New Brooms
A week later, Rosemary, trailing clouds of glory in the family
estimation, departed for the classic precincts of the College of
Music, and Lorraine, left behind, shook off the atmosphere of
detachment which always pervades an exodus, and focused her full
mind and energies upon The Gables. It was no light thing to be
chosen as head girl. Miss Kingsley, in that private talk in the
study, had urged the responsibility as well as the honour of the
office. Lorraine did not mean to disappoint her if she could help
it. She set to work at once to wrestle with the problem of an autumn
programme for the school. In virtue of her office she was president
of all the various existing guilds and societies, and had the power
to enlarge, curtail, or reorganize at her discretion. Although in a
sense she was supreme referee, she had no desire to ride rough-shod
over the general wishes, so, as a preliminary to any proposed
changes, she called a monitresses' meeting.
The seven girls who, with herself, made up the Sixth Form, assembled in
the class-room after school, interested and, on the whole, ready for
business. Audrey, to be sure, was giggling as usual. Patsie was pulling
an absurd face of mock dignity, but Nellie and Claire were pleased with
their new importance. Vivien, rather sulky, though submitting perforce
to play second fiddle, had patched up a temporary truce with Dorothy,
and the pair settled side by side. Claudia, the fresh addition to the
form, strolled in late and sat crocheting while the others talked.
Lorraine, her lap full of minutes books, bristled with ideas.
Lily Anderson, the former head girl, had been energetic and enterprising
to an extent that was really worthy of a wider sphere. Her standard had
soared so high that the school had been quite unable to live up to it.
In her excess of zeal she had founded too many societies, and with such
strict and arduous rules that they would have tried the spirit of a
candidate for initiation into some mystic Brotherhood. Urged on by her
enthusiasm, the members had made a desperate first spurt, and then had
slacked lamentably. The records of their brief successes and subsequent
fallings-off were chronicled in certain marbled-cover exercise-books.
Lorraine, fresh from a perusal of these annals, began the meeting with a
drastic suggestion.
"As things stand at present," she said, "the school seems over-weighted
with societies. This is an exact list of them: 'The Research Society',
'The Poker-work Guild', 'The Debating Society', 'The Sketching Club',
'The Stamp Collectors' Union', 'The Post Card Guild', 'The Home Reading
Circle', 'The Jack Tar Club', 'The Entertainments Guild', 'The Musical
Union', 'The Hockey Club', 'The Cricket Club', 'The Tennis Club', 'The
Badminton Club', 'The Basket-ball Club', 'The Natural History League',
'The Elocution Guild', 'The Needlecraft Society', and 'The Home Arts
Guild'."
"Nineteen in all!" commented Patsie, who had been checking off the items
on her fingers.
"Rather stiff for a school of forty girls!" nodded Dorothy sagely.
"There are far too many to keep up properly," urged Lorraine. "Every
hobby we've ever had has been turned into a society. If we'd had no
lessons to do, we could scarcely have managed them all, but when they
must come out of our spare time it gets quite a tax. I think we mustn't
be quite so ambitious this year. Suppose we let some of them drop, and
concentrate on just a few."
"I'm your man!" agreed Patsie. "I always thought such heaps of societies
were a grizzly nuisance. It got the limit when two or three girls
couldn't even compare post cards without being turned into a guild.
Those kids in the Second Form actually had a society for collecting
stumps of lead pencil, and used to steal them shamelessly from any boxes
that were left about in the gym. The 'guild habit' has grown into a
perfect mania with the school."
"Best whittle them down," said Vivien, who had herself suffered at the
hands of the too enthusiastic Lily Anderson.
"Which do you propose to shelve and which to keep?" asked Dorothy.
Lorraine opened the biggest and fattest exercise book.
"This is 'The Gables Guild'," she explained, "a sort of foundation
society that includes all the others as branches. Miss Kingsley is the
patron, and she has written on the first page:
'A UNION FOR SELF-CULTURE AND
PHILANTHROPY
_Motto_:--BEING AND DOING'."
