Francie (21 page)

It was only Ella with a tray. “Good morning,” said the maid, just as if everything were normal. “I've brought your breakfast. Miss West says she'll be up directly after prayers.”

“Oh Ella, is Penelope all right?”

“She was quite all right just now when I took her tray in.”

Francie felt Ella's subtly amused and admiring gaze, but she was in no mood for flattery. “What did Miss West say about coming up for her? Same message as mine?” she demanded.

“Yes, just the same.” Ella looked over her shoulder, as if she had heard someone calling her, and hurried out.

Another hour passed, and then at last Miss West arrived. She too said “Good morning, Frances,” quite calmly. Penny was with her; the mistress had evidently been sent only to collect the miscreants and not, as Francie realized in momentary relief, to discipline them. Penny looked pinched and miserable. The girls' eyes met, but they didn't speak. In a grim silence the three went down the stairs, past the murmuring classrooms, and on through the corridor to Miss Maitland's office. Francie recalled the day after the
Richard the Third
treat. Miss Maitland's scolding then was
nothing
compared to what this would be!

The headmistress sat behind a flat-topped desk, regarding them with expressionless eyes. Her hair was parted exactly in the middle, she sat at the exact middle of the desk, and her hands rested, loosely clasped, on a clean blotter. Francie's eyes went at once to the corner of the desk where stood a slender vase with a rose in it. The vase, she wanted to say, upset the balance of the symmetrical design; there should have been another one exactly like it standing at the opposite corner. Her eyes traveled erratically—she was merely trying to avoid meeting Miss Maitland's gaze—from chair to lamp to carpet, and she was absorbedly tracing out the seam of that when Miss Maitland said,

“Thank you, Miss West; you may go to your class now.”

Penny and Francie stood side by side, their hands held stiffly down by their gray flannel skirts, and faced the headmistress. Francie stole a glance at Penny's white face, and began tumultuously,

“Miss Maitland, I want to—”

“Just a minute, Frances, please.” Miss Maitland's words dropped like bits of clear ice. “You will have your chance to speak in good time. Now then. According to Miss West, neither of you was at school during tea yesterday, nor did you put in an appearance all evening. You had received permission, I remember, to go to Farham in the afternoon. I am given to understand that Frances telephoned at teatime to say you had both missed the bus and would return later. Is this, in the main, a correct version of what happened?”

“Yes, Miss Maitland,” said Penny.

“Yes, Miss Maitland,” said Francie, “but—”

“Following this,” continued Miss Maitland inexorably, “the mistresses and the girls, naturally preoccupied with other affairs, did not keep a watch for you, though Miss West began to feel uneasy as bedtime approached. She sat up waiting for some time after the school had retired, and at last heard the noise of a motorcar which paused briefly not far from the gates. She presumed it was your taxi. On her way down to make certain that the front door was not locked, she was astonished”—her eyes shot a blue gleam—“astonished to encounter you, Penelope, creeping through the window, no doubt in a childish attempt to conceal your late return, with you, Frances, waiting outside on the ground. Is this what happened?”

“Yes, Miss Maitland, but I want to tell you—”

“Must I repeat, Frances, that I wish you to wait your turn?”

“No, Miss Maitland. Sorry.”

“Thank you. Then I will ask Penelope first to give me an account and an explanation of your behavior throughout this escapade,” said the headmistress in her chilly, impartial tones.

“Yes, Miss Maitland,” said Penny. Her voice had a barely perceptible quaver, but she spoke without hesitation. “We went into Farham by the three o'clock bus and bought our butter-muslin. Then in the street we met two friends in a motorcar. We talked a little and decided to take a short ride with them.”

“One moment, Penelope. Just who were these friends? People from your village?”

“No,” said Penny, hesitating just a little. “They come from America.”

“Ah. Old friends?”

“Not very,” said Penny, twisting her fingers.

Francie nearly shouted. “They aren't Penny's friends; she never met them before; it wasn't her fault, Miss Maitland, it was—”

“You did not, in fact, know them before yesterday, Penelope?” continued Miss Maitland, without acknowledging by more than a flicker, as well as her question, that she had taken in what Francie said.

