CHAPTER XII
THE NEW FORM-MISTRESS
"I say! Have you heard the news?" cried Hilda Burns, bursting the next morning into the Lower Fifth sitting-room, where the form was gathered awaiting the summons to prayers.
All the girls looked up at Hilda's excited entrance. Even Gerry, who as usual was finding in a book solace from her loneliness, stopped reading to hear what the news might be.
"No! What is it?" asked various voices; and Hilda, conscious of the importance of the tidings she carried, said impressively:
"Pretty Polly's ill. Really ill. Not just influenza and bed for a day or two. She was taken suddenly bad in the night, and they had to send for the doctor. And it's appendicitis, and she's got to have an operation at once, and she's going off in an ambulance to a nursing home this morning."
"I say! Poor Polly! I am sorry," said Jack. And the whole form proceeded to express its dismay more or less appropriately. In spite of her strictness and extreme prejudices in favour of tidiness, Miss Parrot was popular with her form; and real regret at losing her so unexpectedly was mingled with sorrow for her illness. It was not for a few minutes, however, that it dawned upon the Lower Fifth that this sudden calamity would leave it without a form-mistress.
"But I say! What about us?" exclaimed Dorothy at length. "Who's going to take our form? We shall have to have somebody."
"Miss Oakley's wired to an agency asking them to send someone," said Hilda, who had an uncanny knack of finding out these sorts of things. Her information proved to be correct, for when prayers were over and the Lower Fifth marched as usual into its classroom, Miss Oakley was waiting there for them; and after telling them of their mistress's illness, she came at once to the point which was exercising the minds of the form.
"I am glad to say that I have succeeded in getting somebody to fill Miss Parrot's place for the rest of this term. Miss Burton is coming from town to-day, and will take over your form from to-morrow morning. Miss Parrot's unexpected illness has rather upset the usual school routine to-day, and instead of your classes I am going to set you some exercises and questions to work out by yourselves. Miss Latham will come in to you for the last hour this morning and correct your answers and award your marks. I trust you all to behave well during the time you are unavoidably left alone; and to show your sympathy with Miss Parrot by doing all in your power to help her successor. Now, Hilda, bring me your books, and I will set you some work to do."
The Lower Fifth behaved themselves with exemplary virtue in the classroom that morning, and in due course the new mistress arrived. She was not introduced to her form until the next day. The girls were not very favourably impressed by her appearance. Miss Burton was thin and rather angular, sandy-haired and spectacled, and she gave the impression of being both irritable and exacting—an impression which the Lower Fifth found amply justified when they came into close contact with their new mistress. Miss Burton was really one of those people who ought never to have gone in for teaching at all, having no real liking for her profession, nor any sympathy with or understanding of girls. She very soon succeeded in ruffling the feelings of the Lower Fifth, and before the first morning was ended the whole form was in open rebellion.
It was over Gerry Wilmott that the rupture took place. Margaret Taylor, who occupied the desk next to Gerry's, was unable to find her place during the literature lesson, having, through inattention, missed the announcement Miss Burton made in the beginning of the class. The girls were reading aloud in turn a play of Shakespeare's, and as her turn drew nearer and nearer Margaret fumbled desperately with the pages, finally turning an imploring glance upon Gerry, who was watching her futile struggles with nervous apprehension. Gerry was only too glad to do anything for anybody,—the ostracism in which she was kept by the rest of the form precluded her as a rule from even offering aid on such an occasion as this,—and she leant over to her neighbour's desk and pointed it out, just at the very moment when Miss Burton happened to be looking that way. The new mistress banged on her desk with such emphasis that the girl who was reading at the moment stopped suddenly, and the class looked up in amazement, while Gerry gave a frightened little jump.
"You, girl! What is your name?" said Miss Burton, pointing her pencil at Gerry.
"Gerry—I mean Geraldine Wilmott," stammered Gerry.
"What do you mean by whispering to another girl during class?" demanded the mistress, blinking furiously at the culprit through her glasses.
"I—I wasn't whispering," said Gerry. "I—I was only showing Margaret the place."
"Don't prevaricate!" thundered Miss Burton. "You were whispering. I saw you."
Up shot Margaret's hand.
"Please, Miss Burton," said that young lady indignantly, moved for once to take the unpopular new girl's part, "she wasn't whispering. I'd lost my place, and I made signs to her to show me, and she was only pointing it out with her pencil."
"I don't believe either of you," said the new mistress. Then with a fiery glance at Gerry, she said ferociously:
"Go on with the reading from the place where the last girl left off."
This command was shot out with such venom as to render poor Gerry a thousand times more nervous even than usual. She had lost her own place hopelessly by this time, and as she fumbled with the pages in the vain endeavour to find it and comply with the order, Miss Burton spoke again in a triumphant voice:
"I thought so. You do not know the place yourself, therefore you could not have been showing it to your companion! You are both of you extremely naughty, untruthful girls, and you will each take a conduct mark for your deceitfulness."
"Please, Miss Burton, I wasn't deceiving you!" cried Gerry, goaded into one of her rare attempts at self-assertion. "I was showing Margaret Taylor her place, and I did know it quite well until you confused me and made me lose it."
Miss Burton grew scarlet with anger.