"Oh, goodness! What does that mean? I'm a duffer at long words,"
protested Audrey. "Can't you put it into English?"
"Well, it means we've got to do something for ourselves and something
for other people too."
"That's simpler."
"We've plenty to choose from out of nineteen branches," said Nellie.
"Don't you think it would hit the mark if we had a Games Club to include
hockey, cricket, and tennis, an Entertainments Club to get up plays and
concerts, and a Nature Study Union that could absorb the Research
Society and the Natural History League both together. These would be for
ourselves. Then for the 'Philanthropy' side, we could keep on the Jack
Tar Club, and let the Needlework Society and the Home Arts Guild send
anything they make to that."
"What's the 'Jack Tar Club', please?" asked Claudia, looking up from
her crochet.
"It's to give Christmas presents to the sailors and their wives and
children. We packed off a huge big box to Portsmouth last year. Lily
Anderson and Lottie Watson and Helen Stanley made some gorgeous things,
and revelled in doing them."
"And the rest of us toiled and groaned and grumbled, and ended by
borrowing and begging from our long-suffering relations," twinkled
Patsie. "Don't think you'll keep that crochet edging for yourself, Dame
Claudia! It'll be commandeered to go round a tray-cloth for a Mrs. Jack
Tar!"
"I shall probably never finish enough of it even to edge a d'oyley,"
admitted Claudia calmly.
"Look here, this is side-tracking!" said Lorraine, rapping her pencil on
the desk. "Please to remember that this is a Committee Meeting, and you
must speak to the Chair. Won't anybody make a proposition?"
"I propose that we have what you've just suggested, then: a 'Games
Club', an 'Entertainments Club', a 'Nature Study Union' and the 'Jack
Tar Club'," said Dorothy.
"And quite enough, too," murmured Patsie.
"I'll second it!" declared Nellie.
"I'd like to add an amendment," said Lorraine. "I want to suggest that
we have a School Social every month, where we can show specimens and
drawings and photos."
Vivien pulled a face of discouragement.
"We've got enough on," she urged. "Leave us our Saturdays."
"We needn't have them on Saturdays. They could be from four to five on
Wednesdays. I think it's just what is wanted at The Gables. Day girls
never get an opportunity of meeting and comparing notes, and having fun
together like girls do at boarding schools. It would be a sort of party
every time."
"I think it sounds ripping!" said Claire. "Stick it in with the
proposition, as far as I'm concerned."
"Hands up for the amendment, then!"
Five hands went up promptly, two doubtfully, and Vivien's hands remained
on her lap--not that she really objected very much to the idea of
"Socials", but she was not disposed to give in too readily to all her
cousin's suggestions. The feeling that she herself ought to have
occupied the presidential chair still rankled.
Carried by a majority, however, the new scheme became law, and the
committee, with an eye on the clock, and tea-time looming near,
hurriedly settled minor details, appointed Wednesday fortnight for the
first "Social", subject to the approval of "the powers that be"; and,
having triumphantly concluded their business, stamped downstairs with
more noise than was absolutely consistent with the dignity of
monitresses--but then, the juniors had gone home, and were not there to
hear.
Lorraine, highly satisfied with the results of the meeting, was
determined to make the first "Social" a success. She had always felt
strongly that there was not a sufficient bond of union among the girls
at The Gables. She remembered her own days as a junior, when the seniors
had seemed distant and unapproachable beings, whose doings were a
mystery.
"I used to long to see their collections and drawings and things," she
ruminated, "but, if I ever tried to butt in, I got a jolly good snub for
my pains. It's going to be different now. Those youngsters shall have a
chance. They can't learn unless we show them how. I don't call it
sporting for the Sixth to do good work and hide it under a bushel. We'll
have a nice jinky little exhibition, and encourage everybody to try and
make it a bigger one next time. It'll spur the juniors on to see some of
our attempts. I'll put the screw on Vivien to bring her butterflies,
though I know she hates moving the cases."
