The Head Girl at the Gables (3 page)

Dorothy was adjusting her attractive hat in front of the mirror. She put in the pins carefully before replying.

"It's a rotten business!" she sighed.

"Disgusting! To have Lorraine set over us, while you and I are just ordinary common monitresses, the same as Audrey Roberts or Nellie Appleby. I'm fed up with it! It's going to be a hateful term; I shan't take an interest in anything! I wish I'd asked Father to send me to a boarding-school. I'm sick of The Gables!"

Patsie, whose shoe-lace was now triumphantly mended, chuckled softly.

"Poor old Gables!" she remarked. "I don't know that you'd find a 'better hole' so easily. It's a very decent kind of school.
I
intend to have some fun here this term, if
you
don't. When's that rhythmic dancing that Kingie talked about going to begin? I saw some in London, and I'm just wild to do it. This is how it goes!"

And Patsie, flinging out her arms and swaying from side to side, made a series of most extraordinary gyrations. Vivien and Dorothy burst out laughing.

"If
that's
what you call rhythmic dancing, give me the good old-fashioned sort!" hinnied Vivien. "You look about as graceful as an elephant!"

"And as jerky as a wound-up waxwork!" declared Dorothy uncomplimentarily.

"Well, of course, the movements are done to music; they look quite different when you've got a sort of classic Greek dress on, and somebody's playing a study by Chaminade or Debussy."

"It would need very good music indeed to make
those
antics look anything! I fancy you'll shine more at hockey, Patsie. I wonder what's going to happen to the team. I can't fancy Lorraine taking Lily Anderson's place. It'll be a let-down all round this term with Lorraine----"

"Sh, 'sh! Here's Lorraine herself!"

"Then I'm off! Come along, Dorothy!"

Vivien rammed her hat on anyhow, seized her pile of new books, and bolted from the cloak-room almost as her cousin entered. Patsie, following more leisurely, stopped en route to give the new head girl a hearty smack on the back.

"Cheero, Lorraine!" she remarked. "Just at the moment you look like Atlas shouldering the heavens. Haven't you got over the shock of the announcement yet? Did Kingie spring it on you all at once? Or had she prepared you beforehand for your laurels?"

"As a matter of fact, she sent for me yesterday and told me," smiled Lorraine.

"And I suppose, like Julius Cæsar, you waved away the crown? Or was it Oliver Cromwell, by the by? My history's always shaky!"

"Well, I felt inclined to have a few dozen fits, certainly!"

"I don't say it's exactly a cushy post, but you're a lucker all the same! Old Dolly and the Duchess would have liked to butt in, I can tell you. They're absolutely green, the pair of them!"

Lorraine's face clouded.

"I was afraid Vivien would be disappointed. She thought--and so did I--indeed everybody thought----"

"Then they thought wrong, and a good thing too!" pronounced Patsie. "Take my advice, Lorraine, and don't stand any nonsense with Vivien. Kingie's the right to make anybody head girl she wants, and I'm glad she's chosen you. If the Duchess and old Dollie can't lose in a sporting way, they're blighters. You hold your own, and I'll back you up. You'll have most of the school on your side. Ta-ta, and cheer up, old sport!"

Patsie, jolly, good-natured and slangy, swung out of the cloak-room with what she called a "khaki stride". Lorraine looked after her and laughed. No one took Patsie seriously, but it was pleasant to feel that she was an ally, even though she might not prove a very stout prop to lean upon. That she would need all available help in her new task, Lorraine was well aware. It would be difficult to follow in the footsteps of so capable and energetic a head girl as Lily Anderson; the irrepressible intermediates were likely to prove a handful, and in the ranks of the Sixth itself she foresaw trouble brewing. It was a decidedly thoughtful Lorraine who walked down the school garden, out through the gate, and along the cliff road that led to the western portion of the town. She had reached the wall below the windmill when Monica, her eleven-year old sister, came panting after her.

"Lorraine! Do wait! Why did you go off without me? I hunted for you everywhere, till Ida James told me you'd gone. What a blighter you are to leave me!"

"Sorry, Cuckoo! But you see I thought
you'd
gone, so there we are!" said Lorraine, smiling indulgently at the impetuous little figure that overtook her and seized her arm. "I'd have waited if I'd known."

