Penelope and the Others - Amy Walton (best book club books .txt) 📗

strapped shoes on her feet. She had a way of half-closing her eyes while she did this, that Pennie felt to be extremely offensive. "I don't like her at all," she said to herself, "and if she doesn't want to talk to me, I'm sure I don't want to talk to her."

"We've always been taught by Miss Lacy," said Ethel at last, "but of course it's much better to have a master."

"I should like Miss Lacy best," said Pennie; and while Ethel was receiving this answer with another long stare, Monsieur Deville was announced.

The dancing-master was tall and slim, with a springing step and a very graceful bow; his sleek hair was brushed across a rather bald head, and he had a long reddish nose. He carried a small fiddle, on which he was able to play while he was executing the most agile and difficult steps for the benefit of his pupils. On that day, and always, it was marvellous to Pennie to see how he could go sliding and capering about the room, never making one false note, nor losing his balance, and generally talking and explaining as he went. He spoke English as though it had been his native tongue, and indeed there did not seem to be anything French about him except his name.

The class opened with various exercises, which Pennie was able to do pretty well by dint of paying earnest attention to the child immediately in front of her, but soon some steps followed which she knew nothing about. She stood in perplexity, trying to gather some idea from the hopping springing figures around her. They had all learnt dancing before, and found no difficulty in what looked to her a hopeless puzzle. "Bend the knees, young ladies!" shouted Monsieur Deville above the squeaking of his fiddle. "Slide gently. Keep the head erect. _Very_ good, Miss Smithers. The wrong foot, Miss Hawthorne. Draw in the chin; dear, dear, that won't do at all,"--stopping suddenly.

Miss Lacy now advanced to inform Monsieur that Miss Hawthorne was quite a beginner, at which every member of the class turned her head and looked at Pennie. What a hateful thing a dancing lesson was!

"Ah! we shall soon improve, no doubt," said Monsieur cheerfully; "the great thing is to practise the exercises thoroughly--to make the form supple and elastic. Without that as a foundation we can do nothing. With it we can do wonders. Miss Hawthorne had better try that step alone. The rest stand-still."

Pennie would have given the world to run out of the room, but she grasped her dress courageously, and fixing a desperate eye on Monsieur's movements, copied them as well as she could.

"That will do for the present. All return to your seats. The Miss Smiths will now dance `_Les Deux Armes_.'"

Two sisters, old pupils of Monsieur Deville, advanced with complacency into the middle of the room.

"A little fancy dance composed by myself," said the dancing-master, turning to Miss Lacy as he played a preliminary air, "supposed to represent the quarrel and reconciliation of two friends, introducing steps from the minuet and gavotte. It has been considered a graceful trifle."

Pennie gazed in awe-struck wonder at the Miss Smiths as they moved with conscious grace and certainty through the various figures of the dance, now curtsying haughtily to each other, now with sudden abruptness turning their backs and pirouetting down the room on the very tips of their toes; now advancing, now retreating, now on the very point of reconciliation, and now bounding apart as though nothing were further from their thoughts. Finally, after the spectators for some time in doubt as to their intentions, they came down the length of the room with what Monsieur called a _chasse_ step, and curtsied gracefully hand in hand.

"Well, at any rate," thought Pennie with a sigh of relief, "_I_ shall never be able to dance well enough to do that; that's one comfort."

The class lasted two long hours and finished by a march round the room, the tallest pupil at the head and the shortest bringing up the rear.

"Why," asked Monsieur, "do we begin with the left foot?"

And the old pupil immediately answered:

"Because it is the military rule."

This impressed Pennie a good deal; but afterwards when she found that Monsieur never failed to ask this before the march began, the effect wore off, and she even felt equal to answering him herself. But that was after many lessons had passed; at present everything seemed strange and difficult, and she was so nervous that she hardly knew her right foot from her left.

After the marching was over it was time for Monsieur to put his fiddle into its case, and to say with a graceful sweeping bow, "Good evening, young ladies!" A joyful sound to Pennie. In a minute she had torn off her mittens, changed her shoes, and was on her way back to Miss Unity's house.

"It was much worse than I thought it would be," she said as she sat at tea with her godmother; "but I sha'n't see any of them again for another week, that's one good thing."


CHAPTER SEVEN.

PENNIE AT NEARMINSTER.

