The Head Girl at the Gables (21 page)

"I shan't write to Signor Arezzo till we're through Book II," she decreed. "If you go on at this rate, I think he'll be satisfied when he hears you. If he accepts you, I
shall
be proud!"

For answer, Claudia flung her arms round Rosemary's neck and hugged her.

"You're the sweetest, kindest, most unselfish darling in the whole of the wide world!" she blurted out.

A Mid-term Beano

Though Lorraine and Claudia might regard Madame Bertier with more or less suspicion, she was an immense favourite with the rest of the school. The Misses Kingsley found the vivacious little Russian lady one of the best teachers they had ever had, and treasured her accordingly, while most of the girls still revolved round her orbit. She was undoubtedly very clever and fascinating. There is a certain type of pretty woman who can be adorable to her own sex. Madame liked admiration, if it were only that of a schoolgirl, and she thought the flowers and little notes that were showered upon her charming tokens of her popularity.

"They practise their hearts upon me, these poor children!" she would observe sentimentally. "The little love letters! Ah, they are
tout à fait gentilles
! Wait a few years! They will be writing them to somebody more interesting than their teacher! Oh, yes! I know well!"

"For goodness' sake don't put such ideas into their heads!" said Miss Janet, who admired the open-air type of girl, and had no weakness for romance. "I wish you wouldn't encourage them to write you those silly notes. It's a form of sentiment I've no patience with at all--a mere waste of time and paper!"

Madame shrugged her shoulders eloquently.

"What will you? We all have our own methods! As for me, I win their funny little hearts, then they will work at their lessons for love--yes, for sheer love. In but a few months they have made
beaucoup de progrès! N'est-ce pas?
Ah, it is my theory that we must love first, if we will learn."

Though Miss Janet might sniff at Madame's sentimental method of education, she nevertheless could not deny its admirable results. In French and music the school had lately made enormous strides. The elder girls had begun to read French story-books for amusement, and the juniors had learnt to play some French games, which they repeated with a pretty accent. Both violin and piano students played with a fire and spirit that had been conspicuous by their absence a year ago, under the tame instruction of Miss Parlane.

Madame did not confine herself entirely to her own subjects. She took an interest in all the activities of the school. It was she who arranged a ramble on the cliffs.

"They get so hot, playing
toujours
at the cricket," she said to Miss Kingsley. "Of what use is it to hit about a ball? Let them come with me for a promenade upon the hills and we shall get flowers to press for the
musée
. It is not well to do always the same thing."

A ramble for the purpose of gathering wild-flowers was a suggestion that appealed to the Sixth. The museum was not too well furnished with specimens. There was scope for any amount of further collecting.

Since the curious episode of the cut telephone wires during the Easter holidays, there had been no further happenings at the museum. Miss Kingsley inclined to Madame Bertier's view, that some spy, finding the window had been left open, had taken a ladder and forced an entrance that way. She had caused a screw to be placed in the window, and the door was kept carefully locked except when the room was in use.

To Lorraine the place felt haunted. She had a horror of being there alone, and never ventured to go there unless accompanied by two or three of her schoolfellows. She had an unreasonable idea that the little trap-door in the corner might suddenly open, and a sinister face peer down out of the darkness. The nervous impression was so strong that she held the monitresses' meetings in the class-room instead of in the museum. When the mid-term beano came round, she suggested that they should assemble in the summer-house.

It had been an old-established custom at the school that once in each term the seniors should hold a kind of bean-feast. They met to read aloud papers, and suck sweets. Their doings were kept a dead secret from the juniors, who naturally were exceedingly curious, and made every effort to overhear the proceedings. On this occasion the seniors took elaborate precautions against intrusion from the lower school. Two monitresses stood in the cloak-room and sternly chivvied the younger girls to hasten their steps homewards. They went unwillingly and suspiciously.

"Why are you in such a precious hurry to get rid of us to-day?" asked Mona Parker, pertly. "You're not generally so keen on us going off early."

"There's been too much loitering about the cloak-room lately," vouchsafed Dorothy.

"Bow-wow! How conscientious we are, all of a sudden! You've something up your sleeve, I think, Madam Dorothy!"

