E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Emmy, and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/c/)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 20163-h.htm or 20163-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/1/6/20163/20163-h/20163-h.htm)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/1/6/20163/20163-h.zip)
THE JOLLIEST SCHOOL OF ALL
by
ANGELA BRAZIL
Author of
"The Luckiest Girl in the School," "The Princess of the
School," "A Popular School Girl," "Schoolgirl
Kitty," "Marjorie's Best Year," etc.
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with Frederick A. Stokes Co.
Printed in U. S. A.
Copyright, 1922, by
Frederick A. Stokes Company
All Rights Reserved
DEDICATED
TO
THE MANY CHARMING AMERICAN
GIRLS WHOM I HAVE MET
AND TO
THOSE UNKNOWN SCHOOLGIRLS
OVER THE ATLANTIC TO WHOM
THIS LITTLE BOOK CARRIES MY
HEARTIEST GREETINGS
[Illustration: "'YOU MEAN THINGS!' RAGED PEACHY"
--_Page 124_]
CONTENTS
chapter page
I. Off to Italy 1
II. The Villa Camellia 16
III. Hail, Columbia! 27
IV. A Secret Sorority 41
V. Fairy Godmothers, Limited 52
VI. Among the Olive Groves 66
VII. Lorna's Enemy 81
VIII. At Pompeii 93
IX. Reprisals 113
X. The School Carnival 126
XI. Up Vesuvius 141
XII. Tar and Feathers 156
XIII. Peachy's Pranks 174
XIV. The Villa Bleue 190
XV. Peachy's Birthday 213
XVI. Concerning Juniors 230
XVII. The Anglo-Saxon League 243
XVIII. Greek Temples 257
XIX. In Capri 272
XX. The Cameron Clan 287
XXI. The Blue Grotto 303
THE JOLLIEST SCHOOL OF ALL
CHAPTER I
Off to Italy
In a top-story bedroom in an old-fashioned house in a northern suburb of
London, a girl of fourteen was kneeling on the floor, turning out the
contents of the bottom cupboards of a big bookcase. Her method of doing
so was hardly tidy; she just tossed the miscellaneous assortment of
articles down anywhere, till presently she was surrounded by a mixed-up
jumble of books, papers, paint-boxes, music, chalks, pencils, foreign
stamps, picture post-cards, crests, balls of knitting wool, skeins of
embroidery silk, and odds and ends of all kinds. She groaned as the
circle grew wider, yet the apparently inexhaustible cupboards were still
uncleared.
"Couldn't have ever believed I'd have stowed so many things away here.
And, of course, the one book I want isn't to be found. That's what
always happens. It's just my bad luck. Hello! Who's calling 'Renie'? I'm
here! _Here! In my bedroom!_ Don't yell the house down. Really, Vin,
you've got a voice like a megaphone! You might think I was on the top of
the roof. What d'you want now? _I'm busy!_"
"So it seems," commented the fair-haired boy of seventeen, sauntering
into his sister's room and taking a somewhat insecure seat upon a fancy
table, where, with hands in pockets, he regarded her quizzically. "Great
Scott, what a turn out! You look like a magician in the midst of a magic
circle. Are you going to witch the lot into newts and toads? Whence this
thusness? You won't persuade me that it's a fit of neatness and you're
actually tidying. Doesn't exactly seem _you_, somehow!"
"Hardly," replied Irene, with her head inside a cupboard. "Fact is, I'm
looking for my history book. I can't think where the wretched thing has
gone to. School begins to-morrow, and I haven't touched my holiday tasks
yet; and what Miss Gordon will say if I come without those exercises I
can't imagine. I'm sure I flung all my books into this cupboard, and, of
course, here's the chemistry, which I don't want, but never so much as a
single leaf of the history. Don't grin! You aggravate me. I believe
you've taken it away to tease me. Have you? Confess now! It's in your
pocket all the time?"
