The Rebel of the School by L. T. Meade (best fiction books of all time txt) 📗

prepared and left to cook itself in the oven. Tom started at about eleven o'clock on his walk to the tiny village where Mrs. Church lived.

As soon as Susy returned from her place of worship she helped her mother to get the little parlor ready. She put some autumn leaves in a jug on the center of the table. Her mother brought out the best china, which had not been used since her husband's death. The best china was very pretty, and Susy thought that no table could look more elegant than theirs. The best china was accompanied by some quite good knives and forks. The forks were real silver; Mrs. Hopkins regarded them with pride.

"If the worst—the very worst—comes," she said to Susy, "we can sell them; but I cling to them as a piece of respectability that I never want to part from. Your dear father gave them to me on our wedding-day—a whole dozen of beautiful silver forks with the hall-mark on them, and his initials on the handle of each. I want them to be Tom's some day. Silver should always be handed on to the eldest son."

Susy felt that she was almost worthy of Kathleen's friendship as she regarded the silver forks.

"You must never part with them, mother," she said—until Tom is married. Then, of course, they will belong to him."

"You are a good little girl, Susy," said her mother. "Of course, there never was a boy like Tom. It was sweet of him to give up his egg to me last night."

Having seen that the table was in perfect order, and that the dinner was cooking as well as dinner could in the oven, Mrs. Hopkins went upstairs to put on a lace collar and a neat black silk apron.

Meanwhile Susy had locked herself into her own room. The crowning moment of her life had arrived. She had made up her mind that she would wear her new blouse at dinner that day. Susy's stockings were coarse, and showed darns here and there; Susy's shoes were rough, and could not altogether hide the disfiguring patches on the toes of each; Susy's skirt was dark-blue serge, fairly neat in its way. Altogether Susy from her waist down was a very ordinary little girl—the little daughter of poor people; but from her waist up she was resplendent.

"Oh! if I could only show my sweet, sweet little badge," she thought, "it would make me perfect. But I daren't. The queen commands that it should be hidden, and the queen's commands must be obeyed."

Susy slipped into her blouse. She fastened it; she put a belt round her waist. She curtsied before her little glass. She bobbed here; she bobbed there. She looked at herself front view, then over her shoulder, then, with a morsel of glass, at her back; she surveyed herself, as far as the limited accommodation of her room afforded, from every point of view. Finally, with flushed cheeks and a very proud expression on her face, she tripped downstairs. The pale-blue cashmere blouse, with its real lace and embroidered trimmings, might have been worn by any girl, even in the highest station of life.

Mrs. Hopkins was busy in the kitchen. She called to Susy:

"Come and hold the vegetable dish, child. I hear Tom pushing Aunt Church in at the gate; I know he is doing it by the creak of the bath-chair. There never was a bath-chair that creaked like that. Hold this while I—Why, sakes alive, Susy! wherever did you get—"

"Oh, it's my new blouse, mother."

"Your new what?"

"What you see, mother—my new blouse. Don't you admire it?"

Mrs. Hopkins was so stunned that she could not speak for a moment. Her face, which had been quite florid, turned pale. She suddenly put up her hand and caught Susy by the arm.

"Oh, mother, don't!" said the little girl. "Your hand isn't clean. Oh, you have made a stain! Oh, mother, how could you?"

"Run upstairs at once, child, and take it off. For the life of you don't let her see it; she'd never forgive me. It isn't fit for you, Susy; it really isn't. Wherever did you get it from? Where did you buy it?"

Now Susy had really no intention of making a secret with regard to the blouse. She meant to tell her mother frankly that it was a present from Miss Kathleen O'Hara, but Mrs. Hopkins's manner and words put the little girl into a passion, and she was determined now not to say a word.

"It is my secret," she said. "I won't tell you how I got it, nor who gave it to me. And I won't take it off."

Just then there were voices, and Aunt Church called out:

"Where are you, Mary Hopkins? Why don't you show yourself? Fussing over fine living, I suppose. Oh, there is your daughter. My word! Fine feathers make fine birds.—Come over and speak to me, my dear, and help me out of this chair. Now then, give me your hand. Be quick!"

Susy put out her hand and helped Mrs. Church as well as she could out of the bath-chair. Tom winked when he saw the splendid apparition; then he stuck his tongue into his cheek, and coming close to his sister, he whispered:

"Wherever did you get that toggery?"

"That's nothing to you," said Susy.

Mrs. Church glanced over her shoulder and looked solemnly at Susy.

"It's my opinion," she said, speaking in a slow, emphatic, rather awful voice, "that you are a very, very bad little girl. You will come to no good. Mark my words. I prophesy a bad end for you, and trouble for your unfortunate mother. You will remember my words when the prophecy comes true. Help me now into the parlor. I cannot stay long, but I will have a morsel of your grand dinner before I leave."

CHAPTER XIII. AUNT CHURCH AT DINNER AND THE CONSEQUENCES THEREOF.

When Mrs. Church was comfortably established in the easy-chair in the little parlor, with her feet on the fender, and a nice view of the street from the window near by—when her best widow's-cap was perched upon her head, and her little black mitts were drawn over her delicate, small hands—she looked around her and gave a brief sigh of satisfaction.

