HOW IT CAME TRUE
Half an hour later, Barbara was being led across the hall by Miss
Finlayson, to be introduced to her school-fellows in the playroom. It
puzzled her a little to see how calm and unconcerned the head-mistress
was looking. Did she not know what a thrilling moment this was to her
little new pupil, who tripped along by her side? As Babs was puzzling
over it, they reached the baize door on the opposite side of the hall,
and Miss Finlayson stooped and fastened it back, disclosing a long
passage beyond. At the end of the passage was another door; and through
this other door the murmur and hum of many voices drifted to the ears of
the excited child. She could hardly contain her impatience; and she
wondered why Miss Finlayson did not go on, instead of being so particular
about the fastening of the baize door. She even took a step forward
in her eagerness; but a hand was suddenly placed on her shoulder, and
Barbara glanced up and met the half-amused gaze of the lady who had just
seemed so indifferent to her.
Miss Finlayson had a way of looking at a girl that generally made a
friend of her at once. Her eyes were a peculiar shade of blue-grey that
gave them, as a rule, a cold expression; but they were also capable of a
glimpse of humour that completely altered and softened them, and it was
the discovery of this quality in them that changed Barbara's impatience
all at once to curiosity.
'One moment, little girl, before you go through that door over there,'
began Miss Finlayson, and her face was still grave in spite of the
betraying twinkle in her eyes. 'Tell me, have you ever known any girls
before?'
'Only Jill,' answered Barbara, wondering why she was being asked such an
odd question.
'Ah!' said Miss Finlayson. The child caught the change in her tone, and
went on quickly.
'I know Jill didn't approve of me at first,' she said, in her small,
anxious voice; 'but she does now, I think. Besides, Jill is grown-up,
you see; and I don't think it counts if you are grown-up, does it? I've
never met any real, nice, friendly girls before, who don't tease you, or
bully you, or anything like that. That's why I wanted to come to school.'
'Ah!' said Miss Finlayson again. Then she put out her hand and patted
the cheek of her little new pupil. 'Do not be unhappy if you find you are
not like the other girls,' she said, just as Auntie Anna had done; 'and
come to me, if everything else fails and you cannot stand by yourself.
Only, remember--you are not in the nursery any longer: you have come here
to learn how to grow up straight and strong and healthy, just as a plant
learns; and I am only the gardener to give you a prop, when you have been
in too great a hurry and are trying to grow too fast. Do you think you
understand?' Her voice changed again, and a laugh came into it as she
added brightly: 'Come along now, and be a happy little girl. You will
find that most of us are happy in this house.'
She took Babs by the hand, and raced her along the passage to the door
at the end, then turned the handle and pushed the child gently into the
room.
'Girls,' said the head-mistress, in the sudden lull that followed her
entrance, 'here is a new schoolfellow for you.'
Then all the voices broke out again, and Miss Finlayson nodded to Barbara,
and went away. It was one of Miss Finlayson's theories, that a new girl
should be left to fight her way by herself; but as she retreated slowly
along the passage this evening, she could not help feeling a little
anxious about the child with the small, eager face, whom she had just
launched into a strange and unfriendly world.
Barbara took two quick steps forward, as the door closed behind her, and
stood there waiting. She had acted this scene over and over again in
her mind, and she had always made her entrance like this; after which
a girl, whose face was plump and ordinary, and whose legs were of the
right proportions, and whose hair was smooth and under proper control,
had always come towards her with a welcoming smile and had led her up
to the other girls, who all had welcoming smiles too. And everybody had
listened to her while she talked about her home and her father and the
boys; and nobody had laughed and nobody had teased, and nobody had told
her to 'shut up.' It had been a very favourite scene in her dream of
school, and she waited eagerly for the other actors in it to come forward
and do their part. But no one moved.
