence. Any liberal-minded examiner would be satisfied with the result. In these boxes Tom bestowed shoals of extraordinary and improving curiosities in the shape of new farthings, old postage stamps, little stones, bits of wood of which the carving was very rude indeed, leaves of plants, dead or dying beetles and worms.

And anybody might have put dumpling-faced Sam through his ‘facings’ after he had trotted out surreptitiously and been brought back summarily from the offices, where he had been contemplating the cattle feeding or the horses airing, or even when he had been fired with noble emulation by the sight of the pantry-boy weeding the garden beds or cleaning the knives. It would have been impossible to detect in the small specimen of humanity any deficiency in that faculty of observation which we are advised, on the authority of the greatest philosophers, to cultivate as a gift of primary importance.

Miss Gray shook hands with the children, and longed to say she would not eat them up, but refrained, out of consideration for what their Aunt Jane’s feelings might be on the subject.

The children’s copy-books, &c., were laid out for inspection, while the embryo scholars manifestly shook in their shoes before the verdict to be pronounced on their halting performance.

‘Everything does you all great credit,’ murmured Miss Gray, with a comprehensive wave of her hand and a comical glance at Jane Prior, which the giver of the glance hoped the rigid disciplinarian appreciated.

But some criticism was necessary, and the newcomer pounced upon Alice’s signature.

‘Don’t you think it might be a little more distinct, Ally? They call you Ally, don’t they?’ The speaker added quickly--‘Shall I write my name, and you can try to make it out?’

‘Bennet Gray,’ Jane read over the child’s shoulder, with a little tone of surprise. ‘I thought you were called Beatrice. You signed yourself “B. Gray,” and I suppose I leapt to the conclusion that the B. stood for Beatrice.’

‘No, for Bennet,’ said the bearer of the name; ‘I was christened Bennet after my mother and grandmother.’

‘Is it a Christian name for women as well as a surname, in any part of England?’

‘Yes, I believe so. I fancy it is a contraction for Benedicta, as Bennet is used for Benedict abroad. But the name is rather uncommon and conspicuous, serving to mark me out unduly. With the two exceptions I have mentioned, I have really never known another woman called Bennet. I dare say that is why I am inclined to feel bashful and stop short at B,’ she said, laughing and colouring. ‘That is a generalisation which, as you interpreted it, might stand for Beatrice, or Blanche, or Barbara, or Betty.’

‘We have a puppy--at least Tartar has, and its name is Benny,’ Sam’s treble voice broke in, without much relevance, and with an indecorous laugh. He drew down an indignant glance from Jane’s steel-blue eyes. Then the children hustled themselves down from their bench and disappeared in a twinkling.

‘Is this your old schoolroom?’ inquired Miss Gray, wistfully, as she looked round. There were discoloured maps on the walls, and chipped globes in one corner. The book-cases were full of shabby books, which had seen much wear and tear. There was the cottage piano with the yellowing keys, on which endless scales had been strummed, and poor Miss Rossiter had displayed her bravura execution to marvelling little musical aspirants. And there was the table in the middle of the room, round which short legs had dangled from uneasy cane chairs, while chubby hands had been busy obliterating sums from maltreated slates, or scattering ink freely around as the stiff fingers, reluctantly obeying perplexed brains, travelled painfully across the pages of exercise books.

‘Would you mind telling me about it and letting me see where you sat and what you did?’ petitioned the new governess with something of a beseeching tone coming into her voice.

‘Oh, if you like,’ answered Jane, carelessly, but with a shade of surprise and discomfiture. The manner of the questioner was enough to suggest that she was but a tyro in her profession after all. If so, Jane had been singularly misled. ‘Yes, this was my old schoolroom, but I did not get much good here, though there was nobody to blame. There was nothing done here that could serve as a precedent or example.’

‘Was it only _your_ schoolroom?’ persisted Miss Gray, unaware of the impression she was producing.

‘No, of course not,’ answered Jane promptly. ‘Susie (Mrs. Crabtree) and Alice (the children’s mother), and even Jack (my brother), before he went to a boys’ school, were all taught here. Later Jack and I read here for a whole year with Mr. Conyngham.’ Jane brightened at the recollection. ‘That was better--I learned something then. I believe my mind began to open. Mr. Conyngham was quite an able man, I used to enjoy his explanations. I was so proud of his saying that it was a pleasure to make them to one who could follow him.’ Jane held up her head, and looked her best at the recollection. ‘I was fond of Greek from the first. It was all very nice, though, to be sure, there was the difficulty with Jack (my brother). He had some taste for mathematics, but he hated classics, which my father wished him to master. He used to sit there,’ pointing to a corner, ‘over his construing, and when he was supposed to have been occupied with it for an hour, he would suddenly look up and ask Mr. Conyngham if he had read some story my mother had got from Mudie’s, or if he did not think the weather fine for fishing?’