"I forgive you!" accorded Monica graciously. "Only to-day of all days, of course I wanted to walk home with you. D'you know, Tibbiekins, I'm proud of you! Aren't you bucked? Well, you ought to be. I never got such a surprise in my life as when 'Lorraine Forrester' was read out 'head of the school'! Betty Farmer pinched me so hard that I nearly yelled. But I say, Tibbie, it's a stunt! Didn't you get nerve shock when you heard your name?"

"I knew yesterday what was coming," admitted Lorraine.

"Was that why you went to see Miss Kingsley? And you never told me a word! Well, I think you are the limit!"

"Miss Kingsley made me promise on my honour not to tell a single soul."

"I couldn't have helped telling. Think of having that secret all the evening, and not giving me the least teeny weeny atom of a hint, even! I wonder you could keep it in! The girls are pleased--most of them. Betty says you're a sport, and Mabel King says she feels she's going to worship you, and Nora Hyland said I was a lucker to have you for a sister. Of course a few of them had plumped for Vivien, and let off steam, but they'll soon get over it. Vivien looked like a thunder cloud. She won't forgive you in a hurry! You may look out for squalls in her quarter. Hallo, here's Rosemary come to meet us. I must tell her the news. She knows already? Why, you said it was a secret! Well, you are mean to have told Rosemary and not
me
! I'm not friends with you any more, so there!"

Lorraine answered her sweet-faced elder sister's look of enquiry with a nod of comprehension.

"Yes, it's all
un fait accompli
," she replied, "and on the whole I think the school has borne it beautifully. Come along, Cuckoo, don't pout! Rosemary must have some secrets I can't tell to the family baby. Remember, you score in other ways. It's luck to be born youngest."

The three girls turned in at a gate and walked up a flower-bordered drive to a comfortable ivy-covered house. "Pendlehurst" was a modern house, and in Lorraine's opinion not at all romantic, but, with the exception of herself, the Forrester family was not particularly given to romance. Her father, in choosing a residence, had paid more attention to drains, number of bedrooms and hot-water facilities than to artistic beauty or æsthetic associations. He was a practical man with a bent towards mathematics, and counted the cubic space necessary for the requirements of seven children to be the matter of most importance. He had an old-established practice as a solicitor in the town, and had lived all his life at Porthkeverne. Of the large family of children only the three youngest remained at home. Richard and Donald were at the front, in the thick of the fighting; Rodney was in training for the Air Force, while Rosemary, anxious also to flutter from the nest and try her wings in the world, was to go to London to study singing at a College of Music. Her term began a little later than Lorraine's, so the two girls had still a few days left to spend together. They ran upstairs now to their joint bedroom, where packing was in progress. A big box stood under the window with a bottom layer of harmony-books and music tightly arranged. To Rosemary it meant the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream. As she looked at it, her imagination skipped three or four years and showed her a golden vision of herself--in a pale pink satin dress with a pearl necklace--standing on a concert platform and bowing repeatedly to the storm of applause which had greeted her song.

"I can't tell you how hard I'm going to work," she confided. "I shall just practise and practise and practise. I know that wretched theory will rather stump me, but I'll wrestle with it. There'll be such a musical atmosphere about the place, it can't help inspiring one."

"The hostel will be fun, too," said Lorraine, going down on her knees to inspect the dainty afternoon tea service that was being rolled up for safety in soft articles of clothing. "I can just picture you in your room, making a cup of cocoa before you go to bed."

"And having in a few friends. It'll be the time of my life! I always wanted to go to boarding school, but this will be even better, because in a way I shall be my own mistress. I never thought I'd work Dad round to it. I've been in a sort of quiver ever since he said 'yes'. Who's there?" (as a loud series of rappings resounded on the door). "Oh, I can't have you children in here just now! Go away!"

"We
must
come in!" urged Monica, following up her words by a forcible entrance. "There! there! Don't get excited! You'll
welcome
us when you know what we've come for! Chips and I have brought you a present. We thought you'd like to pack it now."

Mervyn, otherwise "Chips", an overgrown boy of thirteen, was embracing a large parcel, which he plumped on the floor and unfolded. It contained a fretwork basket, stained brown and still rather sticky with varnish. The corners fitted indifferently, and the handle was slightly askew.

"We've made it between us!" said Mervyn proudly. "It'll either do for a work-basket, or you could plant ferns in it and have it in your window."

"You didn't guess the least little atom what we were doing, did you?" asked Monica anxiously.

