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[Illustration: A CHANCE FOR RETALIATION]
Transcriber's Note: This sentence is incomplete, as printed:
"Where did you get it, Flossie?" enquired
The New Girl at St. Chad's
A Story of School Life
By
ANGELA BRAZIL
Author of
"A Fourth Form Friendship" "The Manor House School"
"The Nicest Girl in the School" &c.
_ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN CAMPBELL_
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
1912
Contents
Chap. Page
I. Honor Introduces Herself 9
II. Honor's Home 25
III. The Wearing of the Green 39
IV. Janie's Charge 57
V. A Riding Lesson 75
VI. The Lower Third 93
VII. St. Chad's Celebrates an Occasion 106
VIII. A Mysterious Happening 126
IX. Diamond cut Diamond 138
X. Honor Finds Favour 150
XI. A Relapse 166
XII. St. Kolgan's Abbey 182
XIII. Miss Maitland's Window 199
XIV. A Stolen Meeting 212
XV. Sent to Coventry 227
XVI. A Rash Step 243
XVII. Janie turns Detective 258
XVIII. The End of the Term 271
Illustrations
Page
A Chance for Retaliation _Frontispiece_ 146
Honor Concludes the Purchase of Firefly 33
An Interview With Miss Cavendish 54
The Liberation of Pete 96
An Unlucky Escapade 209
"Startled by the voices, she jumped up" 253
THE NEW GIRL AT ST. CHAD'S
CHAPTER I
Honor Introduces Herself
"Any new girls?"
It was Madge Summers who asked the question, seated on the right-hand
corner of Maisie Talbot's bed, munching caramels. It was a very small
bed, but at that moment it managed to accommodate no less than seven
of Maisie's most particular friends, who were closely watching the
progress of her unpacking, and discussing the latest school news,
interspersed with remarks on her belongings.
Maisie extricated herself from the depths of her box, and handed a pile
of stockings to Lettice, her younger sister.
"What's the use of asking me?" she replied. "Our cab only drove up half
an hour ago. I feel almost new myself yet."
"So do I, and horribly in the blues too," said Pauline Reynolds. "It's
always a wrench to leave home. I'm perfectly miserable for at least
three days at the beginning of each term. I feel as if----"
"Oh, don't all begin to expatiate about your feelings!" broke in Chatty
Burns. "We know Pauline's symptoms only too well: the first day she
shows aggressively red eyes and a damp pocket-handkerchief; the second
day she writes lengthy letters home, begging to be allowed to return
immediately and have lessons with a private governess; the third day
she wanders about, trying to get sympathy from anyone who is
weak-minded enough to listen to her, till in desperation somebody drags
her into the playground, and makes her have a round at hockey. That
cheers her up, and she begins to think life isn't quite such a desert.
By the fourth morning she has recovered her spirits, and come to the
conclusion that Chessington College is a very decent kind of place; and
she begins to be alarmed lest her mother, on the strength of the
pathetic letter, should have decided to let her leave at once, and
should have already engaged a private governess."
"You're most unsympathetic, Chatty!" said Pauline, smiling in spite of
herself. "You don't know what it is to be home-sick."
"I wouldn't parade such a woebegone face, whatever might be the depths
of my misery," returned Chatty briskly.
"I'm always glad to come back," declared Dorothy Arkwright. "I like
school. It's fun to meet everybody again, and arrange about cricket,
and the Debating Society, and the Natural History Club. There's so much
going on at St. Chad's."
"No one has answered my question yet," remarked Madge Summers. "Are
there any new girls?"
Chatty wriggled herself into a more comfortable position between
Adeline Vaughan and Ruth Latimer.
"I think there are about a dozen altogether. Vivian Holmes says there
are four at St. Bride's, three at St. Aldwyth's, two at the School
House, and two at St. Hilary's. I saw one of them arriving at the same
time as I did, and Miss Cavendish was gushing over another in the
library; and Marian Spencer has brought a sister--she introduced her to
me just now."
"But what about St. Chad's?"
"We've only one, I believe, though Flossie Taylor, the Hammond-Smiths'
cousin, has moved here from St. Bride's. She was always destined for a
Chaddite, you know, only there wasn't room for her till the Richardsons
left."
"She's no great acquisition," said Dorothy Arkwright. "I hate girls to
change their quarters. When once they start at a house, they ought to
stick to it."
