LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1857, 5 February 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

MIS 3 BRIGHTRR’S ACADEMY.

A TALE CF A WEST BSD FINISHING SCH OL

( Concluded .) Chapter 111.

Close upon the announcement of the English teacher’s advent followed that of the new French master.

Again Miss Brighter had resource to her watch.

‘ He’s too soon, nearly an hour too soon ! ’ she cried. ‘ The girls are not ready. What is to be done?’

‘ M -nsieur begged to apologise for a mistake about the time,’ said the servant who had admitted him. ‘ But he has an engagement at twelve o’clock, and could not come later for this day. The lady-principal eyed the little neatlywrilten card which had been presented to her on a salver, and which bore the name, 1 M. Adolph Gaillard, Professor de la Jaogue Frangalse ;’ then, rising hurriedly, she pro ceeded to the classroom.

A governess was always in charge of the young ladies when a master was present; but in this instance, owing to the exceptional circumstances of the Frenchman’s youth and celibacy, she determined to pre aide in person. She had set in train a sort of detective force to follow up traces of the missing Rosaliua, and till progress had been reported on this mission she felt that she had nothing further to do. When she reached the schoolroom she found M. Gaillard already seated in the pro feasor’s chair, and the girls forming themselves in class around him. He was a small man, with light hair and whiskers, and rather a stout figure ; the very antipodes of the long, lean, leaden-coloured Frenchman who had contributed his polishing touch to the young ladies of the academy for the last ten years. But she could scarcely take exception to his appearance. Because he was fair it was no reason she should be unfair ; if he failed in the height of his predecessor she need not look down upon him. A very graceful, even gallant, bow seemed to plead expressively in his favor as she entered, and with a smile, which it cost her something to bring to the surface on this morning, Miss Brighter took her seat on a sort of dais behind a neighboring desk. Monsieur evidently spoke little (' nglish ; and his efforts to make himself intelligible in his own language being apparently too much for his audience, he launched into a sort of jargon or broken French, with a slight admixture of worse English. ‘ Malntenant, mea demoiselles, depechesvons ; je no puis m’attendre—anx places—vite—vitementand he waved his hand. 'J he young ladies thus appealed to broke into the disorder they delighted in, quitted their even psce for a tort of canter,|trod on each other’s robes, and pushed and even pinched one another into position with a roughness which threatened to mb off all the gloss which had been so expensively laid on. * This will never do,’ thought Miss Brighter, in a new access of despair. * This man can’t be kept.’ The word might have been uttered aloud, Sichakeen glume fo lowed on them from .he Frenchman. The lady felt quite startled as she met it, and began to think even meditation dangerous. ‘Eh, bien ! qu’apprenez-vons ?’ pursued M. Gaillard, In the same breath. ' Mats il ne fait pas de cas. Je vais vous montrer mon moyen—nn Uvre—ancnnllvre—sans nn sonpgon de delai: la vitesse —voila toute la bataille 1’ and his small feet began a sort of battery of Impatience Miss Brighter could scarcely keep her seat. The want of dignity shocked her to that degree that she felt a thrill of horror creeping over her; and had It not been that two scenes would have been rather much to embark in at once, she would have given the gentleman his conge then and there But she surely bai had enough of French leave-taking for that morning. If expulsion were to follow on escape, menace on mystery, a double train was fired. To exercise her potency now was to run full upon publicity; to be at daggers drawn with another was to suspend the swod above her own head.

Meanwhile the professor continued briik and unabashed.

‘Allons, mea enfants!’ he exclaimed, and at the familiar term Miss Brighter ahud dered, ‘ Allons, courage, my leetle ones 1 We will now de work beginand he took a brown-backed book, a grammar of Noel and Capsal, from the hands of Miss Archer, who stood at the top of the class. ‘Je vais prendre un mot —a bon mot, if you will—for de study of de hour. Que sera-t il ?’ The girls were all silent, and begau to titter.