“No, Miss Maitland.”

“Yet the meeting was not by chance,” stated the headmistress, without making a question of it. “It was prearranged.”

“Yes, Miss Maitland.”

“She
didn't know,” cried Francie.

This time, however, Miss Maitland refused to register at all. She only said, “Continue, Penelope. What happened next? I can scarcely believe that you merely toured about the country lanes for seven hours.”

Haltingly Penny went on. She told how they had gone to the seaside and overstayed, how they realized too late they had missed the bus back to school, and how they went driving and stopped for more substantial food later on. Francie noticed that she made no mention of the telephone call. That, she knew, was because it was exclusively Francie's wrongdoing; Penny was trying to avoid calling Miss Maitland's attention to the telephone call. All the way through the tale, Penny had been shouldering half the blame. Was there ever such a girl? Francie felt she had never before encountered such decency, the more so since now at last it was dawning on her that the affair was truly grave. The awed expression on Penny's face and the controlled shock of Miss Maitland's countenance were something beyond her experience of scrapes at school. Francie had done more than merely break a few irksome rules. She had outraged the entire system of English education. It gave her a chill down her spine to think of it, and yet the sun poured in through the window and out of doors a hundred birds were singing in the summer warmth.

Fairfields had never seemed lovelier. Some of the girls were practicing tennis, working for the coming tournament; the sound of thumping balls and laughing remarks came to her ears. Everything and everyone outside was in the right place, doing the right thing, but here in this cold room Francie was in the wrong. She was not nearly so nice a girl as—well, as Jennifer, for example. She felt that she would never be in the right again. And Penny! She had dragged Penny with her into the outer darkness. It didn't bear thinking about, but she must think about it nevertheless.

“They'll send me away, and Penny too. I don't
want
to go away,” she thought. In her distress she did not pause to wonder at this contradiction of much she had been saying for weeks. Now her sense of loss was overwhelming. It had outgrown such small misgivings as what her father might say or think.

“.… and so,” Penny was concluding her crisp, emotionless account, “we were so very late by the time we got the petrol that we thought the door would be locked. Of course we didn't want to knock up anybody, so we came in by the side window and there we met Miss West.”

“I see.” Miss Maitland sat there for a moment, thinking. Then she turned to Francie. “Now, Frances, do you agree with this story, or have you anything to add? You seem to have something on your mind.”

“Yes, Miss Maitland, thank you.” Francie spoke in a rush of relief. “Penny hasn't told you half of it because she's being nice—”

“Oh?” Miss Maitland raised her eyebrows.

“Penny didn't know I'd made the date with the boys.”

“No more did I,” said the headmistress grimly. “I thought I had forbidden, expressly forbidden you to see your young friend without a written permission from your father. Did you not understand my attitude?”

“Oh yes,” said Francie, “but I didn't agree.”

“You didn't
agree?”

With anyone less controlled than Miss Maitland one might have said her voice here became a squeak of indignation. She looked really astonished.

“Why, no, I didn't,” said Francie, faintly surprised at the effect her words had. “You see, Miss Maitland, I know my father so well that I was absolutely positive I was right. He would have given me that permission. To withhold it just because we couldn't get into contact with him—it wasn't
fair.”
Her eyes met Miss Maitland's squarely. “I'll think
that
no matter what anybody says,” she added defiantly. “It wasn't fair.”

The headmistress caught her breath, and by some inner process of her mind regained control of herself. No doubt she reflected that this philosophy, though alien to hers, was a widespread phenomenon in Francie's own country. She caught and held on to the temper which had nearly slipped from her grasp. “I will give you the benefit of believing, Frances, that you are not speaking in an impertinent spirit, but I'm afraid you haven't the slightest conception of our way of looking at things. The point is not whether you think a decision of your headmistress is fair or just. The point is that you are still a pupil under my direction, a member of my school. You are expected, like every one of the others, to obey my orders. I couldn't run a school unless my girls accepted this very simple, fundamental idea. Until you are an independent adult—”

