Читать книгу The Girls of Old Grange School - Mabel Winifred Knowles - Страница 6

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The excitement over Plato the mongoose took some time to cool down. A few of the girls—amongst them Joan Pinson and Gia Leston-Green—sympathized loudly with Mademoiselle. The rest considered it all a good joke and entreated Wendy to show them her pet. But Wendy had returned from her interview with Miss Caddock minus her beloved mongoose and her face decidedly red and defiant.

“You can’t see Plato,” she said shortly; “he—he’s given in charge of one of the gardeners. I wish I hadn’t had him sent! W-what idiots people are! He was much more frightened of you than you could have been of him! I—I only wish he had bitten Mademoiselle’s toe!”

The girls laughed, and only her chums saw that Wendy was on the very verge of tears. As Sybilla remarked, it had indeed been a day of excitements. And there was going to be a thrill for the next day too. Wendy and her companions were trying—or not trying, as the case might be—to construe certain irregular French verbs by order of a pale and severe Frou-Frou when the schoolroom door opened and Miss Caddock came in.

The head mistress was unusually flushed, and her manner was not so serenely placid as it generally was when asking Mademoiselle if she might address certain girls in the class.

More rows? It was odd how the thoughts of the Pioneers flew instantly to some past prank or other as they saw Lena’s glance fasten on them. But, if so, it must have been a very minor offence, for their mistress was smiling whimsically.

“Sir Alan Arnloch is in the drawing-room,” she said quite breathlessly. “He wishes to thank the girls who were in the Wizard’s Glen yesterday, especially the one who saved his son’s life.”

Yvette crimsoned, whilst Sybilla jumped up at once.

“That was Yvette,” she exclaimed. “And how nice of Sir Alan to come. May we ask him if, when his son is well, he can show us what he found out in the Glen?”

And, actually, Miss Caddock was so excited and confused over the coming of a friendly enemy, that she gave her leave, little dreaming what she was promising.

The rest of Frou-Frou’s class looked jealously at their retreating schoolfellows. The Pioneers had kept their own council about the Wizard’s Glen, for, as Sybilla wisely remarked, if they wanted to keep their band free from intruders and the curious they must not talk too much. A Pioneer secret was quite a solemn affair. And the five girls, having already disappeared with the head governess, could not be questioned at present.

Joan was making rather a sneer over it all to her next-door neighbour Gia. But Gia was dense and took no notice of Joan’s sarcastic comments, which finally brought on her the wrath of Mademoiselle.

“My nerves, zey are on edge after ze attack of yesterday,” complained poor Frou-Frou bitterly. “And you—none of you have ze least consideration. Joan, ma fille, your lesson has returned to you. In your hour of play you will re-learn it for me.”

Joan bit her lip. This was the last straw! Frou-Frou and Miss Caddock both made favourites! It was horribly mean—and not a bit fair. And the new girl, Wendy Darlake, was the one to be blamed entirely. That was Joan’s decision, for, having failed to receive more than a meagre one or two of those famous French sweets, Joan had thrown up altogether the idea of being Wendy’s friend and was making up instead with Gia Leston-Green, who was easily flattered as well as open-handed, with a fixed dislike of Yvette Glencourt, who had once made fun in Gia’s hearing of the latter’s fine double name, and remarked in high disdain that she had thought that form of snobbishness was dying out!

“For I’m sure,” Yvette the patrician had added bitingly, “that Pa Leston-Green either invented a new sort of custard powder or housewife’s cleansing soap. Quite impossible people.”

Gia was not likely to forgive that remark, and Joan had found her an easy prey.

So now Joan sat alone and dismal in the schoolroom, whilst, downstairs, the five Pioneers were undergoing a most unusual experience. Adventures so seldom end with praise and congratulations from the grown-ups, and Sir Alan was such a dear.

Of course he was not jolly. A man who has gone through so many ordeals cannot find the world a very merry place; but he was a handsome old gentleman, not really so old at all, though there is not so much for sweet fifteen to distinguish between fifty and seventy, and his upright bearing, iron-grey hair and moustache suggested the soldier. He was really more shy than the girls, but Sybilla soon put them all at their ease. She was so anxious to know about the Wizard’s Glen, and so eager to learn whether Donald was to be allowed to be a chum. She clapped her hands in glee when Sir Alan informed them that they were to come to tea at Glenview next Saturday. No fear of that invitation being declined. Sir Alan had been somewhat doubtful. He felt the Old Grange School girls as well as their mistress must know of his resentment and dislike, and he really felt quite guilty.

