"I say, this is rather the limit, isn"t it?" he greeted them. "The Mater wrote and said I might take you to Whitecliffe, and that icicle in the drawing-room wouldn"t even so much as let me have a glimpse of you. Is this place you"ve got to a convent? Are you both required to take the veil, please?"
"Not just yet. But what happened?" asked Marjorie. "Mena says the Empress is out this afternoon. Whom did you see?"
"A grim, fair-haired Gorgon in gla.s.ses, who withered me with a look."
"The Acid Drop, surely."
"Probably. She certainly wasn"t sweet."
"And she wouldn"t let us go?" wailed Dona.
"No, poor old Baby Bunting. It"s a rotten business, isn"t it? No dragon in a fairy tale could have guarded the princess more closely. If I"d stayed any longer she"d have thrust talons into me."
"Oh, it"s too bad! And you"d promised to take me to have tea at a cafe."
"So I did. I meant to give you a regular blow-out, so far as the rationing order would allow us. Look here, old sport, I"m ever so sorry.
If I"d only foreseen this I"d have brought some cakes and sweets for you. I"m afraid I"ve nothing in my pockets except cigarettes and a cough lozenge. Cheer oh! It"s Christmas holidays next week, and you"ll be tucking into turkey before long."
"How do you like the camp, Larry?" asked Marjorie.
"First-rate. We have a wooden hut to sleep in. There are thirty of us; we each have three planks on trestles for a bed, and a pallia.s.se to put on it at night, and a straw pillow. We get four blankets apiece. I make my own bed every night--double one blanket underneath, and roll the others round me, and have my greatcoat on top if I"m cold. Aunt Ellinor has lent me an air-cushion, and it"s a great boon, because the straw pillow is as hard as a brick. We do route marches and trench-digging, and yesterday I was on scout duty, and three of us captured a sentry. If we"d been at the front, instead of only training, he"d have shot me certain."
"Do you have to learn to be a soldier?" asked Dona.
"Why, of course, you little innocent. That"s what the training-camp is for--to teach us how to scout, and dig trenches, and all the rest of it."
"Oh! I thought you just went to the front and fought."
"It would be a queer war if we did."
"Are you coming home for Christmas?"
"No, I can"t get leave; I only wish I could."
"Cave!" called Ailsa Donald, the nearest in the line of girls who had undertaken to keep guard. "Miss Robinson is coming across the field this way."
"We must go, or we shall be caught," said Marjorie. "It"s too bad to have to see you like this."
"But it"s better than nothing," added Dona. "You can send me those sweets you talked about for Christmas, if you like."
"All right, old Bunting! I won"t back out of my promise."
The girls dropped from the palings, and dived into the plantation just before Miss Robinson, on her way to the kitchen garden, pa.s.sed the spot.
If she had looked through a crack in the boards she would have seen Larry walking away, but happily her suspicions were not aroused.
Marjorie and Dona strolled leisurely towards the hockey field. The latter was aggrieved, the former highly indignant.
"It"s absurd," groused Marjorie, "if one can"t see one"s own brother, especially when Mother had written to say we might. We had to see him somehow, and I think it"s a great deal worse to be obliged to go like this and talk over palings than to meet him in the drawing-room. It"s just like Norty"s nonsense. She"s full of red-tape notions, and a Jack-in-office to-day because the Empress has left her in charge. I feel raggy."
"So do I, especially to miss the cafe. I hope Larry won"t forget to send those sweets."
CHAPTER XII
The School Union
The last few days of the term were pa.s.sing quickly. The examinations were over, though the lists were not yet out. To both Marjorie and Dona they had been somewhat of an ordeal, for the Brackenfield standard was high. When confronted with sets of questions the girls felt previous slackness in work become painfully evident. It was horrible to have to sit and look at a problem without the least idea of how to solve it; or to find that the dates and facts which ought to have been at their finger-ends had departed to distant and un-get-at-able realms of their memory.
