Hanging on hooks were two boys" overcoats and caps. Vivien gazed at them as if thunderstruck.
"Not co-education!" she gasped.
"I don"t know what you call it," said Audrey, "but I think it will be rather a stunt. Come along, Patsie, and have first innings!"
As the chums ran from the room, Vivien hurriedly b.u.t.toned her shoes and tore after them.
"Where are they?" she asked excitedly, catching Audrey by the arm, "What are their names?"
"I don"t know any more than yourself yet."
"We"ll soon find out," volunteered Patsie flinging open the door of the Sixth Form room.
An unusual spectacle certainly greeted them: unusual at any rate in a ladies" school. Sitting on the desks with their backs to the door were two masculine figures, engaged in the pleasing occupation of pelting each other with exercise-books.
Apparently they did not hear the girls" entrance, for they continued their conversation.
"Rather a blossomy stunt to be here!"
"Great Judkins, yes! Guess we"ll make things hum! I"m nuts on the girls!"
"Hope they"re a decent-looking set!"
"Oh, right enough on the whole! But, old chap, let me tell you there"s one--her name"s Vivien----"
Here, to prevent awkward revelations, Vivien interrupted with a judicious cough. The long, trouser-clad legs slid from the desks, and the two manly voices e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:
"Hallo! Our new school mates! How d"ye do?"
"Charmed to meet you, I"m sure!"
Quite in a flutter, Vivien advanced, looked, gasped, and spluttered out:
"Gracie and Sybil; you wretches!"
The masculine figures, unmindful of manners, collapsed on to the nearest seats, and sobbed with laughter.
"Took you in this time, old sport! Don"t we make killing boys? I believe you were just gone on us both! Oh, how it hurts to laugh! I feel weak!"
"I think you"re a pair of idiots!" retorted Vivien. "I don"t see anything funny in it."
"_We_ do, though!" cackled Patsie. "Oh, Vivien, you looked so interested and excited! It gave me spasms! There, don"t get ratty over it! Brace up!"
"It was a jinky joke!" burbled Audrey. "I say, you two, you"d better scoot quick and do some lightning changing! If Miss Janet comes in there"ll be squalls! She"s not quite ready yet for co-education here.
Stick on your waterproofs again! There, bolt before you"re caught!"
"A nice monitress _you_ are, Patsie Sullivan!" exploded the outraged Vivien. "Where"s our authority to go to, I should like to know, if you and Audrey put Fifth Form girls up to such tricks? I wonder you condescend to it! If _I_ were head girl, I can tell you I"d have something to say to you! But with these new slack ways there"ll be no respect for us left. The school"s going to the dogs, in my opinion!"
Patsie and Audrey beat a hurried retreat, for they knew that there was a certain amount of justice in Vivien"s remarks. Their escapade, a report of which would, of course, be circulated through the school, would in no way enhance the authority of the Sixth. They hoped Lorraine would not hear about it, though it seemed inevitable that it must come to her ears. As a matter of fact, Lorraine learnt the whole story before she had taken off her boots. She made little comment, but went into cla.s.s with a cloud on her face.
The head girl was going through the difficult experience, shared by all who are suddenly placed in authority, of trying to hold the reins so as to satisfy everybody. To keep slackers up to the mark without gaining for herself the unenviable reputation of "a Tartar", to be pleasant with the juniors without loss of dignity, to preserve old standards while adopting new ones, called for all the tact she possessed. She often felt her cousin a great impediment. Vivien was one of those people who love to give good advice, and to say what they would do in certain circ.u.mstances, urging on others drastic measures which they would probably never enforce themselves if they happened to be in authority.
Sometimes, however, the objections were just, and this was a case in point. The matter floated in Lorraine"s mind all the morning, as a kind of background to English literature and mathematics. She called a monitresses" meeting for four o"clock that very day.
When afternoon school was over, and Miss Janet, with the big volume of Milton, had taken her departure, Lorraine a.s.sembled her committee, intercepting Patsie and Audrey, who were trying to sneak from the room.
"Look here, you"ve _got_ to stop!" she a.s.sured them.
"I"ve to call at the dressmaker"s; I"ve brought my bicycle on purpose!"
objected Audrey.
"Then the dressmaker will have to wait ten minutes."
"And I"m due at the dentist"s," declared Patsie.
"The dentist can wait too! It"s most important for us all to be at this meeting. I can"t possibly let any one off it."
Rather sulkily, Audrey and Patsie went back to their desks. Possibly they might have rebelled, but public opinion was plainly against them.
Vivien was looking virtuous, and Dorothy made some pointed remarks about duty before pleasure.
"If you think going to the dentist"s and having that horrible drill whirling round and round inside your tooth is a pleasure, I wish you"d go instead of me," retorted Patsie, flinging her books back into her desk and banging the lid hard. "You"d be only too welcome to take my place."
"Don"t be shrill, child. Business is business, and the sooner we get it over the better. I want to go home myself."
"I won"t keep you all more than a few minutes," interposed Lorraine.
"What I want to say is this, that though I have openly rather held a brief for the juniors in some ways, I don"t mean our authority over them to be in the least lessened. Please don"t misunderstand me about it. We must thoroughly uphold our dignity as monitresses," (turning a reproachful eye on Patsie and Audrey) "and enforce the rules as much as ever."
"Hear! hear! It doesn"t do to grow slack," said Vivien pointedly.
"We"re certainly not going to grow slack. I put it to every monitress to make it a point of honour to keep up discipline. There must be no truckling even with Fifth Form girls. Rules are rules!"
"Right you are, O Queen!"
"We"ll be a regular set of dragons!"
"No giving in on our part!"
"Those juniors have been trying it on lately!"
"They"re the limit sometimes!"
"Well, I"m glad we"re all agreed," remarked Lorraine. "Whatever happens, we must support one another. I need not keep you any longer now. Patsie wants to get away to her dentist."
"Ugh! I don"t feel in such a hurry to go and be tortured when it comes to the point," shuddered Patsie.
"But I"m keen on the dressmaker. She"s making me the sweetest coat-frock you ever saw--in brown velveteen with braid tr.i.m.m.i.n.g!" purred Audrey.
Having decided to keep a tight hand over the turbulent juniors, the monitresses proceeded to live up to their resolution. They inspected the cloak-room, sternly repressed giggling and talking on the stairs, and insisted upon an orderly queue for the issue of library books. Even Patsie turned the twinkle in her eye into a glance of reproof. The lower forms, who had certainly been trying how far they could go, were disposed to rebel, and gave trouble on one or two occasions, but the slightest attempt at mutiny was met with instant firmness.
"Don"t let them master you for a minute," counselled Lorraine. "If anything very flagrant happens, report to me, and we"ll deal with it in Committee."