A Hard Term
Late autumn brought the anniversary of Lesbia's upheaval from Denham
Terrace. She was now nearly "sweet seventeen", and in some respects at
any rate felt rather grown-up. It seemed immeasurably more than a year
since she had settled down at 28 Park Road. She was beginning to look
back upon her life with the Hiltons as a remote period of childhood.
Some episodes in it were very sweet, and were changing their aspect now
they were viewed from a distance. Paul's hand on her shoulder when he
called her "little sister", the children's arms round her neck as they
hugged her good night, the kiss that Minnie always came to give her in
bed, these were memories that increased in value as she grew more
capable of appreciating their true worth. Lesbia was very slowly
learning a great many things, some pleasant and some unpleasant, and
among those that hurt was the realization of her conduct in deserting
Minnie at such an awkward pinch, and leaving her to struggle with the
children on that Atlantic voyage. Well! She had made a sudden choice,
and had thrown in her lot with Kingfield High School. She would at least
do her best in the line which she had elected for herself. To Lesbia
this "best" meant working hard at her prep, which she still detested,
and taking an active part as leader in all the various games and
societies, a role which she enjoyed very much. A wider opportunity was
opening for her, however, and one in which she had a far more difficult
task to fulfil.
The Christmas term-end festivities tired Miss Tatham out. For a long
time she had not been strong, and had been struggling to keep up with
the hundred and one duties expected from the principal of a big school.
During the holidays she collapsed, and her doctor insisted upon several
months' entire rest. The governors of the school, called in committee to
face the sudden emergency, appointed a locum tenens to rule in her stead
for a term.
Miss Ormerod, who thus came in a hurry to fill up the gap, was a B.A.,
and had had high school experience--too much so, the girls decided after
a few days of her acquaintance. She was one of those people who are
clever, but tactless. She had passed any number of examinations with
flying colours, but had no knowledge of human souls. From the very first
she set everybody's bristles rising. The teachers, accustomed to Miss
Tatham's personal magnetism, were put out by abrupt criticisms and lack
of consideration, while the girls declared that a gorgon had been sent
to reign over them. Miss Ormerod, to do her strict justice, was
hardworking and conscientious. She never spared herself. It was a
difficult post, and she filled it according to her own lights. If she
found what she judged slackness she was doing her duty to correct it.
But between a "wise administrator" and a "jack-in-office" there is all
the difference in the world. Some women love power, and exercise it
unmercifully. Woe betide the lesser planets that are forced to circle in
their orbits.
The school, accustomed to discipline, obeyed, but grumbled under its
breath.
"Miss Tatham never made any silly rules about not talking in the hall,"
declared Kathleen indignantly, coming into the Sixth Form room smarting
from a sharp rebuke and confiding her woes to a sympathetic circle.
"No! It's perfectly ridiculous. We must talk somewhere, I suppose."
"We shall be having 'Silence' in the cloakroom next."
"Or in the playground."
"I wish darling Tatie was back."
"You didn't call her 'darling' when she was here."
"Well, I do now."
"Miss Ormerod's as hard as nails."
"I want to call her 'ramrod' myself."
"Oh, don't be clever, please."
"She blinks and winks through those spectacles."
"Don't you _hate_ spectacles?"
"And there's a little sort of grate in her voice, and then she clears
her throat, and you know she's going to say something unpleasant."
"I meant to like her," declared Ernie thoughtfully. "I came to school on
her first day prepared to adore her. I think it was because I once knew
a Miss Ormerod who was very pretty. Well, I tell you, directly I saw her
I got a shock. I thought I had never seen anyone so horrid in my life. I
felt we were opposite poles. I don't know when I took such an intense
dislike to anybody. It's what you call an 'antipathy'."
"Not 'love at first sight' exactly!"
"Hardly!"
"'I do not love you, Dr. Fell, The reason why I cannot tell!'" quoted
Calla.
"But I _can_ tell the reason. She's cross, and a martinet, and she never
makes any jolly jokes like Tatie used to do--bless her heart!"
"You're altogether gone on Tatie nowadays."
"Of course I am. I wrote her a letter last Saturday, and she sent me a
picture post card of the place she's staying at."
"O-o-h! _Do_ give me the address. I'll write to her too. I never thought
of it."
"Let's write her a round-robin and say we wish she was back and we
detest Miss Ormerod," suggested Marion impulsively.