"I can think of the wretched things afterwards," mourned Dona, "but at the time I"m so fl.u.s.tered, everything I want to remember goes utterly out of my head. I really knew the boundaries of Germany, only I drew them wrong on the map; and in the Literature paper I mixed up Pope and Dryden, and I put that Sheridan wrote _She Stoops to Conquer_, instead of Goldsmith."
"I"m sure I failed in Chemistry," groused Marjorie. "And the Latin was the most awful paper I"ve ever seen in my life. It would take a B.A. to do that piece of unseen translation. As for the General Knowledge paper, I got utterly stumped. How should I know what are the duties of a High Sheriff and an Archdeacon, or how many men must be on a jury? Even Mollie Simpson said it was stiff, and she"s good at all that kind of information. I wonder they didn"t ask us how many currants there are in a Christmas pudding!"
"There won"t be many this year," laughed Dona. "Auntie was saying currants and raisins are very scarce. Probably we shan"t get any mince pies. But I don"t care. It"ll be lovely to be at home again, even if the Germans sink every food ship and only leave us porridge for Christmas."
The last day of the term was somewhat in the nature of a ceremony at Brackenfield. Lessons proceeded as usual until twelve, when the whole school a.s.sembled for the reading of the examination lists. Marjorie quaked when it came to the turn of IVa. As she expected, she had failed in Chemistry, though she had just sc.r.a.ped through in Latin, Mathematics, and General Knowledge. Her record could only be considered fair, and to an ambitious girl like Marjorie it was humiliating to find herself lower on the lists than others who were younger than herself.
"I"ll brace up next term and do better," she thought, as Mrs. Morrison congratulated Mollie Simpson, Laura Norris, and Enid Young on their excellent work, and deplored the low standard of at least half of the form.
Dona, greatly to her surprise, had done less badly than she expected, and instead of finding herself the very last, was sixth from the bottom, and actually above Mona Kenworthy--a circ.u.mstance which made her literally gasp with surprise.
The afternoon was devoted to packing. Each girl found her box in her own cubicle, and started to the joyful task of turning out her drawers. It was a jolly, merry proceeding, even though Miss Norton and several other teachers were hovering about to keep order and ensure that the girls were really filling their trunks, instead of racing in and out of the dormitories and talking, as would certainly have been the case if they had been left to their own devices. By dint of good generalship on the part of the House Mistress and her staff, St. Elgiva"s completed its arrangements twenty minutes before the other hostels, and had therefore the credit of being visited first by the janitor and the gardener, whose duty it was to carry down the luggage. The large boxes were taken away that evening in carts to the station, and duly dispatched, each girl keeping her necessaries for the night, which she would take home with her in a hand-bag.
"No prep. after tea to-day, thank goodness!" said Betty Moore, collecting her books and stowing them away in her locker. "I don"t want to see this wretched old history again for a month. I"m sick of improving my mind. I"m not going to read a single line during the holidays, not even stories. I"ll go out riding every day, even if it"s wet. Mother says my pony"s quite well again, and wants exercising. He"ll get it, bless him, while I"m at home."
"What do we do this evening instead of prep.?" asked Marjorie. "Games, I suppose, or dancing?"
"Why, no, child, it"s the School Union," returned Betty, slamming the door of her locker.
"What"s that?"
"Great Minerva! don"t you know? You"re painfully new even yet, Marjorie Anderson. There, don"t get raggy; I"ll tell you. On the last evening of every term the whole school meets in the big hall--just the girls, without any of the teachers. The prefects sit on the platform, and the head girl reads a kind of report about all that"s happened during the term--the games and that sort of thing, and what she and the prefects have noticed, and what the Societies have done, and news of old girls, and all the rest of it. Then anybody who likes can make comments, or suggestions for next term, or air grievances. It"s a kind of School Council meeting, and things are often put to the vote. It gets quite exciting. We don"t have supper till 8.30, so as to give us plenty of time. We all eat an extra big tea, so as to carry us on."
"I"m glad you warned me," laughed Marjorie. "Do they bring in more bread-and-b.u.t.ter?"