Miss Caddock was so utterly unlike what he had expected, for he had avoided meeting the purchaser of his old home during the sale and had a vague idea Miss Prinkton was the lady in question.

So all was well—after a day of unexpected happenings and a final cheery ending; for Miss Caddock was so interested in the Wizard’s Glen and the rescue of Donald Arnloch that she invited the Pioneers to tea in her own little sanctum—a high honour which it had never fallen to the lot of the school pickles to receive. I am not sure that they altogether enjoyed the idea at all, but it proved so much nicer than they expected! Miss Caddock enforcing rules and insisting on well-learned lessons, was entirely different to pretty, clever Lena Caddock chatting about her own days at Cheltenham, her interest in the hockey, her hopes that as usual her girls would be planning out a Christmas play as well as bazaar. It was a maxim of the head mistress that girls cannot be too busy, though she always insisted that if an “iron” were put in the fire it had to be kept there. That was what made Old Grange undertakings a success.

“Things are jolly, aren’t they?” Wendy said to Yvette as the two girls stood brushing their hair that night. “I do hope we are able to go to the Wizard’s Glen again soon. I mean with Donald. You’ll have to make him a Pioneer. Oh, bother, I can’t find those brown stockings of mine, and I promised to take a pair along to Doreen Menleigh. I rather like her, don’t you? Sybilla says her people are awfully poor. Aha, this is the best way.” And over went a whole drawerful of clothes which Miss Simmins certainly could not have inspected lately.

Wendy sat cross-legged amongst blouses, stockings, jumpers, and the rest of the medley, pulling out one article, tossing aside another, haphazard; the stockings were found and put aside; then, with that gay smile of hers, she tossed a pink and fawn silk jumper over to Yvette. “You can have it,” she said in her careless, good-natured way. “It will suit you ever so much better than me, and I have a dozen at least.”

Yvette stared, whilst the vivid colour rose to her cheeks. As a matter of fact, her one and only silk jumper was very much the worse for wear, and she had great doubts of its surviving the term. Only yesterday she had been darning it—a fact Wendy must have noticed. And now—this new girl was actually patronizing her! Offering her, Yvette Glencourt of Glencourt Castle, a cast-off jumper just as she might have done to a servant!

Poor Yvette! Pride quite blotted out the fact of Wendy’s kindly intention of giving pleasure, and she flung back the jumper with an angry light kindling in her dark eyes.

“It’s very kind of you to offer me your old clothes,” she said in strained tones, “but I prefer not to accept them. I expect Helen the housemaid would be delighted.”

Wendy gasped, utterly taken aback.

“Oh, I say!” she cried. “You’re not offended? It really isn’t old, only pink doesn’t suit me. I shouldn’t dream of giving it to a housemaid.”

“And you needn’t dream of giving it to me,” said Yvette icily. “I don’t accept clothes, old or new, from friends or strangers. If you think I’m—I’m an object for charity, you are mistaken. Of course you can bribe your way into popularity with some girls by constantly offering gifts—even old stockings—but it is not the Pioneers’ way. Perhaps it—it would have been better for you to get in another set. Joan Pinson’s, for instance.”

When she began to speak, Yvette had not had the least intention of saying such hateful things, but Pride egged her on, exaggerating Wendy’s offence every moment.

She was checked by Wendy’s sudden outburst of tears.

Overwhelmed by dismay at the reception of her luckless gift, the latter broke into sobs. She couldn’t help it. She was—or had been—so sure Yvette was her friend, and had never dreamed of offending her.

With increasing prickles of shame, Yvette watched her companion heap back the contents of the drawer, and, having returned it to its place, take a flying leap into bed, where, pulling the clothes round her curly red hair, she hid her face in the pillow.

Yvette frowned, snapped her lips, took two steps towards the bed, swung round and marched back to her own.

She knew she ought to tell Wendy she was sorry. She hated feeling ashamed, but could not help it. She felt mean—and didn’t see why she should; and finally, whispering to herself that “she wished to goodness Wendy had never come to school here,” she got into bed and tried to go to sleep.