"Well, she wants to be with her cousins, I suppose," put in Madge
Summers. "Who's our new girl?"
"I don't know. I haven't heard anything about her."
"Perhaps she hasn't arrived yet."
"Sh! Sh!" said Pauline Reynolds, squeezing Madge's arm by way of
remonstrance, and pointing to the closely-drawn curtains of the cubicle
at the farther end of the room. "She's here now."
"Where?"
"There, you goose!"
"What has she shut herself up like that for?"
"How should I know?"
"Perhaps she's unpacking," suggested Dorothy Arkwright.
"If she is, she'll finish it quicker than Lettice and I can," returned
Maisie Talbot. "Why can't you be hanging up some of those skirts,
instead of sitting staring at me? Yes, this is a whole box of Edinburgh
rock, but you shan't have a single piece, any of you, unless you get
off my bed at once."
"Poor old Maisie, don't grow excited!" murmured Ruth Latimer,
appropriating the box and handing it round, though no one attempted to
move.
"But look here! what about this new girl?" persisted Madge. "Hasn't
anybody seen her?"
"No. She's been in there ever since she arrived."
"Don't talk so loud; she'll hear you."
"I don't care if she does."
"I want to know what she's doing."
"I can tell you, then," said Chatty Burns, in a whisper that was more
audible by far than her ordinary voice.
"What?"
"Crying! New girls always cry, and some old ones too, if you take
Pauline as a specimen."
"I'm not crying now!" protested Pauline indignantly. "And how can you
tell that the new girl is?"
"I'm as certain as if I'd proved a proposition in Euclid. Why should
she have drawn her curtains so closely? If she's not lying on her bed,
with a clean pocket-handkerchief to her eyes, I'll give you six
caramels in exchange for three peppermint creams!"
"Then you're just mistaken!" cried a voice from the end cubicle. The
chintz curtain was pulled aside, and out marched a figure with so
jaunty an air as to banish utterly the idea of possible homesickness or
tears.
It was a girl of about fifteen, a remarkably pretty girl (so her
schoolmates decided, without an instant's hesitation), and rather out
of the common. She had a clear, olive complexion, a lovely colour in
her cheeks, a bewitching pair of dimples, and a perfect colt's mane of
thick, curly, brown hair. Perhaps her nose was a little too tip-tilted,
and her mouth a trifle too wide for absolute beauty; but she showed
such a nice row of even, white teeth when she laughed that one could
overlook the latter deficiency. Her eyes were beyond praise, large and
grey, with a dark line round the iris, and shaded by long lashes; and
they were so soft, and wistful, and winning, and yet so twinkling and
full of fun, that they seemed as if they could compel admiration, and
make friends with their first glance. The girl walked across the room
in an easy, confident fashion, and stood, with a broad smile on her
face, beaming at the seven others seated on Maisie's bed.
"Why shouldn't I pull my curtains?" she asked. "If I'd been pulling
faces, now, you might have had some cause for complaint. You look
rather a nice set; I think I'm going to like you."
The girls were so surprised that they could only stare. It seemed
reversing the usual order of things for a new-comer, who ought to be
shy and confused, to be so absolutely and entirely self-possessed, and
to pass judgment with such calm assurance upon these old members of St.
Chad's, some of whom were already in their third year at Chessington
College.
"Perhaps I'd better introduce myself," continued the stranger. "My name
is Honor Fitzgerald, and I come from Kilmore, near Ballycroghan, in
County Kerry."
"Then you're Irish!" gasped Chatty Burns.
"Quite right. First class for geography! County Kerry is exactly in the
bottom left-hand corner of the map of Ireland. It's a more hospitable
place than this is. I've been here nearly two hours, and nobody has
offered me any refreshments yet. I'm simply starving!"
She looked so humorously and suggestively at the Edinburgh rock that
Madge Summers promptly offered it to her, regardless of the fact that
the box belonged to Maisie Talbot.
"Come along here," said Ruth Latimer, trying to make a place for the
new girl on the bed by pushing the others vigorously nearer the end.
"No room unless I sit on your knee, while you get up and walk about,"
declared Honor. "There! I knew you would!" as Madge Summers fell with a
crash on to the floor.
"Seven little schoolgirls, eating sugar sticks;
One tumbled overboard, and then there were six!"
"Thank you. I think I prefer to 'take the chair', as the dentist says.