“But surely we're supposed to think a little bit for ourselves, at this age? We're not children. Why, at Jefferson High we had our own council meetings, and made up our own student government rules, and everything. Of course there was some control by the faculty, but they
wanted
us to learn to govern ourselves, Miss Maitland. That was the whole idea of education, they said. If Pop were here to explain to you—”

Francie was very much in earnest now, and had long since forgotten her customary awe of Miss Maitland. Her mind was seething with ideas and the urge to explain herself. Her eyes sparkled as she talked. Penny stared at her in amazement. The headmistress's impassive face relaxed a little; her mouth may even have twitched a little, though neither girl could see this.

“I understand,” Miss Maitland said, as Francie paused for breath. “I have heard of this system before. After all, Frances, our prefect system helps toward self-government, too. And at Jefferson High, no less than at Fairfields, there are certain fundamental rules which must be enforced by the faculty when the students fail—as you have failed. As long as you were a student here, you should have abided by the rules.”

The past tense was significant to Francie. She cried, “Even if I knew you weren't being fair?”

“Even if you
thought
I wasn't being fair,” replied Miss Maitland with emphasis. She placed her arms on the desk and leaned forward. “Try to see it from my viewpoint, Frances. Where would I be, where would Fairfields be, if I allowed every one of you big girls to decide for herself which rules she approved and which she did not? Every one of you would run wild in her own way. Of course she would! It's so obvious that even a stupid person would understand, and with all your faults, Frances, I have never considered you stupid.”

“We don't run wild at Jefferson High,” said Francie, after a pause.

“Whether or not you realize it, Frances, both your teachers and your parents are seeing that you abide by the basic rules. I am in the position of both teacher and parent, at the moment. But that is in any case irrelevant. You—are—
not
—at Jefferson High. You are at Fairfields. It is a fact which you forgot, which is regrettable.”

Francie was silent and thoughtful. “You—are—
not
—at Jefferson High. You are at Fairfields,” Miss Maitland's voice re-echoed in her ears. Suddenly time turned back, and Francie was in Pop's office on the day of the
Richard the Third
treat … “Don't you ever stop to think you might be wrong, sometimes? … Not just tolerance of other people—understanding … Getting along with the other fellow on his grounds …” Funny, she could almost hear Pop speaking.

A sudden shame overwhelmed her as she remembered with dreadful clarity the whole sorry string of events of the previous day. Yes, Pop was right—and Miss Maitland was right—and she, Francie, was hideously, disgustingly wrong, and stupid, too. Oh, why hadn't she seen it? Of course she couldn't go around making up her own rules as she went along. It was true, Fairfields wouldn't be Fairfields, if all the girls did that. In a flash she saw herself as Miss Maitland must see her—stupid, conceited, always sure she was right—why, just a brat, really! And all of a sudden, now that she was probably leaving, a great liking and respect for Miss Maitland surged up in her.

“Oh, Miss Maitland,” she faltered, “I see it now. I was wrong. I shouldn't have done it. I'm—I'm sorry. I should have understood. Pop said I needed to understand—”

Miss Maitland's voice was carefully impersonal. “I'm sorry, too. I must write to your parents this afternoon, I am afraid, explaining the circumstances. It would be impossible for you to remain at Fairfields now. I'm sure you both understand that.”

“Oh no! Oh, please, Miss Maitland!” cried out in anguish. “Please, Miss Maitland, it doesn't matter about me, but—Listen, could I talk to you alone?”

Penny gave her a long look, but Francie would not look back. She kept her eyes fixed imploringly on the headmistress.

“Very well,” said Miss Maitland, sighing. “Penelope, you may go into the other room and wait.”

The door closed softly behind Penelope. “Now, Frances, what have you to say?” continued Miss Maitland.

“It's about Penny, of course.” Francie drew a deep breath. “Miss Maitland, please do think; is it fair, even from your viewpoint, never mind mine, to punish Penny for something she never meant to do? I give you my word, she didn't know she was going to meet those boys. I told her after we'd started out, while we were waiting for the bus.”