"Mona Parker, put on your boots at once, and don't cheek your betters!"

"But there
is
something going on, I'm sure!" piped up Josie Payne. "Nellie, be a sport and tell us!"

"Mind your own business, and don't butt in where you're not wanted! How long
are
you going to be in lacing those shoes?"

"There, there! Don't get ratty! I'm ready now!"

The dilatory juniors, by dint of much urging, were at last hustled off the scenes. The ringleaders among them departed in rebellious spirits, which fizzed over in the playground into a series of aggressive cock-a-doodle-doos, significant of their attitude of annoyance.

The monitresses wisely took no notice. They were too glad to be rid of the younger element to follow into the playground and do battle. Having cleared the premises, they passed the signal "all serene!" and repaired to the summer-house. It was a good place for a secret meeting, for it was at the bottom of the garden, facing the main path and a patch of lawn, so that it would be quite impossible for anybody to come from the house or the gymnasium without being seen. The accommodation was limited, but some of the girls sat on the floor, and some on the gravel in front. It had been a matter of considerable difficulty to procure sweets, and every likely shop in the town had been foraged. The result, though not very great, was quite wonderful for war-time: there was actually some chocolate, some walnut toffee, two ounces of pear drops, and some gum lozenges. The contributions were pooled, and shared round impartially.

The members were sucking blissfully while Lorraine went round and collected the literary portion of the entertainment.

"Only eight papers to-day! You slackers! Audrey, where's yours? Haven't had time to think of anything? How weak! Doreen, I expected the Fifth to do its duty. Thanks, Phoebe, I'm glad you've written something, and you too, Beryl."

"Please keep mine till the
very
last, and don't read it at all if there isn't much time!" implored Phoebe.

"You mustn't read mine first!" fluttered Dorothy.

"Nor mine!"

"Nor mine!"

"Look here! Somebody has got to come first! I shall do it by lot; I'll write your names on slips of paper and shuffle them. Lend me a pencil, Patsie. There! I'll stir them round, and Audrey shall draw one."

Audrey picked out at random one of the little twisted scraps of paper, and the lot fell upon the protesting Dorothy. She rose apologetically.

"They're not much," she murmured. "Just a few 'Ruthless Rhymes', that's all.

Anna Maria Fell into the fire, She was burnt to a cinder. Pa said: 'Let's open winder!'

In a river in the city Jack was drowned And never found. Mother said it was a pity His new boots went down with him. They'd have fitted Brother Jim.

A bomb dropped on to the house and blew Beds, tables and chairs to Timbuctoo. 'Dear, dear how annoying!' murmured Aunt May, 'We'd spring-cleaned the place only yesterday!'

Poor little Johnnie, he swallowed his rattle, It stuck in his throat and he gave up life's battle; They couldn't get Johnnie to 'ope eyes and peep' But they shook up the rattle and sold it off cheap."

The next on the list was Lorraine's own contribution.

DIARY OF A GIRL IN THE YEAR A.D. 4000

To-day I used my new air wings, and flew up the Thames valley to see the remains of ancient London, recently excavated. It is an extraordinary sight, and certainly seems to throw some light upon the manners and customs of that quaint old nation, the English of two thousand years ago. In the museum are some weird specimens of public conveyances, notably a thing called a "tramcar" in which all sorts and conditions of people sat squeezed up side by side, and were whirled along the street, instead of the street moving as it does now, to convey passengers without any trouble. There were also machines called bicycles, consisting of two wheels and a saddle. The curator says they were much used in olden times, though how people balanced on them, goodness knows! Not half so convenient as our modern wings! Another interesting exhibit was a collection of clothing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; coats, cloaks and dresses actually made of such rare materials as cloth, silk, cotton and velvet. It makes one gasp. How beautiful they must have looked--but oh! how insanitary! How different to our modern pulp clothing that is burnt (by law) every week. I am told some of the things used to be sent to a place called a laundry, and washed all together. No wonder germs were spread in those days! It is a marvel they did not all die off from infectious diseases. There were also some fine specimens of dishes upon which food used to be served, interesting as survivals of an old custom, but amazing to us, who live on concentrated tabloids. The time those ancients wasted over meals must have been stupendous! Some old school books also made me smile. Oh, the poor children of those days! Fancy them sitting at desks and trying their eyes over that wretched small print. Now, when all the teaching is by cinema and gramophone, we realize what a purgatory education must have been in the past. I am very thankful to be living in A.D. 4000, with all our modern advantages. Think of having to go by sea to visit your friends in America, when to-day we simply get out the balloon and whisk over to pay a call. My new electric shoes have just come, and I expect will be a tremendous aid to my dancing. I shall wear them at my birthday-party. By the by, I must send a wireless to Connie, to ask if she means to come to my party. She mentioned yesterday that she was flying to China, but perhaps she will be back in time. Dad has promised me a new best glass-sided diving boat for a present, so I hope to do a little ocean exploring this summer. I hear the scenery at the bottom of the Pacific is most beautiful--far finer than the Atlantic, which everybody knows now. Well, I must go and start my gramophone, or I shan't know my Japanese lesson for to-morrow. Professor Okuto is the limit if one slacks. Good-bye, dear little diary. I'll type some more in you another day.

