A World of Girls: The Story of a School

Hester had no idea of unbending or of making herself agreeable. The girls voted her to one another stiff and tiresome, and quickly left her to her own devices. She looked longingly at Cecil Temple; but Cecil, who could never be knowingly unkind to any one, was seizing the precious moments to write a letter to her father, and Hester presently wandered down the room and tried to take an interest in the little ones. From twelve to fifteen quite little children were in the school, and Hester wondered with a sort of vague half-pain if she might see any child among the group the least like Nan.

“They will like to have me with them,” she said to herself. “Poor little dots, they always like big girls to notice them, and didn’t they make a fuss about Miss Forest last night! Well, Nan is fond enough of me, and little children find out so quickly what one is really like.”

Hester walked boldly into the group. The little dots were all as busy as bees, were not the least lonely, or the least shy, and very plainly gave the intruder to understand that they would prefer her room to her company. Hester was not proud with little children – she loved them dearly. Some of the smaller ones in question were beautiful little creatures, and her heart warmed to them for Nan’s sake. She could not stoop to conciliate the older girls, but she could make an effort with the babies. She knelt on the floor and took up a headless doll.

“I know a little girl who had a doll like that,” she said.

Here she paused and several pairs of eyes were fixed on her.

“Poor dolly’s b’oke,” said the owner of the headless one in a tone of deep commiseration.

“You are such a breaker, you know, Annie,” said Annie’s little five-year-old sister.

“Please tell us about the little girl what had the doll wifout the head,” she proceeded, glancing at Hester.

“Oh, it was taken to a hospital, and got back its head,” said Hester quite cheerfully; “it became quite well again, and was a more beautiful doll than ever.”

This announcement caused intense wonder and was certainly carrying the interest of all the little ones. Hester was deciding that the child who possessed the headless doll had a look of Nan about her dark brown eyes, when suddenly there was a diversion – the play-room door was opened noisily, banged-to with a very loud report, and a gay voice sang out —

“The fairy queen has just paid me a visit. Who wants sweeties from the fairy queen?”

Instantly all the little feet had scrambled to the perpendicular, each pair of hands was clapped noisily, each little throat shouted a joyful —

“Here comes Annie!”

Annie Forest was surrounded, and Hester knelt alone on the hearth-rug.

She felt herself colouring painfully – she did not fail to observe that two laughing eyes had fixed themselves with a momentary triumph on her face; then, snatching up a book, which happened to lie close, she seated herself with her back to all the girls, and her head bent over the page. It is quite doubtful whether she saw any of the words, but she was at least determined not to cry.

The half-hour so wearisome to poor Hester came to an end, and the girls, conducted by Miss Danesbury, filed into the school-room and took their places in the different classes.

Work had now begun in serious earnest. The school-room presented an animated and busy scene. The young faces with their varying expressions betokened on the whole the preponderance of an earnest spirit. Discipline, not too severe, reigned triumphant.

Hester was not yet appointed to any place among these busy workers, but while she stood wondering, a little confused, and half intending to drop into an empty seat which happened to be close, Miss Danesbury came up to her.

“Follow me, Miss Thornton,” she said, and she conducted the young girl up the whole length of the great school-room, and pushed aside some baize curtains which concealed a second smaller room, where Mrs Willis sat before a desk.

The head-mistress was no longer dressed in soft pearl-grey and Mechlin lace. She wore a black silk dress, and her white cap seemed to Hester to add a severe tone to her features. She neither shook hands with the new pupil nor kissed her, but said instantly in a bright though authoritative tone —

“I must now find out as quickly as possible what you know, Hester, in order to place you in the most suitable class.” Hester was a clever girl, and passed through the ordeal of a rather stiff examination with considerable ability. Mrs Willis pronounced her English and general information quite up to the usual standard for girls of her age – her French was deficient, but she showed some talent for German.

“On the whole I am pleased with your general intelligence, and I think you have good capacities, Hester,” she said in conclusion. “I shall ask Miss Good, our very accomplished English teacher, to place you in the third-class. You will have to work very hard, however, at your French, to maintain your place there. But Mdlle. Perier is kind and painstaking, and it rests with yourself to quickly acquire a conversational acquaintance with the language. You are aware that, except during recreation, you are never allowed to speak in any other tongue. Now, go back to the school-room, my dear.”