‘Oh!’ Miss Gray responded with a long-drawn breath to the account of the delinquencies of the young squire of Redcot, while her lips parted with a wavering smile, and her hazel eyes dwelt for a considerable space, as if they liked to rest on the particular corner. To be sure it was the corner on which the light came from the western window chequered by the bare boughs of a hedge maple that grew outside. It suggested vividly how the small leaves that would flutter in every breath of wind must make a rhythmic dance of light and shade on the faded carpet in summer. The same window commanded a side view, through the shrubbery, of the grey barn beloved of the bats, and the disused ivy-grown threshing-mill haunted by the owls. It might have been remarked afterwards that Miss Gray always chose that corner, though it was the farthest from the fire, for her teacher’s presidential chair.

After breakfast, Jane was once more aggrieved by the children’s arriving for the duties of the day, cumbered with their own affairs. Tom had one of his boxes lined with turkey’s feathers which he had picked up, Sam was panting to recount his encounter with the turkey which had shed the feathers, and Alice had taken it upon her to bring in the last of her dolls. That came of being too easy and familiar with the children.

‘Let them unload their burdened little bodies and minds,’ said Miss Gray. ‘It need not be altogether without profit, you know’--she added waggishly, not without a quick glance at Jane to see if the most distant approach to raillery might be allowable--‘admit information at every pore. Come, Tom and Sam, and tell me all about the turkey and its wings, and whether calves and lambs have wings too.’

Tom and Sam shouted with derisive laughter over the idea, but were incited to listen when Miss Gray delivered the least pedantic of lectures which took only one minute in the delivery upon Alice’s doll’s eyes and ears and fingers and toes.

‘But we’ll not use such a liberty with your baby again, dear,’ the lecturer promised the child. ‘How would grown-up people like to have themselves or their babies treated as subjects for dissection?’

‘She is not a baby,’ objected Alice indignantly; ‘she is Anna Maria Constance--a lady going to a ball. Don’t you see her fan and her bouquet? I am to be dressed like that when I go out to India to papa.’

‘I beg Anna Maria Constance’s pardon,’ said Miss Gray. ‘But whether your doll is a baby or a lady she is for you to take care of, play with, and dress. She is not for another person to dissect. Has she a great stock of clothes, Ally? I think I may be able to help you to make her something new. Ladies who go to balls, still more than babies in bibs and tuckers, are always wanting something new. I have a hat in my eye to be trimmed with one of Tom’s turkey’s feathers, if he will be generous and present one to Anna Maria Constance, which will just suit her.’

When lessons did come on, Jane had her reward at last. She had lingered, puzzled and on the verge of being vexed, for, in spite of her big brains, she was a woman slow to receive a new idea or to alter a foregone conclusion. But she admitted candidly, with honest satisfaction, that nothing could be better or more thorough than Miss Gray’s mode of teaching. She had not been to the College of Preceptresses and passed her examinations in vain, and she was perfectly resolute in exacting all the children could give her. It was soon plain that, while she would not hear of long hours of lessons for such young children, there would be as little as possible of shirking or trifling, where business was concerned, in her reign.

Jane Prior submitted to the new order of things, but not without a recoil. She was not arrogant or domineering by nature, and she had wisely determined to support Miss Gray’s authority. At the same time Jane was tempted to suspect that Miss Gray might be very clever--that went without saying; and might know her work--that was even more undeniable; yet she was fond of theories, and liked short tasks and changes for herself as well as for the children. She rambled all over the place, and she found out the walks, even the winding path hidden among the tall shrubs to the rose garden--bare enough at this season--as if by intuition. It almost seemed as if she had known Redcot in a previous state of existence, and was delighted to get back to it and hail its familiar beauties.

Jane did not accuse her Admirable Crichton of unfaithfulness to her post, only it was hard to find anybody, teachers included, faultless. Miss Prior was young, and had a craving after perfection--she felt a shade of disappointment. In place of approaching nearer to Miss Gray, the young lady drew slightly away from the schoolmistress, and engrossed herself with her own pursuits.

