[Frontispiece: A little tumble-down desolate cottage (p. 63).]
BETTY
AT ST. BENEDICK’S
A SCHOOL STORY FOR GIRLS
BY
ETHEL TALBOT
THOMAS NELSON AND SONS, LTD.
LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORK
CONTENTS
I. On the Way to School
II. Are You a Daisy?
III. At the Window Table
IV. In the Big Oak Hall
V. The Daisy Mascot
VI. The Guide Cup
VII. The Fairy Piper
VIII. In Witch’s Wood
IX. Betty Keeps a Secret
X. Lost!--The Cup!
XI. With Sybil, in the Wood
XII. The Tracking Expedition
XIII. Little Friend of all the World
XIV. The Pioneer Picnic
XV. Betty Shares the Secret
XVI. Everything comes Right!
BETTY AT ST. BENEDICK’S
CHAPTER I
ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL
The whole family had come down to see Betty off.
Dad was there, although Betty felt that really and truly he oughtn’t
to spare the time.
The twins were there, because nothing on earth would have kept them
at home.
Even baby was there; though he wasn’t to be called “baby” any longer,
Aunt Frances had decided. Aunt Frances was holding his hand now, and
telling him to wave good-bye to Betty.
“Oh, _don’t_ trouble him, Auntie!” said Betty in a motherly tone.
“He so very rarely gets the chance to see an engine really _start_!”
“Dear old Bet,” said Auntie.
Auntie was a darling. There was no doubt of that. If it hadn’t been
that she was such a darling, Betty couldn’t possibly have brought
herself to come away. But it had all been arranged so suddenly and
unexpectedly, and almost without asking her at all.
“You see, old lady,” Dad had said only a fortnight ago, speaking one
evening a few days after Auntie’s arrival, in a voice which
tried--though it couldn’t quite succeed--to be in an ordinary,
everyday tone; “you see, you have looked after all of us so long,
Auntie says, that I’ve quite forgotten that it’s I who ought to be
looking after _you_!”
“Oh, Dad!” Betty had said, staring.
Auntie hadn’t said it in Dad’s way. She had come along that evening
after Betty was in bed. She had sat on the edge too, and had hugged
Betty just the same way that Betty hugged Jan, the twin. “Bet, pet,”
said Auntie, “you see, you’ve got to go for Daddy’s sake!”
“Oh, Auntie!” Betty had said again, but in a different tone of voice.
“It worries him to see you growing up like this,” said Auntie. “We
don’t want to have a Betty with white hair and worrying wrinkles
before she’s twenty. And besides, I’m home now from India; and Dad
and I used to get on well enough when we were children, you know.
So----”
So it was all arranged. That was only a fortnight ago, and now they
were all down seeing her off.
“St. Benedick’s, _Woodhurst_,” was written on her red labels. Betty
was really going to school.
“If the train’s late in starting I really and truly think that, Dad,
you oughtn’t to stay,” said Betty, leaning out.
But Dad stayed. They all of them stayed. They all of them waved and
waved and waved when the train started off as though they would
never, never stop waving.
“I’m goin’ on wavin’,” shouted Jack, the twin, running along beside
the moving train, “till you come back!”
“Go straight back to Auntie,” said Betty in a very severe tone. She
was dreadfully sorry that her last words had to be so
strict-sounding; but--suppose he got under the wheels! And there was
Auntie, already fully occupied with holding on to Jan and baby. And
Dad was just turning to race up the station stairs--oh yes, Betty was
glad to see that. She left the window as the train entered the
tunnel and sat down.
It was then that desolation seized her.
Never, never, never--so far back as she remembered--had she felt so
alone before! Even at night-time Jan’s small bed was tucked close to
her own, and at night-time Betty was always so tired that she fell
fast asleep and so couldn’t possibly feel solitary.
But now----
“Oh, why ever did I come?” suddenly said Betty. “Oh, why ever did I
think I’d like it? Oh dear, oh, isn’t it dreadful of me! Oh, I wish
I could turn round and go back. I don’t believe that I told Auntie
about those early summer woollies of Jan’s. And suppose she catches
cold. And Dad simply hates every kind of cocoa except Rowntree’s,
and I’ve never told her _that_; and we’re just at the end of the tin.
_Oh!_”
Quite suddenly Betty began to cry.
“Oh dear,” she sobbed. “Oh, I do, _do_ hope they’re not crying too!”
It was the thought of their possible tears that made her forget to
shed any more of her own. Her fingers groping for a handkerchief
came across a stubby pencil with which she had been drawing pictures
for baby. In her case there was sure to be paper; she would write
them all a letter. Betty was smiling as she began “Dear Everybody”
at the top of the page, for she could almost see the twins racing to
the postman’s ring, and could almost hear their shouts. She felt at
that moment almost as much back at home as though she was really
there.
“Dear Everybody...” began Betty.