As Mrs Willis spoke she laid her finger on a little silver gong which stood by her side.

“One moment, please,” said Hester, colouring crimson, “I want to ask you a question, please.”

“Is it about your lessons?”

“No – oh, no; it is – ”

“Then pardon me, my dear,” uttered the governess, “I sit in my room every evening from eight to half-past, and I am then at liberty to see a pupil on any subject which is not trifling. Nothing but lessons are spoken of in lesson hours, Hester. Ah, here comes Miss Good. Miss Good, I should wish you to place Hester Thornton in the third-class. Her English is up to the average. I will see Mdlle. Perier about her at twelve o’clock.”

Hester followed the English teacher into the great school-room, took her place in the third-class, at the desk which was pointed out to her, was given a pile of new books, and was asked to attend to the history lesson which was then going on.

Notwithstanding her confusion, a certain sense of soreness, and some indignation at what she considered Mrs Willis’s altered manner, she acquitted herself with considerable spirit, and was pleased to see that her class companions regarded her with some respect.

An English literature lecture followed the history, and here again Hester acquitted herself with éclat. The subject to-day was “Julius Caesar,” and Hester had read Shakespeare’s play over many times with her mother.

But when the hour came for foreign languages, her brief triumph ceased. Lower and lower did she fall in her school-fellows’ estimation, as she stumbled through her truly English-French. Mdlle. Perier, who was a very fiery little woman, almost screamed at her – the girls coloured and nearly tittered. Hester hoped to recover her lost laurels in German, but by this time her head ached, and she did very little better in the German which she loved than in the French which she detested. At twelve o’clock she was relieved to find that school was over for the present, and she heard the English teacher’s voice desiring the girls to go quickly to their rooms, and to assemble in five minutes’ time in the great stone hall, equipped for their walk.

The walk lasted for a little over an hour, and was a very dreary penance to poor Hester, as she was neither allowed to run, race, nor talk a word of English. She sighed heavily once or twice, and several of the girls who looked at her curiously agreed with Annie Forest that she was decidedly sulky. The walk was followed by dinner; then came half an hour of recreation in the delightful play-room, and eager chattering in the English tongue.

At three o’clock the school assembled once more; but now the studies were of a less severe character, and Hester spent one of her first happy half-hours over a drawing lesson. She had a great love for drawing, and felt some pride in the really beautiful copy which she was making of the stump of an old gnarled oak-tree. Her dismay, however, was proportionately great when the drawing-master drew his pencil right across her copy.

“I particularly requested you not to sketch in any of the shadows, Miss Thornton. Did you not hear me say that my lesson to-day was in outline? I gave you a shaded piece to copy in outline – did you not understand?”

“This is my first day at school,” whispered back poor Hester, speaking in English in her distress. Whereupon the master smiled, and even forgot to report her for her transgression of the French tongue.

Hester spent the rest of that afternoon over her music lesson. The music-master was an irascible little German, but Hester played with some taste, and was therefore not too severely rapped over the knuckles.

Then came tea and another half-hour of recreation, which was followed by two silent hours in the school-room, each girl bent busily over her books in preparation for the next day’s work. Hester studied hard, for she had made up her mind to be the intellectual prodigy of the school. Even on this first day, miserable as it was, she had won a few plaudits for her quickness and powers of observation. How much better could she work when she had really fallen into the tone of the school, and understood the lessons which she was now so carefully preparing! During her busy day she had failed to notice one thing: namely, the absence of Annie Forest. Annie had not been in the school-room, had not been in the play-room; but now, as the clock struck eight, she entered the school-room with a listless expression, and took her place in the same class with Hester. Her eyes were heavy, as if she had been crying, and when a companion touched her, and gave her a sympathising glance, she shook her head with a sorrowful gesture, but did not speak. Glasses of milk and slices of bread and butler were now handed round to the girls, and Miss Danesbury asked if any one would like to see Mrs Willis before prayers. Hester half sprang to her feet, but then sat down again. Mrs Willis had annoyed her by refusing to break her rules and answer her question during lesson hours. No, the silly child resolved that she would not trouble Mrs Willis now.

“No one to-night, then?” said Miss Danesbury, who had noticed Hester’s movement.

