For the Sake of the School (7 page)

"Has she described herself!" asked Stephanie.

"I haven't come to it yet. Oh yes! here we are, farther on: 'Our heroine, Morvyth Langton, was an unusually----'"

But here Addie stopped abruptly, for a blazing little fury stood in the doorway.

"Addie Knighton, how dare you? How dare you? Give me that paper this instant!"

"No, no! It's much too interesting. Let go! Don't be silly! How can you? Oh, what a shame!" as Ulyth in her anger tore the manuscript across and flung it into the fire.

"Whew! Now you've gone and done it!" whistled Rona.

Ulyth was holding down the last flaming fragment with the poker. When it had expired she turned to the guilty circle. "Who took my papers from my bedroom?"

Her voice was sharp, and her eyes fixed full on Rona.

"I didn't touch them. I never laid so much as a finger on them," protested the Cuckoo.

"But you told someone where they were?"

Rona winked in reply. Yes, alas! winked consciously and deliberately. (It was well for her that Miss Moseley was not in the room.)

"I knew you'd got something there," she admitted. "Were you such an innocent as to think I never saw you scribbling away hard in the early mornings? Why, I was foxing! I used to watch you while I was snoring, and nearly died with laughing because you never found me out."

If eyes could slay, Ulyth's would have finished Rona at that moment. But Addie Knighton, whose suspension of mirth had been merely a species of temporary paralysis, now relapsed into a choking series of guffaws, in which the others joined boisterously.

"I can't--get--over--seaweed--and faded gooseberries!" crowed Addie hysterically.

"I don't catch flies with my open mouth!" shouted Mary Acton, suspending her knitting in her indignation.

"Will somebody please measure the twins' waists?" bleated Christine.

"I didn't say it was meant for any of you. If the cap fits, put it on. Listeners hear no good of themselves, and no more do people who read what isn't intended for them. It serves you all right, so there!" and Ulyth flounced out of the room.

She ran straight up to her bedroom, and burst into tears. It was such a tragi-comedy ending to her literary ambition. She would rather the girls had been more indignant than that they had laughed so much.

"I'll never write another line again," she resolved; and then she thought of the binding she had always intended to have on her first published book, and wept harder.

"Ulyth," said the Cuckoo, stealing in rather shamefacedly, "I'm really frightfully sorry if you're riled. I didn't know you cared all that much about those old papers. I told Addie, as a joke, and she went and poked them out. I think they were fine. It was a shame to burn them. Can't you write them over again?"

"Never!" Ulyth replied, wiping her eyes. "Rona, you don't realize what damage you've done. There! oh yes, I'll forgive you, but if you want to keep friends with me, don't go and do anything of the sort again, that's all!"

Ulyth felt a little shy of meeting her class-mates after their discovery of the very unflattering description she had written of them, but the girls were good-natured and did not bear malice. They treated the whole affair as an intense joke, and even took to calling one another by the assumed names of the story. They composed extra portions, including a lurid description of Ulyth herself, illustrated by rapid sketches on the black-board. The disappointed authoress took it with what calm she could muster. She knew they meant to tease, and the fewer sparks they could raise from her the sooner they would desist and let the matter drop. It would probably serve as a target for Addie's wit till the end of the term, unless the excitement of the newly formed ambulance class chased it from her memory. The Woodlanders were trying to do their duty by their country, and all the girls were enthusiastically practising bandaging.

"I wish we'd some real patients to bind up," sighed Merle one day, as V B took its turn under Nurse Griffith's instructions.

"I'd be sorry for them if they were left to your tender mercies," retorted Mavis, who had been posing as patient. "My arm's sore yet with your vigorous measures."

"What nonsense! I was as gentle as a lamb."

"A curious variety of lamb then, with a wolf inside."

"I believe The Woodlands would make a gorgeous hospital," suggested Addie hopefully. "When we're through our course we might have some real patients down and nurse them."

"Don't you think it! The Rainbow won't carry ambulance lessons as far as that!"

Quits

Ulyth, brushing her hair before the looking-glass one morning, hummed cheerily.