There only seems to be one in each cubicle, but as I'm the visitor----"
"Take care!" screamed Maisie. "My clean blouses!"
"What am I doing? I declare, I never saw them. There, I'll nurse them
for you while I eat this delicious-looking piece of pink rock."
The new girl was so utterly different from anybody else who had ever
come to St. Chad's that the others waited with curiosity to hear what
she would say next.
"Well?" she enquired coolly at last. "I suppose you're thinking me
over. I should like to know your opinion of me. They tell me at home
that my nose turns up, and my tongue is too long. But I didn't turn up
my nose at the Edinburgh rock, did I?--and as for my tongue, it fits my
mouth, as a general rule, though it runs away sometimes."
"When did you come?"
"What class are you in?"
"Have you seen Miss Cavendish yet?"
"How old are you?"
"Have you been to school before?"
"Do you know anyone here?"
"Why did you come to St. Chad's?"
The questions were fired off all together from seven pairs of lips.
"One at a time, please!" returned Honor. "I'm older than I look, and
younger than I seem. You mayn't believe me, yet I assure you I've only
had three birthdays."
"Rubbish!" said Chatty Burns.
"It's a fact, all the same."
"But how could that be?" demanded Pauline Reynolds incredulously.
"Because I was born on the twenty-ninth of February, and I can't have a
birthday except in a leap year. That accounts for anything odd there is
about me; so if you find me queer, you must just say: 'She's a
twenty-ninth of February girl', and make excuses for me. As for the
other questions, I've never been to school before; I've seen Miss
Cavendish, but I haven't heard yet what class I'm to be in; five
minutes ago I didn't know anybody here, but now I know--how many are
there of you?--one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine!"
"Have you unpacked yet?" asked Maisie, returning to her box, which
Lettice had been steadily emptying.
"Only about half."
"I think we had better come and help you, then."
"Better finish our own first!" grunted Lettice, for which remark she
was promptly snubbed by her elder sister.
"Miss Maitland will be up at eight o'clock to look at our drawers,"
said Chatty Burns. "She'll expect you to have everything put away, and
your coats and dresses hung in the wardrobe."
"We have to be so fearfully tidy here!" sighed Adeline Vaughan. "A
warden comes round each morning, and woe betide you if you leave hairs
in your brush, or have forgotten to fold your nightdress!"
"It's just as bad at St. Hilary's," said Madge.
"And worse at St. Bride's," added Ruth Latimer.
"My father wanted me to be at the School House," said Honor, "but Miss
Cavendish wrote that it was full, so I was entered at St. Chad's
instead."
"Yes, you generally need to have your name down for two years before
you can get a vacancy at the School House," said Dorothy Arkwright.
"It's the popular favourite with parents, because Miss Cavendish
herself is the Head; but really, St. Chad's is far nicer. We all stand
up for our own house, and I know you'll like it."
"There's the tea-bell! Come along! we must go at once," interrupted
Chatty Burns.
"Won't they wait for us?" enquired Honor, beginning to wash her hands
with much deliberation.
"Wait! She asks if they'll wait!" exclaimed Adeline Vaughan.
"One can see you've never been to school before!" commented Maisie
Talbot. "No, you certainly haven't time to comb your hair now. You had
better follow the rest of us as fast as you can."
St. Chad's could accommodate forty pupils, and Honor found a place
assigned to her in the dining-hall near the end of a long table, which
looked very attractive with its clean white cloth, its pretty china,
and its vases of flowers in the middle. She had a good view of her
schoolfellows, more than half of whom seemed of about the same age as
herself, though there were tall girls, with their hair already put up,
and a few younger ones who had apparently only just entered their
teens. Grace was sung, and then the urns began to fill an almost
ceaseless stream of cups, while plates of bread and butter circulated
with much rapidity.
"We're late to-day," explained Honor's neighbour, "because the train
from the North does not get in until five. Our usual tea-time is four
o'clock, after games; then we have supper at half-past seven, when
we've finished evening preparation. Did you bring any jam? Your hamper
will be unpacked to-morrow, and the pots labelled with your name. I
expect you'll find one opposite your plate at breakfast. Jam and
marmalade are the only things we're allowed, except plain cakes."
Tea on the first afternoon was generally an exciting occasion at St.