"No! No! That would spoil her holiday. The doctor said she wasn't to
have any worry."
If the Sixth Form resented the attitude of the new principal the juniors
were even more prejudiced. They discussed her among themselves and set
her down as "a brute". Edie Browne, who, out of sheer opposition,
ventured a word in her favour, was promptly squashed.
"It's not _fashionable_ to like her," declared Maisie Martin, and Maisie
led the opinions of the lower school.
Lesbia had at first reserved her judgment, but soon she had very good
cause to rue the advent of Miss Ormerod. As junior assistant governess
she still taught in Forms I and II. Teaching was not Lesbia's natural
walk in life, and though she struggled on with it she really did not do
it very well. Miss Tatham, having made the arrangement so as to cancel
her fees and allow her to remain at the High School, had been rather
lenient with her, and had overlooked many palpable deficiencies. Not so
Miss Ormerod. She had an immensely high ideal of a teacher's standard,
and she was carefully testing the capacities of her staff. One Wednesday
proved a black day for Lesbia. Directly she walked into IIB she became
aware of a spirit of general unrest. The girls were "out of hand". She
had been through similar crises before and knew the symptoms. Fanny
Holden was lolling on her desk instead of sitting upright, Rose Davis
and Marjory Birkshaw had their heads bent together. Ella Wilkinson was
fidgeting with her pencil box, Gladys Dorman kept casting meaning
glances at Chrissie Taylor, and Mary Avens, in defiance of all
schoolroom tradition, had pulled off her ribbon and was re-plaiting her
wisp of a pigtail. The blackboard, which ought to have been cleaned,
still bore sums in vulgar fractions. The map had not yet been put out.
Lesbia rapped on the desk and called the form to order.
"What's the monitress been doing?" she demanded sharply. "Marjory, come
here at once and clean the board. Can you make a little _more_ noise
about it?" (as Marjory clumped her way to the front). "Where's the
duster? Now be careful. You'll have the whole thing over. There! I told
you."
For Marjory's vigorous and ungentle scrubbing had overbalanced the
easel, and away crashed the blackboard on to the floor, breaking the
pegs, and only just missing the window by a merciful inch. The form
giggled, and Lesbia scolded as she helped to pick up the wreckage. The
pegs were smashed and she had to sharpen them with a penknife before
they would fit into their holes in the easel, and once more support the
board. All this took considerable time and delayed the lesson. The girls
watched as if it had been a specially provided entertainment. Marjory's
face was not at all contrite; she unrolled the map so roughly that
Lesbia took it from her and hung it up herself.
"Go to your seat," she commanded, catching a smile exchanged between
Marjory and Ella, "and if I've any more trouble I shall report you."
The monitress shuffled back noisily between the rows of desks, giving a
pinch to Gladys as she passed, an episode which Lesbia, anxious to get
on with the lesson, judged it expedient to overlook. She had opened her
book, ready to begin, when suddenly an unexpected thing happened.
Through the open window sailed a queen wasp, and headed straight for the
desks. It was, of course, very early in the year for wasps, but the
queens fly abroad as soon as the spring stirs, and this one no doubt was
intent on nest-building.
Instantly the form was in panic. The girls squealed, and dodged about,
and ducked their heads.
"O-o-h! Look at it!"
"It's coming at me!"
"It's a hornet!"
"Mind, Ella!"
"I don't want to get stung!"
"It's going for Chrissie!"
"Don't let it get into your hair, Rose!"
Some of the more timorous crouched under their desks, Gladys bolted in
the direction of the door. Lesbia did not like wasps herself, but she
made a supreme exertion of courage, seized the blackboard duster,
pursued the enemy, knocked it down on to the floor, and slew it with a
ruler. She picked up the corpse gingerly and placed it upon a piece of
blotting-paper.
"Perhaps it will do for the museum; it's not very much squashed," she
commented. "I'll give it to Miss Chatham. Now, girls, be quiet and sit
still. How silly you are! It might have been a lion instead of only a
wasp."
But to settle down after such an excitement was impossible to the form.
They had started badly, and they went on in disorder. They talked and
giggled and generally "ragged" until Lesbia in desperation called out:
"Silence! I shall report you all! If you can't behave yourselves I shall
have to fetch Miss Ormerod."