"How dare you argue with me!" she said. "I see that you mean to give me as much trouble as you possibly can, but I mean to take a firm hand with you. Go and stand in that corner with your face to the wall until the lesson is over!"
A gasp of incredulous amazement went up from the Lower Fifth.
"Miss Burton! We're not babies!" cried Hilda Burns indignantly. "We're Fifth Form and not used to punishments like that. You can't make Gerry stand in a corner!"
"Don't interfere!" said the mistress. "Geraldine Wilmott, do as I direct you, at once."
Gerry's momentary display of spirit had quite spent itself by now. With a white face she walked across the schoolroom and took up the position Miss Burton indicated. And there she stood in silent humiliation with her face to the wall, while the rest of the form, sulky and rebellious, dragged through the remainder of the lesson.
Miss Burton did not try any more drastic measures. Perhaps she realised that she had already gone too far. Or perhaps, having vented some of her anger upon Gerry, she felt more amiably disposed towards the rest of her girls. At all events, the lesson ended without another contretemps; and Gerry was permitted to come out of her ignominious corner and was seated again in her desk before Miss Latham entered to take her usual class in history.
The Lower Fifth managed to conceal their indignation during the history lesson, but when at last the morning's work had ended and the new mistress had finally departed from the classroom, the storm of anger burst. For the first time since she had come to Wakehurst Priory, Gerry found herself the centre of popular sympathy.
"What a beastly shame, Gerry!" said Jack Pym, coming over to Gerry's desk. "She's a beastly, mean pig—and she hadn't any right to treat you like that." And she put her hand caressingly on Gerry's arm, a proceeding which filled Gerry's heart with a sudden thrill of happiness. It was almost the first time Jack had spoken to her since that first unlucky day at school. Even her late humiliation seemed worth while if it was going to bring her Jack's friendship again.
The other members of the form, too, gave vent to many expressions of sympathy, and schemes of vengeance upon the new mistress were discussed.
"Tell you what—we'll strike!" said Dorothy Pemberton, always ready to take the side of lawlessness and disorder.
"How?" said Phyllis, eager to support her chum, yet not quite seeing how a successful strike could be engineered.
"Why, we won't do a stroke of prep for her!" said Dorothy. "We'll work for all the other mistresses doubly hard to make up, but when it comes to Miss Burton's work we won't do a thing. We'll all promise not to, and then if the whole lot of us are in it she can't do anything."
"She can give us conduct marks," said Hilda Burns.
"Yes, but she'll have to give them to the whole lot, so they won't mean very much. And although we shan't get any marks for her lessons, yet it won't really count, because we shall all be in the same boat."
"She can complain to Miss Oakley," said Hilda.
"Well, if she does, that will be just what we want. Miss Oakley will jaw us, of course, but she'll make inquiries too, and when she finds out what a rotter Miss Burton is, she'll dismiss her right away. Let her go to Miss Oakley if she likes, it will be all the better. Who'll sign on to down books for Miss Burton?"
"I will, for one," cried Jack impetuously.
"And I," cried Phyllis Tressider.
"And I."
"And I."
"And I," echoed round the room.
There were one or two doubtful people, but Dorothy's arguments, aided by Jack's and Phyllis's persuasions, overcame the most conscientious individuals. One by one the members of the form gave in and took a solemn vow that they would not do a stroke of preparation for the new form-mistress.
At length it came to Gerry's turn to be questioned.
"You'll come in, Gerry, of course," remarked Dorothy, in a nicer tone of voice than she had ever before used towards the new girl.
For a moment Gerry hesitated. It seemed to her that they had not given the new form-mistress much of a chance. She might be nicer in a day or two—it would surely be kinder to wait a little while before declaring such open war upon her. But, on the other hand, it seemed as though a door had been suddenly opened which would lead to all the things Gerry most longed for—popularity, the sympathy of her form, Jack's coveted friendship. All the while Dorothy and Jack had been arguing with and persuading the other waverers to join the strike, Gerry had been battling strenuously within her own heart. She wanted, oh, so badly! to throw in her lot with the rest of the form. Marks and favour with the mistresses meant so little in comparison with all the other important aspects of school life. Jack's hand was on her shoulder, Jack's friendship lay open to her—Gerry instinctively felt—if she would only throw in her lot with the rest of the Lower Fifth. And after all, why shouldn't she? She had really had more provocation than any of the others, for it was she who had suffered the unjust and humiliating punishment. She looked at Jack, and at the eager expression on Jack's face she threw her conscientious scruples to the winds.
"Yes, I'll come in," she said, and Dorothy turned to the rest of the form with an air of triumph.
"That's all right, then. We're all in it. What prep has that old beast set us for to-night? Learn by heart that speech of Henry the Fifth's, work right through the algebra exercise, and write five hundred words in German on 'Spring.' Thank the Lord, she teaches us German! It will be some consolation for the rows we're bound to get into, to think we shall be able to cut out that beastly German for a bit. What does that leave us for to-night? French, history analysis for Miss Latham, and that science paper for Miss White. Good! We shall have a jolly slack time in prep to-night, shan't we?"
"There'll be an awful bust up on Monday morning, though," said Hilda Burns.
