She was not a girl to
be wooed by soft nonsense; indeed, you would have said she was a girl
not likely to marry at all, she was so retired and showed such
indifference to the conversation of young men, and took no pains
whatever to set herself off to advantage in their eyes. Nevertheless
this did not deter admirers from flocking around her. In fact, I rather
think her coldness and apparent negligence of dress and general personal
appearance rather incited them the more. I have called her indifferent
to personal appearance; not that she was not scrupulously clean and
neat; no one could be more so. But there she was content to remain. She cared not to deck herself out with bows and ribbons, by the wearing
of trumpery jewellery, or by any exaggerated fashion of wearing her
hair. It is just this simplicity in woman which attracts most men, and
it is natural enough that it should do so, as it argues a certain
forgetfulness of self, a modest and unselfish nature, which is the basis
of every womanly virtue, and therefore to be sought after in a wife. Foolish women imagine that men are to be caught by being run after. They
therefore spare no expense in their toilet, study arts and graces, and
omit nothing which they think ought to captivate the opposite sex; but
as they too often over-step the bounds of modesty, their flimsy designs
are seen through, and they find themselves laughed at by those they had
hoped to make their prey. Claribel had known such women in her time, and pitied rather than
despised them, for there was nothing harsh in her nature. She was often
quizzed in her turn by many a jimp-waisted hoyden for being a dowdy, but
she would pass by their remarks with a good-humoured smile, and say
little, for she was of few words. Our school was now well filled with pupils, who, one and all, grew most
attached to my young friend--to both of us in fact--but I rather think
that she was the favourite. There was not a person in or out of the school that could say a word
against Claribel Falkland; there was something so inoffensive, so
modest, and, at the same time, winning about her; such consideration for
others, such a looking out of herself, if I may so term it. Then she had
the knack of teaching--a rare gift--and was as mild and patient as a
lamb, thus endearing all hearts towards her. One day when giving a lesson in geography to her class (this was about a
year after the last apparition of the spectre) I, who was giving a
lesson in arithmetic to some younger children in the opposite corner of
the schoolroom, was suddenly startled by a scream of surprise from the
girls of my friend's class. "Look! look! oh, just look, Miss Sykes," they cried in terror, "look,
_there are two Miss Falklands_!" I raised my eyes at the cry, and saw to my dismay, my friend's old
tormentor--the double--behind her, as usual, and imitating her action,
my friend being at that moment in the act of pointing to a map. I walked
across the room to my friend, hoping to drive away the spectre in so
doing, but it remained some minutes longer before it entirely
disappeared. I caught the eye of my friend, who looked mournfully at me, and added in
a low tone of voice, as I passed her, "Is it not provoking? Could
anything be more annoying?" I did not tell the schoolgirls that I myself saw the figure, and tried
to laugh them out of a "silly fancy," as I called it, fearing that I
might be called upon as a witness, should this report reach the ears of
the school-mistress, and it might prejudice folks against my friend as a
teacher, so I affected harshness, and said I begged I should hear no
more of such stuff, and the affair dropped for the time; but now that
the double had recommenced its visits, it came frequently, and always in
class time, to my friend's great discomfiture. Of course, there was no getting out of it now. The school-mistress was
called, and saw the same thing; and I myself was obliged to see it with
the rest. The school-mistress was very much bewildered, as well she
might be. She declared she did not know what to make of it. She could
hardly bring herself to think that it was a messenger of good, and Miss
Falkland's character was so unimpeachable that she could still less
believe that anything bad should be permitted to torment her. In fact,
she did not know what to think, so she called for the rector of the
parish, that he might speak with the apparition; and if it should prove
an evil one, to exorcise it. The rector came, but being disappointed in seeing the spectre, came a
second, third, and fourth time, with the like success, till at length he
went away in a huff, and begged they would trouble him no more. One Sunday, however, as the rector was in the middle of his sermon, his
eyes being fixed on our school, we noticed him suddenly turn pale and
tremble. He was unable to go on with his sermon. I followed his eyes,
and found, as I half expected, my friend and her double seated close
together. The girls shrieked and started, and a commotion was being made
in the church; so much so, that Claribel was obliged to get up and walk
out, her double following close at her heels. Fancy poor Claribel, who was like a nun in her love of solitude and
retirement, having to walk out of church through a crowd of people all
the way home again with a duplicate of herself following in her
footsteps! You must not suppose that the matter stopped here. The remarks of the
rustics who met her on the way, the village gossip that now broke out
afresh--worse than ever before--the suspicious looks she received on all
sides, all contributed to mortify her; but what appeared to completely
break her spirit was the sudden falling off of one half of her pupils. Of course, she could make no doubt as to the cause of this. Even the
rest of the pupils, she thought, grew colder to her, and they, too,
dropped off one by one, until the poor girl had not a single pupil left. When matters arrived at this point it was hinted to her by the
school-mistress that on account of the great damage this unfortunate
peculiarity of hers had done the school, that it was better for her on
the whole, to leave. The school-mistress added that she was aware that
it was no fault of my young friend's, and it was with much regret that
she was obliged to part with her; yet what could she do? She could not
afford to lose all her pupils; and thus it was my poor friend lost a
situation upon which she depended to begin her little savings. Much and
bitterly did she weep over her cursed existence, and earnestly prayed
that she might be liberated from her tormentor. Since she had left her position as a school teacher she had led a life
of such rigid retirement that it was with the greatest difficulty she
could be persuaded to leave the house, even in my company, to take the
air and exercise that her health required. She refused to see anyone
unless it was the rector, who would occasionally call in the evening to
take a dish of tea with us.