The girls giggled.

"You've gone ahead rather far," commented Audrey. "It sounds blissful to fly, and use a diving boat, but I'd draw the line at learning Japanese."

"Oh, it will be one of the languages of the future, no doubt!" Lorraine assured her. "French will probably be quite old-fashioned, unless it's studied like Greek and Latin are nowadays."

"I expect the children of even a few hundred years hence will have awful times learning the history of this war," said Dorothy.

"Probably they'll know more about it than we shall ever do. There are generally secret facts that crop up again after everybody is dead. It'll be a gold-mine for historians."

"And for story-writers."

"Rather!"

"Audrey, choose another scrap of paper, and see who's next on the list."

It proved to be Patsie, and her contribution was a collection of parodied proverbs. She called them:

MORAL MAXIMS FOR YOUTHFUL MINDS

Take care of the shrimps, and the lobsters will boil themselves. Haste not pant not. A cockroach saved is a cockroach gained. A mouse in the hand is worth two in the hole. Treacle by any other name would taste as sweet Catch moths while the moon shines. All is not mirth that titters. A squashed slug dreads the spade. It's the last sob that breaks the camel's heart.

"And if a child won't learn his maxim, The teacher promptly takes and smacks 'im!"

Vivien, who was fond of rhymes, had cudgelled her brains for Limericks, and produced the following:

NELLIE APPLEBY

There was once a schoolgirl named Nell, Who fancied herself quite a swell; With her head in the air And her frizzled-up hair, She reckoned she looked just a belle.

PATSIE SULLIVAN

We know a young damsel named Pat, She's big, and she's floppy and fat. When to dance she begins We just shriek as she spins, And wonder whatever she's at!

LORRAINE FORRESTER

There is a head girl named Lorraine (Of which fact I admit she is vain), She walks on her toes, With an up-tilted nose, Her dignified post to sustain.

AUDREY ROBERTS

There is a young slacker named Audrey, Whose taste in cheap jewels is tawdry, Necklace, brooches, and bangles She flaunts and she jangles, And her get-up is just a bit gaudy.

DOROTHY SKIPTON

I know a young person named Dolly, Who's ready for any fresh folly. She thinks she's a wit, And can make quite a hit, But she tells a few whoppers, my golly!

The girls giggled uneasily. There was a sting in each of the verses, and nobody likes to be made fun of. Somehow, Vivien always stuck in pins.

"We'll make one about you," began Patsie, with a rather red face.

"There was a young person named Vivvie, Who liked all her schoolmates to chivvy----"

But at this point Claudia suddenly, and perhaps rather fortunately, interrupted.

"What's that queer noise?" she asked. "It sounds like a sort of suppressed giggling!" There was dead silence for a moment.

"I don't hear anything," said Lorraine.

"I do, though!"

"It's a kind of snorting!"

"I believe it's at the back of the summer-house."

Patsie dashed up and darted round, and, with a yell of vengeance, flung herself upon three juniors crouched with their impudent noses pressed to a crack in the boards, through which they had been spectators as well as listeners during the proceedings. A fourth child was in the very act of descending from the garden wall.