‘ Tenez—l will give It you for de first of times myself. I have it—l have de word for ns to reflect upon. Moi, Ido sea it re fleeted at once. It is mirrored in de eyes which encircle me here. Je voudrais dire I’amour. Yoila a ting beautiful snd well beknown—la chose a quoi Ton pense le plus. Yon surely will have dis lesson by heart. You will not show de leetle ignorance here.’ ‘ He’s mad, quite mad!’ murmured Miss Brighter. ‘What is to be done?' and she beat her hands wildly on the desk. ‘Now, Mees Archer; yon who were so obliging wid de book,’ he pursued, ‘continuez s’il vous plait. Ponrquoi ne repondez vous pas ?’ ‘What is it you asked me?’ began Adeline stammeringly. ‘ What you tink of de love, as you call it ? Le petit cupidon, si vous le voulez. Mali je vois qua vous ne faitespas d'attention ; vous riez. You do laugh all, mesdemoiselles. Je ne permets jamais de sourire. Les mains—hands out—tout de suite ! I go give you each a leetle pandy.’ Miss Brighter’s hair was on end now, and she sprang up with a sort of shriek. • Monsieur, I cannot permit the class to be conducted thus! You are probably a stranger to the instruction of young ladies. M Doucereaux should not have recommended you for them!’ ‘ Point de tout, madame ; not in de least bit etranger. De ladies, I do know them better than any man. I am amongst them ; I make one of them all my life. This it is only the beginning of de lesson —le pream bule je voudrais dire. Concede me that 1 do continue. We will put de punishment aside. I give de pardon pour ce jour ci.’ Miss Brighter sank back trembling and overawed. Her nerves were not generally of so feeble an order; but she had gone through much within the last few hours Her aspect was shaken, her eye clouded, her locks lustreless. It would take a good many double doses of her favourite ‘ rsatc rer’ to renew her to the pristine placidi -y of the past

Meanwhile the professor was in his element. As she fell bac-K he started np, the Noe! and I'hapsal held aloft. This, if it had no other use, was to serve as an outlet for his eloquence, and he wielded it so theatrically that the old brown back was at one moment a weapon of vengeance, anon an enchanter’s wand, in his hand. He had launched into a discourse which it would have taken a lunatic to report, and which was, happily for himself, so utterly unintelligible that it could admit of no objection. Miss Brighter sat and listened motionless. She was as powerless to interfere as if she were held enthralled by some masterpiece of one of the ancient orators. At moments Monsieur Gaillard would pounce suddenly on one of the girls, put a question to her in a startling, almost defiant, way, which frightened her out of her wits, and before she had recovered or responded dash off to another. Thns it wont on for a full half hour. Then monsieur pulled quickly at his watch chain, glanced at a tiny ‘ Genova,’ and hurried on to his peroration. Up to this point bets might have been freely taken that no wilder piece of declamation could be heard or uttered ; but it remained for him to prove that if no other could rival him, he could surpass himself. He seemed bent especially on terrifying unfortunate Miss Brighter, and he succeeded so well that he had her literally petrified in her chair, her features stiffened, and her eyes staring. As to the girls they were let oft easier. He had a sort of cunning smile for them at times, a telegraphic signal of enconragment. In any case their motto seemed to be, 1 Quocnnque trahnnt fata, sequamnr.’ The spell of one rule broken, there was a bound of relief, and they were off like an escaped flock to the next leader. Finally M. Gaillard wound np with a sort of blessing over them all, his arms outstretched, and hia eyes uplifted. It had quite a moving 1 effect on Mies Brighter. There was a Iresh agitation lu her looks, and the power of action came back to her. Bising suddenly she made a step towards the professor—-

only 01 e—then she stopped. He had already advanced to the stage of farwells, and the class was in a state of trepidation. He seemed to come unnecessarily close for the process, and each young lady in turn started back with a little shriek. But there was one who could not escape him. This was the eldest and head of the class, Adeline Archer, Before her he made a resolute pause.

* Ohere mees !’ he exclaimed, ‘yon who fetch me de book, who show so much complaisance and cleverness. Of you I must take do leave—permettez-moi—a la Francaise and at the word his well-bearded face near hors, and he would have ap preached his lips to either cheek. This was too much. The spell that bound Mias Bnghter’s limbs loosened like an avalanche. One plunge and she was upon him, and had seized him by the back of the hair. There was no other way left. Dignity must vanish in the presence of danger. ‘Yon wretch!’ she cried; ‘begone this inslant! Wherever you came from, come here no more 1 ’ and she shook him vehemently. In the same instant the large schoolroom door was flung ceremoniously open, and the announcement made in full form, ‘ Monsieur Adolph Oaillard.’ A start ran through the assembly, and Miss Brighter’s prisoner gave a bound ; but she held him too tight. Fscape sremed impossible, and yet it was managed. His looks were burst burst in more senses than one—and he was free. With a face of horror the lady principal found nothing left in her grasp but a curly carroty wig. Like one of the floating figures seen in some spiritual seance, a form hovered for one second before her gaze, a door opened in the distance, and the professor was gone. The lady rank gasping in a seat, her color turned to lividness, and her eyes closed. Instantly two or three of the girls were over her, foremost among whom was Adeline Archer.

