06 - My School Days by E. Nesbit

In this enchanting memoir, the author takes us on a nostalgic journey through her school days, originally serialized in The Girls Own Paper from October 1896 to September 1897. Filled with heartfelt stories about beloved teachers, cherished friends, and the childhood fears that lingered into adulthood, this account also offers a vibrant depiction of the most memorable summer of her youth. Summary by Cori Samuel.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part six of My School Days by e Nesbitt. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part six She
was the most beautiful person in the world. She had
brown eyes and pink cheeks, a blue silk dress, and
a white bonnet with orange blossoms in it. She had

(00:23):
two pairs of shoes and two pairs of stockings, and
she had two wigs, a brown and a flaxen one.
All her clothes took off and on, and there was
a complete change of them. I saw her first at
a bazaar and longed to possess her, but her price
was two guineas, and no hope mingled with my longing.

(00:46):
Here let me make a confession. I had never really
loved a doll. My affections up to that time had
been lavished on a black and white spotted penny rabbit
bought at a Kentish fare. But when I saw Renee,
it seemed to me that if I could love a doll,
this would be the one. We were at Powell, then

(01:08):
in a select boarding house. I was bored with travel,
as I believe all children are so large. A part
of a child's life is made up of little, familiar
playthings and objects. It has little of that historic and
artistic sense which lends color and delight to travel. I
was tired of wandering about, and glad to think we

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were to stay in power for the winter. The bazaar
pleased me. It was got up by the English residents,
and their fancy work was the fancy work of the
church bazaars in England, and I felt at home among it.
And when my eyes rested on Renee, I saw the
most delightful object I had seen for many weeks. I
looked and longed, and longed and looked, and then suddenly,

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in a moment, one of the great good fortunes of
my life happened to me. The beautiful doll was put
up to be raffled, and my sister won her. I
trembled with joy as she and her wardrobe were put
into my hands. I took her home. I'd dressed and
undressed her twenty times a day. I made her play

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the part of heroine in all my favorite stories. I
told her fairy tales and took her to bed with
me at night for company. But I never loved her.
I have never been able to love a doll in
my life. My mother came to me the next day
as I was changing Renee's wig, and said, don't you

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think it's almost time that you began to have some
lessons again. I don't want my little girl to grow
up quite ignorant. You wouldn't like that yourself, would you.
I don't know, I said, doubtfully, feeling that ignorance in
a grown up state was surely to be preferred to
a return to Stamford and Long Division. I'm not going

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to send you to school, my mother hastened to add, doubtless,
seeing the clouds that gathered in my face. I know
a French lady here who has a little girl about
your age, and she says that you can go and
live with her for a little while and learn French.
She a nice little girl, I asked, what is she like. Well,

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she's rather like your new doll, my mother laughed. When
it has the flaxen wig gone. Think how nice it
will be to write letters home in French. I knew
miss hum could not write letters in French, and the
prospect of crushing her with my new literary attainment filled
my wicked little heart. I should like to go and

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live with a little girl who is like my new Dolly,
I said, if you will come and see me every day.
So I went, my doll's clothes packed in their little
tin trunk, and I stood stealing shy side glances at Marguerite,
who was certainly very like my doll, while my mother
and her mother were exchanging lasts of I was so

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pleased with the new surroundings, the very French interior, the
excitement of being received as a member by a real
French family, that I forgot to cry till the wheels
of my mother's carriage had rolled away from the door.
Then I was left a little English child without a
word of French, in the bosom of a French family.

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And as this came upon me, I burst into a
flood of tears. Madame Lord could speak no English, but
she knew the universal language, the language of love and kindness.
She drew me to her ample lap, wiped my eyes,
smiled at me, and chattered volubly in her own tongue,
words whose sense was dead to me, but whose tone

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breathed of tenderness and sympathy. By the time Mademoiselle Lord,
the only English speaking member of the family, came home
from her daily round of teaching, Marguerite and I were
unpacking my doll's clothes together and were laughing at our
vain efforts to understand each other. I learned French in
three months. All day I was with Madame Lord or Marguerite,

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neither of whom knew a word of English. It was
French or silence, and any healthy child would have chosen
French as I did. They were three happy months. I
adored Marguerite, who was I think the typical good child
of the French story books. She wore her hair in
a little yellow plait down her back. I do not

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think we ever got into wilful mischief. For instance, our
starving the cat was quite unintentional. We were playing bandits
in a sort of cellar that opened from the triangular
courtyard in front of the house, and it occurred to
us that Mimi would make an excellent captive princess. So
we caught her and put her in a hamper at
the end of the cellar, And when my mother called