There is an old fable of a mother who threatened to throw her baby to
the wolves if it cried again, and of an intelligent wolf who, hearing
further squalls and running up eager for the feast, was much disgusted
at being beaten away with a broom. It is seldom we like to be taken
quite at our word. As a matter of fact, Lesbia looked as blank as her
pupils when, at that exact moment, the door opened to admit the
principal.
"There's a great deal of noise in here," remarked Miss Ormerod, which
was hardly a correct statement, for her entrance had produced an
instant and ghastly silence.
Lesbia, blushing and confused, explained the cause of the disturbance,
showing the remains of the queen wasp as proof.
"I'm astonished at your making such an absurd fuss," frowned Miss
Ormerod at the form. "Now, let me see how quietly you can get along with
your work. Please go on," nodding to Lesbia.
To see Miss Ormerod sitting down on the teacher's chair, evidently
intending to stop and listen, gave poor Lesbia what she afterwards
described as "umpteen spasms". To deliver a lesson under the eye of the
Principal was an ordeal for any junior assistant mistress even if she
were well prepared. And, alas! Lesbia was not prepared at all. She had
been busy with her own Latin and botany the night before, and had
trusted to luck to get through the geography class with IIB. She was
supposed to be teaching them the natural features of France, so she
hurriedly drew an outline of that country upon the blackboard, and
commenced to mark in the principal mountains and rivers, aided by
stealthy glances at the map. She knew their general direction, but in
her embarrassment she could not remember their names, and the book--on
which she had pinned her trust--was in Miss Ormerod's hand.
Now it was a canon of the school that mistresses should have their own
subjects at their finger-ends, and teach their lessons in the form of
lectures, without constant reference to notes. By all good rights Lesbia
ought to have been able to reel off the physical features of France as
easily as she could repeat the multiplication table, but her wretched
memory was an absolute blank. The sight of Miss Ormerod sitting there
and directing what seemed the full telescopic power of her spectacles
upon the blackboard, wiped away any fragments of knowledge which
lingered in her agitated brain. She flushed and faltered, and tried to
look at the map, and was in such a palpable quandary that, to save the
situation, the Principal interfered.
"If you don't feel well," she remarked sternly, "you had better sit
down, and _I_'ll take the lesson."
With trembling knees and racing pulse Lesbia sank on to the chair, and
listened in deep humiliation while Miss Ormerod, without any assistance
from the book, gave an excellent geography lesson. The girls were models
of attention and intelligence, and everything which they ought to have
been, but never were, under their junior teacher. Lesbia hardly knew
them for the same form.
"I shall hear about this from Miss Ormerod," she ruminated. "I don't
suppose for a moment this is the end of it."
It certainly was not. She had a most unpleasant interview in the
Principal's study that afternoon, and received scathing criticism on
her incapacity and lack of discipline. Miss Ormerod instituted a
thorough supervision over her teaching, proposing to be present herself
during the geography lessons, and warning her of surprise visits any
time during her other classes.
"If you undertake to teach in this school you will do it properly or not
at all," finished the head mistress grimly. "I consider so far you've
utterly failed and you're worse than useless as a help to the staff."
Lesbia went home overwhelmed with shame. Miss Ormerod was very hard, but
there had been justice in her remarks. A girl who was giving tuition in
return for her fees ought to have seen to it that her services were of
real value to the school. It was a wrong balance of duty to concentrate
on her own homework and neglect to prepare for her classes. She could
appreciate that point now, though it had not struck her before. It would
be a horrible ordeal to teach in Miss Ormerod's presence, but there
would be one compensation at any rate; the children would behave
themselves, and she would be treated to no more of the "ragging" which
had often made the lessons unendurable.
"If they know she may pop in any moment I believe they'll keep quiet
even during dictation. Young wretches! I shall have a sword to dangle
over their heads now," she thought, cheering up a little.
There is no doubt that Miss Ormerod, like many new brooms, "swept
clean", but the girls considered that she made too clean a sweep
altogether of the past traditions of the school. She had many theories
of her own regarding girls, and she was anxious to put them into
practice.
She particularly waged war against what she termed "sentiment". She
objected to seeing girls walking about the playground with their arms
round each other's waists, or to the display of any affection. She
called such behaviour "early Victorian", and spoke of it with contempt.
