A Pair of Schoolgirls, Angela Brazil [unputdownable books TXT] 📗

to attempt to go out by the main entrance, so she made a push for the side gate; then taking a short cut by a small street, she scurried back to school. She was just changing her boots in the dressing-room when Addie Parker, Bertha Warren, and three other girls came hurrying in.

"Oh, Dorothy! Did you get off?" cried Addie. "You are lucky! We were all caught!"

"Yes, caught dead—every one of us!" echoed Bertha.

"Oh, it was horrible!" exclaimed Joyce Hickson. "I never expected she'd be there."

"And we ran almost plump against her!"

"Just our luck!"

"What do you mean? Who caught you?" asked Dorothy.

"Miss Tempest. Didn't you see her?"

"No, not I."

"Then thank your good star!"

"Where was she?"

"Close to the lich-gate. She came up quite suddenly, just when the bride had gone in. Phyllis saw her first, and passed on a 'Cave', but it was impossible to get away, there were so many people round."

"She must have noticed our school hats in the distance," added Annie Gray.

"What did she do?" asked Dorothy.

"Pulled out her notebook and took all our names. Oh, I'm just shaking in my shoes! I didn't know whether I dared come back to school, or whether I hadn't better trek straight off home."

"You'd have got into a worse pickle still if you'd done that."

"Perhaps I should. Anyhow, I'm quaking."

"Yes, it's 'Look out for squalls'!"

"Squalls? A tempest, you mean!"

"It will be a raging Tempest, certainly."

"Oh, goody! There's the bell, and I haven't changed my boots!"

"Did you see anything, though?" asked Dorothy, as they hurried upstairs.

"Yes, I had a lovely view. The bridesmaids were sweet; their bouquets were all of lilies of the valley: and as for Miss Russell—it makes me want to be married myself! It was almost worth while being caught to see it—but oh, dear! what will happen to us, I wonder? I'd give everything I possess to have this afternoon over."

Full of uneasy forebodings, the delinquents took their places at their desks. Dorothy looked round for Hope and Blanche. They slipped in at the last moment, rather red and out of breath, and seemingly anxious to avoid the enquiring eyes of the others.

Miss Carter, the science mistress, entered, and the hygiene lesson began. Eight guilty souls in the class found it difficult to fix their attention upon ventilation or food values. Dorothy's mind was in a ferment. What was about to happen? She had not thought it any great crime to go to see the wedding, but apparently such an action was viewed far more seriously at head-quarters. In her speculation on the issue of events, she gave such random answers that Miss Carter stared at her in surprise.

"Did you misunderstand the question, or are you not attending, Dorothy Greenfield?" she asked.

Dorothy made an effort to pull herself together and recall the forgotten facts, but they were elusive, and she could only stare stupidly at the teacher. Just at that moment the door opened, and Miss Tempest entered. There was a perceptible shudder amongst those girls whose consciences told them they were to blame. Addie Parker and Bertha Warren exchanged glances, Joyce Hickson pretended to be absorbed in her notebook, while Hope Lawson sat with her nose in the air, as if unconscious of any need to disturb herself.

"Excuse me for interrupting the lesson, Miss Carter," began Miss Tempest, "but there is a very important matter upon which I must speak at once. Adeline Parker, Bertha Warren, Joyce Hickson, Annie Gray, and Phyllis Fowler—stand up!"

With downcast eyes the five girls responded to the command.

"I wish to know what you were doing at St. Peter's Church this afternoon?"

No one had the courage to venture a reply.

"Who gave you permission to leave the school?"

Still there was dead silence among the culprits.

"You know perfectly well the day boarders are not allowed to go out during the dinner hour."

Miss Tempest's voice, which had begun icily, was waxing more stern and wrathful. Addie Parker began to sob.

"How is it that among all the girls at the College you five had the presumption to attempt such a flagrant breach of the rules? I say you five, for I saw you and took your names; but I certainly noticed another Avondale hat among the crowd, and I intend to find out to whom it belonged. Was any other girl in this class present at St. Peter's this afternoon?"

Dorothy's conscience gave a great, uncomfortable prick. She had many faults, but concealment was not one of them, so she stood up.

"I was there, Miss Tempest," she said, rather defiantly.

At the head mistress's gaze Dorothy dropped her eyes. Miss Tempest was not to be trifled with.

"Indeed! By whose permission?"

"I didn't ask anybody. I didn't know the dinner girls weren't allowed to go out. We none of us knew. We thought we had a perfect right to go."

"That cannot be true. You have been four years at the College, and no one is better acquainted with the rules than yourself. It is an unheard-of thing for day boarders to leave until four o'clock, and could not be allowed for an instant. I am astonished that you should commit such a breach of discipline and then attempt to justify yourself—yes, astonished and disappointed in the extreme."

"But I really didn't——" began Dorothy.

"That will do," interrupted Miss Tempest sharply. "I don't wish to hear any further excuses. You have shown me that you are not to be trusted."

"But I do speak the truth!" burst out Dorothy.

"Dorothy Greenfield, if you answer me back again, I shall have to request you to leave the College altogether. I do not allow any girl to set her opinion against mine."

