Читать книгу The Second Form at St. Clare's - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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It was not pleasant to be thought a tiresome nuisance by girls and teachers alike. Mirabel was getting tired of her defiant pose. Nobody had ever thought it was funny, as she had hoped. Nobody had ever laughed. They just got impatient. The girl began to feel sorry she had ever started her irritating behaviour.

A great feeling of misery overtook her the evening of the day she had been slapped by Carlotta. She felt that no one liked her, and certainly no one loved her. Hadn’t her own father sent her away? And her mother had agreed to it! How could she put up with that? There was no way to answer things like that except by being defiant.

Mirabel felt that she did not want to be with the others that evening in the noisy common room. She stole away by herself to one of the music-rooms. She had spoken truly when she had told Bobby that she could play the piano and the violin. She loved music, and was a really good performer on the piano, and a beautiful player of the violin. But because of her defiant obstinacy, she had refused to learn either of the instruments at St. Clare’s, when her father had spoken to her about them.

“You can learn well there,” he had told her. “There are excellent teachers of both.”

“What’s the use!” Mirabel had flashed back at him. “I’m only going to be there for half a term—and you don’t want to have to pay full fees for two lots of music lessons, do you, as well as full fees for the ordinary lessons?”

“Very well. Have it your own way,” said her father. So nothing had been said about learning music, and the girl had missed her weekly lessons very much. Music had always helped her strong, domineering nature—and now, without it, she felt lost. She was depressed and unhappy tonight—her mind longed for something to fasten on, something to love. She thought of her violin at home, and wished with all her heart that she had brought it with her.

It was dark in the music-room. Mirabel did not turn on the light, for she was afraid somebody passing might see her, and she did not want any company just then. She leaned her arms on a little table and thought.

Her hands touched something—a violin case. Something in the feel of it stirred her, and suddenly, with hands that trembled a little, she undid the strap and took out the violin inside. She put it lovingly under her chin, and groped for the bow.

And then the little dark music-room was full of music, as Mirabel played to herself. She played to comfort herself, to forget herself, and the notes filled the little room, and made it beautiful.

“That’s better,” said Mirabel at last. “That’s much better! I didn’t know how much I’d missed my music. I wonder whereabouts the piano is. I’ll play that too. Why didn’t I think of this before?”

She groped her way to the piano, and began to finger the notes gently in the darkness. She played from memory, and chose melodies that were sad and yearning, to match her own mood.

She thought she was alone, and she put her whole heart into her playing. Then suddenly she heard a sound in the room beside her, and she stopped at once, her heart thumping. She heard a stifled sob.

“Who’s there?” said Mirabel, in a low voice. There was no answer. Someone began softly to grope her way to the door. Mirabel felt a stir of anger. Who was it spying on her? Who had come into the room like that? She jumped up and grabbed wildly at the some one near the door. She caught a blouse sleeve and held on.

“Who is it?” she said.

“Who is it?” she said.

“Me—Gladys,” said a voice. “I was in here alone—when you came in. I didn’t know you were going to play. But you played such beautiful music I had to stay—and then it got sad and I cried.”

“You’re always crying,” said Mirabel, impatiently. “What’s the matter?”

“I shan’t tell you,” said Gladys. “You’ll only tell the others, and they’d laugh. They call me Misery-girl, I know. It’s hateful. They’d be Misery-girls too if they were like me.”

“Like you—why, what’s the matter with you?” asked Mirabel, her curiosity aroused. “Look here—tell me. I shan’t jeer at you or anything.”

“Well, don’t turn on the light then,” said Gladys. “You’ll think I’m very feeble, so I’d rather tell you in the dark.”

“You are a queer fish,” said Mirabel. “Come on—what’s the matter?”

“It’s my mother,” said Gladys. “She’s awfully ill—in hospital—and I don’t know if she’ll get better. I simply can’t tell you how much I love her, and how much I miss her. I haven’t a father, or brothers or sisters—only my mother. I’ve never been away from her even for a night till now. I know it sounds silly to you—you’ll call me babyish and mother’s girl—and so I am, I suppose. But you see, Mother and I haven’t had any one but each other—and I’m so terribly, terribly homesick, and want to be with Mother so much....”

Gladys burst into sobs again, and cried so miserably that Mirabel forget her own troubles for the moment and put her arm awkwardly round the girl. She saw how little courage Gladys had got—she saw how little she tried to face what had come to her—and she felt a little scornful. But no one could help feeling sorry for the miserable girl Mirabel had no idea what to do for the best.

