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Ebook has 516 lines and 35282 words, and 11 pages

BETTY AT ST. BENEDICK'S

ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL

The whole family had come down to see Betty off.

Dad was there, although Betty felt that really and truly he oughtn't to spare the time.

The twins were there, because nothing on earth would have kept them at home.

Even baby was there; though he wasn't to be called "baby" any longer, Aunt Frances had decided. Aunt Frances was holding his hand now, and telling him to wave good-bye to Betty.

"Dear old Bet," said Auntie.

Auntie was a darling. There was no doubt of that. If it hadn't been that she was such a darling, Betty couldn't possibly have brought herself to come away. But it had all been arranged so suddenly and unexpectedly, and almost without asking her at all.

"Oh, Dad!" Betty had said, staring.

Auntie hadn't said it in Dad's way. She had come along that evening after Betty was in bed. She had sat on the edge too, and had hugged Betty just the same way that Betty hugged Jan, the twin. "Bet, pet," said Auntie, "you see, you've got to go for Daddy's sake!"

"Oh, Auntie!" Betty had said again, but in a different tone of voice.

So it was all arranged. That was only a fortnight ago, and now they were all down seeing her off.

"If the train's late in starting I really and truly think that, Dad, you oughtn't to stay," said Betty, leaning out.

But Dad stayed. They all of them stayed. They all of them waved and waved and waved when the train started off as though they would never, never stop waving.

"I'm goin' on wavin'," shouted Jack, the twin, running along beside the moving train, "till you come back!"

"Go straight back to Auntie," said Betty in a very severe tone. She was dreadfully sorry that her last words had to be so strict-sounding; but--suppose he got under the wheels! And there was Auntie, already fully occupied with holding on to Jan and baby. And Dad was just turning to race up the station stairs--oh yes, Betty was glad to see that. She left the window as the train entered the tunnel and sat down.

It was then that desolation seized her.

Never, never, never--so far back as she remembered--had she felt so alone before! Even at night-time Jan's small bed was tucked close to her own, and at night-time Betty was always so tired that she fell fast asleep and so couldn't possibly feel solitary.

Quite suddenly Betty began to cry.

It was the thought of their possible tears that made her forget to shed any more of her own. Her fingers groping for a handkerchief came across a stubby pencil with which she had been drawing pictures for baby. In her case there was sure to be paper; she would write them all a letter. Betty was smiling as she began "Dear Everybody" at the top of the page, for she could almost see the twins racing to the postman's ring, and could almost hear their shouts. She felt at that moment almost as much back at home as though she was really there.

"Dear Everybody..." began Betty.

"No, I'm not getting out. I was wondering, though, if I could post this letter," she began to a passing porter, just as two Benedick girls came along.

"Letter, eh? We'll do it for you!" said one of them. "See, there's the red pillar. No, no. Don't fuss; there's plenty of time. New girl, are you? Left something special at home?" The stranger took the envelope from Betty's hand.

Betty had known that they were Benedick girls from the colour of their labels. They must be very high in the school, she decided, as she watched the pair of them, after depositing their traps on the seat opposite to her own, walk in leisurely fashion to the station post-box and return in equally leisurely fashion. She herself would have been all wings and flying fingers; there was no "fuss," as they had called it, about them. Almost instinctively she pulled herself together a little and held herself in imitation of their bearing. But she couldn't refrain from jumping from her seat to reopen the carriage door for them as they returned.

"Easy does it." The handle was taken from her grasp. "Sit back, kiddy; we can't get in."

The speaker had a very nice voice; there was no mistake about that. So nice a voice indeed, and so very kind and steady a smile, that Betty didn't mind in the very least being called "kiddy" by a stranger, though never in her life had the term been addressed to her before. Never perhaps in her life, either, had such a tone been addressed to her. Half-amused, half-tolerant, but clearly the tone of her-who-must-be-obeyed. Betty sat back instantly.

She sat back and listened, for the strangers began to talk. They were evidently friends; so much was certain. It seemed certain, too, that they had only just met after--as Betty decided to herself--their holidays at home. They evidently didn't mind her listening either, for their tones, quiet and level as they were, did not seem in the least lowered. They were seated exactly opposite, too, and the elder of the two--the girl who had taken Betty's letter and who had called her "kiddy"--caught sight once or twice of the listening look in Betty's eyes and half-smiled at her.

Betty felt relieved and listened on.

But she felt bewildered too, because they seemed to be talking of things about which she herself had no knowledge at all. Betty had known that she would be ignorant at school compared to other girls there; but she had, at least, so she told herself, expected to understand the others' language.

"I wonder if we shall manage another patrol this term," said the elder.

"'Patrol'?" thought Betty questioningly.

"If so, we shall be a full company. And there will be still more competition for the Cup," returned her friend. "You Daisies will have to work for it if you're to hold it next year too."