But Wendy’s muffled sobs had a most distracting effect on her. Yet—if she said she was sorry, Wendy would start hugging her and asking her friendship; and Yvette, in spite of, or because of her father’s command, was quite convinced that friendship with Wendy Darlake would be nothing but humbug.

It was disconcerting, though, to have plans upset by Wendy’s sunny smile next morning, and her seeming forgetfulness of last night’s passage of arms.

Yvette got up prepared to be silent and stiff, but it could not be done. Wendy was merry as a cricket, chatting about hockey and the Pioneers in the gayest way. Grudgingly, Yvette had to own she herself would never have shown so forgiving a spirit. In a way, it vexed her, putting her more than ever in the wrong. In fact, Yvette had a bad attack of prickles as she joined her schoolfellows at breakfast.

“What’s making you look so particularly pea-green this morning, pet?” asked the voice of Sybilla in her ear, as she searched later amongst the portfolios in the smaller music-room for her own. “You might have been trying to digest the ancestors of Gia Leston-Green by your expression; or have you an aching corn?”

Yvette frowned. She had mislaid her music, and the prickles were livelier than ever. “As a matter of fact, I wanted to speak to you, Syb,” she retorted. “It’s about Wendy. She doesn’t belong to our set, and I wish I’d never asked for her to join the Pioneers. She’ll spoil everything if she stays. She—she’s not a lady—and it will end in jarring horribly. That’s a bundle of facts. As you’re captain, I suppose you’d better tell Wendy yourself.”

Sybilla gave an odd little laugh as she perched on the window-sill. Neither girl noticed that the curtain screening off one part of the room had fluttered just now, certainly they had not seen Joan Pinson’s mean face peering out from behind it.

“My dearest Queen Yvette,” murmured Sybilla in her laziest tones, “you must have indigestion. Or have the homely feet of our Wendy been walking over some family tree? Be calm, sweet child, and let who will be catty! As to giving Wen the order of the boot, I shan’t! She’s every bit as much a lady as you or I, and, into the bargain, she’s a very good sort. I’m captain—and I don’t take orders—like that. Now don’t burst bomb-wise at me, saying you’ll resign if I don’t out Wendy. Don’t play a Joan Pinson game, or be mean and little—and a cad. Wendy’s a sport. And, if we’re going to remain a jolly band of comrades, she will have to remain too. That’s that. Now come and plan what we’ll do next half-hol.”

Yvette stood panting. But something behind Sybilla’s lazy drawl and smiling “plain truths” warned her that she meant every word she said. The majority of the girls at Old Grange regarded Sybilla Grant as the laziest and sleepiest of soft things, easily pliable in any or every direction. But Yvette knew differently. Sybilla was quite a character, with any amount of determination and definite views beneath that fat, sleek smile of hers.

And Yvette was startled at the other’s ultimatum.

To break up the Pioneers and lose her best chums was a very serious step. Was it worth it? Sybilla had said horrid things in most unaggressive fashion. Indeed, she had merely stated facts!

“You’re making a great mistake,” said Yvette hoarsely. “I don’t like Wendy Darlake. She’ll never be my friend, and she shan’t dare patronize me. If she stays with the Pioneers——”

“If?” mocked Sybilla. “There’s no if about it. She’s going to stay—so are you—and we are going to interview Miss Mallins some time to-day and get her to take us to Hickory Dale for a blackberrying. If we could get cream at Oundler’s Farm afterwards, what a feast we should have! Come along, Yvette. Play the game, be a sport, and don’t grow maggots in your brain. It’s not like you.”

And Yvette yielded—with the best grace she could muster, picking up her portfolio and walking off with a would-be jaunty air. Sybilla waited behind, and, when Yvette had gone, marched straight up to the curtain and pulled it aside, pouncing neatly on the girl who was in the very act of escaping. Sybilla was not at all sleepy now, and her eyes were relentless.

“You wretched little sneak,” she said, “I’ve a good mind to march you right off to Miss Caddock and tell her I caught you eavesdropping. And, mark you! if I hear a whisper of your repeating what you heard just now, I’ll teach you a lesson you won’t forget. Now—go!”

But Sybilla did not like the look in Joan’s eyes as the girl obeyed the last command.

What did it mean?