Hilda was still rather doubtful about the strike. As head of the form, she could not help feeling that she was slightly responsible for its good behaviour, and might be called to account for its lawlessness by the powers that were. But she was not strong enough to stand up against Dorothy and Phyllis and their powerful following, so she cast in her lot with the rebels and said no more against the graceless plan.
CHAPTER XIII
A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS
Gerry passed quite a cheerful dinner hour at Table Five that day. Jack had pushed Nita Fleming aside just before lunch and had herself taken the place next to Gerry.
"You don't mind, old girl, do you?" she said to Nita. "But I want to sit next to Gerry Wilmott, just for a change."
"I don't mind," said Nita good-naturedly, used to Jack's vagaries. And when Gerry arrived at the table, she found to her delight and surprise that Jack was to be her next-door neighbour.
"Thought I'd change with Nita to-day," observed Jack laconically, as, grace having been said, the girls sat down in their chairs. "I get fed up with sitting in one place all the time." And then, as though afraid to pursue the subject any further, she made haste to change the conversation.
"What's for dinner to-day?" she asked, as the maids began to hand round plates with a speed and dexterity born of much practice. "Oh, hang it all—it's boiled mutton again! And I bet you anything you like it will be boiled suet roll afterwards! Matron always likes to arrange things like that. Boiled mutton, boiled potatoes, boiled turnips—what did I tell you? I put my money on boiled suet roll for sweets."
"You're too optimistic," said Nita gloomily. "I feel in my bones it's going to be rice pudding. Or if it isn't rice it'll be sago. If there's one pudding I loathe worse than rice it's sago!"
"It won't be sago to-day," said Jack cheerfully. "We had sago on Wednesday. No—it'll be boiled suet roll, you just see if it isn't. Louie darling,"—to the maid who was handing her vegetables at the moment,—"what's for pudding to-day? Do tell us, there's an angel! Is it sago or rice or boiled suet roll? Tell us the worst at once and let's get it over."
"None of them, miss; it's treacle tart to-day," replied the maid, with a grin. Jack was as thoroughly popular with the maids as she was with everybody else at Wakehurst, and the little shriek of joy which the girl emitted at her announcement made Louie determined to see that the school favourite received a good-sized share of the popular sweet.
"Hurrah! Now I can even manage to eat a little boiled mutton," said Jack. And setting to work she tackled her viands with an appetite which drew forth a sardonic remark from Nita.
"For a person who doesn't like boiled mutton, I must say you're managing to get it down pretty well," she said.
"Ah, but you see, the thought of treacle tart to follow sustains me," replied Jack, quite unabashed. "What's your favourite pudding, Gerry? Treacle tart or the apple pie we get on Sundays? I wonder why on Sundays it is always apple pie?"
"It's one of the rules of the Medes and Persians," said Nita, "that's why."
"Which do you like best, Gerry?" persisted Jack.
"Apple pie, I think," said Gerry, laughing, as much with pleasure at being included in the conversation again after all these weeks of exile as with amusement at Jack's nonsense—which was put on, as she very well knew, to hide the awkwardness of this reconciliation. Gerry, like Jack, felt shy at the thought of any sort of "scene" taking place, and was only too glad to fall back into friendly ways in this commonplace manner. It was rather a case of making conversation all through that meal, but Gerry responded bravely to Jack's efforts. And both girls felt that they were well on the way towards renewing the friendship which had been so nearly formed between them on the first evening of the term.
"I say, are you walking with anyone this afternoon?" asked Jack abruptly, when, dinner being over, the girls were leaving the dining-hall.
"I'm playing hockey," replied Gerry regretfully. "Worse luck!"
"Worse luck?" said Jack in astonishment. Then remembering some of Gerry's reasons for disliking the game, she coloured violently. "Oh, well, never mind," she said quickly. "I was going to ask you to be my walk-partner, but of course if you're playing hockey you can't."
"I'm awfully sorry," said Gerry. "I should have liked to have walked with you very much."
"We'll fix up another day," said Jack. "Let's see; to-morrow's Saturday, so there'll be no walk, as there's a first eleven hockey match to watch. Sunday, I'm engaged to Nita. Monday, I've got hockey. Tuesday—is Tuesday one of your hockey days?"
"No, not next week," replied Gerry.
"Well, then, will you be my walk-partner on Tuesday?"
"I'd love to," said Gerry, in a tone that left no doubt of her sincerity. And so the two parted—Jack to get ready for her walk, and Gerry to array herself in her hockey dress with a glow of happiness in her heart which even the memory of her hour of humiliation in the class-room could not subdue.
Things really seemed to have taken a turn for the better for Gerry at last. Once again Muriel appeared to take the K teams' hockey practice, and once again Gerry managed to win the approval of the head girl. At the conclusion of the game, Muriel again elected to walk down to the school with her protégée, and signified her pleasure at Gerry's improvement in her play.
"I don't know that you'll ever be very first class, but there's no reason at all why you shouldn't turn out a very useful player. I'm going to move you up into H. Alice Metcalfe will be your coach there. I'll tell her to put you on the forward line somewhere and train you for forward altogether. Your next practice will be Monday. How are things going for you in your form now—better? I saw you laughing quite a lot at dinner to-day, so I rather imagine that they are."