Suddenly Annie Forest sprang to her feet.

“I’m going, Miss Danesbury,” she said. “You need not show me the way; I can find it alone.”

With her short, curly hair falling about her face, she ran out of the room.

Chapter Eight

“You Have Woken Me Too Soon.”

When Hester reached her bedroom after prayers on that second evening, she was dismayed to find that she no longer could consider the pretty little bedroom her own. It had not only an occupant, but an occupant who had left untidy traces of her presence on the floor, for a stocking lay in one direction and a muddy boot sprawled in another. The newcomer had herself got into bed, where she lay with a quantity of red hair tossed about on the pillow, and a heavy freckled face turned upward, with the eyes shut and the mouth slightly open.

As Hester entered the room, from these parted lips came unmistakable and loud snores. She stood still dismayed.

“How terrible!” she said to herself – “oh, what a girl! and I cannot sleep in the room with any one who snores – I really cannot!”

She stood perfectly still, with her hands clasped before her, and her eyes fixed with almost ludicrous dismay on this unexpected trial. As she gazed, a fresh discovery caused her to utter an exclamation of horror aloud.

The newcomer had curled herself up comfortably in her bed. Suddenly, to her surprise, a voice said very quietly, without a flicker of expression coming over the calm face, or the eyes even making an effort to open —

“Are you my new school-mate?”

“Yes,” said Hester, “I am sorry to say I am.”

“Oh, don’t be sorry, there’s a good creature; there’s nothing to be sorry about. I’ll stop snoring when I turn on my side – it’s all right. I always snore for half an hour to rest my back, and the time is nearly up. Don’t trouble me to open my eyes, I am not the least curious to see you. You have a cross voice, but you’ll get used to me after a bit.”

“But you’re in my bed,” said Hester. “Will you please to get into your own?”

“Oh, no, don’t ask me; I like your bed best. I slept in it the whole of last term. I changed the sheets myself, so it does not matter. Do you mind putting my muddy boots outside the door, and folding up my stockings? I forgot them, and I shall have a bad mark if Danesbury comes in. Good-night – I’m turning on my side – I won’t snore any more.”

The heavy face was now only seen in profile, and Hester, knowing that Miss Danesbury would soon appear to put out the candle, had to hurry into the other bed as fast as she could; something impelled her, however, to take up the muddy boots with two very gingerly fingers, and place them outside the door.

She slept better this second night, and was not quite so startled the next morning when the remorseless gong aroused her from slumber. The maid-servant came in as usual to light the candles, and to place two cans of hot water by the two wash-handstands.

“You are awake, miss?” she said to Hester.

“Oh, yes,” replied Hester almost cheerfully.

“Well, that’s all right,” said the servant. “Now I must try and rouse Miss Drummond, and she always takes a deal of waking; and if you don’t mind, miss, it will be an act of kindness to call out to her in the middle of your own dressing – that is, if I don’t wake her effectual.”

With these words, the housemaid approached the bed where the red-haired girl lay again on her back, and again snoring loudly.

“Miss Drummond, wake, miss; it’s half-past six. Wake up, miss – I have brought your hot water.”

“Eh? – what?” said the voice in the bed sleepily; “don’t bother me, Hannah – I – I’ve determined not to ride this morning; go away – ” then more sleepily, and in a lower key, “Tell Percy he can’t bring the dogs in here.”

“I ain’t neither your Hannah, nor your Percy, nor one of the dogs,” replied the rather irate Alice – “There, get up, miss, do. I never see such a young lady for sleeping, never.”

“I won’t be bothered,” said the occupant of the bed, and now she turned deliberately on her side and snored more loudly than ever.

“There’s no help for it,” said Alice: “I have to do it nearly every morning, so don’t you be startled, miss. Poor thing, she would never have a good conduct mark but for me. Now then, here goes. You needn’t be frightened, miss – she don’t mind it the least bit in the world.”

Here Alice seized a rough Turkish towel, placed it under the sleepy head with its shock of red hair, and, dipping a sponge in a basin of icy cold water, dashed it on the white face.

This remedy proved effectual; two large pale blue eyes opened wide, a voice said in a tranquil and unmoved tone —

“Oh, thank you, Alice. So I’m back at this horrid, detestable school again?”

