Miss Sharp

“ Miss Smythe came up to know what the fuss was about; and she promptly added her word to the condemnation of Barbara Berkeley.
‘What do you mean by touching anybody else’s work, you naughty little girl?’ she said sharply. ‘You are more trouble than anybody else in the school, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
Barbara did not look at all ashamed of herself. She never did when people were cross with her. Mary Wells had the grace to come to her assistance.
‘Please, Miss Smythe,’ she said, swallowing her mortification at the ravages in the head-flannel, ‘it was my fault as well. ”

“ Miss Finlayson still had hold of her hand, and still looked down at her with the mixture of expressions on her face.
‘Are you coming up to prayers, Babs?’ was all she said.
Barbara had not even heard the question. She was full of her grievance against Jean Murray, which she had almost forgotten for the minute; and she burst out again, more angrily than before.
‘Don’t you understand?’ she cried passionately. ‘I wasn’t crying for that; it–it was something else, but I can’t tell you what it was, because you’d only laugh. They all laugh–except when they’re just being horrible! ”

“ I said, as we strolled back from the little dépôt.
“I doubt it,” answered Sara. “He is the kind that goes in ankle deep, and then hesitates over the final plunge. But probably all the rest of his life he will cherish the delusion that he had only to speak, and he will intimate as much to his cronies over a temperate and confidential glass of whisky on winter nights.”
“After all, Miss Sharp is worth twenty Professors. How silently and even smilingly she bore her fate! Iris, now, pouted openly over the Captain’s desertion.” ”

“ Barbara flashed round upon her suddenly. ‘What’s the matter with my bringing-up?’ she demanded in a breathless voice. ‘My father brought me up, and no one in the whole world could have brought me up better than he has.’
‘That accounts for it,’ scoffed Jean. ‘Fathers can’t bring anybody up, especially girls. I’ve heard mother say so, lots of times.’
Barbara’s eyes were glittering brightly. ‘My father can,’ she answered swiftly. ‘My father isn’t like other people’s fathers. You shouldn’t judge my father by your father. ”

“ Mrs. Sharp.
You’re a man. You have the best of it and all the credit.
Norah.
People don’t know. You mustn’t blame them. It’s only those who’ve lived out on the prairie who know that the hardships of opening up a new country fall on the women. But the men who are their husbands, they know.
Marsh.
I guess they do, Mrs. Sharp.
[Norah, on her knees beside her, strokes Mrs. Sharp’s hands. Mrs. Sharp gives her a grateful smile.]
Mrs. Sharp.
Thank you for speaking kindly to me, my dear. I’m that nervous, I hardly know what I’m saying.
Norah.
Sid and Frank will be here in a minute, surely. ”

“ Sharp’s office. The principal chanced to be 71 disengaged, and welcomed her kindly. Besides, Mr. Sharp, like the other teachers, was fond of Laura Belding. Without being a “toady”—that creature so hateful to the normal young person—Laura was very good friends with all the instructors.
“Mr. Sharp,” said the girl, boldly, “one of my classmates is in trouble—serious trouble. You know whom I mean—Miss Hargrew.”
Mr. Sharp nodded thoughtfully.
“I want you to be just as kind to her as you can, sir,” went on Laura. “She is a good girl, if she is mischievous. ”

“ Katharine paid no heed; her eyes were fixed feverishly on her father's face.
"Ted is ill, and he wants me. You will let me go, daddy, won't you?" she said imploringly.
"I beg you to assert your authority, Cyril, by forbidding such a mad piece of folly," cried 337 the shrill tones of Miss Esther. Katharine turned upon her furiously.
"You, what can you know about it? You have never known what it is to want to protect some one; you don't know the awful emptiness of having no one to care for. Daddy! you understand, don't you? I may go, mayn't I?"
The Rector glanced from one to the other. ”

“ Her manner is never like a person of the lower classes, trying to show she thinks she is an equal. It has exactly the right note—perfectly respectful as one who is employed, but with the serene unselfconsciousness that only breeding gives.53 Shades of manner are very interesting to watch. Somehow I know that Miss Sharp, in her washed cotton, with her red little hands, is a lady.
I have not seen my dear Duchesse lately—she has been down to one of her country places—where she sends her convalescents, but she is returning soon. She gives me pleasure—. ”