"Upon my word," she said, "I'm not at all sorry I came. There's nothing like seeing things for yourself. Most elegant damask on the table. Mary Hopkins, where did you get that damask?"

Mrs. Hopkins, whose cheeks were flushed, and who looked considerably worried, replied that it had been left to her by her own mother.

"My mother was a housekeeper in a nobleman's family," she said, "and she was given that cloth and two or three more like it. I have 'em in the linen-chest upstairs, and I wouldn't part with 'em to anybody."

"I admire your pride," said Mrs. Church. "Next door to pride comes honesty. I am sometimes inclined to believe that it comes afore pride; but we needn't dispute that delicate point at present. And the silver forks. My word!—Tom, my boy, pass me a fork to examine."

Tom took up a fork and handed it to Mrs. Church.

"Hall-marked and all!" she said.

She laid it down with emphasis.

"Perhaps you know," she said, fixing her beady black eyes upon Mrs. Hopkins's face, "that I'll be very low as regards victuals for the rest of this week. But never mind; I am never one to press what it ain't convenient to return. Ah! and here comes the dinner. Well, I will say that I have a good appetite.—You can push me right up to the table, Tom, my boy."

Tom did push the old lady into the most comfortable seat. She now removed her mittens, put a napkin on her lap, and bent forward with a look of appetite to regard the different dishes which Ellen, the tiny twelve-year-old servant, brought in. Ellen trembled very much in the company of the old lady, and Mrs. Hopkins trembled still more. But Susy, who saw no reason why she should bow down before Aunt Church, ate her good dinner with appetite, tossed her little head, and felt that she was making a sensation. Tom was very attentive to Mrs. Church, and helped her to a large glass of ginger-wine. She thoroughly enjoyed her dinner, and, while she was eating it, forgot all about Susy and the pale-blue cashmere blouse.

But when the meat had been followed by the apple-pudding, and the apple-pudding by some coffee which was served in real china cups, and Mrs. Church had folded her napkin and swept the crumbs from her bombazine dress, and Mrs. Hopkins, assisted by Susy, had removed the cloth, and the little maid had swept up the hearth, Mrs. Church began to recollect herself. It is true she was no longer hungry nor cold, for the fire was plentiful, and the sun also poured in at the small window. But Mrs. Church had a memory and, as she believed, a grievance. In her tiny house on the common four miles away firing was scarce, and food was scarcer. The owner of the house did not care to spend more than a very limited sum of money on coals and food. There was nothing in the cottage for Mrs. Church's supper except a bit of stale cake, a hunch of brown bread, and a little tea. The tea would have to be drunk without milk, and with only a modicum of brown sugar, for Mrs. Church was determined to spend no money, if possible, until Mrs. Hopkins paid the debt which had been due on the previous day. It was one thing, therefore, for Mrs. Church's debtors to eat good roast beef and good boiled pork and good apple-pudding, but it was another thing for Mrs. Church to tolerate it. She fixed her eyes now on Susy in a very meaning way. Susy had never appealed to the old lady's fancy, and she appealed less than ever to-day.

"Come right over here, little girl," said Mrs. Church, waving a thin arm and motioning Susy to approach.

Susy Hopkins, remembering her blouse and her proud position as a member of the Cabinet of the Queen of the Wild Irish Girls, felt for a moment inclined to disobey; but Mrs. Church had a certain power about her, and she impelled Susy to come forward.

"Stand just in front of me," she said, "and let me look at you. My word! I never did see a more elegant figure. Don't you think that you are something like a peacock—fine above and ugly below?"

"No, I don't, Aunt Church," said Susy.

"Tut, tut, child! Don't give me any of your sauce, but just answer a straight question. Where did you get that bodice? It is singularly fine for a little girl like you. Where did you get it?"

"I don't think it is any business of yours, Aunt Church."

"Susy!" said her mother in a voice of terror. "Don't talk like that. You know very well you mustn't be rude to Aunt Church.—Don't mind her, aunt; she is a very naughty girl."

"I am not, mother," said Susy; "and it's awfully unkind of you to say it of me. I am not a bit rude. But it is not Aunt Church's affair. I didn't steal the blouse; I came by it honestly, and it wasn't bought out of any of Aunt Church's money."

"That remains to be proved," said Mrs. Church. "Susan Hopkins, I don't like you nor your ways. When I was young I knew a little girl, and you remind me of her. She had a face summat like yours, no way pretty, but what you'd call boastful and conceited; and she thought a sight of herself, and put on gay dress that she had no call to wear. She strutted about among the neighbors, and they said, 'Fine feathers make fine birds,' and laughed at her past bearing. But she didn't mind, because she was a little girl that was meant to go to the bad—and she did. She learned to be a thief, and she broke her mother's heart, and she was locked up in prison. In prison she had to wear the ugly convict-dress with the broad-arrow stamped on all her clothes. Afterwards, when she came out again, her poor mother had died, and her grandmother likewise; and her brother, who was the moral image of Tom there, wouldn't receive her in his house. I haven't heard of her for a long time back, but most likely she died in the work-house. Well, Susan, you may take my little story for what it is