Miss Kingsley heartily approved of the idea of the social gathering, and
smoothed the way for its adoption by allowing school to be suspended at
half-past three instead of four o'clock on those special Wednesday
afternoons. She promised to provide tables in the gymnasium for the
display of specimens, and to do anything else in her power to help
matters forward.
"It will give you a splendid opportunity for getting to know the younger
girls," she assured Lorraine. "I'm very glad you thought of it."
Determined to make the first exhibition as representative as possible,
its enthusiastic originator divided it into sections, and put up notices
inviting contributions of all sorts from all quarters. At home she held
a review of her own possible exhibits and Monica's, and shook her head
over them.
"I don't call ourselves a really clever family!" she acknowledged. "We
plod along in our own way, but we don't blaze out into leather work or
ribbon embroidery or hand-made lace."
"What about my fretwork basket for Rosemary?" demanded Monica, rather
nettled.
"Mervyn made the best half of it, and it was crooked at that," returned
Lorraine frankly. "I shouldn't have cared to show it as a specimen of
Forrester handicraft. I don't think any of our efforts are much of a
credit to us. I vote you and I go in for Natural History instead. Let's
make a collection of all the ferns in the neighbourhood. Dorothy's
bringing pressed flowers, and Vivien her butterflies, but I haven't
heard of anybody taking up the ferns. We'll rummage round on Saturday
afternoon, and get all the kinds we can, and plant them in that tin dish
that's under the greenhouse shelf."
"Is it to be your collection or mine?" asked Monica doubtfully.
"Don't be nasty! We'll each have one if you like. You may have the tin
for yours, and I'll use that big photographic developing dish for mine.
Will that content you, you spoilt baby?"
"Right oh!" conceded Monica magnanimously. "But if I do any more
fretwork before the exhibition, I'm going to show it. It'll be as nice
as Jill's or Greta's, you bet!"
Having decided upon a representative collection of ferns as their
_pièce de résistance_ for the social gathering, the next and most
important step was to get the specimens. Armed with baskets and trowels,
Lorraine and Monica made several expeditions into the country lanes, and
came home burdened with spoils. To identify their treasures was a harder
task. Lorraine pored over the illustrations in Sowerby's _British
Ferns_, and got horribly mixed between Lastrea dilatata and Athyrium
Felix-foemina.
"I know I shall put all the names wrong," she declared, "but I'll make a
shot at them, anyway."
"If you want ferns," said Mervyn, who came whistling into the
breakfast-room where the girls were sitting, "I know a place where there
are just heaps and heaps of them--all sorts and kinds. They're
top-hole!"
"Oh! Where?" exclaimed Lorraine and Monica in an excited duet.
"Down the railway cutting. They're all growing round the mouth of the
tunnel. I've seen them lots of times, but I never took any notice of
them before. If you like, I'll show you. There'll be just time before it
gets dark."
"We'll come now," said Lorraine, running to fetch hat and coat. "You're
a mascot, Mervyn!"
She had never thought of the railway cutting, for it was quite in the
town, and seemed a most unlikely place in which to go botanizing. They
walked down through the narrow streets by the harbour, then up the steep
road past the chapel and above the station, till they came to the high
palings that overlooked the line. Below them lay the entrance to the
tunnel, and growing in the crevices of the stone wall on either side of
the archway was a crop of ferns luxuriant enough amply to justify
Mervyn's enthusiastic description.
"How absolutely topping!" exclaimed Lorraine, scaling the palings with
scant consideration for her skirt and less for her fingers. "Shall I
help you, Cuckoo? Look out for splinters!"
But Monica's long legs already dangled on the far side, and she dropped
successfully if painfully into a clump of thistles, and followed her
brother down the bank.
There was no doubt about the excellence of the ferns, but they had one
disadvantage; like most botanical specimens of any value, the best and
finest grew out of reach. There was nothing for it but to climb the
wall. They had all three mounted up some distance, and were busily
pulling at roots, when a stern voice suddenly sounded in their ears.
"What are you doing up there? Get down at once!"
