RULES
“Are they ‘cooked all wrong, or cold, or anything?’” asked Josy
mischievously from Gretta’s right-hand side.
“No, they’re very nice,” said her table-companion, determined not to
show she minded being teased. “Margot”--turning to her cousin, who sat
eating bread-and-butter, and wearing an unusually solemn
expression--“how do you like everything? What girls have you talked to?”
“I’m not so sure that I like it at all,” said Margot decidedly, looking
very pink, and setting her chin rather obstinately. “I’ve been talking
to a girl called Stella, and it seems as though we’re simply going to be
cooped up! Sitting in lines, you know, and doing everything at the
proper time! It doesn’t seem----”
“Oh, but Margot!” exclaimed Gretta, thankful that the buzz of talk was
rendering it impossible for their conversation to be overheard; “it’s
only school ways, you know. Everyone else likes it. If you look at them
you can see they do, and there’s such a nice girl next me. Her name’s
Josy, and----”
“Yes, do tell your cousin to look at me,” declared the said Josy,
stretching a friendly fist across, and firmly shaking Margot by the
hand. “I’m head of your dormer, you know, and you’ll have to do as
you’re told. Has anyone asked you if you like scrambled eggs?”
“I’ve eaten them, so it’s pretty plain,” replied Margot, a little
huffily perhaps, for the first part of Josy’s speech had not served to
smooth her ruffled feathers. “I can make better ones myself, though; not
so squashy, and with more butter on the toast!”
Josy gave a squeak of joy. “I say!” she said delightedly; “I wish you’d
teach _me_! Where did you learn?”
“I learned in Australia, of course,” answered Margot. “My mother taught
me; it’s perfectly easy. Look here, if you don’t mind, when does the
post go? I’ve finished my tea, and it’s frightfully important that I
should send a letter home. It must reach York by----”
“Oh, but you can’t write this evening,” said Josy, rather taken aback by
Margot’s decisive tones; “you’ve nothing unpacked, have you? Besides,
we write our letters on Sunday; it’s the day for it.”
“But that’s not the same,” persisted Margot. “My mother will expect to
hear from me, and----” Her speech was cut short by the sudden rising of
the house-mistress. Nurse and the girls at both tables followed suit,
and when grace was said those nearest the door commenced to file out of
the room in the same orderly and silent way as they had entered.
“Ask Miss Read, Margot!” suggested Gretta. “She’ll tell you if you may!”
“I’m not going to ‘ask’ about such a thing,” said Margot in high
dudgeon; “as though I can’t write a letter to my mother, indeed! I’m
going straight to that dormitory-place to see if my boxes have gone up.
Anyhow, I’ve a post card in my bag; that’ll be better than nothing!” She
turned on her heel as she spoke, and ran up the stairs while Gretta
looked uneasily after her.
“Come back, you new child!--Margot Fleming, isn’t it?” called the head
girl from the tail of the procession, as she caught sight of the flying
figure. “It’s against the rules to go to the dormitories now!”
“I don’t believe in rules,” said Margot, turning and speaking
emphatically from the top stair, “about silly things like that, I mean.
I’m going for a post card, and I’ve simply got to have it.” She turned
again, and resumed her upward journey.
“But you don’t mean to say you won’t let me write to mother!” she
exclaimed three minutes later--standing with flaming cheeks, a post card
clutched in her hand--to Miss Read, who had followed her upstairs, and
now gazed at the independent twelve-year-old with a face of undisguised
surprise; “because, if so----”
“The school rule is that letters are written home on Sundays,” said the
house-mistress. “You have come here to obey the rules, haven’t you? But,
unfortunately, you have broken several of them already--mostly without
knowing it, of course--and now you want to break _this_ one.”
“I don’t want to break rules,” said Margot passionately, “but I want to
keep my promise.”
“And that was----?” asked Miss Read slowly.
“I said to mother as the train was starting, ‘I’m going to write
to-night,’ so I must do it. What’s the _sense_ of making a rule like
this one of yours; there doesn’t seem any reason!”
“I can quite see that you don’t understand the reason,” said Miss Read,
speaking very quietly, “but I’ll try to explain things if you will
listen. There are twenty-four boarders here, and if I gave leave to
_one_ of them to write a letter, I must naturally give leave to _all_,
which means that twenty-four girls would need writing material from
boxes that are not yet unpacked. Writing materials are very often at the
bottom of people’s trunks, of course, and if twenty-four girls were
allowed upstairs to turn over their boxes, and then to leave their
trunks again and go down to write letters, what would be the state of
the dormitories, and when would the rest of the unpacking and arranging
get done?”
“I suppose things _would_ be in a muddle,” said Margot frankly; “but,”
with her chin still held high, “mother will expect----”
“I don’t think so,” remarked Miss Read, forestalling her; “because Miss
Slater understands very well indeed how the girls’ mothers feel, and she
has made arrangements that they should not be anxious. A post card has
been sent already to your mother--as to the parents of every one of the
girls--to say that you have arrived safely, and that you will all write
yourselves on Sunday.”
“Then she _will_ understand!” broke in Margot. “Oh, that’s all right
then, but I’d have liked to have written myself.”
“Well”--Miss Read frankly showed her amusement now--“it’s a very good
thing, Margot, that the post card was _not_ left to you to send, for the
last post went before tea, and any letter sent now would not arrive in
York before to-morrow evening.”
“I’m sorry,” said Margot, smiling too. “You don’t mind me not
understanding, do you? I’m not used to schools, you see.”
“I don’t see how you _can_ understand the rules all at once, as you’re
only twelve, you know,” remarked Miss Read cheerfully, “but we’ll be
quite satisfied if you’ll just obey them, and make up your mind that
they’ll have to be understood gradually. You’ll find that’s the best way
to set to work.”
