SCRAMBLED EGGS
The sound of the wheels on the drive brought a gardener from the lawn,
who took charge of the pony and led it away, while Miss Read ushered the
four new children through the front door, and up the stairs that led to
the dormitories. Here, on the top step, was standing an imposing person
in a stiffly-starched uniform, who surveyed the approaching group with
an interested air.
“How are you, nurse?” said the house-mistress. She advanced with an
outstretched hand. “Yes, we’ve got here, you see. I arrived ten minutes
before these girls’ train came in, so I’ve brought them all up. Will
you----”
“Just leave them to me,” said nurse. “They’ll be glad to get their coats
off. Come along, all of you. You’ll like to see your cubicles. You won’t
be upstairs in your boots again, of course, after you’ve once unpacked,
but it can’t be helped for once. Keep off the polish as much as you
can.”
Thus adjured, and as much awed by the astonishingly high cap of this
personage as by her commanding manner, the four new girls stepped warily
behind her. “_Nurse!_” whispered Sybil--the only one of the quartette
who cared to open her lips--“Gretta, is she a _nurse_? We’re not
_babies_!”
“Sssh!” said her sister urgently, as the uniformed personage drew up at
one of the doors. “Two of you will have your cubicles here,” she said.
“Margot Fleming--oh, that’s _you_, is it?”--as Margot took a step
forward--“and Margaret Grey. The other two are over there,” and she
pointed to an opposite door, through which might be seen a row of white
beds.
“Aren’t I going to sleep with Gretta, please?” inquired Sybil.
“No, you and Adela Greaves will sleep here. Make haste, girls; it is
getting late, and Miss Slater will see you all before tea.”
Gretta presently, therefore, found herself at the side of a small, white
bed looking at Margot, who was tearing off her gloves.
“Glad to get these off, anyway,” she said cheerfully. “I say, how do you
think you’ll like it, Gretta?”
“It’s awfully strange, of course,” replied her cousin, “but somehow I
believe it’s going to be most awfully nice.”
It did not take long to remove their outdoor garments, and by the time
they were ready, nurse had disappeared. It was not very plain to either
of them whether they were to descend to regions unknown or to wait for a
guide.
“Come along, Gretta,” said Margot. “We can’t stay here for ever. I
believe that nurse-person took the others down; let’s go too.”
“Suppose they mean us to wait?” suggested Gretta, feeling somehow that
the best thing, at first, would be to walk warily.
“_Wait_--how silly!” exclaimed her surprised cousin. “We’re ready, you
see.” So, feeling dreadfully ill at ease, Gretta followed the
independent Margot and, as neither of them was very sure whither they
were bound, it was small wonder that in a very short time they were
quite lost amidst the passages.
“Let’s try any door,” said Margot cheerily, “then, if anyone’s inside,
we can ask them where we have to go! Fun, isn’t it?”
Gretta didn’t think so. She stood nervously by while her cousin turned
the handle of the first door. It opened into a dormitory lined with
white beds. So did the next, and the next. “Oh, come on,” said Margot,
“we’ll be late for tea, and I’m hungry. Let’s go downstairs, and explore
there.”
“But suppose there’s rules, or something?” objected Gretta.
“There couldn’t be a rule about such a stupid thing,” said her young
cousin complacently. “How _could_ there; this isn’t a prison!”
She had reached the bottom of the stairs by this time, and Gretta was
behind her. The first door leading from the passage was shut.
“We’ll try this first,” said Margot. “It can’t be a bedroom, so we
needn’t knock.” She turned the handle firmly as she spoke, and entered.
A lady, who was engaged in writing busily at a table, looked up in
surprise.
“Oh, we’re so sorry. I beg----” Gretta began in alarm as the stranger
gazed up at them; but Margot burst cheerily in. “Oh, I’m glad we’ve
found someone at last!” she exclaimed. “There was no one in the bedroom
they took us to, and so we’ve come down to explore. If you’re one of the
governesses, please where is the dining-room?”