"Oh yes, thank you—they're much better," declared Gerry, rather confused at the sudden interest evinced in her affairs by the head girl. Muriel was quick to perceive her confusion, and attributing it to the right cause made haste to turn the conversation, and talked hockey exclusively during the remainder of the walk to the school.
True to their compact, the whole of the Lower Fifth refrained from doing a stroke of work for their new form-mistress in preparation that evening, although one or two of the girls felt rather doubtful as to what the consequences of this "direct action" might be. Gerry especially was troubled with qualms of conscience. Not that she was especially afraid of consequences—she was too happy at being taken at last into favour by her form to trouble very much about them. But Gerry had a capacity for putting herself into other people's places which was rather unusual in a girl so young; and do what she would, she could not quite banish the mistress's side of the case from her mind. Miss Burton was new and strange. She would probably grow more human in time if the girls did not too openly set themselves against her. And it was horrible to be unpopular. Gerry had had full opportunity of finding out how horrible unpopularity was. She was trying so hard to be brave—to live up to Muriel Paget's estimate of her—wasn't it rather cowardly to go against her conscience like this just for the sake of gaining the good opinion of her form-mates? Gerry had a long wrestle with her conscience as she sat at her desk that evening, when, all the rest of her preparation done, she was debating within herself whether or not she should start upon the work Miss Burton had set. But in the end, her longing for Jack's friendship overcame her sense of right and wrong. And she stifled back the small protesting voice within her.
"I promised the others I wouldn't, and I can't break my promise now," she argued to herself.
And when the bell rang for the end of preparation, the struggle was over. Friendship had won, and Gerry, in company with the rest of the Lower Fifth, had left undone the whole of the work that Miss Burton had set.
CHAPTER XIV
CHESTNUTS
The week-end went by much more happily than Gerry would have believed possible a few days ago. The members of the Lower Fifth were rather shy of her as a whole, it is true. But although, with the exception of Jack and Nita, they made no positive advances towards the new girl, yet they did not behave nearly as coldly as they had been doing of late.
And Jack was friendly enough to make up for all the others. She was rather fixed up with partners for the various week-end events; but she chattered away gaily to Gerry at meal-times, invited her to stand with Nita and herself to watch the hockey match on the Saturday afternoon, and generally did her utmost to make Gerry feel happy and at home.
On Sunday evening after tea, Gerry, who had put in an attendance at both the morning services and had so secured exemption from the evening service at St. Peter's, went to the library to find a book. Having procured one which promised to be interesting, she returned to the Lower Fifth sitting-room, and finding it empty, curled herself up on the hearthrug in front of the fire, and prepared for a happy if somewhat solitary evening. She had not been established there very long, however, before the door opened and Jack came into the room.
She dropped down beside Gerry on the hearth-rug and peered over her shoulder at the book.
"What are you reading?" she asked. "Anything interesting? Do you want to read very badly, or will you mind if we put out the light? Nita's coming in directly, and we'd arranged to have a cosy confab in the firelight. All the others are going to the organ recital, and we thought it would be a splendid opportunity to have a nice quiet evening all to ourselves."
"Is there an organ recital?" said Gerry. "I didn't know."
"Yes, there's been a notice up about it on the notice-board all the week. You are a blind old bat, Gerry, always up in the clouds. I don't believe you know half that goes on in the school. Miss Martyn's giving one in the Chapel this evening, but you needn't go to it unless you want—it's optional. Stay here and have a jolly evening with Nita and me. Here comes Nita."
The door opened at that moment, and Nita came quickly into the room.
"Hullo, here you are! I've got them all right——" she began, then stopped short at the sight of Gerry. In the dim light—Jack had switched off the overhead lamps, and the room was only lighted now by the glow from the fire—she had not seen her quite at first. "Oh, it's you, is it?" she said, somewhat abruptly. "I thought you'd gone to the organ recital."
Jack grinned at Nita's look of dismay and turned to Gerry with a chuckle of amusement.
"It's all right—don't take any notice of Nita. She doesn't really mean to be rude—it's just her way. Don't stand there looking like a stuffed owl, Nita. Gerry won't split. Will you, Gerry?"
"Split? Split on what?" asked Gerry, looking from one girl to the other in bewilderment.
"Why, we're going to have a chestnut-roasting, Nita and I. We were out for a walk with the three Fourth Forms this afternoon. Miss Burton took it. And we went by the chestnut plantation on Sir John Boyne's place—you know it, don't you, up by Southdown Woods? Nita and I gave the rest of them the slip and lay low in the plantation until they'd all gone past. Then we just set to and stuffed our pockets with chestnuts. There were loads of them, all eating ones, you know, and when the walk came back we tagged ourselves on to it without anyone getting wise. And we've planned to roast them in here while the others are at the organ recital. We didn't mean to let anyone else know, but we don't mind you—do we, Nita?"
"Oh no, of course not," said Nita hastily. But there was not quite so much conviction in her voice as Gerry would have liked to have heard in it. However, Jack's evident anxiety for her company made up for Nita's lack of cordiality; and soon the three of them were amicably engaged in scorching their faces and burning their fingers over the chestnuts.