When Miss Tempest was angry, her mouth looked grim and her eyes blazed. Quite cowed, Dorothy did not venture to seek further to exculpate herself. She stood twisting her hands nervously, and (I regret to say) with a very stubborn expression on her face. Inwardly she was raging. The head mistress glared at her for a moment, then turned to the class again.

"Was any other girl in this room at St. Peter's this afternoon?" she asked. "I appeal to your honour."

Nobody answered. Hope and Blanche sat still, with eyes that dared not raise themselves to meet those of the mistress.

"Very well; I am glad to find no others have broken the rule. For the rest of the term the six girls who so forgot themselves will not be allowed in the gymnasium between one and half-past two. If it is too wet to go into the playground, they must stay in the classrooms. Any of the six who enters the gymnasium during the prohibited time must report herself to me at once in the library. Thank you, Miss Carter. I am sorry to have been obliged to disturb your lesson, though more sorry still for the cause of the interruption."

Dorothy took in very little of the remainder of the hygiene lesson. She was in a ferment of indignation. Miss Tempest had doubted her word before all the Form, and that rankled more than the scolding. Her contempt for Hope and Blanche was supreme, but she was angry, all the same, at their meanness. She was far too proud to cry like Addie Parker, whose eyes were already red and swollen, and whose cheeks were blotched with tears. She sat, a sullen, defiant little figure, nursing her wrath and full of a burning sense of injustice.

Fortunately, the rest of the afternoon was devoted to drawing, and she was able to give a mechanical attention to her copy, which made her work just pass muster.

"Not so good as usual to-day, Dorothy," said the art mistress at the close of the class. "I can only give you 'Fair'. I don't think you have tried your best."

Dorothy shut her pencil box with a slam. She was in a thoroughly bad temper, and felt that she did not much care what happened. Miss Giles gave her a warning look, as if she were disposed to tell her to lose an order mark; but seeing perhaps that the girl was overwrought and unlike herself, she took no further notice, and passed on to the next drawing board.

As Dorothy left the studio, Hope Lawson managed to edge close up to her, and whispered in her ear: "Remember your promise! You said you wouldn't tell a soul—not even one of the girls."

"You don't deserve it," mumbled Dorothy.

"But you promised on your honour—if you have any honour. Perhaps you haven't."

"I've more than you," retorted Dorothy. "You and Blanche are a couple of sneaks. There! you needn't look so aghast. I'm not going to blab. I've enough self-respect to keep a promise when I've once made it, though, as I said before, you don't deserve it. You the Warden, too! A nice example you are to the Lower School, if they only knew it!"

"They mustn't know it. Promise me again, Dorothy; promise me faithfully you won't tell. I'll bring you a huge box of chocolates if you'll keep this a secret."

"I don't want your chocolates!" said Dorothy scornfully. "I've told you already that I don't break my promises. You're safe enough as regards me."

"Silence!" called the mistress; and the two girls fell into line again as they marched with their drawing boards down the corridor.

In the dressing-room the rest of the Form had plenty to say about the occurrence.

"You've done for yourself, Dorothy," declared Ruth Harmon. "You'll be in Miss Tempest's bad books for evermore."

"I can't see that I was any worse than the others," snapped Dorothy; "not so bad, indeed, because I wasn't caught, and yet I owned up. Miss Tempest might have taken that into account."

"She would have, I dare say, if you hadn't answered her back," said Noëlle Kennedy.

"I only told her I didn't know we mightn't go."

"But you said it so cheekily, and Miss Tempest hates cheek above everything. I shouldn't care to be in your shoes now. What a good thing you weren't chosen Warden!"

Dorothy tugged at her boot lace till it snapped, then had to tie the two ends together in a knot. How hard it was to keep her unwelcome secret! She felt as if in common justice the girls ought to be made aware of the moral cowardice of their leader.

"I'd have made a better one than some—yourself not excepted," she growled.

"My lady's in her tantrums to-day," chirped Ruth.

"I'm not! What a hateful set you all are! I wish to goodness you'd leave me alone!"

Dorothy seized her books and stalked away without a good-bye to anybody. How thankful she was that Avondale was a day school, and that she could shake the dust of it from her feet until nine o'clock to-morrow morning!

"If I weren't going home to Aunt Barbara now, I should run away," she thought. "It would be dreadful to have to endure this all the evening. Oh dear, I hate the place, and I hate Miss Tempest, and I hate the girls, and everything, and everybody!"

Poor Dorothy carried a very sore heart back to Holly Cottage that evening, but she cheered up when she entered the pretty little sitting-room, with its bright fire and a cosy tea laid ready on the oak table. After the storms and whirlwinds of school, home seemed such a haven of refuge, and Aunt Barbara—who always understood—so utterly different a personality from Miss Tempest.

"I'm cross and horrid and disagreeable and altogether fractious, Auntie!" she said, squatting on the hearthrug after tea, with one of the dear hands squeezed in hers, while she poured out her accumulation of troubles. "I've got to keep that promise, but I can't do it with any good grace, and I still feel that Miss Tempest was unjust, because nobody had ever said we mightn't leave the Coll. in dinner-time. And I'm barred the gym. It's too disgusting, because it puts me out of all rehearsals, and