Then a special incident occurred in the family life. John Prior was summoned to be on the Grand Jury at the Winter Assize in the county town, and, whatever his pressing interests at home, he must fulfil his obligations to his fellow-subjects. The same thing had not happened for a period of years. The last time it had come about there had been an understanding that when next Mr. Prior was on the jury, Mrs. Prior, who even then visited rarely, should accompany her husband, and be the guest of some old friends while the Assize lasted. Much had altered since that arrangement was entered into; but John Prior had not forgotten it, and his wife was touched and pleased by his remembrance. Altogether the two appeared to soften to each other, and come closer together on this small point. In the very details of their setting out--in her wish to drive with him on a doubtful day in the ramshackle phaeton instead of having a close carriage sent out from Newton for her private accommodation, in his anxiety about her wraps and parcels--Miss Gray, a keenly-interested onlooker, felt she got a passing glimpse through the man’s gruffness and the woman’s reserve of what the relations between them had been in happier years.

Jane Prior and Bennet Gray were left behind at Redcot to keep house, take care of the children, and follow their own devices.

Jane immediately improved the occasion by resolving to get through a large amount of ‘stiff’ reading which was on her mind. She had received a loan some time ago of several valuable and ‘heavy’ books, which ought to be returned on the first opportunity. She would take advantage of her father and mother’s absence, at a season when visitors were out of count in the country, to shut herself up and have a good time of hard study, such as she had not enjoyed for many months, and be able to send back the volumes in question without further delay.

Whether Jane had grown a little rusty in her enforced neglect of anything like tough reading; whether the old ethics were a more indigestible morsel than she had reckoned, she found at the end of the first day that if she were to do as she had planned she must husband every moment of her time. Never mind, she felt free to do it, now that Miss Gray had command of the children.

Jane Prior forthwith sent a polite message to Miss Gray, and begged that she would excuse her (Jane) from coming down to dinner. She desired Miss Gray to go on without her, and would she kindly send her up a bit of fish and a glass of toast and water--one of Jane’s hobbies was that study was best pursued on the lightest of diets--for she had to be very busy all the evening? As she was also to be very busy all the next morning, would Miss Gray not mind eating her breakfast, too, by herself? Jane was going to rise early and have her bread and milk when she got up. The two would meet at lunch.

It was not Bennet Gray’s place to mind or to refuse to accept a civil excuse. However, when she encountered Jane in the course of the afternoon hurrying out of her room in her garden hat and over-shoes, with a generally distrait air, just for five minutes of fresh air, as she rushed up and down the avenue, to keep herself from getting inconveniently sleepy later in the day, the young teacher stopped the young student with an eager appeal, ‘I shall not detain you above one moment, Miss Prior; but is it worth while having all the ceremony and trouble of a late dinner for me?--unless, indeed, dinner is a solemn institution which cannot be set aside.’

‘But you must be fed, Miss Gray,’ interposed Jane bluntly, and rather sharply, for she was provoked at being interrupted--every second was precious. ‘I am not going to starve you because I do not choose to eat myself.’

‘But it is not starving,’ urged Bennet. ‘I have been accustomed to dine early. I really eat my dinner at lunch time. Governesses are frequently expected to do that whether they like it or not; but I like it. Even if I did not, a bit of fish would suit me too, splendidly. I have often dined on less when I snatched a scrambling meal at a restaurant. All the time I was at Boughton,’ naming her college, ‘I breakfasted on bread and milk--and it did taste so good at half-past five.’

Jane was beguiled into listening with her interest attracted in a new direction--perhaps a more refreshing process on the whole than the five minutes’ rush to the avenue.

‘I suppose that was where you were reading up for your examinations?’ she said, inquiringly.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Gray, ‘you know I had to crib the time for reading from every odd minute, and so had a friend of mine, since we were both teaching junior classes all the time. We had to reduce our nights to three or four hours. Mary Burton could stand it and keep awake, but I used to get so sleepy over my lexicon, and even during the lectures, I was ashamed of myself. Still it was jolly,’ with a sigh of remembrance over past pleasures.

‘What did you do to keep the sleep off?’ inquired Jane, from a selfish motive. ‘Come into my room for five minutes--I believe it is going to rain--and tell me all about it; what books you had to post yourself up in for your examinations, and how you came out of them.’