“All right, I’ll try,” Margot sighed. “How many have I broken already?
I’ll do my best; really, I will.”
“Then please remember that in my absence the head girl’s orders must be
obeyed--she takes my place, you see--also, one of nurse’s rules is that
the dormitories are not to be visited by girls without leave except at
certain times. Helen told you that, you’ll remember. It will be to your
own interest, you know, to remember these things; a number of people
can’t live together without making certain arrangements so that the
wheels run smoothly. In schools these arrangements are called ‘rules.’
You’ll get used to things very soon.”
“I feel more used to them now, I think,” said Margot, smiling bravely.
“I suppose I’d better go down now, hadn’t I? I hope the girls won’t
laugh at me.”
“Well, I don’t think they’re a bit likely to do _that_,” said the
house-mistress.
Her words proved true. On Margot’s entry into the sitting-room she found
everyone so busy and intent on arranging their valuables from upstairs,
where unpacking was in progress, that her reappearance was noticed by no
one but Gretta, who, busily leaning over a small drawer, called to her
cousin with delight.
“Margot, this is yours; just next mine. We’ve to line them with paper,
Helen says, and then when we unpack--our dormitory’s going to begin
next--we can bring down anything we like.”
Margot, glad of employment, threw herself into the task with great
enthusiasm, and by bedtime, when the unpacking and arranging of her
belongings was completed, she had begun to feel her old cheerful self
again, and to settle into the ways of the other girls, who seemed so
very much at home. When nurse came in, announcing firmly that in another
five minutes lights would be turned out and that undressing would then
have to be completed in the dark, Gretta trembled lest her cousin should
lift a voice in vigorous protest; but Margot merely scrambled busily
into bed behind her curtains.
“Oh, may we talk in bed to-night, nurse?” asked the head of the
dormitory urgently; “just for a quarter of an hour, because it’s the
first night of term! Do, _do_ let us!”
“Well,” said nurse, who, martial though she might be, was not always
proof against Josy’s wheedling, “but not a minute longer!” She closed
the door as she spoke, and fifteen minutes’ bliss began!
“Let’s take each of the minutes separately!” suggested Stella, a trifle
unscrupulously, from her corner of the room.
“No, we won’t; it isn’t fair; you’re wasting a minute by talking about
it. I want to ask the new girls all sorts of things while we’re alone,
and it’s so ripping talking in bed,” announced Josy. “Do you like
feasts, and have you any pocket-money? This is a ripping dormer to be
in, you know,” she added ingenuously, “because I’m oldest in it, and
there isn’t any really big girl here to order us about!”
“We’re more under _nurse_, though, down here,” corrected Stella, “and
the babies are just opposite, so we can’t make much noise.”
“But nurse is a perfect _brick_ at week-ends!” Josy spoke with unction.
“She gave us ten minutes to talk in, every Saturday night last term, and
didn’t mind the dormer feast a scrap!”
“Do you have feasts? What fun!” exclaimed Margot, sitting up in bed and
peeping through her curtains into the darkness. “We’ve got money,
haven’t we, Gretta? Shall we have one this term, Stella?”
“Don’t ask _me_!” replied that young woman dejectedly. “_I_ go home for
week-ends; we only live five miles away. I’m out of nearly all the fun.
I’d rather be an out-and-out boarder; you and Josy and Gretta will have
it all your own way. I come in for matches, of course, when we have
them, but that’s all. It’s not fair to talk about feasts when I’m here,
Josy, when I can’t eat them. Talk about the prize instead.”
“All right,” replied Josy with alacrity.
“What’s _that_?” chorused Gretta and Margot.
“It’s a mystery, so far,” explained the dormitory head with enthusiasm,
“but it’s sure to be most awfully thrilling. Mrs. Hope-Scott, a great
friend of Miss Slater’s, you know, has offered it--the prize, I mean--to
the school.”
“But what for?” inquired Margot eagerly.
“Well, that’s what we don’t know. On the last day of last term Miss
Slater told us there _was_ to be one; but she is to tell us more about
it on the first day of _this_ term--that’s to-morrow, you know--and
we’re all just longing to hear.”
“If it’s for lessons, there’s no chance for _me_,” groaned Stella.
“But if it’s for music, perhaps _Gretta_ might get it,” burst in Margot
excitedly. “Mother says----”
“Oh, it won’t be for anything like that, I should think,” said Josy.
“It’s a prize, Miss Slater said, that anyone could get; ‘from the
oldest to the youngest; age will make no difference, nor intellectual
ability,’ that’s exactly what she said. I didn’t know what it meant, and
Miss Read told me afterwards--for I asked her--that it means that you
needn’t be so awfully clever.”
“New girls might have a chance, then?” ventured Gretta.
“Oh, _rather_,” replied Josy. “That won’t make any difference. Mrs.
Hope-Scott had a girl at school here once; Hilda her name was, and she
was head girl before I came. She went and trained to be a nurse, and
then she died--nursing some poor people with fever, you know--and her
mother is giving the prize in remembrance of her. Miss Slater told us
all that on the last day of last term, and----”
“Now, not another word in here,” said nurse, opening the door and
speaking very emphatically; “off you go to sleep this very instant!”
She shut it again decisively as she uttered the words, and it spoke well
for the impression that Miss Read’s speech had left on Margot’s mind
that, with a question on the very tip of her tongue, she yet refrained
from asking it, and turned on her side to fall asleep almost before the
sound of nurse’s footsteps had died away.
The other girls turned and twisted a little and finally fell asleep too;
Gretta was the last, and her first dream was of her father, sitting
alone with his pipe in the cheerless dining-room at home.