"You seem in spirits," commented Rona, from the washstand. "It's more than I am. Miss Lodge was a pig yesterday. She said my dictation was a disgrace to the school, and I'd got to stop in during the interval this morning and write out all the wrong words a dozen times each. It's too sickening! I'd no luck yesterday. Phyllis Chantrey had my book to correct, and her writing and mine are such opposite poles, we daren't try it on."

"Try what on?" asked Ulyth, pausing with the brush in her hand.

"Why, the exchange dodge, you know."

"I don't know."

"Don't you take dictation in V B? Well, in our form we get it twice a week, and Miss Lodge makes us correct each other's books. We make it up to try and exchange with a girl whose writing's pretty like one's own; then, you see, we can alter things neatly, and allow full marks. It generally works, but it didn't yesterday."

Ulyth's face was a study.

"You mean to tell me you correct each other's mistakes!"

"Why not?" said Rona, not the least abashed. "Miss Lodge never finds out."

Ulyth collapsed into a chair. What was she to do with such a girl?

"Don't you know it's the most atrocious cheating?"

"Is it? Why, the whole form does it," returned the Cuckoo unconcernedly.

"Then they're abominable little wretches, and don't deserve to be candidates for the Camp-fire League. I'm thoroughly ashamed of them. Have they no sense of honour?"

The Cuckoo was looking perplexed.

"Ulyth Stanton, you're always rounding something new on me," she sighed. "I can't keep up with you. I keep my hair tidy now, and don't leave my things lying round the room, and I try to give a sort of twitter instead of laughing, and I've dropped ever so many words you object to, and practise walking down the passage with a book on my head. What more do you want?"

"A great deal," said Ulyth gravely. "Didn't you learn honour at home?"

"Catch Mrs. Barker!"

"But surely your father----?"

"I saw so little of Dad. He was out all day, and sometimes off for weeks together at our other block. When he was at home he didn't care to be bothered overmuch."

An amazed pity was taking the place of Ulyth's indignation. This was, indeed, fallow ground. Mrs. Arnold's comment flashed across her mind:

"What an opportunity for a Torch-bearer!"

"I don't want to be turned into a prig," urged the Cuckoo.

"You needn't. There's a certain amount of slang and fun that's allowable, but
noblesse oblige
must always come first. You don't understand French yet? Well, never mind. All that matters is that you simply must realize, Rona--do listen, please--that all of us here, including you, mustn't--couldn't--cheat at lessons. For your own sake, and for the sake of the school, you must stop it."

"You think a lot of the school!"

"And quite right too! The school stands to us for what the State does to grown-up people. We've got to do our best to keep the tone up. Cheating brings it down with a run. It's as bad as tearing up treaties."

"Go ahead. Rub it in," returned the Cuckoo, beginning to whistle a trifle defiantly.

She thought the matter over, nevertheless, and returned to the subject that night when they were going to bed.

"Ulyth, I told the girls exactly what you said about them. My gracious, you should have seen their faces! Boiled lobsters weren't in it. That hit about the Camp-fire Guild seemed specially to floor them. I don't fancy, somehow, there'll be any more correcting done in dictation. You've touched them up no end."

"I'm extremely glad if what I said has brought them to their senses," declared Ulyth.

Rona got on tolerably well among her comrades, but there was one exception. With Stephanie she was generally in a state of guerrilla warfare. The latter declared that the vulgar addition to the school was an outrage on the feelings of those who had been better brought up. Stephanie had ambitions towards society with a big S, and worshipped titles. She would have liked the daughter of a duke for a schoolfellow, but so far no member of the aristocracy had condescended to come and be educated at The Woodlands. Stephanie felt injured that Miss Bowes and Miss Teddington should have accepted such a girl as Rona, and lost no opportunity of showing that she thought the New Zealander very far below the accepted standard. The Cuckoo's undoubted good looks were perhaps another point in her disfavour. The school beauty did not easily yield place to a rival, and though she professed to consider Rona's complexion too high-coloured, she had a sneaking consciousness that it was superior to her own.