Irene looked eagerly at the bulging outline of her brother's coat, but
her newly formed hopes were doomed to disappointment.
"Never seen it! What should _I_ want with your old history book? I've
finished for good with such vanities, thank the Fates!"
"Don't rub it in. It's a beastly shame _you_ should be allowed to leave
school while _I_ must go slaving on at Miss Gordon's. Ugh! How I hate
the place! The idea of going back there to-morrow! It's simply
appalling. A whole term of dreary grind, and only a fortnight's holiday
at the end of it. Miss Gordon gives the _stingiest_ holidays. If my
fairy godmother could appear and grant me a wish I should choose never,
never, _never_ to see St. Osmund's College in all my life again. I'd ask
her to wave her magic wand and transport me over the sea."
Irene spoke hotly, flinging books about with scant regard for their
covers. Her slim hands were dusty, and her short, yellow hair as ruffled
as her temper. There was even a suspicion of moisture about the corners
of her gray eyes. She rubbed them surreptitiously with a ball of a
handkerchief when her head happened to be inside the cupboard. She did
not wish Vincent to witness this phase of her emotions.
"Every girl ought to be provided with a decent fairy godmother," she
gulped. "If mine did her duty she'd come to rescue me now. Yes, she
would, and be quick about it too!"
How very seldom in the course of an ordinary life such wishes are
granted! Not once surely in a million times! Yet at that identical
moment, almost as if in direct answer to her daughter's vigorous tirade,
Mrs. Beverley entered the room. There was a sparkle of excitement in her
eyes, and her whole atmosphere seemed to radiate news. She ran in as
joyously as a girl, clapping her hands and evidently brimming over with
something she was about to communicate.
"Why, Mums! Mums--darling! What's the matter?" asked Irene. "You look as
if you'd had a fortune left you. Tell us at once."
"Not quite a fortune, but next best to it," said Mrs. Beverley, sitting
down on the end of the sofa. "Daddy says I may tell you now, bairns. It
has all happened so suddenly, and has been arranged in a rush. You
remember Dad mentioning a few weeks ago that Mr. Southern, the firm's
representative in Naples, was very ill? Well, Mr. Fenton has decided to
send Dad to Italy to take his place, for a year at any rate, and perhaps
longer. We're to start in a fortnight."
Such a stupendous announcement required a little realizing. Vincent
removed his hands from his pockets.
"You don't mean to say we're _all_ going?" he inquired. "Jemima! Leaving
London fogs and toddling off to Italy? Materkins, you take my breath
away! How's the whole business to be fixed up so soon?"
"Quite easily. We shall let this house, just as it is, to Mr. Atherton,
who will come from the Norfolk branch to fill Father's post in London.
We are to rent Mr. Southern's flat in Naples, while he takes a voyage
round the world to try to regain his health. Dad means to put you into
his office in Naples, Vin. Don't look so aghast! It's high time you
started, and it will be a splendid opening for you. And as for Renie--of
course she's too young to leave school yet----"
"Mums! Mums!" interrupted an agonized voice, as Irene took a flying leap
over her circle of books and, plumping herself on the sofa, clutched
tightly at her mother's sleeve. "You're not going to leave me behind at
Miss Gordon's? You _couldn't_! Oh, I'd die! Mums darling, please! If the
family's going to jaunt abroad I've got to jaunt too! Say yes, quick,
quick!"
"What a little tempest you are! Cheer up! We'd never any intention of
deserting you. We'll stick together for a while at any rate, though when
we arrive in Naples you'll be packed off to a boarding-school, Madam, so
I give you fair warning."
"An Italian school?"
Irene's gray eyes were round with horror.
"No, an Anglo-American school for English-speaking girls. Do you
remember that charming Mr. Proctor who stayed with us last year on his
way from New York to Naples? His daughter is at this school, and he
strongly recommended it. It seems just exactly the place for you, Renie.