"Yes, loads more, and potted meat, and honey and jam. We have a good tuck-out, and then only cocoa and buns later on. It"s not formal supper.
You see, we"ve packed our white dresses, and can"t change this evening.
We"ve only our serges left here. The meeting"s rather a stunt. We have a jinky time as a rule."
By five o"clock every girl in the school had a.s.sembled in the big hall.
Though no mistresses were present, the proceedings were nevertheless perfectly orderly, and good discipline prevailed. On the platform sat the prefects, the chair being taken by Winifrede Mason, the head girl.
Winifrede was a striking personality at Brackenfield, and filled her post with dignity. She was eighteen and a half, tall, and finely built, with brown eyes and smooth, dark hair. She had a firm, clever face, and a quiet, authoritative manner that carried weight in the school, and crushed any symptoms of incipient turbulence amongst Juniors. Many of the girls would almost rather have got into trouble with Mrs. Morrison than incur the displeasure of Winifrede, and a word of praise from her lips was esteemed a high favour. She did not believe in what she termed "making herself too cheap", and did not encourage the prefects to mix at all freely with Intermediates or Juniors, so that to most of the girls she seemed on a kind of pedestal--a member of the school, indeed, and yet raised above the others. She was just, however, and on the whole a great favourite, for, though she kept her dignity, she never lost touch with the school, and always voiced the general sentiments. She stood up now on the platform and began what might be termed a presidential speech.
"Girls, we"ve come to the end of the first term in another school year.
Some of you, like myself, are old Brackenfielders, and others have joined us lately, and are only just beginning to shake down into our ways. It"s for the sake of these that I want just briefly to recapitulate some of the standards of this school. We"ve always held very lofty ideals here, and we who are prefects want to make sure that during our time they are kept, and that we hand them on unsullied to those who come after us. What is the great object that we set ourselves to aim at? Perhaps some of you will say, "To do well at our lessons", or "To win at games". Well, that"s all a part of it. The main thing that we"re really striving for is the formation of character. There"s nothing finer in all the world. And character can only be formed by overcoming difficulties. Every hard lesson you master, or every game you win, helps you to win it. There are plenty of difficulties at school. n.o.body finds it plain sailing. When you"re cooped up with so many other girls you soon find you can"t have all your own way, and it must be a give-and-take system if you"re to live peaceably with your fellows. When this great war broke out, people had begun to say that our young men of Britain had grown soft and ease-loving, and thought of nothing except pleasure. Yet at the nation"s call they flung up all they had and flocked to enlist, and proved by their magnificent courage the grit that was in them after all. Our women, too--Society women who had been, perhaps justly, branded as "mere b.u.t.terflies"--put their shoulders to the wheel, and have shown how they, too, could face dangers and difficulties and privations. As nurses, ambulance drivers, canteen workers, telephone operators, some have played their part in the field of war; and their sisters at home have worked with equal courage to make munitions, and supply the places left vacant by the men. Now, I don"t suppose there is a girl in this room who does not call herself patriotic. Let her stop for a moment to consider what she means. It isn"t only waving the Union Jack, and singing "G.o.d Save the King", and knitting socks for soldiers. That"s the mere outside of it. There"s a far deeper part than that. We"re only schoolgirls now, but in a few years we shall become a part of the women of the nation. In the future Britain will have to depend largely on her women. Let them see that they fit themselves for the burden! We used to be told that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of our great public schools.
Well, I believe that many future struggles are being decided by the life in our girls" schools of to-day. Though we mayn"t realize it, we"re all playing our part in history, and though our names may never go down to posterity, our influence will. The watchwords of all patriotic women at present are "Service and Sacrifice". In the few years that we are here at school let us try to prepare ourselves to be an a.s.set to the nation afterwards. Aim for the highest--in work, games, and character. As the old American said: "Hitch your wagon to a star", because it"s better to attempt big things, even if you fail, than to be satisfied with a low ideal.
"It is encouraging for us Brackenfielders to know what good work some of our old girls are doing to help their country. I"m going to read you the latest news about them.