The room in which she found herself was certainly not like the one she
had imagined. It was long and low and prettily shaped, with two wide
bow-windows thrown out on one side of it, and a great square fireplace
taking up most of the wall that faced the doorway. Next to the fireplace
was a curtained archway, which evidently formed the entrance into another
room, judging by the buzz of laughter and conversation from beyond that
the thick red curtain failed to stifle. The bookshelves on the two
remaining walls were made of plain oak; so were the desks and chairs that
stood neatly arranged round the room in rows. There were also plain oak
benches in the warm chimney-corners, and plain oak window-seats in the
bowed recesses, while the floor was made of the same wood and was left
quite bare, except for a rug in front of the hearth. A pot or two of
chrysanthemums, some blue china on the over-mantel, and one or two
hammered metal lamps that hung from the beams in the ceiling, were the
only ornaments in the room; and the whole effect was so simple and so
clean that Barbara, fresh from the dingy old schoolroom in which she had
passed her life until now, was obliged to forget everything else for the
moment and just stare round her. Then her eyes rested again on the
girls who were scattered in groups about the room, and the expectant
look on her face became a little wistful.
There seemed to be thirty or forty of them all together; and from the
noise on the other side of the curtain Babs concluded that there were as
many, or more, in the room beyond. They all talked without ceasing,--all
at once, it seemed to Barbara,--about their Christmas holidays and their
Christmas presents, about the parties they had been to and the pantomimes
they had seen, about the girls who were not back and the girls who were,
about everything, in fact, except the child by the door, who had been
waiting all her life for this moment. What did it matter to them that
she should go through a few seconds of embarrassment? They had all been
through the same, in their time; and it was not to be supposed that they
should make things any easier for future generations of new girls. So
they went on babbling about their own affairs, and Barbara went on
expecting some one to come and put an end to her discomfort. But nobody
came.
Slowly, she began to feel conscious, just as she had done when she
first met Jill, that there was something odd about her appearance. In
spite of the extra inch or two on the bottom hem of her frock, and the
temporary smoothness that a vigorous application of a wet brush had
produced on her hair, Babs saw with a kind of dismay that she was not made
in the same pattern as the crowd of neatly dressed girls before her.
None of them wore her hair loose and curly like her own, and none of
them looked as though she did not know what to do with her hands. If only
she could have held on to something, Barbara felt sure she would not
have felt so shy or so helpless. There was a chair only two yards off;
but something kept her standing where she was, and she did not even
reach out her hand to it.
The girls continued their conversation, and forgot all about the new-comer
that Miss Finlayson had brought in. Most of them stood facing the fire
and had not even looked at her; and the others, who glanced now and
then towards the door, only shrugged their shoulders and wondered why
the stupid child did not sit down, instead of standing still in that
purposeless manner. They did not mean to be unkind, but how were they
to know that she was fighting through her first disillusionment?
All at once, a diversion was made by two children from the other room,
who came tumbling through the curtain and nearly upset a tall fair girl
who was the centre of the group round the fire.
'Look where you are going, Angela Wilkins!' said the fair girl, sternly.
'What are you children doing in here, I should like to know?'
'Please, Margaret, don't be cross, and _do_ let me explain,' begged Angela
Wilkins, suppressing an inclination to giggle, and pouring out her words
hastily. 'Jean has had millions of letters from Jill Urquhart, and she
says----'
'It wasn't millions, Angela, it was only one,' corrected her
fellow-culprit from behind.
'And what business has Jean Murray to hear from Jill Urquhart?' demanded
the fair girl.
'I'm sure I don't want to hear from her,' grumbled the other girl, whom
Angela pushed forward to answer for herself. 'She only writes to me when
she wants something. I don't call that _writing_ to a person.'
'She's got a sister coming here this term, and she says everybody has got
to look after her, or something like that,' chimed in the irrepressible
Angela.
'It isn't a sister, it's a cousin. And she hasn't asked everybody; I wish
she had. She's asked _me_ to look after her, and that's a very different
thing,' complained Jean Murray, looking distinctly aggrieved.
'Yes,' added Angela, breathlessly; 'why should Jean be bothered with all
the new girls who happen to be people's cousins?'