It will solve a great problem if we can educate you out there. It would
have complicated matters very much if we had been obliged to leave you
in England. As it is you'll be quite near to Naples, and can come home
for all your holidays."
"Hooray! Then I'm not to go to Miss Gordon's again?"
"As we start in a fortnight it's not worth while your beginning a fresh
term at St. Osmund's."
"Then I needn't bother to find the hateful old history book. I'm _so_
glad I didn't do those wretched holiday tasks--they'd just have been
sheer waste. Mums, I'm so excited! May I begin and pack for Italy now? I
can't wait."
For the next two weeks great confusion reigned in the Beverley
household. It is no light matter to decide what you need to take abroad,
what you wish to lock up at home, and to leave your establishment in
apple-pie order for the use of strangers. Inventories of furniture,
linen, blankets, and china had to be written and checked, a rigorous
selection made of the things to be packed, and the luggage cut down to
the limits prescribed by the railway companies. Poor Mrs. Beverley was
nearly worn out when at last the overflowing boxes were fastened, the
bags and hold-alls were strapped, and the taxis, which were to take them
to the station, arrived at the door. Tears stood in her eyes as she
crossed the threshold of her own house.
"It's a tremendous wrench!" she fluttered.
"Never mind, Mums!" consoled Irene, linking her arm in her mother's.
"It's an adventure, and we all want to go. You'll love it when we're
once off. No, don't look back: it's unlucky! Your bag's in the cab; I
saw Jessie put it in. Hooray for Italy, say I, and a good riddance to
smoky old London! In another couple of days we shall be down south and
turning into Romeos and Juliets as fast as we can. You'll see Dad
learning a guitar and strumming it under your balcony, and serenading
you no end."
"Hardly at his time of life!" said Mrs. Beverley; but the joke amused
her, she wiped her eyes, and, as Irene had hoped and intended, stepped
smiling into the waiting taxi, and left her old home with laughter
instead of with tears.
In her fourteen years of experience Irene had traveled very little, so
the migration to Italy was a fairy journey so far as she was concerned.
To catch the boat express they had made an early start, and they
breakfasted in the train between London and Dover. It was fun to sit in
comfortable padded armchairs, eating fish or ham and eggs, and watching
the landscape whirling past; fun to see the deft-handed waiters nipping
about with trays or teacups; and fun to observe the occupants of the
other tables in the car. There was a fat, good-natured Frenchman who
amused Irene, a languid English lady who annoyed her, an elderly
gourmand who excited her disgust, and a neighboring party, one member of
which at least aroused her interest and caused her to cast cautious side
glances in the direction of the next table. This center of attraction
was a small girl about eight or nine years of age, a dainty elfin little
person with bewitching blue eyes and a mop of short, flaxen curls. She
was evidently well used to traveling, for she would lift a tiny finger
to summon the waiter, and gave him her orders with all the
_savoir-faire_ of an experienced diner-out. Perhaps her clear-toned
treble voice was a trifle too high-pitched for the occasion, and would
have been better had it been duly modulated, but her parents seemed
proud of her conversational powers and allowed her to talk for the
benefit of anybody within ear-shot. That she excited comment was
manifest, for many looks were turned to her corner. The criticisms on
her were complimentary or the reverse. "Isn't she perfectly _sweet_?"
gushed a young lady at Irene's left. "Sweet? She ought to be in the
nursery instead of showing off here!" came a tart voice in reply, from
some one whose face was invisible but whose back and shoulders expressed
an attitude of strong disapproval. "Hope we shan't be boxed up with her
in the same carriage to Paris! I vote we give her a wide berth at
Calais."