During this well-meant speech Gretta had time to study the features of
the lady whose work they had so abruptly interrupted. Her face was
“young and yet old,” as the child said to herself; for the expression in
the grey eyes was full of humour as well as determination, and, while
the mouth and chin were strongly moulded, there were few lines or
wrinkles in the forehead of the stranger. She would have passed in the
opinion of many as a woman of less than middle-age had it not been for
the crown of white hair that surmounted her well-shaped head.
Her words, when she spoke, were hardly a surprise to the older girl.
“You made a mistake, my dear,” she said, laying down her pen and holding
out her hand to Margot, “in not knocking at the door. I am Miss Slater.
I had quite intended to send for you, for I am very anxious to make the
acquaintance of my new girls.” She rose as she spoke and advanced
towards Gretta. “I expect you are Margaret Grey,” she said, “for I have
already spoken to your little sister. I hope, my dear, that you will be
happy at school.”
“Thank you,” replied Gretta shyly, “and I’m so sorry we----”
“So am I,” declared Margot, “for I suppose you’re awfully busy. But, you
see, we couldn’t know where to go, could we?”
Miss Slater volunteered no direct answer to the question. “I think
there’s no doubt that you are Margot Fleming--the little girl from
Australia,” she said with a smile.
“Why, however can you guess that!” exclaimed Margot in mystification,
then stopped to listen as the head mistress opened the heavy door that
separated her rooms from the boarders’ quarters, and the sound of
laughter and cheerful conversation met the children’s ears.
“I think you should have no difficulty in finding your way, now,” she
said, smiling at the two girls. “But I will take you myself and
introduce you; then you will feel at home very soon.”
She turned the handle as she spoke, and instantly, as though by magic,
the noisy babel of conversation ceased, there was a scrambling as the
girls jumped up hurriedly from their seats, and a whisper, deferential,
yet delighted, ran round the room. “It’s _Miss Slater_!”
“I have brought two new girls, Helen,” said the head mistress, smiling
at the group, and then turning to a tall and responsible-looking damsel
with merry eyes and a thick plait of hair, who advanced as she was
addressed. “Margaret Grey and her cousin, Margot Fleming; they will
sleep in Dormitory 3, with Stella and Josy. Look after them, please, and
do what you can to make them feel at home.”
“Yes, Miss Slater,” said the head girl. Then a scrap of a child, who
seemed all pigtail, ran forward to hold the door, and to shut it as the
head mistress withdrew. As it closed the uproar of merry voices broke
out again with redoubled vigour.
“And she’s been practising strokes all the hols.,” announced someone
from the fireplace.
“We went to the meet on our bicycles _twice_,” screamed a shrill voice
from the corner.
“I say, has anyone read ‘The Trail’? It’s the most _ripping_ book. It’s
simply thrilling, and my brother says----” declared someone else in
piercing tones that broke off suddenly as the speaker flew to answer
some question addressed to her by the head girl.
Gretta almost gasped. The room seemed full of voices and swinging legs,
and pigtails that varied only in length and thickness. She wondered what
was going to happen next.
“Do you like scrambled eggs?” said a voice in her ear solicitously.
She turned suddenly, and almost jumped at the unexpectedness of the
question. Beside her was a short girl of about her own age, whose curly
hair was strained back into the inevitable plait, and whose face would
have looked exceedingly demure had it not been for the expression in the
eyes which was suggestive of hidden depths of mischief.
“I’m Josy,” said the new-comer, “or Josephine Mary Pope, if you like
that better. Isn’t it a name to have! Helen’s taken your cousin over to
Stella, and I thought you looked a bit bored, so I just came. Are you
awfully clever? You look it. But for goodness’ sake don’t tell me that
you’ll want to bring lesson-books up to our dormer. For one thing I’m
head this term, and it’s not allowed; and, for another, it’s such silly
swank!”
Gretta’s breath was fairly taken away. She had understood enough of the
speech, however, to realize that she mustn’t be branded for ever as
“clever,” when she knew herself unable to live up to the character. “I’m
not a bit clever; I’m perfectly stupid,” she hastened to reply as
emphatically as she could. “Margot is, I expect, though. And I don’t
really know about Sybil--you see, she’s my sister.”