'She isn't,' said Margaret, curtly. 'It's only one new girl; and if she is
a cousin of Jill's, Jean ought to be very proud of being asked to look
after her. Do stop exaggerating, Angela; and go away, both of you!' Then
just as the children slunk off subdued, she recalled them and made a
gesture towards the door. 'There's a new girl over there now, I believe,'
she continued indifferently. 'You'd better see whether she's the right
one; and if she is, bring her to me.'
She turned again to the fireplace, and the two girls made their way
towards the other end of the room, where Barbara still stood unnoticed.
She saw them coming, and heaved a sigh of relief. Things were a long
while happening in this school; but it was something if they happened in
the end. She glanced at their two faces as they came nearer, and felt
disappointed when the one with the cross expression addressed her first.
'I say, what's your name?' began Jean, ungraciously.
'Barbara,' answered the child, faintly. Her dream seemed more improbable
than ever, in the presence of this small stranger with the aggressive
manner.
'Barbara what?' asked Jean, impatiently.
Babs stared, and added her surname unwillingly. At home, when people spoke
like that, they had to do without an answer.
'That's the one,' grumbled Jean to her companion. Then she addressed
Barbara again. 'How old are you?' she asked, in the same abrupt way.
'Eleven,' answered Babs, obediently. 'How old are you?'
It was Jean's turn to stare. 'What business is it of yours?' she
exclaimed. After a moment's consideration, however, she found a
satisfactory reason for replying. 'I'm a year older than you, anyhow,'
she added triumphantly, 'so you'll be the youngest in the school now, and
you can take off the head girl's boots.'
Before Barbara had time to realise this penalty, or privilege, belonging
to her youth, Angela Wilkins, who had been silent for quite a surprising
length of time, suddenly attacked her afresh. 'Are you really Jill's
cousin?' she asked, with a giggle.
Babs nodded; but Angela did not seem convinced. 'You're not a bit like
her, are you? Jill Urquhart is so pretty and graceful and all that,' she
observed with engaging frankness, and then giggled again.
Barbara said nothing; it was certainly unnecessary to agree with such
a very obvious statement. Jean Murray, who had also been examining her
closely in her turn, evidently seemed to think a further snubbing was
required of her.
'You're frightfully tall for your age,' she remarked disapprovingly, as
though Barbara were somehow to be held responsible for her height. 'If I
had straight spiky legs like yours, I should have my dresses made longer.'
'No, you wouldn't, if you had five brothers always wanting you to do
things,' retorted Barbara, promptly. It was saddening to find that, even
here, people were prepared to make remarks about the slimness of her legs.
Angela was so surprised at her sudden show of resistance that she forgot
to giggle.
'I say, you'd better not speak like that to Jean Murray,' she said in a
warning tone, glancing as she spoke at Jean, as though she expected her
to take immediate measures for the suppression of the new girl. 'She's
been the youngest for so long that naturally she's inclined to be jealous,
now you've come to take her place. Of course she has to pretend she's
glad, but you can't expect her to like the idea of somebody else taking
off the head girl's----'
'Oh, if that's all,' said Barbara, indifferently, 'I don't want to take
off anybody's boots, thank you.'
'You'll have to, whether you like it or not,' interposed Jean, who had
been listening quite complacently to Angela's description of her feelings.
'Come along now, and see Margaret Hulme; and don't be such a month about
it, or else we shall catch it for stopping in here so long.'
'Who is Margaret Hulme, and why have I got to go and see her?' asked Babs,
hanging back a little. It was so perplexing to have to do things without
being given any reason for it.
Both the girls opened their eyes wide. 'Why, she is the head girl!' they
explained, as if that were reason enough for anything; and without waiting
for any more objections, they pulled her across the room to where the
fair girl still made the centre of the group round the fire. She kept
them waiting for some seconds before she condescended to notice that they
were there.
'Didn't I tell you to go back to your own playroom?' she demanded
presently. Then her eyes fell on Barbara, and she scanned her critically
up and down.
'This is Jill Urquhart's cousin,' explained Jean, hurriedly, and she gave
Barbara an unexpected push that sent her stumbling, with her usual lack
of good fortune, right against the head girl.