Lorraine was so startled that she lost her footing, and descended with
more speed than elegance, tumbling indeed almost into the arms of their
indignant questioner. He eyed her suspiciously, and turned to Mervyn and
Monica, who had come down with greater caution.
"Now you three've got to give an account of yourselves," he proclaimed.
"I'm a special constable, and I want to know what you're doing on the
railway line at the mouth of a tunnel."
"We were doing no harm," answered Mervyn, "only getting a few ferns."
"Oh, I dare say! And what else? This is a military area, and trespassing
on the railway line, and especially loitering in the vicinity of a
tunnel, comes under the heading of an offence against the realm. I shall
have to report it. Give me your names and addresses."
The three young Forresters looked at one another in dismay.
"This is absurd!" burst out Lorraine. "We came to get a few ferns,
that's all. They're wild, and surely taking a root or two isn't an
offence against the realm?"
"You've been found in a forbidden area in a military zone," returned the
special constable pompously. "I'm stationed here to guard the tunnel,
and I shall report you. If you don't give me your names and addresses, I
shall have to arrest you."
Very unwillingly the Forresters complied, and watched the incriminating
details being jotted down in an official notebook.
"Our father is a town councillor," ventured Lorraine, hoping for
vicarious favour.
"That makes it so much the worse, for you ought to know better," was the
uncompromising reply. "Take yourselves off at once, and mind you never
come trespassing here again!"
Crestfallen, but trying to preserve the family dignity, the Forresters
beat a retreat. They scorned to run, and walked leisurely up the bank,
while the special constable covered them with his eye. Monica had an
uneasy suspicion that they might also be covered with a revolver, and,
though she would not for worlds have shown a qualm of fear before
Mervyn, she was nevertheless considerably relieved when she found
herself upon the safe side of the fence.
"Strafe the old chap and his jaw-wag!" exploded Mervyn. "A nice mess
he's got us into with his fussy interference!"
"Do you think he'll really report us?" asked Lorraine anxiously.
Her spirits were down at zero. Her father was strict, and would be very
angry with them for getting into trouble. A scene at home loomed large
on the horizon. In imagination she saw the affair reported in the local
newspaper. A nice position truly for the head girl at The Gables to
begin the new term by covering herself with disgrace.
Mervyn strode along whistling with amused sang-froid, but inwardly
absorbed in unpleasant contemplation. Monica clutched the fern basket
half-defiantly.
Rounding a corner suddenly, they nearly collided with a thin little
gentleman who was coming uphill at top speed.
"So sorry!" apologized Lorraine. "Why, it's Uncle Barton! Where are you
going, Uncle?"
"On special constable duty, worse luck, for it's a damp evening, and
I've a bad cold in the head," he replied. "But I've got to relieve
somebody else."
An inspiration struck Lorraine.
"Are you going to the railway cutting? Oh, Uncle! We've just had such a
hullabaloo down there. Could you possibly help us out of it?"
Mr. Barton Forrester listened with a twinkle in his eye to his niece's
graphic account of their adventure, and promised his moral support.
"It's Winston-Jones on duty there," he commented. "I know him, so I'll
do my best to convince him that none of you are German spies or
dangerous incendiaries. Cheer up! They won't hale you off to prison this
time. I expect I can put matters straight, and you'll hear no more about
it. But remember the railway is taboo for the future. We can't allow
even botanists to be straying about near tunnels in a military zone."
"We won't so much as lean over the palings. Thanks most immensely,
Uncle! You're an absolute angel!"
"I wish I had wings to waft me up the hill. I'm deficient in leg power
to-night," coughed Mr. Barton Forrester. "No, I won't kiss you,
Monica--you'd catch my cold. Good-bye, all three of you! I'll have a
talk with Winston-Jones, and persuade him to wipe off that black score
against your names."
"I always said Uncle Barton was a trump," murmured Monica, as the three
sinners, vastly relieved, went on their way.
"He's an absolute sport," agreed Mervyn with enthusiasm.