It was very cosy in the sitting-room, curled up on the hearthrug in front of the glowing fire, which Jack had taken care to build up well before tea and which was now a flaming mass of red-hot coals. Jack was in one of her merriest, maddest moods, and her mirth infected the other two as well. Nita forgot her slight annoyance at finding that Gerry was to be a participator in the chestnut-roasting, and Gerry herself was too happy for words as she sat beside Jack in the flickering firelight. For Jack was leaning against her in the friendliest way, and it seemed to the new girl that all her school troubles were over at last, and that nothing but friendship and happiness lay before her.
But suddenly, while the merriment was at its height, the sitting-room door opened abruptly, and a stream of light from the passage outside poured into the room. Nita sprang to her feet, and Jack and Gerry looked round in startled surprise. A thin, angular figure stood in the doorway, and a rasping voice exclaimed in disgusted tones:
"What is this smell of burning?"
"Jemima! It's Miss Burton!" muttered Jack, as she scrambled to her feet. "Quick, Gerry, stuff the chestnuts into your pocket! Anywhere—while I brush the shucks under the hearthrug. She can't have seen anything yet."
Gerry hastily gathered up what chestnuts she could lay her hands upon and stuffed them into the one pocket her dress possessed. Nita did the same, while Jack disposed of the empty shells as best she could. By the time Miss Burton had succeeded in finding the switch and turning on the light, nothing remained except the tell-tale smell of burning to betray the fact that any unlawful feasting had recently taken place.
Jack sniffed innocently into the air.
"Burning, Miss Burton? Is there a smell of burning?"
Miss Burton advanced into the room, looking suspiciously about her. Her days of chestnut-roasting were so long over, that she was unable to detect exactly the nature of the strange odour that assailed her nostrils, although she was well aware that it was something that should not have been in evidence in any well-conducted school. However, there appeared to be nothing that she could pounce upon, and she was obliged to confine her energies to strictures upon the unconventional attitudes in which she had surprised the three girls.
"Really, the way you girls behave in this school is atrocious! Fancy three big girls of fifteen sitting on the floor in that ugly attitude. And why are you sitting in the dark? Why are you here at all for that matter? Is there not an organ recital you ought to be attending?"
"The organ recital was optional, Miss Burton," said Jack respectfully. Respect seemed to her the easiest way of getting rid of this very unwelcome visitor. "And Nita and Gerry and I thought we would rather stay in here in the warm, and have a cosy talk over the fire."
"But why turn the lights out?" demanded the mistress, suspicious of the extreme innocence of the three faces before her. The innocence of two of them, rather! Gerry was not good at disguising her expression at any time, and at the moment she was looking distinctly uncomfortable.
"We like sitting in the firelight best," said Jack glibly. "It makes it seem so much more cosy and mysterious. Don't you think so yourself, Miss Burton?" From the keen interest of her tone an uninitiated observer might have thought that it was really a matter of importance to her to discover the mistress's private opinion on this engrossing topic.
Miss Burton, however, was not to be thus beguiled.
"No, I cannot say that I do," she said stiffly. She gave another suspicious look around, but although she was not by any means convinced of the innocency of her three pupils' proceedings, there seemed to be nothing that she could lay hold of, and she turned reluctantly towards the door.
And then at that inauspicious moment, Gerry's pocket—stuffed far beyond its ordinary capacity with chestnuts—must suddenly give way!
There was a sound of ripping material, and the next moment a cascade of chestnuts poured out upon the floor. In a moment Miss Burton was upon them, and the mystery of the strange smell became apparent to her.
"I thought so!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "I knew you were up to some sort of mischief! Attendance at Chapel may be optional, as you say, but I am quite sure that you are not allowed to stay away in order to roast chestnuts!"
"There's no rule that says we mayn't, that I know of," said Jack, rather impudently.
The mistress glared at her.
"Don't be impertinent!" she said. "If you are allowed to do it, why did you attempt to conceal the chestnuts? Come with me to Miss Oakley—we will see what she has to say about it."
Any other mistress would have dealt with the affair herself, and not have taken it up to the Head in such a drastic manner. Jack gave a gasp of dismay. But she realised the futility of arguing with Miss Burton, and with a shrug of her shoulders she walked towards the door. Nita and Gerry followed in her wake, and the three culprits were marched along the corridors to the headmistress's study, Miss Burton keeping a strict eye upon them and bearing the chestnuts in her hands.
Miss Oakley was enjoying a quiet hour in her study, but she aroused herself at once to attend to the mistress's complaint. Miss Burton was a newcomer, and although the headmistress had realised already that her methods were not altogether the methods in vogue at Wakehurst Priory, yet courtesy as well as school discipline demanded that her complaints should be attended to. So she listened gravely enough to the recital of the reprehensible conduct of the three Lower Fifth girls, and their attempted concealment of the chestnuts.
"Geraldine Wilmott had hidden them in her pocket," said the mistress, having made out the worst possible case against the three culprits. "That shows that she had a guilty conscience, I am inclined to think that this girl is the worst of the three. She was very rude and insolent to me the other morning in class."
Miss Oakley glanced at Gerry's crimson face in surprise. The new girl always seemed so shy and quiet that rudeness and insolence were about the last things she expected from her. However, whatever the facts might be of the incident in class, they had nothing to do with the matter in hand, and she turned again to her contemplation of the chestnuts.
"May I ask where you obtained these chestnuts?" she inquired mildly.