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to take us home to tea with her, we rushed
off and left the poor princess still a prisoner. If
we hadn't been out that evening, we must have been
reminded of her existence by the search for her. But
Madame Lorde, failing to find the cat, concluded that she
must have run away or met with an accident, and
did not mention the matter to us out of consideration

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for our feelings, so that it was not until two
nights later that I started up in bed about midnight
and pulled Marguerite's yellow pigtail wildly. Oh, Marguerite, I cried,
poor Mimi. I had to pull at the pigtail as
though it was a bell rope, and I had pulled
three times before I could get Marguerite to understand what

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was the matter with me. Then she sat up in bed,
rigid with a great purpose. We must go down and
fetch her, she said. It was winter, the snow was
on the ground. Marguerite thoughtfully put on her shoes and
her dressing gown. But I, with some vague recollection of
barefooted pilgrims and some wild desire to make expiation for

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my crime, went down barefooted in my night gown. The
crime of forgetting a cat for three days was well
paid for by that expedition. We crept through the house
like little shivering mice, across the courtyard thinly sprinkled with snow,
and into that awful, black, yawning cellar, where nameless horrors

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lurked behind each bit of shapeless lumber, ready to leap
out upon us. As we passed. Marguerite did not share
my terrors. She only remarked that it was very cold,
and that we must make haste. We opened the hamper,
fully expecting to find the captive dead, and my heart
gave a leap of delight when as we raised the lid,

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the large white Mimi crept out and began to rub
herself against us with joyous purrings. I remember so well
the feeling of her soft, warm fur against my cold
little legs. I caught the cat in my arms, and
as I turned to go back to the hat, my
half frozen foot struck against something on the floor. It

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felt silky. I picked it up. It was Renee. She
had also been a captive princess in our game of bandits.
She also had been shut up here all this time,
and I had never missed her. We took the cat
and the doll back to bed with us and tried
to get warm again. Marguerite was soon asleep, but I

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lay awake for a long time kissing and crying over
the ill used cat. I didn't get up again for
a fortnight. My barefooted pilgrimage cost me a frightful cold
and the loss of several children's parties to which we
had been invited. Marguerite, throughout my illness, behaved like an angel.

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I only remember one occasion on which I quarreled with her.
It was on the subject of dress. We were going
to a children's party and my best blue silk was
put out for me to wear. I wish you wouldn't
wear that, said Marguerite, hesitatingly. It makes my gray cashmere
look so old. Now I had nothing else to wear

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but a brown frock, which I hated. Never Mind, I said, hypocritically,
It's better to be good than smart. Everybody says so,
and I put on my blue silk. When I was dressed,
I pranced off to the kitchen to show my finery
to the cook, and, under her admiring eyes, executed my
best curtsey. It began, of course, by drawing the right

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foot back. It ended in a tub of clothes and
water that was standing just behind me. I floundered out somehow,
and my first thought was how funny, I must have looked,
and in another moment I should have burst out laughing.
But as I scrambled out, I saw Marguerite in the doorway,
smiling triumphantly, and heard her thin little voice say the

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blue silk can't mock the poor gray cashmere. Now, an
impulse of blind fury came upon me. I caught Marguerite
by her little shoulders, and before the cook could interfere,
I had ducked her head first into the tub of linen.
Madame lord behaved beautifully. She appeared on the scene at
this moment, and impartial as ever. She slapped us both,

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But when she heard from the cook the rights of
the story, my sentence was bed. But Marguerite said her
mother has been punished enough for an unkind word. And
Marguerite was indeed sobbing bitterly, while I was dry eyed
and still furious. She can't go, I cried, She hasn't

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got a dress. You have spoilt her dress, said Madame
Lorde coolly. The least you can do is to lend
her your brown one. And that excellent woman actually had
the courage to send her own daughter to a party
in my dress. An exquisite punishment to us both. Marguerite

(11:00):
came to my bedside that night. She had taken off
the brown dress and wore her little flannel dressing gown.
You're not cross, now, are you, she said. I did
beg mother to let you come, and I've not enjoyed
myself a bit, and I've brought you this from the party.
It was a beautiful little model of a coffee mill,
made in sugar. My resentment could not withstand this peace offering.

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I never quarreled with Marguerite again, And when my mother
sent for me to join her at Bannuy, I wept
as bitterly at leaving Madame Lord as I had done
at being left with her. Cheer up, my darling, my cabbage,
said the dear woman, as the tears stood in her
own little gray eyes. I have an instinct, a presentiment,

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which tells me we shall meet again, but we never have.
End of Part six.