The Rebel of the School, L. T. Meade [best historical biographies .txt] 📗

you don't toss all your things about in my room," cried Alice. "If we are to sleep together we must be orderly."

"Orderly, is it?" cried Kathleen. "I don't know the meaning of the word. Well, all right, I'm ready."

She pushed her fingers through her tangled golden hair, and, without glancing at herself in the glass, marched out of the room.

"I wish mother hadn't asked her to come," said Alice to herself. "The house was bad enough before, but now she will make things past bearing."

Alice went downstairs to the sound of a cracked gong. The Tennants had their meals in a sitting-room on the second floor. It was barely furnished, and had kamptulicon instead of a carpet on the floor. Mrs. Tennant, looking careworn and anxious, was seated at the head of the table; her dress was somewhat faded. Alice entered and took her seat at the foot. Kathleen was nowhere to be seen.

"I have only soup and fish for dinner to-day," said Mrs. Tennant. "I do trust Kathleen will be satisfied."

Alice frowned at her mother in some displeasure.

"We ought to have meat—" she was beginning, when there came a bang and a scuffle, a girlish laugh, and Kathleen, leaning fondly on both the boys, appeared. Mrs. Tennant pointed to a seat, and she sat down. The Irish girl had a healthy appetite, and was indifferent to what she ate. She demanded two plates of soup, and when she had finished the second she looked at Mrs. Tennant and said emphatically:

"I have fallen in love."

"My dear Kathleen!"

"I have—with a girl, so it doesn't matter. She's the prettiest, sweetest, bonniest thing I ever saw in my life. I am going to hunt round for her immediately after dinner. I thought I'd say so, for I mean to do it."

"Oh, Kathleen!" said Alice in a distressed voice, "you really mustn't. You must come back to the school with me. I promised Miss Dove that I'd see you through your tasks.—You know, mother," continued Alice, "Kathleen is not very advanced for her age, and Miss Dove wants to get her into a proper class as quickly as possible; therefore she is to be coached a little, and I have undertaken to do it.—You will come with me, Kathleen? I must get back to the school again by half-past two. You will be sure to come, dear?"

"I think not, dear," replied Kathleen in her most aggravating tone.

"But you must.—Mustn't she, mother?"

"You ought to, Kathleen," said Mrs. Tennant. "You have been sent here to learn. Alice can teach you; she can help you very much. She means to be very kind to you. You certainly ought to do what she suggests."

"But I am afraid," said Kathleen, "that I am not going to do what I ought. I don't wish to be good at all to-day. I couldn't live if I wasn't really naughty sometimes. I mean to be terribly naughty all the afternoon. If you will let me have my fling, I do assure you, Mrs. Tennant, that I will work off the steam, and will be all right to-morrow. I must do something desperate, and if Alice opposes me I'll have to do something worse."

"You are a clipper!" said David Tennant, smiling into her face.

"All right, my boy; I expect I am," said Kathleen; and then she added, springing to her feet, "I have eaten enough, and for what we have received—Good-bye, Mrs. Tennant; I'm off."

CHAPTER IV. THE HOME-SICK AND THE REBELLIOUS.

Kathleen O'Hara ran up to an untidy room. She banged-to the door, and standing by it for a moment, drew the bolt. Thus she had secured herself against intrusion. She then flung herself on the bed, put her two arms under her head, and gazed out of the window. Her heart was beating wildly; she had a strange medley of feelings within. She was desperately, madly lonely. She was homesick in the most intense sense of the word.

Kathleen had never left Carrigrohane Castle before. This romantic abode was situated in the extreme south-west of Ireland. It was a mile away from the sea, and stood on a rocky eminence which overlooked a very wide expanse of moor and wood, rushing streams and purple mountains, and deep dark-blue sea. In the whole world there could scarcely be found a more lovely view than that which since her birth had presented itself before Kathleen's young eyes. Her father, Squire O'Hara, was, as landlords in Ireland go, very well off. His tenantry adored him. He got in his rents with tolerable regularity. He was a good landlord, firm but also kind and indulgent. A real case of distress was never turned away from his doors, but where rent could be paid he insisted on the cottars giving him his due. He kept a rather wild establishment, however. His wife was an Irishwoman from a neighboring county, and had some of the most careless attributes of her race. The house got along anyhow. There were always shoals of visitors, mostly relatives. There were heavy feasts in the old hall, and sittings up very late at night, and no end of hunting and fishing and shooting in their seasons. In the summer a pretty white yacht made a great "divartisement," as the Squire was fond of saying; and in all things Kathleen O'Hara was free as the air she breathed. She was educated in a sort of fashion by an Irish governess, but in reality she was allowed to pursue her lessons exactly as she liked best herself.