'Take care, child!' said Margaret, frowning. And while Babs stammered out
some apology, she turned to the other girls behind her and said something
that made them all laugh.
'She's only eleven, though she's so awfully tall; and her name is Barbara
Berkeley,' volunteered Angela, peering over the shoulder of the new girl.
'Who spoke to you?' inquired the head girl, sarcastically, looking back
again. She once more scanned Barbara all over, and smiled in an annoying
manner to herself. 'However did Jill manage to have a cousin like you?'
she asked; and the other girls laughed more than before.
'I don't know,' said Barbara, with a touch of scorn in her voice. The
mysterious way in which the head girl and her admirers were laughing at
her was very different from the frank teasing she was accustomed to; and
it gave her a sudden wish to assert herself. 'I never pretended to be
like Jill, or like any of you! I--I don't think I want to be like you,
either. In my home, we don't laugh behind people's backs.'
She caused quite a small sensation in the group round the fire. One or
two began to titter afresh, and then stopped, waiting for the head girl
to take the lead. The head girl was equal to the occasion.
'It is very certain, then, that you have stayed in your own home quite
long enough,' she remarked coldly, and resumed her conversation with her
friends.
The two children dragged Barbara through the curtain into the next room.
'Well, you _have_ got some cheek!' gasped Jean Murray, staring at her.
'Lucky for you that you're a new girl! If it had been _me_, Margaret Hulme
wouldn't have spoken to me for a whole day.'
The enormity of such a punishment did not for the moment impress Barbara
much. What she did notice was that her passage of words with the head
girl had broken the ice of her introduction to the junior playroom,
especially with the aid of Angela's highly coloured account of it.
'You never saw such a thing!' she was exclaiming rapidly to the circle
that formed round her. 'There was Margaret, looking like a dozen
thunder-clouds rolled into one, and there was the new girl, grinning from
ear to ear, not caring a bit what anybody thought of her and just
standing up to the head girl as if she was in the First herself.'
The new girl barely recognised this description of herself; but as it
made her an object of curiosity, if not of sympathy, in the junior
playroom, she did not feel inclined to correct the picture that the
red-haired, freckled little chatterbox was painting of her. Anything was
better than being left out in the cold again. It struck her too that
the girls in the junior room were far less inclined to laugh at her
than the elder ones had seemed; and it raised her fallen spirits a
little to find that the children who were now strolling up to her,
with inquisitive glances at her hair, her clothes, and everything else
about her, seemed disposed, in spite of their calm curiosity, to show
her a kind of rough friendliness. They were more like boys, these smaller
people in the junior playroom; and Barbara, though still failing to
realise her child's ideal of girls, felt a faint kinship with their
straightforward method of addressing her.
'No nickname?' they asked, when she had again admitted her name and her
age.
'Oh, yes,' answered Barbara, unsuspiciously, 'the boys always call me the
Babe, or----'
The peals of laughter that interrupted her puzzled her a good deal. It
was very queer that, wherever she went, people always laughed at her.
It was some moments before their glee over the nickname, that so exactly
suited the childish impression she produced, began to subside.
'Have you got a nurse?' asked Angela, who had laughed louder than any one.
'No,' said Barbara, simply, not seeing that this too was meant to be a
joke. 'She left, two years ago.'
'Well, you ought to have one,' retorted Jean, brusquely. 'She might teach
you how to comb your hair.'
'And let down your frock,' added two or three voices together.
'What's the matter with my frock?' asked Babs, opening her eyes. 'It's
nearly two inches longer than any frock I ever had before.'
The laughter began afresh, and Barbara gave up trying to explain things.
She was a little hurt, in reality, and was afraid of showing it; for it
would never do, after being teased by five brothers all her life, to be
ruffled by the laughter of a few schoolgirls. All the same, there was
something in their way of laughing at her that hurt, and she did not care
to provoke them into doing it any more.