“Well,” she said, saying the first thing that came into her head, “well, how would you like to be me! Sent away from home by your mother and father because they didn’t want you, and said you upset your brother and sister and made every one unhappy! That’s what I’ve got to put up with! I’m not so lucky as you, I think!”

Gladys raised her head, and for the first time forgot her unhappiness in her scorn of Mirabel.

“You unlucky! Don’t be silly—you don’t know how lucky you are! To have a father and a mother, a brother and a sister, all to love and to love you. And I only have my mother and even she is taken away from me! Mirabel, you deserve to be sent away from home if you can’t understand that families should love one another! I can tell you, if I had all those people to love I wouldn’t behave so badly to them that they’d send me away. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Coming from the silent Gladys, this was most astonishing. Mirabel stared into the darkness, not knowing what to say. Gladys got up and went to the door.

“I’m sorry,” she said, in a muffled voice. “You’re unhappy—and I’m unhappy—and I should be sorry for you, and comfort you. But you made your own unhappiness—and I didn’t make mine. That’s the difference between us.”

The door banged and Mirabel was alone. She sat still in surprise. Who would have thought that Gladys could say all that? Mirabel thought back to her own home. She saw the golden head of her little sister, the dark one of her brother, bent over home-work. She saw the gentle, patient face of her mother, who always gave in to every one. She remembered the good-humoured face of her father, changed to a sad and angry countenance because of her own continual insistence on her own way.

“It was Mother’s fault for giving in to me,” she thought. “And Harry and Joan should have stood up to me. But it’s difficult for younger ones to stand up for themselves—and after all, I am difficult. I wish I was home now. I’m lonely here, and I’ve behaved like an idiot. I know Mother would always love me—and yet I’ve been beastly to her—and turned Daddy against me too. Harry and Joan will be glad I’ve gone. Nobody in the world wants me or loves me.”

Self-pity brings tears more quickly to the eyes than anything else. Mirabel put her head on the table and wept. She forgot Gladys and her trouble. She only felt sorry for herself. She dried her eyes after a while, and sat up.

“I shall stop behaving badly,” she thought. “I shall leave at half-term and go back home and try to do better. I’m tired of being silly. I’ll turn over a new leaf tomorrow, and perhaps the girls will feel more friendly.”

She got up and switched on the light. Her watch showed five minutes to nine—almost bed-time. She sat down at the piano and played to herself for a while, and then, when the nine-o’clock bell sounded, made her way upstairs to bed, full of good resolutions. She began to make pictures of how nice the girls would be to her when they found she was turning over a new leaf. Perhaps the twins would find she was somebody worth knowing after all.

Poor Mirabel! When she got into bed that night, she found that she could only get her legs half-way down it! The girls had made a beautiful apple-pie bed, and, not content with that, Elsie had put a spray of holly across the bend of the sheet. Mirabel gave a shout of dismay as the holly pricked her toes.

“Oh! Who’s put this beastly thing into my bed? It’s scratched my foot horribly!”

Mirabel had never had an apple-pie bed made for her before. She could not imagine what had happened. She tried to force her legs down to the bottom of the bed, but only succeeded in tearing the sheet.

The girls were in fits of laughter. They soon saw that Mirabel had not experienced an apple-pie bed before, and had no idea that the top sheet had been tucked under the bolster, and then folded in half, half-way down the bed, and brought back to fold over the blanket. Doris rolled on her bed in glee, and even placid Anna squealed with joy.

“Golly! You’ll have to report that tear to Matron in the morning,” said Elsie, when she heard the sheet torn in half. “You idiot! You might have guessed that would happen. You’ll spend the next sewing-class mending a long rent.”

Mirabel threw the holly at Elsie. She had now discovered what had happened, and was angry and hurt. She got into bed and drew the covers round her. The others chuckled a little and then one by one fell asleep.

In the morning Mirabel awoke early. She lay and thought over what she had decided the night before. It wasn’t going to be easy to make a complete changeover, but she didn’t see anything else to do. She simply could not go on being idiotic. Once you were ashamed of yourself, you had to stop. If you didn’t, then you really were an idiot.

So, full of good resolutions still, Mirabel went to her classes. She would work well. She would give Mam’zelle a great surprise. She would please Miss Jenks. She would make up for her rudeness to Miss Quentin. She would even be decent to that wild little Carlotta, and forgive her for that box on the ears. The girls would see she wasn’t so bad as they thought she was, and they would turn over a new leaf too, and be friendly to her. Everything would be lovely again—and at the half-term she would leave, and people would be sorry to see her go!

It was with these pleasant thoughts that poor Mirabel entered on a day of horrid shocks and unpleasant surprises!