Irene laughed softly. The little flaxen-haired girl attracted her; she
felt she would have gravitated towards her compartment rather than have
avoided her. But traveling companions were evidently more a matter of
chance than choice, for the crowd that turned out of the train at Dover
became mixed and mingled like the colored bits of glass in a
kaleidoscope. Irene realized that for the moment the one supreme and
breathless object in life was to cling to the rest of her family, and
not to get separated from them or lost, as they pushed through narrow
barriers, showed tickets and passports, traversed gangways, and finally
found themselves on board the Channel steamer bound for France. Father,
who had made the crossing many times, scrambled instantly for
deck-chairs, and installed his party comfortably in the lee of a funnel,
where they would be sheltered from the wind. Mrs. Beverley, who had
inspected the ladies' saloon below, sank on her seat, and tucked a rug
round her knees with a sigh of relief.
"It will be the 'Black Hole of Calcutta' downstairs," she remarked. "I'd
rather stay on deck however cold it is. The mother of the wee
yellow-haired lassie is lying down already, evidently prepared to be
ill. The stewardess says we shall have a choppy passage. She earns her
tips, poor woman! Thanks, Vincent! Yes, I'd like the air-cushion,
please, and that plaid out of the hold-all. No, I won't have a biscuit
now; I prefer to wait till we get on terra firma again."
Irene, sitting warmly wrapped up on her deck-chair, watched the white
cliffs of Dover recede from her gaze as the vessel left the port and
steamed out into the Channel. It was the last of "Old England," and she
knew that much time must elapse before she would see the shores of her
birthplace again. What would greet her in the foreign country to which
she was going? New sights, new sounds, new interests--perhaps new
friends? The thought of it all was an exhilaration. Others might seem
sad at a break with former associations, but as for herself she was
starting a fresh life, and she meant to get every scrap of enjoyment out
of it that was practically possible.
The stewardess had prophesied correctly when she described the voyage as
"choppy." The steamer certainly pitched and tossed in a most
uncomfortable fashion, and it was only owing to the comparative
steadiness of her seat amidships that Irene escaped that most wretched
of complaints, _mal de mer_. She sat very still, with rather white
cheeks, and refused Vincent's offers of biscuits and chocolates: her
sole salvation, indeed, was not to look at the heaving sea, but to keep
her eyes fixed upon the magazine which she made a pretense of reading.
Fortunately the Dover-Calais crossing is short, and, before Neptune had
claimed her as one of his victims, they were once more in smooth waters
and steaming into harbor.
Then again the kaleidoscope turned, and the crowd of passengers
remingled and walked over gangways, and along platforms and up steep
steps, and jostled through the Customs, and said "_Rien à déclarer_" to
the officials, who peeped inside their bags to find tea or tobacco, and
had their luggage duly chalked, and showed their passports once more,
and finally, after a bewildering half-hour of bustle and hustle, found
themselves, with all their belongings intact, safely in the train for
Paris. Irene had caught brief glimpses of the child whom she named
"Little Flaxen," whose mother, in a state of collapse, had been almost
carried off the vessel, but revived when she was on dry land again: a
maid was in close attendance, and two porters were stowing their piles
of hand-luggage inside a specially reserved compartment. "The cross lady
won't be boxed up with them at any rate," said Irene. "I saw her get in
lower down the train."
It was dark when they arrived in Paris, so Irene had only a confused
impression of an immense railway station, of porters in blue blouses, of
a babel of noise and shouting in a foreign language which seemed quite
different from the French she had learned at school, of clinging very
closely to Father's arm, of a drive through lighted streets, of a hotel
where dinner was served in a salon surrounded by big mirrors, then bed,
which seemed the best thing in the world, for she was almost too weary
to keep her eyes open.
"If every day is going to be like this we shall be tired out by the time
we reach Naples," she thought, as she sank down on her pillow.
"Traveling is the limit."
Eleven hours of sleep, however, made a vast difference in her attitude
towards their long journey. When she came downstairs next morning she
was all eagerness to see Paris.
"We have the whole day here," said Mrs. Beverley, "so we may as well
get as much out of it as we can. Daddy has business appointments to
keep, but you and I and Vin, Renie, will take a taxi and have a look at
some of the sights, won't we?"