Miss Unity was surprised to find, as time went on, that Pennie's weekly visits were neither irksome nor disturbing; there was something about them, on the contrary, that she really liked. She could not account for it, but it was certainly true that instead of dreading Thursday she was glad when it came, and quite sorry when it was over. And then it was such a comfort to find that Betty, far from making any objection or difficulty, was pleased to approve of the arrangement, and even when Pennie, who was very untidy, rumpled the anti-macassars and upset the precise position of the drawing-room chairs, she neither murmured nor frowned.

Miss Unity was happier just now than she had been for a long while, for although her life flowed on from year to year in placid content it had not much active interest in it. If it had few anxieties it also had few pleasures, and each day as it came was exactly like the one which had gone before. But now there was one day, Pennie's day, as Miss Unity called it in her thoughts, which was quite different from any other in the week. The moment she arrived, full of her eager little schemes and fancies, with all sorts of important news from Easney, Dickie's last funny saying, how far baby could crawl, and what the boys had been doing, the quiet old house seemed to brighten up and grow young again. Echoes of all the little voices which had sounded there long ago woke from their sleep, and filled the staircase and the sombre rooms with chatter and laughter.

It made Miss Unity herself feel younger to hear the news, and she soon found it easy to be really interested in all that Pennie had to tell her. She proved such an attentive listener, and Pennie, after the restraint of the dancing-class, was so inclined to be confidential and talkative, that tea became a most agreeable and sociable meal. Betty, on her part, honoured the occasion by sending up hot-buttered cakes of peculiar excellence, which ever afterwards were closely connected with dancing in Pennie's mind.

As for the class itself, the misery of it was certainly softened as time went on, but it always remained somewhat of a trial to Pennie, and she never distinguished herself as a pupil. It was disappointing to find, too, that the acquaintance with the Merridews from which Miss Unity had hoped so much, did not advance quickly; she inquired anxiously, after a few lessons, how Pennie got on with her companions.

"Pretty well," answered Pennie; "I like the look of Sabine best, I think."

"But she's quite a little thing," said Miss Unity. "Ethel is your age, is she not?"

Pennie assented with some reserve.

"If you like," said Miss Unity with a great effort, "we might ask Ethel to come to tea with you and spend the evening on Thursday."

Pennie raised a face of unfeigned alarm from her plate.

"Oh, please not!" she exclaimed pleadingly, "what should we talk about all the evening? I'm sure we don't like the same things at all--and I'm sure she wouldn't care about coming either."

So, greatly to Miss Unity's own relief, it was decided once for all that Ethel should not be asked to tea, and she continued to find increasing satisfaction in her god-daughter's society.

There was another matter which Pennie had not advanced since her visits to Nearminster, and that was her acquaintance with Kettles. She neither saw nor heard anything of her, which was not surprising, since neither Miss Unity nor the Merridews were likely to know of her existence. To Nancy, however, it seemed absurd that Pennie should go every week to Nearminster and bring back no news at all. She began to feel sure that Pennie had not made good use of her opportunities.

"Do you mean to say you know nothing more about her at all?" she asked with contempt. "Well, if I were you, I should have found out something by this time, I know."

Pennie bore these reproofs meekly, for she felt their justice. Nancy always did manage to find out things better than she did, but at the same time she could not think of any way of getting information. At last accident came to her aid.

One evening as they sat together after tea, Miss Unity winding wool and Pennie holding the skein, the former rose to get something out of the cupboard near the fireplace. As she reached to the back of it something round and smooth rolled forward and fell on the floor.

It was the head of the poor mandarin.

"Ah!" said Miss Unity with a long-drawn sigh, as though she were in sudden pain.

Pennie picked it up, and her godmother, replacing it gently, shut the cupboard door and took up her wool again. Her face was very grave, and the frown on her forehead had deepened, but Pennie knew by this time that Miss Unity was not cross when she looked like that, but sad. So, although there was something she wanted to say very much, she kept silence for a little while. Her thoughts went back to the day when Ethelwyn had broken the mandarin, and then to her plan for getting another, and how it had failed. When she reached this point she ventured to inquire gently:

"Where did the mandarin come from?"

"A long, long way off, my dear," replied Miss Unity, with a far-away look in her eyes as though she saw the distant country herself.

"Could another be got?" continued Pennie.

Her godmother looked inquiringly at her eager face.

"Another!" she repeated. "I suppose so. But I could never care about another."

"Not if it were just exactly the same?" persisted Pennie.

"It could not be the same to me," said Miss Unity; "but why do you ask, my dear?"

"Because," said Pennie, "we wanted to get you another one for a surprise--only--things happened--and we couldn't save enough money."

Miss Unity leant forward suddenly and kissed her little guest.

"I thank you quite as much for the thought, dear Pennie,