It was just before she was fifteen that Kathleen's aunt, a maiden lady from Dublin, who rejoiced in the truly Irish name of O'Flynn, came to see them, remarked on Kathleen's wild, unkempt appearance, declared that the girl would be a downright beauty when she was eighteen, said that no one would tolerate such a want of knowledge in the present day, and advised that she should go to school. Mrs. O'Hara took Miss O'Flynn's hint very much to heart. Kathleen was consulted, and of course tabooed the entire scheme; in the end, however, the elder ladies carried the day. Miss O'Flynn took her niece to Dublin with her, and gave her an expensive and very unnecessary wardrobe; and Mrs. O'Hara, having heard a great deal of Mrs. Tennant, who had Irish relatives, decided that Kathleen should go to the Great Shirley School, where she herself had been educated long ago. Everything was arranged in a great hurry. It seemed to Kathleen now, as she lay on her bed, kicking her feet impatiently, and ruffled her beautiful hair, that the thing had come to pass in a flash. It seemed only yesterday that she was at home in the old house, petted by the servants, adored by her father, worshipped by all her relatives—the young queen of the castle, free as the air, followed by her dogs, riding on her pony—and now she was here in this hideous, poor, fifth-class house, going to that ugly school.

"I can't stand it," she thought. "There's only one way out. I must have a real desperate burst of naughtiness. What shall I do that will most aggravate them? For do that thing I will, and as quickly as possible."

Kathleen thought rapidly. She had no brothers of her own, but their loss was made up for by the adoration of about twenty young cousins who were always loafing about the place and following Kathleen wherever she turned.

"What would most aggravate Pat if he were here," thought the girl, "or dear old Michael? Ah, well! Michael—" The girl's face slightly changed. "I was never very naughty with Michael," she said to herself. "He is different from the others. I wouldn't like to see that sort of sorry look in his dear dark-blue eyes. Oh, I mustn't think of Michael now. When I was going away he said, 'Bedad, you'll come back a princess, and I'll be proud to see you.' No, I mustn't think of Michael. Pat, the imp, would help me, and so would Rory, and so would Ted. But what shall it be?"

She thought excitedly. There came a rattle at the handle of the door.

"Let me in, please, Kathleen; let me in," called Alice's voice.

"Presently, darling," replied Kathleen in her most nonchalant tone.

"But I am in a hurry. I must be back at school by half-past two. Let me in immediately."

"What a nuisance it all is!" thought Kathleen. "But, after all, my naughtiness needn't make that stupid old Alice late for her darling lessons."

She scrambled off the bed, drew back the bolt, and returned to her old position. Alice came quickly in. She glanced at Kathleen with disgust.

"I wish you wouldn't lie on the bed in your muddy boots."

No answer.

"I must ask you not to lock the door. It is my room as well as yours."

No answer. Kathleen's eyes were fixed on the window; they were brimful of mischief. After a time she said:

"Darling."

"I wish you wouldn't talk to me in that silly way."

"Faith! honey, then."

"I do wish—"

Kathleen suddenly sprang upright on her bed.

"Don't you like the sky when it looks as it does now? I wish you could see it from Carrigrohane. You don't know the sort of expression it has when it seems to be kissing the sea. We have a ghost at Carrigrohane. Oh, wisha, then, if you only could see it! I can tell the boys about it. Sha'n't I make them creep?"

"It is very silly to talk about ghosts. Nobody believes in them," said Alice.

"I'll ask father if I may have you at Carrigrohane in the summer, and then see if you don't believe. She wears white."

"I am going out now, Kathleen; aren't you coming with me?"

"No, thank you, my love."

"You ought to, Kathleen. I am busy preparing for my scholarship examination or I would stay and argue with you. It is an awful pity to have gone to the expense of coming here if you don't mean to do your utmost."

"Thank you, darling, but it is rather a waste of breath for you to talk so long to me. I mean to be naughty this afternoon."

"I can't help you," said Alice. "I am very sorry you ever came."

"Thank you so much, dear."

Alice ran downstairs.

"Mother," she said, rushing into her mother's presence, "we shall have no end of trouble with that terrible girl. She is lying now on the bed with her outdoor boots on, and she won't come to school, or do a single thing I want her to."

"The money her father pays will be very welcome, Alice. We must bear with some discomforts on account of that."

"I suppose so," said Alice, shrugging her shoulders. "How horrid it is to be poor, and to have such a girl as that in the house! Well, I can't stay another minute. You had better keep a sort of general eye on her, mother, for there's no saying what she will do. She has declared her intention of being naughty. She knows no fear, is not guided by any sort of principle, and would, in short, do anything."

"Well, go to school, Alice, and be quick home, for I have a great deal I want you to help me with."

Alice made no reply, and Mrs. Tennant, after thinking for a minute, went upstairs. She knocked at the door of the room which she had given up to the two girls. There was no answer. She opened it and went in. The bird had flown. There were evident signs of a stampede through the window, for it stood wide open, and there were marks of not too clean boots on the drugget, and a torn piece of ivy just without. The window was twenty feet from the ground, and Kathleen must have let herself down by the sturdy arm of the old ivy. Mrs. Tennant looked out, half expecting to see a mangled body on the ground; but there was no one in view. She returned to her darning and her anxious thoughts.

She was a widow with two sons and a daughter, and something under two hundred and fifty pounds a year on which to live. To educate the boys, to do something for Alice, and to put bread-and-butter into all their mouths was a difficult problem to solve in these expensive days. She had on purpose moved close to the Great Shirley School in order to avail herself of its cheap education for Alice. The boys went to another foundation school near by; and altogether the family managed to scrape along. But the advent