The Rebel of the School, L. T. Meade [best historical biographies .txt] 📗

your grandfather. You have got to make yourself useful, and not to have ideas beyond your station."

"Here are the sausages, granny," answered Ruth in a gentle tone.

The old lady took them from her and disappeared into the kitchen.

"Ruth—Ruth!" said a somewhat querulous but very deep voice which evidently issued from the parlor.

"Yes, granddad; coming in a moment or two," Ruth replied. She ran up the tiny stairs, and entered her own little bedroom, which was so wee that she could scarcely turn round in it, but was extremely neat.

Ruth removed her hat, brushed out her black hair, saw that her dress, shabby as it was, was in apple-pie order, put on a neat white apron, and ran downstairs. She first of all entered the parlor. A handsome old man, with a decided look of Ruth herself, was seated by the fire. He was holding out his thin, knuckly hands to the blaze. As Ruth came in he turned and smiled at her.

"Ah, deary!" he said, "I have been missing you all day. And how did you like your school? And how is everything?"

"I will tell you after supper, grandfather. I must go and help granny now."

"That's right; that's a good girl. Oh! far be it from me to be impatient; I wouldn't be for all the world. Your granny has missed you too to-day."

Ruth smiled at him and went into the kitchen. There were eager voices and sounds of people hurrying about, and then a fragrant smell of fried sausages. A moment later Ruth appeared, holding a brightly trimmed lamp in her hand; she laid it on a little centre-table, drew down the blinds, pulled the red curtains across the windows, poked up the fire, and then proceeded to lay the cloth for supper. Her pile of books, which she had brought in her satchel, lay on a chair.

"I can have a look at your books while I am waiting, can't I, little woman?" said the old man.

Ruth brought him over the pack of books somewhat unwillingly. He gave a sigh of contentment, drew the lamp a little nearer, and was lost for the time being.

"Now, child," said old Mrs. Craven, "you heat that plate by the fire. Have you got the pepper and salt handy? Sausages ain't worth touching unless you eat them piping hot. Your grandfather wants his beer. Dear, dear! What a worry that is! I never knew that the cask was empty. What is to be done?"

"I can go round to the shop and bring in a quart," said Ruth.

"But you—a member of the Shirley School! No, you mustn't. I'll do it."

"Nonsense, granny! I'll leave school to-morrow if you don't let me work for you just the same as ever."

Mrs. Craven sank into her chair.

"You are a good child," she said. "All day I have been so fretting that we were taking you out of your station; and that is a sad mistake—sad and terrible. But you are a good child. Yes, go for it, dear; it won't do you any harm."

Ruth wrapped an old shawl round her head, picked up a jug, and went off to the nearest public-house. They were accustomed to see her there, for old Mr. Craven more often than not had his little cask of beer empty. She went to a side entrance, where a woman she knew served her with what she required.

"There, Ruth Craven," she said—"there it is. But, all the same, I'm surprised to see you here to-night."

"But why so?" asked Ruth.

"Isn't it true that you are one of the Shirley scholars now?"

"I am; I joined the school to-day."

"And yet you come to fetch beer for your old grandfather!"

"I do," said Ruth, with spirit. "And I shall fetch it for him as long as he wants it. Thank you very much."

She took the jug and walked carefully back to the cottage.

"She's the handsomest, most spirited, best little thing I ever met," thought the landlady of the "Lion," and she began to consider in her own mind if one of her men could not call round in the morning and leave the necessary beer at the Cravens'.

Supper was served, and was eaten with considerable relish by all three.

"Now," said old granny when the meal had come to an end, "you stay and talk to your grandfather—he is all agog to hear what you have got to say—and I will wash up. Now then, child, don't you worry. It isn't everybody who has got loving grandparents like us."

"And it isn't many old bodies who have got such a dear little granddaughter," said the old man, smiling at Ruth.

Mrs. Craven carried the supper things into the kitchen, and Ruth sat close to her grandfather.

"Now, tell me, child, tell me," he said. "What did they do? What class did they put you into?"

"I am in the third remove; a very good class indeed—at least they all said so, grandfather."

"I don't understand your modern names; but tell me what you have got to learn, dear. What sort of lessons are they going to put into that smart little head of yours?"

"Oh, all the best things, grandfather—French, German, English in all its branches, music, and Latin if I like. I am determined to take up Latin; I want to get to the heart of things."

"Quite right—quite right, too. And you are ever so pleased at having got in?"

"It does seem a grand thing for me, doesn't it, grandfather?"

"Most of the girls are ladies, aren't they?"

"It is a big school—between three and four hundred girls. I don't suppose they are all ladies."

"Well, you are, anyhow, my little Ruth."

"Am I, granddad? That is the question."

"What do you think yourself?"

"I think so; but what does the world say?"