Bennet went into Jane’s room, simple and bare as that of an ascetic, for its mistress was not one of the girl graduates who contrive to combine æsthetic fancies and sybarite indulgence with a passion for knowledge. She was in earnest in all she did. She had given her heart to the passion, and anything which interfered with it at this period of her life simply ‘bothered’ her, as she put it.

Bennet walked up to the bookcase and examined its contents with the intelligent relish of one who was something of a student on her own account, though the books were not those she had sought specially to master. On comparing notes, the two discovered that Jane’s bent was more to philosophy, ancient and modern, and to natural science, while Miss Gray’s was to history and literature in all ages. Jane was not altogether sorry, and Bennet positively rejoiced, though not for herself, that each evidently excelled the other in her own department.

In the excitement of the moment Jane confided to her companion that she (Jane) had an ambition to go up to Oxford and pass an examination there, and Miss Gray reciprocated the confidence by an admission that she would like that very much for herself if the thing could be conveniently managed, of which Jane in her generosity had no doubt.

Thereupon the candidates for honours--such honours as they could win--settled the different subjects they would take, advised each other on the books they ought to consult, and became so friendly that at last the women in them fairly unbent. Inductive and deductive systems, postulates, cellular chords were gradually dropped, together with battles on Thracian and Etruscan plains, Courts of Areopagus, Conscript Fathers, odes, and orations. The citers of these formidable topics descended to gossiping and laughing about their several experiences, professors, and fellow-students. The speakers told with gusto of lucky hits and ludicrous mistakes, giving the slight but graphic local and personal touches that had reference to a college hall or a savant’s face, in which women excel.

These young women had not sport to diverge to, as two young men would have had in similar circumstances, though Miss Gray did try to edge in a word for lawn tennis, and, more extraordinary still, for dancing. Jane did not follow up these suggestions, but the couple had a taste in common for nature and for long walks, which did almost as well as boating, cricketing, or hunting, for a diversion from more serious subjects.

To begin with, and in the main, however, it was learning on which these girls, each with a good head of her own, fraternised. The medium has become possible in recent years, and it seems to serve as well on a pinch as ball dresses, choral practising, or district visiting.

The sympathy aroused was a pleasure to Bennet Gray for special reasons, but she had not been unaccustomed to such sympathy. With Jane Prior it was different. She had been far more alone in tastes which were not shared by the women of her particular circle. She had not known such communion since she had left her school, or since the days when she had read along with Jack, and the teaching of the Cambridge coach had been a positive enchantment, under the influence of which her mind had brightened indescribably. She was ready to swear friendship with Miss Gray, to trust her implicitly, even though they should differ a little on the education of the children or on any other question that might crop up. She came near to forming a league with her on the spot, which was a long way for a woman of Jane Prior’s temperament to go on so short an acquaintance.

For the rest of the time of Mr. and Mrs. Prior’s absence, the ardent young souls agreed to set the forms of society at defiance, and enjoy themselves in their own way. They had no family breakfast, and no ceremonious dinner. They ate and drank such primitive fare as bread and milk in their own rooms at unheard-of hours in the morning. The girls met and dined at luncheon, and consented to relax and refresh themselves--say with the wisdom of Socrates, or the quips of the ‘Birds’ of Aristophanes--over afternoon tea. These sources of relaxation on such lips did fit in queerly with the soulless splendour of the glassy mirrors, the gilt-legged tables, and the floral hearth-rug of the last Georgian and William era. The day was wound up with something equivalent to sporting oaks and solitary ‘sapping’ after slices of fish or wings of partridge, or something equally substantial.

The two delinquents kept their own counsel outside the house, but inside the cook and the housemaid were to be met and vanquished. These functionaries, with a greatness of soul which showed itself in utter indifference to the trouble they were spared, felt outraged by the unheard-of proceedings of ‘them unaccountable young ladies.’ They were not exacting or hard or flighty or worse, and still they were no more like what young ladies were wont to be, and ought to be, than if they had been all that and a great deal more into the bargain. Yet, in spite of converting herself into a miserable book-worm, sitting up of nights and neglecting good victuals, Miss Prior was well enough to look at, though not to be mentioned in the same breath with beautiful Miss Susie that was, who had never been done with her gay doings. And as for that there governess young lady Miss Prior chose to make so much of, as was doubtless at the bottom of the mischief, since it belonged to her poor trade, she might have been a regular stunner, and turned the heads of half the gentlemen who came near her if she had liked, in place of frightening them away with her books. It was too bad, too bewildering and astounding to the oracles of the kitchen.