During the war she had taken the place of a junior master at a boys'
grammar school, and her ideal was that girls should exhibit their
feelings as little as their brothers. She made a new rule that
recreation time must be spent in definite games, and that nobody was to
be allowed to lounge about the playground or gymnasium and chat. This
met with fierce opposition among the seniors and juniors alike. They
talked about it fifty to the dozen in their cloakrooms.
"I never heard such nonsense in all my life."
"Mayn't take each other's arms, indeed."
"What would happen if I kissed anybody?"
"Oh, you'd get reported!"
"Kissing's called 'unhealthy', if you please."
"Oh, indeed, is it? I thought 'Any time was kissing time'."
"Don't tell Miss Ormerod so, that's all."
"_Why_ shouldn't we walk round the gym and talk?"
"We're supposed to be learning to gossip."
"What _is_ gossip?"
"Ask me a harder."
"Miss Tatham never said we weren't to have chums."
"Oh, but _she_ was sensible!"
"Miss Ormerod's just a crank."
"It's too bad her coming and upsetting all our ways."
"I vote we don't play any wretched old games."
"We can't be _made_ to play when we don't want to."
The prefects in particular thought it a great undermining of their
dignity to be expected to tear about during recreation-time like any
juniors. They were determined to resist the new rule. When a mistress,
under orders from the principal, came into the playground, broke up
groups of girls, and insisted upon all joining in a common game of
rounders, the seniors hit the ball feebly, walked instead of running,
and plainly showed that they did not mean to be coerced against their
will. Their example spread downwards. It was at once fashionable to be a
"slacker" or "shirker", and the unfortunate mistress who was told off to
superintend the playground during eleven o'clock "break" had a bad time
of it. With the knowledge that Miss Ormerod was peeping from her study
window she made valiant efforts to set games going, but forced play is
very different from the real article, and her attempts generally ended
in dismal failure. Whether Miss Tatham, resting in the sunshine of
Torquay, received a hint of the situation is uncertain. Lesbia, however,
who had sent her a picture post card, one day received a letter in
return. It gave a pleasant description of her holiday, but it ended with
the following passage:
"I hope to come back after Easter, but meantime I trust you prefects to
do all you can to make matters run smoothly. You in particular, Lesbia,
as the oldest pupil, I ask to be 'loyal to the school', and to use your
influence with the others. If I can feel that things are going on all
right in my absence I shall get well twice as fast. Please tell that to
the rest. I have not time to write to them all."
Lesbia, who had been one of the principal shirkers at the hated game of
rounders, pulled wry faces over the letter, but patted it in her pocket
nevertheless.
"I'd do anything to please Miss Tatham," she decided. "Yes, I guess I've
got to be 'loyal to the school'. I know what she means. Those juniors
have been leading everybody a dance since they saw us prefects giving
them the cue. Even Marion called them little pigs yesterday. It can't go
on. I'll ask Carrie to call a prefects' meeting, and we'll talk it
over."
The confabulation in the little room over the archway, being in the
nature of a committee, was not banned by Miss Ormerod, and the six girls
who met there used their tongues freely. They thoroughly aired their
grievances, but came to the sage conclusion that for the sake of school
discipline they must uphold any mandate, however unpopular, from the
temporary "Head".
"A little extra exercise won't do you any harm, Aldora, you're getting
far too fat, you old Jumbo!" urged Carrie, putting down the last
objector and proposing the resolution from the "chair".
"It's only till Easter anyway," seconded Lesbia "and then I hope to
goodness Miss Tatham will be back again."
"And may Miss Ormerod transfer her talents to a boys' preparatory,"
minced Calla.
Having decided grimly to stand by law and order, the prefects next day
surprised the school at eleven o'clock break by leading the games with
the greatest unction. They tore about the playground in a state of such
enthusiasm that the astounded juniors followed their lead, and found
themselves whirled into action by a kind of magnetic influence. Fickle
fashion veered round, and it was at once popular to enjoy the games,
indeed for a few weeks they had quite a vogue.
Miss Ormerod, peeping through her study window, looked on with approval,
and congratulated herself on the wisdom of her new rule, and the great
improvement which she was making during her reign. She knew nothing of
Miss Tatham's letter to Lesbia, nor suspected it was the latter's
influence which had worked the miracle. Loyalty might indeed be very
helpful to the school, but on this occasion virtue had to be its own
reward, and did not meet with any acknowledgment from head-quarters.