“Get your feet well on the carpet, Miss Drummond, before you falls off again,” said the servant. “Now then, you’d better get dressed as fast as possible, miss – you have lost five minutes already.”

Hester, who had laughed immoderately during this little scene, was already up and going through the processes of her toilet. Miss Drummond, seated on the edge of her bed, regarded her with sleepy eyes.

“So you are my new room-mate?” she said – “What’s your name?”

“Hester Thornton,” replied Hetty with dignity.

“Oh – I’m Susy Drummond – you may call me Susy if you like.”

Hester made no response to this gracious invitation.

Miss Drummond sat motionless, gazing down at her toes.

“Had not you better get dressed?” said Hester after a long pause, for she really feared the young lady would fall asleep where she was sitting.

Miss Drummond started.

“Dressed! So I will, dear creature. Have the sweet goodness to hand me my clothes.”

“Where are they?” asked Hester rather crossly, for she did not care to act as lady’s-maid.

“They are over there, on a chair, in that lovely heap with a shawl flung over them. There, toss them this way – I’ll get into them somehow.”

Miss Drummond did manage to get into her garments; but her whole appearance was so heavy and untidy when she was dressed, that Hester by the very force of contrast felt obliged to take extra pains with her own toilet.

“Now, that’s a comfort,” said Susan, “I’m in my clothes. How bitter it is! There’s one comfort, the chapel will be warm. I often catch forty winks in chapel – that is, if I’m lucky enough to get behind one of the tall girls, where Mrs Willis won’t see me. It does seem to me,” continued Susan in a meditative tone, “the strangest thing why girls are not allowed sleep enough.”

Hester was pinning a clean collar round her neck when Miss Drummond came up close, leaned over the dressing-table, and regarded her with languid curiosity.

“A penny for your thoughts. Miss Prunes and Prism.”

“Why do you call me that?” said Hester angrily.

“Because you look like it, sweet. Now, don’t be cross, little pet – no one ever yet was cross with sleepy Susy Drummond. Now, tell me, love, what had you for breakfast yesterday?”

“I’m sure I forget,” said Hester.

“You forget? – how extraordinary! You’re sure that it was not buttered scones? We have them sometimes, and I tell you they are enough even to keep a girl awake. Well, at least you can let me know if the eggs were very stale, and the coffee very weak, and whether the butter was second-rate Dorset, or good and fresh. Come now – my breakfast is of immense importance to me, I assure you.”

“I dare say,” answered Hester. “You can see for yourself this morning what is on the table – I can only inform you that it was good enough for me, and that I don’t remember what it was.”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Susan Drummond, “I’m afraid she has a little temper of her own – poor little room-mate. I wonder if chocolate-creams would sweeten that little temper?”

“Please don’t talk – I’m going to say my prayers,” said Hester.

She did kneel down, and made a slight effort to ask God to help her through the day’s work and the day’s play. In consequence, she rose from her knees with a feeling of strength and sweetness which even the feeblest prayer when uttered in earnest can always give.

The prayer-gong now sounded, and all the girls assembled in the chapel. Miss Drummond was greeted by many appreciative nods, and more than one pair of longing eyes gazed in the direction of her pockets, which stuck out in the most ungainly fashion.

Hester was relieved to find that her room-mate did not share her class in school, nor sit anywhere near her at table.

When the half-hour’s recreation after breakfast arrived, Hester, determined to be beholden to none of her school-mates for companionship, seated herself comfortably in an easy chair, with a new book. Presently she was startled by a little stream of lollipops falling in a shower over her head, down her neck, and into her lap. She started up with an expression of disgust. Instantly Miss Drummond sank into the vacated chair.

“Thank you, love,” she said, in a cosy, purring voice. “Eat your lollipops, and look at me; I’m going to sleep. Please pull my toe when Danesbury comes in. Oh, fie! Prunes and Prisms – not so cross – eat your lollipops; they will sweeten the expression of that – little – face.”

The last words came out drowsily. As she said “face,” Miss Drummond’s languid eyes were closed – she was fast asleep.