"Not a scrap!" said Rosemary, gallantly accepting the embarrassing offering with the enthusiasm it demanded. "You're dears to have made it for me. I can keep all sorts of things in it: cocoa and condensed milk, and bits of string, and everything I'm likely to lose. Thanks ever so! Isn't it a little sticky to pack yet?"

"Not
very
!" said Mervyn, applying a finger as practical demonstration: "I'm glad you like it. It's our first really big bit of work with those fret saws. Now, Cuckoo, if you want to come, there'll be just time to develop those films before tea."

When the children had gone, Rosemary lifted up the rather crooked basket, looked at it critically, and laughed.

"I'm sure it was a labour of love," she commented. "Of course, I shall have to take it with me, though it will be a nuisance to pack. And they're so proud of it! I hope my own first efforts at the College of Music won't be considered equally crude by the authorities!"

"Or mine at The Gables! We're each starting on new lines this term. What heaps and loads we shall have to talk about at Christmas!"

New Brooms

A week later, Rosemary, trailing clouds of glory in the family estimation, departed for the classic precincts of the College of Music, and Lorraine, left behind, shook off the atmosphere of detachment which always pervades an exodus, and focused her full mind and energies upon The Gables. It was no light thing to be chosen as head girl. Miss Kingsley, in that private talk in the study, had urged the responsibility as well as the honour of the office. Lorraine did not mean to disappoint her if she could help it. She set to work at once to wrestle with the problem of an autumn programme for the school. In virtue of her office she was president of all the various existing guilds and societies, and had the power to enlarge, curtail, or reorganize at her discretion. Although in a sense she was supreme referee, she had no desire to ride rough-shod over the general wishes, so, as a preliminary to any proposed changes, she called a monitresses' meeting.

The seven girls who, with herself, made up the Sixth Form, assembled in the class-room after school, interested and, on the whole, ready for business. Audrey, to be sure, was giggling as usual. Patsie was pulling an absurd face of mock dignity, but Nellie and Claire were pleased with their new importance. Vivien, rather sulky, though submitting perforce to play second fiddle, had patched up a temporary truce with Dorothy, and the pair settled side by side. Claudia, the fresh addition to the form, strolled in late and sat crocheting while the others talked. Lorraine, her lap full of minutes books, bristled with ideas.

Lily Anderson, the former head girl, had been energetic and enterprising to an extent that was really worthy of a wider sphere. Her standard had soared so high that the school had been quite unable to live up to it. In her excess of zeal she had founded too many societies, and with such strict and arduous rules that they would have tried the spirit of a candidate for initiation into some mystic Brotherhood. Urged on by her enthusiasm, the members had made a desperate first spurt, and then had slacked lamentably. The records of their brief successes and subsequent fallings-off were chronicled in certain marbled-cover exercise-books. Lorraine, fresh from a perusal of these annals, began the meeting with a drastic suggestion.

"As things stand at present," she said, "the school seems over-weighted with societies. This is an exact list of them: 'The Research Society', 'The Poker-work Guild', 'The Debating Society', 'The Sketching Club', 'The Stamp Collectors' Union', 'The Post Card Guild', 'The Home Reading Circle', 'The Jack Tar Club', 'The Entertainments Guild', 'The Musical Union', 'The Hockey Club', 'The Cricket Club', 'The Tennis Club', 'The Badminton Club', 'The Basket-ball Club', 'The Natural History League', 'The Elocution Guild', 'The Needlecraft Society', and 'The Home Arts Guild'."

"Nineteen in all!" commented Patsie, who had been checking off the items on her fingers.

"Rather stiff for a school of forty girls!" nodded Dorothy sagely.

"There are far too many to keep up properly," urged Lorraine. "Every hobby we've ever had has been turned into a society. If we'd had no lessons to do, we could scarcely have managed them all, but when they must come out of our spare time it gets quite a tax. I think we mustn't be quite so ambitious this year. Suppose we let some of them drop, and concentrate on just a few."

"I'm your man!" agreed Patsie. "I always thought such heaps of societies were a grizzly nuisance. It got the limit when two or three girls couldn't even compare post cards without being turned into a guild. Those kids in the Second Form actually had a society for collecting stumps of lead pencil, and used to steal them shamelessly from any boxes that were left about in the gym. The 'guild habit' has grown into a perfect mania with the school."