ENTER GABRIELLE
He was a short man, this Monsieur Trouville, neat and dapper, though
inclined to be fat. His high forehead peaked up to his receding hair,
his short moustache was stiffly waxed and stood out very black against
his pallid face. He was not ill-looking, but just at that moment Joey
thought she had never seen anyone quite so unpleasant.
He caught her by the arm. "What are you doing here? How dare you come?
Do you not know it is forbidden, except when I take the classes here? I
will report you to Miss Conyngham. You shall be expelled."
Joey stood her ground. "You can't expel people when they've only just
come," she assured him stoutly. "It ... isn't done. Besides, I'm all
right to tidy here. I'm the scholarship girl."
This last statement did not appear to mitigate Monsieur Trouville's
fury in the least.
"You have distairbed all my bottles--you have made for me hours of work
with your disobedience," he snarled. "I vill have you punished--you
shall be no more at Redlands!"
He began to cast about the room, like a blood-hound nosing for a trail.
Joey felt rather frightened; there was no doubt about it, Monsieur
Trouville was really angry. He spluttered out the objurgations in his
strong French accent rather like an angry cat. Somehow, in spite of
what Noreen and Syb had said, she had not expected him to be quite so
much annoyed by her presence.
"I'm awfully sorry if I've mixed your bottles," she told him, trying
to speak steadily. "I didn't mean to. Perhaps some time when you're
not too busy you would just show me how you like things tidied, and
then----"
Monsieur Trouville made three strides towards her, with so menacing an
expression that Joey gave back a step in spite of herself.
"Miss Conyngham tell you to say dat?" he demanded.
"No, of course not. Do you suppose one needs _telling_ to be polite?"
Joey answered, growing angry in her turn. "If you don't want your old
Lab tidied for you I'm sure I don't want to do it. Good-bye."
[Illustration: "HOW DARE YOU COME?"]
And Joey departed with all the dignity that she could muster, though
she felt a good deal more like crying. The Professor's suspicious
attitude was rather hurting. "He couldn't have been a worse beast if he
thought I meant to steal his bottles," she told herself.
She was half-way back towards the front door before she discovered
she _had_ stolen something from the Lab after all. Fumbling for the
handkerchief which was rather badly wanted at that moment, she brought
out a curiously unfamiliar one of violet silk, now excessively grubby.
She looked at it with dismay. What wouldn't the Professor do if she
went back and told him that to add to her other offences she had used
his handkerchief for a duster.
"I'd better wash it first before I return it," Joey said to herself,
and rammed it back into her pocket.
She wondered whether Noreen and the others had turned up yet; it would
be satisfactory to tell them that she had done the Lab already. Joey
thought that she would not say anything about the Professor's fury,
which, after all, had been unjust. She put her head down, and raced at
her best pace for the front door; it would be rather fun to talk as
though the Professor had been quite pleased with her tidying.
Phut! Joey had gone full tilt into someone who was coming from the
house--a very tall girl with her hair tied back. "Here, look where
you're going, you young idiot!" the big girl called out angrily.
Joey came to earth metaphorically with a bump. "I say, I'm frightfully
sorry. Did I hurt you?"
"That's not likely, considering you're half my size," said the tall
girl. "But you should look. What's your name?"
"Jocelyn Graham. What's yours?"
The tall girl frowned. "I am Ingrid Latimer, Senior Prefect here," she
said coldly, and Joey understood that she had done the wrong thing in
asking that off-hand question.
She became rather flustered. "Oh, are you? Then--when do you want your
boots put on?" she asked nervously.
Ingrid frowned more alarmingly. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"I got the scholarship--don't I have to put your boots on?" faltered
Joey. Now she came to put it into words it did sound an extremely silly
thing to say. Somehow she wasn't surprised by the crushing tone of the
Senior Prefect's answer.
"Please don't try to be funny; we've no use for that sort of thing
here. Who put you up to all this?"
A light began to break upon Joey. Something hot surged in her chest.
"Oughtn't I to have tidied the Lab either?" she asked, with the courage
of desperation.
"Tidied the Lab! Why, no one's allowed there without Monsieur or the
Chemistry Mistress. Look here, my good child, are you trying to be
funny--I shouldn't, because it won't pay you--or are you the outsidest
edge of imbecile new kids that ever came to Redlands?"