The loud ringing of a bell brought her a sudden respite, by clearing the
room of her tormentors. They poured hastily out of two large doors, that
slid back in the wall and revealed another square hall beyond, similar to
the one at the front of the house. The wide staircase up which the girls
were trooping evidently led to their bedrooms, for Barbara, left deserted
and forgotten in the playroom, could hear them, directly afterwards,
moving about overhead. As she waited there alone, wondering what she
was supposed to do next, Jean Murray came hurrying back into the room
and looked round for her.
'Oh, bother!' she said, in her ungracious manner; 'what a nuisance you
are! I wish you'd do things without waiting to be told.'
Babs explained submissively that she was quite ready to do things if she
only knew what to do; but Jean still grumbled.
'Any one with any sense would know,' she declared, hastening out of the
door again as she spoke. When she was half-way across the hall, she
shouted, without looking back, 'Can't you come along? There's only a
quarter of an hour to dress for supper.'
Babs hurried after her, and managed to keep her in sight up the wide
staircase and along the gallery at the top. There were doors all round
the gallery, and at one of these, marked number twelve, Jean stopped
and waited impatiently.
'What a time you are,' she complained, when Barbara caught her up.
'I'm very quick, when anybody doesn't take such an enormous start,'
answered Barbara, panting. 'I can beat Peter twice round the Square and up
to the gate, _easily_! And you're not in it with Peter.'
Jean looked at her, and her expression was not a pretty one. However, she
only jerked her head at the door in front of them, and told Babs it was
her bedroom. 'Finny said I was to show you,' she added. 'Don't know, I'm
sure, why everybody thinks I've got to show you things. And you'd better
look sharp and dress, because when you're ready you've got to cut along
to number two and do the head girl's hair. It's always the business of
the youngest in the school to do the head girl's hair. See?'
'But I don't know how to do anybody's hair,' began Barbara, in a fever of
dismay. But Jean had already scampered out of hearing; and with her
responsibilities weighing heavily upon her, the new girl turned the
handle of her bedroom door and went forlornly in. It was a simple little
room, very clean and fresh-looking, with everything there that she wanted
and nothing that she could do without. The pretty coverlets on the bed
and the dressing-table and the muslin curtains that draped the oaken
window-sash gave it a look of homely comfort, while harmonising with the
plain green colour of the walls and the blue frieze and carpet. As
Barbara walked across her small domain and pushed aside the blind to
peep out into the clear starlit night, a moment's rest came to her
perturbed little mind. The tiny bare room was all hers, and the feeling
of privacy and possession was very comforting.
A door in the wall told her there was a room leading out of hers, and
the sound made by some one moving rapidly about in it reminded her again
of her present woes and of the necessity for dressing as quickly as
possible. Her relief at not being obliged to sleep with the other girls
was forgotten in her returning consciousness of having to live with them,
and to do their hair and to button their boots. With desperate haste
she struggled out of her serge frock and into a muslin one, that had
a strange new method of fastening that was extremely baffling; and five
minutes later, trembling, uneasy, and flushed with the hurry of her speedy
toilet, she stood knocking at the door of number two.
'It's me,' she said feebly, in response to the curt inquiry from within.
Her inadequate explanation was followed by a few quick steps on the other
side of the door, which was then flung open with an impatient movement;
and the head girl, putting hairpins rapidly into her hair as she stood,
was looking down at her sternly.
'You should go to one of the younger ones, if you want to know anything,'
she said crossly. 'Where's Jean Murray?'
'It was Jean Murray who told me to come,' answered the child, looking a
pathetic little object in her half-fastened muslin frock, with her hair
standing out wildly round her head. 'I'm sure I didn't want to come; I
don't know how to do anybody's hair; I told her so. But she said it was
because I was the youngest, and----'
'What _are_ you talking about, child?' interrupted Margaret. Her mystified
look was lost on Babs, however, as the child stared down in much misery
and confusion at the little steel buckles on her new evening shoes. She
went on unhappily with her stammering confession.