‘ Loosen her cap—unhook her belt—lower her head—lay her flat on the ground !’ she exclaimed eagerly, and there was a mischievous gleam in her eyes. The words reached Miss Brighter’s cars, and she would have recovered rapidly, but her attendants were too assiduous for that. Before she knew where she was, the chair was from under her, her form prostrate, her cap gone, and a gay tress, which had resisted every refreshing application, floating over each temple, while a handkerchief snatched from her pocket was waved in anything but victorious fashion over her head.

It wai a terrible moment, one not lightly to be outlived. If her swoon passed off swiftly, something else went with it. Her prestige was lost, her power gone, the control department done away with Even thi ugh the new professor advanced gracefully to his chair, and was tall, grave, and glossy ; even though the departed Rosilina, resuscitated for the occasion, appeared magically on the scene, and took her place demurely in the class naught could restore her dignity to the lady-prin-cipal, efface the picture of her collapse, or steady her tottering sceptre. Despite of her very palpable downfall, a ‘rise’ had been taken out of her. It could never be pardoned, never forgotten. Of what avail that a spirit of order was returning now when there was the ghost of the past to meet it ? Later in the day, when the girls gathered for their luncheon of bath-bans in the long diniag-ball. sounds were heard emanating thenca which rang like a peal of joy belli through the houseft osalina, with her dark eyes glittering, and her elfish locks about her shoulders, was elevated on a form in the pose of an auctioneer, On each arm hung some article of a gentleman’s attire, and a well padde i waistcoat was exhibited conspicuously in one hand, while a wig and whiskers were dangled in the other.

1 Wasn’t it fun? 1 she cried, in her ringing tones ‘ I had the old things from the last charade hidden away in the bottom of my trunk. I knew I could make np in dashing style, I believe not one of yon detected me bet Adeline. I was afraid of my voice—that was the only thing, but that jnmble stood me well. What between broken English and French there was little chance of a break down.’

* But, Kosy dear, how did yon scale those horrid spiky walls ?’questioned Miss Archer, giving a little coaxing clasp to her waist. ‘ You’ll tell us like a dock, ’

‘Or a go'.ss. Miss Addie ? No, so ; get out yourselves, if you can, and how you c»u. But my way is my own; you’ll not get it out o J'oe ’ And she kept to this resolve like a rock. Fearless for herself, she would scarcely have hesitated to embark in the fullest explanation-: had it not been that the confession would implicate another, and bring trouble upon her. It chanced that the laundrywoman engaged at the academy had been Rosaliua’s first nurse. The woman had lev* I her as a baby, idolised her as a mischievous little child, and could refuse her nothing still. Through her means the danties were conveyed in weekly supplies to the young lady; and on the eventful morning succeeding Mother Grabbet’s watch, Bosalina at' le out of bed. donned her disguise, and finding her friend in the corridor carrying off the week’s washing, she was smuggled out of the establishment in a huge hamper, canopied over by a counterpane. Mrs Grabbet, who generally superintended the linen department, was, as we know, engaged in another engrossing work at this crisis, and the coast was left clear.

If Lady Carinthia received her daughter back on her hands pretty promptly after this escapade, no revelation accompanied the precious transmission beyond the announcement that Miss Brighter was retiring from her post. She had made her money ; and with a high income to support her, no ■rurprise need have been excited if she sank f-srlessly into private life. Yet another whisper arose fatal to the healthiness of he? former reputation, a whisper that some disorder had crept into the very heart of her academy, which must ultimately have undermined its whole constitution—that 01 « cf its latest pupils had studied witchery, rather than bewitchment, under her very eye; had resisted the polishing process that h-d ground down so many ; had played pranks with ease, but failed utterly in her execution of Schumann and Chopin; and discarding the icstraint of every calisthenic appliance, had remained as true to nature and naivete as if she were intended for unartificial life.