The Last and the First by Ivy Compton-Burnett Read Free Book Online Page A

motto. She sounds to me rather a gallant figure. She may be meeting the recognised fate of the reformer. If she fails to reinstate the school, we may be able to account it a great failure.”
    â€œI will go to the breaking-up concert,” said Jocasta, “and judge of things for myself. And also judge of Miss Heriot. We can’t gather much from hearsay.”
    â€œI think I might perhaps accompany you, Mamma, and support you in your project. If I should not introduce too discordant an element into the feminine function.”
    â€œOh, there won’t be any men there!” said Amy, looking up with startled eyes, her thoughts on her uncle’s appearance for which familiarity had had no need to do its accustomed work. “It would really be as you said. Only women seem to come.”
    â€œThe fathers of the girls are sometimes there,” said Jocasta. “I expect there will be a few.”
    â€œAnd in default of a father an uncle may be accepted. As also the spice of variety that he brings. And there will be a protector for Amy and an escort for yourself.”
    â€œYou would have to sit through the concert, Uncle.And it will not be at all what you would like. And it is to be a long one.”
    â€œI shall hardly attend in a critical spirit, when my niece is doing her best to ease the hours for me.”
    â€œOh, I am not playing, Uncle. No one is to play who is not up to a certain standard. Miss Heriot has been firm about it.”
    â€œShe is unwise,” said Jocasta. “The parents pay fees for flattery, not for firmness, and they have no standard. And it is they whom she has to please.”
    â€œShe may not recognise the obligation,” said Hamilton. “She elects to please herself. Or rather to satisfy her own instinct for quality.”
    â€œOh, it will not be what you think, Uncle. It is just the usual school concert.”
    â€œBut Miss Heriot is not bound by the usual view of it. Or it seems by anything usual. I have a curiosity to encounter this scorner of convention, both in her family and out of it.”
    â€œAnd now in a girls’ school,” said Jocasta. “There won’t be much scorn of convention there. She will have to come to terms with it.”
    â€œAn experience that her catholic spirit may lead her to accept. She may even welcome the completion of her knowledge.”
    â€œIf that is what it is. It is not what was in my mind. I shall be glad to meet her and see how the school is run. I may send Amy to another.”
    â€œWould that enhance our position with the Heriot family?”
    â€œNo, perhaps not. Well, she can stay,” said Jocasta, accepting this view of education. “So you are not to play at the concert? Do you make any progress? Would it be any good to speak to Miss Murdoch or Miss Heriot?”
    â€œNo, they can’t make me more musical. And I think Miss Heriot might say so. She talks to people as if she was one of themselves.”
    â€œShe can hardly be called anything else,” said Hamilton. “That is the ground I shall take in my intercourse with her.”
    â€œOh, I don’t think she would talk to you, Uncle,” said Amy, upholding the theory of the meeting as hypothetical. “She will just move about among the people and hardly speak to them.”
    â€œI think my conspicuous appearance in the gathering may arrest her attention and lead to an interchange.”
    â€œBut only for a minute or two,” said Amy, who thought the same. “It would just be a word in passing, nothing worth while.”
    â€œI flatter myself that I may detain her further. Anyhow, I shall be at your side, Mamma, to meet the redoubtable character.”
    â€œWhat does redoubtable mean?” said his niece, in an empty tone.
    â€œI am not ready with a definition, but I feel it would describe Miss Heriot.”
    â€œThen it does what people are not able to.”
    â€œAmy, you are not