Jack answered for the other two.
"Nita and I got them while we were out walking this afternoon, if you please, Miss Oakley."
"I don't think it does please me," said the mistress quietly. "The only chestnut trees that I know of near here belong to Sir John Boyne, and I know he is very particular about trespassers on his estate. Did you go into his plantation to get them?"
"Yes," said Jack.
"Then you acted very wrongly, Jack," the headmistress said gravely. "I do not suppose that you quite realised it, but what you were doing was nothing less than stealing. If you had been poor children and had been caught by the keepers, you would probably have been severely punished. As it is, I cannot allow you to escape all punishment for your wrong-doing. You will all three write out, 'I must not steal,' three hundred times, and hand your lines to Miss Burton not later than to-morrow evening."
"But, please, Miss Oakley, Gerry didn't steal them. She wasn't with us out walking, and she didn't know anything about it until after tea," said Jack.
"But she helped you to eat them, I suppose?" said the headmistress.
"Y—yes, but she didn't have anything to do with thinking of the plan. She just happened to be in the sitting-room, so we asked her to join in," said Jack.
"Well, perhaps her crime wasn't quite so great as yours," said Miss Oakley, with a little smile. "All the same, since she took part in the feasting, I think she also must pay for her pleasure. Geraldine, suppose you write out, 'Chestnuts are bad for the digestion,' one hundred times—I think that will be enough for your share. Now you may go."
The three made their way back to the sitting-room, rather crestfallen at the ignominious ending to their cosy evening, and full of wrath against Miss Burton for what Jack termed her "beastly sneakiness." At least, Jack and Nita were full of wrath. Gerry was too unhappy at having got her friends into trouble to be angry with anybody.
"I'm most awfully sorry, Jack," she said miserably. "If only my beastly pocket hadn't burst it would have been all right! I always seem to be getting you into trouble! I am such a stupid ass over things!"
"Oh, that's all right," said Jack, trying to be magnanimous, although she could not help agreeing with Gerry about her stupidity. Gerry certainly seemed an expert at doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. "You couldn't help your pocket bursting, of course."
But in spite of her words, Gerry could not help feeling that both her companions blamed her a little for the unfortunate accident—Nita more so, perhaps, than Jack. It would have been some consolation if she had been allowed to share fully in the punishment, but Jack, with that scrupulous honesty of hers, had effectually prevented her from doing that. Gerry would gladly have done the lines for all three of them, but that, of course, was impossible, and she could only bear her own share of the burden laid upon them.
The organ recital was over by the time the three reached the Lower Fifth sitting-room again, and the members of the form had returned to their usual Sunday evening occupations. Grumbling greatly at their affliction, Jack and Nita got out their pens and paper and made a beginning at their punishment task, for they knew that it would be all that they could do to get the lines finished by the required time. The rest of the Lower Fifth listened sympathetically to their tale of woe, and many were the censures upon the new mistress for her unsportsman-like manner of dealing with the affair.
"Of course she ought to have lectured you herself, and let you off with a conduct mark at most," exclaimed Dorothy Pemberton. "Fancy taking you up to the Head for a little thing like that!"
"But what a silly ass you must have been, Gerry Wilmott, to go letting them drop just when she was going away," said Phyllis Tressider. Phyllis still bore a grudge against Gerry because of the rowing the head girl had given her on Gerry's behalf, and she had acquiesced very unwillingly into taking the new girl into favour.
"I couldn't help it, my pocket burst," said Gerry. And Jack, although she herself blamed Gerry a little for the accident, hastened to take her part.
"Shut up, Phyllis, and leave Gerry alone. It wasn't her fault. It was that beast of a Miss Burton! Never mind, though, we'll be revenged upon her to-morrow. Won't she be wild when she finds that we've none of us done a single stroke of the work she set!"
"She'll report us to Miss Oakley, right away—you see if she doesn't," prophesied Hilda Burns gloomily. "If she'll report a little thing like roasting chestnuts, she's sure to take a big matter like refusing to do our work up to the Head, too. We're in for an awful time, in my opinion. I think we were asses to have done it. It would have been better to have got even with her in some safer way."
"Well, it's too late now to begin repenting about it," said Jack cheerfully. "And, anyway, we're all in it together, whatever happens." And then she and Nita and Gerry settled down to their punishment lines.
CHAPTER XV
THE LOWER FIFTH IS MUTE
The first lesson on Monday morning was with Miss Latham. The Lower Fifth, by way of marking the contrast, or perhaps in order to soothe their guilty consciences, had given extra attention to their preparation for the English mistress, and matters progressed swimmingly in consequence. Miss Latham dealt out good marks lavishly. Then, with a word of praise for the careful manner in which the form had prepared its work, she made way for Miss Burton.
It was the German lesson first.
"Let me see—I set an essay for your preparation, didn't I?" began the new mistress briskly. "Hilda Burns, you are head of this form, kindly collect the papers and bring them to me."
Hilda rose from her desk, then hesitated, while her eye swept round the classroom. Every member of the form sat rigidly at attention, while every desk was bare of essay papers. With a little gasp of nervousness, Hilda endeavoured to break the news of the Lower Fifth's unpreparedness for the lesson.
"If you please, Miss Burton, I don't think there are any essays to be given in."