“Is that funny new kid, Sybil, your _sister_!” inquired the stranger in
an amused tone. “I must say she’s not like you. She’s not _shy_,
whatever she is. Look at her!”
Gretta turned her eyes towards a far corner of the room, and there, in
the centre of a laughing group of girls, stood her little sister,
flushed, excited, and evidently enjoying herself hugely.
“I’ve never had brown stockings before, but auntie said----” The words,
uttered in Sybil’s shrill treble, floated above the babel.
“Oh, how can she?” said Gretta, aghast. “_Sybil!_” She took an
ineffectual step forward.
“It’s no good, she wouldn’t hear you in this racket,” said Josy, who was
evidently exceedingly amused; “and, if she did, she doesn’t look as
though she’d take much notice. Not bad for a new kid, is it? But she’ll
shake down. Now, _do_ you like scrambled eggs?”
Gretta turned from the vision of Sybil, who was still supplying a fund
of amusement to a delighted group, and faced the question for its second
time of asking.
“What a funny thing to say,” she remarked shyly. “It’s like ‘Alice in
Wonderland’ somehow, isn’t it? Yes, I think so”--here visions of Ann’s
inferior cookery rose before her--“that is, if they’re not burnt or
cooked all wrong, or cold, or something.”
Her new friend gave a shout of merriment. “There, didn’t I _say_ you
were clever! Excuse me laughing, and I’ll tell you why. We always have
scrambled eggs for tea on the first night of term, so we always ask new
boarders that question. It makes a kind of beginning to conversation,
and somehow or other you can find out by the way they answer what kind
of girls they’ll be. It’s really rather fun, but I’ve never heard anyone
answer like _you_! How do you know when they’re cooked wrong? You _must_
be clever; I said so, remember, to begin with, and I always knew I was
good at character reading!”
Gretta blushed to the roots of her hair. She had hoped so much that she
wouldn’t be different from other girls, and here she was on the very
first evening at school--yes, even in the very first hour!--convicted of
being old-fashioned, and of knowing things that other girls didn’t know.
Her discomfiture would have been complete had not a look of contrition
in Josy’s face served to reassure her.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said her new friend. “You didn’t mind, did you?”
Gretta made an effort, and tried to smile. “Have you asked Sybil?” she
said.
“Oh, _rather_! at least someone else did, and she was killing. ‘I simply
_love_ them!’ she said, and looked all round as though a big helping
would at once appear! I say, she’s a jolly little thing, isn’t she? And
with those legs she should be a good runner, too. I wonder how she’ll
shape for hockey.”
“Do you play hockey here?” ventured Gretta. “I mean, shall _we_?”
“Rath-_er_!” declared her friend. “We’d a ripping match here on our
ground, last day of last term. Top-hole! Pity you couldn’t have seen
some of Helen’s strokes. And all the team played well, Miss Carter said.
We beat the Lees girls hollow. But it’s hockey this term, too, of
course, so----”
The last sentence was interrupted by the ringing of a deep-toned
tea-bell, at the first sound of which, as if by magic again, silence
fell on the entire group, and, in an orderly file, they marched quietly
along the passage into a large room at its farthest end.
Here two long tables were spread. At the head of one of them stood Miss
Read, and nurse, still resplendent in cap and apron, was busy pouring
out cups of tea at the second.
Then, in less time and with less noise than Gretta would have imagined
possible, the girls seated themselves in their respective places, and
the meal began; she, herself, at Miss Read’s direction, having found a
place between Margot and Josy. Sybil was at nurse’s table, seated on the
left-hand side of that dignitary, of whom she seemed very much in awe.
Conversation, spirited enough, if not so loud as that carried on in the
sitting-room, began again at once, and Gretta, after several plates had
passed rapidly on their way up the table, found herself in possession of
a liberal helping of the said scrambled eggs, and--a very good
appetite!