It was not till I was well on in my first term, with all its novelties and distractions, that I became aware that there was an uneasiness in the atmosphere.
I have said very little so far of Mlle Cara, but she too was a pervading influence—the influence of an invalid. "Oh," the girls said at first, "she isn't strong enough to do much in the school. She just takes the little ones." But that was not every day: only on the days she felt well. On those days, the time-table was recklessly disregarded and everything had to give way—lessons, walks, practising, no matter what, went by the board. When the cry went up, "Les petites pour Mlle Cara!" there was a stampede and off they rushed. She had her own methods of flattering, cajoling and amusing them. But, I gathered, everyone was not so pleased. This irregularity was upsetting. Classes were disturbed. Mistresses who were off duty had to remain at hand, liable to be called upon at any moment, for it was not unusual for the little ones' French hour to end as abruptly as it had begun. They would steal out of her room with anxious faces. "The migraine!" they whispered. And sometimes, "She cried again to-day." On those days, Mlle Cara would not appear at meals and Mlle Julie, visibly anxious, would speak sharply or not at all, would hurry over dessert and give the signal for dismissing us almost before we had finished our last mouthful.
"What is the matter with Mlle Cara?" I asked Signorina.
"Nobody knows. For my part, I think nothing. When she chooses she's as well as anybody. Last holidays she didn't have a single migraine. There was nothing she wasn't up to—plays, concerts, walks. She was up and out all the time."
"Perhaps she overdid it."
"Perhaps. The very day Mlle Julie came back, so did the migraines."
"Does she have the doctor?"
"Sometimes. He doesn't seem to prescribe anything very definite. Sometimes a sleeping-draught. Mlle Julie always says, 'He tells me it's nothing.' But it worries her dreadfully all the same. For my part——"
"What, for your part?"
"She does it on purpose."
"On purpose for what?"
"To worry her. And then——"
"And then?"
"Frau Riesener——"
"Yes?"
"Encourages her."
"Why?"
"I know why——. But we've talked enough now. You must say your sonnet."
And I began:
Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare
La donna mia quand'ella altrui saluta
Ch'ogni lingua divien tremando, muta,
E gli occhi non l'ardiscon di guardare.
It was easy to learn that.
Whatever might be the reason, it was plain enough that Frau Riesener and Signorina detested each other. They were more or less the heads of rival factions—"the Cara-ites" and the "Julie-ites." Yes, that was it. The "Julie-ites" gravitated to Signorina and learnt Italian, the "Cara-ites" to Frau Riesener and learnt German.
"I've won my bet," said Nina one morning to Mimi. "It was a bet about you, Olivia."
"Oh, how exciting!"
"I'm sorry I've lost," said Mimi.
"Yes, the first minute I set eyes on you, I knew you'ld be a Julie-ite. I gave her a week, didn't I, Mimi?"
"Yes," answered Mimi gloomily. "You've won."
So I was a Julie-ite. I didn't much care for the appellation. But it was true that it hadn't taken me a week to make up my mind about our two heads. And yet Mlle Cara was extraordinarily kind. She would often invite me with Mimi and one or two others to have coffee in her cabinet de travail. She would call me by caressing names, she would talk to me about my dear Mamma and my little brothers and sisters, she would tell me she had heard I was so clever, and I must be an honour to the school. She would admire my clothes. She was all softness and sweetness, but she made me feel uncomfortable. After a time I dreaded the visits to the cabinet de travail. Mlle Cara's coaxings and wheedlings got on my nerves. One day she looked at me reproachfully and said:
"You don't like me, ma petite. Why is that? Haven't I been kind to you?"
"Oh, Mademoiselle," I cried, horrified, "of course you have. Very, very kind. I'm truly grateful."
"Go away!" she said brusquely. "Go down to the library, since that's what you prefer."
And then I knew it was true. I didn't like her. Better, oh, much better than Mlle Cara's cabinet de travail I liked the library, though there I was not flattered or coaxed, sometimes treated roughly, sometimes ignored, and sometimes again carried up into sublime heights of enthusiasm, excitement, rapture.
