_CASSELL’S NEW GIRLS’ LIBRARY_
FEN’S FIRST TERM
By DOROTHEA MOORE
A DAUGHTER OF THE LEGION
By VIOLET M. METHLEY
THE PLUCKY PATROL: A GIRL GUIDE STORY
By NANCY M. HAYES
JILL THE OUTSIDER
By CHRISTINE CHAUNDLER
THE GIRLS OF CLANWAYS FARM
By MAY WYNNE
_Uniform with this Volume_
[Illustration: “The three went off to the hockey-ground as gaily as
though moods and mysteries had never been!” (See page 134.)]
The Bravest Girl
in the School
By
ETHEL TALBOT
With Four Illustrations in
Colour and Black-and-White
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED
London, New York, Toronto and
Melbourne
First published 1924
_Printed in Great Britain_
_To_
HILDA SKAE
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
1. A SECRET 1
2. GOING TO SCHOOL 12
3. NEW ARRIVALS 23
4. SCRAMBLED EGGS 34
5. RULES 46
6. THE HOPE-SCOTT PRIZE 58
7. HERMITS AND HORSES 68
8. PLANS FOR BEING BRAVE 78
9. MAINLY ABOUT HOCKEY 87
10. A HOLIDAY ADVENTURE 96
11. TO THE RESCUE 107
12. THE HOUSE ON THE CLIFF 117
13. A REBELLIOUS PLAN 127
14. THE HOCKEY MATCH 135
15. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 145
16. SYBIL RETURNS 155
17. THE “LITTLE HOUSE” 164
18. MARGOT’S STORY 173
19. NEWS FOR GRETTA 183
20. GRETTA AT HOME 196
21. THE HOPE-SCOTT SHIELD 204
List of Illustrations
“The three were off to the hockey-ground as gaily
as though moods and mysteries had never
been!” _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
“‘I’m coming to that,’ declared Stella, ‘if you’ll only
wait’” 102
“‘_Long Jake_--why, it _is_ you!’ cried Margot’” 134
“Helen made an unexpected and brilliant stroke, thus
winning the match by a single goal” 160
The Bravest Girl in the School
CHAPTER I
A SECRET
“How soon will you know it, Sybil?”
The speaker turned anxious eyes in the direction of her younger sister,
who sat kicking her heels on the faded carpet, and tilting her chair
backwards and forwards as she chanted a French verb in a sing-song
voice.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Sybil, throwing down her book and
speaking in an aggrieved tone. “You’ve given me too much to learn, I’m
sure, Gretta. I can’t possibly get it done by tea-time. Oh--_bother!_”
She was interrupted by the entrance of a dishevelled, slatternly-looking
maid who, capless and excited, burst into the untidy room.
“And what am I to do now, Miss Gretta, I’d like to know? Here’s master
bringing in a visitor, and if she stays to tea there’s not a scrap of
butter in the house. I tell you plainly I’m not going to stand it,
and----”
“Perhaps it’s only a patient----” began Gretta timidly.
“Patient? Not likely!” snorted the maid. “Why, she’s in the drawing-room
at this instant, and, what’s more, she’s your auntie, and you’d best be
going straight up to see her!”
At the sound of this extraordinarily unexpected announcement both little
girls opened their eyes in amazement and stared. Sybil, after an
instant’s pause of incredulity, recovered herself first.
“Why, whatever do you mean, Ann?” she asked excitedly. “Dad didn’t say
anyone was coming. Oh!” and here she turned in amazement to her sister.
“Gretta, can it be Auntie Tib from Australia? And can she have brought
Margot, too? Oh, hurrah! hurrah!” and she began to dance wildly round
the room.
“Oh, Sybil, do stop and come and help,” cried Gretta distractedly. “If
it is Auntie Tib she _must_ be coming to tea, and everything’s so
untidy! Here, come and help me, _do_!”
But Sybil still danced on regardless of entreaties. “Put away your
things yourself,” she shouted. “You spend all your time playing your
precious fiddle, instead of housekeeping; now you can just clear up
alone!”
