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

little, then. I mean to stay where I am for the present," she said, in a mocking voice.

"But you're on my desk!"

"Well, what if I am? A warden has the right to sit upon anybody's desk she likes."

"Oh, Hope!" sniggered the others.

"What's the good of being Warden if you can't? The post must have some advantages."

"Hope Lawson, do you intend to clear off my desk?" asked Dorothy, with rising temper.

"I don't know that I do, Dorothy—er—I suppose your name is Greenfield?"

"For shame, Hope!" said Grace Russell. "I'm disgusted with you. Why can't you move?"

Grace enforced her words by a vigorous tug, and drew Hope away to her own place. With two flaming spots in her cheeks, Dorothy opened her desk. She was too angry for speech. Grace's compassionate looks hurt her almost as much as Hope's insult. She did not want pity any more than scorn.

"I hardly know a word of the History," Hope was saying. "We had some friends in last night, and we were all playing 'Billy-rag'. Do you know it? It's a new game, and it's lovely. I scarcely looked at my lessons. However, I begged a concert ticket from Father, and brought it for Pittie. It's 'Faust', at the Town Hall, and it's supposed to be tiptop. She'll let me off easy this morning, you'll see."

"Hope, you're not fair!" objected Grace.

"Why not? If Pittie chooses to overlook my lessons on the score of concert tickets, why shouldn't she? She's keen on going to things. Likes to show off her new dresses. I suppose I shall have to get her an invitation to the Mayor's reception. By the by, who's going to the Young People's Ball at the Town Hall? It's to be a particularly good one this year."

"I am, for one," said Val Barnett, "and I think a good many of the Form will be there. Helen Walker, and Joyce Hickson, and Annie Gray are asked, I know."

"Are you going, Dorothy?" enquired Hope, with a taunt in her tone.

"Dorothy never goes anywhere!" laughed Blanche Hall.

Dorothy buried her head in her desk and took no notice; but her silence was pain and grief to her.

"Hope's too mean for anything!" whispered Ruth Harmon to Noëlle Kennedy. "I'm sorry for Dorothy."

"And Pittie's too bad. It's not worth while preparing one's work if Hope gets all the praise for nothing. Why is Pittie always so hard on Dorothy?"

"Oh, because Dorothy doesn't flatter her up; besides, she loves presents. I wonder what she'd say if she could hear what her darling Hope says about her sometimes?"

"I wish she'd find her out."

"She can't, unless someone tells, and I hate sneaks."

"Well, I'm really sorry for Dorothy Greenfield. Hope and her set seem to have taken a spite against her. I don't mind if her dresses are shabby, and if she's the only girl in the Form who doesn't own a watch. I vote we make up a special clique to be on her side."

"All right; I'm your man! I admire Dorothy she's so 'game'—she never gives way an inch, whatever Hope says she just sticks her head in the air and looks proud."

"She flares up sometimes."

"Well, I don't blame her. I like a girl who won't be kept down."

"What could we do to boost Dorothy up a little in the Form? Most of the girls are like sheep; if anyone leads hard enough, they'll follow."

"Well, I've an idea."

"Go ahead!"

"You know Dorothy's splendid at acting. She ought to take a principal part in our Christmas play."

"But she can't rehearse. She's barred the gym. and tied to the classroom for the rest of the term."

"That's my point. I think Dorothy got much too hard a punishment. Miss Tempest was angry because she answered back, and never took into account that she had owned up about going to that wedding, and that it was honest of her to tell."

"Yes, 'The Storm-cloud' was savage because Dorothy was cheeky, but I think she's got over it a little now; she's been far nicer to her lately."

"Have you noticed that too? Well, I believe Miss Tempest knows she treated Dorothy severely, and she's sorry, only she doesn't like to eat her own words. My plan is that we get up a deputation, go to the study, and beg her to let Dorothy off for rehearsals. She knows what a point we make of the play."

"Splendiferous! I verily believe we shall succeed. Shall we go at eleven?"

"No; we must talk to the others first, and get up as big a deputation as we can. The more of us who ask, the better."

The weather, which beforetimes had never troubled Dorothy overmuch, was at present a subject of the most vital importance to her. If it were fine, she might go into the playground at one o'clock; but if it were wet, she was obliged to remain in durance vile in the classroom, while most of the girls were amusing themselves in the gymnasium. On this particular day it poured. Dorothy looked hopelessly out of the window to see the gravelled stretch, where the girls often practised hockey, turned into a swamp, and a river racing under the swings. With a groan she resigned herself to the inevitable. The society of her five fellow-victims was not particularly exhilarating, so she took a library book from her desk and began to read. As a rule, those who were free to do so left the schoolroom only too readily, but to-day Hope Lawson and some of her chums lingered behind. They were in a silly mood, and began drawing caricatures on the blackboard.

"Watch me do Professor Schenk," cried Hope, taking the chalk. "Here's his bald head, and his double chin, and his funny little peaked beard. Do you like it? Well, I'll draw you another. Miss Lawson's celebrated lightning sketches! Who'll you have next?"

"Do Pittie," said Blanche.