Chapter Nine

Work And Play

In a few days Hester was accustomed to her new life. She fell into its routine, and in a certain measure won the respect of her fellow-pupils. She worked hard, and kept her place in class, and her French became a little more like the French tongue and a little less like the English. She showed marked ability in many of her other studies, and the mistresses and masters spoke well of her. After a fortnight spent at Lavender House, Hester had to acknowledge that the little Misses Bruce were right, and that school might be a really enjoyable place for some girls. She would not yet admit that it could be enjoyable for her. Hester was too shy, too proud, too exacting to be popular with her school-fellows. She knew nothing of school-girl life – she had never learned the great secret of success in all life’s perplexities, the power to give and take. It never occurred to Hester to look over a hasty word, to take no notice of an envious or insolent look. As far as her lessons were concerned she was doing well; but the hardest lesson of all, the training of mind and character, which the daily companionship of her school-fellows alone could give her, in this lesson she was making no way. Each day she was shutting herself up more and more from all kindly advances, and the only one in the school whom she sincerely and cordially liked was gentle Cecil Temple.

Mrs Willis had some ideas with regard to the training of her young people which were peculiarly her own. She had found them successful, and, during her thirty years’ experience, had never seen reason to alter them. She was determined to give her girls a great deal more liberty than was accorded in most of the boarding-schools of her day. She never made what she called impossible rules; she allowed the girls full liberty to chatter in their bedrooms; she did not watch them during play-hours; she never read the letters they received, and only superintended the specimen home letter which each girl was required to write once a month. Other head-mistresses wondered at the latitude she allowed her girls, but she invariably replied —

“I always find it works best to trust them. If a girl is found to be utterly untrustworthy. I don’t expel her, but I request her parents to remove her to a more strict school.”

Mrs Willis also believed much in that quiet half-hour each evening, when the girls who cared to come could talk to her alone. On these occasions she always dropped the school-mistress and adopted the rôle of the mother. With a very refractory pupil she spoke in the tenderest tones of remonstrance and affection at these times. If her words failed – if the discipline of the day and the gentle sympathy of these moments at night did not effect their purpose, she had yet another expedient – the vicar was asked to see the girl who would not yield to this motherly influence.

Mr Everard had very seldom taken Mrs Willis’s place. As he said to her, “Your influence must be the mainspring. At supreme moments I will help you with personal influence, but otherwise, except for my nightly prayers with your girls, and my weekly class, and the teachings which they with others hear from my lips Sunday after Sunday, they had better look to you.”

The girls knew this rule well, and the one or two rare instances in the school history where the vicar had stepped in to interfere, were spoken of with bated breath and with intense awe.

Mrs Willis had a great idea of bringing as much happiness as possible into young lives. It was with this idea that she had the quaint little compartments railed off in the play-room.

“For the elder girls,” she would say, “there is no pleasure so great as having, however small the spot, a little liberty hall of their own. In her compartment each girl is absolute monarch. No one can enter inside the little curtained rail without her permission. Here she can show her individual taste, her individual ideas. Here she can keep her most-prized possessions. In short, her compartment in the play-room is a little home to her.”

The play-room, large as it was, admitted of only twenty compartments; these compartments were not easily won. No amount of cleverness attained them; they were altogether dependent on conduct. No girl could be the honourable owner of her own little drawing-room until she had distinguished herself by some special act of kindness and self-denial. Mrs Willis had no fixed rule on this subject. She alone gave away the compartments, and she often made choice of girls on whom she conferred this honour in a way which rather puzzled and surprised their fellows.

When the compartment was won it was not a secure possession. To retain it depended also on conduct; and here again Mrs Willis was absolute in her sway. More than once the girls had entered the room in the morning to find some favourite’s furniture removed and her little possessions taken carefully down from the walls, the girl herself alone knowing the reason for this sudden change. Annie Forest, who had been at Lavender House for four years, had once, for a solitary month of her existence, owned her own special drawing-room. She had obtained it as a reward for an act of heroism. One of the little pupils had set her pinafore on fire. There was no teacher present at the moment – the other girls had screamed and run for help, but Annie, very pale, had caught the little one in her arms and had crushed out the flames with her own hands. The child’s life was spared, the child was not even hurt, but Annie was in the hospital for a week. At the end of a week she returned to the school-room and play-room as the heroine of the hour. Mrs Willis herself kissed her brow, and presented her in the midst of the approving smiles of her companions with the prettiest drawing-room of the sets. Annie retained her honourable post for one month.