“Here, for goodness’ sake don’t be so selfish, Miss Sybil,” said Ann,
her good temper suddenly returning. “Look, now, my dears, you pop up and
talk to your auntie while I’m off down to the grocer’s for a pound of
Best Fresh. I’ll make buttered toast in no time. Maybe she won’t have
tasted any for years, if she’s just back from foreign wilds!”
Her words were interrupted by the sound of the opening drawing-room
door, and then came their father’s footsteps along the passage. “Gretta!
Sybil! Where are you?” he began in an irritated voice, then stopped as
the two little girls nearly fell into his arms.
“Didn’t you get my message?” he continued fretfully. “Can’t you children
come any quicker when I specially send for you? Here’s your aunt who has
been travelling thousands of miles to see you, and----”
“We didn’t----” Sybil was beginning, but the sound of rapid, flying
footsteps cut her short. “My darlings!” said a voice; a “perfectly new
voice,” as Sybil said afterwards. “Come and let me see both of you!
Why, John, this one is the living image of Margaret!”
Gretta found herself hugged by two motherly arms, and, as her aunt
kissed her, found tears on her cheeks in memory of the mother who had
died a year ago, and who had been Auntie Tib’s only sister; then,
recovering a little from the shock of the unexpected embrace, she had
time to survey the new relation, who had now turned all her attention to
Sybil.
She was a tall woman, dressed in rich furs. She had removed her gloves
already, and Gretta noticed the bracelets and rings that she wore, and
wondered. Truly, it was ages since such magnificence had come to the
doctor’s house!
But the new-comer did not seem at all concerned with her own grandeur.
She sat down in the little drawing-room, and did not appear to notice
that not only was there no fire in the grate, but that Ann had neglected
to remove the ashes since last Sunday. She drew the children to her
again, kissed her namesake, Sybil, and carried on a flow of conversation
with her, at once sympathetic and gay. Sybil, a host in herself, made up
for the shyness and consequent shortcomings of the rest of her family
by her excited chatter.
“But we never knew you were coming, auntie,” she said, snuggling herself
nearer to her new-found relation. “And, oh! where _is_ Margot?”
“Oh, Margot’s coming presently; and, darling, I sent a telegram,”
exclaimed her aunt. “Have you not had it?”
The doctor wheeled round suddenly at the sound of her last words.
“Telegram!” he ejaculated; “but when?”
Gretta slipped out of the room, and returned, looking rather perturbed,
with a yellow envelope. “Here it is, dad!” she said timidly. “I didn’t
know that----”
“Tut--tut!” said the doctor irritably. “You _should_ know when things
come. You’ve nothing else to do, child.” He tore open the envelope,
while Auntie Tib’s eyes turned towards Gretta, into whose cheeks a
sudden flush had risen. She noticed the girl’s shabby outgrown frock,
her patched slippers, and the clumsy darns on her stockings. Then she
drew her little niece towards her and kissed her again. “So you’re the
housekeeper, are you, Gretta?” she said tenderly.
“Oh, isn’t she lovely!” said Sybil half an hour later, as the two girls
made their way back towards the drawing-room again, after tidying
themselves for tea. “I never could have _thought_ she would be such a
lovely auntie. Do you know, Gretta, I thought she would perhaps be quite
brown, or talk a different language, or something, as she was coming
from Australia. Oh, I do wonder if Margot will come in time for tea.
Auntie said she’d be here in about three-quarters of an hour!” A loud
ring at the front door interrupted her, and the chuff-chuff of a
departing motor was suddenly heard outside.
“It’s Margot! It’s Margot!” exclaimed Sybil in the wildest excitement,
racing into the drawing-room with the news, while her older sister
followed almost as quickly. The two grown-ups within stopped in the
midst of a very earnest conversation and turned to listen, as the
opening of the front door by Ann was followed by the sound of an eager
voice outside.
“I’ll go right in, thank you,” said a very assured voice, and then
someone opened the drawing-room door very firmly, and entered.