"Rather!" agreed the young people, hurrying over their coffee and rolls.
"I wouldn't miss Paris for worlds," added Vincent; "only don't spend the
whole time inside shops, Mater. That's all this fellow bargains for."
"We'll compromise and make it half and half," laughed Mother.
A single day is very brief space in which to see the beauties of Paris,
but the Beverleys managed to fit a great deal into it, and to include
among their activities a peep at the Louvre, a drive in the Bois de
Boulogne, a visit to Napoleon's Tomb, half an hour in a cinema, and a
rush through several of the finest and largest shops.
"It's different from London--quite!" decided Irene, at the end of the
jaunt. "It's lighter and brighter, somehow, and the streets are wider
and have more trees planted in them. It's a terrible scurry, and I
should be run over if I tried to cross the street. The shops aren't any
better than ours really, though they make more fuss about them. The
little children and the small pet dogs are adorable. The cinema was
horribly disappointing, because they were all American films, not French
ones; but that light that falls from the domed roof down on to
Napoleon's tomb was worth coming across the Channel to see. Yes, Mummie
dear, I thoroughly like Paris. I'm only sorry we have to leave it so
soon."
The train for Rome was to start at nine o'clock in the evening, and
immediately after dinner the Beverleys made their way to the station. It
would be a thirty-eight hour journey, and they had engaged two sleeping
compartments, _wagon-lits_ as they are called on the Continental
express. Mrs. Beverley and Irene were to share one, and Mr. Beverley and
Vincent the other. The beds were arranged like berths on board ship, and
Irene, who occupied the upper one, found, much to her amusement, a
little ladder placed in readiness for her climb aloft.
"I don't need to use _that_!" she exclaimed, scrambling up with the
agility gained in her school gymnasium. "How silly of the conductor to
put it for me."
"How could the poor man tell who was to occupy the berth! You might have
been a fat old lady for anything he knew!" replied Mrs. Beverley,
settling herself on the mattress below.
It was a funny sensation to lie in bed in the jolting train, and Irene
slept only in snatches, waking frequently to hear clanking of chains,
shrieking of engines, shouting of officials at stations, and other
disturbing noises. As dawn came creeping through the darkness she drew
the curtain aside and looked from the window. What a glorious sight met
her astonished gaze! They were passing over the Alps, and all around
were immense snow-covered mountains, great gorges full of dark fir
forests, and rushing streams of green glacier water. It was very cold,
and she was glad to pull her rug up, and later to drink the hot coffee
which the _conducteur_ made on a spirit-lamp in the corridor and brought
to those who had ordered it overnight.
Irene never forgot that long journey on the Continental express. The
sleeping compartments became sitting-rooms by day, for the berths turned
into sofas, and a table was unfolded, where it would have been possible
to write or sew if she had wished. She could do nothing, however, but
stare at the landscape; the snow-capped mountains and the great ravines
and gorges were a revelation in the way of scenery, and it was enough
occupation to look out of the window. Switzerland and Northern Italy
were a dream of wild, rugged beauty, but she woke on the following
morning to find the train racing among olive groves and orange trees,
and to catch glimpses of gay, unknown, wild flowers blooming on the
railway banks. Here and there were stretches of the blue Mediterranean;
and oxen and goats in the fields gave a vivid foreign aspect to the
country. Everything--trees, houses, landscape, and people--seemed
unfamiliar and un-English, yet strangely fascinating. The bright land
with its sunshine appeared to be welcoming her.
"I shall like it! I shall like it! I shall like it!" said Irene to
herself, hanging out of the open window of their compartment and
watching some picturesque children who were waving a greeting to the
train. "I _know_ I shall like it!"
"Put your hat on and strap up your hold-all," said Father's voice in
the corridor outside. "Everybody else has luggage ready, and in another
ten minutes or so we shall be in Rome."