“ I was afraid, you see, that you might think the world was not a nice place to be in.’
‘I’m glad you spoiled me, and I think the world is a nice place to be in,’ answered Jill, laughing. ‘But what has that to do with Barbara’s not liking me?’
‘Well, you can’t expect every one to like you,’ said the old lady, in her brusque way. ‘Babs will like you well enough when she finds that she is still the Babe of the family, in spite of your being there.’
‘But–but I don’t like to feel that there is anybody anywhere who doesn’t like me,’ complained Jill, with a little pout. ”

“ Mothers only sit and look on, and send the ones to bed that can’t agree,’ said Angela, with an air of experience.
‘I don’t advise you to be a mother, Babe,’ added Jean, earnestly. ‘You’ll have to mend such a lot of socks, and p’r’aps make babies’ clothes too; and you’ve been a whole term getting round the hem of one flannel petticoat, as it is.’
‘You can get things ready-made,’ answered Barbara, but her tone did not sound hopeful. She had to own sadly to herself that she was not cut out for a mother, and she fell back on the more practical futures of other people. ”

“ He spoke in the bantering tone that was so familiar to her.
"Oh, a woman is dogged by detectives from her cradle, mostly drawn from the ranks of her own sex. It is a compliment we pay ourselves, in one sense. We dare not inquire into the private life of a man, because of the iniquities he is supposed to practise; but there is so little scandal attached to a woman's name, that we are anxious not to miss any of it." She laughed at her small attempt to be frivolous, and Paul brightened considerably. He could understand her when she was in this mood, and his peace of mind was undisturbed by it. ”

“ What do you say to that?’
‘I think it will be beautiful; but it’s a very long time to wait,’ sighed Barbara. ‘When do you think I shall be quite grown up? Jill is grown up, and she is eighteen. Shall I be grown up when I am eighteen?’
‘We will wait and see,’ said Miss Finlayson, but somehow her tone was not encouraging. ‘Meanwhile,’ she went on, patting the hand that was fearlessly lying in hers, ‘supposing we make a bargain that neither of us will read your father’s book until we can read it together? ”

“ Ruth turned a little red from sheer nervousness; and the girls immediately decided that she was afraid of the youngest child in the school, and began to giggle with one accord. 130 Barbara sighed again at this new interruption; and raising herself on her knees, she sat back on her heels.
‘Oh, it’s you!’ she observed, shaking the hair out of her eyes. ‘Why didn’t you say so? I thought it was just some one who wanted to bother.’
‘You’ve got to go and see the doctor in Finny’s study. ”

“ Any stupid idiot can put on a white satin dress, miles long, and grin at Queen Victoria. I want to be clever like father, and get a degree at college, and lecture to thousands and thousands of people, and––’
‘Oh, don’t be like that, Jean,’ interrupted Barbara, earnestly. ‘If you’re going to give lectures you’ll have to go away from all your children, for months and months and months, and leave them to break all their legs, all by themselves, and–oh, it is so horrible to break your leg all by yourself!’
‘Poor dear,’ said Angela, ready as usual with a tearful and demonstrative sympathy. ”

“ For Miss Esther was one of those women who reserve the best side of their nature for the people who have no real claim upon them; and she took little interest in any one who was neither poor nor afflicted. The unpractical temperament of the Rector both astonished and chafed her, and she had nothing but a fretful endurance for her high-spirited niece, in whom a natural longing for action and an inordinate sense of humour were fast producing a spirit of revolt and cynicism. ”

“ So, just after tea, on her last evening at Crofts, the child swallowed her natural distrust of her cousin, which, after all, had arisen chiefly from their mutual shyness of each other, and started in search of her.
Jill was in the conservatory, arranging the flowers for the dinner-table; and Barbara’s shyness returned, as the trim, neat figure came walking towards her, along the rows of chrysanthemums. She glanced down at her crumpled pinafore and sighed desperately. ”