Chad's. There were so many greetings between old friends, so much news
and such various topics to be discussed, that conversation, in a
sufficiently subdued undertone, went on very briskly. The girls had
enjoyed their Easter holidays, but most of them seemed pleased to
return to school, for the summer term was always the favourite at
Chessington College.
"Have you heard who's in the Eleven?" began Madge Summers. "They've
actually put in Grace Shaw, and she bowls abominably. I think it's rank
favouritism on Miss Young's part. She always gives St. Hilary's a turn
when she can."
"She was a Hilaryite herself," returned Adeline Vaughan. "That's the
worst of having a games mistress who's been educated at the school;
she's sure to show partiality for her old house."
"And yet in one way it's better, because she understands all our
customs and private rules. It would be almost impossible to explain
everything to a new-comer."
"What about the house team?" asked Ruth Latimer. "Is anything fixed?"
"Not yet. There's to be a practice to-morrow, and it will go by our
scores."
"I shall stick to tennis," declared Pauline Reynolds. "One gets a fair
chance there, at any rate, and we must keep up the credit of St. Chad's
in the courts. I don't know whether we've any chance of winning the
shield. I wish we could get a real champion!"
"You should see Flossie Taylor play!" burst out Edith and Claudia
Hammond-Smith, who were anxious to bring their cousin forward, and to
ensure her popularity among the other girls.
"I've not heard that she made any record at St. Bride's," remarked
Dorothy Arkwright, who resented Flossie's removal to St. Chad's.
"She hasn't had an opportunity. She only came to school last Christmas,
and it wasn't the tennis season. Wait till you see her serve!"
"Miss Young will have to be judge, not I," replied Dorothy coldly.
"Flossie is in your bedroom, Dorothy," announced Claudia. "She has the
cubicle near the fireplace."
"If you're sleeping in the bed next to mine," said Flossie, eyeing
Dorothy across the table with a rather patronizing air, "I sincerely
hope you don't snore."
"Of course not!" responded Dorothy, in some indignation.
"At St. Bride's," continued Flossie, "one of my room-mates snored
atrociously. I used to have to get up and shake her, and pull the
pillow from under her head, before I could go to sleep."
"You'd better not try that on with me!"
"I would, in a minute, if you kept me awake."
"It is a shame she's not in our room," interposed Edith. "We've asked
Miss Maitland to let her change with Geraldine Saunders, and I think
perhaps she may. We want Flossie all to ourselves; I do hope she'll let
us!"
"So do I!" retorted Dorothy feelingly. "The Hammond-Smiths are welcome
to their cousin, so far as I'm concerned," she whispered to Chatty
Burns; "I don't like her. She's trying to show off. Edith and Claudia
are making far too much fuss over her."
"They always gush," commented Chatty. "Still, I dare say Flossie will
need taking down a little."
"It would do her all the good in the world," replied Dorothy. Then,
turning to the Hammond-Smiths, she remarked aloud: "There's a new girl
here who may be just as good as your cousin, for anything we know.
Honor Fitzgerald, do you play tennis?"
"I can play, but how you'll like it is another story," answered Honor.
"We two," nodding at Flossie, "had better try a set by ourselves, and
then you can choose the winner."
"I'm sure I don't care about it, thank you." Flossie's tone was
supercilious.
"All right! We don't force ourselves where we're not wanted in my part
of the world."
"Is that Ireland? Then I suppose your name is Biddy?"
"Certainly not!"
"I thought all Irish girls were called Biddy; are you sure you're not?"
"My name is Honor Fitzgerald."
"Really! I'm astonished it isn't Mulligan, or O'Grady."
The Hammond-Smiths giggled, and poked Effie and Blanche Lawson.
"Isn't Flossie funny?" they whispered delightedly.
"I think she's very rude," observed Dorothy Arkwright. "I call that an
extremely cheap form of wit."
"Irish names are often rather peculiar," drawled Claudia Hammond-Smith.
"They're quite as good as English ones, and sometimes a great deal more
ancient and aristocratic," returned Honor.
"One for Claudia, and for Flossie Taylor too!" said Dorothy to Chatty
Burns.
"Paddy, for instance," interposed Flossie, who saw that the Lawsons
were listening, as well as her cousins. "St. Patrick and pigs always go
together, in my mind. I suppose you keep a pig in Ireland?"
"Don't answer her!" whispered Honor's neighbour. "They're only teasing
you because you're new. They want to see how much you'll stand."