This indeed was Greek. Betty suddenly felt a qualm of home-sickness sweep over her. Where would she be in a school where girls talked understandingly of matters of which she had never heard? Perhaps her feelings were shown by her expression of face, for her first friend leaned suddenly forward with a quick impulsive movement.

"Are you interested in Guides?"

"Guides?" Betty shook her head.

"You haven't heard of them?" There was no scorn in the speaker's voice at all, though she certainly did seem surprised. "Why, then, what a good thing you've decided to come to Benedick's! You'll love it. We're all Guides there. What is your name?"

"Betty Carlyle," said Betty rather shyly.

She had hardly ever felt shy before. Generally at home, when there were visitors--and that was very seldom--she was so busy helping the little ones not to be shy that she quite forgot to be shy herself. Now, however, she seemed suddenly to find herself in an altogether new world. If it had not been for the kind look in the blue eyes which were looking into her own, Betty would have felt shyer. But the eyes were very kind.

"Ask the kiddy her age, too, Sybil?" said the second occupant of the carriage. "She's above Brownie age, I think."

"I'm thirteen," said Betty, not understanding the allusion in the least.

She felt rather shy of the second girl too, and she was relieved when Sybil took up the conversation. "Any age is Guide age," said she with a jolly look, "as you'll soon decide. I only wish I could fit you into the Daisies; but I'm afraid we're a tight pack." Then she turned and, without looking at Betty again, began to speak to her companion about matters which seemed "just as Greeky," as Betty decided, "as before."

But in spite of the "Greekiness" of things Betty's heart was beginning to feel quite light. There was an excited sparkle in her eyes as she sat back against the cushions.

For Sybil had said that Guides were jolly. And Sybil had said that she would make a good Guide, and love it. And Sybil had said that she wished she could fit Betty "into the Daisies!" Betty had no glimmer of an idea what Guides, or patrols, or "Daisies" were; but she was quite certain of one thing, that if Sybil was to be a part of Benedick's, then, even if Betty herself was shy and stupid at first, she would be sure to grow to love it, because Sybil had said that she would.

ARE YOU A DAISY?

Betty was upstairs in the dormitory, battling with a choky feeling that came and went just because of the strangeness of it all. But not altogether an uncomfortable feeling, perhaps, because it was something the same as feelings she had experienced once or twice before when on her way to parties, which, of course, she would be sure, when once she got there, to enjoy! Generally at such times--which had happened very seldom--she had had the twins with her; and there had been always something to do for them on arrival which had made her forget her own shyness. For the choky feeling was shyness, she decided.

She hadn't felt shy with the older girls in the train, not after Sybil had smiled at her. She had imagined then that everything would be plain-sailing. When the train had slowed down, too, at Woodhurst Station, the two girls had helped Betty out with her luggage, and she--who had been Dad's right-hand man during the journey to the sea with the twins and baby last summer--had wondered if they remembered that she had told them she was aged thirteen! But after that--well, Sybil with her companion had seemed to melt suddenly into space after telling the new girl kindly to "wait there for Miss Drury," and Betty had unexpectedly found herself alone again, feeling rather less than thirteen in courage as she seemed suddenly to become encircled by a perfect whirlpool of white panama hats, long brown legs, and dark blue suits.

They were Benedick girls, of course, for they all carried suit-cases with labels. They wore the Benedick hat-band, too, on their hats, and at first each one of them, to Betty's uninitiated eye, looked identically the same as every other. She noticed presently, however, that although they all seemed garbed exactly alike, some of them wore pigtails and some of them had bobbed heads; that a few of them seemed to glance at her in a friendly fashion too, while others were too busy to notice her at all. And she was beginning, rather despairingly, to try to notice any other distinguishing features there might be, when suddenly, from among the chattering multitude, there emerged "one of the bobbed heads," as Betty called the individual to herself, and came across.

"How awfully clever of you," said the newcomer, who seemed about Betty's own age, with a smile that showed a dimple, "to stand here under the clock straight away. Miss Drury's down the train looking for new girls. They never guess, of course, where to go. But perhaps you've had a sister, or an aunt, or a mother?"

The whole sentence was rather of a mystifying order, but Betty didn't care for that. She pinned all her hopes on the smile that showed the dimple, and smiled back.

Quite lost; one of a medley from which Betty would have found it almost as difficult to find her as to discover a needle in hay. "And she's a Daisy too!" she found herself thinking. "How jolly they seem. I should so much like to be one too--whatever they are!"

There wasn't much time, though, for conjecture upon this point; the sudden arrival of the mistress in charge made that plain. "Only one new girl this term. Her boxes are here, but she--" she was beginning in rather a puzzled voice. "Hesther, Louise, Gladys, have any of you--? Oh, here she is!" Her eyes fell with evident approval upon the figure of Betty, standing stiff as any grenadier, under the clock.

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