“ The truth was that her new pose of friendliness was making her feel unpleasantly self-conscious; and she was afraid of being laughed at by the big girls for having so meekly accepted her late enemy for a friend. The big girls, of course, worried themselves so little about the petty quarrels of the junior playroom, that they had no more intention of laughing at her than Barbara had; but it was impossible for so important a person as Jean Murray to realise that. So she gave a guilty start when Barbara, heated, aggrieved, and bubbling over with resentment, suddenly pounced upon her in her corner. ”

“ Suzette came in just as I wrote that; she seldom turns up in the afternoon. She caught sight of Miss Sharp typing through the open door.
"Tiens!" she spit at me—"Since when?"
"I am writing a book, Suzette."
"I must see her face," and without waiting for permission, Suzette flounced into the small salon.
I could hear her shrill little voice asking Miss Sharp to be so good as to give her an envelope—She must51 write an address! I watched her—Miss Sharp handed her one, and went on with her work. ”

“ Crofton of Crofts smiled, and her brother pulled his daughter down between them on the sofa.
‘You must forgive her appearance,’ he said apologetically. ‘We haven’t anybody to teach us to be ladylike, have we, Babs?’
The old lady put her finger under Barbara’s chin, and turned the small face round, and looked into it keenly. ‘What’s the matter with her appearance?’ she inquired quickly. ‘Don’t be a goose, Everard! Now, child, tell me! ”

“ I became stern, then, as I had earlier become with Suzette, and made Coralie understand that I would have no interference from anyone. I frightened her—and presently she left me more attracted than she has ever been—. As I said before, women are amazing creatures.
144 XII
On Wednesday morning I received a reply from Maurice at Deauville—he hastened to answer he said—He had heard of Miss Sharp through a man in the American Red Cross, where Miss Sharp had been employed. ”

“ Barbara was speechless with rapture. The expression on her face made them laugh once more. Then she gave a kind of war-whoop that might have been heard in the schoolroom, and bounded again towards the door. ‘I simply can’t bear it another minute,’ she gasped. ‘I must go and tell the boys.’
‘Bear it just one more minute, and hear what else I have to say,’ begged Auntie Anna, 30 raising herself with the help of her stick, and walking slowly after her excited little niece. ‘Can you ride bicycles, all of you?’
The child shook her head. ‘Only Egbert,’ she said ”

“ Jean glanced round at Angela, and Angela immediately put her hand to her head and sighed heavily. She had been doing this for some minutes without making any effect upon Barbara, although Barbara had been the first to notice that there was something unusual in her behaviour. That was so like Babs! She was always the first to notice anything, but she had such an unsatisfactory way of passing it over, whatever it was, that it was no advantage to anybody unless some one else noticed it too. ”

“ Poor Jill!’
‘That’s what Wilfred says,’ cried Peter, all ready as usual for mischief. ‘He says Jill has got to be saved from him, or else––’
‘Jill saved?’ echoed Kit, scornfully. ‘As if she needed any saving from that idiot!’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ objected Wilfred, shaking his head. ‘Girls are so rum. Look at Merton major’s aunt––’
‘She isn’t a girl, she’s an aunt!’ interrupted Christopher. ”

“ Paul looked at her critically.
"Are you sure?" he asked, smiling.
Katharine folded and unfolded her hands uneasily, and wished he would go away and remove his disquieting presence from her life for ever.
"Oh, yes," she said. "One is always sorry when people are unhappy, of course."
"Only that?" His voice had a touch of disappointment in it, and she began to tremble for her composure. He got up and walked to the window and looked across the lawn, where the wintry sun was struggling through the bare branches of the elm trees and making faint intricate patterns on the whitened grass below. ”

“ For, to do her credit, Miss Esther never wasted her time in reproaches when there was really something to be done; and in the bustle that followed, while the pony carriage was being filled with everything that could be of use in case of an accident, Katharine found herself left in the hall, with the intolerable feeling of being neglected, and burning with curiosity as to the cause of it all.
"Daddy, daddy, what is it? Is any one hurt? Mayn't I come too?" she pleaded, as the Rector came out to look for his coat.
"Eh, what? Oh, a poor fellow broken his leg in the chalk pit. ”