"All right; give me the duster and I'll wipe out the Professor. Now then, how's this? Here's her snubby nose, and her eyeglasses, and her fashionable fuzz of hair. She's smirking no end! 'Don't I look nice?' she's saying," and Hope drew a balloon issuing from the mouth of the portrait, with the words "Don't I look nice?" written inside; then, encouraged by the laughter of her friends, she added "G. A. Pitman, otherwise Pittie", over the top.

Dorothy, who wished to read her story, had retired to the extreme back of the room, and sat in a corner, but she nevertheless heard all that was going on.

"Yes, Pittie fancies herself," continued Hope. "You should see what costumes she comes out in for evening wear. I'm sure she's greater on toilet hints than literature."

"How do you make that out?"

"Observation, my dear. If you could look inside her desk, you wouldn't find it full of classical authors; there'd be novels and beauty recipes instead."

"She keeps it locked, at any rate."

"Wise of her, too. If we could only open it now! Hallo! She's actually forgotten to lock it to-day! What a joke! Let us see what she's got here!"

"Particularly honourable for a warden!" came a voice from the other end of the room.

Hope turned round angrily.

"Indeed, Madam Sanctimonious! So you've grown a prig all of a sudden? Who asked Saint Dorothy to interfere?"

"Go on, Hope," said Blanche; "we're not goody-goody."

"Well, I mean to have a look, at any rate. There! Didn't I tell you? The first thing I find is a novel. What a heap of papers! I believe she must keep her love letters here. Oh, girls, I say, here's a portrait of a gentleman!"

Blanche, Irene, and Valentine came crowding round, all sense of honour lost in their curiosity.

"Oh, what a supreme joke!" they exclaimed.

Now the back desks of the classroom were raised on a platform, and in the corner where Dorothy sat there was a tiny window that served the purpose of lighting the passage. From her place Dorothy that moment caught a vision—no less a person than Miss Pitman herself was walking down the corridor. Should she give a warning "Cave!" and let the others know? She was not sure whether they deserved it.

"Look here, you wouldn't be doing this if Miss Pitman could see you!" she remonstrated. "Why don't you stuff those things back and shut up the desk?"

"Shut up yourself, Dorothy Greenfield, and mind your own business!"

"On your heads be it, then," muttered Dorothy. "I tried to save you, but here comes swift vengeance!"

At that moment through the open door walked Miss Pitman. She stopped short and surveyed the scene through her pince-nez. There was her portrait on the blackboard—not at all a flattering one, especially with the inscription issuing from her mouth, but quite unmistakably meant to represent her, for her name was written above. At her open desk were her four favourite pupils, giggling over the photograph which Hope held aloft. It was a disillusionment for any teacher, and Miss Pitman's mouth twitched.

"What are you doing at my desk?" she asked sharply.

No girls were ever so hopelessly caught. Hope remained with the photograph in her hand, staring speechlessly; Blanche tried to shuffle away, Valentine looked sulky, and Irene—always ready for tears—pulled out her pocket-handkerchief.

"Who has drawn this picture on the blackboard?" continued Miss Pitman.

"Hope—Hope did it! It wasn't any of us!" snivelled Irene, trying to thrust the brunt of the affair on to her friend's shoulders.

Miss Pitman gave Hope a scathing glance, under which the girl quailed.

"An extremely clever way of showing her talent for drawing, no doubt," remarked the mistress sarcastically. "I shall be obliged if someone will clean the board."

Several officious hands at once clutched the duster and erased the offending portrait. Miss Pitman walked to her desk, closed the lid, locked it, and put the key in her pocket.

"It is superfluous to tell you what I think of you," she said. "Miss Tempest will have to hear about this."

"Well, Hope's done for with Miss Pitman, at any rate," said Bertha Warren to Addie Parker, when the outraged mistress had taken her departure, and the four sinners had fled downstairs.

"Yes, there'll be no more favouring now—and a good thing, too! It was time Miss Pitman's eyes were opened. Will she really tell Miss Tempest?"

"Serve them right if she does. I'm waiting for developments."

There was not long to wait. At two o'clock, Hope, Blanche, Irene, and Valentine received a summons to the study, and after a ten minutes' interview with the head mistress came away with red eyes.

"Have you heard the news?" said Noëlle Kennedy presently. "There's been a most tremendous storm—a regular blizzard—in the study. Miss Tempest has been ultra-tempestuous, and Hope and the others have come out just wrecks."

"What's the matter?" enquired some of the girls who had not heard of the occurrence in the classroom.

"Hope found Miss Pitman's desk unlocked, and she and Irene and Val and Blanche were calmly turning over the contents when Pittie popped into the room and caught them. Then the squalls began. They had to report themselves in the study, and it turned out that there was something else against Hope and Blanche. I don't know who gave them away, but somebody had been telling Miss Tempest that they were at the wedding that day. She charged them with it, and was simply furious because they hadn't owned up when she asked the class."

"I can tell you who told her," volunteered Margaret Parker. "It was Professor Schenk. He saw them there, and he happened to mention it this morning."

"Well, Miss Tempest was fearfully stern. She said Hope wasn't fit to be Warden, and to represent the Lower School, if she'd no more idea of honour than that. She's taken away the Wardenship from her. She says it's not to be decided by election again—she's going to choose a girl for herself."

"Whom has she chosen?"

"Grace Russell," said Ruth Harmon, who at that