'She said I'd got to do the head girl's hair because I was the youngest,
and I was to make haste, or I shouldn't be in time. I did make as much
haste as I could, _truthfully_,' she added, looking up timidly at her
frowning questioner; 'but there were such a lot of hooks on my new frock,
and I'm not used to hooks. I've always had buttons before, you see.'
One or two of the neighbouring doors had opened by this time, and quite a
small audience was assembling to hear Barbara's attempt at explanation. A
giggle that swelled into a laugh brought dismay once more into her heart;
and a suspicion that she had been hoaxed slowly dawned upon her.
'Isn't it true?' she cried, turning upon them desperately. 'Haven't I got
to do the head girl's hair?'
'You'd better do your own first, I should say,' observed one of the
onlookers, carelessly; and the others laughed again.
The head girl silenced them peremptorily. 'Don't, Ruth!' she said.
'It's only a babe, after all. You others had better go downstairs;
the supper-bell will ring directly.'
The gallery slowly emptied itself, except for the little group of three
that still stood outside the head girl's door. The offending Ruth turned
to Barbara; she had a good-natured face, and was looking penitent.
'Come here, child, and let me fasten your frock properly,' she said;
'you've done it up all wrong.'
Barbara turned her back to her willingly. 'It's awfully bricky of you,'
she said warmly; 'I've never done up my own frock before, and this one
was so complicated, somehow.'
'You must come to me when you want your frocks fastened,' answered her
new friend. 'I sleep next door to you, and I always help Angela, whose
room is on the farther side of mine. You've only got to tap at the door
between, when you are ready. But you mustn't speak in the morning before
breakfast, or in the evening after prayers, because that is against the
rules.'
She fetched a brush and tried to reduce the tangled hair under her hands
to a certain degree of order. Margaret Hulme had disposed of all her
hairpins by this time, and was closely watching a door on the other
side of the gallery. When it at last opened she straightened herself and
prepared for action.
It was Jean Murray who came out of it, rather cautiously at first, then
with a pretence of great unconcern. But her jaunty air completely deserted
her when she saw the little group outside the head girl's door, and she
tried to slink away towards the stairs unnoticed. Margaret called her
back authoritatively, and Jean came slowly and unwillingly round the
gallery.
'Now,' said the head girl, when she was within easy hearing, 'just you
apologise to Barbara Berkeley for hoaxing her just now. If you think
there is anything funny in telling an untruth, I'm sorry for your sense of
humour, and you'd better not do it again in this house. Now then, make
haste about it.'
Barbara tried impetuously to interfere, but Ruth Oliver held her back.
'Hush!' she whispered. 'Leave it to Margaret.'
Jean was shifting from one foot to another, and her mouth began to quiver.
'I didn't know she'd be such a stupid as to believe it,' she muttered.
'My dear child,' said the head girl, blandly, 'nobody supposed you were
any judge of character. So it would clearly be wiser not to play that kind
of joke on any one in future, wouldn't it? Are you going to apologise or
not?'
Jean reddened, and a lump rose in her throat. Her worship of the head
girl was the most genuine thing about her, and she was suffering keenly
under her disapproval. But an apology to a new girl, especially to one who
had come to rob her of all her privileges, was next to an impossibility.
Barbara saved the situation.
'I don't want anybody's apologies,' she cried. 'I'm not cross, and I don't
know what you're all talking about.' She wriggled away from the friendly
grasp of Ruth Oliver, and sped round the gallery till she came to the
head of the stairs. Arrived there, the temptation of a long, broad,
shining baluster-rail was too much for her; and in another moment the
little elf-like figure in the fresh muslin frock was astride of it and
flying down to the hall, with her hair once more in rebellion round
her face. The exhilaration of the brief rush downwards sent all her
troubles out of her head, and she uttered a war-whoop of delight as she
landed with a thump on the mat at the bottom. The elder girls, who were
just streaming across the hall in response to the supper-bell, stopped
and stared aghast. Certainly the new girl was the most impudent of her
species, and meant to make her entry into the establishment of Wootton
Beeches with a flourish! But Margaret Hulme, it was rumoured, had taken
her up; and that meant that the elder girls were no longer in a position
to criticise her.