Grant Allen

Miss Cayley's Adventures Grant Allen

On the day when I found myself with twopence in my pocket, I naturally made up my mind to goround the world. It was my stepfather's death that drove me to it. I had never seen my stepfather. Indeed, I nevereven thought of him as anything more than Colonel Watts-Morgan. I owed him nothing, except mypoverty. He married my dear mother when I was a girl at school in Switzerland; and he proceeded tospend her little fortune, left at her sole disposal by my father's will, in paying his gambling debts. After that, he carried my dear mother off to Burma; and when he and the climate between them hadsucceeded in killing her, he made up for his appropriations at the cheapest rate by allowing me justenough to send me to Girton. So, when the Colonel died, in the year I was leaving college, I did notthink it necessary to go into mourning for him. Especially as he chose the precise moment when myallowance was due, and bequeathed me nothing but his consolidated liabilities.'Of course you will teach, ' said Elsie Petheridge, when I explained my affairs to her. 'There is a gooddemand just now for high-school teachers.'I looked at her, aghast. 'Teach! Elsie, ' I cried. (I had come up to town to settle her in at herunfurnished lodgings.) 'Did you say teach? That's just like you dear good schoolmistresses! You go toCambridge, and get examined till the heart and life have been examined out of you; then you say toyourselves at the end of it all, "Let me see; what am I good for now? I'm just about fit to go awayand examine other people!" That's what our Principal would call "a vicious circle"-if one couldever admit there was anything vicious at all about you, dear. No, Elsie, I do not propose to teach. Nature did not cut me out for a high-school teacher. I couldn't swallow a poker if I tried for weeks. Pokers don't agree with me. Between ourselves, I am a bit of a rebel.''You are, Brownie, ' she answered, pausing in her papering, with her sleeves rolled up-they calledme 'Brownie, ' partly because of my dark complexion, but partly because they could neverunderstand me. 'We all knew that long ago.'I laid down the paste-brush and mused.'Do you remember, Elsie, ' I said, staring hard at the paper-board, ' when I first went to Girton, howall you girls wore your hair quite straight, in neat smooth coils, plaited up at the back about the sizeof a pancake; and how of a sudden I burst in upon you, like a tropical hurricane, and demoralisedyou; and how, after three days of me, some of the dear innocents began with awe to cut themselvesartless fringes, while others went out in fear and trembling and surreptitiously purchased a pair ofcurling-tongs? I was a bomb-shell in your midst in those days; why, you yourself were almost afraidat first to speak