blossom?”
Not a word was said of how the opening out of this estate might affect local incomes, increase Huggins’ opportunities for haulage contracts or rescue a moribund railway line in which Snaith was interested from ruin. It was Astell, the Socialist, who had no possible financial stake in the matter, who was first converted. Afterwards Huggins could have sworn that though it was Snaith who conceived the Leame Ferry Waste idea, it was Astell’s dogged persistence that carried it forward.
Snaith’s oar drove Huggins and Astell home.
Before he got out at Pidsea Buttock, Huggins remarked, “Clever chap, Snaith. Knows what he’s talking about.”
“Does he?” asked Astell.
“Eh, eh? Don’t you think so?”
“I hope it may be so.”
A trifle deflated, Huggins fell back upon consoling platitudes. “Well, well,” he yawned, agreeably fatigued, “God moves in a mysterious way.”
“God?” Huggins was too sleepy to catch the precise meaning of that inflection. “We have to . . . very mysteriously sometimes. But we move all right. We move . . .”
“Well, I get out here, I’m afraid. Good-night,” said Huggins.
7
Madame Hubbard Has Highly Talented Pupils
M ISS D OLORES J AMESON looked at Sarah Burton’s red hair bent over her time-tables, and smiled indulgently.
“These spinster school-marms,” she thought. “No wonder they stick to their job.”
As for Dolores, she had something better to do than to conjugate Latin verbs for ever. Amo, amas, amat. To hell with it. Ten more minutes and she’d be due to meet Pip.
If it had not been for Pip, of course, she’d be in Miss Burton’s place this very moment. Pip was Philip Pankhurst, a bank clerk who lived as paying guest with the Jameson family at Hardrascliffe. He was going to marry Dolores the moment he got his promotion, so she had not even put in for the headmistress-ship. Miss Burton was welcome to it. Plain, redheaded, managing. A typical school-marm. It made Dolores smile to think what Pip would say of her. Dear Pip. He thought Dolores wonderful with her temperament and her flashing eyes and her Spanish ancestry.
She lit one cigarette from another, pressing out the stub with slender brown-stained fingers, on which Philip’s moonstone glowed romantically.
“I see that Miss Sigglesthwaite had five periods with IIIa and seven with V Upper, but none at all with the Lower Fourth last term,” observed Sarah.
The two women sat together preparing time-tables in a bare distempered office as attractive as the average station waiting-room. It was a fortnight before the opening day of term.
“She can’t manage the Fourths,” said Dolores. “She’s quite hopeless. The usual Jonah. Not bad enough to be given the boot, and she’ll never resign because she’s at the top of the scale and no other place would take her.”
“I see. She can’t manage the Fourths, so these children only start science in the Fifths and their matriculation results are deplorable.” Sarah, who was tired and disliked her second mistress, sounded particularly brisk. “What’s your solution to the problem, Miss Jameson?”
“Well, I don’t know that you can exactly do anything,” said Dolores, who under Miss Holmes had proposed one identical solution for all problems during the past ten years. “What I always say is—the really important thing is to equip these girls for life. And most of them will go into shops, or become nursemaids, or help their mothers run lodging houses till they marry. So really, as long as they’ve been to the High School and can count as High School girls, I don’t see it matters so much what they do here. Speaking honestly as a woman , if you know what I mean.”
Sarah knew what she meant. She looked with disfavour at the sallow, elegant, lackadaisical classics mistress and wished heartily for the promotion of Philip Parkhurst. Poor Philip. Ten years if a day younger than his intended bride, and a poor little pip-squeak at
Not a word was said of how the opening out of this estate might affect local incomes, increase Huggins’ opportunities for haulage contracts or rescue a moribund railway line in which Snaith was interested from ruin. It was Astell, the Socialist, who had no possible financial stake in the matter, who was first converted. Afterwards Huggins could have sworn that though it was Snaith who conceived the Leame Ferry Waste idea, it was Astell’s dogged persistence that carried it forward.
Snaith’s oar drove Huggins and Astell home.
Before he got out at Pidsea Buttock, Huggins remarked, “Clever chap, Snaith. Knows what he’s talking about.”
“Does he?” asked Astell.
“Eh, eh? Don’t you think so?”
“I hope it may be so.”
A trifle deflated, Huggins fell back upon consoling platitudes. “Well, well,” he yawned, agreeably fatigued, “God moves in a mysterious way.”
“God?” Huggins was too sleepy to catch the precise meaning of that inflection. “We have to . . . very mysteriously sometimes. But we move all right. We move . . .”
“Well, I get out here, I’m afraid. Good-night,” said Huggins.
7
Madame Hubbard Has Highly Talented Pupils
M ISS D OLORES J AMESON looked at Sarah Burton’s red hair bent over her time-tables, and smiled indulgently.
“These spinster school-marms,” she thought. “No wonder they stick to their job.”
As for Dolores, she had something better to do than to conjugate Latin verbs for ever. Amo, amas, amat. To hell with it. Ten more minutes and she’d be due to meet Pip.
If it had not been for Pip, of course, she’d be in Miss Burton’s place this very moment. Pip was Philip Pankhurst, a bank clerk who lived as paying guest with the Jameson family at Hardrascliffe. He was going to marry Dolores the moment he got his promotion, so she had not even put in for the headmistress-ship. Miss Burton was welcome to it. Plain, redheaded, managing. A typical school-marm. It made Dolores smile to think what Pip would say of her. Dear Pip. He thought Dolores wonderful with her temperament and her flashing eyes and her Spanish ancestry.
She lit one cigarette from another, pressing out the stub with slender brown-stained fingers, on which Philip’s moonstone glowed romantically.
“I see that Miss Sigglesthwaite had five periods with IIIa and seven with V Upper, but none at all with the Lower Fourth last term,” observed Sarah.
The two women sat together preparing time-tables in a bare distempered office as attractive as the average station waiting-room. It was a fortnight before the opening day of term.
“She can’t manage the Fourths,” said Dolores. “She’s quite hopeless. The usual Jonah. Not bad enough to be given the boot, and she’ll never resign because she’s at the top of the scale and no other place would take her.”
“I see. She can’t manage the Fourths, so these children only start science in the Fifths and their matriculation results are deplorable.” Sarah, who was tired and disliked her second mistress, sounded particularly brisk. “What’s your solution to the problem, Miss Jameson?”
“Well, I don’t know that you can exactly do anything,” said Dolores, who under Miss Holmes had proposed one identical solution for all problems during the past ten years. “What I always say is—the really important thing is to equip these girls for life. And most of them will go into shops, or become nursemaids, or help their mothers run lodging houses till they marry. So really, as long as they’ve been to the High School and can count as High School girls, I don’t see it matters so much what they do here. Speaking honestly as a woman , if you know what I mean.”
Sarah knew what she meant. She looked with disfavour at the sallow, elegant, lackadaisical classics mistress and wished heartily for the promotion of Philip Parkhurst. Poor Philip. Ten years if a day younger than his intended bride, and a poor little pip-squeak at
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