Sybil, and even Gretta, too, rose to their feet and gazed open-mouthed
at the visitor as she embraced her mother, talking in an animated voice
all the time. “Oh, mother,” she said, “I guessed, somehow, that this
would be the room, and I couldn’t wait, so I just didn’t. Dad’s driven
on with the car to the hotel garage, and I told him to put me down here
because I wanted to see the cousins just at the very earliest minute,
and----” She turned towards Gretta and Sybil with a friendly expression
of countenance, and held out her hand.
This must be Margot, their cousin, of course; but, dressed as she was in
a plain leather topcoat and motoring goggles, she was--to say the least
of it--quite unlike the cousin of the children’s imaginings. However,
when, at the suggestion of her mother, these impedimenta had been
removed, the real Cousin Margot emerged.
She was taller than Sybil, whose senior she was by six months, and
weedier. Her mouse-coloured hair was thick and rather short, cut
straight across her forehead and tucked away behind her ears; her grey
eyes looked out very straight and clear at the world from under dark
eye-lashes, and her mouth was a good-humoured and a capable one. Add to
this a determined, rather self-willed little chin, and you have a
fairly good picture of the Australian cousin, to the making of whose
acquaintance the children had been so greatly looking forward.
Both of them fell in love with her at once in their own respective ways.
Sybil, talking sixteen to the dozen in no time, asking questions that
needed no answers, making comments, and compelling attention; and
Gretta, content to sit and watch and listen, making up her mind,
nevertheless, very firmly the while.
Tea followed almost at once, and with the tea Uncle Bob arrived. It was
during the course of the unusually cheery meal that the new uncle made
his very unexpected announcement.
“Margot thought we’d better come over to fetch her mother back in the
car after her conversation with you,” he said, addressing the doctor,
“and take the chance of seeing you all at the same time. There’s plenty
of room for the children, if you like to spare them to us for a day or
two. We could pack them both into the back seat, and take them with us.
Margot wants to have them.”
“And we’d like to have you, too, of course, you know,” remarked that
damsel cheerfully, turning to her uncle with a friendly smile and nod,
“only, mother says that you can’t take a holiday.”
“No, I can’t easily do that, young lady,” said the doctor, surprised and
rather amused by the assured ways of his Australian niece. “But if your
parents like to shoulder the responsibility, there’s no reason why your
cousins shouldn’t take advantage of the offer.”
“Oh!” Sybil was almost inarticulate in her entreaties. Never could she
have imagined that such good fortune would come her way. “Oh, it would
be too, _too_ lovely! Auntie, darling, _do_ take us!”
“And what about you, Gretta?” said Mrs. Fleming, turning to the older
girl; “will you come, too?”
“No, thank you,” said Gretta steadily. “I think I’d rather stay with
dad.”
There was a moment’s silence, and the doctor got up from his seat.
“Well, I must be off. Sorry, but there’s a patient who can’t be left.
Settle it with your aunt, children. She’ll do what’s right.”
“Think it over, Gretta,” said her uncle when the doctor had left the
room; “your father will be safe enough.”
“I think I’ll stay, thank you,” said Gretta hesitatingly. Margot slipped
her hand under the table and pressed her cousin’s fingers in a friendly
way for a minute. Evidently she understood what was passing in Gretta’s
mind.
After tea there was a tremendous bustle and hurry. Sybil’s little bag
had to be packed, and soon she was standing, pink-faced and tremendously
excited, waiting for the reappearance of the car that was to take her
away.
“Good-bye, Gretta darling. I understand why you want to stay,” said
Auntie Tib, hugging the rather lonely looking little figure that stood
on the step to see them start. “But I shall see you again very soon,
because----” She bent down and whispered: “Ask your father, to-night,
when he comes home, to tell you the secret that he has for you. Don’t
forget. And I do hope that it will please you!”
“Good-bye! Good-bye!” The car was starting. With waving of hands, and
kisses from Sybil, it turned the corner and was lost to sight. Gretta
was free to go into the house again, and went, but with a feeling as
though somehow everything was changed.
She went into the lonely drawing-room, from which Ann was removing the
remains of the meal, and sat down to wait for her father’s return, while
Auntie Tib’s last words rang in her ears. What, oh, what could be the
secret that she was to hear?