But poor Honor was unaccustomed as yet to schoolgirl banter, and could
not abstain from replying:
"Does it matter whether we do or not?"
She spoke quietly, but there was a gleam in her eye, as if her temper
were rising.
"Not in the least! I only thought all Irish people cultivated pigs."
"It's no worse than keeping a cat, or a dog."
"My dear Paddy, of course not! Still, I shouldn't care to have the
creatures in the drawing-room. Take a little more bread and butter. I'm
sorry we've no potatoes to offer you."
The Hammond-Smiths and the Lawsons tittered, and Dorothy Arkwright was
about to state her frank opinion of their behaviour when Honor's
pent-up wrath exploded.
"We don't keep pigs in the drawing-room," she exclaimed. "There's a
saying that it takes nine tailors to make a man, so if your name is
Taylor you can only be the ninth part of a lady!" Then, realizing that
her upraised voice had drawn upon her the attention, not only of all
the girls, but also of Miss Maitland, she flushed crimson, scraped back
her chair, and fled precipitately from the room.
Miss Maitland looked surprised. It was an unheard-of thing for any girl
to leave the tea-table without permission. Such a breach of school
decorum had surely never been committed before at St. Chad's! There was
a very complete code of etiquette observed at the house, and to break
one of the laws of politeness was considered an unpardonable offence.
"She's made a bad beginning," whispered Ruth Latimer to Maisie Talbot.
"It's most unfortunate. It was really the fault of Flossie Taylor and
the Hammond-Smiths. They needn't have teased her so."
"Still, it was silly of her to lose her temper," replied Maisie. "She
stalked out of the room like a queen of tragedy. Miss Maitland can't
bear girls who give way to their impulses; she despises what she calls
'early Victorian hysterics', and I quite agree with her."
"Yes, we must learn to be stoics here," said Ruth; "and as for teasing,
the wisest thing is to take no notice of it."
A monitress had been dispatched to fetch Honor back, but in a short
time she returned alone, and reported that she could not find her. Miss
Maitland made no comment, and as the meal was now over she gave the
signal of dismissal. Most of the girls went to the recreation room, but
Maisie Talbot, who had not yet quite concluded her unpacking, ran
straight upstairs. Noticing something move behind a curtain in the
corner of the bedroom, she pulled it aside. There was Honor, sitting in
a queer little heap on the floor, and rubbing her eyes in a very
suggestive manner. She jumped up in a moment, however, and pretended
that she was only arranging her boots.
"I'd finished tea," she remarked airily, "so I thought I might as well
empty my box, and put my dresses away in my wardrobe."
"You'll have to ask Miss Maitland's leave next time, before you march
out of the room, or you'll get into trouble," said Maisie. "If it
weren't your first evening, you'd be expected to make a public apology.
Of course, Flossie Taylor and the Hammond-Smiths were aggravating, but
you should just have laughed at them, and then they'd have stopped. We
don't behave like kindergarten children here."
Maisie spoke scathingly. She was a girl who had scant sympathy with
what she called "babyishness", and disliked any exhibition of feeling.
And, after all, she only voiced the general opinion of the school,
which, by an unwritten law, had established a calm imperturbation as
the height of good breeding.
"I don't care in the least what any of you think!" retorted Honor, and
she hung up her skirt with such a jerk that she broke the loop.
Yet, although she spoke lightly, she evidently did care. She was very
quiet indeed all the rest of the evening, and hardly spoke at
recreation. Chatty Burns sat down next to her and tried to begin a
conversation, but Honor answered so briefly that she very soon gave up
the effort in despair, and moved away; while the other girls were so
interested in their own affairs that they did not trouble to remember
their new schoolfellow. At nine o'clock prayers were read, and
everybody went upstairs to bed.
When the lights were out, and the room was in perfect silence, a
strange, suppressed noise issued from Honor's corner. It might, of
course, have been snoring; and Honor explained elaborately next morning
that Irish people often have a peculiar way of breathing in their
sleep--an affection from which she sometimes suffered herself.
"All the same, I don't quite believe her," confided Pauline Reynolds,
who occupied the next cubicle, to Lettice Talbot, a more sympathetic
character than her sister Maisie. "I know what it is to feel home-sick,
and to smother one's nose in the pillow! If that wasn't sobbing, it was
as like it as anything I've ever heard in my life."