Joey was silent. She was trying to adjust things in her mind. The girls
had had her on, and oh how easily! She _was_ the outsidest edge in
imbeciles, she supposed.
"Who put you up to all this?" repeated the Senior Prefect magisterially.
Joey stuck her hands into her pockets. She had been made a fool of;
well, it wasn't pleasant, but one must grin and bear it, even the
hateful apologising to the justly incensed Professor, which she
supposed must be her next proceeding. She wasn't going to get the
others into trouble anyway, and Ingrid Latimer's tone suggested trouble
ahead. "Oh, never mind!" she said.
"I wish to know," Ingrid repeated. "Their names, please?"
"Sorry, it can't be done," Joey stuck out hardily. "And if you don't
want your boots put on, I'll go--please!"
The Senior Prefect looked as though she could hardly believe her
ears; but Joey hadn't been educated up to Senior Prefects and their
expressions. She bolted straight back to the Lab; it would be best to
get that hateful apology over at once.
But the door was locked, this time on the inside, and though she
knocked till her knuckles were sore, there was no answer.
"Hi, Jocelyn Graham, you're to go to Miss Conyngham," shouted a
familiar voice, and Noreen hove in sight round the corner.
Joey saw her opportunity. "Tell that to some other idiot, if you can
find one silly enough to listen to the sort of things you say," she
told her. "Personally, I find it jolly interesting to see what a kid
like you will try on next; but even I don't want too much funniness,
thank you."
She marched off, leaving an outraged and astounded Noreen staring after
her, and betook herself to the sleepy stream meandering at the bottom
of the garden. It was a comfort to feel that Noreen had not succeeded
in having her on a third time, but it was about all the comfort there
was. Joey felt desperately home-sick and miserable just then, and as
if she would give anything in the world to find herself on the heathy
moor, or making bannocks for tea in the kitchen of the little grey
stone cottage, far away from this puzzling and unfriendly new world.
She stared across the sleepy water, wondering whether Father had felt
more wretched than this when he was a prisoner among his enemies.
Yes, of course it had been worse for him, a great deal worse; for
he had been in the midst of dirt and ill-usage and barbarities
unspeakable--only--he hadn't expected to find the Huns friendly
gentlemen, and Joey had somehow expected a great deal from Redlands.
Still, that was no reason for making a fuss; Father hadn't--Joey knew
that. She screwed her eyes up tight, and rubbed the back of a grubby
hand across them fiercely. And while she was doing that someone spoke
to her.
"I say, are you Jocelyn Graham?"
Joey opened her eyes hastily. A girl was standing by her, a girl with
long lovely auburn-brown hair and clear eyes a shade darker, and a
delicate clear skin. She wasn't as tall as Joey herself, anything like,
and she hadn't the superior way of talking, which Joey had noticed in
the rest.
"You _are_ Jocelyn, aren't you?" this girl went on, and Joey liked her
way of saying it, for it was friendly. "Well, do let me take you to
Miss Conyngham--yes, it's all right, she really wants you--and she sent
for you some time ago, you know."
Joey remembered. Panic took hold of her. "Will she be mad?"
The pretty girl smiled. "She's seeing the other new girls. You'll be
all right if we run."
They ran. Somehow Joey did not doubt this new friend. "What's your
name?" she asked breathlessly, as they tore up from the stream and
across the gardens.
"Gabrielle--Gabrielle Arden."
"Why did you come after me?" Joey asked.
"Oh, Noreen thought you had gone down that way."
"It was decent of you," Joey said, with conviction.
"Jocelyn--Noreen and the others didn't mean anything, truly," Gabrielle
panted. "They didn't think you would really go and do the Lab, you
know."
Joey returned no answer; for one thing she had no breath to speak; for
the second, she looked forward to a settlement, a little later on, with
Noreen and Co., when the interview with Miss Conyngham and the hateful
apology to the Professor were well over.
Gabrielle said nothing more either, and the two arrived in silence at
Miss Conyngham's door. Miss Conyngham herself opened it, shepherding
out three girls who looked new and rather frightened.
