LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 767, 5 December 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HOW IT HAPPENED. Redchester was, in old days, a fashionable sea-side town. It is now chiefly peopled by persons concerned in the flailing trade, which prospers here: by the male and female scholars and teachers and scholars of two large educational establishments called respectively the College and Academy : and by some ever-varying detachment of troops. The place is too large for these inhabitants, and only looks as lively as it ought on market-days, when visitors crowd in from the surrounding country districts. We might have many permanent summer guests here, if only there wore any railway stations near at hand, but there are not; and so the grand old squares of houses iu the upper part of the town are mouldering away, and falling into ruins. We have to travel ten miles by coach, cab, or waggon, as the case may be, to reach the junction, in order to proceed thence to the city of Weston or elsewhere ; and this is the nearest spot from which we can commence a journey by train. Redchester is divided into districts. All the upper part is appropriately termed “Look-out,” as it commands an extensive view of the ocean and harbour, which is continually gay with home and foreign boats and small vessels. Up above here there is a pretty tree-enclosed square, where the shopkeepers promenade on certain evenings in summer and listen to the band playing ; and where the young people sometimes amuse themselves at croquet. The assembly rooms and billiard hall overlook this. The barracks are near at hand; and then, a little further on, stands our very old-fashioned and somewhat clumsy-looking church, which is rich in strange monuments and weird legends. Look-out also boasts of a large monastery within its precincts. This is inhabited by some foreign order of monks, who go about bare-headed, and wear long grey gowns, gathered in at the waist by coarse ropes. Down below, Redchester is intersected by a wide river, emptying itself into the ocean. Two bridges cross this, and one of these is dilapidated and shadowed over by tall trees. The districts they connect are termed Old and New Town ; and in both an odour of fish, in every stage of preservation of decay, is universally prevalent. The Academy, before mentioned, is in the latter division. It is, iu part, a charitable institution, and there are consequently strict rules laid down concerning the attire of the pupils. Girls of all ages, from ten to thirty, can receive an excellent education here, fitting them for private life or for holding situations as governesses, when they can secure a nomination for the school, for the moderate cost of about thirty pounds a year; but they must dress almost simply as quakers, and are allowed no licence in the matter of doing up the hair peculiarly or becomingly. Curls or waves must be brushed out, however hard the task may be, and no pads are ’permitted to be worn. The College is situated in Old Town. My husband, John Grey, is one of the head masters, and we live in a large and very antiquated looking house, which adjoins the main building; twelve of the scholars always residing with ns. Our hall-door opens out upon the narrow, winding street,

and is approached by a broad, high flight of stone steps. Every part of our mansion is constructed on an immense scale, as though, when it was built, Eedchester had been inhabited by a race of giants. The rooms are lofty, the walls thick, and the doors enormous. A long arched and flagged passage, oi corridor, connects our dwelling with the school to which -we are attached. We have had one great friend here ever since our arrival; Louis Carter, a man of somewhat multifarious employments. He had been, at one time, very well off. There was every prospect of his having large means in his hands, and of his holding a good position in society, but his father speculated heavily, and lost nearly all he possessed. His last act, shortly before his death, had been the purchase of an annuity for his son and only child, with the remains of his fortune. ‘He did this because he believed me quite incapable of earning anything for myself,’ Louis explained to me, one of those soft, dreamy, half-sad smiles peculiar to him lighting up his face as he spoke. Our friend was just over thirty when we knew him first. He had devoted his youth and early manhood to the study and culture of music, which was his great and absorbing pleasure; but when comparative poverty fell upon him he turned his attention to other things. At the time I now write of, although he was organist at our church, and also gave music lessons two evenings in each week at the Academy, he was, besides, employed every morning as a clerk, in a thriving local bank. Thus he was a busy and tolerably well todo man, but he was quite alone in the world, and was of a depressed and desponding turn of mind. He had, moreover, a great dislike to Redchester. Its ruined houses and its somewhat desolate, world-forsaken air oppressed him with gloom and melancholy forebodings, he was wont to say. I always, on the contrary, cherised a particular partiality for the place. It seemed to me as if life in this picturesque spot could not be as commonplace and unromantic as it might be elsewhere. I gave lessons twice a week at the Academy as well as Louis Carter, but the accomplishment I taught was drawing. When I arrived at the school one blustering day early in January, I found that two new pupils were to be added to my class. These were Fenella and Frances Perrin, the daughters of a medical man who had died suddenly, and had left so little provision for his family that these, his eldest children, had come to Redchester with the intention of qualifying themselves to act as governesses. The last-mentioned girl was the elder of the two, but almost everyone instinctively put the names in the order I have used above ; for Frances had an air of almost childish simplicity about her, which made her appear to be far younger than her sister. Fenella was also a whole head the taller of the pair, and carried herself with an indescribably coquettish confidence of manner. I thought that Frances was singularly unsuited to the profession she intended to adopt. A beautiful, refined, and sensitive face, a lovely voice, and a shy and timid manner are not the best qualifications with which a young governess can face the world. All these she possessed. A great many of the girls bad not returned yet from their homes, whither they had gone to spend the Christmas holidays, on the morning when I first made acquaintance with my new pupils. Nevertheless, the long room, in which the drawing and music lessons were given to the more advanced scholars, was tenanted by a small crowd of young people when I entered it. There was a large bow-window at each end, and a great fire-place nearly opposite the door. Round this some twenty or thirty girls were standing, sitting, and kneeling; all busily engaged laughing, whispering, or listening. Frances and Fenella Perrin were a little apart from the rest, looking as uncomfortable as they no doubt felt upon this their first day in a strange place. The former had her small white hands clasped nervously together. She stood with her slender, graceful figure drawn up to its fullest height. Her beautiful, tender face was pale, and her wide open blue eyes had in them a look of pathetic and wistful abstraction. Her sunny, light brown hair shone and glistened even on this dull day. She made a lovely picture. Fenella was leaning over the back of a tall chair, in a very ungraceful attitude. She was evidently in a great state of indignation at something which had occurred. She sulked and pouted, and her brows were angrily contracted, while her eyes bore traces of recent tears. She sat next to me as I gave my lesson, and by degrees she brightened up into a good humour. She displayed decided talent, and improved every instant in personal appearance, as her face began more and more to glow with cheerful animation, until I was inclined to consider her almost as uncommon-looking and attractive as her sister, though iu a very different way. Frances was busily drawing at the opposite side of the table, and her small, glossy head offered so striking a contrast, and so pretty a point of view, that my eyes strayed thither again and again. {To be continued.)