"Ruth, I never told you, but your mother was a lady. You know what your father was. I saved and stinted and toiled and got him a commission in the army. He died, poor fellow, shortly after you were born. But he was a commissioned officer in the Punjab Infantry. Your mother was a governess, but she was a lady by birth; her father was a clergyman. Your parents met in India; they fell in love, and married. Your mother died at your birth, and you came home to us. Yes, child, by birth you are a lady, as good as any of them—as good as the best."

"They are dead," said Ruth. "I don't remember them. I have a picture of my father upstairs; it is taken with his uniform on. He looks very handsome. And I have a little water-color sketch of my mother, and she looks fair and sweet and interesting. But I never knew them. Those I knew and know and love are you, grandfather, and granny."

"Well, dear, when I had the power and the brains and the strength, I kept a shop—a grocer's shop, dear; and my wife, she was the daughter of a harness-maker. Your grandparents were both in trade; there's no way out of it."

"But a gentleman and lady for all that," said the girl.

She pressed close to the old man, took one of his weather-beaten hands between both of her own, and stroked it.

"That is as people think, Ruthie; but we weren't in the position, and never expect to be, of those who are high up in the world."

"I am glad you told me about my father and mother," said the girl. "I love both their memories. I am glad to think that my father served the Queen, and that my mother was the daughter of a clergyman. But I am more glad to think that there never was such an honorable man as you, granddad, and that you made the grocery trade one of the best in the world."

"It was a bad trade, my darling. I had several severe losses. It was very unfortunate my lending that money."

"What money?"

"Oh, I will tell you another time; it doesn't really matter. There was a little bit of ingratitude there, but it doesn't matter. Only I made no fortune by grocery—barely enough to put my boy into the army and to educate him for it, and enough to keep us with a pittance now that we are old. But I have nothing to leave you, sweetest. You just have your pension from the Government, which don't count for nothing at all."

Ruth rose to her feet.

"I am glad I got into the school," she said. "I hope to do wonders there. I mean to take every scrap of good the place opens out to me. I mean to work as hard as ever I can. You shall be desperately proud of me; and so shall granny, although she doesn't hold with much learning."

"But I do, little girl; I love it more than anything. I have got such a lovely scheme in my head. I will work alongside of you, Ruth—you and I at the same things. You can lend me the books when you don't want them."

"What a splendid idea!" said Ruth, clapping her hands.

"You look quite happy, my dear."

"And so I am. I am about the happiest girl on earth. And now, may I begin to look through my lessons for to-morrow?"

The old man arranged the lamp where its light would be most comfortable for the keen young eyes, and Ruth sat down to the table, got out her books, and worked for an hour or two. Mrs. Craven came in, looked at her proudly, wagged her head, and returned to the kitchen. After a time she came to the door and beckoned to the old man to follow her. But the old man had taken up one of Ruth's books and was absorbed in its contents; he was muttering words over under his breath.

"Coming, wife—coming presently," he said.

Ruth's head was bent over her books. Mr. Craven rose and went on tiptoe into the kitchen.

"We mustn't disturb her, Susan," he said. "We must let her have her own way. She must work just as long as she likes. She is going to be a great power in the land, is that child, with her beauty and her talent; there's nothing she can't aspire to."

"Now don't you be a silly old man," said Mrs. Craven. "And what on earth were you whispering about to yourself when I came in?"

"I am going to work with her. It will be a wonderful stimulation, and a great interest to me. I always was keen for book-learning."

Mrs. Craven suppressed a sigh.

"If I even had fifty pounds," she said, "I wouldn't let that child spend every hour at school. I'd dress up smart, and take her out, and get her the very best husband I could. Why, old man, what does a woman want with all that learning?"

"If a woman has brains she's bound to use them," replied the old man, as he sat down by the kitchen fire.

Meanwhile Ruth went on with her lessons. After a time, however, she uttered a sigh. She flung down her books and looked across the room.

"If he only knew," she said under her breath—"if he only knew that I was practically sent to Coventry—that none of the nice girls will speak to me. But never mind; I won't tell him. Nothing would induce me to trouble him on the subject."

CHAPTER II. HIGH LIFE AND LOW LIFE.

Amongst the many girls who attended the Great Shirley School was one who was known by the name of Cassandra Weldon. She was rapidly approaching the proud position of head girl in the school. She had entered the Shirley School when quite a little child, had gone steadily up through the different classes and the various removes, until she found herself nearly at the head of the sixth form. She was about to try for a sixty-pound scholarship, renewable for three years; if she got it she would go to Holloway College, and eventually support herself and her mother. Mrs. Weldon was the widow of a man who in his time had a very successful school for boys, and she herself had been a teacher long ago in the Great Shirley School. Cassandra and her mother, therefore, were from the very first surrounded by scholarship; they belonged, so to speak, to the scholastic world.

Mrs. Weldon could scarcely talk of anything else. Evening after evening she would question her daughter eagerly with regard to this accomplishment and the other, to this change or that, to this chance which Cassandra might have and to the other. The