"the gentlemen, and especially the younger and more tender of the pupils, will have the advantage of the constant superintendence and affectionate care of miss zoe birch, sister of the principal: whose dearest aim will be to supply (as far as may be) the absent maternal friend."—prospectus of rodwell regis school.
this is all very fine in the doctor's circulars, and miss zoe birch—(a sweet birch blossom it is, fifty-five years old, during two score of which she has dosed herself with pills; with a nose as red and a face as sour as a crab-apple)—may do mighty well in a prospectus. but i should like to know who would take miss zoe for a mother, or would have her for one?
the only persons in the house who are not afraid of her are miss flora and i—no, i am afraid of her, though i do know the story about the french usher in 1830—but all the rest tremble before the woman, from the doctor down to poor francis the knife-boy, and whom she bullies into his miserable blacking-hole.
the doctor is a pompous and outwardly severe man—but inwardly weak and easy: loving a joke and a glass of port wine. i get on with him, therefore, much better than mr. prince, who scorns him for an ass, and under whose keen eyes the worthy doctor writhes like a convicted impostor; and many a sunshiny afternoon would he have said, "mr. t., sir, shall we try another glass of that yellow sealed wine which you seem to like?" (and which he likes even better than i do), had not the old harridan of a zoe been down upon us, and insisted on turning me out with her miserable weak coffee. she a mother indeed! a sour milk generation she would have nursed. she is always croaking, scolding, bullying,—yowling at the housemaids, snarling at miss raby, bowwowing after the little boys, barking after the big ones. she knows how much every boy eats to an ounce; and her delight is to ply with fat the little ones who can't bear it, and with raw meat those who hate underdone. it was she who caused the doctor to be eaten out three times; and nearly created a rebellion in the school because she insisted on his flogging goliah longman.
the only time that woman is happy is when she comes in of a morning to the little boys' dormitories with a cup of hot epsom salts, and a sippet of bread. boo!—the very notion makes me quiver. she stands over them. i saw her do it to young byles only a few days since—and her presence makes the abomination doubly abominable.
as for attending them in real illness, do you suppose that she would watch a single night for any one of them? not she. when poor little charley davison (that child, a lock of whose soft hair i have said how miss raby still keeps) lay ill of scarlet fever in the holidays—for the colonel, the father of these boys, was in india—it was anne raby who tended the child, who watched him all through the fever, who never left him while it lasted, or until she had closed the little eyes that were never to brighten or moisten more. anny watched and deplored him, but it was miss birch who wrote the letter announcing his demise, and got the gold chain and locket which the colonel ordered as a memento of his gratitude. it was through a row with miss birch that frank davison ran away. i promise you that after he joined his regiment in india, the ahmednuggar irregulars, which his gallant father commands, there came over no more annual shawls and presents to dr. and miss birch, and that if she fancied the colonel was coming home to marry her (on account of her tenderness to his motherless children, which he was always writing about), that notion was very soon given up. but these affairs are of early date, seven years back, and i only heard of them in a very confused manner from miss raby, who was a girl, and had just come to rodwell regis. she is always very much moved when she speaks about those boys, which is but seldom. i take it the death of the little one still grieves her tender heart.
yes, it is miss birch, who has turned away seventeen ushers and second masters in eleven years, and half as many french masters; inconsolable, i suppose, since the departure of her favourite, m. grinche, with her gold watch, &c.; but this is only surmise—and what i gather from the taunts of miss rosa when she and her aunt have a tiff at tea.
but besides this, i have another way of keeping her in order.
whenever she is particularly odious or insolent to miss raby, i have but to introduce raspberry jam into the conversation, and the woman holds her tongue. she will understand me. i need not say more.
note, 12th december.—i may speak now. i have left the place and don't mind. i say then at once, and without caring twopence for the consequences, that i saw this woman, this mother of the boys, eating jam with a spoon out of master wiggins's trunk in the box-room; and of this i am ready to take an affidavit any day.