"Ah, Gabrielle, that's right," Miss Conyngham said. "Kathleen
Ronaldshay has no elder sisters here; will you take care of her and
show her round? And here is Jocelyn. I will introduce all you new girls
to each other, and then I want a little talk with Jocelyn alone."
Joey shook hands with Bernadine Elton, Kathleen Ronaldshay, and Ella
Marne; then the three were sent off in Gabrielle's care--they were all
of them much bigger than she was--and Miss Conyngham drew Jocelyn into
her pretty room.
Miss Conyngham matched her room; she was dainty and fair and
fragile-looking, and, as Joey mentioned afterwards to Mums, "looked as
if a light were burning inside her which made her all lit up as soon as
she began to talk."
She did not look as though she could keep six hundred girls in order;
but Joey found out very soon that appearances were deceitful in this
case. Just now, however, Miss Conyngham was not out to keep anyone in
order.
"I was so sorry that you and Miss Craigie couldn't come down together;
but I have had a wire, she is better, and the temperature very much
down this morning. So I hope we may get her back in a fortnight. And
by that time I expect you will have made hosts of friends, and have a
tremendous amount to tell her."
Joey assented cautiously. Privately she doubted the friends, and it
certainly wouldn't be possible to tell Miss Craigie that she hated
Redlands for fear it should go back to Mums _via_ the minister. But an
assent of some kind seemed the proper thing.
"You will be placed in Remove II. B; that is the head form of the Lower
School," Miss Conyngham went on. "Gabrielle, who brought you here, is
in that form, only she is A: she is Head of the Lower School, you know,
and only thirteen; we are all proud of Gabrielle at Redlands."
"Is she top of this Remove place, then?" asked Joey.
"Not necessarily. The Head of the Lower School is chosen from Remove
II., but it is in open Election among the other girls. They vote for
the best in every way out of sixty Remove girls; you want a great many
qualities to be Head of the Lower School, Jocelyn."
Joey was interested. She somehow hadn't guessed that Gabrielle was
anything special, except good-natured to a new girl.
"The election of the Head Girl for the two hundred and fifty of the
Upper School, and for the three hundred and fifty of the Lower,
happens at the end of every year," Miss Conyngham went on, in a nice
companionable way, as though she were quite sure that Joey would be
interested, and feel the school matters her own. "It is a very serious
affair, I can assure you. The result of the Election holds good for
the whole succeeding year; at Christmas Gabrielle will stand for
re-election--that is, if she doesn't pass out of Remove into the Upper
School. By the end of the term all this will have come to mean a very
great deal to you, I think."
Joey's assent was again a model of caution; of course, Miss Conyngham
didn't realise how the girls resented that village school. Probably
Gabrielle had just been nice because she did not know.
"Well, now it must be tea-time," Miss Conyngham concluded, "and you
must go and have tea. Give Matron your keys afterwards, and she will
show you where to put away your clothes."
Miss Conyngham consulted a list pinned on her wall. "You are in Blue
Dormitory, I see; that is a very favourite one. I will ask Gabrielle
to introduce you to your room-mates, Sybil Gray, Barbara Emerson, and
Noreen O'Hara. I think you will all get on very comfortably together."
Joey did not even give a cautious assent to this; she thought she knew
exactly how that quartette were going to get on. She just said, "Thank
you, Miss Conyngham."
Miss Conyngham rang the bell twice. A minute later there was a tap at
the door, and Gabrielle answered her "Come in."
"Take Jocelyn in to tea and show her her dormitory, Gabrielle, please,"
Miss Conyngham said. She did not add, "Take care of her," for which
Joey was grateful. It was bad enough to be disliked by the rest, but
at least she needn't be despised. No one should guess that she wasn't
feeling happy at Redlands.
"Which dorm are you in?" Gabrielle asked, as soon as Miss Conyngham's
door was shut behind them.
"Blue," Joey said briefly.
"That's topping. It's next door to mine, and such a jolly set there."
"I know," Joey interrupted rather grimly. "Sybil and Barbara and
Noreen."
"Do you know them, then?" asked Gabrielle, surprised.
"We met in the train," Joey explained. She hesitated for a second. "I
shall _like_ being in their dorm."