During the summer holidays Stephanie had taken part in a pageant that was held in aid of a charity near her home. As Queen of the Roses she had occupied a rather important position, and her portrait, in her beautiful fancy costume, had appeared in several of the leading ladies' newspapers. Stephanie's features were good, and the photograph had been a very happy one--"glorified out of all knowledge" said some of the girls; so the photographer had exhibited it in his window, and altogether more notice had been taken of it than was perhaps salutary for the original. Stephanie had brought a copy back to school, and it now adorned her bedroom mantelpiece. She was never tired of descanting upon the pageant, and telling about all the aristocratic people who had come to see it. According to her account the very flower of the neighbourhood had been present, and had taken special notice of her. A girl who had so lately consorted with the county could not be expected to tolerate a tyro from the backwoods. Stephanie was too well brought up to allow herself to be often openly rude; her taunts were generally ingeniously veiled, but they were none the less aggravating for that. The Cuckoo might be callow in some respects, but in others she was very much up-to-date. Though she would look obtuse, and pretend not to understand, as a matter of fact not a gibe was lost upon her, and she kept an exact account of the score.

One morning, early in December, Miss Teddington, who was distributing the contents of the postbag, handed Stephanie a small parcel. It was only a few days after the latter's birthday, and, supposing it to be a belated present, the mistress did not ask the usual questions by which she regulated her pupils' correspondence. The letters were always given out immediately after breakfast, and the girls took them upstairs to read in their dormitories during the quarter of an hour in which they made their beds and tidied their rooms. This morning, just as Ulyth was shaking her pillow, Rona came in, chuckling to herself. The Cuckoo's eyes twinkled like stars.

"D'you want some sport?" she asked. "If you do, come with me, and have the time of your life!"

Ulyth put down the pillow, and hesitated. Fifteen minutes was not too long an allowance for all she was expected to do in her room. But Rona's manner was inviting. She wanted to see what the fun was. The temptress held the door open, and beckoned beguilingly.

"All serene!" yielded Ulyth.

Rona seized her by the arm and dragged her delightedly down the passage.

"Now you're chummy," she murmured. "Whatever you do, though, don't make a noise and give the show away!"

Still in the dark as to the Cuckoo's intentions, Ulyth allowed herself to be led to Dormitory 2, No. 4, at the opposite side of the house. We have mentioned before that the bedrooms at The Woodlands were very spacious--so large, indeed, that each was partitioned into four cubicles divided by lath-and-plaster walls. A passage inside the dormitory gave access to the cubicles, which were in fact separate little bedrooms, except that the partition walls, for purposes of ventilation, did not reach the ceiling. At present the fourth cubicle in Dormitory 2 was unoccupied, but its furniture was rather curiously arranged. One of the beds had been pulled close against the partition, and a chest of drawers, with the drawers removed, had been placed upon it.

"I fixed it up last night, and it was a job," whispered the Cuckoo. "Good thing I'm strong. Now we've got to climb on that, and you'll see what you'll see!"

Ulyth had an uneasy consciousness that she ought not to be mixed up in such a business; but, after all, the girls often scrambled up and peeped into one another's cubicles for a joke, so her action would not be without precedent. She was a very human person, and liked fun as well as anybody. With extreme caution she and Rona mounted the chest of drawers, trying not to make the slightest noise. Their eyes were just on a level with the top of the partition, and they had a good view of the next cubicle. The occupants, Stephanie and her room-mate, Beth Broadway, were far too absorbed to think of looking up towards the ceiling. Their attention was concentrated on the parcel which had arrived by the post. It contained a small bottle, carefully packed in shavings, and also a typewritten letter, the purport of which seemed to electrify Stephanie.

"It's the most extraordinary thing I've ever heard!" she was saying. "Beth, just listen to this."

And she read aloud:

"66 HOLBORN VIADUCT, LONDON.

"DEAR MADAM,

"Having seen your portrait, as a noted beauty, published in
The Princess
,
The Ladies' Court Journal
, and other leading pictorials, we venture to submit to you a sample of our famous Eau de Venus, an invaluable adjunct to the toilet of any lady possessing a delicate complexion. It is a perfectly harmless, fragrantly scented fluid, which, if applied daily after breakfast, produces a rose-leaf bloom which is absolutely incomparable. As it is a new preparation, we are anxious to submit it to a few ladies of influence in the fashionable world, feeling sure that, once used, they will recommend it.