Miss Burton stared at her in undisguised amazement.
"No essays? What do you mean, child? Do you mean to tell me that nobody in the whole form has had time to do their preparation?"
"I—I don't think there are any essays done," evaded Hilda.
Miss Burton continued to stare at the head of her form for a moment or two. Then a grim expression came over her face and she turned to the other girls.
"Hands up, please, those of you who have done the essay that I set," she commanded.
Not a hand was raised. The whole form sat in rigid stillness; and the mistress put her question in a slightly different form.
"Hands up those of you who have not done it," she said.
With a promptness that would have done the form credit in a drill display, a hand shot up from every girl, while a stifled giggle ran round the room at the look of blank astonishment that spread over the mistress's face.
"I shall be obliged if someone will enlighten me as to why this work has not been done," Miss Burton said at length in her stiffest manner. But although she waited for an answer, none came. Once more she turned to Hilda.
"Hilda Burns, will you please explain why the form has not done the preparation that I set?" she demanded. But there was no satisfactory explanation to be got out of Hilda. The head of the form blushed and stammered and fidgeted, but no coherent answer was forthcoming from her, and at last the mistress gave up the attempt to elicit one.
"Since you refuse to give me any explanation, I can only put down your omission to prepare the essay to rank laziness," she remarked icily. "Possibly you thought that as I was a newcomer, you could do what you liked in my classes. You will find that you have made a mistake, for I assure you that I am going to stand no nonsense. Of course, there will be no marks for this lesson, and you will write the essay for the next German class in addition to the fresh work which I shall set you. I had intended to read your essays aloud and criticise them in class, but since they are not written I cannot, of course, do that."
"Thank the Lord they aren't written, then," muttered Jack in an aside to Phyllis Tressider. Unfortunately for Jack, Miss Burton's quick ears caught the remark and she pounced upon the offender in a trice.
"Joanna Pym, take a bad mark," she snapped. Then she resumed her address to the rest of the form.
"Since I cannot carry out my original intention of criticising your essays, I am going to ask you questions in German which I shall expect you to answer in that language. Dorothy Pemberton, you are sitting at the end of a row, I shall begin with you. Everybody pay attention, please. Dorothy, 'Was hast du während deinen Sommerferien getan?'"
It was a question to which Dorothy could have found any amount of suitable answers, but, mindful of the compact with the form, she sat in silence and the question passed to her next-door neighbour, Phyllis. Phyllis also passed it, and thereafter Miss Burton went from one girl to another without receiving any attempt at a reply. When the whole form had passed the question in dead silence, the mistress, quivering with anger, propounded another.
"'Warum halten die Dichter der Frühling für die schönsten der Jahreszeiten?'" she inquired, with a ferocity which was rather at variance with the peaceful tenor of the question.
Once again it was Dorothy's turn to answer. Once again she passed the question, and once again it travelled right round the form without eliciting a response in German or in any other language.
"Does anybody know the meaning of this sentence?" asked Miss Burton sarcastically, still struggling to preserve her self-control. Everybody knew it, of course, but nobody would condescend to say so, and the class retained its stubborn demeanour.
Then the mistress could contain her wrath no longer. The storm broke, and for a quarter of an hour the Lower Fifth sat and listened to a raging denunciation of its stupidity, its crass ignorance and unbelievable insolence, poured out upon them in no measured terms. By rights, the Lower Fifth should have writhed in its seats as it listened to the fiery condemnation of its new form-mistress. But in reality it did no such thing. It was delighted at having aroused the enemy to such indignant anger, and the members of the form drank in with unholy joy the richness of the abuse poured out upon them.
Towards the end of the lesson, however, Miss Burton suddenly calmed down.
"It is evidently no use my saying anything to you," she said. "We will see what Miss Oakley has to say when she hears about it."
It was a threat for which the Lower Fifth were prepared, certainly, but one which filled them with considerable uneasiness, nevertheless. The German lesson was over at last, but it was followed immediately by an algebra class which Miss Burton was also supposed to take. Absolutely no attempt had been made to touch the preparation set for it, and as soon as she had ascertained this fact, the mistress adopted a line of action for which the Lower Fifth was totally unprepared.
"Kindly put all your books and papers away in your desks. Pencils and indiarubbers, too, and rulers. Has everybody put everything away? Then you will all of you kindly sit in silence during this next hour. I do not intend to waste my time in trying to teach a class which refuses to allow itself to be taught. Since you have all elected to do nothing this morning, you can sit and do it, while I correct exercises for the Upper Fourth."
And to the form's dismay, the new mistress immediately set to work upon a pile of exercise books, leaving the Lower Fifth to sit idle and silent until the lesson should be over.
It is one thing to do nothing while an angry mistress is trying to make you work! Quite another to sit doing it in deadly boredom for a whole hour! The Lower Fifth had not known before how long an hour could be. There were not even pencils to fidget about with, and the form felt that it would almost rather have been marched at once to Miss Oakley than have to endure this dreadful inaction any longer. But Miss Burton, having made up her mind to the penance her form should do, was adamant. She sat industriously correcting exercises, and addressed no remark at all to the rebels, except to deal out order marks when people fidgeted more than usual. By the time the hour was over quite a lot of these distinctions had been gained.