The letter took a long time; it took away all the marks of tears,
too, from Betty’s face. By the time the junction was reached, and
the train came to a full stop, she was looking quite cheery and eager
again.
“No, I’m not getting out. I was wondering, though, if I could post
this letter,” she began to a passing porter, just as two Benedick
girls came along.
“Letter, eh? We’ll do it for you!” said one of them. “See, there’s
the red pillar. No, no. Don’t fuss; there’s plenty of time. New
girl, are you? Left something special at home?” The stranger took
the envelope from Betty’s hand.
Betty had known that they were Benedick girls from the colour of
their labels. They must be very high in the school, she decided, as
she watched the pair of them, after depositing their traps on the
seat opposite to her own, walk in leisurely fashion to the station
post-box and return in equally leisurely fashion. She herself would
have been all wings and flying fingers; there was no “fuss,” as they
had called it, about them. Almost instinctively she pulled herself
together a little and held herself in imitation of their bearing.
But she couldn’t refrain from jumping from her seat to reopen the
carriage door for them as they returned.
“Oh, thank you so much. Now they’ll get it at home. Isn’t there
anything I can do for _you_?” She tugged at the door.
“Easy does it.” The handle was taken from her grasp. “Sit back,
kiddy; we can’t get in.”
The speaker had a very nice voice; there was no mistake about that.
So nice a voice indeed, and so very kind and steady a smile, that
Betty didn’t mind in the very least being called “kiddy” by a
stranger, though never in her life had the term been addressed to her
before. Never perhaps in her life, either, had such a tone been
addressed to her. Half-amused, half-tolerant, but clearly the tone
of her-who-must-be-obeyed. Betty sat back instantly.
She sat back and listened, for the strangers began to talk. They
were evidently friends; so much was certain. It seemed certain, too,
that they had only just met after--as Betty decided to herself--their
holidays at home. They evidently didn’t mind her listening either,
for their tones, quiet and level as they were, did not seem in the
least lowered. They were seated exactly opposite, too, and the elder
of the two--the girl who had taken Betty’s letter and who had called
her “kiddy”--caught sight once or twice of the listening look in
Betty’s eyes and half-smiled at her.
Betty felt relieved and listened on.
But she felt bewildered too, because they seemed to be talking of
things about which she herself had no knowledge at all. Betty had
known that she would be ignorant at school compared to other girls
there; but she had, at least, so she told herself, expected to
understand the others’ language.
“I wonder if we shall manage another patrol this term,” said the
elder.
“‘Patrol’?” thought Betty questioningly.
“If so, we shall be a full company. And there will be still more
competition for the Cup,” returned her friend. “You Daisies will
have to work for it if you’re to hold it next year too.”
This indeed was Greek. Betty suddenly felt a qualm of home-sickness
sweep over her. Where would she be in a school where girls talked
understandingly of matters of which she had never heard? Perhaps her
feelings were shown by her expression of face, for her first friend
leaned suddenly forward with a quick impulsive movement.
“Are you interested in Guides?”
“Guides?” Betty shook her head.
“You haven’t heard of them?” There was no scorn in the speaker’s
voice at all, though she certainly did seem surprised. “Why, then,
what a good thing you’ve decided to come to Benedick’s! You’ll love
it. We’re all Guides there. What is your name?”
“Betty Carlyle,” said Betty rather shyly.
She had hardly ever felt shy before. Generally at home, when there
were visitors--and that was very seldom--she was so busy helping the
little ones not to be shy that she quite forgot to be shy herself.
Now, however, she seemed suddenly to find herself in an altogether
new world. If it had not been for the kind look in the blue eyes
which were looking into her own, Betty would have felt shyer. But
the eyes were very kind.
“Ask the kiddy her age, too, Sybil?” said the second occupant of the
carriage. “She’s above Brownie age, I think.”
“I’m thirteen,” said Betty, not understanding the allusion in the
least.
She felt rather shy of the second girl too, and she was relieved when
Sybil took up the conversation. “Any age is Guide age,” said she
with a jolly look, “as you’ll soon decide. I only wish I could fit
you into the Daisies; but I’m afraid we’re a tight pack.” Then she
turned and, without looking at Betty again, began to speak to her
companion about matters which seemed “just as Greeky,” as Betty
decided, “as before.”
But in spite of the “Greekiness” of things Betty’s heart was
beginning to feel quite light. There was an excited sparkle in her
eyes as she sat back against the cushions.
For Sybil had said that Guides were jolly. And Sybil had said that
she would make a good Guide, and love it. And Sybil had said that
she wished she could fit Betty “into the Daisies!” Betty had no
glimmer of an idea what Guides, or patrols, or “Daisies” were; but
she was quite certain of one thing, that if Sybil was to be a part of
Benedick’s, then, even if Betty herself was shy and stupid at first,
she would be sure to grow to love it, because Sybil had said that she
would.