I do not want to expel you, since you’ll be leaving the class after the Certificate … And, after all, you are not a mediocre pupil, though you are often a bad pupil, and I have no wish to deprive myself of you except as a last resort.
Put your hat back in its place.’
What that must have cost her!
She was still so shaken that her heartbeats made the pages of the exercise-book she was holding flutter.
I said:
‘Thank you, Mademoiselle,’ very modestly. Then, seated once more in my place beside the tall Anais, who was silent and a little frightened by the scene she had provoked, I thought with astonishment about the possible reasons which could have decided this vindictive Redhead to recall me.
Had she been afraid of the effect it might produce in the principal town of the district? Had she thought I should chatter at the top of my voice, that I should tell everything I knew (at least), all the irregularity in this school, the pawing of the big girls by the District Superintendent and his prolonged visits to our teachers? What about the way those two ladies frequently abandoned their classes in order to exchange endearments behind closed doors?
What about Mademoiselle Sergent’s decidedly broad taste in reading (Journal amusant, unsavoury Zolas and worse still) and the handsome, gallant assistant-master with the sentimental baritone who flirted with the girls who were taking their Certificate? Wasn’t there a whole heap of suspicious things the parents did not know about because the big ones who found the School amusing never told them and the little ones hadn’t got their eyes open?
Had she dreaded a semi-scandal which would gravely endanger her reputation and the future of the handsome School which was being built at considerable expense?
I believe so.
And moreover, now that my temper had cooled, like her own, I preferred to remain in this hole where I had more fun than anywhere else.
Feeling quite good again, I looked at Anais’s mottled cheek and whispered to her gaily:
‘Well, old thing? That keeping you warm?’
She had been so terrified of my expulsion, since I could have accused her of being the cause of it, that she bore me no resentment.
‘I should just think it is keeping me warm!
You’ve got a jolly heavy hand, you know!
You must be crazy to fly into a rage like that.’
‘Come on, let’s forget it.
I think I must have had a rather violent nervous twitch in my right arm.’
Somehow or other, she managed to rub out the ‘belt’ of her decanter and I finished off mine. Mademoiselle Aimee corrected our drawings with feverish, shaky fingers.
This morning I found the playground empty – or very nearly.
On the staircase of the Infants’ School, a great deal of talking was going on; voices were calling to each other and shrieking:
‘Do be careful!’ –
‘Gosh, it’s heavy!’
I rushed up.
‘What’s everyone doing?’
‘You can see for yourself,’ said Anais. ‘We’re helping their ladyships to move out of here and go into the new building.’
‘Quick, give me something to carry!’
‘There’s plenty of stuff up there – go and find some.’
I went upstairs into the Headmistress’s room, the room where I had spied at the door. I was inside it at last!
Her old peasant mother, her starched cap all askew, entrusted me and Marie Belhomme with carrying down a big hamper containing all her daughter’s toilet things.
She does herself well, the Redhead!
Her dressing-table was furnished with every conceivable object: large and small cut-glass bottles, nail-buffers, scent-sprays, tweezers and powder-puffs. There was also a huge washbasin and jug. All those weren’t at all the typical toilet accessories of country schoolmistresses.
To be sure of this, one had only to look at Mademoiselle Aimee’s toilet things, as well as those belonging to that pale, silent Griset, which we transported afterwards – a basin, a water-jug of very modest dimensions, a little round mirror, a toothbrush, some soap, and that was all.
Nevertheless, that little Aimee was very smartly dressed, especially these last few weeks, all bedizened and scented.
How did she manage it?
Five minutes later, I noticed that the bottom of her water-jug was dusty.
Good; that problem was solved.
The new building, which contained three classrooms and a dormitory on the first floor, together with the assistant-mistresses’ little rooms, was still too chilly for my taste, and smelt disagreeably of plaster.
Between the two, they were erecting the main municipal building which would comprise the Town Hall on the ground floor and various private apartments on the first and would link up the two wings already completed.
As I was coming downstairs again, I had the marvellous idea of climbing the scaffolding, as the builders were still at lunch.
In a moment I had skimmed up a ladder and was wandering about among the ‘scaffolds’ and thoroughly enjoying myself.
Bother! There were the workmen coming back!
I hid behind a piece of masonry, waiting for a chance to climb down again, but they were already on the ladder.
Well, those two wouldn’t give me away, even if they did see me.
I knew both of them well by sight.
They lit their pipes and began to chat.
‘You can bet your boots, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that one.’
‘Which one d’you mean?’
‘That there new teacher what came yesterday.’