"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Ursula.
"Oh, yes--I can send easily," cried Miss Harby.
Ursula's heart sank. Everybody seemed so cocksure and so
bossy. How was she going to get on with such jolty, jerky, bossy
people? And Miss Harby had not spoken a word to the man at the
table. She simply ignored him. Ursula felt the callous crude
rudeness between the two teachers.
The two girls went out into the passage. A few children were
already clattering in the porch.
"Jim Richards," called Miss Harby, hard and authoritative. A
boy came sheepishly forward.
"Shall you go down to our house for me, eh?" said Miss Harby,
in a commanding, condescending, coaxing voice. She did not wait
for an answer. "Go down and ask mamma to send me one of my
school pinas, for Miss Brangwen--shall you?"
The boy muttered a sheepish "Yes, miss," and was moving
away.
"Hey," called Miss Harby. "Come here--now what are you
going for? What shall you say to mamma?"
"A school pina----" muttered the boy.
"'Please, Mrs. Harby, Miss Harby says will you send her
another school pinafore for Miss Brangwen, because she's come
without one.'"
"Yes, miss," muttered the boy, head ducked, and was moving
off. Miss Harby caught him back, holding him by the
shoulder.
"What are you going to say?"
"Please, Mrs. Harby, Miss Harby wants a pinny for Miss
Brangwin," muttered the boy very sheepishly.
"Miss Brangwen!" laughed Miss Harby, pushing him away. "Here,
you'd better have my umbrella--wait a minute."
The unwilling boy was rigged up with Miss Harby's umbrella,
and set off.
"Don't take long over it," called Miss Harby, after him. Then
she turned to Ursula, and said brightly: "Oh, he's a caution, that lad--but not bad, you
know."
"No," Ursula agreed, weakly.
The latch of the door clicked, and they entered the big room.
Ursula glanced down the place. Its rigid, long silence was
official and chilling. Half-way down was a glass partition, the
doors of which were open. A clock ticked re-echoing, and Miss
Harby's voice sounded double as she said: "This is the big room--Standard
Five-Six-and-Seven.--Here's your
place--Five----"
She stood in the near end of the great room. There was a
small high teacher's desk facing a squadron of long benches, two
high windows in the wall opposite.
It was fascinating and horrible to Ursula. The curious,
unliving light in the room changed her character. She thought it
was the rainy morning. Then she looked up again, because of the
horrid feeling of being shut in a rigid, inflexible air, away
from all feeling of the ordinary day; and she noticed that the
windows were of ribbed, suffused glass.
The prison was round her now! She looked at the walls, colour
washed, pale green and chocolate, at the large windows with
frowsy geraniums against the pale glass, at the long rows of
desks, arranged in a squadron, and dread filled her. This was a
new world, a new life, with which she was threatened. But still
excited, she climbed into her chair at her teacher's desk. It
was high, and her feet could not reach the ground, but must rest
on the step. Lifted up there, off the ground, she was in office.
How queer, how queer it all was! How different it was from the
mist of rain blowing over Cossethay. As she thought of her own
village, a spasm of yearning crossed her, it seemed so far off,
so lost to her.