"Well, we shall have some marks to give in, anyway," said Jack, when the Lower Fifth was released at eleven o'clock recess to refresh itself with cocoa and biscuits in the dining-hall. "Better have bad marks to give in, I suppose, than none at all!"
"I wonder what she'll do when it comes to literature and she finds we haven't prepared for that, either," said Hilda, with rather a tragic expression on her face. Hilda's conscience was troubling her a good deal. She had very lively visions of what the headmistress would probably say about her responsibility as head of the form, when the matter should get to her ears.
"Treat us the same way as she did in algebra class, I expect," said Jack, with a grimace. "Wasn't it a rotten thing to go and do? I'd much rather she had raved at us like she did over the German—that really was rather fun!"
"It was rather cute of her, all the same," said Dorothy, with a sort of grudging admiration. "It made me feel rather mean when she settled down to correcting those papers like that. If she hadn't been quite so lavish with her bad marks all the time, I almost believe I might have repented a bit then."
"Oh, you'll repent all right, later on. Don't you worry about that," said Jack philosophically. "You just wait until Miss Oakley has given us a jawing. She'll make you feel an utter worm; you just see if she doesn't!"
"I know she will!" said Hilda, with a groan. "I say, don't you think we'd better give in and tell Miss Burton that we're sorry? There's a perfectly awful time waiting for us if we go on with the strike."
"We've gone too far to draw back now," said Dorothy. "So we may as well go on a little longer and see if we can't accomplish something. We've set out to show Miss Burton that she's come to an up-to-date public school, and that her old-fashioned kindergarten methods won't go down here. Don't let's give in before the campaign's properly begun!"
"Courage, mes amis," cried Jack gaily, waving a biscuit over her head. "The worst is still to come, I admit, but we are martyrs in a good cause. We'll teach Miss Burton a lesson before we've done! And if we burn our own fingers in the doing of it—well, we knew we shouldn't get off scot-free before we began, didn't we?"
"Anyway, we shall have a bit of a run for our money," observed Nita Fleming, who had only just joined the group. "Miss Oakley's gone away till Wednesday—I was in the hall just now and saw her drive off. That means Thursday before the row can come off, at the very earliest."
"Hurrah!" shouted Jack. "If we all hold together till then we shall have broken Miss Burton's spirit, and shown her that she can't treat us as though we were just a parcel of kids. Thursday—why, who knows, we may have brought her to terms by then!"
"There's the bell!" said Hilda. "Buck up! it's Mademoiselle first, and we don't want to be late for her."
The French lesson passed off most successfully, full marks being gained by the whole form. Then came a breathless moment while the form waited for the reappearance of Miss Burton. But to everybody's astonishment it was the head girl, Muriel Paget, who walked into the classroom at the conclusion of the French lesson.
"Miss Burton isn't coming to this class," announced the head girl in cold tones. "Miss Latham has asked me to come and sit here during the lesson. Get out your Henry the Fifths, please. You are to copy out Act I. Scene ii. from the beginning, putting in all the stage-directions and footnotes. Those are Miss Latham's orders, and what you don't have time to do now, you are to finish in prep to-night."
"My hat! The whole of the second scene!" groaned Phyllis in a whisper. "Why, there's pages and pages of it!"
"Silence, please! There is to be no talking in class," rapped out Muriel, frowning. Phyllis, catching the frown, relapsed into instant silence, and meekly found the place in her copy of Henry V. Defying the new mistress was one thing, but to defy the head girl was quite another. And soon the whole of the Lower Fifth was struggling with ink-stained fingers and much inward groaning of spirit to accomplish the irksome and monotonous task allotted to it.
Miss Burton did not return to the classroom at all that morning, and at the end of school, Muriel set the preparation for the evening and prepared to take the marks. Miss Latham's awards for English came first and were duly noted down. Then came the marks for the German class.
"German, now," said Muriel. "Hilda Burns, how many?"
"None," came from Hilda.
"Dorothy Pemberton?"
"None."
"Phyllis Tressider?"
"None."
And so on throughout the whole form, right down to Gerry Wilmott, whose name as the last comer was placed last upon the list. Muriel made no comment upon the scandalous result, but called for the marks for algebra. Once again the same comedy was enacted. Then came the good marks obtained from Mademoiselle, and then the last class for literature. Muriel did not ask any questions respecting these.
"You have none of you any marks for literature," she said. "Any bad marks to give in?"
There were several, and the head girl's eyebrows went up as she put them down.
"Is that all?" she asked sarcastically, when at last she had disposed of all the upraised hands. Then she closed the mark-book and prepared to descend from the high desk.
"I hope you are pleased with your morning's work," she said, and went out of the room, leaving a somewhat discomfited Lower Fifth behind her.
"I say! The fat is in the fire if all the Sixth know about it!" said Dorothy uncomfortably.
"What a perfectly, beastly mean sneak that Miss Burton is!" exclaimed Phyllis.
"Well, all I can say is, we shall have to make things so beastly uncomfortable for her that she'll just have to go!" said Jack vindictively. Then she relapsed into a rather sheepish grin. "At any rate, it is to be hoped that we shall," she said. "For we've certainly succeeded in making things beastly uncomfortable for ourselves."
A remark with which the whole form mournfully agreed.